Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Email to a Tennessee young earther

As a short preface to my arguments, I would like to set the ground work by explaining how I came to this. I was made aware of a recent exchange of ideas a dear friend of mine had with a family member. I will thus structure my arguments in direct correlation to the concerns raised in their discussions. Please forgive me for this rather exhaustive response, however this is a huge controversy(in some circles) which goes beyond simple rhetoric and is widely misunderstood.

First, we should begin by defining terms. In doing so, we will look at not just the dictionary definitions of terms, but we shall look at the semantics of how the words are used. The most important is the term theory. Meriam webster provides the definition of theory as follows:

:an idea or set of ideas that is intended to explain facts or events
:an idea that is suggested or presented as possibly true but that is not known or proven to be true :the general principles or ideas that relate to a particular subject



From the standard dictionary definition of the word theory, it appears as a loose abstraction of the idea,a guess or conjecture. However in science, the word theory has a slightly different meaning. A scientific theory is defined further as you scroll down the page in the link provided for Meriam webster you see it also gives the definition of theory as

:  a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject
:  the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
:  a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena
:  a working hypothesis that is considered probable based on experimental evidence or factual or conceptual analysis and is accepted as a basis for experimentation

e.g. (the theory of Gravity, The fundamental theory of algebra, the fundamental theory of Calculus, Set theory, ..etc..)
Unfortunately, we must belabor this explanation of what theory means and how it is used in science. A scientific theory is described by wikipedia as:
...a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed through observation and experimentation. As with most (if not all) forms of scientific knowledge, scientific theories are inductive in nature and aim for predictive power and explanatory capability.

Wikipedia is peer edited so to alleviate any concerns that this article has been edited to fit the argument we shall look at a few sources:



We shall stop at just these four because at the bottom of the wikipedia article there is a significant list of sources to browse at your leisure. What can be deduced from this is that a theory is the next step after a hypothesis has stood up to systematic scrutiny. In science an observation, and the hypothesis to explain that observation goes through a an extensive series of tests. The tests are designed not to prove the hypothesis, but in corollary to disprove the hypothesis.( As a brief aside, a hypothesis that has no observable or disprovable properties that can be tested experimentally will not be considered further than a mere philosophical thought experiment.) Once a hypothesis has been tested exhaustively to the satisfaction of the proponents it is than submitted for peer review and tested by different scientists or teams of scientists in the relevant field to see if they can disprove it.

To keep us on topic another definition that needs to be clarified is exactly what evolution is as a dictionary word and how it is used semantically in the evolutionary theory. Again to source from Meriam Webster evolution is defined as

: the process by which changes in plants and animals happen over time
: a process of slow change and development
Wikipedia gives a slightly different definition:
:change in heritable traits of biological populations over successive generations
The article on wikipedia is fairly comprehensive and lists over 300 sources and has many other book references that are too long to list again in this letter. The vast number of sources to this should give us many starting points to go from to discover the true meaning of evolution.
The etymology of the word evolution shows the base word evolve come from the Latin word evolvere meaning, to unroll, roll out, roll forth, unfold so in adopting the word into English it was used in the figurative sense as, to develop or make clear. It wasn't until later that it was adopted into biology to describe the observable differences in species.
Evolution has also been used as a general word to describe something changing or improving over time.
Sources for this section:
Now that a few definitions are out of the way we will start working through a few of the arguments brought up.
Radiocarbon in Diamonds.
The theory of Evolution is a biological framework and is not directly applicable to this argument as this is a geological question. However I must assume that in listing this, it is an attempt to counter the time frame needed for some biological evolutionary processes.

The radiocarbon in diamonds argument is interesting. The origin of this argument comes from the RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) team from The ICR (Institute for Creation Research). They spent 8 years studying radio carbon dating and diamonds. A brief abstract is from the answers in genesis website that claims that natural diamonds can not have “intrinsic carbon-14” if they are older than the age limit of radiocarbon dating. The samples obtained by the rate group was said to have dated these at a much lower age than from where they were found. About 70k years when the sample should have been around 100 billion years.

A peer review of this study can be found at talk origins. ( A side note to this, is that this is exactly how science works, all experiments are peer reviewed and repeated to find errors. Even the reviews that say they find errors are reviewed. In a general it is an evolutionary process of constant critique).

In the critique we have statements from the experts that tested the samples, who explain that the samples where contaminated. It is important to note here that even in the write up on the study form answers in genesis which is an affiliate of the ICR says “Confirmation that there is in situ carbon-14 in diamonds has now been reported ..”. the phrase in situ means simply in its natural place. In the context given it means that there was contamination of the samples at the site it was collected and/or the samples were not properly handled or prepped for the dating process. Now we can assume that the samples were properly handled and prepped for dating, and still we could get a contaminated sample.
For organic materials the beta wave radiation of C-14 is often replaced by cosmic ray radiation
Radiocarbon dating is a very complex process and the samples can become contaminated from a variety of sources after being collected, during transport and during preparation. There are many factors involved which is why a single study on a sample set is insufficient.

It is also important to note that Radiocarbon dating of natural diamonds specifically is not capable of getting any accurate measurements at all. In fact radiocarbon dating of diamonds will only provide you with the age of contaminants on or in the samples. Due to the nature of how diamonds are formed Uranium-lead dating is the current best method to obtain an accurate date of diamonds.

Other resources on C-14 dating can be found at the following:
2. PBS NOVA (video)
3. UCSB (university of California Santa Barbara)






Other sources for Uranium-lead dating.

3. GSU (Georgia State University)

Recession of the moon

This argument is more for the mathematics and physics fields and is also outside the realm of biological Evolution. However, it appears to be another challenge to time frame in which biological evolution takes place.


This argument really does not have a direct scientific basis that I can find but what I have found comes from Thomas Barnes from the Institute for creation research (ICR) where he takes an excerpt from a 1963 paper discussing the the problems with the current formulation of the effects of the tidal force between the earth and the moon. I was unable to find any current scientific references to show how this has any merit as an argument against the age of the earth. However, I did find that the study of the earth moon relationship has evolved significantly since 1963 and even further since 1982 when Thomas Barnes quoted this paper. I am not a physicist so I can not justify this argument for either side of the proposition. However I invite more independent research. Some sources can be found at :talk origins there is a discussion about the mathematics behind it as well as a list of independent sources to explain the issues.

Earth’s Decaying Magnetic Field

This argument also goes to the age of the earth and is another argument proposed originally by Barnes and Humphreys at the Institute for creation research. The basic premise of it is the the earth magnetic field is decreasing and this somehow shows that the earth is not as old as it is. The argument proposes that the earths magnetic filed is an accurate dating mechanic for the age of the earth. The Humphreys/Barnes proposal relies on the fluctuations of the dipole which shows a downward trend and they propose that this means that the dipole would be catastrophically high if the earth was older than a few thousand years. There is no evidence showing this to be the case. The only evidence provided is that the dipole is in fact fluctuating as it does naturally. Following the evidence of how this fluctuates it will eventually flip it's polarity as shown in some of the sources below.
The discussion of this is found at the ICR . A few of the refutations, explanations, and empirical data on this can be found at:

4. BBC (British Broadcasting)
5. NASA
6. MIT (PDF a basic overview of the earth's magnetic field and its fluctuations. )

Dinosaur Soft Tissue

This may also tie in with the DNA in “Ancient” Bacteria. argument

This one was actually fun to research, a Paleontologist Mary Schweitzer from the University of North Carolina discovered soft tissues preserved inside the bone of a t-rex, and in an article from the Smithsonian she describes her discovery. Schweitzer is a Christian herself and describes in the Article how her research and data had been manipulated to fit the narrative of the “young earth creationists”.
The discovery of soft tissue in a fossil can be interpreted a few different ways. First, it could mean there is something we don't understand about fossilization. Second, the bone could not actually be from a t-rex. Third, it's a hoax. The third option has already been ruled out, because peer review and supporting evidence of the actual discovery(lab reports, etc..) Also from the peer review, radiometric dating and consistency with the other evidence it is in fact a t-rex bone. So this really only leaves the first option,there is something we don't understand. Upon doing some research, and setting up experiments Berkly national lab found that iron in the tissue can act as preservation agent for soft tissues and blood vessels. http://www-als.lbl.gov/index.php/holding/951-iron-is-the-key-to-preserving-dinosaur-soft-tissue.html

Human Population Growth

Nation center for science education has a great article on this claim, but to summarize; Henry M Morris devised a formula to describe how the population could be sustained starting from 4300BC by only two individuals. This formula was devised from the human population statistics from 1930 and leaves out all of the other factors effecting human population growth. It also leaves out the recorded events of world history such as the bubonic plague, which wiped out nearly half the worlds population in the 14th century. Also if you would apply this formula to other populations such as snowshoe rabbits, and other animals it show that all the animals didn't appear until around 1880.
The most important flaw in this formulation is we have no real data on earlier human populations to get an accurate growth rate to use in a calculation.
For human population growth there is some evidence from the theory of evolution. By looking at the fossil record and with the thousands of transitional fossils we now have to work with we can use evolution to describe the types of features human and other species would need to survive in the different climates and environments in the past. We can also determine which strata certain fossils of early humans will be found.
Using ice core samples from sources like National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration we can determine the features a species must have in order to survive in different points in history and extrapolate a relative date for early humans which is how we find fossils like “Lucy” ('Australopithecus afarensis') in 1974 and “Ardi” ('Ardipithecus ramidus')







Things we can observe like the erosion of Niagara falls, etc, why is it not bigger [?]
Niagara Falls is not typical of most waterfalls. It was formed not by erosion but from glacial ice breaking apart (src 1 , 2 ) around 12,000 years ago(src 3 , 4 ). The features of Niagara falls result in type of erosion called Cavitation (PDF) which has significantly less erosive force. Currently efforts in hydroelectric power generation and other flow diversions have slowed the rate of erosion with estimates keeping it from being a mere lake for another 50-100k years.


I'll come back to the rest of the points when I have more time to work on it, but they all center around the same idea that the earth is not old enough for evolution to occur. The age of the earth was not determined dogmatically nor by a single method or person. Various forms of radiometric dating, ice core dating, tree-ring dating Geological surveys,Lead Isochronal dating, and several other empirical disciplines give the same approximations.

All of the various repeatable and verifiable measurement techniques all converge on the same answer,approximately 4.5 Billion years.

Here is a list of sources to the age of the earth to look at for yourself.
3. Age of the Earth (Wikipedia)
7. Harvard Gazette .edu (new meteorite discoveries further refine the Earth's age..still converging on 4.5 billion)
8. Talk Origins .org
17. University of South Dakota (this source speaks to the Salinity content argument as an invalid dating tool)

20. To add a little bit of fun and controversy to this discussion the evidence for evolution is so overwhelming that the not even the Pope denies it. (Source: Salon.com )
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