Young earth creationists propose that their model is in keeping with the following observances:- The Earth’s Decaying Magnetic Field – In the 1970s, the creationist physics professor Dr Thomas Barnes noted that measurements since 1835 have shown that the field is decaying at 5% per century1 (also, archaeological measurements show that the field was 40% stronger in AD 1000 than today2). Barnes, the author of a well-regarded electromagnetism textbook,3 proposed that the earth’s magnetic field was caused by a decaying electric current in the earth’s metallic core (see side note). Barnes calculated that the current could not have been decaying for more than 10,000 years, or else its original strength would have been large enough to melt the earth. So the earth must be younger than that.
- Magnetic Fields of Neptune and Uranus – For Uranus, the evolutionary predictions were generally about 100,000 times less than my published predictions, so I thought it was a good test. The result [of the Voyager measurements] was smack in the middle of my prediction, and 100,000 times greater than the evolutionary predictions. So the creation model was the clear winner in that case.
- Reversals in Earth’s Magnetic field occurred very rapidly, within weeks of one another – If a lava layer is fairly thin, it will cool down within a matter of weeks. And so, if you found in such a thin layer a large amount of reversal, that would be strong evidence for the theory. In April 1989, a paper appeared in Earth and Planetary Science Letters by Robert S. Coe and Michel Prevot, and basically, while I don’t think they had read my paper, they did exactly what I had suggested. They found a thin lava layer which had 90 degrees of reversal recorded continuously in it and they calculated that the layer had to cool down within a matter of 15 days or less.
- Supernova Remnants Predicted – If the universe was really billions of years old, there are 7000 missing SNRs in our galaxy. Not only that, but the predictions for the Milky Way’s satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud are also consistent with a young universe. Theory predicts 340 observable SNRs if the LMC were billions of years old, and 24 if it were 7000 years old. The number of actually observed SNRs in the LMC is 29.
- Rapid Speciation – Rapid diversification within the Genesis kinds—including speciation—is a specific prediction of the Creation model. The speed of these changes bewildered evolutionists, because their standard millions-of-years view is that the guppies would require long periods of time to adapt. One evolutionist said, ‘The guppies adapted to their new environment in a mere four years–a rate of change some 10,000 to 10 million times faster than the average rates determined from the fossil record.’
- “Very Old” Fossilized Organic Material Should Have Intact DNA – Brian Sykes in the prestigious journal Nature clearly states that the rate at which DNA breaks down in the laboratory is such that after 10,000 years no DNA should be left. Writing about the magnolia leaf fossils (and others in the same ‘ancient’ layer found to also have DNA, including oak, cypress and tulip tree fossils) he says: “Finding DNA in magnolia leaf fossils calls into question the long ages assigned to these fossils by evolutionists. This means these compression fossils defy the prediction, from in vitro estimates of the rate of spontaneous hydrolysis, that no DNA would remain intact much beyond 10,000 years.”
- Characteristics of Cosmic Background Radiation – These CMB observations are consistent with the general relativistic creationist models of Humphreys8 and Gentry,9 which explain the current state of the universe within a creationist timeframe.
- Prediction around the Hubble Parameter – (unproven) A possible creationist prediction of the Hubble parameter H plotted against time. The near-infinite H existed on the fourth day, when the heavens were spread out. Afterward it dropped either directly (a) or exponentially (b) to its current value.
- C14 in “Ancient” Wood – Our primary aim was to establish whether the wood contained 14C. Evolutionists believe the wood is some 225 million years old and don’t expect any. All detectable 14C would be gone in something like 50,000 years. On the other hand, creationists believe the wood was buried during Noah’s Flood some 4500 years ago and expect it will still contain 14C. Geochron found there was 14C in the sample as creationists expected.
More to come.