But let’s chat about them. Your (1) touches on the Universe. I don’t know how this would work. Mightn’t God do all sorts of things with the Universe … long before God created Earth? When I read Genesis, I never get the feeling the author is talking about the ENTIRE universe.
(2) I think people don’t do enough with the basic truth in the geological column !!! This is my favorite of your list!
(3) I don’t know how obligated an Evangelical is to the idea that when God makes a star … he HAS to make it brand new …
(4) As with (3) … I doubt Evangelicals are very committed to the idea that the EARTH had to have been formed after the stars…
What about the RATE project? The fact that they had to resort to claiming accelerated nuclear decay is pretty compelling evidence for the reliability of conventional dating methods to me. I can’t believe they’d have touched it with a barge pole if they had any other option – it’s just too far fetched.
This is not conclusive. The flood theory would assume initially few animals to move to various locations, and they potentially could move over land just before it separated, or more likely after it separated on log rafts. Different animals moved to different locations. You could argue how many marsupials, how many types, etc, but that makes certain assumptions about reasonability of descent of all marsupials vs movement of many marsupial species to one place. Consider that if they moved quickly after the flood, they would not have left any behind for other places. Consider also for other species. No horses nor tigers nor giraffes nor hippos on the americas.
Speed of light does not disprove YEC, although it certainly questions how God would have created the universe young… because the speed of light and distance of stars are definitely an unanswered question for YEC, although Humphreys has attempted to answer the question.
> if there were a global flood that created all fossils then the distribution of fossils in the geologic column would be random This is a wrong assumption, not based on actual physical experimentation or evidence. In fact, we would never expect fossils to be totally random. Yet, there is a large admixture of fossils. And yet there are more fossil footprints, clam fossils, and softbodied fossils than we would expect under a slow fossilization process. Virtually all fossils were formed in water, under water, and quickly, not slowly.
Young stars vs old stars. Of course, this is not proof of anything directly. There is no apriori need only to create at one stage of development. That type of assumption only proves itself by its assumptions. We could just as well be surprised that God created young stars, vs creating old stars.
Heavy elements only created in stars? only released in supernova? Again, an assumption that only what we have observed is possible. Yet, the creation of light elements is no less miraculous than the creation of heavy elements, and thus the reverse is no less possible. If God created the earth (planet) before the stars, then the statement that God would not create heavy elements directly without the aid of super novas, would be false.
While you you dither over individual species… I am pointing out that millions of years of diversification of marsupials are found on Australia … while virtually ALL of their kind have been REPLACED by placentals.
This CANNOT be explained by any version of the Flood scenario that you can imagine.
If the speed of light is a constant 300000 Km/s then it would take longer than 6000 years for light to reach the earth from any star farther than 6000 light years away.
If you put a bunch of vegetables in a pot of water and stir vigorously, you get randomly distributed vegetables, not vegetables that are distributed with the simplest forms on the bottom and the more complex forms toward the top. The fact that fossils in the geologic column are more simple lower down and more complex toward the top is proof that the distribution is the result of many many small floods over the course of time while God brought about increasingly complex life forms over long periods of time.
God creating old stars is similar to the “light created in transit” argument which most folks have discarded because it makes God deceptive.
The fact that we can observe heavy elements being created in stars is proof that creation is ongoing. Genesis 1 is the timeline of the creation of the earth and life on earth. Genesis 1 is not 6 literal days leaving God with nothing else to create.
John 5:17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”
"Placentals had come to Australia, for some experts believe the tooth, dug out of Queensland deposits radiometrically dated to at least 55 million years ago, belonged to a primitive, nonflying placental known as a condylarth. More recent discoveries hint that other early placentals lived in Australia, even before marsupials turn up in the fossil record.
But the monotremes in South America, and the placentals in Australia, didn’t last."
I’ll never get it straight if the story keeps changing.
This was actually touched on in an earlier post on BioLogos.
Yes, there were placental mammals in Australia 55 million years ago [back when the land masses could more easily share different animals] … and then they went extinct… and no more placentals were able to replenish them with new more successful species. This would be the Evolutionary explanation.
But what explanation would the Creationists offer?
That placental mammals from BEFORE the flood DIED in Australia during the flood.
but how was Australia’s inventory of animals replaced?
a) the marsupials and the placental mammals made a mad dash to australia …
b) ALL the marsupials were faster … apparently faster than ALL the placentals (which is impossible);
c) but all the marsupials that went any place else DIED OFF in the last 4000 years.
d) and as soon as a bunch of marsupials got on board … Australia had to SHOVE OFF out of range from all the other land masses… so that no other placentals (except for humans) could ever get there.
I must remember to make some mention of placentals that ONCE lived on Australia… but are long gone, with no other replacement placentals.
I guess you’re right here. YEC isn’t actually falsifiable. God could always have created the universe young with the appearance of age and evidence of events that never took place. (The “omphalos” hypothesis.)
The alternative is, of course, to acknowledge that 2 Peter 3:8 and Psalm 90:4 have something to tell us about the creation narrative.
Which of these two options has more Biblical support?
Any generalization is ultimately demonstrated by the examples (individual species). You have generalized. You have assumed millions of years of diversification, because you are assuming from the outset both the millions of years, and that all marsupials must have come from one or two species? And then you say they have been replaced… even though they are still there. You are not making sense… except maybe in your own mind. Please make your explanation more clear. Or,… on second thought, don’t bother.
This would be true. I don’t have an explanation. As I said, Humphrey’s tried to provide an explanation based on a different understanding of time. I don’t understand it completely, but it follows from the argument that time itself can change at different locations. I am not prepared to argue it.
Your example of random vegetables in a pot is an inadequate explanation. We know that sediment in a large body of water does not settle randomly, and would settle in layers, with larger particles settling first (rocks), then sand, then silt sized particles, and then clay sized particles. In the real world, randomness does not prevail in these situations.
Arguing that creating light in transit would make God deceptive, is a faulty argument. Creating a full grown man is not deceptive, nor is any miracle deceptive, nor is the resurrection deceptive. When we are deceived or surprised by our own selves, or by our own imaginations, or by our preconceptions, that does not make God deceptive. Furthermore, one could make the same argument about scripture, that a Genesis story that was not true, or could not be taken at face value, would make God deceptive.
The fact that creation is ongoing does not mean that it did not have a beginning. The quote from John 5:17 states that God is working, but does not indicate what God is working on, nor how he is working, nor does it limit him from having begun an amazing and somewhat abrupt beginning to creation work. Whether it continues or not.
Placentals on Australia that we think are 55 million years old, are all gone. We think they became extinct.
YOU think they died in a flood.
Australia’s ecosystem for the last 4000 years has been PACKED with different versions of mammals that are MARSUPIAL!!! (WE think that these marsupials were on Australia when it separated from the rest of the landmasses millions of years ago.)
YOU THINK that the Marsupial survivors of Noah’s ark RACED to Australia ahead of the Placentals… and then Australia separated from the rest of the land masses almost immediately … to prevent the placental versions of these mammals from colonizing Australia as well!
Apparently the Marsupials AVOIDED the rest of the world… except for a few like possums. Because the marsupials in Australia are not found anywhere else.
There is NO FLOOD SCENARIO that can explain these facts.
I don`t like shouting. PLEASE DO NOT SHOUT AT ME! I START SHOUTING BACK EVEN THOUGH I DO NOT WANT TO!!
I don`t need your help. Your help is not helpful. Your three points are based on false dilemmas.
Dying in flood equals extinction.
I did not say that marsupials raced to Australia. I said they may have arrived there on log rafts. Perhaps even slowly.
3, The fact that possums are found elsewhere rather destroys the marsupial argument. The fact that Australian marsupials are not found elsewhere is not surprising. Apparently 70% of marsupials are found on Australia, and the rest found elsewhere.
When i am shouting, John, I make THE WHOLE sentence upper case. It’s tough enough trying to put emphasis on the intended part of the sentence… don’t try to pass laws on what little flexibility we have when typing complex ideas… Okay?
Because what it would mean in an EVOLUTION scenario is:
You are right … Dying in the flood doesn’t equal extinction. But NONE of the placental mammals that once lived in Australia (we think more than 50 million years ago) survived ANYWHERE ELSE. So… they MUST have become extinct during the flood. You think they survived the flood, got on the raft with the other marsupials and then COMMITTED SUICIDE ?
So why would Marsupials get on a raft … but no placentals? That doesn’t make any sense… unless you are writing a fairy tale.
marsupial possums became such an efficient species, they survived all the competition the placental mammals threw at them.
John. I tried to evangelize an ex Catholic this evening. It did not go well. Please continue to trust in the underlying meaning of the Bible, even if the surface meaning gets murkey. Remember that the main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things.
I’m happy that you acknowledge the problem of distant starlight for the YEC perspective. Why can’t it “disprove the YEC position”? Isn’t it important for a scientific model to have at least a “possible” explanation to solve such a glaringly obvious problem? If you assert the heavenly bodies were created on the 4th solar day, that doesn’t leave much flexibility.
The white-hole cosmology of Humphreys does not work observationally because it would result in a universal blueshift of light if clocks would be running faster in the rest of the universe. Instead, we are seeing universal redshift of light (because of the cosmological expansion).
Even YECs like Jason Lisle have acknowledged that problem and are trying to construct different solutions. One solution put forward by Jason Lisle is the Anisotropic Synchrony Convention. If you’re interested, check out my recent blog series focused on his proposal here on BioLogos.
I’ll never get it straight if the story keeps changing.