Before we begin, I would like to be honest and say that I am neither a scientist nor the son of a scientist. However, with that being said, I do know how to evaluate arguments and evidences. Finally, I am not appealing to my own knowledge to debunk these arguments, but appealing to what the scientific community has noted about the failings of Creation Science. Despite what both Ken Ham and Richard Dawkins would have you believe, the scientific community is not out to push atheism or make theistic claims. Many physicists, cosmologists, and biologists are Christians. Grant it, they are not the flavor of Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis, but they are nonetheless committed to scripture and love the Lord.
As these arguments progress, I will be making comments as to how I relay some of this information to my kids. Obviously, I have not addressed all of these arguments with my kids, but the ones we have talked about I will comment on. To note, the issues in this first article are too complex for my children, since they are still young, but are definitely worth talking over with middle school, high school, and college age kids.
In the article listed here http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2005/06/01/evidence-for-young-world#fnList_1_1 Russell Humphreys, a writer for AiG, gives fourteen evidences of a young earth. I do not have the space to address all of them, so I will pick the top 10, along with addressing the issue of dinosaurs living with men and the travel of light (since this is a popular question among children). What we will see is that the influence of Ellen White has forced well meaning people to see through a distorted lens, so much so that they refuse to acknowledge certain scientific findings.
Evidence 1: Galaxies wind themselves up too fast.
Humphreys notes:
The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic center with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer ones. The observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were more than a few hundred million years old, it would be a featureless disc of stars instead of its present spiral shape.1 Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion years old. Evolutionists call this “the winding-up dilemma,” which they have known about for fifty years. They have devised many theories to try to explain it, each one failing after a brief period of popularity. The same “winding-up” dilemma also applies to other galaxies. For the last few decades the favored attempt to resolve the puzzle has been a complex theory called “density waves.”1 The theory has conceptual problems, has to be arbitrarily and very finely tuned, and has been called into serious question by the Hubble Space Telescope’s discovery of very detailed spiral structure in the central hub of the “Whirlpool” galaxy, M51.2
- See more at: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2005/06/01/evidence-for-young-world#fnList_1_1
The “winding up” problem was first noted by a scientist named Bertil Lindbald in 1925. After much discussion, observation, and research, the astronomical community concluded that the spiral arms could not be rigid, but rather very fluid an flexible, so they started to investigate things further. This led to the proposition of the “density wave” model in the 1960’s, which has been refined as things have progressed. One of the greatest refinements came from Dennis Zaritsky’s et al. work on M51. He concludes his abstract by stating the following: "We suggest that a combination of several mechanisms, such as the interaction of M51 with the neighboring galaxy NGC5195, forcing by the central 'bar', or distortions from density waves, is required to generate the observed structure." (go here http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v364/n6435/abs/364313a0.html )
Humphreys reads this and tries to make us think that the “density wave” hypothesis has failed. But this is a gross misrepresentation of the research. C.L. Dobbs et al. has noted that far from disproving the “density wave” hypothesis, M51 has force refinements, which have lead to further prove the hypothesis. Dobbs et al. states, "We present hydrodynamical models of the grand design spiral M51 (NGC 5194), and its interaction with its companion NGC 5195. Despite the simplicity of our models, our simulations capture the present day spiral structure of M51 remarkably well, and even reproduce details such as a kink along one spiral arm, and spiral arm bifurcations."
I say this with deep regret and sorrow, but unfortunately Humphreys grossly misrepresents the view by not letting his readers in on all the up to date research. I don’t know if this is intentional or not, but this is a common theme in YEC arguments.
Humphreys starts off by saying that the spiral arms of galaxies are "material", despite the fact that he has no evidence to support his claim and no working astronomer adhering to this position. In order to support his point of view, he then has to get rid of everything we know about physics, astronomy, geology, etc. But once we have gotten rid of all of this, are we left with a greater understanding as to why spiral galaxies are spiral? No, we are not. Trying to make the universe younger does not solve the problem of spiral galaxies.
Here is what Humphreys is trying to do. He wants us to accept as true the idea that was rejected in 1925 and not picked up since then, in order to reject the claim of an old universe, thus reducing our own ability to try and explain the world we see.
However, what we do know is that the spiral arms are not “rigid”, therefore no “winding problem” exists. What is even more remarkable is that by using lots of math that is above my pay grade to even understand, scientists are now able to generate computer models of not only single galaxies in isolation, but also how galactic interaction affects the shape of galaxies.
Evidence 2: Too few supernova remnants
Humphreys claims:
According to astronomical observations, galaxies like our own experience about one supernova (a violently-exploding star) every 25 years. The gas and dust remnants from such explosions (like the Crab Nebula) expand outward rapidly and should remain visible for over a million years. Yet the nearby parts of our galaxy in which we could observe such gas and dust shells contain only about 200 supernova remnants. That number is consistent with only about 7,000 years worth of supernovas.3 - See more at: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2005/06/01/evidence-for-young-world#fnList_1_1
Again, this is a gross misrepresentation of the current data. Super Nova Remnants (SNR’s) go through three life stages, with the third being the oldest. The claim is that many SNR’s should have reached the third stage by now, but we do not see any stage 3, and very few stage 2. The claim is that these observations are consistent with a young earth.
The truth is that many more SNR’s have been found, including many stage 3 remnants, which are older than 20,000 years, and the number of stage 3’s is still rising. So, if the universe is old, than many SNR’s should have reached their third stage; this is exactly what we see. Furthermore, the estimate of what proportions of SNR’s should be visible is greatly oversimplified by the YECs. Cosmologists and Astrologist note that it is impossible to say with certainty what proportions should be visible.
Also, SNRs are pretty difficult to see. They would not be visible for one million years, the figure YECs use in their calculations. Indeed, a million years is the theoretical lifetime of a remnant. However, the bit of information that Humphreys and the YECs conveniently omit is that it will be visible for a much shorter time because of background noise and obscuring dust and interstellar matter. It has been noted that fewer than 1 percent of SNRs last more than 100,000 years, and that it is very probable that as few as 15-20 percent of supernova events are visible at all through the interstellar matter. (For more, see Dave Moore http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/supernova/ )
Evidence 3: Comets disintegrate too quickly
Again, Humphreys states:
According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system, about five billion years. Yet each time a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical ages of less than 10,000 years.4 Evolutionists explain this discrepancy by assuming that (a) comets come from an unobserved spherical “Oort cloud” well beyond the orbit of Pluto, (b) improbable gravitational interactions with infrequently passing stars often knock comets into the solar system, and (c) other improbable interactions with planets slow down the incoming comets often enough to account for the hundreds of comets observed.5 So far, none of these assumptions has been substantiated either by observations or realistic calculations. Lately, there has been much talk of the “Kuiper Belt,” a disc of supposed comet sources lying in the plane of the solar system just outside the orbit of Pluto. Some asteroid-sized bodies of ice exist in that location, but they do not solve the evolutionists’ problem, since according to evolutionary theory, the Kuiper Belt would quickly become exhausted if there were no Oort cloud to supply it. - See more at: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2005/06/01/evidence-for-young-world#fnList_1_1
First, notice how Humphreys keeps referring to those who believe in an old earth as “evolutionists” without ever making the distinction between cosmological and biological evolution. He makes the overarching, unfair assumption that everyone who disagrees with him is an “evolutionists.” I know some Old Earth Creationists who wouldn't be too happy with being lumped into that category!
On a more serious note, the misinformation just keeps getting worse. First, the obvious thing to realize is that different comets have different sizes. The size of the comet determines its life-span. Furthermore, even if most comets do have a life span of less than 10,000 years, other do not; namely Halley’s comet, which is 40k years old. This one bit of information is enough to disprove the YEC claim of a universe 6-10k years old.
At this point, I want to address Humphreys claim about the Oort cloud and the Kuiper Belt. He claims that none of these have been substantiated by either observations or realistic calculations. Here are some facts about the Oort cloud:
1. “The Oort Cloud was named after Jan Hendrik Oort, and is a calculated accumulation of comets and cometary material occupying the fringes of the solar system at a distance of roughly 50,000 to 100,000 AU. One AU is the average distance of the earth from the sun, i.e., 93 million miles. Various computer studies of cometary orbital data in conjunction with other evidence strongly supports the existence of the Oort Cloud.” (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea.html#proof3 )
2. “In 1950, based on a study of the orbits of several long-period comets, the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort proposed that a great spherical shell of them existed at the remote frontiers of our solar system. Better statistics in more recent years have supported the existence of the Oort Cloud and put it at a distance of 50,000 AU (1.3 light-years).” (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea.html#proof3 )
3. “During the 1980s, astronomers realized that Oort Cloud comets may be outnumbered by an inner cloud that begins about 3,000 AU from the Sun and continues to the edge of the classical Oort Cloud at 20,000 AU. Most estimates place the population of the inner Oort Cloud at about five to ten times that of the outer cloud -- say, 20 trillion or so -- although the number could be ten times greater than that. The innermost portion of the inner Oort Cloud is relatively flattened, with comets extending a few degrees above and below the ecliptic. But the cloud rapidly expands, forming a complete sphere by the time it reaches several thousand AU.(click here to see source Benningfield, 1990, p.33)
Finally, about the Kuiper belt: The belt is no longer just a theoretical idea or construct. As far back as 1998, more than 60 of the larger objects in the belt have been observed. This means that there are about 70,000 objects our there whose diameter exceeds 100 kilometers. This doesn't even take into account the normal sized comets. (see here http://www2.ess.ucla.edu/~jewitt/kb.html )
“Thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have finally proven that short-period comets come from a vast region of space beyond Neptune. This is the realm of the Kuiper disk — an enormous population of shadowy mini-ice worlds that slowly orbit the Sun in near total darkness.” (Astronomy, October 1995, p.28).
There is more, but the point has been made. In the next article, we will look at four more scientific claims of YECs.