Were you taught the “theory” of evolution in school? I was. In fact some of the worst offenders were teachers in subjects like English,but at least I was blessed to have parents who were plugged in to the Institute for Creation Research and Creation Science. I was blessed to know, from an early age, some of the failures of the evolutionary hypothesis. There are a lot of them.
Technically evolution fits the definition of a “hypothesis” rather than a “theory”. There is no evidence for evolution that does not actually have a better explanation provided by the bible and creationism. In fact, evidence is neutral. It is the interpretation that provides an explanation one way or the other.
So, at the end of March, and through the first week of April, my wife and I took a vacation in the Orlando area of Florida.
We had a good time, and kept busy.
At one point we went to Gatorland, and were amazed by the majestic and dangerous alligators there.
Later on we saw several of these creatures in the wild.
On the 8th of April we went to the Kennedy Space Center to view the launch of the Space-X resupply mission to the International Space Station. The causeway to Cape Canaveral has some very large ditches on each side, probably having been dug out to make the road-bed. Anyway, we saw 3 alligators in those ditches, the last of which was a large one, actually just in front of the Kennedy Space Center!
To make a long story short, when we got back I was describing our trip to a co-worker and when I mentioned the “gators” he responded with “They are the oldest animals, aren’t they?”
I responded “no”, but I didn’t elaborate. There is so much information that supports Creationism, and against evolution, that it is hard to even know where to begin.
I thought, however, that I really need to look at the recent discoveries about DNA.
Are you aware of the basis for radioactive dating methods? Isotopes like uranium are constantly decaying through the loss of parts of the atom. Uranium breaks down into lead and helium. If you start with a kilogram of uranium, by the time you have a half kilogram left, you have passed through what is referred to as a half-life.
The assumption is that uranium breaks down at a constant rate, and by measuring the amount of lead and the amount of uranium, in a given sample, you can calculate the age of the sample.
In real-life this does not work, and if you take 3 different samples from the same rock you will end up with 3 different dates. And, these dates will vary by millions of years.
The theory states that when the rock is in its molten state, it resets itself, yet many tests of rock from recent eruptions, i.e. rock with a known age, produce dates from several hundred thousand years to even millions of years!
To make it easier for the lab, there is a place on the sample form which asks for the estimated date. The lab will give the results that are the closest to the estimated date of the sample!
Should you use a different method, such as the potassium-argon method you will get different ages again!
To top it off, these methods are based on unprovable assumptions; Do we know for certain that there were no daughter isotopes in the original rock? Because there were no witnesses to the original rock, it is impossible to say what the make-up of that rock was. Consequently the whole method is rendered irrelevant.
The Carbon 14 method is a little different. Carbon 14 starts its life as a Nitrogen (14) atom, floating around in the atmosphere. While in the upper atmosphere Nitrogen atoms are bombarded by cosmic radiation, and sometimes this blasts off two electrons from the outer rings of the atom.
When a Nitrogen atom is missing two electrons it behaves exactly the same as Carbon (number 12 on the periodic table) while still retaining the number of protons and neutrons in its nucleus.
C14 is spread throughout the atmosphere and the ratio between it and C12 is known. Plants and animals have the same ratio in their tissues and bones, and as long as they are alive the C14 that breaks down is replaced and remains at a constant level. Once we die, however, the C14 in our remains begins to break down, and is no longer replaced.
The theory is that the C14 level in the atmosphere is a constant, but the facts show that it is still building-up, indicating that the earth has not reached equilibrium as yet. This is evidence for a young earth!
The half-life of C14 is 5730 years. At one half-life you have half of the original quantity, at two half-lives, you will be left with 1/4 of the original, and at 3 it will be 1/8th. This process would continue until there is too little left to measure. With C14 there would be too little to measure beyond about 100.000 years.
Dinosaur bones have been tested for C14, and surprise, surprise, they actually contain C14. In fact the amount they contain dates them to around 10,000 to 16,000 years, a far cry from the supposed 70 million years evolutionists suppose. (http://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=9&article=307)
Still, 16,000 years is more than twice the age the dates from the bible indicate. How is this possible? Most Creationists believe that there was some sort of layer in the upper atmosphere of the early earth which would have protected the early inhabitants of earth from solar radiation to a much greater extent than today.
Scientists have also observed that the earth’s magnetic field is decaying, which means that in the past it would have been stronger. The earth’s magnetic field actually protects us from solar radiation, so the early earth would have less solar radiation and consequently smaller amounts of C14. This would give excessively old ages, and this is exactly what we see in the data.
Did you know that recently a group of scientists have calculated the half-life of DNA?
A research team from Sweden studied some 158 bones of extinct Moas from the south island of New Zealand. Using Carbon 14 dating as their yardstick they compared the DNA in the bones and calculated a half-life of 521 years. This means that there should not be any recognizable strands of DNA in any sample older than 10,000 years.
Well, since the year 2,000 they have found DNA strands in dinosaur bones, lots of it!
The error factors in this study, based on C14 dating, would actually tend to make these samples younger, not older!
So what conclusion can we draw from the DNA in dinosaur bones? They are less than 10,000 years old, exactly what one would predict if the bible is true!
So are reptiles the oldest animals? It depends on whether they were created the same day as the marine animals, or if they were created on the same day as land animals. They could be the same age as man, about 6,000 years old, or perhaps one 24 hour day older!
For further reading…
Myths Regarding Radiocarbon Dating, by Gerald A. Aardsma, Ph.D.
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