User:Lenoxus/flood geology

The first sentence currently reads as follows: Flood geology is a "branch" of "creation science", and is most used in young earth creationism to try and "prove" that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.

Each use of scarequotes here is, in my opinion, incorrect. The distinction here is subtle, but… if I use scarequotes, that means that I am using the word in question in a sarcastic or euphemistic manner, and that there's another word which would much more accurately fit. For example, if I say Jared will be here very "soon", the implication is that he'll be late.

Now, it might appear that, for example, the word prove clearly should have scarequotes, because creation science doesn't remotely prove a young earth. But notice that it's embedded in the phrase "used by young earth creationism to try and prove". This really is true of young-earth creationism — they aren't trying to "prove" it, where prove is a weird euphemism for something else. What matter is that they think of themselves as proving. If we wanted to keep the quotes, that part of the sentence would need to be reworded as something like Flood geology "proves" a young Earth. As it stands, the sentence is something like, Jared says he'll be here "soon"; the implication is that Jared himself is using the scarequotes, so to speak.