101 evidences for a young age of the Earth and the universe

101 evidences for a young age of the earth and the universe is an extensive list of arguments for young Earth creationism (YEC), compiled by Don Batten in June 2009 for Creation Ministries International (CMI). The text below is the version of 26th March 2012.

Batten collects a variety of supposed uncertainties in science dealing with the past that could allow one to simultaneously maintain belief in the validity of the scientific method and the literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis through confirmation bias. The article's apparent intent is to help other creationists struggling with cognitive dissonance and for use as a conversion tool.

In addition to numerous factual errors and failures to understand the theories it intends to criticize, the document suffers from faulty logic. A list of arguments broken down by fallacy is presented at the end of this page.

Although the list claims to have 101 points, several are just reworded duplicates, and one is a copy of the preceding item. Almost every reference link in the original article goes directly to creationist sources or popular 'science' magazines that support creationism. In the few cases where reputable peer-reviewed scientific papers are cited, their content is severely misrepresented or incorrectly interpreted. Ultimately, the article seeks to persuade by force of numbers rather than force of argument.

Removed arguments
Some points have been changed since the article first appeared. For completeness, this section collects analyses of arguments that are no longer present on the list.

Analysis
Many arguments on the list suffer from a specific combination of affirming the consequent with the spotlight fallacy:
 * If the Earth is 6,000 years old, we expect X to be less than 6,000 years old.
 * Under some circumstances, X can form in less than 6,000 years.
 * Therefore, the Earth could be 6,000 years old.

This is wrong on two levels. Firstly, an Earth that is billions of years old can be expected to have things younger than 6,000 years on it &mdash; such as you. Secondly, even if one example of X really is "young", it doesn't mean all X are &mdash; the vast majority of X mentioned in the arguments can be shown to be far older than the entire young-Earth timescale.

Logically, we can also note that any evidence proffered by creationists that shows the Earth to be significantly older than 6,000 years &mdash; however lower than the conventionally accepted age &mdash; is an "own goal" which, far from undermining the scientific case, is actually an argument against a young age of the Earth. (In general: if A is evidence for X, then not-A is evidence against X.)

Another common error is assuming a false dilemma between current scientific knowledge about the age of the Earth and the universe and the young Earth creationism perspective: either science can explain everything, or YEC is true. In reality, it is infinitely more likely that further investigation will result in evidence supporting explanations consistent with deep time and will further discredit the YEC view.

Below is a breakdown of the problems in the author's arguments. It does not exhaustively list all errors, merely the common ones.

Fallacies

 * Absurd uniformitarian assumption:, , , , , , , , , , , ,
 * Affirming the consequent:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
 * Argument from incredulity:, , , , ,
 * Denial:, , , ,
 * False dilemma:, , , , , ,
 * Invoking miraculous violation of physics:, ,
 * Negative proof:, , , , , ,
 * Non sequitur:, ,
 * Pseudoscience and dubious science:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
 * Quote mining:, , , , , , ,
 * Special pleading: ,
 * Straw man or misunderstanding of science:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Technical problems
From this, we see that there are not 101 "evidences", only 93, several of which contradict each other, with the rest containing logical and rhetorical errors that seriously undermine the list's intellectual rigor.
 * Contradictions: and,  and ,  and ,  and ,  and
 * Duplication of previous arguments:, , , , , ,
 * Arguments against a young Earth:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,