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  Topic: Young-Earth Arguments, Responses to "proofs" of a young earth< Next Oldest | Next Newest >  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: May 27 2002,08:50   

This thread is for documenting the various young-earth arguments and responses to those arguments.

I'll start off with one that is based upon ecology.

The Population Argument

The following quotes are selected from an online essay of mine.

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Certain proponents of "scientific creationism" (SciCre) have put forward an argument that humans could not have evolved, simply because human population size shows that humans have only been around a few thousand years.  Those putting forward the argument tie the original population size to either two (sometimes Adam and Eve, sometimes Noah and his wife) or eight (Noah's immediate family), note a current population figure, and derive a rate of increase by use of some Biblical chronology to either creation, Noah's birth, or The Flood.  It should be noted that biblically, what should be argued is either descent from two (Adam and Eve) or from six (Noah's sons and their wives).  While some admit up front that the calculation of rate of increase yields an average value and that the actual rate of increase varies, many do not. The crux of the argument comes when they use the derived rate of increase for comparison to the deep time that evolutionary timetables give.  The numbers of humans that would be present, they say, were evolution true, would be far greater than what we observe today, and thus evolution of humans must be false. Some are precise enough to restrict their conclusion to only humans, others leave how much is disproved unspecified.  Some utilize the numbers to infer intermediate population sizes.
 
I am going to point out some problems with the SciCre population argument.  First, the argument assumes what it is supposed to prove. Second, all such arguments yield absurd values for population sizes at historical times.  Third, the argument ignores what is known about population dynamics from other species.  Fourth, final population size is an unreliable indicator of initial population time.  I am only interested in the anti-evolutionary components of the SciCre population argument; use of the population argument in apologetics is not something I care about.  I don't think that anyone can demonstrate that real population dynamics disbar Global Flood scenarios, so if use in apologetics is all that is intended from some source, I have no real beef with it.


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Third, the argument ignores what is known about population dynamics from other species.  Various other species can be observed to sometimes reproduce exponentially, but we observe that such populations fluctuate, stabilize, or crash.  In no case do exponentially reproducing populations "take over the world" as SciCre'ists assure us would be the case if evolution were true.  In recent times, human population growth has been exponential, but this does not mean that the human population has been growing exponentially for all its residence time.  Just as the number of E. coli present in your gut will not tell us your birthday or the time of your last use of an antibiotic, so human population size is decoupled from when Homo sapiens arose, or even when a bottleneck may have occurred.


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In short, the SciCre population argument fails on many different criteria.  Honest creationists should eschew its use.


-- Population Size and Time of Creation or Flood

Interestingly, the population argument is not listed among those that "Answers in Genesis" recommends that YECs should not use.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
Michael



Posts: 22
Joined: June 2002

(Permalink) Posted: June 01 2002,21:07   

Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ May 27 2002,08:50)
Interestingly, the population argument is not listed among those that "Answers in Genesis" recommends that YECs should not use.
Interestingly, the population argument is not listed among those that "Answers in Genesis" recommends that YECs should not use.


That is because AiG uses the argument.

Where are all the people?
Quote

What if people had been around for one million years?

Evolutionists claim that mankind evolved from apes about a million years ago. If the population had grown at just 0.01% per year since then (doubling only every 7,000 years), there could be 10^43 people today—that’s a number with 43 zeros after it. This number is so big that not even the Texans have a word for it! To try to put this number of people in context, say each individual is given ‘standing room only’ of about one square metre per person. However, the land surface area of the whole Earth is ‘only’ 1.5 x 10^14 square metres. If every one of those square metres were made into a world just like this one, all these worlds put together would still ‘only’ have a surface area able to fit 10^28 people in this way. This is only a tiny fraction of 10^43 (10^29 is 10 times as much as 10^28, 10^30 is 100 times, and so on). Those who adhere to the evolutionary story argue that disease, famine and war kept the numbers almost constant for most of this period, which means that mankind was on the brink of extinction for most of this supposed history.10 This stretches credulity to the limits.


Consider http://evolutionlie.faithweb.com/ which Sarfati apparently served as an advisor for:

Quote

30. World Population Growth Rate -- In recent times is about 2% per year. Practicable application of growth rate throughout human history would be about half that number. Wars, disease, famine, etc. have wiped out approximately one third of the population on average every 82 years. Starting with eight people, and applying these growth rates since the Flood of Noah's day (about 4500 years ago) would give a total human population at just under six billion people. However, application on an evolutionary time scale runs into major difficulties. Starting with one "couple" just 41,000 years ago would give us a total population of 2 x 10 to the89th. The universe does not have space to hold so many bodies.


One thing that you might mention is that these sort of calculations which very quickly generate impossibly high populations are an important foundation of Darwin's concept of natural selection.

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Oct. 11 2002,12:55   

Answers In Genesis has a response to Kent Hovind concerning their list of arguments that creationists should not use.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
jasin



Posts: 7
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 19 2006,18:04   

The earth is not young nor does any religious text say it is.

  
acriticaleye



Posts: 19
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: May 28 2006,18:44   

huh? well, its probalby a good think your not looking then eh?

  
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