Posted by AF on March 17, 1999 at 13:54:58 {MW4z4H0.5soKM}:
Looking at the discussions the last few days between people who respect science over the Bible and those who do the opposite has brought up a few thoughts in my mind.
For one thing, it's clear that those who claim to put the Bible above science are quite unable to separate their interpretation of Biblical "themes" from what the Bible actually says. Such people are like those who insisted that the earth is flat because "the Bible says so". They're like the officials of the Church of Galileo's day who insisted that the sun goes around the earth because "the Bible teaches it". Didn't the sun stop in the sky at Joshua's command? Doesn't the Bible teach that the sun rises and sets?
In the same way, plenty of other statements in the Bible can easily be interpreted as symbolism, metaphor or in other non-literal ways. Doesn't Genesis teach that the earth was created in six days? And that there was a global flood?
Note that nothing in this discussion should be interpreted as trashing the Bible. This is about interpretation of the Bible.
For another thing, based on my experience on the Net and from reading dozens of books written by biblical apologists, it's clear that such people are generally quite ignorant of the methods and results of science. They seem to think that all ways of accumulating information are on equal footings. They think that merely reading and interpreting the Bible is on an equal footing with repeated practical verification of scientific knowledge. They seem to think that the knowledge that allows NASA scientists to use gravity to send space probes to the outer planets of the solar system is on an equal footing with their interpretations of scripture.
Well I've got news for such people -- tain't so. Most biblical interpretation is far more subject to revision than anything in science that has become accepted by the majority of the science community. Newton's "laws" of gravity were slightly revised by Einstein's theory of relativity, but were not shown to be wrong. They were simply shown to be approximations valid for our realm of everyday experience, where objects like planets travel at velocities where it's extremely difficult to measure a difference between Newton's and Einstein's equations. In contrast, the biblical interpretation that the sun goes around the earth was shown to be completely wrong. So has the interpretation that the universe was created in six literal days. So has the claim that there was a literal global flood a few thousand years ago. So has the claim that man has existed for just a few thousand years.
Now let's consider a specific example of how solid facts prove that man, or at least human-like creatures, have been around for several million years. This discussion will assume that no reader is naive enough to think that the arguments of young-earth creationists can be taken seriously. Of course, this is not a mere assumption but can be proved as solidly as can the laws of gravity, but we'll leave it for another thread.
There was discovered in the late 1970s in the Laetoli region of eastern Africa a set of human-like footprints in stone. These were carefully analyzed and found to be in the vicinity of 3.8 million years old. They were dated by using the potassium-argon method of radioactive dating on volcanic deposits above and below the layer containing the footprints. The footprints themselves were of three individuals, one larger than the other two. The prints were originally laid down in soft volcanic ash from a nearby volcano called Sadiman. The ash was unusual in that it contained chemicals that caused it to harden like concrete after being wetted. Shortly after Sadiman erupted the ash and several human-like creatures left their prints, it rained, and the ash hardened and dried. Shortly after that more ash was laid down, burying and preserving the footprints. Over time several hundred feet of more ash and other layers were laid down. Eventually these became exposed through erosion. The volcano Sadiman became extinct and has eroded down to a nub.
Now of course biblical apologists who pooh-pooh "scientific dating" will claim that radioactive dating is not worth a thing, and will ask "how do those scientists know what they're doing anyway?" Well I won't bore the reader with a technical discussion of radioactive dating, since anyone interested enough can find plenty of good references like Brent Dalrymple's The Age of the Earth in a decent library. I'll take a non-technical approach and ask the reader to use a bit of common sense concerning how long it takes major geological changes to occur.
The area in which the Laetoli footprints were found has undergone extensive geological changes in the nearly 4 million years since the prints were laid down. As mentioned, hundreds of volcanic eruptions occurred later, burying the prints under hundreds of feet of ash and other rubble. The eruptions often occurred with long intervals between them, as shown by the development of soils and plant and animal communities on top of some layers, which were buried by later eruptions. Extensive geological faulting has occurred in the area, which has drastically altered drainage patterns. The altered drainage has allowed deep canyons, such as Olduvai Gorge, to form in the region. These canyons expose the many layers to inspection by geologists, and show the extensive faulting in the area. The volcano Sadiman itself, as mentioned, has gone extinct and worn down to a nub, as have other volcanos in the region. Today they're only low hills.
How long does it take for such geological changes to occur? Millions of years. They cannot possibly happen in the 6,000 or so years allowed by biblical literalists for the lifetime of the human race. Volcanos just don't appear and disappear in that length of time. Plant and animal communities don't develop nearly fast enough to allow for hundreds of eruptions in a few thousand years. Imagine one of today's active east African volcanos, such as Kilimanjaro, appearing and/or wearing down in such a short time. It has never been observed to occur and is in fact impossible by normal geological processes.
Yet this impossiblity is exactly what many biblical literalists must insist occurred. In fact, observations of such geological events can be multiplied thousands of times, which compounds the problem. Many such people don't even realize that their literal interpretation of the Bible requires such impossible beliefs because they don't know enough about the earth itself to understand it. In fact, they know almost nothing about the earth, or geology, or science generally. Yet, such people make sweeping judgments about science and about how wonderfully their religious interpretations prove science wrong.
I challenge any biblical literalist to show how the above mentioned facts about footprints and the geology of the Laetoli area can be reconciled with anything but a millions-of-years-long history for mankind. Note that the above facts are not interpretations -- they are observations. The footprints can be observed, the ash layers can be observed, the worn-down volcanos can be observed, the canyons and layering and faulting can be observed. The challenge is to show how these simple observations fit with a literal, 6,000-yearish claim for the age of mankind.
I predict that the most we'll see is generalized handwaving. That's all I've ever seen from Biblical literalists when we actually get down to the nitty-gritty level of explaining things you can actually see, and hold in your hands, and walk on. Biblical literalists seem to think that what they believe should dictate what they see.
AF