When My great grandfather was born, the universe was thought to be 20 million years old. During this time, the universe was aging very fast because by the time my grandfather was a young boy, the idea that the universe might be 1 billion years old was being circulated, and by the time the Boomers were being born, the universe was no longer measured by the Steady State theory but by the Cosmology known as the Big Bang. As the Big Bang steadily grew towards acceptance among the scientific community, the acceleration curve of the age of the universe began to stabilize. During my lifetime, and for the past few decades the universe has been assumed to be 13.79 billion years old give or take 62 million years. So firm have they been about the age of the universe that they’ve given error bars for their theory that the age of the universe can only be .4% on either side of 13.79 billion years. By their reckoning, only morons would question that level of precision.
Low and behold in September of 2019, some cosmologists released peer-reviewed papers saying that the universe was only 11.4 billion years. Suddenly 2 billion (assumed) years were suddenly wiped away like so much fecal matter off the streets of San Francisco. That new age is well outside the old error bars, so what’s a cosmologist to do? There’s not been NEARLY enough time to postulate the galactic evolution, stellar evolution and chemical evolution with fewer years. They need MORE years to sufficiently explain all of the stars, galaxies, and even biological evolution that nature needs to self-assemble.
As a sidebar, there are lots of stars. The latest estimate at the time of writing this post, there are about 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. Given the age of the universe to be 13.8 billion years old, there must have been 459,562 stars forming every SECOND for all 13.8 billion years on average…even though no one has ever seen a single star form
But there’s hope! In December of 2021, NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) into orbit. This unique and powerful telescope would be able to view images from the furthest edges of the universe. Surely THIS telescope would reveal the correct age. The expectation was that seeing images at the deepest edges of the universe, astronomers would be able to see infant stars (population III stars have never been observed, but they are assumed to be the 1st stars formed by the Big Bang) and infant galaxies (because the belief is that since the distances are so vast and light takes so long to reach the lens of the JWST, then they would be able to see into the “past” at the very beginning of the Big Bang). There are many assumptions involved with that view, but biblical astrophysicist, Dr. Jason Lisle, made different predictions of what the JWST would find. He predicted that when the images from the JWST were analyzed that we would find fully formed galaxies and only populate 1& 2 stars.
So, it only makes sense that those, who just last year SWORE that the age of the universe was definitively 13.79 billion years old +/- 62 million years are now proposing that the universe is REALLY about 27 billion years old. To accommodate the date from the JWST, they needed more unobserved time ****to protect the Big Bang narrative****. The evidence showed that the universe wasn’t so young as 13.79 billion years…to keep the theory in tact, more unobserved time was needed.
Would it surprise anyone that the biological evolutionists (noticing the new “bank account” of time is VERY large) began to look longingly towards extending the timescales on earth? There are all sorts of problems for biological evolution based on their aBsoLutE timescale of the age of the earth. We’ve been told that the geologic column confirms that age of the earth is
The age of Earth is estimated to be 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years (4.54 × 109 years ± 1%).
We’re assured that radiometric dating confirms this age to within 1% of the estimate. There are many questionable assumptions that go into whether the extrapolated ages given by radiometric dating are accurate. We won’t go into that here, but you can hear these assumptions explained here
Recently, Dr. Robert Carter released a podcast that exposed a big problem for the evolutionary timeline of biology
Here’s the general problem
It is assumed that humans and chimpanzees are related by a common ancestor although that common ancestor remains missing (the missing link) between 1 and 10 million years ago. The supposed age has such an enormous variance since the common ancestor remains missing and the degree of commonality of the DNA has been steadily decreasing from 99% to closer to 86% now. In the same way that the supposed effectiveness of the CV19 vaccine precipitously fell from its initial boast of 100% effective to less than 20%, the commonality of human->chimpanzee DNA similarities continues to fall
With that many differences in DNA between humans and chimpanzees, more time is needed to accumulate the difference and according to evolution establish (fixate) those genes in the populace.
But we’ve been unquestioningly assured that mammals did not evolve until after the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. Wait, what?!? It’s 66 million years ago now? They found a million years and added it in since I was in college…which coincidentally was shortly after the Cretaceous. According to the geologists, it is “uNdeniAbLe” that the dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago. All branches of science agree…right?!?! Unquestioningly lest ye be expelled!!!
But it takes many years to accumulate enough random mutations to transition the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and the amniotes. According to OneZoom.org, Primates didn’t begin to evolve until after the dinosaurs had died out. The timeline is now fixed. Primates **MUST** have evolved between 66 and 10 million years ago, to accommodate the split of humans from apes 10 million years ago
The evolutionists have unwittingly locked themselves into a timeline that allows no variance. The chimpanzees had to be evolved from the amniote common ancestor after 65 million years ago and prior to the 10 million years ago that the last human/chimp common ancestor is supposed to have lived.
But what if there were more time available? What if the timeline wasn’t so rigid? The cosmologists just found an extra 13 billion years!!! Surely the Biological evolutionary timeline could borrow some of that time…right?
Here’s my prediction: Within my lifetime, the genetic evidence (principally from the waiting time problem and Richard Lenski’s Long-Term Evolutionary Experiment) will lure biological, geophysical, and other earth scientists to “borrow” some of the time that the cosmologists have “discovered” (read fabricated out of the ether). The age of the earth, once thought to be rigidly defined as 4.5 billion years old will grow significantly to accommodate the newly discovered falsification to the old timeline. And everyone will quickly forget the OLD age of the earth. It will be demanded by the “ministry of truth” that everyone forget the old timeline and accept the new timeline as if Oceana has always been at war with EastAsia. If the asserted time is there for the cosmologist, why shouldn’t the biologists borrow some to fix that inconvenient problem of genetics. What’s a few billion years here or there between naturalist friends in an effort to explain the origins of the universe, stars, chemicals, galaxies, life, consciousness…without the Creator God?
Sadly, because most old earth Christians hold to the modern academic paradigm to inform their interpretation of scripture, they will jump in with both feet as well in changing their timeline. Although they proclaimed loudly and often that “tHe sCienCe” confirmed the universe to be 13.8 billion years old, and that the Bible never says anything about the age of the earth/universe, people are free to accept whatever science tells them. And since the science has now changed to 27 billion years old, they will tell us that the Bible should be changed to accommodate that new & improved view too.
But I will remain faithful to what Jesus said: “At the beginning of creation, God made them male and female” rather than what the old earthers think: that God made humans 13.8…I mean 27 billion years after the beginning of creation. God’s Word can be trusted completely
Well, I got a new challenge from a Christian, who has faith in both old earthism and evolutionism. Sadly, he has joined the scoffers in rejecting the Biblical account of the worldwide flood during the days of Noah. It’s doubtful that he will even read this article, since he has a personal distaste for reading anything that hasn’t gone through the Peer-Review™️ process. He holds Peer-review as his sacred text, but I will proceed in the hopes that others will be encouraged in their faith in God’s revealed word rather than the modern academic paradigm. And although the article that we will analyze is not peer-reviewed, our Christian interlocutor will rationalize his inconsistency by saying, “Well, it contains citations to peer-reviewed articles.” Alrighty-then.
After posting these “Can Evolution Explain…articles, I inevitably hear evolutionists respond with some form of: “get your paper peer-reviewed and only then can you get your Nobel Prize for disproving evolution. Until then STFU!”
To be clear, these “Can Evolution Explain…” articles are not intended to disprove evolution. They are simply meant to analyze the assertions of evolutionists to see whether the subject matter is actually evidence for evolution. What I find in all of these articles is that what’s been proclaimed as “mOuntAinS oF eVidenCe” for evolution is really just story-telling and assumptions. We’ll see if the article below is more of the same bluster or actual evidence.
So I will be analyzing this article from Biologos written by astrobiologist, Stephen Freeland. But before I do, we must make a few notes, lest the skeptics shriek in horror. For purposes of our discussion, we will grant that the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) already has the base quantity of information necessary for life in its genetic code. This post will not address the impossibility of life emerging from non-life as this is done elsewhere. So the question at hand in THIS post is simply to address the massive amounts of information that would be necessary to have the expression of traits seen in today’s observations (eyes, wings, lungs, coherent interrelated interdependent systems…) that were not available to LUCA. We’ve been told that evolution (natural selection acting on random mutations) can explain the total amount of this information, and Dr. Freeland wrote his article to elucidate how evolution can explain its origins
Dr. Freeland’s quotes are in red italics. Any bold or underline in his quotes are not in the original but are added by me for emphasis.
Current science does not have a detailed, widely-accepted description for how a genetic information system evolved in the first place…I describe the progress that mainstream science has made towards understanding the origin of genetic information since the molecular basis of genetic information was first understood, encouraging readers to reach their own conclusions
From the opening paragraph of the article, it sounds like bad news for the prevaricators of evolution. To repeat him in my own words: There’s no demonstrable evidence that evolution can produce information, but I’m going to give you my theory of how it might have happened. In all of my previous posts in the “Can Evolution Explain…” series, it’s the same bluster: Undeniable explanation in the title of the article and caveats, assumptions, artwork and story-telling in the article below. And Freeland’s article starts out just the same
Biological evolution describes a natural process that transfers information from a local environment into the chemical known as DNA…This unusual definition of evolution seeks to clarify an ambiguity in traditional alternatives, such as “biological evolution is a natural process of change in genetic material over time.”
This is NOT the typical definition of evolution. And his definition burdens the readers with more questions than it answers. Where did the information that is stored in the local environment come from? What is the process that stores information in the local environment? Did the need or the desire or the ability or the availability to transfer information from the local environment to DNA arise first? Without the others, how could it have been preserved until the others arrived? What tools perform the transfer of information from a local environment to DNA? What is the process that transfers information from a local environment to DNA?
Regarding the last question, my profession as a database administrator will have some insight. When transferring data from one data format to another data format like from a marketing firm to a state entity for tax purposes, several parameters must be considered:
Format – the data must be in an arrangement that both the sender and the receiver understand. For instance, the credit amount from the sender must be in the same column that the receiver expects it to be.
Timing – the transfer cannot take place if the sender does not transmit at the time when the receiver is expecting it. If the receiver is not listening when the sender transmits the information, the data is lost
Protocol – transmission method, authentication, and data integrity confirmation must all be considered when passing data to a new source
Ability to send
Ability to recieve
The ability to send and receive must correspond
So while Freeland might have casually assumed that information can be transferred from a local environment to DNA, he’s left unanswered how the unguided, purposeless process of evolution can solve these monumental problems
Start by imagining a line
Imagine indeed! That’s not really the explanation I was looking for
These mutations could, in a single generation, produce large changes in an organism’s appearance
That assertion would be more compelling if it had a citation with it. As is, it looks like an extraordinary assertion without any evidence. Besides if true, the expectation would be (since the vast majority of mutations are neutral or deleterious) that the “large changes” about which Freeland alludes would be destructive and degenerative…not new information
Further evidence indicated that micro-evolution accumulates over time to account for all larger degrees of evolutionary diversification (macro-evolution)
Again Freeland does not cite or provide any evidence for this assertion. The reader is just expected to believe what he’s asserted without evidence
Unless life began in greater quantity than it now exists, evolution requires that natural processes have, over time, increased the total quantity of genetic material (DNA) present on our planet. This is one way in which science currently believesgenetic information has increased over time: a natural process has increased the number of copies of DNA molecules without any need for guidance by an intelligent agent
Does evolution have requirements? The THEORY does. Yes, the theory of evolution does require that new information must have been formed, but this is just another assertion by Freeland. Notice from the underlined section above, Freeland employs the reification fallacy as if science has its own mind and can believe something. This is common among old earthers to reify the abstract concept of science (pursuit of knowledge) as if science were a living anthropomorphic entity that has a voice and beliefs and censorship powers. We also see in Freeland’s quote the implication that duplications of information are an actual increase in information. There are at least 3 problems with this line of thinking
Duplications provide a means for more degenerative problems to arise
Due to the work of geneticist Dr. John Sanford, we know that only deleterious mutations are able to be removed/preserved by natural selection. Neutral or legendary beneficial mutations are well inside the “no-selection” zone and cannot be removed/preserved by natural selection. p104 Genetic Entropy, Dr. John Sanford
Freeland’s assertions veer unexpectedly into confirming the creation model
unless life originated containing more DNA than the most genetically complex organism alive today, then some lineages must have increased the quantity of DNA they contain through evolution
This is exactly what the creation model says. God created kinds of plants and animals with the full variability they would need to survive and thrive in different conditions as they filled the earth’s disparate environments. This is exactly what we find. As the world became subject to the effects of the fall, geographic isolation, natural selection & other factors have splintered and destroyed much of the original information, but we see incredible variability being expressed in the different kinds that God created. Freeland rejects the biblical view in favor of the naturalistic one, where he assumes that all genetic information (after LUCA) had to be constructed by natural unguided forces over time. We’re just waiting for him to provide evidence for this. Maybe we’ll find it further down in his paper
DNA has the unusual property of being aperiodic. This means that the sequence of nucleotides within a DNA molecule is not constrained to any kind of repeating pattern
This is true. The individual nucleotides also have no chemical or physical force that would cause them to be arranged in a particular order (specified complexity). The nucleotides are similar to the children’s letters with a magnet on the back for refrigerators. They are attracted to the refrigerator but this does not arrange the individual letters in an order that would spell a message “Good morning mom I luv u” (misspellings intended since all the o’s got used up). But notice what Freeland does below
The idea that some sequences of DNA cannot be produced by natural processes owing to the information they contain has no empirical support from modern genetics. In fact, quite the reverse. Genetic information is stored in sequences of nucleotides that have been chemically linked together to form a molecule of DNA. Genetics, bioinformatics, biochemistry and molecular biology all agree that natural processes can cause any nucleotide to become the neighbor of any other within a DNA sequence
Rather than showing us how the letters were arranged (as in our analogy) to say “good morning mom I luv u”, he simply says (in my own words) Well, there’s nothing that would PREVENT nature from arranging these letters in this way. Freeland has not given us the secret for how nature constructed billions of lines of genetic code…he’s just informed us that there’s nothing that would keep nature from constructing billions of lines of code that’s stored in DNA. His faith in nature’s ability to write biological code stretches credulity.
Try this for yourself by listing a series of mutations that convert the word “evolution” into “creation” with the restriction that each mutation must either change a single letter, insert or delete one or more letters, or move the position of any sub-group of letters. There are many ways to reach the outcome, and this remains true for any two words that you can choose.
This sounds an awful lot like Dawkin’s “Me thinks it is like a weasel” analogy. In his book, A Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins proposes that the phrase “Me thinks it is like a weasel” can be constructed easily by randomly changing 1 letter of a gibberish collection of letters at a time and artificially preserving any letter that appears in the right spot. He asserts that success in constructing the phrase is inevitable. The problem is that the way natural selection works, unless the phrase appears all at one, it cannot be preserved as meaningful. Without functionality or meaning, natural selection would discard any partial sentence and every iteration would have to start from the beginning. Rather than inevitable, the actual chances of constructing a sentence (or changing evolution to creation with a random switching of letters) is ZERO if analogous to natural selection removing non-meaningful phrases/words.
Indeed, evolution can be described precisely in terms of thermodynamic processes by which sources of energy bring into being particular states of information within a DNA molecule
Perhaps he’ll describe this process more later in his paper, but he’s again presenting more unanswered questions. What thermodynamic processes? What source of energy? What particular state? What are the different states of information? Bring? In what way do processes bring states of information into being? What mechanism serves to convert energy into information?
Within a population of individuals that vary from one another, those that best match their environment will, on average, leave behind the most offspring. Wherever the match is genetically programmed, the version of the genetic program associated with the best match will tend to increase in frequency over time by leaving behind more copies of itself. As these advantageous versions are copied from one generation to the next, they will mix with new variations that either increase or decrease the match. All the while, the environment keeps changing and mutations keep occurring so the matching process continues. Repeating this process over and over will create a pool of genetic programs that have accumulated variations maximizing the overall match between organism and environment
A colossal oversight from Freeland is the assumption that the information that he’s supposed to be explaining already exists in his “population of individuals”. It’s like him saying: From this Microsoft Word 10.5, I will construct Microsoft Word 10.6. Now just a minute. For purposes of our discussion, I have granted him DOS 1.0 (genetic code for LUCA), but to needs to elucidate how evolution got from DOS 1.0 -> Windows 3.1 -> Windows 10 (genetic code for humans) and MS Word 1.0 running on Windows 3.1-> MS Word 10.6 running on Windows 10 without intelligent interaction. You missed some steps Dr. Freeland.
The color of leaf on which an organism feeds may become reflected in its genetic material if this type of genetic programming helps the herbivore to hide from predators; conversely, genetic material may evolve to program colorations that contrast with the background of other organisms in an environment where finding and attracting mates is the strategy that leaves behind the most copies
This is an assertion that is ripe for a citation, but Freeland leaves his readers in the dark about whether this is just his opinion or whether a peer-reviewed experiment confirmed that ONLY natural selection acting on random mutations can incorporate genetic code from plants into consumers as camouflage. Notice too how Freeland (like many other evolutionists) asserts contradictory results from the same action (evolution camouflages and evolution colorizes).
The contradictory nature of evolution
No matter how complex these rebounding, mixing reflections of the environment become, they will never create new information (any more than your image in a reflection of a reflection of a reflection contains more information than you do.) Viewed in this light, biological evolution is a natural process that distills thermodynamic information from a highly complex environment into molecules of DNA.
Somewhat correct. We would not expect nature to create new information and Freeland confirms this. But the 2nd sentence is simply a restatement of his initial assertion…NOT justification or explanation for it.
Evolution is to DNA what gravity is to a puddle of water: in both cases it is possible to isolate elements of the whole that carry impressively complex information
This is not true. Gravity is prescriptive. It’s force is physical. Evolution is descriptive. Natural selection is simply the observation that the unfit do not pass on their genetic code. Neither are random mutations prescriptive. Random mutations happen (because of the curse of sin) and have never been observed to produce NEW information.
Gravity and evolution not only permit the transfer of environmental information into a chemical medium, but inevitably and inexorably lead to this information transfer
As expected, Freeland was only able to rely on a failed analogy to make his case. No citation of the answers to any of the questions that followed from his original assertion. Since he continues only to assert rather than demonstrate, we have no choice but to dismiss his claims as simply assertions.
It is true that at present, evolutionary science does not have a clear, detailed and well-accepted explanation for how the Central Dogma of molecular biology emerged
True
The universe is replete with information capacity and syntax – from the positions of stars within our galaxy (and billions of others) to the arrangement of atoms in a single grain of sand. Within living systems, most of this information is ignored – so the question is not “where did the information come from” (unless we wish to talk cosmology – a very different subject) but rather “how does nature create systems that focus on some of this natural information?” Put another way, the challenge for understanding the origin of genetic systems is to find how natural processes can simplify a large amount of thermodynamic information into a syntax that displays only the disciplined chemical semantics of a self-replicator.
There it is: the crux of his argument: The universe has plenty of information, so he asserts that evolution just transfers this existing information into DNA. The proof is missing! We’ve yet to hear from Freeland:
How evolution originated new information (the title of his article)
The mechanism by which the universe can convert the “thermodynamic information” into biological information to be stored in DNA. An analogy: If we think of the energy stored in gasoline as the “thermodynamic information” stored in the universe, what’s missing is the internal combustion engine & drivetrain to get that energy transferred to the wheels (DNA) to make the car move. Even if we grant evolution to be the drivetrain (which I do not), conversion of the volatile energy from gasoline must be released, harnessed, and meticulously converted to the drivetrain to preserve the integrity of the energy (data)
Recent findings are also starting to make sense of why natural selection created this particular alphabet of building blocks
This is the fallacy of reification. Natural selection is a description of what happens in nature when it is observed that the diseased, least fit, and injured are removed from the gene pool. We can think of natural selection as ‘quality control’. The way quality control in a car factory works is that this department analyzes the cars coming off the factory line to make sure that it is “fit” for the environment to accomplish its purpose. If natural selection (quality control) determines it to be unfit, that car (organism) and it’s internal assembly instructions (DNA) are destroyed. So while I’m sure Freeland understands natural selection, he’s made a serious mistake by granting to natural selection the power to create. Freeland did have a citation (to his own article for a different publication) for this particular quote, and when we analyze this article, his problems are compounded with more fallacies
We found that evolution’s choice outperforms random alternative selections for some simple, predictable criteria. This in turn gives us deeper insight into the relative roles of chance versus predictability in the emergence and evolution of life on our planet
His reification fallacies continue as evolution has now been granted powers of choice by Freeland. From Freeland’s writings we begin to get the feeling that he believes the cosmos to be alive in order to select informational alphabets, store that information, and then transmit it to biological machines.
DNA is made by complex, genetically encoded protein enzymes without a ribozyme in sight. The individual building-blocks of DNA (deoxynucleotides) are made by taking and modifying a nucleotide of RNA. Again, all this is exactly what we would expect if DNA evolved from RNA
Freeland’s article is from 2013, so it’s likely that he’s not up-to-date with the refutation of the RNA world hypothesis. Maybe in his newer papers, he has been made aware and wouldn’t make that argument. This short video is highly informative for showing why the RNA evolution theory should be discarded and no longer used by evolutionists
A related suggestion is that current evolutionary theory cannot explain how natural processes could produce a genetic information system in the first place. I agree that we are far from a full understanding
Honesty is commendable, but your paper is not persuasive in telling us how evolution originated all of the information in biological life from LUCA to humans. Freeland actually overstates his case that there is even a limited understanding. His claims are not demonstrable lest he would have done it
I agree with Dawkins (and Darwin) that from a human standpoint, the suffering and death implicit to natural selection form questions for my faith
The Bible provides the answers that Freeland and other old earthers are unable to resolve. God created a “very good” universe (Genesis 1:31) with no death, suffering, predation or thorns. But because of the sin of mankind (Genesis 3), the curse of sin (corruption, death, suffering, predation & thorns) fell upon the whole universe (Romans 8:19-23). Our faith is strengthened not by trusting in the modern academic paradigm and tits lab-coat-wearing scientists. Our faith is strengthened by reading God’s word and trusting what He said. We can trust what God revealed about the past, so we can trust what He has revealed about the future. You want to know why evolution is not true? Because it is in conflict with what God has revealed in his word. But as you can also see through the analysis of this article and any other evolutionary article, the evidence is lacking
Dr. Steven Ball is a professor at LeTourneau University in Texas and has written several papers criticizing the historical Christian position of young earth creation. In many of my online interactions, I have had self-identifying atheists post links to his papers as if they are the final word on how Christendom must deny the Biblical account in favor of the secular narrative of origins. This and maybe other blog posts will review and address Ball’s papers
His first paper is titled “A Christian Physicist Examines the Age of the Earth”. I will note his comments in red with my comments directly underneath in the default black. Each of his chapters will be divided into a distinct blog post to keep the posts from being too long
Dr. Steven Ball is a physics professor at LeTourneau University. He has written a few papers advocating for old earthism, that could use some cross-examination. His first paper is titled “A Christian Physicist Examines the Age of the Earth”. I will note his comments in red with my comments directly underneath in the default black. Each of his chapters will be divided into a distinct blog post to keep the posts from being too long
In a nutshell, the premise of Creation Science is that the Bible gives us answers to many questions also addressed by science
Right from the beginning, he subtly elevates the modern academic paradigm (which he conflates with science throughout) as superior to the Bible. This position of authority that he grants gives him the interpretive permission to redefine the words and concepts of the Bible in order to accommodate his interpretation of the modern academic paradigm (MAP). Authority is the BIG issue in this discussion, and young earth creationists have the epistemic understanding that the Bible is the authoritative principium rather than MAP.
Secondly, Ball like many, who are familiar with this discussion, think that the age of the earth is a question that is answered by science. This is wrong in at least two ways
The Bible is not a science textbook. The Bible is mostly a history book. Orthodox Christianity recognizes that the Bible is the inerrant inspired Word of God. So, what God has revealed about the past cannot be refuted. Since what God has revealed about the past is in conflict with what is currently being taught about origins in (what some people call) the scientific community, there is tension. Christians who wish to be faithful to the scientific community are then faced with the need for reconciliation between what is taught in the Bible with MAP. So, they choose to redefine Genesis as some figurative myth and say “oh, the Bible isn’t a science book” and “the Bible tells us how to go to heaven and science tells us how the heavens go” These are cute bumper stickers, but it is again as subtle dismissal of what the Bible has revealed about history
Age is not a question that is best answered by science. Science measures in the present. To get information about the past, which would be more accurately termed forensics, one measures items in the present and then (in combination with assumptions) EXTRAPOLATES into the past to form a theory. The further back in time one extrapolates, the greater the margin of error. The BEST way to determine age is historical documentation. If I want to know how old I am, I do not radiometric date the elements in my body and extrapolate into the past based on the ratio of radiometric particles. The best way would be for me to check my birth certificate or ask my Jedi father. In 1992 the rocks from Mt St Helens were dated anywhere from 350,000 years old to 2,800,000 years old depending on the method. But the ACTUAL date of the rocks was 12 years. When was the Statue of Liberty brought to NY harbor? You can measure the amount of rust on the surface and extrapolate into the past, or you can check historical records. That’s not to say that forensics cannot be of assistance in determining age, but as shown, if there is documentation of age, it is more reliable that extrapolation into the unknown past.
Ball began his argument by standing on his credentials
As a Christian physicist, I’ve been blessed with the freedom and opportunity to examine the scientific evidence for the age of the Earth in some detail, and have concluded that it emphatically points to an age of around 4.6 billion years
But as we have just discussed, scientific fields like physics can only (at best) assist as a forensics tool to find past ages. The most useful tool for finding past ages is documentation and the Bible provides this. Ball’s acclamation of his credentials for determining the age of the earth is like a Formula 1 driver coming to an NBA court and telling the 7 foot basketball players how to run faster because he drives really fast. Forensics has its place, but historical documentation trumps extrapolation for answering age questions.
But then again, a massive conspiracy of manufactured false evidence from many fields of scientific research for an older Earth and universe is a bit farfetched even for conspiracy fans
Although there have been fraudulent assertions, persistent peer-reviewed articles retracted, and monetary incentives to remain within the bounds of the modern academic paradigm, most who hold to biblical creation do not assert that there is a massive old-earth conspiracy. Biblical creationists simply recognize that the question of the age of the earth comes down to authority of the Bible and assumptions. I have already discussed the issue of authority above, but origins theories are rife with unrecognized assumptions
Uniformitarianism – The belief that processes have continued from the beginning exactly as they always have. There is an implicit denial of catastrophism including the global flood. Old earthers tend to deny the global flood, so they interpret the evidence from the global flood as if all accumulated soil layers, erosion, tectonics movements, and radiometric decay rates have never changed. It is an assumption that purposefully denies or incorrectly reinterprets Genesis 6-9 as if it were a minor flood in the middle east. There are HUGE theological problems with this view that have been covered here
Popularity – Because the idea of old earth is so popular amongst academics, then it mUsT be true. This leads to an a priori assumption that old earthism is true because popular
So it follows that science and the Bible should be giving us consistent messages by virtue of the same authorship. When they appear to conflict, it could be a problem in our understanding of science or of the Scriptures
This is true. It is the very heart of the matter. It’s a shame that he did not spend more time elucidating his views here, but we can see from his arguments from whence his views are birthed. Ball grips firmly to the modern academic paradigm and thusly feels justified in redefining the Bible to accommodate it
Sadly, Ball not only believes in old earthism, but has swallowed the Neo-Darwinian lure that is so pervasive today:
From a scientific perspective, Darwin’s theory appears to have supporting evidence from a number of fields (comparative anatomy, the universal genetic code of DNA, geographical distributions of species, the overall progression of life in the fossil record, among others)
None of the interpretations of the “number of fields” has greater weight than what God revealed in the Bible – and the Bible clearly does not teach the same history as the evolutionists. In an attempt to reconcile the obvious differences, Ball and other old earthers redefine what is clearly history to a poetic figurative myth.
Using Dr. Ball’s argument, someone could just as easily say “From a scientific perspective, since there is strong supporting evidence from a number of fields of science, there was no virgin birth, parting of any seas, water to wine, or resurrection. Trust the science.” Elevating something else as the magisterial interpretive authority yields serious heretical problems. Those, who would elevate culture as authoritative, could say “Modern culture recognizes that homosexuality is very normal and should be celebrated, so those who read the Bible as if homosexuality should be condemned do not understand the Bible correctly. The Bible encourages people to be homosexual since Jesus was a homosexual.” As shown, it is reprehensible and inconsistent to propose an magisterial authority OTHER than the Bible.
As a scientist, I support further research into the origins of life. Darwin’s theory should stand or fall on the basis of scientific evidence.
Shouldn’t truth stand or fall on the BASIS of what God has revealed? Notice too that Ball has committed the unpardonable sin (according to the internet atheists): He combined the theory of the origin of life with the Darwinian theory. If he were to try this online, you can be sure that the Darwinists would be shrieking alongside the abiogeneticists. As a Christian, I would have expected for him to start with John 1:3 “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” and Colossians 1:16 “For by him (Jesus) all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.” From this, we can know with certainty that life (ALL LIFE) was created by God. Searching for an naturalistic origin goes against what God has already told us. There’s no need to “reinvent the wheel”. Ball would be a better scientist if he accepted God’s revelation rather than straining against the goads
“Crises have served to overthrow some of the most deeply entrenched (and incorrect) theories in the past, simply because there were enough thinking people who cared about establishing the truth”
One knowledgeable about the history of scientific thought should be skeptical of the dominant paradigm. Notice how the dominant scientific paradigms of the past have all been refuted. Holding onto Darwinism as if it provided truth since its proponents choose to censor and expel any dissidents is bound for extinction in the same way
1500s Geocentrism – Falsified
1600s Phlogiston – Falsified
1700s Bloodletting – Falsified
1800s Spontaneous Generation – Falsified
1858 Darwinism – Falsification Inevitable
1900s Steady State Theory – Falsified
1980s Inevitable Ice Age – Falsified
2000s Eat mostly carbs (food pyramid) – Falsified
2020s CV19 originated in a wet market from bats. CV19 will kill most of earth’s human population – Falsified
Much of this fighting has been viewed very negatively by the nonChristian community. Forcing the public schools to teach Creation Science would not win nonChristians over to Christ. Certainly not when the premise itself is that science is wrong when it seems to disagree with the Bible. While the scientific community can be faulted for harboring contempt for those who don’t accept the commonly held theories, I would hold my fellow Christians to a higher standard. It does no good to belittle the scientific community. In fact Christians everywhere would benefit from a more healthy respect for science in general
No one wants or is advocating for public schools to teach creation science. Ball is fighting against an argument that no one is making. Even though Ball doesn’t hold himself to the highest standard of accuracy by conflating the modern academic paradigm with science, he blames the Bible-believing Christians for not upholding the “higher standard” of yielding to the modern paradigm
Many scientists who accept an older Earth have clear Christian faith commitments
This is true, but they are inconsistent in their epistemology. At this point, I want to note that Christians can believe in evolution and old earthism since we know from the Bible that salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus alone. We are not saved by the amount of correct information that we believe but by the gift of God’s steadfast mercy. But Christians have been warned by Paul in his epistle to the Colossians “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ”. Old earthism and Darwinism were birthed by worldly thinking not by a commitment to Christ. We must start with the Bible and then see the world through the lens of what God has specially revealed. Conversely, Dr. Ball is telling us to see the Bible through the lens of the modern academic paradigm. It’s exactly backwards to what we as Christians should be doing
As the now popular Christian saying goes, we should not put God in a box. Many miracles described in the Bible may not be understood scientifically, but they are accepted by faith. Likewise, the hand of God may be evident even when science provides us a measure of understanding
With the 1st sentence, I can heartily agree. We ought not put God in the box *of naturalism*, which is what Ball is doing. This is the goal of Ball: teach Christians to question the historic/orthodox Christian understanding of the Bible in favor of the naturalistic explanations. Speaking of miracles – using the same interpretive methodology that Genesis cannot be true because the “science says” that it cannot be done, a skeptic could reject the parting of the Red Sea, a floating axehead, the virgin birth and the resurrection because “science says” that they cannot be done. A consistent methodology would elevate science above everything in scripture. Since I’m sure that Ball accepts the resurrection of Jesus, he is teaching an inconsistent view of scripture.
This author proposes that we try to look at the scientific evidence without any theological filter
This is the naïve assumption that there is no way to view evidence without a bias. It’s the pretended neutrality fallacy. Everyone comes to the evidence with a worldview. One’s worldview can have a basis on revelation from God OR on the basis of something lesser. Ball has chosen to view the evidence through the naturalistic worldview with a theological rider. It’s exactly backwards from what we are told to do in Colossians 2:8 “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ”
We should not deter people from this search by requiring them to reject the very science that is prompting them
Two things here
He is conflating the modern academic paradigm as science again. Science is the pursuit of knowledge, but Ball views it instead as however the naturalistic practitioners of empiricism view the evidence through their presuppositions
If people reject what the Bible says, then no amount of evidence will convince them. Don’t believe me? Then take it up with Jesus from Luke 16: “He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead’”
We’ll pick up Dr. Ball’s arguments from chapter 2 in the next blog post. Until then:
ApoloJedi 