Subject:
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Re: Support for a 'young' earth.
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 6 Feb 2001 16:29:42 GMT
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Viewed:
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137 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Tim Culberson writes:
> ....that I wouldn't re-enter the creation/evolution debate but I've
> changed my mind. Oh well.
I'll point to the talk.origins clearinghouse site, which
is one of the best catch-all refutations of the Creationist
argument (and exploration of misconceptions about Evolution
that cause otherwise intelligent people to subscribe to Creation
Science) that I've seen:
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html
[It's the FAQ, but embedded within it are the links to the
evidentiary material.]
> An Evolutionist believes that all life originated from a common ancestor
> and evolved over a very large amount of time (at least several billion
> years from what I understand).
The latter is true. The former is still a matter of contention,
something that's under investigation by geneticists around the
world. However, the truth or falsity of evolution isn't dependent
on whether there was one abiogenetic particle or two that contributed
to life on Earth.
> Without a very old earth Evolution doesn't have a leg to stand on.
Of course not, much as without the Bible and the calculations of
the venerable Archbishop Ussher in the 18th century, Young Earth
Creationism also doesn't have a leg to stand on. (It's probably
the only science I know that openly relies upon such old ideas
for a young Earth. It's rather ironic, really.)
> Despite claims that all evidence points to a multi-billion year old
> earth and that a 6000 year old one is impossible, that simply isn't
> true. There is evidence to support a young earth that interestingly
> enough "fits" perfectly with the creation record. Below are three
> examples:
Just because something fits timewise doesn't make it so.
> Slowing Earth Rotation:
>
> The speed of the earth's rotation is slowing down. Approx every 1-1/2
> years another second is added to "the clock" in order to match calendar
> time.
This is wrong, wrong, wrong. This addition doesn't have to do
with the slowing of the Earth; it has to do with the way humans
measure time. The solar year does not divide evenly into the
units of time we recognise. Our calendar has been tweaked and
tweaked (remember adding almost two weeks a few hundred years
back?), and now, with the leap-year system and judicious addition
of a second here and there, we've ensured that the same months
coincide with winter each year, summer each year, etc., etc.
So this isn't evidence of the Earth's slowing, it's evidence
of mankind's inability to measure it accurately until the very
recent past. Creationists like to pretend that human measures
are perfect enough to reflect accurately what's seen. They're
not; they are only representations designed for human enterprise
and convenience in understanding a universe of infinite complexity.
> If the earth is only ~6000 years old, there is no problem.....it
> means the earth is traveling only a fraction slower than it was
> originally. If the earth is billions of years old, imagine how fast it
> would have been originally spinning! We're talking night and day within
> minutes of each other.
You're also forgetting a very important thing called angular momentum.
This can change over time; for an example, if you take a beach
ball, set it spinning, and hit it at an angle with a small, high-
speed object, you change its speed. There have likely been extensive
variances of the Earth's speed over time; and as another person has
pointed out, the speed of the planet has varied considerably (and
there is evidence of this).
However, the processes that control angular momentum in planets are
not fully understood, in part because the earth's mantle and core
may be involved in acceleration and deceleration of the planet's
spin. This would most likely be tied to the shift in magnetic poles
and "precession" of the poles over the period (23,000 years, IIRC)
of the planet's "wobble." The earth is doing many other things
besides merely spinning.
Thus, the Creationist argument takes a single quantification and
projects it unreasonably and undefendably into the past to create
an image at odds with what we know today, and therefore "impossible."
The Terran system is not yet fully 'solved,' but it's definitely
not evidence of YEC.
> The moon is slowly drifting away from the earth on each rotation (very
> slowly). Again, in a young 6000 year old earth, this really has no
> effect as the drift is minute over such a small amount of time. If the
> earth, however, is billions of years old the drift problem becomes very
> important as we have to assume that the moon was once much closer. On a
> multi-billion year old earth, the tides would have been incredibly
> immense, drowning the entire earth twice a day.
Ah, the "speedy moon" argument of yore. Long-refuted. See:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moonrec.html
(Fair warning: it's technical, but authoritative, with plenty
of evidence and citations against YEC--as well as the most
authoritative and technical of the Creationist presentations
of the case. Get a cup o' Joe and some popcorn if you want
to read it closely.)
In a nutshell, this YEC argument is similar to the previous one:
"The moon is now moving at x rate in z direction, therefore if
we extrapolate back in a linear manner, we get the moon too
close in year zero." This argument completely ignores the
nature of tidal relationships, long-period gravitational
oscillation, and the true dynamism of the Earth-Moon double
planet system (that's really what it is). "Speedy Moon" totally
ignores all other evidence in favour of an oversimplification
based on Newtonian theory, without fully understanding how the
system works. It's an attempt at linear absurdity, which
ignores all the corroborating evidence in the hopes that a
single piece of anti-logic will overwhelm it with "common sense."
The great thing is that mainstream science noticed the moon
issue long ago and solved it, refining theory in the process.
But like the dust influx numbers from 1951, it's been dredged
up to service the Creationist cause again. Young Earth, old
figures...again, irony.
> Oldest tree:
>
> Although a relatively weak case for specific evidence I admit, I chose
> this one for its simplicity and for its incredibly close fit with
> Biblical evidence. The oldest tree in the world is about 4300 years
> old. It's interesting that according to the Bible the oldest possible
> tree should be less than 4400 years old (because of the Noachian
> flood). If the earth is billions of years old, why don't we have an
> older tree?
Because we don't, much as we don't have any 5,000-year-old
turtles, or fruitflies, et cetera.
You're right, that *is* a weak case. It's anti-logic, basically.
FYI: the oldest known tree in the world (and I do stress known--
how many trees do you think they've sampled for this quality?)
is 4,767 years old--a fair bit older than the 4400 you mention as
a cutoff--and that tree is nearly a thousand years (or more!)
older than any other yet found on the planet. So, far from
being a massive cutoff, it's a singular oddity itself. The
breed of tree as a whole is far older than most anything else,
so it's also a genetic predisposition:
http://www.sonic.net/bristlecone/intro.html
(See especially the "survival strategies" section--it's really
very interesting!)
What's interesting is that the genetics of this tree provide
a specific refutation to Creationist ideas about genetic drift,
namely that the genetic variance of "kinds" could have been
encoded into the genes of forbears to "unpack" over time.
The Bristlecone was already an old species 5,000 years ago--
conifers are, in fact, hundreds of millions of years old as a
family. The pines have no extra genes, no extra sequences, and
show a fully modern range of genetic variance one would expect
to find in plants. Another strike against Young Earth Creationism
of the Christian kind. (Soon to be a film by Steven Spielberg...)
Anyways, that's a short series of responses with some links
and some light shed on why these Creationist chestnuts exist
at all. In my experience, Creationism is the appeal of the
simple over the complex--again, ironic, because the movement
extols the complexity of God's creation, while attempting to use
extremely simple, linear evidence to support its literalist
reading of Scripture. Science, on the other hand, says nothing
about God or the soul, but seeks to understand the complexity
that surrounds us and, as such, fosters a deeper appreciation
of the true nature of Creation.
all best,
LFB.
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Support for a 'young' earth.
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| (...) 1650 for Bishop Ussher (and some further expansion in 1654). 17th century. (...) The earth is slowing. Tidal forces are doing it, similiar to what the earth has already done to the moon, just a lot weaker. If one considers the 8 hour workday, (...) (24 years ago, 6-Feb-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Support for a 'young' earth.
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| (...) And don't forget that earth is basically spinning within a vacuum! Of course a spinning ball in our atmosphere soon gets slower and will stop, but without friction a ball (even a big ball called earth) will spin for a VERY long time almost in (...) (24 years ago, 6-Feb-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Support for a 'young' earth.
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| (...) I'd just like to clarify that I never said that at all, but you rather assumed that's what I meant. I did say "interestingly enough". Just one response to this message (see my reply to Ross's message for why I didn't respond to the others) (24 years ago, 6-Feb-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Support for a 'young' earth.
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| ....that I wouldn't re-enter the creation/evolution debate but I've changed my mind. Oh well. (For reference sake and to clarify some definitions): I believe that God created everything about 6000 years ago (possibly as much as 10) and that about (...) (24 years ago, 6-Feb-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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