Creation geophysics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Part of a series on
Creationism

History of creationism
Neo-creationism
Types of creationism

Young Earth creationism
Old Earth creationism
Day-Age creationism
Progressive creationism
Gap creationism
Theistic evolution
Intelligent design
Other religious views

Hindu · Islamic · Jewish
Deist · Pandeist
Creation theology

Creation in Genesis
Genesis as an allegory
Framework interpretation
Omphalos hypothesis
Creation science

Baraminology
Flood geology
Intelligent design
Controversy

Politics of creationism
Public education
History
Teach the Controversy
Associated articles
Creationism Portal ·  v • d • e 

Young Earth creationists have made a number of claims in the field of geophysics, mostly related to the age of the Earth and flood geology. The scientific community has heavily criticized and refuted these claims, which have frequently been shown to contradict geological evidence and/or basic laws of physics. As such these claims and theories are considered pseudoscience by the majority of scientists.

Contents

[edit] Claims relating to the age of the Earth

See also: Age of the Earth

[edit] Rapid-decay theory

See also: Dynamo theory and Earth's magnetic field

This hypothesis was developed by Thomas G. Barnes, who was Creation Research Society president in the mid 1970s. Taking the assumption that the Earth's magnetic field decayed exponentially, and ignoring evidence of it fluctuating over time, he estimated that "the life of the earth's magnetic field should be reckoned in thousands, not millions or billions, of years." It has drawn harsh criticism from both scientists and some creationists.[1]

It has long been observed that Earth's magnetic field gradually changes over time (e.g., Henry Gellibrand, Gresham College, 1634). Much of this change is due to movement of the magnet poles, and changes in the Earth's non-dipole field. The earth's magnetic field strength was measured by Carl Friedrich Gauss in 1835 and has been repeatedly measured since then, showing a relative decay of about 5% over the last 150 years.[2]

While the details of the creationists' arguments have changed, in essence the argument is that if the Earth's dipole changes by 5% per century, the Earth can't be much older than 20 centuries.[citation needed]

One proposal is based on the assumption that Earth was created from pure water with all of the molecules' spins aligned creating a substantial magnetic field.[3] However spin relaxation times, which measure the time nuclear magnetisations take to return to the equilibrium, are typically measured in the range of milliseconds or seconds.

Russell Humphreys accepts a core-current based magnetic field and archaeomagnetic measurements of the magnetic field (based on measurements of human artefacts), and concludes that several reversals of the magnetic field occurred during the biblical flood.[4] Such rapid (month long) variation contradict measurements of the conductivity of the Earth's mantle.[5]

Such ideas are inconsistent with the basic physics of magnetism.[6] While short term variations have been shown to be due to a variety of factors, the long-term (million year) variation in field intensity (and even reversal in polarity) are modeled as due to changes in electric currents in the liquid core of the Earth.

[edit] Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth project

See also: radiometric dating

Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth (R.A.T.E.) is a joint project by the Institute for Creation Research and the Creation Research Society to produce experimental geochronological results that support a Young Earth creationist view that the age of the Earth is only thousands of years — not billions, as the scientific consensus has concluded.

The membership of R.A.T.E. has been self-described as "Bible-believing Christian, committed to young-earth creation." Members are:[7]

Creationists involved in the Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth (R.A.T.E.) Project point to experiments they have performed, which they claim demonstrate that 1.5 billion years of nuclear decay took place over a short period of time, from which they infer that "billion-fold speed-ups of nuclear decay" have occurred, a massive violation of the principle that radioisotope decay rates are constant, a core principle underlying nuclear physics generally, and radiometric dating in particular.[8]

The scientific community points to numerous flaws in these experiments, to the fact that their results have not been accepted for publication by any peer-reviewed scientific journal, and to the fact that the creationist scientists conducting them were untrained in experimental geochronology.[9][10]

Although scientists have demonstrated that the decay rates of isotopes which decay by an electron capture mechanism can be varied, these variations are of the order of 0.2 percent (except under certain extreme conditions, such as inside a star, where these variations may be higher[11]), far below a level that would give support to the Creationist results, and at a level that it is argued that they would not invalidate radiometric dating, nor is there any evidence of a variation in decay rates or physical constants over time. The consensus of professional scientific organizations worldwide is that no scientific evidence contradicts the age of approximately 4.5 billion years. It is further argued that "[i]t is unlikely that a variable rate would affect all the different mechanisms in the same way and to the same extent. Yet different radiometric dating techniques give consistent dates."[12]

[edit] Radiohaloes

See also: Radiohalo

Robert V. Gentry studied these halos and concluded that the rock must have formed within three minutes if the halo was formed by Po-218. This is taken by some creationists as evidence that the earth was formed instantaneously. Other creationists, including some fellow Seventh Day Adventists, have disparaged his work, and have "accused him of willfully ignoring pertinent evidence and of inconsistently and arbitrarily assuming nonuniform decay rates for all radioactive isotopes except polonium."[13]

Critics of Gentry from within the scientific community have pointed out that Po-218 is a decay product of radon, which as a gas can be given off by a grain of uranium in one part of the rock and collected in another part of the rock to form a uraniumless halo. Gentry's examples rely on a radon ring that is close to the Po-210 ring and it is a bit difficult to tell them apart, and it is not certain whether the rings can be positively associated with polonium.[14]

Gentry's work has been continued and expanded by the creationist R.A.T.E. project that was operating between 1997 and 2005. Radiohalos were studied as part of the R.A.T.E. project by creationists such as Andrew Snelling of Answers in Genesis, Russell Humphreys, John Baumgardner and Steven A. Austin at the Institute of Creation Research as well as others at the Creation Research Society.[citation needed] However, Lorence G. Collins, J. Richard Wakefield and others have repeatedly and soundly rebutted the radiohalo evidence for a young earth in peer-reviewed publications.[citation needed]

[edit] Claims relating to flood geology

See also: Flood geology

Geophysical hypotheses related to flood geology include:

  • Hydroplates, an alternative hypothesis proposed by Walt Brown of superfast continental drift. His hypothesis has not been regarded by the scientific community to be founded on science. Many creationist organizations such as Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research consider the hydroplate notion to be unworkable.
  • Vapor canopy, the idea that the waters for the flood came from a "canopy" of water vapor surrounding the Earth. One major proponent of the vapor canopy is Kent Hovind, who has made the model popular among the general population of creationists, but most creation scientists now reject the idea.[citation needed] For instance, Walt Brown's Center for Scientific Creation opposes it, and it has also fallen into disfavour at Answers in Genesis.
  • Runaway subduction, the rapid movement of tectonic plates, which John Baumgardner posits to have initiated the catastrophic breakup of a single primal supercontinent, which in turn precipitated the global flood of Noah. During the year-long global flood, the continents rapidly split apart and moved to their present positions.

[edit] References

  1. ^ p282-283, The Creationists, Expanded Edition, 2006, Ronald Numbers
  2. ^ Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science, 1988 16 p.435 "Time Variations of the Earth's Magnetic Field: From Daily to Secular" by Vincent Courtillot and Jean Louis Le Mouel
  3. ^ "The Earth: Is It Young or Is It Old?", Dr. Jay L. Wile
  4. ^ "The Earth's Magnetic Field is Young ", Russell Humphreys, Institute for Creation research
  5. ^ Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science, 1988 16 p.452 "Time Variations of the Earth's Magnetic Field: From Daily to Secular" by Vincent Courtillot and Jean Louis Le Mouel
  6. ^ Claim CD701, TalkOrigins Archive
  7. ^ Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, a Young Earth Creationist Research Initiative, Larry Vardiman, Andrew A. Snelling, Eugene F. Chaffin (ed)
  8. ^ Nuclear Decay: Evidence For A Young World, D. Russell Humphreys, Impact, Number 352, October 2002.
  9. ^ Young-Earth Creationist Helium Diffusion "Dates" Fallacies Based on Bad Assumptions and Questionable Data, Kevin R. Henke, TalkOrigins website, Original version: March 17, 2005, Revision: November 24, 2005.
  10. ^ R.A.T.E: More Faulty Creation Science from The Institute for Creation Research, J. G. Meert, Gondwana Research, The Official Journal of the International Association for Gondwana, November 13, 2000 (updated February 6, 2003).
  11. ^ Bosch, F.; T. Feastermann, J. Friese, et. al. (December 23 1996). "Observation of Bound-State β- Decay of Fully Ionized 187Re: 187Re-187Os Cosmochemistry". Physical Review Letters 77 (26): 5190-5193. The American Physical Society. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.77.5190. 
  12. ^ Claim CF210, Mark Isaak (editor), Index to Creationist Claims, TalkOrigins website, 2004.
  13. ^ p282, The Creationists, Expanded Edition, 2006, Ronald Numbers
  14. ^ Thomas A. Baillieul, "Polonium Haloes" Refuted 2001-2005, talk.origins archives

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Hydroplates

[edit] Vapor canopy

[edit] Rapid-decay theory