Mike Oard has addressed this argument here:
https://creation.com/astronomical-troubles-for-the-astronomical-hypothesis-of-ice-ages
This is addressed here:
https://creation.com/immense-impacts-or-big-belches
The word âextinctionâ as youâve used it here is an assumption, not a fact. The fossil record also shows the âextinctionâ of the coelacanth at about the same time as the dinosaurs.
Long-agers can look at correlations and come up with their preferred explanation. YECs can do the same. The argument always boils down to âI reject your explanationâ. Historical science is speculation, and the degree of confidence we can have varies according to length of time. This article isnât technically âoutâ until tomorrow, but hereâs your pre-pub viewing chance:
So say you. This is an assertion you will never be able to prove. âSome great event from the past that nobody in recorded memory has seen (outside the Bible and some ancient traditions from other cultures) COULD NOT HAVE DONE THIS (even though I have never seen anything like this event and we cannot test it).â
I trust history. You trust speculation.
@PDPrice is the measure of all things. You know when the bible means what it says and when it doesnât. And other people, from the start, have misinterpreted it. Sure.
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Miller loves to bring up Jesusâ words. âI am the doorâ. âI am the vineâ. Did Jesus mean what he said there? Yes. Does context/common sense make it clear he wasnât giving a scientific description of himself? Yes.
When somebody says âThe sun is going to rise in two hoursâ, do they mean what they say? Yes. Do you think they mean that the sun is literally going to move in two hours? No. However, even a person without scientific knowledge about the sun can use the same language correctly. This is ingenious, isnât it?
Turns out not. It just waves arms frantically, never actually explaining anything. And the âreferencesâ are laughable; only five, and not one citation of the primary literature. I note that the Flood is unspeakably violent when it needs to be (killing off ocean life) and perfectly gentle when it needs to be (allowing a worldwide single layer of iridium-enriched, shocked quartz and tektite enriched clay).
Not âthe coelacanthâ, a large group of fish, 120 species or so, that left one survivor (possibly two). Are you actually claiming, based on this, that trilobites arenât extinct?
I see no sign that YECs have even attempted an explanation. You certainly havenât. You merely reject even the possibility of doing science. I donât understand why youâre even waving in the direction of the facts if thatâs your position.
Then thereâs no point in talking about it. There certainly can be no such thing as Flood geology, if so.
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I have no reason to believe trilobites are still alive. However, ALL coelacanths were believed extinct on the basis of the fossil record, until one was discovered alive.
No. I reject placing historical science on the same level of trust as we would place operational science, and certainly not on the same level of trust as the Bible.
Flood geology is also speculative. The Bible is history, not speculation.
Some might call it ingenious, if you refer to your method of avoiding the point. I would use other terms. Genesis 1 shows no signs of being metaphorical, and in fact you interpret much of it quite literally. Only when whatâs described touches on 17th Century (or earlier) science do you balk. Creation was six literal days, but when the sun, moon, and stars are created on the fourth day, thatâs not what it really means. When God makes a metal dome to separate waters above the earth from those below, thatâs not what it really means, and so on. Only you can tell when the text is metaphor and when itâs literal.
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As Iâve just explained to you, nothing in the Bible âtouches onâ this science as you are suggesting. The language can be read and understood with or without scientific knowledge. Thatâs a good thing. It means the Bible makes sense to people of all time periods and all levels of scientific understanding.
The Bible doesnât say that.
Sure, you can reinterpret the text to say anything, in order to match what we know from observation, and you can make up an argument for your interpretation. But you apply that technique selectively, stopping somewhere around what science knew in 1700 or so.
This whole Flood geology thread is useless, since you reject the very basis of science. So might as well change the subject. Whatâs your explanation for our ability to see objects billions of light years away? There are many to choose from, but whatâs yours?
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I donât know. Whatâs your solution to the horizon problem?
Seriously? You have nothing? The explanation is simple: astronomy is a historical science, and as such all our ideas about distant objects are mere speculation. We arenât there, and the photons that reach our telescopes are open to different interpretations based on different assumptions. Who even knows that other galaxies are really far away? Who knows they even exist?
Feel free to adopt that explanation, as it fits your previously expressed philosophy of science. Astronomy, of course, is all about non-repeatable, unique events in the distant past. Itâs a historical science, and therefore no science at all.
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Certainly they exist. Thereâs no reason to say they donât exist.
Itâs true we donât know how they got here, only that they are here. We can make assumptions of course.
How do you solve the horizon problem?
How do you know that? How do you know, for example, that the Andromeda Galaxy exists? Are you there? Surely you donât think we can reliably interpret photons from long ago (and just how long ago is mere speculation). Can galaxies be reproduced experimentally? Thatâs just not operational science at all.
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Are you deliberately ignoring my question? I certainly didnât ignore yours.
Yes I am, and yes you did.
Thatâs not the case. I admitted I didnât know the answer. I take it you canât answer mine, either.
All ancient species of Order Coelacanth were believed extinct because they were and are. In the past hundred years one and possibly two modern species were discovered in the Indian Ocean.
Yes, PDPrice, thatâs how science works. Time brings new discoveries.
The Young Earth Creationist trope of âhistorical science versus operational scienceâ is not likely to be successful on a forum of actual scientists and academics. @Joel_Duff does a great job of exploring this popular obfuscation tactic at:
The AiG speakers relentlessly painted all other perspectives on the age of the Earth as being the product of âoriginsâ science, and hence untestable and untrustworthy, while at the same time reiterating their faith in âoperationalâ science but their definitions of these two terms were very nebulous. I have searched the YEC literature on the nature of how science is done and have found that there is a little academic rigor with respect to defining these terms. There is a deep literature in philosophy of science on how science works and many article written about the validity of historical science and the distinctions in methodology of historical and experimental science. The YEC literature does not interact with that literature at all completely ignoring prominent philosophers of science from the last 50 years on this issue. As a result their definitions lack rigor and are simply created to serve as rhetorical devices.
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This is off topic to Flood geology, but the horizon problem is not equivalent to the distant starlight problem.
The horizon problem rules out the flow of information, including light, as a solution to the observation of thermal flatness to the CMB, thus suggesting that flatness must have another explanation in the big bang theory. So the speed of light is secondary.
The CMB is one of the greatest fulfillments of a prediction of a cosmological hypothesis of all time. YEC always attempts to deflect the distant starlight problem by offering this false equivalence, but the irony is that they have no explanation why the CMB exists at all.
In the distant starlight problem, the speed of light is primary, no different from the arithmetic by which you think of the time travelled given the speed limit between two cities.
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Why the hairsplitting? The differences are minute (despite millions of years?). And youâre still dodging the point. Coelacanths were known from the fossils, and were believed to be entirely extinct because of the record. The fact that you feel the need to try to obfuscate on this is evidence enough that itâs embarrassing for you.
I have searched the YEC literature on the nature of how science is done and have found that there is a little academic rigor with respect to defining these terms.
He clearly hasnât read my article on the topic. Or for that matter, anything written by Dr Carol Cleland, who understands the very same definitions of the words we YECs do (she has a different opinion on how they relate).
It actually is. Same type of problem, just a different instance of it.
You really think that YECs are incapable of coming up with an equivalent just-so story? Of course we can. And have. There are explanations for light travel that involve relativity. Iâm not going to hang my hat on any one of them, because I just donât know. I am not convinced we can know. Yes, both old and young earthers have unanswered questions in their cosmology.