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by Bill Seng

The book of Romans states: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2a). After watching the videos that Nick gave me, I felt like my mind had been totally transformed. At first, I thought that the seminars were just okay. I thought to myself, “This sounds great, but how do these arguments hold up against real scientists?” That was before I watched the first debate. The contestants were Dr. Houghenpough from Berkeley and Dr. Rex Dino, an independent creation evangelist.

The first third of the debate was pretty basic. Both people presented their model of origins to the audience and they both seemed very civil. It was very misleading because the rest of the debate was pandemonium:

Houghenpough (HP): What I don’t understand is how you could believe that the world is only 6,000 years old. We have the geologic column, carbon dating, ice cores, tree rings, and current erosion rates to back up the notion that the world is billions of years old.

Dino: You really believe that huh? And I bet you never questioned what you were told in college either, right? You see this is the problem because you have merely accepted what others have told you as fact and built your science upon that.

HP: Haha! My science? I’m sorry, science is science and what you teach is not science!

Dino: Okay, then let me explain. The geologic column was not formed over millions of years. It was formed in a very short period of time, one year at most. It occurred over the period of time that the world was flood, as explained in Genesis. The fossils found in the column are from creatures that were alive before the flood.

HP: So you are saying that your God lied then?

Dino: Excuse me?

HP: Well, there were supposed to be two of every kind of animal on the Ark, right? What about the dinosaurs? Looks like they missed the boat.

Dino: No not at all. They were on the Ark.

HP: That is ludicrous! They’re too big to fit on the Ark and there are too many!

Dino: That’s assuming that you are taking two of every species of dinosaur, not every kind (one). And two, you forget that the average dinosaur was no bigger than a lamb. To further dispel that argument, who said that he had to take full grown adult dinosaurs? They could have taken eggs, infants, or adolescents on board instead of full-grown towering behemoths.

HP: This is ridiculous that you actually believe in a worldwide flood. Don’t you know that to flood the world in forty days that it would have to rain so hard that mountains would melt and that all the living organisms would be boiled alive from the heat produced by all of the rain?

Dino: Once again, you are assuming you know what I believe and what the Bible says. It does not say that it only rained for forty days and forty nights, but water came up from out of the ground as well. In fact, there is still water underground. So in saying that if all of the water that covered the world came from rain in forty days, you would be correct. But that is not what the Bible says.

And before you continue speaking again, let me address the other points you made. Radiometric dating has been proven inconsistent. There are multiple isotopes that are used to date rocks (by the way, dinosaur bones are not dated through any of these methods), and using multiple isotopes on one rock sample will yield results that are tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of years different! If it were truly analyzed from a purely scientific perspective, radiometric dating would be thrown out the window. Especially since scientists have used such techniques on objects that we know have been created over the past 50 years and they are dated to be tens of thousands of years old.

Next, ice cores: It is assumed by analyzing the accumulation of ice in certain regions of the world, it would take millions of years for it to have formed to the thickness that it has currently obtained. However, in Greenland, a fighter squadron from an abandoned airbase was uncovered beneath 263 feet of ice. Somebody who uses modern methods of dating would have to assume that these layers accumulated over an extremely long span of time. Nonetheless, we know how old these airplanes are and we know that 263 feet of ice accumulated in less than fifty years. Ice cores are not a reliable method for dating.

Tree rings: It is assumed that the formation of tree rings occurs only once every year. This is what is taught in school and this is what is believed by the general public. But is this always true and are the rings “annual rings?” Not necessarily. These rings that are formed by the tree are created during growth periods. Do all trees grow at the same rate and on the same schedule? No. Even so, no tree has been dated to be any older than 4,000 years old simply from this method. This fits well with flood chronology. So far, the only trees dating back farther have not been dated merely from data collected from the tree, but from other variables that require many assumptions.

I know I’ve already spoken more than what I am supposed to, so I will just cite this last example. If you are curious about current erosion rates and how those can be refuted from a young earth perspective, look up data on the eruption of Mt. St. Helens.

HP: This is painful to me that you actually believe this stuff! You are telling me that you believe that Noah brought two of every species of dog on to the Ark?

Dino: Once again, no. You believe that all dogs came from a common ancestor, right? So do I… a dog (or wolf). You confuse the word species with the word kind. A dog, or wolf, is a kind of animal. It only took two of this type of animal to create all of the other species that exist today.

It seemed to me that Dino had an answer to every question and was actually stumping Houghenpough with his questions. In fact it seemed as though Dino understood the theory of evolution better than Houghenpough! Dr. Houghenpough was a renowned scientist and he was taken to school by Dr. Dino. After watching this, I was fairly confident that these videos were pointing me in the right direction.