Conservapedia:Arguments for a recent creation

This Conservapedia-related article is of largely historical interest and is no longer the focus of RationalWiki today. Conservapedia (and religious fundamentalism to an extent) was a major focal point in the early history of RationalWiki, but long ago ceased coming up with new ways to appall and amuse. Our energies are now spent debunking other, fresher examples of pseudoscientific claims, authoritarianism, and deceit. For RationalWiki's less ancient content, try the Best of RationalWiki.

(Perhaps the most interesting completely unexpected aspect of this page is that it doesn't give evidence for a recent creation, but provides refutations for an "old earth.")

Conservapedia as of 16 June 2007

RationalWiki Response

Scientific reasons

Many scientific arguments can be used to show that the evidence is more consistent with a recent creation than an old Earth. Some arguments put forward in support of a recent creation simply put an upper limit on the age of the Earth, solar system, or universe, which are inconsistent with an ancient creation." The following is a list of various scientific reasons in no particular order.

Many scientific arguments can be used to show that the evidence is more consistent with an old Earth than a recent creation. Some arguments put forward in support of a recent creation simply put an arbitrary lower limit on the age of the Earth, solar system, or universe, which are inconsistent with scientific observation. The following is a list of various scientific reasons in the same careless order.

1 Anti-biblical assumptions

"The old-earth idea was developed historically, not from letting the physical facts speak for themselves but by imposing anti-biblical philosophical assumptions onto the geological observations. See this article..."

This statement is false for many reasons. It is based solely on the world view of European scientists during an era of church run / church influenced states. Fails to introduce scientific discoveries from non Judeo-Christian societies. Fails to comment on objective scientific observations and derived conclusions from said observations. An example would be James Hutton's discovery of strata not being supportive of the biblical account of genesis and therefore not supportive of a "young earth". Consider that if the same observations were made by a society that was not indoctrinated into the Judeo - Christian beliefs they would have agreed with Hutton instead of the supposed genesis account. The development of a theory also is not related to its accuracy, and whatever the circumstances of its development were, it has still repeatedly been verified.

2 Radiometric dating

"The radiometric dating methods are based on those same naturalistic, uniformitarian, anti-biblical assumptions and there is plenty of published evidence that they do not give valid dates. Besides the RATE research mentioned earlier, consider the well-researched arguments in The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods."

The radiometric data are consistent with other geological and astronomical data, as well as luminescence dating, tree rings and ancient Egyptian sources. The creationists examples of inconsistencies are scant, compared with the vast number of consistent, published data.[1] Geologists no longer subscribe to the uniformitarism in the derogatory-creationist sense of the word. [2] Creationists use "naturalism" to imply that there is no supernatural being(s); the scientists do not presuppose to know whether one exists or not, but rather the creationists never propose an experiment to test/falsify the existence of the presumed being. [3]

3

"The almost complete absence of evidence of erosion or soil layers or the activity of living things (plant roots, burrow marks, etc.) at the upper surface of the various strata (showing that the stratum did not lay there for thousands or millions of years before the next layer was deposited)."

This fragment does not make much sense. Sedimentary rock forms under pressure and any evidence of life such as plant roots or burrows will not be present. Soil will be incorporated into rock or used for nutrients for plant life.

4 Polystrate fossils

"Polystrate fossils (usually trees) that cut through more than one layer of rock (even different kinds of rock supposedly deposited over thousands if not millions of years). The trees would have rotted and left no fossil evidence if the deposition rate was that slow."

Another false statement. Anyone who has studied geology, even at the simplest level, would be aware that trace fossils are extremely common throughout the geological record. They can be found both on bedding planes and within the body of the rock itself, and can occur in such density that any previous internal structure to the layer is lost.

5

"Soft-sediment deformation—that thousands of feet of sedimentary rocks (of various layers) are bent (like a stack of thin pancakes over the edge of a plate), as we see at the mile-deep Kaibab Upwarp in the Grand Canyon. Clearly the whole, mile-deep deposit of various kinds of sediment was still relatively soft and probably wet (not like it is today) when the earthquake occurred that uplifted one part of the series of strata."

It is not clear how this supplies evidence for either an old earth or a new earth. What does wet or dry sedmient have to do with anything? When is this earthquake? The word "clearly" suggests a weasel word that leads the reader, especially when used with the word "probably" later in the sentence. Wet is a relative word, which is not defined, as is soft. Note that this paragraph (as well as others here) is lifted directly from the cited website.

6 Fossils imply rapid burial

"Many fossils that show (require) very rapid burial and fossilization. For example, soft parts (jellyfish, animal feces, scales and fins of fish) or whole, large, fully-articulated skeletons (e.g., whales or large dinosaurs such as T-Rex) are preserved. Or we find many creatures’ bodies contorted. All this evidence shows that these creatures were buried rapidly (in many cases even buried alive) and fossilized before scavengers, micro-decay organisms and erosional processes could erase the evidence. These are found all over the world and all through the various strata."

No statistics have been done on this, so it is difficult to draw a conclusion. That a contorted body implies a rapid burial is an assumption that should be validated; it is likely that most animals that die are in contorted in nature, no matter how they died. For organic matter to decay, oxygen is required, and fossils have been protected from oxygen in some way (such as in tar pits). Saying that "erosional processes could [probably implying should] erase all the evidence" is leading the reader to a conclusion with no evidence. The number of soft tissue sample that exist are miniscule compared with the number of organisms that have died, and required very specific conditions (lack of oxygen, again, and usually cold temperatures). See also talk orgins.[4] and [5]

7 Album "Young Earth" by Noah's Flood hits #3!

"The rock record screaming “Noah’s Flood” and “young earth.” The secular geologists can’t hear or see the message because of their academic indoctrination in anti-biblical, naturalistic, uniformitarian assumptions. The reason that most Christian geologists can’t see it is the same, plus the fact that they have believed the scientific establishment more than the Bible that they claim to believe is the inspired, inerrant Word of God. There are also thoroughly researched scientific refutations of skeptical objections to Noah’s Ark and the Flood here, which strengthen one’s faith in the biblical account of the Flood."

This is an ad hominem attack on the "scientific establishment," and is substanceless. Rather than attacking the messenger, give researched, logical argument instead. And give arguments, not just reference to a source (invalid referral to authority). See also TalkOrigins.[6] There have also been many much better rock records, such as Ozzy Osbourne screaming "I AM IRON MAN" on Black Sabbath's second album, Paranoid.

8 Starlight

"...distant starlight is no more of a problem for young-earth creationists than it is for big bang proponents..."

Distant starlight is not a problem for "big bang proponents", in fact, it is part of the evidence. YEC, however, has to invent untestable contortions of time and space (or a deceiving God) in order to "explain" it. See our page on the so called big bang starlight problem.

9 Geomagnetic field decay

"Observations made of the strength of Earth's magnetic field over the last 150 years show that it is decaying, which puts an upper limit on the age of the Earth. If the decay is projected back 20,000 years, the heat produced by the electric current that generates the Earth's magnetic field would have liquefied the Earth. Naturally this would make life impossible. The best model for the Earth's magnetic field and observed data places the age of Earth at 6,000 – 8,700 years." "The total energy stored in the earth's magnetic field ("dipole" and "non-dipole") is decreasing with a half-life of 1,465 (± 165) years.12 Evolutionary theories explaining this rapid decrease, as well as how the earth could have maintained its magnetic field for billions of years are very complex and inadequate. A much better creationist theory exists. It is straightforward, based on sound physics, and explains many features of the field: its creation, rapid reversals during the Genesis flood, surface intensity decreases and increases until the time of Christ, and a steady decay since then.13 This theory matches paleomagnetic, historic, and present data, most startlingly with evidence for rapid changes.14 The main result is that the field's total energy (not surface intensity) has always decayed at least as fast as now. At that rate the field could not be more than 20,000 years old.15" "Presence of magnetic fields around solar system bodies (Mercury, Jupiter's moon Ganymede, Neptune, Uranus) without an obvious internal dynamo. No natural process is known which could sustain a magnetic field around these bodies - their magnetic fields should have decayed out of existence if they ever had any."

This is part of a cycle: the magnetic field will continue to decline until it has reached a minimum, at which point, the Earth's magnetic poles will switch, this happens, on average, every 780.000 years.

10 Pleochroic halos

"Radioactive inclusions in rock often cause concentric spheres of discoloration due to the damage caused by alpha particles as they are emitted by the radioactive substance. Pleochroic halos are the scars of radioactive decay, particularly alpha decay. These scars appear as spheres (rings when views in cross-section) in the rock surrounding a decaying radioactive atom. The size of the halo is a signature of the energy of the emission and therefore the element and isotope involved. Creationists use these halos in several ways to suggest problems with the standard uniformitarian model."

This assertion--repeated three times on this page (likely due to cut and paste copying from sources)--is discussed under numbers 13 and 28 below.

11 Helium diffusion

"One type of nuclear decay is the emission of Helium nuclei known as an alpha emission. Elements like uranium and thorium produce helium in zircons as a by-product of their radioactivity. This helium seeps out of (sic) zircons quickly over a wide range of temperatures. If the zircons really are about 1.5 billion years old (the age which conventional dating gives assuming a constant decay rate), almost all of the helium should have dissipated from the zircons long ago. But there is a significant amount of helium still inside the zircons, showing their ages to be 6000 +/- 2000 years. Accelerated decay must have produced a billion years worth of helium in that short amount of time." "Uranium and thorium generate helium atoms as they decay to lead. A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research showed that such helium produced in zircon crystals in deep, hot Precambrian granitic rock has not had time to escape.25 Though the rocks contain 1.5 billion years worth of nuclear decay products, newly-measured rates of helium loss from zircon show that the helium has been leaking for only 6,000 (± 2000) years.26 This is not only evidence for the youth of the earth, but also for episodes of greatly accelerated decay rates of long half-life nuclei within thousands of years ago, compressing radioisotope timescales enormously."

See TalkOrigins [7]

12 Helioseismology

"The core of the sun produces deuterium from hydrogen fusion at 5 million degrees K. The heat is transferred from the core by convection currents so it could reach surface in days, not a million years. It also leads to an age for the sun based on the deuterium/hydrogen ratio of the local interstellar medium of 6,000-12,857 years."

This argument clearly needs more explanation, as it is difficult to grasp from the information here. Following the nested links to Creation Science Quarterly leads to this link[8]. As registration to this site is required, the arguments are not easily accessible. Hence, it is difficult to assess this argument. However, the interval 6000 to 12857 is suspcious, in terms of precision. Furthermore, the inability to produce a good source for this argument further makes it suspicious.

13 Accelerated Nuclear Decay

"The main assumption of radiometric dating is that the decay rates are constant with time. If the decay rate has varied significantly over time then any date based on radioactive decay is worthless. However, if radioactive decay has been happening for Billions of years then there is insufficient argon diffusion, insufficient lead diffusion, insufficient helium in the air, and too much Helium in Rocks. Recent experiments commissioned by the RATE group indicate that "1.5 billion years" worth of nuclear decay has taken place, but in one or more short periods 4000 - 8000 years ago. This would shrink the alleged 4.5 billion year radioisotope age of the earth to only a few thousand years."

Half-lives are physical constants, like the speed of light. Also, the helium content of air and rocks cannot be considered as proof of its half-life changing, as the earth's gravity is not strong enough to retain helium. See number 2 above. Also consider the effect that 1.5 billion years' worth of radiation compressed into a "short period" would have on any living tissue.

"Radiohalos are rings of color formed around microscopic bits of radioactive minerals in rock crystals. They are fossil evidence of radioactive decay.21 "Squashed" Polonium-210 radiohalos indicate that Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene formations in the Colorado plateau were deposited within months of one another, not hundreds of millions of years apart as required by the conventional time scale.22 "Orphan" Polonium-218 radiohalos, having no evidence of their mother elements, imply accelerated nuclear decay and very rapid formation of associated minerals."

See TalkOrigins[9]

14 Galaxies wind themselves up too fast.

"The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic center with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer ones. The observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were more than a few hundred million years old, it would be a featureless disc of stars instead of its present spiral shape.1 Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion years old. Evolutionists call this "the winding-up dilemma," which they have known about for fifty years. They have devised many theories to try to explain it, each one failing after a brief period of popularity. The same "winding-up" dilemma also applies to other galaxies."

How does the evidence prove that the earth is no more than 6000 years old? The lack of an explanation for this phenonomenon again does not provide support for a young earth, even if it does not provide an explanation for an old one. This is more an attack on the "evolutionists" (which most astronomers do not consider themselves), trying to make them look as if they do not know what they are doing), than a valid arguement. See also TalkOrigins [10].

15 Comets disintegrate too quickly.

"According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system, about five billion years. Yet each time a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical ages of less than 10,000 years.4"

(What does the content of this section have to do with supernovae?) Modern evolutionary theory deals with biology and how species developed, not with astronomical phenomena.

"The origin of the comets in our solar system is a great mystery from an old universe perspective as they degrade rapidly. While evolutionary astronomers once thought the Oort cloud could account for all comets, the Kuiper belt has been revived to explain their existence."

That comets are not billions of years does not contradict an earth of millions of years old. And if there is not a "good theory" for their origin does not mean that young earth is valid. Both the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt are still accepted, by astronomers, as the source of most comets, furthermore, comets only start to decay when they get close to the Sun, while the comet may well have been in the Oort Cloud or Kuiper Belt for billions of years before that. See also TalkOrigins.[11]

16 Not enough mud on the sea floor.

"Each year, water and winds erode about 20 billion tons of dirt and rock from the continents and deposit it in the ocean.6 This material accumulates as loose sediment on the hard basaltic (lava-formed) rock of the ocean floor. The average depth of all the sediment in the whole ocean is less than 400 meters.7 The main way known to remove the sediment from the ocean floor is by plate tectonic subduction. That is, sea floor slides slowly (a few cm/year) beneath the continents, taking some sediment with it. According to secular scientific literature, that process presently removes only 1 billion tons per year.7 As far as anyone knows, the other 19 billion tons per year simply accumulate. At that rate, erosion would deposit the present mass of sediment in less than 12 million years. Yet according to evolutionary theory, erosion and plate subduction have been going on as long as the oceans have existed, an alleged three billion years. If that were so, the rates above imply that the oceans would be massively choked with sediment dozens of kilometers deep. An alternative (creationist) explanation is that erosion from the waters of the Genesis flood running off the continents deposited the present amount of sediment within a short time about 5,000 years ago." (some emphasis added, but not all)

There are three sources for sediment found on the ocean floor. Terrestrial sediment transported from continents by rivers (only on continental margins). Deposition of the shells of dead plankton falling through the water column (to form silicious and calcareous oozes at medium depths in areas too far for terrestrial sediment to be transported). Volcanic ash and meteoric debris (in the deepest oceans furthest from land). Direct precipitation (shallow water). Material eroded from continents generally does not make its way to the deep ocean, but remains on the continental shelves and continental slopes forming thick layers of sedimentary debris. The weight of the sediment causes the layers underneath to sink further down into the earth (via isostacy) leaving more room for new sediment to be deposited on top. Thus the oceans do not fill with terrestrial sediment, because almost all of it remains trapped on the continental margins.

"Present erosion rate could produce all the existing ocean sediment in only 15 million years."

This flawed argument only shows that the earth is actually much older than 6000 years which rather destroys the premise of Biblical literalism.

17 Not enough sodium in the sea.

"Every year, rivers and other sources dump over 450 million tons of sodium into the ocean. Only 27% of this sodium manages to get back out of the sea each year. As far as anyone knows, the remainder simply accumulates in the ocean. If the sea had no sodium to start with, it would have accumulated its present amount in less than 42 million years at today's input and output rates. This is much less than the evolutionary age of the ocean, three billion years. The usual reply to this discrepancy is that past sodium inputs must have been less and outputs greater. However, calculations that are as generous as possible to evolutionary scenarios still give a maximum age of only 62 million years. Calculations for many other seawater elements give much younger ages for the ocean."

It is difficult to assess this argument as there is not enough data present. However, like all elements on earth, there is a sodium cycle (such as the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, etc.) that is complex and requires a better model than one based on two numbers. Once again the YECs discredit their own claim for a 6000-year old earth. See also TalkOrigins.[12]

18 Many strata are too tightly bent.

"In many mountainous areas, strata thousands of feet thick are bent and folded into hairpin shapes. The conventional geologic time scale says these formations were deeply buried and solidified for hundreds of millions of years before they were bent. Yet the folding occurred without cracking, with radii so small that the entire formation had to be still wet and unsolidified when the bending occurred. This implies that the folding occurred less than thousands of years after deposition."

Again, searching for the source of these claims is a wild goose chase. The direct link ([13]) cites reference 16, a preceedings of a creationist conference (not a good ol' peer reviewed source; it's also "out of print"), which when clicked upon leads to the good ol' message, "Site is temporally inaccessible. Please try later." Not your best source.

19 Biological material decays too fast.

"Natural radioactivity, mutations, and decay degrade DNA and other biological material rapidly. Measurements of the mutation rate of mitochondrial DNA recently forced researchers to revise the age of "mitochondrial Eve" from a theorized 200,000 years down to possibly as low as 6,000 years.17 DNA experts insist that DNA cannot exist in natural environments longer than 10,000 years, yet intact strands of DNA appear to have been recovered from fossils allegedly much older... Bacteria allegedly 250 million years old apparently have been revived with no DNA damage. Soft tissue and blood cells from a dinosaur have astonished experts."

Cherry picking scientific quotes at its best.

20 Too much carbon 14 in deep geologic strata.

"With their short 5,700-year half-life, no carbon 14 atoms should exist in any carbon older than 250,000 years. Yet it has proven impossible to find any natural source of carbon below Pleistocene (Ice Age) strata that does not contain significant amounts of carbon 14, even though such strata are supposed to be millions or billions of years old. Conventional carbon 14 laboratories have been aware of this anomaly since the early 1980s, have striven to eliminate it, and are unable to account for it... These constitute very strong evidence that the earth is only thousands, not billions, of years old."

Carbon-14 forms when nitrogen-14, the most common isotope of nitrogen, interacts with a neutron formed from cosmic rays.[14] There is no reason to presume that this has not occurred over the last hundred million years. (Furthermore, there is no reason to think that the laboratories could "eliminate" something that is natural.)

21 Not enough Stone Age skeletons.

"Evolutionary anthropologists now say that Homo sapiens existed for at least 185,000 years before agriculture began,28 during which time the world population of humans was roughly constant, between one and ten million. All that time they were burying their dead, often with artifacts. By that scenario, they would have buried at least eight billion bodies.29 If the evolutionary time scale is correct, buried bones should be able to last for much longer than 200,000 years, so many of the supposed eight billion stone age skeletons should still be around (and certainly the buried artifacts). Yet only a few thousand have been found. This implies that the Stone Age was much shorter than evolutionists think, perhaps only a few hundred years in many areas."

See TalkOrigins.[15]

22 Agriculture is too recent.

"The usual evolutionary picture has men existing as hunters and gatherers for 185,000 years during the Stone Age before discovering agriculture less than 10,000 years ago.29 Yet the archaeological evidence shows that Stone Age men were as intelligent as we are. It is very improbable that none of the eight billion people mentioned in item 12 should discover that plants grow from seeds. It is more likely that men were without agriculture for a very short time after the Flood, if at all."

If no one tells you about planting seeds, you'd have to find out by chance and live to tell about it. Hunter/gatherers tend to be nomadic. Agriculture requires a semi-permanent settlement and fore-thought. Once seeds have been planted they need to be tended and defended from grazers. While waiting for the planted seeds to grow and ripen there has to be a place of refuge. Once the crop has been harvested it needs to be safely stored for future use through the next cycle.

23 History is too short.

"According to evolutionists, Stone Age Homo sapiens existed for 190,000 years before beginning to make written records about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. Prehistoric man built megalithic monuments, made beautiful cave paintings, and kept records of lunar phases.30 Why would he wait two thousand centuries before using the same skills to record history? The Biblical time scale is much more likely."

Why didn't we invent algebra in Abraham's time? The conditions to generate writing were not present until the Mesopotamians, and papyrus for paper wasn't around until Egypt flourished. Papyrus is an organic material and decays rather rapidly under uncontrolled conditions. Written records were unnecessary before permanent settlements. A nomadic hunter/gatherer would not want to carry useless clay tablets around with him. Any important information is handed down through word of mouth. Writing only became necessary when cities required record keeping for the purposes of commerce. No one is contesting that papyrus has been around for less than 5000 years. See TalkOrigins.[16]

24 Planetary Rings

"Existence of unstable rings around planets like Saturn. Rings are not stable and will not last."

The rings decaying means nothing, no scientist is claiming that the duration of the rings approximates that of the earth. They were most likely first formed by the denigration of one of Jupiter's moons. Regardless the rings are at least 100 million years old.

25 Recession of the moon from the earth

"The moon is moving away from the earth gradually due to tidal activity. This movement is too fast for the earth-moon system to be 4.6 billion years old."

See TalkOrigins.[17]

26 Shrinking sun

"Sun may be shrinking a few feet each year. Can't extrapolate this trend back to the past very far without effecting earth's environment."

Yes and no: the Sun has a diameter of roughly 1,3 million kilometres, there is no evidence that the shrinking has been constant (on the contrary), and the climate on Earth has changed over time. See TalkOrigins.[18]

27 Absence/shortage of solar neutrinos

"Nuclear fusion in the sun's core should give off neutrinos. Experiments have not detected an adequate number of neutrinos - this is a well known problem. Some creationists have argued that this implies solar heat is due to gravity and not fusion - this would imply a young sun."

Neutrinos are extremely difficult to detect even now, let alone in the 1980's. See TalkOrigins.[19]

28 Polonium Halos

"Robert Gentry's work showed that the Earth's granite was never in a molten condition, because polonium halos survive only in solid rock and the half-life of polonium is much too short to survive a multimillion-year cooling time. His results seem to indicate that the Earth was created instantaneously, in a cool condition. If true, it is clear evidence for creation and a young earth."

See TalkOrigins about this argument.[20] Note this is identical with "point 7," above. See also Polonium halos

29 Human population growth

"If humans had been around more than a few thousand years, they would have populated the earth more quickly."

Population growth is exponential, and hence followed the equation population = pop0 ek * time, where k is a constant and pop0 is the initial population. If the pop0 = 2 (Adam and Eve) and the population 6000 years later is about 6.7 billion, k = 0.00366 y-1. That would imply that at the time of the birth of Christ, there would be about 3000 people on the earth; this is clearly an underestimate. Note this gets worse if you consider the "Great Flood" and the "Black Death". DNA evidence also debunks this assumption.

30 Rapid Oil Formation

"It has been claimed that oil was formed over 100 millions of years from organic remains, but recent experiments have shown that oil can be produced under the right conditions in a matter of minutes."

This is done in a laboratory, by humans, this does not guarantee the same process happens in nature, in fact, a quick look at the energetic and technological requirements is enough to determine whether it could happen in nature.

"Experiments by the U.S. Bureau of mines showed that petroleum (oil) can be produced from organic material in only 20 minutes."		Furthermore, the conditions of high pressure necssary to form coal and oil that occur in nature are consistent and occur naturally, with no divine intervention.
"British scientists claimed to have invented a way to turn household garbage into oil suitable for home heating or power plant use. 'We are doing in 10 minutes what it has taken nature 150 million years to do', said Noel McAuliffe of Manchester University..."

"Bottom line - Economic accumulations of oil and gas can be generated in thousands of years in sedimentary basins that have experienced hot fluid flow for similar durations."

31 Rapid Wood Petrification

"Petrified wood was believed to required thousands or even millions of years, but a US patent now exists that is able to produce petrified wood rapidly." "A mineralized sodium silicate solution for the application to wood has a composition causing it to penetrate the wood and jell within the wood so as to give the wood the non-burning characteristics of petrified wood."

It's also possible to make diamonds out of charcoal within minutes, yet this does not happen in nature, because the energy requirements cannot be found in the Earth's crust. See similar argument about rapid oil formation above. See also TalkOrigins.[21]

32 Tree rings

"Tree rings, including rings on petrified forest trees, can't be traced back more than some thousands of years."

Trees just don't live longer than several thousand years. But we have traced tree ring records back 11,000 years which is still several thousand years too old for YEC's.

33 Only recently known civilizations

"Earliest known civilizations are only a few thousand years old."

They are still older than 6000 years, the settlements of Jericho and Catal Huyuk predate the Biblical creation date by several thousand years. (See also "History is too short," above, which is essentially the same argument.)

34 Niagara falls

"Erosion of the system indicates it is only a few thousand years old."

A young age for Niagara Falls is entirely consistent with geological theory. The last ice-age ended about 10,000 years ago. Before that the area was covered by ice and the Great Lakes had not been formed.

35 Mississippi river delta

"Erosion rate and amount of sediment accumulated indicate that it is only a few thousand years old."

See Talk-origins on this topic.[22]

36 Lack of equilibrium of Carbon-14/Carbon-12 ratio

"This ratio should reach equilibrium in the atmosphere in only some thousands of years, but it hasn't reached that point yet."

This statement is false. Morris's book was referencing Richard Lingenfelter about C 14 rates. Lingenfelter's paper was written in 1963, before the cycles of C-14 variation had been fully documented. The point is that fluctuations in the rate of C-14 production mean that at times the production rate will exceed the decay rate, while at other times the decay rate will be the larger. Study of the deviations from the accurate tree-ring dating sequence shows that the earth's magnetic field has an important effect on carbon-14 production. When the dipole moment is strong, carbon-14 production is suppressed below normal; when it is weak, carbon-14 production is boosted above normal. What the magnetic field does is to partially shield the earth from cosmic rays which produce carbon-14 high in the atmosphere. In other words the production of C14 in the atmosphere is not at a constant rate and can not be reliable to determine age of the earth.

37 Erosion rate of the continents

"Continental mass divided by erosion rate would wash all the continents into the ocean in about 14 million years."

Plate tectonics and volcanic eruptions cause new land masses to grow out of molten lava, the island chain of Hawaii, for example, has grown new islands over the past several millions of years.

See also

• Evidence against a recent creation