Chapter 12: Ocean Salinity

On pages 215-18 of The Greatest Hoax on Earth, Sarfati gives a relatively lengthy discussion of the salt in the Earth's oceans as something that proves the Earth must be thousands, not billions, of years old.

Here's a link to a paper titled 'Ocean Salinity as a Failed Scientific Clock'.  The paper is written by a graduate student and explains simply and clearly why young-Earth creationist are being disingenuous when they use ocean salinity to claim the Earth can't be billions of years old.  

Here's an excerpt from the paper that serves as a good summary:

For a process to be considered a good natural clock, it must contain the following: a known initial condition, an irreversible process, a uniform rate, and a final condition. With the salt clock, the initial condition is not known. The process of salt accumulation has been proven to be reversible and in constant change. There is also no uniform rate of accumulation of salt. The only criterion met is the known final condition. Because of these factors, the salt clock can obviously not be used as a natural clock to calculate any type of age.

Despite the known scientific reasons for which this method cannot be used as an accurate natural clock, measuring the salinity of the ocean has recently been used by young earth creationists as supposed proof that the earth is not, in fact, billions of years old. The website Answers in Genesis, a young earth proponent, actually explains the salt clock as a valid measuring device. According to the site, "Many processes bring salts into the sea, while they don't leave the sea easily. So the saltiness is increasing steadily. Since we can work out how much salt there is in the sea, as well as the rates that salts go into and out of the sea, we should be able to calculate a maximum age for the sea (Sarfati)."

What is even more curious about this selected article is that the author even cites the works of John Joly and Edmund Haley in his references. The works of Joly and Haley, while vital in tracing the progression of scientific thought on the age of the earth, are in no way current or up to date. The article fails to comment on the shortcomings of the salt clock, and concludes by reiterating that the amount of salt present in today's oceans coincides with the age of the earth according to biblical accounts.

One-Sided Information (mostly chapter 12)

One error made in The Greatest Hoax on Earth is what Christian astronomer Matthew Tiscareno has termed the 'one-sided equation fallacy':

A large class of "evidences" presented by young-Earth advocates involve measuring rates of various Earth processes, then attempting to extrapolate them backwards for millions of years.  Generally, the purpose is to show that the process in question would build up to absurdity if it were allowed to continue through "evolutionary timescales."  The fallacy of most claims of this type is a failure to recognize the importance of equilibrium.  Most processes on Earth are in a state of balance, in which one process (such as erosion of the continents) is counteracted by others (such as emplacement of new continental material by volcanoes and tectonic uplift).  Generally, processes on Earth do not build up without limit, because there is always another process that opposes the build-up, leading to the establishment of equilibrium.

The method for dealing with young-Earth claims of this type is to look for the limiting process that imposes equilibrium.  In some cases the balancing process has simply been overlooked, and the young-Earth claim is laid to rest by pointing it out.  Other times the balancing process is not well understood or even unknown, which may seem to lend credence to young-Earth claims.  However...[u]nless we can prove that no balancing process exists (and in most cases that cannot be done), we should adopt the working hypothesis that there is a yet-to-be-discovered process that provides the equilibrium.  Examples of the One-Sided Equation Fallacy include the influx of magma on the Earth's crust, the erosion of sediment from continents, the maximum life of comets, and helium-4 in the atmosphere.[footnote 1]

This same error is described by Christian physicist Roger Wiens in his helpful essay, 'Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective':

There are a number of parameters which, if extrapolated from the present without taking into account the changes in the Earth over time, would seem to suggest a somewhat younger Earth.  These arguments can sound good on a very simple level, but do not hold water when all the factors are considered.  Some examples of these categories are the decaying magnetic field (not mentioning the widespread evidence for magnetic reversals), the saltiness of the oceans (not counting sedimentation!), the sedimentation rate of the oceans (not counting Earthquakes and crustal movement, that is, plate tectonics), the relative paucity of meteorites on the Earth's surface (not counting weathering or plate tectonics), the thickness of dust on the moon (without taking into account brecciation over time), the Earth-Moon separation rate (not counting changes in tides and internal forces), etc.  While these arguments do not stand up when the complete picture is considered, the case for a very old creation of the Earth fits well in all areas considered.[2]

Sarfati uses a one-sided approach in several places in his book, such as his arguments about:

• genetic entropy in chapter 4 (which fails to mention the balancing processes of synergistic epistasis and soft selection) 
• ocean salinity in chapter 12 (which fails to mention the various processes by which oceans lose salinity)
• comets in chapter 12 (Sarfati acknowledges the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, but he is selective in the information he provides on them[3])
• Earth's magnetic field in chapter 12 (which mentions but fails to properly engage the evidence for multiple reversals of the Earth's magnetic field over long periods of time in the Earth's past - see here [though your eyes may not be able to handle the appalling design of that webpage]).

References: 

[1] Matthew Tiscareno, ‘Is There Really Scientific Evidence for a Young Earth?’ (2000) http://chem.tufts.edu/science/Geology/OEC-refutes-YEC.htm 

[2] Roger Wiens, ‘Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective’ (2002) http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html 

[3] See here for an explanation: Ian Musgrave, ‘Where do comets come from?’ (2009) http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2009/05/where-do-comets.html

Chapter 11: Varves

On pages 198-9 of the The Greatest Hoax on Earth Sarfati discusses varves.

This post summarises a 2012 blog entry by Christian biologist Joel Duff: 'Lake Suigetsu and the 60,000 Year Varve Chronology' [footnote 1], as well as drawing on information from other sources.

Over the past 20 years climatologists and biogeochemists have documented the varve layers from multiple sediment cores taken from Lake Suigetsu in Japan. Suigetsu is targeted for study because:

• it has high cliffs on all sides, which protect the lake from wind, floods and storms
• it has a single river inflow via another lake, so only the finest sediment enters the lake
• it experiences strong seasonal differences, which produce alternating bands of material in its varve layers (such as pollen in spring but not in winter)
• water at the very bottom of the lake is anoxic (deoxygenated), which prevents the growth of organisms on the lake bed.

Suigetsu's varve layers (over 100,000 of them) are ideal because they have the same characteristics – layers from the past several hundred years (when the climate was known) have the same kind of material as those counted to 2,000 or 20,000 years ago.

There are more than 30 visible ash layers that form discrete layers between Suigetsu's varve layers. This ash fell into the lake after volcanic eruptions in the area (had it been brought in by the river it would have mixed with the other sediments). There are also over 100 ash deposits so fine they can only be identified by microscope; this ash is from very distant or small volcanic eruptions. The presence of these ash layers show the lake had undisturbed waters when the varves formed.

Additionally, because volcanic eruptions occur over relatively short periods of time, scientists can compare ash from the same eruption at different locations and use this to produce time-equivalent markers for different places. Some volcanic deposits can also be used as a direct dating tool: for example, deposits rich in sanidine crystals can be independently dated by the 'argon/argon (40Ar/39Ar)' method. Ash in the Suigetsu varves is too fine or crystal-poor to be directly dated using the 40Ar/39Ar technique, but it can be matched to 40AR/39Ar dates for time-equivalent deposits elsewhere.[2]

More than 800 samples of organic material from Suigetsu's varves have been carbon-14 dated. This dating has found a tight correlation between the varve count and the carbon-14 dates for the organic material. The Suigetsu varve chronology has also been cross-checked with age data for stalagmites (Bahamas GB89-25-3 and Hulu Cave H82), the European Late Glacial Pine record, the Lake Soppensee varve chronology and sediment cores from the Cariaco Basin and the Iberian Margin.[3] When the Suigetsu data is combined with data from other locations, a very compelling picture of a consistent chronology extending back a minimum of 50,000 years appears. Below is a composite figure showing the relationship of tree rings, varves and measured carbon-14, compiled from multiple studies from different locations in the world.[4] 

Young-Earth creationists' response to the Suigetsu varves

There is relatively little literature from young-Earth creationists on varves and their interpretation.  Sedimentologist Guy Berthault appears to be the only young-Earth creationist to have conducted original experiments in this field and therefore is widely cited by others (Sarfati cites him on page 112 of The Greatest Hoax on Earth).[5]  However, Berthault's experiments used only sediments and not any organic material (on which most of the important varve chronologies are based).

Puzzlingly, the focus of Sarfati's discussion of varves in The Greatest Hoax on Earth is the work of Swedish geologist Gerard De Geer. This is puzzling because De Geer conducted his work in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and problems in his work have been well documented and corrected by other geologists since the 1930s.[6]  Sarfati cites only one reference in his discussion on varves: a 20-year-old paper by young-Earth meteorologist Michael Oard.[7]  Oard argues that varves do not support an old Earth because of two problems: first, rapid sedimentation from catastrophic events can cause the appearance of varve-like layers, which could be mistaken as annual years; second, there are specific examples of lakes and fossilised varve sites (ancient preserved lakes with varved rock) where there is evidence of multiple varves being produced in a single year. Because of these problems, Oard implies any varve chronology claiming an age beyond Noah's flood should be discredited. However, neither of Oard's problems apply to the Suigetsu varves. The presence of multiple, discrete ash layers show the varves were not formed by rapid sedimentation. And Lake Suigetsu is not one of the sites with evidence of non-annual layers.

What Oard (and Sarfati) fail to tell their readers is that geologists know that not all varves are deposited in annual cycles, and they have identified the mechamisms by which non-annual layers are deposited.[8]  Oard's implication is that geologists are either ignorant of their assumptions and unaware of variables that can cause varves to be unreliable, or they are being deliberately deceptive. However, geologists have been able to identify the varve records that are unreliable as chronological markers precisely because they understand the assumptions and variables involved.

In recent years there have been a few attempts by young-Earth creationists to address the Suigetsu varves.  Oard mentions them in his chapter on varves in a young-Earth creationist book.  He only does so briefly, because "there is very little literature on these varves in English, and so it is difficult to analyse them".[9]  This doesn't stop Oard from offering a few very general and unsupported conjectures about how the Suigetsu varve chronology could be incorrect (such as: varves in other places can form several layers a year; after Noah's flood there was a great Ice Age that "probably" produced more dust, which "could have" produced more layers in lakes such as Suigetsu; and measurements of carbon-14 are unreliable because Noah's flood altered the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12).

The Suigetsu varves are also mentioned in two articles written by young-Earth geologist John Reed: a short article on the website of Creation Ministries International (CMI)[10] and a more detailed version on the website of CMI's rival, Answers in Genesis.[11]  Reed's articles counter an article written by eight Christian geologists that presents evidence of an ancient Earth, including the Suigetsu varves.[12]  Reed's argument is little more than: there have been problems with some other varve chronologies; there was a problem with one chronology specific to Suigetsu (a problem correlating the varves with carbon-14 dating past 31,000 years); and, ultimately "none of these secular publications can demonstrate a date in excess of 100,000 years".[13]

Young-Earth creationists fail to provide an alternative geological explanation for the specific data of Lake Suigetsu (particularly the discrete ash layers from volcanic eruptions).  Instead, they tend to rely on general claims about natural processes having been altered by Noah's flood.  But even these claims are problematic.  As Christian geologists Gregg Davidson and Kurt Wolgemuth put it:

For those who wish to argue that natural processes could have been vastly different during the Flood, there are at least two replies. First, under such a scenario, there is no point in Flood Geology studies any more than in normal studies, for nothing could be gained by the study of unknowable processes. A more important question, however, would be to ask why God would alter natural processes just to make Flood sediments look like they are not flood sediments. What would the purpose be?[14]

References:

[1] Joel Duff, 'Lake Suigetsu and the 60,000 Year Varve Chronology' (12 November 2012) http://thenaturalhistorian.com/2012/11/12/varves-chronology-suigetsu-c14-radiocarbon-callibration-creationism/ 

[2] Victoria Smith, et al, 'Towards establishing precise 40Ar/38Ar chronologies for Late Pleistocene palaeoclimate archives: an example from the Lake Suigetsu (Japan) sedimentary record', Quaternary Science Reviews, Vol 30 (2011), pp 2845-2850. 

[3] Christopher Ramsey, et al, 'A complete terrestrial radiocarbon record for 11.2 to 52.8 kyr B.P.', Science, Vol 338, No 6105 (2012), pp 370-4; available online at: http://cs6101.vk.me/u173995854/doc/9d0cbeda0e95/Science_V_338_p_370-374.pdf 

[4] Source: Gregg Davidson and Ken Wolgemuth, 'Christian Geologists on Noah's Flood: Biblical and Scientific Shortcomings of Flood Geology' (2010) http://www.solidrocklectures.org/attachments/Christian_Geologists_on_Noahs_Flood_Davidson_and_Wolgemuth.pdf 

[5] Gary Berthault, 'Experiments on lamination of sediments, resulting from a periodic graded-bedding subsequent to deposition – a contribution to the explanation of lamination of various sediments and sedimentary rocks', Compte Rendus Académie des Sciences, Vol 303, Série II, No 17 (1986), pp 1569–1574; Gary Berthault, 'Sedimentation of a heterogranular mixture: experimental lamination in still and running water', Compte Rendus Acadèmie Des Sciences, Vol 306, Sèrie II (1988), pp 717–724. 

[6] See, for example: Barbara Wohlfarth, Svante Bjorck and Goran Possnert, 'The Swedish time scale: a potential calibration tool for the radiocarbon time scale during the late Weichselian', Radiocarbon, Vol 37, No 2 (1995), pp 347-59; online at: https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/view/1682/1686 

[7] Michael Oard, 'Varves – the first 'absolute' chronology part I – historical development and the question of annual deposition', Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol 29, No 2 (1992), pp 72-80. 

[8] See, for example: A Lambert and K Hsu, 'Non-annual cycles of varve-like sedimentation in Walensee, Switzerland', Sedimentology, Vol 26 (1979), pp 453-61 

[9] Michael Oard, 'Do varves contradict biblical history?', in M Oard and J Reed (editors), Rock Solid Answers, Green Forest: Master Books, p 131. 

[10] John Reed, 'Long-age geology or Genesis' (20 July 2010) http://creation.com/refuting-campbell-young-pca-modern-reformation 

[11] John Reed, 'A Response to the Old-Earth Advocacy of Campbell et al., PCA Geologists on the Antiquity of the Earth' (18 August 2010) http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v5/n1/response-old-earth-advocacy 

[12] David Campbell, et al, 'PCA Geologists on the Antiquity of the Earth', Modern Reformation, Vol 19, No 3 (2010), pp 6-9; available online at: http://www.modernreformation.org/default.php?page=articledisplay&var2=1137 

[13] Reed, 'A Response to the Old-Earth Advocacy of Campbell et al'. 

[14] Davidson and Wolgemuth, 'Christian Geologists on Noah's Flood', p 5.

Chapter 11: Dendochronology

On pages 196-8 Sarfati discusses tree-ring dating (dendrochronology).  As noted in my overall review of The Greatest Hoax on Earth, Sarfati bases his discussion on an article published by his colleague, Don Batten, on the Creation Ministries International website.[footnote 1]

Batten's article is quite misleading.  For example, he compares the Bristlecone Pine (which is slow-growing, lives at high altitude, and is not known to produce multiple rings per growing season) with the markedly different Monterey Pine (which is fast-growing, has a natural environment that is coastal, and is known to produce multiple rings per growing season) to suggest the Bristlecone Pine could produce up to five growth rings per year.  Even other young-Earth creationist organisations disagree with this approach.  An article on the Answers in Genesis website admits that at present there is no good evidence that Bristlecone Pines can produce multiple rings per growing season.[2]

In my wanderings on the internet I came across a thorough critique of Batten's article:

Paul Smith, 'Dendrochronolgy Fact and Creationist Fraud' (14 Jan 2007) http://razd.evcforum.net/dendrochronology.html 

I have no idea who Paul Smith is (not that I'm in a position to pass judgement, given that I'm publishing anonymously as Washington Irving!) and I've had trouble accessing any kind of home page for the razd.evcforum.net website.  Nevertheless, Smith's article is well worth a read as it clearly sets out the many problems with Batten's approach.

Here's a good non-technical summary from the end of Smith's article:

False rings, missing rings and other sources of error are relatively rare and random in the growth patterns of trees, even though some species have higher susceptibility than others. Dendrochronologists use the tree species with the fewest known sources of errors, and they work to eliminate all sources of errors. They cross-check the data with other species and other locations. If dendrochronology depended on one lone species, Dr. Batten might have an argument: it doesn't.

That all the different dendrochronologies correlate with each other also refutes Dr. Batten's implication of this being a problem that science somehow has not dealt with already. If Dr. Batten really is a scientist in this field ("As a tree physiologist"), then he is aware of - and used - the techniques used by scientists for identifying false rings. That he doesn't say anything about this speaks to his "honesty" again - his willingness to misrepresent the truth is evident.

It is curious that Dr. Batten wants to be seen as a scientist on this topic, but he doesn't include any information on his methodology or his results in the paper discussed.

References: 

[1] Don Batten, 'Tree ring dating (dendrochronology)' (undated) http://creation.com/tree-ring-dating-dendrochronology 

[2] John Woodmorappe, 'Biblical Chronology and the 8,000-Year-Long Bristlecone Pine Tree-Ring Chronology' (2009) http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v4/n1/biblical-chronology-bristlecone-pine

RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth)

From 1997-2005, the Institute of Creation Research and the Creation Research Society ran a research project named RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth).  RATE's work underpins many of the recent young-Earth creationist arguments against accepted dating methods for the age of the Earth.  RATE is cited is cited in several places by Sarfati (see his discussions of accelerated decay and carbon-14 on pages 189-192 and of helium in zircons on pages 214-5).

The key points of RATE's final report[footnote 1] can be summarised as:

1. There is overwhelming evidence of more than 500 million years worth of radioactive decay.
2. RATE's interpretation of the Bible and some scientific studies indicate a young Earth.
3. Therefore, to reconcile the above points, radioactive decay must have been accelerated by approximately a factor of one billion during the first three days of creation and during the Flood.
4. The concept of accelerated decay leads to two unresolved scientific problems, the heat problem and the radiation problem, though there is confidence that these will be solved in the future.

RATE's report identifies four separate pieces of scientific evidence for the acceleration of radioisotope decay: helium in zircon crystals, polonium halos in granites, isotope discordance, and the presence of Carbon-14 (C-14) in diamonds.

Helium diffusion in zircons

Zircon crystals contain high quantities of uranium, which produces helium during its decay process.  This helium should normally be able to escape the crystal more quickly than it would be produced by uranium decay.  RATE found high concentration of helium in zircons and argued these can only be explained by a young Earth and accelerated decay (if the Earth has existed for billions of years, the helium would have escaped).

RATE has been criticised over the purity of the zircon samples it used, for the method in which it took diffusion measurements and for problems in its calculations.  More importantly, geochronologists do not consider diffusion rates of helium in minerals a reliable dating measure when used in isolation, because the rates are known to be highly variable.[2]

Radiohalos in granites

Radiohalos are darkened spherical patterns in rocks, caused by alpha particles released during radioactive decay.  Looking at polonium halos, RATE argued that because polonium has a short half-life and granite is thought to be formed by a long period of cooling, the halos should have disappeared by the time the granite hardened.  Therefore the granite must be much younger and have cooled rapidly.  As uranium and polonium halos are relatively abundant, RATE concluded the granites must have formed during the Flood and there must have been highly accelerated decay rates.

As RATE's report highlights, there is not an agreed and proven scientific model of explanation for all aspects of polonium halos.  However, there are several likely theories, to do with the presence of uranium in the granite.[3]  RATE also acknowledges the dilemma they face by proposing accelerated decay, which produces extraordinary heat, and also proposing a rapid cooling rate to form the granite.

Isotope discordances

 RATE's report states that radioisotope dates for all the isotopes in a rock should always agree, and then provides a number of examples where this is not the case.  RATE then argues that all radiometric dates are untrustworthy and accelerated decay explains the discordance in dates.  However, RATE fails to explain why there are so many cases beyond their examples where there is good date concordance for different isotopes.[4]  While discordances occur and their cause is not always understood, these instances fail to invalidate the vast amount of concordance.

Trace amounts of C-14 in diamonds

RATE argues that the detection of trace amounts of C-14 in diamonds (dated as hundreds of millions of years old) supports their claim of a young Earth.  After 100,000 years there should be no C-14 left in a sample which has not been exposed to external sources of carbon.  Therefore the presence of approximately 0.1 percent of C-14 as a percentage of the total carbon indicates an age for these rocks of approximately 50,000 years.

The difficulty, however, is in assuring there is not, and never has been, another source of C-14 for that sample since it was originally formed from organic material.  There are many subtle sources of C-14 such as contamination, microbial action, and some nuclear interactions.  RATE's report states extraordinary care was taken in handling the samples but it is virtually impossible to eliminate such sources, which is why chronologists discount the reliability of C-14 dating if the concentration is below approximately 0.5 percent.  Coal and diamond samples that the RATE team collected and analysed show significant variation from sample to sample, suggesting contamination.

Additionally, were the C-14 dating on these samples valid, this is still a date ten times older than RATE's desired age of 5-6,000 years.  Thus RATE has to argue for a different concentration of C-14 to total carbon in the atmosphere before the Flood (500 times lower than it is today), which changed rapidly during the Flood due to accelerated radioactive decay.[4]

The problem of accelerated radioactive decay

RATE's report provides no direct evidence for accelerated decay but rather explores theoretically how such an increase in the decay rates might have occurred.  RATE theorises that if God had slightly weakened the coupling force that holds protons and neutrons of an atom together in the nucleus, it would have lead to a change in decay constants of many orders of magnitude.  RATE speculates that this coupling force took a different value in at least two time periods in the past: the first three days of the creation week and the year of the Flood.  At other times, it was the same as today.  Critics of such a theory point out that the coupling force is a fundamental constant of particle physics.

RATE's report acknowledges the two most serious problems with the theory of accelerated decay: heat and radiation.  Over the 4.5 billion year history of the Earth, radioactive decay has produced tremendous amounts of both.  RATE theorises that around 4 billion years of the decay occurred within the first three days of the creation week and the remaining 500 million years occurred during the year of the Flood.  The Flood acceleration alone would have released enough energy to heat the Earth to a temperature of more than 22,000° C (roughly four times the temperature of the surface of the Sun).  That amount of energy would have vaporised the Earth, including the geologic evidence RATE cites in support of acceleration (such as radiohalos and zircons).

To remove the heat and preserve the Earth, RATE proposes volumetric cooling: when God accelerated radioisotope decay he also expanded the size of the universe twenty-fold to dissipate the heat.  However, volumetric cooling only works for gases, not solids such as the Earth.  Furthermore, even if volumetric cooling were valid, it is uniform rather than selective (so in order to sufficiently cool radioactive material it would also freeze the Flood waters, and all life aboard the Ark would have died).

The other major problem with accelerated decay is radiation damage.  Noah and his passengers would have to survive a year in which radioactivity was one million times greater than it is today.  RATE's report admits no known solution exists.  The lethal effect of radiation appears to be the primary reason RATE concluded that most accelerated decay occurred during the first two days of creation, before life existed, and not during the Fall and Judgment.[5]


References:

[1] Larry Vardiman, Andrew Snelling, and Eugene Chaffin (eds.), Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, Volume II, Waco: Institute for Creation Research (2005).

[2] See: Gary Loechelt, 'A response to the RATE team regarding helium diffusion in zircon' (2009) http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/helium-gl4.htm; Kevin Henke, 'Dr Humphreys' young-Earth helium diffusion "dates": numerous fallacies based on bad assumptions and questionable data' (2005-2010) http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/helium/HenkeZircon2010.pdf

[3] See: Glen Kuban, 'Unfounded creationist claims about polonium radiohalos' (2006-2012) http://paleo.cc/ce/halos.htm; Lorence Collins, 'Polonium halos and myrmekite in pegmatite and granite' (1997) http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/revised8.htm

[4] See: Randy Isaac's review and reply in 'A dialogue about RATE', Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith, Vol 60, No 1 (2008), pp 35-39 http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/rate-pscf.htm

[5] See: Isaac in footnote 4 and Matthew Rognstad, 'Creationism and accelerated decay' (2005) http://orgs.usd.edu/esci/age/content/creationism_and_young_earth/accelerated_decay.html; Greg Neyman, 'Creation science book review: Thousands...Not Billions' (2006) http://www.oldearth.org/bookreview/tnb/thousands_not_billions_9.htm 

Young-Earth Creationism and Convergent Evidence

A strong scientific theory is supported by the convergence of multiple, independent lines of evidence.  When numerous lines of evidence from different scientific disciplines are in agreement, then their agreed conclusion is strong.  As historians Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman put it:

We know about the past through a convergence of evidence.  Cosmologists use evidence from astronomy, astrophysics, planetary geology, and physics to tell the history of the universe.  Geologists reconstruct the history of the earth through a convergence of evidence from geology and the related earth sciences.  Archaeologists piece together the history of civilization using artwork, written sources, tools and weapons, and other site-specific artifacts. 

The historical theory of evolution gains confirmation by many independent lines of evidence converging on a single conclusion.  Independent sets of data from geology, paleontology, botany, zoology, herpetology, entomology, biogeography, comparative anatomy, physiology, and many other sciences each point to the conclusion that life has evolved.  Creationists demand "just one fossil transitional form" that shows evolution.  But a single fossil cannot prove evolution.  Evolution involves a convergence of fossils and many other lines of evidence, such as DNA sequence comparisons across species.  For creationists to disprove evolution they would need to unravel all these independent lines of evidence and find a rival theory that can explain them better than evolution.[footnote 1]

A conclusion based on multiple sources of evidence can still be very strong even if none of those individual sources of evidence are as strong on their own.  As psychologist Keith Stanovich puts it:

[S]uppose the findings from a number of different experiments were largely consistent in supporting a particular conclusion.  Given the imperfect nature of experiments, we would go on to evaluate the extent and nature of the flaws in these studies.  If all the experiments were flawed in a similar way, this circumstance would undermine confidence in the conclusions....On the other hand, if all the experiments were flawed in different ways, our confidence in the conclusions would be increased because it is less likely that the consistency in the results was due to a contaminating factor that confounded all the experiments....When evidence from a wide range of experiments, each flawed in a somewhat different way or carried out with techniques of differing strengths and weaknesses, points in a similar direction, then the evidence has converged.  A reasonably strong conclusion is justified even though no one experiment was perfectly designed.[2]

Convergent evidence is an important principle to remember when assessing young-Earth creationist criticisms of evolution.  A good case study is the age of the Hawaiian island chain.[3]  Scientists think the chain, which stretches about 3,000 miles (5,000 kilometres) across the Pacific Ocean, was formed by a volcanic 'hotspot': an area where magma periodically breaks the Earth's surface.  As the magma (lava) cools and hardens it forms islands.  The Hawaiian islands are on the Pacific Plate, which is moving to the northwest.  So the islands closest to the hotspot should be the youngest and those that have moved furthest from the hotspot should be much older.

The islands have been dated by potassium-argon dating, which shows the islands have a linear age range that reflects the distance of each island from the hotspot.  The oldest island remnants, at the northern end of the chain, are over 80 million years old.  The youngest island, closest to the hotspot, is less than one million years old.  If you take an island's potassium-argon age and divide it by the island's distance from the hotspot, you can work out that island's movement per year.  Using this method, scientists find the islands are moving at a rate of 2.6-3.6 inches (6.6-9.1 centremetres) per year.

Of course most young-Earth creationists argue radiometric dating such as potassium-argon dating is flawed (see pages 192-3 of The Greatest Hoax on Earth).  Fortunately, there's another way to determine the age of the Hawaiian island chain.  Scientists can use Global Positioning Systems to measure the rate the islands are moving.  These measurements give a movement of approximately 3.1 inches (7.9 centimetres) per year, which happens to be exactly in the middle of the rate of movement calculated by potassium-argon dating.  Assuming the islands have always moved at this rate, scientists can work out how old the islands are based on how far they are from the hotspot.

Of course young-Earth creationists would question the assumption that the islands have moved at the same rate in the past.  Fortunately, there's another source of evidence supporting the age of the Hawaiian islands.  Volcanic islands gradually subside and erode as they age: height and activity are both thought to peak when the volcano is around 500,000 years old, then they decline as the volcano (which becomes dormant and eventually extinct) is slowly eroded over millions of years.  Thus, in Hawaii, the newest islands should be the tallest ones and they should be closest to the hotspot.  And that is the case: as you move northwest along the island chain, away from the hotspot, you find the islands decrease in elevation and show an increase in weathering and erosion.

Of course young-Earth creationists would dispute a timeframe of millions of years for the erosion of the islands.  Fortunately, there's yet another means of dating the islands.  Ancient coral reefs form terraces off the shore of many of the Hawaiian islands.  Scientists can use radiometric dating (such as uranium-thorium dating) to determine the age of the coral.  Of course, as noted already, young-Earth creationists reject radiometric dating.  Fortunately, the coral is useful in other ways.  First, the coral reefs reinforce the evidence based on the elevation and erosion of the islands.  If the islands formed over millions of years, then the oldest islands should not only be more eroded, they should also have much larger and thicker coral reefs – which is the case.  Second:

Both modern corals and fossil corals deposit daily and annual growth bands. By careful analysis of these bands, we can tell how many days there were in a year when the coral was growing. For modern corals, this technique yields 365 day-bands per year, more or less, just as it should. For corals that grew in formations identified as Early Devonian [around 400 million years ago], the technique shows a little over 400 day-bands per year.  Astronomers can measure the rate at which Earth's rotation is slowing. Assuming the rate of slowing has remained constant, a day-count of 400 days per year indicates an age of roughly 400 million years. And when Early Devonian rocks are dated radiometrically, we get dates of roughly 400 million years.[4]

Thus the radiometric evidence and the biological and astronomical evidence provide similar dates.  Of course young-Earth creationists also dispute the reliability of these types of evidence (though they appear to rely on literature from over 30 years ago to do so).[5]

The example of the Hawaiian island chain shows that young-Earth creationists have to reject an awful lot of evidence from multiple, independent sources.  The problem for young-Earth creationists is that all of these lines of evidence support the same conclusion: the Hawaiian islands were formed over millions of years.  Further lines of evidence (such as those from evolutionary biology and biogeography[6]) not summarised here also support this conclusion.  Additionally, other island chains on the Pacific Plate thought to have been formed by hotspots have the same patterns of movement and of radiometric ages as the Hawaiian islands.[7] 

The counter-argument from young-Earth creationists is that much of the explanation for the how the Hawaiian island chain was formed is hypothesis, rather than confirmed fact.  For example, even the 'secular' literature disputes the precise location and form of the Hawaiian hotspot and there is evidence it has moved at certain points in the past.[8]  The few young-Earth creationist articles addressing the Hawaiian island chain seize upon such examples in an attempt to discredit the millions-of-years timeframe.[9]  However, these young-Earth articles fail to address the principle of converging evidence: scientists may disagree over specific aspects of how the Hawaiian island chain was formed, but all the evidence still points to the chain having been formed over millions of years.  Young-Earth theories (like catastrophic plate tectonics) fail to account for all the independent lines of evidence, which conclude the Hawaiian island chain was formed over millions of years and not in a matter of days during Noah’s flood.


References:

[1] Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?, Berkeley: University of California Press (2000), p 32.

[2] Keith Stanovich, How To Think Straight About Psychology, Boston: Allyn & Bacon (2004, seventh edition), p 128.

[3] In this discussion I use the term ‘island chain’ loosely – it also includes seamounts: underwater mountains that rise above the ocean floor but don’t break the surface of the water (effectively underwater islands). My description of the Hawaiian island chain draws on the following sources: Robert Tilling, Christina Heliker, and Donald Swanson, ‘Plate Tectonics and the Hawaiian Hot Spot’ (2010) http://geology.com/usgs/hawaiian-hot-spot/; Hawaiian Volcano Obervatory, 'Evolution of Hawaiian Volcanoes' (1995) http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/archive/1995/95_09_08.html; Ken Rubin, 'The Formation of the Hawaiian Islands' (2005) http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/haw_formation.html; Steve Olson, Evolution in Hawaii: A Supplement to Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press (2004), pp 5-9; Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, 'Hawaiian Coral Reefs' (2012) http://www.mbari.org/volcanism/Hawaii/HR-CoralReefs.htm

[4] Jonathon Woolf, 'An Introduction to Radiometric Dating' http://www.jwoolfden.com/rad_dat.html; see also: Normal Newell, Creation and Evolution: Myth or Reality, Westport: Greenwood Press 1984, pp 119-24.

[5] See, for example: Shaun Doyle and Tas Walker, 'BioLogos and the age of the earth: Pushing an anti-biblical doctrine' (4 October 2012) http://creation.com/biologos-age-earth

[6] See, for example: C Barry Cox and Peter Moore, Biogeography: An Ecological and Evolutionary Approach, Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons (2010, eighth edition), pp 231-238; Warren Wagner and Vicki Funk (eds), Hawaiian Biogeography: Evolution on a Hot Spot Archipelago, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press (1995).

[7] Patrick Nunn, Pacific Island Landscapes, Suva: The University of the South Pacific (1998), pp 161-3; Daniele Buigues, 'Geology and Hydrogeology of Mururoa and Fangataufa, French Polynesia', in H L Vacher and T Quinn (eds), Geology and Hydrogeology of Carbonate Islands, Oxford: Elsevier Ltd (1997), pp 433-5.

[8] On location and form, see: Qin Cao, et al, ‘Seismic Imaging of Transition Zone Discontinuities Suggests Hot Mantle West of Hawaii’, Science, Vol 332, No 6033 (2011), pp 1068–1071, online: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6033/1068.full; on past movement, see: Caroline Uhlik, 'The 'fixed' hotspot that formed Hawaii may not be stationary, scientists conclude', Stanford Report (8 January 2003) http://news.stanford.edu/news/2003/january8/aguhotspots-18.html

[9] Tas Walker, 'The Hawaiian hot spot and the Bible' (28 May 2011) http://creation.com/hawaii-hot-spot; Tas Walker, 'The elusive Hawaiian hot spot spoils a nice geological story' (4 June 2011) http://biblicalgeology.net/blog/elusive-hawaiian-hot-spot/

Chapter 10: Catastrophic Plate Tectonics

Sarfati devotes several pages (177-180) of The Greatest Hoax on Earth to the theories of catastrophic plate tectonics and runaway subduction, proposed by geophysicist John Baumgardner as a young-Earth alternative to mainstream theories of plate tectonics.

In 1983 Baumgardner developed a computer programme called TERRA, which uses supercomputers to create three-dimensional models of processes in the Earth's mantle.  As Sarfati notes, at one time TERRA was one of the best programmes of its kind.  Indeed, a 1997 US News and World Report feature on Baumgardner by Chandler Burr reported that "there is universal agreement that Terra...is one of the most useful and powerful geological tools in existence" and "Baumgardner is seen as one of the world leaders in numerical models of mantle convection".[footnote 1]

What Sarfati doesn't mention is that the models produced by TERRA depend entirely on the data entered into the programme.  As Burr's article puts it:

Run Terra one way, and you can watch Noah's flood take place before your eyes, mathematically calculated by a supercomputer. Run Terra another way, and you get the standard geological story of 4.6 billion years. The results obtained from the code are – as Baumgardner readily points out – dependent on the numbers fed into it in the first place.

The reason geologists use TERRA is because it can produce models consistent with accepted, mainstream geological data (as opposed to Baumgardner's young-Earth data).  That's why Sarfati is able to make vague statements such as "Aspects of Baumgardner's mantle modelling have been independently duplicated and thus verified by others" (page 179).  Burr's article points out the reality of how geologists regard Baumgardner's young-Earth theories:

Among geologists, there is universal agreement that Baumgardner's [young-Earth] views are simply wrong. The fact that the sedimentary record contains anomalies is unremarkable, they say. There are always anomalies. The real debate is about physics and belief. Runaway subduction, these scientists add, requires the suspension of the most basic laws of physics. The theory requires a Through the Looking Glass world where nothing is as it seems and no scientific principle – from gravity and electromagnetism on down – exists as it exists today.

Baumgardner himself says, "The only way to square the radiometric data with a flood that caused all these changes is to conclude that one aspect of the catastrophe was rapid radioactive decay." But what this means is that for a few years the universe behaved completely differently, compressing processes which now take millions of years into merely days. This is not impossible. It just contradicts almost every existing piece of evidence.

Catastrophic plate tectonics is not supported by anyone outside young-Earth creationist circles.  And Sarfati concedes (footnote 44 on page 177) the theory isn't even supported by all young-Earth creationists.

The following list outlines some of the key problems with the theory of catastrophic plate tectonics (see the references for further detail).

• The amount of energy released by Baumgardner's model would completely boil off the Earth's oceans.[2]
• Many aspects of the theory (such as the sudden cooling of the ocean floor, the greatly reduced viscosity of the mantle, the rapid magnetic reversals) cannot be explained by conventional physics.[3]
• The model requires both frictional heating (as the heat source to accelerate the subduction) and a reduced viscosity of the mantle.  But the reduced viscosity of the mantle would likely also reduce frictional heating.[4]
• Baumgardner's own modelling shows that during the Flood, currents would be faster over continents than over ocean basins, so sediments should, overall, be removed from continents and deposited in ocean basins.  Yet this is not the case (sediments on ocean basins have an average thickness of 600 metres, while those on continents have an average thickness of 2.6 kilometres).[5]

The main problem for catastrophic plate tectonics is that it is incompatible with so much geological evidence.[6]  A good example is the Hawaiian island chain, which I will discuss in my next post.  Multiple lines of evidence point to the conclusion that the island chain formed over millions of years.  Young-Earth creationists claim such evidence "could easily be incorporated into a creationist scenario such as Catastrophic Plate Tectonics",[7] but I've yet to find any young-Earth literature actually explaining how this would work.  Geologists reject catastrophic plate tectonics not because there is a conspiracy among geologists (many of whom are Christian) blinded by a 'secular world view', but because catastrophic plate tectonics fails to adequately account for the geological evidence.


References:

[1] Chandler Burr, 'The Geophysics of God: A Scientist Embraces Plate Tectonics – and Noah’s Flood', US News and World Report (8 June 1997) http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/970616/archive_007221.htm

[2] Donald Wise, 'Creationism's Geologic Time Scale', American Scientist, Vol 86, No 2 (1998), pp 160-173

[3] Mark Isaak (ed), 'Claim CD750: Catastrophic plate tectonics' (2004) http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD750.html

[4] Molleen Matsumura, 'Miracles In, Creationism Out', Reports of the National Center for Science Education, Vol 17, Issue 3 (1997) http://ncse.com/rncse/17/3/miracles-creationism-out

[5] Mark Isaak (ed), 'Claim CH430: Runaway subduction' (2003) http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH430.html

[6] See, for example: William Powell, Philosophy of Scientific Creationism, New Delhi: Global Vision Publishing (2009) pp 259-60; see also: Mark Isaak (ed), 'Claim CD750: Catastrophic plate tectonics' (2004) http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD750.html

[7] Tas Walker, 'The Hawaiian hot spot and the Bible' (28 May 2011) http://creation.com/hawaii-hot-spot