In a recent discussion of my post, Flood Geology, AV1611VET argued that the Earth was created in 4004 BC. The evidence indicates otherwise. How can he explain the evidence? Miracles. Billions of miracles.
Regarding the fossil record, for instance, he proposes that, after Noah’s flood, God deliberately buried all the debris and carcasses in a massive cleanup effort.
Regarding the distant starlight that he thinks managed to reach Earth in a few thousand years, he appeals to billions of undetectable miraculous “wormholes,” special shortcuts through space through which the light traveled.
My first response was to just wave it off. I find nobody else who supports either view. But he was persistent. Although few people believe the specific miracles he refers to, the basic argument is common. Many think they can simply ignore the evidence for an old Earth. They postulate an omnipotent God who could have simply made the universe to look any way he wanted it to look. So, when we point out specific things that are evidence for a 4.5-billion-year-old Earth, they can simply appeal to miraculous events that make a 6000-year-old Earth look as old as it does. If God can do anything, then one can simply wave away any contrary evidence. God made it that way.
The Argument from Miracles
I had discussed the wormhole argument with AV1611VET before. He did not find my response convincing. He proposed that wormholes, like angels, could simply be undetectable. When I pointed out that science indicates otherwise, he insisted that his wormholes, or perhaps something similar to wormholes, could still be undetectable, regardless of what science says. Thus, he relies on those wormholes, or something like those wormholes, to transport all that starlight distances far greater than it could have traveled in 6000 years.
I responded with a caricature of a conversation between an advocate of his view and mine.
“Wormholes. Billions of wormholes. Billions and billions of wormholes. That’s it? God needed to get the light from a supernova to travel 186,000 light years to earth in 6000 years. How did he do it?”
“No problem! Big wormhole. “
“And that galaxy over there?”
“More wormholes.”
“And the billion galaxies over there?”
“Billions of wormholes”
“If there are billions of wormholes everywhere, why does space look so, uh, non-wormholey?
“Simple. Angels arranged all the wormholes so that it looks like space is continuous”
“Ridiculous. Anyway, let’s get back to geology. What about that group of Precambrian rock layers thousands of feet thick at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, which shows obvious signs of a long geologic history that laid down those layers with many more on top, then tilted the layers and split them along a vertical line, and then eroded the top of this group flat before still more additional layers got deposited on top? Wormholes?”
“Nah, a billion angels can easily lift, tilt and then sand down the top of all that rock.”
“And the Tapeats Sandstone layer that sits above that tilted layer group, which sure looks like the remains of a long-abandoned beach. How did that get there?”
“Angels. Angels can move sand around. Next question.”
“What about the Bright Angel Shale layer above that, which looks like compacted clay deposited in a different environment over millions of years?”
“Angels. Bright angels. Why do you think they call it the Bright Angel Shale?”
“Oh, uh, okay then. And further up there are many other distinct layers, each with distinct fossils.”
“Angels. Angels. Angels. Its angels all the way up.”
“None of this makes any sense. What can possibly be the reason for arranging all these things to look so much like the Earth is millions of years old? Surely a God behind this would know it was deceptive. Surely a loving God would know that all this evidence would make many of us abandon a belief in young Earth creation, and eventually abandon belief in the Christian God. If the angels could have arranged things in any order God directed, why did they not arrange things so that Doubtingmerle would still believe in creation? If they had done it right, I would still be on their team. If whoever was behind this can deliberately make a recently created Earth look old, why would I trust anything I see, or anything he says?”
“God wrote a book that says you can trust him.”
“Well, I see no evidence that he wrote that book (see Is the Bible Inspired? ) but suppose he did? How do you know that there are not a billion angels intercepting the light coming from the words on that page, and scrambling the image so completely different words fall on your retina?”
“Angels are trustworthy.”
“But maybe the angels simply scrambled the Bible so that it says they are trustworthy. Maybe the Bible says, “Don’t believe anything those lying angels say.” Maybe the same deceptive angels that arranged all the fossils in layers to match the expectations of evolution (completely fooling Doubtingmerle) rearranged all the letters in the Bible to tell you something completely different from what God originally wrote. Deceptive hosts that arranged all those fossils could have rearranged all those letters in your book.”
“That would take billions of deceptive angels.”
“That is the world you just described to me–a deceptive system that used deceptive tools to elaborately fool me. Such a system could have deceptively rearranged everything you read in the Bible. Such a system could be fooling you. Such a system could invalidate every experiment that scientists ever did. Such a system would make it completely impossible to tell when the angels and wormholes were fooling us. We would know nothing. But sorry, the evidence all fits together too perfectly. The Earth is knowable. Science works. And it tells me the Earth is old.”
Source, with minor edits.
Occam’s Razor
Way back in the 14th century, William of Ockham exposed the basic problem with AV1611VET’s argument. Every time you propose an ad hoc entity, or an ad hoc miracle, you make your explanation more unlikely. This principle is now called Occam’s Razor.
We see the light of supernova SN-1987A even though it is 186,000 lightyears away. By young Earth creationism, this is not expected. If SN-1987A was created in 4004 BC, then no, there is no way the light could have reached Earth. And yes, you can propose an entity to change that. You can propose a wormhole or an angel to manipulate the light to reach Earth in 6000 years. But if your argument is based on Genesis 1, then wormholes transmitting light from the heavens is certainly not something your source predicts. Wormholes are simply ad hoc entities added to the creationist explanation. And when you need to add an ad hoc entity, you make your hypothesis less likely.
Each time you add miracles, such as more wormholes for the rest of space, and miraculous intervention to make space appear continuous even though it is full of wormholes, you make your opinion even less likely. You have multiplied ad hoc explanations. When you multiply unlikely explanations, your hypothesis becomes very unlikely.
Another evidence for an old Earth is the Grand Canyon Supergroup, which is the layers of rock. This is a set of rock thousands of feet thick at the bottom of the Grand Canyon that has tilted. These tilted layers show every indication of having been deposited over an extended period.
Before the layers tilted, additional sediments had piled up above the Grand Canyon Supergroup rocks. But erosion wiped away the upper rocks including the extension of these layers beyond the surviving rocks. The upper layers continued to erode until the surface dropped down to the level known as The Great Unconformity. Most of the rocks below The Great Unconformity are metamorphic rocks that have been transformed by intense heat and pressure to look quite different from the original rocks. But those tilted layers of the Grand Canyon Supergroup are down there also, still basically in their original state.
Years later, the Colorado River changed path and carved out the Grand Canyon, exposing the Grand Canyon Supergroup once again. All of that took millions of years. There is no way around it. It must have taken millions of years.
The layers in the Grand Canyon Supergroup have fossils of single-celled lifeforms piled together to form stromatolite fossils. But there are no fossils with skeletal parts down here. Fossils with skeletons end up above the Great Unconformity line, and single-cell colonies like this end up below that line.
Above these supergroup rocks we find multiple layers, each with their own story. The overall story is illustrated quite elegantly in the beautiful book, The Grand Canyon: Monument to an Ancient Earth. In these layers we find buried sandstones from ancient beaches, shale from clay that had been deposited in shallow waters, and limestone from shells deposited in deeper water. We find buried sand dunes, buried nests, and buried footprints. You can read about all this in that easily understood book.
Each such layer is unexpected by creationism. Each requires an ad hoc explanation. And yes, you can propose an ad hoc explanation for each, but when you multiply the probabilities of each unlikely explanation together, your young Earth creationism becomes very improbable.
Young Earth creationists claim the option of appealing to miraculous forces when needed. However, they never ask if similar miraculous forces could defeat their own case. For when it comes down to it, their case rests only on the Bible. They propose spirit creatures manipulating light through space and planting the fossil evidence in the Earth. But if spirit creatures can manipulate rocks, why can they not manipulate the words on the pages of the Bible? If spirt interference with the rocks make the record in the rocks unreliable, how can the words of a book be trusted? Spirits that can modify the image stored in rocks can modify the words on paper. Even if the original words were perfect, how would you trust that the images that reach your retinas are perfect?
By contrast, true science predicts what should be found as a consequence of a hypothesis. If you propose hypothesis A, and I can show that, if A is true, then B must be true, but B is not true, then that is evidence against your hypothesis. You must then show convincingly that A is still true or modify your hypothesis.
Here we have a hypothesis (young Earth) that should certainly predict we see no stars that are further away than a few thousand lightyears. It should predict that we do not see all those fossil-bearing layers sorted by the fossils they contain. It should not predict things like the Grand Canyon Supergroup. Since we do find such evidence, how can we explain it? We cannot simply make up another entity to explain it away every time the evidence shows up. Those ad hoc explanations are not convincing. There comes a time when we need to abandon a hypothesis.
Conclusion
You cannot simply make up miraculous explanations to explain away the evidence. The evidence shows that the world was here for a long time. You simply cannot appeal to a plethora of miracles to explain that away.
The Earth is old. During that time, life evolved. And you and I came along as a result of all that. We can look back in awe at how nature has brought these things about. We are part of a wonderful chain of events over millions of years. Knowing that, you and I can lift our heads just a little bit higher today. We are part of something amazing.
Addendum
I have had ongoing discussions on the age of the Earth with AV1611VET. Here are some highlights.
At Taking Questions, post #132
I’ll take questions on Embedded Age Creation here.
I define Embedded Age Creation as: maturity without history.
You think the Earth was created 6025 years ago and appears to be much older. This is the appearance of age view that has been discredited long ago. For if this could be true, the same argument could be used to say the Earth was created last Thursday .
You try to get around this by inventing a parameter “physical age”. But in the case of Adam, you admit that your physical age parameter “simply means that, when his FIRST birthday comes up, he gets a cake with either 21 or 31 candles in it.” In other words, the “physical age” is nothing more than a fabricated number. Adam reaches his first birthday, and God reportedly chooses to call him perhaps 21 or 31. How does that resolve anything?
If someone is going to make up a fictitious “physical age” out of nothing, why not keep going? Perhaps on Adam’s first birthday he had a “physical age” of 21, an Ersatz Age of 7, a Flapdoodle Age of 534, a Bullfinch Age of 4 million, and a Flatoutfabrication Age of 256 trillion. Make up all the numbers you want. They mean nothing.
Even if the 6025 year old Earth had a physical age and appearance of millions of years at creation, that in no way explains all the fossils we find down there. You admit these came later, after the flood. It is these rocks that show strong evidence of being up to 600 million years old. How did these rocks with fossils that date to many millions of years get laid down on your bedrock that existed 6025 years?
Below is a cross section of the area where the Bible reports the Garden of Eden.
Source: http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Carol 2.pdf
We find rocks with fossils 5 miles deep, dating to hundreds of millions of years on top of the reported Garden of Eden. As long as they sit on the bedrock which you claim existed for only 6025 years, you have a problem–a big problem.
At The Grand Canyon Supergroup, post #30,
Here is a picture from the book I referenced [The Grand Canyon: Monument to an Ancient Earth.]
Across the top you can see horizontal layers. These are Cambrian and younger, commonly thought by “flood geologists” to be flood deposits. Below them you can see a distinct light line, the Great Unconformity. Below that are the tilted Grand Canyon Supergroup layers. Below that are the Vishnu Basement Rocks.
By the way the layers above the Great Unconformity are much thicker on the western Grand Canyon when viewed from a distance.
All this is visible with the naked eye. Believe!
At A Bird with a T-Rex Head, post #19.
According to Wikipedia, even finding a rabbit in the Precambrian wouldn’t be the sockdolager that brings evolution to its knees.
In fact, evolution is expected to wax worse, culminating in the Tribulation period.
So I’m almost sure that, if they found a bird fossil in the Triassic, they’d just adjust the fossil RECORD accordingly.
We turn now to hypothetical birds in the Triassic? We can’t find any real birds down there, so you turn to hypothetical birds? Really?
Hypothetically speaking, if a new confirmed finding hypothetically differs with established scientific theory, we would need to look for the best explanation. Case closed. Next question.
Back to reality. We find vast layers of Triassic rock throughout the Earth. There are many fossils of dinosaurs and other prehistoric life in these layers. But we never find mammals or birds. These Triassic layers are always below younger layers like the Jurassic and Cretaceous unless we see signs that folding or thrusting have rearranged the layers. Further, multiple measurements using multiple techniques consistently show that these Triassic rock layers have been experiencing radioactive decay for 200 to 250 million years after they were put in place.
If you say God arranged it this way after the Flood, why did he arrange it so everything looks so much like what we would expect if the Earth was here for 4.5 billion years? Why does it look so little like what we would expect if a massive flood-cleanup had occurred 4500 years ago in a young Earth? Why do we find dinosaur nests and dinosaur footprints in these supposed flood-cleanup layers?
If you say God laid these rocks out 4500 years ago complete with embedded age and embedded dinosaur footprints, how do I know that he did not create me last Thursday complete with embedded age and embedded memories?
I wonder. Will you ever say that flood cleanup geology and embedded age views can take a hike?
At A Bird with a T-Rex Head post #23
AV1611VET,
I see you simply ignore my questions. No problem, I will just post them again.
If you say God arranged it this way after the Flood, why did he arrange it so everything looks so much like what we would expect if the Earth was here for 4.5 billion years?
Why does it look so little like what we would expect if a massive flood-cleanup had occurred 4500 years ago in a young Earth? Why do we find dinosaur nests and dinosaur footprints in these supposed flood-cleanup layers?
If you say God laid these rocks out 4500 years ago complete with embedded age and embedded dinosaur footprints, how do I know that he did not create me last Thursday complete with embedded age and embedded memories?
You postulate a God who takes the remains of a global flood and arranges it to look like the result of natural processes over hundreds of millions of years. If such a God exists, then we could know nothing, for a God that powerful who goes to all that effort to lay things out so deceptively could be deceiving you right now. If such a God exists, then it could be that this post actually says, “The Earth was created Last Thursday”, but your God simply rearranges all the photons reaching everybody’s retinas so they read this sentence instead. Prove me wrong.
“Triassic” is a distinction on the fossil RECORDS, not the fossil LAYERS.
It’s a word made-up to account for a specific area under scrutiny.
No sir, “Triassic” is the name for distinct rock layers found in the Earth. Many of the geologic layers were named by creationists like Adam Sedgwick . They saw distinct rock formations in Great Britain with distinct fossils. To keep things straight, they gave these layers names like Cambrian, Silurian, and Devonian. Since these layers contained distinct fossils, and always overlaid in the same order where they overlapped, these creationists came to the conclusion that God created different life in different time periods in the past. Most of them thought these time periods occurred before Genesis 1:2.
Nope.
This is your astounding, reasoned response to, “..and have rocks that record ages in a specific range typical of that period.”
In other words, you have no answer to why the rocks intermixed with all those fossil layers down there have the right amounts of lead, argon, rubidium, strontium, helium and other elements all intermixed at the right portions everywhere to make it obvious to scientists that over 200 million years of radioactive decay have occurred in the Triassic layers after they were deposited. You simply close your eyes and say, “Nope”.
My guess is that deep inside, you do wonder what you would see if you opened your eyes, yes?
Your God would not mind if you peeked, just a little.
The stretching deals on on paper — not with the layers themselves.
Wrong. I have shown you 3 different large areas where the fossil record is over 1 mile thick, with multiple dating methods showing that these rocks were deposited over millions of years (Arizona, Michigan, and Iraq).
If you are going to close your eyes when we show this evidence, there is nothing we can do for you.
But perhaps there are other people reading this that would like to know what they would see if they opened their eyes. They could start here: Flood Geology and Scientific Creationism
At A Bird with a T-Rex Head post #26
Keep looking.
What do you think scientists have been doing?
We have found fossils of thousands of non-avian dinosaurs. Here is a list of known genera– List of dinosaur genera – Wikipedia . Each may consist of multiple species. Each may consist of multiple instances. That’s a lot of known dinosaur fossils.
All of them appear in the Triassic, Jurassic, or Cretaceous layers. None are in the Cambrian. None are in the Ordovician. None are in the Silurian or Devonian. We find many other fossils down there in those layers. But never do we find a dinosaur down there.
Why not? Simple. There were no dinosaurs in the Cambrian.
And you have no reasonable explanation for that.
At A Bird with a T-Rex Head post #69
Did your mother ever tell you to clean your room?
If you did, did you document it?
Or did you just … you know … clean your room?
Just as I said, you have no reasonable explanation for why God, whom you say created the Earth 6025 years ago, would deliberately make all the rocks look like evolution has been happening for hundreds of millions of years.
“God moves in mysterious ways,” is not a reasonable answer. It does not explain why we see footprints, raindrop prints, sand dunes, and caves buried in the rocks. It does not explain why the thousands of dinosaur fossils would appear only in the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous layers.
