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Hello,
I thought I would go over one of Hovind's articles. It's rather long but not too bad.
There are plenty of refutations of this and many of Hovind's claims so I am obviously not the first or even the tenth person to do this. I picked this article because of the large amount of errors it contains, and because it is heavily related to Hovinds young earth claims. Quotes from the article are in Blue.
Universe Is Not "Billions of Years" Old [says who?]
http://www.drdino.com/QandA/index.jsp?varFolder=CreationEvolution&varPage=UniverseIsNotBillionsofYearsOld.htm
Beginning
"The following assumptions of evolutionary theory are easy to prove false:
1.The universe is billions of years old.
2.Life spontaneously arose from nonliving minerals.
3.Mutations create or improve a kind.
4.Natural selection has creative power."
Welcome to Hovind's personal definition of evolution, not be be confused with the correct definition of evolution.
1) Evolution says nothing about the age of the universe, nor does it need to (as explained later). The age of the universe and the earth is determined by astronomy and geology among other things.
2) This is not part of the theory of evolution. It is part of abiogenesis. Abiogenesis and evolution are not the same things and are seperate theories. The theory of evolution could care less how life got here, only that it is here.
3) Now we get into something closer to evolution. I don't see how this is "easy to prove false" as there are plenty of examples where mutations have improved a "kind." Such as immunity to HIV and Immunity to malaria in Humans or the ability to eat Nylon (a man made material) in bacteria, and many more examples.
4) It sure does. Among the many examples in biology that can be found, Natural Selection has enough creative power that it has been used (as part of evolution) to accidentally create a radio. Computer evolution simulation programs have been used to help boeing design one of their passenger planes. So next time you take a flight, you could be flying on a product of simulated evolution.
"But let’s remove time from the above equation [equation not quoted here]."
Here Hovind shoots himself in the foot, because if you remove time from Creationism, it falls apart just like evolution does. However, I take Hovind to really mean that Evolution requires Long amounts of time, this is also false if Hovind is correct.
The reason it is false if Hovind is correct is because even he subscribes to a type of Constrained Hyper Evolution, that took effect after the flood to quickly change the main "kinds" back into the huge diversity of life that we see. So if evolution takes long amounts of time to work, Hovind is in trouble as well.
The evidence suggests that these constraints do not exist (as everytime they are made solid, they are shown to be false). The evidence also suggests that it took billions of years, but that doesn't mean billions of years is a Necessity.
The Evidence
Now lets get on to this evidence. Because there are 32 different points some of my answer may be short, as it makes it quicker to write, and it keeps the size of this down. Some will be much longer than others, often this will be because I have written a longer explanation in the past and am using that one. If anyone wants to know more about the answer to any of these, just ask and I can add too it.
As said before, there are plenty of pages that refute these, so why am I writing this? Sometimes it can be entertaining. It also makes it harder for people on forums to wave the refutations away, as it is sometimes easy to claim that a site is biased and just ignore it, than to claim that a specific poster is biased.
A) From Space
1) Shrinking Sun.
"The shrinking sun limits the earth-sun relationship to less than "billions of years." The sun is losing both mass and diameter. Changing the mass would upset the fine gravitational balance that keeps the earth at just the right distance for life to survive."
Verdict: False.
If the sun was shrinking, then data from other stars suggests that it is not constant, as other stars have been known to grow and shrink in a cycle.
However, there is no evidence to suggest the sun is shrinking. The claim is based around one report in 1979. This report took measurements done throughout a 90 year period by different scientists and studied them, discovering what appeared to be a shrinkage in the sun. A couple problems with this are that different instruments sensitivity and since the sun isn't solid not everyone agrees on where we should measure it from can produce error in the results. Further observations have been done with more accurate instruments since 1980 and none of them show a shrinking of the sun. Thus it is very likely that there were errors in the report and they have since been fixed.
2) Moon Dust
"The 0.5 inch layer of cosmic dust on the moon indicates the moon has not been accumulating dust for billions of years."
Verdict: False
This argument is based on faulty equations made before we landed on the moon. The errors were corrected along time ago, why this is being used as an argument, I don't know.
3) Sort-period comets
"The existence of short-period comets indicates the universe is less than billions of years old."
Verdict: False
Not if there was a place for new ones to come from. Many new comets come from the Kuiper Belt. This also explains why not every comet is the same age.
4) Fossil Meteorites
"Fossil meteorites are very rare in layers other than the top layers of the earth. This indicates that the layers were not exposed for millions of years as is currently being taught in school textbooks."
Verdict: True and False.
Yes few meteorites have been found but some have been found. To assume though that because many haven't been found, the layers weren't exposed for millions of years is false. Its like saying that after searching 1% of a haystack, and not finding a yellow hay shaped needle, it doesn't exist.
Meteorites decompose just like any other rock, thus the older they are, the less likely they will be intact. They are also very hard to find unless you are trained to know the difference, otherwise they just look like uninteresting rocks.
So, although its true few have been found, it does not mean that the layers they were found in were only exposed for a short amount of time.
5) Receding Moon
"The moon is receding a few inches each year. Billions of years ago the moon would have been so close that the tides would have been much higher, eroding away the continents."
Verdict: False.
Captain wrote a good thread on this recently.
The moon isn't receding a few inches each year but around 3.8 Centimeters. Evidence shows this recession rate to be very high, and that it was less in the past.
If we were to do a linear equation back 4.5 billion years using the high recession rate of 3.8 cm, we get that the moon was 171,000 km closer, or 213,400 km away, it wasn't even at the half way point between the current earth and the moon.
Even if this quadruples the tides, they wouldn't erode away the continents. The highest tide currently is about 54ft, and this is an extreme. This would change the highest tide in the world (assuming that the topography is similar) to 216ft. This is large but it isn't continent destroying large, especially since this very high tide would only exist in a specific part of the world. Other parts of the world might only see an increase of a few feet.
We do know the continents change all the time, so even 4.5 billion years ago, with the moon receding it would lessen over the years and wouldn't be a problem for life or the continents now.
6) Moon Isotopes
"The moon contains considerable quantities of U-236 and Th-230, both short-lived isotopes that would have been long gone if the moon were billions of years old."
Verdict: False
They would only be long gone if there wasn't some way that they were being created on the moon. But there is.
U-236 can be produced in small quantities by neutron capture, in a similar process that creates C-14 here on earth.
Th-230 is a decay product from U-238, which has a half life of 4.5 billion years. Until all of the U-238 decays, we will see Th-230 on the moon.
7) Space Dust
"The existence of great quantities of space dust, which by the Pointing-Robertson effect would have been vacuumed out of our solar system in a few thousand years, indicates the solar system is young."
Verdict: False
Another piece of evidence that would be false if the object was being constantly added. In this case the object is space dust. There are many things that deposit space dust into the solar system, including comets. That big long tail that is produced when a comet gets closer to the sun is large amounts of water, ice and rock that gets blown into the solar system.
Solar winds and light itself can push small particles out of the solar system (the basis of new space travel ideas). Medium sized particles that are being effected by both forces can basically balance out the two forces and since both forces are very small, it could take a very long time before one wins out and the particle is removed from the solar system.
So, space dust is not a problem for the age of the solar system.
8) Expanding star clusters
"At the rate many star clusters are expanding, they could not have been traveling for billions of years."
Verdict: False
Open clusters do expand and dissipate after awhile, however it takes a very long time. Globular clusters on the other hand stick together quite well and many are from the beginning of the universe and show no sign of breaking apart.
9) Saturn's Rings
"Saturn’s rings are still unstable, indicating they are not billions of years old."
Verdict: True and False.
Yes Saturn's rings are not believed to be billions of years old, so they can't be used to show that the Solar System is less than billions of years old because no one believes these rings have been around since the beginning of the solar system. Thus, the statement is true, but the attempt to use it as evidence for a young universe is false.
10) Cooling Planets
"Jupiter and Saturn are cooling off rather rapidly. They are losing heat twice as fast as they gain it from the sun. They cannot be billions of years old."
Verdict: False.
Jupiter is losing heat slowly enough that it could easily be billions of years old, and is possibly still losing heat from when it formed. Saturn's heat can come from gravity compressing the inside of the planet, similar to the earths geothermal heat.
11) Sirius's Change.
"Among other factors to consider is that all the ancient astronomers from 2000 years ago recorded that Sirius was a red star—today it is a white dwarf star. Since today’s textbooks in astronomy state that one hundred thousand years are required for a star to "evolve" from a red giant to a white dwarf, obviously this view needs to be restudied."
Verdict: False.
Completely false. Today, the star known as Sirius A is still a red giant. Sirius B is a white dwarf. Sirius A is the only one of the two that can be seen by the naked eye, thus this is what the ancient astronomers saw. Later Sirius B was discovered as a white dwarf. The two stars orbit each other but are Not the same star.
B) From Earth
12) Decaying Magnetic Field
"The decaying magnetic field limits earth’s age to less than billions. "
Verdict: False.
Others such as JGMEERT have some very good websites about this,
http://gondwanaresearch.com/hp/magfield.htm
First, The Measurements that were taken were only of the Dipole field and not of the non dipole fields, which were found to be Increasing at the time. AIG talks about this in another paper, and dismisses it because the non dipole fields are said to be only 10% of the total field. However, this still ignores the fact that our researcher chose to ignore data that shows that it is possible for a part of the magnetic field to increase in strength while other parts are decreasing.
Second, The measurements of a short period of time, are stretched out over a larger period of time, and are assumed to have always been that way without any evidence to back that idea up.
Third, and the big kicker,
“Studies of the magnetic field as recorded in dated rocks and pottery have shown that the dipole moment actually fluctuates over periods of a few thousand years and that decreases in field intensity are eventually followed by increases. For example, the archaeomagnetic data show that the dipole field was about 20% weaker than the present field 6,500 years ago and about 45% stronger than the present field about 3000 years ago (McElhinny and Senanayake, 1982).
(Dalrymple, 1992, p.16)”
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dave_matson/young-earth/specific_arguments/magnetic_field.html
So, as you can see the magnetic field is not in a constant decay, and does Not constrain the age of the earth.
13) Lava Efflux Rate
"The volume of lava on earth divided by its rate of efflux gives a number of only a few million years, not billions. I believe that during the Flood, while "the fountains of the deep were broken up," most of the earth’s lava was deposited rapidly."
Verdict: False.
Lava rates are higher during periods of continent building, such as recent times. However, with changing continents lava rates make a very bad way to date the earth, as most continents looked much different millions of years ago.
14) Mineral Influx
"Dividing the amount of various minerals in the ocean by their influx rate indicates only a few thousand years of accumulation."
Verdict: False
See #25 salt in oceans, as the minerals are removed from the ocean in similar ways.
15)Atmosphere Helium
"The amount of Helium 4 in the atmosphere, divided by the formation rate on earth, gives only 175,000 years. (God may have created the earth with some helium which would reduce the age more.) "
Verdict: False.
Notice how when the data doesn't fit a 6000 year old earth he makes guesses to try and squeeze it in.
Helium can escape the atmosphere through a couple different means. Heat can provide enough energy for helium to escape and the polar winds can provide another way. The rate that helium 4 escapes from the atmosphere balances the rate it enters.
16) Continent erosion Rate
"The erosion rate of the continents is such that they would erode to sea level in less than 14,000,000 years, destroying all old fossils."
Verdict: false
Current erosion rate is high compared to what it was in the past, also different materials erode at different rates, so while some areas can erode away fast, others will take a very long time. There are also ways to build up the continents, such as volcanos and upthrusting. Take Mt. Everest, it is still growing.
17) Topsoil formation.
"Topsoil formation rates indicate only a few thousand years of formation."
Verdict: False.
Topsoil can be eroded away and can be effected easily by climate changes. Making it a bad way to try and judge the age of the earth.
18) Niagara Falls Erosion rate.
"Niagara Falls’ erosion rate (four to five feet per year) indicates an age of less than 10,000 years. Don’t forget Noah’s Flood could have eroded half of the seven-mile-long Niagara River gorge in a few hours as the flood waters raced through the soft sediments.)"
Verdict: True and False.
Notice how when the data doesn't fit a 6000 year old earth he makes guesses to try and squeeze it in.
This is true because most scientists believe that Niagara falls is around 10,000 years old, and has been around only since the end of the last Ice age.
This is false because no one claims that Niagara falls has been around since the earth was created, making it a poor way to try and date the earth. It is a relatively new formation.
19) Oil Pressure
"The rock encasing oil deposits could not withstand the pressure for more than a few thousand years."
Verdict: False.
The fact that the pressure has built up at all, shows that the rocks are able to hold the oil well enough to let the pressure build up. If they couldn't hold the pressure, we should be seeing oil deposits burst, but we don't.
Oil does shift positions and slowly migrate from deeper in the earth.
20) Mississippi River Delta
"The size of the Mississippi River delta, divided by the rate mud is being deposited, gives an age of less than 30,000 years. (The Flood in Noah’s day could have washed out 80% of the mud there in a few hours or days, so 4400 years is a reasonable age for the delta.)"
Verdict: False.
Notice how when the data doesn't fit a 6000 year old earth he makes guesses to try and squeeze it in.
No one has claimed that the Mississippi River Delta is as old as the earth, so just like with Niagara falls, the age of the delta can not be used to date the earth.
Its like saying that the shirt I am wearing can't be more than 1 month old, because its a new style that was only released a month ago. So I must be no more than 1 month old. Wow, I'm pretty big for a 1 month old.
21) Slowing spin of the Earth
"The slowing spin of the earth limits its age to less than the "billions of years" called for by the theory of evolution."
Verdict: False.
The earth is slowing about 0.005 seconds per year per year.
((0.005 sec/yr) x (4,500,000,000 years))/year = (22,500,000 sec)/year or (260.42 days)/year.
So, 4.5 billion years ago, the Earth had 260.42 extra days for a total of 625.7 days.
(8766 hrs/year)/(625.7 days/year) = 14.02 hrs/day.
Although a much faster spin rate, 4.5 billion years ago, the spin rate wasn't even double what it is today.
22) Ocean Floor Sediment
"A relatively small amount of sediment is now on the ocean floor, indicating only a few thousand years of accumulation. This embarrassing fact is one of the reasons why the continental drift theory is vehemently defended by those who worship evolution."
Verdict: False.
The ocean floor recycles itself. New material is created at the mid ocean ridge, it pushes out on both sides. The heavier ocean floor sub-ducts underneath the lighter continental plates, rejoining with the magma underneath.
23) Stalactites
"The largest stalactites and flowstone formations in the world could have easily formed in about 4400 years."
Verdict: False.
An average fast rate of formation is around 2.5 inches per thousand years. Even at 10x this rate of formation it would only produce stalactites of around 9 feet in the given time. Much smaller than many of the formations we see.
Besides that, this does not limit the age of the earth, or provide evidence that the earth is young.
24) Sahara Desert
"The Sahara desert is expanding. It easily could have been formed in a few thousand years. See any earth science textbook."
Verdict: True and False.
The Modern Sahara Desert is only a few thousand years old. This doesn't give any sort of limit to the age of the earth, or give a good date for the age of the earth though.
25) Salt in the Oceans
"The oceans are getting saltier. If they were billions of years old, they would be much saltier than they are now."
Verdict: False.
If the sea’s are getting saltier its by such a small amount that its almost immeasurable. There are multiple ways that the salt can leave the ocean. They balance out the intake. One way is reaction with other rocks, another is,
“Plate tectonics explains the last mechanism for a balanced state of ocean saltiness. The outer hard crust of Earth consists actually of a dozen or so distinct, hard plates that drift individually on hot, deformable rock like floating islands on a sea. An unequal distribution of heat within Earth moves the plates much like marshmallows move on simmering cocoa.
When an ocean plate collides with a continental one, the less dense continental plate floats over the ocean one. The ocean floor gets pushed under, in the process, and at least half its mineral-rich, salty sediments end up lost deep within Earth.
So, that's why the seas are salty but don't get any saltier.”
http://www.wonderquest.com/salty-seas.htm
Since the salt is being removed at about the same speed as its being put in, this becomes a very bad way to try and judge the maximum date of the oceans.
For more information, see:
http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199606/0051.html
26) Aircraft under Ice.
"Ice cores at the south pole and Greenland have a maximum depth of 10-14,000 feet. The aircraft that crash-landed in Greenland in 1942 and excavated in 1990 were under 263 feet of ice after only 48 years. This indicates all of the ice could have accumulated in 4400 years."
Verdict: False
The aircraft were found in a different area of greenland than where ice cores are taken. This area has a higher annual snowfall rate than other areas, such as those that ice cores are taken at, thus it buried the aircraft quickly.
C) From Biology
27) Population Statistics
"The current population of earth (5.5 billion souls) could easily be generated from eight people (survivors of the Flood) in less than 4000 years."
Verdict: True and False.
It is true because yes it is possible, but it is false because it doesn't prove the earth is young, nor is it likely to have happened, as you can see here.
I made this reply to a different creationist article, it used 6 billion people and 4500 years since the flood, however it should work well for this too,
P(n) = P(1 + r)^n,
I used it to do some interesting calculations.
P = starting population (8 after the flood)
r = rate of growth
n = number of years since flood.
If the flood was 4500 years ago, we need a growth rate of 0.455% or 0.00455 to reach almost 6 billion people today,
So the equation would look like this, 8(1+0.00455)^4500=5,958,006,194 or 6 billion.
This produces some interesting results.
•1000 years after the flood, there is a total world population of 749 people.
•2500 years after the flood, there is a total world population of 679,180 people.
•2600 years after the flood, there is a total world population of 1,069,401 people.
Now whats so amazing about that? Well, 2500 years after the flood, is also 2000 years ago. Around the time when Jesus was said to have been born. Thats right, when jesus was born, there was an Entire world population of 679,180. A little over half a million people populated the Entire world, that includes China, The Americas, the Roman Empire, etc.
Whats so special about 2600 years after the flood, well that would be around 100 AD,
“At the zenith of the Roman empire (2nd century A.D.)... ...The population was at least 70 million and may have been in excess of 100 million. The city of Rome itself was home to more than 1 million inhabitants.”
http://www.sentex.net/~ajy/facts/romanemp.html
So, the entire world population was apparently in Rome and nowhere else.
If any of this sounds a bit funny, thats because it is. The worlds growth rate does not stay a constant number. It is thought that the large world growth rate is based on recent technological advances. In the past, many constraints such as food and disease have kept the growth rate very close to 0, if not sometimes in the negative and thus we would not have over grown the world. We are only now able to out grow the world because we can supply ourselves with lots of food, and rid ourselves of many diseases.
28) Oldest living Coral Reef
"The oldest living coral reef is less than 4200 years old."
Verdict: False.
The oldest coral reefs are nearing 6000 years old. What the age of the oldest living coral reef has to do with limiting the age of the earth, I don't know. Not to mention that there are coral reefs that are now dead that lived longer than 6000 years.
29) Oldest Living tree
"The oldest living tree in the world is about 4300 years old."
Verdict: False
The oldest living tree in the world is around 4767 years old
http://www.sonic.net/bristlecone/intro.html
This is older than the the oldest biblical estimates for the flood. Hovind also gets himself into a situation here because he obviously accepted the secular dating method of this tree before, yet this same dating method now goes against his claims.
It is said that Tree Ring dating can't be trusted because sometimes a tree can grow an extra ring each year. While this may be true for one or two trees, it is not true in this case. Individual trees grow false rings, the group doesn't. So the more a group of trees is studied, the less effect false rings have on the dating. The Bristlecone pine trees are probably one of the most studied tree groups in the world. So false rings are not really a problem for these trees.
D) From History
30) Historical Records
"The oldest known historical records are less than 6000 years old."
Verdict: True and False.
Although I believe the oldest known written historical records are less than 6000 years old, the oldest known human creation is much older than 6000 years, cave paintings.
This is false because it has no bearing on the age of the earth or the universe.
31) Flood Legends
"Many ancient cultures have stories of an original creation in the recent past and a worldwide Flood. Nearly 300 of these Flood legends are now known."
Verdict: True and False.
Although its true that there are many flood legends, this is not evidence for a global flood or a young earth. Studies have shown that less than half of the world cultures have flood myths. However, flood myths are not unexpected. Many civilizations started around rivers and lakes, with little knowledge of the world outside their area. An unexpected flooding of the river or lake could easily look like the world was being flooded. Also, many flood legends don't agree on a single story, sometimes the only thing they have in common is that they are about a flood.
There are many other common legend themes, like talking animals, does this mean it is true that animals talk?
32) Biblical dates
"Biblical dates add up to about 6000 years."
Verdict: True and False.
Yes its true that biblical dates can add up to 6000 years, but this doesn't mean anything to the date of the earth. If I were to tell you that dates in the vedas added up to 4000 years, would you believe me, or even consider that evidence for the age of the earth?
Not all scholars agree that the chronologies add up to 6000 and there have been many different dates calculated.
"Evolutionists love to assume uniformitarian processes. Many of the preceding evidences follow the same logic evolutionists use all the time in dealing with carbon dating, strata formation, genetic drift, etc."
So, Hovind attacks the assumption of uniformitarian processes when dealing with C-14 dating, yet is perfectly willing to use these same assumptions in his evidence? There is something wrong with that..
Conclusion
Either you read through all of that, and your eyes hurt, or you have skipped to the end to see the conclusion. Either way the conclusion is obvious, the evidence is false, not a single piece shows the earth to be young or limits the age of the earth to less than billions of years. I am not special or anything to be able to answer one of his papers. Many people on the forum could write the same thing, some probably better, especially when it comes into their field. It seriously doesn't take much work.
Many of these pieces of evidence have been known to be false for quite a long time, yet Hovind still presents them as truth, I will leave to you to answer the question, Why?
-Ari
Last Update 5/14/04
©04 Ari
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