YECism and the solar system

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jereth

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It seems to me that YECists have gone to a lot of trouble to fight evolutionary biology and geology, with a reasonable degree of success. They have even had a go at tackling cosmology. But when it comes to planetology and the study of the solar system, they seem to be at a bit of a loss.

On AiG we find the following dialogue between 2 creationist astronomers:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v13/i1/crater.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i1/cratering.asp

Personally, I find this dialogue incredible. If nothing else, it reveals that YECism runs into a terrible dead end in the science of planetology.

Do YECists have any comments to make? Have you thought much about this issue, and how it might be solved?

Do TEs have any comments to make? What are the scientific and theological problems with the debate between Spencer and Faulkner?

What do OECs and Gap theorists have to contribute to this area of study?
 

shernren

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This reminds me of something Alister McGrath described in his book The Enigma of The Cross. He said that Christianity was feeling less and less relevant as time went by and its historical role of charity was taken over by other institutions such as the state, one reaction was to try and read theology and Christology into everything. He cited the example of a paper titled "The Theology of Housing Subsidies", which for some reason stuck in my head as being quite ridiculous. And these two webpages on "Biblically assessing cratering" strike me as being quite the same.

Why should we expect the Bible to tell us anything about how cratering occurred on the moon and on the Earth? Rightly, there are no Bible references, since I doubt the Israelites even knew what a meteor or a comet was (though I could be wrong), much less seen an impact crater before. (This includes a statement that "the planets were created three days after the Earth", a statement I don't think needs to be true even within the creationist framework. The planets would not have been "lights in the sky" until a sun had been created from which planets could reflect light to be seen from the earth.)

Another thing to note is that even in white-hole cosmologies, YECs cannot avoid having the solar system being at least younger than 1 million years (giving an extreme benefit of the doubt). Surely this would have exhibited itself as some difference between the stellar chemistry of the sun and that of other stars in other galaxies, an aspect I have not yet seen in popular creationist literature.
 
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jereth

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shernren said:
And these two webpages on "Biblically assessing cratering" strike me as being quite the same.

Yet I cannot help but feel that Spencer and Faulkner are honestly and sincerely trying to solve the problem from a YEC perspective. (Just as R. Humphreys honestly and sincerely tried to formulate a creationist cosmology.)

And this is what is striking. It's not Hovind or Walt Brown rubbish we're reading here. It's at attempt by serious scientists to come up with a serious scientific answer. And yet they still become tied up in knots, because -- as should be evident to anyone with half a science education -- astronomy is the death knell for "creation science".

Was the solar system cratered during creation week? It can't have happened before day 4 because, well, the solar system didn't exist yet did it?!? And if it happened on day 4 or later, then life would have been wiped out. So either the earth was behind a miraculous force field, or else cratering happened during the Flood. So why do we read of torrential rain and fountains of the deep in the account of Noah, rather than great balls of fire from the heavens?

No surprise that all we find is a couple of old articles tucked away in the TJ, while AiG at large remains totally silent about this problem. If the general creationist public became truly conscious of this problem, the result would be scandalous.

Another thing to note is that even in white-hole cosmologies, YECs cannot avoid having the solar system being at least younger than 1 million years (giving an extreme benefit of the doubt). Surely this would have exhibited itself as some difference between the stellar chemistry of the sun and that of other stars in other galaxies, an aspect I have not yet seen in popular creationist literature.

Worse still is the fact that creationist cosmologists draw an arbritrary, imaginary line around the solar system. Outside that line, normal "evolutionary" processes are OK -- i.e. the condensation of matter over millions of years into galaxies and so on. Inside the line, everything had to magically poof into existence 6000 years ago. Where's the sense in that?
 
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shernren

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Yet I cannot help but feel that Spencer and Faulkner are honestly and sincerely trying to solve the problem from a YEC perspective. (Just as R. Humphreys honestly and sincerely tried to formulate a creationist cosmology.)
Oh, I don't doubt their honesty or sincerity one bit. But methinks it is the same kind of honesty and sincerity that prodded medieval scholars to ask "How many angels can dance on a pinhead?" ... which is the kind of question one gets oneself into when imposing spiritual authority (of the Bible) on natural things.

Worse still is the fact that creationist cosmologists draw an arbritrary, imaginary line around the solar system. Outside that line, normal "evolutionary" processes are OK -- i.e. the condensation of matter over millions of years into galaxies and so on. Inside the line, everything had to magically poof into existence 6000 years ago. Where's the sense in that?

Actually, it isn't as bad as it seems. One of the dominant mantras of second-tier science fiction (i.e. the Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. ... ) is that "With God - or GR and enough energy - everything is possible." Put in a bit of "negative energy" and you can get wormholes, legit FTL travel, etc. etc. It certainly isn't too implausible to imagine some kind of "gravity well" surrounding the solar system. In fact, Stephen Baxter in his short story "Flypaper" (IIRC) explores the exact opposite, an astronaut pair who travel to the edge of the solar system and realize that they (and the solar system) have been trapped in a large space-time membrane which has artificially aged the solar system while the rest of the universe remains young.

So in terms of abstract theory there really isn't too much against the YEC model. But enter observation ... aka the real world.
 
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jereth

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shernren said:
Actually, it isn't as bad as it seems. One of the dominant mantras of second-tier science fiction (i.e. the Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. ... ) is that "With God - or GR and enough energy - everything is possible." Put in a bit of "negative energy" and you can get wormholes, legit FTL travel, etc. etc. It certainly isn't too implausible to imagine some kind of "gravity well" surrounding the solar system.
...
So in terms of abstract theory there really isn't too much against the YEC model. But enter observation ... aka the real world.

The problem is not so much plausibility -- if God wanted to miraculously age the rest of the universe very fast while keeping the solar system young, of course he could have done so.

As you say, it is a scientific "real world" problem. Also, it begs the question whether YECism really can be called YECism if it allows everything outside the solar system (i.e. 99.9999999999999999% of the universe) to be billions of years old. It's only a tiny fraction that is actually "young". So then a philosophical question arises: why would God go to the trouble of keeping a tiny corner of his creation young when the overwhelming majority of it is in fact very old?

And where in Genesis 1 does the text allow for such antics anyway? Reading the text literally and straightforwardly, the stars are as young as the earth. Surely YECists have fallen into their own trap of "allowing science to reinterpret the Bible".
 
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artybloke

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This reminds me of something Alister McGrath described in his book The Enigma of The Cross. He said that Christianity was feeling less and less relevant as time went by and its historical role of charity was taken over by other institutions such as the state, one reaction was to try and read theology and Christology into everything. He cited the example of a paper titled "The Theology of Housing Subsidies", which for some reason stuck in my head as being quite ridiculous. And these two webpages on "Biblically assessing cratering" strike me as being quite the same.

On a personal note - this reminds me of the time that my late father asked me if the Bible could help him mend his car. I think I gave him some bull about patience being a virtue but I didn't really have answer. The Bible isn't a car manual. Neither is it a science text-book. Why anyone would want to see it as such is beyond me.
 
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Willtor

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jereth said:
The problem is not so much plausibility -- if God wanted to miraculously age the rest of the universe very fast while keeping the solar system young, of course he could have done so.

As you say, it is a scientific "real world" problem. Also, it begs the question whether YECism really can be called YECism if it allows everything outside the solar system (i.e. 99.9999999999999999% of the universe) to be billions of years old. It's only a tiny fraction that is actually "young". So then a philosophical question arises: why would God go to the trouble of keeping a tiny corner of his creation young when the overwhelming majority of it is in fact very old?

And where in Genesis 1 does the text allow for such antics anyway? Reading the text literally and straightforwardly, the stars are as young as the earth. Surely YECists have fallen into their own trap of "allowing science to reinterpret the Bible".

If the solar system were aging at a different rate from the rest of the universe, surely there would be a way to distinguish that, though. There must be some observation of light or other particles that enter the solar system that would show it to be so.
 
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jereth

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Willtor said:
If the solar system were aging at a different rate from the rest of the universe, surely there would be a way to distinguish that, though. There must be some observation of light or other particles that enter the solar system that would show it to be so.

I think most creationist "aged universe" theories say that the rapid aging of the universe occured sometime during creation week, and subsequently the earth and universe have aged at the same rate. So the effect is no longer observable.

But here's an interesting thought experiment. Let's say humanity eventually builds an interstellar spacecraft and visits Alpha Centauri, and finds a system of planets around it. The spacecraft orbits a rocky inner plannet, photographing many geological features -- mountains, flood channels, basins, volcanoes, etc. Then it lands, and samples a piece of volcanic rock, finding a radiometric age of 3 billion years. What would the implications be for YECism?
 
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RealityCheck

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jereth said:
I think most creationist "aged universe" theories say that the rapid aging of the universe occured sometime during creation week, and subsequently the earth and universe have aged at the same rate. So the effect is no longer observable.

This is a great example of the problems with YEC and other theories designed to support Creationist beliefs. In order to account for observed phenomena (such as the universe appearing to be about 15 billion years old), extremely wild theories have to be created in order to account for the phenomena but still make the Bible's account come out looking accurate and unscathed. And inevitably, there is always a "we can't observe it any more" at the end.

But almost always, the "supernatural force of God" must be invoked in order to make these work, because no natural process or phenomena would make the theory work as proposed.

Problem of course is that if God could make the universe appear to be 15 billion years old, you have to ask why that is? What would be the reason for making the rest of the universe look so old to us? And if God can do that, why not some other way?
 
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jereth

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RealityCheck said:
Problem of course is that if God could make the universe appear to be 15 billion years old, you have to ask why that is? What would be the reason for making the rest of the universe look so old to us? And if God can do that, why not some other way?

That's the problem I have with neo-creationist theories which allow for an aged universe (such as White Hole Cosmology). They make God guilty of deception on a grand scale.
 
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