There are many strawmen erected for creationism on this site and others. Here is a list of 7 common misconceptions about what creationists are supposed to believe and what they actually do believe:

1. Creationists believe the Earth is 6000 years old

While most Christian creationists do believe that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, many do not and accept that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old and think that the "days" in Genesis are really "ages/aeons" rather than 24-hour periods. All Islamic creationists, like Harun Yahya, believe in an Old Earth as do all Hindu creationists and most Jewish creationists. The majority in the Neo-creationist Intelligent Design movement, like Stephen Meyer, accept the scientific chronology.

2. Creationists believe in a Global Flood

Again, creationism isn't necessarily committed to biblical literalism even if it is committed to scriptural inerrancy. Most Christian creationists do believe in a catastrophic worldwide flood, however some of them, along with Islamic and Jewish creationists, believe that Noah's Flood was a regional diluvium that affected only the Near East and the surrounding areas.

3. Creationists do no accept natural selection and adaptation

More nonsense. Creationists accept natural selection as a conserving and, at times, destructive force in biology (Nature's executioner). Creationists also accept that adaptation takes place, often by way of "beneficial" loss-of-function mutations, as with antibiotic resistance in bacteria where those organisms in the population with a defective target gene survive.

4. Creationists do not accept that speciation happens and believe in the fixity of species

Again, this is not what creationists believe. On the contrary, creationists have to believe in speciation and rapid adaptive radiation because they think that God created the "kinds", like the cat kind, which have since diversified into many species.

5. Creationists believe that God magically poofed new organisms into existence from nothing

Again, this is not what Genesis actually states. The following verses clearly show this to be a false charge:

Genesis 1:11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.”

So God commands that the land produce vegetation and does not simply poof them into existence from nothing.

Genesis 2: 21-22: So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

Even if these verses are to be taken figuratively, the principle behind it shows that God can take a pre-existing part, modify it and make it into something else, just as evolution is supposed to do. He doesn't have to create from scratch each time.

6. Creationists do not accept the existence of transitional fossils

Creationists do not reject the existence of the actual fossils, only their designation as "transitional". They regard specimens like Archaeopteryx and Tiktaalik as "mosaic" species that, like the platypus, have features shared with other animals.

7. Creationists believe all DNA was intelligently designed and there is no such thing as junk DNA:

On the contrary, creationists believe that in a post-Fall world, degeneration due to the accumulation of slightly harmful mutations is inevitable. John Sanford outlined this in his book, "Genomic Entropy", where he proposes that the human genome is steadily deteriorating.

I'm not sure how these qualify as "deadly myths" given that some creationsists certainly do believe those seven things.

In short, not all creationists believe in the same bollocks. They believe in a variety of different bollocks and come up with different apologetics to explain their bollocks. Case in point, the apologetics around transitional fossils, which amounts to nothing more than rejecting the fossils as being those of transitional species.

What was the purpose of this post? Was it to serve as an education that the idiotic stuff creationists believe is actually more diverse and idiotic than anyone thought? Because, most of this idiocy is well known.

Sendraks wrote:I'm not sure how these qualify as "deadly myths" given that some creationsists certainly do believe those seven things.

In short, not all creationists believe in the same bollocks. They believe in a variety of different bollocks and come up with different apologetics to explain their bollocks. Case in point, the apologetics around transitional fossils, which amounts to nothing more than rejecting the fossils as being those of transitional species.

What was the purpose of this post? Was it to serve as an education that the idiotic stuff creationists believe is actually more diverse and idiotic than anyone thought? Because, most of this idiocy is well known.

Not really. All creationists believe in natural selection, adaptation and speciation. In fact, the young earth creationists believe in a sort of hyper-evolution in which new species formed extremely rapidly from the created kinds.

Why do you think you can talk for all creationists?

Wortfish wrote:Not really.

When you can provide some citations to support your claims, you get to say that.

Wortfish wrote: All creationists believe in natural selection, adaptation and speciation.

Tell me, how did you think repeating this to someone who knows that the contrary is the case, was going to work out?
Did you think it would be persuasive?

Furthermore, I know most of the population doesn't understand natural selection, adaptation and speciation, so the notion that creationists believe in it is a level of ridiculous I'd laugh at, if it wasn't so pathetic.

Wortfish wrote:In fact, the young earth creationists believe in a sort of hyper-evolution in which new species formed extremely rapidly from the created kinds.

So they don't believe in evolution. The believe in set of apologetics which supports their assumed conclusion. The whole idea of it was contrived as a rejection of evolution as part of the ID agenda.

Let's see.
Haven't even read the main text yet and the OP already starts with a ludicrous click-bait title.

Wortfish wrote:There are many strawmen erected for creationism on this site and others.

So creationists like to assert but fail to demonstrate through anything other than posting straw-men themselves.

Wortfish wrote: Here is a list of 7 common misconceptions about what creationists are supposed to believe and what they actually do believe:

Since creationism isn't a religion with a strict catechism, there isn't anything a creationist is supposed to believe, beyond the basic 'The universe/earth/humanity was created'.

Wortfish wrote:1. Creationists believe the Earth is 6000 years old

Never seen this claimed on this site or any other for that matter.
Ie a straw-man.

Wortfish wrote:
2. Creationists believe in a Global Flood

Again, never seen claimed.
Many do though.

Wortfish wrote:
3. Creationists do no accept natural selection and adaptation

More nonsense.

Not so. Many creationist don't even understand the concepts.

Wortfish wrote:Creationists accept natural selection as a conserving and, at times, destructive force in biology (Nature's executioner).

QED.

Wortfish wrote: Creationists also accept that adaptation takes place, often by way of "beneficial" loss-of-function mutations, as with antibiotic resistance in bacteria where those organisms in the population with a defective target gene survive.

And QED again.

Wortfish wrote:
4. Creationists do not accept that speciation happens and believe in the fixity of species

Again, never seen this claimed. Again, many creationist do not and do.

Wortfish wrote:Again, this is not what creationists believe.

Again, given that, even by your own admission, there is no one True Creationism, statements like 'Creationists believe X' are silly.

Wortfish wrote: On the contrary, creationists have to believe in speciation and rapid adaptive radiation because they think that God created the "kinds", like the cat kind, which have since diversified into many species.

1. Kind isn't a rigourous term and as such has no relation to biological evolution.
2. God creating kinds constitutes neither speciation nor a flexibility of species. Rather the opposite.

Wortfish wrote:
5. Creationists believe that God magically poofed new organisms into existence from nothing

Again, many do.

Wortfish wrote:Again, this is not what Genesis actually states.

Ah, so now we're on to lying through cherry-picking. The following verses clearly show this to be a false charge:

Wortfish wrote:Genesis 1:11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.”

So God commands that the land produce vegetation and does not simply poof them into existence from nothing.

Except that's exactly what is being described. On god's command the earth produces vegetation ex-nihilo.
So at best, you could argue that it isn't god directly who creates things out of nothing.
Which would be a silly technical minutiae.

Wortfish wrote:
Genesis 2: 21-22: So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

Where did the man come from Wortfish?
Could it be that you left that bit out because it refutes your position?

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Humans are neither made from clay nor are they all descended from a golem and a rib woman.

Wortfish wrote:
Even if these verses are to be taken figuratively, the principle behind it shows that God can take a pre-existing part, modify it and make it into something else, just as evolution is supposed to do.

Utter horseshit. This is not at all analogous to evolution.
Evolution works with living organisms, not inamite matter like dust or ribs.

Wortfish wrote: He doesn't have to create from scratch each time.

He needed to create the pre-existing parts Wortfish. How did he do that exactly?

Wortfish wrote:
6. Creationists do not accept the existence of transitional fossils

Again, many don't. To pretend that this hasn't been one of the major creationist points of attack on evolution is just pathetically dishonest.

Wortfish wrote:Creationists do not reject the existence of the actual fossils, only their designation as "transitional".

Flat earthers don't reject the existence of the space station, only that it orbits around the earth.
It's obviously hooked unto the firmament.
Do you really not see the stupidity in your argument or has your trolling sunk to even lower levels?

Wortfish wrote: They regard specimens like Archaeopteryx and Tiktaalik as "mosaic" species that, like the platypus, have features shared with other animals.

Blind and counterfactual assertions do not a rational position make Wortfish.
Creationists DO deny the existence of transitional fossils.

Wortfish wrote:
7. Creationists believe all DNA was intelligently designed and there is no such thing as junk DNA:

Again, many do.

Wortfish wrote:
On the contrary, creationists believe that in a post-Fall world,

Another unsubstantiated assertion.

Wortfish wrote: degeneration due to the accumulation of slightly harmful mutations is inevitable.

Another idiosyncratic, ad-hoc assumption.

Wortfish wrote:John Sanford outlined this in his book, "Genomic Entropy", where he proposes that the human genome is steadily deteriorating.

An irrelevant appeal to authority fallacy.

So, not only does your list not contain deadly misconceptions. It is wholly made up of straw-men, counterfactual claims, lies of omission and flat out nonsense.

Wortfish wrote:

Sendraks wrote:I'm not sure how these qualify as "deadly myths" given that some creationsists certainly do believe those seven things.

In short, not all creationists believe in the same bollocks. They believe in a variety of different bollocks and come up with different apologetics to explain their bollocks. Case in point, the apologetics around transitional fossils, which amounts to nothing more than rejecting the fossils as being those of transitional species.

What was the purpose of this post? Was it to serve as an education that the idiotic stuff creationists believe is actually more diverse and idiotic than anyone thought? Because, most of this idiocy is well known.

Not really. All creationists believe in natural selection, adaptation and speciation.

Stop making such up such transparent nonsense Wortfish.
It definitely won't pass on a forum filled with people who've had interactions with creationists who do deny those things.

Wortfish wrote:In fact, the young earth creationists believe in a sort of hyper-evolution in which new species formed extremely rapidly from the created kinds.

Some do. Other believe all species, extant and extinct were created by god in the beginning.

Sendraks wrote:
So they don't believe in evolution. The believe in set of apologetics which supports their assumed conclusion. The whole idea of it was contrived as a rejection of evolution as part of the ID agenda.

They accept that evolution, in the sense of change in living organisms, occurs but they deny that all organisms are related through universal common ancestry. In most scientific journals, the word "evolution" tends to refer to the limited creationist concept rather than the over-arching concept of UCD. So, you might read in Nature about the evolution of pigmentation in salamanders or the evolution of a gene for digestion etc... Creationists don't have a problem with this at all.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:
1. Kind isn't a rigourous term and as such has no relation to biological evolution.
2. God creating kinds constitutes neither speciation nor a flexibility of species. Rather the opposite.

On the contrary, the existence of the "kinds" necessitates speciation in the creationist worldview. This is because there are clearly reproductively separate populations (i.e. species) of the same "kind" of animal. So, there are many species of cats, whales, mice, worms etc.

Except that's exactly what is being described. On god's command the earth produces vegetation ex-nihilo.
So at best, you could argue that it isn't god directly who creates things out of nothing.
Which would be a silly technical minutiae.

On the contrary, the verse implies that the land produces the vegetation. In other words, the plants arise from the earth/soil rather than appearing from nowhere.

Could it be that you left that bit out because it refutes your position?

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Not so. The verse shows that the Lord God made the man from the dust of the ground, a pre-existing material, rather than from nothing. He had to "form/fashion" the man, rather than simply make him appear by fiat.

Utter horseshit. This is not at all analogous to evolution. Evolution works with living organisms, not inamite matter like dust or ribs.

The principle is the same. Evolution works with pre-existing parts to make new ones. Same in this biblical verse.

He needed to create the pre-existing parts Wortfish. How did he do that exactly?

The man was formed from dust (star dust to be precise: http://www.physics.org/article-questions.asp?id=52).

Wortfish wrote:
They accept that evolution, in the sense of change in living organisms, occurs but they deny that all organisms are related through universal common ancestry.

What they believe is that a set of organisms (baramins) were created by a deity and then, post flood, were subject to some sort of hyper-accelerated process of change (at God's behest) which led them to being what they are today. There's no known or demonstrable process for these changes could have occurred and the idea of happening at the speeds creationists attest, conflicts with the scientific theory of evolution.

Creating your own magical process and calling it "evolution" isn't the same as accepting evolution.

Wortfish wrote:In most scientific journals, the word "evolution" tends to refer to the limited creationist concept rather than the over-arching concept of UCD. So, you might read in Nature about the evolution of pigmentation in salamanders or the evolution of a gene for digestion etc... Creationists don't have a problem with this at all.

Creationists don't have a problem with things which don't interfere with their beliefs shocker.
Who knew?

Small changes to animals as a result of different factors is fine, because the creationsists can accept the timescales it happens in and also, doesn't result in the sort of changes that would put them in the uncomfortable position of having to accept evolution as fact (although some creationists do accept evolution but, choose to deny it anyway because they'd rather believe what they want to believe). The problem is that not all small changes in organisms occur to the timescales convenient for creationsists or any magical super-accelerated-evolution theory. Anything that doesn't fit, is ignored.

It's apologetics all the way down.

Fallible wrote:Why do you think you can talk for all creationists?

Creationists are a broad church.

How did God create man from star dust when he created the Earth and vegetation before stars? Are you saying one of these stars exploded and the dust fell to the pre-made Earth and seeded mankind?

Wortfish wrote:

Fallible wrote:Why do you think you can talk for all creationists?

Creationists are a broad church.

If only they had a methodology of some sort which could help eliminate many of the discrepancies and contradictions between their beliefs and narrow the field somewhat.

Also; how are these myths 'deadly'? Hopefully I'm not going to suffer a fatality for pointing out that 1, 2, 5, 6 & 7 are absolutely believed by the likes of Ken Ham, Kent Bovine, Ray Comfort, and millions of their followers.

(Unless you want to argue they're not creationists)

Edit: Hilarious autocorrect of Hovind by my phone.

Animavore wrote:How did God create man from star dust when he created the Earth and vegetation before stars? Are you saying one of these stars exploded and the dust fell to the pre-made Earth and seeded mankind?

Scientists believe that stars are formed from dust clouds.

Wortfish wrote:

Fallible wrote:Why do you think you can talk for all creationists?

Creationists are a broad church.

In short your can't talk for all creationists. So you really should stop trying to do so.
Especially to an audience with more than passing familiarity of what creationists believe.

Wortfish wrote:

Animavore wrote:How did God create man from star dust when he created the Earth and vegetation before stars? Are you saying one of these stars exploded and the dust fell to the pre-made Earth and seeded mankind?

Scientists believe that stars are formed from dust clouds.

Not quite. Some stars form from matter created by previously exploded stars. As do planets and life. But the original stars form out of clouds of hydrogen gas.

Sagan was being poetic when he said we are star dust. Another scientist put it less poetically and no less accurately by saying we are nuclear waste.

Sagan was being poetic when he said we are star dust.

Not really as all the heavier elements that we are composed of do come from super nova. That qualifies as star dust IMNSHO.

Why the fuck is anyone even wasting electrons on creationist babble

Wortfish wrote:

Sendraks wrote:
So they don't believe in evolution. The believe in set of apologetics which supports their assumed conclusion. The whole idea of it was contrived as a rejection of evolution as part of the ID agenda.

They accept that evolution, in the sense of change in living organisms,

No they don't, not all of them.

Wortfish wrote:In most scientific journals, the word "evolution" tends to refer to the limited creationist concept rather than the over-arching concept of UCD.

Nonsense. In creationist propaganda pieces perhaps, but not in peer-reviewed biology journals.

Wortfish wrote: So, you might read in Nature about the evolution of pigmentation in salamanders or the evolution of a gene for digestion etc... Creationists don't have a problem with this at all.

Creationist can't fathom that when one can take steps, one can also walk a mile.