Most trees are less than a hundred years old. You would expect a forest, if deep time were true, to be stacks and stacks of dead trees hundreds of feet tall, or so the argument goes.
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It also serves as a reminder that hitting the average person with lots and lots of weak arguments nevertheless serves to convince by quantity what can’t be achieved by quality. It is one of the reasons why Duane Gish became famous for the Gish Gallop. Most of his arguments were mind-numbingly lame but the scientists he debated had no time to rebut them under their assigned time slots in the public debates. Indeed, extremely bad arguments often take even more time to refute than good arguments because the average audience member has to be tediously tutored on the most basic scientific principles, evidence, and logic. That’s why even the very worst arguments never completely disappear from the quiver of the popular “creation science” origins ministry entrepreneur.
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My own statement in that previous post reminds me of something I said in a public Q&A session years ago. Perhaps it wasn’t a wise choice on my part but I’m still slightly amused by it. If I recall the audio tape from that evangelical church Sunday School class where I was a guest speaker:
I compare a lot of ‘creation science’ websites to the final line of the chorus of that country song in which the Hee Haw TV series hillbilly characters would lament their hard lives while passing around the moonshine jug. Here’s my rewrite of their lyrics:
“If it weren’t for bad arguments, I’d have no arguments at all.
Gloom, bad logic, and disinformation on me.”
(My apologies for quoting myself but formatting this post in this manner makes it easier to read. Besides, I like to cite a source that I can trust. Right, @Michael_Callen and @Dan_Eastwood?)
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Gloom, despair and agony on me… If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all!
Well played, Miller.
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For your viewing pleasure
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it was taken from wiki that base on these two references: * Kramer, Stephen P.; Day, Kenrick L. (1995), Caves , Carolrhoda Books (published 1994), p. 23, ISBN 978-0-87614-447-3
Hill, C A, and Forti, P, (1986, 1997). Cave Minerals of the World, 1st & 2nd editions.
if these stalactites are indeed young it can be evidence for a young earth.
Why? What reasoning leads you to believe that stalactites must be as old as earth?
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Can you articulate your big picture here? What is your chronology for the limestone formation, the uplift, the cave, and the stalactites, the whole works, just so we are not addressing something you are not actually proposing.
since a stalactite can evolve at any time in earth history (or even say in the last 100 my) it means that most stalactites should fit with an old earth and should be much longer than 50-100 cm in general.
Why do you think all stalactites began forming the same time the Earth formed? Caves are being formed and destroyed continuously by Earth’s geologic processes. A stalactite can’t be any older than the cave it is in.
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You’re assuming that caves last for significant fractions of earth history instead of being transient features. And you’re assuming that stalactite growth is continuous during the lifetime of a cave. Neither of these assumptions is true. And of course some caves are millions of years old, much older than a YEC would credit. You’re arguing a position you don’t believe is correct, and you’re doing it poorly.
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That is not what I asked. When in your view did the limestone form? Caves? All of it.