Below is the study notes for the second of two classes that I taught on evidences.

Wednesday night we noticed that Antony Flew has become a deist after decades of proclaiming the lack of evidence for God after studying the complex nature of DNA.

Reasons for studying evidences:

1 Peter 3:15 - But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; NKJV

Keep the young people from being led astray when they go to college.

Convert the lost

Keep from being intimidated…

Keep from being influenced by the mainstreamed media

The 1995 official Position Statement of the American National Association of Biology Teachers: The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is effected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments.

George Gaylord Simpson: "Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind."

Beware of vague terms and shifting definitions: Key terms that are subject to manipulation are science and evolution. Watch out for "bait and switch" tactics, by which you are led to agree with a harmless definition and then the term is used in a very different sense. An example is "You believe in dog breeding, don’t you? Well, did you know that dog breeding is an example of evolution? Now that you know that, and have seen all those breeds of dogs for yourself, you realize that you actually believe in evolution, don’t you?…

Is evolution scientific?

The Law of Biogenesis: This law says that life only comes from life. Life never comes from non-living material. The theory of evolution, by its very nature, and when forced to its logical end, demands that life came from non-life. Evolution requires that, on at least one occasion, life arose spontaneously from non-living matter. The principle of philosophical necessity states: "Something cannot come from nothing, therefore something always was." Something is eternal is it more reasonable to assume:

a. that matter always existed, and that life and intelligence came from lifeless matter, or

b. that mind or intelligence has always existed, and that matter, including living matter, came from this supreme intelligence?

The Laws of Thermodynamics: The First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics are two of the most basic and certain laws known to the physical sciences today.

1. The First Law of Thermodynamics says that while matter and energy can be converted from one form to another, the total amount remains unchanged. There is nothing new being created today.

2. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that although the total amount of matter and energy remains the same, some of this energy is constantly being converted to non-reversible heat energy. In other words, energy is constantly becoming less available for use. Thus, the amount of useful energy in the universe is always decreasing, leading to a tendency in all areas toward greater randomness and simplicity. Basically, the universe is wearing out.

3. The theory of Evolution suggests that, instead of a tendency toward greater randomness and simplicity in the universe, there is a tendency toward greater organization and complexity. Eventually every organism becomes a bigger, more complex organism.

Law of science: basic, unchanging principle of nature; a scientifically observed phenomenon which has been subjected to very extensive measurements and experimentation and has repeatedly proved to be invariable throughout the known universe (e.g. the law of gravity, the laws of motion).

The second law of Thermodynamics describes basic principles familiar in everyday life. It is partially a universal law of decay; the ultimate cause of why everything ultimately falls apart and disintegrates over time. Material things are not eternal. Everything appears to change eventually, and chaos increases. Nothing stays as fresh as the day one buys it, clothing becomes faded, threadbare, and ultimately returns to dust. Everything ages and wears out. Even death is a manifestation of this law. The effects of the Second Law are all around, touching everything in the universe.

In more understandable terms, this law observes that the fact that the useable energy in the universe is becoming less and less. Ultimately there would be no available energy left. Stemming from this fact we find that the most probable state for any natural system is one of disorder. All natural systems degenerate when left to themselves.

It is well know that, left to themselves, chemical compounds ultimately break apart into simpler materials; they do not ultimately become more complex. Outside forces can increase order for a time…However, such reversal cannot last forever. Once the force is released, processes return to their natural direction – greater disorder.

Evolution claims that over billions of years everything is basically developing UPWARD, becoming more orderly and complex. However, this basic law of science (2^nd law of Thermodynamics) says the opposite. The pressure is DOWNWARD, toward simplification and disorder.

What actually happens when a dead plant receives energy from the Sun? The internal organization in the plant decreases; it tends to decay and break apart into its simplest components. The heat of the Sun only speeds the disorganization process.

"Another way of stating the second law is, ‘The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!’ Viewed that way we can see the second law all about us. We have to work hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our own bodies in perfect working order; how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself – and that is what the second law is all about." Isaac Asimov

The Fossil Record: Today the fossil record is cited by most people as providing the greatest support for the theory of evolution. Consider the following:

1. If evolution is true, we would expect to find only the simplest form of life at the base of the fossil record. However, this is not the case. At the very lowest point in the fossil record we find thousands of highly animals and plants. There is no slow increase of animal complexity in the fossil record. The evidence shows that complex life forms have been here along!

2. If evolution is true: the fossil record should contain many transitional forms of animals, that is, animals that are only partially complete, forms of animals. But there are none! All of the fossil remains that have been found are of animals that are fully developed with all the features that distinguish the group of animals to which it belongs.

How radiometric dating works in general
Radioactive elements decay gradually into other elements. The original element is called the parent, and the result of the decay process is called the daughter element. Assuming we start out with pure parent, as time passes, more and more daughter will be produced. By measuring the ratio of daughter to parent, we can measure how old the sample is. A ratio of zero means an age of zero. A higher ratio means an older age. A ratio of infinity (that is, all daughter and no parent) means an age of essentially infinity.
Each radioactive element has a half-life, which tells how long it takes for half of the element to decay. For potassium 40, the half-life is about 1.3 billion years. In general, in one half-life, half of the parent will have decayed. In two half-lives, half of the remainder will decay, meaning 3/4 in all will have decayed. In general, in n half-lives, only 1/(2^n) of the original parent material will be left.
Potassium 40 (K40) decays to argon 40, which is an inert gas, and to calcium. Potassium is present in most geological materials, making potassium-argon dating highly useful if it really works. Potassium is about 1/40 of the earth's crust, and about 1/10,000 of the potassium is potassium 40. Uranium decays to lead by a complex series of steps. Rubidium decays to strontium. Thus we obtain K-Ar dating, U-Pb dating, and Rb-Sr dating, three of the most common methods.

Radiometric Dating Involves At Least Eight Untestable Assumptions:
(1) Beginning conditions known. (2) Ratio of Daughter to natural. (3) Constant Decay Rate.
(4-7) No leaching or addition of parent or daughter. (8) All assumptions valid for billions of years
"ASSUMPTIONS", HENRY FAUL, "Two important assumptions are implicit in this equation: First, that we are dealing with a closed system. And second, that no atoms of the daughter were present in the system when it formed. These assumptions furnish the most serious limitations on the accumulation clock. Rigorously closed systems probably do not exist in nature, but surprisingly, many minerals and rocks satisfy the requirement well enough to be useful for nuclear age determination. The problem is one of judicious geologic selection.", AGES OF ROCKS, PLANETS & STARS, p.vi.

DAUGHTER/PARENT/LOSE/GAIN, STEVEN M. STANLEY, Johns Hopkins Univ., "In accepting a date, even with a plus-or-minus figure, we are assuming that a dated rock has remained a closed system – i.e., that it has neither lost nor received parent or daughter atoms from some other source. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Rocks can, in fact, both gain and lose atoms... These types of errors, which can beset even the most meticulous radiometric analysis, often add up to sizable total errors..." EARTH AND LIFE THROUGH TIME, 1986, p.122

SHIFTY URANIUM, J.D. MACDOUGALL, "The fourth assumption presupposes that the concentration of uranium in any specimen has remained constant over the specimen's life. ...ground-water percolation can leach away a proportion of the uranium present in the rock crystals. The mobility of the uranium is such that as one part of a rock formation is being improvised another part can become abnormally enriched...at relatively low temperatures." Scientific American, Vol.235 (6):118

"DATING OF MOON SAMPLES: PITFALLS AND PARADOXES", Everly Driscoll, "What complicates things for the uranium-lead method is that non-radiogenic lead 204, 206, 207 and 208 also exist naturally, and scientists are not sure what the ratios of non-radiogenic to radiogenic lead were early in the moon's history...The problem of how much lead was around to begin with still remains...If all of the age-dating methods (rubidium-strontium, uranium-lead and potassium-argon) had yielded the same ages, the picture would be neat. But they haven't. The lead ages, for example, have been consistently older...Isotopic ages have been obtained for material from five landing sites on the moon--those of Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15 and Luna 16; each site has a different age. But in a given site, the ages also vary...Ideally, however, any one basaltic rock from a given site should yield the same isotopic age, regardless of the method used.", Science News, Vol.101, p.12

CONSTANT RATES? Frederic B. Jueneman, FAIC, "There has been in recent years the horrible realization that radiodecay rates are not as constant as previously thought, nor are they immune to environmental influences. And this could mean that the atomic clocks are reset during some global disaster, and events which brought the Mesozoic to a close may not be 65 million years ago but, rather, within the age and memory of man." Ind. Research & Development, p.21, 6/1982

"But what about the radiometric dating methods? The earth is supposed to be nearly 5 billion years old, and some of these methods seem to verify ancient dates for many of earth's igneous rocks. The answer is that these methods, are far from infallible and are based on three arbitrary assumptions (a constant rate of decay, an isolated system in which no parent or daughter element can be added or lost, and a known amount of the daughter element present initially)."

One example is the rocks from the Kaupelehu Flow, Hualalai Volcano in Hawaii which was known to have erupted in 1800-1801. These rocks were dated by a variety of different methods. Of 12 dates reported the youngest was 140 million years and the oldest was 2.96 billion years. The dates average 1.41 billion years. [48]"
Another source said that about 5 or 6 of the historic lava flows give ages in the hundreds of thousands of years. Geologists explain the Kaupelehu date by the lava being cooled rapidly in deep ocean water and not being able to get rid of its enclosed argon.

"Situations for which we have both the carbon-14 and potassium-argon ages for the same event usually indicate that the potassium-argon `clock' did not get set back to zero. Trees buried in an eruption of Mount Rangotito in the Auckland Bay area of New Zealand provide a prime example. The carbon-14 age of the buried trees is only 225 years, but some of the overlying volcanic material has a 465,000-year potassium-argon age."
[Harold Coffin, Origin by Design, page 400.]

Still another evidence for problems with radiometric dating was given in a recent talk I attended by a man who had been an evolutionist and taken a course in radiometric dating. The teacher gave 14 assumptions of radiometric dating and said something like "If creationists got a hold of these, they could cut radiometric dating to pieces."

Wood embedded in "110 million year old limestone"
Radio carbon dated at 890 years old!

Carbonized stick embedded in "110 million year old limestone"
Radio carbon dated at 12,900 years old!

Mt. St. Helens
The new lava dome (dacite) from the at Mount St. Helens was formed in 1986. In 1997 five specimens were taken from this dome at five different locations and subjected to conventional Potassium-Argon dating. The results indicated ages of less than one half to almost three million years old, all from eleven year old rock.