Young Earth Creationism

[Guyver]

At least eleven. I might like to add a few others. First, let me say that by definition I am not a young-earth creationist. That is to say, I believe that the earth is older than 10,000 years. However, I have come across some interesting points that argue against the currently accepted 4.5 billion year age of earth.

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c012.html

Could it be that the currently held position of scientific evolution is providing people with an inaccurate age of our planet and by extension our origins?

[Cradle of Fish]

The article betrays an amazing misunderstanding of science. None of those things have to do with Evolution or Biology. They have to do with Geology and Astronomy.

That Biblical time scale one cracks me up. The earliest civilisations, Indus Valley, Ancient Sumer, Minoan Crete, Norte Chico, were not Jewish, and were not even monotheistic. You'd think monotheism would be fresh in their minds after only a few hundred years on planet earth.

[Shaftsbury]

At least eleven. I might like to add a few others. First, let me say that by definition I am not a young-earth creationist. That is to say, I believe that the earth is older than 10,000 years. However, I have come across some interesting points that argue against the currently accepted 4.5 billion year age of earth.

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c012.html

Could it be that the currently held position of scientific evolution is providing people with an inaccurate age of our planet and by extension our origins?

Imagine my disappointment when your "scientific proofs" were blocked by the network firewall. ( blocks smut, streaming video, religion, etc...)

To answer your question, I believe it's more like science is providing the most accurate dates it is able to give using the available evidence and technology.

If young-earth ceationists have a problem with those dates then they need to do the proper research and publish their own data, not just badmouth scientists and rework the existing interpretations.

[churchanddestroy]

At least eleven. I might like to add a few others. First, let me say that by definition I am not a young-earth creationist. That is to say, I believe that the earth is older than 10,000 years. However, I have come across some interesting points that argue against the currently accepted 4.5 billion year age of earth.

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c012.html

Could it be that the currently held position of scientific evolution is providing people with an inaccurate age of our planet and by extension our origins?

Two words: Radiometric Dating.

[Leonardo]

#1.

According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system, about five billion years. Yet each time a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical maximum ages (on this basis) of 10,000 years.(1)

Evolutionists explain this discrepancy by assuming that (a) comets come from an unobserved spherical 'Oort cloud' well beyond the orbit of Pluto, ( improbable gravitational interactions with infrequently passing stars often knock comets into the solar system, and © other improbable interactions with planets slow down the incoming comets often enough to account for the hundreds of comets observed.(2) So far, none of these assumptions has been substantiated either by observations or realistic calculations.

Lately, there has been much talk of the 'Kuiper Belt', a disc of supposed comet sources lying in the plane of the solar system just outside the orbit of Pluto. Even if some bodies of ice exist in that location, they would not really solve the evolutionists' problem, since according to evolutionary theory the Kuiper Belt would quickly become exhausted if there were no Oort cloud to supply it.

I find it quite ironic that a site defending the existence of a non-evidential and quite improbable deity use improbability as a means of ridiculing the currently accepted model of our outer solar system and the behaviour of bodies in that region.

Yes, the Oort cloud is still a hypothesis as we have only a little evidence of the actual existence of the entirety of it, however the observations of cometary bodies entering the inner solar system strongly point to a random distribution of bodies in a very large orbit. You will find some info on the reasoning and some evidence of Oort cloud bodies in the links following:

Oort Cloud 1

Oort Cloud 2

Then there is the ipso facto argument they make that, by ruling out the Oort Cloud as 'improbable' (with no evidence to back up why this opinion is worth consideration) they can then reduce the Kuiper Belt to a recent phenomenon by way of it would be exhausted if the scientifically accepted age of the Solar System were true.

Guyver, all the 'scientific proofs' follow the same pattern - no science but baseless and unevidenced opinion. Why did you even bother posting a link to such drivel?

[Guyver]

Wow! One would think that by now I would be used to this type of response. I think maybe only Leo even bothered to read the link. OK. The info is posted on a "Christian" website. Does that necessarily conclude that the information is inherently Christian? No.

Science is based on observation, and measurement among other things. Useless drivel? No. Here are eleven observations of our world substantiated by science and no one has yet to refute even one of them.

Each of these observations deserves a comment, or at least an acknowledgement that they are real and observable and could cast doubt on your theories. A cursory sledgehammer bash to the Christian website will not suffice. I'm sorry....skeptics unite - you'll have to do better than that.

[AlexG]

There are 23 footnotes in that article.

Nine of them were for creation sources.

Where ever they quote a number, they reference a scientific journal.

When they give a conclusion, they reference the Institute for Creation Research or the 2nd International Conference on Creationism.

Able to reach tall conclusions in a single bound... look up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's The Big Magician In The Sky!

[churchanddestroy]

Wow! One would think that by now I would be used to this type of response. I think maybe only Leo even bothered to read the link. OK. The info is posted on a "Christian" website. Does that necessarily conclude that the information is inherently Christian? No.

Science is based on observation, and measurement among other things. Useless drivel? No. Here are eleven observations of our world substantiated by science and no one has yet to refute even one of them.

Each of these observations deserves a comment, or at least an acknowledgement that they are real and observable and could cast doubt on your theories. A cursory sledgehammer bash to the Christian website will not suffice. I'm sorry....skeptics unite - you'll have to do better than that.

Again, two words for you Guyver: Radiometric dating. Deal with it.

[ravergirl]

I read the article fully.

I would like to find out what any scientists on here think about the radiohalos (or whatever.) that is the one that caught my attention, since as many of you know....I have issues with radiometric dating. Not that I don't think that it is a good process, only that I don't understand how something can be uneffected by anything as ionic decay has been presented to be. I have recieved a lot of flack for it too. As far as the ocean floor...im not so sure about that either, we just don't know much about the deepest parts of the ocean. and that includes how much sediment lies there.

The salinity (spelling?) of the ocean was a good point in the article, I thought.

[SQLserver]

Oooooh, goody!

This is one of my favorite lists!

http://www.geocities.com/qraal/evidences.html

Done!

Heck, I'll continue just because this is fun!

1. Comets disintegrate too quickly.

EvoWiki says:

# In order to calculate the number of comets that should exist today, we need to know not only the rate at which they are being removed from the system, but also the rate at which they are being added. If, for example, the two rates are identical then no problem exists. This rate is one of the fundamental assumptions of this form of dating method, so evidence must be provided for it being less that the removal rate and more-or-less constant over a long time before the dating method can be used.

# Comets lose material mainly when they enter the inner solar system and are heated by the sun. Short-period comets (i.e., comets of the inner solar system that frequent our skies) do lose material quickly. Long-period comets originate from the distant reach of the solar system and can spend billions of years away from the sun's heat. Their material is preserved. Long period comets originate from the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. Objects within the Kuiper Belt have been directly observed. Although the Oort Cloud has not been directly observed, there are many direct observations of long-period comets whose orbits extend out to the region of the Oort Cloud.

# Consider a 10-year-period comet: If this comet was created at the YEC moment of Creation, 6 to 10 millennia ago, it's made at least 600 passes near the Sun, which is more than enough to boil it down to the bare rock. Thus, under a YEC paradigm, there are only two alternatives: Either (a) Short-period comets simply don't exist, or else ( There is a mechanism which replenishes the supply of comets.

* Matson, Dave E., 1994. How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments? [1]

And on the Oort Cloud:

# Many Kuiper Belt Objects have been directly observed (i.e., many objects orbiting the sun at the distance defined as the Kuiper Belt). Pluto and Charon (Pluto's moon) can be considered two of them.

# Although the Oort Cloud has not been directly observed, its presence is strongly suggested by the direct observation of long-period comets that occasionally pass through the inner solar system.

# Let us suppose the YECs are correct to suppose that the Solar System is only 6 to 10 millenia old. This is long enough for comets of periods 10 years or less to have approached the sun at least 600 times -- and 600+ close Solar approaches is more than enough to boil any comet down to the bare rock. But we still observe short-period comets which have not been boiled down to the bare rock; therefore, even under a YEC time-scale, there must be at least one source of new comets such as the Oort Cloud and/or Kuiper Belt.

# The Oort Cloud is not an ad-hoc hypothesis. It is a necessary consequence of our solar evolution model, and since its proposal has been widely supported by observation. It was not proposed in order to explain the origin of comets, and indeed it is not fundamentally "a region of space filled with comets". Comets are a relatively insignificant ramification of the Oort Cloud's existence, in comparison to many others.

2. Not enough mud on the sea floor.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dav...s/sediment.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dav...ts/mineral.html

3. Not enough sodium in the sea.

http://toarchive.org/indexcc/CD/CD221_1.html

4. Earth's magnetic field is decaying too fast.

http://toarchive.org/indexcc/CD/CD701.html

5. Many strata are too tightly bent.

"Actually, if these strata were bent quickly, they probably would have fractured. Take a piece of silly putty, for instance, and try to pull it apart quickly. Try this again, but this time slowly. You will find that the quicker you pull it apart, the less it stretches. The principal behind rocks bending over long periods of time rather than instantaneously is the same."

http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi?act...p;t=136&m=1

6. Injected sandstone shortens geologic 'ages'.

See the first link.

7. Fossil radioactivity shortens geologic 'ages' to a few years.

See the first link.

and

http://toarchive.org/indexcc/CF/CF201.html

8. Helium in the wrong places.

http://toarchive.org/indexcc/CE/CE001.html

9. Not enough Stone Age skeletons.

Wrong.

http://toarchive.org/indexcc/CC/CC030.html

10. Agriculture is too recent.

I love the ridiculous BS ones like these. Seriously, wtf? People evolved to use agriculture around 12,000 years ago, maybe earlier... That's all there is to it.

11. History is too short.

... Is this a joke?

Cheers,

SQLserver

[SQLserver]

Wow! One would think that by now I would be used to this type of response. I think maybe only Leo even bothered to read the link. OK. The info is posted on a "Christian" website. Does that necessarily conclude that the information is inherently Christian? No.

Science is based on observation, and measurement among other things. Useless drivel? No. Here are eleven observations of our world substantiated by science and no one has yet to refute even one of them.

Each of these observations deserves a comment, or at least an acknowledgement that they are real and observable and could cast doubt on your theories. A cursory sledgehammer bash to the Christian website will not suffice. I'm sorry....skeptics unite - you'll have to do better than that.

Seriously Guyver. You've got to step it up.

This Creationist nonsense is like from 10 years ago. It's been debunked numerous times: Most Creationists have dropped it.

You've got to keep up with the times! You are still at "Classic Creationism". The rest of your pals are already past the "Intelligent Design" step, and are now at the "It's our freedom to lie in schools" step.

Cheers,

SQLserver

[Lt_Ripley]

2. Not enough mud on the sea floor.

lmao. ok ouch my sides.

1. when was the last time they actually measured how much silt was on the sea floor ? I don't believe an actual measurement exists. not to mention a measurement off a shelf will be different that the actual sea floor.

2. the sea floor isn't fixed. ever hear of plate tectonics and continental drift ? it getting pushed back into the mantel ? That's what happened during the tsunami remember ? we call them earth quakes. that the sea floor of ancient times can be found on mountain tops ? in deserts ?

some of these are just funny

9. Not enough Stone Age skeletons. ??

11. History is too short. ??

[ravergirl]

Seriously Guyver. You've got to step it up.

This Creationist nonsense is like from 10 years ago. It's been debunked numerous times: Most Creationists have dropped it.

You've got to keep up with the times! You are still at "Classic Creationism". The rest of your pals are already past the "Intelligent Design" step, and are now at the "It's our freedom to lie in schools" step.

Cheers,

SQLserver

by lie in school I assume you are about the teching ID in schools. lets see.....what lies have they taught in school already.

THE LIES

I know it is a humor website, however, I don't think it is funny.

Edited December 23, 2008 by ravergirl

[SQLserver]

by lie in school I assume you are about the teching ID in schools. lets see.....what lies have they taught in school already.

THE LIES

Nah, I meant something more like what Guyver posted above. Basically, "Academic Freedom" Bills such as the one passed in Louisiana give teachers the complete right to lie in schools.

Cheers,

SQLserver

[ravergirl]

Nah, I meant something more like what Guyver posted above. Basically, "Academic Freedom" Bills such as the one passed in Louisiana give teachers the complete right to lie in schools.

Cheers,

SQLserver

Really...WTH.

I am all for splitting time between evolution theories and creation theories...I think that it has benifits.

but passing a bill to teach lies. thats crazy.

[SQLserver]

Really...WTH.

I am all for splitting time between evolution theories and creation theories...I think that it has benifits.

but passing a bill to teach lies. thats crazy.

Well, the bill says:

The bill contends that "the teaching of some scientific subjects, such as biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning, can cause controversy, and that some teachers may be unsure of the expectations concerning how they should present information on such subjects," and extends permission to Louisiana's teachers to "help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories pertinent to the course being taught."

This is the problem. What students are going to be able to reply correctly to "evidence" such as Guyver's? Not too many. The fact is, those who have strong religious beliefs that contradict Evolution have shown themselves to consistently lie, misinform, and do a relatively awful job teaching science. They've shown the world that they cannot be trusted. Considering that a large number of grade school teachers aren't exactly educated in Biology and Evolution, and that a large number of them are Creationists, we cannot allow teachers to review "scientific weaknesses" of scientific theories that aren't defined or accepted by the scientific community.

Cheers,

SQLserve

[Guyver]

This Creationist nonsense is like from 10 years ago. It's been debunked numerous times: Most Creationists have dropped it.

You've got to keep up with the times! You are still at "Classic Creationism". The rest of your pals are already past the "Intelligent Design" step, and are now at the "It's our freedom to lie in schools" step.

SQLserver

Infidels.org? Really SQL? Infidels.org? At least you tried to put up a rebuttal. I don't know about this stuff being old, a good wine needs to age. This really isn't about intelligent design right now, it's about "natural clocks." At least some of these natural clocks are worthy of consideration. I think points 3, 4, and 5 are a good example of this.

For Church and his two words; radiometeric dating - how did you like #6?

[churchanddestroy]

For Church and his two words; radiometeric dating - how did you like #6?

I don't think either you or your friends over at Christian Answers.net even remotely comprehend radiometric dating methods, or how they work.

How does this:

Strong geologic evidence(14) exists that the Cambrian Sawatch sandstone—formed an alleged 500 million years ago—of the Ute Pass Fault, west of Colorado Springs, was still unsolidified when it was extruded up to the surface during the uplift of the Rocky Mountains, allegedly 70 million years ago. It is very unlikely that the sandstone would not solidify during the supposed 430 million years it was underground. Instead, it is likely that the two geologic events were less than hundreds of years apart, thus greatly shortening the geologic time-scale.

Pertain to radiometric dating? It doesn't. However, here is a link to refute that: Link (credit to SQL)

I think, however, you meant to refer to "evidence" #7, which says:

Radiohalos are rings of color formed around microscopic bits of radioactive minerals in rock crystals. They are fossil evidence of radioactive decay.(15) 'Squashed' Polonium-210 radiohalos indicate that Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene formations in the Colorado plateau were deposited within months of one another, not hundreds of millions of years apart as required by the conventional time-scale.(16) 'Orphan' Polonium-218 radiohalos, having no evidence of their mother elements, imply either instant creation or drastic changes in radioactivity decay rates.(17,18)

Thank you talk origins!

Also here

Here, as well.

C'mon Guyver, that wasn't even a challenge.

[Guyver]

Thank you talk origins!

Also here

Here, as well.

C'mon Guyver, that wasn't even a challenge.

It wasn't a challenge because it wasn't a successful rebuttal. One of your links didn't work, the other was from Talkorigins, and here's a quote from the third.

Numerous attempts have been made to counteract Gentry's claim and to show that Po halos are formed by less dramatic processes. None of these has been fully satisfactory.

The other does go on to state his problems with Dr. Gentry's "Po Halo" theory and cited four "odd" conditions. I hardly think that proves or disproves anything. But that's standard operating procedure around here.

The helium issue (#8) was new to me.

8. Helium in the wrong places.

All naturally occurring families of radioactive elements generate helium as they decay. If such decay took place for billions of years, as alleged by evolutionists, much helium should have found its way into the Earth's atmosphere. The rate of loss of helium from the atmosphere into space is calculable and small. Taking that loss into account, the atmosphere today has only 0.05% of the amount of helium it would have accumulated in five billion years.(19) This means the atmosphere is much younger than the alleged evolutionary age.

A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows that helium produced by radioactive decay in deep, hot rocks has not had time to escape. Though the rocks are supposed to be over one billion years old, their large helium retention suggests an age of only thousands of years.(20)

I thought this particularly interesting because I was unaware that all radioactive elements generated helium as they decay. Call me a rookie, but I'm still looking forward to your side's refutation of this point.

[SQLserver]

Are you insane?

Do you still think you're actually getting somewhere? Was I not clear? Did I not post information and several links explaining all of this nonsense?

I posted links to SEVERAL sites. Not just infidels.

OK. Hold on a second. Let's just pretend that you were actually being serious here, and actually believed any of this crap you've posted.

If that was true, you'd obviously care if it was wrong. Then, you'd take a look at our explanations as to why it is all complete BS, and create a counter-argument.

Because you are incapable of doing so, I have concluded that you posted this for your own amusement, and you do genuinely not believe all of it. Unless you are seriously disturbed, and I don't think you are, then you would care a little bit If you actually believed this nonsense. However, it is quite evident that you do not seem to be serious.

Lets try this again, Guyver.

1. Comets disintegrate too quickly.

EvoWiki says:

# In order to calculate the number of comets that should exist today, we need to know not only the rate at which they are being removed from the system, but also the rate at which they are being added. If, for example, the two rates are identical then no problem exists. This rate is one of the fundamental assumptions of this form of dating method, so evidence must be provided for it being less that the removal rate and more-or-less constant over a long time before the dating method can be used.

# Comets lose material mainly when they enter the inner solar system and are heated by the sun. Short-period comets (i.e., comets of the inner solar system that frequent our skies) do lose material quickly. Long-period comets originate from the distant reach of the solar system and can spend billions of years away from the sun's heat. Their material is preserved. Long period comets originate from the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. Objects within the Kuiper Belt have been directly observed. Although the Oort Cloud has not been directly observed, there are many direct observations of long-period comets whose orbits extend out to the region of the Oort Cloud.

# Consider a 10-year-period comet: If this comet was created at the YEC moment of Creation, 6 to 10 millennia ago, it's made at least 600 passes near the Sun, which is more than enough to boil it down to the bare rock. Thus, under a YEC paradigm, there are only two alternatives: Either (a) Short-period comets simply don't exist, or else (cool.gif There is a mechanism which replenishes the supply of comets.

* Matson, Dave E., 1994. How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments? [1]

And on the Oort Cloud:

# Many Kuiper Belt Objects have been directly observed (i.e., many objects orbiting the sun at the distance defined as the Kuiper Belt). Pluto and Charon (Pluto's moon) can be considered two of them.

# Although the Oort Cloud has not been directly observed, its presence is strongly suggested by the direct observation of long-period comets that occasionally pass through the inner solar system.

# Let us suppose the YECs are correct to suppose that the Solar System is only 6 to 10 millenia old. This is long enough for comets of periods 10 years or less to have approached the sun at least 600 times -- and 600+ close Solar approaches is more than enough to boil any comet down to the bare rock. But we still observe short-period comets which have not been boiled down to the bare rock; therefore, even under a YEC time-scale, there must be at least one source of new comets such as the Oort Cloud and/or Kuiper Belt.

# The Oort Cloud is not an ad-hoc hypothesis. It is a necessary consequence of our solar evolution model, and since its proposal has been widely supported by observation. It was not proposed in order to explain the origin of comets, and indeed it is not fundamentally "a region of space filled with comets". Comets are a relatively insignificant ramification of the Oort Cloud's existence, in comparison to many others.

Another Explanation:

Evidence 2: Comets disintegrate too quickly

According to Humphreys comets only last a few thousand years before they disintegrate or become invisible after running out of gas and dust. What he fails to mention is the fact that comets come in two varieties, long period comets and short period comets. Most long period comets take thousands to millions of years to complete a single orbit, and since comet disintegration takes perhaps hundreds of orbits, this makes for a very long life indeed.

Long period comets that are first time visitors to the inner solar-system have orbits that average around 22,000 times the size of the Earth's orbit [an Astronomical Unit, or AU] and fall from any direction with respect to the plane of the orbits of the planets. This led two astronomers, Oort and Opik, to suggest independently that such comets come from a spherical 'cloud'. This is the Opik-Oort Cloud, or just Oort Cloud, of comets. Such comets can't be seen so far from the Sun, but their orbits can be modelled mathematically.

Comet Halley [orbital period 76 years] is an example of a short-period comet. After a visit by a variety of spacecraft in 1986 its expected life-span grew from a few thousand to perhaps 250,000 years because its size was greater than expected. But eventually short-period comets die-out and so a source of such comets is needed. In about 1950 two astronomers, Edgeworth and Kuiper, suggested a disk of comets just beyond Neptune as the source of short-period comets based on the nature of their orbits NOT the need for a supply of comets. In the 1980s the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt [or Disk] was modelled mathematically and it was shown that it could resupply short period comets in the observed numbers. By the early 1990s telescopes were finally able to observe comets in the EK Belt. Since the first discovery in 1992 over 700 have been found.

Humphreys dismisses this discovery and claims, oddly, that the Oort Cloud is needed to resupply the Kuiper Belt. This is total nonsense and shows Humphreys' total ignorance of the mathematical modelling involved, and his lack of acquaintance with current observations and theory of the Belt. If he actually knew the field he would know that mathematical modelling predicts both the Cloud and the Belt, and since the discovery of the Kuiper Belt has vindicated one set of modelling, the Opik-Oort Cloud is now even more likely.

Info on the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt:

http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~jewitt/kb.html

Refutation of this argument:

http://www.tim-thompson.com/resp9.html

2. Not enough mud on the sea floor.

Answer 1:

21. This is the other half of Nevins' argument (see point #15). Dr. Hovind has botched it further by asserting that only a few thousand year's worth of sediment is on the ocean floor! In the case of the Atlantic Ocean, the sediment varies in thickness. The thinnest sediment is near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where new sea floor is currently being generated. That is to say, sediment thickness there is zero. The thickest sediment hugs the continental margins, which certainly have more than a few thousand years of accumulation. Try around 150 million year's worth! Funny, that the measured rate of sea floor spreading, when extrapolated backwards in time, gives the same age for the Atlantic sea floor as does radiometric dating. Funny, how the sediment gets thicker and thicker as one moves away from the sea floor spreading zone! That is, the farther we get from the Mid-Atlantic ridge the thicker the sediment tends to get; that thickness correlates with increased age of the sea floor as determined by radiometric dating as well as the known rate at which the Atlantic is widening. (Funny, how Dr. Hovind always comes up with "a few thousand years" no matter what we are looking at!)

What are the odds of such a triple "coincidence" occurring? It's easy to see why scientists "bet" on an oldearth. And what about those magnetic stripes on the Atlantic sea floor? If that ocean floor is indeed spreading, then the thickness of those stripes and their distance from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge preserve a chronological record of magnetic field reversals. When those distances and widths are divided by the sea floor spreading rate, do we get a match with the magnetic reversal chronology based on the radiometric dating of continental rocks? Yes, we do!

Here is another interesting but little known fact. Mathematical calculations done by Dan McKenzie in 1967 indicated that an ocean floor, spreading at a few inches per year from a rift which adds new material, would cool and contract. It would sink deeper into the mantle as it contracted. "The process is so undeviating that there is a striking relationship between the age of the sea floor and the depth of water covering it." (Miller, 1983, p.122)

John Sclater and his students at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California, put McKenzie's theory to the test in 1971. They gathered up every scrap of data on the age and depth of the Pacific sea floor. McKenzie's theory was confirmed! The increasing depths of the older portions of the Pacific floor were a result of thermal contraction. Plate tectonics even explained the basic facts about the depth of the Pacific!

That's bad news for those creationists who believe that the earth's plates did some dancing after Noah's flood. In the few thousand years that creationists have to play around with, there is not enough time for a growing ocean plate to cool down. That means the plate would not sink as a result of greater density due to cooling and contraction, meaning that the Western Pacific would not be any deeper than the Eastern Pacific. Isn't that amazing! Instantdrift creationists have another problem. (Actually they have bushels of problems, but we don't have yards of space.) Like Silly Putty (remember that?) the earth's mantle will flow like a liquid if enough time is allowed, but it will act like a solid if you try to rush things. A stick of oldfashioned Silly Putty will, if left to own sweet time, melt into a puddle -- and even into the sofa! However, if you try to bend that stick quickly it will snap in two as though it were a piece of glass! For similar reasons, there is absolutely no way to significantly speed up the drift of continents or the spreading of ocean floors. It would be like driving through solid rock!

Dr. Hovind's bizarre suggestion that plate tectonics is an evolutionist's means for escaping an embarrassing dilemma doesn't really merit comment since there is no dilemma. Strange, that the theory of continental drift was fiercely opposed by most "evolutionary" geologists at first! Stranger still, how some discoveries in the late sixties brought them all around! It looks like a case of follow-the-evidence rather than a conspiracy! We might note, in passing, that plate tectonics became an observed fact in 1985! The Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) technique, in combination with laser ranging techniques, have successfully measured the movement of the earth's plates relative to one another (Strahler, 1987, p.212). Since 1979, such measurements have continually been taken by NASA's Crustal Dynamics Project, which has removed any doubt that the continents are indeed "drifting." (Note: the continents don't "drift" by any efforts of their own, they just hitch a ride on the earth's mantle material as it moves away from oceanic ridges.)

Answer 2:

13. In the case of aluminum we "get" only 100 years! In the case of sodium we "get" 260 million years. Where Dr. Hovind gets his "few thousand years," as though there were some kind of general agreement, is anyone's guess.

The table that one sees in a couple of Henry Morris' books was copied from a chapter by Goldberg (1965) that appears in Riley and Skirrow (1965).

Goldberg's [1965] Table I is a list of the abundances and residence times of the elements in sea water; it is these residence times that Morris [1974, 1977] and Morris and Parker [1982] give as indicated ages of the Earth. The residence time of an element, however is the average time that any small amount of an element remains in seawater before it is removed, not, as stated by Morris [1974], the time "to accumulate in ocean from river inflow," and has nothing to do with the ages of either the Earth or the ocean. Morris [1974, 1974a, 1977] and Morris and Parker [1982] have totally misrepresented the data listed in Goldberg's [1965] table.

(Dalrymple, 1984, 116)

Dalrymple concludes with:

The influx of chemicals to the ocean is an invalid and worthless method of determining the age of the Earth. Morris [1974, 1977] and Morris and Parker [1982] have misrepresented fundamental geochemical data and ignored virtually everything that is known about the geochemistry of seawater.

(Dalrymple, 1984, p.116)

It's all in a day's work for your typical creationist author! They are quite good at ignoring unfavorable facts. Never mind that the elements are in approximate equilibrium with the ocean; never mind that residence times are not the times for elements to accumulate from river inflow. Never mind that plankton concentrates these elements sometimes a thousand fold or more in their skeletons, and, when they die, they remove these elements from the sea waters (Glenn Morton). Press that banner high and march on! And that's exactly what a new generation of creationists are doing with this intellectually dishonest argument.

Answer 3:

Evidence 3: Not enough mud on the sea floor

Humphreys claims that not enough mud exists on the sea-floor since after 3 billion years at current levels of erosion the ocean should be 'choked' with kilometres of mud. This argument makes so many geological errors it's hard to know where to start. Firstly, only so much sediment can be eroded into the sea, unless it is replaced somehow. Where new sediment comes from solves Humphrey's supposed puzzle, as we shall see.

Secondly, the more sediment that is eroded, the more water it displaces, not replaces. The ocean can never be ‘choked’ by mud. That might seem like a minor point, but it shows the carelessness of Humphreys’ arguments.

Third, Humphreys ignores the fact that no mainstream geologist claims that the ocean floors are 3 billion years old. Based on plate tectonic theory and direct measurements of seafloor age, the oldest oceanic crust is a mere 180 million years old. Most of it is a lot younger, as new seafloor is continually formed along the mid-oceanic ridges. Older seafloor is subducted into the Earth's mantle, and most of its sediments are scoured off and found in uplifted mountain chains around the world.

Finally Humphreys misrepresents the nature of sea-floor sediments. Out in the deepest oceans, furthermost from land, the sediments are mostly composed of materials formed by plankton, and minerals that precipitate slowly around nodules on the sea-floor. This material does average about 400 metres in thickness and accumulates very slowly. Very little of this sediment is derived directly from river outflow off the land.

Along the edges of the continents, however, are extremely thick layers of sediment derived from river outflows. The actual average amount of sediment in the ocean is about 2,300 metres, some 5.75 times Humphreys' 400 metre average. Hence over 90 million years of erosive sediment exists in the ocean - if erosion was lower in the past it might have taken even longer to accumulate. Subduction is not the main cause of removal of such sediment. Instead it accumulates along what are known as inactive continental margins, until that continent eventually collides with another continental plate and is uplifted, to be eroded into the sea once more. Thus new sediment is created from old sediment that has been solidified and uplifted.

This is the main flaw in Humphreys’ argument. He extrapolates some one-way process until it produces an absurd result and claims that it is a consequence of evolutionary theory. However modern geology depicts the Earth as a dynamic system that is continually recycling its materials between one reservoir and another. Humphreys mentions 1.3 billion tons of sediment is annually subducted into the mantle. It doesn't disappear. Eventually it is melted in the mantle and rises as a great mass of molten material that uplifts the piled up material above it, producing new elevations to be eroded into the sea once again.

Refutation by a Professional:

http://home.entouch.net/dmd/erosion.htm

3. Not enough sodium in the sea.

Answer 1:

Humphreys takes another process and extrapolates it to an absurd degree. This time it is sodium, the metallic half of the ocean’s most common salt. He claims that only 27% of what flows into the ocean is removed. Does he explain all the sources of removal? And does the sodium need to ‘leave’ the ocean in order to be removed from solution in the ocean? In all probability he has neglected all the removal processes. Vast amounts of salt are known to be buried beneath sediment along the continental margins. As sea-levels have changed over time, shallow lagoons and land-locked bays – even seas like the Mediterranean – have become super-saturated with salt, causing it be precipitated on the sea-floor. Also the various minerals dissolved in sea-water can, in the open ocean, interact with the chemically active mid-ocean ridges and be locked away beneath the seafloor.

Humphreys has assumed that the few processes of removal he has calculated with are the ONLY means for sodium and other dissolved minerals to be removed. But as we have seen from previous 'evidences' he drastically over-simplifies for the sake of a cheap point.

Answer 2:

1. Austin and Humphreys greatly underestimate the amount of sodium lost in the alteration of basalt. They omit sodium lost in the formation of diatomaceous earth, and they omit numerous others mechanisms which are minor individually but collectively account for a significant fraction of salt.

A detailed analysis of sodium shows that 35.6 x 1010 kg/yr come into the ocean, and 38.1 x 1010 kg/yr are removed (Morton 1996). Within measurement error, the amount of sodium added matches the amount removed.

Expert Refutation 1:

http://home.entouch.net/dmd/salt.htm

Expert Refutation 2:

http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199606/0051.html

4. Earth's magnetic field is decaying too fast.

Answer 1:

This argument is really a rehash of an old and totally refuted argument originally developed by Thomas Barnes decades ago. Basically Barnes decided that the Earth's magnetic field was created by electric currents in the Earth's core, which have lost energy since their direct creation by God. He claimed that magnetic field strength measurements over the last 100 years show the Earth's field is decaying.

The field is definitely decreasing in strength - at present - but there's abundant evidence that its strength varies up and down over time, over cycles of tens of thousands of years. This totally invalidates Barnes' original model, but Humphreys has his own version of magnetic field reversals. However he misses the point since once field reversals are taken into account there is no longer any evidence for a short-lived magnetic field.

Answer 2:

1. The earth's magnetic field is known to have varied in intensity (Gee et al. 2000) and reversed in polarity numerous times in the earth's history. This is entirely consistent with conventional models (Glatzmaier and Roberts 1995) and geophysical evidence (Song and Richards 1996) of the earth's interior. Measurements of magnetic field field direction and intensity show little or no change between 1590 and 1840; the variation in the magnetic field is relatively recent, probably indicating that the field's polarity is reversing again (Gubbins et al. 2006).

2. Empirical measurement of the earth's magnetic field does not show exponential decay. Yes, an exponential curve can be fit to historical measurements, but an exponential curve can be fit to any set of points. A straight line fits better.

3. T. G. Barnes (1973) relied on an obsolete model of the earth's interior. He viewed it as a spherical conductor (the earth's core) undergoing simple decay of an electrical current. However, the evidence supports Elsasser's dynamo model, in which the magnetic field is caused by a dynamo, with most of the "current" caused by convection. Barnes cited Cowling to try to discredit Elsasser, but Cowling's theorem is consistent with the dynamo earth.

4. Barnes measures only the dipole component of the total magnetic field, but the dipole field is not a measure of total field strength. The dipole field can vary as the total magnetic field strength remains unchanged.

TalkOrigins refutations:

http://toarchive.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea.html#proof11

http://toarchive.org/faqs/magfields.html

6. Injected sandstone shortens geologic 'ages'.

In this argument Hunphreys claims that tightly bent strata had to be soft while undergoing deformation. He bases this claim on an early 1970s argument from Steve Austin [alias Stuart Nevins.] What does 'soft' sediment mean in the context of sediment hundreds of metres thick? Imagining that 'wet' sediment is like sloppy mud is a gross error, as the weight of thick layers of sediment create high pressures. 'Bending' the water mixed in with the sediment is absurd since water is incompressible. It would erupt through any weakness within the layers [strata] of sediment and such disruption is definitly not seen.

On the very large scales that are involved in geological processes, even 'hard' rock has a very low mechanical strength compared to its bulk. In other words even 'solid' rock is soft enough to distort into tight curves. Slow movements are necessary to compress and deform rock layers else they fracture and faults appear through out the formation involved.

Expert Refutation:

http://home.entouch.net/dmd/clasdyke.htm

7. Fossil radioactivity shortens geologic 'ages' to a few years.

Answer 1:

1. Polonium forms from the alpha decay of radon, which is one of the decay products of uranium. Since radon is a gas, it can migrate through small cracks in the minerals. The fact that polonium haloes are found only associated with uranium (the parent mineral for producing radon) supports this conclusion, as does the fact that such haloes are commonly found along cracks (Brawley 1992; Wakefield 1998).

2. The biotite in which Gentry (1986) obtained some of his samples (Fission Mine and Silver Crater locations) was not from granite, but from a calcite dike. The biotite formed metamorphically as minerals in the walls of the dike migrated into the calcite. Biotite from the Faraday Mine came from a granite pegmatite that intruded a paragneiss that formed from highly metamorphosed sediments. Thus, all of the locations Gentry examined show evidence of an extensive history predating the formation of the micas; they show an appearance of age older than the three minutes his polonium halo theory allows. It is possible God created this appearance of age, but that reduces Gentry's argument to the omphalos argument, for which evidence is irrelevant (Wakefield 1998).

3. Stromatolites are found in rocks intruded by (and therefore older than) the dikes from which Gentry's samples came, showing that living things existed before the rocks that Gentry claimed were primordial (Wakefield 1998).

Answer 2:

This 'evidence' is really two lines of argument from Creationist Robert Gentry, both of which have been thoroughly refuted elsewhere. Gentry claims that 'haloes' of radiation damage in crystalline minerals are unexplainable by mainstream science. He then creates a theory to fit his espoused Flood Geology that includes these 'anomalous' haloes i.e. they are NOT independent evidence indicating Earth's youth. The fact that mainstream explanations do exist utterly negates this supposed evidence.

Also the supposed squashed haloes in coalified wood involves a misunderstanding of how coal forms. Coalification of wood involves water and volatile loss from the wood, and heat and chemical reactions to change it to coal. For it to be a mystery Gentry requires wood to coalify fairly rapidly, but under the right conditions it can remain volatile-rich for a very long time. Wood doesn't become coal immediately when under pressure. This being so 'squashed' haloes don't require rapid geological ages as Humphreys claims.

Expert Refutation 1:

http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/revised8.htm

Expert Refutation 2:

http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/wood.htm

TalkOrigins Refutation:

http://toarchive.org/faqs/po-halos/violences.html

8. Helium in the wrong places.

Answer 1:

1. Helium is a very light atom, and some of the helium in the upper atmosphere can reach escape velocity simply via its temperature. Thermal escape of helium alone is not enough to account for its scarcity in the atmosphere, but helium in the atmosphere also gets ionized and follows the earth's magnetic field lines. When ion outflow is considered, the escape of helium from the atmosphere balances its production from radioactive elements (Lie-Svendsen and Rees 1996).

Lie-Svendsen, O. and M. H. Rees, 1996. Helium escape from the terrestrial atmosphere - the ion outflow mechanism. Journal of Geophysical Research 101: 2435-2443.

Answer 2:

This really constitutes two evidences. One ‘wrong place’ is the atmosphere in which Humphreys claims only 0.05% of several billion years worth currently resides. He claims all the means of removal can be calculated and they don’t remove enough. Since he doesn’t show us the means of removal and the calculations this is hard to check. One removal process is thermal escape which means that helium atoms at the top of atmosphere are hot enough that a proportion escapes the Earth’s gravity into space. This provides about half the removal needed. The rest is lost through energising of the helium by the Solar Wind, a continual stream of particles that fly out from the Sun. The Earth’s magnetic field traps and concentrates the Wind so that it rains down around the north and south poles, and this provides enough energy for light atoms like helium to escape the Earth. Detailed studies have shown this to be sufficient to remove the helium. Humphreys, as a physicist, should know about this process, but I suspect that he has neglected it for the sake of another quick ‘evidence.’

The other helium in the wrong place is helium trapped in crystals [specifically zircons] in hot rocks beneath the Earth. Geothermal heat causes helium created by radioactive decay of uranium and thorium to escape its crystal cage in the zircon. Perhaps in this case there might be accurate reporting of the scientific study involved, as it was by a fellow creationist, but the conclusions may not fit reality. When theory – in this case how long helium takes to escape hot zircons - comes face to face with nature often theory must change.

Also the migration of helium produced by radioactive decay within crystals is used extensively by mainstream geologists to date the heating history of geological formations. They don't find any of the supposed incompatibility with millions of years of geological time that Humphreys and his colleagues imagine. Humphreys has created a 'problem' for geology that just doesn't exist.

NASA on the Polar Gas Escape:

http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast08dec98_1.htm

Expert Refutation:

http://www.tim-thompson.com/resp3.html

TalkOrigins Refutation:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/gentry.html

Expert Refutation 2:

http://www.gondwanaresearch.com/rate.htm#who

9. Not enough Stone Age skeletons.

Answer 1:

1. That may have been true at one time, but there are thousands of hominid fossils now. Lubenow (1992) found that there were fossils from almost 4,000 hominid individuals catalogued as of 1976. As of 1999, there were fossils of about 150 Homo erectus individuals, 90 Australopithecus robustus, 150 Australopithecus afarensis, 500 Neanderthals, and more (Handprint 1999). Foley (2004) lists some of the more prominent fossils.

2. It takes only a handful of fossils to show that hominid forms have changed over time.

Answer 2:

When an animal dies in the wild many different processes work to destroy its remains. Africa has been home to vast herds for thousands of years at least, and yet its soil is not full of bones from the many billions that have lived there. Likewise the millions of bison left to rot in the North American plains after the mass slaughters of the 19th Century have left few, if any traces, of themselves. Flesh rots and is scavenged and even bone will break-down in most soil types. Humphreys tries to make an argument based on the few stone-age burials that have been found, but he neglects the many billions who must have followed from the Copper, Bronze and Iron Ages. Their skeletons and burials don't litter the landscape by the billions either, but they surely existed.

The simple fact is most people were too low on the social ladder to be buried in a fashion that guaranteed preservation. Being placed in a hole and buried in most soil types virtually guaranteed that their remains would be gone in decades at most. For example, many thousands of people were crucified in the Holy Land during the struggles that led up to the war with the Romans of 66-70 CE, yet only one victim of crucifixion has ever been found. Hundreds of ossuaries exist from the time, but crucified criminals rarely received such careful preservation.

Answer 3:

1. The fact that some people buried bodies does not mean all did. In many cases, such as wars, plagues, natural disasters, and lone people getting lost, people get killed without even any consideration of funerals. Some land, such as swamps, hardpans, and ground frozen in winter, makes burial impractical at best. Even today, common funerary practices include incineration, exposure to the scavengers and elements, and burial at sea.

2. Burial alone does not preserve a body.

* In many acid soils, all organic matter can easily decay in 1,000 years. Hot, damp conditions in the tropics will also decay bodies and leech bones quickly.

* Groundwater, plant roots, digging animals, or a combination of these can also speed decay to the point where nothing would remain after a few thousand years.

* Erosion or reuse of the land by humans may unbury the body, at least to the point that the bones are subject to greater decay.

* Sea level rise, volcanism, modern construction, or other processes may make the land unreachable now.

All of these are significant factors. Fossilization is not a common process. And we have examined only a tiny fraction of the land where bodies might be buried. The few thousand remains we have found are well in line with a 185,000-year human history.

We would not expect the burial of artifacts to be common. There would be no reason to bury cheaper tools, such as pounding stones, with people. More valuable artifacts would not likely be buried with poor people.

Expert Refutation 1:

http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/evol.html#chart

Expert Refutation 2:

Lubenow, Marvin, 1992. Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of the Human Fossils. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, chap. 3.

TalkOrigins Refutation:

http://toarchive.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html

10. Agriculture is too recent.

Answer 1:

Unlike physical processes human behaviour is not predictable by equations and extrapolations. Humphreys asks why intelligent stone-age peoples did not figure out the life-cycle of plants and begin planting them deliberately. This ignores rather grossly the many cultures who never adopted agriculture, not changing until they were forced to by more ‘advanced’ cultures. Such peoples understand the life-cycles of plants quite intimately, but have other reasons for not ‘coercing’ nature to behave according to their desires. Instead they migrated to take advantage of the natural seasonal cycles of the many plants they relied on.

While agriculture has many advantages, it does eventually create social inequalities, something that many cultures have realised and have chosen not to allow. Also the nutritional advantages of raising a few crops versus the wide-range of foods that can be foraged is doubtful. Many peoples have suffered dietary deficiencies when forced into inappropriate agriculture. The real mystery is why agriculture was ever adopted, but that is irrelevant to the age of the Earth.

Answer 2:

1. Why is it implausible that humans lived for a long time without agriculture? Agriculture allows higher population densities, but it leads to an overall decrease in the quality of life over that of hunter-gatherers (Diamond 1987). In particular, agriculture requires much more work for a lower quality, less dependable diet, and it increases disease. There was no pressing reason to adopt agriculture in the first place.

2. The end of the last ice age about 10,000 years ago may have facilitated the origin of agriculture at that time. The changed climate may have made agriculture possible in more areas, and/or it may have led to a human population increase which required agriculture to sustain.

3. It is possible that agriculture has been discovered several different times over the last 180,000 years. Climate change, even over relatively short periods of a few decades, has caused the collapse of agricultural societies in historical times, and the climate has changed dramatically over the last 180,000 years. Agriculture in the distant past may have been lost repeatedly.

4. The assumption that humans have not changed in intelligence over the past 185,000 years is unsupportable and many not be true. A team of geneticists has found evidence that human brains have evolved adaptively recently (and may still be evolving). Two genes associated with brain size have genetic variants whose high frequencies indicate that they spread under strong positive selection. A haplotype (genetic variant) of the Microcephalin gene arose about 37,000 years ago (95 percent confidence interval of 14,000 to 60,000 years) (Evans et al. 2005). An ASPM haplotype arose only about 5800 years ago (95 percent confidence interval of 500 to 14,000 years) (Mekel-Bobrov et al. 2005). It should be emphasized that the effects of these haplotypes is currently unknown; the evidence for strong selection indicates only that their effects are important, that humans have evolved recently in some way. It may be significant that they occurred around the same times as the introduction of modern humans to Europe and the origins of art (about 40,000 years ago) and the rise of agriculture and writing (about 10,000 to 6,000 years ago). It is also possible that these genes are not relevant to the origins of agriculture but others are. The larger point is that there is evidence that humans continue to evolve in subtle ways.

5. Regardless of whether we know why more technological progress was not made earlier, humans do have a long record, stretching back much, much farther than 6000 years, and we do have good indications of levels of technology during this history. "I do not know why this happened" does not lead logically to "this did not happen."

Sources:

1. Diamond, Jared. 1987. The worst mistake in the history of the human race. Discover, May: 64-66. http://anthropology.lbcc.edu/handoutsdocs/mistake.pdf

2. Evans, Patrick D. et al. 2005. Microcephalin, a gene regulating brain size, continues to evolve adaptively in humans. Science 309: 1717-1720.

3. Mekel-Bobrov, Nitzan et al. 2005. Ongoing adaptive evolution of ASPM, a brain size determinant in Homo sapiens. Science 309: 1720-1722.

11. History is too short.

Answer 1:

Agriculture brings with it many cultural changes, including cities, significant personal property, and trade. All the earliest known writings are recordkeeping for property in agricultural societies. There was no need for such records before the development of agriculture and its consequences. Thus, the origin of agriculture also determined the origin of writing.

Answer 2:

The birth of cities also saw the birth of writing, according to archaeological investigations of the oldest cities, though pictographic signs have been used by all modern human cultures and possible signs are known from tens of thousands of years ago. Cities can only exist through agriculture and hence this ‘evidence’ is related to number [11], which has a response already. Writing developed as a means of accounting for trade goods and eventually was adapted for its current use through a long evolution through different forms, some of which, like Chinese pictographs, are still used today.

But even the literate ancients did not write history as we normally understand it, but many cultures claim traditions that go back thousands of years beyond the development of writing. For example, Australian Aboriginal society has beginnings 50,000 years old, and while they paint 'signs' they never developed written language and history as we understand it. Yet they retain cultural memories dating right back to their earliest arrival in Australia. Some remember the various floodings that followed the last Ice Age, which sank the land bridges between mainland Australia, Tasmania in the south, and Papua New Guinea in the north. Others remember large extinct animals in various guises as monsters of the Dreaming.

Finally, the development of a certain type of human behaviour is not a certain means of dating Earth's history. While many millions drive cars, and billions watch TV, none of these behaviours existed a few generations ago. Human technology has beginnings and history, but such arguments are largely irrelevant to the physical dating of the Earth and only serve to confuse the real issues.

For more information:

http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/wise.htm

http://www.geocities.com/qraal/evidences.html

And while we're at it, here's the evidence against you:

http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Evidence_agai...recent_creation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth

http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/03/28/13...e-universe-yet/

http://toarchive.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html

http://toarchive.org/faqs/dating.html

http://toarchive.org/faqs/isochron-dating.html

And, of course, so much more.

This was a great post, I think I'll put it on my blog for self reference.

Cheers,

SQLserver

[Guyver]

So much angst at Christmas time Sql? Tis the season to be jolly don't you know. Oh wait, maybe scientific evolutionist don't appreciate the joys of this time of year? I mean really, if you don't believe in God, how could Jesus be the Savior? Whatever, there's still the good-will toward men part. I hope you guys at least appreciate that part of it. Anyway....

I'm re-reading your massive (even by your standards) post now. I'm particularly interested in the refutation of the helium argument. If I thought it was all total crap I wouldn't have posted it. I thought that with 11 points at least a few would stick. No, I didn't believe all of it but I thought there were some good points made. And frankly, your responses are not always slam dunks. The bottom line is that even qualified scientists in the respective fields disagree on some points.

[Guyver]

For more information:

http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/wise.htm

http://www.geocities.com/qraal/evidences.html

And while we're at it, here's the evidence against you:

http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Evidence_agai...recent_creation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth

http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/03/28/13...e-universe-yet/

http://toarchive.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html

http://toarchive.org/faqs/dating.html

http://toarchive.org/faqs/isochron-dating.html

And, of course, so much more.

This was a great post, I think I'll put it on my blog for self reference.

Cheers,

SQLserver

I'll have to hand it to you. That was a pretty sound refutation. I found a few minor points of discrepancy, but the majority of it is sound enough for me to accept. So, I guess I have to hand it to you there - you definitely did your homework. I'll rest for now.

Regards and Merry Christmas to all from Guyver.

[Mattshark]

Really...WTH.

I am all for splitting time between evolution theories and creation theories...I think that it has benifits.

but passing a bill to teach lies. thats crazy.

Yes one in science and the other in comparative religion.

[ambelamba]

You know, guys... Don't argue with a old-school creationist. I used to be one and I know how they think. Faith does a fantastic thing to human mind and their brains will refuse to process any information that contradicts their faith. Just close the thread. This thread is going nowhere.

[churchanddestroy]

I'll have to hand it to you. That was a pretty sound refutation. I found a few minor points of discrepancy, but the majority of it is sound enough for me to accept. So, I guess I have to hand it to you there - you definitely did your homework. I'll rest for now.

Regards and Merry Christmas to all from Guyver.

Merry Christmas Guyver.

You know, guys... Don't argue with a old-school creationist. I used to be one and I know how they think. Faith does a fantastic thing to human mind and their brains will refuse to process any information that contradicts their faith. Just close the thread. This thread is going nowhere.

I concur.

/thread.