This page is an Introduction
for Reviewers who are helping evaluate
Potential Resources (that could be included in Links-Pages about Noah's Flood
& Geology
& Radiometric Dating & Astronomy)
that will help web-visitors who are asking, "What does science tell us
about the age of our world?"
Each of the four Pages with Potential Resources is temporary (it's intended to be useful during a decision-making process, not as an end-result) and was made by gathering and organizing RESOURCE-pages so we can more easily find and select relevant high-quality resource-pages, because wise SELECTIVITY is the key to a useful, user-friendly website. Temporarily, however, these pages will also be useful for visitors who just want to learn about the topics.
In each of the four areas, I want to make two LINKS-pages, one with links to only the best pages (for both young-earth & old-earth views *) and another with more pages, including many of those below (but not all) plus others we'll discover. {* The first selections made using these "pages for potential resources" are in the overviews and topics-table in the HOMEPAGE for "AGE OF THE EARTH" SCIENCE. }
These pages, describing two main perspectives, will be based on the principle that "to get accurate understanding, we should try to see how an issue looks from all perspectives," and the editorial goal is "trying to be fair by providing accurate descriptions of all positions, not weak 'strawman' distortions of what others believe," as explained in an Introductory Origins-FAQ.
Each links-page will provide an overview of a topic, plus links to (and descriptions of) resource-pages where visitors can learn more. Some examples of links-pages, each with its own style, are: Views of Creation Methods of Creation Origins Education in Public Schools Religion in Public Schools Worldview Education Creative Thinking Critical Thinking Problem-Solving Methods.
If you see a topic
and
you're expert or just interested, instead of searching through lots of websites
(difficult & boring) you can read (easy & fun) and evaluate, and contact
me (craigru178@yahoo.com) to provide useful feedback:
Which pages do you think are best for different functions: • giving simple, clear explanations of
basic ideas and arguments for novices? (this is the first priority, and if a
page is interesting and visually appealing this is a valuable bonus); • sophisticated analysis for experts? (this is also
important); • or for other purposes? { With the web, we
can link to pages at different levels for different "audiences,"
including a user who wants to move from being a novice to an expert. }
Do you know any pages that are better, either from your previous knowledge or by
searching? { I found
the resources below mainly by looking at all pages I could find in the major
YE
and OE websites I know, plus a few more by following links, but I haven't
explored the web thoroughly using search engines, so I'm sure many more good
pages are out there waiting to be found, if you want to explore. }
Or maybe you can write your own page — for example, you could make a combination
of your own ideas (an overview summary, or evaluative comments,...) plus
descriptions of (and links to) other pages — for one or more topics. Or you could "tell a story"
or make arguments or...
/ Good
web-writing is interesting, easy to read (whether science is at a level for
novices or experts), relatively brief (with no unnecessary padding that doesn't
contribute sufficient "added value"). These "new pages" will be sort of like
Wikipedia — with those who are expert and enthusiastic about a topic
writing about it — but with more accountability.
Are any pages mis-categorized? (if so, which topic-area
would you put it in?)
For effective education, should the sequence of topics be
rearranged? We should begin with topics (and pages within each
topic) that will "draw in" readers, and motivate them so they want to
learn more. The sequencing should
produce a logical flow between topics, for easy transitions and a better
transfer of concepts (and personal understanding) from one topic to another.
Should we use secular sources — such as TalkOrigins,... (some are below and others could be
found with further exploration) — instead of only Christian sources such
as Hugh Ross, Greg Neyman, or PSCF?
A few secular pages, or whole websites, have an "attitude"
that might be counter-productive overall, even though they are high-quality for
science and (if the attitude can be ignored) for education.
Please tell me about broken links, and any lack of "connections" when a page on one side critiques a page on
the other side, and I haven't mentioned this in the page-description; I
began "connecting pages" partway through the geology page, but didn't
do much of this for Noah's Flood or Astronomy. Eventually the links-pages will have a
three-column format (this will work better
when page descriptions are compacted by hiding the URL "inside the
link") — YE (left), combinations (center), OE (right) — with
many "related combinations" (statement, response,
counter-response,...) in the center section.
Within each section, pages are organized using multiple criteria: SIZE
(shorter pages are earlier, and this is a major factor in the organization),
SOURCE (for example, YE pages by ICR [especially John Morris] and AIG
[especially their major authors] are usually early, since they're prominent YE
organizations), QUALITY (better pages are earlier, although this is often
trumped by other factors) plus READABILITY AND/OR VISUAL APPEAL (better is earlier),
and SUB-TOPIC or AUTHOR (by grouping these pages together so you can more
easily compare and pick the best pages about each sub-topic or by each author,
and minimize duplication of ideas).
disclaimer: Basically,
earlier pages tend to be better (with this judgment based on my evaluation) BUT
you should just evaluate pages based on your own standards because weighting of the multiple criteria varies
from one section to another (so earlier may not be better, especially when
pages are grouped by sub-topic or author), and I usually haven't devoted
sufficient time to making evaluations, and I'm not an expert.
Here is the original version of the "viewing tips" that are
at the top of each potential-resources page:
SYMBOLS: To show
"who is linking to a resource-page" plus other information, I'm
using these symbols,
on YE side (left):
• author & title in
brown font (followed
by *) is in Ashby
Camp's links-page at TrueOrigins.org,
AIG-linked is a non-AIG page (mainly in
ICR) linked to in AIG website (but, oops, I haven't marked all such pages),
AIG-YE-claim is a page linked to in AIG's
page for Young
Age Evidence;
"Technical" and "Semi-Technical" are labels AIG has added
to help their visitors.
on OE side (right):
titles in green and purple
are from the AnswersInCreation and
TalkOrigins lists of responses to young-earth
claims, edited by Greg Neyman and Mark Isaak; yes, these two are similar, because Neyman (as explained in the introduction to the Table
of Contents Page for his list) modeled his list-and-responses on those of
Isaak; usually Neyman's responses are condensed versions of
Isaak's, so in the "pairings" I've put Neyman's versions first (even
though they were written later) so you can get a quick overview before diving
into details; but both versions
(Neyman & Isaak) are brief and clear, consistent with the Cliffs Notes Approach
of the ASA website for Whole-Person Education; to explore more deeply, follow the bottom-of-page links
in either version; and for an overview of topics, browse the full AnswersInCreation-List
& TalkOrigins-List.
words in [square-brackets] are either my editorial
comments [ed: ...] or my
page-descriptions (instead of their
page-title)
If you use a smaller font size the two-column format will behave better in browsers, so you won't have to scroll sideways, and you'll also see more vertically.
MOST LINKS (all that are
not-italicized) open a new page in a new window, leaving this page open in this
window; italicized links keep you inside this page.
The four "pages with potential resources" are
Noah's Flood
& Geology
& Radiometric Dating
& Astronomy.