Young Earth creationism

Young Earth creationism is the belief that the Earth, and usually the universe, were created by a direct action of God a relatively short time ago. Such a belief is almost invariably held in conjunction with fundamentalist Christian beliefs, in which the first chapters of the biblical book of Genesis are taken to be a literal account of the creation of the universe, in six strictly 24-hour days. This differs from Day-Age Creationism which purports that "day" is used in Genesis before the creation of the sun or the earth and the dawn of earthly time. Young Earth Creationists generally believe that the age of the Earth is between 6000 and 20,000 years, although some believe in a "gap" of unspecified duration between the creation of Adam and Eve and the Fall — see Gap Creationism.

Such an interpretation conflicts with mainstream scientific views of the age of the earth and the origins of life. Young Earth creationists generally believe that scientific belief in an old earth is the result of misinterpretations of evidence or erroneous assumptions. They hold a belief that evidence for a young earth is suppressed or ignored by the scientific mainstream. Although most Young Earth Creationists' primary reason for belief is a faith in the literal interpretation of Genesis, they do maintain that scientific observations, if correctly interpreted, would support their viewpoint.

Young Earth creationists usually distinguish their own hypotheses from the Omphalos hypothesis put forth by Philip Henry Gosse. Gosse's hypothesis claims that, just as Adam had a navel, evidence of a gestation he never experienced, so also the Earth was created ex nihilo complete with evidence of a prehistoric past that never actually occurred. Gosse's hypothesis allows for a young earth without giving rise to any predictions that would contradict scientific findings; Young Earth Creationists, by contrast, attempt to re-interpret scientific data to support their hypothesis that the earth is in fact young.

Young Earth creationists deny the Theory of Evolution, in particular the ideas and mechanisms of Macroevolution.

Contents

The Flood

Young Earth creationists almost invariably believe also in a literal interpretation of Noah's flood as worldwide and total. Many explanations for perceived problems in young earth creationism come from this belief in a flood and subsequent ice age. This area of creation science is called flood geology.

Young Earthers generally hold that most of the geological formations that we see were laid down during the time of the flood. They believe that a vast amount of water descended on the Earth, covering it to a height of thousands of metres. Rock and soil was taken up into this water as silt, and was then deposited, forming the geological layers that we see today. They believe that much of the layering we see today was laid down not successively but simultaneously, in the same way as sand particles of different densities suspended in water will settle out to form layers in only a few seconds.

Young Earthers point to a worldwide flood as accounting for the erosion found in many spots, equivalent to millennia of conventional erosion, as well as for the splitting of the continents on a timescale faster than that determined by conventional geology.

Phenomena like the Greenland ice cores are interpreted by young earth creationists as the results of post-flood climatological conditions in the Northern Atlantic region quite different from historically recorded weather patterns, which resulted in many layers of ice forming rapidly each year instead of just the one annual layer we see being formed seasonally today (Link (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2001/0704icecores.asp)).

There are various theories about what the earth was like before the flood. Many evolutionists and creationists agree that the whole earth was more tropical at one time, and the fossil record does show that.

Distant Stars

One of the major problems in the young Earth theory is visible astronomical objects many millions of light years distant. According to conventional science, the light that we are observing therefore began its journey millions of years ago, and this would not have been possible in a universe only a few thousands of years old.

Young Earthers have various responses to this question:

Light created in transit

Some young Earthers hold that God might have created light that appeared to have come from these objects, but created it 'in transit'. This is a limited form of the Omphalos hypothesis. This theory is inherently unverifiable, and is a philosophical viewpoint rather than a scientific viewpoint.

Inaccurate astronomy

Early responses by young Earth creationists tended to challenge the astronomical measurements, i.e. to assert that distant objects were not as far away as thought. When distance measurements were entirely reliant on red-shift calculations, it was easy to challenge the assumption that red-shift and distance were necessarily correlated. Since measurements of astronomical distances are now much better authenticated this approach has fallen into disfavour.

Decreasing speed of light

Another approach was to consider that the speed of light may not have been constant. If the speed of light were signficantly faster in the past, light from distant objects could have reached earth in much less time. Such an approach is attractive — after all, it seems impossible to prove today that fundamental physical constants have not changed over time. This hypothesis, called the "C decay" hypothesis, was originally proposed by Barry Setterfield.

A change in the speed of light of the necessary magnitude would have had profound implications on other physical processes, particularly the nuclear fusion reactions that power the Sun. Secondly measurements of the speed of light have revealed no noticeable change in the speed of light in the time we have been measuring it. Given that these measurements have been extremely accurate over a long period it seems unlikely to opponents of this theory that there were substantial changes in the last few thousand years.

This theory does not tell us why distant pulsars do not appear to speed up, as they would if the speed of light was indeed slowing down. More information (http://homepage.mac.com/cygnusx1/cdecay/).

Relativistic shifts

A more recent theory holds that, in a bounded universe, relativistic effects might cause time to pass more slowly near the centre of the universe than at its periphery. If the Earth were near the centre, then far-away stars might indeed be millions of years old, while the earth might be thousands of years old, even if created at the same time. The author of this theory is Dr. Russell Humphreys (Link (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/405.asp)).

This theory also assumes the existence of an edge to the universe. Mainstream scientific theories regarding the topology of the universe do not consider a physical edge.

White hole cosmology

The theory holds that the universe did not arise from a black hole, as postulated by the mainstream inflationary Big Bang theory, but from a white hole, hence the name white hole cosmology. This theory not only fits the same cosmological data that the Big Bang theory purports to explain, but also includes much data that has never been explained by it, like quantized red shifts. Furthermore it provides the YEC (Young Earth Creationist) model with a theoretical underpinning for the question how light from distant stars millions of light years away could be visible from Earth if our planet is only 6,000 years old as postulated by the theory (Link to PDF (http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/v17n2_cosmology.pdf)).

YEC organizations like the Institute for Creation Research, the Creation Research Society, and Answers in Genesis subscribe to this view.

However, it is important to point out that it is currently not known whether white holes exist, so this theory remains only speculative.

Early civilisation

Many young Earthers believe that dinosaurs and other creatures of their geological era existed contemporaneously with human beings, but not necessarily sharing the same geographic space (though it should be noted that dinosaurs have been found on every continent). Mythologies of dragons and other creatures, such as the Leviathan in the Book of Job, bear a strong resemblance to dinosaurs and occur frequently in many parts of the world. (Indeed, the Chinese interpreted fossilised dinosaur bones as being "dragon bones".) Some have claimed that cave paintings depict animals that should have been extinct long before the paintings were executed.

Young Earth creationists hold that human society progressed from the 'caveman' stage to city-building capability in only a few thousand years. Many Young Earthers argue that, based on the Biblical story of Genesis in Adam's day, humans lived longer (1000 years) and had few disabilities and malfunctions. This was a result of early humans being "closer to God", therefore enabling them to live more successfully. Young Earthers hold that, since expulsion from Eden, humans have slowly declined as a result of genetic mutations and/or separation from God.

By contrast, mainstream science maintains that dinosaurs died out long before human beings existed. Conventional scientific methods of dating separate the last known dinosaurs and the first known humans by some 65 million years. The remains of humans and dinosaurs have never been found in the same fossil layers, indicating a lack of contemporaneity between the two. Genetic mutations are conventionally seen as benefiting species in the long term, allowing them to evolve to better fit their environment. Mainstream archaeology pictures a progression from a lengthy Stone Age to the relatively rapid development of technological civilisation over the last 9,000 years - a timescale which of course contrasts many Young Earth views. Nor does mainstream archaeological and paleontological interpretation of the evidence support the view that ancient humans lived longer than today. The bulk of the evidence suggests that life expectancy was far shorter in the past, with the ancient Romans (at the beginning of the current era) having an average life expectancy of 40 years or less. Biblical chronologies which indicate very long life spans taper off at about 2,000 B.C. (following the chronology established in the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar. However, this is well within recorded history and is long after the first mummies were created, around 3300 B.C.; examinations of ancient corpses have revealed no anatomical differences from modern humans.

Mainstream science

Mainstream science holds that the universe came into being 13.7 ± 0.2 billion years ago, and the Earth formed around 4.57 billion years ago. The geologic timescale is based on their interpretation of several pieces of evidence, including radiometric dating, the fossil record, dendrochronology (tree rings), ice cores, sediment cores, and coral samples.

Young Earth Creationists hold that conventional science is incorrect, as it fails to take into account many pieces of the above-cited evidence. They also point to alleged inconsistencies, errors, anomalous results, and unanswered questions created by conventional science as evidence that it is incorrect. The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is the source of most evidence cited by Young Earth Creationists. The ICR searches for other interpretations to scientifically accepted data.

Mainstream scientists regard these objections as merely indicating avenues for further scientific research, rather than insurmountable flaws requiring a paradigm shift, but naturally creationists disagree with stated opinion.

See also

External links

nl:Jonge-aardecreationisme

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