Biblical Creationism is Incorrect

It is agreed on all sides that there are only two possible solutions to the riddle of origins. Either Someone made the world, or the world made itself. A third option, the world is eternal and without origin, contradicts Natural Laws such as Thermodynamics and has been disproved with mathematical certainty in the 20th century. As the universe is obviously complex and seemingly well-designed, a Designer should be the scientific default. In everything we observe today, concept and design are the result of a Mind. Furthermore, Natural Laws such as Gravity, Inverse Squares, Cause and Effect, and Thermodynamics imply a Law-giver. Unless a natural mechanism constrained by Natural Law, by which the entire universe could come into existence and further develop through random process, is found, a Creator must be the theoretical default. It doesn't matter whether an individual scientist has difficulty accepting it or not. As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle so eloquently stated in his Sherlock Holmes series, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." Time Constraints. Both Creationists and Evolutionists agree that if evolution is at all possible, there needs to be an excessive (if not infinite) amount of time. For much of the 20th century, it was thought evolutionists had all the time they needed. If the earth ever looked too young for certain evolutionary developments to have occurred, the age was pushed back in the textbooks. In 1905, the earth was declared to be two billion years old. By 1970, the earth was determined to be 3.5 billion years old, and by the 1990's, the earth had become 4.6 billion years old. However, Young Earth advocates have identified quite a few Young Earth chronometers in recent years. Currently, there are approximately five times more natural chronometers indicating a "Young Earth" than an "Old Earth." Each discovery is a separate "Limiting Factor" that places a constraint on the possible age of the earth. For example, moon drift, earth rotation speed, magnetic field decay, erosion rates, chemical influx into the oceans, ocean salinity, etc, all constrain the possible age of the earth. Each Limiting Factor is distinct. If one were successfully challenged, there is still the problem of all the rest. Furthermore, there are Limiting Factors constraining the possible age of the universe, such as spiral galaxies where they're maintaining their spiral shapes despite their centers spinning faster than their extremities. Age of the Earth: Limiting Factors The answer to the Age of the Earth question is found in "Limiting Factors." While it may be impossible to be certain when the Earth formed, we may determine when the Earth did not form. Limiting Factors are best explained with this illustration: A boat sinks. On board is a chest full of gold coins. As time passes, the wreck is forgotten. Centuries later, the boat is discovered, and the chest full of coins is recovered. How can we determine when the boat sank? We may not be able to pinpoint the date, but we are able to determine when it did not sink by looking at the dates on the coins. If a coin is marked with 1756, we know the boat did not sink in 1755 or 1730 or 1610, etc. It must have sunk after the coin was minted. The coin is a "Limiting Factor." Age of the Earth: Factors Pointing to a Young Earth There are many Limiting Factors limiting the possible Age of the Earth. Here are a few: Magnetic Field. The Earth's magnetic field is essential to life on Earth for many reasons. One reason is that it deflects much of the cosmic radiation that destroys life. Precise measurements of the Earth's magnetic field have been made since 1829, all over the world. During that time, it has deteriorated exponentially -- that is, it has followed a predictable curve. By graphing this curve, we extrapolate that life would have been impossible before 20,000 BC (the field would be as strong as the Sun's at that point) and will cease to exist after 10,000 AD (there will be, for all practical purposes, no field left, and the Earth will be fried by cosmic radiation). Earth Rotation. The Earth's spin is slowing down. We experience a "leap second" every year and a half. If it is slowing down, at one time it was going much faster. A faster spin would create a stronger Coriolis Effect, and life would be impossible as we know it. Moon Drift. The moon is drifting slowly away from the Earth. If it is getting further away, then at one time it was much closer. The Inverse Square Law in physics states that if the moon was half the distance away, its gravitational effect on our tides would be quadrupled. One third the distance and it would be 9 times stronger. We would all drown twice a day. 1.2 billion (1,200 million) years ago, the moon would have been touching the Earth. Age of the Earth: Young is Not Unreasonable There are a number of additional Limiting Factors regarding the Age of the Earth that scientists are discovering on a more and more frequent basis. Interestingly, they all seem to indicate a Young Earth, or certainly, not one that is millions or billions of years old. Contrary to the general thinking of the last century, many scientists now accept that it is reasonable to view the Earth as fairly young. Radiometric Dating - A Brief Explanation Radiometric dating is the primary dating scheme employed by scientists to determine the age of the earth. Radiometric dating techniques take advantage of the natural decay of radioisotopes. An isotope is one of two or more atoms which have the same number of protons in their nuclei, but a different number of neutrons. Radioisotopes are unstable isotopes: they spontaneously decay (emitting radiation in the process -- thus making them radioactive). They continue to decay going through various transitional states until they finally reach stability. For example, Uranium-238 (U238) is a radioisotope. It will spontaneously decay until it transitions into Lead-206 (Pb206). The numbers 238 and 206 represent these isotopes' atomic mass. The Uranium-238 radioisotope goes through 13 transitional stages before stabilizing into Lead-206 (U238 > Th234 > Pa234 > U234 > Th230 > Ra226 > Rn222 > Po218 > Pb214 > Bi214 > Po214 > Pb210 > Bi210 > Po210 > Pb206). In this instance, Uranium-238 is called the "parent" and Lead-206 is called the "daughter". By measuring how long it takes for an unstable element to decay into a stable element and by measuring how much daughter element has been produced by the parent element within a specimen of rock, scientists believe they are able to determine the age of the rock. This belief is based upon three significant assumptions. Radiometric Dating - The Assumptions Many of the ages derived by radiometric dating techniques are highly publicized. Nevertheless, the fundamental assumptions employed are not. Here are the three major assumptions for your consideration: "The rate of decay remains constant. "There has been no contamination (that is, no daughter or intermediate elements have been introduced or leeched from the specimen of rock). "We can determine how much daughter there was to begin with (if we assume there was no daughter to begin with, yet there was daughter at the formation of the rock, the rock would have a superficial appearance of age). Are these foundational assumptions reasonable? Recent findings seem to indicate that though we ourselves have not been able to vary the decay rates by much in the laboratory, the decay rates may have been accelerated in the unobservable past [1]. If this were the case, the first assumption would be deemed unreasonable. This would completely upset our current standardized view of earth's history. Dr Carl Wieland summarizes the recent findings: "When uranium decays to lead, a by-product of this process is the formation of helium, a very light, inert gas which readily escapes from rock. Certain crystals called zircons, obtained from drilling into very deep granites, contain uranium which has partly decayed into lead. By measuring the amount of uranium and 'radiogenic lead' in these crystals, one can calculate that, if the decay rate has been constant, about 1.5 billion years must have passed. (This is consistent with the geologic 'age' assigned to the granites in which these zircons are found.) There is a significant amount of helium from that '1.5 billion years of decay' still inside the zircons. This is at first glance surprising, because of the ease with which one would expect helium (with its tiny, light, unreactive atoms) to escape from the spaces within the crystal structure. There should hardly be any left, because with such a slow buildup, it should be seeping out continually and not accumulating. Drawing any conclusions from the above depends, of course, on actually measuring the rate at which helium leaks out of zircons. This is what one of the recent RATE [2] papers reports on. The samples were sent" to a world-class expert to measure these rates. The consistent answer: the helium does indeed seep out quickly over a wide range of temperatures. In fact, the results show that because of all the helium still in the zircons, these crystals (and since this is Precambrian basement granite, by implication the whole earth) could not be older than between 4,000 and 14,000 years. In other words, in only a few thousand years, 1.5 billion years' worth (at today's rates) of radioactive decay has taken place. Interestingly, the data has since been refined and updated to give a date of 5680 ( /- 2000) years." (3) Footnotes: 1.D. Russel Humphreys, Steven A. Austin, John R. Baumgardner, Andrew A. Snelling, Helium Diffusion Rates Support Accelerated Nuclear Decay; Article available online at http://www.icr.org.... 2.The "RATE" project stands for, "Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth" 3.Carl Wieland, RATE Group Reveal Exciting