Young Earth - 6,000 or 10,000 Years?

[Scott J]

Originally posted by Craigbythesea:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Scott J:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Craigbythesea:
Helen wrote,

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> 2. Most men and women who have studied for 30 or more years have been chained to an institution which governs what they publish and what they study!

This IS true of fundamentalist extremist institutions, but is most certainly NOT true of ANY our most academic institutions. </font>[/QUOTE]Oh. That must be why they are embracing the challenges of ID...

No. Evolutionists don't want debate about their presuppositions or premises. They want to force those down everyone's throat. They realize their theory is fragile and requires acceptance of farfetched explanations and unproveable assumptions.

They are adamently opposed to ID being presented not because it has no merit but because it reveals the weaknesses of evolution and provides a scientific, reasonable set of alternative premises and presuppositions. There is nothing unscientific about approach something that appears to be designed on the premise that an unnamed designer created it.

What you don't want to see is that these "most academic institutions" will accept debate but only within the philosophy of naturalism. They have equated naturalism with science without a basis for doing so. They have made a subjective, group think choice that places artificial limits on what can be considered "true" or "scientific". </font>[/QUOTE]This is nothing but nonsense, and your posting of it leads me to suspect that you have not spent so much as one hour in a highly-academic university classroom where graduate-level courses in evolutionary biology are being taught. It also leads me to believe that you are not personally acquainted with very many biologists or geologists who teach in highly-academic universities.

To put this matter more simply, you simply don’t know what you are talking about in the post that I am quoting from. </font>[/QUOTE]I have been out of college for about 20 years and I didn't take evolutionary biology.

So what?

I am not addressing the details of what is taught in the classroom. I am addressing the basic premises that you and every other evolutionist I have read accept without question.

I know precisely what you are talking about.

You are talking about a group of people who have accepted a paradigm that has dominated science departments for about 100 years. This paradigm limits the boundaries of "scientific inquiry" to the absolute exclusion of a Creator.

You are talking about people who are having knee-jerk reactions against a very real threat to the fundamental premises, philsophy, and assumptions of that paradigm. You are talking about a field where billions of dollars and many elite positions/careers are tied to the equation- science equals naturalism.

You want to interpret the plain language of the Bible by purely subjective standards. You want everyone to accept the subjective philosophy of naturalism as the premise for interpretations of data in science... You then want to act as if we are the ones promoting blind faith.

You ARE stating a position based on faith. Unfortunately, your faith in the theories and intelligence of men outweighs your faith in the ability Author of scripture to plainly communicate Himself.

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by Craigbythesea:
Helen wrote,

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> 9. Craig, it is nonsense to say you believe the Bible the way that it is. Especially in the next sentence when you say that it all depends on a 'correct interpretation.' As someone in this thread mentioned earlier, you are not 'interpreting' Bible, you are calling God a liar and trying to rewrite it!

What a monstrous thing to say!

The Bible does not need to be rewritten (Christian fundamentalist extremists have already done enough of that); the Bible needs to be read and studied—NOT just carelessly read in an English translation.

</font>[/QUOTE]Your idea of interpretation as it pertains to Genesis appears to be "it doesn't mean anything close to what it says because a theory of men based on an unproveable philosophical assumption disallows it".

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by Craigbythesea:
What a monstrous thing to say!

The Bible does not need to be rewritten (Christian fundamentalist extremists have already done enough of that

What a monstrous... and false thing to say.

You categorically do not believe Genesis as it is written. You are assigning completely different realities to it than the ones the words communicate.

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by Craigbythesea:
Scott J wrote, (among other things)

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> You bolded "through what has been made". Notably, it doesn't say through what evolved or what developed or what was began. It says through what was "made". That is a creative act not the results of undirected processes.

I believe that you misunderstood my entire post. The words that I posted in bold type were posted that way as a reference to the Bristlecone Pine that God has made and that tells with absolute certainty that an absolute minimum of nearly 9,000 years have elapsed since the flood, proving with absolute certainty that the earth is more than 10,000 years old.

(I hope that you don’t believe that God made the Bristlecone Pine to fool us or trick us!)

</font>[/QUOTE]Bristlecone Pines are not inspired.

As I stated before, all points of view on this subject abandon uniformitarian models when they are inconvenient. That includes evolutionists with things like punctuated equillibrium et al.

According to Genesis, the ages of men went from 600+ years to less than 100 in only a few generations after the flood. It is safe to say that the post-flood environment was not "uniform" to ours.

If you swallow the gaps and incongruencies in the TE but choke on this gnat... then that is your problem and a demonstration of where your faith is strongest.

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by Craigbythesea:

(I hope that you don’t believe that God made the Bristlecone Pine to fool us or trick us!)

You mean the way you think He inspired Genesis 1-11 to deceive, trick, and misinform us?

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by Craigbythesea:
Helen wrote,

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> 2. Most men and women who have studied for 30 or more years have been chained to an institution which governs what they publish and what they study!

This IS true of fundamentalist extremist institutions, but is most certainly NOT true of ANY our most academic institutions. If one of the ICR “faculty” members were to pull his head out of the sand and look at the evidence for an old earth with an open mind, and publish a paper defending his enlightened point of view, he would be dismissed from that institution immediately. </font>[/QUOTE] Probably true... and not unreasonable since they make no bones about their position and are privately funded.

Academic, institutions, on the other hand, encourage their faculty members to think and perform their research with an open mind.

That's laughable. If it were true then ID research departments would be popping up in every academic institution to see if there is real merit. Instead, academics are engaging in cursory hand waving since ID is science that rejects the artificial limitations of naturalism- completely close minded.

If one of them published a paper supporting a young earth, their colleagues would be a bit surprised, but that would be the extent of it.

Prove it by showing us a grant given to anyone attempting to prove a young earth.

Prove it by any means you can.

The fact is that they would demand that they accept naturalistic assumptions and run them out on a rail if they refused.

Helen, have you ever even set foot on the campus of a University that is known around the world for its academic excellence and academic freedom?

I can't presume to speak for Helen...

However, many of us never attended a JW Bible study either but still recognize the brain washing these very "educated" people have been subjected to. If trained in any field or study are indoctrinated into a particular paradigm, few will look outside of that paradigm for answers. The paradigm that many scientists are indoctrinated with is the presupposition of naturalism... regardless of whether this presupposition precludes the discovery of truth or not.

Apply this same paradigm to Stonehenge. You will get some fantastic explanations for how this construction might have happened... but never anything likely to be true. Not categorically false but terribly unlikely.

Evolution asks us to dismiss much greater evidence for design and purpose than we see in Stonehenge.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

As long as we are confining the discussion to an earth history of a mere 6 or 10 thousand years, evolution is impossible on its face, the theory itself reveals it takes more time than that.

If we are looking at overturning the YEC paradigm that for so many centuries held its dogmatic hold on human thinking and has only recently - the past 200 years - started to be seen as being inconsistent with the message from the rocks and fossils and skies - then and then only is it possible to also consider evolution as a scientific truth.

 

[bapmom]

Isn't it funny, evolutionists are very big on "only science", yet their whole theory relies on the observations of someone who had no scientific training at all, and was in fact a disillusioned Bible college student.

Just as an aside, an evolutionist scientist once told me that "no creation scientist has ever been published!". Of course he meant they'd not been published in any journals that he himself counted as noteworthy, but then I asked him what the criteria for being published were. Among the other criteria he gave was that "the author's views must hold to accepted scientific theory of the day."
So if a scientist disagrees with evolution, even if he has sound scientific evidence which many have in abundance, it is not accepted because it is not what the ones who are in control have decided is true.

 

[Helen]

Evolution is not a scientific truth. It is not truth. It is not scientific. It is a belief system based on naturalism and an absolute faith in the human brain (which is supposed to be a product of evolution!).

Just for the record, I graduated from a university in California in 1972. I have taken graduate courses but never ended up with the time to finish my master's thesis and so do not have a graduate degree. I was teaching.

I was teaching evolution.

I believed it. I believed in it.

And then I started doing more reading than I was required to do in college/university and what I needed to do to get the first few years of teaching under my belt. I started to have a little more time and I wanted to answer some questions some students had put to me in a science class. Instead of the standard 'pat' answers, I started reading. First I read standard journals. I noted some disagreements, some contradictions, some hesitations, and some material which seemed to indicate evolution might not work. So I started reading some of those idiotic creation works. They weren't idiotic. What is more, they invited me to think for myself rather than ridiculing, as my professors had (just the way Craig does here) any attempts to think differently than what I had been told was correct. I read everything I could get my hands on for about five years. At the end of that time the data itself had me convinced that not only was evolution a crock, but that this very well might be a very young universe.

So, Craig, I not only went through all the indoctrination in a public California university, but I also continued reading and studying for a long time after. In fact, it continues today, and I am 57 years old.

The bristlecone pine, by the way, like any pine, will put on a new ring with each growing TIME, which is not necessarily seasonal. Two rings a year is not at all unheard of, especially when young and especially when the latter part of summer is a wet one followed by a warm, sunny spell.

The Craig nonsense about universities encouraging open minds is about as ridiculous as anything I have heard here. If you admit to being a creationist, suddenly you are not accepted into a doctoral program. If you are a professor and find creation to be true, you can easily be denied tenure or even sabbaticals. You will certainly be denied advancement. For anyone to even suggest that our public learning institutions are open-minded regarding this subject gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'head in the sand.' The documented cases are many.
http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/_PDFArchives/science/SC2W1299.pdf

 

[just-want-peace]

For anyone to even suggest that our public learning institutions are open-minded regarding this subject gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'head in the sand.' The documented cases are many.

There are none so blind as those who WILL NOT SEE!

 

[Craigbythesea]

Helen wrote,

The bristlecone pine, by the way, like any pine, will put on a new ring with each growing TIME, which is not necessarily seasonal. Two rings a year is not at all unheard of, especially when young and especially when the latter part of summer is a wet one followed by a warm, sunny spell.

Helen,

Why do you suppose that dendrochronolgy is a science? They don't just count the rings as you would have us to falsely believe.

Reading some of the posts in this thread is like having a nightmare that I am living in the dark ages rather than the 21st century.

 

[Craigbythesea]

Helen wrote,

The Craig nonsense about universities encouraging open minds is about as ridiculous as anything I have heard here. If you admit to being a creationist, suddenly you are not accepted into a doctoral program. If you are a professor and find creation to be true, you can easily be denied tenure or even sabbaticals. You will certainly be denied advancement. For anyone to even suggest that our public learning institutions are open-minded regarding this subject gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'head in the sand.' The documented cases are many.
http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/_PDFArchives/science/SC2W1299.pdf

Helen,

It might be a good idea for you to read at least the title of an article before you post a link to it to refute an imaginary straw man.

I never wrote nor suggested that scientists are always objective! They are human beings, and all human beings are at least somewhat subjective in their thinking and their behavior. Nonetheless, the more academic an institution is, the more academic freedom the faculty members are likely to enjoy. The reverse is also true, as I have already posted.

So much for chasing after jackrabbits.

Most creation “scientists” that I have read (and I have read very many of them) acknowledge at least the possibility that the earth is 10,000 or more years old, and some would push the envelope a little further. As science continues to prove that the earth is not flat, we will see the envelope pushed further and further until we have a well established pseudo-Christian cult that insists that the earth is only 6,000+ years old. It will be interesting to see what then becomes of the ICR and A. in G. Will they go the way the J.W.’s, or will they become more enlightened? Only time will tell.

It is interesting, however, to compare the J.W.’s “research” on the stake vs. cross debate and their manner of defense of their position with the research done by the ICR and their manner of defense of their position. Indeed, it is not always easy to tell if one is reading “research” articles written by the J.W.’s or the ICR or A. in G.

 

[Helen]

1. I know about dendrochronology. Here is one easily obtainable report from Cornell, which indicates that there are a number of problems involved with this field of study:
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/dendro/90adp.html

However, the basic presupposition is still that each ring represents one year's growth. This has been proven false.

Another basic presupposition is that trees in the same area will show the same ring patterns, and this has also been proven false. Trees growing in the shade of other trees, for instance, show a different pattern of widths from the trees which get more sun.

In short, it is imperative that dendrochronology not be considered an exact dating method. It can sometimes help with approximations, but the more it is explored, the more problems are showing up.

2. Craig wrote, "Nonetheless, the more academic an institution is, the more academic freedom the faculty members are likely to enjoy."

Now that is an interesting statement, for at this point he gets to say that if some institution does not encourage academic freedom, then it is not really as academic as other institutions. Thus, he has created a circular bit of reasoning which leads us nowhere.

However the fact of the matter is that there is no publicly funded university which tolerates a creationist perspective in its science department. The article I posted, which I wonder if Craig actually read, documents a number of cases where this has been shown, and it is one document of many.

3. Craig, your attempt to smear AiG and ICR by making a totally false association with Jehovah's Witnesses is despicable. Barry and I do not agree with some of the positions supported by ICR and AiG, but we deeply respect the men working there and know that a lot of the research that is being done is a massive and expensive undertaking and being done by some highly qualified and respected scientists.

In other words, Craig, your supercilious snobbery curdles my blood. I cannot help but wonder how many people's faith you have undermined with your attitude and words.

 

[Craigbythesea]

Helen wrote,

1. I know about dendrochronology. Here is one easily obtainable report from Cornell, which indicates that there are a number of problems involved with this field of study:
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/dendro/90adp.html

However, the basic presupposition is still that each ring represents one year's growth. This has been proven false.

Another basic presupposition is that trees in the same area will show the same ring patterns, and this has also been proven false. Trees growing in the shade of other trees, for instance, show a different pattern of widths from the trees which get more sun.

In short, it is imperative that dendrochronology not be considered an exact dating method. It can sometimes help with approximations, but the more it is explored, the more problems are showing up.

Helen,

The article that you posted does NOT support the statements that you made in this post. Indeed, the statements that you made in your post misrepresent the truth.

 

[Craigbythesea]

Helen wrote,

3. Craig, your attempt to smear AiG and ICR by making a totally false association with Jehovah's Witnesses is despicable. Barry and I do not agree with some of the positions supported by ICR and AiG, but we deeply respect the men working there and know that a lot of the research that is being done is a massive and expensive undertaking and being done by some highly qualified and respected scientists.

I have not smeared either the AiG or the ICR—they have smeared themselves by resorting to the same methods of research and publishing as the Jehovah's Witnesses have done regarding their false assumption that Jesus was nailed to a stake rather than a cross. Anyone who has studied the writings of the Jehovah's Witnesses on the death of Jesus and the writings of the AiG and ICR on the age of the earth or Noah’s Ark should very easily see the similarities.

In other words, Craig, your supercilious snobbery curdles my blood. I cannot help but wonder how many people's faith you have undermined with your attitude and words.

I am not a snob nor am I arrogant. I am just one of hundreds of thousands of well-educated Christians who believe in both knowing and telling the truth. Those in your camp, however, are sinfully arrogant snobs. They believe that they have an understanding about nature and science, not to mention the Bible, that the true scientists do not have, and they mock the true scientists, their education, their institutions, their morality, their interpretation of the Bible, their intelligence, their spirituality, their relationship with God, their faith, their research, their analysis of data, and their conclusions regarding their data. And they are not only sinfully arrogant snobs; they are liars and deceivers as demonstrated over and over again by both Ute and myself on this very message board.

No, these things are not true of everyone in your camp, but I have found that my description given above fits almost all of them that I have encountered both in person and through their writings. Such sinful behavior is unbecoming of any human beings, and especially of scientists. And when I find such behavior in those who name Christ as their savior, it does very much more than curdle my blood!

 

[Michael Hobbs]

Please take a few seconds to read the following:

2 Timothy 2:22-26
22. Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
23 But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes.
24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,
25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

Thank you.

 

[UTEOTW]

"1. I know about dendrochronology. Here is one easily obtainable report from Cornell, which indicates that there are a number of problems involved with this field of study:
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/dendro/90adp.html "

My reading of that is that they are discussing a local problem they have with tree ring dating and not a universal problem. They also seem to imply that they are near to solving the issues.

But turning to the broader subject of dendrochronology, one of the great things about it is how it can be checked by other methods. (This is just like most of the other science we discuss here. For instance, many of the proposed trnasitional series in the fossil record are confirmed by independent genetic testing.) For the case of dendrochronology it is instructive to look at how the tree ring dates match up with radiocarbob dates.

Indeed, the experts who have examined this data think that they line up well enough to use dendrochronology to calibrate their C14 dates. Not that the dates are far off to begin with, but they can be made better if they are corrected for the slight variations in atmospheric C14 through the ages.

Here is a chart from INTCAL98 that shows that tree ring data used for calibration in the late 90's.

http://packrat.aml.arizona.edu/Journal/v40n3/fig1.gif

You will see that for this calibration that they went back about 12,000 years with the tree rings.

This next chart shows the actual calibration curve.

http://packrat.aml.arizona.edu/Journal/v40n3/fig2.gif

Now you will notice that there is very little deviation even going back over 13,000 years. The authors said it this way. "Century-scale shifts of the 11,800-7200 cal BP interval were introduced by the dendrochronological reassessment of the German oak series. The calibration curve differences are limited to a decade, or less, for the 7200-0 cal BP interval." So for 7 millennium, the difference was less than a decade at most and even going back as far as they went, the largest corrections were less than a century.

This calibration curve also contains data from uranium dating of coral and from varve data. And this is where the key point comes in. YEers like to claim that you cannot accurately count tree rings. They may even point to known causes that will make an extra ring during a years, ignoring that dendrochronologists also know about this possibility. They will argue that varves might not really be representative of the periods which scientists claim. They will also try and cast doubt on radiometric dating by various means.

But for this curve to not be accurate, you would need a very precise set of anomalies to happen. You would not need just one tree with a bunch of extra rings, you would need several trees from not just different locations but different continents to both have a lot of extra rings, but also to have extra rings that all matched up with one another. You would need for the varves from diverse locations to then match both all these extra rings and each other. You would then need for the both the C14 dating of all these diverse sources AND uranium dating of coral to all be off by just the right amount to make it all fit together. And then you would need for all of these coincidences to match other sources of data that did not go into the calibration, but nonetheless can be used to check. Ice cores are a good example. You would be required to hypothesize many, many extra layers of ice that were only thought to be annual which matched all of hte extra tree rings from all over the globe which matched all of the extra varves from all over the world which matches the radiometric dating which we are told is not accurate.

Just how could all of this have happened?

Maybe the dendrochronology is as accurate as claimed.

http://packrat.aml.arizona.edu/Journal/v40n3/editorial.html

 

[Charles Meadows]

The thing that bothers me most about the YEC camp is that they seem to be willing to accept anything, even obviously untenable answers, as long as it is anti-evolution.

While I agree that an old earth stance will always remain in a sense theoretical (since it cannot be truly empirically verified) I have yet to see any good scientific evidence for YECism.

I have no problem with a believer holding to a literal 6 day creation. That is between him/her and God. But I do have a problem with believers expounding what I feel is false information.

Helen has listed a number of "scientific" evidences for a young earth. I do not find any of these credible. They are all examples of trying desperately to find holes in evolution. And while there are a few guys with PhDs at AiG and some of these other creationist sites the vast majority (&gt;99%) of scientists hold to a very old age for the earth.

God gave us brains. Why is it so wrong to use them?

If all of the evidence points to an old earth then maybe WE should consider that OUR position (literalist interpretation of Genesis 1&2) is wrong. Incidentally most OT scholars suggest that the creation narrative, while likely referring to actual 24 hours days, was intended to be a theological epic and not concrete history.

But we have always held to the position that "devolution" must be rejected no matter what so we continue to look for ways (no matter how strained) to refute it.

I think we need to be honest in our examination of things, even if it means questioning some traditional doctrines. But sadly many will never do this.

 

[JGrubbs]

It's A Young Earth!

http://www.creationseminar.net/it's_a_young_earth.htm

 

[Helen]

UTE, you might want to read these article by a respected geologist and published by a respected geological group:
http://www.grisda.org/origins/22047.htm
http://www.grisda.org/origins/02006.htm

Things, in short, are not as clean as the University of Arizona would like to have you believe... Please consider, also, they are the originators (Andrew Ellicott Douglass, early 1900's) of tree ring dating and thus have an enormous stake in showing it to be accurate!

The basic problem of tree ring dating (dendrochronology) is the reliance upon uniformitarianism -- the present is the key to the past. But the Bible tells us that there have been some rather large catastrophes within man's memory. We do not see catastrophes of this size today. Therefore we do not see the weather patterns which follow or how that affects growth patterns. The uniformitarian presupposition involved in dendrochronology is not a valid presupposition. And to try to correlate it with radiocarbon dating, which is notoriously faulty, becomes, then, an exercise in futility, where dates can be chosen out of all of the many results of testing and a 'best fit' made according to what the people already think is true!

That's not good science.