Introduction to this series
URL to the video
Please read the introductory blog to the series (linked above) first if you haven't yet done so to get the correct context for this blog.
In this episode Dr. Humphreys presents a fourteen forms of evidence for a young earth. Let's review them point by point.
- Spiral galaxies would have wound up a lot more if the universe was old.
Before reacting to this item, I should note that Humphreys himself did a presentation with a trampoline analogy in the "Starlight and Time" episode, claiming that the earth was in a timeless zone during which the light from the galaxies propagated to earth. So in his model, the universe is young in earth time, but not in time of the distant galaxies. Why aren't they all wound up? The second error in his presentation is that stars in the edge of a galaxy rotate slower than inner stars. That is incorrect and the discovery initially in the 1930s by Fritz Zwicky and later in the 1960 by Vera Rubin started the Dark Matter hypothesis. The rotational speed stays flat throughout the galaxy but the rotational period does increase due to the larger orbits. Lastly, the spirals are side effects of increased density due to the elliptical orbits of the individual stars as shown in this picture:
(insert picture). There is also an animation available that shows how the spirals stay as they are while the stars in the galaxy rotate (and move in and out of the spiral arms)
- Magnetic fields of galaxies indicate a young universe.
I did not understand the claim here. He states that magnetic fields follow the spiral arms of spiral galaxies. This might be the case, but how is that relevant?
- Comets crumble too quickly.
That would be true if all comets would be short-period comets, but that is not true. Many comets (like the 1997 Hale-Bopp comet) have an orbit of many thousands of years or follow a hyperbolic path and pass the sun only once, never too return. Humphreys creates a straw man of the Oort cloud and Kuiper belt. The Oort cloud is not necessarily feeding the Kuiper belt, both are sources for comets. The Kuiper belt is generally a source for shorter-period comets while the Oort cloud is often a source for long period or single instance comets. His dismissal of comet-like bodies in the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud is comical. Before the Hubble space telescope, Pluto was the only object known in the Kuiper belt. Now, as he admits himself, we've found "some" (over 100,000) asteroid-like bodies but no comets. Comets are generally sized in the order of tens of meters. What telescope does he propose to view those bodies at a distance of 30 to 50 AU? The same goes for the Oort cloud, it is at nearly a light year distance (50000 AU) so a direct observation of Oort cloud bodies is not possible. The existence of the cloud has been inferred through the trajectories of long-term and single instance comets -- just like the existence of the Kuiper belt was inferred through trajectories of small period comets before the HST had been launched.
- Sea floor mud accumulates too fast
- The sea is not salty enough.
These two items will remain without reply. I know too little about geology to give a decent comment on this one.
- The earth's magnetic field is losing energy too fast.
This would be an interesting argument if the rate of losing the energy would be constant and if there was no process that would reverse it. Oh wait, he claims that the polarity changed every couple of days during the Genesis flood. Talking about shooting yourself in the foot. Yes, we know that the magnetic field has changed polarity in the past, we've found the evidence for that, but if he claims that this happened every couple of days during the Genesis flood, I would like to see some evidence that supports this rate. I would also like to know what mechanism was due to the polarity reversal if the Genesis flood had anything to do with it. Let's put things in perspective. Let's suppose for the sake of argument that the flood did happen and that it was a world wide phenomenon. The Mariana trench is the deepest oceanic trench at nearly 11 km. The highest mountain peak, Mount Everest, lies at nearly 9 km. So let us be generous and assume that the earth was covered in a 20 km thick layer of water. The outer core lies at a depth of approximately 2900 km. How is 10 billion cubic km of water going to impact the core significantly enough to change the polarity of the magnetic field multiple times every few days if there is more than 900 billion cubic km of mantle on the core already?
- Mercury's magnetic field is young.
One more item that I will leave mostly untouched. I know too little about the geology of Mercury to give a decent reaction. The only shot from the hip that I would like to bring up, is that it is not that unlikely that a process started not to long ago that started the decline of the magnetic field of Mercury. That does not imply yet that Mercury formed at the start of that process.
- "Mitochondrial Eve" lived 6000 years ago, not 200000.
Humphreys claims that this finding has been published but sites no source. I doubt this statement. I think he confuses Mitochondrial Eve with the latest female ancestor of all humans. Mitochondrial Eve is the latest female ancestor of all humans in the female line. To visualize this: two cousins, children of two brothers, have their latest female ancestor in their grandmother, the mother of the two brothers, but for the latest common ancestor in the female line (mother of the mother of the mother etc) you might have to go back a lot more, maybe even to Mitochondrial Eve. The last estimate I heard was that Mitochondrial Eve indeed lived in Africa around 200,000 years ago and that Y-chromosomal Adam (the last common male ancestor of all humans on the male line) lived in Africa between 237,000 and 581,000 years ago (extended significantly due to a Y-chromosome discovery in 2013).
- DNA in amber of 135 million years ago should have decayed.
Take note that Dr. Humphreys says that the DNA of the insects in the amber could be reconstructed, not that it was present in non-decayed form. Anyone who has an idea of how DNA is sequenced knows that this possibility is very real. It is a multi-layered process of alignment which would take us to far to go into.
- Permian era bacteria have been revived so it could not be 250 million years old.
A cursory search indicates that this is likely a contamination with modern bacteria. The genetic similarity with modern bacteria is too large for the "revived" bacteria to be old.
- Neanderthal DNA has been reconstructed.
This is true, I've personally been to a lecture of the lead investigator of the project and like item 9, this is clearly viable.
- Dinosaur blood cells.
This is a common creationist's misrepresentation. Mary Schweitzer discovered some red residue in fossilized blood vessels of a T.rex bone and wondered if those could be residues from blood cells. No actual cells have been found. Read Mary Schweitzer's own words: "Clearly these structures are not functional cells. However, one possibility is that they represent diagenetic alteration of original blood remnants, such as complexes of hemoglobin breakdown products, a possibility supported by other data that demonstrate that organic components remain in these dinosaur tissues."
- Not enough stone age graves.
This one is really silly. It supposes that bones are always preserved and that nothing acummulates on top of the dead bodies. For comparison: how many birds have died in the last 1000 years. Can you scoop up all those bird bones in you back yard?
- Written history is too short.
His arguments seem to get sillier as he goes along. Yes, writing is only a few thousands of years old. How does that imply in any way that the earth or the universe are as well? The statement that Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon men were "smarter than us" and thus should be able to write is a complete non-sequitur.
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