Young Earth Creationism

Thanks for the response. My opponent cannot provide reasonable evidence to suggest that free will is supernatural, or that it even exists. My opponent also cannot prove that we are the only animal on earth, ever, to have this alleged trait. Both claims are assumptions. When a cat attacks a mirror, it proves a lack of intelligence, not a lack of self awareness. Evolution shows that intelligence evolved slowly over millions of years. This led to the ability to make tools and eventually manipulate our environment. It has nothing at all to do with free will. Free will is an imaginary concept, and my opponent cannot prove otherwise. Intelligence is unquestionably what makes human beings what we are today, not a magical attribute that suddenly allows us to plan for the future. http://www.cerebromente.org.br... Fossil analysis is not primarily guesswork. Fossils are studied sometimes for decades before the full picture can be put together. My opponent claims there is a bias against young earth creationism. This may be true, but for very good reasons. It is not science. It is no surprise that the majority of my opponent's links are to a biased creationist website known as the Institute for Creation Research. http://en.wikipedia.org... Please note this link about ICR and the scientific criticisms of this organization. They operate with a predetermined conclusion, which is not indicative of the scientific method at all. This is the same organization that advocates for teaching creationism as science in schools and cannot be considered an authoritative source. It has already been decided in both court and the scientific community that creationism is not science. It matters not, whether the species is technically called "species", or whether the taxonomy is perfect. The fact of the matter is that for every one fossilized type of creature found, there were thousands to millions of them living on earth. Then you also have to account for the number of undiscovered creatures. A conservative estimate would easily put this number in the high quadrillions. If all of these creatures shared the same 10,000 year period, the earth would have been impossibly overcrowded, dinosaurs would be in a large portion of recorded history, fossil layers would have been more diverse, and we would have lived with homo erectus up until the past century. It just doesn't add up. My opponent does not understand that there are thousands of transitional fossils. Evolution is a slow process. There are no sudden changes. The Wikipedia link he posted supports my case, not his. Below is more information on transitional fossils and the claims made about them. http://www.talkorigins.org... Ice Core Dating: http://www.talkorigins.org... Please view the link above. My opponent's claims are from a non scientific source posing as science. Scientists have been studying this for decades. Now I will post more evidence for an old earth 1. Racial diversity amongst homo sapiens. It is simply not possible for human beings to change that much and become that racially diverse in only 10,000 years. In the past 3500 years of recorded history, the basic ethnic races have stayed the same. Other than an increase in inter racial breeding, there has been very little change at all. When did all of these races have the time to evolve that much? Without an old earth, it doesn't make sense. Homo sapiens have been on this planet for near 200,000 years. http://ncse.com... 2. Sedimentary layers in lakes date back at least 20,000 years. These layers are caused by annual sediment and can be observed today. Scientists can measure these layers and determine exactly how many years they go back. In order to explain the number of layers, using the young earth model, there would have had to have been several winters per year, which has never been observed. 3. The formation of stalactites The average growth rate of a stalactite is .005 inch per year. If the earth were only 10,000 years old there wouldn't be any stalactites larger than 50 inches unless it was formed by fast moving waters. The largest known Stalactite is located in the Gruta Rei do Mato, and is 20 meters long. Fast waters are nowhere near by. Clear evidence of an old earth. There are many other pieces of evidence that indicate an old earth including the formation of limestone, the formation of volcanic islands, slow erosion of the grand canyon, both coral and tree rings, and other geological weathering evidence. My opponent still has not provided any evidence that favors a young earth. I have been requesting this since the first round. Instead, my opponent is attempting to twist my words around to shift the burden from himself to me. I took the position against young earth creationism and clearly outlined how it was going to be done in round 2. I sincerely hope that he will not wait until round 5 to post this evidence. Now, I will respond to the last section of my opponents argument. My opponent needs to provide some kind of evidence to support this teleological end, that he is advocating for. There is no evidence that suggests anything of the sort suddenly developed in humans but not in any other mammal. My first paragraph debunks his claims about free will. There are too many assumptions in these paragraphs to count. "Therefore, we must assume that whatever "thing" was responsible for existence, also did so with a consciousness and with foresight" "If this thing's goal was to create free will from free will, then it could not do so with mere natural means." "the super-nature of free will and its teleological characteristic" "This gap cannot be explained by natural phenomena. Evolution does not create genetic mutations that allow us to bypass evolution, it is unnatural and irrational. We are violating nature at its core. A change in a species of this magnitude cannot simply be the result of a natural mechanism. There must be something inherently different about what we know to be intelligence and free will." "t is illogical to say that God must jump through the hoops that "evolutionary science" has arbitrarily dreamed up. Macroevolutionary principles have contributed absolutely nothing to society outside of expanding its own field with useless information. There is no accomplishment by man that relies on the principles of an old earth." My opponent cannot prove any of this. First he says that evolution doesn't create mutations to bypass itself, then says that evolutionary science dreamed up evolutionary principals. That's a direct contradiction. He is using evolution to support his argument then immediately after, discredits it. Science is all about knowledge and research. Evolutionary science's contribution to society is irrelevant to the debate, and does not change its validity. That is a fallacy. "My goal is to show that that YEC is *not* convoluted, *not* ridiculous, and *not* nonsensical." My opponent is quite good at playing with my words. I cannot show him how ridiculous and nonsensical his theory is if he refuses to even post it. Since there is only one round left after this, I humbly request my opponent to post his best evidence of a young earth this round, so that I will have a chance to respond. I have offered tons of evidence that favors old earth, and the only arguments against it so far are pseudo science sources and "what ifs". I look forward to my opponents conclusive proof of a young earth and free will.