Evidence for a Young Earth... Wha???? (And pictures from the week)

I talked with some scientists the other day that actually believed that the earth is rather young - like 6-10 thousand years old! I'd heard stuff like this before, but I felt bad for the people who believed it. I assumed that they were stubborn in having to take the Bible so literally and were a little delusional for being so unwilling to see the mounds of evidence everywhere that the world had to be billions of years old.  4.543 billion years old according to google.

But these men I was talking with were extremely intelligent, good, sensible people. They were leaders in their different denominations (most of them LDS) and in their scientific fields. They didn't seem the delusional type. I was forced to ask myself if perhaps they knew something I didn't (given my scientific knowldge, it wasn't a very hard jump to make). They referenced several books and articles as they talked about a variety of things and I would write them down with the intent to read them later.

They showed us a short clip about carbon dating done by a man named Ian Juby. It was fascinating. I went home and watched a few more of his clips (He has a YouTube channel "Wazooloo") . The guy really knew his stuff and he referenced what he said to scholarly scientific studies that you can look at for yourself.





In fact, I realized that the evidence for a world-wide flood forming the geological features we see was as strong (actually quite a lot stronger, imo) than the evidence for slow erosion and weathering processes.

 I saw that for every scientific finding that scientists saw as proof for evolution and an old earth (with the assumption that the present is the key to the past - or that what is causing change now is what caused change back then), other scientists saw as strong proof for creationism and a young earth (with the assumption that there was a catastrophic world wide flood). Assumptions are pretty powerful things aren't they?

Why had I never heard this other side of the argument? It turns out that in order to "separate church and state" schools are only allowed to teach evidence for evolution. If they teach evidence of intelligent design, it would mean they are teaching about God. And even the Bible if the evidence points to a wolrd wide flood. Our state's educational policy states that schools should teach different views on subjects and let the students decide for themselves except when it comes to evolution. Only evidence for evolution is allowed to be taught.

I don't yet know enough to decide where I stand, but I do want to learn more about this side that I had never heard of. So far, the evidence they present is pretty convincing.

I have been watching Complete Creation, 2nd Ed. with Wazooloo. It is divided into 22 parts. I am only on part 6. I'd recommend you start with part 3 if you are curious about evidence. Parts 1 and 2 are more about the history of how this divide came about. I've been watching them as I clean. I want to eventually show them to my kids. I'd like them to hear both sides so they can make an informed decision of where they stand too.

Some more pictures from the week:

Monday:
1st day of science class:

Tuesday

Yoga in the morning

South Fork in the afternoon

Dallin makes the strangest snacks. Blueberry bagel, mixed berry cream cheeze and fish crackers

My little scientists

I thought the river bottom looked pretty cool

Wednesday hike with my hiking budy:

Witch's park on Thursday:
(I don't know the park's real name, but we made some assumptions based on observation and found lots of evidence that a witch lives in it, so we renamed it). 😉

Her hair

Her wand

Her cauldron 

Her hair tangled in a tree (evidence she leaves the river)

Her watchful eyes

When we weren't finding witch evidence, there was climbing, running, playing...

On Friday we got to visit with some refugees from Pakistan,  but I will write more about them later. There was a little x-box that night too.

I got to go in a hike by myself and then out to eat with my parents, brother and his wife in Salt Lake on Saturday. A family friend and hero passed away and we wanted to get together. Then of course, the game that night.

Nice week. Something I have been learning to do lately is to be still. It has been very good. I often pray and move to the next thing. I don't often take the time to listen. I am finding that being still is a powerful tool of joy and of learning to love. I will probably write more about that lesson later too.