The problem with steelmanning YEC is that you can’t do so without converting it into something that YECists would vehemently disagree with. For example, you could state that God created the world via an evolutionary algorithm, then implemented it recently, and either the Flood was a small local event or the layer in question was deleted from the record. This however would seem more like entirely rejecting YEC. You could say that God made it seem like evolution was true as a test of faith, but such is a universal explanation that has no predictive power, plus the bit about calling God a liar.
You could also reject the data—claim that there is a massive conspiracy among all scientists to pretend that the fossil record looks like millions of years of evolution, migration, extinction, etc., instead of looking like ~2000 years of land and marine life covered with a year of massive flood sediment covered by ~4000 years of land and marine life, and also a conspiracy in the genetics community to cover up the fact that there was a genetic bottleneck of all species down to one or seven pairs of animals ~4000 years ago, and also that the rate of evolution is actually millions of times faster than scientists say it is, and a few others like that. Notable creationists like Ken Ham are obviously ringleaders of the conspiracy, else they would be decrying the conspiracy instead of acknowledging that data and pretending that a flood is really good at sorting by species things like pollen.
Some things are just really hard to steelman. The most convincing arguments for YEC, and most pleasing to its adherents, are those that argue as though science was about explanations, rather than predictions.
Note: for much of my life, I believed (gave roughly equal credence to vs evolution) in YEC. I maintained this via privilaging the hypothesis, motivated skepticism and related reading from AIG, until one day I made the “mistake” of saying I would change my mind if someone would provide , which someone did. Contrary to Bill Nye’s fears that this belief would somehow cripple me in science or technology, it was compartmentalized into irrelevance, and in fact I was usually considered one of the smart kids in class. In fact, it was because of people from Ken Ham’s group that I had in the same compartment as YEC not science, but religious belief (and therefore also many moral and political beliefs). As such, the fact that I’d have to restructure my core beliefs made me hold on to YEC for a couple more years. However, I think others don’t take their beliefs as seriously as I do. Ken Ham, for example, doesn’t actually believe YEC because it does not constrain his expectations (nothing would change his mind, as he has admitted).
The problem with steelmanning YEC is that you can’t do so without converting it into something that YECists would vehemently disagree with. For example, you could state that God created the world via an evolutionary algorithm, then implemented it recently, and either the Flood was a small local event or the layer in question was deleted from the record. This however would seem more like entirely rejecting YEC. You could say that God made it seem like evolution was true as a test of faith, but such is a universal explanation that has no predictive power, plus the bit about calling God a liar.
You could also reject the data—claim that there is a massive conspiracy among all scientists to pretend that the fossil record looks like millions of years of evolution, migration, extinction, etc., instead of looking like ~2000 years of land and marine life covered with a year of massive flood sediment covered by ~4000 years of land and marine life, and also a conspiracy in the genetics community to cover up the fact that there was a genetic bottleneck of all species down to one or seven pairs of animals ~4000 years ago, and also that the rate of evolution is actually millions of times faster than scientists say it is, and a few others like that. Notable creationists like Ken Ham are obviously ringleaders of the conspiracy, else they would be decrying the conspiracy instead of acknowledging that data and pretending that a flood is really good at sorting by species things like pollen.
Some things are just really hard to steelman. The most convincing arguments for YEC, and most pleasing to its adherents, are those that argue as though science was about explanations, rather than predictions.
Note: for much of my life, I believed (gave roughly equal credence to vs evolution) in YEC. I maintained this via privilaging the hypothesis, motivated skepticism and related reading from AIG, until one day I made the “mistake” of saying I would change my mind if someone would provide , which someone did. Contrary to Bill Nye’s fears that this belief would somehow cripple me in science or technology, it was compartmentalized into irrelevance, and in fact I was usually considered one of the smart kids in class. In fact, it was because of people from Ken Ham’s group that I had in the same compartment as YEC not science, but religious belief (and therefore also many moral and political beliefs). As such, the fact that I’d have to restructure my core beliefs made me hold on to YEC for a couple more years. However, I think others don’t take their beliefs as seriously as I do. Ken Ham, for example, doesn’t actually believe YEC because it does not constrain his expectations (nothing would change his mind, as he has admitted).