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Speedrace's avatar
3
Speedrace
1641
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Topic
#727

Does Science Disprove A Young Earth?

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
6
Better sources
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4
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
1
2

After 2 votes and with 11 points ahead, the winner is...

killshot
Tags
Science
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Last updated date
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Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
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killshot's avatar
14
killshot
1489
rating
3
debates
33.33%
won
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Round 1
Speedrace's avatar
Speedrace
Con
#1
I am arguing that science does prove Christianity, or at least supports it more than atheism. The burden of proof is shared, and neither I nor my opponent can solely critique each other’s arguments. However, I will ask that neither of us make any new claims after the 3rd round so that we aren’t presenting stuff at the last minute and aren’t able to address it. New evidence is ok as long as it is addressing the opponent’s claim.

Carbon-Dating

First, carbon14 dating supports Christianity. For years, it has been believed that it supports atheism, but the opposite is true. Carbon 14 dating relies on the amount
of carbon14 left in an organism or organic material after a number of years. The process of dating only dates back to when a living organism died, because when it died it stopped taking in carbon 14, and the carbon14 started to disappear completely.

Scientists measure the amount of carbon12 and carbon14 in a sample. Carbon14 is radioactive and decays, but carbon12 does not and stays the same. Because of this, they can compare the ratio of carbon14 to carbon12 in the dead sample to the normal ratio in living samples and get an approximate age for how long the sample has been dead. This, in some cases, can also be used for inorganic materials such as diamonds. The maximum age it can measure up to is about 60,000 years.

For carbon14 dating to work in the atheistic worldview, the presupposition is commonly made that the ratio of carbon14 to carbon12 in the atmosphere has remained the same. This means that the amount of carbon14 the atmosphere loses is equal to the amount of carbon14 it loses and has always remained this way. However, this is not true, and this was even noted by Dr. Willard Libby, who first discovered carbon14 dating.

"In Dr. Libby’s original work, he noted that the atmosphere did not appear to be in equilibrium. This was a troubling idea for Dr. Libby since he believed the world was billions of years old and enough time had passed to achieve equilibrium. Dr. Libby’s calculations showed that if the earth started with no 14C in the atmosphere, it would take up to 30,000 years to build up to a steady state (equilibrium)...Dr. Libby chose to ignore this discrepancy (nonequilibrium state), and he attributed it to experimental error. However, the discrepancy has turned out to be very real. The ratio of 14C /12C is not constant." [1]

From this, we can conclude that the Earth must be younger than 30,000 years, since it takes that amount of time to reach equilibrium and the Earth has not yet.

We also know that the Earth's magnetic field keeps out carbon14; the stronger it is, the less C14 that enters the atmosphere. The atmosphere is much weaker than it was in the past:

"Earth’s magnetic field is fading. Today it is about 10 percent weaker than it was when German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss started keeping tabs on it in 1845, scientists say." [3]
 
This means that there is more carbon14 now in the atmosphere than there was in the past, which causes carbon14 dating years to be incorrect because they use the incorrect assumption that the Earth has been in equilibrium for long enough.

The amazing thing is that the Bible supports this! If we operate with an assumption that the flood in Genesis happened, it would have buried a lot of vegetation with carbon that would become our fossil fuels now. We can infer from the amount of fossil fuels we see now how much vegetation must have been present prior to the flood. With those numbers, the plants would have taken in a lot more C14 and there would have been 500x less C14 in the atmosphere pre-flood. [1]

If this is true, then the dates given by carbon-dating would be about 10x more than the true age. That means that the maximum age changes from 60,000 to 6,000, the exact age that the young Earth theory supports! [1]

Besides this, a team was formed to look at data censored by the scientific community. I won't go through all of their findings right now, but a key one looked at coal. The coal was said to have existed for millions of years, so after all of that time, there should be no trace if C14 because it would have decayed too much. However, they were will able to measure its C14. [1]

That alone is enough to prove a young earth, but there's still more!

Blue Stars

Blue stars are extremely massive, and they burn through their fuel relatively quickly in comparison to smaller stars, like our sun. Because of this, they can only exist for a few million years. [2] This means that there should be no blue stars left since the atheist worldview says that the universe is about 14.6 billion years old. However, there are still blue stars in the sky, supporting a young earth.

There are plenty more, but for now, I will give my opponent the opportunity to present his own arguments and refute mine.

Sources:

[3] J. Roach, National Geographic News, September 9, 2004.
killshot's avatar
killshot
Pro
#2
Opening statements:

I will be refuting my opponents erroneous claims in my next rebuttal. Firstly, I wanted to propose my own argument for this debate.

There are many disciplines in science, specifically physics, that disprove the young earth “hypothesis”. In order to invalidate its vacuous proposition, I will only need to successfully articulate one. I will use the speed of light.

Speed of light:

The speed of light (c) is constant (299, 792, 458 m/s) [1].

This speed is always constant, unless it’s passing through a medium. Even passing through a medium, the speed it travels between atoms is constant (c); the variation in observable speed is a result of the erratic absorption and re-emission of photons as atoms excite and return to ground state. The denser the medium is, the more it will slow light down. Light is only ever slowed down, it’s never increased, nor can it exceed its constant speed (c).

The speed of light is objectively verifiable, but this is one of the many things my contender is in conflict with while advocating for a young earth [2].

Light year:

s = 31,557,600 (seconds per year, 365.25 * 24 * 3600) [3]

A light year is the distance light travels during the span of one earth year (distance = c * s). One earth year is used, because time is relative to the observer's frame of reference while moving through space. Year is an arbitrary number; you could measure the distance of light in 2 seconds, 1 month, 10 years, etc.

One light year equates to approximately 9.46073047*10^15 m/s per earth year. [4]

Cosmological redshift:

Alexander Friedmann published a set of equations in 1922, known as the Friedmann equations which he derived from general relativity, showing that the universe might expand; additionally, his papers included his predicted expansion speed. [5]

Later, Edwin Hubble’s deep space observations led to the discovery that distant light is red-shifted, causing spectral lines to be displaced as the wavelength is lengthened, relative to its recessional velocity from earth. Spectral lines are basically the fingerprints of light; they are unique to the electron energy levels of the various elements that emit them. Red shifting is when an electromagnetic wave’s length is increased, decreasing its frequency. The change in wavelength results in a shift towards the red spectrum. Blue shifting would be the opposite effect, where wavelengths shorten, moving towards the blue spectrum. Eventually, these observations led to Hubble’s Law and constant. [6]

Because space is expanding, the intensity of the light will lessen (shift from blue to red) as it moves through space and its wavelength red-shifts. By observing its red shifted wavelength and accounting for the red shift rate, proportional to its recessional velocity from the observer, one can extrapolate the distance in light years that it traveled. Light observed from the cosmic microwave background radiation, the oldest observable light source in the universe, allows observers to see relics of our universe’s origins. Because space is expanding with an increasing rate, eventually the CMBR will be invisible to us, because it will be traveling away from us by expanding space at a rate faster than (c). [7][8]

This is one of the ways science has demonstrated the universe is at least 13.8 billion light years old. If one light year is one earth year, then the universe is at least 13.8 billion earth years old.

Young earth model:

u = 13.8 billion / 6,000 (year difference)

k = u * c (total distance per year in young earth model)

In order to subscribe to a young earth model, one must assume the speed of light is not (c). If light is traveling “13.8 billion light years” in approximately 6 thousand years, then light would need to travel at (k) m/s in order to reach us from the outer edges of the universe. If they wish to claim light travels at (c), then they would need to explain the red shifting and distance stars further than 6 thousand light years away. This preposterous claim is not demonstrable or rational, and it’s in conflict with objectively observable reality.

Conclusions:

There are a few conclusions, such as the following, that we can draw from this. Regardless of the extrapolated conclusion, it needs to be demonstrated to be the most parsimony.

  1. Reality isn’t real, or some variance of this argument. Given there is no way to falsify this claim, and I would argue that reality has to exist for at least the observer (whether real or not), we will need to assume the presupposition that reality is real for the purposes of this debate. If we don’t, we would have to assume that tomorrow light could travel at (x), and we’d have no foundation to base our models on.
  2. Magic, or some variance of this argument (ie: God or something else created the universe to “look” old, it used to be different and God changed it, or God created it old, etc). First, one would need to prove the God or “thing” exists, then they would need to prove it did what they say it did. This is not falsifiable, and there is no evidence to support any claim like this. By default, this is not the most parsimony explanation, and it violates Occam’s razor.
  3. Reality is real and the observations are correct. This is the most parsimony explanation, and it’s why it’s adopted by mainstream science. Physics works: it makes novel objectively verifiable predictions that are both falsifiable and testable.

If my contender wishes to assert the universe & earth are young, he will need to provide a more parsimony explanation than #3.

Sources:
  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light
  2. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/measure_c.html
  3. https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/time/seconds-in-year.html
  4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-year
  5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedmann_equations
  6. http://hosting.astro.cornell.edu/academics/courses/astro201/hubbles_law.htm
  7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift
  8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background

Round 2
Speedrace's avatar
Speedrace
Con
#3
Let's get into it.

Speed Of Light And Light Years

First of all, this argument is completely self-refuting. That is because the Big Bang Theory has a speed of light problem as well! In the model, some points of the universe would be a different temperature than others. However, as we measure temperature now, it is almost exactly the same everywhere. The problem with this is that in 14.6 billion years, there wouldn't be enough time for light to heat up the entire universe to the same temperature. This is called the horizon problem. [1]

In this regard, it is completely hypocritical for big bangers to point to light-travel time as a problem for creationists.

However, I still have to respond to it in regards to a young earth. There are many possible theories regarding this. First is the principle that light may have been faster in the past. Many people have proposed this theory. However, obviously, it would have drastically changed other thermodynamic principles, such as the heat put onto the Earth by the sun. This is why this theory is very weak.

However, a second a much more plausible theory is cosmological local time. This is an analogy:

"Imagine that a plane leaves a certain city at 4:00 p.m. for a two-hour flight. However, when the plane lands, the time is still 4:00. Since the plane arrived at the same time it left, we might call this an instantaneous trip. How is this possible? The answer has to do with time zones. If the plane left Kentucky at 4:00 p.m. local time, it would arrive in Colorado at 4:00 p.m. local time. Of course, an observer on the plane would experience two hours of travel. So, the trip takes two hours as measured by universal time. However, as long as the plane is traveling west (and providing it travels fast enough), it will always naturally arrive at the same time it left as measured in local time." [3]

Using local time only, the plane arrived instantaneously. Only universal time shows the trip it may have had to take. Likewise, the speed of light and universal time of the entire world has this principle. This means that if the Bible was referring to the young earth and light traveling to it in cosmological local time, that could explain how the light arrived instantaneously. 

Cosmological Red Shift

Redshift has been shown not to be reliable in measuring distances: 

“Quasar with enormous red shift found embedded in nearby spiral galaxy with far lower red shift: unsolvable riddle for big bang astronomy. This changes the whole view of the universe – big bang astronomy will never be the same.”

Redshift does not prove that the universe is billions of years old. Scientists assume that a star with a lower brightness must be further away, and one that is brighter is closer. However, this could easily be caused by obstructing matter in space that absorbs or scatters the light, and scientists have yet to distinguish between the two, so this in no way proves a billion-year-old universe. [5]

Sources:

[1] Lightman, A., Ancient Light, Harvard University Press, London, p. 58, 1991.
[2] Davies, P.C.W., Davis, T.M. and Lineweaver, C.H., Black holes constrain varying constants, Nature418(6898):602–603, 8 August 2002.
[4] (Dr. John G. Harnett, Australia 12 January 2005)
killshot's avatar
killshot
Pro
#4
I will be responding to my opponents erroneous rebuttals to light speeds, red-shift and universal time in my next post. This response, as previously promised, is only in response to his opening argument(s). I was going to keep this a scientific debate only, but my opponent opened the door to Christianity in his opening arguments.

Religious dogmatism:

“When a scientist’s interpretation of data does not match the clear meaning of the text in the Bible, we should never reinterpret the Bible. God knows just what He meant to say, and His understanding of science is infallible, whereas ours is fallible.”[0]

The above snippet is a direct quote from my opponent's first source, AiG. It’s basically stating that if science disagrees with their tribal-constructed, erroneous, contradicting and unoriginal archaic book, the old book should always be considered correct. Any demonstrably verifiable scientific observations about reality need to be contorted and blurred to confirm their presuppositions or disregarded entirely. This is make-believe, and this disingenuous reality rejecting worldview promotes faith over all logic, reason and evidence. As famously quoted by Aron Ra, “faith is the most dishonest position a person can have”. It’s a static position of irrational authoritarian dogma that is unable to change or advance in the presence of reason or new information. It’s equivalent to an individual plugging their ears and saying “blah blah blah” whenever someone presents facts that disagree with their dogmatic worldview.

AiG, like most religious organizations, focus their efforts on providing misleading, incomplete or inaccurate data to support their erroneous presuppositional religious world view. Science on the other hand, only cares about the summation of available facts. If C-14 dating doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work. There are plenty of other dating mechanisms available. Disproving this dating mechanism does not in any way prove a young earth. That being said, C-14 dating is a reliable method of dating, when used properly and objectively interpreted, and that is what I plan to address next.

Radiometric dating rebuttal:

It is true that shifts in atmospheric C-14 levels can affect the accuracy of radiocarbon dating in fossilized organic based materials; however, this is well understood and accounted for when using modern carbon based isotopic dating. There are many factors that can cause contamination and disrupt radiocarbon tests; this is true of nearly all testing mechanisms. To help avoid or mitigate contamination or incorrect results, numerous samples are simultaneously processed and their results are correlated to neighboring dated relics and fossils, geological strata assessments, other dating methods and scientific predictions. Radiometric tests are typically performed in conjunction with other testing methods, if available [17]; however, radiocarbon dating’s reliability is both demonstrably and objectively verifiable.

Because C-14 decays quickly, it’s only useful for fossils around 50 thousand years of age - give or take [4]. Older fossils are dated using a different isotope or method. There are numerous chronological dating methods available such as fossil indexes, nitrogen dating, fluorine absorption dating, sequential dating, morphological dating, melt inclusions, paleopalynology and tephrochronology, to name a few [18]. In addition to the chronological dating there are numerous absolute dating methods available such as radiocarbon dating, fission track dating, amino acid dating, archaeomagnetic dating, potassium-argon dating, uranium-thorium dating, rubidium-strontium dating, argon-argon dating, luminescence dating, iodine-xenon dating and datestones to, name a few [18]. Furthermore, there are numerous other crafty methods available, such as counting tree rings, which I will cover later.

C-14 decays into daughter elements, and those elements may or may not be affected by changing atmospheric C-14 levels. Analyzing the current levels of C-14 present in the fossil is only one part of the dating process. The C-14 levels are compared against their daughter isotopes to better determine decay rate and analyze their respective ratios [5].

Radiocarbon dating has been extensively tested and demonstrated to be reliable. Additionally, I think it’s worth adding that these dates are also correlated against various independent disciplines of science. Whether it’s biology, archaeology, geology, cosmology, history or others - they all roughly align and co-support each other. There are a plethora of factors taken into consideration while processing C-14 dating, and those factors go vastly beyond the limited and misleading scope presented by AiG and my opponent.

One of the best arguments for radiocarbon dating might be the simplest. It verifies novel testable objectively verifiable predictions made by science.

Rising C-14 rebuttal:

The amounts of C-14 is not rising steadily; rather, it’s been in fluctuation for at least the past several thousand years. This is demonstrable using C-14 dating in comparison with other dating techniques to determine it’s reliability. One example, bristlecone pines, which are native to the southwest, can live to be over 5,000 years old [8]. The rings vary from year to year based on rainfall. Correlating the outer rings of dead trees and the inner inner rings of younger trees, one can extrapolate a date that goes back many thousand years, spanning generations. The results of the C-14 dating came in slightly lower than the actual ring-counted age, giving C-14 dating an even larger grace for the vacuous young earth conspiracies [7][9].

Blue stars rebuttal:

Stars are forming and dying as we speak [11][12][13][14][15][16]. They were not all created at the universe’s inception, like you’re essentially implying. That being said, you’re entire argument disintegrates against the demonstrable facts of our observable reality.

Magnitude of error:

I think a point can be made here to elaborate further on the magnitude of error that my opponent is suggesting everyone else makes. A point in which, I might add, is not even shared amongst the majority of Americans, Christians included, according to semi-recent conducted polls [20][21]. My opponent is not suggesting that radiocarbon dating is off by a few years, or even decades. My opponent is suggesting the entirety of scientific consensus is either coconspirating in an elaborate falsification and/or misrepresentation of data, or they are all collectively immensely wrong and bad at their respective professions. This would also unmistakably transgress into academia and other independent institutions. All of mainstream science is off by a factor of 2.3 million (13.8b/6k), according to young earth advocates.

What is the more parsimonious explanation here?

Young earth hypothesis:

The instigator of the young earth “hypothesis” is a belief system derived from literal biblical interpretation. It’s the summation of all the mythical biblical character’s ages + the time elapsed since. It is not the coequal of a conflicting mainstream view in science, nor did it arise from scientific observation or discrepancy.

It’s a faith based position, derived from antiquated and amalgamated verbal traditions, founded on delusion (Galatians 1:11-12). These primal traditions were passed down for generations before finally becoming historicized by anonymous and non-contemporary tribal scribes, prior to modern human advancements and knowledge. It’s the totality of their superstitious ignorance that has deviantly evolved into a cancerous corrupter of modern critical thinking among it’s advocates and others alike. This is clearly demonstrated by groups like AiG and others, who still synchronize their worldviews with this absurdity despite the damning mountains of evidence against it.

We are asked to suspend our critical faculties, demonstrable observations and rationality in favor of the non-original man-made teachings of delusional tribes that circled their local and neighboring regions thousands of years ago. This is the quintessential worldview proposed and propagated by biblical literalists as the counter argument to everyone else’s novel testable predictable reality based observations.

Sources:
  1. https://answersingenesis.org/geology/carbon-14/doesnt-carbon-14-dating-disprove-the-bible/
  2. https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/side_0_0/radiodating_01
  3. https://www.fossilera.com/pages/dating-fossils
  4. https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/fosrec/McKinney.html
  5. https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/dating-rocks-and-fossils-using-geologic-methods-107924044
  6. https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Index_fossil.html
  7. https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/viewFile/1007/1012
  8. https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/photos/the-worlds-10-oldest-living-trees/methuselah
  9. https://ncse.com/cej/3/2/answers-to-creationist-attacks-carbon-14-dating
  10. https://www.space.com/24054-how-old-is-the-universe.html
  11. http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast122/lectures/lec13.html
  12. https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/COMPLETE/learn/star_and_planet_formation.html
  13. https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/how-do-stars-form-and-evolve
  14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_formation
  15. https://science.howstuffworks.com/how-are-stars-formed.htm
  16. https://physicsworld.com/a/how-do-stars-form/
  17. https://www.gotquestions.org/carbon-dating.html
  18. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronological_dating
  19. http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/101-the-universe/cosmology-and-the-big-bang/general-questions/561-how-do-we-determine-the-age-of-the-universe-advanced
  20. https://ncse.com/blog/2013/11/just-how-many-young-earth-creationists-are-there-us-0015164
  21. https://www.livescience.com/46123-many-americans-creationists.html

Round 3
Speedrace's avatar
Speedrace
Con
#5
My opponent starts with an ad hominem attack. This is extremely disappointing, as I expected more from him. Not only that, but the whole statement is completely hypocritical. I will paste exactly what he said, but about secular scientists:

Secular scientists are basically stating that if ANYTHING disagrees with their tribal-constructed, erroneous, contradicting and unoriginal beliefs, THEY should always be considered correct. Any demonstrably verifiable scientific observations about reality need to be contorted and blurred to confirm their presuppositions or disregarded entirely. This is make-believe, and this disingenuous reality rejecting worldview promotes ATHEISM over all logic, reason, and evidence. It’s a static position of irrational authoritarian dogma that is unable to change or advance in the presence of reason or new information. It’s equivalent to an individual plugging their ears and saying “blablah blah” whenever someone presents facts that disagree with their dogmatic worldview.

Atheists, like most secular scientists, focus their efforts on providing misleading, incomplete or inaccurate data to support their erroneous presuppositional secular world view.

Do you see the hypocrisy? Two can play that game. Not only this, my opponent claims that the assumption that God exists, and then forming scientific beliefs around that, is wrong. However, scientists do the EXACT SAME THING, but instead assume that God doesn’t exist. Apparently, it’s heresy when religious scientists make assumptions, but when secular scientists make assumptions, no one gives a hoot! When creationists proposed the idea that light could have been faster in the past, everyone was extremely quick to rebut and censor them. However, when secular scientists did the same thing, it was fine? Dark matter is another perfect example of this. Dark matter was an ASSUMPTION formed simply to save the dying Big Bang theory, with no evidence to back it up. However, because secular scientists proposed it, the whole world scrambled to start finding it.

In addition, secular scientists have always worked very hard to censor the work of creationists from the public eye. And before someone makes the claim that this is because “creationists are wrong” (which you would have to prove), you don’t see secular scientist censoring flat earthers, who are obviously wrong. I wonder what the difference could POSSIBLY be?

My question to my opponent is, why do secular scientists have to censor creationists if you’re so right? Shouldn’t your scientific discoveries speak for themselves?

The sad reality of the secular scientific field is the ignorance they bring. Anytime a discovery is made, they will take it at first hand without actually looking at the data or procedures. However, when a Christian makes a discovery, EVERYONE quickly goes and tries to refute it. Then the ones who don’t refute it hear that “it was refuted by someone else,” and feel content about that without ACTUALLY looking at what either party said. Christians are frequently comparing their beliefs and data to secular discoveries, but it’s wrong for a secular scientist to compare notes with a religious scientist? Or to even read an article (a simple article) by a religious scientist? And yet Christians are the ones who are, as my opponent says, “dogmatic?” The hypocrisy and ignorance are overwhelming.

I am very sad that my opponent decided to take this route, and I felt it absolutely necessary to show just how hypocritical (and dare I say ignorant) he was being. This is not evidence towards my position at all, but simply a demonstration of the wrong information that is constantly being polluted by the secular scientific community. I shall now move on to defend my points.

Carbon14 Dating

It was never my argument that carbon14 dating was unreliable, but rather that it fits perfectly into the young earth biblical model. You will notice that my opponent did not respond to any of my arguments at all, but rather tried to defend the validity of carbon14 dating, which I never attacked. Because of that, my points all still stand.

Rising C14

My opponent cites tree rings as an example that proves that carbon14 levels aren’t rising. However, that is an extremely weak argument. Mainly, observations have shown that tree ring patterns are not unique. Statistical tests are the best match to prove the ages of trees. However, that method is rejected when those dates don’t match up with carbon14 dating. It is a circular, self-sustaining argument that goes against proven methods that work. [2] Overall, dendrochronology is not an effective dating method in the secularist view.

Blue Stars

You say that stars are forming as we speak, but that is incorrect. The sources you gave explained how stars could possibly form, and it didn’t mention stars that are forming now. In fact, star formation has never been observed. The possibility for stars to form is extremely low. For one, gas expands to fill its container. Space has no container, so there is no limit to how far gas can go. Yes, there are gas clouds, but these forming into stars is hard. First, the inward gravity is very weak because the gas is spread out and not concentrated, so the outward pressure of the gas is much greater than the inward gravity. Second, even if the gravity is great enough, even the slightest angular momentum in the gas cloud will send the whole thing off course. The centrifugal force by shrinking would cause this. Third, gas clouds have magnetic pressure that dramatically increases as the clouds shrink. This means that even if the cloud somehow shrank, the magnetic pressure would immediately push it and make it start expanding again. [1]

Now that I’ve said all of that, I must ask my opponent how the presence of blue stars doesn’t prove a young earth?

Magnitude Of Error

First of all, you’re putting words into my mouth because I never said any of that. Second, if science is wrong, it’s wrong. You cannot simply say it isn’t wrong because it’s science, that’s circular reasoning.

The instigator of the young earth “hypothesis” is a belief system derived from literal biblical interpretation. It’s the summation of all the mythical biblical character’s ages + the time elapsed since. It is not the coequal of a conflicting mainstream view in science, nor did it arise from scientific observation or discrepancy.
First of all, this is not proof against a young earth. Second, where is your proof that those biblical characters are mythical?

It’s a faith based position, derived from antiquated and amalgamated verbal traditions, founded on delusion (Galatians 1:11-12).
Delusion: an idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument

Christianity, being the majority belief by far, is the generally accepted reality. So, by definition, atheists are delusional, not Christians. Try again.

These primal traditions were passed down for generations before finally becoming historicized by anonymous and non-contemporary tribal scribes, prior to modern human advancements and knowledge. It’s the totality of their superstitious ignorance that has deviantly evolved into a cancerous corrupter of modern critical thinking among it’s advocates and others alike.

More claims without evidence. Tsk tsk. Oh yeah, and anyone who disagrees with you must not be able to critically think. It’s not like that’s an ad hominem fallacy or anything.

This is clearly demonstrated by groups like AiG and others, who still synchronize their worldviews with this absurdity despite the damning mountains of evidence against it.

Ah, yet my opponent fails to cite any of these “mountains of evidence” against it here. I could turn that around and say that he is synchronizing his beliefs with evolution and the Big Bang theory, despite the mountains of evidence against it. Where does that leave us?

We are asked to suspend our critical faculties, demonstrable observations and rationality in favor of the non-original man-made teachings of delusional tribes that circled their local and neighboring regions thousands of years ago. This is the quintessential worldview proposed and propagated by biblical literalists as the counter argument to everyone else’s novel testable predictable reality based observations.

This is a complete straw man. We are not asked to suspend observations and rationality, but rather to have the decency to consider the young earth theory. My opponent immediately rejects it simply because it is from the view of religious scientists. Yet when a secular theory has holes in it, it's ok to make up hypothetical assumptions to make it make sense without the tiniest bit of evidence.

Now that I have responded, I will present my final few arguments for a young earth.

Lack of Salt

I will not bother trying to go in depth into this. Simply put, there is not enough salt in the oceans for the long-age model. Given the current rates of increase, there should be much more salt in the oceans than there currently is. [3]

Soft Tissue In Fossils

Soft tissue was discovered in a fossil that was otherwise dated to be millions of years old. Because this tissue cannot survive for millions of years, this shows more evidence that it is much younger than some believe. [4]

The Faint Sun Paradox

We know that over time, stars get brighter and hotter. The sun should have increased by 40% in luminosity since its alleged 4.6 billion year creation, however, the evidence shows that this can’t be true. The Earth would have been -3 degrees Celsius and would have majorly been covered by ice. Life wouldn’t have been very likely at all. But as well, evidence shows that Mars was hotter back then. If this is true, how could Mars have been hotter when the sun was cooler? If the universe is only a few thousand years old, though, this is not a problem. [5]

Equilibrium

If you remember my explanation of equilibrium in round 1, it has been shown that it takes 30,000 years to reach it. However, we have not yet, which shows that the Earth must be less than 30,000 years old. My opponent never responded to this, so I just wanted to restate it.


I don’t want to hurl the elephant, so I’ll leave it that (although there is plenty of other evidence for a young earth).


Sources:


killshot's avatar
killshot
Pro
#6
Respecting my opponents wishes, I will not be making any new claims beyond this round, because it would be an unfair advantage in the final rounds.

I will respond to his latest refutations in my next rebuttal.

Before I move on, I would like to point out the error in his ad-hominem claim. An ad-hominem attack is one that is directed against a person, rather than the position they are maintaining. My attack was directed directly at the position he is maintaining.I cited a direct quote from his source, used in his argument about his dogmatic worldview. That’s his view, not mine; it says so in his own source. My worldview is based on evidence, and if the evidence changes, so will my worldview. His worldview is static and authoritarian. He then continues to ramble on about how secular scientists suppress biblical worldviews. Later, in the same rebuttal, he said I put words in his mouth when I called him out on the magnitude of error for making conspiracy claims.

For the record, I’m not attacking my opponent, I’m attacking his unsupported beliefs.

Question to my opponent:

  1. Can you provide one testable, objectively verifiable and novel prediction that a young earth makes exclusively?
Big bang rejoinder:

There are numerous competing scientific theories regarding the universe’s origins. I’m open minded to any of them as long as they are viable and sufficiently evidenced. I never mentioned the big bang theory specifically in our debate, as my opponent has suggested. I am not directing my argument to a specific theory, rather I am focusing it on the observable facts that can be demonstrated. Light travels at c, and, from that and other factors I already aforementioned, we can extrapolate the age of the expanding universe. This is my argument, and my opponent has miserably failed to address.

My opponent is attempting to prop theism up by suggesting its co-equalness to the big bang in their unsolvable problems centered around light; this is a false dichotomy. His argument about the horizon problem, for example, can be solved by inflation theory [1][2], thus voiding the entire dichotomy. There are many viable theories available, but creationism isn’t one of them. The speed of light is by no means the only evidential defeater for creationism. Even if all of science were to be disproven tomorrow, it would not inversely prove creationism.

Light used to travel faster rejoinder:

Following the previous attempt, my opponent then proceeds to set up a straw man argument that he himself quickly knocks down. In his argument, he proposes the non mainstream and  unevidenced proposition that time used to travel faster than it does now. He then immediately defeats this argument, calling it a weak argument (his words).

Cosmological time zones rejoinder:

Cosmological local time, I had to Google this one. Needless to say, Google doesn’t seem to know what it is either. What I was able to decipher from the totality of his confusing argument is that my opponent is absolutely clueless on what time is and how it works - no offense intended.

Firstly, he mistakenly equivocates the entire world’s UTC time with the universe and spacetime. Universal time (UTC), the successor to GMT, does not mean “cosmological universe” time; it means universal among all regions of the world. Somehow, in his erroneous propositions, he implies light got here instantaneously because of its traversal across multiple time zones within the universe. The universe does not have time zones, and light does not arrive here instantaneously either, as he proposes. Time zones are a man made concept to help keep time consistency between different parts of the world as it laps the sun [3]. Eventually, as a result of several predecessor attempts, UTC was created to maintain a “global time”, while providing mathematically subtractable time offsets for local times around the world [4]. For example, PST time is UTC - 8 hours. This operates independently of daylight savings.

Light year (y) = c * (365.25 * 24 * 3600)

As I already clearly articulated in my previous arguments, time is relative to the observer. That is why we use earth years when we measure light years. It’s a pointer to our local frame of reference (earth) so we can assign it the arbitrary elapsed time that is associated with it. From our perspective here on earth, light travels (y) m/s per earth year. Light year in itself is arbitrary; it could be light seconds, light half-seconds, light minutes, light days, light decades, etc. It’s simply a distance that light travels in x amount of time. Through testable and repeatable scientific observation, it can be demonstrated that light travels (y) m/s per revolution around the sun.

Cosmological red-shift rejoinder:

I would like to first, draw attention to the bias source my opponent listed for his rebuttal, Truth in Genesis. TiG, AiG and others alike, as I already explained are controversial sources in general.

The quasar/red-shift “issue” is proposed by Halton Arp in his antiquated book written in the late 80’s [5]. His speculations were proposed in the early stages of quasars initial discovery, and he used that opening to his advantage at the time. Despite the eventual revocation of his observatory permissions [8], and his outcasting from the mainstream science community, he vehemently maintained his radical views. In his book, he admits his calculations have been criticized as a posteriori and invalid by his peers, but he maintains them regardless [8].

His fringe observations can be explained by perspective issues. Basically, he is looking at distant light that is traversing through a nearby galaxy, shadowing it’s original source and giving the illusion that it belongs to the foregrounding galaxy [5].

His radical views are not supported by mainstream scientific consensus [6], and his assertions have been criticized and debunked by peer review [7][8].

Compton scattering:

My opponent said, “Redshift does not prove that the universe is billions of years old. Scientists assume that a star with a lower brightness must be further away, and one that is brighter is closer. However, this could easily be caused by obstructing matter in space that absorbs or scatters the light, and scientists have yet to distinguish between the two, so this in no way proves a billion-year-old universe.”

I believe the phenomena my opponent is referring to is called Compton scattering [9][10][11]. It occurs when a charged particle, such as an electron, collides with and scatters a photon, transferring energy from the photon into kinetic energy in the particle. Inverse Compton scattering is the reversal, where energy is transferred to the photon. The shift in energy is referred to as Compton shift. Compton shift can change a photons energy, resulting in a longer or shorter wavelength; however, it does not create new spectral lines.

The spectral lines are the fingerprint, so to speak, of the element that emitted the photon, which derived from the original star. If the photon was absorbed and re-emitted, as suggested, it would have new spectral lines. Compton shift can displace spectral lines, but the recessional velocity math for the Hubble & Friedmann equations for red-shift wouldn’t work, because the spectral lines would be incongruent with the proportionality of the distance they traveled. In order to simulate the exact spectral displacement required, all photons would have to be displaced in uniform, which is next to impossible. The amount of scattering would also depend on light frequency. For example, blue light and red light, and everything in between, would not scatter proportionally with one another, and this would be observable. Additionally, light scattered from a large distance would become fuzzy, resulting in an opacity issue, which is not in line with scientific observation. [12]

Mainstream:

Sometimes the line between referencing mainstream consensus and appealing to authority can be blurry.

But, if my opponent wishes to argue against the mainstream scientific consensus, he will need to provide an abundance of solid refuting evidence, that is objectively verifiable and testable. Someone else’s quotes from a disreputable source (AiG, TiG, etc), followed by a few vague sentences, is not a convincing enough argument.

Sources:

  1. http://www.ctc.cam.ac.uk/outreach/origins/inflation_zero.php
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_(cosmology)
  3. https://www.timeanddate.com/time/time-zones-history.html
  4. https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/universal-time
  5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasars,_Redshifts_and_Controversies
  6. http://milesmathis.com/arp.pdf
  7. http://galacticinteractions.scientopia.org/2011/01/14/one-of-astronomys-pet-crackpot-theories-non-cosmological-quasar-redshifts/
  8. http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1988JRASC..82...42B&data_type=PDF_HIGH&whole_paper=YES&type=PRINTER&filetype=.pdf
  9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton_scattering
  10. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/physics-and-astronomy/compton-effect
  11. http://web.mit.edu/8.13/www/JLExperiments/JLExp01.pdf
  12. https://www.researchgate.net/post/Could_compton_scattering_in_principle_account_for_the_Hubble_redshift

Round 4
Speedrace's avatar
Speedrace
Con
#7
Before I move on, I would like to point out the error in his ad-hominem claim. An ad-hominem attack is one that is directed against a person, rather than the position they are maintaining. 
Ad hominem (Latin for "to the person"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a fallacious argumentative strategy whereby genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument.

Ad hominem attacks by my opponent:

"tribal-constructed"
"erroneous"
"contradicting and unoriginal archaic book"
"irrational authoritarian dogma"
"their erroneous presuppositional religious world view"

Attacking my argument with no evidence in this regard and with this very negative language is clearly an ad hominem attack.

"My worldview is based on evidence, and if the evidence changes, so will my worldview. His worldview is static and authoritarian."

Ah, but when secular scientists hear a rebuttal and defend it with a claim that has no evidence whatsoever, that's completely fine. A perfect example of this is when my opponent claimed that "stars are forming as we speak," a claim which has no substance at all. I will ask my opponent, where in my argument so far have I been static or authoritarian?

Can you provide one testable, objectively verifiable and novel prediction that a young earth makes exclusively?
The young earth is based on discoveries by both secularists and creationists, so, of course, none of them will be exclusive. Can an old earth make any?

Big Bang Rejoinder

This is my argument, and my opponent has miserably failed to address.
I have addressed it with more than one piece of evidence.

My opponent is attempting to prop theism up by suggesting its co-equalness to the big bang in their unsolvable problems centered around light; this is a false dichotomy. His argument about the horizon problem, for example, can be solved by inflation theory [1][2], thus voiding the entire dichotomy.
The inflation theory, of course. I'm glad that my opponent brought that up. There is absolutely no one who has definitively proved an inflation theory, and all of them have major problems in them. In fact, some of them can't even be tested! It is a completely irrational theory. But because secular scientists published it, it must be right? Wrong. [1]

Even if all of science were to be disproven tomorrow, it would not inversely prove creationism.
I never said that it would, all that I did is refute my opponent's critiques of my argument.

Following the previous attempt, my opponent then proceeds to set up a straw man argument that he himself quickly knocks down. In his argument, he proposes the non mainstream and  unevidenced proposition that time used to travel faster than it does now. He then immediately defeats this argument, calling it a weak argument (his words).
I thought it was obvious that I was knocking it down. There was no need to address this argument. I was simply laying down all of the options.

Cosmic Local Time

Firstly, he mistakenly equivocates the entire world’s UTC time with the universe and spacetime.
I made no such claim. I said that time on Earth is different from time in other parts of the galaxy. Here is the explanation from my source:

"There is a cosmic equivalent to local and universal time. Light traveling toward earth is like the plane traveling west; it always remains at the same cosmic local time. Although most astronomers today primarily use cosmic universal time (in which it takes light 100 years to travel 100 light-years), historically cosmic local time has been the standard. And so it may be that the Bible also uses cosmic local time when reporting events.
Since God created the stars on Day 4, their light would leave the star on Day 4 and reach earth on Day 4 cosmic local time. Light from all galaxies would reach earth on Day 4 if we measure it according to cosmic local time. Someone might object that the light itself would experience billions of years (as the passenger on the plane experiences the two hour trip). However, according to Einstein’s relativity, light does not experience the passage of time, so the trip would be instantaneous. Now, this idea may or may not be the reason that distant starlight is able to reach earth within the biblical timescale, but so far no one has been able to prove that the Bible does not use cosmic local time. So, it is an intriguing possibility." [2]

Is that any clearer?

Cosmological Red Shift

I would like to first, draw attention to the bias source my opponent listed for his rebuttal, Truth in Genesis. TiG, AiG and others alike, as I already explained are controversial sources in general.
Ah yes, and why exactly are they biased? Simply because they are from the point of view of Christians? By that logic, your sources are biased because they are from the point of view of atheists. My opponent, once again, makes a claim without backing it up with evidence.

Despite the eventual revocation of his observatory permissions [8], and his outcasting from the mainstream science community, he vehemently maintained his radical views.
This is almost laughable. At the end of the source that my opponent gives, it specifically says the following "Arp is certainly a talented observer and it is hard to understand why he was not allowed to continue to observe at Palomar. He leaves no doubt that he feels like he was penalized for not finding out the "right" things. There are two sides to every story, and it would be rash to judge when only one side has been published."

Only ONE side of the story was published. However, my opponent scrambles to believe it because it was by secular scientists, and the Christian scientist must obviously be wrong.

His radical views are not supported by mainstream scientific consensus [6],
This source also agrees. "It is certain that he was unfairly silenced, and that the dialog in astronomy has never been open. I know that firsthand. His claims about politics polluting science are also completely valid."

In addition, the same source criticizes the mainstream scientific consensus JUST as much as Arp's! "What was that theory? It was the 1977 theory of Jayant Narliker, that the redshifts were explained by increasing particle masses. According to him, the data could be incorporated without doppler provided fundamental particle masses were increasing with time. I won't spend much time here on that theory, since I dislike it a much as the mainstream, though for somewhat different reasons."

All-in-all, going after a scientist only hurt you, and it was completely unnecessary. You could have simply shown the evidence against this explanation and moved on.

Compton Scattering

I was not referring to Compton Scattering. I was referring to the obstructions of gases and other objects in space that could dilute the light that we get.

Mainstream

But, if my opponent wishes to argue against the mainstream scientific consensus, he will need to provide an abundance of solid refuting evidence, that is objectively verifiable and testable. Someone else’s quotes from a disreputable source (AiG, TiG, etc), followed by a few vague sentences, is not a convincing enough argument.
If it's not convincing, then my opponent should have absolutely no problem refuting it. Also, my opponent still has yet to show why AiG and TiG are disreputable sources.

Sources:

killshot's avatar
killshot
Pro
#8
Carbon-14 rejoinder:

My opponent seems to have overlooked or ignored all of my arguments in response to his C-14 claims. In addition to verifying the accuracy and reliability of C-14 dating, I also explained that it correlates to all other dating methods. These dating methods do not rely on atmospheric carbon levels and they are incompatible with the crux of his argument. Additionally, I explained that C-14 dating itself is verified beyond the atmospheric carbon levels by the testing of it’s daughter element ratios, which is also incompatible with the crux of his argument. My opponent has failed to address or refute any of these, or the other, points I made and testing methods I listed.

Additionally, he has failed to demonstrate how his young earth model is more parsimonious to the model proposed by mainstream consensus.

Dendrochronology:

My opponent argues that dendrochronology is not a reliable testing method, yet he failed to actually refute it any further and explain why. In fact, dendrochronology is one of many viable testing methods that is used in numerous fields of science including archeology, climate science, chemistry and the obvious - dendrology [1]. Dendrochronology is especially reliable in temperate regions with contrasting seasons, such as the one provided in my example. Additionally, the dendrochronology tests I provided correlated relatively closely with the scientific expectations and results of the C-14 dating [2]. This method goes beyond simply counting rings, it also involves cross dating via skeleton plots [3]. “It is the most accurate dating technique we use today”, according to Indiana State University [4][5].

Stars rejoinder:

I can’t believe my opponent actually used the “star formation has never been observed” argument. I could simply refute his statement by saying “no one witnessed God create the universe 6k years ago either”. These kind of pointless arguments do nothing to advance our knowledge.

In fact, there are numerous galaxies currently observable that are in the current stages of formation. There are entire sites online dedicated to this. One example, of many, are the proto stars inside the Orion Nebula which are visible using the Hubble Space Telescope [6]. This phenomenon is well known and documented by science [7].

In answer to my opponents question, the presence of blue stars does not prove a young earth because stars have been, and actively are, forming. It’s not a shocking concept when one is discovered. It would be more curious if there weren’t any.

Magnitude of error rejoinder:

I am using my opponents arguments and cited sources to point out the irrationality of his worldview. Science can be wrong, and if it is, I will happily side with the evidence and relinquish my current beliefs. Right now, the evidence is overwhelming that we do not live in a young earth. Additionally, its supported by mainstream scientific consensus. This means all the professionals who make careers out of these subjects disagree with my opponent as well. This isn’t even a Christian worldview; most Christians disagree with my opponent’s fringe group as well.

I will be happy to debate my opponent on the mythicism of his biblical characters; however, I am not letting this derail me from our debate subject. As for sources, I would recommend looking into Richard Carrier, Robert Price and DM Murdock, for starters. They, and others, have written extensively on the subjects with historical citations.

My opponent is trying to borrow the delusion argument my last opponent used against me. This will not work in this debate, because in this debate we have clearly established his worldview is based on magic (creationism). His belief is based on magic and held despite rational argument and demonstrably testable and verifiable reality. Ad populum pleads will not work either, because Christianity being a majority belief does not make it the “accepted reality”, perhaps the accepted mass delusion. Reality is what can be demonstrated to be “real”, and the claims my opponent is asserting (creationism) cannot be demonstrated to be real. Therefore, it is delusional and idiosyncratic to his fringe group of young earthers.

My opponent made several other smirk comments and gish galloped a few more ad-hoc debate topics. I have already clearly demonstrated that his young earth proposition cannot withstand scrutiny, and I have written extensively in detail as to why. My opponent appears to be selective reading, and I feel that addressing these additional topics is a waste of time. I feel that my arguments on this subject has already been clearly articulated.

Predictions:

I asked my opponent to give me an objectively verifiable and novel prediction that a young earth makes exclusively. He admitted he can’t. End of story, debate is over.

Following that, he asked for one that an old earth makes. My response is - all of them. All of physics is modeled in a universe that is old. Special relativity is a great example of one. It was made ahead of its time, and it’s used heavily in satellites and rockets.

Inflation theory:

I never said inflation theory was proved as factual. I said, it provides a solution to the big bang issue my opponent brought up. A model, in which, I never even said I subscribed to. I was simply giving my opponent an answer to the big bang dilemma he proposed with light.

Cosmological local time:

No, it still does not make any sense.

Red shift:

I have made my points here. I’m not trading insults or ad-hominems. If my opponent wishes to dig into the details I provided and refute them, I’m happy to do so.

Compton Scattering:

Yes, that is called compton scattering. Look at the explanation and sources I provided.

Mainstream:

I have already given numerous examples why AiG and TiG are disreputable. In fact, I wrote paragraph or two on it. In addition to that, I went through their arguments on C-14 and wrote an depthly rebuttal to it, and called them out on it.

To my opponent: saying I failed to address these subjects, because you failed to read my rebuttals, is just wrong.

Sources:
  1. https://www.environmentalscience.org/dendrochronology-tree-rings-tell-us
  2. https://www.radiocarbon.com/tree-ring-calibration.htm
  3. https://ltrr.arizona.edu/about/treerings
  4. http://dendrolab.indstate.edu/
  5. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bonekickers/history/dendrochronology.shtml
  6. http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast122/lectures/lec13.html
  7. https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/COMPLETE/learn/star_and_planet_formation.html

Round 5
Speedrace's avatar
Speedrace
Con
#9
My opponent seems to have overlooked or ignored all of my arguments in response to his C-14 claims. In addition to verifying the accuracy and reliability of C-14 dating, I also explained that it correlates to all other dating methods. These dating methods do not rely on atmospheric carbon levels and they are incompatible with the crux of his argument. Additionally, I explained that C-14 dating itself is verified beyond the atmospheric carbon levels by the testing of it’s daughter element ratios, which is also incompatible with the crux of his argument. My opponent has failed to address or refute any of these, or the other, points I made and testing methods I listed.
Again, I never attacked the reliability of C-14 testing. All I was doing was showing how C-14 fits into the young earth model. The daughter isotopes do not affect that at all. Other dating methods are irrelevant.

Additionally, he has failed to demonstrate how his young earth model is more parsimonious to the model proposed by mainstream consensus.
It isn't my job to do so because that is not the topic of the debate.

Dendrochronology

My opponent completely ignored what I said. I showed how the most reliable method of dating trees was thrown away for a less reliable method whenever the date didn't match up with C-14 dates. They purposefully twisted the data to suit their presuppositions. Without C-14, tree ages are derived from the better method and are more accurate, and without that less reliable method, C-14 has no verification from tree dating. [1]

I can’t believe my opponent actually used the “star formation has never been observed” argument. I could simply refute his statement by saying “no one witnessed God create the universe 6k years ago either”. These kind of pointless arguments do nothing to advance our knowledge.
This is completely different. My opponent made the claim that we've seen stars form, which I rebutted. I never claimed to have seen God create the universe 6,000 years ago.

In fact, there are numerous galaxies currently observable that are in the current stages of formation. There are entire sites online dedicated to this. One example, of many, are the proto stars inside the Orion Nebula which are visible using the Hubble Space Telescope [6]. This phenomenon is well known and documented by science [7].
The so-called protostars my opponent claims are there haven't even been confirmed. The source my opponent gave specifically says "Several candidate protostars have been found." Candidates are not actual protostars.

Many of the stars that are very young are what are used as new "forming" stars in arguments. My opponent completely ignored my explanation of why it is extremely hard for one star to form, let alone millions.

I asked my opponent to give me an objectively verifiable and novel prediction that a young earth makes exclusively. He admitted he can’t. End of story, debate is over.

Following that, he asked for one that an old earth makes. My response is - all of them. All of physics is modeled in a universe that is old. Special relativity is a great example of one. It was made ahead of its time, and it’s used heavily in satellites and rockets.
What my opponent ignored once again is the keyword exclusively. I specifically said that the young earth can't make one exclusively because it uses observations derived from all corners of the scientific world. However, an old earth can't make any exclusively either! They are all used somewhere else and therefore are not exclusive.

Besides that, the debate is not whether a young earth makes any exclusive claims, so nothing is hinging on this.

I never said inflation theory was proved as factual. I said, it provides a solution to the big bang issue my opponent brought up. A model, in which, I never even said I subscribed to. I was simply giving my opponent an answer to the big bang dilemma he proposed with light.
My point is that when I brought up the point of quasars and distant galaxies, my opponent said "not admissible" because it had been disproven multiple times and peer-reviewed. However, he just did the same thing.

No, it still does not make any sense.
I'm not sure how else to explain it, but a lack of understanding of it doesn't disprove my point.

Compton Scattering

That is not it. I believe this describes it a bit more accurately. [2]

I have already given numerous examples why AiG and TiG are disreputable. In fact, I wrote paragraph or two on it.
I refuted these paragraphs and showed how mainstream science is guilty of the exact same trespasses, so this argument is non-unique.

Sources:

killshot's avatar
killshot
Pro
#10
I would like to thank my contender for his efforts in the debate. Even though we disagree on our worldviews, I still like and respect him as a person. He’s always a good sport, and a challenge to battle. In the spirit of debate, the gloves have to come off on both sides, and we have to analyze things critically and honestly from opposing perspectives.

Ad-Hominems:

I thought I would say a few words here regarding ad-hominems, since my opponent defensively accused me of making them. He provided the definition for ad-hominem attacks, then ignored it in his own argument during his counter-attack.

Ad-hominem: directed against the person, rather than the view they are maintaining.

An example of this would be if I said, “my opponent is stupid because he dropped out of school”. Obviously, I know this is not true, which is why I chose it, and I don’t believe this. But, this is an example of an ad-hominem. It’s a direct attack against my opponent and irrelevant to the debate subject and view he is projecting.

He accused my adjectives, describing the Bible, as being ad-hominem. The Bible is the source of his world view, which is the source of this debate. Never once did I make a direct and personal attack at my opponent, only his worldview. I like my opponent; I think he’s a nice dude. We severely disagree on our worldviews, but I do not dislike him as a person. My attacks are against his world view, the sources he provided, and the source of it all - the Bible. This is not an ad-hominem, this is a debate.

Models:

Models are constructed on observable facts. There are numerous models in science, but the mainstream consensus models are derived from their factual accuracy, and their ability to make testable, reliable and observable future predictions. The most parsimonious model becomes the primary model, until it’s replaced by a better and more accurate one. When I am referencing mainstream consensus, I am not appealing to authority; I am simply saying these are the best and most accurate models we have available; they make accurate testable predictions. If my opponent wishes to argue they are wrong, and his view is correct, he needs to provide a more parsimonious model than the one we currently use. If he can that, I am absolutely open to his arguments. If he can’t, which he conceded, then his view is not useful. It's not enough to say "all of science is wrong, now let's use this other idea".

It doesn’t matter, who creates the models. There are numerous religious scientists, who compartmentalize, and construct scientific models or make scientific breakthroughs. My opponent has tried to paint a picture where I am arguing that secular scientists are the only ones who can do science; this is just false, and it’s not a representation of my beliefs. What I am saying is his sources are bias, misleading, inaccurate and dishonest, because they directly admit that facts should be ignored if they contradict their presupposition. This is in reference to his sloppy choice in sources, not at religious scientists in general. It doesn’t matter who creates the models or discovers the facts as long as the facts are accurate and the models work. For example, quantum physics works, even though there are many unanswered questions within it. But, the predictions it makes are accurate, testable, repeatable and observable; therefore, it’s valuable and an accepted model.

Conclusions:

My opponent has failed in every way to demonstrate his position.
  1. He has failed to properly explain the spectral line displacements in his model.
  2. He has admitted that his model cannot make any novel testable & demonstrable predictions exclusively. He has failed to explain why the opposing model can make predictions.
  3. He has failed to properly explain why C-14 works in his model exclusively. I on the other hand, I have explained why it doesn’t. He has failed to properly refute that.
  4. He has failed to properly explain why every other method of testing disagrees with his model.
  5. He has failed to give a proper explanation as to why stars could only be formed at the universes inception, rather than now.
  6. He has provided weak, dishonest and disreputable sources (AiG, TiG). Sources that omit information and intentionally mislead their readers.

My opponent has a worldview that is incompatible with the facts of our observable reality. His position is not a position derived from the assessment of scientific facts. His position is a presupposition, and it’s driven by a static religious dogmatic authority. The facts are being massaged and coerced to fit the presupposition. In the presence of new information or incompatible facts, he must side with his religious views and plug his ears. It’s a position of faith, and it’s a dishonest position.

The book my opponent derives his young earth worldview from is not original. There are numerous creation stories, from numerous old religions. Even many of the characters and concepts in his stories are unoriginal and borrowed, such as the Great Flood, the passion of a savior, the virgin birth and others. The majority of modern Christians do not believe in a young earth or take it literal. Not only is my opponents world view a minority in culture, but it’s a minority within his own religion.

What is the more parsimonious explanation?

  1. All of scientific consensus, academia and independent organizations are collectively wrong by a factor of 2.3 million, and/or co-conspirators in a large secret young earth denying agenda (for whatever reason??).
  2. Another one of the thousands of superstitious and ignorant tribal religions are once again, painstakingly wrong.

The more parsimonious explanation is one that doesn’t need the supernatural to explain things.