MATSON v HOVIND by DAVE MATSON YOUNG EARTH PROOFS  Part 2

 

Young-earth "proof" #11: Since the earth's magnetic field is decaying at an exponential rate, its strength would have been unrealistically high 25,000 years ago.  Thus, Earth is less than 25,000 years old.

11.  Dr. Hovind is almost certainly talking about Barnes's magnetic field argument (1973) or some echo of it.  Henry Morris, himself, praised it as one of the best arguments for a young earth.  In fact, it recommends itself as a classic study of creationist incompetence!

In 1971 Barnes took about 25 measurements of the earth's magnetic field strength (originally assembled by Keith McDonald and Robert Gunst (1967)) and fitted them to an exponential decay curve.  He drew upon Sir Horace Lamb's 1883 paper as theoretical justification for this.  Following the curve backwards in time, Barnes showed that 20,000 years ago the earth's magnetic field would have been impossibly high.  Thus, he concluded that the earth is much younger than 20,000 years.

There are several fatal errors in Barnes's work:

1.  Barnes employs an obsolete model of the earth's interior.

Today, no one doing serious work on the earth's magnetic field envisions its source as a free electrical current in a spherical conductor (the earth's core) undergoing simple decay.  Elsasser's dynamo theory is the only theory today which has survived.

According to Barnes, "In 1883 Sir Horace Lamb proved theoretically that the earth's magnetic field could be due to an original event (creation) from which it has been decaying ever since" [1973, p.viii]. This is not a correct description of Lamb's 1883 paper, which dealt only with electric currents and did not mention geomagnetism at all... (Brush, 1983, p.73)

Lamb's ideas on electric currents had simply been pressed into service to support Barnes's obsolete ideas about the origin of the earth's magnetic field.

In trying to discredit Elsasser's theory, Barnes quoted Cowling's theorem.

He cites Cowling's 1934 theorem that shows "that it is not possible for fluid motions to generate a magnetic field with axial symmetry (such as the dipole field of the earth)" (Barnes 1973, pp. 44-45). However, recent work shows that Cowling's theorem does not forbid a model with axially symmetric fluid motions generating a field with lower symmetry (Jacobs 1975, pp. 128-31), and, indeed, the earth's field does not have a pure dipole character, a fact that Barnes conveniently ignores. (Brush, 1983, p.76)

The dynamo theory has gained near-universal acceptance because it is the only proposed mechanism that can explain all the observed features of the Earth's magnetic field. In contrast, Barnes' hypothesis of a freely decaying field cannot explain the existence, configuration, movement, or changes in the nondipole field, the fluctuations in the dipole moment, the reversals in field polarity, or the documentation in the geologic record of the continued existence of the field for more than three billion years. (Dalrymple, 1992, p.17)

Point 1, all by itself, is fatal to Barnes's basic idea since it removes any serious reason for believing that the earth's magnetic field has been continuously decaying.

2.  In using McDonald and Gunst's data, Barnes selects only the "dipole component" of the total magnetic field for analysis (Brush, 1983, p.73).

The dipole field is not an accurate measurement of the overall strength of the earth's magnetic field.  The dipole field can decay even as the overall strength of the magnetic field remains the same!

...McDonald and Gunst state explicitly that "the magnetic dipole field is being driven destructively to smaller values by fluid motions which transform its magnetic energy into that of the near neighboring modes rather than expend it more directly as Joule heat" (1968, p.2057). In other words, the energy is being transferred from the dipole field to the quadrupole field and to higher moments rather than being dissipated as heat. This implies that the value of the dipole field could not have been much greater in the past, since it is limited by the total magnetic energy, which does not change very rapidly. (Brush, 1983, p.75)

Thus, we are not dealing with a simple decay.  Energy is being shifted to other modes rather than being totally lost to the magnetic field.  Might not a reverse shift in energy increase the dipole field at times?

There is some reason to believe that the dipole field reached a maximum around 1800 and that it was smaller in 1600 than in 1800 (Yukutake 1971, p.23).  Other recent work also suggests that the dipole field has fluctuated on a fairly short time scale (Braginsky 1970; papers by J. C. Cain and others in Fisher et al. 1975). (Brush, 1983, p.77)

It seems that the dipole field has gone uphill at times!

Studies of the magnetic field as recorded in dated rocks and pottery have shown that the dipole moment actually fluctuates over periods of a few thousand years and that decreases in field intensity are eventually followed by increases.  For example, the archaeomagnetic data show that the dipole field was about 20% weaker than the present field 6,500 years ago and about 45% stronger than the present field about 3000 years ago (McElhinny and Senanayake, 1982). (Dalrymple, 1992, p.16)

Quite clearly, the dipole field has increased at times!

Point 2, by itself, is fatal to Barnes's idea in that Barnes was not actually plotting a decline in total field strength.  Evidence shows that the dipole field has increased in strength at times.

3.  Based on his preconceptions of the earth's magnetic field, Barnes fits an exponential decay curve to the data.

Barnes is doing some circular reasoning here.  The use of an exponential decay curve is tantamount to assuming that the earth is young; one must show that the decay curve arises from the data -- not assume it!  Otherwise, one is guilty of assuming that which must be proven, of arguing in circles.

If you actually plot the data, as Brush has done (1983, p.74), it becomes quite clear that the data does not justify an exponential decay curve.  To be sure, the data doesn't actually rule out an exponential decay curve, but that's not particularly helpful since the data can be made to fit any number of radically different equations.  We could fit it to some kind of sine function if we wanted to.  For example:  f(x) = A sin(Bx + C)  would also fit the data for suitable values of A, B, and C.  A scientific handling of the data requires that we don't play guessing games.  We must use the simplest curve (usually favored by nature) that the data justifies.  In this case, the data fits a linear curve (straight line) just as well.  Thus, Barnes should have used a straight line.  Even then, a careful scientist would not extrapolate very far beyond the limits of the data unless there was good justification for it.

Do the data actually fit this exponential formula?  Barnes gives no evidence that they do; in fact, he does not even bother to present a plot showing the experimental points in relation to his theoretical curve. When one does construct such a plot (fig. 1) it becomes immediately obvious that the fit is not very good and that a straight line ... is equally good, considering the scatter of the observational points. Indeed, that is what McDonald and Gunst themselves stated: "Since the time of Gauss's measurements the earth's dipole moment has decreased, sensibly linearly, at approximately the rate of 5 percent per hundred years" (quoted by Barnes 1973, p.34). (Brush, 1983, p.75)

Thus, instead of limiting the earth to less than 20,000 years of age, a more objective use of the data, a linear extrapolation, leads to 100 million years.  However, both conclusions involve errors of procedure since there are no justifiable grounds for extending the curve great distances beyond the actual data.  We would be dealing with pure speculation which proves nothing.

Point 3, alone, deprives Barnes's idea of any force, turning it into wild speculation.

4.  Barnes simply ignores the fact that the earth's magnetic polarity has reversed itself on numerous occasions.

That fact, alone, is absolutely fatal to every fibre of Barnes's argument.

The theoretical basis for magnetic field reversals is Elsasser's dynamo theory, which is based on fluid motions in the earth's core (Elsasser 1946-1947; see Jacobs 1975, chap. 4, or Stacey 1977, chaps. 5 and 6).  The dynamo theory assumes an energy source to keep the fluid moving; it is not yet established what the main source of energy is, but there are various possibilities such as radioactive heating, growth of the inner core, differential rotation of the core and mantle, etc.  In any case, nothing justifies Barnes's assumption that there is no energy source. (Brush, 1983, p.76)

Barnes, like most creationists, is not above quoting obsolete sources.  In a 1981 paper he made extensive use of a 1962 book by A. Jacobs which cited difficulties with the magnetic reversal hypothesis (Brush, 1983, p.76).  Funny, that Barnes should quote a 1962 source.  It was in the mid-1960s when the great discoveries started rolling which forever made magnetic reversals a fact of life!  Odd, don't you think, that Barnes missed all those more recent sources?  I guess they were not particularly "helpful."

In the same section of the later edition of this book, Jacobs states that "the evidence seems compelling" that such reversals have occurred (1975, p. 140).  Barnes, however, omits the date of publication of the text he quotes from and completely ignores the fact that Jacobs changed his position in the 1975 edition. In fact, the principal creationist "expert" on geomagnetism writes as if the "revolution in the earth sciences" of the last two decades had never happened; he quotes A. A. and Howard Meyerhoff, two diehard opponents of plate tectonics, as if their "refutations" actually had been successful. (Brush, 1983, p.76)

Actually, considering that Barnes rejected modern relativity theory, quantum mechanics, and just about anything this side of nineteenth-century physics, it's not too surprising that he also rejected the revolution in geology.  Barnes was born at the wrong time; I do believe he would have been happier in the nineteenth century.

Two years later, despite criticism from Brush, we find that Barnes is still ignoring the fact that Jacobs had changed his views.  If someone concluded that Barnes was less than honest, could you blame that person?

In the January 1982 issue of Journal of Geological Education, Stephen Brush cites, as well as criticizing Barnes' "theory", that Jacobs accepted reversals once the evidence was overwhelming.  However, in his book Origin And Destiny Of The earth's Magnetic Field, Barnes (1983b) rejects Brush's criticisms citing again Jacobs' 1963 objections, but omits the date and ignores the 1975 revision! In fact, in 1984, Jacobs wrote a book entitled Reversals of the Earth's Magnetic Field. (Wakefield, 1991, p.6)

Point 4, just by itself, is absolutely fatal to Barnes's idea in that it destroys the theoretical foundation for believing that the earth's magnetic field is continually decaying.  In supporting the dynamo theory it also destroys any attempt to read into the data a continual decline.

We can safely relegate Barnes's magnetic field argument to the junk heap of crackpot ideas.

References

Young-earth "proof" #12: The volume of lava on earth divided by its rate of efflux yields only a few million years.  The earth is not billions of years old.

12.  At present, when mountains are actively being built up, the output of magma is almost certainly much higher than usual.  There may have been long, quiet periods where little happened in the way of volcanic activity.  Enormous amounts of crust have been recycled in the subduction of oceanic plates.  Enormous amounts of the earth's crust have been eroded away, only to be recycled.  Morris has not addressed these and other problems.

Morris and Parker [1982] list an age of 500 million years based on the "influx of magma from mantle to form crust." This calculation, which appears in Morris [1974], is based on the volume (0.2 cubic km/yr) of lava erupted by Paricutin Volcano in Mexico during the 1940s.  Morris [1974] notes that intrusive rocks are much more common than lava flows:

... .so that it seems reasonable to assume that at least 10 cubic kilometers of new igneous rocks are formed each year by flows from the earth's mantle.

The total volume of the earth's crust is about 5 x 10^9 cubic kilometers. Thus, the entire crust could have been formed by volcanic activity at present rates in only 500 million years, which would only take us back into the Cambrian period. ... The uniformitarian model once again leads to a serious problem and contradiction. [Morris, 1974, p.157]

But the "uniformitarian model" of which Morris [1974] is so critical is a product of Morris [1974], not science.  He has pulled the value of 10 km3/yr from thin air, assumed that this fictitious rate has been constant over time, and neglected erosion, sedimentation, crustal recycling, and the fact that the injection of magma into the crust is a highly nonuniform process about which little is known.  Morris' (92) calculation is worthless. (Dalrymple, 1984, p.111)

Thus, another young-earth argument bites the dust due to the use of a dubious rate.  It's not good enough to find some rate; one must show that it is sound.

References

 

Young-earth "proof" #13: If we divide the amount of various minerals in the ocean by their influx rate we get only a few thousand years of accumulation.  Therefore, the earth is young.

13.  In the case of aluminum we "get" only 100 years!  In the case of sodium we "get" 260 million years.  Where Dr. Hovind gets his "few thousand years," as though there were some kind of general agreement, is anyone's guess.

The table that one sees in a couple of Henry Morris' books was copied from a chapter by Goldberg (1965) that appears in Riley and Skirrow (1965).

Goldberg's [1965] Table I is a list of the abundances and residence times of the elements in sea water; it is these residence times that Morris [1974, 1977] and Morris and Parker [1982] give as indicated ages of the Earth. The residence time of an element, however is the average time that any small amount of an element remains in seawater before it is removed, not, as stated by Morris [1974], the time "to accumulate in ocean from river inflow," and has nothing to do with the ages of either the Earth or the ocean.  Morris [1974, 1974a, 1977] and Morris and Parker [1982] have totally misrepresented the data listed in Goldberg's [1965] table. (Dalrymple, 1984, 116)

Dalrymple concludes with:

The influx of chemicals to the ocean is an invalid and worthless method of determining the age of the Earth.  Morris [1974, 1977] and Morris and Parker [1982] have misrepresented fundamental geochemical data and ignored virtually everything that is known about the geochemistry of seawater. (Dalrymple, 1984, p.116)

It's all in a day's work for your typical creationist author!  They are quite good at ignoring unfavorable facts.  Never mind that the elements are in approximate equilibrium with the ocean; never mind that residence times are not the times for elements to accumulate from river inflow.  Never mind that plankton concentrates these elements sometimes a thousand fold or more in their skeletons, and, when they die, they remove these elements from the sea waters (Glenn Morton).  Press that banner high and march on!  And that's exactly what a new generation of creationists are doing with this intellectually dishonest argument.

References

 

Young-earth "proof" #14: The amount of helium in the atmosphere divided by its formation rate on Earth gives only 175,000 years.

14.  The age of 175,000 years is a little steep for creationist purposes, so Dr. Hovind informs us that "God must have started the earth with some."  Heaven forbid that the earth should be older than about 7000 years!

Helium-4 is the product of radioactive alpha decay whereas Helium-3 is primordial.  The rates of their "production" are simply the rates of their escape from within the earth to the atmosphere.

The whole argument hinges on Helium-4 remaining in the atmosphere.  A fair amount of helium is lost from the earth's atmosphere by simply being heated up in the elevated temperature of the exosphere (Dalrymple, 1984, p.112).

The exosphere is the outermost layer of our atmosphere, beginning after the ionosphere at about 300 miles above the earth.  When a lightweight helium atom is heated up, especially Helium-3 which is even lighter than Helium-4, it can easily pick up enough speed to escape Earth's gravity altogether and head off into outer space.  Heating gas is a little like swatting rubber balls with a paddle; the lighter balls travel a lot faster after being swatted.  In this manner about half of the Helium-3 produced is lost to outer space.  The amount of the heavier Helium-4 lost by this method appears to be far short of the amount produced. Hence, the point of Morris' argument which is based on calculations by Cook.  However, there are other mechanisms of helium escape which Morris and Cook have overlooked.  Creationist Larry Vardiman (ICR Impact series, No.143, May 1985) at least recognizes some of these factors.  However, he has not fully addressed the matter, let alone proven that the earth is young.

The most probable mechanism for helium loss is photoionization of helium by the polar wind and its escape along open lines of the Earth's magnetic field.  Banks and Holzer [1969] have shown that the polar wind can account for an escape of 2 to 4 x 10^6 ions/cm^2 sec of Helium-4, which is nearly identical to the estimated production flux of (2.5 +-1.5)  10^6 atoms/cm^2 sec.  Calculations for Helium-3 lead to similar results, i.e., a rate virtually identical to the production flux.

Another possible escape mechanism is direct interaction of the solar wind with the upper atmosphere during the short periods of lower magnetic-field intensity while the field is reversing.  Sheldon and Kern [1972] estimated that 20 geomagnetic-field reversals over the past 3.5 million years would have assured a balance between helium production and loss. (Dalrymple, 1984, p.112)

Dr. Dalrymple goes on to explain that even though our understanding of the helium balance in the atmosphere is incomplete, the situation being very complicated because of various hard-to-calculate factors, we do know one thing.  "...it is clear that helium can and does escape from the atmosphere in amounts sufficient to balance production." (1984, p.113)

Thus, the helium balance calculations provided by creationist Melvin Cook (which are used by Henry Morris) cannot provide a reliable minimum estimate of the earth's age.  Their argument is a fatal oversimplification of a complex problem.

Another version of the helium argument for a young earth is based on the estimated production of Helium-4 by radioactive decay.  The creationist then asks why so little of that amount is found in the atmosphere.  The answer to that one is that the same escape mechanisms listed above apply once the helium-4 works its way out of the rock and into the atmosphere.  The rock traps it for a time and slows its release.

References

 

Young-earth "proof" #15: Continents are eroding at a rate which would bring them to sea level in less than 14 million years.  Inasmuch as the continents are anything but flat, the earth cannot be billions of years old.  (27.5 x 109 tons sediment/year are lost to the oceans by erosion; the present mass of the continents above sea level is 383 x 1015 tons.)

15.  This argument by creationist Stuart E. Nevins, which appeared in the ICR Impact series (No.8) in 1973, simply ignores the impact of modern geology!  Nevins overlooks the fact that the continents are dynamic and have grown appreciably over time, both by accretion of material at the margins and by addition of material from the mantle below (Dalrymple, 1984, p.114).  Volcanic activity, the emplacement of gigantic masses of rising, molten rock, and the stupendous compressional forces of the earth's colliding plates have been building mountains off and on for billions of years.  Mountain building is going on even now in many parts of the world.

We could also mention that the current rates of erosion are particularly high and that isostatic rebound would greatly increase the time for a continent to erode flat, but that's just icing on the cake.  Any argument which pretends that continents are inert lumps of rock subject only to erosion is out of touch with reality.  We need not consider it further.

Davis A. Young (1988, pp.128-131) treats Nevins' argument in more detail.  Another point made by Nevins is that sediment is piling up on the ocean floor faster than it's being removed.  Even if that's true, there is no reason to view it as being anything more than a temporary imbalance.

..it is generally regarded by geologists that the rates of erosion at present are relatively high because of the topography of the continents. The continental land masses are believed to be much more rugged and mountainous than is usually the case, and mountainous topography speeds up rates of erosion. Thus at the present time we ought fully to expect that more sediment is being added to the oceans than is being removed. Paleogeography indicates that very often in the past the opposite was the case. (Young, 1988, p.131)

Thus, we have no problem from that quarter either.

References

 

Young-earth "proof" #16:  Topsoil takes only a few thousand years to form.  The present thickness of topsoil indicates a young earth.

16.  Those "scientific" creationists must be delirious to trot this plum out!  Do they really believe that we should wind up with x miles of topsoil (or some such nonsense) after billions of years?  Geologically speaking, any given patch of land is seldom in equilibrium for long.  Either it is collecting sediments or being eroded away, usually the latter.  If it collects sediments then the old topsoil, now compressed and deeply buried, is no longer turned over by earthworms or small animals.  It is deprived of oxygen and fresh organic inputs such as rotting leaves.  What organic material it did have is slowly lost in most cases by decay and slow oxidation.  Peat bogs and coal-forming swamps are an exception, but we would not count them as topsoils.  Under unusual
conditions a layer of topsoil can be "fossilized," even to the point of preserving the three-dimensional shape of tree leaves, as is the case at Yellowstone National Park.  Most likely, depending on the kind of soil and environment, topsoil, if buried by slow accumulation, would become clay-like or sandy.  Thus, one does not accumulate topsoil in the way that material might be accumulated in a bog.

In the case of erosion the topsoil, of course, is removed.  However, in most cases plant growth, burrowing creatures, and weathering will produce a new layer of topsoil.

Where sediments are neither being collected nor eroded the accumulating humus in the soil will reach an equilibrium point.  The new material will balance that lost by decay and oxidation.  Keep in mind that topsoil is full of microbes that love to munch away on organic material.

In all cases topsoil formation is a renewing process, and there is a limit to how deep it can get.  Furthermore, a given layer of topsoil, say in the Great Plains, may take 4000 (or whatever) years to built up, but it might also remain in a state of equilibrium for much longer periods.  Just because a patch of topsoil takes 1000 (or whatever) years to build up doesn't mean that it is only 1000 years old.  It could be much, much older!  But, in time, it gets buried or eroded, allowing the process to begin anew.

Thus, we're dealing with a dynamic and continuing cycle of topsoil formation and destruction, not a one-way accumulation of topsoil.  Is that so difficult to figure out?

The whole idea of using topsoil formation rates to prove that the earth is young is just totally insane!  It shows how desperate young-earth creationists are.  They're grabbing at straws!  No, ghosts of straws!

References

 

Young-earth "proof" #17: Erosion rates limit Niagara Falls to an age of less than 10,000 years.  Therefore, the earth is young.

17.  If those erosion rates are correct, then the Niagara Falls are less than 10,000 years old.  What of it?  Since when does the age of the Niagara Falls have anything to do with the age of the earth?  Niagara Falls did not exist during the last glacial episode since ice covered the entire area to a considerable depth.   Glacial activity likely made Niagara Falls possible.  Indeed, glacial activity helped to create the Great Lakes.  The last glacial episode, the Wisconsinan, ended around 11,000 to 12,000 years ago, thus giving us an upper limit.

G. K. Gilbert estimated that it took 7000 years for the Niagara Falls to retreat to its present position (Dalrymple, 1991, p.67).  Thus, we have at least 7000 years sitting between the end of the last glacial episode, sometime after which the Niagara Falls was formed, and the present.  Obviously, the earth is far older than the 6000 years or so deduced from the biblical list of patriarches.  Needless to say, the Niagara Falls couldn't possibly have existed had it flowed over freshly laid sediments.  (In that case it would have become the Niagara Canyon!)  The retreat of the Niagara Falls is a result of erosion undercutting the base of the falls and the subsequent cave-in of the upper portions of the rocky ledge.  Only a geological moron could imagine that the falls quickly retreated through soft flood sediments until nearing its present position when, all of a sudden, the remaining sediments decided to turn into hard rock!

Gilbert's estimate was in the same ball park as several others which estimated the time elapsed since the last glacial episode.  N. H. Winchell estimated that it took 8000 years to account for the erosion of the gorge and falls of St. Anthony.  E. Andrews arrived at 7,500 years from a study of wave erosion on the shores of Lake Michigan.  B. K. Emmerson calculated from his study of the glacial valleys in Massachusetts that 10,000 years had been at work.  D. Mackintosh deduced that the erosion of limestone beneath glacial boulders required 6000 years.  Taken together, these early estimates indicated that the ice sheets had disappeared 6,000-10,000 years ago (Dalrymple, 1991, pp.66-67).

Modern values for the end of the last glacial episode, the Wisconsinan Glaciation, are around 11,000-12,000 years.  The more northerly sites, of course, would have been freed of ice more recently.  Thus, the early estimates above are actually quite good.  Technically, we are living in an interglaciation period of the present Ice Age.  The Wisconsinan was the most recent glacial episode, one which was preceded by others and which, in all probability, will be succeeded by others.

References

 

Young-earth "proof" #18: The incredible pressure found in oil and gas wells indicates they have been there less than 15,000 years.  (Presumably, the oil or gas would have escaped long before then.)

18.  The incredible pressure found in oil and gas wells indicates that the oil and gas have been effectively trapped.  The initial slow accumulation of oil and gas, the result of primary migration, would hardly have a chance to build up great pressures if the trapping rock layers were full of cracks and acting like a sieve!

Oil and gas also do a lot of migrating, and the oil accumulated in a given reservoir may have undergone a secondary migration from another reservoir.  Thus, a given pool of oil may or may not have been there millions and millions of years.  A recent geological shift in the rocks might also increase the leakage of an oil pool.  Thus, the mere existence of a leaky oil pool is not, in itself, sufficient proof that the oil had to be recently created.

The primary migration of oil from 1 to 5 kilometers deep in the earth, where it is produced under a combination of pressure and heat acting on organic matter, probably goes hand in hand with water migration.  The water is squeezed out as the sediments experience more and more pressure.  Thus, it may interest you to know how fast water migrates down there.

Some idea of the extremely slow speed of fluid motion to be expected can be gained by considering the movement of ground water at shallow depths in dense clays, classed as "impermeable." Under a moderate hydraulic gradient and a reasonable value of permeability for clay, we come up with flow speeds of ground water on the order of 2 to 3 million years per kilometer [3.2 to 4.8 million years per mile]. Yet the permeability of source shales of petroleum is rated at only one-thousandth as great as for clays tested in the surface environment (Wszolek and Burlingame, 1987, p. 573).
(Strahler, 1987, p.237)

Thus, the primary migration of oil from its place of origin will take far longer than the mere 6000 years or so creationists allow for the age of the earth.  Creationists have tried to dance around that figure by quoting special cases of secondary migration or by simple smoke screen tactics, but the problem remains (Strahler, 1987, pp.237-238).

References

 

Young-earth "proof" #19: The size of the Mississippi River delta divided by the sediment accumulation rate gives an age of less than 30,000 years.

19.  Since when does the age of the earth have anything to do with the Mississippi delta?  If the Mississippi delta is, in fact, 30,000 years old, what of it?

Because of oil exploration, geologists know that the sediment in regions around the Mississippi River delta is 7 miles thick! (Hayward, 1985, p.83).  Did you ever wonder how Noah's flood, which was quite shallow according to Dr. Hovind, perhaps less than a quarter of a mile deep, managed to stack up 7 miles of sediment?

It is stretching the long arm of coincidence much too far, to suggest that there just happened to be a vast hole in the ocean bed seven miles deep near the mouth of the Mississippi, and that the Flood just happened to fill that hole with sediment, while leaving nearby areas of the Atlantic unfilled; and that similar coincidences just happened to occur around the mouths of all the world's great rivers. (Hayward, 1985, p.84)

It sounds like miracle-time for scientific creationists, but wait!  Dr. Hovind will probably assure you that, when the waters were draining off the continents at the end of the flood, all that sediment was whisked down the Mississippi River and deposited in mere hours or days.  Unfortunately, there's a fatal bug in that scenario.

It takes time for the earth to sink under a load of sediment.  Suppose you went down to the Gulf of Mexico one fine day, say just off the Texas coast, and dumped a pile of sediment there 7 miles high!  I haven't the foggiest idea how long that mountain of sediment would sit there before sinking down to sea level, but I can assure you that it would not happen in hours or even days.  That heap would probably still be there after thousands of years.

A super-charged Mississippi River isn't even going to build mountains to begin with.  The onrushing sediment-loaded water would just be pushed further into the gulf.  You would get a "delta" vastly more spread out than the one we have -- and nowhere near 7 miles thick.  Think about it.

References

 

Young-earth "proof" #20:  The earth's rotation is slowing down, meaning that the earth can't be older than a few million years.

20.  Presently, the earth's rotation is slowing down 0.005 seconds per year per year (Thwaites and Awbrey, 1982, p.19).  At least Dr. Hovind doesn't use the horrendous rate of 1 second per year which Dr. Walter Brown employed as a result of a total misunderstanding of time keeping.  I believe that Dr. Brown discarded that argument upon realizing his error, but don't expect the argument to disappear from the creationist scene.  It will probably be touted by various creationists for as long as "scientific" creationism lasts!

The actual rate of 0.005 seconds per year per year would, if rolled back 4.6 billion years, yield a 14-hour day.  The subject is a bit tricky the first time around, and I'm indebted to Thwaites and Awbrey (1982) whose fine article cleared away the cobwebs.

Let's do the calculation for 370 million years ago:

((0.005 sec/yr) x (370 million yr))/Year  =  (1,850,000 sec)/Year

((0.005 sec/yr) x (370 million yr))/Year  =  (21.4 days)/Year

Thus, at 370 million years ago, the earth had 21.4 extra days per year.

The total days then per year were: (365.25 + 21.4)days/Year = 386.65 days/Year

(8766 hrs/Year)/(386.65 days/Year)    =  22.7 hrs/day

If you do the same calculations for 4.6 billion years ago, you'll get the 14 hrs/day given by Drs. Thwaites and Awbrey.  Thus, there is no problem here for mainstream science.  Indeed, the present rate may be too high:

...the correct present rate of slowing of the earth's rotation is excessively high, because the present rate of spin is in a resonance mode with the back-and-forth motion of the oceans' waters in the ocean basins.  In past ages when the rotation rate was faster, the resonance was much less or nonexistent, resulting in a much more gradual slowing of the rotation rate.  The most recent calculations indicate that the earth could be 4 to 5 billion years old and not have been spinning excessively fast or requiring the moon to be any closer to the earth than 225,000 kilometers (140,000 miles).(Sonleitner, 1991, file=MOVIE2.WP)

A study of rugose corals from the Devonian (370 million years ago), initiated by John W. Wells of Cornell University in 1963, indicated that the year then had 400 days of about 22 hours each.  For a discussion of coral clocks see Dott & Batten (1976, pp.248-249).  Subsequent work with corals of Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and modern origin have produced highly revealing, if approximate, results.  Determinations of the same kind were made for algal deposits (stromatolites) of the Upper Cambrian (-510 m.y.) (Pannella et al., 1968). Plots of the collected data for the entire time span from Recent back through the Paleozoic Era showed a nonuniform increase in days per month going back in time, and from this it is inferred that tidal friction has not been uniform in that period.(Strahler, 1987, p.147)

Studies of the chambered nautilus, for a time, was also proposed as a geologic clock by Kahn and Pompea.  However, that effort ran into problems and creationists still use it to try to discredit the coral clocks.  Each case, of course, has to be judged on its own merits.  The coral clocks are good enough to destroy the young-earth claims.  From the present slowing down of the earth's spin we get a day of 22.7 hours 370 million years ago; 370 million years ago is the approximate radiometric date of those rugose corals.  And, a study of the rugose corals confirms that the day then was about 22 hours long.  In this example we have a remarkable agreement between two diverse dating methods.

It spells "Old Earth."

References

 

Young-earth "proof" #21: Given the rate of sediment transport into the ocean by the world's rivers, the ocean basins should have a much thicker layer of sediment than they actually have.  Only a small amount of sediment is on the ocean floor, indicating a few thousand years of accumulation.  This embarrassing fact explains why the continental drift theory is vitally important to those who worship evolution.  (The present influx of sediment into the oceans is 27.5 x 109 tons per year; the present mass of sediment in the oceans is 820 x 1015 tons.  That yields 30 million years.)

21.  This is the other half of Nevins' argument (see point #15 ).  Dr. Hovind has simply botched it further by asserting that only a few thousand year's worth of sediment is on the ocean floor!  In the case of the Atlantic Ocean floor, the sediment varies in thickness.  The thinnest sediment is near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where new sea floor is currently being generated.  That is to say, sediment thickness there is zero.  The thickest sediment is near the continental margins, and they most certainly have more than a few thousand years of accumulation.  Try around 150 million year's worth!  Funny, that the observed and measured rate of sea floor spreading, when extrapolated backward in time, gives the same age for the same portions of the Atlantic sea floor as does radiometric dating, and both of those methods agree with the gradually increasing thicknesses of sediments which have accumulated on the bottom of the sea floor as the freshly formed floor has spread away from the Mid-Atlantic ridge!  What are the odds of such a triple "coincidence" occurring?  It's easy to see why scientists "bet" on an old-earth, not a young-earth, in such cases.  And what about those magnetic stripes on the Atlantic sea floor?  If that ocean floor is indeed spreading, then the thickness of these stripes and their distance from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge preserve a chronological record of magnetic field reversals.  When these distances and widths are divided by the sea floor spreading rate do we get a match with the magnetic reversal chronology based on a study of continental rocks via radiometric dating?  Yes, we do!

Let me point out another interesting, but little known, fact.  Mathematical calculations done by Dan McKenzie in 1967 indicated that an ocean floor, spreading at a few inches per year from a rift which adds new material, would cool and contract.  It would sink deeper into the mantle as it contracted.  "The process is so undeviating that there is a striking relationship between the age of the sea floor and the depth of water covering it." (Miller, 1983, p.122)

John Sclater and his students at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California, put McKenzie's theory to the test in 1971.  They gathered up every scrap of data on the age and depth of the Pacific sea floor.  McKenzie's theory was confirmed!  The increasing depths of the older portions of the Pacific floor were a result of thermal contraction.  Plate tectonics even explained the basic facts about the depth of the Pacific!

That's bad news for those creationists who believe that the earth's plates did some dancing after Noah's flood.  In the few thousand years that creationists have to play around with, there would not have been enough time for a growing ocean plate to cool down.  That means the plate would not sink as a result of greater density due to cooling and contraction, meaning that the Western Pacific would not be any deeper than the Eastern Pacific.  Isn't that amazing!  Instant-drift creationists have another problem.  (Actually they have bushels of problems, but we don't have yards of space.)  Like Silly Putty (remember that?) the earth's mantle will flow like a liquid if enough time is allowed, but it will act like a solid if you try to rush things.  A stick of old-fashioned Silly Putty will, if left to own sweet time, melt into a puddle -- and even into the sofa!  However, if you try to bend that stick quickly it will snap in two as though it were a piece of glass!  For similar reasons, there is absolutely no way to significantly speed up the drift of continents or the spreading of ocean floors.  It would be like driving through solid rock!

Dr. Hovind's bizarre suggestion that plate tectonics is an evolutionist's means for escaping an embarrassing dilemma doesn't really merit comment since there is no dilemma.  Funny, that the theory of continental drift was fiercely opposed by most "evolutionary" geologists at first!  Funnier still, is how some discoveries in the late sixties brought them all around!  It looks like a case of follow-the-evidence rather than a conspiracy!  We might note, in passing, that plate tectonics became an observed fact in 1985!  The Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) technique in combination with laser ranging techniques, successfully measured the rate of movement of the earth's plates relative to one another (Strahler, 1987, p.212).  Since 1979, such measurements have continually been taken by NASA's Crustal Dynamics Project, which has removed any doubt that the continents are indeed "drifting."  (Note: the continents don't "drift" by any efforts of their own, they just hitch a ride on the earth's mantle material as it moves away from oceanic ridges.)

References

 

Young-earth "proof" #22: The largest stalactites and flowstones could have formed in about 4400 years.

22.  Since when is the age of the earth related to the age of a stalactite?  If, in fact, a fat stalactite can form in 4400 years, so what?  However, it does seems a bit suspicious that the minimum age given by Dr. Hovind is exactly that allotted to the post-flood period.  Such a figure begs investigation, but let's take first things first.

Did you ever wonder how a cave, like Carlsbad Caverns, formed?  It wasn't dissolved out by rushing flood waters, being that calcium carbonate (the substance of limestone) is less soluble in water than granite! (Loftin, 1988, p.22).  How many gorgeous caves have you seen carved out of granite?  Nor was it carved out of soft sediments.  The whole thing would have caved in long before the job was finished.  Nor was it eroded out by rapid, underground rivers and streams.  Vadose caves are formed in that manner, but their shape is very unlike the phreatic (solution) caves such as Carlsbad Caverns and Mammoth Cave.  Diagrams of phreatic caves often resemble city maps with lots of streets intersecting at right angles.  Hamilton Cave, in West Virginia, is an excellent example.  You don't get that kind of pattern with river or stream erosion.  "Streams often flow through caves and contribute very slightly to the process, but this is almost always a later, secondary development." (Loftin, 1988, p.22).

Carlsbad Caverns was eaten out, cubic inch by cubic inch, by carbonic acid which turned the calcium carbonate to calcium bicarbonate.  (The Caverns are unusual in that sulfuric acid also played a role.)  Calcium bicarbonate dissolves easily in water and is carried away.  Carbonic acid is a weak acid produced when carbon dioxide combines with water.  Almost all the carbon dioxide involved in this cave-making process comes from "...the activity of plants and animals in the soil rather than from the air (Moore and Nicholas, 1964, p.7)." (Loftin, 1988, p.22).  The atmospheric concentration is way too low to be of much use.  It is the metabolism of plants and soil organisms which build up the carbon dioxide concentration to a point where it can do some good.

As rainwater percolates through the soil it combines with the carbon dioxide to form the weak, carbonic acid which becomes part of the general flow of water through the limestone.  Cracks deep within the limestone are widened over the ages and underwater caverns are eventually formed.  Most of the etching action apparently goes on just below the water level, thus the tendency for phreatic caves to have distinct levels.

Before any stalactites, stalagmites, or flowstones can form, the water must be drained out of that portion of the cave.  In allowing 4400 years for the largest stalactites and flowstones, Dr. Hovind has neglected to allot any time at all to the cave-making process!  In his scenario the oldest stalactites start forming right after Noah's flood drains away.  Sorry, but I don't buy the implied claim that Carlsbad Caverns was deposited by that flood!  I know that Noah's flood can perform miracles in the hands of scientific creationists, but I absolutely draw the line here!  I think that the cave-making process requires a whole lot more time than the stalactite-making process.

The [stalactites, stalagmites, and flowstones] are formed when calcium carbonate in solution in the water is deposited out, but this process is not one of simple evaporation. The air in most caves, even in the most arid regions, is highly moist; therefore, when water soaking down from above reaches the air of the open cave, it does not lose water to the air and leave minerals behind. This is clearly shown by the composition of the deposits, which consists of almost pure calcium carbonate. When the slightly acid water with its dissolved minerals meets the moist air of the cave, a minute amount of the carbon dioxide leaves the water and goes into the air. This process is almost exactly the reverse of the major process of cave formation, for, when carbon dioxide goes into the air, the solution becomes supersaturated and a small amount calcium carbonate is precipitated out (Moore and Nicholas, 1964). (Loftin, 1988, p.23)

Needless to say, this is not the kind of operation you can turn up the spigot on.  A rapid flow of water would simply carry the minerals with it, not to mention diluting the carbonic acid which is produced in limited quantities.  We're dealing with a drip-by-drip scenario.

Creationists sometimes point to some very rapid accumulations which superficially resemble the calcium carbonate formations in caves.  For example, on the mortared brickwork of old forts and places of that sort, formations which look to the naked eye like stalactites and stalagmites sometimes form in less than one hundred years. However, those formations are composed of gypsum, which is a salt of calcium sulfate.  Unlike calcium carbonate, gypsum is moderately soluble in water, which means that transport and recrystallization can take place much more rapidly (White, 1976, p.304). There is a whole class of cave deposits called evaporite minerals which consist of those minerals which dissolve readily in water. As might be expected, these formations are ephemeral when compared to the carbonates which form all the really large and impressive cave formations. The chemistry of all this is not particularly complex and is very well understood. (Loftin, 1988, p.23)

Here's some more information.  This point is particularly important since creation-ists love to point out such examples.

Many people have found that stalactites forming on concrete or mortar outdoors may grow several centimeters each year. Stalactite growth in these environments, however, bears little relation to that in caves, because it does not proceed by the same chemical reaction. Although cement and mortar are made from limestone, the same rock in which the caves form, the carbon dioxide has been driven off by heating. When water is added to these materials, one product is calcium hydroxide, which is about 100 times as soluble in water as calcite is. A calcium hydroxide solution absorbs carbon dioxide rapidly from the atmosphere to reconstitute calcium carbonate, and produce stalactites. This is why stalactites formed by solution from cement and mortar grow much faster than those in caves. To illustrate, in 1925, a concrete bridge was constructed inside Postojna Cave, Yugoslavia, and adjacent to it an artificial tunnel was opened. By 1956, tubular stalactites 45 centimeters long were growing from the bridge, while stalactites of the same age in the tunnel were less than 1 centimeter long.(Moore and Sullivan, 1978, p.47)

By the way, geologic opinion holds that the Carlsbad Caverns began to be etched out 60 million years ago.  The present chambers were excavated from 1 to 8 million years ago, depending on their depth.  As for stalactites, the Bulletin of the National Speleological Society (37: p.21, 1975) gave their observed growth rates as ranging from  0.1 to 10 centimeters per thousand years.  An exceptional spurt of growth might exceed the higher rate for short periods of time, but it could no more be maintained than a winning streak at the Las Vegas poker tables.  Moore and Sullivan (1978, p.47) give an upper average rate of "only a little more" than 0.1 mm/year [10 centimeters per thousand years].  Stalagmites grow at a similar rate.  Areas with a lot of overgrowth and tropical temperatures would have the higher rates.  Thus, a 60-foot giant, as ight be found in Carlsbad Caverns, would have a minimum estimated age of about 180,000 years.

Fornaca and Rinaldi (1968) used the Th-230/Th-232 ratio method to date an old stalagmite, probably in Europe, and got an age of 180,000 years for its formation.  That stalagmite had stopped growing 90,000 years ago, as indicated by the radiometric dating method, so its true age is 270,000 years.  A flowstone in the famous Romanelli cave of Apulia was dated at 40,000 years.  Thus, an extrapolation of the observed rates of stalactite formation and the radiometric dating method using thorium put us in the same ball park for large cave formations.  Dr. Hovind's figure of 4400 years for the oldest stalactites is much too modest!

As it turns out, a careful study of the ratios of Oxygen-18 and Oxygen-16 allows us to estimate the temperature at the time a particular layer was added to a stalactite or stalagmite.  Studies of this type have built up an interesting picture:

As we go to press, research is very active in this field. In the latest results, speleothems indicate that the average surface temperature in mid-latitude cave regions reached a peak 3 degrees C above the present about 8000 years ago, that it was as much as 10 degrees C colder than at present from 15,000 to 80,000 years ago, warmer than now from 80,000 to 120,000 years ago, colder from 120,000 to 170,000 years ago, warmer from 170,000 to 200,000 years ago, and colder for an undetermined period before that. (Moore and Sullivan, 1978, p.65)

What we have here is a remarkable record of the last three advances of the present Ice Age!  The warm period of 80,000-120,000 years is centered on the Last Interglacial (Ipswichian) interlude; the warm period of 170,000-200,000 years ago takes in the Penultimate Interglaciation (Hoxnian) interlude.  The cold period of 15,000-80,000 years starts near the known beginning of the last ice advance, which corresponds to our Main Wisconsinan glaciation.  Is that just a coincidence?  This data is also beautifully reflected in the study of foraminifera in deep-sea cores (Strahler, 1987, p.252).  Another coincidence?

Dr. Hovind claims that there was only one glacial episode which began after the earth had a collision with an ice-packed comet.  Overlooking the numerous impossibilities involved in that scenario, we might ask if there is any real evidence for more than one glacial advance.  The answer is a resounding "Yes!"

But as the study of the glacial deposits was carried westward into Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa, two distinct sheets of drift were found at many places to be separated by old soil, beds of peat, or layers of till that had been leached and decayed (Fig. 18-10) [not available]. Here the uppermost drift, like that in New England, appeared fresh, but the buried drift sheet showed the effect of chemical decay and was obviously much the older. Moreover, in places, the soil and peat, or gravels, between two such sheets of till included fossil wood, leaves, or bones, recording the existence of animals and plants of temperate climate. Thus it came to be ealized, about 1870, that a continental ice sheet had developed more than once, and that warm interglacial ages had intervened. (Dunbar & Waage, 1969, pp.434-435)

In time it was found that there were several major advances of the present Ice Age, and that major fluctuations within these advances had occurred.  The following table lists the approximate times of the glaciations in North America during the last two million years.  These periods match a study of ocean-water temperatures interpreted from data of foraminifera in deep-sea cores (Strahler, 1987, p.252).

       Table of Glaciation Episodes for North America

           AGE             TEMPERATURE            EPISODE

            0 -    15,000       warm           Postglacial
   15,000 -   80,000        cold           Main Wisconsinan glaciation
   80,000 -   120,000       warm
  120,000 -   170,000       cold           Early Wisconsinan glaciation
  170,000 -   200,000       warm           Sangamonian interglaciation
  200,000 -   250,000       cool
  250,000 -   270,000       warm
  270,000 -   320,000       cool
  320,000 -   360,000       warm
  360,000 -   540,000       cold           Illinoian glaciation
  540,000 -   850,000       cool           Yarmouthian interglaciation
  850,000 -   880,000       warm
  880,000 -   900,000       cold
  900,000 - 1,390,000       cold           Kansan glaciation
1,390,000 - 1,450,000       warm           Aftonian interglaciation
1,450,000 - 1,500,000       cool
1,500,000 - 1,530,000       warm
1,530,000 - 1,580,000       cool
1,580,000 - 1,630,000       warm
1,630,000 - 1,670,000       cool
1,670,000 - 1,715,000       warm
1,715,000 - 2,000,000       cold           Nebraskan glaciation

(Based on D. B. Ericson and G. Wollin, 1968, Science, vol.162, p.233)

As you can see, various evidences for an old Earth tie together.  From a study of oxygen isotopes in stalactites we wound up with the last few periods of glacial advance.  Studies of the foraminifera of deep-sea cores supported the findings gleaned from the stalactites.  The study of foraminifera also supplied information to flesh out the periods of the last three major glacial episodes.  That there is more than one major glacial episode is, in turn, supported by the remains of temperate forests and animal fossils found between some of the sheets of drift, the bottom sheet showing a sharp increase in age as indicated by chemical weathering and other observations.

We can forget about Dr. Hovind's snowball theory of the Ice Age.  It can't begin to account for real life data.

References

 

Young-earth "proof" #23: The Sahara desert is expanding; it can only be a few thousand years old.

23.  Bingo! Dr. Hovind got one right!  The present Sahara Desert really is only a few thousand years old.  About 7 or 8 thousand years ago the area underwent a pronounced wet phase and portions of it were habitable parkland where cattle could be grazed (The Times Atlas of World History, 1978).  More than 10,000 years ago, during the last glaciation, lakes and streams were present in the Sahara, and elephants, giraffes, and other animals roamed the grasslands and forests which covered much of the region.  Not long ago, radar techniques discovered a fossil river which once flowed across the Sahara; the river bed is now buried beneath the desert sands.  By the way, what does any of this have to do with the age of the earth?

References

 

Young-earth "proof" #24: Given the rate of salt influx to the oceans, they should be much saltier than they are if the earth were billions of years old.

24.  Wrong! Dr. Hovind is assuming that salt cannot be removed from the oceans.  The more sophisticated creationists, such as Melvin Cook, know better than to use such an argument.  Here's what Cook had to say:

The validity of the application of total salt in the ocean in the determination of age turned out to have a very simple answer in the fact shown by Goldschmidt (1954) that it is in steady state and therefore useless as a means of determining the age of the oceans. [Cook, 1966, p.73] (Dalrymple, 1984, pp.115-116)

References

 

Young-earth "proof" #25: The current population of Earth (5.5 billion) could easily be generated from  8 people in less than 4000 years.  If the earth were really billions of years old, the human population would have gone through the roof!

25.  Yes, and by the same reasoning 8 germs could populate every cubic inch of available living space on Earth with 1 million germs in less than a week!  That is, after 158 generations, assuming a generous die-off rate such that the fourth generation has about 40 germs instead of 128, and assuming that the population divides every hour, each and every cubic inch of living space on the earth, from 100 feet below ground to a mile above, would have 1 million germs by that time.  I guess, by creationist reckoning, the earth must be a week old!  If it were a few thousand years old, the germ population would have gone through the roof!

Yes, given unlimited living space, a good deal of luck in the early stages, protection from mass destruction by disease or other disasters, and a high motivation of purpose throughout, eight people could probably populate the earth in a few thousand years.  Eight germs could do it in less than a week.  Eight bunny rabbits would fall somewhere in between.  Eight cats would give us yet another figure.  What do any of these figures have to do with the age of the earth?  Nothing!  What do these figures have to do with actual growth rates?  Asolutely nothing!

The human exponential growth rate of the last few hundred years is possible only because of technology.  When our ability to stay one jump ahead of starvation and disease fails, when our resources give out, then you'll see a dramatic change in that growth rate!  It will no longer be exponential.  It will be disasterous!

When man lived in scattered tribal groups, which is what he did for 99% of his history, the net human population growth was zero most of the time, just as it is for animals today.  Animal populations may undergo cycles of boom and bust, especially small animals such as rabbits or mice, but their net growth is zero.  No permanent increase in population can be sustained unless it is reflected by a permanent change in the environment.  Such a change might include the loss of a predator due to the colonization of new territory, a permanent increase in the food supply due to climatic change or a change in dietary habits, or a variety of other factors.  In the case of man, the development of agriculture and the use of fossil fuels have played major roles.  After a favorable change in the environment, a population of animals (or people) may record a permanent jump before leveling off at a zero net growth again.  Thus, the growth rate, before technology intervened in a major way, necessarily involved a series of plateaus where the population was in approximate equilibrium with the environment.  Indeed, many tribal groups probably died out.  There was no assurance that early man would even survive.  Jumps between plateau levels would likely have been exponential.  Indeed, the exponential growth rate of the last 300 years or so can be thought of as one long jump to a new plateau which has been raised artificially high by technology.

Those who imagine that eight people gave rise to all living today according to a simple exponential growth curve have demonstrated an inability to think things through.  Let's look at the equation involved in these growth rate calculations.

P(n) = P(1 + r)n

P(n) is the population generated after n years.  (With the proper adjustment of r, n could be months or generations, etc.  For our purposes, years will do nicely and r will be adjusted accordingly.)   P is the initial population which, in our case, is eight.  The growth rate is r which would be close to zero for humanity per year.  A negative value would indicate a population decline.  Henry Morris used a value for r of 0.0033 [0.33%] in a similar calculation which started with Adam and Eve.  However, since the flood supposedly reduced the population to eight people 1656 years after creation, a figure Dr. Hovind gives based on patriarchal ages, we should start our exponential curve at the latter date.  If we assume, for the sake of this argument, that the earth is 6000 years old, then we start our calculation with 8 people 4344 years ago.  We must wind up with the present population of 5.5 billion people, the figure given by Dr. Hovind.

It turns out that if r = 0.0047 then after 4344 years we would wind up with about 5.6 billion people, which is close enough.  After substituting the values for P and r into the above equation we are at liberty to try out different values for n to obtain the population at different times.  At the time the Israelites entered Canaan, we get a world population of 2024!  By the time you divide that up between Egypt, Canaan, the rest of the world, and Israel, that leaves maybe 6 or 7 people for the Israeli army!  If we go back to the time that the Hykos were expelled from Egypt, in 1560 BC, we get a world population of 325 people!

We can't calculate the population at the time the Great Pyramid of Cheops was built, around 2500 BC, because it was supposedly washed away by Noah's flood!!  Being an antediluvian structure, many people might have been available to work on it.  Odd, that the Great Pyramid of Cheops shows no water marks.  Stranger still, that the Egyptians should be unaware of Noah's flood!  I would think that Noah's flood, coming a mere century or thereabouts after the Great Pyramid of Cheops was built, would have found a prominent place in the Egyptian annuals.

As you can see, an exponential growth curve leads to absurdity when we assume that 8 people generated today's population.  Creationists, of course, could jack the r value way up at the start, jack it way down in the middle, and jack it up again for modern times, but the ad hoc nature of such an argument becomes a little too obvious.  Regarding the foolishness of this whole enterprise, Dr. Alan Hayward had this to say:

Nobody who has ever studied the population explosion would make such an unwise extrapolation. It is well known that growth rates have increased enormously in recent centuries. Population expert Paul Ehrlich gives world average yearly growth rates of 0.9 per cent between 1850 and 1930, 0.3 per cent between 1650 and 1850, and a mere 0.07 per cent in the thousand years prior to 1650.  And in the fourteenth century the population increase must have been very small indeed, and it may even have been turned into a big decrease, because of the Black Death. Ehrlich's figures are not just guesses; they are based on historical records. These facts show how misguided it is to extrapolate present
population trends into the remote past. (Hayward, 1985, p.136)

The Times Atlas of World History (1978) estimated that the world population increased 16 times between 8000 BC and 4000 BC.  That yields a growth rate (r = 0.069%) which is almost identical to the figure quoted above by Hayward for ancient times.

Try plugging in some real data!  It does make a difference.  If we assume a growth rate of 0.07% before 1650 (a rate already a bit high because of agriculture), a growth rate of 0.3% between 1650 and 1850, a growth rate of 0.9% between 1850 and 1930, and a growth rate of 2.0% between 1930 and 1994 you will find that Noah and his crew are the ancestors of a whopping 1740 people today!

On that note, I think we can move on to the next point.

References

 

Young-earth "proof" #26: The oldest coral reef is about 4200 years old .

26.  What does the age of a coral reef have to do with the age of the earth?  If, in fact, the oldest coral reef is 4200 years old, so what?  During the Arkansas trial of Act 590 in 1981 the subject of coral growth came up:

Roth, [who was] not a member of the CRS [Creation Research Society], was presented as an expert on coral reefs whose thesis is that corals grow very rapidly and do not need millions of years to form massive reefs. He testified for 70 minutes, but the cross-examination was brief.

Q: "What is the last sentence of your article on the growth of coral reefs?"

A: "...this does not establish rapid growth of coral development."

Q: "Is there any evidence that coral reefs were created in recent times?"

A: "No."

Q: "No further questions."

(Berra, 1990, pp.134-135)

I suspect that the super-rapid growth of corals is as much a part of creationist mythology as is the super-rapid growth rate of humanity in ancient times or the super-rapid growth of stalagmites.  You have above an admission from someone who was handpicked by creationists as an expert on super-rapid coral growth.  And, what did he say?  He said that his work did not establish the super-rapid growth of coral.  I doubt that things have changed that much since 1981.  Here are a few facts on coral growth:

Under the best of circumstances ... individual corals can grow no faster than 0.5 - 1.0 inch per year. The coral reefs, formed from the breaking up and cementation of coral sand, grow much more slowly--perhaps less than a tenth as fast.

Weber reports [op. cit., pp. 29-31] that H.S. Ladd has drilled bore holes through the coral cap that crowns the volcano underlying Eniwetok atoll, in order to measure the thickness of coral that has grown there since the lava cone began to sink beneath the sea. At one point, Ladd had to drill 1380 meters (almost nine-tenths of a mile!) before reaching the lava lip of the volcano. It is inconceivable that that much reef could have formed in less than 130,000 years, let alone during the few dozen centuries since Noah's flood (2348 B.C.). (Zindler, 1989, pp.20-21)

We're talking about a coral reef 54,330 inches thick!  By creationist reckoning, that reef had to have formed after the flood.  A flood that has reworked the surface of the earth, literally digging up miles of sediment, would certainly have destroyed any antediluvian reefs.  Indeed, one wonders how the coral organisms even survived!  Since the Eniwetok coral reef was neither destroyed by Noah's flood nor covered with a thick layer of sedimentary rock, we may safely assume that, according to the creationist scenario, it grew after the flood.

Even if we ignore the time it took for the volcano beneath Eniwetok to form and generously use the higher rate of individual coral growth under optimum conditions, we wind up with 54,000 years for that reef to form!  Thus, we have plain evidence that at least one reef was much, much older than 4200 years or so.

Here are some more facts on coral growth:

Hoffmeister made careful observations on the growth rate of the most dominant reef-building coral in the Florida-Bahama area, Montastrea annularis, by marking many specimens in their under-water habitats, and then observing and measuring them over a period of years.  ... The fastest growth rate of these corals which Hoffmeister and his associates found was 10.7 millimeters (about two-fifths of an inch) per year in height.  This would produce one foot of coral rock in 28.5 years if its growth were not interrupted or slowed down.  However, there are numerous influences which directly interfere with the growth processes of the coral animals.  Some of these factors as observed by A. G. Mayor during a four-year Carnegie expedition to the Samoan Islands were:

(a) silt and mud washing over and smothering coral colonies,
(b) high temperatures due to hot sun during low tides,
(c) drenching tropical rains which not only smothered and killed many coral colonies by the resulting mud, but  diluted the sea water to such a low salt content that the coral polyps could no longer live in it.

(Wonderly, 1977, p.28)

In Samoa, where we find the fastest coral grow rates known anywhere, some thin, branchy types of coral may actually grow 5 inches in a year.  Obviously, the thin, branchy types of coral will have the faster growth rates by far in that their energy is not dissipated in bulk.If one measures the rate of growth of the tips of these branches he will find it to be up to about 100 mm. (about 4 inches) per year in the Florida-Bahama region [Shinn, 1966], and up to 125 mm. per year in Samoa [Mayor, 1924]. This is the fastest growing genus of the reef-forming corals; however, it must be remembered that the open nature of the colony (somewhat like the branches of a tree) prevents this coral from making anything like 100 mm. of solid buildup of reef per year.  Wave action and other forces wear and break the branches, whereupon they fall to the base to add their volume to the reef mass. (Wonderly, 1977, p.31)

Thus, we see that the growth of a coral is often interrupted.  Therefore, just as it is true for stalactites (see #22), the maximum rate of coral growth over short intervals of time will greatly exceed the average rate.  The average rate, itself, will be much greater than the reef-building rate which involves the breaking up and consolidation of the more delicate and faster growing corals in addition to erosion and other factors.

Consequently, creationists who quote individual rates for fast-growing corals as an estimate for reef-building times are being less than honest.

Mayor found the average growth in height of healthy colonies of corals of the massive type, belonging to Genus Porites, to be 17 mm. [2/3 inch] per year.  He also found this kind of coral to be one of the most effective reef-building types in Samoa.  Since coral skeletons of this massive type are not readily broken up by wave action, Mayor estimates that "a reef-wall composed of massive Porites might attain a thickness of 55 feet in 1000 years, while a reef composed of branching Porites might grow upward at least 25 feet in the same period of time." [Mayor, 1924, pp.60-61]  (This is of course assuming that the ocean level and other environmental conditions would remain favorable for the entire period.) (Wonderly, 1977, p.31)

Since a reef could scarcely grow much faster than its main coral component, we can appreciate that the 1 inch per year rate given by Zindler (above) is really quite generous.  Just how generous it is remains yet to be seen.

As a swimmer passes over a submerged reef, he sees numerous clumps (colonies) of coral growing on the surface of the reef.  These colonies have their own growth rates, as explained in the previous section, but most of them are destined to be drastically changed before they make their final contribution to the reef height.  Boring and encrusting organisms frequently stop the growth of the colony or of a part of it.  Eventually the entire colony may be broken loose by wave action and rolled down the side of the reef to a lower level.

In addition to this sort of delay in reef growth, complete stoppages occur.  Each stoppage of the reef's growth leaves its mark in what is called an "unconformity" in the substance of the reef mass.  Unconformities are thus caused by major disturbing factors such as a drastic change in sea level (13), the development of muddy or other unfavorable environmental conditions in the water of the area, and volcanic eruption.  In many such cases, the fossil remains which are found on the unconforming surface in the reef mass are abruptly different from those above.  At least one such unconformity was observed by Hoffmeister and his associates when they made core drillings into the reefs in the Florida Keys [Hoffmeister, 1964, p.356]; and many such unconformities were observed in the (far deeper) drillings made in the Marshall Islands by the U. S. Geological Survey.

Thus it is seen that it would be absurd to think that the length of time which was required for the formation of a large reef could be calculated by merely dividing the depth of the reef by the average growth rate of healthy coral colonies.  The upward growth of the reef is always much slower than the growth of the colonies.  In fact, this phenomenon is self-evident in the observation that most of the numerous coral reef-flats in the Pacific which have been studied during the past 75 or more years are wearing down at about the same rate that they are being built up [Mayor, 1924, p.65].  Of course we are not saying that no material is ermanently added to the entire reef-flat each year, but rather, that the leveling forces spread the deposited skeletal matter out over a wider area, broadening the entire reef as time progresses. (Wonderly, 1977, pp.31-32)

Note that Eniwetok is one of those sites deeply drilled in the Marshall Islands.  Thus, our estimate of its age is much too small because we haven't allotted any time for the identified instances of total stoppage of coral growth.

Another factor which we have overlooked is that coral can't grow above low tide as it would dry out and overheat in the tropical sun. Consequently, once a reef has reached that height it cannot go any further unless the ocean level rises or the sea floor sinks.  How long a reef, already at the maximum height, might have to wait for such a "green light" is anybody's guess.  There could be thousands of years of delay before a reef added a few more feet to its height!

A few scientific estimates have been made for short term reef growth.  Long term reef growth, of course, would have a much smaller rate.  The longer the time period involved, the less likely that ideal conditions will prevail.  It's like gambling in Las Vegas.  It's easy enough to win a couple of hands back to back in a card game, but you can be sure that such a favorable win rate won't hold up for long as the law of averages will take its toll.

There have been at least two very careful calculations made, of the total amount of coral skeletal material added per year to a given surface of reef, in areas where normal growth is going on.  It is significant that none of the research on growth of corals which we are citing was carried out for the purpose of demonstrating that the reefs are of great age.  These research projects were done with a view to showing the rate at which corals can be expected to build up barrier reefs which are of value in protecting harbors.

Mayor made a very careful series of observations to determine the amount of actual mineral (skeletal matter) which was being secreted and deposited per square yard on one of the typical, normally growing reef-flats.  An extended period of observation and measurements made during the Carnegie expeditions of 1917 to 1920, to the Samoan Islands, under Mayor's supervision, revealed that the total thickness added to the reef flat per year was approximately 8 millimeters [less than 1/3 inch].

At this point let us compare the upward growth we have cited, with the total depth of the thickest known coral reefs--the atolls in the Marshall Islands.  During the drillings which were made into these islands, the thickest coral reef deposit found was that of Eniwetok atoll, where one drilling, as stated above, had to go through 4,610 feet of reef deposit before striking the volcanic rock (basalt) base.  Another drilling nearby extended through reef deposit for 4,158 feet before reaching the volcanic base [Ladd, 1960, p.863ff].  It is of course true that no one is able to determine the exact length of time which was required for growing such an extensive reef, but it is obvious that it was a very long process.  If we divide the thickness of the Eniwetok reef by Mayor's 8 mm. of deposit per year, we arrive at 176,000 years of continuous growth required for the laying down of this much thickness.  However, this would be a false picture, because of the many factors which retard the build-up of the reef, as discussed above.  Thus the total length of time required for forming the 4,610 foot reef deposit of Eniwetok was undoubtedly many times the 176,000 years (18).(Wonderly, 1977, pp.32-33)

In his last footnote, Wonderly informs us that geologists have placed the earliest deposits at Eniwetok within the Eocene Epoch.  That means that the true age of the reef is somewhere around 40 million years, roughly speaking!

Wonderly goes on to explain in detail (1977, pp.33-34) why it is naive to imagine that corals grew at tremendously faster rates in ancient times.  I'll leave it to the reader to investigate that point should it be of interest to him or her.

For the dull of mind, who haven't yet grasped the great age of the Eniwetok atoll, we could present even more facts.  Wonderly devotes four lovely pages to describing the details of the cores taken from Eniwetok Atoll, and even that can't do justice to the whole story.  The details are fascinating and reek of old age.  For example, at one time the coral reef was above water for such a long time that trees grew on it!  How long that went on is anybody's guess.  Unfortunately, we have to move on.  I'll leave you with a final quote from Wonderly who, by the way, is a devout Christian as well as a competent geologist.  He undertook this work because he felt that "scientific" creationism, by associating the Bible with their ridiculous arguments for a young earth, were making the Bible a target for ridicule.

Thus a reasonably good reconstruction of the history of the Eniwetok atoll has been made, by taking note of the rock and sediment types, the many kinds of marine fossils, the distinct unconformities, and the kinds of pollen and other remains of terrestrial life.  All of these tell us that the reef has had a long and varied history, with numerous major interruptions in its development.(Wonderly, 1977, p.36)

So much for Dr. Hovind's 4200-year limit on the oldest reefs!

References

 

Young-earth "proof" #27: The oldest tree in the world is 4300 years old .

27.  What does the age of a tree have to do with the age of the earth?  If, in fact, the oldest tree is 4300 years old, so what?  Perhaps Dr. Hovind is impressed by the fact that such a tree would have sprouted at about the time Noah's flood ended.  If so, then it holds a false hope for him.

It might interest you to know that trees go back at least 8000 years without being disturbed by Noah's flood!  Dr. Charles Ferguson of the University of Arizona has, by matching up overlapping tree rings of living and dead bristlecone pines, carefully built a tree ring sequence going back to 6273 BC (Popular Science, November 1979, p.76).  It turns out that such things as rainfall, floods, glacial activity, atmospheric pressure, volcanic activity, and even variations in nearby stream flows show up in the rings.  We could add to that list such items as disease and excessive activity by pests.

Different locations on the mountain would also affect tree growth in that factors such as temperature, moisture, soil thickness, soil type, susceptibility to fire, susceptibility to wind, and the amount of sunlight received vary, sometimes dramatically.  For example, a tree growing near a stream would be less susceptible to the effects of drought.  Even the genetic inheritance of a tree plays a role in that it will magnify or retard the above factors.  Thus, even the trees on the same mountain, of the same species, don't always cross-date as nicely as one might think.

Creationists sometimes seize upon such facts in a desperate effort to discredit tree-ring dating.  They ignore the fact that a careful statistical study can overcome such obstacles.

Creationists will even quote statistics for species of trees which no dendrochronologist would ever think of using!  Some species of trees are not sensitive enough to the year-to-year climatic changes while others sport such an irregular growth rate as to be worthless for precise tree-ring dating.  We get horror stories from creationists about how easy it is for a tree to produce two or more rings in one year.  They neglect to inform their readers that such problems are minimal for some species of trees.  Dr. Andrew E. Douglass, who pioneered the field of dendrochronology, found that ponderosa pine and douglass fir are especially excellent for dating purposes.  In such species spotting a double ring was "...easy to do by eye after a very little training..." (American Scientist, May-June 1982).

In the case of the bristlecone pine, the problem of double rings is hardly any problem at all!

The dendrochronological check on radiocarbon dating is not without its own problems, the main one being that some species of trees may, under certain climatic conditions such as late frost, produce more than one ring per year [Glock and Agerter, 1963].  Fortunately, however, this has been "extremely rare" in the carefully checked history of bristlecone pines [Ferguson, 1968, p.840].  (Bailey, 1989, p.101)

Dr. Charles Ferguson goes on to say that the growth-ring analysis of about 1000 bristlecone pine trees in the White Mountains, where these tree-ring studies are done, turned up no more than three or four cases where there was even a trace of extra rings.  In fact, the case for partially or totally missing rings is much more impressive.  A typical bristlecone pine has up to 5 percent of its rings missing (Weber, 1982, p.25).  Thus, if anything, one is likely to get a date that is too young!  A careful statistical study, of course, minimizes even that problem.  That's why statistics were invented!

Other species of trees corroborate the work that Ferguson did with bristlecone pines. Before his work, the tree-ring sequence of the sequoias had been worked out back to 1250 BC. The archaeological ring sequence had been worked out back to 59 BC. The lumber pine sequence had been worked out back to 25 BC. The radiocarbon dates and tree-ring dates of these other trees agree with those Ferguson got from the bristlecone pine. (Weber, 1982, p.26)

The great Sierra redwoods have a different tree-ring pattern than does the bristlecone pine, and the other two cases mentioned by Weber probably have yet another pattern.  Thus, because of the completely different environments in which these trees live, their tree-ring patterns do not directly correlate with each other.  However, as Weber notes, the carbon-14 dating method bridges these differences.  In other words, a specific carbon-14 date, say 200 AD, corresponds to the same tree-ring date in each of the above species.  Actually, carbon-14 dating is not that precise, so it really corresponds to a small range of tree-ring dates.  Thus, we not only have a partial check on the carbon-14 dating, but we have additional proof of the accuracy of tree-ring dating.  We have several species whose counts agree with each other.

Our confidence in tree-ring dating is, therefore, established beyond any reasonable doubt.  Dr. Hovind must now explain how it is that groves of trees were living in the White Mountains before Noah's flood!  Did all the bristlecone antediluvian pines just happen to collect in the White Mountains after the flood, perhaps to miraculously take root?  Even that straw is fatally flawed.  A new generation of bristlecone pines, starting from scratch as it were, would have no overlapping tree-rings with respect to their antediluvian cousins.  Overlapping tree-rings means a shared environment, and any tree which has grown in both the antediluvian environment and the modern environment is a tree which has survived Noah's flood.

How a tree which supposedly lived in a tropical, lowland environment survived being dumped into a high altitude subject to extremes of temperature, harsh winds, and desert-like conditions for part of the year, and that after being churned about in a flood for a year--a flood which was violent enough to rip up the earth's crust and pulverize great rocks, a flood which was packed with grinding sediments, is something best explained by creationists.  While at it, they might also explain why there is no dramatic difference between the antediluvian tree-ring pattern, supposedly grown under lush, tropical conditions, and the present day tree-ring pattern which reflects a harsh environment.  One would expect to see a dramatic change between big, fat tree-rings and thin, hard ones upon crossing that boundary in the tree-ring sequence!

Nor are the bristlecone pines the only plants to survive Noah's flood!

The King Clone creosote bush, today a patch of shrubbery 70 by 25 feet in the Mojave Desert about 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles, goes back 11,700 years!  (This item comes from The Washington Post, December 10, 1984 and was noted in the Creation/Evolution Newsletter of November-December, 1984.)  The evergreen shrub is called a creosote bush because it has a pungent odor like that of creosote, an oily liquid produced from coal tar.

Frank C. Vasek, a botany professor at the Riverside campus of the University of California, who found the bush, has determined that the patch of shrubbery originally began as a single plant sprouting from one seed.  As the plant grew outward the interior portions died out, thus leaving a huge ring with each clump becoming a clone of the first growth.  I guess Noah's flood didn't bother this desert shrub any!  Did I say "desert shrub?"  What is a desert doing in the supposedly tropical antediluvian world?

References

Young-earth "proof" #28: The oldest historical records go back less than 6000 years .

28.  What does the age of the oldest known historical records have to do with the age of the earth?  If, in fact, they go back 6000 years, what of it?

Records couldn't be kept until writing was invented.  Of course, we do have cave art which goes back 20,000-30,000 years, but I guess that doesn't count.

As long as man lived a hunting-and-gathering life there really wasn't any need for dissertations and record-keeping.  The invention of agriculture, of course, eventually concentrated humanity into centers which, in turn, gave rise to cities ruled by kings, and the state collected taxes.  Bureaucrats have a great need for records!  Trading between organized states also presented a need for records. As a result, the art of writing evolved.  People eventually discovered that writing was good for other things, and written accounts of mythology and the affairs of state developed.

Consequently, historical records entered the scene quite late in man's existence.  How Dr. Hovind gets a young-earth out of that is beyond me!

References

Young-earth "proof" #29: The dates in the Bible add up to about 6000 years.

29.  The biblical figure, unfortunately, is based on patriarchal life spans to which no right-thinking person could subscribe.  You have to be pretty deep into biblical infallibility before you can make yourself believe that individuals once lived upwards of 900 years!  Claims about the magical effects of vapor canopies and tropical living don't impress anyone who has the slightest understanding of the aging process.

More to the point, the patriarchal ages are nothing more than a modified version of an old Babylonian myth!

The Ages of the Patriarches ... are the modest Hebrew equivalents of the much longer life-spans attributed by the Babylonians to their antediluvian kings. The first five names will suffice as examples: Alulim reigned 28,800 years, Alamar 36,000, Enmenluanna 43,200, Enmenluanna 28,800, Dumuzi the Shepherd 36,000, etc. These Babylonian lists, a version of which is recorded also by Berosus, have one feature in common with the Biblical list of patriarches: they both attribute extremely long life-spans to the earliest figures, then shorter, but still unrealistically long, lives to the later ones, until the historical period is reached when both kings and patriarches are cut down to human size. In the ancient Near East, where longevity was considered man's greatest blessing, the quasi-divine character of early mythical kings and patriarches is indicated by a ten-fold, hundred-fold or thousand-fold multiplication of their reigns or ages . (Graves and Patai, 1989, pp.132-133)

The source Lloyd Bailey uses (Text W-B 62, Sumerian King List) yields even higher ages for some of the pre-diluvian kings of Mesopotamia (Bailey, 1989, p.123).  It is interesting to note that Genesis has the same number of antediluvian kings, namely ten.  Bailey spends several pages examining the figures of Genesis and of the above text, often turning up interesting subtleties and odd relationships which expose the artificiality of the biblical patriarches' ages.

Thus, we see the true source of the great ages of those biblical patriarches.  Their ages are simply a Hebrew version of an older Mesopotamian tradition, which is to say that they are historically fictitious, that they are endowed with symbolic meanings.

Therefore, the biblical age of the earth is a product of the literary reworking of a Mesopotamian tradition and not the result of a factual estimate.  The patriarches' ages were selected with symbolic meanings in mind, and any attempt to turn them into an estimate of the earth's age would be most unwise.

References

 

Young-earth "proof" #30: Many ancient cultures have stories of an original creation in the recent past.  This is because the earth really is young.

30.  Many cultures start their creation stories in the mist of time with no specific date affixed.  Some of the eastern religions specify a creation date much older than 6000 years.  Other cultures, I suspect, use or had used a more recent date.  Thus, we have a spread of dates, to the extent that a date can be applied.

No people, of course, are going to have memories of the hundreds of thousands of years that Homo sapiens has been on this planet!  A natural mistake for an ancient would have been the assumption that his tribe or city-state began its ascent shortly after the world began.  Thus, most creation accounts, if they give a specific date, will likely favor a recent creation.

We have no proof for a young earth here!

References

CONTINUE