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Monday, December 1, 2008

Science - It Works, Bitches!

There is perhaps no greater attack upon science and rational thought than the doctrine of a recent creation. Young earth creationists deny much of astronomy, geology, biology, paleontology, chemistry, linguistics, geomorphology and physics in favor of pseudoscience and their biblically based view that the world is more or less only 6,000 years old.

There is a vast body of evidence, all indicating that the earth is very, very old.
Among these are-

Amino acid racemization - which is a technique that is used to date fossilized objects up to several millions of years in age.

Coral - whose formations take a long time to grow

Continental Drift - Tectonic drift is an incredibly slow process, the separation of landmasses would have taken millions of years. This is verified by satellite measurement.

Cosmogenic nuclide dating - The influx of cosmic rays onto the earth continually produces a stream of cosmogenic nuclides in the atmosphere that will fall to the ground.

Dendochronology - which is a method of scientific dating based on annual tree growth patterns called tree rings.

Distant starlight - Because the speed of light is finite, when you look at an object, what you are actually seeing is how the object was in the past. If the universe is only 6,000 years old how can objects billions of light years away — and therefore billions of years old — be seen?

Erosion - Many places on earth show evidence of erosion taking place over very long time periods, not drastic, as would have been caused by a worldwide flood.

Fission track dating - which is a radiometric dating technique that can be used to determine the age of uranium containing crystalline minerals.

Geomagnetic reversal - which is a change in the polarity of the earth's magnetic field. Around 171 reversals are geologically documented, which would make the earth at least several millions of years old.

Helioseismology - The composition of the sun changes as it ages.

Human Y-chromosomal ancestry - Analysis has shown that man lived around 60,000 years ago.

Ice Layering - Currently the greatest number of layers found in a single ice sheet is over 700,000, which clearly contradicts the idea of an earth less than 10,000 years old.

Impact craters - Asteroid impacts as big those that have been discovered would have led to the extinction of all medium to large size species (an event that is seen in the fossil record).

Length of the prehistoric day - as measured by evidence in coral.

Lunar retreat - which can't corelate with a 6,000 year old earth

Naica megacrystals - Based on classical crystal growth theory these crystals are older than one million years.

Oxidizable Carbon Ratio dating - is a method for determining the absolute age of charcoal samples with relative accuracy. One can determine ages of over 20,000 years ago with a standard error under 3%.

Permafrost - The formation of permafrost (frozen ground) is a slow process.

Petrified wood - The process in which wood is preserved by permineralization, commonly known as petrification, takes extensive amounts of time.

Radiometric decay - is the constant predictable decay of unstable atoms into more stable isotopes or elements. Measurements of atomic decay are generally considered to be one of the most accurate ways of measuring the age of an object, and these measurements form the basis for the scientifically accepted age of the earth. There are many different variations of the radiometric dating technique such as radiocarbon, argon-argon, iodine-xenon, lanthanum-barium, lead-lead, lutetium-hafnium, neon-neon, potassium-argon, rhenium-osmium, rubidium-strontium, samarium-neodymium, uranium-lead, uranium-lead-helium, uranium-thorium, and uranium-uranium, of which every single one will date objects far older than 10,000 years.
Relativistic jetsare jets of plasma that gets ejected from some quasars and galaxy centers that have powerful magnetic fields.

Rock Varnish - is a coating that will form on exposed surface rocks. The varnish is formed as airborn dust acumulates on rock surfaces. This process is extremely slow.

Space weathering - is an effect that is observed on most asteroids. This dating technique exceed millions of years.

Sedimentary varves - are laminated layers of sedimentary rock that are most commonly laid down in glacial lakes. The Green River formation in easter Utah is home to an estimated twenty million years worth of sedimentary layers.

Stalactites - These formations take extremely lengthy periods to form; the average growth rate is not much more than 0.1 mm per year.

Thermoluninescence dating - is a method for determining the age of objects containing crystalline minerals such as ceramics or lava.

Weathering rinds - are layers of weathered material that develop on glacial rocks. Certain weathering rinds on basalt and andesite rocks in the eastern United States appear to have taken over 300,000 years to form.


The evidence for an old Earth is overwhelming. The data is supported by every field of science. More data and studies expand on this body of knowledge and confirm it almost daily. Unrefuted Creationist evidence simply doesn't exist.

Creationists just spew the same old completely refuted nonsense such as "uniformitarianism is just an assumption", "God made the earth with an appearance of age", "radiometric dating has been shown to have errors", "Mount Saint Helen shows _______ (insert whatever disproven junk you want here)", "remains of Noha's ark have been found.", "vertical fossils of trees were found", or crackpottery such as "polonium halos" and "Fine tuning".

Will this list of evidence for an old Earth convince Creationists?

Sadly, no. Or at least, infrequently. On one blog where I presented this information, the Creationist response was-

I just finished reading and I must say I am very upset by what I have read. You seem to be attacking Leif and I can't begin to tell you how angry that makes me!! Why are you attacking him? Did he attack you? There's also such a thing called faith. Blind faith. That's what makes Christianity so differnt. It seems to me that all the evolutionist can do is insult rather than give solid proof. If that's what they want from us then why can't they give it? Where's all their answers to our questions?

and

Hey look evo-dude,
You "seem" to have a huge number of "proofs" that evolution is true and that creationists are naive. But each one you've mentioned is really a bogus claim.

Who are you?
Be brave enough about your "beliefs" to stand up for them ... more than just hiding behind a keyboard.
I'll come to wherever you are. I'll present the truth to whoever you can get together. We'll do this thing and get it over with. There is no hope of any evolutionist pointing out "overwhelming evidence" because there is none.
And I'm not just a Sunday School teacher. I'm a Science Teacher and Professor of 30 years.


This last one was from a Young Earth wacko who claims that he was a biology teacher!
His website is www.PointsofOrigins.com if you want to laugh.


I responded to this crank that "even when I was a child, I never reponded to puerile, infantile "challenges", "dare ya" or "double-dare ya", so I certainly won't respond to your playground foolishness now. You claim to be a scientist and an educator, so act like one."


But I do like the idea of including good scientific info at SMRT, so I will try to post more in this category. Some people want to learn.

24 comments:

  1. Thanks Ben - great post. I like the recent focus on science here...

    I've got a question for you, and it may involve semantics. Do you think YEC is an actual attack on science / reason, or is it a logical product of those who are willing to deny fact in order to support their belief system?

    Until a few minutes ago, I was willing to relegate it to the latter; that is, there's nothing intentionally malicious behind it - it's a natural extension of "God Did It". However, I can imagine others (strong atheists, for example) who would disagree, and I guess I'll admit that I'm not sure either way.

    So, that's my question: is YEC an attempt to stifle the intellect?

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  2. BF,
    And the Fundy will look at you like a cow staring at an oncoming train and say, "Those are merely your beliefs."

    ReplyDelete
  3. And here's your fundie counter-argument, courtesy of shiver(curtis) in this Ray post:

    "Both 'evening and morning' and a number are used with yom in Genesis 1 (look up verses 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31), so we know it refers to a day of regular length. It is as if God wanted to remove any doubt, so he defined the word yom all six times He used it.

    Because of the words of Scripture, we can be confident that God didn't take millions of years, or use evolution, but created the universe in six real days, and rested on the seventh."


    I'm convinced.

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  4. Whateverman-

    Yes, I do think that YEC is an attack on science and reason.

    Every YEC website contains the following statement in their "Mission Statement" (or something equivalent).

    "By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record."

    Apparently, as far as YEC's are concerned, when reality contradicts their interpretation of the Bible, it is reality that is wrong. This is not science, but the antithesis of science.

    Declaring that you know you are right, that the evidence cannot sway you, and more, that you will reject any evidence that contradicts what you believe, is as unscientific as one can possibly get, and shows in the clearest way imaginable that the brand of creationism that they espouse is not science but irrationality.

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  5. For anyone who's interested.

    I noticed a new poster called 'John' making some remarks over at AC about the definition of theory, evolution etc.. so I've left a few comments on his blog

    http://glorybetogod-john.blogspot.com/


    I'm not the biggest science nerd in the world, so feel free to correct me if I've misrepresented anything.

    Should be an interesting discussion though.

    Ben, great post.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ben, I agree with you in regards to identification of the problem. What I'm driving at, however, is the intent behind YEC.

    It takes a special kind of person to ignore factual reality in favor of a desired reality. I want to know why they do this...

    I guess this would be a tangent. Don't mind me - just thinking and writing at the same time...

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  7. This last one was from a Young Earth wacko who claims that he was a biology teacher!

    Maybe he got his degree in science along with Terry?

    ReplyDelete
  8. When you back them into the corner about the scientific evidence, the YECs always fall back on the "I just have blind faith." Just think of how much time could have been saved if they had just said this outright instead of dragging out the conversation.

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  9. I guess it would be that people have different priorities.
    For example if you are a naturalist and you believe the bible is just a myth of course you are going to think the YEC's are wrong.
    But if your a devout person who deeply believes that something has been revealed to you through scripture, of course YEC would seem more plausible to you.
    As for me I don't see much merit in debating creationist on th internetz. Nothing changes and at the end of the day it is still just a scientific theory, like everything else in science.
    There are much bigger questions to discuss.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Yaeger wrote Just think of how much time could have been saved if they had just said this outright instead of dragging out the conversation.

    Exactly. I'd been concluding most of my discussions at Ray's Fun House with this idea - if they simply want to declare their ideas to be beyond rational discussion, say so and stop trying to pretend otherwise.

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  11. MFT wrote As for me I don't see much merit in debating creationist on th internetz. Nothing changes and at the end of the day it is still just a scientific theory, like everything else in science.

    Can you restate this, please? Are you saying Creationism is scientific?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Matt,
    Yeah, I bounced off the "John" you mention.

    He seems like a HS senior who has been culturally conditioned, very thoroughly into the bible, and is just now learning a bit about the creationist arguments on evolution. He seems very tentative and unsure.

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  13. I was saying evolution was just a scientific theory. I wasn't saying creationism is scientific.

    ReplyDelete
  14. MrFreeThinker said...
    "I was saying evolution was just a scientific theory."

    Bingo! There you go! That one is memorialized in the Damndest Things Fundies Say site!

    JUST a scientific Theory aye?

    You know better than to say that here.
    A scientific Theory, in case you have forgotten since the last time I told you this is The Highest Degree of Certainty Granted to a falsifiable Finding in the nautural Sciences.

    Don't even try to equate the street definition of theory. They are virtually not even the same word.

    There is more evidence for evolution than there is for the Theory of Gravity.

    You are Just trolling now lil buddy. It seems like you become more troll-like every day now as you have seen your irrational belief system go up in the smoke of reason.

    You are a mere suckling on the tit of your religion.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Froggie, you completely missed the gist of my last post.
    I was saying it was just a scientific theory and there were bigger things to talk about.
    I would say to leave the debating of scientific theories to the scientific professionals and not internet trolls.

    Don't even try to equate the street definition of theory. They are virtually not even the same word.

    [There is more evidence for evolution than there is for the Theory of Gravity.]
    So what? Wouldn't it be the equivalent of debating gravity with some anonymous guy on the internet? It's pointless.

    [Don't even try to equate the street definition of theory. They are virtually not even the same word.]
    I wasn't trying to Froggie. Notice how I qualified it with the term "scientific". I took it for granted people knew the difference between the colloquial and scientific terms.

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  16. It is unfortunate that the word theory was used to define a scientific finding for which there is overwhelming evidence. I am sure that whoever originally coined the term could not have known the problems it would cause.

    However, make no mistake, it only causes problems for people who are intellectually dense or dishonest.

    They sieze on the venacular word theory as a supposed means of marginalizing the idea. It only works with the densest fundies and especially those that have never taken a science class in their lives.

    Making a statement that MF'er did is totally disengeuous and he knows it. They now do it to be cute or when they are trolling.

    So, MF'er, I will grant you the benefit of the doubt and presume that all the times that you heard this you were focused on something else and missed it, but this is the last time.

    The next time you will deserve the full extent of my mock and scorn and the punishment will be swift and violent.

    Reasonable people are very happy with the term because the theory must be modified over time as new evidence is found.

    I will also make the disclaimer that I cannot foretell the future and there may be some point in the future where the Theory calls for a creator, but that ain't now and the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.

    The reason fundies seem so nutty is because if they admit that any single inerrent verse in their bible is shown to be wrong then they have nothing left, while not realizing that plent of their inerrencies have been show to be inerrent but they CANNOT admit it.

    If they do they are screwed, blued, and tatooed.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Froggie wrote JUST a scientific Theory aye?

    To be fair, Froggie, yes: it's JUST a theory. The extent to which it's supported by evidence is immaterial to this particular discussion.

    ---

    Thanks for clearing that up, MrFreeThinker.

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  18. MF'er,
    You better not be jerking me around here.

    Knowing better, I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

    You said,
    "I was saying it was just a scientific theory and there were bigger things to talk about."

    If you're going to try to hand me that crap that creation demands a creator, you can forget that too.
    Having said that, what are you referring to?

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  19. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  20. I believe he was responding to me when I asked him what he meant by his following statement:

    "As for me I don't see much merit in debating creationist on th internetz. Nothing changes and at the end of the day it is still just a scientific theory, like everything else in science."

    As I understand it, MFT is simply saying there's no use arguing for or against scientific theories, as there are bigger issues that need to be addressed.

    I hope I've portrayed that correctly, MFT.

    EDIT: spelling/grammar

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  21. Come on Froggie, I'm a College student. I do know fair amount of biology.
    Science isn't decided by debates so I think it would be pointless for me to debate a creationist. But in all honesty, don't you think there are more important things than science?

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  22. MF'er,
    "don't you think there are more important things than science?"

    Yes, get to the point.

    ReplyDelete
  23. MF'er,

    I thought that when I checked your profile I found nothing there but I just went back to check and find your blog, Debunking Crap.

    From the Masthead: "We are former fundamentalist Christians, now fundamentalist atheists hoping that spamming advertisements for our book(s) and calling people "idiots" will convince them of our sad pathetic truths."

    OK, it now seems that you have become an enigma since you seem to be arguing from a Christian worldview. Which is it?

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  24. Just to be clear, Mr. Freethinker...

    You wrote:
    "For example if you are a naturalist and you believe the bible is just a myth of course you are going to think the YEC's are wrong.
    But if your a devout person who deeply believes that something has been revealed to you through scripture, of course YEC would seem more plausible to you."


    Naturalism has nothing to do with my belief in evolutionary theory. Admittedly, I am biased toward naturalistic explanations that are testable and verifiable for obvious reasons, but I support evolutionary theory because it's a verified scientific fact - not that it conforms to some world view I have.

    ReplyDelete

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