It really is a remarkable irony that the positions of evolution-deniers have themselves undergone such rapid evolution.
I've idly wondered if it would be possible to construct a cladistics-style taxonomy of creationist nuttery. I mean, consider this:
- Setterfield Clade: Defined by the presence of gibberish relating to the historical speed of light. Ancestor Barry Setterfield.
- Humphries Clade: Defined by the presence of bizarre cosmologies attempting explain away the apparent age of the universe. Ancestor Russell Humphries.
- Man + Dinosaur Clade: Defined by the belief that fossils of concurrent human and dinosaur footprints have been found. Ancestor Carl Baugh (arguable, may be polyphyletic)
- Intelligent Design Clade: Defined by the belief that the apparent harmony of biological mechanisms points to a Designer. Ancestor William Paley
- Irreducible Complexity Clade: Defined by the belief that molecular machinery is too complex to be explained by evolution. Ancestor Michael Behe
- Specified Complexity Clade: Defined by the presence of mathematics purporting to show evolution is impossible. Ancestor William Dembski
- etc...
So the Behe and Dembski clades are clearly nested within the Intelligent Design clade, while the Humphries/Setterfield/Dinosaur Clades are all nested within some YEC clade. But I guess since they're creationists, they'd insist that this nested pattern is just coincidence, and all varieties of creationist were created by God in one swoop exactly 150 years ago.