Comets are problems for "billions of years"

What do you think of the SAO/NASA Astrophysical Data System (ADS)?

With respect to....?

Credibility 

It's just a database of articles.  Databases tell us nothing about the credibility of articles they store.  I can go to Google Scholar and look up peer-reviewed published papers of all kinds from credible to pseudoscientific.

If what you're trying to get at is that Samec has articles published in reputable scientific journals, then, yes, he absolutely does.  And if you compare those professional papers with this one in Creation Research Society Quarterly, then you'll see a marked difference in quality and rigor, despite CRSQ's claim to be a technical journal.

When I look at Samec's published work in reputable astronomical journals I see research that meets top-notch, high quality professional standards.  These qualities are absent in his CRSQ article.

I'm a paleobiologist, not an astronomer, but I know enough to recognize his CRSQ article contains ad hoc statements, circular reasoning, and cites ICR's RATE study as a credible scientific source, when as a professional astronomer he knows he could never get away with that in the professional astronomy journals he publishes in.  

Or, take this article on the same topic that he wrote for AIG: https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/stars/new-light-binary-stars/

In this article he writes the following:

"In fact, evolutionary astronomers believe that many contact binaries are in excess of 10 billion years old. Thatʼs nearly the age of the universe proposed in the big bang theory, which claims that the cosmos expanded from a “singularity”over the past 13.8 billion years..... What if observations could prove that binary stars collapse more quickly into contact stars than assumed?  If the change truly is fast, then the big bang theory would be wrong."

"Contrary to the proposals of the evolutionary astronomy community, we document that the observed loss of angular momentum is much faster among the short-period binaries (rapid dual stars that orbit every 20 days or less). At this rate, they could remain as separate stars only 55–250 million years (80 million years on average) before collapsing into a contact binary. The top lifespan of 250 million years is at most only 1.8% (0.018) of the 13.8 billion years required by the big bang. So something is clearly wrong.....This finding is still a lot more than 6,000 years, but it is only a maximum possible lifespan. The orbits could decay in less than six days under certain conditions. If you take into account the unique physics at play during God's creation of the universe, time may have passed faster at greater distances from earth." 

As a professional astronomer he obviously knows more about astronomy than I do, but I still know enough to recognize when he makes false statements and presents speculations and conjectures as if they were fact:

(1) He falsely generalizes and mis-names: "Evolutionary astronomers [There's no such thing.  That's a made-up YEC term] believe that *many* contact binaries are in excess of 10 billion years."---many, but not all, yet he then indiscriminately generalizes this to all contact binaries.

(2) If binary stars collapse more quickly into contact binaries, "then the big bang theory would be wrong."---No it wouldn't, and as a professional astronomer, he knows this and knows better than to make such a false statement.  It would simply mean the lifespan of these binary stars is not as long as astronomers had thought.  But so what.  Such a finding would do nothing to challenge the body of data that has established the big bang theory.  The big bang theory didn't develop on the basis of what we thought about binaries.  Nor would such a finding challenge the evidence for the 13.8 billion year age of the universe.

(3) Then a sleight-of-hand: He finds that binary lifespans are shorter than thought but are still 55-250 million years old!  Which is NOT---I repeat, NOT evidence for a young age universe.  But he then tries to turn it around to say it's evidence for young ages.  How does that work?

(4) And then he finishes by presenting speculative conjectures as if they are fact and settle the matter: The lifespans *could* be shorter and fit within six days if the *right conditions exist*---but saying that doesn't make it true, nor is appealing to *unique physics* due to God's creation in six-days provide evidence of anything.  That's just assuming what you're trying to prove, and then pretending that you've proven it.

(5) Then, more speculation presented as fact: "Time *may* [speculation] have passed faster at greater distances from the earth."---and we're back to the unproven ad hoc appearing-disappearing worm hole act.

(6) And then these conjectures somehow turn into "proof":

"Instead, we can see that the universe is still young!"

This article's supposed to be educational, and a professional astronomer knows better than to propagate such misinformation and fallacies in reasoning (and all the more so when such qualities are entirely absent from his top-notch, professional publications).  This is irresponsible, imho.

*Consider this: If his conclusions in this article (and the CRSQ article) are truly sound and supported by solid empirical evidence that challenges the currently accepted age of the universe, then why hasn't he published it in a reputable journal?  IF he could truly back it up, then no journal would reject it and he'd become famous for making such a ground-breaking discovery.

Here's my point in all this.  I see the same sort of language use in all sorts of long age writings, including 'peer reviewed' material.  It used to be quite normal for both sides to get along and respect each other's contributions but that just simply is no longer the case.  Once someone is identified as a creationist, they are essentially shunned like the plague and considered crackpots.  Newton had no such difficulties in his day but today would be prevented from publishing.  Peer review journals have often refused top quality research while being known to have admitted fraud.  It is far from a perfect process because we live in a fallen sinful world.  Editors of these journals have the final say and can often override the recommendations of peer reviewers.

Thomas Stossel, a Professor at Harvard Medical School, stated:

‘But unbeknownst to the media, the journals at the top got there because of herd behavior by researchers, not because they are better than lower-tier journals at vetting research quality. Here’s why: Researchers submit their best work to the top journals, which can therefore afford to maintain their prestige by rejecting, not publishing, many high quality papers. That’s brand creation—not science. Most of their editorial effort goes into deciding which submitted papers are sufficiently newsworthy. Anonymous peer review by jealous competitors has its merits, but it has a tendency to select for fashionable if relatively unoriginal and inoffensive papers … although these reports often do not substantively advance scientific knowledge, and many subsequently are invalidated.’  https://www.academia.edu/38121319/Creationism_Science_and_Peer_Review

The First Law of Thermodynamics (law of conservation of energy) was first formulated by German physician J. R Mayer in 1842.  However, Mayer’s revolutionary research was rejected by the leading German physics journal Annalen der Physik.  The leading journal Nature also admitted in a mea culpa editorial:

 ‘(T)here are unarguable faux pas in our history.  These include the rejection of Cerenkov radiation, Hideki Yukawa’s meson, work on photosynthesis by Johann Deisenhofer, Robert Huber and Hartmut Michel, and the initial rejection (but eventual acceptance) of Stephen Hawking’s black-hole radiation.’ 

Nature also turned down Enrico Fermi’s paper on weak interaction theory of beta decay because it was allegedly too remote from reality, so Fermi had to submit to Zeitschrift für Physik instead, with success.

https://www.academia.edu/38121319/Creationism_Science_and_Peer_Review

So in the end, peer review has many problems and limitations.  It does not guarantee quality or correctness and does not prevent fraud.  Peer review is also rarely objective and can lead to bias and censorship:

Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, admits this can be a real problem:

‘The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability—not the validity—of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.’

Cyril Belshaw, editor of Current Anthropology, notes the problem of abusive ad hominem attacks and over-sensitiveness during the review process:

‘And the most difficult question to handle editorially is the matter of ad hominem attacks seeking publication, and the even more ad hominem (verging on libelous) replies of those who feel they have been attacked … If one thing clearly emerges from the editorial experience, it is that our colleagues are emotional, easily hurt, and identify very strongly indeed with what passes for objective, impersonal science … [This includes] ‘big names,’ some of whom seem extremely sensitive when their authority is questioned.’

There are a number of reasons for this lack of objectivity, the main one being the competition for research funds and the fact that one’s peers are often the same people who control the allocation of these research funds. As Professor Evelleen Richards from the University of New South Wales stated on ABC Radio:

‘Science...is not so much concerned with truth as it is with consensus. What counts as “truth”? is what scientists can agree to count as truth at any particular moment in time … [Scientists] are not really receptive or not really open-minded to any sorts of criticisms or any sorts of claims that actually are attacking some of the established parts of the research (traditional) paradigm—in this case neo-Darwinism—so it is very difficult for people who are pushing claims that contradict the paradigm to get a hearing. They’ll find it difficult to [get] research grants; they’ll find it hard to get their research published; they’ll, in fact, find it very hard.’ 

https://www.academia.edu/38121319/Creationism_Science_and_Peer_Review

Bias is manifested in a number of ways.  Ad hominem bias occurs when there is personal jealousy between reviewer and author or when the reviewer is competing with the author for research funding, appointments, or honours, and therefore, the reviewer’s attacks are directed at the author rather than the substance of their work.  On the other hand, if the reviewer is a friend or colleague of the author, the reviewer may be less than objective in their assessment of the work. 

Affiliational bias occurs when articles are accepted or rejected depending on the institutional affiliation of the author. Irrespective of the quality of their research, authors from prestigious universities such as Harvard and Yale are more likely to get their articles published than authors from small colleges or private think-tanks. This problem was starkly demonstrated in a controversial study by Douglas Peters and Stephen Ceci, in which twelve previously published articles by researchers from prestigious universities were resubmitted to the same journals that published them, but with different author and institution names. Only three of the 38 editors and reviewers detected the resubmissions, and eight of the nine undetected articles were rejected even though they had been published by those same journals just 18 to 32 months earlier!²⁰ As Rick Crandall noted: ‘The editorial process has tended to be run as an informal, old-boy network which has excluded minorities, women, younger researchers, and those from lower-prestige institutions … Authors can feel that they’re dealing with hostile gatekeepers whose goal is to keep out manuscripts on picky grounds rather than let in the best work.’²¹ 

Ideological bias occurs when reviewers accept or reject articles depending on whether they respectively confirm or deny the reviewer’s own position or convictions in regard to the subject matter. For example, a reviewer committed to big bang cosmology is hardly going to give a positive assessment of a paper that supports the steady-state cosmology irrespective of the paper’s arguments. As Robert Higgs put it:

‘Researchers who employ unorthodox methods or theoretical frameworks have great difficulty under modern conditions in getting their findings published in the “best” journals or, at times, in any scientific journal. Scientific innovators or creative eccentrics always strike the great mass of practitioners as nut cases―until it becomes impossible to deny their findings, a time that often comes only after one generation's professional ring-masters have died off. Science is an odd undertaking: everybody strives to make the next breakthrough, yet when someone does, he is often greeted as if he were carrying the ebola virus. Too many people have too much invested in the reigning ideas; for those people an acknowledgment of their own idea's bankruptcy is tantamount to an admission that they have wasted their lives. Often, perhaps to avoid cognitive dissonance, they never admit that their ideas were wrong.’¹⁰

The same applies to articles which advocate positions or make conclusions that stand against the prevailing consensus of the scientific community. This is exemplified by the treatment dished out to those who reject climate change scenarios proposed by the International Panel on Climate Change and promoted by Al Goreand Tim Flannery (the enormous CO₂ emissions of their own jet-setting and luxurious living does not seem to bother them or their adulators). As Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, noted, those who toe the party line are publicly praised and have grants ladled out to them, but scientists:

‘who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libelled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.’²² 

https://www.academia.edu/38121319/Creationism_Science_and_Peer_Review

As mentioned, peer review can lead to censorship.  Richard Lindzen has noted the peculiar standards in place in scientific journals for articles submitted by those who raise questions about accepted climate wisdom. The editors of leading journals Science and Nature, commonly refused such papers (without review) as being without interest. However, Lindzen adds that

‘ … even when such papers are published, standards shift. When I [Lindzen], with some colleagues at NASA, attempted to determine how clouds behave under varying temperatures, we discovered what we called an “Iris Effect,” wherein upper-level cirrus clouds contracted with increased temperature, providing a very strong negative climate feedback sufficient to greatly reduce the response to increasing CO₂. Normally, criticism of papers appears in the form of letters to the journal to which the original authors can respond immediately. However, in this case (and others) a flurry of hastily prepared papers appeared, claiming errors in our study, with our responses delayed months and longer. The delay permitted our paper to be commonly referred to as “discredited.”’²²

Again, the exact same tactics are used against creationist scientists. In fact, in most cases, letters from creationists to the journal are often refused outright. Indeed, such prejudice is openly admitted and defended by Karl Giberson, editor of Research News & Opportunities in Science and Theology:

‘If an editor chooses to publish a hostile review of a book, common politeness would suggest that the author ought to have some space to respond. But editors have a “higher calling” than common politeness, namely the editorial mission and guidelines that inform every decision as to what will be printed and what will be rejected. I have learned, since becoming the editor of Research News, common politeness is often in tension with editorial priorities … In my editorial judgment, the collection of ideas known as “scientific creationism” (which is not the same as intelligent design) lacks the credibility to justify publishing any submissions that we get from its adherents. I would go even further, in fact. The collection of creationist ideas (6,000 year old earth, no common ancestry, all the fossils laid down by Noah's flood, Genesis creation account read literally, etc.) has been so thoroughly discredited by both scientific and religious scholarship that I think it is entirely appropriate for Research News to print material designed to move our readers away from this viewpoint. For example, we might publish a negative review of a book promoting scientific creationism … while refusing to allow the author a chance to respond. Is this an unfair bias? Or is it proper stewardship of limited editorial resources?’²³ 

https://www.academia.edu/38121319/Creationism_Science_and_Peer_Review

It is worth reading the entire paper:

https://www.academia.edu/38121319/Creationism_Science_and_Peer_Review

Thanks @SoulMate333.  I appreciate our discussion and your thoughtful comments. The peer-review process isn't perfect, that's for sure.  Bias can never be fully eliminated, and even politics can enter in.  I recall a paper rejection I received early in my career where one of the reasons given was that my identification of a rock layer (which I had an expert independently confirm) conflicted with the field notes of one of the reviewers (who was of international renown and who had visited the location some 30 years earlier).  They were right to reject my paper for other reasons that didn't meet publication standards, but on that point I was right and the reviewer was wrong.  So, it's not perfect and there's an imperfect human side to it where you have to pay your dues and build a professional reputation for research excellence.

As far as shunning and barring from participation simply for bearing the name "creationist," well, I've found that to be a highly varied thing, ranging from absolute intolerance and even PhD candidates being kicked out of programs for revealing they were YECs to complete openness and acceptance in other programs as long as they could still demonstrate excellence in research (Like a YEC I know who got his PhD under Stephen J. Gould while being very open to Gould about his YEC position).  So the issues you raise have been known to happen but they are not universal and highly dependent on specific circumstances, including graduate students' and post-docs' freedom to choose where the want to complete their studies in the first place and knowing beforehand what they're getting into with a given program.

But it's important to point out that there are many private Christian institutions that do the exact same thing and kick you out if you believe in evolution or even a different creationist position, or really with any doctrinal position the institution finds contrary (while others are more open and don't; again it depends).  Students have lost their degrees, professors have lost their jobs; like Dr. Jack Deere who had to leave his long-held teaching position at Dallas Theological Seminary after he witnessed miracles and could no longer hold DTS' cessationist position that miracles and HS gifts had ceased with the apostles.  I also know of a well-known pastor with international clout who even went so far as to actively destroy a number of Christian professors' careers who weren't even part of the pastor's ministry--contacting their institutions of work a thousand miles away and spreading lies, rumors, whatever it took to get them fired and then going further to get them blacklisted so they couldn't get a job anywhere else, just because he didn't like some of the doctrinal differences they had on NON-essentials of the faith.  Awful.

I was raised in a YEC tradition and taught to believe that "evil" evolutionists were actively black listing creationists from publishing research, and that there was a systematic conspiracy to suppress the truth, including fossil finds that contradicted evolution that evolutionists would destroy or lock away in backroom museum drawers because they were devastating to "atheistic" evolution and couldn't let that truth get out.  Heard countless stories...Well, I started investigating these claims--I mean *really* investigating.  Going back to primary sources, making phone calls, meeting with people, etc....They ALL turned out to be unsubstantiated rumors that one or more creationists had started either intentionally or by careless talk.

My degrees include both private and secular education.  I was on guard with the latter because of the evil, atheistic evolutionist conspiracy to suppress the truth....But do you want to know what I discovered?  I discovered that there is NO conspiracy whatsoever and was shocked to discover that a lot of these "atheistic" evolutionists were actually religious and even Christian.  True enough, I also found plenty of anti-Christian and even "militant" type atheists.  But I found NO conspiracy and NO truth suppression (which surprised me because of everything I'd been taught)...You know what else I found?  I discovered that they were people.  Just regular people with lives of their own.  Spiritually lost and in need of the Lord, sure enough, but they were just everyday ordinary people.  There was no sinister, nefarious conspiracy afterall.

And while you're correct that things like blacklisting for identifying as a creationist have happened, again it's highly dependent on the specific context.  And yes, some of these instances are truly unfair and unjust.  BUT, I want to be completely honest with you about the predominant motivators that are involved.  Three come to mind:

(1) Most YECs with PhD's don't actually do any formal scientific research, so they have no research to even send for peer-review.

(2) The vast majority of YEC "research" that is sent to peer-review truly is substandard and SHOULD be rejected.  YECs often equate rejection with truth suppression, when the real truth is the "research" is simply shoddy, and they don't understand how high the bar is.  I've had paper after paper after paper rejected that I've had to revise and revise and revise until I got it right.  That's just how it works.  It can be brutal and you get beat up.  But it's not personal.  It's to ensure that only solid, evidence backed research is published and it's makes you a better researcher in the process.  I'm not trying to be mean spirited, but just honest when I say it's comparable to all those thousands of people who audition for American Idol who think they're such great singers or who might even be decent but don't understand the business-professional side of the music industry.  Most YECs lack professionalism and the skill set expected of professional research scientists.

PRACTICAL EXAMPLE: C14 DATING DINOSAUR BONES: Scientists will outright reject creationist claims of young age dinosaur bones that have been C14 dated.  YECs will then post "proof" online, showing the actual young age results they got back from a secular lab that didn't know they were testing dinosaur bones.  Scientists will say C14 dating of fossils is useless because there's no original C14 left.  YECs will counter, that's just your long age evolutionary assumptions, which we have just proved to be wrong!!  You're suppressing the truth!!

*BUT, the scientists are absolutely correct: You truly CAN'T C14 date fossils.  NOT because of some supposed long-age evolutionary assumption.  NOT because fossils are assumed to be old.  You can't C14 date fossil bones BECAUSE THEY'RE NO LONGER BONES, THEY'RE FOSSILS.  And IN ORDER TO BECOME FOSSILS the original bone (AND C14) HAS to be replaced and recrystallized and diagenetically altered and chemically changed into different types of minerals that are NOT part of the original bone.  It doesn't matter if it took millions or thousands of years to do this---because it's the FOSSILIZATION PROCESS ITSELF that "overwrites" the original C14.  So, technically, I guess you COULD C14 date dinosaur fossils, BUT the results are totally meaningless because you're not dating the original C14.

*TO PROVE THE POINT: I have an article that really drives this home.  Not too long ago some scientists claimed they had come up with a way to use C14 to date fossilized dinosaur bones, and they dated the dinosaur to around 70 million years old.  BUT EVEN THOUGH THIS MATCHED LONG-AGE, "EVOLUTIONARY ASSUMPTIONS," PEER-REVIEW STILL REJECTED THE OLD AGE DATE, BECAUSE C14 CAN'T BE USED TO DATE FOSSILIZED BONES.  IT'S AN INAPPROPRIATE TEST.  Fossilization "overwrites" and replaces the original C14, so C14 dating is useless.

(3) Finally, if I'm to be completely honest, the third main reason creationists get shunned, black listed, shut out, etc. is for their atrocious behavior and practices.  I didn't understand this (nor will most YECs), because afterall, YECs are just doing their duty and standing for truth, right?  Decades of experience with this has enabled me to see the reality of things.  "Creationist" is like a dirty word to scientists, because their experience with creationists is mostly limited to the rude, pushy, obnoxious, annoying, unprofessional, unethical, in-your-face type creationists.  Scientists see them as unethical because of their ceaseless, never-ending practice of combing the research literature (that scientists worked hard to get published, instead of doing scientific research themselves!) and cherry-picking words and sentences and misquoting, and twisting and distorting, and misrepresenting the hard work of scientists and what scientists actually say in order to "disprove" evolution (*Imagine how'd you'd feel if your words and work were constantly misquoted and misrepresented!)

Stephen J. Gould once said that “scarcely a day goes by when I do not read a misrepresentation of my views (usually by creationists, racists, or football fans, in order of frequency)” (1990). Gould says creationists misquoted him more than racists! 

*To be fair, I don't think most creationists intend to do this, nor do I think most realize how badly (behavior-wise) they come across.  But this lack of self-awareness is one of the big problems.

*The "rejection" they experience they often bring upon themselves.

*These in-your-face creationists are the one's with the loudest voice that people associate with the term, and like it or not they have been the "face" of "modern creationism." 

(*And I should point out that the "modern creationist" movement started by Henry Morris about 60 years ago has NOTHING in common with scientists like Newton who you mentioned.  There is no connection and I can guarantee you that Newton's Principia would still be published today, because it is grounded in empirical evidence and continues to be foundational to science.)

***BUT ON A POSITIVE NOTE: Not all creationists, of course, are like the above.  Though fewer in number there are YECs who are well respected professional scientists in the scientific community who regularly publish research (which along with teaching is the scientist's main job anyway).  They're professional, polite, exhibit decorum, acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses of their position and also acknowledge the strengths of evolution and old earth positions.  They are fair and honest about what the evidence does and does not show.  They collaborate with secular scientists on research....They BUILD RELATIONSHIPS with these scientists and demonstrate Christ's love and kindness through their actions.

*These YECs have no problem getting their research published in recognized, reputable science jounrnals

***TAKE HOME LESSON: Yes, treatment that is legitimately unfair can happen (unfortunately this is often a conditioned "knee-jerk" reaction to the "dirty word" "creationist" which they associate with the vocal, in-your-face type).  BUT MY OVERALL EXPERIENCE, is that the scientific community is largely very tolerant and accepting of Christians including YECs when it's accompanied by professional (and Christ-like) behavior.

@SoulMate333 

In sum:

(1) Most creationists don't actually do any scientific research of their own.

(2) Most creationist "research" is substandard, does not meet the rigorous standards of professional research, and is rejected for legitimate reasons.

(3) In my experience, most "shunning," black listing, etc., of creationists is not universal but isolated and highly dependent on the specific circumstances.  Scientific community does not tolerate atrocious, unprofessional behavior and practices, but I've found it very tolerant and accepting of creationists who are professional and kind, who do genuine scientific research, and who take the time to cultivate professional relationships.

@SoulMate333

Now, in truth all of the posts in our most recent exchange were a bit of a non-sequitur, but I believe you raised some very important issues, so I think our segue was worth it (hopefully you feel the same) and covered important ground. 

But I do want to get back to the immediate, relevant issues.  The issues about peer-review were important in their own right so I'm glad we took time to discuss them.  But having done that, I need to point out that the issue of peer-review is irrelevant to the question of whether or not YEC arguments for young ages based on a comets and binaries are valid, supported by sufficient evidence, and incapable of any alternative explanations under the scientific consensus view.

We've seen that the main YEC complaint with regard to comets and lack of direct observational evidence for the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud that is still often made has been discredited because we do in fact have direct observational evidence.  To this I would add that reasoning by indirect evidence and inferences are still completely valid and that it's a little disingenuous for YECs to argue this way because YECs use this type of reasoning themselves all the time.   

In fact, worse still, YECs commonly employ made up ad hoc hypothesis with no evidence at all to save their theories.  Surely we can agree, for example, that it's a little disingenuous to criticize scientists for making VALID indirect inferences about the existence of the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt (which we now also have direct observational evidence for); while giving YECs a free-pass on their ad hoc worm-hole appearance-disappearance act.  Something for which we have absolutely no evidence, and that is postulated solely in an Hail Mary attempt to try to save a young earth position in the face of EVIDENCE FOR AN OLD AGE UNIVERSE THAT YECs NOW RECOGNIZE AND ACTUALLY ADMIT THAT THE UNIVERSE IS BILLIONS OF YEARS OLD!  But now invoke an imaginary wormhole that we have NO DIRECT OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE for in order to create two different relativistic time frames consisting of a young age relativistic time bubble around the vicinity of the earth that is within an OLD AGE UNIVERSE.

*There are so many ad hoc mental gymnastics that must be done in the above scenario.  And even if we grant Semac's conclusion that binaries have a shorter lifespan than expected that life span is still 80 million years on average and completely inconsistent with a young age position.

We both seem like reasonable people who can acknowledge when a case is strong and when it's based on nothing but ad hoc hopes and wishes.  Semac has a pretty extensive CV of peer-reviewed research that he has in fact published in reputable scientific journals, so he obviously knows what it takes to publish high quality research.  He also maintains an online presence that makes no attempt to hide his YEC beliefs.  His public openness about this seems to have had no effect on his ability to still get his research published in recognized journals, which suggests there's no bias against him because of his YEC beliefs. 

It's possible the scientific community may discriminate against people just because they are creationists.  But that does not seem to be the case here with Samec who has no difficulty getting his research publish.  He does not have sufficient evidence, though, to make the "conclusions" that he does in the AIG and CRSQ with respect to the age of the universe, so peer-review would have legitimate justification for rejecting those articles (i.e., at least in the case of Samec no discrimination is evident).

*I must re-emphasize that there ARE in fact genuine professional scientists who regularly publish who are YECs and there is no evidence of bias or discrimination against them.

*The fact of the matter is that EVEN IF there is some discrimination in peer-review that this is STILL the only way forward if YECs want to be respected and heard.  And in fact those YECs who do regularly publish have already earned that respect.

*Here's an article that TruthMuse posted about a month ago on the Evolution Discussion forum.  The authors argue for design/fine-tuning and ID.  Normally, we would be forced to immediately dismiss such arguments or at least take them with a grain of salt and say it's interesting but not conclusive and we can't accept it at this time.  This is NOT because it argues for design/fine-tuning and ID but for not yet surviving rigorous peer-review.  This is NOT picking on ID, this is simply standard practice.  I often read articles in draft form (on other topics) that I find convincing with ample evidence BUT I always mentally stop myself and say we'll have to see what peer-review says.  Peer-review is so important because it keeps us honest and helps reveal hidden problems we didn't see in articles where the evidence looks so compelling at first glance.

*Thus, if an article has not gone through peer-review for a reputable journal then it hasn't yet met the standards of proof and therefore we can't take it as such.  Unfortunately many ID and YEC articles are like this.

*I GIVE YOU THIS ARTICLE BECAUSE IT'S A RARE EXCEPTION!!!  HERE WE HAVE AN ARTICLE ARGUING FOR DESIGN/FINE-TUNING AND ID THAT SURVIVED PEER-REVIEW AND ACTUALLY WAS PUBLISHED IN A REPUTABLE JOURNAL

*THIS is the type of work that must be done if ID/YEC want to be heard, respected, and taken seriously, and is a POSITIVE EXAMPLE of the types of articles we need more of

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022519320302071#ab010