Reducibly Complex

“Evidence for Creation” is an easy target for a debunking article. Nevertheless, it is important to go through with reviewing this type of information because it can, and does, get repeated and used in other places. For instance, a comment was left by a high school teacher on the introduction to this series of blogs stating “I have students that use that site as a veritable atom bomb to ‘volutionary idiocy’, and it is enthralling to read a logical and scientific examination of their ‘fact’.” I had an email exchange with this commenter and discussed how often this sort of thing happens in our schools.

It is often the opinion of scientists that the creationists and intelligent design proponents should not be debated because by giving them the platform we are treating them as equals, when there is no real science in their ideas. While I agree with this sentiment, the internet makes me reconsider. I still don’t think that a “debate” is something that should be granted, but propaganda such as “Evidence for Creation” can be put up on the internet for all to see. Anyone without knowledge of the scientific process and unaware of the wealth of knowledge supporting the theory of evolution may come across articles like “Evidence for Creation” and unquestioningly accept its arguments as fact.

It is for this reason that I have taken the time to write my responses to the arguments proposed in “Evidence for Creation”. My hope is that, from time to time, someone my come across my blog before seeing the article and, perhaps, gain a new perspective on creationism, evolution, and science in general.

This is Part 10 of the ten part blog debunking the claims made on CreationEvidence.org’s “Evidence for Creation.” This blog examines point #10.

STATEMENT: “The human brain is the most complicated structure in the known universe.”

RESPONSE:  This statement is rather dubious, and there are a number of problems with it:

1. Semantics: What is meant by “complicated”? What is meant by “structure”? This statement assumes we can compare the structural complexities of brains and anything else “in the known universe.” But how are we to compare the structural complexity of the human brain to the structural complexity of the earth, the galaxy, a black hole, dark matter, etc. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to to say it is the most complicated biological organ or even just the most complicated brain in the known universe? But then, that wouldn’t be accurate either, because…
2.  Inaccuracy: …the human brain is NOT the most complicated structure in the known universe. “The dolphin brain is larger than a human brain and more complex in structure.” (see also here).
3. So what?: Even if it were true that the human brain is the most complicated structure in the known universe, so what? Just because the brain is complicated in structure doesn’t make it special. It just makes it complicated. At the very least, this complexity in no way infers that it is “created” by God.

STATEMENT: “It contains over 100 billion cells, each with over 50,000 neuron connections to other brain cells.”

RESPONSE: About half-right. The human brain does contain about 100 billion cells, but the only estimate I could find about neuron connections to other cells estimated the number to be about 7,000, not 50,000. Admittedly, I have not watched the PBS Video (”The Brain, Our Universe Within”) cited as the source for this statement, so it may be that there is conflicting data with regards to neuron connections.

STATEMENT: ”This structure receives over 100 million separate signals from the total human body every second.”

RESPONSE: I have been unable to verify this number in my research, but for the sake of response will assume it is true (as this number is irrelevant).

STATEMENT: ”If we learned something new every second of our lives, it would take three million years to exhaust the capacity of the human brain.”

RESPONSE: How do we know this? What is the math that gives us these numbers? Is the assumption that every new thing learned is stored in one brain cell, and that it would take three million years to store one thing in every one brain cell? (By my calculations, that would take three thousand years, not three million.) What are we defining as exhausting the capacity of the human brain? And why do we have to assume that we learn something new every second? We don’t. I’m certainly not learning anything new when I’m asleep. I know that this statement doesn’t make the claim that we do learn something every second, but why use a number that isn’t accurate to what actually happens?

This statement makes the assumption that the “capacity” of the human brain is entirely for learning. But much of the brain’s 100 billion neurons have nothing to do with learning, but have to do with regulatory functions (i.e. keeping respiratory and heart rates at proper levels), bodily functions (i.e. the manipulation of limbs), or other non-learning based functions. I get the feeling that this statement comes from the idea that we only use 10% of our brains (or some other arbitrarily low number). However, this assumption is highly inaccurate.

The final thing I will say about this statement is that the source cited for this information is a video by Moody Publishers titled “Wonders of God’s Creation”. The front page of Moody Publishers’ website states “Proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ and a Biblical Worldview” and Moody Publishers distributes Christian books and videos, “promoting inexpensive Christian books for Christians to grow and non-Christians to have a quick introduction to the gospel” (Moody Publishers’ “Our History” Page). Using this as a source is hardly the stuff of an unbiased, objective observer, thus making it unscientific and invalidating its use as “evidence.”

STATEMENT: ”In addition to conscious thought, people can actually reason, anticipate consequences, and devise plans - all without knowing they are doing so”

RESPONSE: All true, but how does this serve as “evidence for creation”?

CONCLUSION: “Evidence for Creation” is not making an argument at all in this entire section. It provides nothing to serve as “evidence” for a creation as described in the biblical record. Read the “argument” as a whole and see if you can find what is being argued or what evidence in presented:

“The human brain is the most complicated structure in the known universe. It contains over 100 billion cells, each with over 50,000 neuron connections to other brain cells. This structure receives over 100 million separate signals from the total human body every second. If we learned something new every second of our lives, it would take three million years to exhaust the capacity of the human brain.  In addition to conscious thought, people can actually reason, anticipate consequences, and devise plans - all without knowing they are doing so.”

Even if everything in this argument were true, it makes no point; it would just be a list of facts. So what if the brain were “the most complicated structure in the known universe”? So what that it contains “100 billion cells, each with 50,000 neuron connections”? So what if it “receives over 100 million separate signals from the total human body every second”? So what that humans can “reason, anticipate consequences, and devise plans - all without knowing they are doing so”? What is the argument? How does this prove creation?!

The only thing that I can see as being an argument in here at all is the part about learning something new every second, taking three million years to exhaust the capacity of the human brain. But this is not an argument for creation. If anything, it is an argument that the brain doesn’t exist! I think it would go something like this: “How could we possibly learn something new every second? And how could we possibly live three million years to exhaust the capacity of the brain? Obviously, the brain must not exist.”

“Evidence for Creation” has ten arguments, this being the last; but it really only has nine.

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This is Part 9 of the ten part blog debunking the claims made on CreationEvidence.org’s “Evidence for Creation.” This blog examines point #9.

STATEMENT: ”A living cell is so awesomely complex that its interdependent components stagger the imagination and defy evolutionary explanations.”

RESPONSE: The first thing to say about this statement is that it is a great example of the logical fallacy “Argument from Personal Incredulity.” While a living cell is awesomely complex, that complexity does not “stagger” my mind, nor most biologists. If it truly staggered the mind, we would not be able to comprehend its complexity in a meaningful way, or dissect and understand the many parts of its complexity. Just because it staggers your mind doesn’t make its complexity “created” by God.

The second thing is that the interdependent components do not defy evolutionary explanations. In fact, they ARE the evolutionary explanations. The complexity of a living cell developed over billions of years. Let’s not forget that it took approximately 3 billion years of evolution before there were even multi-cellular organisms. What do you think was happening in those 3 billion years? The answer is that what constituted life and eventually evolved into multicellular organisms was developing greater and greater complexity as time passed. If it were not for this complexity, multi-cellular life would never have developed.

This strikes me as being a very similar argument as the intelligent design argument of “Irreducible Complexity,” from which the name of this blog is derived (as an antonym of sorts). I will here only state that irreducible complexity is a very poor argument for intelligent design or creationism (one in the same, in my mind). For more information on irreducible complexity and why it is not a valid scientific theory, I suggest reading the About R.C. page of this blog, the Wikipedia page on irreducible complexity (particularly the Response of the Scientific Community section), or Ken Miller’s “The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of ‘Irreducible Complexity’”.

STATEMENT: “A minimal cell contains over 60,000 proteins of 100 different configurations.”

RESPONSE: This appears to be a true statement, though I was unable to conclusively verify it within a few minutes of searching through Google. Nevertheless, 60,000 proteins in 100 different configurations is not staggeringly complex and certainly does not “defy evolutionary explanations,” as noted above.

STATEMENT: “The chance of this assemblage occurring by chance is 1 in 10 4,478,296 .”

RESPONSE: At the time of this writing, that is the exact way it is written in the “Evidence for Creation” article on creationevidence.org. This was a simple copy and paste; the poor grammar and typos are not produced by me.

I will assume that 1 in 10 4,478,296 is actually 1 in 10^4,478,296 (one in ten to the power of four million four hundred and seventy-eight thousand two hundred and ninety-six), a truly impressive number.

I don’t know why I bothered to fix that typo or spell out the number so that people might understand what is actually being argued because the number, while truly impressive, is irrelevant. In fact, the entire statement is irrelevant because evolutionary theory does not state that this assemblage occurs “by chance.” Rather, “Chance certainly plays a large part in evolution, but this argument completely ignores the fundamental role of natural selection, and selection is the very opposite of chance. Chance, in the form of mutations, provides genetic variation, which is the raw material that natural selection has to work with. From there, natural selection sorts out certain variations. Those variations which give greater reproductive success to their possessors (and chance ensures that such beneficial mutations will be inevitable) are retained, and less successful variations are weeded out. When the environment changes, or when organisms move to a different environment, different variations are selected, leading eventually to different species. Harmful mutations usually die out quickly, so they don’t interfere with the process of beneficial mutations accumulating” (Mark Isaak, “Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution”).

CONCLUSION: This entire argument is based on a completely ignorant point of view. If evolutionary theory taught that the evolution of life happens by chance, then the creationists would have a very valid point. But it doesn’t, so they don’t. But the ignorance is spelled out in the first sentence of this argument: “staggers the mind.” It doesn’t stagger the mind. Life’s complexity is impressive, and the complexity is awesome; but we can wrap our heads around it, study it, learn life’s inner workings, and decipher exactly how it is that life, and all the organisms that represent it, exists, lives, survives, dies, genetically mutates, etc. and determine how we got here.

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This is Part 8 of the ten part blog debunking the claims made on CreationEvidence.org’s “Evidence for Creation.” This blog examines point #8.

STATEMENT: “Astronomical estimates of the distance to various galaxies gives conflicting data.”

RESPONSE: The source used to derive this statement is a news item from September 9th, 1995, titled “Further Evidence of a Youthful Universe” by R. Cowan. The story tells of how astronomers at the University of Cambridge in England concluded that the distance to the Coma cluster of galaxies indicates that the universe’s age is approximately 9.5 billion years as opposed to the previous estimates of 13 to 16 billion years.

However, as the news story states, “[astronomers] must either embrace a more complex cosmological model or reexamine how they estimate stellar ages.” This is exactly what they have done in the thirteen years since this story was published. Because of a refinement in the process of estimating stellar ages, astronomers have been able to narrow the estimated age of the universe. Within a well-defined error bar, astronomers are now certain that the age of the universe 13.7 billion years. The story even quotes how the study may have been inaccurate in the first place: “cautions theorist Daved N. Schramm of the University of Chicago, ‘You have to be very careful about [drawing conclusions] because all of the [Hubble constant] measurements have huge systematic errors.’”

It should also be pointed out here that “Evidence for Creation” contradicts itself by using this source. If the universe is 6,000 to 10,000 years old, as is proposed earlier (here and here and here), then using a scientific measurement that dates the universe as 9.5 billion years old contradicts the idea of a young-earth. So which is it: 6,000 to 10,000, or 9.5 billion? How about the actual 13.7 billion?

STATEMENT: “The Biblical Record refers to the expansion of space by the Creator.”

RESPONSE: The two biblical passages used as evidence for this statement are Psalm 104:2, and Isaiah 40:22. From the King James Bible, they read as follows:

Psalm 104:2 - Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:

Isaiah 40:22 - It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

I shall leave it to theologians to interpret what these verses really mean, but I will comment on their use: “Evidence for Creation” is attempting, as its title implies, to provide the scientific evidence that supports the hypothesis of a universe created according to the biblical record in Genesis. However, if their “scientific” evidence for the truth of the biblical record is the bible itself, creationists are essentially saying “The bible is true because the bible says so.” Also, the bible is not a scientific work but a mythological, theological doctrine of faith. Therefore, there is no validity in using the bible as scientific evidence for anything, let alone for evidence of its own truth.

STATEMENT: ”Astrophysicist Russell Humphries demonstrates that such space expansion would dilate time in distant space.”

RESPONSE: First, “Evidence for Creation” has misspelled the physicist’s name in the article as well as in the citations. The actual name is Russell Humphreys. This will help any readers that are wanting to find a review of his book or find it on Amazon.com.

Second, Starlight and Time, Humphreys’ book cited for this statement, addresses the rather complex “Starlight Problem” that comes up when considering a young earth/universe. Essentially, the starlight problem is this: if the earth and the universe is young (less than 10,000 years old), then everything in the cosmos is within 10,000 years old; this would mean that no object that we can see could be further than 10,000 light years from Earth because otherwise we would not be able to see them; furthermore, events happening at distant galaxies (say, 150,000 light years away) that are detectable on earth (i.e. gamma ray bursts) could not have actually happened, due to the distance the light would have to have traveled (150,000 light years) in less time than the universe has existed; in this example, the gamma rays that we are detecting on earth as having come from a star or galaxy 150,000 light years away would have to have been placed 10,000 light years away from the earth and 140,000 light years away from the star or galaxy, and be on a trajectory towards the earth, at the beginning of the universe.

Did you follow all that? Basically, the starlight problem means that if the universe is truly only 10,000 years old and created by God according to the biblical record in Genesis, then God purposely set up a universe with a false history, making the universe appear as though it is older than it actually is. However, this argument is rather absurd; why would God do this? Not only that, but how do we then know that the earth is only 10,000 years old and not 100 years old with a similar false history, or 2 seconds old with a false history that includes every memory of your life up until 2 seconds ago? Ockham’s Razor, the idea that the explanation of a phenomenon should introduce as few new assumptions as possible (i.e. assuming God created the universe 10,000 years ago with a false history making the universe look older than it is), dictates that we reject this theory for the simpler idea that the universe really is as old as appears, or 13.7 billion years.

Humphreys’ book “presents a controversial cosmological model in which the Earth is several thousands of years old, but the outer edge of an expanding and rotating 3-dimensional universe is billions of years old, with various ages in between. The model places the Milky Way galaxy relatively near the center of the cosmos (in line with observable data if one disregards the Copernican Principle), though it is not a geocentricmodel of the solar system” (Wikipedia page on Russell Humphreys). In 1998, David E. Thomas wrote of Humphreys’ work, stating that “Humphreys creates a slick, scientific-sounding argument for a ‘young’ Earth, but in the process seriously misrepresents modern consensus. All serious dating methods (radiometric age dating, dendrochronology, ice core analysis, varve deposition, and more) yield ages far older than Humphreys’ methods. [...] D. Russell Humphreys breaks all the rules of science. He uses flawed logic, overly simple models, and twisted data to sell his young Earth” (“‘Creation Physicist” D. Russell Humphreys, and his Questionable ‘Evidence for a Young World’”).

STATEMENT: “This could explain a recent creation with great distances to the stars.”

RESPONSE: Sorry, but no, it cannot.

CONCLUSION: The evidence presented in this argument is so off the mark that it is barely worth considering. Astronomical estimates showing that the universe is about 9.5 billion years old that have since been overturned is not evidence for young earth of 6,000 to 10,000 years. Biblical verses cannot confirm the validity of the bible; just like I cannot confirm that I am the greatest juggler in the world by telling you that I’m the greatest juggler in the world. And oversimplified models of the universe that essentially say that the universe is set up in such a way as to fool us into thinking it is older than it actually is, or that space expansion “dilates” time in distant space (but not local?) is also not scientific evidence. The argument for creation based on the expansion of space fabric is pseudoscience at its best.

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This is Part 7 of the ten part blog debunking the claims made on CreationEvidence.org’s “Evidence for Creation.” This blog examines point #7.

STATEMENT: “Physicist Melvin Cook, found that helium-4 enters our atmosphere from solar wind and radioactive decay of uranium. At present rates our atmosphere would accumulate current helium-4 amounts in less than 10,000 years.”

RESPONSE: Admittedly, the scientific data regarding this argument is a bit complicated, but Dave E. Matson has written a paper titled “How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments?” and addresses the subject of atmospheric helium-4 amounts. Matson goes into great detail, and I shall summarize as best I can:

Helium-4 is the result of radioactive alpha decay. (definition: alpha decay occurs “because the nucleus [of an atom] has too many protons which cause excessive repulsion. In an attempt to reduce the repulsion, a Helium nucleus is emitted” (“Three Types of Radioactive Decay”, thinkquest.org).) Helium-4 is “produced” as it escapes from within the earth to the atmosphere. It is hypothesized that a small amount of helium-4 is lost as it is heated and escapes the atmosphere altogether. However, the “most probable mechanism for helium loss is photoionization of helium by the polar wind and its escape along open lines of the Earth’s magnetic field” (Matson). Polar wind accounts for an escape of helium-4 that is nearly identical to the estimated production. Similarly, helium-4 may escape from the atmosphere through a “direct interaction of the solar wind [...] during the short periods of lower magnetic-field intensity while the field is reversing. Sheldon and Kern (1972) estimated that 20 geomagnetic-field reversals over the past 3.5 million years would have assured a balance between helium production and loss” (Matson).

CONCLUSION: What’s missing from creationevidence.org’s argument (aka what is implied by their argument) is that if helium-4 is being produced at the rate that it is, the amount of helium-4 observed in the atmosphere indicates a young earth. As has been shown, however, there are several mechanisms that account for the loss of helium-4 in the atmosphere. “Thus,” Matson states, “the helium balance calculations provided by creationist Melvin Cook [...] cannot provide a reliable minimum estimate of the earth’s age. [The creationists' argument from helium-4 production] is a fatal oversimplification of a complex problem” (Matson).

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This is Part 6 of the ten part blog debunking the claims made on CreationEvidence.org’s “Evidence for Creation.” This blog examines point #6.

STATEMENT: ”Human Artifacts throughout the Geologic Column…Man-made artifacts - such as the hammer in Cretaceous rock, a human sandal print with trilobite in Cambrian rock, human footprints and a handprint in Cretaceous rock – point to the fact that all the supposed geologic periods actually occurred at the same time in the recent past.”

RESPONSE: The work cited for this claim is Carl Baugh’s Why Do Men Believe Evolution Against All Odds?. However, this claim has been disproved by scientists and, more importantly, criticized by creationists. Many creationists, including the creationist organization Answers in Genisis (AIG), have criticized Baugh, claiming that he has “muddied the water for many christian.” Don Batten, of Creation Ministries International wrote: “Some Christians will try to use Baugh’s ‘evidences’ in witnessing and get ’shot down’ by someone who is scientifically literate. The ones witnessed to will thereafter be wary of all creation evidences and even more inclined to dismiss Christians as nut cases not worth listening to.”

As to Baugh’s “artifacts,” his evidence is lacking. “In 1982-1984, several scientists, including J.R. Cole, L.R. Godfrey, R.J. Hastings, and S.D. Schafersman, examined Baugh’s purported ‘mantracks’ as well as others provided by creationists in the Glen Rose Formation. In the course of the examination ‘Baugh contradicted his own earlier reports of the locations of key discoveries’ and many of the supposed prints ‘lacked human characteristics.’ After a three year investigation of the tracks and Baugh’s specimens, the scientists concluded there was no evidence of any of Baugh’s claims or any ‘dinosaur-man tracks’” (quoted from Wikipedia page on Carl Baugh).

CONCLUSION: It is important to note that Carl Baugh is the founder of the Creation Evidence museum, the organization that has compiled this list of “evidences” for creation. Baugh’s own work has been scientifically debunked, and Baugh himself is considered to be a detriment to the creationist cause by his contemporaries. This fact alone should be enough to convince the masses not to believe in his argument for creation based on human artifacts found “throughout the geologic column.”

(Note: The geologic column in itself is a faulty argument. See Part 1 of this blog for more information.)

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This is Part 5 of the ten part blog debunking the claims made on CreationEvidence.org’s “Evidence for Creation.” This blog examines point #5.

STATEMENT: Physicist Robert Gentry has reported isolated radio halos of polonuim-214 in crystalline granite. The half-life of this element is 0.000164 seconds! To record the existence of this element in such short time span, the granite must be in crystalline state instantaneously. This runs counter to evolutionary estimates of 300 million years for granite to form.

RESPONSE: The work that is the basis for this argument is Creation’s Tiny Mystery by Robert Gentry. Gentry’s overall scientific process was done well, but his interpretations of his data were faulty. Geologist Lorence Collins notes: ”The geology of the sites at which Po halos are found clearly shows that Gentry’s proof of instantaneous creation and a young Earth is nothing of the sort. Gentry’s Po halos simply do not occur in primordial granites, but instead were formed in relatively young dikes that demonstrably crosscut older sedimentary and igneous rocks. Gentry claims to be an objective scientist but he has, in fact, ignored the very extensive published evidence that disproves his hypothesis. In addition, when confronted with this evidence he simply denies its existence. Such behavior is not characteristic of scientists, but of pseudoscientists.” (Dr. Lorence Collins)* Furthermore, Geologist Gregg Wilkerson, in a review of Creation’s Tiny Mystery, stated: “the book is a source of much misinformation about current geologic thinking and confuses fact with interpretation.” I could go on, but I digress.**

CONCLUSION: As with many of the arguments from so-called creation “scientists,” Gentry’s work is biased by his preconceived conclusion. In this case, Gentry was actually doing real science, but was misinterpreting his results based on his biased point of view. The objectiveness of his science is completely lacking, invalidating it all together.

*Dr. Lorence Collins has several articles critiquing the claims of Robert Gentry. The article cited is off of his website, but lacks a title.

**For more information on Gentry’s work, try here.

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This is Part 4 of the ten part blog debunking the claims made on CreationEvidence.org’s “Evidence for Creation.” This blog examines point #4.

NOTE: Because of the nature of the argument presented in point #4, this blog will not examine the argument sentence by sentence, but will address the argument as the whole.

STATEMENT: “World population growth rate in recent times is about 2% per year. Practicable application of growth rate throughout human history would be about half that number. Wars, disease, famine, etc. have wiped out approximately one third of the population on average every 82 years. Starting with eight people, and applying these growth rates since the Flood of Noah’s day (about 4500 years ago) would give a total human population at just under six billion people. However, application on an evolutionary time scale runs into major difficulties. Starting with one “couple” just 41,000 years ago would give us a total population of 2 x 10⁸⁹. The universe does not have space to hold so many bodies.”

RESPONSE: The basis for this argument is a work by Henry Morris called Scientific Creationism. It has several flaws in it, but I will deflect to Lenny Flank, Jr., author of Deception by Design: The Intelligent Design Movement in America, who states:

“Contrary to Morris’s fanciful assumptions, there is no reason to believe that the global human population has been increasing exponentially, and good reason to believe that it was in fact stabilized by environmental factors (just like the housefly population has been) throughout most of human history, right up until the agricultural and industrial revolutions which have allowed population growth rates to climb sharply. Morris’s population argument is nothing more than an exercise in story-telling, and in it we see the basis for the other stories told by the creationists–selecting a short term trend and then projecting and extrapolating it backwards until it reaches the desired result.” (Lenny Flank, Population Rates and the Age of the Earth)

Regarding the statement about evolution, I would like to know why we must assume that we are starting from one couple 41,000 years ago. Why? Evolution does not ask that we start from one couple, as evolution is a slow, progressive process. And no one thinks that the human species originated 41,000 years ago. Actually, it is believed to have been more like 200,000 years ago. So why these arbitrary numbers? While the math they present is accurate, the argument itself is based on the false premise that population growth occurs at a constant, exponential rate. As Flank says, “While Morris’s mathematics are impeccable, the reasoning behind his argument is shoddy at best.”

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This is Part 3 of the ten part blog debunking the claims made on CreationEvidence.org’s “Evidence for Creation.” This blog examines point #3.

STATEMENT: ”The Biblical record clearly describes a global Flood during Noah’s day. Additionally, there are hundreds of Flood traditions handed down through cultures all over the world.”

RESPONSE: The biblical “record” does describe a flood. And yes, there are hundreds of flood traditions handed down throughout the world. This proves nothing. The bible is not scientific, so its story proves nothing. The traditions are not scientific and also prove nothing.

Floods are not an unusual thing. In ancient times, it would not be unusual for a flood (especially in a desert climate) to wipe out vast quantities of the population, as warning systems wouldn’t have existed, waterway control was primitive, etc. Unusually strong rains could and would bring destructive floods, but this is not a biblical event. For instance, I live in Wisconsin. This past spring we had very strong rains, much stronger than usual. Despite the system of dams and controlled waterways (rivers, spillways, etc.), we had large flooding throughout southern Wisconsin and into Illinois and Iowa. These floods (particularly in more rural areas) caused massive destruction and some deaths and injuries. The loss of life was less than it could have been because of early warnings, controlled waterways, and (importantly) a well-functioning healthcare system and emergency response system.

So take this flood and localize it in ancient times when a large rain would produce catastrophic flooding. Is it unreasonable to assume that survivors of such a flood would pass down the story of this flood to their offspring and that this would eventually become a culturally traditional story? And is it unreasonable to assume that a large flood could happen in more than one place on the earth in more than one time period, causing multiple cultures to have their own traditional flood story? The biblical account of such a flood is no proof of a “world-wide” flood. At best, it is the recounting of one large-scale local flood that all but wiped-out an entire community’s or country’s population.

(for the sake of this response, we are ignoring the account of Noah, as it is not mentioned in the article’s argument).

STATEMENT: “M.E. Clark and Henry Voss have demonstrated the scientific validity of such a Flood providing the sedimentary layering we see on every continent.”

RESPONSE: I scoured all over the internet for anything I could find on M.E. Clark and Henry Voss and came up with nothing. Supposedly they have demonstrated validity of the flood at an International Conference on Creation in 1994. I would very much like to know their qualifications, credentials, and what they said! Until this is brought to my attention, I am left to believe that, because they made this demonstration at a creation conference, that they are, like many other proponents of a creation, biased in their findings; why else would the geologic community at large otherwise disagree with the idea of a world-wide flood event.

STATEMENT: “Secular scholars report very rapid sedimentation and periods of great carbonate deposition in earth’s sedimentary layers.”

RESPONSE: Cited as evidence for this statement is Derek Ager’s The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record. Here is Ager’s response to the use of his work to support creationist arguments:

“For a century and a half the geological world has been dominated, one might even say brain-washed, by the gradualistic uniformitarianism of Charles Lyell.  Any suggestion of ‘catastrophic’ events has been rejected as old-fashioned, unscientific and even laughable.  This is partly due to the extremism of some of Cuvier’s followers, though not of Cuvier himself. 

On that side too were the obviously untenable views of bible-oriented fanatics, obsessed with myths such as Noah’s flood, and of classicists thinking of Nemesis.  That is why I think it necessary to include the following ‘disclaimer’: in view of the misuse that my words have been put to in the past, I wish to say that nothing in this book should be taken out of context and thought in any way to support the views of the ‘creationists’ (who I refuse to call ’scientific’)” [Ager's emphasis] (Ager, Derek, 1993, 1995 (paperback edition), The New Catastrophism: The Importance of the Rare Event in Geological History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Great Britain). (thanks to Dr. Kevin R. Henke)

As Ager shows, his comments have been taken out of context. Like many pseudosciences and their proponents, creationists cherry-pick scientific material for the one or two factoids that seem to support their view, dismissing the context of the work and the voluminous evidence that contradicts the creationists’ claims.

STATEMENT: “It is now possible to prove the historical reality of the Biblical Flood.”

RESPONSE: This final statement in the argument contains a citation for John Anthony West, who has proposed, with the help of Robert Schoch, an alternative hypothesis as to the age of the Great Sphinx of Giza based on erosion supposedly due to heavy rain. However, mainstream archaeologists and egyptologists do not accept this hypothesis, arguing that the erosion has been caused by wind, sand, acid rain, exfoliation, or poor quality of the limestone used in the Sphinx’s construction.

All this aside, it is not possible to “prove the historical reality of the flood.”  How does the erosion of the Great Sphinx in Egypt (possibly do to rain) have anything to do with the supposed flood of Noah’s time? And how does it prove that the flood happened.

CONCLUSION: None of the supposed evidence given to support the creationists’ argument proves a flood. Traditions are not proof, nor are evidences from scientists that are taken out of context, nor is an argument for the possible erosion of the Great Sphinx due to rain (rain does NOT equal flooding). The supposed ‘great flood’ never happened.

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This is Part 2 of the ten part blog debunking the claims made on CreationEvidence.org’s “Evidence for Creation.” This blog examines point #2.

STATEMENT: ”Dr. Thomas Barnes, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Texas at El Paso, has published the definitive work in this field.”

RESPONSE: Dr. Thomas Barnes did NOT write the “definitive work in his field.” Barnes arguments are considered by the scientific community to be pseudoscience or fringe science. His arguments on the decaying magnetic field were never published in mainstream science journals because they lacked validity in model. Nevertheless, nowhere else in this argument is he mentioned. It simply states that he published the definitive work in his field, but never states what he wrote. So why is he mentioned? This statement completely fails to give validity to the argument as a whole; if anything, it detracts from the argument.

As there is no one else cited within this argument, we will assume that the remainder of this argument is based on Barnes’ work.

(Note: Barnes was a young-earth creationist, believing that the earth was no more than a few thousand years old, and was prone to taking data and fitting it to meet his preconceived conclusion. Henceforth, his model of magnetic decay lacked validity.)

STATEMENT: “Scientific observations since 1829 have shown that the earth’s magnetic field has been measurably decaying at an exponential rate, demonstrating its half-life to be approximately 1,400 years. In practical application its strength 20,000 years ago would approximate that of a magnetic star. Under those conditions many of the molecules necessary for life processes could not form. These data demonstrate that earth’s entire history is young, within a few thousand of years.”

RESPONSE: ”Empirical measurement of the earth’s magnetic field does not show exponential decay. Yes, an exponential curve can be fit to historical measurements, but an exponential curve can be fit to any set of points. A straight line fits better” -Claim CD701 (talkorigins.org) (italics added). As stated before, Barnes’ model was invalid; further, his methods were questionable, having relied on “an obsolete model of the earth’s interior” (CD701).

CONCLUSION: The entire argument made in point #2 is based on Thomas Barnes’ work on magnetic field decay. However, as has been shown, Barnes’ work was based on a false premise (an obsolete, invalid model). Barnes’ conclusion is therefore inaccurate, and the argument for a young earth based on magnetic field decay is therefore false.

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