Index to Creationist Claims - World of Animals Version

[creature386]

Regarding C-decay (lightspeed being higher in the past), 4 teh lulz, I did a calculation to show how high the starting lightspeed would have needed to be and how low our measurements would need to be.
For that, let's get back in the past and calculate how much we'd need to accelerate to get the starting speed of light in order to make light pass 13.8 lightyears in ≈ 6,000 years.
Basic acceleration formula:
d = vt + (1/2)at²
I start from the first measurement Vod has shown which was in 1966 and the creation was supposedly 4004 BC. The difference is 5970 years, so we can insert this for t. For d, we can insert 13.8 billion lightyears and for v one lightyear/year (the calculation of course goes from the present in the past).
Let's solve the equation after a.
[2 * (d - vt)]/t² = a

[2 * (1.38E10 liyr - 1 liyr/yr * 5970 yr)]/(5970 yr)² = 774.4 liyr/yr²

That equals 2.3E11 m/s², quite an acceleration.

Now, the formula for the final velocity (as the goes in the past, this is the velocity with which light started ~6,000 years ago):

v_f = v_i + at

I get like 4.6 million times lightspeed (4,623,169 to be more precise).

I guess it becomes obvious that, in case lightspeed was really that much higher in the past, it should have already dropped to zero.

[Vodmeister]

Complex life forms appear suddenly in the Cambrian explosion, with no ancestral fossils.

On a scale like this, the Cambrian explosion might not look like a particularly long period of time:



The Cambrian explosion occurred during the beginning of the Cambrian period, which was the start of the Paleozoic era. On a biological timeline, it looks like a minuscule period of time. However, in reality, this period was 55,000,000 years long.

This is 10,000 times longer than since Noah's Ark (allegedly), from where creationists claim that all the millions of living creatures today came from a few thousand ancestors.

Also, while the Cambrian explosion saw a large increase in the number of multicellular organisms, it certainly was not the "beginning of all complex life" and ancestral evidence does indeed exist.



The Counter-creationism Handbook
- By Mark Isaak

[creature386]

Thought I had to revive this as I recently stumbled over more nonsense. Note that the arguments below are commonly used (usually by less educated creationists), not because they are particularly intelligent, but because they are very simple. They should not really be a problem for evolutionists, but I felt obliged to write this due to their commonness.

There is NO recorded history prior to 4,000 B.C., no writings, no carved stones, no battles, no wars, no countries, no nothing! It's as if mankind just suddenly began

www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evolution%20Hoax/4000.htm

1. This is a non sequitur. The start of recorded history coincides with the invention of writing, it was of course impossible to record history prior to that. Saying that mankind (let alone the world!) cannot have existed before that is ludicrous.

2. It is not surprising that it took so long until there was finally writing. Humans needed to become settlers (which was not obvious from the beginning) and then had to developed societies complex enough for making the invention of writing useful and sensible. Moreover, it is not believed by evolutionists that humanity and Earth are even nearly equally old.

3. Stewart completely ignores that human history can be traced back longer than 6,000 years ago. The Neolithic Revolution is older than 6,000 years and left traces of domestication and settlements.[1]

4. There is something called proto-history which includes proto-writings. They are usually older than 6,000 years. Jiahu symbols are, for instance, over 8,000 years old.[2]

5. Even if it turned out that humanity was only a few thousand years old, this would not disprove evolution.

[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution
[2] news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2956925.stm

There are no "primitive" languages. All languages have a system of sounds, words, and sentences that can adequately communicate the content of culture. This is evidence of a divine Creator. The languages of the so-called "primitive" peoples are often very complex in their grammatical structures. If mankind had advanced through an evolutionary process, then there should still be developing languages today; but in fact, one languages disappears every 2-weeks...

Same source as above

1. This is a strawman. Evolution does not require primitive languages being present today. As every culture today is some thousand years old, they had plenty of time to develop words for whatever they need and abandon the unnecessary and inefficient structures/words.

2. The earliest records of English language are from the 4th century AD.[1] This means that English is younger than 2,000 years and that it is hence impossible that it was a result of Babel. Therefore, Babel is an insufficient explanation for the languages today. Creationists would need to include "language microevolution" in the worldview to explain younger languages, yet Stewart entirely rejects such a process.

3. The decline of the number of languages is probably a recent phenomenon that has to do with globalization and also due to the increased contact of people from more developed countries with indigenous people. In the past 500 years (as mentioned by the cited article), colonization must have played a role, too. These observations hardly prove that languages cannot evolve faster than they disappear.

[1] www.academia.edu/4650751/Crystal_D._-_The_Cambridge_Encyclopedia_of_the_English_Language_2-nd_ed._-_2003

IF, as evolutionists claim, the earth is billions of years old, and mankind has evolved from a lower and simpler form of life, then why has mankind gone from writing upon stones to laser printers in just the past 3,500 years?

As above

1. This is hardly any more troubling to evolutionists than to young Earth creationists, given that creationism starts off with civilized humans 6,000 years ago. A few centuries are still tiny compared to 6,000 years, so you have a similar problem.

2. Stewart ignores that humans start from a far simpler state in the evolutionary than in the young Earth creationist model. The first humans, according to Stewart's interpretation of the Bible, already knew how to write, how to build settlements, how to grow plants and how to domesticate animals. If humanity is some hundred thousand years old, the first ones were likely hunters and gatherers, so it took them some time to reach the state they had 6,000 years ago.

3. The industrial revolution got its pace through cataclysmic events like the invention of the steam engine and the scientific progress in the prior centuries. Contrary to what Stewart suggests, the industrial revolution was nothing that happened overnight. Furthermore, scientific progress can get stifled through hostility towards progress (as during Rome's transition towards the Medieval Ages or in the Arab world in the late Medieval Ages) or isolation which prevents exchange of ideas (as in for example Ancient China).

4. The fact that the author only briefly sums up events without mentioning the reasons is very manipulative. It is similar to for example racist arguments who ask "Why were all the accomplishments done by white people???". Both cases are oversimplified arguments which are appeals to ignorance.

[Infinity Blade]

creationrevolution.com/evolutionists-say-some-meat-eating-dinos-may-not-have-been-meat-eaters-after-all/

This one's not really hard.

Ever since I can remember, evolutionary scientists have been classifying dinosaurs and other animals as carnivores if they have sharp or serrated teeth and herbivores if they have flattened grinding type teeth. Repeatedly, creationists have challenged this concept and used a number of modern animals as examples.
Among the examples used by creationists are the panda, sun bear, fruit bat, various monkeys including the black-headed uakari and the lion that wouldn’t eat meat that was featured in Creation magazine. Some black bears and grizzly bear’s diets consist of over half to three quarters vegetation. I recall watching a program on piranha on one of the science channels and they showed 2 species of piranhas that were vegetarian, even though they had the same sharp teeth that other piranhas have.

It's fallacious to say something along the lines of "animal X has similar sharp teeth like animal Y, yet the former eats a lot more plants". At first glance, it APPEARS as if the animals with different diets have the same dentition. Upon further inspection however, they really don't. For example, while cats and bears both have pointed canines, the latter have flat grinding teeth that are actually suitable for plant consumption while the former lack these completely.

I have often used the experiences from my past to demonstrate that sharp teeth and serrations don’t necessarily mean meat eaters. When I worked in a butcher shop, I never saw any knife with a serrated blade being used to cut meat in that butcher shop. I asked the head butcher and he told me that serrated blades do not keep a sharp edge and do not cut meat as easily and cleanly as a non-serrated blade does. Also in my early year I worked in the kitchens of several restaurants. Interestingly, all of the knives we used to cut and prepare meat were straight bladed knives. When we were cutting and preparing vegetables and fruit, we often used both straight and serrated blades. The serrated knives often cut through some of the tougher raw vegetables more easily than a non-serrated knife.

Weird, as serrations do in fact help with cutting.

"In a study of the teeth of elasmobranch sharks, Frazzetta (1988) proposed that the serrated edges allow a blade to move through a substrate with less force than a smooth blade would require. As the serrations are drawn across this substrate they bind to a small portion of it and tear it, a mechanism described as "grip and rip" (Abler, 1992, p 178). Less force is needed to draw the serrated blade across the substrate because friction is reduced."[1]

In lieu of all of this, I was excited when I first saw the title of an article that said that meat eating dinosaurs were not so carnivorous after all. After reading through the article, I found it to be as disappointing as usual. It seems that scientists working at the Field Museum in Chicago which is a fortified bastion of evolutionary beliefs, have determined that a number of theropod dinosaurs were not the vicious meat eaters that they once thought there were. Up to this point, all theropod dinosaurs were considered to be predatory meat eaters.

The scientists examined the remains of nearly 100 theropod dinosaurs belonging to the group known as coelurosaurs. A number of coelurosaurs have varying tooth structure ranging from sharp pointed to peg-like to no teeth. They also looked at fossilized dino dung and stomach remains, teeth marks and the presence of stomach grinding stones (gastroliths) in the stomach.

Inserting all of their data into a statistical analysis program, they identified a number of traits that lead them to believe that about 44 theropod species were herbivores to some degree. According to one of the scientists: Once we linked certain adaptations with direct evidence of diet, we looked to see which other theropod species had the same traits, then we could say who was likely a plant eater and who was not

After they had conducted some good science, even though some of their data fields were based upon their evolutionary assumptions that sharp teeth still equate to meat eaters, they lost all credibility and fell back into their evolutionary make believe world. Taking their new found dietary results, they applied them to the evolutionary lineages of a number of the coelurosaur dinosaurs. They believe that some of the coelurosaurs lost some or all of their teeth over time and evolved beak-like structures eventually giving rise to birds. As one of the scientists put it: This is a clear-cut indication that the repeated evolution of a toothless beak in theropod dinosaurs is linked to plant eating, “once a beak appeared on the scene, it continued to evolve. Theropods would have used their beaks in a myriad of ways; they still do.

But wait, the evolutionary conjecture goes further. They also claim that in addition to losing teeth and evolving a beak, that some of the coelurosaurs began evolving longer necks which probably helped them to expand their reach and browsing range

Simplistic response, but you want to justify your accusations?

Like I said earlier, I really had my hopes up when I saw the title of the article. As a trained wildlife biologist, I don’t believe that sharp teeth necessarily mean the animal is a predatory meat eater. The most famous theropod, T. rex is always portrayed as a vicious predatory monster that roamed the countryside hunting down anything that moved. They base this portrait on the long sharp serrated teeth and massive jaws.

However, I’m not so sure that this accurately sums up the habit and diet of the T. rex. I’ve had the occasion to examine the jaw of a T. rex up close and look at several teeth of varying lengths. One thing I readily noticed was that the larger teeth that reached lengths of 4 inches or more had shallower roots on them. The shallowness of the roots would have made them vulnerable to loss when trying to bite into and hold onto another dinosaur that was fighting for its life. If you examine the teeth of most top predators, they have sufficiently long and strong roots to firmly anchor their teeth. But the teeth of the T. rex would be strong enough to rip the flesh off of a dead rotting corpse making it more of a scavenger than a predator.

If the whole tooth serrations thing didn't demonstrate that this bloke has no idea what he's talking about, this does.

Tyrannosaurid tooth roots make up roughly two-thirds of the whole tooth's length.[2]



^In the above picture, the part of the teeth with the cracked, non-shiny appearance would have been the roots. Those roots are shallow to you?

As for the jaws of the T. rex, they show the indications of having massive jaw muscles. While many predators also have strong jaw muscles, so do many scavengers. One of the strongest sets of jaws on the African continent belongs to the hyena. Hyenas rarely hunt and kill their own food, but feed mainly on the kills of other animals and carrion they find left behind by others. Their jaw muscles are so strong that they readily bite right through the bones of larger animals.

False.

In some areas, hyenas apparently do scavenge more than they hunt, but in others, it's the other way around.[3]

Lastly on the T. rex, I have had a number of people ask me what those teeth and jaws would have been used for before death entered God’s perfect creation. The answer is easy – large fruits and vegetables. Have you ever cut open a large pumpkin or gourd? It takes a sharp knife and strong hand. The teeth of the T. rex would have been perfect for biting into and breaking up something like a pumpkin or large gourd or melon. After the Curse when death entered the world, a number of animals would have started to die from old age, disease or accidental injury. The smell of the rotting meat would have attracted various animals that began to eat some of the decaying meat. Developing a taste for meat, the urge to find more would have started to build up, driving some of them to start hunting other animals. Can I prove this? No! Am I married to this interpretation? No! At least I am honest enough to admit it, unlike many evolutionists like the ones that are staking their reputations that certain dinosaurs evolved into birds because they started losing their teeth and evolved a beak and longer neck.

Great! Now all you need is a reliable citation with evidence that shows such food was a regular part of Tyrannosaurus' natural diet.

eagerly waits for citation with big grin

Uh, guy? The citation?

References:

[1] "A functional explanation for denticulation in theropod dinosaur teeth" (D'Amore, 2009)
[2] The Dinosauria: Second Edition (Weishampel; Dodson; ‎Osmólska, 2004, p 119)
[3] The Spotted Hyena: A Study of Predation and Social Behavior (Hans Kruuk, 1979)

[creature386]

^One more perfect example of how websites written by creationists usually don't try to attack the arguments of the opponent's side, but rather appeal to the ignorance of their readers by spreading misconceptions about how science works. As if scientists worked like "these teeth are sharp = carnivore; these teeth are blunt = herbivore". They usually even try to illustrate their points by showing how hard it is for regular people to differ carnivores from herbivores.

We also point out the fallacy of relying solely on tooth structure to identify the diet of an animal. Our speakers often show a slide with this very carnivorous looking skull (pictured left), and people are surprised to find that it is actually a fruit bat.

creation.com/vegetarian-theropod-dinosaurs
Having superficial or simplistic knowledge about science is one thing. Publicly advocating such views and voluntarily spreading misconceptions is another thing.

[Infinity Blade]

Actually, in regards to the tyrannosaurid tooth thing, I have a theory as to how he arrived at that bullshit claim.

Maybe he confused the crowns for the roots and thought the blunt "crowns" (roots) were ideal for herbivory .

[Creeper]

. . .and that guy calls himself a wildlife biologist. Yet he doesn't need to know that an obligated scavenger is a rare animal indeed.

[creature386]

Added a directory.

[Infinity Blade]

"Nebraska Man and Piltdown Man were hoaxes (a pig tooth and a mixture of primate remains respectively) that undermine the credibility of evolutionists working with the hominid fossil record."

1.) One of the biggest problems with this claim is that NEBRASKA MAN WAS NOT A DELIBERATE HOAX. Sure, Piltdown Man might have been one, but false identity=/=fraud in favor of evolution. Nebraska Man's identity was never a cut-and-dry topic until it was found for what it really was (a *peccary*, NOT a pig, learn the difference). The notion of it being ancestral to H. sapiens was far from unanimous within the scientific community; many, if not most scientists did not think it belonged to an ape at all, and among those who did, only a few thought it was an ancestor of humans. And no, no one was trying to "hide" the truth about Nebraska Man, and wild guesses based upon the tooth were looked down upon. W.K. Gregory was one of the scientists who was determined to prove Nebraska Man belonged to an ape, yet he was also the one who broke the truth to the scientific community. Henry Fairfield Osborn, the original describer of the remains, criticized an attempted reconstruction from the scant remains they had. This was no more of a deliberate hoax and no less of a case of mistaken identity than how scientists once thought the horns of Triceratops belonged to a giant bison.

2.) As for Piltdown Man, yes, it was a hoax, as I mentioned above. But it was *scientists* who discovered it was a hoax. And of course, let's not throw the baby out with the bath water; one hoax doesn't disassemble the integrity of the entire hominid fossil record.

[Infinity Blade]

An infamous one:

"Why don't we see things like crocoducks?"

1.) We don't see things like crocoducks simply because, for example, ducks did not evolve from crocodiles. Although they share a common ancestor back from when their respective clades, pseudosuchians and avemetatarsalians, split, ducks did not evolve from crocodiles. Of course, one can see that this is a straw man; no one seriously argued one modern organism gave rise to another (as such an action is obviously impossible), but creationists have oversimplified the assertion that transitional forms help prove evolution to the erroneous aforementioned notion and attempt to ridicule evolution.

2.) Animals alive today all conform to the phylogenetic clades they are within in that they possess the trademark anatomical characteristics of said clades (e.g. only mammals have fur and only birds have feathers), pointing to common ancestry. A literal chimera of different animals (e.g. a crocoduck) with some of the exact trademark characteristics of two clades would be anomalous, as its anatomical characteristics are not conforming/pointing to a single, clear lineage. If anything, it would be evidence against evolution, thus highlighting how people who use this argument do not understand how evolution works.

[creature386]

I'd like to examine a few points commonly made against the Big Bang theory.

"The Big Bang theory states that nothing made everything for no reason which is impossible, falsifying the theory."
(Please see also: Something cannot come from nothing.)

1. This is an oversimplification which is very often brought up, but it is usually not based upon research, but rather on an interpretation of the name "Big Bang" and trying to apply it in the context in which it is often used. The name is misleading as it was in fact coined by an opponent of the Big Bang (Fred Hoyle; probably one of the most famous non-conformists) who tried to ridicule it.[1] It is a misleading description, as the Big Bang rather refers to the expansion of a singularity into what we know as the universe. Not knowing what preceded it does not falsifiy the BBT, as it is (unlike its opponents claim) no philosophical solution to the problem of the ultimate origin, but an interpretation of the cosmological data. If I see footprints, I can conclude someone walked there without needing an explanation of why they walked their or where they come from. Scientists are not little children that need to make up laughable explanations to please themselves.

2. The imagination of causality in the argument when applied to our perception of time. However, our intuition does not help us much when trying to move to the quantum level which is crucial for understanding the Big Bang.[2] Quantum mechanics are known to violate a definite causal order,[3] making "common sense" based arguments irrelevant.

[1] Hoyle, Fred The nature of the universe (1952)
[2] Bojowald, Martin What happened before the Big Bang? (2007)
[3] Oreshkov et al. Quantum correlations with no causal order (2012)

"The big bang theory has two basic assumptions.
1. The Copernican Principle.
2. An unbounded universe.
Both assumptions basically state that the universe would look the same from any other observation point and that the Earth's position is in no way unique. However, the redshifts of galaxies we can observe appear in evenly spaced groups.* This effect is called redshift quantization and implies a universe where the galaxies form shells and where Earth is near the center**."

Summary of this section:
creationwiki.org/Big_bang#Evolutionary_Assumptions

*It looks like this:


**Visualization (this is also called the bounded universe which I interpret as a modern version of geocentrism):


1. Examinations of quasi-stellar objects failed to find any evidence of periodicitiy at the predicted freqeuencies[1] and interpreted previous findings as statistically insignificant.[2] The smaller periodicities are irrelevant, as galactic clusering and geometric irregularities can explain them easily.[3] Given that known mechanisms can explain the observable data, the bounded universe becomes an unnecessary entity which Occam's razor can eliminate.

2. The premise that the universe is largely homogenous (which suggests against a special role of Earth, making this assumption a stronger version of the Copernican principle) has more evidence than the CreationWiki wants you to believe.[4] In a nutshell, the cosmic microwave background (which can tell us about the conditions of distant parts in the universe) is very homogenous.

[1] Tang and Zhang Critical Examinations of QSO Redshift Periodicities and Associations with Galaxies in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data (2005)
[2] Hawkins et al. No periodicities in 2dF Redshift Survey data (2002)
[3] Sepulveda, E. Geometric Paradigm Accounts for All Redshift Periodicities (1987)
[4] Goodman, Jeremy Geocentrism reexamined (1995)

My references are clickable.

[creature386]

Note: This rebuttal is more directed towards the creationist audience than the creationists themselves.

"Molecule-to-man evolution is pseudoscience as it cannot be observed nor repeated and thus not be tested. Given that it happened in the past, there is no way we can ever verify it (unlike the Bible), making it a mere guess depending on the premises of uniformitarianism and naturalism." (See also: Were you there?)

Source: Claim commonly used by Ken Ham, Ray Comfort and their fans as a killer argument.

1. The claim relies on a too simplistic definition of science which makes no mention of predictions or falsification (creationists are usually perfectly aware of that, their presentation of science can therefore be understood as deceit) and tries to reduce the scientific method to "Science is what you can see". This is maybe a handy definition for the children the mentioned creationists are indoctrinating, but it is nonetheless misleading. Apart from the obvious fact that not just evolution, but our entire understanding of astronomy, geology or quantum mechanics would be pseudoscience under such a definition, it should be noted that simply describing observations is not science yet. The minimum a scientific paper needs to include is a description of the materials and methods used to conduct an experiment (to make it repeatable and testable), a description of the results and a discussion. The latter is needed to interpret results. Observations can be simplified in theories which are used to explain the world, including the past. If a theory can make predictions and be falsified, it is science (even if it turns out to be wrong).

2. Contrary to what creationists are implying, historical sources (like the Bible) can't be taken as granted facts either and skepticism is needed in history as well as in science. Creationists generally try to create the impression that historical documents cannot be argued against,[1,2] but the historical method must be critical of their sources. Otherwise, there won't be debates over the existence of historical figures like, say Sun-tzu[3] or Leucippus[4] is disputed. Of course creationists can argue that the Bible is consistent with science and other historical documents (I won't say so, but this is not a subject). This is a legitimate application of the historical method, but they should at least be honest that the historical is not vastly superior to the scientific method when it comes to giving truths. It should be noted that science (like dating methods) is also often used by historians.
In a nutshell: There are hardly "absolute truths" in the origins debate, perfect proofs only exist in mathematics.

3. Common characteristics of pseudoscience are the lack of falsifiability and goalpost moving due to a lack of coherent definitions. As there are hardly strong definitions for key creationists principles (like the "kind" taxonomy or baraminology), they are hardly falsifiable. Whenever they get refuted, the lack of coherent definitions allows escape hatches. As we already started the definition point, non-naturalist explanations can be dismissed on the basis of a lack of coherent definitions.

4. The claim that there is no evidence for evolution usually depends on the fringe dichotomy between micro- and macroevolution which does not just not follow the common definition (which refers to changes within and beyond species level), but is also dependent on baraminology[5] which is problematic.[6]
Molecule-to-man evolution would simply imply extrapolating known evolutionary mechanisms to the past.

5. Uniformitarianism is a legitimate premise for broadening the application of theories. There is of course no definite evidence for uniformitarianism, but observation tells us that natural laws remain constant over time (i.e. the sun rises every day, rain will be able to evaporate again ect…), so it can be concluded that the present can be used to reconstruct the past. "The past could have been different" is a positive claim, the catastrophist[7] carries the burden of proof.

6. Last, but not least, the enormous predictive and explanatory power of evolution deserves a mention.[8]

[1] answersingenesis.org/world-religions/is-evolution-a-religion/
[2] answersingenesis.org/big-bang/the-big-bang/
[3] books.google.de/books?hl=de&id=-JZHcuVLfu8C&q=existence#v=snippet&q=existence&f=false
[4] plato.stanford.edu/entries/leucippus/
[5] Or how else can "evolution within and beyond a kind" happen if there are no "kinds"?
[6] Go here (link) for a discussion of micro- and macroevolution, including short comments on baraminology.
[7] Catastrophism is the opposite of uniformitarianism and assumes that special events completely changed natural laws in the past.
[8] www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

[creature386]

I now reply to this comment, as it managed to compress an absolutely astonishing amount of creationist claims within such a short time (respect to the author):

Source

"Evolution is a religion."
(Please see also: There is no scientific evidence for evolution.)

1. The author defines religion as a belief system without evidence or the antithesis of science. This definition of religion does not just extend it to unnecessary bounds, but its application on evolution ignores the story of the theory. Darwin believed in biblical inerracy in his early years, his theory was inferred from evidence. Creationists are free to point out that he interpreted it incorrectly, but that does not make him religious, it only shows that people can make errors (in case he was really wrong). Of course it is possible that he deliberately lied, but such accusations can be thrown at anybody. Moreover, Darwin even gave examples how to falsify evolution, suggesting against it being a religion under that definition (as it implies non-falsifiability.

2. Sometimes, creationists define religion as belief systems which are treated dogmatically, but this definition is rather useless[1] and already synonymous with dogma, making it just an attempt of tu quoque (as creationists are usually religious).

[1] See this discussion for more details (clickable).


"Evolution encompasses more than just biological evolution, it also can encompass the Big Bang, stellar evolution, chemical evolution and abiogenesis."

1. While there is a general theory of evolution which tries to combine all of these elements, this theory has not reached near consensus level and most scientists prefer to differ the listed elements. The evolution taught at schools is purely biological.

2. When you attack the general theory of evolution, you should try to use that term to avoid confusion and make clear that this is not a consensual view, as the creationist definition of evolution continues to disinform their audience.

3. It should be noted that falsifying one of these sub-theories (say, the Big Bang) would falsify the general theory of evolution, but it would not falsify the other sub-theories. This was not the intent of the author, but the "Nothing can't make everything" argument is still sometimes used against biological evolution.[1]

[1] Wretched: Nothing made everything (YouTube link)


I'll skip his Big Bang criticism, I already addressed that before: The Big Bang theory states that nothing made everything for no reason which is impossible, falsifying the theory.


"Elements heavier than iron could not have been the result of stellar fusion, indicating that God designed them."

1. The first part of the claim is correct, but as I pointed out in a response comment, stellar fusion is not the only possible mechanism for chemical elements forming. Usually, stars do not produce heavier elements than iron because iron has a "perfect" stability (radioactivity can quickly turn unstable elements into stable ones), so you need something more extreme to get beyond iron. You need a catastrophic event like a supernova. Supernovae are the result of dying stars and can supply significant amounts of energetic neutrons which then get compressed faster than radioactivity can disintegrate them, allowing the formation of heavy elements, even uranium.[1]

[1] Roberts, Greg Star Death and the Origin of Uranium (2013)


"Nobody has ever seen a star form."

1. It should be noted that the lifecycles of stars vastly exceed human lifespans and even the single phases of star formation take some 10,000 years. Nevertheless, there is empirical evidence for the single stages of star birth:

• The formation of a star-forming core in a molecular cloud.[1]
• The collapse of these cores.[2]
• Young stellar objects of various stages of development (identified via their spectral energy distribution which is inferred from the observable wavelength).[3][4]
• The next part varies from star to star.[5] The author probably means a star like our Sun. There are stars close to the zero-age main-sequence time (i.e. when it starts becoming a proper main-sequence star).[6]

2. As for the objection that we don't know what is inside a cloud (which he referred to dust), scientists that study molecular clouds use infrared light which can very well give pictures of what is happening inside such a cloud.[1][2]

[1] Peretto et al. Global collapse of molecular clouds as a formation mechanism for the most massive stars. (2013)
[2] Myers, P. C. and Benson, P. J. Dense Cores in Dark Clouds: II. NH3 Observations and Star Formation (1983)
[3] André et al. Submillimeter continuum observations of Rho Ophiuchi A - The candidate protostar VLA 1623 and prestellar clumps. (1993)
[4] For a brief summary of observable evidence, click here.
[5] This NASA infographic sums up the variety of lifecycles.
[6] Walborn, Nolan Optically observable zero-age main-sequence O stars. (2007)


"Pasteur's law of biogenesis refutes spontaneous generation, making abiogenesis impossible."

1. Pasteur disproved that bacteria or more complex creatures can get spontaneously created from a broth of organic matter which was a common belief in his time. Abiogenesis does not require such a drastic version of spontaneous generation, it is generally agreed to have been a step-by-step process which would include stages far, far simpler than bacteria or any microbiological entity known in Pasteur's time. As pointed out by Darwin,[1] lifeforms today would have immediately absorbed the necessary matter in the first stages (such as the amino acids proven by the Miller-Urey experiment).

2. Spontaneous generation and abiogenesis have nothing to do with each other. Spontaneous generation has never even been a theory on the origin of life. Spontaneous generation was about the generation of life from the waste and corpses of previous life. Advocates of spontaneous generation believed in a so-called elan vital included in life forms which would remain in the environment when a corpse decays or when a creature gives off waste products. This elan vital could then combine to form living creatures. The advocates of spontaneous generation did not believe the first life arose like that, they attributed it to divine creation. Abiogenesis does not need vitalism. In fact, it depends on the idea that biology is on a fundamental level just chemistry.

[1] Origin and Evolution of Life on a Frozen Earth


"Micro- and macroevolution have to be differed."

1. They only have to in the creationist worldview as they are the only one who are using the dichotomy between evolution below and beyond kind level (the scientific definition is beyond and below species level; there is hard evidence for macroevolution after this definition[1]). As they came up with the kind concept, the burden of proof is among them to prove that kinds even exist. The present evidence is consistent with a nested hierarchy pattern[2] which is pretty much the opposite of the pattern a baraminological[3] model would predict.

2. If macroevolution is defined as non-observable evolution, the lack of observation becomes a tautology.

3. There appears to be no objective definition of kinds/baramins. The methodology used for identifying them has been criticized on the basis of being too subjective and unscientific.[4] Definitions of kinds must be objective to avoid goalpost moving.[5]

4. To understand how fluent evolutionary transitions can be, one has to learn about ring species. These are species of which several populations exist more or less isolated and are arranged in a ring (geographically). Neighboring ones can interbreed, but the genetic difference between some of them is too great for producing offspring. Examples include greenish warblers.[6] This example demonstrates that even the more objectively defined term species ("All populations that can create fertile offspring or [in the case of unicellular organisms] exchange genetic material.") is not perfectly applicable,[7] let alone a subjectively defined "kind".

5. For a caricature of the creationist dichotomy, please watch cdk007's video explaining the difference between micro- and macro-tree-growth.[8]

6. Micro- and macroevolution ultimately rely on the same mechanisms. A dichotomy would require a "kind" of DNA that can mutate and one that can't.

[1] www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB910.html
[2] www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#nested_hierarchy
[3] Baraminology is the name of the kind taxonomy. Baramin means "created kind" in Hebrew.
[4] web.archive.org/web/20070630032923/http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/baraminology_ta.htm
[5] King Crocoduck put it nicely in this video ("kinds" start around the 25th minute).
[6] Irwin et al. Speciation in a ring. (2000)
[7] Are the greenish warblers all in the same species? I mean, each population can interbreed with some other, but not all can interbreed. Where do we draw the line?
[8] Micro vs Macro Growth

[creature386]

I was really wondering if the following is a case for our laughable statements thread or for this one. The claim itself sounds too stupid for even this thread, but given that creationists on YouTube really take it seriously, I feel like I have to refute it.

The claim:

"Evolution requires the biblical worldview, but denies said worldview, making it inconsistent."

Lisle, Jason Evolution: The Anti-science (2008)

In his article, Lisle basically argues that only fundamentalist Christians (yes, he explicitly attacks Christians that take Genesis metaphorically) can do science. All others are being inconsistent and thus anti-scientific.
This is not coming from some YouTube wacko, but a guy with a PhD…

A reply with numbers is insufficient, I feel like I need a side-to-side rebuttal again.

Note: I am currently unsatisfied with this rebuttal because I did not know so much about presuppositionalists and their weird epistemology when I wrote this, I may need to rewrite it one day in the future.

Dr. Jason Lisle	creature386
Some evolutionists have argued that science isn’t possible without evolution. They teach that science and technology actually require the principles of molecules-to-man evolution in order to work. They claim that those who hold to a biblical creation worldview are in danger of not being able to understand science! [1], [2], [3]	The cited sources talk about biology, Lisle probably changed that to science in general since he wanted to maintain the view that evolution is more than just biology and rather some atheistic dogma on the origin of everything than a biological theory.[1] He is also implying that evolution is in a way a metaphysical program that somehow needs to provide a basis for logic or truth (just imagine someone said the same about the theory of gravity). Not even a theory of everything would have to be able to account for metaphysical principles.
Critical thinkers will realize that these kinds of arguments are quite ironic because evolution is actually contrary to the principles of science. That is, if evolution were true, the concept of science would not make sense. Science actually requires a biblical creation framework in order to be possible. Here’s why: The Preconditions of Science Science presupposes that the universe is logical and orderly and that it obeys mathematical laws that are consistent over time and space. Even though conditions in different regions of space and eras of time are quite diverse, there is nonetheless an underlying uniformity.[4]	"Critical thinkers" Like those who admit that nothing could ever change their minds?[2] Like those who freely confess that everything must be interpreted in a way that suits their presuppositions?[3] His footnote goes on explaining the difference between a law and a pattern, i.e. uniformity tells us that physical laws are constant, uniformitarianism tells us that patterns/rates in general are consistent. Apart the nonsensical implication that uniformitarianism is a presupposition accepted on faith (uniformitarian assumptions about past patterns are inferred to be constant from the constancy of laws, rates of dubious constancy do not have an as great merit  as the author wants us to believe, hence this dichotomy is probably more to avoid some hypocrisy), his dichotomy creates a problem: How do we know what is a pattern and what is a law? The Bible has no list of natural laws, all laws have been named and identified by humans. Therefore, all the Bible can tell us is that laws exist in the first place. However, if we have no certainty about what is a law and what not, the problems Lisle describes in his article still exist (How do I know that the law I need for my theory is a law and no rate?). Moreover, it should be noted that the favorite target of catastrophists (radioactive decay) is a law![4] It being different in the past would require throwing away pretty much all the constants and laws related to electromagnetism and nuclear physics.[5]
Because there is such regularity in the universe, there are many instances where scientists are able to make successful predictions about the future. For example, astronomers can successfully compute the positions of the planets, moons, and asteroids far into the future. Without uniformity in nature, such predictions would be impossible, and science could not exist. The problem for evolutionism is that such regularity only makes sense in a biblical creation worldview.	This is not quite true, the only thing you need are patterns. Science would not be as great as it is now, but it would still exist. History and social sciences have no constants and their predictive power is quite poor compared to harder sciences (as human behavior is hard to predict), but they still exist and have some use. It is true that the existence of constants is what elevates natural over social sciences though. Anyway, the cognitive dissonance of creationists is quite staggering here, considering how the same people who tell us about the variability of constants like radioactive decay or lightspeed tell us about the importance of the uniformity of nature… Jason Lisle himself once argued that the speed of light is not a constant![6] This is one of the most fundamental parameters of the universe, so Jason apparently doesn't value uniformity.
Science Requires a Biblical Worldview The biblical creationist expects there to be order in the universe because God made all things (John 1:3) and has imposed order on the universe. Since the Bible teaches that God upholds all things by His power (Hebrews 1:3), the creationist expects that the universe would function in a logical, orderly, law-like fashion.[5] Furthermore, God is consistent[6] and omnipresent.[7] Thus, the creationist expects that all regions of the universe will obey the same laws, even in regions where the physical conditions are quite different. The entire field of astronomy requires this important biblical principle. Moreover, God is beyond time (2 Peter 3:8) and has chosen to uphold the universe in a consistent fashion throughout time for our benefit. So, even though conditions in the past may be quite different than those in the present and future, the way God upholds the universe (what we would call the “laws of nature”) will not arbitrarily change.[8] God has told us that there are certain things we can count on to be true in the future—the seasons, the diurnal cycle, and so on (Genesis 8:22).	It is interesting how much our astrophysicist can infer from these passages. The verse from Genesis only states that the diurnal cycle and seasons will still exist in the future, NOT that they are going to happen at predictable rates! This verse at most tells him that the Sun is going to rise tomorrow. It is also interesting that the examples include only processes and not the fundamental laws driving them. Why not listing them? Won't that be helpful? The author's description of God's attributes is also a bit odd. Did Lisle turn into a pantheist or since when does the universe have all of the properties of God? Particularly when considering that the verses cited in the sixth note talk about moral consistence…
Therefore, under a given set of conditions, the consistent Christian has the right to expect a given outcome because he or she relies upon the Lord to uphold the universe in a consistent way.	Given that our anti-uniformitarian creationists puts a huge emphasis on saying that processes/conditions (that can mostly be reconstructed by using laws!) were different in the past, the Christian scientist cannot be sure that his experiment relies on "laws" or "patterns". If we cannot accurately model the past, how can we do so with the future?
Can an Evolutionist Do Science? Since science requires the biblical principle of uniformity (as well as a number of other biblical creation principles), it is rather amazing that one could be a scientist and also an evolutionist. And yet, there are scientists that profess to believe in evolution. How is this possible? The answer is that evolutionists are able to do science only because they are inconsistent. They accept biblical principles such as uniformity, while simultaneously denying the Bible from which those principles are derived. Such inconsistency is common in secular thinking; secular scientists claim that the universe is not designed, but they do science as if the universe is designed and upheld by God in a uniform way. Evolutionists can do science only if they rely on biblical creation assumptions (such as uniformity) that are contrary to their professed belief in evolution.[9]	I love how other religions are ignored (Couldn't Allah have created logic as well?) to save the very black-and-white biblical creationists vs evolutionists worldview. Another thing I absolutely love is his assumption that all evolutionists secretly believe that Lisle is right and that their justifications for uniformitarianism are wrong, so that they secretly know that they must use the Bible (even the evolutionists that never spend much time studying it). In fact, evolutionists secretly knowing that they are wrong is exactly what footnote 9 is trying to explain us. This is the typical fundamentalist view that all who disagree KNOW that they are wrong and only do it because they are so evil.
How Would an Evolutionist Respond? The consistent Christian can use past experience as a guide for what is likely to happen in the future because God has promised us that (in certain ways) the future will reflect the past (Genesis 8:22). But how can those who reject Genesis explain why there should be uniformity of nature? How might an evolutionist respond if asked, “Why will the future reflect the past?” One of the most common responses is: “Well, it always has. So, I expect it always will.” But this is circular reasoning. I’ll grant that in the past there has been uniformity.[10] But how do I know that in the future there will be uniformity—unless I already assumed that the future reflects the past (i.e. uniformity)? Whenever we use past experience as a basis for what is likely to happen in the future, we are assuming uniformity. So, when an evolutionist says that he believes there will be uniformity in the future since there has been uniformity in the past, he’s trying to justify uniformity by simply assuming uniformity—a circular argument.	Lisle's argument is basically a reiteration of the problem of induction formulated by David Hume. He is willfully ignorant of the fact that Karl Popper has long solved it. Karl Popper said that theories cannot be proven, they can only be falsified. 100 white swans cannot prove that all swans are white, 1 black swan can destroy that notion. You can formulate a falsifiable theory that all swans are white and you can formulate a falsifiable theory that the universe is uniform. If this theory has passed an enormous amount of tests, it is extremely probable to be true and by far the most parsimonious explanation of the way reality behaves and thus can be used to work with (this is an important point, you do not believe in scientific theories, you work with them as long as they reliably predict future data). Such theories are never final which is why you "err yourself upwards". Of course dogmatic fundamentalists like Jason Lisle are very afraid of the possibility to be wrong which is why they think that simply assuming and asserting that the Bible is true and provides a basis of logic and uniformity (for that, they also need to presuppose that their brains and their senses work so that they can read and interpret the Bible properly) is anyhow going to help. To put it bluntly, making presuppositions does not make something true.
An evolutionist might argue that the nature of matter is such that it behaves in a regular fashion;[11] in other words, uniformity is just a property of the universe. This answer also fails. First, it doesn’t really answer the question. Perhaps uniformity is one aspect of the universe, but the question is why? What would be the basis for such a property in an evolutionary worldview? Second, we might ask how an evolutionist could possibly know that uniformity is a property of the universe. At best, he or she can only say that the universe—in the past—seems to have had some uniformity.[12] But how do we know that will continue into the future unless we already knew about uniformity some other way? Many things in this universe change; how do we know that the laws of nature will not?	This is a statement on the the ontology of uniformity, not on our epistemic methods to find out about the existence of uniformity. As stated above, this is by a very far margin the most parsimonious and well-supported theory to explain our reality. The origin of these properties does not need to be explained, since properties by definition exist as long as the objects exist. It's like asking where the roundness of a circle comes from. If something had no inertia, it would not be a massive object. If something had no negative charge, it would be no electron, you get the point. Lastly, something on the change in this universe must be said: Jason is equivocating between two different kinds of change. One is the temporal relationship between objects and the other is a change in its nature. For an illustration, you can change the shape of a piece of clay, but that does not change the fact that it is a piece of clay. You can also change the temporal and spatial relationship of a planet to its star, you do not change the fact that it is a body with mass that can curve spacetime.
Some evolutionists might try a more pragmatic response: “Well, I can’t really explain why. But uniformity seems to work, so we use it.” This answer also fails for two reasons. First, we can only argue that uniformity seems to have worked in the past; there’s no guarantee it will continue to work in the future unless you already have a reason to assume uniformity (which only the Christian does). Yet, evolutionists do assume that uniformity will be true in the future. Second, the answer admits that uniformity is without justification in the evolutionary worldview—which is exactly the point. No one is denying that there is uniformity in nature; the point is that only a biblical creation worldview can make sense of it. Evolutionists can only do science if they are inconsistent: that is, if they assume biblical creationist concepts while denying biblical creation.	As stated above, absolute knowledge in the sense of 100% accuracy is not the goal of science and Einstein summed Popper's principles up quite well here:[7] No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong. Science IS pragmatic. It is no belief, but a method and while not perfect, it is the best we have,[8] simply because falsification is the only thing we know about that can rule out alternatives (and it is consistent, if we find something better, the idea that falsification is the best gets falsified). Presuppositionalism can't. The entire presupposition between presuppositionalism is that everyone already knows the Bible is true which is why it cannot even be called an attempt towards epistemology. It does not want to create knowledge, it merely wants to shut up opponents and to childishly declare having a monopoly on logic, truth and knowledge because some Bible verses sum up very basic observations people made back then!
Theistic Evolution Won’t Save the Day Some evolutionists might argue that they can account for uniformity just as the Christian does—by appealing to a god who upholds the universe in a law-like fashion.[13] But rather than believing in Genesis creation, they believe that this god created over millions of years of evolution. However, theistic evolution will not resolve the problem. A theistic evolutionist does not believe that Genesis is literally true. But if Genesis is not literally true, then there is no reason to believe that Genesis 8:22 is literally true. This verse is where God promises that we can count on a certain degree of uniformity in the future. Without biblical creation, the rational basis for uniformity is lost. It’s not just any god that is required in order to make sense of uniformity; it is the Christian God as revealed in the Bible. Only a God who is beyond time, consistent, faithful, all powerful, omnipresent, and who has revealed Himself to mankind can guarantee that there will be uniformity throughout space and time. Therefore, only biblical creationists can account for the uniformity in nature.	There you have it, only fundies can do science! I'm fine with that, but please keep in mind if all the scientists which you guys usually list to prove that Christians invented science really read the Bible the way you guys did. For instance, Newton (a common authority cited by creationists) was an Arianist which means he did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God. Does this qualify as "unbiblical". BTW, the reference to Genesis is rather weak, theistic evolutionists can still view the other verses used to support uniformity that Lisle cited.
Evolution Is Irrational In fact, if evolution were true, there wouldn’t be any rational reason to believe it! If life is the result of evolution, then it means that an evolutionist’s brain is simply the outworking of millions of years of random-chance processes. The brain would simply be a collection of chemical reactions that have been preserved because they had some sort of survival value in the past. If evolution were true, then all the evolutionist’s thoughts are merely the necessary result of chemistry acting over time. Therefore, an evolutionist must think and say that “evolution is true” not for rational reasons, but as a necessary consequence of blind chemistry. Scholarly analysis presupposes that the human mind is not just chemistry. Rationality presupposes that we have the freedom to consciously consider the various options and choose the best. Evolutionism undermines the preconditions necessary for rational thought, thereby destroying the very possibility of knowledge and science.	Go here: theworldofanimals.proboards.com/post/28395/thread
Conclusions Evolution is anti-science and anti-knowledge. If evolution were true, science would not be possible because there would be no reason to accept the uniformity of nature upon which all science and technology depend. Nor would there be any reason to think that rational analysis would be possible since the thoughts of our mind would be nothing more than the inevitable result of mindless chemical reactions. Evolutionists are able to do science and gain knowledge only because they are inconsistent; professing to believe in evolution, while accepting the principles of biblical creation.	How desperate can you get when you do not even try to defend any position and instead simply believe everyone secretly agrees with you? I will say it a final time, science does not concern itself with proofs, only mathematics do.[9] The reason why we can do science is a pragmatic one, deal with it. Maybe we one day learn that the laws of nature can arbitrarily change and we must quit doing science? So what? We won't care anyway, we'd be dead by then once our biochemistries don't survive the new laws of physics (any minor deviation could kill us which is the basis of the fine-tuning argument).

Jason Lisle's footnotes:
1. Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” This was also the title of his 1973 essay first published in the American Biology Teacher, Vol. 35, p. 125–129.
2. The National Academy of Sciences issued a book called Science, Evolution, and Creationism which stated that evolution is a “critical foundation of the biomedical and life sciences . . .” and that evolutionary concepts “are fundamental to a high-quality science education.” (See The Creation/Evolution Battle Resumes.)
3. The National Academy of Sciences also published a document called “Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science” (1998) with a similar theme. In the preface (p. viii) the authors indicate that biological evolution is “the most important concept in modern biology, a concept essential to understanding key aspects of living things.” They chose to publish the document in part “because of the importance of evolution as a central concept in understanding our planet.”
4. Uniformity should not be confused with “uniformitarianism.” Uniformity simply insists that the laws of nature are consistent and do not arbitrarily change with time or space, though specific conditions and processes may change. Uniformitarianism is the (unbiblical) belief that present processes are the same as past processes; it asserts a consistency of conditions and rates over time and is summed up in the phrase, “The present is the key to the past.”
5. The “ordinances of heaven and earth” are specifically mentioned in Jeremiah 33:25.
6. 1 Samuel 15:29; Numbers 23:19
7. Psalm 139:7–8
8. Granted, God can use unusual and extraordinary means on occasion to accomplish an extraordinary purpose—what we might call a “miracle.” But these are (by definition) exceptional; natural law could be defined as the ordinary way that God upholds the universe and accomplishes His will.
9. Why would someone who professes to believe in evolution also accept creation-based concepts? Although they may deny it, evolutionists are also made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27). In their heart-of-hearts, they know the biblical God (Romans 1:19–20), but they have deceived themselves (James 1:22–24). They have forgotten that the principles of science come from the Christian worldview.
10. In granting this assumption, I’m actually being very generous to the evolutionist. I could have been very thorough and asked, “How do we really know that even in the past nature has been uniform?” One might argue that we remember that the past was uniform. But since the memory portions of our brain require that the laws of chemistry and physics are constant over time, you would have to assume that the past is uniform in order to argue that we correctly remember that the past is uniform! Any non-Christian response would be necessarily circular.
11. The atheist Dr. Gordon Stein used essentially this response in the famous 1985 debate with Christian philosopher Dr. Greg Bahnsen on the existence of God.
12. Again, I’m being generous here. Even this response is begging the question, since the evolutionist would have to assume uniformity in the past in order to argue that his memories of the past are accurate.
13. A “day-age” creationist might also try to use this argument. But it also fails for the same reason. Day-age creationists do not believe that Genesis really means what it says (that God literally created in six ordinary days). So, how could we trust that Genesis 8:22 really means what it says? And if Genesis 8:22 does not mean what it says, then there is no reason to believe in uniformity. Therefore, the day-age creationist has the same problem as the evolutionist. Neither can account for science and technology within his own worldview.



My own footnotes:
1. Jason Lisle was in fact once interviewed in a video (just click the text to be linked to it) where he was supposed to talk about evolution. And guess what? He started talking about the big bang… For the ones who are interested he also repeated the point discussed in this comment.
2. See the Ken Ham-Bill Nye debate.
3. See AiG's statement of faith.
4. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay#Universal_law_of_radioactive_decay
5. The point is made here quite nicely: youtu.be/LITCCA212hg?t=1h17m36s
6. Seriously:
answersingenesis.org/astronomy/starlight/does-distant-starlight-prove-the-universe-is-old/
To his credit, he does recognize that assuming a different lightspeed would be problematic because life may not be able to exist in a universe with a different lightspeed. Still, he said that it is possible that light did not arrive on Earth by natural means (so he basically inserts a small "Goddidit") which means that we cannot trust God's promise about the uniformity of nature so much after all.
7. www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins100017.html#oDqOdr1lPPhxFs7A.99
8. In Carl Sagan's words: Science is far from the perfect instrument of knowledge. It's just the best we have.
9. Even the staunch evolutionist Richard Dawkins admitted that absolute truths can only be found in maths.
Mathematicians can prove things - according to one strict view, they are the only people who can - but the best that scientists can do is fail to disprove things while pointing to how hard they tried.
From The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

P.S. It is rather hilarious to state that the laws of logic were borrowed from the Christian worldview. What was the religion of Aristotle again? Early Christian writers greatly referenced the Ancient Greeks and they were among the giants on whose shoulders Newton was standing. The laws of logic were borrowed by the Christian worldview, not from it!!

[creature386]

I have no idea how old the Earth is, but I’m not alone in this. Science can’t make up its mind either. Just over one hundred years ago, scientists thought that the Earth was about 100 million years old. Soon after, they changed their minds and came to the confident belief that the correct number was 500 million years. Then they changed their minds again and the figure jumped to 1.3 bil- lion years. ... Of course, now they think that it may be 4.55 billion years old. ... I’m sure that contemporary scientists think they have the right number this time, until they change their minds again when more data comes along ... and, of course, none of the ‘faithful’ will question it

Comfort, Ray (2009) You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence but You Can’t Make Him Think

1. The scientific method tells us "If the theory doesn't fit the facts, change the theory!". This means that you logically have to change your opinion sometimes. It is no surprise that a dogmatist like Ray rather wants to plug his eyes and ears, ignoring all evidence he gets.

2. What Comfort forgot to tell you is that the 4.55 billion years figure has not changed for 60 years[1] and that in the period before, there has never been a consensus on the age of Earth (contrary to now) because the methods were just getting developed. Doesn't mean that its impossible that our estimates won't change though (because a part of the scientific method is that questioning is always possible which is what differs it from dogma), the trend is upwards anyway.

3. The excerpt makes little sense. On the one hand, he criticizes the uncertainty of scientists, on the other hand, they are too "faithful".

4. This quote is often attributed to Richard Feynman, dunno if he said this, but I like it nonetheless:
"I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned."

[1] Patterson, Claire (1956) Age of meteorites and the earth