Science Disproves Evolution

[Pahu]

Heavy Elements


Evolutionists historically have had difficulty explaining the origin of heavy elements. (A big bang would produce only the three lightest elements: hydrogen, helium, and lithium.)The other 100+ elements supposedly formed deep inside stars and during stellar explosions. This theory is hard to verify, because stellar interiors and explosions cannot be carefully analyzed. However, a vast region of gas containing the mass of 300,000,000,000,000 suns has been found that is quite rich in iron and other heavy elements. The number of nearby visible stars is a thousand times too small to account for the heavy elements in that huge region (a). Heavy elements are even abundant in nearly empty regions of space that are farthest from stars and galaxies (b).

Most hydrogen atoms weigh one atomic mass unit, but some, called heavy hydrogen, weigh two units. If everything in the universe came from a big bang or a swirling gas cloud, heavy hydrogen should be uniformly mixed with normal hydrogen. It is not (c). Comets have twice the concentration of heavy hydrogen as oceans. Oceans have 10–50 times the concentration as the solar system and interstellar matter. [See “Heavy Hydrogen” here: http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...tml#wp1230689]

a. “Given that the cluster apparently comprises few galaxies, yet contains a large amount of iron, a new type of astronomical object is implied by our results. A revision of theoretical models of the metal [heavy element] enrichment process in galaxy clusters may therefore be required,” M. Hattori et al., “A Dark Cluster of Galaxies at Redshift z=1,” Nature, Vol. 388, 10 July 1997, p. 146.

b. Lennox L. Cowie and Antoinette Songaila, “Heavy-Element Enrichment in Low-Density Regions of the Intergalactic Medium,” Nature, Vol. 394, 2 July 1998, pp. 44–46.

c. “In both cases, the scatter of the observed values [of heavy hydrogen] is quite large and seems to reach a factor of 10. Although it is already surprising to see such variations within ~1000 pc from the sun, this looks unbelievable within only 30 pc from the sun.” [1 pc (or parsec)=3.258 light-years] A. Vidal-Madjar, “Interstellar Helium and Deuterium,” Diffuse Matter in Galaxies, editors J. Audouze et al. (Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1983), pp. 77–78.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown
http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...tml#wp1017758]

[megadebt]

Disprovtion Evokes Scientifics

[Pahu]

Interstellar Gas


Detailed analyses indicate that neither stars nor planets could form from interstellar gas clouds (a). To do so, either by first forming dust particles (b) or by direct gravitational collapse of the gas (c), would require vastly more time than the alleged age of the universe. An obvious alternative is that stars and planets were created.

a. “The process by which an interstellar cloud is concentrated until it is held together gravitationally to become a protostar is not known. In quantitative work, it has simply been assumed that the number of atoms per cm3 has somehow increased about a thousand-fold over that in a dense nebula. The two principal factors inhibiting the formation of a protostar are that the gas has a tendency to disperse before the density becomes high enough for self-gravitation to be effective, and that any initial angular momentum would cause excessively rapid rotation as the material contracts. Some mechanism must therefore be provided for gathering the material into a sufficiently small volume that self-gravitation may become effective, and the angular momentum must in some way be removed.” Eva Novotny, Introduction to Stellar Atmospheres and Interiors (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 279–280.

b. Martin Harwit, Astrophysical Concepts (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1973), p. 394.

“...there is no reasonable astronomical scenario in which mineral grains can condense.” Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, “Where Microbes Boldly Went,” New Scientist, Vol. 91, 13 August 1981, p. 413.

c. “Contemporary opinion on star formation holds that objects called protostars are formed as condensations from the interstellar gas. This condensation process is very difficult theoretically, and no essential theoretical understanding can be claimed; in fact, some theoretical evidence argues strongly against the possibility of star formation. However, we know that the stars exist, and we must do our best to account for them.” John C. Brandt, The Physics and Astronomy of the Sun and Stars (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. 111.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown<br>
http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...tml#wp1257361]

[Pahu]

Fast Binaries


In our galaxy, about 60% of all stars are grouped in closely spaced pairs called binaries. Fortunately, our Sun does not have a binary partner. If it did, temperatures on Earth would vary too much to support life. The mutual gravitational attraction between stars in a binary pair causes them to orbit each other, just as the Moon orbits Earth. The closer paired stars are to each other, the faster they orbit. Their orbits do not change appreciably, even over long periods of time.

Two particular stars are so close that they orbit each other every 11 minutes! This implies their centers are about 80,000 miles apart (a). By way of comparison, our Sun, a typical star, is more than 800,000 miles in diameter. Other close binaries are also known (b).

The theory of stellar evolution was developed by arranging (on paper) different types of stars in a sequence according to brightness and color. Stellar evolutionists believe stars slowly change from one type to another. However, scientists have never observed such changes, and many stars do not fit this pattern. According to stellar evolution, a star’s volume, late in its lifetime, expands to about a million times that of our Sun and finally collapses to become a small star about the size of Earth (a white dwarf) or even smaller (a neutron star).

Only such tiny stars could have their centers 80,000 miles apart and still orbit each other. Obviously, these fast binary stars did not evolve from larger stars, because larger stars orbiting so closely would collide. If two stars cannot evolve into a condition that has them orbiting each other every 11 minutes, one wonders whether stars evolve at all.

a. A. R. King and M. G. Watson, “The Shortest Period Binary Star?” Nature, Vol. 323, 4 September 1986, p. 105.

Dietrick E. Thomsen, “A Dizzying Orbit for a Binary Star,” Science News, Vol. 130, 11 October 1986, p. 231.

“Ultrafast Binary Star,” Sky & Telescope, February 1987, p. 154.

b. Jonathan Eberhart, “Now You See It, Now You Don’t,” Science News, Vol. 135, 7 January 1989, p. 13.

Patrick Moore, The New Atlas of the Universe (New York: Arch Cape Press, 1988), p. 176.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown
http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...tml#wp1257384]

[Pahu]

Star Births? Stellar Evolution? 1


Evolutionists claim that stars form from swirling clouds of dust and gas. For this to happen, vast amounts of energy, angular momentum, and residual magnetism must be removed from each cloud. This is not observed today, and astronomers and physicists have been unable to explain, in an experimentally verifiable way, how it all could happen (a).

The most luminous stars in our galaxy, called O stars, are “burning fuel” hundreds of thousands of times more rapidly than our Sun. This is so rapid that they must be quite young on an evolutionary time scale. If these stars evolved, they should show easily measurable characteristics such as extremely high rates of rotation and enormous magnetic fields. Because these characteristics are not observed, it seems quite likely these stars did not evolve.

a. “The universe we see when we look out to its furthest horizons contains a hundred billion galaxies. Each of these galaxies contains another hundred billion stars. That’s 10^22 stars all told. The silent embarrassment of modern astrophysics is that we do not know how even a single one of these stars managed to form.” Martin Harwit, Book Reviews, Science, Vol. 231, 7 March 1986, pp. 1201–1202.

Harwit also lists three formidable objections to all modern theories of star formation:

i. “The contracting gas clouds must radiate energy in order to continue their contraction; the potential energy that is liberated in this pre-stellar phase must be observable somehow, but we have yet to detect and identify it.

ii. “The angular momentum that resides in typical interstellar clouds is many orders of magnitude higher than the angular momentum we compute for the relatively slowly spinning young stars; where and how has the protostar shed that angular momentum during contraction?

iii. “Interstellar clouds are permeated by magnetic fields that we believe to be effectively frozen to the contracting gas; as the gas cloud collapses to form a star, the magnetic field lines should be compressed ever closer together, giving rise to enormous magnetic fields, long before the collapse is completed. These fields would resist further collapse, preventing the formation of the expected star; yet we observe no evidence of strong fields, and the stars do form, apparently unaware of our theoretical difficulties.”

[From “In the Beginnng” by Walt Brown
http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...tml#wp1783267]

[Jarik]

Dude, you are a born follower. And this spam has gone on for long enough.

[Pahu]

Star Births? Stellar Evolution? 2


If stars evolve, star births would about equal star deaths. Within our Milky Way Galaxy alone, about one star dies each year and becomes an expanding cloud of gas and dust (b). Deaths of more massive stars are much brighter, more violent explosions called supernovas. Star births, on the other hand, would appear as new starlight not present on the many photographic plates made decades earlier. Instruments which could detect dust falling into and forming supposedly new stars have not done so (c). Actually, stars that some astronomers believe are very new are expelling matter. We have seen hundreds of stars die, but we have never seen a star born (d).

b. These explosions were misnamed “planetary nebula,” because early astronomers with evolutionary ideas thought these clouds were forming planets around new stars. [See Bruce Balick and Adam Frank, “The Extraordinary Deaths of Ordinary Stars,” Scientific American, Vol. 291, July 2004, pp. 50–59.]

“Herschel...speculated they might be planetary systems taking shape around young stars. The name stuck even though the opposite turned out to be true; this type of nebula consists of gas molted from dying stars.... [Planetary nebula] pose challenges to stellar evolution theory, the physics that describes the life story of stars.” Ibid., p. 52.

c. “...no one has unambiguously observed material falling onto an embryonic star, which should be happening if the star is truly still forming. And no one has caught a molecular cloud in the act of collapsing.” Ivars Peterson, “The Winds of Starbirth,” Science News, Vol. 137, 30 June 1990, p. 409.

“Precisely how a section of an interstellar cloud collapses gravitationally into a star—a double or multiple star, or a solar system—is still a challenging theoretical problem....Astronomers have yet to find an interstellar cloud in the actual process of collapse.” Fred L. Whipple, The Mystery of Comets (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985), pp. 211–212, 213.

d. “The origin of stars represents one of the most fundamental unsolved problems of contemporary astrophysics.” Charles J. Lada and Frank H. Shu, “The Formation of Sunlike Stars,” Science, Vol. 248, 4 May 1990, p. 564.

“Most disturbing, however, is the fact that, despite numerous efforts, we have yet to directly observe the process of stellar formation. We have not yet been able to unambiguously detect the collapse of a molecular cloud core or the infall of circumstellar material onto an embryonic star. Until such an observation is made, it would probably be prudent to regard our current hypotheses and theoretical scenarios with some degree of suspicion.” Ibid., p. 572.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown
http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...iences22.html]

[Pahu]

Star Births? Stellar Evolution? 3


Some stars are found where astronomers agree they could not evolve, near the center of our galaxy. These short-lived stars orbit a massive black hole, where gravity is so strong that gas and dust clouds could never evolve into a star. Instead, the black hole’s massive gravity would pull such clouds (supposedly evolving stars) apart. (e).

Nor could stars have evolved in globular clusters, where up to a million stars occupy a relatively small volume of space.


Figure 192: Globular Cluster. Globular clusters are tight, spherical concentrations of 10,000–1,000,000 stars. This globular cluster, called M13, is about 22,000 light-years away.

Wind and radiation pressure from the first star in the cluster to evolve would have blown away most of the gas needed to form subsequent stars in the cluster (f). In other words, if stars evolved, we should not see globular clusters, yet our galaxy has about 200 globular clusters. To pack so many stars that tightly together requires that they all came into existence at about the same time.

e. “In fact, given our current understanding of how stars form and the properties of the galactic center, it’s [stellar evolution near the galactic center is] not allowed to happen.” Andrea M. Gaze, as quoted by Ron Cowen, “Mystery in the Middle,” Science News, Vol. 163, 21 June 2003, p. 394.

“For example, no one can explain how the stars—which are 15 times heftier than our sun—got there [near the center of our galaxy]. According to most astronomical models, they are too big to have formed in the chaos of the galactic center but appear to be too young to have moved there from farther out.” Robert Irion, “The Milky Way’s Dark, Starving Pit,” Science, Vol. 300, 30 May 2003, p. 1356.

“The bizarre question of the hour is what the young stars are doing there at all. Clouds of gas need a calm and cold setting to collapse into a ball dense enough to ignite nuclear fusion. Yet gravitational tidal forces—from the black hole and from stars in the galaxy’s nucleus—make the galactic center the antithesis of such a [stellar] nursery.” Ibid., p. 1357.

“Ironically, stars such as these have no business being so close to a black hole...there is no plausible explanation of how and why the hot, young stars near the centre of the Milky Way and Andromeda got there.” Fulvio Melia, “Odd Company,” Nature, Vol. 437, 20 October 2005, p. 1105.

f. “Little is known about the origins of globular clusters, which contain hundreds of thousands of stars in a volume only a few light years across. Radiation pressure and winds from luminous young stars should disperse the star-forming gas and disrupt the formation of the cluster.” J. L. Turner et al., “An Extragalactic Supernebula,” Nature, Vol. 423, 5 June 2003, p. 621.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown
http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...tml#wp1783267]

[Pahu]

Star Births? Stellar Evolution? 4


A similar problem exists for stars that are more than twenty times more massive than our sun. After a star grew to 20 solar masses, it would exert so much radiation pressure and emit so much stellar wind that additional mass could not be pulled in to allow it to grow (g). Many stars are heavier than a hundred suns. Black holes are millions to billions of times more massive than the sun. Poor logic is involved in arguing for stellar evolution, which is assumed in estimating the age of stars. These ages are then used to establish a framework for stellar evolution. That is circular reasoning (h).

In summary, there is no evidence that stars evolve, there is much evidence that stars did not evolve, and there are no experimentally verifiable explanations for how they could evolve and seemingly defy the laws of physics (i).

g. “Once a protostar reaches a threshold of about 20 solar masses, the pressure exerted by its radiation should overpower gravity and prevent it from growing any bigger. In addition to the radiation pressure, the winds that so massive a star generates disperse its natal cloud, further limiting its growth as well as interfering with the formation of nearby stars.” Erick T. Young, “Cloudy with a Chance of Stars: Making a Star Is No Easy Thing,” Scientific American, Vol. 302, February 2010, p. 40.

“Nascent stars above 20 solar masses are so luminous that they would be expected to disrupt their own formation, as well as that of nearby stars.” Ibid., p. 37.

h. Steidl, pp. 134–136.

i. “Nobody really understands how star formation proceeds. It’s really remarkable.” Rogier A. Windhorst, as quoted by Corey S. Powell, “A Matter of Timing,” Scientific American, Vol. 267, October 1992, p. 30.

“If stars did not exist, it would be easy to prove that this is what we expect.” Geoffrey R. Burbidge, as quoted by R. L. Sears and Robert R. Brownlee in Stellar Structure, editors Lawrence H. Aller and Dean McLaughlin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 577.

“We don’t understand how a single star forms, yet we want to understand how 10 billion stars form.” Carlos Frenk, as quoted by Robert Irion, “Surveys Scour the Cosmic Deep,” Science, Vol. 303, 19 March 2004, p. 1750.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown
http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...tml#wp1783267]

[Pahu]

Galaxies


Evolutionists now admit that galaxies cannot evolve from one type to another (a). There are also good reasons why natural processes cannot form galaxies (b). Furthermore, if spiral galaxies were billions of years old, their arms or bars would be severely twisted (c).


Figure 190: Spiral Galaxies. The arms in these six representative spiral galaxies have about the same amount of twist. Their distances from Earth are shown in light-years. (One light-year, the distance light travels in one year, equals 5,879,000,000,000 miles.) For the light from all galaxies to arrive at Earth tonight, the more distant galaxies, which had to release their light long before the closer galaxies, did not have as much time to rotate and twist their arms. Therefore, farther galaxies should have less twist. Of course, if light traveled millions of times faster in the past, the farthest galaxies did not have to send their light long before the nearest galaxies. Spiral galaxies should have similar twists. This turns out to be the case.21 The galaxies are: A) M33 or NGC 598; B) M101 or NGC 5457; C) M51 or NGC 5194; D) NGC 4559; E) M88 or NGC 4501; and F) NGC 772. All distances are taken from R. Brent Tully, Nearby Galaxies Catalog (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988)

Because they have maintained their shape, either galaxies are young, or unknown physical phenomena are occurring within galaxies (d). Even structures composed of galaxies are now known to be so amazingly large, and yet relatively thin, they could not have formed by slow gravitational attraction (e). Slow, natural processes cannot form such huge galactic structures; rapid, supernatural processes may have.

a. “There is much doubt, however, that galaxies evolve from one type to another at all.” George Abell, Exploration of the Universe, 2nd edition (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1969), p. 629.

“Our conclusions, then, are that the sequence of the classification of galaxies is not an evolutionary sequence...” Paul W. Hodge, The Physics and Astronomy of Galaxies and Cosmology (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. 122.

b. “The problem of explaining the existence of galaxies has proved to be one of the thorniest in cosmology. By all rights, they just shouldn’t be there, yet there they sit. It’s hard to convey the depth of frustration that this simple fact induces among scientists.” Trefil, The Dark Side of the Universe, p. 55.

Trefil explains the basis for this frustration in his fourth chapter entitled, “Five Reasons Why Galaxies Can’t Exist.”

“We cannot even show convincingly how galaxies, stars, planets, and life arose in the present universe.” Michael Rowan-Robinson, “Review of the Accidental Universe,” New Scientist, Vol. 97, 20 January 1983, p. 186.

“A completely satisfactory theory of galaxy formation remains to be formulated.” Joseph Silk, The Big Bang (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1980), p. 22.

“The theory of the formation of galaxies is one of the great outstanding problems of astrophysics, a problem that today seems far from solution.” Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes (New York: Bantom Books, Inc., 1977), p. 68.

Fifty cosmologists attended a conference on galaxy formation. After summarizing much observational data, two of the most respected authorities optimistically estimated the probability that any existing theory on galaxy formation is correct is about 1 out of 100. [See P. J. E. Peebles and Joseph Silk, “A Cosmic Book,” Nature, Vol. 335, 13 October 1988, pp. 601–606.]

c. Hodge, p. 123.

d. Harold S. Slusher, “Clues Regarding the Age of the Universe,” ICR Impact, No. 19, January 1975, pp. 2–3.

Steidl, pp. 161–187.

e. “In its simplest form, the Big Bang scenario doesn’t look like a good way to make galaxies. It allows too little time for the force of gravity by itself to gather ordinary matter—neutrons, protons and electrons—into the patterns of galaxies seen today. Yet the theory survives for want of a better idea.” Peterson, “Seeding the Universe,” p. 184.

“It [the Great Wall, composed of tens of thousands of galaxies] is far too large and too massive to have formed by the mutual gravitational attraction of its member galaxies.” M. Mitchell Waldrop, “Astronomers Go Up Against the Great Wall,” Science, Vol. 2 46, 17 November 1989, p. 885. [See also Margaret J. Geller and John P. Huchra, “Mapping the Universe,” Science, Vol. 246, 17 November 1989, pp. 897–903.]

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown
http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...tml#wp1257493]

[Pahu]

Stellar Nursery, or Is the Emperor Naked?


The popular media frequently claim that stars are actually seen evolving and that pictures of these stellar nurseries prove it. Impressive pictures of the Eagle Nebula are usually shown. Many people accept the claim without asking themselves, “Do the pictures contain anything that shows stars are evolving?” Of course not. If stars were evolving, other physical measurements could confirm it. Where are those measurements? Silence.

This willingness to accept what others tell us reminds one of the tale in which citizens told their naked emperor he was nicely dressed. Rather than believing or reporting what their eyes clearly told them, people preferred to accept what others said—or at least not object. Better not disagree or even ask questions; it could be embarrassing.

Why do some astronomers say stars are evolving? Until recently, the atmosphere prevented astronomers from seeing infrared radiations from space. Then in the late 1960s, satellites outside the atmosphere made infrared sky surveys that showed some surprisingly warm clouds of dust and gas in our galaxy. Several things could cause this heating. Perhaps a dim star (a brown dwarf) is behind the cloud, maybe something nearby exploded, or a star is dying as it is being pulled into a massive black hole. Those who struggled to understand how stars evolved had a different interpretation: “Gravity is collapsing the cloud, raising its temperature. In thousands of years, it will become a star.” Still other interpretations are possible.

NASA’s claim in 1995 that these pictures showed hundreds to thousands of stars forming was based on the speculative “EGG-star formation theory.” It has recently been tested independently with two infrared detectors that can see inside the dusty pillars. Few stars were there, and 85% of the pillars had too little dust and gas to support star formation. “The new findings also highlight how much astronomers still have to learn about star formation.” [Ron Cowen, “Rethinking an Astronomical Icon: The Eagle’s EGG, Not So Fertile,” Science News, Vol. 161, 16 March 2002, pp. 171–172.]

What prevents stellar evolution? Just as the Sun’s gravity does not pull planets into the Sun, gravity does not pull gas and dust into a tight ball that then ignites as a star. Each cloud of dust and gas in space has a specific amount of kinetic and potential energy, angular momentum, and magnetic energy that must be removed for even a slight collapse. Evidence of that removal is missing. Furthermore, any collapse would only increase the cloud’s temperature and pressure, which, in turn, would expand the cloud.

If someone tells you that the emperor is well dressed, ask questions, and insist on seeing real evidence.




Figure 26: Gas and Dust Clouds in the Eagle Nebula.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown
http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...tml#wp3752929]

[TopsyTurvy]

Pahu, one question.

What the fuck does anything you posted in the last 20 pages have to do with evolution?

Someone please ban this clown for going off topic in his own thread.

[86Dùde]

Are you trying to stop free speech on DA Topper?

[Pahu]

Radiometric Dating


To date an event or thing that preceded written records, one must assume that the dating clock has operated at a known rate, that the clock’s initial setting is known, and that the clock has not been disturbed. These three assumptions are almost always unstated, overlooked, or invalid.

For the past century, a major (but incorrect) assumption underlying all radioactive dating techniques has been that decay rates, which have been essentially constant over the past 100 years, have also been constant over the past 4,600,000,000 years. Unfortunately, few have questioned this huge and critical assumption.

It is also critical that one understands how a dating clock works. For radiometric dating clocks on Earth, this is explained in the chapter “The Origin of Earth’s Radioactivity” on pages 321–362 here: http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...html#wp1658637. After studying that chapter, you will see that Earth’s radioactivity—and the many daughter products that misled so many into thinking that the Earth was billions of years old—are a result of powerful electrical activity during the flood, only about 5,000 years ago.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown
http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...tml#wp1658637]

[Pappy&Me]

Not only out of my realm but it hurts my head to even consider debating this Roy Masters show.
Although I have visited the other side,I did'nt get a chance to ask a million questions that I'd forgot anyway.

[Pahu]

Corals and Caves


Estimated old ages for the Earth are frequently based on “clocks” that today are ticking at extremely slow rates. For example, coral growth rates were thought to have always been very slow, implying that some coral reefs must be hundreds of thousands of years old. More accurate measurements of these rates under favorable growth conditions now show that no known coral formation need be older than 3,400 years (a). A similar comment can be made for growth rates of stalactites and stalagmites in caves (b).


Figure 131: Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico. “... one of the most controversial points is how long it takes for a cave such as S.P. [Kartchner Caverns in Arizona] to form. What geologists used to believe was fact, in terms of dating a cave, now is speculation, [cave expert, Jerry] Trout says. ... From 1924 to 1988, there was a visitor’s sign above the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns that said Carlsbad was at least 260 million years old. ... In 1988, the sign was changed to read 7 to 10 million years old. Then, for a little while, the sign read that it was 2 million years old. Now the sign is gone. In short, he says, geologists don’t know how long cave development takes. And, while some believe that cave decorations such as S.P.’s beautiful icicle-looking stalactites take years to form, Trout says that through photo-monitoring, he has watched a stalactite grow several inches in a matter of days.”

<img src=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/webpictures/astrophysicalsciences-stalagmites.jpg alt="" />
Figure 28: Stalagmites. Water from an underground spring was channeled to this spot on a river bank for only one year. In that time, limestone built up around sticks lying on the bank. Limestone deposits can form rapidly if the groundwater’s chemistry is favorable. Just because stalactites and stalagmites are growing slowly today does not mean they must be millions of years old. As we will see in Part II, conditions after the flood provided the ideal chemistry for rapidly forming such features.

a. Ariel A. Roth, “Coral Reef G
rowth,” Origins, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1979, pp. 88–95.

J. Th. Verstelle, “The Growth Rate at Various Depths of Coral Reefs in the Dutch East Indian Archipelago,” Treubia, Vol. 14, 1932, pp. 117–126.

b. Ian T. Taylor, In the Minds of Men (Toronto: TFE Publishing, 1984), pp. 335–336.

Larry S. Helmick, Joseph Rohde, and Amy Ross, “Rapid Growth of Dripstone Observed,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 14, June 1977, pp. 13–17.

Techniques That Argue for an Old Earth Are Either Illogical or Are Based on Unreasonable Assumptions.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown
http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...iences26.html]

[Pahu]

Index Fossils 1


In the early 1800s, some observers in Western Europe noticed that certain fossils are usually preserved in sedimentary rock layers that, when traced laterally, typically lie above other types of fossils. Decades later, after the theory of evolution was proposed, many concluded that the lower organism must have evolved before the upper organism. These early geologists did not realize that a hydrodynamic mechanism, liquefaction, helped sort organisms in that order during the flood. [For an explanation, see: http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...tml#wp1100074]

Geologic ages were then associated with each of these “index fossils.” Those ages were extended to other animals and plants buried in the layer of the index fossil. For example, a coelacanth fossil, an index fossil, dates its layer at 70,000,000 to 400,000,000 years old. Today, geologic formations are almost always dated by their fossil content (a), which, as stated above, assumes evolution.


Figure 29: 70,000,000-Year-Old Fish? Thought to have been extinct for 70,000,000 years, the coelacanth (SEE-la-kanth) was first caught in 1938, deep in the Indian Ocean, northwest of Madagascar. Rewards were then offered for coelacanths, so hundreds were caught and sold. In 1998, they were also found off the coast of Indonesia. How could the ancestors of these coelacanths leave no fossils for 70,000,000 years?

Before coelacanths were caught, evolutionists incorrectly believed that the coelacanth had lungs, a large brain, and four bottom fins about to evolve into legs. Evolutionists reasoned that the coelacanth, or a similar fish, crawled out of a shallow sea and filled its lungs with air, becoming the first four-legged land animal. Millions of students have been incorrectly taught that this fish was the ancestor of all amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals, including people. (Was your ancestor a fish?)

J. L. B. Smith, a well-known fish expert from South Africa, studied the first two captured coelacanths, nicknamed the coelacanth “Old Fourlegs” and wrote a book by that title in 1956. When dissected, did they have lungs and a large brain? Not at all. Furthermore, in 1987, a German team filmed six coelacanths in their natural habitat. They were not crawling on all fours.

Before living coelacanths were found in 1938, evolutionists dated any rock containing a coelacanth fossil as at least 70,000,000 years old. It was an index fossil. Today, evolutionists frequently express amazement that coelacanth fossils look so much like captured coelacanths—despite more than 70,000,000 years of evolution. If that age is correct, billions of coelacanths would have lived and died. Some should have been fossilized in younger rock and should be displayed in museums. Their absence implies that coelacanths have not lived for 70,000,000 years.

a. “Ever since William Smith [the founder of the index fossil technique] at the beginning of the 19th century, fossils have been and still are the best and most accurate method of dating and correlating the rocks in which they occur....Apart from very ‘modern’ examples, which are really archaeology, I can think of no cases of radioactive decay being used to date fossils.” Derek V. Ager, “Fossil Frustrations,” New Scientist, Vol. 100, 10 November 1983, p. 425.

Techniques That Argue for an Old Earth Are Either Illogical or Are Based on Unreasonable Assumptions.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown
http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...iences27.html]

[Pahu]

Index Fossils 2


Evolution is supposedly shown by the sequence of fossils. Because this reasoning is circular (b), many discoveries, such as living coelacanths (c-g), were unexpected. [See "Out-of-Place Fossils" here: http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...tml#wp3235321]

b. “It cannot be denied that from a strictly philosophical standpoint geologists are here arguing in a circle. The succession of organisms has been determined by a study of their remains embedded in the rocks, and the relative ages of the rocks are determined by the remains of organisms that they contain.” R. H. Rastall, “Geology,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 10, 1954, p. 168.

“Are the authorities maintaining, on the one hand, that evolution is documented by geology and, on the other hand, that geology is documented by evolution? Isn’t this a circular argument?” Larry Azar, “Biologists, Help!” BioScience, Vol. 28, November 1978, p. 714.

“A circular argument arises: interpret the fossil record in the terms of a particular theory of evolution, inspect the interpretation, and note that it confirms the theory. Well, it would, wouldn’t it? “... the fossils do not form the kind of pattern that would be predicted using a simple NeoDarwinian model.” Thomas S. Kemp, “A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record,” New Scientist, Vol. 108, 5 December 1985, p. 66.

“The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks. The geologist has never bothered to think of a good reply, feeling that explanations are not worth the trouble as long as the work brings results. This is supposed to be hard-headed pragmatism.” J. E. O’Rourke, “Pragmatism Versus Materialism in Stratigraphy,” American Journal of Science, Vol. 276, January 1976, p. 47.

“The rocks do date the fossils, but the fossils date the rocks more accurately. Stratigraphy cannot avoid this kind of reasoning, if it insists on using only temporal concepts, because circularity is inherent in the derivation of time scales.” Ibid., p. 53.

Although O’Rourke attempts to justify the practices of stratigraphers, he recognizes the inherent problems associated with such circular reasoning.

“But the danger of circularity is still present. For most biologists the strongest reason for accepting the evolutionary hypothesis is their acceptance of some theory that entails it. There is another difficulty. The temporal ordering of biological events beyond the local section may critically involve paleontological correlation, which necessarily presupposes the non-repeatability of organic events in geologic history. There are various justifications for this assumption but for almost all contemporary paleontologists it rests upon the acceptance of the evolutionary hypothesis.” Kitts, p. 466.

“It is a problem not easily solved by the classic methods of stratigraphical paleontology, as obviously we will land ourselves immediately in an impossible circular argument if we say, firstly that a particular lithology is synchronous on the evidence of its fossils, and secondly that the fossils are synchronous on the evidence of the lithology.” Derek V. Ager, The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, 3rd edition (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1993), p. 98.

“The charge that the construction of the geologic scale involves circularity has a certain amount of validity.” David M. Raup, “Geology and Creationism,” Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Vol. 54, March 1983, p. 21.

In a taped, transcribed, and approved 1979 interview with Dr. Donald Fisher, the state paleontologist for New York, Luther Sunderland asked Fisher how he dated certain fossils. Answer: “By the Cambrian rocks in which they were found.” When Sunderland asked if this was not circular reasoning, Fisher replied, “Of course; how else are you going to do it?” “The Geologic Column: Its Basis and Who Constructed It,” Bible-Science News Letter, December 1986, p. 6.

“The prime difficulty with the use of presumed ancestral-descendant sequences to express phylogeny is that biostratigraphic data are often used in conjunction with morphology in the initial evaluation of relationships, which leads to obvious circularity.” Bobb Schaeffer, Max K. Hecht, and Niles Eldredge, “Phylogeny and Paleontology,” Evolutionary Biology, Vol. 6 (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1972), p. 39.

Techniques That Argue for an Old Earth Are Either Illogical or Are Based on Unreasonable Assumptions.

[From "In the Beginning" by Walt Brown]

[Pahu]

Humanlike Footprints


Humanlike footprints, supposedly 150–600 million years old, have been found in rock formations in Utah (a), Kentucky (b), Missouri (c), and possibly Pennsylvania (d). At Laetoli, in the east African country of Tanzania, a team headed by Mary Leakey found a sequence of humanlike footprints (e). They were dated at 3.7 million years. If human feet made any of these prints, then evolutionary chronology is drastically wrong.


Figure 30: Humanlike Footprints with Trilobite. In 1968, 43 miles northwest of Delta, Utah, William J. Meister found apparent human shoe prints inside a 2-inch-thick slab of rock. Also in that slab were obvious trilobite fossils, one of which was squashed under the “heel.” According to evolutionists, trilobites became extinct 240 million years before humans evolved. Others have since made similar discoveries at this location, although this is the only fossil where a trilobite was inside an apparent shoe print.

a. Melvin A. Cook, “William J. Meister Discovery of Human Footprints with Trilobites in a Cambrian Formation of Western Utah,” Why Not Creation? editor Walter E. Lammerts (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1970), pp. 185–193.

Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson, Forbidden Archeology (San Diego: Bhaktivedanta Institute, 1993), pp. 810–813.

b. “Geology and Ethnology Disagree about Rock Prints,” Science News Letter, 10 December 1938, p. 372.

c. Henry R. Schoolcraft and Thomas H. Benton, “Remarks on the Prints of Human Feet, Observed in the Secondary Limestone of the Mississippi Valley,” The American Journal of Science and Arts, Vol. 5, 1822, pp. 223–231.

d. “Human-Like Tracks in Stone are Riddle to Scientists,” Science News Letter, 29 October 1938, pp. 278–279.

e. “ ‘Make no mistake about it,’ says Tim [White, who is probably recognized as the leading authority on the Laetoli footprints]. ‘They are like modern human footprints. If one were left in the sand of a California beach today, and a four-year-old were asked what it was, he would instantly say that someone had walked there. He wouldn’t be able to tell it from a hundred other prints on the beach, nor would you. The external morphology is the same. There is a well-shaped modern heel with a strong arch and a good ball of the foot in front of it. The big toe is straight in line. It doesn’t stick out to the side like an ape toe, or like the big toe in so many drawings you see of Australopithecines in books.’ ” Johanson and Edey, p. 250.

The big toe of Australopithecus africanus splayed out to the side, as in apes. Obviously, the Laetoli footprints were not made by Australopithecines, as most evolutionists claim.

“In sum, the 3.5-million-year-old footprint trails at Laetoli Site G resemble those of habitually unshod modern humans. None of their features suggest that the Laetoli hominids were less capable bipeds than we are. If the G footprints were not known to be so old, we would readily conclude that they were made by a member of our genus, Homo. ... we should shelve the loose assumption that the Laetoli footprints were made by Lucy’s kind, Australopithecus afarensis.” Russell H. Tuttle, “The Pitted Pattern of Laetoli Feet,” Natural History, Vol. 99, March 1990, p. 64.

Techniques That Argue for an Old Earth Are Either Illogical or Are Based on Unreasonable Assumptions.

To estimate a date prior to the beginning of written records, one must assume that the dating clock has operated at a known rate, that the clock’s initial setting is known, and that the clock has not been disturbed. These three assumptions are almost always unstated, overlooked, or invalid.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown
http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...iences28.html]

[Pahu]

Geologic Column


Practically nowhere on Earth can one find the so-called “geologic column” (a). Most “geologic periods” are missing at most continental locations. Only 15–20% of Earth’s land surface has even one-third of these periods in the correct order (b). Even within the Grand Canyon, 150 million years of this imaginary column are missing. Using the assumed geologic column to date fossils and rocks is fallacious.

a. “We are only kidding ourselves if we think that we have anything like a complete succession for any part of the stratigraphical column in any one place.” Ager, Stratigraphical Record, p. 48.

b. John Woodmorappe, “The Essential Nonexistence of the Evolutionary-Uniformitarian Geologic Column: A Quantitative Assessment,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 18, June 1981, pp. 46–71.

Techniques That Argue for an Old Earth Are Either Illogical or Are Based on Unreasonable Assumptions.

To estimate a date prior to the beginning of written records, one must assume that the dating clock has operated at a known rate, that the clock’s initial setting is known, and that the clock has not been disturbed. These three assumptions are almost always unstated, overlooked, or invalid.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown
http://www.creationscience.com/onlin...iences29.html]