DR Hugh Ross
Hugh Ross is an Old Earth Creationist who holds both a M. Sc. and a Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Toronto. He founded and serves as President and Director of Research of an organization called Reasons to Believe (RtB) based in Pasadena, California. RtB is described in their own words as " .. an international, interdenominational ministry established to communicate the uniquely factual basis for belief in the Bible as the wholly true Word of God and for personal faith in Jesus Christ..." You can occasionally catch Dr. Ross on cable Christian channels where he often appears in the same hour as Carl Baugh. (Compared to Baugh, Dr. Ross is a freaking Nobel Laureate)
By all accounts Dr. Ross was a gifted and inquisitive student from an early age with a particular passion for astronomy and physical science. A passion he conveys in his work to this day. He grew up in Canada and by age 17 he was employed at a local observatory and had earned an academic scholarship.
Dr. Ross and RtB have published a score of popular books and articles discussing his primary argument for Intelligent Design which is mostly focused on an issue known as The Anthropic Principle; often referred to by Ross as Fine Tuning. His reasoning reviews the universe and the physics therein from the large scale cosmological level down to the sub-microscopic realm of Quantum Physics, and concludes that the universe, the galaxy, the solar system, and earth, are so exquisitely configured to produce and sustain 'matter based' life that it could not be coincidence and thus reflects conscious intelligent intent. He goes on to draw in depth parallels between Old Testament creation stories and cosmology/physics, for example attributing Genesis with being the first to state what we now call The Big Bang. Essentially Ross claims that the environment was designed for life to develop and exist within it, from the Big Bang, to the formation of Earth, rather than the conventional view that life adapts to environments.
The primary criticism of this approach is that it is untestable. If atoms were not possible, if heavier elements were not cooked up inside of stars via stellar nucleosynthesis, and if life did not exist on Earth, then life critically dependent on all those events and materials would not be here to observe that life is capable of existing under all those aforementioned conditions; ourselves included. To falsify the proposal "The Universe/Earth was designed for life/chemicals/atoms because life/chemicals/atoms can exists in the universe and on Earth" we would have to, among other things, find life/atoms, etc., existing where it was physically impossible for them to exist. This is, needless to say, unlikely to be observed! And if it was observed it would probably be the best evidence for miracle or IDC I can think of making the proposition tautological in the context of Ross and Intelligent Design. This fine tuning approach where various properties of matter, energy, and environment, are measured and found to be consistent with objects existing within those boundaries has been called by one reviewer I know the equivalent of shooting wildly into the side of a barn and then drawing bulls eyes around the holes.
Despite the obvious bias for theism in general and the Judeo-Christian Deity specifically, in my opinion Ross' approach could have some positive value for both the integrity of science and for Christians in general. Unlike his many competitors, from Kent Hovind to Phil Johnson (Or Ken Ham and AiG discussed below), Dr. Ross displays an infectious enthusiasm for science, as well as portraying natural processes as methods used by God to Create, thus potentially soothing the latent fear among some in religious circles that science seeks to destroy their faith. He accepts radiometric and other dating results, he accepts that there was almost certainly no recent Global Flood, he advertises the Big Bang as something Christians should be happy to support, he gently points out the massive flaws in Young Earth Creationism using hard data, and he's somewhat critical of tactics used by modern IDCists to promote their view using political pressure instead of valid science. If he stopped right there I doubt many folks would have much reason to criticize him. Ross and faculty are polite, responsive, and all around one the most pleasant and honest groups of Creationists on the planet I've ever dealt with.
But Ross and his faculty regularly cast doubt on common descent in variety of ways, some of them disturbingly similar to YEC distortions; from the old Cambrian Explosion argument to discrediting comparative analysis of nuclear and endosymbiotic genetic material. This is an unfortunate shortcoming in what might otherwise be an exemplary organization in the Creationist Universe.
Ken Ham
Ken Ham is the President of a Young Earth Creationist organization called Answers in Genesis (AiG) who holds the equivalent of a Masters in Education from the University of Queensland, Australia. AiG is self described as "a Christian apologetics ministry that equips the church to uphold the authority of the Bible from the very first verse". In other words, AiG promotes a strict interpretation of the Old Testament from a seven day creation time line to the Noachian Global Flood (and of course they reject common descent). Mr. Ham was born and raised in Australia but-sadly for us in America- now makes his home and bases AiG in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The primary difference between AiG and other Young Earth Creationist (YEC) ministry's, and about the only positive things I can say about the crew at AiG, is that they're upfront about their agenda, they're sharply critical of shady operators. ( Here they ream Kent Hovind ) They spice their arguments with more technical terminology, and most of the staff and faculty at AiG either have real degrees or don't tout fake ones. Outside of that, the methods used by Ham and his group to infect others and screw up education with their anti science mythology are virtually indistinguishable from Hovind and Baugh combined.
Like Hovind, Ham makes dozens, if not hundreds, of appearances each year in churches and revivals where his overall theme is to blame evil atheistic evolutionary biology for every ill suffered by mankind in the last 150 years, and then go on to present the evidence against evolution, against geology, and against anything else which contradicts his anti-science mythology. Using polished communications skills, not to mention sporting one of those catchy Aussie accents, Ham ties abortion, family break-up, homosexuality, drug use, pornography, and so forth to 'evolution' in a point blank manner that would surely leave Jerry Falwell and Tom Delay writhing on the floor in ecstasy.
AiG publishes books, articles, pamphlets, seminar material, produces radio programming, and like Baugh, they're in the lucrative YEC/Creation Museum business, or at least they keep saying they will be soon. The present status of the Museum Project is not clear; last I heard they were breaking ground, but there is some uncertainty if the prject will be finished in the final form Ham claims.
The articles underwritten by AiG follow the neverending anti-science MO of presenting, or contriving, a problem with which ever sub-discipline of mainstream science they happen to be attacking, and then conclude that Biblical Young Earth Creationism wins by default. The arguments are the same-old, same-old; there are no transitional fossils, Noah's Flood explains the observed geological evidence better than anything else, evolution is a dogmatic philosophy about to be toppled by 'real' science (Any day now!), Natural Selection cannot create new information, gaps in the fossil record anywhere are reason to throw the evidence that lies between gaps out the window, etc., vomitus ad nauseum.
Ham and AiG may be as transparently silly as any other anti science YEC to those of us who know the ropes, but they reach millions of people around the world and seem to especially tailor their spiel to kids and teenage evangelical Christians who don't know any better. They even have a theme song "I didn't come from no chimpanzee, my grandad didn't swing from no tree ..."
Make no mistake: Allowing Ham unfettered and unchallenged access to your children's education, your peers, your congregation, or your faith, would be about as well advised from the viewpoint of education, as giving a ride to a mob of fanatical, torch wielding barbarians heading for the Library of Alexandria.
(Note-I'll wrap this series up tomorrow morning with a final installment on a positive note; reviewing a devout Evangelical Christian Creationist who is honest, well trained in multiple fields of science, and whose version of Creationism is completely consistent with modern science in every way. Many thanks to those of you who've been willing to slog through this series, and made encouraging comments and/or e-mails)