Note: Until my early thirties I was a convinced Young-Earth Creationist. I firmly believed that the Earth is approximately 6,000 years old, and that the global flood of Noah as described in Genesis 6-9 was a historical event that occurred approximately 4,500 years ago. As described elsewhere, in September 2010 I began a new research project that led me to question my previous convictions. In the Spring of 2011 as my doubts mounted, I had the opportunity to speak with Ken Ham at a homeschool convention, and on his recommendation, wrote a later to one of Answers in Genesis’s staff members. This e-mail captures my thinking and research on this topic at that time in some detail. Dr. [Name Redacted] did in time respond (see the postscript at the end), but his answers were not sufficient to end my doubts. (DL, Sept. 18, 2021)
Dear Dr. [Name Redacted]:
Ken Ham suggested I write you and gave me your e-mail when I approached him after one of his speaking engagements in the Spring.
I was reared in the church. I made a profession of faith at four. I was heavily involved in Child Evangelism Fellowship through junior high and high school. I took a bachelor’s and a master’s at Bob Jones University. In the ten years since, I have been heavily involved in Christian education and (on my own time) in Christian apologetics, often in regards to the scientific inadequacy of Neo-Darwinism and the evidence for Y.E.C. I have read fairly widely in the field of Y.E.C., most recently (as it happens) in Coming to Grips with Genesis.
Over the last ten to twelve months I have begun to seriously question the tenability of Young-Earth Creationism.
WIth that doubt (which has come to border very closely on flat disbelief), has come a concomitant and unsettling uncertainty regarding the veracity of the Scriptures as a whole. As you know, if Genesis isn’t true, we must seriously ask whether any of it is true.
I approached Mr. Ham for a referral to someone with whom I might speak about these matters. He referred me to you.
I’m hoping you might have time for a conversation, either on the phone or via Skype, or perhaps simply a methodical exchange of e-mails.
Here are several lines of evidence that I have struggled with. Following these six is a short concluding section.
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1) The evidence for significant quantities of radioactive decay in deposits of presumably flood-derived sedimentary rock.
To quote at some length from RATE 2:
There are many independent lines of evidence that large quantities of daughter isotopes were formed since Creation and even since the beginning of the Flood! These findings and assertions are major departures from the previously-held understanding in creation science. They not only force creationists to discover a much more complex scenario for the decay of radioisotopes than has been considered in the past, but they also require us to link such an explanation to serious Biblical and scientific constraints. Either accelerated radioactive decay accounts for the large daughter isotope residues in a short period of time, or a large amount of decay occurred at conventional rates and the earth is old (738).
2) The evidence of eight and twelve thousand year long tree-ring chronologies from the White Mountain Bristlecones and European oaks and pines.
To quote from John Woodmorappe’s article “Biblical Chronology and the 8,000-Year-Long Bristlecone Pine Tree-Ring Chronology” on AIG’s website:
The 8,000-year-long BCP chronology appears to be correctly crossmatched, and there is no evidence that bristlecone pines can put on more than one ring per year.The best approach for collapsing this chronology, one that takes into the account the evidence from C-14 dates, is one that factors the existence of migrating ring-disturbing events. Much more must be learned about this phenomenon before this hypothesis can be developed further.
3) The evidence of many thousands of years of ice accumulation on the Greenland and Antarctic ice packs.
To quote from Michael Oard’s The Frozen Record:
The reader must remember that mainstream glaciologists have had the time, money, and manpower to build their model. Obviously, they have collected the data, and thus have interpreted the data within their paradigm. In the process, they address certain problems of interest, and so these data and results are published. On the other hand, the Creation-Flood model depends upon the data provided by the mainstream scientists. It could be that crucial data needed to verify some aspect of the Creation-Flood model may not have been collected and, if collected, may still not be published (49).
4) The evidence for post-flood erosion and natural processes.
Hiking through Mammoth cave last winter, the guide pointed out a fossil in the cave wall that had been exposed by the cave-forming erosion process.
5) The historical evidence for a wide variety of flora and fauna as far back as the historical record goes.
If all present species are derived from a limited number of ark-inhabiting “kinds,” the level of genetic diversification and speciation over the last 4.5 millennia has been fantastic. Yet we see no signs of such speciation in the historical record (mosaics, ancient texts, pottery art, etc.). To take just the example of big cats, tigers are tigers and lions are lions as far back as you go.
6) The archeological evidence for human activity on a scale and at a distance from the present that does not concord well with the Ussher chronology.
Too much to say here, but from Stonehenge to the Pyramids to Stonehenge to Britain’s timber trackways, there is a large body of evidence for organized human labor forces operating a long time ago—far enough ago to make reconciliation with the Ussher chronology difficult at best.
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In conclusion, I haven’t found a satisfactory YEC answer to this evidence.
I have read a lot of YEC material (in fact, most of my understanding of secular positions comes from YEC summaries), and I have become disillusioned by what seems to be a disappointing and unsatisfactory scientific approach. Whether it be Oard, the RATE group, Woodmorappe, or whoever the argument seems to run thus: 1) We were originally skeptical of the secularists’ evidence. 2) We double-checked their evidence and have decided that it’s sound. 3) We’ve imagined (freely hypothesized) an alternative explanation of the data that is shaped primarily by our Genesis-based pre-conclusions. 4) We will hold to that explanation until it’s disproved.
The irony is, the YEC movement tends to criticize secularists for their biased, conclusions-first approach to the evidence.
I hope that you can see, as I do, that these are serious, difficult questions. Some YEC speakers seem to make light of the seriousness of the secular position on some matters (I still think Neo-Darwinism is woefully inadequate). But I have come to the conclusion that, by and large, secular scientists are smart people doing their best as a community to keep one another accountable to the data. YEC scientists, on the other hand, while also intelligent and certainly agenda driven, lack the community accountability that a fallible researcher depends upon to sharpen his ideas and keep him from error. It is this lack of community and oversight that leads to our revolving door of YEC theories: imagined hypotheses (like the Canopy theory; radioisotopic evidence doesn’t hold up because the evidence for decay is flimsy) that are widely disseminated within the community until evidence comes along which discredits them, and a replacement is found.
Please help me.
Sincerely,
David J. Lohnes
Postscript: It would be late June 2012 before I finally received a detailed reply from Dr. [Name Redacted]. Although he was generous with his time and comments in responding, he lost me from the very beginning. His first words were:
All your objections below relate to scientific objections to YEC. But what are your Biblical/exegetical reasons for doubting the YEC interpretation of Genesis 1-11? If the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of the Creator and His Word teaches YEC, then as a Christian that divine revelation must be your starting point in your thinking about origins, just as a demonstrably reliable eyewitness would be your starting point in examining the evidence in a criminal investigation. If you reject the eye-witness testimony of the Creator, then you are trusting the fallible opinions of sinful people, most of whom are not Christians but in fact hostile to Christianity.
That this was the seemingly the best Answers in Genesis had to offer in response to my questions simply reaffirmed for me my growing belief that their ‘scientific evidence’ wasn’t based on a scientific approach.