Young Earth Creationism Is Improbable

My opponent spends a great deal of attention on Big Bang Cosmology. Let's examine the soundness of this model as a mechanism for assigning a date to the age of the universe. Reference is made to the assumption that the physical laws in the universe have to be constant and to the homogeneity of the universe but really, there is a much larger assumption that needs to be justified than either of these first two. That assumption has to do with a constant rate of expansion or uniformitarianism. That is, from the big bang source, it has to be theorized that matter was unfolding at the same rate at the beginning as at all other points in time. But this assumption is non-demonstrable. One might try to argue that the apparent homogeneity of the universe would show a uniform rate of expansion, but symmetry and patterns do not tell us how long it took for those patterns to form. Also, the degree to which the universe is truly homogeneous is highly questionable - "Now if a super cluster can extend half way around the sky, there doesn't seem too much room left to look for homogeneity (Hoyle via Morris & Morris, 208). But Big Bang Cosmology "contradicts at least two basic laws of science: 1. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics states that 'disorder' in a closed system must increase with time; the 'big bang' idea, on the other hand, states that the primeval explosion (which would certainly have been the ultimate in disorder!) has somehow increased the 'order' of the whole universe with time. 2. The Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum states that pure radial motion (in the primeval explosion, all products would move radially outward from its center) cannot give rise to orbital motion; yet planets, stars, and galaxies somehow all managed to start to rotate in vast orbits around different centers throughout the universe" (Ibid., 206). Thus, if tejretics is attempting to argue something like, if the universality of scientific laws and the homogeneity of the universe hold true, then the Big Bang is plausible, then he is certainly not reckoning with universal scientific laws which would discredit Big Bang theory. Perhaps tejretics is being selective as to which laws are universal. Other substantial issues with the big bang include the mathematical impossibility of galaxy-formation and the formation of stars (Sarfati, 93-94). Cosmic background radiation might be an acceptable evidence for the Big Bang except that it is explanatorily impoverished. "Energy density of the microwave background..." is easily accounted for without the extreme means of believing that the "radiation also has a non-primordial astrophysical origin" (Oldershaw via Morris & Morris, 216). The problem with the light nuclei being explainable by the Big Bang is that the evidence proves too much. A particular "baryon-to-photon" ratio must be assumed "ad hoc" in order to make this convincing. By assuming this ratio, the Big Bang could explain any lighter element without really explaining anything (Arp, et al., via Morris & Morris, 217). Next, tejretics thinks that he can pass off a tautology as an argument for evolution under "Evolutionary history of life." P1 makes the fundamental confusion that micro-evolution is not equated with macro-evolution. Darwin himself made this confusion in his famous work on the origin of the species. This is such a basic proposition but natural selection is not creative; it is eliminative. It does not produce a fundamentally different creature that it started with. Under "Universal Genetic Code," the argument does not present anything relevant to the age of the universe or the earth. Likewise, with tejretics argument regarding human-ape genetic similarities. This does not demonstrate anything regarding the age of the universe or earth. Creationists see common genetic material as evidence that apes and humans have a common designer who intelligently utilized the same DNA material to compose baramins. As to "Uranium-lead zircon dating," my opponent cites an article entitled "Uranium-Lead Isotopic Variations in Zircons: A Case Study" which reports the following: "Apparent ages calculated from several minerals in the same host rock commonly have been in significant disagreement. It is to be hope that some of these contradictory "ages" may be reconciled, in part....." That is precisely the problem! That is why Creationists caution old-earth thinkers to use wisdom when trying to arrive at dates from rocks when these same rocks yield so many different results. Exclusion of trace PB cannot be guaranteed in this type of dating. "Faure avoided using whole rock uraniums for dating because he would have difficulty separating the primordial Pb-206 with radiogenic Pb-206. Zircons have been extensively used because Zircons could pick up U but not Pb. This is in fact contradicted by using Pb-204 as a reference" (Chui, 105). Thus, for the foregoing reasons, the old-age view of the universe and earth looks like more of a cobbled-together attempt as justifying a crumbling paradigm rather than a rational way to do science. The evolutionary-ages framework should simply be abandoned. It's not producing good science, but bad rationalizations using questionable evidence, at best. References: Cited in previous round