Thousands, not billions

[Bravus]

Just (finally) watching this program, which Shane was kind enough to send to me. It's very interesting, well produced and interesting. In particular they use graphics, visualizations and analogies very well to explain complex scientific ideas for a lay audience.

Just going to make a few notes as I go through:

1. The Grand Canyon diabase sill argument talks about the apparent inconsistencies of the various radioisotope dating methods for the same pieces of rock. The range is from about 0.8 to 1.6 billion years. So they may have challenged the accuracy of the dating scales, but so far they haven't established 'thousands, not billions'... in fact they seem to have supported a time scale in the billions of years.

2. The helium leak in zircons argument posits an accelerated rate of nuclear decay in the past, which is conjectural at best and not empirically testable. Maybe they had to over-simplify the argument for a lay audience, but it's not a scientific argument as presented here. It also does not address all the other 'metal to metal' decay dates they cited earlier.

3. The uranium-polonium radiohalos argument is also conjectural: there is no reason to assume that those polonium atoms included in the granite were from the same uranium atoms in the nearby uranium halos. Proximity *might* reflect common origin, but there's no direct evidence that it has to. The polonium and uranium would both have occurred at all stages of earth's history, and could have been independently included in the granite. And without the conjectured accelerated radiaoctive decay, the uranium halos still take hundreds of millions of years to occur.

4. The fission tracks argument - Snelling basically says explicitly at the end of the segment "there have been hundreds of millions of years worth of radioactive decay, and if you assume 6000 years, then you have to assume accelerated decay". Yep.

5. The nuclear force argument from a theoretical nuclear physicist is, in his own words, 'conjectural'. Yes, you can change those terms in the equation and get a different answer. Two things about that: (a) they present no evidence that such has happened and ( if it had - billions of years worth of radiation in a few thousand years - all life on earth would have been destroyed by the radiation.

6. The carbon-14 dating discussion simply *assumes* the flood. The existence of C14 in coal is a problem that is intriguing, and I'll be doing more research on it.

The bottom line is, these guys assume a short age and a flood, then go looking at the evidence to try to fit that, and make conjectures where necessary to make it fit. And that is OK: that is what they very explicitly said is what they set out to do, so their presentation is entirely consistent.

There are conjectures that they advance that are not empirically testable. So to the extent that that is the case, they're not doing science. They might be doing 'creation science'.

I do hate being put in the position of critic... I would love to be convinced and to find evidence for creation, because it would make my life very much simpler. But I have said that I believe we need to either eschew scientific evidence altogether (which is an honorable position) or else do science honestly. Dishonest or distorted science does not, I believe, serve the God of Truth.

[Dr. Shane]

I think most creationists are comfortable with conjecture however those that are teaching it need to be clear that it is conjecture in order to be ethical.

In the other video I sent Bravus, the evolutionist in the debate comes right out and says that the study of origins is not really science but rather pseudo-science. He was referring to the big bang and life coming from non-life.

Creation does testify to the existence of God, as the apostle Paul says it does. However the natural world does not testify to Biblical creation in the same way. Creation scientists must speculate and come up with conjecture in order to account for what we see to day. I have no problem with that as long as they are open about their conjecture.

So what I am saying is this. 1) The natural world itself testifies there is a God. One doesn't need the Bible in order to conclude from nature that there is a Creator. 2) The natural world itself does not testify of a recent, literal six-day creation. Without the Bible, one would not come to believe that. That is not to say the Bible is wrong, just that the natural world alone would not lead someone to the same conclusion.

[Beryl]

"Dishonest or distorted science does not, I believe, serve the God of Truth." (Bravus).

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we DO NOT SEE." Hebrews 11:1

"BY FAITH we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible." Hebrews 11:3.

"Without faith it is impossible to please Him." Hebrews 11:6.

In other words, God has never promised that anyone will be able to PROVE that Creation took place -- anymore than the "scientist" can prove that we come from a blob of mud (or whatever!).

I prefer to believe God!

God bless,

Beryl

[Bravus]

Agreed, Beryl. So as I said in my post, I believe it's better not to try, but just to rest in the kind of assurance you have based on the texts you've quoted.

[Beryl]

I don't know why this continues to be underlined. I tried to change it, but it is stubborn!

[Dr. Shane]

It has something to do with the link on Br*vus username (I think). Whatever it is, it also deleted a paragraph from my post which left the sentence fragment "In the other video I sent Br*vus".

[Stan]

Fixed...

[Beryl]

Thanks, Stan. What would we do without you?

Beryl