Teaching Creation Part 5
Is There Any Justification For Teaching Evolution In School?
Part 5
not formed by slow uniformitarian rates of sediment deposits. To become fossilized a plant or animal must usually have hard parts, such as bone, shell or wood. It must be buried quickly to prevent decay and must be undisturbed throughout the long process (Rohodes, Zim, and Shaffer 10).
Thus, the actual formation of fossils requires rapid and compact burial, and this speaks of catastrophism.
Since the uniformitarian approach to the issue is not sufficient to accommodate the data, catastrophism is an alternative that should be considered. Dr. Morris suggest that a catastrophe in the form of a world-wide flood best explains the formation of the geologic strata. Visualize, then, a great hydraulic cataclysm bursting upon the … world, with currents of water pouring perpetually from the skies and erupting continuously from the earth’s crust, all over the world, for weeks on end, until the entire globe was submerged, accompanied by outpourings of magma from the mantle, gigantic earth movements, landslides, tsunamis, and explosions (Creationism 117).
He continues in saying that “upwelling sediments and subterranean waters and magmas would entomb hordes of invertebrates” (118). Evolutionist will not, however convincing the evidence, accept catastrophism because if the geologic strata was formed quickly then the concept of the geologic ages has been misinterpreted, and in turn, there would be no evidence for the supposedly immense age of the earth required by evolution.
This question of age, in itself, is a very hard obstacle for creation advocate to overcome, for it seems as if it is simply of years old. From kindergarten though collage students are shown pictures of cave men and artist’s conceptions of the pre-historic Earth. In the classrooms, the only evidence ever addressed in reference to the age of the Earth reinforces this image, yet there is, in fact, a greater amount of evidence which supports a relatively young Earth (Creationism 150).
Of course, this
evidence is never brought to light since any calculations yielding a young age runs contrary to the evolution model. Not only is the evidence which supports a young Earth omitted from school curriculum, but first and foremost, the methods of calculation taught to justify an immense age are completely unreliable. Again, this fact is never brought up in their discussion.
Radiometric dating is the method most often used in calculating the geologic age of an item. An apparent age can be determined by measuring different materials within an object.
This determination is arrived by knowing what rate a particular radioactive material decays and measuring the amount of the daughter component in the object. As a radioactive material decays, the product of the decaying process turns into another substance. This second substance is called the daughter component. For example, as uranium decays, it turns into its daughter component, lead. Therefore, when the uranium method of dating is used, the amount of lead in the object would be