A common young-Earth creationist (YEC) argument for an Earth that is only 6000 or so years old is the “salty seawater” argument. The salty seawater argument, in its simplest form, states that one should be able to determine a maximum age for the oceans by measuring the rate at which various salts—such as the sodium in sodium chloride; and other metal ions—are entering the oceans and the rate at which they are being removed from the oceans, such as through sea spray, and calculating backwards to a time when there would have been no salt in the ocean.
I have pointed out some of the serious flaws with YEC reasoning on this one in my post Aluminum and the 100-year old oceans. Another Christian blog, Naturalis Historia, recently concluded a four-part series on the topic:
- Part I — Confirmation Bias — We tend to hear what we want to hear.
- Part II — A Young Earth Salt Chronometer? — The history and current YEC use of the salty seawater argument.
- Part III — Are the Oceans Getting Saltier Over Time? — A good question that YECs have not addressed.
- Part IV — Dr. Wile’s Use of the Salt Chronometer — A look at a popular YEC author and speaker’s presentation of the salty seawater argument as one of his top five reasons for believing in a young Earth.
The third article in the series brought up an important point that has not been sufficiently highlighted by either advocates nor opponents of the YEC position, and that is the fact that there is absolutely no empirical evidence that seawater is indeed becoming saltier over time. There are seasonal and longer-term changes in ocean salinity from place to place, but these include both increases and decreases in salinity. In fact, given the current sparsity of salinity data and the three-dimensional and temporal variability of ionic concentrations in the oceans, we do not even precisely know how much of these ions, such as sodium ions, are in the oceans, nor can we tell whether their concentrations are increasing or decreasing.
If we did know the total quantities of various ions in seawater, I suspect we would discover that these values do vary over time. Some would be increasing, and some would be decreasing. For those that are increasing in concentration, it would be unwise to attempt to use them as geochronometers. The present rate of increase in the values would reflect only the current situation, which involves the present layout of the continents, climate, and human influences. There would be little reason to assume that the trends would have been identical a few hundred, a few thousand, or a few million years ago.
If the concentrations of some elements in seawater are found to be decreasing over time, it would be unwise to use these as geochronometers either. Using the same reasoning that YECs have used regarding ocean salinity, these would demonstrate that the ocean was created sometime in the future.
Over time, a number of faulty YEC arguments have drifted onto Answers in Genesis’s Arguments we don’t use page. Usually this has been the result not of careful YEC research, but of outside pressure that has forced them to admit that things like the “moon dust” and “vapor canopy” arguments do not work. The salty seawater argument does not work either, and should be added to this list.
Grace and Peace
GeoChristian 
Hi Kevin,
It is good to see you taking those pesky YEC’s to task once again… I would really like them to explain tens of thousands of metres of accumulated sediments in basins like the Mississippi (including all those very useful evaporites that do such an excellent job of trapping hydrocarbons) – without invoking the doctrines of apparent age or develish deception…
Meanwhile, I was so annoyed by cosmologist Stephen Hawking’s recent claim that God is not necessary to explain the Universe, that, for the first time in four years, I decided to post something new on my Falsifiable Theology ‘blog’… pointing out that Hawking’s argument proves nothing.
http://falsifiabletheology.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/has-hawking-killed-god.html
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Martin,
I agree that YECs have a problem with deep Cenozoic basins such as the Mississippi delta and Gulf of Mexico coast. Some YECs advocate that Cenozoic sediments were deposited after the flood (“residual catastrophism”), but that would mean deposition of 10,000 meters of sediments sometime between the time of Noah and Abraham. This is downright silly. But if most of the Cenozoic sediments were deposited during Noah’s flood, then there is that much more for the flood to accomplish in a pretty short amount of time.
Fortunately for you and I, the Bible doesn’t require any of this. It says nothing whatsoever about Noah’s flood being responsible for virtually all sedimentary rocks (as well as a good portion of Earth’s igneous and metamorphic rocks), and the text of Genesis 6-9 is rather ambiguous about the extent or location of Noah’s flood.
Hawking may be brilliant, but his “God is not necessary because of quantum mechanics” argument is a failure. To be successful, he would not only have to be able to explain how a multiverse can spawn baby universes, or where the multiverse came from, but where the laws that allowed any of this to happen came from, and this he has not done. I’ll stick with a God outside of the universe as the better explanation.
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Just a comment on salt: I’ve been doing some work for the Potash industry of late. Potash is typically found within Evaporite Formations – for non geological readers, those are salty horizons formed in a high-salinity environment, similar to the Dead Sea. The Elk Point Group here on the prairies gets up to 380m in thickness, with a lot of that being Halite (NaCl, or simple salt), but also sylvite (potassium salt), anhydrite etc. But, it is overlain with more than a kilometer of other sediments – including the Bakken (the major oil horizon on the northern prairies), several other sedimentary horizons, includings about 150 – 200m of glacial till and associated rocks.
I’ve been wondering how, in catastrophic depositional environments (ie, worldwide flood), you get to deposit 380m (1000+ft) of salts….. underneath so much more sediment.
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Thanks Kevin. Are you sure that you and I are not twins separated at birth? :-)
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Years ago I did some research on a YEC book that I think was the source of this misinformation. I would have to search to see if I have any notes. But, I went to the library and found the book that was footnoted as the source. The YE book had a table with one column labeled “Age Estimate.” The source book had a table which was identical except the source label the column “Mean Residency Time.” The YE author had just relabeled the column. Either a) the YE author did not know the difference between the two terms in which case he should not have been holding himself out as an authority, or 2) the YE author did know the difference in which case he was knowingly misrepresenting.
I have found many such misrepresentations in YE literature.
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Why bother with salt? Biotubation (sifting of sediment) makes a complete farce out of any young earth ‘science’. Almost all marine sediment has some bioturbation and tens of thousands of meters of it is completely sifted or re-worked. The re-working,of course, had to be while the sediment was lying peacefully under a body of sea water. It could only happen within a the top few inches of sediment. It must have happened, inch by inch, over vast time periods. A hand lens shows animal tracks and burrow/feeding turbation all over the place.
But the Bible says in fifty places that the Earth is old. What is this all about?
You could check my stuff. Look under CREATION THEORY on Google. Usually the top or near-top science result under that term. But I also solve lunar origin (common donor capture) climate moderation (climate moderation through magnetic field interaction, sun–earth), species origin (signalled evolution or tree of life species origin) and a few others as well.
Ken Ham threw the lot in the bin. I personally went to him (I am Australian) and offered it to him. He could be announcing the truth of Origins, right now — funded by me — not by the con. victims. Chicanery and religious cant-o-carp.
Cheers. Philip Bruce Heywood.
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Philip,
Yes, bioturbation is another major problem for YECs.
I imagine they would reply with one of their common strategies:
1. It only looks like bioturbation.
2. You need to put on your Bible [i.e. AiG/ICR] glasses.
3. Evolutionists have a difficult time explaining bioturbation, but the YEC explanation makes perfect sense.
4. The uniformitarian explanation would require the critters to churn the mud at a rate of 0.1 mm per year. Impossible.
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I had forgotten that I wrote a second blog post about ocean salinity a couple years ago:
https://geochristian.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/perhaps-the-oceans-havent-been-created-yet/
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If they actually read the Bible they would end up in deep water bioturbation. The Bible makes tomfoolery of the whole house of cards. Tigris & Euphrates: before the flood, during the flood, after the flood. According to AIG, they aren’t the originals — were re-named in memory of the legendary Tigris & Euphrates! The olive tree that withstood a force fifty everything, so the dove could pluck a leaf, meanwhile, got here from outer space.
Are these people trying to be Sabbath keepers or vegetarians or saints for being ridiculed, or what? Is it Seventh Day Adventurism run amok? Where does it originate? I am at a loss. Is it that people mostly don’t connect with science and they give up in confusion?
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“Is it that people mostly don’t connect with science and they give up in confusion?” – Philip.
Have you ever tried your had at playing golf, Philip? I think you could do well at it.
Even very intelligent people embrace YEC as it far simpler to take the Bible literally (and ignore context) than it is to do anything else. It is a citadel of confirmation bias and cognitive disonnance that is very difficult to break into; especially in view of St Paul’s teaching (regarding eating meat of unknown origin) in I Corinthians 10:23-33… I once delivered a sermon on the above passage, in which I started by appearing to open a bottle of beer and drink it. If their astonishment at this was the only thing the congregation remembered, I achieved my objective because, as Paul said, we should not do anything that causes others to stumble (I Cor 10:31). For the record, the beer in the bottle in question had been consumed already and, having filled it with water instead and re-fitted the metal cap, I then removed it and appeared to drink it…
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Philip, I think it is a good description to call it Seventh Day Adventism run amok. That’s really where YEC originated. Many of the original fundamentalists were at least okay with the idea of an old earth but the next generation picked up YEC from the Adventists. And then the “evangelicals” largely accepted YEC. So now a percentage of Americans think the earth is young and think that belief in a young earth is somehow central to Christianity. A lot of people are entrenched in that way of thinking.
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I don’t know folks, Dr Wile is clearly no fool, he knows his science well. He presents an excellent case for a young Earth and using good solid scientific evidence, backs up his claims well. Further, Dr Wile seems to have schooled Kevin in his recent attempts to refute a recent article here:
Comment 40 & 41
I would argue it is you poor souls who are confused.
All the best
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Jay,
I agree that Dr. Wile is no fool. I have a lot of respect for him, and if you look over in the right-hand column on this blog, you will see that I have him listed under “The Best of Young-Earth Creationism.” I think he is wrong about a number of things, but he is a clear thinker and clear writer, and he consistently challenges me to re-think my own arguments.
He has certainly not made a good case for using sea water chemistry as a geochronometer. In his response to my comment that you referred to, he selected data that supported his side, and dismissed similar data that did not. He cited a paper about ocean floor sediment pore water oxygen isotope data that supports increasing seawater chloride concentrations during the Pleistocene, but rejected the same sort of study that showed a trend of decreasing chloride concentrations since the most recent glacial maximum. Which is it: is chloride concentration increasing or decreasing? The answer seems to be “both,” depending on when one measures, but the most recent trend has been somewhat of a decrease.
He also dismissed data that shows oxygen isotope data for the span of much of geologic history, whether that history be the past 600 million years or Noah’s flood. We have a good idea of how oxygen isotope ratios have changed throughout this period, and if this is indeed a good proxy for chloride concentration, then what we see is long-term fluctuations in ocean salinity. One cannot use a fluctuating or cyclical process to determine the age of anything.
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Sir Isaac Newton was in some sense, anyway, a young earth proponent. Luther I think was the same. Augustine and most of the Church Fathers (from hearsay) were not.
St Peter certainly cannot be classed as a dogmatic young earther.
Sir Richard Owen, pioneering palaeontologist, was at daggers with Darwin, Huxley, and the blind chance evolutionists. He coached men of religion in debates against Huxley. Some people say he was at daggers with many people, as a result of his temperament. I read somewhere a puzzled and wondering comment he made about some other mob whom I suspect were young earth proponents.
What all this has to do with the wellbeing of anyone’s soul leaves me somewhere near Owen. Puzzled wonderment.
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James Hutton performed a long-overdue mercy killing on Young Earth Creationism in 1787; and I never cease to be amazed that, having been stitched together and brought back to life in the 20th Century, this Frankenstein Monster still refuses to die.
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Geochristian’s reply to Wiles comment is just what I would have said. There is evidence that can readily interpreted as supporting much higher salt concentrations in the past than the present so whether salinity is increasing or decreasing in the present hardly matters. What also strikes me is that even someone who holds to a young earth presuppositionally doesn’t escape the problem of varying salinity contributions in the past vs the present. Flood geologists need to explain the vast salt deposits in the geological column and they do so partly by suggesting that the escaping flood waters dissolved vast amounts of salt from the original land masses and then quickly deposited them. There is no way of know, in their theory, what the original salinity of the ocean nor how much was dissolved or deposited by the flood vs other mechanisms after the flood. If the past was so variable then today’s salinity levels don’t tell us anything about the earth being young or old. The flip side is that OECs are saying the earth has gone through many changing conditions in the past and so that variability in conditions also makes salinity a useless tool in calculating age. Either way it doesn’t work. Why did it seem to work at all? YECs are attracted to the original argument from the 1700s because it fits their view of uniformitarianism. In the 1700s it was assumed, I’m not sure why, that the original ocean was fresh water. Back they they also didn’t appreciate the changes in climates and continents that we have today and did have a simple view of uniform processes. There is no reason today to believe this either of these were good starting assumptions. Without the assumption of a fresh water ocean at the beginning the entire salt chronometer has no starting point and isn’t very useful.
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I’m a johnny- come- lately to the blog and don’t hesitate to inform me if I grow tiresome. I have now been given the cold shoulder at J. Wiles’ PROSLOGION for the time being — could scarcely believe it possible to find someone that broad –minded, so I suppose I got carried away with facts. It appears beyond these people’s cognitive capacity to see that GENESIS demands species pre-existence. I pointed out to mine host over there that even H.M. Morris, in his GENESIS commentary, did not entirely cook the books on that angle. Mine host couldn’t seem to grasp it. Mine host doesn’t seem to know whether or whither to proceed. That is the key, of course — GEN. 2:4&5. It reads, literal species pre-existence. Species are information working within a living cell. Information is timeless (that’s basic to thermodynamics) and information can be stored and automatically transmitted — with the effect of causing species to transform. End of controversy. All species can be created at any given time, and once a living cell capable of transformation is in the Earth, provided the signalling is automatic and pre-programmed, we have a totally literal GENESIS. AIG/ICR just don’t have a literal approach! It’s that simple.
I feel embarrassed. I have had some dealings with Ham, Sarfati, Weiland. This isn’t going to be good. Mr. Wile shows some flexibility but, anyone with any ideas? We have the goods. The Bible, she is literal. It blew my mind, by the way. I never expected such breath-taking technical accuracy. I literally got on my knees.
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Shocked. I’m seriously shocked to see Wile shunning you, Philip. It’s shocking how some spurn the beautiful elegance so elegantly and evidently elucidated by you, mine commenter. Sadly shocking.
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Dear Kevin (et al.),
Conspiracy Road Trip is a series of TV programmes presented by Irish comedian, Andrew Maxwell. This week (having previously tackled 9/11 and the 7/7 bombing), he takes 5 die-hard creationists to the Grand Canyon etc., to see if he can make them re-consider their position (on Gen.1-2, Noah’s flood, Humans coexisting with dinosuars, human evolution, and biogenesis). Not particularly surprisingly, he is confronted by an almost impenetrable “God Did It brick wall. When confronted by a Christian geologist (and theistic evolutionist) they just question whether he is a real Christian. I thought their encounter with an anthropologist was the most interesting – as he asked them who bore Cain and Abel’s children…? He manages to convince 1 of the 5 to change their opinions. See if you can guess which one…
Next week’s programme will be a bunch of people who believe in UFO’s.
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Martin,
I am watching the video right now — interesting program. I’m about 12 minutes into it (Dr. Prothero at the Grand Canyon). It is a bit unfair: pew-sitting creationists against a well-known secular PhD geologist. They didn’t have much of a chance.
I thought the Muslim (Abdul) made the best point in the Grand Canyon segment: “I don’t know where it says in the Bible the Grand Canyon was made by the Flood, but he’s [one of the other “fundamentalists” kind of just adopted it as a cornerstone of his belief.”
Jerry Coyne (biologist) got a fact wrong. There have been wooden boats approaching the size given for Noah’s ark. The Chinese exploration fleets of the 1400s had ships over 400 feet long. As a Christian, I have more in common with the fundamentalist young-Earth creationists than I do with a committed atheistic naturalist like Coyne.
The third scientist, Gregg Wilkerson, is a paleontologist, and a conservative Presbyterian. It seems he started as a YEC, but managed to keep his faith as he made a transition to accepting an old Earth. Many YECs don’t survive that challenge. I think Dr. Wilkerson could have made a much stronger case with the YEC participants by making a Biblical case for an old Earth rather than confronting them with scientific evidence. YECs won’t listen to the science until they are given the opportunity to look at the Scriptures without their YEC glasses on. That is where I was at thirty-some years ago.
I sort of skimmed through the last 15 minutes. My overall impression — very unfair to the participants.
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Hi Kevin. Thanks for watching the video. I agree with you that it was unfair – mainly because the presenter is a comedian and the programme clearly conceived as entertainment. If Prothero is such an expert, his practical demo with water was not as well thought-out and convincing as it could have been. I agree Abdul’s point was well made but, he would have us all believe that an Angel of Light is a reliable witness. Thanks for alerting me to Coyne’s mistake; I also have very little respect for evangelical secular humanists who disguise themselves as scientists. I also agree with you about Wilkerson; but the directors would never have allowed that (as it would not have been entertaining). Phil really scared me; especially when – without any trace of irony – he confronted the director and called her a bully: It was very reminiscent of the BBC’s John Sweeney being intimidated by Tommy Davis of the Scientology cult.
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I keep coming back to the point that YEC (as a technical proposition, not as a personal leaning when thinking of the week of creation) only has currency today because it flowed into the vacuum left by science. This scene has become a playground for comedians, sure enough.
People in the trenches over on the ‘evolution’ side make YEC sane and scientific by comparison.
I have just now tried to get sense into someone calling himself (I don’t think a female could be this silly) ‘Black Cat’, over at PATHEOS’s THE FRIENDLY ATHEIST, post on the Senator saying evolution is from the pit of Hell. The Cat’s ideas, come from the pit of a belly laugh. Would you check this drivel. I doubt the Cat could have anything to do with science education, given his/her approach, but the ‘Friendly Atheist’ classifies himself as an educator.
Incidentally, a fossilized complex brain (arthropod, Chinese fossil) 520 mil. yrs, is being reported on today, at SCIENCEDAILY. That gives 20 mil. yrs for complex brains to ‘evolve’, but there is every reason to believe the only reason it took more than 20 seconds is lack of fossil complex brains, Lower Cambrian.
This guy is living out the entrenchment of Darwinism’s religiously domineering religion, relying on gaps in the fossil record that no longer exist. Plus almost unbelievable departure from science and logic.
” PBH: Those events, as foreshadowed by Sir Richard Owen (palaeontologist) and
now clearly obvious, involve information technology so sophisticated, we
barely have caught a glimpse.
CAT:It requires nothing more than basic chemistry and physics, no information technology at all.
PBH:The Bible demands that sophisticated
I.T. was implicated.
CAT:You aren’t listening. I don’t care what the Bible demands, any more than I care what the Vedas demand or Dreamtime demands.
PBH: All species were created instantaneously and fully developed,
CAT: All evidence contradicts this conclusion.
PBH:which is exactly what I.T. predicts and the Bible states.
CAT: I.T. doesn’t predict anything of the sort.
PBH:Information is timeless.
CAT: No, it isn’t. Burn a book. The information is gone.
PBH:’Waters’ essentially implies fragmentation and instability.
CAT: No, it doesn’t. The Bible is quite explicit. Water was separated into the waters above, and the waters below, with the firmament keeping the waters above from falling down. Rain came from God opening holes in the firmament so the waters above could come down. The oceans are the waters below. The sun, moon, and stars are all lights attached to the firmament. The earth itself is flat, with the sky spread over like a tent. It is all very consistent, all very explicit, and all very, very wrong.
PBH: The Authorized Version (the only fully reliable translation I have
encountered), in 1:20, translates the Hebrew as ‘fowl that may fly’.
These ‘fowl’ were brought forth abundantly by the ‘waters’. This of
course is a direct reference to the Cambrian so-called ‘explosion’
CAT: It isn’t a direct reference at all. It gives no hint whatsoever of anything remotely like the Cambrian explosion, which was a fairly long period (tens of millions of years) over which probably pre-existing groups of organisms first began leaving significant fossils.
Further, vertebrates didn’t evolve during the Cambrian explosion to begin with, they formed shortly after. Birds didn’t evolve until hundreds of millions of years later. And birds didn’t evolve directly from fish, they evolved from land animals that didn’t exist until the next day. The same applies to insects, bats, flying reptiles, and every other flying organism. They all evolved from earth-bound species that didn’t exist until the next day of creation. The first insects had no wings, and the ancestors of birds (dinosaurs) and the ancestors of bats (mammals) didn’t appear for hundreds of millions of years after vertebrates first colonized the land.
PBH: According to the literal meaning of 1:20, all complex life (i.e., above
plant level) leaped into existence on Day 5. All of it. Yet it was
water-generated and by implication water-based and water-dwelling.
Exactly as the fossil record shows.
CAT: The fossil record indicates nothing of the sort.
First, plants actually evolved long after what you are calling “complex life”. And plants are extremely complex organisms, certainly on par with animals.
Second, complex life didn’t “leap into existence”, it evolved gradually over 80-100 million years, starting with fairly simple, general forms that gradually diversified and specialized.
The Cambrian explosion was not an instantaneous event, and even then it was not the first appearance of complex organisms, it was merely the first appearance of complex organisms with hard shells that left lots of good fossils. But complex life predates it by tens of millions of years, probably far longer.”
The above is a sample only of cant and rant under the guise of higher learning (burn a book and its information content ceases to exist! Plants are as complex as animals and post-date ainimals! The Cambrian ‘explosion’ doesn’t exist because I banned it!)
The host is a teacher and he allows these incoherent mumblings in the name of science, without correcting them.
I say, fix the ‘evolution’ question and science will re-take the lost ground.
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Yup, I think we have another full-blown crackpot alert here.
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To people who tagged along with Darwin &co.,(as do/did many thinking people), even a decade ago , the idea of a complex brain in the Cambrian was silly — even, crackpot. Today it is already dated ‘news’ — in the world’s leading online science news publisher. There is no geologic reason (as distinct from ‘evolutionary’ reason) why complex brain fossils should not exist in the Lower Cambrian. Fossil beds, especially datable fossil beds, are rare in the Cambrian. The Burgess Shale is not radiometrically datable, and to my knowledge, neither are these Chinese beds. The Cambrian, of course, like the appearance of Angiosperms in the Cretaceous, troubled Darwin. Were he alive right now, he would almost certainly retract a large proportion of his hypotheses.
I might just lift a little more from my discourse with Black Cat.
“CAT: “Hence, species can pre-exist before being physically manifest. The Bible itself says so,Wait, what? What does that even mean? And saying “The Bible itself says so” as your only evidence is not going to help you here.”
PBH. Well, we know cats don’t read. What’s new? Someone else might be able to do so. I am, Mr. C., quoting the Bible, and if any cats wish to read it, purr along and be as cosy as you would like tabby. “….In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew ….. ‘
Is that species pre-existence or is it a pink buffalo clouding your windshield on a windy day, Mr. Cat?”
You don’t explain the origins of the heaven and the earth in two short chapters by reciting, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, Grandma got a brand new car.”
Science is involved– and cutting edge science is often regarded as crackpot.
More crackpot, SCIENCEDAILY, today. Chemical reactions at near Absolute zero (i.e., quantum reality type reactions, not ‘conventional’) could revolutionize our understanding of origins of life. Why? Reaction pathways under such conditions do not follow known enthalpy.’rules’. Different scenario to the old test tube. Could fit the Bible. “Waters” bringing forth life. Ultra cold fragmented substances or perhaps some other scenario involving quantum chemistry. Waters above the firmament, of course, has to include cometary type bodies. But that could be a red herring. The Bible does not stipulate that animal life was brought forth by our oceans. Anything but.
More crackpot on today’s SCIENCEDAILY. A planet out there (not in our system, sad to say) is thought to be diamond or rich in diamond. I am waiting for one made of gold.
Incidentally, I advized Mr. Wile that radiometric dates of things like surface diamonds could theoretically give a date older than Earth, if the diamond was a meteorite deposit. I have never heard of any alluvial diamond being identified as extraterrestrial, but it is possible. That’s where our surface gold came from originally — but some people might find that more crackpot than does Mr. Wile. That’s in the recent literature, mainstream, signed, sealed, isotopes, done. Got added along with a lot of other stuff, within less than a thou. mill. yrs of planetary coalescence. Science is crackpot. Pays to read the literature, these days.
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Philip,
I do appreciate that you are making an effort to dialog with non-Christians, such as ‘Black Cat.’
I’m not sure that some of your contentions are sound, such as saying that Genesis 1:20 (‘fowl that may fly’) refers to the Cambrian explosion. The Cambrian “explosion” involved marine invertebrates, not birds. And the King James may make it look like birds were coming out of the water, but no other translation puts it that way which makes it think that the King James translators got their Hebrew wrong.
I am also not sure what you are talking about with “species pre-existence” and see no Biblical basis for the idea. It sounds like platonic forms rather than a being a Biblical concept.
To use arguments that are Biblically uncertain (as even a non-Christian like ‘Black Cat’ can see) isn’t going to get you anywhere.
I appreciate your comments, but do request that you keep them brief and/or on topic.
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Forgive the verbiosity: I won’t hang around; the point I am attempting to make here underneath all this information overload is that to straighten out the Origins Scene it is absolutely necessary to talk logic and fact whilst not straying away from the inspired reliability of the Word of God. Talk trash science and be laughed at: imply that the Creator couldn’t express himself and be dismissed as a traitor to truth and faith. Ken Ham will cut you up –and he will have backing. Ken runs from one type only — those who quote the Bible. You will only meet him on those terms. With all respect: salt content means nothing to these people. They can see an Ape giving birth to a human and a Bible being trodden underfoot and why would they even look at geochemistry?
The reason I burden you with these comments is, ‘peer review’. I would like you to cut them to pieces. Please do your best to destroy my theses. Get every person you know of to pull them apart. But before doing so it will be essential to understand something about GENESIS. It is written as hard fact. The original is a technical document, obviously awaiting technical progress for elucidation. In that, the Young Earther’s are correct. Unless that startling fact of the Hebrew text is factored in, the controversy will not solve.
Of course you are ‘not sure’ what I am talking about with species pre-existence. O.K. I invite you here and now to do what I did, thirty years past. Remove all pre-conceived origins mechanisms from your mind. Place in your mind, the overall correct, yet startlingly addled, order of appearance of life in GENESIS. Now, insert the proposition that divisions of living organisms can exist while not being visibly in the Earth. The addled order can be ‘un-addled’. I assumed that that is the key: and within thirty years I have been proved correct on this and other matters. But I have the benefit of knowing the fossil record: and I was aided at every turn by the most startling developments in science. Unless people will acquaint themselves with items such as quantum signalling and the information basis of all things, species especially, people will suspect I am talking magic.
Take it or leave it. I would like to be of assistance but that is your call. GOOGLE has put me top or near-top under CREATION THEORY for a decade. It was given to me to solve lunar origin, climate regulation. whatever. The Bible says things that have science implications.
Just a parting note on Bible interpreters. The Authorized is the version you learn from if you wish to discover the meaning of the (dead) ancient Hebrew. Hebrew on one side, A.V. with margin on the other. English is still English and ancient Hebrew is the original. God has not changed, neither has the technical meaning of his Word. Throw away everything bar the original for this job. Regards
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You solved “lunar origin, climate regulation. whatever.” Wow, that’s impressive.
And you are near the top of Google when searching with the phrase “creation theory”? Amazing! You must be right!
You came up with the idea that divisions of living organisms can exist while not being visibly in (sic) the Earth, and this un-addles things?
Incredible.
And the key to this is quantum signalling and the information basis of all things, species especially?
That makes it all so clear! Truly we are in the presence of greatness here!
Wow, you just can’t make this stuff up.
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We are dealing with someone who can’t read. Can you read this, W/B?” It was given to me to solve lunar origin, climate regulation. whatever. The Bible says things that have science implications” Write back, will you, and replay the first five words of the quote. Then go to my site, and find, after the independent review which states that my publications,, “Show the scientific base underlaying what many have written off as mere fable” PBH “claims only to be the most consummate of all fools and the chief of sinful men”..
Then try GOOGLE,which five minutes ago ran my lunar origins paper second under LUNAR ORIGINS, and a SCIENCE news release which confirms in large measure my paper, with one comment (by me), top.
Since we are talking about the Bible try this: “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.”
That’s precisely what Darwin & co. did. Where are you coming from?
Good for a laugh, anyway. Peer review, eh? What are we peering at, a mirror?
,
.
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Philip,
I’m with WebMonk. I don’t think you’ve solved anything about the origin of the moon or climate regulation.
In regards to the relationship between climate and solar magnetism, your statement “If the viewer can find any consistency between ‘temperature’, carbon dioxide and VADM, please advise the provider of this site by return mail. There is however, in this author’s opinion, a possible correlation between dust – and dust readings in icecores will be accurate – and VADM. If the viewer applies a straightedge to the graphs he will discern that the VADM overall decreases towards the present while the dust increases. “ isn’t going to convince anyone.
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Since you have an interest in oceans and their content you might look at this. Professor Reichler and his crew at Uni. Utah were recently published re. a statistical link between deep ocean water circulation (Atlantic especially) and relatively ‘ordinary’ changes in stratospheric circulation.(And if you have anything to advize re. isotopic evidence that the earth and moon have at least a partly common materials source, you could also look at that question. To find details, you will need to read the relevant materials — including mine!)
Dear Prof. R.,
From Philip Bruce Heywood, ex. Geological Survey Queensland, science publisher. (E.g., search under moon origin common donor). Your research, published on the ‘Net today, has points of interest. I would be grateful if you could give any relevant pointers. I am an educator, not a research scientist.
Here as I see it are known facts:
1). There is an undeniable statistical link between climate and terrestrial magnetic field secular variation. (I presume you are familiar with Ryskin. His work is published.)
2). Likewise, for the climate and certain aspects of solar activity.
3). There is an undeniable link between palaeoclimate and terrestrial magnetic field reversal frequency.
4). Therefore, magnetic field interaction plays some part in guiding climate.
Find the linking element(s).
Here is where I am in need of an atmospherics expert.
I suspect it’s to do with oxygen. There will probably be a link, implicating magnetism, between the sun and our climate and it will be undreamed of in its sensitivity and simplicity. I could of course draw the obvious conclusion (partly on the basis of what your paper suggests) but I am cautious. Should you wish to provide any guidance the world would be indebted. I am pleased to accept advice as from an anonymous source or I would be pleased to publish materials direct from you or your people. Can stratospheric movement be powered or influenced in any way by magnetic forces?
AIG could make a fool out of you if they wandered onto here and saw the obvious question waiting to be answered — how could an old earth have regulated its climate? Which isn’t all that far removed from the salt question, but is potentially much stronger for a young earth than is ocean salinity.
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Philip,
Did Professor Reichler reply to you?
How can you say that you have solved the relationship between climate and solar magnetism, and then in the next paragraph admit that you are in need of at “atmospherics expert?”
How is “climate regulation” something with which AiG could make a fool out of me?
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This is slightly off-topic, Kevin, but I hope you will allow it because it follows from my last comment:
I watched the final part of the BBC’s Conspiracy Road Trip series (this one involving 5 people who believe aliens have visited Earth, etc). This time Andrew Maxwell completely fails to alter anyone’s opinions – not really surprising given some of the crackpot ‘experts’ he finds to help him; who turn out to be even crazier than his road-trippers (either very badly researched or done deliberately to be funny). However, one of these experts did grab my attention: Michael Shermer, founder of the Skeptics Society in the USA. I decided to Google him because, in the programme, a fleeting glimpse of a copy of the society’s Skeptic magazine was shown with the words “Climate Change Q&A” on it… I therefore wanted to know whether he is skeptical about the science or skeptical about the conspiracy/hoax explanations for that science… I am pleased to report it is the latter (although apparently this has not always been the case)…
However, in this very interesting 2008 article of his (in which he explains how he came to accept the consensus view of the science), he cites as significant the very last thing you would expect of a secular humanist – Evangelical Christians. Shermer says:
‘What turned me around on the global warming issue was a convergence of evidence from numerous sources. My attention was piqued on February 8, 2006, when 86 leading evangelical Christians — the last cohort I expected to get on the environmental bandwagon — issued the Evangelical Climate Initiative calling for “national legislation requiring economy-wide reductions” in carbon emissions. After attending a 2002 Oxford conference on the science of global warming, the chief lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals, the Reverend Richard Cizik, described his experience as “a conversion … not unlike my conversion to Christ.”’
Presumably, this is all very old news to you?
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You are reading me wrong. I did not solve climate moderation — science did/does. Did you read the four numbered points in the e-mail to Reichler (– he did not respond, incidentally — )? There IS a proven link between terrestrial magnetism, solar activity, and our climate. Including palaeoclimate. I merely point it out, and support the concept from the Bible. Which you would know, had you read my thesis.
Likewise, lunar origins. Likewise, species origins. The revolutionary new factor being that we are suddenly at a point in technologic advance where the science and the Scripture harmonize in a breath-taking manner. Well it’s breathtaking to people such as me who are mad about science and who are keen to teach it. All AIG’s dreams have come true — and, guess what — a technically exact Bible doesn’t make anyone a better person. So let the controversy wander on — but don’t give science up to religion, whether “evangelical” or just outright heathen.
Since you are looking at climate; how accurate is the following?
“If world temperature is driven by carbon dioxide, then, since:
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air is almost insignificant compared to the amount in the oceans;
And, since;
Increasing ocean temperature drives carbon dioxide out of solution and out of the oceans and into the atmosphere;
Then, unless year one Chemistry has missed something:
An increase in global temperature will lead to an increase in global carbon dioxide which will lead to an increase in temperature which will lead to an increase in carbon dioxide which will lead to an increase in temperature which will lead to an increase in carbon dioxide …….. . So, do the climate scientists really believe the earth is totally young, in contradiction to everything we learnt in school? After all, the oceans do not appear to have actually boiled …… . ”
If it has any basis in fact, how can the Earth be more than a few thousand years old?
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Philip brings up the point of “a technically exact Bible” and that we have advanced science to the point of science and Scripture harmonizing. I have heard this point made numerous times, mostly from the YEC position, though I think that concordism (e.g. Hugh Ross) implies some of the same thinking. One example I recall is how the book of Job talks about springs in the sea (38:16) and how scientists have recently discovered hydrothermal vents under the ocean floor that are like springs. With Hugh Ross, our present understanding of science can be mapped one-for-one to the Genesis account of creation.
This approach to harmonizing science and scripture bothers me a bit. It seems to be presumptuous to think that for 2000+ years the meaning of some passages of scripture was hidden from mankind, including the original audience, and that now, we are privileged to have unlocked the true meaning because the current understanding of science can be made to fit the text. What happens when our scientific models are fine tuned and some of the details that match up no longer do?
Does this bother anyone else? Is it possible to hold a concordist view and not fall into the trap of your interpretation of Genesis being possible only in a narrow window of time? How can one biblically and reasonably argue against the idea that God put scientific truths into the Bible that would not be discovered and verified for millennia? Or should we argue against that? Is it merely a case of confusing poetic language with prose narrative? This is one area that has kept me from fully embracing a concordist view of Genesis.
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Good comment, Carol. I don’t know where the lads have gone — possibly out looking for cow pats — give them a cuppa when they come in, would you?
There are several million hectares worth of cow pats here in Australia, should the crisis worsen.
A technically exact Bible is a fallacy because academic humbug is nothing but — academic humbug. The word of God either has power or it is an academic humbug.
As science devotees, the chaps who are out looking for cow pasties will know that Scripture has been a powerful guide to science through the ages (although science has no power to give a personal relationship with God) and it is intended for the ongoing same purpose right now.
As geologists the lads know that it is their duty to utilize their learning to the glory of God and the benefit of people. I was stirring them on to do so, but get the impression they aren’t too certain whether the Earth is young, old, or indifferent, whether Al Gore is a young earther, an old earther, or just a crackpot extremist politician,(the Australian climate ‘scientists’ are worse!) and whether or not we should all be practising blood letting and looking for lice to transmute from dust, and maggots from beef.
Science has a purpose and it is the conscientious duty of all humans who can think, to do so — calling upon divine wisdom, and not ignoring the Scriptures. Regards. .
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Philip, you do geochristian and the other frequent posters on this blog a great disservice in your description of them. You are coming across as condescending and dismissive, two traits that will neither win you friends nor an audience for your views. I asked a serious question about an issue I wrestle with as an old earth creationist who takes a high view of scripture, looking for some serious discussion, not a rant about lads hunting cow pats.
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“Wanted: good cow pies – I’ve written about Ham and bacon, now I want to turn to beef; or at least something to do with cows. Because of the ongoing drought across much of the United States, some locations are experiencing a shortage of Frisbee-quality cow pies: Drought causes shortage in cow chip throw”
Sorry, Carol; you may have missed my reference. As a farmer (ex. geologist) I found Kevin’s entry here one of the best I have encountered on the ‘Net. Keep it up. People are what is important, and this will go much further with people than any haggling over academic arguments.
Quoting yourself: “I asked a serious question about an issue I wrestle with as an old earth creationist who takes a high view of scripture,”
You have come to the correct spot. If you wish to seriously look into these perplexing questions, take it not from me, but from an expert review (by Jenny McCrae); That which has heretofore been written off as mere fable, is fable no more. Simply check systematically through my comments, above. That is why I visited. It’s on the ‘Net (also in a published book) — and it’s all over. I won’t repeat myself. I suspect you can read and will take the trouble to evaluate for yourself — with a ‘high view of Scripture’. That’s the one article Ken Ham could not deny, as he tossed the facts of geology and Scripture in the bin. Feel free to send me any useful criticism or feedback you wish. Regards.
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Carol,
Here are some thoughts that perhaps may help your thinking about concordism. First, consider
the prophecies in the Bible. Those who wrote them down, in some cases hundreds of years
before their fulfillment, would not have known exactly what they were writing about at the
time. I have heard this called “history written in advance.” In the same way, is it
possible that the scripture writers could have been inspired to write, in terms available to
them, about scientific discoveries that would only be apparent when we had the means to
discover them? That could be termed “science written in advance.”
As to whether science could change and no longer agree with what we seem to see in the
Bible, one of the tenets of concordism is that because both nature and scripture have their
origin in God, there can be no ultimate disagreement when both are understood correctly. Is
it likely that overarching concepts such as big bang cosmology, for example, will be proved
wrong in the future, or is it more a matter of refinement and adjustment as more is
discovered? Where is the evidence trending? (The secular objections to big bang cosmology
seem to be more on the philosophical level than because of any hard evidence.) Is it
possible that a scientifically-oriented world would need more evidence of a scientific
nature in order to believe, than those in the past would?
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Virginia,
Thanks. You’ve given me some things to chew on. That is a good analogy with prophecy and history. Once the prophecy has come true, it is more fully understandable. I agree that ultimately nature & scripture are in complete agreement with God’s truth, it is merely our interpretation of each (science & theology) that can appear to conflict. Nevertheless, I wonder when someone points out how nicely a current scientific theory meshes with scripture (e.g. the 6 days of creation make a lot of sense when you interpret them as coming from the earth’s point of view, not from outside the universe) if what sounds reasonable today will sound ridiculous in a few decades. Back to prophecy, the same thing happened in the dispensational world when the Iron Curtain fell. I read “The Late Great Planet Earth” after that and it felt very dated. I’m sure it was much more compelling in the 60’s and 70’s. Science usually moves forward by refining existing theories. However, every so often, a theory comes along that turns everything on end, such as relativity or quantum mechanics. Those arose just as physicists thought they had just about explained the whole universe except for a few odd phenomena.
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Virginia, there is some caution needed with that approach. Bible numerology and scores of other, similar practices use the same reasoning – the writers of the Bible didn’t realize what they were writing and it is only with our modern vantage point that we can truly understand the secrets buried in it. Harold Camping is a recent example of this, but there have been thousands of books and hundreds of people doing the same thing.
There’s a difference between
1) God giving prophesies which people wrote down even though they didn’t fully understand the prophesy.
and
2) God putting secrets into all sorts of different, non-prophetic writings that only we can find today.
For example, the Psalms talk about God spreading the heavens like a tent. There are some groups within YEC-ism that take that as God sneaking secret science knowledge into poetry and praise psalms. That is based on nothing in the Bible’s structure or content or anything other than one’s own ideas searching for phrases that might mesh with some modern concepts.
That’s not a good way to approach the Bible.
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…this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
Hamlet (been reading YECs?)
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Great reading your bblog post
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