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BarryA Interviews Dr. David DeWitt
| June 2, 2008 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Creationism |
Dr. DeWitt will appear on my radio talk show tomorrow to discuss his book, “Unraveling the Origins Controversy.” The show begins at 6:00 Eastern and will stream live on KRKS.com.
Dr. DeWitt is the Director of the Center for Creation Studies and a professor of Biology at Liberty University. He is a young earth creationist. While I respect YEC’s, I do not count myself among them, so the give and take should be interesting.
77 Responses to BarryA Interviews Dr. David DeWitt
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bornagain77 (at 38):
In regard to your points about the helium diffusion data, it should be pointed out that Humphreys has dealt with each of these objections some time ago (here and here) in responding to Kevin Henke (links to references contained in articles). To wit:
~2) High residual helium in zircons
“A number of things cast suspicion on the RATE data. For example, the RATE team assumed all the helium in the zircons was radiogenic…~
Humphreys responds :
9. “not properly considering the possible presence of extraneous (‘excess’) 3He and 4He in their zircons”
[…]
First, if the helium in the zircons were “excess” and came from outside them, it would have had to come through the biotite. As I pointed out on p. 9 of CRSQ 2004, the helium concentration in the biotite is two hundred times lower than the concentration in the zircon. That means, according to the laws of diffusion, that the helium is presently leaking out of the zircons into the biotite, not the other way around. Also, as I pointed out, the total amount of helium in the biotite is roughly the same as the helium lost from the zircon.
Humphreys goes on to deal with the ‘Tectonic and volcanic events’ factor.
~Second, the RATE helium diffusion measurements were obtained under a laboratory vacuum, rather than pressures consistent with the depths of the samples. In fact, studies have shown gas diffusion rates may decrease by three to six orders of magnitude (1,000 to 1,000,000 times) if studies are performed under pressure rather than in a vacuum.28 Thus, actual helium diffusion rates are likely much lower, making the rock much older than they determined.~
Humphreys’ response :
Henke’s “obtained under a vacuum” should not be a surprising revelation to anyone. First, I have mentioned it in most of my publications on this topic. More important, vacuum measurements are standard procedure for all zircon diffusion researchers. None of them have considered pressure an important enough variable to include in their experiments. Henke does not seem to have asked himself why the experts have done so. The answer, as I will show below, is that these pressures aren’t important for zircons.
See link for more details.
~Third, the RATE team assumed subsurface temperatures at Fenton Hill have been constant over time. However, the history of Fenton Hill includes numerous heating and cooling events….~
Humphreys’ rebuttal
12. “deriving ‘models’ that are based on several invalid assumptions (including constant temperature conditions over time, Q0 of 15 ncc STP/µg, and isotropic diffusion in biotite)”
Henke is counting on his readers not to have read my papers carefully enough to know that I considered and discussed all the factors he mentions. I pointed out [ICC 2003, section 7] that, “Our assumption of constant temperatures is generous to uniformitarians.” That is because their thermal history models require a recent (by their timescale) pulse of high temperature which would wipe out all the helium in the zircons. I further pointed out that the zircons would have to be colder than dry ice [CRSQ 2004, p. 9] for most of their history in order to save the 1.5 billion year scenario, and no geologist would consider such a low temperature to be in the realm of possibility.
~Fourth, some of the RATE calculations appear to be faulty.30 The RATE team also refers to the Fenton Hill samples as granodiorite-igneous rocks that crystallize from melts deep below the surface of the Earth.31 However, scientific literature indicates most of the Fenton Hill rock is gneisses-former igneous or sedimentary rocks that have been metamorphosed under relatively high temperature and pressure. Because gas diffusion rates can vary significantly for different types of rock, this could have introduced errors into their equations.32~
Humphreys’ rebuttal
2. “misidentifying samples as originating from the Jemez Granodiorite”
Henke means that I didn’t specify that the top 1000 meters or so of the Precambrian granitic rock unit in question might contain gneiss or schist instead of granodiorite. What he doesn’t realize is that “Jemez Granodiorite” is a name I invented (since the literature had not previously named it) to apply to the whole unit from about 700 meters depth down to below 4,310 meters. Our co-author John Baumgardner, a geophysicist, saw large portions of the GT-2 core at Los Alamos and picked our samples from it. He says:
Yes, there are occasional veins of material other than the coarse-grained granodiorite that forms the vast majority of the core. In making the selections I made of what samples to use, I purposely avoided these occasional veins. In fact I tried to select sections of the core well removed from such veins. So at least from my vantage point, the samples of core we used for the helium diffusion measurements were indeed coarse-grained granodiorite, not gneiss.
Humphreys goes into much more detail concerning these and many other objections to his work in the two articles linked as well. Just thought I’d pass this along.
Junkyard Tornado,
So you found me out—yours truly is indeed a dangerous heretic—a very few centuries ago and I’d have been burnt at the stake. But can we not now differ in our Christology and still discuss Genesis?
scordova, (39)
I fear you may be right. And not just for supernatural reasons either. When one thinks one has all the truth, one is tempted not to listen to others, and not to explore nature, as one already “knows” what is there and has no need to find out.
bornagain77,
You’ve put up a lot of material, and it will take some time to go through it (I have a “day job”). But I’ll get started.
First, on my five points:
1. Your response reveals an elemental error. On can argue that YEC’s should believe that all forms of decay are forbidden. But my point was that a substantial portion in fact do not believe this. The original quote said that YEC’s did believe this, and was in error, even if you turn out to be right in your assertion about what YEC’s should believe. Kindly listen to the other side, and be less eager to claim that they put themselves in boxes where they do not believe they belong and do not wish to be.
(I’ll cover your “As well” later, since it has no direct relevance to point 1.)
2. You are still missing the point. I know how you interpret the days of Genesis 1. My point was not that I could “prove” you wrong. My point was that there was a reasonable interpretation for light before the sun from a short-age perspective, and that your argument was not a knock-down argument. In fact, the argument for literality has gotten much better from Augustine’s day to ours.
3. It appears that you can’t get it through your head that your interpretation of the anthropic principles is not binding on YEC’s. If God created the universe without using the Big Bang, there is no reason to insist that the Big Bang must be fine-tuned. Let’s go back to your original statement:
Supposing the Big Bang were not the way God made the universe. Then God could have made a universe with rapid rates of decay, or abnormally slow rates of decay, changed them later, and life would still be possible.
Here you should remember that my point is not personal. I am presently a YEC but not a YUC. I used to be a YLEC (young life on earth creationist) but not a YEC. I’m not completely comfortable with YUC cosmology, and am presently willing to accept the Big Bang, with God remodeling or (now preferably) creating the solar system some 6-15,000 years ago.
But I wouldn’t think of arguing against YUC’s the way you do. If you grant their system as a possibility, your argument from Ross has no traction with them; all it can establish is that without miracles, the Big Bang requires fine-tuning. Well, guess what! They believe that the universe was created by a miracle. So your statement binds Ross, but not them. This is true even if, as I think may be the case, they eventually turn out to be mistaken.
5. (out of order) I comment that your charge that YEC’s have death before sin is wrong and should be precisely reversed, and your reply is:
This says essentially, “So’s your old man.” It’s bad arguing. First, YEC’s do not deny the integrity of the fossil record, only the timing. But even if they did, it doesn’t excuse getting the question of YEC’s and death before sin completely backwards. The first rule of holes is, when you’re in one, stop digging.
4. Finally, we come to the key problem as I see it. I take it that you concede that God can allow at least some of the lost to be deceived. So your original statement that
is, in Ron Ziegler’s famous term, “inoperative”, as far as the lost are concerned.
But there are times when God allows the saved to not really understand what is happening. Look at Job, who was completely ignorant of God’s allowing Satan to test him. And yet arguably Job was a saved man when God started his test.
And here is why this concept is key. If one makes two simple assumptions, one can get to some pretty dangerous conclusions. Assume that God does not allow the saved to be deceived, and that I am saved. Then everything I think is correct. I will never have to correct my beliefs; add to them, perhaps, but not correct them. Therein lies the worst kind of fanaticism.
If that is true, then either all Protestants are wrong and not saved, or all Catholics are wrong and not saved. One can play that game with Methodists and Anglicans, and we rapidly come to the place where nobody is saved except me. It also leads to intolerance in science/religion issues. Perhaps that is what is happening here.
Your counterexample is weak. Romans promises that even those without the law can recognize God’s “eternal power and divine nature”, but doesn’t promise any more except for the sense of a moral law within (see chapter 2). That’s not the Bible or Christianity, let alone your or my particular way of meshing science and theology. Acknowledging that God will allow even the saved to sometimes be deceived about science will go a long way towards the humility that we all need.
In part of your “As well”s, you state,
That’s a wonderful faith statement. But that is all it is, and it is faith in Hugh Ross, not God. You don’t understand, but you maintain. Don’t you understand how weak this argument is? Furthermore, your faith appears to be misplaced. It is not the constant decay rates, or even the physical constants, that are foundational to our universe. It is God Who is. If He chose to do it another way, the universe would be different. He may or may not have had the option to do it another way, but we are so far from thinking His thoughts after Him that we have no way of knowing unless He told us whether the constants could be slightly different. All we can really do is to find out what He has done (and even then not completely), and that is what science is about.
I agree when you say,
Even if YEC is correct, I am still glad that OEC is out there, particularly so that people like you can maintain their belief in God. Who knows? I may be wrong, and OEC may be right, or even YUC may be right. I think the proper course of action to take is to believe the evidence, and to try to fit the scientific and theological data together as well as one can, while leaving open the possibility for correction. That doesn’t mean that one should not argue. But it does mean that one should take care to keep one’s arguments logical and not go beyond the evidence without recognizing it, and to be charitable towards all.
I am out of time for now, but will try to get to your material on radiometric dating later.
Paul Giem,
I respectfully agree to disagree with you. And will no further reply to your posts.
bornagain77 at 59
Now that your point it out, their policy is:
I am deleting the copy of Moore’s article at 38 and replacing it with a link to that article.
Please extract/comment on specific points you wish to make from the article.
Thanks for correcting the oversight, and deleting the entry DLH. I will not need anything further from it, since you have read it. (As a side note I only extracted parts of his article that were pertinent to points you were pressing me on to answer, there is quite a bit more to his article if you are interested, I think the young man, Moore, has quite a head on his shoulders).
Rude (58) –Don’t we know via a combination of factors—faith and evidence?
Yes, but what can we oblige others to accept? I think we can oblige acceptance of a rate of radioactive decay or a measurement of a red shift. I think we can oblige acceptance of a inference that those measurements indicate the earth or universe to be of a particular age. I don’t think we can oblige acceptance that that inference is true i.e. that some yet to be discovered factor will completely overturn it.
But purely blind faith in what one wants to be true (be it Darwin or the Bible)—what good is it? Faith that accepts no challenge, one would think, is weak faith.
Very good point. We should not confuse what we want to be with what is.
But I suspect some would wish to rely on subjective experience alone. They just feel that the Bible (or Darwin) is true and require no refuting or bolstering facts.
And that might be enough if the subjective experience is powerful enough but how could you convince another of the truth of your subjective experience? By a change in lifestyle, yes, but not by the scientific method.
That doesn’t mean what happened to you didn’t, btw, it just means that one can’t teach it in a science class.
Thanks tribune7, for qualifying and acknowledging the differences between facts, inferences, and the conclusions drawn from those inferences. That science is too often equated with the latter speaks to the nature of the debate.
Most of us who hold to a six day creation have no problem with observed data, nor acknowledging the possibility of various inferences being true. However we tend to reject many of the dogmatic world view declarations that are built upon those inferences, or the a priori frameworks into which those inferences are forced to fit by one group or another.
I readily confess that the Six Day Creation is my own a priori theological bias, based on the Biblical account, as plainly read, with no equivocation. It’s also my philosophical belief that pragmatic objectivity is humanly impossible when considering origins. This likely is, and always will be, a matter of individual choice. I’m unconvinced that anyone is ever truly objective, or capable of being so.
My view that there were six literal creation days will be properly challenged by the exegetical demonstration of a consistent application of day-ageism (or whatever alternate) within the text itself (appropriately and systematically addressing the peripheral theological issues) not a plausible-sounding rationalization between scripture, and the prevailing, contemporary, transitory scientific assumptions about the nature and age of the universe.
That said, I’m agnostic as to the age of the universe itself, as I am to whether humankind possesses the faculties to accurately assess this fact in the first place. At the very least, the lack of humility among the dogmatists is an indication that we are nowhere near having these things figured out.
As a time-bound species, we may never know with unequivocal certainty the what, how, and when, in regards to the creation of the universe, just as we may never know what happens beyond the event horizon of a black hole. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep on searching — only that we would benefit by assuming the higher wisdom that comes with the acceptance that currently, no soul possesses anything beyond the faintest notion.
Apollos
Good points, That “science” is presented as the final arbiter of truth and that “science” can only consider the material pretty much sums up the problem.
It’s also my philosophical belief that pragmatic objectivity is humanly impossible when considering origins.
To really test your faith consider that according to Genesis, plants appeared before the sun
And to really have some fun consider the ways how that might be possible (and you can).
With that said I wouldn’t want them taught in science class.
When all knowledge is revealed I think Genesis is going to found on the money. Of course that is a statement of faith.
tribune7 wrote:
Indeed, plants on Day 3 and the sun on Day 4 — this leaves an entire 24 hours that plants would have been without the sun after their genesis. I will lock a plant in a closet for 24 hours and see if it survives.
This seems like more of a problem for the day-agers than for the six day crowd.
I can hardly imagine that the phrase “Let there be light” (Gen 1:3) when uttered by God would have been anticlimactic, with light waiting until day 4 to make its appearance. Seeing that we have the declaration of light in verse 3 (day 1) we can assume light was present in some form even if there wasn’t a gigantic flaming ball of hydrogen at the time.
Apparently light is present in New Jerusalem (Rev 21:23 above) when the necessity of sun and moon have ceased; so there are no exegetical problems with light preceding the sun that I can see.
Nor would I — just as I believe other OOL presuppositions and storytelling don’t belong.
Apollos — Nor would I — just as I believe other OOL presuppositions and storytelling don’t belong.
Dittos to that.
As a side note I am amazed at how well, in many instances scripture does line up with OEC.
Genesis 1:1-3
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
The Big Bang refers to the time some 13.7 billion years ago, when the entire universe burst into existence from a space smaller than the width of an atom. All the energy that composes this vast universe came from this event. All sub-atomic particles were forged out of energy in this event. Today sub-atomic particles can only absorb and release certain amounts of energy since the pressures and temperatures are no longer high enough to forge them completely new out of energy. With the validation of general relativity, scientists say even time and space were created in the Big Bang. For the first 400,000 years of our universe’s expansion, the universe was a seething maelstrom of energy and sub-atomic particles. This maelstrom was so hot, that sub-atomic particles trying to form into atoms would have been blasted apart instantly, and so dense, that light could not travel more that a short distance before being absorbed. If you could somehow live long enough to look around in such conditions, you would see nothing but brilliant white light in all directions. When the cosmos was about 400,000 years old, it had cooled to about the temperature of the surface of the sun. The last light from the “Big Bang” shone forth at that time. This “light” is still detectable today as Cosmic Background Radiation. This 400,000 year old “baby” universe entered into a period of darkness. When the dark age of the universe began, the cosmos was a formless sea of particles. By the time the dark age ended, a couple of hundred million years later, the universe lit up again; by the light of some of the galaxies and stars that had been formed during this dark era. It was during the dark age of the universe that the heavier chemical elements, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and most of the rest, were first forged, by nuclear fusion inside the stars, out of the universe’s primoridial hydrogen and helium. This process of forging heavier elements out of hydrogen and helium is called the nucleo-synthesis. (As a sidelight to this, every class of elements that exists on the periodic table of elements is necessary for complex carbon-based life to exist on earth. As well, many compounds and elements, such as water and carbon, display many stunningly unique characteristics that dramatically appear to be designed). It was also during this dark period of the universe that the great structures of the modern universe were first forged. Super-clusters, of thousands of galaxies stretching across millions of light years, had their foundations laid in the dark age of the universe. During this time the infamous “missing dark matter”, (God), was exerting more gravity in some areas than in other areas; drawing in hydrogen and helium gas, causing the formation of mega-stars. These mega-stars were massive, weighing in at 20 to more than 100 times the mass of the sun. The crushing pressure at their cores made them burn through their fuel in only a million years. It was here, in these short lived mega-stars under these crushing pressures, that the chemical elements that are necessary for life were first forged out of the hydrogen and helium. The reason astronomers can’t see the light from these first mega-stars, during this early dark era of the universe’s history, is because the mega-stars were shrouded in thick clouds of hydrogen and helium gas. These thick clouds prevented the mega-stars from spreading their light thru the cosmos as they forged the elements necessary for future life to exist on earth. After about 200 million years, the end of the dark age came to the cosmos. The universe was finally expansive enough to allow the dispersion of the thick hydrogen and helium “clouds”. With the continued expansion of the universe, the light (energy), of normal stars and dwarf galaxies, was finally able to shine through the thick clouds of hydrogen and helium gas, bringing the dark age to a close.
Job 38:4-11
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched a line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth and issued from the womb; When I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band; When I fixed my limit for it, and set bars and doors; When I said, ‘This far you may come but no farther, and here your proud waves must stop!’
Off Topic;
This is cool video on the “Christian” protein molecule, Laminin.
http://www.godtube.com/view_vi.....41aca61093
bornagain77,
I promised to follow up on the rest of your post (36).
You mention that YEC’s “pick and choose” when they allow certain types of decay to occur pre-fall. YEC’s have always allowed for cell death, as it has been implicitly assumed that Adam and Eve would eat fruit and dress the garden, thus leading to plant cell death. Most YEC’s would, with some reflection, allow for animal cell death, as otherwise one must assume that red blood cells must last forever and that no walking is done.
Furthermore, most OEC’s would agree that human death did not occur before human sin. So if OEC’s get to “pick and choose” which kinds of decay are and are not allowed before the Fall, why should not YEC’s without it being fatal to their “preconceived position”? You may not agree with exactly where they draw the line, but you will in that case have to show specifically where they are wrong, not simply disagree with the principle of picking and choosing.
The idea that this is “[b]ad science” seems to come from the idea that scientific theories cannot adjust to the known facts. That idea itself is bad science. Newton did not propose his gravitational constant by some kind of theoretical deduction. He obtained it by measurement, and incorporated an experimentally determined constant into a theory that had no way of predetermining that constant. Was Newton’s theory therefore “[b]ad science”? It is entirely reasonable to look at the facts and use them in construction of a theory.
Not being a YUC, I don’t mess with the “constants in the Anthropic Principle”. But if I did, or more precisely if God did, it could easily be on the same basis that other miracles happen, such as the Resurrection, the feeding of the 5,000. or the exodus and various plagues. We aren’t required to live in a perfectly natural universe.
The article that you have linked to by Greg Moore deserves some thought. So I will make some comments on it.
The introduction is clear and relatively fair. I had only minor questions about the article until it got to the discussion section of the helium diffusion rates section. But here we have a major problem. The references are to Kevin Henke and Timothy Cristman, and to Greg Neyman who is simply recycling Henke. Your brilliant researcher has simply recycled the results of others.
Now, I don’t have a problem with that in principle. But someone who does that does not classify as a brilliant researcher, unless he reworks or rethinks the data. And there is no evidence that Moore has reworked the data. In fact, although Neyman and the later Henke both cite Russel Humphreys’ reply to the earlier Henke article, Moore acts as if the reply never existed.
Moore seems to be willing to raise objections without thinking about them. For example, his third example of a supposed error was to claim that Humphreys erroneously failed to consider the influence of changing temperatures on the different models. That is in fact incorrect. The model first presented by Humprheys, understandably, was one in which the temperature was held constant. But Humphreys did consider a wide variety of models with varying temperature, concluding that the only long-age model that accounted for the data had the zircons (and the rock around them) at around the temperature of dry ice, which is not a realistic temperature. As has been pointed out by wombatty (61), Humphreys again pointed this out, and Moore missed both times. So much for careful scholarship.
In fact, this is one that Moore should have caught even if Humphreys had not repeated it. All it takes is to read Henke critically, then compare Henke with Humphreys. But what we have here is selective hyperskepticism (sound familiar?).
The experiment as done is not definitive. It should be repeated in other laboratories, and with other cores, and I agree with the critics (and said so before I read them) that the helium-3 content should be measured to rule out helium diffusing into the zircons. But all that being said, it is data that fits a short age easily, and is difficult to make fit a long age,
The objection about helium diffusion being measured in a vacuum sounds good. However, Humphreys’ defense is ccorrect; measuring diffusion in a vacuum is standard. And I am inclined to discount the claim that a vacuum decreases diffusion significantly, not just because the procedure is standard but because I have seen it used in potassium-argon and argon-argon dating, where the claim is made (see here, especially p. 132) that argon underground diffuses faster than what the laboratory data suggests. This starts to look like geologists do not trust the laboratory unless it gives the “right” results.
In section 2, labeled Isochron Discordance, the review admits that the data are valid. It just says that the results are atypical and explainable on the basis of argon loss and the difficulty with resetting the samarium-neodymium isochron. Whether these results are atypical (his sense) or common (my sense) could be determined by someone going through randomly selected or complete raw data at a laboratory that does all four methods under consideration. That kind of study, to my knowledge, has not been done, or at least, has not been published.
I had to laugh at his comments regarding the Bass Rapids rocks:
That is, nearly all the ages matched, except for half of them. There were precisely two ages that matched. Talk about rose-colored glasses! That wouldn’t give me confidence in his assertion that most dates match, especially when I am familiar with (AFAIK) unselected data that don’t match, and the standard explanations why they are systematically discordant are physically unbelievable .
On Radiohalohalos, Moore lost me when he wrote, “There is no evidence radiohalos are the product of alpha particle decay”. Talk about hyperskepticism!
Fission track dating is a difficulty for those trying to explain radiometric dates on a short time scale without recourse to accelerated decay. That is why the RATE group investigated it. At present it supports either rapid decay or long age. However, Moore makes an interesting admission in this section: “It is common for fission track ages to disagree with the absolute ages of rock.” (They are usually younger.) So much for radiometric dates being almost always concordant.
Discussing nuclear decay theory, Moore reveals his prejudices: “There is no known means for how such individualized adjustments could have occurred naturally, nor has the RATE team proposed any.94 As a result, until the RATE team addresses this issue, these cannot be considered credible models.” Supernatural models are ruled out a priori. This sounds like some other conflicts UD readers may recognize. Actually, as long as there is some coherence in the data, a supernatural model that can make falsifiable predictions that have some corroboration would seem to qualify as science, at least under the Popperian definition.
Selective hyperskepticism is again on display in the following: “The cosmological cooling hypothesis is equally speculative.” Why is it that cosmic inflation is proposed seriously, with no known mechanism, in Big Bang cosmology, and accepted as science, while one can dismiss a cooling episode during the Flood as speculation? (For that matter, what about dark matter?) I’m not saying that either one will turn out to be right or wrong. I’m just saying that we have to be fair and allow some slack on both sides, or neither. I see no evidence that Moore has thought this through.
On the issue of carbon-14 dates, Moore has trouble with evaluating competing theories on their own merits. He cites as a deficiency, “Again, this is based on the young-earth view of the Flood.” Well, what did he expect a Flood model of carbon-14 to be based on? If one is going to build a Flood model for carbon-14, it helps to assume a Flood.
Moore states, without any research, that “Scientists have found fossil fuels vary widely in carbon-14 content. Some have no detectable carbon-14; some have quite a lot. This correlates with the natural radioactivity of the rocks surrounding the fossil fuels, particularly uranium-thorium decay series isotopes.” He got this idea from Kathleen Hunt, as his reference shows, but there is no actual evidence that there is any correlation of the carbon-14 content of coals with the surrounding radioactivity. In fact, preliminary calculations suggest that neutrons underground are orders of magnitude too sparse to account for the amount of carbon-14 found in coal (see here, pp. 186-187, for references, plus Rotta R, 2004. Evolutionary explanations for anomalous radiocarbon in coal? Creation Research Society Quarterly 41(2):104–112).
Moore completely loses it in the next part of the paragraph:
Where is there any evidence that bacteria produce any isotopes of carbon? They do concentrate carbon-12 slightly. But this effect is measured in parts per thousand, and they have to have carbon-12 and carbon-13 present in order to do it. In an environment free from carbon-14, there is no way bacteria will produce carbon-14. This is just very poorly thought out. In fact, in Moore’s source, Hunt, the bacterial contamination hypothesis was heavily discounted.
Moore’s penchant for just-so stories is on display in the final paragraph of this section: “While little research has been conducted on the source of the carbon-14 in coal and diamonds, there are plausible explanations for its existence.” Why do research when a (superficially) plausible explanation of the data exists? Again, this may remind UD readers of other conflicts.
Moore may eventually turn out to be right in his overall assessment. But based on his lack of understanding and selective hyperskepticism, I would not have confidence in his conclusion, and if one is arguing for long age, hopefully a better analyst could be found. Certainly, a better analyst is needed.
Something I found striking when reading the references is that most of Moore’s references for his objections came from TalkOrigins. A major source actually came from a professed (and AFAIK genuine) Christian who posted the screed against Humprheys. I find it interesting that at least some Christians believing in long ages have no compunction posting on TalkOrigins, and that TalkOrigins welcomes them, even though they strongly disagree on the presence of an intervening God. I’m not sure that one can make too much of this, but it is fascinating.
Apollos (70) [and tribune7 (69)],
Regarding plants before the sun, I can go you one better. In my part of the country there are plants that grow for months, and stay green, without any sunlight whatsoever.
They’re illegal, but that’s another matter (come to think of it, the two are related 
). Didn’t God create light on the first day?
In my part of the country there are plants that grow for months, and stay green, without any sunlight whatsoever
Paul, I think we’ve just proved Genesis
Just to pit my ha’penneth in. Aren’t Darwinists fond of saying that nature looks designed but it isn’t?