Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Can I help a young-earther?

A reader wrote to me:

I found your whole site so interesting- I keep coming back to it. In fact, I have it on my favorites page. I asked my sister about the old earth/ young earth debate (she is a young earther, which is what I also had been taught) and she claims that the dating used is based on a faulty premise to begin with, so it actually doesn't accurately tell us the age of anything. Could you please respond to this and/ or send me in a direction where I could better understand (and please make it friendly- I was an English major, not science! ). Thank you!!
I am glad this reader found my site interesting. I can understand how her sister might claim that the dating methods are based on faulty premises. Unfortunately, there are books out there that make false claims about origins. They claim to be based on science, but they are based on a faulty understanding of science. Unfortunately, it is fairly easy to write a book that can convince non-experts that a certain idea is scientific. If people do not understand the arguments, and see only impressive scientific jargon and claims, they can be fooled. That is why true science is not based on whether a book can convince the uninformed, but on whether it can convince those who understand the relevant facts. And those who understand the relevant facts overwhelmingly accept an old earth.

I recommend some links at my site. Yes, all will involve science, for that is the only way to really resolve the issue.

I am glad for those who want to help Creationists understand science. But we must remember that convincing someone to change a deeply held religious view is a very hard thing to do. We must decide whether it is worth trying.

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