In case you are living on planet Zorton you might have noticed that in the last couple of years the creationism vs. science debate has heated up. In this particular debate I throw my hat deep into the science part of the ring. I find myself shaking my head in disbelief at a lot of the crap coming out from the creationism side, in particular statements like "The Universe is 6,000 years old". What world the world be like if it were indeed 6,000 years old... I wonder... It’s a good question for physicists.
For example, science dates things based on the set rate of carbon decay. Given that we know that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. So what happens if we crank up the decay of the carbon atom to be 766,666 times faster, so that the age of the Earth is 6,000 years. And let’s say we applied that to a house cat. Would house cat poop be so radioactive that we could run a reactor off of it?
And how about geology? If the continents moved 766,666 times faster we would be surfing across the pacific. Oh, wait, I need to reverse that. Given the rate of continental drift we would have only moved about 500 feet in 6,000 years. Which kinda leaves a big hole, between, er… us in America, and say, Australia. So how did Australia get populated with animals, given there was only one Noah and one ark? Turns out the creationists actually have a solution for that one. All of the Australian species migrated to Australia in mass on giant tufts of floating grass. I kid you not. No, no, really. I'm not kidding.
I would love to see this stuff applied to a lot of the sciences. In particular those that have a real effect on daily living. For example, the speed of light governs the speed of data transfer, which in turn powers the web and our ability to watch YouTube videos. How fast would YouTube videos be if we adjusted the speed of light to conform to the 6,000 year old Earth? The more ridiculous the example the better.
Yes, speed of light is the easy one. Try this on the back of an envelope: Average number of stars per galaxy. Number of visible galaxies. Volume of sphere. Pack all those stars into sphere with 6,000 light-year radius. What is the average distance between galaxies? Between stars?
If they argue the speed of light has been decreasing over time, remind them the speed of light is C in E=MC^2. The sun runs on that equation, so with a much higher value of C the Earth would have been cooked 5,000 years ago.
If they argue the light was created in-flight, point out that matches the fossils created in the ground, and the memories created in your head to fool you into believing the world is older than yesterday.
This is why while Fundie colleges have Biology and Geology departments, none of them bother messing with Astronomy.
I like your points. They are 'out of this world'. But that might be the problem.
I think the reason the 'Fundies' concentrate on Geology and Biology is that they are practical tangible sciences. And they can point to an ape and say, "Does that look like your Dad?" Which is in no way what an evolutionist is saying, but who cares?
The same thing with Biology. They can point at a banana and say, "This is so well designed, God must have done it." When in reality it was Charlie over a Dole who did all of the work.
Hey, speaking of this stuff. What is the creationists take on why we have oil? Do they have a view on where it came from? Or do they just say it appeared? The question being, how did we get so much oil in 6,000 years?
Posted by: jherr at June 12, 2007 03:59 PMThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)