CREATION
vs. EVOLUTION
How Old Is The Universe?
and Universe controversy. Are evolutionists right? Is the
Universe billions of years old? What proof do they have?
What is the evidence? Is there evidence for a relatively
YOUNG earth and Universe? You may well be surprised
at the answers! Let’s take a fair, unprejudiced, unbiased
look at this old, hotly disputed controversy and beware of
“oppositions of science falsely so called” (II Tim.6:20).
As the author of this article, I would like to make clear that I am not a scientist, nor do I have any qualifications in this field. I have however, been interested in the issue of Creation vs. Evolution for many years and read widely on the subject from different viewpoints. Most of the material for this article has been taken from a book entitled, "True Science Agrees With The Bible", by Malcolm Bowden.
In his own foreword to Malcolm Bowden's book, Duane T. Gish, PhD, Senior Vice President of the Institute For Creation Research writes:
"The book 'True Science Agrees With The Bible' by Malcolm Bowden is another of his thoroughly researched, highly readable books on the vitally important subject of the Bible and Science. When I started to read it. I found it hard to put down, since he has included so many fascinating and important subjects in his book, many of which are not discussed in other works...... This book contains a wealth of material that will be of interest to scientists, pastors, students and the average layman. We owe a great debt of gratitude to Malcolm Bowden for the countless hours he has spent in researching this material, and assembling it in an enjoyable and easily readable form."
While
I as the author of this article readily echo the sentiments expressed by Duane
T. Gish above, I feel that I must point out that Malcolm Bowden is a
Fundamentalist. That is he believes that
the Earth and entire Universe are only 6,000 years old. This is where I would part company with him,
on the strength of his own, and others, research and evidence, but I am still
extremely grateful to him for the wealth of knowledge imparted through his
book.
Another
rich source of material for this article was found in the quarterly full colour
magazine “Creation Ex Nihilo” published in
All
scripture references in this article are taken from the “NIV Study Bible”.
Introduction
Is
there any solid scientific basis for considering that the age of the Earth and
even the whole Universe, may not be the billions of years, that almost everyone
now seems to accept without question?
Make no mistake, that if such evidence exists, then it would be
absolutely devastating for the Theory Of Evolution.
There
is a scientific battle going on at present between Evolutionists and
Creationists. On the one hand the
Evolutionists assert that the entire Universe, including all life on Earth, has
evolved over millions and billions of years, with no design or purpose behind
it, merely blind chance. On the other hand
are the Fundamentalist Creationists, who dogmatically teach that the whole
Universe, including life on Earth was created by GOD in six literal 24 hour
days, about 6,000 years ago. Somewhere
in the middle are those who hedge their bets and compromise, for example
Theistic Evolutionists, who believe that GOD "creates" through the
process of Evolution. Many so called "mainstream" churches accept
Theistic Evolution, while "Evangelicals" accept the Fundamentalist
approach.
Herbert
Armstrong accepted neither of these stances, while at the same time not
compromising with the Word Of GOD. He
taught that the Scriptures clearly show that the "creation week" of
Genesis Chapter One was actually a RENEWAL and NOT the original creation.
"In The Beginning, God Created The Heavens
And The Earth. Now The Earth Was (Margin
- Possibly ‘Became') Formless And Empty." Genesis 1:1-2.
"He Did Not Create It To Be
Empty." (Text Note On Isaiah 45:18 – ‘Empty = Formless or Chaotic’).
Isaiah 45:18.
The earth was created so beautiful
that:-
"The Morning Stars Sang Together And
All The Angels Shouted For Joy."
Job 38:3-4.
But then something disastrous occured, a great rebellion bringing chaos and catastrophe in its wake.
"How Are You Fallen From Heaven 0
Morning Star, Son Of The Dawn. You Have Been Cast Down To The Earth, You Who
Once Laid Low The Nations. You Said In Your Heart,
‘I Will Ascend To Heaven; I Will Raise My
Throne Above The Stars Of God; I Will Sit Enthroned On The Mount Of Assembly,
On The Utmost Heights Of The Sacred Mountain. I Will Ascend Above The Tops Of
The Clouds; I Will Make Myself Like The Most High.’" Isaiah
14:12.
Christ
Himself testified that He personally witnessed Satan being cast out of Heaven.
“I Saw Satan Fall
Like Lightning From Heaven.” Luke
10:18.
When Lucifer was cast out of Heaven, he became Satan, the Adversary. The book of Revelation indicates (Rev. 12:9) that about one third of the angels followed him in his rebellion. The whole Universe including the Earth, was in tremendous upheaval. The Earth became an utter desolation. It was sometime after this, scripture doesn't indicate how long, that the Great Creator God put His Mighty Hand to restoring and renewing the Earth in SIX Literal Twenty Four Hour Days, and creating the Sabbath by resting on the SEVENTH Day.
“When You
Send Your Spirit, They Are Created, And You RENEW The Face Of The Earth.”
Psalm 104:30.
Without trying to get into exact times and dates, we at Triumph now understand that Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden for SEVEN years before they succumbed to Satan's wiles, as the "Book Of Jubilees" shows. THIS is when the 6000 years of man's rule under Satan's influence began, and is just about up as we move into the first years of the so called 21st Century.
Seven Strong Indications Of A Young Earth/Universe System
1). Galaxys.
As
astronomers look into distant space, they have found that there are other
massive collections of stars like our own galaxy. Many of them have a circular pattern as
though they consisted of a flat disc of stars with arms extending from
them. These arms are curled like the
arms of a rotating Catherine Wheel, and present at least three problems to
astronomers.
(a) The
Speeds Of The Stars.
It has been assumed by astronomers
that there is a large mass of stars at the centre of these galaxies, and that
the stars rotate around the centre at the right speed to maintain their present
orbit. This is similar to the way in
which the planets rotate around the Sun, where those nearest the centre travel
at higher speeds than those further out.
This is known as Keplerian rotation and would maintain the stability of
the system, much as the planets are stable in their orbits around the Sun.
Scientists
have been able to measure the speed with which these arms are rotating and some
have reported that the stars at the centre are travelling at the same speed as
those near the ends of the arms. This is
apparently, because the mass of the galaxy is distributed and not concentrated
near the centre, as it is with our Solar System. One surprise is the recent discovery that up
to one half of the stars in many galaxies are rotating in the OPPOSITE
direction to the rest. (Royal Astronomical Association Monthly Notice 283:543
1996).
(b) The
Winding Action.
Because it has been virtually
established that the stars near the centre are travelling at the same speed as
those further out on the arms of the galaxy, this results in a "winding
up" action of the arms. What is
absolutely certain is that the arms are not rigid forms that rotate without
changing their shape. Because they are
all travelling at virtually the same speed, those near the centre have much
less distance to travel than those out on the arms. This results in the spiral or curved arms of
galaxies as observed through telescopes from Earth.
Paul Steidl in his excellent book
'The Earth, The Stars And The Bible', has pointed out that from the
measurements of the speed with which the stars are moving, it has been
calculated that for the centre of the galaxy to complete ONE TURN MORE than the
furthest stars would take about 100 million years. As astronomers believe that galaxies have
existed for about 10 billion years, then they should have wound round about 100
turns. Yet none observed have more than
about 1 or 2 turns at the most, which would give them a maximum age of 100-200
million years. If Almighty God created
them with some degree of spiral already, then they would be very much younger
than 100-200 million years.
(c)
(c)
All Galaxies Appear To Be "Wound Up" The Same Amount.
Astronomers use the red shift of galaxies to measure their distance from Earth. The most distant is around 10,000 million light-years away, so as we look at these distant galaxies, we should be seeing them when they were much younger than those nearer to Earth, and in the process of forming with much less "spiral" in their arms, but surprisingly, to them, they do not. The amount of only one or two turns of “spiral" in the arms, appears to be totally independent of their distance from Earth, which also suggests that that these "spirals" have always been present.
In
order to avoid the obvious, that these "spirals" indicate that the
galaxies were formed relatively RECENTLY and AT THE SAME TIME, alternative
theories of how these spiral arms could have formed, have been sought for some
time. Other explanations that have been
brought forward so far, also raise other problems for scientists. An article entitled 'How Do Spiral Galaxies
Spiral?' by N. Comins and L. Marschall in the December 1987 issue of
'Astronomy' magazine reveals how baffled scientists are when they write:-
“What's wrong here? How can stars have different orbital periods, as we observe, and also trace out spiral patterns, as we also observe, yet still not wind up over periods of billions of years?”
To
summarize, the efforts to "explain away" any "Young
Universe" interpretaion of these spiral arms by astronomers, is brought
about by the unbending demands for billions of years by Evolutionists. Some stars are grouped together, not in
galaxies, but in globular clusters, and are considered to be amongst the oldest
astronomical objects. They are rapidly
flying away from each other against the pull of their mutual gravitational
force. From their measured speed, it can
be calculated that they would have all been very close together, only a matter
of THOUSANDS of years ago, instead of millions or billions. Furthermore, all stars emit a solar wind that
should build up into a considerable amount of gas when there are many stars
together as in a globular cluster. This
gas should be easily detectable, yet there is no evidence that it exists, which
suggests that the stars and galaxies were created much as they are seen today,
in the comparatively RECENT PAST.
The “Creation Ex Nihilo” magazine,
June – August 1997, has an excellent article entitled, “Exploding Stars Point To A Young Universe”,
written by Jonathan Sarfati. To summarize the article, a galaxy like our
own Milky Way, should on average,
produce one SuperNova every 25 years, leaving behind a huge expanding cloud of
debris called an S.N.R. or SuperNova Remnant. The famous Crab Nebula in the
constellation of Taurus, is the remnant
of a SuperNova which was seen in the year 1054 AD, and remained visible for
about a year. It was so bright that it could be seen for a few weeks during the
daytime. By using powerful computers and applying the known physical laws of science,
astronomers have predicted that an S.N.R. should reach a diameter of about 300
light years after 120,000 years. If the Universe was billions of years old,
then astronomers should be able to observe many S.N.R.’s this size. In fact the
observable evidence from Outer Space is consistent with a Universe with an age
in the THOUSANDS of years, but a comlete mystery for a Universe which is
supposed to have existed for BILLIONS of years. Two evolutionist astronomers
who wrote for the Royal Astronomical Society in 1976, said:
“Why have the large number of
expected remnants not been detected?”
WHY
INDEED!
“The Heavens Declare The Glory Of
God; The Skies Proclaim The Work Of His Hands.”
Psalm 19:1.
2). The Sun.
In
1979, two astronomers, Eddy and Boornazian, startled the scientific community
when they presented a paper which showed that the Sun was shrinking by 0.1% of
its diameter per century. They had
examined the records of the Greenwich Observatory from 1836 to 1953, and
discovered that the Sun's diameter was decreasing. They then checked their findings by using the
similar records of the U.S. Naval Observatory in
If
this rate of decrease, 0.1% of diameter per century, is projected backwards in
time, in the. space of only 100,000 years, the Sun would have been double its
present size. Life could not possibly
have existed under such heat. Projecting
further backwards in time, about 20 to 21 million years ago, the Sun's diameter
would have included the Earth's orbit.
As
far as the orthodox scientific community was concerned, these facts had to be
discredited and explained away, in a barrage of criticism. Up to now however, the evidence carefully
proved and reported by Eddy and Boornazian has not been overthrown by any
subsequent critical paper. Indeed, read
carefully, these critical papers either do not address the data covered by the
observatory measurements, or else they actually confirm them in varying
degrees. The fact that the Sun is
shrinking has not yet been disproven, presents another sound piece of evidence
for a Young Earth/Universe system.
“Give
Thanks To The Lord For He Is Good. His Love Endures Forever…………Who Made The
Great Lights. His Love Endures Forever…………The Sun To Govern The Day. His Love
Endures Forever.”
Psalm 136:1,7-8.
3). The
Layer Of Meteoric Dust On The Moon.
When the Apollo 11 spacecraft was
heading towards the Moon for a Lunar landing in 1969, one of the major concerns
at the time was the possible depth of meteoric dust on the Lunar surface. The rate of fall had been estimated to be
anywhere between 5 to 14 million tons per year, and if the Universe was
billions of years old, then at the very least, the Lunar surface should have a
dust layer many feet thick. The Lunar
Landing Module had wide, thick pads on the ends of its legs to compensate for
this, and hopefully allow a safe landing, without the Module sinking deep into
the dust. It was a huge surprise, and
indeed relief to everyone, to find that the dust layer was only about 1 to 2
inches thick. Immediately, the
scientific establishment refined the rate of fall drastically downwards to fit
in with the actual, observable facts.
Interestingly, the instruments left behind on the Lunar surface to
measure the rate of fal1, have indicated that the original estimation before
the first Lunar landing, was very close, so scientists have had to revise the
rate of fall upwards once again ???
Therefore,
with the amount of descending dust comparatively high and the amount of it on
the Moon so small, this indicates an age for the Moon many millions of years
less than that required by evolutionists.
In a fascinating article for the
September – November 1998 issue of “Creation Ex Nihilo” magazine entitled “The
Moon – The Light That Rules The Night”, Jonathan Sarfati writes:-
“Friction
by the tides is slowing the Earth’s rotation, so the length of a day is
increasing by 0.002 seconds per century. This means that the Earth is losing
Angular Momentum. The Law Of Conservation Of Angular Momentum says that the
Angular Momentum the Earth loses must be gained by the Moon. Thus the Moon is
slowly receding from the Earth at about 4 centimetres (1.5 inches) per year,
and the rate would have been greater in the past. The Moon could never has been
closer than 18,400 kilometres (11,500 miles), know as the Roche Limit, because
Earth’s tidal forces (i.e. the result of different gravitational forces on
different parts of the Moon) would have shattered it. But even if the Moon had
started receding from being in contact with the Earth, it would have taken only
1.37 billion years to reach its present distance.
N.B.
This is the MAXIMUM POSSIBLE AGE – far too young for evolution (and much
younger than the radiometric ‘dates’ assigned to Moon rocks) – not the actual
age.”
“Give
Thanks To The Lord For He Is Good. His Love Endures Forever…………Who Made The
Great Lights. His love endures forever…………The Moon And Stars To Govern The
Night. His Love Endures Forever.”
Psalm 136:1,7,9.
4). Erosion
on the Earth's surface.
In the evolutionary timescale, the Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago, and the first living cell evolved around 1 billion years ago. Such is the scenario put forward by Evolutionists, and here are some interesting figures, which are not really disputed by them, but some very simple calculations show that there is something very seriously wrong with the time scale applied to the geological column.
The depth of sediment in the oceans is surprisingly thin, being only 0.4 miles thick and estimated to weigh about 820 million billion tons. The amount of rock standing above the sea level has been estimated at about 383 million billion tons. It has also been estimated that the amount of material entering the oceans, mainly by the rivers, is about 27.5 billion tons per year.
An article put out by S. Nevins for the Institute For Creation Research, entitled "Evolution - The Oceans Say No", comes up with some surprising conclusions, using the figures given above.
(a) If there are 383 million billion tons in
the land mass of the Earth, then it would only take 383 / 27.5 = 14 million
years to erode all the continents into the sea.
(b) Similarly, the time it would take to
deposit the present sediments into the seas is
820 / 27.5 = 30 million years. It can be shown that if the oceans have
existed for 1
billion years, then we could expect to
see a depth of sediment nearly 19 miles thick,
whereas in actual fact we see a depth of
0.4 miles.
To get round this evidence, various
other explanations are sought by evolutionists. In an article by Tas
“….It
is suggested that the mountains still exist because uplift is constantly
replacing them from below. Consequently the mountains would have been eroded
and replaced many times over in billions of years, but although uplift is
occuring in mountainous areas, such a process of uplift and erosion could not
go on for long without removing all the layers of sediments…..Yet surprisingly,
sediments of all ages from young to old (by evolutionary dating methods) are
preserved in mountainous regions. The idea of continual renewal by uplift does
not solve the problem.
Another
idea suggested….is that the present rates of erosion being measured are
abnormally high. According to this argument erosion was much less in the past,
before humans interfered. Human activity such as land clearing and farming, is
said to be why we are measuring such high rates at present. However,
quantitative measurements on the effect of this human activity have found that
erosion rates are increased only 2 to 2.5 times. For this explanation to solve
the problem, the increase would need to be several hundred times greater. Once
again the explanation does not work.
It
has also been suggested that the climate in the past was much drier (because
less water would mean less erosion). However this idea goes against the
evidence. The climate was actually wetter as deduced from the abundance of lush
vegetation in the fossil record.”
“All
Streams Flow Into The Sea, Yet The Sea Is Never Full. To The Place The Streams
Come From, There They Return Again.” Ecclesiastes 1:7.
5). The
Cooling Of The Earth.
As you go deeper
into the Earth, it is found that the temperature rises about 1 degree
centigrade for every 100 feet. (30 metres).
Lord Kelvin made various calculations on the rate of cooling of the
Earth, and showed that even if the Earth had been molten at the time of
creation, it would have cooled to its present temperature gradient within 100
million years, but allowing for uncertainties he suggested between 20 and 400
million years. He later amended this to
between 20 and 40 million years. All
these ages were far too short for the evolutionists, and they struggled in vain
to overcome his evidence. When the
heating effect of radioactivity was discovered, this was quickly used to
explain the present level of heat in the Earth's interior. However this subject has been examined by L.
Ingersoll and others. They discovered that without any radioactivity, the age
of the Earth would be 22 million years, and with radioactivity this would be
extended to only 46 million years.
The
present situation is that although there are still some problems concerning the
level of radioactivity in the Earth that need resolving satisfactorily, heat
calculations indicate a relatively young Earth, which cannot be accepted by
evolutionists.
“He
Spreads Out The Northern Skies Over Empty Space; He Suspends The Earth Over
Nothing.” Job 26:7.
6). The
Earth's Magnetic Field.
In
1835, the scientist Gauss carried out a world wide survey of the strength of
the magnetic field. From his
measurements he worked out that the power of the magnetic field was (8.56
amps/m2 x 10^22). This was checked a few
years later by other experts and found to be (8.45). This has continued to be
measured over many years and there has been a consistent fall in the value.
T.G.
Barnes, a creation scientist who has written books and articles on the magnetic
field of the Earth, by examining the measured values mathematically, found that
the half-life of the magnetic field was about 1,400 years. The implications of what the magnetic field
would have been in the past, poses a tremendous problem for orthodox scientists
and evolutionists.
With
a value of 8.56 in 1835, then 1,400 years earlier the value would have been
17.12. 2,800 years earlier the value would have been 34.24 and so on. By continuing this calculation backwards in
time, it can be demonstrated that for ages more than about 10,000 years ago,
the circulating electrical currents necessary to generate this large magnetic
field, would have had the power of a magnetic star and the currents would have
generated so much heat, that life on Earth would have been impossible.
The above evidence has ensured the the work of T.G. Barnes has been rejected by evolutionists. Although evolutionists have no good explanations as to how it actually happens, they have put forward the ‘Reversal Theory’ of the Earth's magnetic field many times in the past, taking thousands of years for one reversal at intervals of millions of years. It is intriguing the various ways in which secular scientists will go to such desperate lengths to avoid the most obvious solution, that can explain the decrease in the Earth's magnetic field. The simple fact is that a circulating current, slowly being reduced by the electrical resistance of the Earth, is a perfectly adequate explanation of all the measured phenomena. The problem has been made even more acute for evolutionists, by the fairly recent discovery that the half-life of the Earth's magnetic field is not 1,400 years on which T.G. Barnes based his calculations, but 830 years. This would make the age of the Earth younger still.
It is interesting that although evolutionists are stuck when it comes to providing an explanation for their ‘Reversal Theory’, a nuclear physicist by the name of Dr. Russell Humphreys, has an intriguing explanation of how these reversals could occur very quickly, as opposed to thousands and millions of years. This explanation is given in an article written for “Creation Ex Nihilo” magazine, March – May 1998 issue. The article entitled “The Earth’s Magnetic Field – Evidence That The Earth Is Young” by Jonathan Sarfati says:-
“The nuclear
physicist Dr. Russell Humphreys believed that T.G. Barnes had the right idea,
and he also accepted that the reversals were real. He modified Barnes’ model to
account for special effects of a liquid conductor, like the molten metal of the
Earth’s outer core. If the liquid flowed upwards (due to convection – hot
fluids rise, cold fluids sink) this could sometimes make the magnetic field
reverse quickly. Now as discussed in “Creation Vol. 19 No. 3 1997”, Dr. John
Baumgardner proposes that the plunging of tectonic plates was a cause of the
Genesis Flood. Dr. Humphreys says that these plates would have sharply cooled
the outer parts of the core, driving the convection. This means that most of the reversals occurred in the Flood year,
every week or two. And after the Flood, there would be large fluctuations due
to residual motion. But the reversals and fluctuations could not halt the
overall decay pattern, rather the total field energy would decay even faster.
This model
also explains why the Sun reverses its
magnetic field every 11 years. The Sun is a gigantic ball of hot, energetically
moving, electrically conducting gas. Contrary to the ‘dynamo model’ the overall
field energy of the Sun is decreasing.
Dr. Humphreys
also proposed a test for his model. Magnetic reversals should be found in rocks
known to have cooled in days or weeks. For example, in a thin lava flow, the
outside would cool first, and record Earth's magnetic field in one direction.
The inside would cool later, and record the field in another direction.
Three years
after this prediction, leading researchers Robert Coe and Michel Prevot found a
thin lava layer that must have cooled within 15 days, and had 90 degrees of
reversal recorded continuously in it. And it was no fluke, because eight years
later, they reported an even faster reversal. This was staggering news to them
and the rest of the evolutionary community, but strong support for the
creationist Humphreys’ model.
The Earth’s
magnetic field is not only a good navigational aid and a shield from space
particles, it is powerful evidence AGAINST evolution and billions of years. The
clear decay pattern shows the Earth could not be older than about 10,000
years.”
The fact is the Earth’s magnetism is
running down. This world wide phenomenon could not have been going on for more
than a few thousand years, despite the probability of swapping direction many
times. Evolutionary theories are not able to properly explain how the magnetism
could sustain itself for billions of years.
“They Will Tell Of The POWER Of
Your Awesome Works, And I Will Proclaim Your Great Deeds.”
Psalm 145:6.
7). Elements
In The Oceans.
There are 33 calculated ages that are obtained by measurements of various elements that are carried into the oceans by rivers. By dividing the amount in the oceans today, by the total amount entering via the rivers, the MAXIMUM age of the oceans can be calculated. This method assumes that initially there was none of the element present in the sea originally, which enables scientists to arrive at a much greater age.
The
longest age of all the 33 calculated is 560 million years, which is obtained
from the amount of gold entering the sea.
The shortest age using this method is for iron which gives only 140
years. The average age of all 33 methods
comes to 17.6 million years, obviously nothing like the thousands of millions
of years claimed by evolutionists.
The variation between these values is perfectly understandable. Where the age is very short, as in the case of iron, there is obviously some means by which the element is removed from the sea. In the case of iron, it is most likely absorbed by sea creatures and becomes part of the food chain. Although this reasoning can explain the very low age given by iron, it cannot be used in every case, because there are very few ways in which elements can be removed. They are all at extremely low concentrations, and nowhere near saturation level in the sea. It would also require every listed element to be removed from the oceans by some means or other, but there are too many such examples, and each element would have to have a specific method by which it could be removed.
One
common way of dismissing this evidence, is by claiming that these ages of the
elements in the oceans are merely 'residence times'., and not indicative of
age. In other words they are saying that
there have been stable conditions over millions of years (uniformitarianism),
in which the amounts of the elements entering the seas are roughly the same as
those being removed. When anyone asks
the obvious question as to whether this claim can be established by
verification, it is met with deafening silence.
Bearing in mind the enormous quantity of sea water above every square
metre of sea floor, if there had been ongoing removal for vast periods of time,
we would expect to see much richer deposits of elements on the sea bed than we
see today.
In 1990, a joint paper was written by
geologist Dr. Steve Austin and physicist Dr. Russell Humphreys, who had been
analysing figures from secular geoscience sources, for the quantity of Sodium
Ion in the ocean, and its input and output rates. Granting the most generous
assumptions to evolutionists, Austin and Humphreys calculated the MAXIMUM age
of the oceans to be around 62 million years.
“Others Went Out On The Sea In
Ships; They Were Merchants On The Mighty Waters. They Saw The Works Of The Lord,
His Wonderful Deeds In The Deep.”
Psalm 107:23-24.
Conclusion
There
are very strong indications that the Earth and even the entire Universe are
much younger than most people assume. At
the lower end somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 years, while at the upper end
a few million years. Satan's rebellion,
the wrecking of the Universe, and the re-creation, can still fit neatly into
either timeframe without any great problem.
The one scenario which cannot possibly in any way fit into this
timeframe, is the Theory Of Evolution.
Even now there are howls of anguish from the Evolutionist camp, who are
desperately trying to discredit Creationist research. Even though the Creationists have produced
much valuable evidence indicating a
relatively "Young Universe", they do themselves a great
disservice by rigidly clinging to a Universe age of 6,000 years, when even the
evidence from their own research is contrary to this. If we simply have faith in God's Word, and
let the scientific evidence speak for itself, then they both neatly fit
together, without having to twist, bend and contort anything.
"Then You Will Know The Truth And The
Truth Will Set You Free". John 8:32.
Postscript
Potassium-Argon Dating.
The
popular concept of radioactive dating is that it is very accurate and enables
strata to be precisely dated.
Creationists have long pointed out the wide discrepancies obtained by
this method. For example, rocks with an “expected” date of 300 million years,
could give results ranging from 100 to 400 million years. With variations this large, it can be seen
why measured dates have to be within an 'accepted range' before they can be
published.
When
determining the age of rock strata by this method, if the radioactive date
differs widely from the fossil dating in the strata, the fossil date is always
the final authority. Radio dates are
only ever used when there are no other indicators of age. When fossils are present where expected in a
strata, radio dates are only used to 'confirm' an age. Some experts, keen to make a name for
themselves, will seize upon any radio date that gives their fossil discovery
precedence over others. Such an example
is Richard Leakey's 1470 man, where an initial dating of 220 million years was
about 100 times too high to fit the evolutionary timescale. Subsequent dating of the same strata by the
same method gave a more “acceptable”
figure of 2.6 million years, which was the date that was publicised. Malcolm Bowden states that many more examples
could be quoted.
In an article for the December –
February 2000 issue of the “Creation Ex Nihilo” magazine entitled “Radioactive
Dating Failure”, Andrew Snelling writes in his conclusion:
“The radioactive potassium-argon dating method has been demonstrated to fail on the 1949, 1954 and 1975 lava flows at Mount Ngauruhoe, New Zealand, in spite of the quality of the laboratory’s K-Ar (potassium-argon) analytical work. Argon gas, brought up from deep inside the earth within the molten rock, was already present in the lavas when they cooled. We know the true ages of the rocks because they were observed to form around 50 years ago. Yet they yield ‘ages’ up to 3.5 million years which are thus false.. How can we trust the use of this same ‘dating’ method on rocks whose ages we don’t know? If the method fails on rocks when we have an independent eye-witness account, then why should we trust it on other rocks where there are no independent historical cross-checks?”
Radio-Carbon Dating.
In an article for the September –
November 1998 issue of the “Creation Ex Nihilo” magazine entitled “Stumping
Old-Age Dogma”, Andrew Snelling writes about an experiment conducted over
carefully controlled conditions, which shows radio-carbon dating giving a
"young" age for something "supposed" to be very
"old":-
“…a fossilised tree stump was found by miners in the Newvale No.2 (underground) coal mine north of Sydney, Australia. A portion of it was saved by one of the miners….Based on the plant fossils found in them, these coal beds (including the associated mudstone in which the stump was found) have been designated Upper Permian, which uniformitarian geologists would therefore assign to a period of Earth’s history around 250 million years ago…..Small pieces of the coalified bark and the silicified wood immediately underneath it were sent for radiocarbon (C14) analyses to Geochron Laboratories in Cambridge, Boston (U.S.A.), a reputable, internationally recognized commercial laboratory. The laboratory staff were not told exactly where the samples came from, or their ‘supposed’ evolutionary age, to ensure that there would be no resultant bias. This laboratory uses the more sensitive accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) technique for radiocarbon analysis, now recognized as producing the most reliable results, even on minute quantities of carbon in samples……There was detectable radio-carbon in the coalified bark, yielding a supposed C14 ‘age’ of 33,700 years (+ or -) 400 years BP (before present)……Of course, if the wood really were 250 million years old as is supposed, one should not be able to obtain a finite age from radiocarbon – all detectable C14 should have decayed away in a fraction of that alleged time…..Clearly a 33,700 years (+ or -) 400 years BP radio-carbon ‘age’ emphatically conflicts with, and casts doubt upon, the evolutionary fossil and uniformitarian rock ‘age’ of 250 million years for this fossilised tree stump.”
Malcolm
Bowden quotes one scientist, a Nobel prizewinner in 1973, who said:-
"If a C14 date supports a theory, we include it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict a theory, we put it in a footnote. If it is completely 'out of date' we just drop it entirely."
Malcolm
Bowden contends that the same attitude prevails today with regard to dating.