On reflection, I don’t think I have ever encountered a critic of Daniel’s that has accused him of affirming young earth creationism. Usually what I’ve encountered is people pointing out that he not only uses materials written by young earth creationists in an attempt to undermine scientific consensus regarding evolution and natural selection, but that he is also guilty of plagiarizing those same young earth creationists. Still, it is entirely within the realm of plausibility that there are critics out there on social media somewhere that level such accusations that I am blissfully unaware of.
Daniel uses this disavowal as a chance to express the idea that the portrayal of him being antagonistic to science is part of a fictional critic-narrative that only seeks to demonize him despite what he actually says or does. Naturally this provides Daniel with the perfect opportunity to hawk past articles that he was indirectly responsible for publishing. Daniel is truly the eternal editorial bureaucrat.
Is Daniel being unfairly portrayed? Probably not. From dowsing rods and parapsychology, to intelligent design and near-death experiences, Daniel skirts the bleeding edge of metaphysical speculation and pseudoscience so often that he should honestly be considered a resident there. A denial of a young earth in favor of the modern scientific consensus seems more like an exception than a consistent rule for Daniel’s worldview.
What is truly interesting to me is the fact that Daniel so readily accepts the idea that “science” is something that one can be “for” or “against” like some kind of debate resolution or congressional bill. For a scholar who claims to be reading so widely and deeply on the intersection of contemporary science and religion, allowing such a framework to be foisted upon you seems not only counterproductive to what he is trying to achieve but also a display of rank naïvété.
If you think I’m being unduly harsh on Daniel, consider for a moment the heart of his observation: Daniel accepts the current scientific consensus on the age of the earth, thusly he cannot be honestly portrayed as having an anti-scientific bent. There is a not-so-subtle conflation between the consensus of a scientific establishment and the actual practices under the aegis of what we call science. Such a conflation amounts to self sabotage considering the broader nature of Daniel’s apologetic project of establishing the rationality of the Mormon worldview.
Notice I said “interesting” and not “surprising” because these kinds of mistakes are expected. Not just of Daniel, but of Mormons broadly engaged in the defense of their faith as well. Discursive thinking is not something scholarly LDS apologists are known for. Even ‘Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought’ the “magisterial” work of Terryl Givens is topically arranged and formatted in a way that has more in common with a ‘Gospel Principles’ booklet than a scholarly book about historical theology. A scholar of literature couldn’t be bothered to conceive of a compositional strategy to structure his thesis around and instead opted for the lifeless presentation of a waterdowned textbook?
What continues to puzzle me about Daniel is that despite all the research he claims to do and all the projects he works on, he never really seems to grow as a person or as a thinker. This is also seen in the broader world of Mopologetics; take for example the ongoing fiasco of Kyler Rasmussen. Kyler is a perfect example of someone mistaking jargon and quasi-mathematical techniques for clarity and rigor, and now that we are 14 or 15 episodes deep into his analysis, all I can really see is an ongoing coarsening of Kyler’s abilities. It is the devolution of a person stretched out over months of blogposts and commentary, a parade of frustration and regret that the hobbyist was never looking for.
If I had a chance to offer advice to Daniel, I’d actually encourage his dream of writing a comprehensive and robust defense of Mormon belief and lifestyle. One ought to nurture your scholarship with dreams of the ideal, but if you don’t also discipline those dreams with your scholarship, you’ll become nothing more than a mere pundit rattling off hot takes on the latest events.
Being a soundboard for your co-religionists and the object of comment trolling is no way to spend a retirement.
