Creation vs. Evolution: Paradigms

[DavidS]

Hi llamapacker, thanks for the reply.

@llamapacker

Turning this around, I have taken this to mean if I can find one solid proof that the earth is very old then all the arguments and technical books by those advocating a YEC position are wrong.

I read your whole post and you brought up some compelling evidence. Ultimately, however, we cannot know what happened in the distant past. Everything relies on unprovable assumptions, because nobody was there to see it. I understand that the past leaves traces behind. But these are only traces. We can only work with the evidence we have in the present. Everyone is in the dark here.

I don’t have an answer for the three points you mentioned. But frankly, I don’t care. Because the scientific evidence is secondary for me. I believe that God teaches a recent six-day creation in Genesis. If I am right about that, then it must be true, since God can’t lie. You might be alarmed that I said “the scientific evidence is secondary for me.” But the truth is, if secular scientists were being forthcoming, they would admit to the same thing. The science is secondary for them, and the hypothesis comes first. What I mean by that is this: Secular scientists are not objective. They are people too. They come to the evidence with a number of worldview assumptions. Namely, methodological naturalism, which prohibits them from appealing to supernatural causes. This means, even if all the scientific evidence favored a recent six-day creation, secular scientists would literally be unable to conclude that it is true - since supernatural phenomena are off-limits. Sometimes one of them will admit to this very thing I’m talking about. Look at what Dr. Scott Todd (an evolutionist) says: “Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic ” (emphasis mine). Six-day creation is miraculous. It is thus excluded from science. Assuming methodological naturalism, we must assume that life arose gradually through purely natural causes. Therefore, we will have to assume some version of evolution. It’s literally unavoidable. Notice how the theory comes before the facts. None of this has to do with science. It’s a battle of competing worldviews. When I realized this, I dropped evolution and became a creationist.

It’s OK if I can’t explain everything. It’s OK if I don’t understand everything. I don’t know how to answer your three challenges. But I’m happy to trust in the plain reading of the Scriptures, interpreting the Bible the way it has always been interpreted. I trust God first, and I have little confidence in secular scientists who are antagonistic to my faith.

[DavidS]

@Gregory

“I could list them out for you if you want. I have no idea what the percentage is.”

Yes, please do. That would help us understand the landscape together. Thanks for the suggestion.

Here’s just 50, from a book I read recently. I know there are more I could find, but this is a good start:

Jeremy L. Walter

Jerry R. Bergman

John K.G. Kramer

Paul Giem

Henry Zuill

Jonathan D. Sarfati

Ariel A. Roth

Keith H. Wanser

Timothy G. Standish

John R. Rankin

Bob Hosken

James S. Allan

George T. Javor

Dwain L. Ford

Angela Meyer

Stephen Grocott

Andrew McIntosh

John P. Marcus

Nancy M. Darrall

John M. Cimbala

Edward A. Boudreaux

E. Theo Agard

Ker C. Thomson

John R. Baumgardner

Arthur Jones

George F. Howe

A.J. Monty White

D.B. Gower

Walter J. Veith

Danny R. Faulkner

Edmond W. Holroyd

Robert H. Eckel

Jack Cuozzo

Andrew Snelling

Stephen Taylor

John Morris

Elaine Kennedy

Colin W. Mitchell

Stanley A. Mumma

Evan Jamieson

Larry Vardiman

Geoff Downes

Wayne Frair

Sid Cole

Don B. DeYoung

George S. Hawke

Kurt P. Wise

J.H. John Peet

Werner Gitt

Don Batten

[DavidS]

Hi Bill, thanks for the reply.

@Bill_II

It was Christian geologists who were looking to prove the Noachian Flood that found evidence that there Earth was older than 6,000 years.

I would suggest that’s a naïve view of the history of modern geology. In fact, Charles Lyell was quite influential in the acceptance of long ages, and did not believe in the Global Flood. Not only that, he was antagonistic to Genesis. He once said he wanted to “free the science [of geology] from Moses.” His uniformitarian assumptions were in direct conflict with Genesis.

@Bill_II

And BTW you don’t need radiometric dating to come up with an age of the Earth of more than 6,000 years.

I understand that secular scientists appeal to other dating methods. However, my point remains. The strongest evidence that’s now alleged for long ages and evolution came after those ideas were first proposed and believed. The theory pre-dates the evidence.

@Bill_II

Simple physics will show that it isn’t possible.

Oh yeah? Please elaborate, then.

[Gregory]

Excellent, a list from Creation.com - creation(ist) ministries international. An evangelical Protestant organization, an apologetics ministry. Is this your top resource?

As you said you’re an Orthodox Christian, I’m curious if you know how many on that list are Orthodox Christians vs. evangelical Protestants?

It seems that you’re drawing for your Orthodox view of Creation from an evangelical Protestant apologetics ministry. Is this fair to say?

If you are drawing on any Orthodox sources, could you please list those also. Thanks.

[DavidS]

@Gregory

Excellent, a list from Creation.com - creation(ist) ministries international. An evangelical Protestant organization, an apologetics ministry. Is this your top resource?

What difference does it make where this list comes from? Each of those links gives the qualifications of the scientist in question, and includes the scientist’s testimony as to why he / she is a creationist. Just because it comes from creation.com doesn’t mean it isn’t valid.

@Gregory

As you said you’re an Orthodox Christian, I’m curious if you know how many on that list are Orthodox Christians vs. evangelical Protestants?

I don’t know their religion. Most are probably evangelicals, but that doesn’t matter. You’re moving the goalposts. You just asked for a list of PhD scientists who believe in six-day creation. I gave you a list.

@Gregory

It seems that you’re drawing for your Orthodox view of Creation from an evangelical Protestant apologetics ministry. Is this fair to say?

No, it isn’t fair to say. I’m drawing my view of creation from the Holy Scriptures, the writings of the Church Fathers, the hymnology of the Church, etc. - which all testify of recent six-day creation. Having said that, sometimes I utilize resources produced by evangelical Protestants, because sometimes they produce good material on this subject. Creationism is very Orthodox. It isn’t invalidated because some Protestants happen to agree with six-day creation.

@Gregory

If you are drawing on any Orthodox sources, could you please list those also. Thanks.

Orthodox sources for what? For my view on creation? I would list all the Church Fathers, the hymns of the Church, our Saints (especially the modern ones who condemned evolution) and the Holy Prophet Moses himself. But that list would be too long.

[Bill_II]

@DavidS

Oh yeah? Please elaborate, then.

Details are in The Bible, Rocks and Time by Young and Stearley.

Granite is formed when magma is forced to the surface and then cools. One such batholith in Southern California is 370 miles long and 60 miles wide.

Professor Larsen assumed an initial temperature of 820 C, an initial temperature of the wall rocks of 120 C, and a temperature of complete crystallization at 620 C. He assumed loss of heat by conduction through vertical walls. He calculated that, if the batholith approximated the shape of a huge dike 60 miles wide, then it would require 70 million years to crystallize to its center.

page 327

You can read his paper for yourself at http://earth.geology.yale.edu/~ajs/1945A/399.pdf

The calculations of heat transfer are based on simple physics which is a branch of science I believe you said you trust.

[Gregory]

“I don’t know their religion. Most are probably evangelicals, but that doesn’t matter. You’re moving the goalposts. You just asked for a list of PhD scientists who believe in six-day creation. I gave you a list.”

It would seem they’re all evangelical Protestants, from Weiland til today You’re right that you answered my question directly, with a list of CMI staff. That did answer the question, indeed, DavidS. Thanks!

@DavidS

Creationism is very Orthodox.

Um, well, mainly just for Fr. Seraphim Rose and his followers. Most Orthodox reject “creationism” while accepting “Divine Creation”. The Orthodox teaching on the “compatibility” of science, philosophy, theology is more unifying than the Protestant (7th Day Adventist) teachings on Creation, which creates schisms and divisiveness. This is exactly why it’s within Protestantism, not within Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy where “creationism” has caused the most damage via “creation wars” in the past 100 years.

We accept Divine Creation because that is both written in Scripture and taught in the Church. “Young humans” differs from “young earth”. You’d do better focusing on where we agree re: “young humans”, for which you will find many people in agreement here, than pushing YECism.

But ideological “creationism” is nowhere present in the Bible, in the teaching of the Desert Fathers, or in the Orthodox catechism. It’s not a YECist, catechism, DavidS, but rather a “real historical Adam and Eve” catechism, which of couse, focuses on Jesus Christ.

It sounds like you went through a crisis a year ago, DavidS, as you mentioned being a “TEist” recently. Wishing you a healthy recovery from ideological creationism (now that it appears you’ve healed well from “theistic evolutionism”), so that you may more fully and deeply discover the beauty and wonder of Creation!

[T_aquaticus]

@DavidS

Having said that, all dating methods (even the ones that are cited by creationists, like the ones listed in that link) rely on unprovable assumptions about the past.

What you are actually saying is that you would need to change all of the universal constants and physical laws in order for YEC to be true. The only assumption being used in radiometric dating is the constancy of physical laws.

@DavidS

As you can see, it’s a difference in worldview assumptions that determines our conclusions.

Your worldview invents ad hoc changes to physical laws because you don’t like the results of scientific measurements. The scientific view does not change physical laws to get old ages. Those are the two worldviews.

@DavidS

In fact, deep time is required for the evolutionary history of life on Earth. They need it to be true.

The ancient age of the Earth was already established before Evolution was proposed.

@DavidS

Supernatural creation violates methodological naturalism, which is one of the fundamental tenants of modern science.

We have already established that the rocks scientists are dating formed naturally. Species also reproduce naturally, and we can determine if they naturally descend from a common ancestor. Your claim about the supernatural just doesn’t apply here.

@DavidS

Both creationists and evolutionists are dealing with the same evidence in the present.

That’s false. You are throwing out radiometric dating from the get go. You are throwing out all of the evidence for common ancestry and evolution from the get go because it contradicts your religious beliefs. We aren’t dealing with the same evidence.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@Gregory

Yes, evolutionism is a godless worldview.

Like physicsism, chemistryism, biologyism in general? What about mathism? Medicinism? Surgeryism? Adult social carism?

[Gregory]

Wow - an -ism fetish!

I simply agree with this, though this definition could obviously be improved by properly calling it an ideology:

“Evolutionism, the atheistic worldview that so often accompanies the acceptance of biological evolution in public discussion.”
How is Evolutionary Creation different from Evolutionism, Intelligent Design, and Creationism? - BioLogos

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

Evolution, i.e. biology, life for which evolutionism is an asinine dysphemism., cannot be an ideology.

[Gregory]

Evolution isn’t an ideology. Evolutionism is.

Just breath normally when you read that, Klax, it’s going to be ok.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

I suspect, hope we have a channel here. But. You know where I’m coming from. Where are you really coming from?

[MarkD (A Whateverist, not a Christian)]

@T_aquaticus

What you are actually saying is that you would need to change all of the universal constants and physical laws in order for YEC to be true. The only assumption being used in radiometric dating is the constancy of physical laws.

You’d think that would be point in its favor but of course that is assuming you don’t already have a preferred outcome in mind.

[jammycakes (James McKay)]

@DavidS

The long ages proposed by secular scientists do not rely on radiometric dating. Their hypothesis precedes the data.

First of all, there is no need to refer to them as “secular scientists.” There are reasons why mainstream scientists accept long ages that have nothing to do with secularism or a rejection of miracles.

Secondly, you’re right that long ages do not rely on radiometric dating. It’s just that radiometric dating removes any last trace of reasonable doubt, or any last suggestion that long ages could have any kind of “secular” motivation.

Thirdly, “the hypothesis precedes the data” is how every branch of science is supposed to work. You come up with your hypothesis, consider what you would expect to see if it were true, and then, and only then, look at the data to see whether you actually see it in reality. It’s called “making testable predictions.”

@DavidS

I disagree. Actually, I’m not aware of any case in which radiometric dating was accurate for rocks of known age. If I am wrong about this, please let me know.

Yes you are wrong about this. Here’s an example where Ar-Ar dating was used to confirm the date of the eruption of Vesuvius to within just seven years

https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/97legacy/pompeii.html

@DavidS

Ok, fair point. Perhaps the K-Ar date can be explained by Potassium’s long half life and the poor sensitivity of our lab equipment. Still, I also mentioned that Mt. Ngauruhoe yielded a Sm-Nd date of 200 million years and a Pb-Pb date of 3.9 billion years . Those numbers are outrageous.

The numbers you have quoted are also out by a factor of a thousand. Andrew Snelling’s paper says two hundred thousand to 3.9 million years. That is less than 0.1% of the age of the Earth.

That only tells us that K-Ar dating can be out in some cases by up to 3.9 million years if you use a low-end lab. It doesn’t tell us that it is consistently out by up to a billion if you use a high-end lab. In any case, even if we do accept your higher figures, you have only established that it doesn’t always work. You have not established that it never works, nor have you even attempted to consider the methods that real geochronologists use to identify the (well understood) situations where it might not work.

@DavidS

Radiometric dates frequently disagree with results from other dating methods. In fact, radiometric dates of the same rock often contradict each other.

I’m sorry, but in order to demonstrate that radiometric dating is so unreliable that it can’t distinguish between thousands and billions, you have to do better than “frequently.” What you need to show is that radiometric dates consistently disagree with each other by multiple orders of magnitude. Anything less is blowing the extent and significance of discrepancies and discordances out of all proportion and attaching a significance to them far beyond anything that is warranted.

As far as I have been able to ascertain, radiometric ages only disagree with each other about 5-10% of the time, and usually for reasons that are obvious and well understood. The highest figure I have heard to date was a figure of about 20%, in a discussion between a couple of young-earth creationists and geology professor Joe Meert. Even if this higher figure is correct, it still falls far, far, far, far short of making the leap from “doesn’t always work” to “never works.” You must account for the 80% or more of cases where there is no disagreement.

@DavidS

This is where we disagree: I believe assumptions about the distant past are reasonable to challenge. Especially since they are so worldview-dependent. A creationist has very different worldview assumptions than an evolutionist.

Seriously? All assumptions? What about the fundamental laws and constants of physics?

It is totally unreasonable to suggest that the speed of light in a vacuum, the fine structure constant, Planck’s constant, the mass of the electron, proton and neutron, the strengths of the strong and weak nuclear forces, the Boltzmann constant and the like could have varied by more than a tiny amount at any time in Earth’s history. It is totally unrealistic to suggest that Maxwell’s equations, the laws of thermodynamics, special and general relativity, or the Pauli exclusion principle could have been different at any time in the past 4.5 billion years.

Why? Because these laws and constants are fundamental to everything in nature. If you changed any one of these things, even by a small amount, it would have a knock-on effect on everything else. The chemical properties of the elements – everything from their melting points and their boiling points to their crystalline structures, their phase transitions and their abilities to form compounds with other elements – would have changed drastically. Life on Earth would not have been possible. In any case, we would see evidence of such changes in distant starlight. We do not.

As I said, this is where YECs’ rejection of “uniformitarianism” degenerates into fantasy. Once you start suggesting that the fundamental laws and constants of physics could have been different in the past, all bets are off. You’re basically demanding the right to make things up and invent your own alternative reality. Once you get to that point, you could just as credibly claim that the Earth was originally flat and covered by a solid dome, only acquiring its modern spherical shape during Noah’s Flood.

[llamapacker]

1. God is not deceptive. All he does is true and honest. For the YEC position to be true, it would seem that would not be the case. He made heaven and earth and the realities of creation to help us understand him and it sometimes even gives us insight to help us understand and interpret the written word. All truth is God’s truth. If it were not so, one might translate the verse, “The Heavens do not declare the glory of God”.

I don’t agree that the YEC-OEC is not about facts.

2. If one is not open for possible insight from others, why ask your question?

3. The Bible is true, but our interpretations are often wrong. If there were no such possibilities, why do we have so many denominations? We often don’t understand the times, culture or language of the people it was written to.

4. Many solid conservative believer scientists are on record that the YEC position is not credible. My current reading of a Christian authored books state that there is not ONE geological fact to support YEC. The books, Creation in the Crossfire: A Study of the Genesis Debate in the Church by Hawes and Canceled Science by Eric Hedin are good reads.

5. In the book The Heretic and The Fool a Christian college professor who supports the YEC position admits that the facts supporting evolution are over-whelming, but he refuses to change and hopes that someday facts will support the YEC position.

6. The clear facts that indicate the earth is billions of years old are many and powerful according to many Christian scientists. The are not naturalists. They believe God created in some way.

7. Barna surveys have shown that when our young people come from a science-sheltered YEC position and are confronted by the evidence 40+% leave the faith.

The YEC position is dangerous to the church. The way Ken Ham and others like him come across, it is like a cult. “Believe my interpretation or you are not a true believer.” That is the way cult leaders respond to those who don’t believe as they do. I have collected lots of stories of folks who have been so treated. Many have left the church; some have left the faith; most are afraid to let others know. I personally know some who are afraid to even tell their family members for fear of ostrazatation by YEC zealots.

[rsewell (RON SEWELL)]

@DavidS

It’s OK if I can’t explain everything. It’s OK if I don’t understand everything. I don’t know how to answer your three challenges. But I’m happy to trust in the plain reading of the Scriptures, interpreting the Bible the way it has always been interpreted.

So why bother with science then, if it is irrelevant to your faith? Nothing in scripture mandates you to dwell upon radiometric decay, or distant starlight, or the chalk Cliffs of Dover, or anything in geology, astronomy, or biology. You can just dispense with making excuses for tree rings and varves and such. Most of what is written in the name of creationism is nowhere to be found in the Bible anyways.

The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it! - in itself is an honest enough position. It is bunk that scientific evidence is just a matter of interpretation and philosophical presuppositions that is disingenuous.

[MarkD (A Whateverist, not a Christian)]

In addition to trusting in a plain reading of Scripture I think he believes that the great commission obliges him to stint at nothing in getting everyone else to do the same. Pretty screwed up.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@Klax

@Dale

@Klax

Evolutionary science demonstrates purposelessness as a fact.

It is absolutely not a fact. Evolution demonstrates nothing about purpose. You are making a category error.

Between what categories?

@Dale

Philosophy and science. “This is true.” And obvious.

Missed this! You are saying that despite the fact that no purpose can possibly ever be scientifically discerned in evolution, i.e. life, in any meaningful (aka philosophical) way, only in poetic, figurative, subjective ways, it says nothing about purpose and that I am making a category error between the rationally seamless garments of science and philosophy, the former being the empirical tool of the latter.

Is that right?

Because dysteological evolution is a scientific but not a philosophic, metaphysical fact, not true, if God?

And that’s obvious?

Uh huh.

God isn’t.

Whereas purposeless is.

[bluebird1 (Robin)]

Thanks Christy for the reference here. I even looked for, and found, the 19th century books that hold the Seventh Day Adventist prophetesses’ vision (think the books — they were ancient —came from 19th century.) Intriguing reading! Did the canon close with the writings known as the canonical Scriptures? or is God still giving revelation? That is the question that came to mind when I read the writings you referred to. I appreciate the whole debate on this particular link and must look up the RATE thing that some have referred to. THANKS AGAIN to all contributors here!!