Notes on Young Earth Creationism

Kenneth Hynek • 13th Aug 2009 • Religion, Christianity, Religion, Evolutionary Creationism, History, The Sciences, Research
atheism, Charles Darwin, Earth, evolution, Fenton Hill, Moon, naturalism, New Mexico, Pangaea, Russell Humphreys, Shroud of Turin, Thomas Barnes, volcano, Vox Day, YEC, Young Earth Creationism

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Vox Day quotes an article defending Young Earth Creationism, and invites the submission of critiques thereof. I’m happy to see Vox distance himself from the article proper; YEC is little more than bollocks, and not something I’d be delighted to see someone as brilliant as Vox endorse directly.

The article cited is quite long, probably longer than I have the ability to respond to in its entirety, though I do think a few observations and notes are worth making.

Antagonism to YEC is predominantly philosophical, rooted in naturalism. Opposition to the YEC position is frequently made using suppositions antagonistic to YEC; the proof of error is therefore in the axioms not the conclusions.

In which context is the word “naturalism” used in the above? Does it refer to philosophical naturalism, which is in many ways akin to atheism? One hopes not; it would be the height of disappointing if such a lenghty and apparently promising defence of the Young Earth position began with a “cheap shot” attempt to paint all opponents of YEC as closet atheists or mere worldly thinkers.

Sadly, one has come to exect just that sort of perjorative opening from YEC’s defenders.

YEC has a long history. It has been the predominant position throughout most of the history of the West, until the introduction of uniformitarian interpretations in the 18th and 19th century by the non-catastrophic geologists. These geologists influenced Darwin and although Darwin didn’t publish his theory till the 19th century, evolutionary-like philosophies have a much older history, somewhat similar ideas proposed by some Greek philosophers. And YECists have good company with the likes of scientists such as Kepler, Newton, Pasteur, and Maxwell. But the issue is not a tradition game or a numbers game, it is: Does YEC accurately describe reality?

If the issue is not “a tradition game or a numbers game,” why waste a paragraph expounding on the history of the YEC position and the number of famous names that in some way saw it as a valid conjecture?

YEC can be summarised as follows:

* The universe is not eternal, it was created by God who is external to the world, self existent, and eternal
* God created the world in 6 usual days
* Nature was corrupted by the Fall of Man
* The earth is about 6000 years old
* The earth was deluged by a global flood about 4500 years ago
* The Bible is inerrant and should be interpreted in a straightforward manner (according to genre)

There are several corollaries from this, though the specifics may vary. The creation model includes:

* Most of the sedimentary layers of rock and enclosed fossils that occur worldwide were formed during the Noachic Flood.
* The earth likely contained a single continent that broke up during or after the Flood
* There was a single ice-age caused by the post-Flood climate
* All land and air animals (of significant size) are descendants of the animals that were on the Ark
* Man has coexisted with all animals that have ever existed
* Natural selection (an analogue of artificial selection) occurs
* Speciation is rapid. It occurs through allelic separation, genetically induced variation, or detrimental mutation (loss of genetic information).
* There are genetic limits to the amount of speciation, diversification, adaption, or breeding that can occur
* Information content of the biosphere cannot increase. Matter cannot create information.
* Information is always the result of an intelligence
* Loss of information can mean improved fitness within a specific environment; that is, loss of function can result in improved likelihood of survival.
* Lost information cannot be recovered without reintroduction of the same information (save trivial examples) by breeding or design
* Archaeological artefacts post-date the Flood, which limits their age to a maximum of 4500 years

There are several accusations that are charged against YEC which proponents of YEC do not support or promote; such as

*God (or Satan) created the fossils in situ as a test of our faith
* God created things with false appearance of age (this needs qualification)
* Animals were created how they look now and no new species of animals have developed
* Entropy was a result of and did not exist before the Fall of Man
* The earth is flat

This breaks the YEC position down fairly well.

Of particular interest, though, is the middle section, for it contains a number of things upon which YEC either basically stands or basically falls. Demonstrate the sedimentary layers could not — or did not — form rapidly (e.g. over a few centuries), demonstrate that the Pangaea super-continent could not have broken up rapidly, demonstrate the occurrence of multiple ice ages, or demonstrate that artifacts exist which are older than the supposed “maximum” age of 4,500 years, and there is room then to cast serious doubts on the veracity of YEC.

Sadly, the middle section also contains much blather about “information,” which has always struck me as nothing more than bit of convenient hand-waving. Yes, granted, genes do indeed carry large volumes of “information,” which define the many characteristics of the living thing which they are the foundation of. But at the same time, we’re not talking about digital systems here, with protected transactions, parity bits, and checksums put in place to ensure date integrity. Technically, we’re talking about an analog system which can both self-modify (mutation) and be modified by extrinsic factors (e.g. viruses).

Some of the statements strain credulity: how can we know, examine whether, or demonstrate that the “information content of the biosphere cannot increase?” Especially if “lost information can be recovered without re-introduction of the same [lost] information?” Doesn’t that mean that different “information” sources can combine to, in effect, re-create (that is: create anew) the lost information? Why then can these same sources of information not combine to create new information in general, thus increasing the information content of the biosphere?

The article begins to break down past this point, however. Consider:

…we have reliable documentary evidence for the age of some volcanic episodes. It so happens that rocks from lava flows within recent history that we know the real age of (via operational science) are consistently dated much older by radiometric dating, frequently hundreds of thousands of years or older. Explanations are offered up as to why this is the case, but the greater point is the model is reliably incorrect; it doesn’t matter how good this theory is or should be, the fact is the model doesn’t work.

If radiometric dating cannot get dates correct when we do know the true age, why should we trust it when we don’t know the true age?

What is the actual true age of volcanic rock? Or, rather (and then more accurately): what is the true age of the molten mineral mixture that eventually solidifies into volcanic rock once it is vomited up from the Earth by a volcano? If the molten source was significantly older than a recent volcanic rock formation, could we expect that this discrepancy might affect the outcome of an attempt to date the rock using radiometric methods?

Think also of the Shroud of Turin, which was dated to…what? The fourteenth century? Defenders of the Shroud’s authenticity correctly point out that the Shroud was for many years (perhaps centuries, even) kept in an essentially unprotected state in a shrine which was also home to any number of candles. It was handled by many people, and subjected to a wide variety of environmental contaminants? How, the Shroud’s defenders wonder, can we even trust an attempt to radiometrically date the Shroud, given that there is no way of knowing if we are working from an uncontaminated sample thereof which would report an accurate age?

So too volcanic rock. Think of a volcanic eruption — it is not exactly an event that is free from sources of environmental contamination. How then can we be certain that any rock samples we take from cooled lava flows will report an accurate age to us?

Anyhow, as the article continues, a little sleight-of-hand ensues:

Within radiometric dating we have carbon dating competing with metal dating. Pretty much all carbon containing materials that have been tested contain carbon-14. This places an upper bound on their age. This includes diamonds embedded in rock supposedly millions of years old.

This seems a fair point to make, but one notes that if the upper bound on the age of a rock is 10 million years, and if the lower bound is 2 million years (which is quite a range, to be sure), the fact remains that both 2 million and 10 million are well in excess of 6,000.

Radiometric dating may not be the most accurate method, and it certainly isn’t the be-all and end-all of dating methodologies. But if it gives us a range (which it does), and if that range sets out dates substantially in excess of the 6,000 years YEC’s proponents would have us accept as the age of the Earth (which it does), one can still at least safely say that the Earth is quite “old,” that it is not “young.” And propoents of YEC can do naught but simply ignore this evidence.

There are other dating methods, yes, and it’s worth comparing the different methodologies and evaluating each on their strengths and weaknesses. But it’s also worth noting that most of these dating methods produce results which all support the conclusion that the Earth is much older than 6,000 years. The article Vox quotes scolds that radiometric dating “is favoured by the evolutionists because it gives a time frame needed for evolution,” but are not YEC’s proponents guilty, in turn, of arguing against radiometric dating and other methods simply because it does not give a time frame needed for Young Earth Creation?

There’s a bit more sleight-of-hand to be found in the article’s conclusion:

YEC theory on the age of the earth is more parsimonious. It is consistent with much of the documentary evidence. It is also consistent with many of the historical scientific clocks. Modifications to the starting conditions and rates give ages consistent with a young earth, including radio-carbon.

What sort of “modifications to the starting conditions and rates” are we talking about here, exactly? Do these modifications conform to the known quantities and physical properties of the isotopes being tested for and their behaviours over time? Or do they involve making sometimes wildly inaccurate assumptions about the parameters being adjusted?

Radio-dates of metals less so, but these are known to be inaccurate, and YEC proposals concerning rates of decay may resolve other well recognised difficulties of radiometric dating. Ancient earth theory is unable to easily reconcile non-radiometric clocks or even radio-carbon clocks.

Let’s embark upon a brief excursis.

Consider the notion of helium diffusion rates, which was a favourite issue of YEC proponent Russell Humphreys. Humphreys’ basic assertion was that radiogenic helium concentrations in zircon samples — taken from Fenton Hill, New Mexico — were too high for the Earth to be very old. The problem with that, though, is that Humphreys’ data concerning helium diffusion out of zircons was obtained under vacuum conditions, rather than in conditions which accurately modeled diffusion rates in deeply-buried rock; the actual diffusion rate in the rock samples from Fenton Hill are probably considerably (read: orders of magnitude) lower than in vacuum — with this correction made, the samples cannot be said to affirm a Young Earth.

Humprehys is similarly inaccurate — often grossly inaccurate — in his arguments that the decay rate of Earth’s magnetic field proves that the Earth must be young. The same could be said for Thomas Barnes‘ arguments concerning the recession of the Moon. Other Young Earth dating methods are similarly suspect.

I think the last sentence quoted above — “Ancient earth theory is unable to easily reconcile non-radiometric clocks or even radio-carbon clocks.” — needs to be reversed somewhat: Young Earth theory is unable to easily reconcile radiometric clocks, or even radio-carbon clocks…and so must employ other, more dubious dating methodologies, often using ludicrously strained parameters, in order to produce results for the age of the Earth that roughly comport with their a priori conclusion thereabout.

I’ll grant that there’s plenty of both room and reason to criticize the methods of some evolutionary researchers, and I’ll grant that some of the more dubious ones are dubious in their methods in no small part because they have an agenda which is taking precedence over the drive to do good science. But having said as much, I by no means can grant that the methods employed by YEC proponents — essentially: contriving facts to fit a pre-determined conclusion — are an example of “good science” any more than some of the rubbish put out in New Scientist these days.