We've been evaluating the arguments of Ken Gilmore, a theistic evolutionist who takes the Functionality thesis of John Walton, and appears overdependent upon John Walton for his claims and arguments. The full article can be found here. The arguments that he uses is based upon poor reasoning, poor Hebrew studies, and bad hermeneutics and eisegesis. So far, he is yet to demonstrate anything. He thought if he could prove parallelism between various creative acts that it would "prove" the Functionality thesis of John Walton, but this only worsened the situation since such allusions must be grounded in their historically literal reality or else such "functions" would be rendered pointless. He argued that, since Ex. 20L11 and Ex. 31 uses first and third person references that this "proves" that a later "compiler" or editor must've came along to write in the passage about God, but this doesn't "prove" no such thing since this echoes the commonplace practice of illeism if which there are both biblical and extrabiblical examples of. Now, he's going to get more head-on with his attacks of young-earth creationism (YEC).
As usual, his comments will be in red, and mine will be in black. The link of the full article is above. This will be our final evaluation of Ken Gilmore's arguments from his article, which is linked above. I will offer one final conclusion at the end of this post below, also in black, that will evaluate his overall arguments throughout my whole series. In the rest of the article we just got done evaluating, he moved forward thinking he had demonstrated his position when he had not. Now he attacks our position, the orthodox position of the Church, on the age of the earth. Let's see if he at least tries this time to offer us any evidence supporting his views...
Gilmore: Let's now look at the scientific facts that comprehensively rule out YEC and its belief that the entire universe was created in six literal days.
Brian: Here he assumes that certain person's interpretation of the evidence are "scientific facts" when they are not. Whether, instead, they are merely interpretations of the natural world. We all have worldview-filters whenever we look at the evidence. I mean, think about it. We live in the same world, and we have the same evidence. Worldviews act as our mental glasses by which we view the evidence through. The only proper way to deal with a worldview issue is by doing an internal critique of one's own worldview, and the only real way to deal with "evidence" propagated by others of another worldview is by using what is called a reductio ad absurdum argument. We dealt with this back when we did Part One of this series. This type of argument shows that the conclusion is absurd or inconsistent if I assumed the same things. I don't embrace their assumption, of course, but I show, from their perspective, how, if their initial assumptions were true, the majority of the evidence wouldn't support their position.
However, you might be thinking that they have the same worldview as me because they profess Christianity. In one sense they do. They agree, for example, that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the dead. They agree that faith in Christ's death, Resurrection from the dead, and His deity as Lord (the Gospel) is required for our eternal salvation. This is definitely a worldview that they hold to. Notwithstanding, they also have a secondary worldview by which they interpret the data through. This is an arbitrary philosophical assumption called Uniformitarianism, which arbitrarily assumes that the rates and conditions of the present are the same in the past as it is today. This is echoed in the too oft-mentioned phrase "the key to the past is in the present." They take these present rates and conditions of the present and try to use them to extrapolate back into the past, while assuming, arbitrarily I might add, are the same in the past as they are today. In Part One (see link above) I used a reductio ad absurdum argument to show that, even if this was the case, most of the evidence would support a young universe, a young solar system, and a young life. I may go over some of that evidence in this post, but we'll see. Anyhow, OECs have a Christian worldview, and somewhat of a biblical worldview, but the Bible becomes a standard for interpreting the data, because they have a ultimate standard over the Bible by which they interpret the Bible with as well as all outside data.
YECs have an absolute Biblical-Christian worldview. This is why we are called biblical creationists as we young-earth creationists. Our ultimate standard is the Bible by which we interpret the Bible. I won't get too much into this, but knowledge and science would be impossible apart from a biblical-Christian worldview. To be consistent, especially as a Christian, one must interpret the data in light of a Christian-Biblical worldview with the Bible as your ultimate standard by which the data is interpreted through. OECs inconsistently interprets the data through the non-biblical assumption of uniformitarianism. This is why they commit eisegesis a lot, and are accused of it a lot, just as I have accused Gilmore of it a lot over these past five post that I have produced in this series.
Gilmore is trying to pave the way for secular interpretations of the evidence by opening a door and claiming that any interpretation of the evidence made by secular scientists would be allowed since his thesis wouldn't disallow it, and he assumes that he has demonstrated his thesis when he hasn't demonstrated yet. Remember, he thinks that parallel accounts, which he didn't established, means that the writer, which he views as a "later compiler", must've not have been concerned with material creation, just functionality of creation, but this is specious reasoning. How would any functionality be viewed as valid in the wake of a false history by which to ground it in? It wouldn't make any sense, and none of the biblical passages that he cited even deals with the emphasis of Creation, or says anything about a lack of concern for material Creation. In fact, this all of what Gen. 1-2 are even about.
He says that he thinks the evidence "rules out" YEC's position. What we will see, however, is that the Bible makes better sense of the evidence than what is claimed by OECs. He hasn't given us any evidence, yet, let alone evidence for an old earth. Let's see if he makes the attempt...
Gilmore: The oldest rocks found so far come from NW Canada and have been dated to just over 4 billion years old. Zircon grains, which can outlast their parent rocks have been dated to around 4.4 billion years. The geological evidence for an ancient Earth is considerable. As geologist G.B. Dalrymple remarked: [He cites G.B. Dalrymple.]
Brian: I consider myself to be a critical thinker. A critical thicker thinks through what they have been told, especially again the facts, evidence, and logical reasoning. They ask all of the probing questions like, how do we "know" that what they claim about how old the rocks are is true? In my experience, most OECs and evolutionists are not critical thinkers. If a secular scientist claims something that agrees with their perspective they just take them at their word, but a critical checks the facts and evidence that is being claimed out, even if it agrees with their position, or the person claiming it agrees with their position. Just because someone claims something is billions of years old doesn't make it so.
So, the question here has to be, how do we "know" that these rocks are billions of years old? Well, one way that OECs and evolutionists use is called radiometric dating. This method uses the present decay of radiometric material from their parent isotopes to their daughter isotopes and then extrapolate this rate of decay back into the past. You can already see that this method assumes uniformitarianism. This is the fundamental assumption behind radiometric dating. This often leads back to circular reasoning which we'll get into here in a minute.
Radiometric dating is based upon three assumptions outside its basic assumption of uniformitarianism. 1) One must assumed that the rate of decay is a constant rate, meaning the rate in which its decaying today is the rate in which it has always decayed. Do we know this? No, but this is assumed. Sometimes an OEC will say they "know" this, but this is false. Unless they can build themselves a time machine to measure the material's rate of decay over time then they do not know this no matter how much they claim it. It is an assumption. Some might argue that, yes, it is an assumption, but it's a reasonable assumption, but this, too, is false. There are naturalistic conditions that can affect its rate of decay such as heat and pressure.
2) The initial conditions are the same as they are today. Again, do we know this? No, we don't. Conditions change with time, and most systems are open systems. You would also have to assume that the daughter isotope (the isotope that the parent isotope is decaying into) started out with 0%. Why would you have to assume this. Because you further assumed, in the process of dating it, that the amount of daughter isotopes (or element) is there because it 100% decayed from its parent isotope (or element). If it didn't, say if the daughter element was already there at the initial rock formation, then this would throw off the dating by a lot.
3) You would have to assume that no additional isotopes were added. Do you know this? No, you don't. Additional isotopes can contaminate the sample. Rocks are, for example, an open system. This means that energy can be transferred to it, and vise versa. Meteorites in space and on the Moon, which is where we actually get the 4.5 billion year age of the Earth (from Meteorites and Moon rocks) are constantly bombarded by radiation and radioactivity. However, you'd have to assume these things in order to assume the trustworthiness of radiometric dating, but are these assumptions reasonable assumptions and are they falsifiable?
In 1997 a group of young-earth creationist scientists got together to challenge these assumptions behind these radiometric dating methods. They'd identified themselves with the acronym RATE which stands for Radioisotopes and The Age of The Earth. These assumptions were tested against a backdrop of experiments, and resulted in two peer-reviewed books, and one non-technical one.
In Assumption #1 they found out that at some time in the past nuclear decay has accelerated. Heat and Pressure can accelerate nuclear material, causing its half-life to jump into a "shortcut" allowing the material to accelerate exponentially. For example, radiometric dating has been accelerated by a factor of a billion (Lisle & Chaffey, Old-Earth Creationism on Trial, p. 135)! A geologist named John Woodmorappe had commented on this:
More recently, bb decay has been experimentally demonstrated in the rhenium-osmium (187Re-187Os) system. (The Re-Os method is one of the isotopic ‘clocks’ used by uniformitarian geologists5 to supposedly date rocks.) The experiment involved the circulation of fully-ionized 187Re in a storage ring. The 187Re ions were found to decay to a measurable extent in only several hours, amounting to a half-life of only 33 years. This represents a staggering billion-fold increase over the conventional half-life, which is 42 Ga! (Ga = giga-annum = a billion (109) years) (John Woodmorappe, Billion-Fold Acceleration of Radioactivity Demonstrated in Laboratory, found at https://answersingenesis.org/geology/radiometric-dating/acceleration-of-radioactivity-shown-in-laboratory/, accessed a 09/19/2022).
Also, Helium is a biproduct that is given off as a result of radiometric decay. Helium is a very "slippery" element. Meaning it can easily slip through the cracks and pours in rocks and crystals. Gilmore had mention "Zircon grains" in the passage above. Zircon crystals exist in rocks and biotite (a type of soft volcanic rock) material all over the world. When you date the Uranium-238 to Lead-206 in them it comes over 3 billion years. However, as a result of nuclear decay they give off Helium. If these rock samples were really billions of years old all of the Helium would've "slipped" out after billions of years. According to a physicist named Dr. Russel Humphreys who performed the research and experimentation:
As the U [Uranium] and Th [Thorium] nuclei in a zircon decay, they produce He [Helium]…For example, 238U emits eight a-particles [alpha particles] as it decays through various intermediate elements to 206Pb. Each a-particle is a 4He nucleus, consisting of two protons and two neutrons. Each explosively expelled 4He nucleus eventually comes to a stop, either within the zircon or in the surrounding material [biotite]. There it quickly gathers two electrons and becomes a neutral He atom. Helium is lightweight, fast-moving atom that does not form chemical bonds with other atoms. It can diffuse through solids relatively fast, meaning that He atoms wiggle through the spaces between atoms in a crystal lattice and spread themselves out as far from one another as possible. For the same reason it can leak rapidly through tiny holes and cracks, making it ideal for leak detection in laboratory vacuum systems. The diffusion and leakage rates are so great that believers in the billions of years had expected most of the He produced during the alleged 4.5 billion years of earth's existence to have worked its way out of the crust and into earth's atmosphere long ago...the He has not had enough time (less than 8000 years) to escape from the zircons, much less the crust [Russel Humphreys, Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth, Vol. II: Results of a Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative, ed. Larry Vardiman, Andrew A. Snelling, & Eugene F. Chaffin, p. 27).
Dr. Don DeYoung, who was apart of the RATE project, explains further:
Additional new data were collected by the RATE group [which is "new" from the sample researched by Robert Gentry earlier] for the New Mexico samples taken from a depth of 1,490 meters. The helium amounts were measured in the same laboratory where the diffusion experiments were carried out. A helium concentration was found for the biotite mineral averaging 6.6 nanomoles/cm3. For the zircon, the helium concentration is about 200 times greater, 1,320 nanomoles/cm3. A nanomole of helium is a billionth of a mole, or 6.02 x 10[to the 14th power] atoms. This is a large number; however, the other atoms making up the biotite material typically number a billion times greater. This means that the helium atoms in the biotite and zircons represent only a very small impurity (DeYoung, Thousands...Not Billions, p. 75).
All of this means despite what the Uranium-Lead dating method indicates, these cannot be billions of years old. If they were as such all of the Helium would've leaked out by now. However, quite a bit of Helium is found in both the zircon crystals and the surrounding biotite material, affirming that some time in the past this radioactive decay was much faster than it is today.
Radiometric dating has actually been tested on rocks of known ages. Volcanic rocks are formed after a volcanic eruption happens, and the lava cools and solidify into rock. This usually happens anywhere from hours to days following the eruption. Since we know when these eruptions occurred, then we know when the volcanic rock had formed. Potassium-40 decays to Argon-40 with a half-life of 1,250 Ma (million years). This means that it has a very slow decay rate. The assumption by deep-time advocates is that all of the Ar-40 would've leaked out before the rock had formed, resulting in 0% Ar at start-up. Thus, when they date rocks using K-Ar dating they measure the amount of Potassium and Argon that is already there versus its rate of decay. However, if the rock sample already started with its daughter element (Argon) already in it then this would throw their entire dating method off by a lot. This also shows how our assumptions can greatly affect our conclusions, and why it is so important to approach the data with the right assumptions in mind, because it can lead to flawed or false conclusions.
At any rate, they discovered that the dates of these samples of volcanic rock gave dates that were hundreds of thousands to millions of years off from their actual dates (Lisle & Chaffey, Old-Earth Creationism on Trial, p. 132). The reason for this is that they found out there was what they called "excess argon" in the sample. Simply put, the rock formed with Ar already trapped inside of it, which threw the dating off--way off. Lisle and Chaffey commented on the problem that this had caused as well as the logical implications of it:
[W]e know that radiometric dating is unreliable because it can be tested on rocks of known ages...Radiometric dating has been shown to not work on rocks of known age. Yet most secular scientists and other old-earth supporters assume that radiometric dating does work on rocks of unknown age. This is quite an obvious inconsistency (Lisle & Chaffey, Old-Earth Creationism on Trial, p. 132-133, emphasis in the original).
I agree. It is illogical to assume that if we cannot trust radiometric dating with rocks of known ages but we should trust it with rocks of unknown ages. A geologist named Andrew Snelling gives us further inside into the various examples of different volcanic samples of rock that yielded wild results from the known ages due to the excess Argon:
After the May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State, a new lava dome began developing from October 26, 1980, onwards within the volcano's career. In 1986, less than ten years later after it flowed and cooled, a dacite lava from this dome was sampled and analyzed. The lava flow yielded a potassium-argon "age" of 350,000 years for the whole rock, and the constituent minerals yielded potassium-argon ages up to 2.8 million years. Similarity, the June 30,1954, andesite lava flow from Mt. Ngauruhoe, central North Island, New Zealand, yielded potassium-argon model "ages" up to 3.5 Ma (million years) due to access 40Ar. Furthermore, a separate split of that flow sample also yielded a model "age" of 0.8 Ma, which indicates the variabilities in the excess 40Ar. Investigators also have found that excess 40Ar is preferentially trapped in the minerals within lava flows, with one K-Ar "date" on olivine crystals in a recent basalt being greater than 110 Ma...
The obvious conclusion most investigators have reached is that the excess 40Ar had to be present in the molten lavas when extruded and they did not completely degas when they cooled. This resulted in excess 40Ar becoming trapped in constituent minerals and the rock fabrics themselves (Andrew Snelling, Earth's Catastrophic Past: Geology, Creation & the Flood, Vol. 2, pp. 804-805).
Going back to Gilmore's arguments, by "dated" him, other OECs and evolutionists and uniformitarians, as we the one that he cited, means that these are the "evidence" presented by radiometric dating, which is found to be notorious unreliable. Also, you have to apply your own guess at the ages, because at the end of the day, for an old-earther, what radiometric dating says really don't matter, because it always come down to their presuppositions. Some time ago I was debating this old-earth creationist in the comment section of a YouTube video, under a different channel. He told me that they select and reject radiometric dating results based upon whether the date the sample yielded was either "too young" or "too old" for how old the Earth is. I said, "I know they do that, and that's what's called circular reasoning!"
Some people think that if they can add various results that maybe they can get an accurate, or close to accurate, radiometric result, but this doesn't work either. They all suffer from the same flaws and bad assumptions. Adding them together means you only amplify the problem. Gilmore seems to be trying to do this various thing. That's why he seems to be combining more than one, but they all give wildly inconsistent results, some of which are off by billions of years, and they all come down to the same flawed assumptions. So, it doesn't matter when these dating methods "date" something, the results are always flawed as the assumptions they are based upon.
Gilmore: Finally, the absence of any short-lived radionuclides in the crust of the Earth bears powerful witness to the great antiquity of the Earth. Apart from those produced naturally, no radionuclides with half-lives younger than 82 million years are found in nature.
Brian: Here, Gilmore is making a circular argument. He assumed his position of uniformitarianism is true, then tried to argue from the decay rates which are based upon these assumptions. This is why I spent so much time in both Part One and Part Five doing a reductio ad absurdum argument. This is the only way to avoid a circular argument when the issues are centered around worldviews, assumptions, and presuppositions. This is why so many OECs and evolutionists make, and are accused of, circular reasoning. They don't make these kinds of arguments. In fact, a 0% of their arguments ever assume our position to disprove it. Instead, while they are trying to fight against our position, they always assumed their position in the process, but that's what is yet to be demonstrated.
As we've already shown, their assumptions are flawed, their conclusions are false, and them assuming their position while fighting against ours does not demonstrate their position. So, this is evidence for nothing. All they really did was assumed their position anyway. The arguments we use is called a reductio ad absurdum argument which is how we show that there conclusions are false by showing that their initial assumptions are flawed.
For example, C-14 inly has a half-life of 5730 years. This means that potentially if 5,730 years had passed then one half-life would've passed, and thus half the sample that is there. Then after another 5,730 years another half of the sample would be gone, thus another half-life would've passed. This continues after until there are no more measurable amounts of Carbon-14, at approximately 90,000 years, which is less than a hundred thousand years. If all of the Earth was made up of nothing but C-14 atoms, in less than a million years it would all be gone. Now, this half-life is based upon uniformitarian assumptions about rates and decay that I don't accept. It is likely, for example, that, if my assumptions are correct, that the half-life of C-14 could be far less than we think. However, if I am going to do a reductio ad absurdum argument then, even though I do not embrace the uniformitarian's positions and assumptions, I engage the uniformitarian by arguing in such a way that I "assumed" their positions and assumptions for the sake of argument to see if their position would lead to a valid conclusion, and to keep me from making a circular argument.
Assuming that the rate of decay in C-14 is right, and thus its half-life is correct, things such as fossils, coal, oil, natural gas, and diamonds all have C-14 in them. However, if they were truly millions, and, in the case of diamonds, hundreds of millions to billions of years old, there should be no C-14 left. Just to be clear, 90,000 years is an upper limit. This means that any date less than that would be consistent with that data, including a 6,000-year date, but anything above that number would be inconsistent with it.
Due to the reductio ad absurdum argument, the critic would have three likely responses. Either they would have to 1) admit that their position of deep=time is wrong, which they most never do; 2) abandon their uniformitarian assumption, which does happen on occasion, although not usually; or 3) they would present some kind of ad hoc explanation to try and get around this data, which is what they usually do. Ad hoc is a Latin term that means "to this" and it always refers to a nonevidenced explanation. In logic it tantamount to a speculation used in a logical argument for the purpose of providing a convenient explanation to get out of a spot whereby the data doesn't agree with your positions or arguments.
A good example of this, in case of my C-14 argument above. Dr. Don DeYoung explains their responses and why they don't work:
The first idea is that either the earth's atmosphere or moving groundwater somehow supplies old samples with new C-14 atoms. If true, this migration of carbon-14 would likely be an ongoing process throughout history. To maintain traces of radiocarbon in ancient material, the carbon content would have to be replaced many times over since carbon-14 is radioactive and does not last. The extreme variety in the thickness, depth, and porosity of the earth's rock layers would surely lead to great variations in C-14 contamination by air or water if this does indeed occur. However, the measured traces of C-14 are fairly uniform throughout the rock strata of the earth. Large-scale contamination of the earth's crustal rocks with carbon-14 from the environment is therefore not a reasonable explanation.
The Second suggestion involves nuclear reactions in which outside neutrons enter samples and convert either nitrogen-14 or carbon-13 atoms directly to carbon-14. Such reactions can indeed occur, however, calculations show that the resulting C-14 amounts are several thousand times less that the range actually measured.
The Third suggestion concerns heavy radioactive isotopes which exist in trace amounts in some samples. These include radium, thorium, and uranium atoms which can decay in several possible ways. A very small fraction of these decays produces carbon-14 atoms. In the case of radium-223, for example, somewhat less than one out of a billion decays produces a carbon-14 nucleus instead of the usual alpha particle. In this and every other case of radioactive decay, the C-14 production remains far below the amounts observed in diamonds. In fact, the generation of carbon-14 by the decay of heavy nuclei results in an amount at least 100,000 times less than the actual C-14 samples (Don DeYoung, Thousands...Not Billions, pp. 57-58).
In the case of the last two suggestions mentioned by Dr. DeYoung, imagine an entire barrel filled up with water, but on its side was a large hole with water gushing out of the barrel really fast. Let's say you want to stop that from happening, but couldn't patch up the hole, so you use shot glasses of water, let's say, ten of them, and placed them into the barrel as fast as you can. Is that enough? No, because you are still faced with two problems: 1) There is a lot more water going out than it is going in, and 2) it's gushing out far faster than you can replace it. Even if you helped it a little bit it wouldn't be enough. You'd loose more water than what you can replace. In like manner, this is what OECs and evolutionists are trying to do with radioactive elements with very slow decay rates being used to replace something with a very fast decay rate, but they don't have enough radioactive material to do this, and it is not occurring fast enough to substitute the amount of radiocarbon that exist in diamonds. Old-earthers are trying their best to try and account for it, but what they are using isn't working.
The same is also true with comets. Comets come in two classifications, short-period and long-period comets. Everyone agrees that comets came about at the beginning of our solar system. Secularists believe they came about as a result of being formed early on whenever our solar system formed in a collapsing nebula. However, comets don't last forever. As they orbit around the Sun, they lose material with each pass. Based upon the measurements of all of the short-period comets in our solar system, in 10,000 years they'd all be gone. Based upon current measurements of long-period comets, long-period comets can't last for more than 200,000 years, so in 200,000 years all of the comets in our solar system should be gone. However, old-earthers believe that our solar system is 4.5 billion years old, same as the Earth, but comets can't last that long, but we have an abundancy of both short- and long-period comets. Again, keep in mind, 200,000 years is an upper limit which means any date for our solar system would be consistent with this number, including 6,000 years old earth and solar system, but billions of years old wouldn't be since we would have no more comets left if that is the case.
How do they respond to this? They assume that there is cloud of comet debris in our solar system, but hidden from sight, conveniently. They call this a Oort Cloud, named after its inventor, Jan [pron. yan] Oort. However, no one has ever observed an Oort Cloud. This objection is pure ad hoc. However, given the fact that such a cloud may be able to resupply some of the long-period comets, it definitely could not resupply the short-period of comets because it would take too long to replenish it, and we lose comets faster than we were gaining them, so some people suggest that comet debris may be coming from something called a Keiper Belt. This is suppose to be the region beyond Neptune. However, the material found within the Keiper Belt is of the wrong composition to replenish the comets and are also of the wrong size to produce comets since they are way too large.
In our case, we assume their assumptions, and for the most part, showed that such assumptions lead to an inconsistent conclusion. For Gilmore, and others like him, they assume their position while fighting against ours. This is called circular reasoning, which is what Gilmore is committing in the above passage in his article.
Gilmore: If the Earth was 6000 years old, there would not have been enough time for them to have decayed away, making their absence inexplicable. However, given the great age of the Earth, their absence is completely explicable - they have long since decayed away. There is a veritable avalanche of evidence confirming the reality of an ancient Earth, and any interpretation of the creation narratives which argues otherwise is automatically wrong.
Brian: Again, Gilmore is assuming his position and arguing in a circle. He's assuming, for example, that radionuclides decay at the same rate as they do today. However, if they decayed at a different rate then their absence would make sense. However, how does Gilmore even know they existed in the first place? Keep in mind, also, that most of the evidence, even assuming uniformitarianism, would support our position, not his. This shows inconsistencies within his own arbitrary assumptions.
He offers one example, and he thinks this is an "avalanche of evidence"? He also argued from silence. How is the absence of radionuclides "evidence" of an old earth. He says they haven't had time to decayed away, but he doesn't even know if they exist or not! Also, he must assumed that radionuclides has already decayed at the same rate, but we've already demonstrated that is both an unreasonable and a false assumption. In response to his last statement, the reverse is true. Besides, you don't use outside interpretations of the evidence as a method for interpreting Scripture, which he clearly have been doing throughout his article. His last statement seems to assume that one's interpretive grid should be secular views and opinions about the evidence beyond Scripture, but this is another exegetical no-no. It is also inconsistent for one who professes Christianity. As Christians, we don't use extrabiblical evidence to interpret Scripture, we use Scripture to interpret the evidence. Clearly, Gilmore is not doing this.
Gilmore: By forcing a modern literal interpretation on the six days of creation, we force them into irreconcilable conflict with the known astronomical facts.
Brian: No we don't, but when the facts and evidence is properly understood through a Biblical framework the evidence and facts makes more sense. It is only when you try to force them through a secularized presuppositional framework do they wound up with so many issues, including their claims not adding up to what we observe. Besides, despite his statement, it is not the "facts" that YEC positions are "irreconcilable" in conflict with, but with secular views, assumptions, and opinions about the past. He's not saying it that way because he is assuming that these secular opinions about the past are "facts" when they are not. We already dealt with some of the astronomical data that supports a young universe. Let's see which ones he decides to bring up to support his personal view.
Gilmore: While the universe is around 13.8 billion years old, the Earth is much younger at around 4.6 billion years old. Far from being created after the Earth as a modern fundamentalist reading of the creation week asserts, much of the universe is in fact vastly older than the Earth.
Brian: Here, in support of my last comment, he assumes these secular views about how old they date the Earth and the universe is correct and are, therefore, in conflict with the biblical age. It is true they are in conflict with the Biblical age, but that only makes them wrong, not Scripture. He doesn't even bother to offer evidence here. He just assumed their opinions here are correct, and then he moves on thinking he had demonstrated something when he has demonstrated nothing. Where is the evidence that they are that old? Let's read further and sees what he says.
Gilmore: Fossil evidence for single celled life is at least 3.4 billion old. Complex multicellular life possibly dates back at least 665 million years, while jawed fish appear at least 410 million years ago. Tetrapods appear around 380 million years ago, while the earliest placental mammals date to at least 160 million years. Snakes appeared at least 167 million years ago, while the evolution of birds from dinosaurs has its origins at least 120 million years ago.
Brian: Again, Gilmore is assuming his position. How does know any of those examples are "dated" to those dates? He doesn't even bother to cite radiometric dating methods. He just uses the "dates" believe by secular scientists instead. He doesn't even try and ask how these guys know that these things are as old as they claimed to be. We had already dealt with the assumptions and flaws behind radiometric dating, but he doesn't even bother to cite that. He just assumed that the dates that are assigned to these fossils are correct. This isn't critical thinking, but the opposite of critical thinking. This total gullibility which is an irrational position to have.
Also, how do they "know" that any of these things are millions of years old. Carbon-14 dating cannot date something to millions of years old, and does not date them as such. Other radiometric dating methods works on rocks, not organic materials, so how do they "know" that these fossils are millions of years old? They assumed that from the Geological Column, something I haven't discussed yet. Dates are assigned to the rock layers, an index fossil is chosen from that layer, the index fossil is assigned a date based upon the rock strata it came out of, and then all fossils along that rock strata are "dated" to the same date. This, once again, utilizes circular reasoning. Simply put, Gilmore has accepted these assigned dates for these fossils and then use these speculative dates to justify reinterpreting the Genesis account of Creation, thus arguing in a circle. Notice he still hasn't given us any evidence for this. He has just assumed these dates are accurate.
All he did was assumed that these "assigned" dates were accurate on the basis of these guys claims, and because this is greater than the biblical age of the earth, and YEC positions, he then assumed that such positions must be flawed, and there is "overwhelming evidence" for it, when he previ8ded none to argue for those dates. A person's opinion does not count as "evidence" in favor of the truth of a position. In retrospect, I could offer you the opinions of scholars and scientists who take the 6,000-year date for Creation. Would Gilmore believe this on the basis of these guys say so? Probably not, so why does he think we will?
Gilmore: Finally, the first appearance of anatomically modern humans is a little under 200,000 years ago. The actual order and sequence in which life on earth appears completely falsifies a modern literal reading of Genesis 1.
Brian: Again, he is assuming the age of modern humans based upon these preconceived and accepted modern "dates" advocated by these secular scientists. However, he has produced any justification for accepting these dates. Also, once again, he assumes that such reading of Gen. 1 should be based upon secular opinions about how old they think it is. However, this is not the case. Proper exegesis looks for what the original writer had intended, and does not import secular ideas and use them to interpret, or reinterpret, Scripture.
Also, with "sequence of life" notice that uniformitarian assumptions are used with the Geological Column. However, the complete column does not exist on earth. They compiled the sedimentary layers together based upon different strata located from around the world. If the Geological Column actually existed it would be over 200 miles thick! There is also missing time in the Geological Column. There are thin layers that are representative of tens of millions of years (Carl R. Froede Jr., Geology by Design: Interpreting Rocks and Their Catastrophic Record, p. 10). Of course, a global Flood better accounts for the geological history of the Earth. However, it is beyond the scope of my response article to deal with the global Flood.
Lastly, a literal reading of Gen. 1 is not a "modern reading" as he claimed. This was the original position of the Church, and the Apostles. It is evolution, deep-time, OEC, and uniformitarian ideas that are "modern" since they came out of the so-called Enlightenment. All of the Church fathers were YECs, and most of them believed in a literal reading of Genesis 1. It was really only the School of Alexandria (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Augustine, etc.), following after Philo who allegorized Scripture a lot, who took this position of a nonliteral reading of Gen. 1 which they thought was instantaneous, which is the exact opposite of deep-time ideas.
Gilmore: By the 19th century, the evidence for the great antiquity of the Earth was regarded as compelling, as seen by the emergence of the Day-Age and Gap theories, advanced to harmonize the geological facts with Genesis.
Brian: This is a fallacy in logic called appealing to popularity. Don't confuse this with an appeal to majority, or ad populum argument because there is a different. Appeals to majority fallacy, also known as the bandwagon fallacy, is a false whereby you assumed the truthfulness of a position based upon whether most people accept the view. However, appeals to popularity fallacy are fallacies where you assume that a particular position or group must be right if their views are now popular. Lots of things can make a view popular, the fact that a view is popular does not make it true. Islam is one of the fastest growing religions on the planet. This is true, but this wouldn't make their beliefs true. They advance mostly by conquest and procreation. They believe in having lots of children. Mormons are one of the largest cults in America, but this doesn't prove their beliefs. The fact that old-earth ideas became popular during the 17th century and after doesn't prove their beliefs and positions are right. This mostly happened as a result of the influence of Charles Lyell, Charles Darwin and evolution, James Hutton who founded the belief of uniformitarianism, and their arbitrary rejection of a global Flood. Not because there was any truth to their positions.
Another thing was no actual evidence presented. Even radiometric dating methods doesn't come around until the 19th century (1905). So it's "popularity" wasn't due to the evidence, but the fact that it gave secularists alternatives to believe in besides the Bible and the global Flood. The evidence does not favor this position as I've already demonstrated. In addition to this, he is making a categorical error. He is confusing persuasion and proof. Just because a view is popular doesn't mean that the evidence is strong. Giving the arbitrary claims and assumption that were made, and their arbitrary rejection of the biblical Flood, they didn't actually provide any compelling evidence. If he still says they did, then what is it. Simply asserting that something has evidence to it isn't enough. Why hasn't he provided any examples of this "compelling evidence" that he speaks of?
There were Christians that did try to harmonized these secular ideas with Creation. It really had nothing to do with the evidence, and more to do with the threat of these popular ideas that were infuriating the Church. This is the birth-point of OEC positions, including his. Strange, he seems to be admitting this, but just a bit earlier he seems to think our views were "modern" ideas. The fact that there were Christians who felt threatened during this time had nothing to do with the evidence, but more to do with the threat of popular secular ideas contradicting the Biblical accounts, so these secular views were created to try to find a "middle ground" between these perspectives, but the fact that this was attempted is more of a shout out against Gilmore's positions and arguments. This means that they had realized that the plain reading of Scripture did not support these secular view. If it did, then trying to force the Scriptures come into "harmony" with them would've not have been necessary.
Finally, this argument is self-refuting. Every popular idea started out as an unpopular one. If this view became popular during the 19th century, then it was unpopular prior to the 19th century! Would he argue that made this view false? Then why would he think its success after the 19th century made it true?
Gilmore: One attempt to rescue belief in a young Earth while acknowledging the geological facts was made by the mid-19th century marine biologist Philp Gosse, who claimed that as Adam was created a fully-grown adult with an appearance of age, likewise the universe was created mature, with the appearance of an ancient history greater than its actual age. Gosse advanced this argument in his book Omphalos, from the Greek for 'navel', a nod to his belief that though specially created, Adam would still have had a navel, a physical mark of a gestation and birth that he never had.
Brian: YEC never needs "rescuing" since it is based the biblical testimony and sound arguments. We have already went through in this series a mountain of evidence supporting our position, and so far Gilmore has not produced any even when he had the opportunity to do so. He just simply assumed his position instead. However, "appearance of age" is a real thing, but many YECs are rethinking the use of this term. I usually use the term "maturity of age." The term "appearance" within "appearance of age" makes it sound like God is being deceptive by making something "look old" when its not. This has even led into some strawman arguments along those lines leading to OECs accusing us of claiming that God is being deceptive.
The word "appearance" is a misnomer. "Young" and "old" are relative terms. To me a 50-year old man is "old" but to him an 80-year old man is "old." Something only looks "old" to us because we use certain proxies that indicate "age" to us, but in the case of the universe we don't have other "old" universes, or "young" universes for that matter, to compare them to. So, how does the universe look "old" or "young" to us. This actually commits the reification fallacy. The universe doesn't look "young" or "old", it just is. Our position is that it was created mature, meaning a fully functional universe, as I like to say, hot out of the oven and ready to go! For example, the galaxies are fully formed with stars in them, and stars are also created full formed. He created fully formed trees, and so forth. I'm not saying that God did not allow anything natural growth, or set them into motion for this purpose, but he also created everything as it is today, fully formed and fully functional. This is what is known as special creation.
In essence, God isn't being deceptive by making it "look old." You are bringing certain assumptions to the table for discussion, and you carry certain assumptions about the data. As far as Adam having a navel, I think YECs would probably reject that idea. A navel is created due to birth, because a medical doctor ties you umbilical cord, and it grown up with you like an inward lump. However, since Adam and Eve were not born they would not have a navel. This guy is not dealing with mainstream YEC positions.
Most Christians, even some OECs, will accept "appearance of "age" to some degree. No one, for example, thinks Adam and Eve were babies, or they had Cain and Abel when they were two or three years old. Most would even agree with fully grown trees in the garden of Eden. It really would just come down to how far you are willing to go, or to what extent, with the argument, whether than if there's any truth to it. Besides, the repeated "and it was so" references in Gen. 1 suggest immediate fulfilment of the Created act that God was speaking in existence, and the immediate fulfillment to their God-ordained purpose, leaning further biblical support for special creation.
Gilmore: Gosse's idea was widely panned, with even sympathetic believers such as Charles Kingsley rejecting it, claiming that he could not believe that God had "written on the rocks one enormous and superfluous lie for all mankind." The 'omphalos hypothesis' is one that cannot be falsified, so completely fails as a scientific hypothesis.
Brian: There are two objections that Gilmore leveled here. The first is a strawman argument. Our position does not claim that God is being deceptive. This assumes that the universe "looks old" when what it "looks" like is based upon one's starting assumptions. To a young-earth creationist, the universe "looks young" because the evidence seems to be consistent with an age far lesser than the billions of years claimed by the other side. It is more accurate to say that God created the universe matured, so He wasn't trying to fool you in thinking it's "old" by making it look "old" when it wasn't. Whether, God created it matured, and you added your assumptions to your interpretation of the data. OECs and evolutionists think it "looks old" while YECs thinks it "looks young" but our assumption of this is based upon the plain reading of Scripture.
Secondly, his last statement assumes that the maturity of age is being presented as a "scientific hypothesis" when it is actually a theological and historical view. "Age" is actually not a concept of science, but of time. Truth doesn't always have to come from the disciplines of science. It can come from things like theology and history as well, which uses different methodology from science. Once you realize this is a theological position, not a scientific one, then it can be falsified through Scripture. The repeated references of "and it was so" indicated immediate fulfillment of the created acts, and suggest they had full functionality since, like the stars for example in Gen. 1:16, they immediately fulfilled their God-ordained purposes. Also, Adam and Eve must've been created as adults since they were the very institution of marriage, and was able to procreate later. They must've been able think and reason since Adam was able to named the animals (Gen. 2), and he was also able to communicate through speech. The trees were all ready at full trees in the garden of Eden by the time Adam was placed into it since God forbad him of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil shortly after creating the garden and placing Adam into it. They must've also been old enough to make choices. These kinds of things are falsifiable.
Gilmore: Furthermore, rather than being inherent in the text, it is one that is designed to explain away a shouting contradiction between the scientific evidence for an ancient Earth, and a particular fundamentalist reading of the Bible.
Brian: We haven't heard his term "fundamentalist" in awhile, but as we established back in Part One, I don't think he even understands what that term even means. Special creation is very inherent in the text, as I pointed out above. He claims that this is "a shouting contradiction between the scientific evidence" and our positions, but it actually isn't. Whether, instead, it is intended to acknowledge an obvious biblical truth, namely, that God created the universe as it is today. Also, how one interprets the evidence, as I've already mentioned, will depended upon one's assumptions. Obviously, he has chosen to utilize uniformitarian assumptions. There's no shock there, deep-time advocates are always uniformitarians, even when they are not evolutionists. As we've already seen, even when one assumes uniformitarianism, the vast majority of the evidence is on our side. The few they could point to, like radiometric dating, are loaded with problems.
What is even more interesting here, however, is that despite his insistence on having loads of evidence for his position, he hasn't even produced even one. All he's done was accept the dates that others with his assumptions agree to, but no evidence is ever presented. Why not? If this evidence is so "overwhelming" then where is it?
Gilmore: Kingsley's argument is one that many believers have advanced whenever this bizarre idea emerges - God is not the author of a lie, not even a white one.
Brian: This is another strawman argument, and it shows that Gilmore, like many OECs, do not understand our argument on this, and, thus, misrepresents it. I don't believe God lies either, but I do think people can misinterpret the evidence, which is what they've done. It is not a lie to make Adam a fully-formed person. God is just making a fully functional man. If you came up to Adam on Day-7 and ask him how old that he was, he would say that he's one day old. God wasn't trying to fool everybody into thinking that Adam was a 20- or 30-year old man, but He was creating a fully matured man to start off the human race with. This was not deceptive, nor do we claim it as such. Gilmore just doesn't understand the argument.
Gilmore: The intrinsic preposterousness of this argument is clear when one looks at the nature of the evidence that omphalos YECs airily dismiss as evidence of 'creation with maturity': [Gives list.]
Brian: Here, Gilmore gives a list of supposed "evidence" for an "old" Earth/universe. Let's examine each one in turn below!
Gilmore: Igneous intrusions - molten rock that long ago extruded into pre-existing strata - with minimum cooling times in the hundreds of thousands of years.
Brian: This is the first example of what he thinks constitutes "evidence" for an "old" Earth. Again, Gilmore has assumed his conclusion. He has assumed uniformitarian assumptions with the rock strata. In uniformitarianism, each rock strata represents an age of time, with lower strata representing an earlier age. The big-ban model speculates that the whole world was a molten mass that cooled over time. So, Gilmore's assumption here thinks that this rock formed naturally and cooled down over time. In the YEC position, this rock formed over short periods of time in a global Flood which redeposited the sedimentary layers. Obviously, Gilmore doesn't believe this rock formed from a global Flood, but by assuming his position, and then presenting it like he's accomplished something, he has argued his way into a circle.
Gilmore: As previously mentioned, the absence of any short-lived radionuclides other than those produced continuously by known decay processes.
Brian: This one, like his previous objection, assumes uniformitarian assumptions. He is assuming the rate of decay as it is today, plus he is arguing from silence. How does he know they'd previously existed? I had shown that uniformitarian assumptions ultimately leads to most of the evidence supporting a YEC position, including C-14 being found in things supposedly millions, and in the case of diamonds, billions of years old. This shows an inconsistency with their assumptions involving radioactive nuclear decay rates.
Gilmore: The remarkable consonance between relative dating via stratigraphic methods (older layers at the bottom, younger layers at the top) and absolute radiometric dating.
Brian: Once again, Gilmore has assumed uniformitarian assumptions with both the geological strata and radiometric dating. He uses the term "absolute" as a question-begging epithet fallacy whereby he uses emotional language to persuade. In this case, the word "absolute" is intended to make you think that these decay rates are set in stone when they are not. If they were, we couldn't speed them up in a laboratory using nothing than exposure to heat and pressure. Assuming that the lower formed before the upper strata is arbitrarily assumed by those who are uniformitarians, but there is no evidence for this, and Gilmore offers us none either. This is textbook example of circular reasoning.
Gilmore: The convergence from multiple independent dating methods on the same rock to the same age.
Brian: This statement is false. It is a common one that is claimed by OECs, but it is absolutely false. Radiometric dating gives us different results that are often inconsistent with itself. I brought this up in a debate that I had with an OEC, and the OEC then admitted that scientists (who accepts such positions) select between various radiometric to determine that this radiometric dating makes the Earth "too young" and this one makes the Earth "too young" but these give dates close to they think, but, as I told him, "Yeah, I know they do that, and that's what we call circular reasoning!" But it did convey a hidden truth in his admission: he knew openly that different radiometric dating methods yield different dates. This also would mean that he is just being deceptive. I wonder if Gilmore is doing the same thing here. He knows the truth is one way, but yet he's still claiming that these "dates" agree with each other when they don't.
Gilmore: A fossil record of progressively more and more complex life appearing - and becoming extinct - over hundreds of millions of years.
Brian: This is both assuming uniformitarian assumptions and the secular geological history within the rock strata. However, then you are assuming the "dates" assigned to the rock strata, which makes his argument circular.
However, we believe that these fossils died out in a global flood and was buried quickly. Only specialized circumstances can fossilize something, or everything that dies would began fossilization, and it doesn't. You have to bury it to deprive it of Oxygen and to prevent animals from bothering it. It would then need to be packed quickly to prevent deterioration of the bones. Fossilization, itself, supports the concept of rapid burial. Add in the fact that mollusk shells are found closed fossilized all over the world, and that marine fossils have been found as high as Mt. Everest, along with lots of other evidence, and you have strong evidence for both the Flood and rapid burial. Also, C-14 is found in fossils supposedly millions of years old, which acts against Gilmore's presuppositions.
Gilmore: Ice cores, sediment varves on lake beds bed organic / carbonate layers, and evaporite varves with tens to hundreds of thousands of seasonal layers.
Brian: Again, he is assuming uniformitarian assumptions. In uniformitarian views, they see each layer as a single year, and forming consistently every year, but if a global ice age, following the Flood, packed these ice layers you'd accumulate many layers in a single year. Plus the closer you get to the middle of these to the bottom of these the more each layer is going to look indistinguishable from the other layers, which means they have to guess at how many layers there are from that point. As Michael Oard points out:
Essentially, the uniformitarian scientists must make assumptions for the bottom and middle portions of the ice sheet in order to determine the annual layers. The main assumption is that the earth is very old--billions of years old. They assume that the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets have existed for many millions of years. Furthermore, they believe these ice sheets have more or less maintained their present height in a state of equilibrium during all this time. They think the amount of snow and ice added each year is approximately balanced by the ice that is lost by melting and calving of icebergs into the ocean. Because of their assumptions, uniformitarian scientists believe that the annual layers thin dramatically as they are covered by more snow and ice...The upshot of their assumptions is that the amount of annual layer compression believed to have occurred depends upon how old one believes the ice to be. For an ice sheet in equilibrium for millions of years, the annual layers would, theoretically, thin rapidly and become almost paper thin near the bottom of the ice. On the other hand, if the ice builds up rapidly, as in the creationist model during the Ice Age, would be very thick at the bottom and thin upward to the present average annual layer thickness. There would be some compression of ice during this short time, of course, but far less that the uniformitarian model suggests (Michael Oard, Frozen in Time, pp. 120-121, italics in the original).
As far as varves go, Dr. Andrew Snelling, a geologist gives the following problems with this dating method: 1) It is impossible to know that all of the couplets of laminae had produced annual cycles of deposition; 2) There are numerous examples of other mechanisms producing such varves such as, for example, variations of the flow as well as sedimentary load of the sedimentary deposits, the quality of silt, clay, or calcium carbonate; 3) the subjective nature of the various thickness of the laminae; 4) The only written study on varves are over 80 years old; etc. (Snelling, Earth's Catastrophic Past: Geology, Creation, & The Flood, Vol. 2, pp. 945-948).
The point of all this is that one must apply their assumptions to the data. In addition to that, to argue in a vicious circle is a circular argument, and thus fallacious reasoning. We all have our assumptions about the data, including me, but the way to avoid circular reasoning is by doing a reductio ad absurdum argument. Clearly Gilmore is not doing this as I have done throughout the course of this series. Instead, he's only assumed his conclusion with the evidence. Although some of what he had constituted as "evidence" could be regarded as such, they always have him assuming his conclusion, and as pointed out earlier, this flaws his reasoning and most of the evidence if we take such an assumption would support the biblical age of the Earth at less than ten thousand years old, and would contradict deep-time assertions.
Gilmore: Magnetostratigraphy, which records evidence of multiple reversals of the Earth's magnetic field.
Brian: This is not even "evidence" for an "old" Earth, but whether a response to the arguments that YECs often used on the weakening of Earth's magnetic field over time. However, it is a widely conceived fact that Earth's magnetic field is decaying over time. This is not really disputed. All magnetic fields decay with time unless you have something recharging them. The usual claim are dynamo theory, which has its own problems, but Gilmore is suggesting multiple reversals of Earth's magnetic field. However, this is likely to have occurred in the Flood year, and there's nothing about this that would promote an old Earth as Gilmore believes in. It also would not have been enough to recharge Earth's magnetic field which is decaying exponentially.
Gilmore: Omphalos YECs appear to think that creation with appearance of age is restricted to creating canyons, gorges, mountains, and other morphological features that are taken to represent a long geological history, but as the examples given show, the scope of such geological evidence is considerable, and goes past what would be necessary to create something that was 'functionally mature': [He gives what he believes if "geological evidence".]
Brian: Gilmore goes further, advancing with a strawman argument. We don't think that the morphological features were created as such at Creation, but whether, we see them as geological features that were a re-creation at the global Flood. We don't think they were created that way. This is due to Ps. 104 which tells us that the Flood reshaped the world (Ps. 104:8-9). Once again he assumes that these features have a "long geological history" but that remains to be proven. However, he does give a list of, what he believes, to be "geological evidence" for an old Earth. Let's review each in turn.
Gilmore: Why create strata with absolute radiometric ages corresponding to their relative ages, when this has no substantive impact on the function of the rock?
Brian: This assumes a strawman argument. We don't claim that the radiometric dating was created with a particular "age" in mind, but that nuclear decay had accelerated in the past. Also, we don't claim that this is "relative to the rock's age" either since "age" is a concept of time not science. Gilmore makes a strawman argument and then attacks that strawman argument that he made, but all he did was showed his failure in understanding what we actually believe and argue for.
Gilmore: Why create an igneous intrusion in rock layers that gives every appearance of having cooled from molten rock over hundreds of thousands of years, when again this has absolutely no impact on the function of the rock from a geomechanical point of view.
Brian: Again, a strawman argument. This is what OECs claim, not YECs. It doesn't give the "appearance" of having cooled over hundreds of thousands of years. Gilmore is applying his assumptions. He has assumed that's the case, whether than proved it as such. Again, he ends it with his previous strawman argument. Maturity of age just means that the rock is fully formed at Creation, but the rocks that exist today was formed during the global Flood.
Gilmore: Why create rocks with no young radionuclides to give exactly the appearance that one would get on a planet thousands of millions of years old where all the young radionuclides have decayed away, leaving only the long-lived radionuclides, when this has absolutely no impact, as mentioned before, on the mechanical property of the rock? Why create a canyon to give the illusion of millions of years of history, then place in these rocks exactly the right combination of radionuclides to simulate a non-existent radiometric history which does not affect its structure and function?
Brian: He starts off with this passage by assuming that the "young radionuclides" had decayed away, when he doesn't know that. He is only assuming it. Plus, this assumes uniformitarianism, which is circular. Also, when we did our reductio ad absurdum argument we found this to be contradicted by other evidence such as the presence of C-14 in dinosaur fossils, coal beds, oil, natural gas, and even diamonds. Also just because radionuclides can (or has the potential to) have a long life doesn't mean that it has. It only means that potentially it can. He also continues his strawman argument here with assuming that we think God created radioactivity "looking old" when no YEC claims this.
That last section also gives a strawman argument, showing even further that Gilmore doesn't understand our argument on this. He asked why create canyons looking old, but we don't argue this. First off, no canyon on Earth was apart of the initial Creation, which is what maturity of age would refer to anyway, but was formed during the Flood. We also don't claim that they "look old" which his claim, based upon his own set of assumptions. We think the evidence from canyons are opposed to an old age. For some examples, there are no erosion marks between the layers which would only be the case if they were rapidly buried, and layered on top like that. If there were millions of years between the layers we would expect to see erosion. Some of the rock, like in the case of the Grand Canyon, is bent without breaking or cracking which suggest that water resulted in the deposition. Heat and pressure can do the same thing, but it is rare. Water is the most common reason for this. Petrified trees actually are found transit across layers. This would be unreasonable if such layers are millions and billions of years old. To us, such structure look young, not old.
Gilmore: Why create the illusion of multiple reversals of the magnetic field that never existed right at the bottom of the ocean? Faking a long history of Earth to this degree would frankly be gratuitous, and go beyond a white lie to, as Kingsley memorably put it, writing "on the rocks one enormous and superfluous lie for all mankind."
Brian: Again, another strawman argument. We don't claim that God was "faking" anything, and we concede to reversals in Earth's magnetic field during the Flood year. Gilmore is obviously uninformed on Flood models or else he would know that. This doesn't prove a long history of the Earth, he's applying his assumptions to the data again. Look at the question-begging epithet fallacies he'd made. Words like "faking", "lie", "white lie." None of these things even represents what we believe or the maturity of age argument. They may represent his position, but he's not evaluating his position, but ours, but failed to understand our arguments on this. Creating something fully formed is not deceptive. Even OECs think Adam was created fully formed, but this doesn't mean that God was being deceptive in doing so, but whether He wanted to create with a fully functional Creation. Again, he is assuming that the Earth had a "long history" instead of proving it. To us, the Earth and the universe looks young, which is consistent with biblical revelation as well.
Gilmore: Why create fake ice core layers corresponding to non-existent years, fake alternating layers of organic and carbonate layers on river beds corresponding to non-existent seasonal changes, and fake layers of evaporites corresponding to annual evaporation events that never existed?
Brian: It seems to me his "list of geological evidence" is nothing more than a series of strawman arguments. He starts this off with a strawman argument. We don't claim that God created ice core layers corresponding to non-existing years, but that he is assuming that each ice layer represents a single year when we've actually seen cases of snow and ice building up over short periods of time.
Also, his initial question here, commits another logical fallacy, the fallacy of the complex question. In this fallacy, one ask a question that is really two questions in one but with a built-in assumption. Like the question, "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" It really has two questions into one, namely, that the person at one time or another had beaten his wife. Similarly, his question, "Why create fake ice core layers corresponding to non-existent seasoning changes?" should be 1. Do you think God created each layer to corresponding seasonal changes that never happened?" "And, if so, why would He do this?" What Gilmore did instead was assuming that we claimed that God created layers that way to fool everyone in thinking they were "old" when that's not even our position nor our argument. If he had bothered to check out our responses to their ice core arguments he would've seen how we actually respond to this instead of, deceptively, claiming we believe this about ice core layers when we don't.
All of these arguments and supposed "evidence" assumes uniformitarian assumptions. Instead of proving his position, he merely assumed it. Apart from his circular arguments and speculative claims, are also his strawman arguments. He misrepresents our positions a lot. He has shown himself to not understand Flood model, maturity of age arguments, our responses to ice core layers, geological features of the Earth such as canyons and mountains, etc. He really needs to get better versed on our positions. He clearly do not read YEC literature much, and some of his arguments might even be deceptive.
Gilmore: With respect to the final point, given that we can see the processes occurring that generate these layers, the omphalos YEC has no answer to the question "at what point to these layers cease to represent actual annual events, and represent an invented history" or more importantly "how do you tell the difference?" YECs who attack ECs with the spurious argument "at what point in the genealogies do we go from mythical to real people" forget that exactly the same argument can be redirected at them, and with arguably more impact.
Brian: In his first sentence of this passage here, Gilmore is, once more, assuming uniformitarianism. It is true that we see this process forming a certain way, but this doesn't mean that this process always happened the way it does today. Different conditions can create different results. Gilmore has applied an arbitrary assumption to the data, namely, he has assumed that it always occurred in the rate that it does today. We don't claim that ever represent "annual layers" but claimed that these layers are compacted with different amount of layers per year, and he is assuming that each layer is "annual" when he cannot demonstrate this.
We also do not claim that this represents an "invented history" either. Again, he's making a strawman argument, and misrepresenting our positions and argument. "EC" I am not sure what that's suppose to be an abbreviation for. He often uses terms that no one else uses to describe us, and the one that have a specific definition and existence he falsely defines.
His last statement is false. He may be referring to William Lane Craig's "mytho-history" argument whereby Craig views some aspects of Gen. 1-11 as "history" but do so with the persons within the narrative. However, Craig's usage is always an arbitrary decision. There is no rhyme or reason for it other than what sounds "plausible" to Craig, so his selection process appears subjective and utterly arbitrary. However, you can't say the revere is true since we believe all of the text is apart of the genre of historical narrative, and represents literal history. So, there's never a point where we will arbitrarily claim that something is "myth" while this over here is "history." This would only be the case if we took Craig's position, but we don't, so it is not the case.
Gilmore: The problem extends to the entire universe, when we realize that most of the stars are far more than 6000 light years away.
Brian: A light-year is the distance that light travels in one year, it is not the time that light traveled to here. All this means is that our universe is very big, it would not make it very old. However, with that said, these stars are far away, and so it is assumed that they would take too long for light to reach Earth, and couldn't possible have done this in 6000 years. This is called the Distant Starlight Problem. This so-called problem has been resolved a number of ways.
The speed of light consist of two measurements: the roundtrip speed of light and the one-way speed of light. The roundtrip speed of light we know. It's estimated at 186,000 miles/second. When we measure the speed in which light travels this is the speed we are actually measuring. We measure light as it goes from Point A to Point B and back to Point A. When people use this argument they are, essentially, claiming that light would take time to reach us. However, this argument doesn't fully take relativity into account, although it claims to be based upon it.
Although we can measure the roundtrip, also known as two-way, speed of light, we cannot measure the one-way speed of light. People who don't know Relativity assume that, with the two-way speed of light that light travels half c from Point A to Point B, and half c on its return trip back to Point A (with "c" representing the speed of light). Notwithstanding, this is incorrect. We don't know the one-way speed of light. It is impossible to measure it. If someone tries to measure it by synchronizing clocks, as soon as the clocks are moved across distances Relativity says that motion affects time so they would make them off being capable of synchronizing. Gravity also affects time. The close something gets to a point of gravitational origin, the stronger gravity gets and the slower time gets. People assumed that time runs the same in all directions, but this is not true. To make this argument, however, you'd have to assume the rigidness of time, but under different conditions and vintage point. It would also depend upon what convention you are using.
From the vintage point of light the trip is instantaneous. Most astronomers use what is called Einstein Synchrony Convention (ESC), also known as the Isotropic Synchrony Convention (ISC), however, it is like that the biblical authors, along with much the ancient world, used what is known as the Anisotropic Synchrony Convention (ASC) model. To the ancient world, if you can see it then it was happening as they see the image. Einstein believed that either convention was viable. Conventions are like driving on the right side of the road. As long as you agree on the rules, then it is acceptable, with no right or wrong answer. You can't falsify a convention, at least not in an absolute sense. Einstein believed since we do not know the one-way speed of light, and cannot know it, that it was stipulated. Simply put, we choose the one way speed of light since any speed is acceptable including instantaneously with the one-way speed of light.
Once Relativity is properly understood, distant starlight really isn't a problem in the biblical viewpoint. It is actually more of a problem for the secular timescale. The so-called Distant Starlight Problem is more of a "problem" for supporters of deep time since it's actually a self-refuting argument. The big-model, which is based upon uniformitarian and deep-time assumptions has its own light-time travel problem. Within this model, the claim is that all of the universe came from a singularity. The most popular version of this argument is called the hot big-bang model, which is the version of this model that is accepted by OECs. However, as the universe is expanding outward from this singularity, the universe is cooling down, however, distant point are not touching each other so they'd cool down at different rates. However, we can measure the temperature of the universe out to the farthest galaxy we can see and it measures at about 2.75 K above absolute zero on average, which is very cold. Yet, if this model was correct, then different points of the universe would've cooled down at different rates.
Supporters of this model must get these points "touching" across vast distances. The fastest way to transfer energy is through electromagnetic energy, or light, because nothing can travel faster than light. But to go from one point of the universe to the other would take much longer than is even claimed by old-earth advocates, even for one trip. and to reach a state of thermal equilibrium the light must make the trip several times over. Since the speed of light (the two-way speed of light) is a "horizon" that cannot be crossed, this is often known as the Horizon Problem! If you look at some of the possible solutions that uniformitarians have come up with to try to solve this problem they are very similar to the ones YECs have come up with. The most current response to this problem is called The Inflation Theory, which some secularists reject, and has its own set problems including lack a mechanism to trigger the inflation, and a mechanism to stop it gracefully (this is known as the graceful exit problem), not to mention that it's ad hoc.
Gilmore: Omphalos YECs attempt to evade this problem by airily declaring that God created the light in transit, an assertion that is decidedly ad hoc, and as it cannot be disproved is completely unscientific. The implication of this argument is that the light from any star that is more than 6000 light years away does not represent an actual event that ever occurred, which means that effectively, the astronomical record for any star, planet, nebula, or galaxy greater than 6000 light years away is an invented one. Furthermore, this record is not static - we see evidence of galactic collisions, destruction of stars by black holes, and supernovae. The light we see from all of these events that are more than 6000 years away therefore is effectively one giant light show which may or may not have ever happened. This goes well beyond writing one enormous and superfluous lie on the planet to one embedded in the very fiber of the universe itself.
Brian: I agree, this is why almost all YECs today reject this thesis. Gilmore needs to stay current on the models that YECs accept, propagate, and support. This assertion is unscientific. This would make God deceptive since it claims that God "painted" pictures in the skies that never happened, like stars moving and exploding. Also, there are scientific issues with it. W can observe these things happening in real time. This can be gaged by objects close up where we can see them as it is happening. This is how scientists calculate the position of the Moon when astronauts go to it. If this was a false picture in space then they would miss landing on the Moon every single time, but scientists can accurately predict where the Moon is going to be at a certain time.
This argument should be rejected by all Christians. As I like to say, it deserves the left boot of fellowship, which is my way of saying that it should be kicked to the curb. This is why major organizations like Answers in Genesis, Creation Ministries International (CMI), Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and Creationist Research Society (CRS) don't utilize this argument. I don't know any YEC scientist that would accept this model. This is a largely abandoned position, and is not apart of mainstream YEC. It is often get brought up by OECs because it such a weak argument, but the vast majority of YECs today do not accept this argument so it is pointless to bring it up.
Gilmore: That omphalos YECs are willing to ignore the clear testimony of the entire universe to its great antiquity and a process of creation that did not take six days, and instead elevate a human interpretation of the creation narratives above that divine witness is disturbing, to say the least.
Brian: Lots of errors in such a short passage. First off, their interpretation of the evidence is not a "testimony" of any kind. Evidence doesn't speak, and is conflating their interpretation of the evidence with propositional revelation like what we find in the Bible. Secondly, even from their position and assumptions, the evidence mostly supports our positions, not the OEC's positions. The evidence of the youthfulness of the universe is very strong. For example the existence and abundancy of blue stars which can't even last two million years old. If the universe was about 14 billion years old as he accept then there would be no blue stars left, nor any spiral galaxies since these would've wounded themselves down and had lost their spiral forms by now, but yet over 60% of all galaxies in the universe are spiral galaxies (see Part One of my series).
Through the evidence I just don't see this "great antiquity" that he speaks of. Yes, it did occur in six days. This is the clear testimony of Scripture, which he is clearly ignoring. Lastly, he equivocates on "interpretation" (he is making the equivocation fallacy). When we interpret the Bible we are using objective standards such as context, grammar, literary styles, relative Bible passages, language, etc. to figure out the author's intent, which is also objective since the author has an original intent. However, when people interpret nature it is subjective. Nature isn't a person, so it does not have an original intent like a writer does. Also, he's got it backwards. Nature isn't divine, so we are not ignoring the divine witness. However, the Bible is the Word of God because it was inspired by God, therefore God is the ultimate author of Scripture. Although God reveals Himself in nature, it isn't propositionally, so when it comes to specific details, we get this from the pages of Scripture. Nature isn't God, and neither are those who interprets it. Accepting a plain reading of Scripture is not elevating anything above the divine witness, but whether, it is embracing it!
Gilmore: As sequential accounts, with Genesis 1 relating a functional ontology of creation and Genesis 2 an account of the creation of the covenant pair, Genesis 1 and 2 are not in conflict. However, if one assumes they are describing the same event, and both providing an account of material origins, then the chapters are forced into hopeless contradiction: [He compares Gen. 1 and 2 in the form of a chart & cites Peter Enns.]
Brian: Genesis 1 & 2 are not in conflict anyway, especially if it is a focused-upon, zero=in account of one specific event, namely, the creation of man, It is only when you think of this as an event that precedes Creation week would we have a contradiction. Again, why does he think that Gen. 2 must a sequential account to prevent it from contradicting? If this is a second creation of human beings, then this would conflict with Gen. 1. Gen. 2:4 is the connecting passage that indicate this is happening during Creation week. Also, Ex. 20:11 tell us that everything God created was created within those six literal days, so this would include human beings. This means that Moses, himself, is recognizing this as apart of the Creation story. If Moses wanted you to think this was a second Creation narrative from Gen. 1 he went through great lengths to say otherwise. There is no contradiction if these are understood happening within the same time period. It is only when one tries and assume that Gen. 2 is another Creation narrative does one face an internal conflict. Fortunately, every exegetical and contextual cue is telling us that Gen. 2 takes place within Creation week.
Gilmore cites Peter Enns, who tries to claim that there are alleged significant details between these accounts and several passage of Scripture. His citation gives: Psalms 77:16–20; 89:5–37; Job 9:4–15; 26:5–14; 38:4–38; and Isaiah 40:12–31; 44:24–28. These are poetic passages written in different genre from historical narrative. Psalm 77:16-17 says:
When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; indeed, the deep trembled. The clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth thunder; your arrows flashed on every side (Psalm 77:16-17, ESV).
It is written in poetic narrative, so we would expect there to be "differences" are due to its literary style, so we would expect the language to be different. This is very different for historical narrative. Psalms 89:5-37 is just a praise Psalm. Except for some indirect references to a few acts of Creation, the Psalm isn't even about Creation. It is about praising God. Job 9:4-15 is a poetic passage in Job about God's judgment. The Scriptures are being elephant hurtled, but I do not see how they differ from the Creation account except by literary genre (the language by which these passages describe Creation). This is the same for Job 26:5-14 and 38:4-38, and Is. 40:12-31 & 44:24-28. The language in these works are different, although none of the details are contradictory any how. Interesting, Gilmore's source only cites passages that are in different genres from Genesis and Exodus. Genesis & Exodus are in historical narrative. Now, compare this to Ex. 20:11 or what Jesus says about marriage in Matthew and Mark involving Creation. The language is the same because these passages are dealing with literal history.
Gilmore: This alone shows that the hyper-literalism is simply the wrong way to read the narratives.
Brian: It's not "hyper-literalism" in the first place, but reading a historical narrative as a literal account when there's nothing in the context that would indicate otherwise is exegetically sound, and it is the only way to read historical narrative. Can you imagine the kind of nonsensical interpretations one get if someone read and approach the Gospels this way?
Gilmore: By reading them in their ancient Near Eastern context, one quickly recognizes that they are not accounts of material origins but detail a functional ontology of creation that also functions as a polemic against ANE creation myths that threatened the orthodoxy of the Judean exiles.
Brian: No, this is importing into the text which was clearly not what the original author intended. Gen. 1:1 shows that God created ex nihilo (out of nothing), which was very different from ANE literature which their gods created from preexisting matter. Gen. 1-11, like 12-50, is historical narrative, as is all of Exodus including Exodus 20:11. Again, no, you quickly realized, once you take everything in context that this is a Creation narrative of all material Creation. There is nothing about any of these texts or contexts that would indicate otherwise.
There is some truth to them being anti-polemics against the outside pagan world, although they are not just that, and that wouldn't make its claims nonliteral nor fictional. However, this does contradict his previous statement in that same passage. If this reflects the writer and the reader's position against such ANE literatures, then why would they copy or imitate writings they clearly don't agree with?
Gilmore: By privileging a hyper-literal reading of the creation narratives above the clear witness from creation that such a reading is impossible, YECs in our community are needlessly creating an environment in which crises of faith will emerge when those who share this view irrefutable evidence to the contrary. Too often, the end result is a loss of faith, and the creation of yet another angry ex-Christian. The environmental charity manager Gordon Hudson has eloquently written about how YEC can destroy faith: [He cites Gordon Hudson.]
Brian: First, Gilmore has not proven that a literal reading of Gen. 1 is impossible. The context forces the interpreter, exegetically, to take a literal reading of the text. To take any other interpretation you will have to force it upon the text. How would taking the Bible as it states creates crises of faith? Young-earth creationists, currently, make up most believers today. It was the universal position of the Church for the first 1800 years of its existence. The Gallic Poles even rendered that 46% of all Americans believe that the Earth was less than 6,000 years old (Gallic Poles, found at https://news.gallup.com/poll/155003/hold-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx, accessed at 09/22/2022). Also, as agreed by all parties concerned, both YECs and OECs alike, this is not a salvation issue. Salvation depends on faith in Christ, and all Christians agree on this. There is nothing "irrefutable" about anything that has claimed thus far. In fact, he really hasn't produced much by way of evidence, certainly not anything irrefutable. Btw, as a point of fact, there are more people who lose their faith because of the claims of evolution. It isn't the literal reading of Genesis that made them "lose faith" but claims like Gilmore who sees and claims such things are "facts" when they are not, and they oppose clear teachings of Scripture. Here's a thought. If you don't want someone to loose faith in Christianity, then teach them the truth, and how to defend it properly. This also means teaching them how to be critical thinkers and not take someone at their word without challenging their claims.
Gilmore: Hudson has since returned to a form of faith, but his point about how linking orthodoxy of faith to scientifically untenable propositions stands as a warning to fundamentalists in our community about the folly of taking the creation narratives out of context and ignoring the overwhelming testimony of the natural world to its ancient, evolving origins.
Brian: It is not is who takes the passage out of context, but OECs. This is among a host of reasons I think we need more classes within the Church on exegesis and hermeneutics. As I have shown our positions is very tenable. Even when I took a reductio ad absurdum argument, and assumed their assumptions, we saw most of the evidence, the vast majority of it, supported YEC positions. It is only when Gilmore took uniformitarian and evolutionary assumptions that he ran into problems. The testimony, the only testimony, and the only one that would matter, overwhelmingly supports a literal reading of Gen. 1-2 and Ex. 20:11. Nothing Gilmore has said or provided has shown otherwise. So far, the evidence seems to strongly support the fact that the universe is young. There is nothing that would indicate differently. In addition to this, the evidence is very consistent with the biblical account.
It is always a shame that so many Christians have fallen pray to these kinds of arguments. They are terribly speculative, exegetically unsound, non-evidenced, circular reasoning, strawman arguments, factual inaccuracies, and the like. As Gilmore presented his arguments he kept assuming his positions instead of demonstrating them. He was unaware of historical sources that showed illeism in ancient writings. He seemed unaware of the literary genres of Genesis and Exodus. He didn't have a proper definition of such terms as "fundamentalism", "literalist", "hyper-literalists", and so forth that he used quite a lot. His understanding of the authorship of the Pentateuch as well as the doctrine of Inspiration was also flawed. He seemed overly dependent upon John Walton's thesis, and other Christian Mythicists and theistic evolutionists. He rarely, if any, cited outside of these spectrums. At the end, Gilmore tried using a question-begging epithet fallacy of the possibility of loosing members of Christianity, when it is really the false claims of evolutionists that, ironically, act as the reason that there people leaving the Faith, not because the Genesis account of Creation should be taken as literally true. At the end of his article I found his arguments unpersuasive and heavily flawed.
This will be it for my series on evaluating Ken Gilmore's article and arguments. I know this last post has been a long one, and if you stuck it out until the end, or skimmed through it until the end, I thank you and appreciate it. I hope to see you soon on a different article. God bless!
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