Arguments

4. The Big Bang

A lot of YECs think that the words "Big Bang Theory" mean that the explosive expansion of our universe is "just a theory", rather than meaning that we are trying to theorize about the precise conditions surrounding that explosion. It's no surprise that this particular YEC subscribes to that simple-minded interpretation.

The age of the universe outside the solar system is calculated based on the distance and speed of star and galaxy recession -- but this method presupposes a "Big Bang," which is far from being scientifically established. Not to mention the fact that the distances and speeds are hotly contested.

Hmmm ... where to begin? How many ways can one man be wrong or blatantly deceptive in just two sentences? Let us count the ways:

  1. He claims that the great age of the universe is established solely from the distance and speed of star and galaxy recession. This is untrue; for example, regardless of how distant supernovae are, we know that they must be billions of years old simply because that's how long it takes for a star to form, live, and die. An entire generation of stars had to live and die before our solar system ever existed, because the iron in our planet could only have been formed in a dying star.

  2. He claims that the method of estimating the age of the universe through measurement of its expansion "presupposes" a Big Bang. He then states that the Big Bang is "far from being scientifically established". However, the Big Bang is neither presupposition or theory; it is an observation. The universe has been observed to be expanding at great velocity. There is no scientific dispute whatsoever about this observation; it was derived through observation of Doppler-effect frequency shift in the light from distant galaxies. YECs have never produced anything remotely resembling a satisfactory alternate explanation for the redshift, which isn't surprising since the Doppler effect is a consequence of basic wave theory and can be easily reproduced under laboratory conditions.

  3. He claims that the speeds and distances are "hotly contested", which is an obvious attempt at deception. The wording of his attack is designed to imply that the speeds and distances are hotly contested within the scientific community, when they are not. They are only contested by YECs like him, not by qualified astronomers.No qualified astronomer in the world contests the assertion that the universe is billions of years old. In order to refute the speed and distance estimates made by astronomers, our YEC friend would have to refute the concepts of Doppler shift (even though it's experimentally verifiable) and trigonometry (even though it's mathematically proven). I guess this means that even mathematicians are part of the grand world-wide conspiracy of "evolutionists". It must be an even bigger conspiracy than he thought :)

YECs don't like these kinds of observations because they're not "direct measurements". One YEC even E-mailed me once insisting that geology, astronomy etc aren't "real" sciences because they're based on indirect observations which therefore aren't "real!" Scientific observations are based upon scientific principles and the "assumption" that the laws of physics are constant, so the YECs think they're invalid. This kind of mentality betrays a brainless attitude toward the concept of measurement. Suppose I ask you what the temperature is outside. What will you do? You'll walk to the window and look at the thermometer. You'll read the number that corresponds to the mercury level, and then you'll come back and confidently tell me the temperature. That's a direct measurement, right? Not at all like radiometric or astronomical measurements, which rely on unjustifiable assumptions of the uniformity of scientific principles?

Wrong. It's an indirect measurement, just like virtually everything you measure in daily life. You didn't observe the temperature; you observed a blob of mercury inside a piece of glass (to be more precise, you observed electromagnetic radiation being reflected from a blob of mercury inside a piece of glass). We only know that its height in the glass tube correlates with temperature because of the scientific principle of thermal expansion in liquids. Just like radiometric dating, temperature measurements are dependent upon scientific theories and the constancy of certain physical properties of matter.

In the language of YECs, one would say that the entire measurement scheme is dependent upon the unprovable "assumptions" that the thermal expansion coefficient of mercury is constant, that no mercury has entered or left the glass bulb since the day it was calibrated, that the calibration was accurate, and that the bulb has achieved thermal equilibrium with its environment. Thermometerists don't like to talk about all of those assumptions, and they don't want to call your attention to them. Moreover I have personally observed significant differences between thermometer readings and thermocouple readings which were both exposed to the same temperature air; this is yet another serious problem that the thermometerists don't want you to know! (think "sunlight"). Therefore, thermometers are useless, and the Earth must be less than 10,000 years old :)

A thermometer is by no means the only example of indirect measurement. The temperature reading on your computer's CPU is really a measurement of electrical current flow through a thermocouple, based on certain scientific principles and the "assumption" of constant electrical characteristics at the junction of two dissimilar metals. Geiger counters directly measure the frequency of two ticking pieces of metal, not radiation. We make the leap from ticking metal flaps to radiation through the "assumption" that the behaviour of ionizing radiation and electrostatic charge is constant and can be described through known scientific principles. Doppler radar doesn't directly detect incoming aircraft; it detects electromagnetic radiation. We make the leap from electromagnetic radiation to an incoming aircraft through "assumptions" about the constant nature of Doppler shift and EM radiation reflection from solid objects, not to mention the validity of wave theory. And let's not even get into mass spectrometers, laser rangefinders, non-contact temperature measurements, ultrasound, bubble chambers, etc.

Since this started with his ignorant and simple-minded characterization of the Big Bang as mere supposition, I would like to ask one more question: how do we know that any explosion is an explosion? Do you go back in time and use some sort of mystical omniscience to view the chemical or nuclear reaction in all of its microscopic glory? Or do you simply take note of the fact that debris is being hurled rapidly away from a single point, and a great deal of energy is being released? Any mundane observation of an explosion is really an observation of its effects, rather than an observation of the precise moment of ignition. When astronomers look at the rapid expansion of the universe away from a single point and conclude that there was an explosion billions of years ago, they really aren't doing anything different than what you do when you look at a car blowing up. The sizes and timescales are bigger, but the idea is the same. Does that sound like mere supposition to you? How about his disbelief in the distances to faraway stars? Is he going to suggest that the rules of trigonometry have changed over the last 6,000 years, or that a dependence on trigonometry makes a measurement invalid?

Virtually all methods of measurement represent a combination of scientific or mathematic theories and physical principles or constants. When ignorant YECs differentiate between the "indirect" observations of astronomy or geology and the "direct" observations used in ordinary engineering applications, they are creating a purely arbitrary distinction where none exists. They publish moronic articles like "The Radiometric Dating Game", but that's tantamount to writing "The Temperature Measurement Game", "The Radar Fraud", "The Electrical Multimeter Lie", "The Triangulation Deception", or "The Laser Rangefinder Conspiracy".

Continue to 5. Pseudoscience

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