What kinds of evidence do Young Earth Creationists use to try to prove that the world is 6000 years old--besides the Bible?

Most of their “evidence” is not positive evidence, but rather what they see as problems with the evidence of the opposing view.

If something casts doubt on the old-earth position, it is seen automatically as evidence for young earth.

For example, a YEC might point to alleged problems with radiocarbon dating methods as “evidence” for a young earth. Or “lack of transitional fossils.” Even if these claims were true (they’re not—radiocarbon dating is extremely accurate and cross-verified and we have a huge number of transitional fossils), they have nothing to do with the verity of the YEC position, but creationists treat them as if they do.

Incidentally, this is the exact same logic our Holocaust-denying friend used in the thread last night. I think it’s interesting that conspiracy theorists tend to make the same logical fallacies as religious fundamentalists.

@Qingu – I think young earth creationists exclusively use the Bible as scientific evidence. “Normal” creationists and “intelligent” design disciples try to come up with some extra explanations. One is the missing link of organic molecules forming RNA molecules. The other is based on probability theory. Even with a universe of more than 100 billion galaxies with more than 100 billion stars each, the likelihood for complex/multicellular life is far too small. I think some of the smart ID disciples even quote the Rare Earth Hypothesis by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee (which is a good book actually).

@mattbrowne I am more familiar with the ID arguments as I have followed them on wis, the Dover Trial and elsewhere. In those arguments at least they TRY to use science to back their claims up.

@mattbrowne, these “extra explanations” are still the sort of fallacies that I’m talking about. Even if these alleged holes in evolutionary (actually abiogenesis) were true—even if the RNA-DNA chicken-and-egg is unsolvable, even if probability theory makes abiogenesis highly unlikely—that’s simply disputing the positive evidence of an opposing claim. It’s not putting forth evidence of your own claim.

All ID does is reduce its own claim to vague nonsense. Evolution can’t be true for X reasons, therefore there must be an “intelligent designer.” Who is this intelligent designer? No comment. How is “intelligence” even defined? No comment. Etc.

@Benny, I think you give ID too much credit. Its arguments against evolution had mostly* all been used years before in the 80’s when the same movement tried to push itself into schools, only back then they just called themselves “creationists.”

*I’m pretty sure Behe’s arguments against the flagellette motor are not original to him, though maybe he added a bit more pseudoscientific specificity. Same with Dembski’s “information theory”—it’s just relabeling the same old basic arguments to make them sound more “sciency.”

They do give several arguments.

Most are related to flood deposition, such as polystrate trees (James tried to use this one on wis.dm; don’t know if you saw my response to him there) and criticizing radio dating methods (polonium haloes would be an example of this.)

My favorite silly tactic that they have used is the “intensive investigation” of the Mt. St. Helens eruption to “prove” that a sudden event could have caused a flood that led to those polystrate trees, the Grand Canyon, etc. As I relate on my blog (first link above) they resorted to outright lying and deception to present this argument, such as lying to a testing lab about the age of some lava they sent in for K-Ar testing.

@Qingu – Of course they are fallacies. I actually think it’s an insult to create a “God of the gaps”, see article below. In the dark ages thunderstorms were explained by God getting angry. Same thing is done by the ID people today.

The God of the gaps refers to a view of God deriving from a theistic position in which anything that can be explained by human knowledge is not in the domain of God, so the role of God is therefore confined to the ‘gaps’ in scientific explanations of nature. The concept involves an interaction of religious explanations of nature with those derived from science (see also Relationship between religion and science). Within the traditional theistic view of God as existing in a realm “beyond nature,” as science progresses to explain more and more, the perceived scope of the role of God tends to shrink as a result. “God of the gaps” is sometimes used to describe the retreat of religious explanations of physical phenomena in the face of increasingly comprehensive scientific explanations. An example of the line of reasoning starts with the position that early religious descriptions of objects and events (such as the Sun, Moon, and stars; thunder and lightning) placed these in the realm of things created or controlled by a god or gods. As science found explanations for observations in the realms of astronomy, meteorology, geology, cosmology and biology, the ‘need’ for a god to explain phenomena was progressively reduced, occupying smaller and smaller ‘gaps’ in knowledge. This line of reasoning commonly holds that since the domain of natural phenomena previously explained by God is shrinking, theistic or divine explanations for any natural phenomenon become less plausible.

@Qingu You’re right. What I meant, though, is that the ID people try to use scientific evidence to prove their point (although @mattbrowne is correct in that they are logical fallacies.) They try, but are certainly soundly defeated by logic. My question was more for the Young Earthers like James (a Creationist on wis). How do they justify their position without using the Bible?

@Benny
The problem, of course, is that (unlike anyone really trying to be scientific) they start with certainty- the earth is only 6–10,000 years old- then discard any facts that might possibly threaten that certainty. They are quite clear that, if it contradicts the Bible, it must be wrong as the Bible unquestionably cannot be in error. I know that the Discovery Institute, for example, requires its fellows to sign a statement confirming Biblical inerrancy.

@crisw But the Discovery Institute won’t say (at least outright) that the world is 6000 years old. They will accept speciation and world formation as long as it’s God produced. Am I wrong on this?

@Benny
I’ll have to check. It’s true they are an ID outfit.

AIG is a treasure trove of Creationist arguments.

@Ivan I’m trying to stir up things for your presentation!

@Benny

Looks like if there are any creationists here, they are pretty quiet.

@crisw Hrm. Gotta figure out a way to stir the pot a bit without getting modded!

@crisw – As the Bible unquestionably cannot be in error? How do they explain contradictory statements in the Bible?

@Ivan – Maybe there are no creationists on Fluther because almost all of them at some point engage in personal attacks. Creationists might fear the moderators here and go elsewhere on the web.

@mattbrowne
“How do they explain contradictory statements in the Bible?”
Usually with statements that claim that the translations are incorrect, or that we don’t understand what the words really meant to the ancient Hebrews, etc. For one example, see this discussion of the Biblical claim that rabbits and badgers chew cuds. Note that they don’t bother talking about rock badgers, which don’t practice refection…

Thanks for the link!

@mattbrowne

I have also found, in my short time here, that qingu is a fount of information on such subjects.

I dont know. . . :-O

@crisw – He is indeed!