Evolution is not provable. Neither is Creation. But a substantial body of evidence - evidence which, I must add, is commonly interpreted with the conclusion as a premise - points to a young earth:
* The sun's source of energy. The solar "wind" constantly streaming into space from the rotating surface "exert a dragging effect that is strong enough to stop the rotation of the convecitve zone in only one million years" (Howard 1975). Time to question the premise: millions of years...* Origin of comets. Halley's comet loses approx 1 percent of its mass each time its orbit nears the sun. It should have a life of a few thousand years. Where do all these comets come from? J.H. Oorts rather absurd notion (for which there is no proof) of a comet cloud "out there" is necessariy to reconcile this problem with the millions of years required for Lyell's long geological ages required for evolution. It's far simpler to question the premise.
* Meteorites and tektites. According to research by Petterson, approximately ten-millionths of an inch per year of material from outerspace blankets the earth. Extrapolating this number over five billion years, Apollo should have sank into the surface of the moon. Instead, the dust was, according to Neil Armstrong, "maybe an eighth of an inch" - not even remotely close to Isaac Asimov's dire prediction.
* Earth's decaying magnetic field. This field changes at a constant rate. Polarity reversal have occurred. In 1989 two respected paleomagnetists, R. Coe, and M. Prévot, reported evidence in two thin lava flows at the same location of two rapid reversals in a short period of time - obviously from a global catastophe.
* Stalactites. Any cavern tour guide will assure tourists that stalactites in the cave took "millions of years" to form to two or three feet from water working on the limestone. Yet, two-foot-long stalactites can be seen in abandoned bored tunnels, such as one in London in disuse for about half-a-century.
* Polonium radiohalo signatures in basal granite. Dr. Robert Gentry introduced this research in 1974. Polonium has a half-life of about 3 minutes, and is one of the fourteen stages of the uranium 238 decay process. White-hot magma takes far longer than that to cool. Now, only daughter products (lead-206) are found in the central inclusion of these decay signatures. Yet, we are told that A) the earth is 4.5 billion years old, and B) that the half-life of uranium 238 is 4.51 billion years. Thus, where is the undecayed half of the parent U-238 product that should still be present? Or was it, in fact, created by fiat with polonium, not uranium?
(Source: Taylor, Ian T. In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order. Minneapolis: TFE Publishing. Fourth Edition, Mar. 2001. pp. 329-336.)
Both evolution and creation are accepted on faith, the evolutionist's protests to the contrary notwithstanding. Constancy of rates is accepted on faith because in our short lives they are not empiracally provable (and the evolutionist would not be pleased with what little evidence is available). Only one theory, however, is tenable when we let the facts drive the conclusion and not vice-versa.
That's an interesting point. However, I am certainly not playing dumb. "Deep down" inside, I do not believe that there is any evidence for the existence of the divine. In fact, "deep down" inside I believe that religious believers are those who are naturally terrified of their own nonexistence after death, but who will do anything -- even devote their lives to performing meaningless rituals and wasting some of the limited and priceless time they have by studying ancient texts in a desperate hope that strong belief will somehow change the fact of what will happen to them when they someday die. (And I don't mean this as an insult to any one particular religion, or religion in general. I very much understand even that which I am describing above. However, you wanted to know what I think "deep down"? There you have it...)
Evolution is not provable. Neither is Creation. But a substantial body of evidence - evidence which, I must add, is commonly interpreted with the conclusion as a premise - points to a young earth:
Well, nothing in science is "provable," only subject to falsification. As I've said before, there is an unassailable argument that the Genesis story simply could not have physically happened as written. Further, the list of items you've described have been so thoroughly and repeatedly debunked on this forum and on others, so I won't waste my time refuting them seriatim.
However, I'd merely point out that even if all of these things were right, it would not prove a young earth, nor prove the existence of a God. We simply might not have a clear understanding of the natural world, but to say that this lack of understanding is proof of the existence of an infinitely complex being is the ultimate in non-sequitur.
Both evolution and creation are accepted on faith, the evolutionist's protests to the contrary notwithstanding.
Not really. In science, if there is any "faith," it is faith that the evidence and supporting facts reported by colleagues is done accurately and truthfully so the conclusions that logically and reasonably flow from those facts are consistent. But even that is not "faith" because of the assumption that the fact gathering and experimentation will be repeated or repeatable shows that this is less faith then an operating assumption. And it is not "faith" because it is always subject to abandonment if further experimentation and fact gathering shows the belief to be untenable.
Religious faith, on the other hand, is the belief in something without any factual support or even in the presence of disproof of the belief. This is, to me, a fascinating phenomenon, and something which I find to be endlessly interesting. But it is certainly not the same thing as the operating assumptions in science.
Constancy of rates is accepted on faith because in our short lives they are not empiracally provable (and the evolutionist would not be pleased with what little evidence is available). Only one theory, however, is tenable when we let the facts drive the conclusion and not vice-versa.
And it certainly isn't the religious one, but I expect you'll disagree.