Dennis Kikendall <> wrote:

> Some interesting facts.

Dennis provides an example of what I have been saying to James Scully about non-evidence for young Earth.

> Did you know that:

>

> 1.NASA expected that if the moon had been collecting

> cosmic dust for

> millions or billions of years that the dust layer

> would be hundreds or

> even thousands of feet thick, so they designed the

> lunar lander with big

> wide landing pads, but to their surprise the dust layer

> was only about

> 0.5″ thick.

This is simply false.

The levels of dust on the moon are entirely consistent with a billion year life span, and NASA found exactly what they were expecting when the Eagle landed.

The creationist is using old figures for dust accumlation dating from 1957, which had already been shown incorrect long before the lunar landing. NASA made soft landings on the moon with Surveyor in 1966, and found what they were expecting — a relatively thin layer of dust. The Apollo lunar lander landing gear was designed with the full knowledge that dust layers were thin.

Creationists generally refer to Hans Petterson, a legitimate scientist who made one of the first attempts to measure meteorite dust in 1957. His results were about three orders of magnitude too large, and this has been known for decades. Incredibly, creationists invariably ignore his actual estimate and quote an absolute upper bound (about three times more than Petterson actually estimates), and even then the above nonsense exaggerates the effect!

This is a classic example of non-evidence for young Earth, to which I allued in discussions with James Scully. There is no evidence here to refute: just distortion and incompetance.

Articles presenting the background to this strange creationist claim: <http://members.madasafish.com/~fist/articles/lunardust.htm> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moon-dust.html>

Note that Snelling and Rush, young Earth creationists writing a “technical” paper for Creation Ex Nihilo in 1993, advised creationists to stop using this argument. They say: It thus appears that the amount of meteoritic dust and meteorite debris in the lunar regolith and surface dust layer, even taking into account the postulated early intense meteorite and meteoritic dust bombardment, does not contradict the evolutionists’ multi-billion year timescale (while not proving it). Unfortunately, attempted counter-responses by creationists have so far failed because of spurious arguments or faulty calculations. Thus, until new evidence is forthcoming, creationists should not continue to use the dust on the moon as evidence against an old age for the moon and the solar system. <http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/moondust(v7n1)/moond ust.asp>

> 2.Radiometric dating of rocks does not work. NASA had

> several different

> labs date fragments of a moon rock and they all came

> back with wildly

> different answers so they never published the age.

> There is no reliable

> way to date rocks.

This is nonsense. There were no particular problems with dating the moon rocks, and dates were found and published just fine. There were different ages for different rocks from different areas, as expected. The results obtained were broadly consistent with ages already estimated by crater counting methods.

See this NASA tutorial for some relevant discussion <http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect19/Sect19_6.html> <http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect19/Sect19_5.html>

I have seen some creationist pages describe how NASA found dates of up to 28 billion years using Uranium/Lead and Thorium dating, and up to 7 billion by potassium/argon. I found no references or original sources for these figures — one wonders how the creationists discovered them if they were not published! I frankly suspect this is an urban legend of some kind; like the legend that NASA expected hundreds of feet of dust, or the legend of a NASA computer finding signs of Joshua’s long day. In brief; I suspect there is simply no foundation to the claim: it is merely moonshine.

I would be grateful for anyone who can give any actual source for this bizarre assertion of “wildly different answers”. I know that there are different answers for rocks from different locations where different ages were expected, in which age determinations were generally consistent with standard models.

> 3.Geologists date rock layers by the fossils they

> contain and they date

> the fossils by the layer in which they are found. This

> is faulty

> circular logic.

This is false.

Long before any absolute dating schemes were known, it was observed that fossils allow identification of strata. Different fossil forms are characteristic of geological layers: they are not mixed, and that the layers identified in this way have a consistent relative order.

In this century, independent measures of absolute age confirmed that the various layers have characteristic ages.

What this means is that if you find a certain kind of “index” fossil in a geological formation, even if there are no minerals permitting an absolute date extimate you can still date that location from knowledge of the age of that kind of fossil, as determined in other locations.

This is not circular.

> 4.If the Grand Canyon was really formed by the Colorado

> River as most

> think, the river would have had to flow up hill to

> carve the canyon.

This is false.

The model for formation of the canyon involves an uplift of the region; it does not require any river to run uphill.

> 5.The landscape of the American West was shaped by

> massive water erosion

> in areas that see very little rainfall.

Rainfall patterns alter over time. The observation of erosion patterns and existing desert conditions is unsurprising, and meaningless. The landscape shows signs of gradual erosion over long periods of time: this is evidence for age, and for changes in climate. There is no model of erosion due to a single massive flood which is consistent with the actual erosion patterns observed.

> 6.There have been fossilized clams found on top of Mt

> Everest . These

> clams are in the closed position indicating they were

> buried alive.

Creationists frequently claim that closed clams must have been buried alive. In fact, this claim is without foundation. Clams can quite easily remain closed after death.

The summit of Everest includes substantial amounts of limestone: much more than could possibly accumulate by gentle deposition over a single year. There are certainly plenty of marine invertebrate fossils; and I see no reason to doubt this includes clams with closed shells. However, this does not require rapid burial, and more seriously, a one year flood is not removely plausible for supporting a large colony of clams to suddenly settle on top of the mountain and grow to any size. Furthermore, a mountain top is NOT subject to “rapid burial” in a flood; just the opposite, in fact.

The fossil evidence from Mt Everest is completely inconsistent with a flood; it is rather proof that at one time the rocks of Mt Everest were part of a long established and relatively placid marine environment.

> 7.There is tremendous scientific evidence there was a

> worldwide flood.

> This flood was responsible for creating the worlds coal

> and oil

> deposits.

This is false. There is no model, by anyone, which explains formation of coal or oil in terms of a world wide flood. The actual distribution and observation of coal and oil is inconsistent with a single catastrophic flood deposit; and the quantities involved are too great to be from a single event. The Earth’s biomass at one time would not be enough to produce known coal and oil reserves. This is just silly.

See <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/coal.html> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/coalprints.html> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mtsthelens.html>

> 8.Archaeology has proven the Bible to be 100%

> historically accurate and

> no other ancient writings come any where close the this

> accuracy .

This is false. In fact, there are some serious problems reconciling archeology with the bible. Very little of the bible can be confirmed by archaeology; and the historical accuracy of the bible in various respects has been called into serious question by archaeological evidence.

Remainder snipped, as it does not deal with empirically based claims.

—–

Creation “science” is excruciating nonsense from start to finish. I refer specifically to the attempt to make empirically based scientific sounding arguments.

This is most likely not Dennis’ fault — he is merely passing on bad information without actually knowing anything much about the matter.

In all cases above, Dennis is either passing on falsehoods about the observations, or else asserting the the observations are consistent with a young Earth (or global flood) in the absense of any model the actually relates the observation to a young Earth or flood.

That is, this is not a case of alternative evidence, or scientific problems. It is a case of no evidence at all. The claimed observations don’t exist; or else the observations simply have no relation to any model for a young Earth or a global flood.

The only “problems” here are of ignorance, or inadequate education, or out and out falsehood. In my not so humble opinion, the Church ought to be very concerned indeed that this kind of idiocy is so frequently used in Christian apologetics.

Cheers — Chris Ho-Stuart