Grand Canyon rocks?

It has been 1 1/2 years since Dr. Andrew Snelling collected his Grand Canyon rocks. Any news of his findings? I know these things take time but the silence is deafening. When Goggled, only the old news comes up.

You need to take your evolutionary goggles off then you will find his results sitting right in your Bible. I think is how that is supposed to work.

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I did a Google search of the Answers in Genesis website and came up with a video of Ken Ham interviewing Andrew Snelling about his research:

A couple of interesting points to note. First is that the rock formation that he is discussing was, indeed, the one that he showcases on their “ten best evidences for a young earth” that we discussed here:

His description of how he had to get up to the rock formation is particularly noteworthy. He said that he had to climb up a scree slope and past a waterfall, and that he fell and broke his thumb in the process. This provides weight to the view that the placement of the people in the photograph – in front of the fractures in the rock – was intentional.

The other point though is the lawsuit. A while ago I came across the legal documents concerning the case, including the peer review reports, and to be fair I think that he did have a case. The reports made heavy weather of his research being religion, not science, and criticised it only for the fact that it was creationism. I didn’t see much about the actual technical merits (or otherwise) of his proposal. This is exactly the thing I was talking about here:

I am firmly of the opinion that we should be very careful not to criticise young-earth creationism just because it is creationism. Instead, our response to them should be nothing more nor less than a demand that they meet the same standards of honesty, factual accuracy, technical rigour and quality control as everybody else. Because any criticism that goes over and above that is religion, not science, itself as well.

In the end of the day, you only need to look at the photographs, with the clear evidence of fracturing that they show, to see that his research wasn’t going to go anywhere. He talks about having received some favourable preliminary results, but I suspect that the final results weren’t as favourable as he initially thought. The video is about a year old, and came out only a couple of months after his research, so I’d have thought that he’d have released at least something by now if that weren’t the case.

Finally, I don’t know if that specific rock outcrop has a name or not, but if it doesn’t, I propose calling it Snelling Bend in honour of our good friend Dr S.

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Not least because many of us are not afraid to identify as creationists so as to help rehabilitate that term, and allow it its fuller meaning.

But my semantic quibble aside, your point is well-taken. Let’s not throw any more fuel than necessary on persecution-narratives. Truth should always be given deference no matter which way it ends up going.

Very true. We should never shy away from truth. That is why I wonder about how the research is going on those rocks…

Incidentally I listened to the Ken Ham/Andrew Snelling interview during my lunch break – all the way through this time. Andrew Snelling said “about this time next year” when he was asked when the results were due. That was last January. So maybe it’s best to give him another six months or so to allow for schedule slippage before jumping to any conclusions.

Sounds fair. It will be interesting to see how open they are with the data obtained and whether it will be available for review. It is an interesting question as to what their response will be if the data are consistent with an old earth as one would expect, knowing of course that they reject as invalid any dating techniques that give old age as an answer. Will they accept it, ignore it, suppress it, or what? Will it change their minds? I suppose we should wait patiently and not engage in idle speculation, but it does make you wonder.

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I’m not holding my breath to be honest. I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s little point in wasting much time in detailed take-downs of young-earth claims. The conclusions of the RATE project, with their 22,000°C of accelerated nuclear decay, should be more than enough to see that the earth is old, end of story. When they’ve made that kind of admission, pretty much everything else is window dressing. It’s a complete show-stopper as far as a young earth is concerned.

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