Young-Earth "Scientists" Jump the Gun on Dino Find

Science Watch ^

[truthfinder9]

Dr. Carl Wieland shows the incredible scientific invalidity of the young-earth view in his article "Still soft and stretchy."

The article discusses the discovery of soft tissue from a dinosaur. Wieland exclaims this is a “stunning rebuttal” of the old age of the Earth. He then accuses scientists of never finding it before because of “the overriding belief in ‘millions of years’” has “blinded researchers” to such finds.

What a joke.

How does one find like this overturn thousands of old-age evidences? It does not, nor does Wieland attempt to explain why it would. This is the famous fallacy of selective evidence. Wieland is basically saying “let’s throw out all of modern science because this one find can be convoluted to support young-earthism.” Actually, all that this find shows is that sometimes tissue can survive millions of years. It obviously isn’t the norm, but Wieland quickly forgets all about the decades of paleontological evidence that proves it isn’t the norm.

Maybe, Dr. Wieland, science has good reason to believe the universe is old and they aren’t blinded by incompetence or conspiracy.

Wieland even writes:

Unfortunately, the long-age paradigm is so dominant that facts alone will not readily overturn it. As philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn pointed out, what generally happens when a discovery contradicts a paradigm is that the paradigm is not discarded but modified, usually by making secondary assumptions, to accommodate the new evidence.

Does this not explain exactly what young-earthism has done for fifty years? If Earth is so young, why have young-earth “scientists” so abjectly failed to find evidence to prove their belief? Why is the best they can do is try to re-explain a find totally unrelated to dating the planet and pretend it’s evidence? If they have such stunning evidence for the overturning of all of modern science, where is it?

Young-earthism continues to be an embarrassment to Christian scholarship. And thousands of Christians send money to these groups. Might as well as send it to some atheist group, because ultimately young-earthism is used by them as an evidence against Christianity.

[TheGeezer]

I recently took courses in SQL database management and programming. The instructor had a B.S. in physics, was a certified Microsoft instructor, an MCNE, ran a successful software consulting business in addition to teaching at the business education center, and was a devout conservative Christian and young-earth enthusiast.

I'm no young-earth adherent, but this fascinating combination of personal experience and beliefs made private conversations with him very interesting.

[rellimpank]

--some Mormon geologists have similarly interesting points of view---

[billybudd]

I kind of scratch my head at "young-earthism," because as far as I can tell, the Bible doesn't actually mention the age of the Earth. Unless, of course, you believe that the universe was created in literally seven days. Which contradicts all experimental evidence, not just the fossil record. I'm just not sure what to make of it.

[js1138]

ping

[PatrickHenry]

Thanks for the ping, but this is just too weird for the evo list.

[AntiBurr]

When the majority of the people believed that the Earth was the center of the universe did that make it so?
The same for the Flat Earth Society. Paul Kruger of South Africa (Oom Paul) believed the earth was flat in 1898 when Joshua Slocum (first to sail single handed around the globe) visited there on his trek. I have sometimes thought that this was a factor in Apartheid.

So we are back to a discussion of the length of God's day which is analogous to "How many angels can dance on a pin".

[RadioAstronomer]

I kind of scratch my head at "young-earthism,"

SN1987A was the final nail in the coffin for those who purport a young Earth.