This review was written some time in the past. McClaren's web page now appears now to have been discontinued.
As he stated in his lengthy "Information Central" web site, Craig was an 18 year old college freshman who, on the basis of reading a few creationist publications, considers himself to be a scientist with a mission: to "expose" the "lies" of evolution. He describes the contents of his web page by stating: You will not find a more complete and concise description of evolution anywhere on the internet.
Like all creationists, Craig McClaren prefers the simplistic answers in creationist dogma over the tedious work of mastering the hundreds of concepts, relationships, and other information characteristic of legitimate science. His lengthy web site attacks evolutionary science with the usual misinformation and lack of critical thinking. It is entirely negative in scope and presents no credible defense of creationist dogma. All of the claims in his web site have been refuted many times over by a rational evaluation of the factual information. Most of that information can be found at this web site.
McClaren's web page starts off with the following statement:
Welcome to Information Central, your source for all information you need on various topics with special emphasis placed on Volcanology, Geology, Geophysics, and evolutionary theory. The goal of this page, when completed, is to equip you with any information you may require as thoroughly and concisely as possible. Please feel free to look about as long as you like.
From McClaren's "Evolution Series" sidebar on the main page of his web site:
You are about to embark on a wonderful journey through knowledge. You will learn things you never knew existed. You will understand things that you never thought you'd be able to learn. And finally you will learn things about stuff you thought you already knew about...and will be blown away. I have provided two educational series for you to follow. It is your choice as to which you choose. I encourage you to pick wisely. The first is named "The Full Education Series". Through this series you will grasp key concepts in many of the most cutting edge fields of science. You will learn about our Earth and Universe and how many scientists believe it came about. After progressing through several fields of geoscience and astrophysics you will enter the second half of your journey. This is "The Evolution Series." The Evolution Series has been created separately from the Full Education Series for ease of use. By doing this, those of you who are interested solely in the Evolutionary aspect of this web site may find what they are looking for without the hassle of unwanted information. The Evolution Series will open your eyes to the true faults and misconceptions of Evolution. One can find information about evolution in a million places, but the Evolutionary Series provides the most thorough and yet concise explanation of this misunderstood science. Far from fanatic, I have thoroughly researched every portion of this web site and these series to make absolutely sure that every statement made is true and indisputable. You will not find a more complete and concise description of evolution anywhere on the internet. And now I invite you to take your pick.
McClaren's web site is too voluminous for a detailed rebuttal of the entire web site. But I have selected the following as typical of his make-believe misinformation. It was taken from the "Big Water Theory" section of McClaren's "Evolution Series" web page. The paragraphs are numbered for reference, and my comment follows.
[1] In the beginning God created the Earth and all that was in it. He divided the water into the seas and the firmament. God set this firmament at a rotation about the Earth too slow to take on a perfect orbit so that it would slowly spiral into the Earth's atmosphere. Every day the humidity would rise steadily as the firmament fell into the Earth and every night there would fall a heavy dew as the Earth cooled and the air let go it's [sic] moisture.
[2] As the years went by, the water began to collect in underground reservoirs such as vast water tables. In some areas the water tables would become exceptionally deep as water seemed to accumulate in those regions to form virtual subterrainean [sic] lakes and oceans.
[3] Now one may estimate from genealogies that there were at least 1656 years between the fall of man and the flood. If the firmament dropped approximately 2 cm of moisture for every twenty-four hour period, there would be plenty of water to support a global tropical environment which would stifle any chance of weather as described in the bible. As the firmament continued to spiral into the Earth it began to disappear over the polar regions of the Earth and form a more disc like structure. As the firmament disappeared around the polar regions, those regions became cooler and more arid.
[4] Now over the course of those 1656 years a total accumulation of 1208.88 kg of water would accumulate for every centimeter of earth. This added weight put a great deal more pressure on the core than at the time of creation when there did not exist so much weight on the earth's surface.
[5] Deep in the Earth's core, divinely directed or not, but none the less, divinely predicted, two hydrogen atoms collided and fused together. A limited chain reaction ensued which created a huge release of energy that sent a massive shockwave radiating toward the Earth's surface.
[6] When the shockwave reached the Earth's crust, it was felt as a rather strong earth quake, but not much more because the wave had dissipated to quite some degree since it's formation. It was a very different story where the subterrainean reservoirs existed. These massive reservoirs would most certainly have taken up a great deal of space between the surface and the upper mantle. When the shockwave hit the rock boundary between the reservoirs and the molten mantle rock, it broke free much as a wave coming ashore does. Behind the barage of rock came a huge and rapid flow of advancing mantle rock as the very high pressure behind it pushed it up through the new medium. The land or lakes above these massive reservoirs exploded outward with the advance of the mantle rock behind it. Billions upon billions of gallons of water were instantly released from the Earth's interior at this time and raging tsunamis swept over the lower portions of the Earth. As the reservoirs emptied after the initial blast, a raising water level would gradually cover most of the Earth's surface. This is what was meant when it is said "the fountains of the deep were opened."
[7] Now it is well known that at the beginning of the flood it began to rain. When the shockwave passed through the Earth's outer core, it completely disrupted all convection which in turn destroyed the protective magnetosphere that protected the Earth and it's surrounding firmament from solar winds. With the protective magnetosphere gone, the solar winds struck against the firmament and caused it to begin to condense and rain down upon the Earth.
[8] It took at least 39 days for the convection within the core to restart and reform the magnetosphere. After 40 days the rain stopped. With the increase in geologic activity following the shockwave, the land below took on the extensive features we see today. The highlands rose up and the basins sank, taking with them much of the water to reveal those highlands. The water that remained at the surface after this was absorbed into the land as water tables, into the sky as clouds and humidity and frozen into massive glaciers at the northern and southern regions of the globe.
[9] These glaciers occured for this reason. Water as you well know, is extremely efficient in absorbing heat and reflecting light. Remember that in the polar areas there no longer existed a firmament because it was taking on a disc-like structure. Because there was no firmament in that region to insulate it and so much heat was lost because no land was above water, a very rapid and extreme cooling occured that locked up an extremely substantial amount of water. The years following were the Ice Age.
McClaren states that God set the firmament into a rotating orbit. [1] Any material orbiting the earth must be in a plane that would intersect the center of the earth. (McClaren does state in [9] the firmament was "taking on a disk-like structure" at the polar regions, but that was, according to him, 1656 years later.) An example of orbiting material are the rings around the planet Saturn. It is physically impossible for any material, e.g. the "firmament," to orbit the earth and still exist as a kind of covering over the entire earth. There is a fixed mathematical relation between orbital velocity and the elevation of the orbiting material. McClaren's statement states that the waters of the firmament were no higher than the limits of the atmosphere. In order to maintain an orbit, the material would have to travel at a velocity of 16,000 miles per hour!
McClaren states that [1] [2] that a nightly accumulation of heavy dew accumulated into vast subterranean oceans. Rain has been falling on the earth for thousands of years since the alleged Genesis flood. Where are the subterranean oceans resulting from this precipitation? They don't exist. A limited accumulation of ground water by no means constitutes the existence of McClaren's alleged vast subterranean oceans. He assumes that the "heavy dew" deposit would correspond to 2 centimeters per day precipitation world-wide for 1656 years. Multiplying 2 cm per day times 365 days per year times 1656 years gives an answer of 1,208.88 meters of water depth. McClaren claims that none of this water evaporated back into the atmosphere, but instead accumulated in the vast subterranean oceans. Therefore, according to him, originally it must have all been present as water clouds in the "firmament above." He repeats the old creationist "vapor canopy creating a tropical environment" argument. If the vapor canopy actually could exist as a cloud cover containing the enormous amount of water claimed, it would essentially block all of the sun's radiation, resulting in very cold temperatures indeed. (In fact, it is completely impossible for the atmosphere to hold that amount of moisture-click on the vapor canopy section of my site.)
McClaren states that that a naturally occurring hydrogen bomb spontaneously exploded deep in the earth's core, [5] and that this suddenly opened the subterranean oceans. He goes on to state: "Billions upon billions of gallons of water were instantly released from the Earth's interior at this time and raging tsunamis swept over the lower portions of the Earth." [6] The assumption that a hydrogen bomb explosion could occur spontaneously in the earth's core is contrary to everything that is known about atomic reactions. This type of reaction can only occur naturally in the interior of a star. Furthermore, there is no evidence whatever that hydrogen atoms could or did exist deep in the earth's iron/nickel core. Also, tsunamis are extremely destructive. How did the ark survive all this destruction? Answer: it could not have survived.
His explanation of the mechanisms creating the "opening of the fountains of the deep" goes as follows: (1) An H-bomb reaction spontaneously took place in the earth's core, then (2) this disrupted convection currents in the earth's outer core, then (3) this destroyed the earth's protective magnetosphere, causing (4) solar wind radiation to strike the upper atmosphere, causing (5) a heavy rain to fall from the remaining "vapor canopy," which ceased after (6) the outer core convection currents spontaneously re-started after 40 days. There is no evidence whatever that any of these events ever happened or could have happened. There is no evidence whatever that any of these alleged events could have caused the subsequent event. The whole series is merely creationist make-believe pseudo science.
Rain falls when warm moist air encounters a cold front. The cold front absorbs the heat of condensation from the warm moist air, allowing it to fall as liquid water. The amount of heat needed to be absorbed to condense the moisture is enormous. If a universal cloud existed, where was the cold front needed to cause it to condense and fall as liquid water?
McClaren's arguments are obviously bible-based. However, the bible says nothing at all about catastrophic events before and during the Genesis flood. That particular piece of creationist make-believe has neither scientific nor biblical support.
McClaren makes the statement: " Far from fanatic, I have thoroughly researched every portion of this web site and these series to make absolutely sure that every statement made is true and indisputable."
McClaren is ignorant of the basic facts of high school physics regarding water vapor heat of condensation.