Young Earth Creationism Is Improbable

Before I begin, I would like to clear something up " my opponent has violated the debate structure. Unfortunately, it's hard to factor that into a select winner voting system, so I will discount it. I have enough character space to cover every one of my opponent's arguments, so we'll just consider both sets of arguments in every round. I. The Big Bang My opponent has only provided a source, but has not argued himself against this point at all, or even provided a quote. Thus, it does not address my arguments. But even considering it, it doesn't address the consistent nature of observations with BBT predictions, and only covers the CMBR. Again, the CMBR is only explainable with the BBT, and further, it predicts that the CMBR be isotropic, as it assumes that the radiation is an almost perfect black body spectrum in all directions. [1] II. Age of Stars By quantum mechanics, radioactive decay rates could only change if fundamental constants changed as well, and these constants have been shown to be constant over billions of years to over one part in 20 million. This has been shown experimentally, "The Oklo reactor was the site of a natural nuclear reaction 1,800 million years ago. The fine structure constant affects neutron capture rates, which can be measured from the reactor's products. These measurements show no detectable change in the fine structure constant and neutron capture for almost two billion years. " Measuring decay in stars just involves determining ratios of elements, which has been done for almost 100 hundred years. [2][12] III. The Earth's Indicators Using radioactive methods that go back to a specific date (some can date older objects than others), the different methods are actually remarkably consistent. Consider the Mundrabrilla meteorite. There were four successive dating attempts: 4.50 +/- 0.06 by 4.57 +/- 0.06 by 4.54 +/- 0.04 by 4.50 +/- 0.04 by Using the margins of error, one can reasonably assume that this meteorite is 4.51-4.52 billion years old, which all four data points agree with. Further, this is yet another meteorite that points to the Earth being around 4.5 billion years old. [3] Further, here is a visual representation of several dating methods on one sample: "The ages of the Fen Complex (A,B) are on two separate dikes within the Fen Complex. Not only are their ages similar, but the direction of magnetization in the rocks is also identical and indicates that Oslo, Norway was located at about 30 degrees south at the time. This is an important consideration. In order to refute the ages, ye-creationists must not only explain how three different isotopic systems (with different decay constants and chemical behavior) all gave the same age and the same magnetic direction. It is also not trivial that the magnetic direction in these rocks indicates that Norway has moved northward following the emplacement of these rocks. "[13] As for my other three arguments, my opponent provides no mechanism for why those indicators would change. In fact, "Furthermore, radiometric dating techniques are consistent with other dating techniques, such as dendrochronology, ice core dating, and historical records. " My opponent has to show how all of the methods are inaccurate, and explain why they are consistent. [2] The Mt. Saint Helens argument is actually just an example of creation science at work. He did not properly use the K-Ar method correctly, as it is not designed to determine the ages of materials that young. It can only accurately date materials of at least over a million years old. Therefore, this study is not a valid objection to radioactive dating. [4] My opponent's comment about paganism is irrelevant (and incorrect). IV. Galaxies Wind Themselves Up Too Fast My opponent doesn't give the density wave hypothesis enough credit, but there's an even easier explanation for the observation - dark matter. "One way to speed up the outer planets would be to add more mass to the solar system, between the planets. By the same argument the flat galactic rotation curves seem to suggest that each galaxy is surrounded by significant amounts of dark matter. It has been postulated, and generally accepted, that the dark matter would have to be located in a massive, roughly spherical halo enshrouding each galaxy. " Dark matter is, again, a generally well accepted theory (the only problem is we're not sure what dark matter is exactly). [5] V. Too Few Supernova Remnants This claim is wrong on a number of levels. One, it takes millions of years for stars to go through their life cycle and explode in a supernova. Two, these supernovae remnants are 380 million light years away, meaning they must have occurred at least 380 million years ago, because the speed of light is constant. And three, dark energy (related to dark matter) can explain this. The only explanation for the dim supernova is an acceleration of the expansion of the universe, caused by dark matter. This can explain why they are dimmer, as they would be further away. [6][7][8] VI. Comets Disintegrate Too Quickly Actually, more than 250 objects in the Kuiper Belt have been observed directly; therefore, it alone can be the source of short-term comets. As for the Oort cloud itself, "The Oort cloud has not been observed directly (although Sedna, a planetoid discovered in March 2004, might be in the Oort cloud), but its presence is well supported based on observations of long-period comets. " Finally, if YEC was correct and there was no source of comets, they would all have the same age. However, they don't. [9][10] VII. Not Enough Mud on the Seafloor Once again, the flawed nature of creation science is exposed. The depth of sediment on the ocean floor is not the same everywhere. "The thickness of sediment in the oceans varies, and it is consistent with the age of the ocean floor. The thickness is zero at the mid-Atlantic Ridge, where new ocean crust is forming, and there is about 150 million years' worth of sediment at the continental margins. The average age of the ocean floor is younger than the earth due to subduction at some plate margins and formation of new crust at others. "[11] VIII. Other Points Also, the link he shows me provides 10 more pieces of "evidence" for creation, but I can not possibly even go through two in the amount of space I have left. I would like to respond to the last one, however, that history is "too short". "While neolithic writing is a current research topic, conventional history assumes that the writing process first evolved from economic necessity in the ancient Near East. Writing most likely began as a consequence of political expansion in ancient cultures, which needed reliable means for transmitting information, maintaining financial accounts, keeping historical records, and similar activities. Around the 4th millennium BC, the complexity of trade and administration outgrew the power of memory, and writing became a more dependable method of recording and presenting transactions in a permanent form. " Writing, a very complex system to create, was not needed until that time, and therefore not created. [13][14] However, once again, links themselves are not arguments. Your arguments need to be visible inside the debate. So, I'll just respond to the other points in your link with another link (that last point is not included, so I covered it): . http://www.talkorigins.org... Conclusion All of my opponent's arguments reek of flawed scientific methods, assumptions, and conclusions. He either uses incorrect models in place of more accepted, valid models for scientific questions, or he even makes up scientific "facts" or relies on clearly invalid experiments. Overall, none of my opponent's arguments are evidence for young earth creationism. Sources [1]: . http://en.wikipedia.org... [2]: . http://www.talkorigins.org... [3]: . http://www.talkorigins.org... [4]: . http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au... [5]: . http://astro.berkeley.edu... [6]: . http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu... [7]: . http://www.nasa.gov... [8]: . http://www.eso.org... [9]: . http://www.talkorigins.org... [10]: . http://www.noao.edu... [11]: . http://www.talkorigins.org... [12]: . http://arxiv.org... [13]: . http://gondwanaresearch.com... [14]: . http://en.wikipedia.org...