If Truth Be Known

If Truth Be Known This book is an examination of claims of scientific support for the views 1) that Earth is a recent creation, not more than several thousand years old, and 2) that much of the current topography of the Earth and many (or most) of the fossil-bearing rock layers in Earth’s crust are the result of a cataclysm that includes a worldwide flood in recent time. The discussion within this book is permeated by the conviction that modern science is compatible with Christian faith. by Clarence Menninga Copyright ©2012 Clarence Menninga All rights reserved ISBN-13: 978-0-9858823-0-3 Cover photo Palouse Falls, Washington, USA Photo Courtesy of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory The height of the falls is 198 feet. The channel of the Palouse River is carved through several successive lava flows of the Columbia Basin Basalts. (See Chapter 15 for more details.) The contacts between successive lava flows are clearly seen; the lip of the falls is near the top of one flow, with an older, thicker flow below that. There is a more recent flow above and immediately to the left and right of the lip of the falls, and a thicker, still more recent flow above that one is visible beyond the stream channel, with some weathered remnants of that layer visible above and to the left of the lip of the falls. Dedicated to all my teachers Acknowledgments I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my colleagues at Calvin College, especially to those Faculty members in the sciences, and those in theology and religion, both in the College and in Calvin Theological Seminary, for refining my understanding through many discussions of the relationships of science and Christian faith. I especially appreciate Howard Van Till, Davis A. Young, John Stek, Ralph Stearley, and Gerry Van Kooten for their influence in developing my ideas. I thank Ralph Stearley and Gerry Van Kooten in Geology and Susan Felch in English for reading the manuscript and making many valuable suggestions. I am grateful to those many people outside the College with whom I have held discussions and carried on correspondence on topics of science and Christian faith, including some who strongly disagree with my convictions regarding the history of the universe. I thank Patricia Menninga for providing the hourglass pictured in Figure 6. I am grateful to my non-scientist wife Irene for her encouragement, and for reading an early version of the manuscript and identifying some areas that needed clarification and simplification. Table of Contents FORWARD Chapter 1. What Science is Like Chapter 2. Frozen Mammoths of Siberia Chapter 3. Brontosaurus Stuff (in Two Parts) Chapter 4. A Whale and a Tale Chapter 5. History in the Rocks Chapter 6. Mt. St. Helens and Catastrophism Chapter 7. Alaska Dinosaurs and Permineralized Bones Chapter 8. The Green River Formation: Lake Varves and Turbidity Flows Chapter 9. Quotations and Misquotations: The Green River Formation Chapter 10. Petrified Forests of Yellowstone National Park Chapter 11. Falsehood in Science: Piltdown Man Chapter 12. Nebraska Man Chapter 13. The Second Law of Thermodynamics Chapter 14. Thermodynamics II – Error upon Error Chapter 15. An Interlude – Columbia Basin Lava Flows Chapter 16. Radioactivity and Radioactive Decay Chapter 17. Measuring Ages of Rocks Chapter 18. Quotations and Misquotations: Uranium-Lead methods Chapter 19. Constancy of Radioactive Decay Rates Chapter 20. A Sea of Neutrinos Chapter 21. Carbon-14 Dating Chapter 22. More on Carbon-14 Chapter 23. Neutrons, Uranium Ores, and Lead Isotopes Chapter 24. Excess Argon-40 Chapter 25. Ages of Rocks in the Grand Canyon of Arizona Chapter 26. Errors and Corrections Chapter 27. Unsolved Puzzles Chapter 28. Reflections Suggested Additional Reading Appendix A. Second Law of Thermodynamics (Chapter 13) Appendix B. Radioactivity and Radioactive Decay (Chapter 16) Appendix C. Measuring Ages of Rocks(Chapter 17) Appendix D. Constancy of Decay Rates (Chapter 19) Appendix E. Production rate of Carbon-14 (Chapter 21) Appendix F. Ages of Rocks in the Grand Canyon (Chapter 26) FORWARD When I was a youngster growing up in rural Iowa in the 1930’s and 40’s, I heard about the bones of some strange creatures called dinosaurs being found in western North America, and I was curious to know more about them. But I was told by adults in my Christian community that “Those creatures never really existed; those stories are just the wild imaginings of godless scientists who are trying to lead Christians astray.” (I have talked with others of my generation who grew up in Christian communities, and who were told that same thing.) When I grew older I found out that the bones are very real, and that those dinosaur creatures really did exist. Those scientists were telling the truth, and my fellow Christians were mistaken; that realization was a sharp disappointment for me. I can readily find excuses for those fellow Christians of my childhood. I don’t think they intended to mislead or misinform me. Perhaps they didn’t really know whether dinosaurs actually lived on Earth or not; most of them had very little formal education, and they did not have ready access to the massive amounts of information that are made available to us in this 21st Century through television, the internet, and a host of books at all reading levels. Very likely they were simply repeating something they had read or heard somewhere, without checking to find out whether it was true or not. There are many Christians in our contemporary society who are convinced that Earth is a recent creation, not more than several thousand years old. Some of our fellow Christians subscribe to a catastrophist interpretation of history, believing that our present world has gone through major, worldwide catastrophic events in recent time that have shaped what the world is like. Those beliefs are based on theology, that is, on what those Christians understand the Bible, the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, to be teaching. There is no dishonor in those beliefs. Some of the Christians who believe that Earth is a recent creation, and that worldwide catastrophic events in recent time are responsible for forming many aspects of our present world, have attempted to support those theological beliefs with arguments from the scientific study of God’s world. Frequently, passages from the professional scientific literature, journals, and books are quoted in claims of such scientific support. In some cases, however, the data reported in the claim of scientific support for the theological belief are not the same as the data reported in the original scientific publication, that is, the data from the scientific source are not reported faithfully. In some cases only a part of the scientific story is presented, with important details having been left out. Some of the quotations from the professional scientific literature that have been used in supposed support of those theological understandings have misrepresented the conclusions of the scientific publication from which the quotation was taken. In some cases, respected scientific principles have been misunderstood, and the misunderstanding has led to mistaken conclusions. In some cases the most reasonable and most straightforward conclusions from the scientific observations have been rejected, and replaced with unfounded conjecture. This book is about some of those faulty claims of scientific support for the theological conclusions of Earth as a recent creation, and of Earth as the product of major, worldwide catastrophic events in recent time. Many of these faulty claims for support of theological beliefs by the results of scientific investigation are passed along among Christians without careful examination to determine whether or not they are true. Should we also try to find excuses for fellow Christians who remain less than well informed about science in this 21st Century, as we might have for the Christians that surrounded me in my youth, who were mistaken about the existence of dinosaurs on Earth? Not all of us are trained in science to any appreciable extent, nor should we expect everyone to be a professional scientist. During the past few decades I have often been invited to lead some discussion on the relationship between science and Christian faith for adult study groups in Christian churches, and for groups of teachers in Christian schools. Among those groups I have found many fellow Christians who have some interest in the results of scientific investigation and implications of those results for Christian theology. They have some questions about conflicting stories they have heard or read somewhere, but they haven’t had the training, either formally or by self-study, that would enable them to make informed judgments about which version of the story is true. One audience member commented to me publicly, “You say this, and so-and-so says that; you have a Ph.D, and he has a Ph.D., who am I supposed to believe?” Those people, those who attend Christian churches from Sunday to Sunday, those who have legitimate questions about conflicting stories from science and Christian faith, but have had little or no training in science; those are the people I have in mind in writing this book. If you are a member of that group, layman or clergy, I think that this book will be helpful to you. We recognize that there are legitimate differences among Christians in our understanding of the meaning of various passages of Scripture that refer to our material world, as, for example, in our interpretation of the Creation narrative in Genesis chapters one and two. It is painful for me, however, to hear fellow Christians trying to support a particular theological belief with arguments and claims about our material world which I know to be incorrect or misleading.

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