Andrew Snelling

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Andrew A. Snelling is an Australian geologist and young-Earth creationist. He is the "Director of Research" at Answers in Genesis and also the first, only, and hopefully last, editor of the Answers Research Journal.[1][note 1] He is the founder of the Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, now known as the Journal of Creation, and author of the two-volume Earth's Catastrophic Past — 1100 pages of creationist twaddle.

Biography[edit]

According to his many online biographies at creationist websites, Snelling received a Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours in Applied Geology from the University of New South Wales and a Ph.D. from the University of Sydney, for his thesis A geochemical study of the Koongarra uranium deposit, Northern Territory, Australia.[2] He worked for various mining companies for several years before leaving to pursue his creation "research" in 1983,[3] however he was retained as a consultant by Koongarra uranium project until 1992.[2]

There appear to be two Snellings with the same address. One has authored academic papers stating unequivocally that certain geological formations contain rocks that are 1.8 billion years old, and the other who attempts to prove that Noah's flood was a historical event by criticizing "evolutionist" geologists and challenging creationist geologists to rebuild "our understanding of geological history within the Biblical framework."[4]

His creation research has centered around dating methods, with his pet hobbyhorse being polonium halos, which according to Answers in Genesis, he has used to demonstrate that most rock layers and fossils were deposited by a global flood 4,300 years ago.[1] He has been repeatedly overlooked for a Nobel Prize despite the importance of this discovery. He has recently sued the US National Park Service on grounds of "religious discrimination" because they won't let him collect rocks at the Grand Canyon National Park.[5]

For his excellent publication record Snelling has became an Associate Professor of Geology at the Institute for Creation Research,[6] a title as meaningful as being a Discordian Pope.

Earth's Catastrophic Past[edit]

These volumes construct a biblical-geologic model for earth history and conclude that the central claims of Genesis1-11 are true!
—Puff piece on Amazon accompanying Snelling's tedious screed Earth's Catastrophic Past[7]

Earth's Catastrophic Past is a two-volume creationist screed by Snelling published by the Institute for Creation Research in 2009.[8] Subtitled "Geology, Creation & The Flood," the books follow on from Whitcomb and Morris's The Genesis Flood [9] and attempt to incorporate decades of creationist research and insights against "evolutionary" geology, whatever that is (considering that evolution is a field in biology, not geology). The screed is an extended biblical exegesis aimed at those Christians who have succumbed to the old Earth and evolutionary paradigms, although young-Earth creationists will also revel in its reinforcing message.[10] The books contain 126 chapters in a little over 1100 tedious pages.

Cataclysm Chronology Research Group[edit]

Snelling's next major project, during the 2010s, was the Cataclysm Chronology Research Group, a collaboration with Hebrew scholar Steven Boyd. The goal of this project was to prove through linguistic analysis that the early chapters of Genesis were intended as literal history.[11] This project resulted in the publication of the 2014 book Grappling with the Chronology of the Genesis Flood, of which Snelling and Boyd both are editors. This book seeks to modify basic, widely-accepted principles of Hebrew grammar in order to resolve internal contradictions in the account of Noah's flood.[12]

Notes[edit]

  1. He styles himself Editor-in-Chief, but seeing as there are no other editors to be chief of this is like calling yourself the CEO of a single person company, or the lead singer of a one-man band.

References[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Andrew Snelling - Answers in Genesis
  2. 2.0 2.1 Creation Ministries International bio
  3. Snelling answers his critics.
  4. Alex Ritchie, Will the Real Dr Snelling Please Stand Up? The Skeptic, Volume 11, No. 4, p. 12-15, as cited in No Answers In Genesis.
  5. Update: Creationist geologist wins permit to collect rocks in Grand Canyon after lawsuit. sciencemag.org, 30 June 2017.
  6. CreationWiki biography
  7. Earth's Catastrophic Past, amazon.com.
  8. Andrew Snelling, Earth's Catastrophic Past. Master Books, 3 October 2014. ISBN 0890518742
  9. John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Flood. Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 1961. ISBN 0-87552-338-2
  10. Alex Ritchie, Flood geology: a house built on sand
  11. Why Study the Chronology of the Flood? Answers in Genesis.
  12. Boyd, S. W. & Snelling, A. (eds.) Grappling with the Chronology of the Genesis Flood. Master books, 2014.