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Young Earth Creationism is the belief that the Earth, and usually the universe, were created by a direct
action of God a relatively short time ago. Such a belief is almost invariably held in
conjunction with fundamentalist Christian beliefs, in which the first chapters of
the biblical book of Genesis are taken to be a literal account of the creation of the
universe, in six strictly 24-hour days. This differs from Day-Age
Creationism which purports that "day" is used in Genesis before the creation of the sun or the earth and the dawn of earthly
time. Young Earth Creationists generally believe that the age of the Earth is between 6000 and 20,000 years, although some
believe in a "gap" of unspecified duration between the creation of Adam and Eve and the Fall — see Gap Creationism.
Such an interpretation conflicts with mainstream scientific views of the age of the earth and the origins of life. Young Earth
Creationists generally believe that scientific belief in an old earth are the results of misinterpretations of evidence or
erroneous assumptions. There is a widespread belief that evidence for a young earth is suppressed or ignored by the scientific
mainstream. Although most Young Earth Creationists' primary reason for belief is a faith in the literal interpretation of
Genesis, they do maintain that scientific observations, if correctly interpreted, would support their viewpoint.
Young Earth Creationists usually distinguish their own hypotheses from the Omphalos hypothesis put forth by Philip
Henry Gosse. Gosse's hypothesis claims that, just as Adam had a navel, evidence of a gestation he never experienced, so also
the Earth was created ex nihilo complete with
evidence of a prehistoric past that never actually occurred. Gosse's hypothesis allows for a young earth without giving rise to
any predictions that would contradict scientific findings; Young Earth Creationists, by contrast, attempt to re-interpret
scientific data to support their hypothesis that the earth is in fact young.
Young Earth Creationists deny the Theory of Evolution, in
particular the ideas and mechanisms of Macroevolution.
The Flood
Young Earth Creationists almost invariably believe also in a literal interpretation of Noah's flood as worldwide and total. Many explanations for perceived problems in young earth creationism come from
this belief in a flood and subsequent ice age. This area of creation science is
called flood geology.
Young Earthers generally hold that most of the geological formations that we see were laid down during the time of the flood.
It is believed that a vast amount of water descended on the Earth, covering it to a height of thousands of metres. Rock and soil
was taken up into this water as silt, and was then deposited, forming the geological layers that we see today. They believe that
much of the layering we see today was laid down not successively but simultaneously, in the same way as sand particles of
different densities suspended in water will settle out to form layers in only a few seconds.
A worldwide flood is held to account for the erosion found in many spots, equivalent to millenia of conventional erosion. It
is also held to account for the splitting of the continents on a timescale faster than that determined by conventional
geology.
There is no evidence for a Genesis flood in ice cores, and there is evidence for
multiple ice ages.
Distant Stars
One of the major obstances to the Young Earth theory has been the visibility of astronomical objects many millions of light
years distant. According to conventional science, the light that we are observing therefore began its journey millions of years
ago, and this would not have been possible in a universe only a few thousands of years old.
Young Earthers have various responses to this question:
Light created in transit
Some Young Earthers hold that God might have created light that appeared to have come from these objects, but created
it 'in transit'. This is a limited form of the Omphalos
hypothesis.
The Institute for Creation Research supports this viewpoint, arguing that God would be creating
a "very good" (Genesis 1:31) earth, by allowing Adam to see the stars already.
Inaccurate astronomy
Early responses by Young Earth Creationists tended to challenge the astronomical measurements, i.e. to assert that distant
objects were not as far away as thought. When distance measurements were entirely reliant on red-shift calculations, it was easy
to challenge the assumption that red-shift and distance were necessarily corrolated. Since measurements of astronomical distances
are now much better authenticated this approach has fallen into disfavour.
Decreasing speed of light
Another approach was to consider that the speed of light may not
have been constant. If the speed of light were signficantly faster in the past, light from distant objects could have reached
earth in much less time. Such an approach is attractive — after all, it is impossible to prove today that fundamental
physical constants have not changed over time.
A change in the speed of light of the necessary magnitude would have had profound implications on other physical processes,
particularly the nuclear fusion reactions that power the Sun. Secondly measurements of the speed of light have revealed no noticeable change in the speed of
light in the time we have been measuring it. Given that these measurements have been extremely accurate over a long period it
seems unlikely to opponents of this theory that there were substantial changes in the last few thousand years. This cannot be
conclusively proven.
Relatavistic shifts
A more recent theory holds that, in a bounded universe, relativistic effects might cause time to pass more slowly near the
centre of the universe that at its periphery. If the Earth were near the centre, then far-away stars might indeed be millions of
years old, while the earth might be thousands of years old, even if created at the same time. Even the author of this theory will
admit that it is no more than a theory at this time.
Early civilisation
Many Young Earthers believe that dinosaurs and other creatures of their geological era existed contemporaneously with human
beings. Mythologies of dragons and other creatures, such as the Leviathan in the
Book of Job, bear a strong resemblance to dinosaurs and occur frequently in many parts of the world. There are suggestions that cave paintings have been found which represent animals that should have been
extinct long before the paintings occurred.
Young Earth Creationists hold that human society progressed from the 'caveman' stage to city-building capability in only a few
thousand years. Many Young Earthers argue that in Adam's day, humans lived longer (1000 years), had few disabilities and
malfunctions, and were closer to God, and therefore lived more successfully. Since expulsion from Eden, they hold that humans
have slowly declined as a consequence of genetic mutations and/or seperation from God.
By contrast, conventional science maintains that dinosaurs died out millions of years before human beings existed. No
occurrences have been found of human beings in the same fossil layers as creatures believed to be ancient, such as dinosaurs.
Conventional science views genetic mutations as benefiting the species via evolution.
Helium
Studies done at Los Alamos National
Laboratory and Oak Ridge National
Laboratory have found much higher than expected helium in granite. This helium is the product of radioactive decay but should be essentially diffused out of rock after several million years. [1]
Young Earthers argue that this shows that these rocks are substantially younger than the age given by conventional
science.
Evidence For a Young Earth
(not including those already mentioned)
With the scientific mainstream appearing to support an earth billions of years old, much Young Earth effort is dedicated to
discrediting this evidence. They do believe that some observations point directly to a young earth. for example:
- Detectable levels of carbon 14 (C14) are found in organic carbon samples that
are older than 250,000 years, according to conventional dating. According to common theory, coal and wood samples from very old
materials should not have detectable levels of C14, however C14 is found in these samples indicating that they are not as old as
commonly believed. [2]
- The Green River (Utah) formation in Wyoming has an abundant amount of fossil evidence
distributed in millions of tiny rock layers commonly thought to be indicate one year per layer. However, these fossils show ample
soft tissue preservation. Studies indicate that even in oxygen poor environments these decaying animals would not have been able
to leave fossil evidence through many years worth of layers. [3]
- Various problems, inexactitudes and gaps in the evolutionary tree are held to discredit the theory, and thus provide support
for a young earth.
- Geological dating methods, especially radioactive ones, are held to be unreliable because they rely on assumptions about
constant levels of isotopes throughout the earth's entire history — assumptions which cannot be proved.
- Carbon dating techniques are also considered inaccurate because of
unprovable assumptions about the levels of Carbon 14 in organic materials in ancient times.
- Many arguments have been put forward concerning changing levels of substances on the Earth, which it is claimed would have
had to start from impossible levels were the Earth more than 10,000 years old. At one point the level of salt in the sea was
claimed to follow this pattern.
Evidence Against a Young Earth
(not including those already mentioned)
Some of the major scientific obstacles to Young Earth Creationism are:
- Some oil shale deposits, generally believed to have annual layers, have millions of
layers.
- Other structures that show annual layers, such as coral reefs and ice cores, show many more layers than would be expected in a young earth.
- No scientific mechanism has been accepted that would allow for the geological formations that we see today to be created in
only a few thousand years. This includes both geological layering and large features caused by erosion.
Other scientific data directly invalidating this viewpoint include tree ring
sequences and the shape of the Atlantic Ocean. It also requires drastic
alterations of physical constants affecting the speed of light, radioactive decay rates, heat transfer rates (to remove the heat from chemical reactions), etc.
ICR Arguments
The Institute for Creation Research(ICR)[4] is the source of most evidence cited
by Young Earth Creationists. They search for other interpretations to scientifically accepted data. Here are some of their
arguments:
First, responses to the evidence against the young earth model:
- Humans, and in fact all mammals, are difficult to find fossils of, because fossilization requires water and mammals float on
water when dead ("Dead Man's Float"). Besides, humans do not live in water and typically do not throw their dead into the
ocean.
Next, the arguments for a young earth:
- Measurements of earth's magnetic field have shown it to follow a pattern of exponential decay, with a half-life of 1400 years. This
follows that life would have been impossible some 20,000 years ago. However, there is scientific evidence that the Earth's
magnetic field has reversed polarity several times and life has been present through all these reversals.
Response to ICR arguments
- ICR claims coal and fossils of similar age have some carbon-14 and consistently give dates consistent with the Young Earth
viewpoint. True, it is very difficult to avoid contamination at the level of a few atoms. The claim of consistent results,
presumably giving an age of 6000 years, is simply a lie. That article seems to have been deleted from the ICR website.
- The Green River formation consists of millions of layers, and each layer has been interpreted as one year of sediment
deposition in a lake. Suppose ICR has reported correctly that it contains catfish fossils extending over several layers and no
scientific theory explains their preservation[5] — this is an unchecked hypothetical. The ICR
cannot explain the deposition of millions of fine layers over thousands of square miles within a catastrophic flood. An apparent
anomaly is not evidence for an incoherent conjecture.
- Another common tactic is to use an anomalous measurement that was rejected due to inconsistency with other measurements. This
often happens in radioactive dating.
See also
External links
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