YEC vs Evolution

Discussion about scientific issues as they relate to God and Christianity including archaeology, origins of life, the universe, intelligent design, evolution, etc.
Man-ofGod
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Re: YEC vs Evolution

Post by Man-ofGod »

Himantolophus wrote:Easy... please give me evidence for a global flood and a mechanism by which the survivors re-populated the earth (both man and animals/plants) just in time for recorded history (which actually was ongoing during the Flood).

I have yet to have anyone do this successfully.
The same evidence that you use to prove an old earth does not prove an old earth at all. Just the opposite. What are some of facts that prove this is an old earth? I have yet to see anyone do this successfully at all. One article gives a small example of some of the evidence YEC use for a global flood.

“There is plenty of scientific evidence to support the YEC view of the Bible. Evidence in favor of a young Earth and catastrophic flood include: 1) Marine fossils, e.g. clams, trilobites & jellyfish, are found all over Earth (even mountaintops). 2) Noah's flood and the receding flood waters providing the power for the ocean and continental plates to form the mountain ranges and to separate the continents. 3) After the Flood was a great climatic change that provides a mechanism for a single Ice Age. 4) Upper limits to many date-of-the-Earth clocks-dates that are far too short for evolution. 5) The glaring issue of apparent design from the smallest to the largest creatures. 6) The Cambrian Layer as found in China with the strata revealing the major phyla (families of animals) at the bottom of the Cambrian layers, which is completely contrary to the uniformitarian view. The phyla of animal life are found suddenly and without transitional forms. I repeat--this is completely contrary to the evolutionary view of paleontology, but it is unmistakably in favor of YEC. “

In regards to your question about repopulation, what do you mean by repopulate the earth? What do you mean by recorded history? Do you have estimated numbers for the animals, humans, and plants that should have existed at the time of recorded history? Another word, what are your assumptions about how the earth should have been populated at the time of recorded history?
Also a good point by zoegirl: How do you refute a Christian with OEC beliefs? They use Genesis to back their beliefs too and they fit better into the reality of Old Earth.
In the same article,

“Context helps us to interpret words that have multiple meanings. When God had Joshua march his army around Jericho for 6 days (Joshua 6:3) no one would ever consider that the 6 days were to be interpreted as 6,000 years. Likewise, the Bible says that Jonah was in the fish for 3 days and 3 nights (Jonah 1:17). But no one would consider it to mean 3,000 years or 3 " long ages." So does the word "day" Genesis 1 mean a regular day or a long period?
Too often people take 2 Peter 3:8 out of its context, "But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." The latter half of the verse helps us understand that God is not confined by time. This verse is not defining a day as equaling a thousand years; it is saying God is outside of time. Interestingly, in verse 5 (of the same chapter) Peter speaks of the creation, "by the word of God . . . the Earth was formed" and in verse 6 he speaks of The Flood, ". . . the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water." So while OEC Christians use 2 Peter 3:8 to suggest Earth is old, the verses just preceding this verse clearly refer to a world destructive flood (inferring worldwide) and God "speaking" the creation into existence (inferring a sudden creation). “
Man-ofGod
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Re: YEC vs Evolution

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Now this looks familiar. I wonder what could have done such a thing?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/megaflood/scablands.html
Man-ofGod
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Re: YEC vs Evolution

Post by Man-ofGod »

Why can't they put 2 and 2 together!? stubborn!


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/preview/i_3211.html
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Himantolophus
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Re: YEC vs Evolution

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“There is plenty of scientific evidence to support the YEC view of the Bible. Evidence in favor of a young Earth and catastrophic flood include:
here we go... not like I haven't seen these before
1) Marine fossils, e.g. clams, trilobites & jellyfish, are found all over Earth (even mountaintops).
Uh... there has been erosion/uplift for the entire span of Earth's history. Most of the land masses we see today were once underwater. Simple plate tectonics and uplift explains this. And notice that the majority of these fossils are closely bunched in layers that correlate with separate eras over long periods of time. Some of these faunas were endemic to a certain region of the planet and nowhere else. Not to mention that the majority of fossils are marine organisms... if the flood was true we should see just as many land animals fossilized. why is that not true? We should also see land and sea animals, as well as plants all fossilized in the same layers (homogeneous) with no sorting by complexity/habitat since the flood would have been all over the planet. Why don't we see that?

So, science's explanation is superior. I'm looking for evidence that hasn't been explained by science
2) Noah's flood and the receding flood waters providing the power for the ocean and continental plates to form the mountain ranges and to separate the continents.

Assertion not evidence
How does this happen? How does water ever get the power to push continents apart and force rocks together FAST? We have a lot of water on the planet right now and supposedly YEC's believe that today's water is the flood water (sunken into the ocean basins by some unknown force?). Why are all processes, water erosion and plate tectonics, slow today? What has changed to make the water and plates slow processes today? Also:
Runaway subduction?
* The main difficulty of this theory is that it admittedly doesn't work without miracles. [Baumgardner, 1990a, 1990b] The thermal diffusivity of the earth, for example, would have to increase 10,000 fold to get the subduction rates proposed [Matsumura, 1997], and miracles are also necessary to cool the new ocean floor and to raise sedimentary mountains in months rather than in the millions of years it would ordinarily take.
* Baumgardner estimates a release of 1028 joules from the subduction process. This is more than enough to boil off all the oceans. In addition, Baumgardner postulates that the mantle was much hotter before the Flood (giving it greater viscosity); that heat would have to go somewhere, too.
* Cenozoic sediments are post-Flood according to this model. Yet fossils from Cenozoic sediments alone show a 65-million-year record of evolution, including a great deal of the diversification of mammals and angiosperms. [Carroll, 1997, chpts. 5, 6, & 13]
* Subduction on the scale Baumgardner proposes would have produced very much more vulcanism around plate boundaries than we see. [Matsumura, 1997]
Most flood models (including those above, possibly excepting Hovind's) deal with the water after the flood by proposing that it became our present oceans.
* How could such a change be effected? To change the density and/or temperature of at least a quarter of the earth's crust fast enough to raise and lower the ocean floor in a matter of months would require mechanisms beyond any proposed in any of the flood models.
* Why are most sediments on high ground? Most sediments are carried until the water slows down or stops. If the water stopped in the oceans, we should expect more sediments there. Baumgardner's own modeling shows that, during the Flood, currents would be faster over continents than over ocean basins [Baumgardner, 1994], so sediments should, on the whole, be removed from continents and deposited in ocean basins. Yet sediments on the ocean basin average 0.6 km thick, while on continents (including continental shelves), they average 2.6 km thick. [Poldervaart, 1955]
* Where's the evidence? The water draining from the continents would have produced tremendous torrents. There is evidence of similar flooding in the Scablands of Washington state (from the draining of a lake after the breaking of an ice dam) and on the far western floor of the Mediterranean Sea (from the ocean breaking through the Straits of Gibralter). Why is such evidence not found worldwide?
Where did all the heat go? If the geologic record was deposited in a year, then the events it records must also have occurred within a year. Some of these events release significant amounts of heat.
* Magma. The geologic record includes roughly 8 x 1024 grams of lava flows and igneous intrusions. Assuming (conservatively) a specific heat of 0.15, this magma would release 5.4 x 1027 joules while cooling 1100 degrees C. In addition, the heat of crystallization as the magma solidifies would release a great deal more heat.
* Limestone formation. There are roughly 5 x 1023 grams of limestone in the earth's sediments [Poldervaart, 1955], and the formation of calcite releases about 11,290 joules/gram [Weast, 1974, p. D63]. If only 10% of the limestone were formed during the Flood, the 5.6 x 1026 joules of heat released would be enough to boil the flood waters.
* Meteorite impacts. Erosion and crustal movements have erased an unknown number of impact craters on earth, but Creationists Whitcomb and DeYoung suggest that cratering to the extent seen on the Moon and Mercury occurred on earth during the year of Noah's Flood. The heat from just one of the largest lunar impacts released an estimated 3 x 1026 joules; the same sized object falling to earth would release even more energy. [Fezer, pp. 45-46]
* Other. Other possibly significant heat sources are radioactive decay (some Creationists claim that radioactive decay rates were much higher during the Flood to account for consistently old radiometric dates); biological decay (think of the heat released in compost piles); and compression of sediments. Aside from losing its atmosphere, Earth can only get rid of heat by radiating it to space, and it can't radiate significantly more heat than it gets from the sun unless it is a great deal hotter than it is now. (It is very nearly at thermal equilibrium now.) If there weren't many millions of years to radiate the heat from the above processes, the earth would still be unlivably hot.
* How did the cliffs of the various great canyons support the enormous mass above them while being made of essentially mud? The Flood deposited tons and tons of unconsolidated sediment, right? It also re-arranged all the continents, right? How do you carve a steep-edged canyon out of loose sediment. Try and carve a canyon in beach sand in a tidepool…
* Why is the Grand Canyon an isolated occurrence? Why aren't there similar canyons all over the world tracing the drainage of Flood waters?

So, science's explanation is superior. I'm looking for evidence that hasn't been explained by science And made up miracles like hydroplate, catastrophic plate tectonics, firmament nonsense is ridiculous.
3) After the Flood was a great climatic change that provides a mechanism for a single Ice Age.

Assertion, not evidence
Mechanism for this change? Ice Ages do not form rapidly by any means. The advance and retreat of Ice Ages takes thousands of years... how do we know? We have geological evidence, evidence from thousands of years of Ice cores from both the Arctic and Antarctic. We also have biogeographic evidence from the current distributions of organisms on the planet (see glacial relics) I still don't see how a flood, followed by the intense heat generated by rapid movement of continents, volcanic eruptions and meteorite impacts all over, and a receding of the waters would all trigger an ice age? Can you explain step by step how this happens? And how do you explain the MULTIPLE Ice Ages we've had, not just one? Also how do you explain the rise of Mesopotamian, Chinese, and Egyptian civilization around 4000 BC if there was a freakin' Ice Age going on (kind of hard to grow crops in snow).

So, science's explanation is superior. I'm looking for evidence that hasn't been explained by science Shoehorning Ice Ages into the story makes it even more hard to swallow.
4) Upper limits to many date-of-the-Earth clocks-dates that are far too short for evolution.

Flawed logic: assuming if evolution is disproven, this somehow proves YEC
I'd like some examples... you mean like the age of the Mississippi Delta? Niagara Falls? Modern science agrees that those features are thousands of years old. The formation of both those features began with the receding of the last great ice sheet 8-10 thousand years ago. Moon dust? the Earth's magnetic field? All have been refuted and explained by science. Radiometric dating all supports evolution, that's why YEC's say it doesn't work. :roll:

I eagerly await any other examples you may have.
5) The glaring issue of apparent design from the smallest to the largest creatures.

Assertion, not evidence
Glaring? The evidence in the fossil record shows clearly the increasing complexity of life from the Beginning to the present day as well as outlining the different evolutionary paths they followed. A snowflake shows indications of design yet we know better to say it was.

Is this evidence of a Flood? I didn't go for "evidence of creation" here. A YEC flood...
6) The Cambrian Layer as found in China with the strata revealing the major phyla (families of animals) at the bottom of the Cambrian layers, which is completely contrary to the uniformitarian view. The phyla of animal life are found suddenly and without transitional forms. I repeat--this is completely contrary to the evolutionary view of paleontology, but it is unmistakably in favor of YEC. “
There are transitional forms between every major group of organisms. If you wish, I will list them. Transitional forms are never enough for YEC's because if you find Form C between Forms A and B, YEC's will claim TWO GAPS now. There will never be enough transitionals for them to be satisfied.

Cambrian Explosion? All the phyla "suddenly appear"?
Image
Not so complex and modern to me. Seems like evolutionary body plan experimentation going on. And where are the land plants and animals in the Cambrian if they all lived at the same time?
In regards to your question about repopulation, what do you mean by repopulate the earth? What do you mean by recorded history? Do you have estimated numbers for the animals, humans, and plants that should have existed at the time of recorded history? Another word, what are your assumptions about how the earth should have been populated at the time of recorded history?
how Noah and 7 others could repopulate the Earth in time for their descendents to build the major civilizations in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the U.S. within the span of 500 years or less? I'll start with humans because animals and plants are another issue. i think I've typed enough to this point.
Last edited by Himantolophus on Sat Jun 28, 2008 12:12 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Himantolophus
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Re: YEC vs Evolution

Post by Himantolophus »

Why can't they put 2 and 2 together!? stubborn!
there is plenty of evidence of localized catastophies. See GMan's local flood thread. The evidence for "megafloods" is limited to those areas. There is no evidence of mega floods in other regions which YEC's would predict if there was indeed a global flood.

Again, I want to see information that cannot be explained by science.
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zoegirl
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Re: YEC vs Evolution

Post by zoegirl »

I will only ask you this. Take all of the evidence posted in this chart and refute them all.

http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth ... verse.html

Stubborn!?!?!?!? you see all the evidence in OEC and you call them and us stubborn?
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Himantolophus
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Re: YEC vs Evolution

Post by Himantolophus »

lol, nice.... And I've just scratched the surface of flood related questions that he must answer :)
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Re: YEC vs Evolution

Post by Canuckster1127 »

Canuckter is way off the mark on this one. It is the revival of YEC (if you want to call it that) that has been on the rise for the past 40 some odd years. Charles Darwin went to school for theology, then eventually read Charles Lyell's book and lost his faith in the bible specifically because his worldview did not fit in with what the Bible taught. His faith was destroyed. This was a turning point in Darwin's life and he was strictly anti-biblical from that point on.

Furthermore, I do not see how time should have any bearing on credibility of a belief system. After all, most scientific beliefs today are quite young. Now the YEC can appear to be young from a historical standpoint if you use sources documented outside of scripture. However, so is the protestant faith. I do not know your viewpoint, but after years of brainwashing by the catholic faith, there are many Bible beliefs today that are quite young thanks to the protestant reformation.
"Canuckster" made a very specific comment that is factually accurate based upon study of Church History and the writing of the Church Fathers.

Your response, carries several internal inconsistencies and several attributions I didn't make. I didn't state that YEC was not present in the past. Nor did I state that YEC or OEC for that matter haven't been influenced by modern science. Of course, both have in terms of their expression and understanding. OEC however was present before modern science and was based at that time, as it is now, primarily in Scripture.

You're the one who made the initial claim and then you respond to the challenge by disagreeing with the challenge and then claim it doesn't matter in the end anyway. if that is the case, why did you make the claim in the first place? How is introducing negative comments on Catholicism pertinent or helpful?
Dogmatism is the comfortable intellectual framework of self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is more decadent than the worst sexual sin. ~ Dan Allender
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zoegirl
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Re: YEC vs Evolution

Post by zoegirl »

lost his faith in the bible specifically because his worldview did not fit in with what the Bible taught
IN some cases, its not what the Bible teaches, but rather what the church taught. (ie, their interpretation)

Interestingly, it was the pollyanna theology of Victorian times that influenced Darwin. (This is from a book entitled "Darwins God"). Victorian theology was very big on the idea that God's creation would be perfect and efficent, not wasteful.

Darwin observed nature and saw the supposed wastefulness....billions of pollen grains unused, millions of sperm cells wsated....INefficient!! And this flew in the face of the theology of the time. God's creation would not be wasteful and ineffiecient, pointless said the church.

But interestingly, you would not find many creationists to this day arguing WHY God created the trees to make so many sperm or pollen, or seemingly pointless species or processes. So we have changed. WTHEIR interpreation changed. Hmmmm...
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