Ken Ham

Kenneth Alfred Ham (born 20 October 1951) is the Australian President/CEO of Answers in Genesis USA and a prominent member of the young-Earth creationist movement.^{[1] [2]} He is an advocate for a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis.^[3]

Ken Ham obtained a bachelor's degree in Applied Science, with emphasis in Environmental Biology, through the Queensland Institute of Technology and, in order to begin teaching science in Australian public schools, a diploma in Education from the University of Queensland.^{[4] [5] [6]} On 30 December 1972, he married Marilyn ("Mally"),^[7] whom he describes as a "very, very submissive, supportive wife" who has "always supported me five million percent."^[8] The Ham couple have five children — four are married and one lives with them in the Cincinnati area and have seven grandchildren.^[5] In 1979, Ham co-founded what was to be later known as the Creation Science Foundation (CSF) in Queensland, Australia with John Mackay.^{[9] [10] [11]}

Ham worked for the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), a leading young-Earth organisation.^[12] In 1994, with the assistance of what is now Creation Ministries International (Australia), Ham and colleagues Mark Looy and Mike Zovath set up Creation Science Ministries, later renamed Answers in Genesis.^[13] The Christian ministry specialises in young Earth creationism and promotes the belief that the initial chapters in Genesis should be taken as literally true and historically accurate.^[14] He then began raising "tens of millions of dollars" to build the ministry.^[15]

He has been awarded two honorary degrees: In 1997 from Temple Baptist College in Cincinnati, Ohio and in 2004 from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.^[5] On 28 May 2007 the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum opened in Petersburg, Kentucky, a project which cost 27ドル million. The necessary funds were donated throughout the 1990s.^[16] It is about 70,000 sq ft (6,500 m²)^[17]

In May 2007, Creation Ministries International (CMI) filed a lawsuit against Ham and AiG in the Supreme Court of Queensland seeking damages and accusing him of deceptive conduct in his dealings with the Australian organization. Members of the ministry were "concern[ed] over Mr Ham's domination of the ministries, the amount of money being spent on his fellow executives and a shift away from delivering the creationist message to raising donations."^[11] According to the CMI website, this dispute was amicably settled in April 2009.^[18] In 2008, Ham appeared in Bill Maher's comedy-documentary Religulous .^[19] In a press release AiG criticized the movie for what it called Maher's "dishonesty last year in gaining access to the Creation Museum and AiG President Ken Ham."^[20]

In March 2011, the Board of Great Homeschool Conventions, Inc. voted to "disinvite" Ham and AiG from "all future conventions" due to Ham's words about other Christians being "unnecessary, ungodly, and mean-spirited statements that are divisive at best and defamatory at worst."^{[21] [22] [23]} AiG responded: "It is sad that a speaker and ministry, which stand boldly and uncompromisingly on the authority of God’s Word, are eliminated from a homeschool convention."^[22] Ham hosts Answers. . . with Ken Ham, a 90-second radio program broadcast daily on over 600 radio stations worldwide and the Internet^[24] featuring Ham's commentary on issues.^[25]

As a young Earth creationist, Ham believes that the universe was created about 6,000 years ago, and that Noah's flood occurred about 4,500 years ago in the year 2348 BC.^[26] He believes that the animals carried on Noah's ark produced the biological diversity observed on Earth. Ham also believes that dinosaurs co-existed with modern humans. He supports his view with biblical scripture.^[27] Ham accepts that natural selection can give rise to a number of species from an original population, by Mendelian recombination of already existing genes, but that new genes cannot arise from mutations, because this would be "adding information" (he claims that only intelligence can cause a beneficial mutation). Mutations and natural selection can only "remove preexisting information."^[28] All of these species are of the same kind , and no new kind can arise from this process.

Ham does not trust radiometric dating, which is a technique used to date objects such as moon rocks, fossils and human artifacts.^[29] Since 1989, Ham has frequently made the comment, "Were you there?" regarding the origins of life and evolution,^[30] implying that knowledge of unwitnessed events is inferential and not observational. Talk.origins responded that the evidence for evolution "was there", asserting the necessity to continue the task of scientific inquiry, though missing Ham's concern for "observational science"^[31] In 2005, The Daily Show poked fun at Ham's question.^[32]

Ham believes that there is a difference between facts, and interpretation of facts. "Creationists and evolutionists, Christians and non-Christians, all have the same evidence—the same facts. Think about it: we all have the same earth, the same fossil layers, the same animals and plants, the same stars—the facts are all the same. The difference is in the way we all interpret the facts. And why do we interpret facts differently? Because we start with different presuppositions; these are things that are assumed to be true without being able to prove them. These then become the basis for other conclusions. All reasoning is based on presuppositions (also called axioms). This becomes especially relevant when dealing with past events."^[33]

Ham's beliefs and tactics have been criticized by other Christians and old earth creationists. Answers in Creation, an old Earth creationist website, has called Ham willfully ignorant of evidence for an old earth, and said that he "deliberately misleads" his audiences on matters of both science and theology.^[34] Astronomer Hugh Ross, a progressive creationist, has debated Ham and other Answers In Genesis staff^[35] regarding the compatibility of an old Earth with the Bible.^[36] BioLogos has also responded to Ken Ham's criticisms of their viewpoint.^[37]

• Ham, Ken (1987). The Lie: Evolution. Green Forest: Master Books. ISBN 0-89051-158-6.

• Ken Ham at Answers in Genesis

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