How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments? Copyright Statement   Copyright © 1995 Dave E. Matson. Copies of this paper may be made and sold by Edward T. Babinski, the National Center for Science Education, and all other groups who are battling the attempts by "scientific" creationists to adversely affect the quality of science education. All […]

Dr. Hovind (R1): The atmospheric C-14 is presently only 1/3 of the way to an equilibrium value which will be reached in 30,000 years. This nullifies the carbon-14 method as well as demonstrating that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. The above is offered as a simple fact of research. Knowing how faulty […]

  Dr. Hovind (R3): The initial C-14 content cannot be known. Different parts of the same sample often yield different ratios of C-14/C-12. Various living samples give very different ratios. With at least one notable exception on the books, plants and animals get their carbon-14 from the atmosphere. Plants take it in directly, and animals […]

Dr. Hovind (R6): The shape of the curve of the line is based on too few real measurements to be reliable. It’s not clear to me what Dr. Hovind is talking about. If he is referring to the carbon-14 decay curve then he has demonstrated, once again, his ignorance of radiometric dating. The decay curve […]

  Dr. Hovind (R4): It is very difficult or impossible to prove that a given sample has not been contaminated. Parent or daughter products could have leached in or out of the sample. In the case of carbon-14 dating, the daughter product is ordinary nitrogen and plays no role in the dating process. We are […]

  Dr. Hovind (R2): The C-14 decay rate is not constant. Several factors, including the 11-year sunspot cycle, affects its rate of decay. It is painfully obvious that Dr. Hovind knows next to nothing about carbon-14 dating! Changes in the sunspot cycle do have a noticeable, short-term effect on the rate of C-14 production inasmuch […]

  Dr. Hovind (R5): The C-14 cannot be accurately measured. It makes up less than one part per million in the atmosphere, and claiming to be able to measure accurately to 7 decimal places is not reasonable. This is similar to an argument put out by Harold Slusher (1981, p.45). Dr. Hovind adds the bizarre […]

The following material has been taken from a sheet entitled Several Faulty Assumptions Are Used in all Radiometric Dating Methods. Carbon 14 is used for this example:, which was put out by Dr. Hovind. The Atmospheric C-14 is Only 1/3 of the Way to Equilibrium Radiometric Decay Rates are Not Constant The Initial C-14 Content […]

References Alfven, Hannes, and Gustaf Arrhenius. 1976. Evolution of the Solar System NASA SP345, National Space and Aeronautics Administration, Washington, D.C. Aller, M. F. 1971. “Promethium in the star HR465” Sky & Telescope, vol.41, pp.220-222 Anderson, J. L. 1972. “Non-Poisson distributions observed during counting of certain carbon-14-labeled organic (sub) monolayers” Physical Chemistry Journal, vol.76, pp.3603-3612 […]

  A6. The Distance to Supernova SN1987A and the Speed of Light When supernova SN1987A exploded, its light soon struck a ring of gas some distance from the star and illuminated it. As viewed from Earth, the ring appeared around the supernova about a year after it exploded. Its angular size combined with the time […]

  A5. A Couple of Ice Age Problems Dr. Hovind believes that there was only one ice age which began sometime after Noah’s flood ended, that being around 4300 years ago by his reckoning. Thus, the world moved from a warm, tropical climate to an ice age only a few thousand years ago. There are […]

  A4. Mammoths: Were They QuickFrozen? The claim that mammoths were quickfrozen goes back at least several decades as an old Reader’s Digest article will testify. It has no merit whatsoever. To begin with, mammoths were adapted for severely cold weather as their heavy fur, complete with a thick, insulating underwool, and a thick layer […]

  A2. Water and Vapor and Noah’s Flood Attempting to supply the water for Noah’s flood is a much greater problem than one might realize. True, one can simply say that God did it and leave it at that. However, that argument will support the cosmological views of any and every religion, and they all […]

A3. Coal and Oil The amount of coal and oil existing today greatly exceeds what could have been produced by decaying plants and animals in a few thousand years. It is naive to think that today’s coal and oil came from the buried remains of Noah’s antediluvian world. Most creationists simply have no idea how […]

A1. Woodmorappe’s Collection of Bad Dates Eat one of those and your tummy will curl right up! Seriously speaking, a favorite attack on radiometric dating involves dangling "horror stories" about gross errors before the reader, thus giving the impression that radiometric dating is totally unreliable. Woodmorappe (1979), with his collection of some 350 bad radiometric […]

We will now look at several arguments, which may or may not be supported by Dr. Hovind, that enjoy a wide circulation. I will also present a couple of arguments indicating that the earth is much older than a few thousand years. Woodmorappe’s Collection of Bad Radiometric Dates Supplying the Water for Noah’s Flood Coal […]

Rejoinder to Cliff Hanlon’s “Three R’s” Dave E. Matson   August 3, 1998 Cliff Hanlon, President The Berea Foundation Dear Mr. Hanlon, Your rebuttal of my article relating to the speed of light was forwarded to me via the Internet Infidels, a fine organization which carries a web copy of my book “How Good Are […]

  Cosmological Kalamity Dan Barker "Daddy, if God made everything, who made God?" my daughter Kristi asked me, when she was five years old. "Good question," I replied. Even a child sees the problem with the traditional cosmological argument. The old cosmological argument claimed that since everything has a cause, there must be a first […]

“Did Jesus Really Rise From The Dead?” Debate between Michael Horner and Dan Barker. This debate transcript is copyrighted. © Copyright 1996 by Dan Barker and Michael Horner. All rights reserved. Please do not make copies of this transcript for distribution in any form without permission from the copyright owners. The debate was transcribed by […]

Ed Babinski [ Author Bio ] Brief Testimony from an Ex-Christian (1995) Babinski’s post to the EX-TIAN mailing list summarizing his own deconversion. Cretinism or Evilution? [ Index ] (Off Site) A periodical edited by Babinski on creationism vs. evolution. Does the Bible Speak of the Brain? (1993) If the authors of the Bible were inspired by an all-knowing God, […]

The Book of Mormon and the King James Version (1999) Curt van den Heuvel   Introduction The King James Version of the Bible is, in all likelihood, the most successful of all the English translations. Volumes have been written on its distinctive and rhythmic style, and it is still regarded as a triumph of modern […]

Question: Yes Dr. Craig, I’m slightly puzzled. You, um, said in the beginning of your argument that the universe cannot be infinite because it leads to, um, logical contradictions, such as, "How can you have inifnity minus infinity?", and I accepted your argument at that point. But then in my mind, God Himself cannot be […]

About This Transcript Jeffery J. Lowder   This is a transcript of a debate on the existence of God, between Dr. William Lane Craig and Dr. Corey Washington, which took place on 9 February 1995 at the University of Washington, before an audience well over 1500 people. I have taken the time to transcribe this […]

School Vouchers Pro Education Vouchers: America Can’t Afford to Wait (1991) (Off Site) by Tom Tancredo “The shortcomings of government schools in America resemble those of the former Soviet Union.” The Legal Case–and the Fairness Case–for Vouchers (1996) (Off Site) by Clint Bolick “This is not about the establishment of religion. It is about fulfilling a guarantee […]