# Where do people get the idea that the earth is less than 10,000 years old? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 13, 2014, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007 "2014-07-13T18:30:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 135
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2015, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/135 "2015-06-19T08:36:46Z")
Welcome Back folks: I add to this summer 2014 thread _again_. > [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Anyway Goldberg asks the proprietor Ken Ham and his associate Terry Mortenson why it’s important to convince visitors that Genesis is a book of history. Ken Ham: "There’s a slippery slope in regard to authority. If you say that the history in Genesis is not true, then you can just take man’s ideas as true. When you go outside of Scripture, why shouldn’t you just reinterpret what marriage means? So our emphasis is on the slippery slope regarding authority.” It seems that biblical inerrancy bleeds into concerns about gay marriage. Huh. I didn’t see that coming. … > Middling article: > [Where There Dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark?](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/the-genesis-code/379341/) A poster here seems to agree with Ken Ham: > [@How important is it for all well-educated people to know and believe Theory of Evolution?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-it-for-all-well-educated-people-to-know-and-believe-theory-of-evolution/722816/64): > > Despite all the hullabaloo about “scientific literacy,” the only reason the cultural left cares so much about evolution is to disprove the Bible so they can stamp out the belief that there’s a God who cares about whether people have gay sex. If it weren’t for that factor, evolution would be something only nerdy eggheaded scientists cared about. It would be important in biology classes, but outside of that, for journalists to go around asking Republican politicians if they believe in evolution would be like asking them if they believe in string theory. It seems that some fundamentalists perceive science not as an engine of economic growth but as a threat to traditional values. For me, scientific growth and progress _is_ a traditional value, so I find this perspective to be pretty alien. Nonetheless Arcite’s candor was refreshing. On the subject of Republican politicians, it seems that none of the GOP primary contestants were evolutionists [according to this article](http://www.salon.com/2015/02/11/evolution_and_the_gops_2016_candidates_a_complet_guide/). The author did allow for “Asterisks”: Jeb Bush accepts evolution but doesn’t believe it should be taught in public schools. Later Jeb endorsed “Varying viewpoints”. Christie took the opposite tact: he wouldn’t say what he believed, but that evolution _should_ be taught in public schools. Etc. At any rate here’s a question. Homophobia was much more accepted a decade ago: I locate the turning point in early 2011, when polls showed slightly more favoring gay marriage than opposing it, with the trends looking bad for hardened bigots. Conflating the gay stuff with evolutionary theory is new. So why did people believe the earth to be less than 10,000 years old before, say, 2005? I’m guessing that the gay marriage may be a red herring and that the older hostility to science is similar to the more recent sort. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007)._