“not quite human,” all sorts of data were interpreted as fitting that idea. Later, when attitudes began to shift, the evidence did not change and very little new evidence was gathered, but the interpretation of the evidence certainly did shift. We believe that there are at least three good reasons for taking young earth creationism seriously and for not relegating it to the same shelf as speculations about the lost city of Atlantis. First, young earth creationism has grown and developed intellectually