Ask a Young Earth Creationist.

Stacmon said:

There's been talk about the theory of evolution, and mutation conferring positive benefits. Even in the extremely rare case that mutations are positive, one thing we don't see in the fossil record is the variety of "transitory species" that Charles Darwin presumed existed (for his theory to be valid).

This is one strong argument I've heard made by some members of the Muslim community. Islam does not claim that the Earth or Universe in contrast to YECs is several thousands of years old.

If evolution was the gradual, "barely observable" process of minute changes and adaptations among living beings, we should see a much greater variety of species in the process of this transition. More than that however, we should see a lot of "unsuccessful" examples of mutations in the fossil record. This isn't at all the case.

Even the few fossils of animals we find that seem to "fill in" a few of the gaps, are fully formed and functional creatures in their own right.

The theory of evolution is also unable to explain the development of life before the Cambrian Explosion (which included the appearance of almost all complex organic designs). The great variety of creatures of this period have no "ancestors" in the fossil record. Evolution also doesn't address the question of how life came into being in the first place.

The above is something that's made me very skeptical about the theory of evolution in its current form.

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It has been proved at least in the form of genetic algorithims that for an unkown reason evolution works that way. It sits at a plateau before a sudden massive change, before plateauing again. If there were only a few generations in between then it is quite obvious that we wouldn't find fossils of such short lived species.

Okay, here's one: why do you believe what the Bible says?

Joe Harker said:

Also how do you explain that when we grow in the womb we seem to go though our evolutionary path, for the early stahes of it we resemble tadpoles

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Do people really still believe that Ernst Haeckel crap? That was proven false more than a century ago - what it looks like is irrelevant, what matters is it's actual biological relationship. That argument is no more valid than the worst Kent Hovind has to offer.

Let's stay away from crappy science, on both sides, OK?

nc-1701 said:

It has been proved at least in the form of genetic algorithims that for an unkown reason evolution works that way. It sits at a plateau before a sudden massive change, before plateauing again. If there were only a few generations in between then it is quite obvious that we wouldn't find fossils of such short lived species.

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Do you have any references regarding this claim? I'd enjoy reading about this further.

Also...

Yuri2356 said:

What defined the length of the first "Day" of creation, if the Sun didn't exist yet?

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I think you have to go to the original Hebrew Torah to answer this question.

I'm not sure what the original Hebrew says (ie: whether or not they specifically use a word that could only mean days), but the Qur'an approaches the topic of creation from a different angle. The amounts of time mentioned are "periods," rather than days and it is not specified how long each of these took. It could be that the Old Testament does something similar, then again, it could literally say and mean "days."

I'm mostly curious about how YECs can disregard radiocarbon dating and fossils and such.

Chandrasekhar said:

I'm mostly curious about how YECs can disregard radiocarbon dating and fossils and such.

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One of the arguments I've seen is that we don't know anything of pre-historic carbon 14 levels, and thus can't be trusted. (even though carbon 14 is not used to measure fossils even 1 million years old)

And how immersing a fossil in water long enough can wash away enough of it's elements and leave it much older than it's supposed to be with radioactive dating (Even though radioactive dating uses percentages of those elements, not amounts...)

Stacmon said:

Do you have any references regarding this claim? I'd enjoy reading about this further.

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All, right it took me forever to find the right key-words to use in google, but here's a nice long Wikipedia Link about the system in regards to evolution it's self. Still looking for information regarding the genetic algorithms. I read about this in book form, and I'm having trouble finding a good web version, plus it's late an' so I'm tired

How are you going to find time to answer all these questions?

I am not going to ask a question, but just install one piece of insight into this discussion. There is no requirement incumbent upon one to have answers to all posed questions in order for one's belief to be accurate and true.

Too many fence-sitters and non-believers would like others to believe that if creationists do not have an answer for everything that creationism cannot be the truth. These people are without honor, honesty, and/or rationale. I would advise you that anyone who claims to have all of the answers is not only a fool, but a liar, as well. Beware of such individuals, whether they believe in God or not.

The most distressing component to all of this is the absence of faith, hope, and imagination. Little is spent and lost with moderate applications of all three, and certainly not if there truly is someone up there.

How much biology/chemisty/physics/geology/history have you actually studied?

Where is the error in the common derivation of Hubble's constant?

If God put fossils in the ground, a) why didn't he mention it in the Bible? and b) couldn't he have done the same with unearthed remains of Rome/Egypt/Ancient China etc?

How can we catch the common cold more than once?

How do we know the Bible hasn't been messed with over time?

Why did God create the Earth to look as though its much older than it is (continental drift, for example)?

I have a large number of other questions, if you like.

Murky said:

I suppose the most logical question to ask is why? Why would you believe in something you can never prove to be fact?

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Im not a creationist of any kind nor do i subscribe to its beliefs, but most people believe in things that they will never personally prove themselves nor make a business to find out more about.

John HSOG said:

I am not going to ask a question, but just install one piece of insight into this discussion. There is no requirement incumbent upon one to have answers to all posed questions in order for one's belief to be accurate and true.

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That's a good point. A person can be right without knowing all the reasons that they're right. This thread can be a bit of an exception, because it's basically a Q&A thread. We're supposed to ask!
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I wonder why more YECs aren't answering, though?

El_Machinae said:

That's a good point. A person can be right without knowing all the reasons that they're right. This thread can be a bit of an exception, because it's basically a Q&A thread. We're supposed to ask!
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I wonder why more YECs aren't answering, though?

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Oh, well, I knew that. The problem is that there are going to be a lot of people that come in here and spout off as many questions as they possibly can in order to find that one or two that the YEC can't answer and then suddenly claim that this is proof that creationism is false. It happens in every "prove this" thread.

John HSOG said:

Oh, well, I knew that. The problem is that there are going to be a lot of people that come in here and spout off as many questions as they possibly can in order to find that one or two that the YEC can't answer and then suddenly claim that this is proof that creationism is false. It happens in every "prove this" thread.

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That's how disproving works...

The reason for the large number of questions is that YEC has a large number of flaws.

Truronian said:

That's how disproving works...

The reason for the large number of questions is that YEC has a large number of flaws.

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Asking questions and finding answers is, but a component of such things. You could ask me to prove that there are such things as atoms that make up everything in existence by asking me questions about atomic theory, but I don't know much about it. My lack of answers, for you, does not mean that your aren't a carbon-based life form.

Truronian said:

That's how disproving works...

The reason for the large number of questions is that YEC has a large number of flaws.

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Well, people who try to counter evolution often 'shotgun' their objections; and this is seen as dishonest during something like a debate on the topic.

John HSOG said:

Asking questions and finding answers is, but a component of such things. You could ask me to prove that there are such things as atoms that make up everything in existence by asking me questions about atomic theory, but I don't know much about it. My lack of answers, for you, does not mean that your aren't a carbon-based life form.

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But you haven't started an "Ask an Atomic Theory specialist" thread...

At the every least, you could find a website/person to answer on your behalf which the OP is welcome to do in this thread.

El_Machinae said:

Well, people who try to counter evolution often 'shotgun' their objections; and this is seen as dishonest during something like a debate on the topic.

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Meh. I see no difference between addressing all objections in one go and doing them over several posts... at the end of the day they are still addressed.

Truronian said:

But you haven't started an "Ask an Atomic Theory specialist" thread...

At the every least, you could find a website/person to answer on your behalf which the OP is welcome to do in this thread.



Meh. I see no difference between addressing all objections in one go and doing them over several posts... at the end of the day they are still addressed.

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The point is, nevertheless, that he does not have to have all of the answers to your questions in order for creationism to be right.

CivGeneral said:

How do you reconcile the belief of an Young Earth Creationist (Which states that the Earth was formed 6000-5000 years ago) when we have radiological dating that dates rocks and fossils beyond the 6000 years BP (Before Present) line?

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Well the radioactive decay is not quite so concrete as many people say, because there are many things that can affect the rate of decay. Also the way how the it is measured makes many assumption, such as that they know the exact amount of mother material that would have been at the site. No one would even know that, thus it is assumed.
Billion Fold acceleration demonstrated in the laboratory

Experimental demonstration of the actual existence of bb decay, however, did not occur until the 1990s. 163Dy, a stable nuclide under normal-Earth conditions, was found to decay to 163Ho, with t½ = 47 days, under the bare-nucleus conditions of the completely ionized state.4 More recently, bb decay has been experimentally demonstrated in the rhenium-osmium (187Re-187Os) system. (The Re-Os method is one of the isotopic ‘clocks’ used by uniformitarian geologists5 to supposedly date rocks.) The experiment involved the circulation of fully-ionized 187Re in a storage ring. The 187Re ions were found to decay to a measurable extent in only several hours, amounting to a half-life of only 33 years. This represents a staggering billion-fold increase over the conventional half-life, which is 42 Ga! (Ga = giga-annum = a billion (109) years).

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ANDESITE FLOWS AT MT NGAURUHOE, NEW ZEALAND, AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR POTASSIUM-ARGON "DATING"

ABSTRACT
New Zealand's newest and most active volcano, Mt Ngauruhoe in the Taupo Volcanic Zone, produced andesite flows in 1949 and 1954, and avalanche deposits in 1975. Potassium-argon "dating" of five of these flows and deposits yielded K-Ar model "ages" from <0.27 Ma to 3.5 - 0.2 Ma. "Dates" could not be reproduced, even from splits of the same samples from the same flow, the explanation being variations in excess 40Ar* content. A survey of anomalous K-Ar "dates" indicates they are common, particularly in basalts, xenoliths and xenocrysts such as diamonds that are regarded as coming from the upper mantle. In fact, it is now well established that there are large quantities of excess 40Ar* in the mantle, which in part represent primordial argon not produced by in situ radioactive decay of 40K and not yet outgassed. And there are mantle-crust domains between, and within, which argon circulates during global tectonic processes, magma genesis and mixing of crustal materials. This has significant implications for the validity of K-Ar and 40Ar/39Ar "dating".

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These two quotes shows that everything is not quite right with traditional dating methods. Also with Radioactive decay, you get helium as a by product of the decay, but the amount of helium is not what you would expect for samples that have had billions of years. Whenever decay happens we get an alpha particle and that eventually turns into helium, thus helium is a good indicator of age because it can show how much helium is in the sample thus we get an age from it. The problem for Evolutionists is the fact that it does not give billions of year, but actually just a few thousand years, give or take a few thousand.
Nuclear Decay: Evidence for a Young Earth

Recent experiments commissioned by the RATE project1 indicate that "1.5 billion years" worth of nuclear decay took place in one or more short episodes between 4,000 and 14,000 years ago. The results strongly support our accelerated decay hypothesis, that episodes with billion-fold speed-ups of nuclear decay occurred in the recent past, such as during the Genesis flood, the Fall of Adam, or early Creation week. Such accelerations would shrink the alleged 4.5 billion year radioisotope age of the earth down to the 6,000 years that a straightforward reading of the Bible gives.

Our experiments measured how rapidly nuclear-decay-generated helium escapes from tiny radioactive crystals in granite-like rock. The data show that most of the helium generated by nuclear decay would have escaped during the alleged 1.5 billion year uniformitarian age of the rock, and there would be very little helium in the crystals today. But the crystals still retain large amounts of helium, amounts our experiments show are entirely consistent with an age of only thousands of years. Thus these data are evidence against the long ages of evolutionism and for the recent creation in Scripture.

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The decay it at a diffusion rate that is about 100,000 times less than what it should be. For the data to be correct for evolutionist, then this is what would need to have happened to the samples.

Our zircon data agree with recently published data from another site,9 and both agree with our "Creation" model. The data allow us to calculate how long diffusion has been taking place—between 4,000 and 14,000 years! The diffusion rates are nearly 100,000 times higher than the maximum rates the "Evolution" model could allow. That leaves no hope for the 1.5 billion years. For most of that alleged time, the zircons would have to have been as cold as liquid nitrogen (196ºC below zero) to retain the observed amount of helium. Such a "cryogenic Earth" model would not help uniformitarians, because it would violate uniformitarianism!

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So the results are a great confirmation for the belief in what the Bible says. For more info see this paper on the issue.
Helium Diffusion age of 6,000 Years

And there is some more evidence that they earth is young and that is our magnetic field. This theory about the beginnings of the solar systems magnetic fields is based on this verse. 2 Peter 3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
So a Physicist came up with a theory that the solar system was first formed out of water and then he made some assumptions that are found here.
The Creation of Planetary Magnetic Fields

God could have started magnetic fields in the solar system in a very simple way: by creating the original atoms of the planets with many of their nuclear spins pointing in the same direction. The small magnetic fields of so many atomic nuclei add up to fields large enough to account for the magnetism of the planets. Within seconds after creation, ordinary physical events would convert the alignment of nuclei into a large electric current circulating within each planet, maintaining the magnetic field. The currents and fields would decay steadily over thousands of years, as Barnes has pointed out. The present magnetic field strengths of the Earth, Sun, Moon, and planets agree very well with the values produced by this theory and a 6000-year age for the solar system. This theory is consistent with all the known data and explains many facts which have puzzled evolutionists.

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Here are some things in the future that can test this theory to see if it is correct.

Evolutionists often say that creationist theories are not "real science" because, they claim, such theories make no predictions which can be tested. But in this theory we have a counterexample to their claim. Here are some specific predictions of the theory which could be tested by future data from space missions:

1. Older igneous rocks from Mercury or Mars should have natural remanent magnetization, as the Moon's rocks do.

2. Mercury's decay rate is so rapid that some future probe could detect it fairly soon. In 1990 the planet's magnetic moment should be 1.8 percent smaller than its 1975 value.

3. The upcoming Voyager 2 encounters with Uranus and Neptune should show planetary magnetic moments less than the k = 1.0 limit: 8.2 x 10²⁵ J/T for Uranus and 9.7 x 10²⁵ J/T for Neptune.

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In fact we have been able to show that because Voyager has long been past those two planets and have been able to, and guess what? They supported the creationist model on the magnetic field.
Beyond Neptune: Voyager II supports Creation

Two years later, on January 20, 1986, Voyager II passed by Uranus. It showed that Uranus has a magnetic moment of 3.0 x 1024 A m2, well within the bounds of my prediction. In contrast, many evolutionists had predicted that Uranus would have a much smaller field, or none at all.7 This prediction grew directly out of their "dynamo" theories, which assume that the fluid interior of a planet is like an electrical generator (dynamo) maintaining the magnetic field forever. The generator mechanism would be driven by heat in the interior, which would manifest itself by a significant heat outflow from the planet's surface. However, astronomic measurements had shown that Uranus has very little heat outflow. Hence, by their theories, Uranus should not have a strong magnetic field. But it does!

On August 25, 1989, Voyager II passed by Neptune and found that it has a magnetic moment of 1.5 x 1024 A m2, again about in the middle of my prediction. Neptune has a significant heat outflow, so dynamo theorists expected it to have a field as strong as the one I predicted. Thus for Neptune, the creationist and evolutionist theories did equally well, as far as predicting the strength of the field is concerned. However, in other aspects of the magnetic field, Neptune gave the dynamo theorists a rude surprise.

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There reason for all this evidence about the age of the Earth is that this is really the heart of the issue at hand. IS the Bible reliable in what is says? Because if the Bible is accurate and that there is scientific evidence to back it up regarding the age of the earth, then it is reliable in all thing, but if it is wrong in this, then it is wrong inall things and thus unreliable.
AN Old Age of the Earth is at the Heart of Evolution

"Time" in general, and the age of the earth in particular, is the heart of evolutionary theorizing. Even more, the conventional age of the earth is the ultimate foundation for other long chronologies, both inside and outside the solar system. The evolutionary age of the earth is ultimately based on nothing more than Lyellian uniformitarianism, radiometric claims notwithstanding, and Lyell's own agenda was to displace the biblical chronology with a secular one. Aside from the evidences that the cosmos does not have a long age, it is also true that discrediting an old age for the earth discredits old ages for the universe as well. Since the earth is not truly old, the billions-of-years chronology for the sun, the solar system, and the universe has no foundation. It is therefore no wonder that the humanist community has steadfastly rejected the concept of a recent creation for the earth. It is also clear that recent creationists must continue to defend the biblical doctrine of a young earth.

Along these lines, a group of creation scientists is currently looking at the theory and results of radioisotope dating. The preliminary conclusion is that substantial radioactive decay has indeed occurred in rocks. However, this decay has not taken place slowly over geologic ages. Instead, one or more episodes of accelerated decay with greatly shortened half-lives took place in the past, thus accounting for the array of radioisotopes allegedly requiring billions of years to form. According to Vardiman (2000, p. 4),

It has been suggested that these increased decay rates may have been part of the rock-forming process on the early earth and/or one of the results of God's judgement upon man following the Creation, that is, the Curse or during the Flood.

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John HSOG said:

The point is, nevertheless, that he does not have to have all of the answers to your questions in order for creationism to be right.

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But he should be able to...