Evidence for a Young Earth?

Following on from the 'Evidence for an Old Earth' post, I thought I'd give the opposing side a chance (teach the controversy and all that).
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Ok, here are 7 evidences that, I think, would back up the idea that the whole earth was flooded by the Deluge of Noah's day.

We should be able to find;

* a single, gigantic sedimentary layer containing the fossilized remains of all the animals killed in the flood along with a mix of human artifacts from pre-history right the way up to the day the first raindrop fell.

* Many, if not all, of these animals should show signs of either drowning and/or suffocating through ingesting mud.

* The animals should be found in no discernible grouping or order because they've been swirling around in muddy flood-waters for weeks. You would not expect any mother/infant fossil finds, for instance.

* If any order is to be found, we would expect to see the heavier animals near the bottom of this sedimentary layer as they would be more likely to sink sooner. Conversely, the lighter animals could be expected to survive longer by holding on to floating vegetation. This goes for high-altitude animals versus lowland 'kinds' too.

* We should not find, throughout the layer of sediment, any evidence of burrows, nests, droppings or other easily-destroyed remnants of life. These should all be washed away by the intense pressures and currents

* The sedimentary layer should be found globally. Sediment would have been carried, globally, for a long time before settling so we should see a fairly consistent sedimentary layer around the earth

* There should be no evidence of human societies that existed before and after the Flood event, that show no signs of being flooded.

These are by no means exhaustive, so if you have any others that are relevant, please include them. But, be honest about it - present hypothetical evidence that you would expect to see if you were going out into the field as the world's first geologist, don't just say; "I'd expect to see the Grand Canyon - yup, there it is!"

And feel free to refute the evidences I've presented if you don't think they're appropriate; explain why though.


I hope I'm being fair here, so let's see what you have to say.

Regards,

Matt

Evidence for an Old Earth

Vagon submitted this awesome list over at AJ's blog (Pevensie15) and I thought it was worth reproducing here.

This is how we know the Earth is old;




Amino acid racemization - which is a technique that is used to date fossilized objects up to several millions of years in age.

Coral - whose formations take a long time to grow

Continental Drift - Tectonic drift is an incredibly slow process, the separation of landmasses would have taken millions of years. This is verified by satellite measurement.

Cosmogenic nuclide dating - The influx of cosmic rays onto the earth continually produces a stream of cosmogenic nuclides in the atmosphere that will fall to the ground.

Dendochronology - which is a method of scientific dating based on annual tree growth patterns called tree rings.

Distant starlight - Because the speed of light is finite, when you look at an object, what you are actually seeing is how the object was in the past. If the universe is only 6,000 years old how can objects billions of light years away — and therefore billions of years old — be seen?

Erosion - Many places on earth show evidence of erosion taking place over very long time periods, not drastic, as would have been caused by a worldwide flood.

Fission track dating - which is a radiometric dating technique that can be used to determine the age of uranium containing crystalline minerals.

Geomagnetic reversal - which is a change in the polarity of the earth's magnetic field. Around 171 reversals are geologically documented, which would make the earth at least several millions of years old.

Helioseismology - The composition of the sun changes as it ages.

Human Y-chromosomal ancestry - Analysis has shown that man lived around 60,000 years ago.

Ice Layering - Currently the greatest number of layers found in a single ice sheet is over 700,000, which clearly contradicts the idea of an earth less than 10,000 years old.

Impact craters - Asteroid impacts as big those that have been discovered would have led to the extinction of all medium to large size species (an event that is seen in the fossil record).

Length of the prehistoric day - as measured by evidence in coral.

Lunar retreat - which can't corelate with a 6,000 year old earth

Naica megacrystals - Based on classical crystal growth theory these crystals are older than one million years.

Oxidizable Carbon Ratio dating - is a method for determining the absolute age of charcoal samples with relative accuracy. One can determine ages of over 20,000 years ago with a standard error under 3%.

Permafrost - The formation of permafrost (frozen ground) is a slow process.

Petrified wood - The process in which wood is preserved by permineralization, commonly known as petrification, takes extensive amounts of time.

Radiometric decay - is the constant predictable decay of unstable atoms into more stable isotopes or elements. Measurements of atomic decay are generally considered to be one of the most accurate ways of measuring the age of an object, and these measurements form the basis for the scientifically accepted age of the earth. There are many different variations of the radiometric dating technique such as radiocarbon, argon-argon, iodine-xenon, lanthanum-barium, lead-lead, lutetium-hafnium, neon-neon, potassium-argon, rhenium-osmium, rubidium-strontium, samarium-neodymium, uranium-lead, uranium-lead-helium, uranium-thorium, and uranium-uranium, of which every single one will date objects far older than 10,000 years.
Relativistic jetsare jets of plasma that gets ejected from some quasars and galaxy centers that have powerful magnetic fields.

Rock Varnish - is a coating that will form on exposed surface rocks. The varnish is formed as airborn dust acumulates on rock surfaces. This process is extremely slow.

Space weathering - is an effect that is observed on most asteroids. This dating technique exceed millions of years.

Sedimentary varves - are laminated layers of sedimentary rock that are most commonly laid down in glacial lakes. The Green River formation in easter Utah is home to an estimated twenty million years worth of sedimentary layers.

Stalactites - These formations take extremely lengthy periods to form; the average growth rate is not much more than 0.1 mm per year.

Thermoluninescence dating - is a method for determining the age of objects containing crystalline minerals such as ceramics or lava.

Weathering rinds - are layers of weathered material that develop on glacial rocks. Certain weathering rinds on basalt and andesite rocks in the eastern United States appear to have taken over 300,000 years to form."

Earth-like planet found

Thanks to Happy Humanist for posting this article to the SMRT forums;

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090421/ap_on_sc/eu_britain_new_planet


How awesome would it be to discover that there was life on another planet? It doesn't have to be intelligent, or even complex - just life, in all it's beauty, existing out there in the cosmos; it's enough to give me goosebumps!


Next week: Scientists discover smudge on telescope lens....


Regards,

Just three little questions...

Hey all,

In this post, the Living Waters staffer Trish Ramos gives us a series of mock-ups in the style of the crocoduck. Now, this can be seen a bit of fun, nothing serious, satire.

However, the lead-in to the post says this;

"What Evolutionists would have you believe..."

This changes the tone of the post. Now she's presenting a collection of images that are supposed to bear resemblance to something to do with the theory of evolution.

Trish gets called on this;

Logic Lad: "Please explain which part of evolutionary theory supports these supposed hybrids"

Reynold: "If you actually care to learn about what evolution really is, and what "evolutionists" really figure about it, you'd do well to actually look at what they actually say."

Whateverman: "No, this is what Creationists would have you believe. The theory of evolution makes no such claims."


Trish responds with the cop-out;

"Satire friends...just satire."

A bunch of theists then go on to demonstrate that they don't actually understand the first thing about evolution, what else is new?


I decided to put Trish's role in the Great Commission to the test;

"Trish,

I will seriously bend my knee and accept the gift of salvation that Jesus offers if you can demonstrate the following;

a) how this post qualifies as 'satire'

b) why the images in this post misrepresent evolution, and

c) what evolution actually states with regards to transitional forms.



Ball's in your court, how much do your really care about my salvation?"

This was posted on April 17th and, as of today (April 21st), Trish has not even acknowledged the existence of my comment.


Will Trish answer?
Will I accept her answer and Christ's salvation?

Find out soon (in about 3 months at my current blogging rate!)

Regards,

Matt

New Post

I just thought I'd put up a new post to say hi to my new, online, theists friends and provide a place where they don't have to post under a title that might be kind of offensive to them.


Knock yourselves out.


Matt

Oh, and Carefulwhatyousay, please check in if you can - we miss your blogging presence.

God - The Abuser

Over at Dan the Debunker's blog, I read this little exchange in the 'Ignotheists' post;


Dr. Mabuse: "Is "lying for Christ" a valid reason for lying?"

Dan: "Maybe. Is it a valid reason to lie to save a woman from an abusive husband?"


I couldn't help but think that Dan is comparing Christ to an abusive husband.

There are plenty of similarities there, I must admit, though I'm sure Dan didn't mean it this way.



God: He wouldn't send you to Hell if He didn't love you so Damned much!

EDIT: Dan has since explained that he does NOT see Christ/God as an abusive husband; just thought I'd clear that up.

What is Shared Space?

Shared Space is a philosophy of movement made famous by the late Hans Monderman, a pioneer in the field of transportation and urban design.

The basic premise is that modern attempts at controlling traffic behaviour through the use of signage, barriers, signals, lights and other instructions are counter-productive and, in fact, lead to people feeling paying less attention to what they are doing - this results in more accidents, more delay and the death of the street as a place.

The alternative is to remove the signs, make no distinction between street spaces and allow users to navigate the space based on eye contact and common sense.

Of course, this mainly applies in areas where auto usage is fairly low, but is surprisingly effective on busy streets too.

The following links are good places to learn about these things:

Wiki - Shared Space

Shared Space.org

Naked Streets


Streets used to be places where people interacted, where lives were lived and the heart of the community was found. Now we have roads and all they do is get us from A to B. Shared Space is a way of reclaiming the streets and finding a balance that does not favour one mode (cars) over any other.

Anyway, that's what Shared Space is.

Cheers,