A test for Young Earth Creationism?

Question

I've just thought of a possible way of putting YEC to the test! A potential decisive experiment.

YEC holds that all animals alive today were decended from the species on the ark (around 4,000 years ago), two of every unclean beast and SEVEN of every clean beast.

This makes a number of predictions:
1. If you calculated the diversity implicit in the mitocondrial DNA of unclean species and factored in their frequency of reproduction you would end up with the same answer for each species.
2. If you then factored in the rate of change of mitocondrial DNA you would get back to around 4,000 years ago
3. If you repeated the experiment on clean animals you would get radically different, universally "older" results.

What do you reckon? Could this decide the issue?

You may not know that a universal genetic bottleneck came from Noah's Ark, but you would be pretty convinced if it unversally dated back to around 4k years ago.

Conversely if there was no "Universal Bottleneck" you would be CERTAIN that Noah's Ark, as described by the Creationists, didn't happen.

Surely we can establish breeding rates with reasonable accuracy? We've been studying animals in the wild, there are those that breed every year for example - pick those!

We need assume NOTHING about mitocodrial DNA change rates for the FIRST test.

Answer 1

Well, you're operating under the assumption that increased diversity (seven ancestral animals instead of only two) would change the rate of mutation, which is erroneous. It would simply increase genetic diversity. Rate of mutation is independent of how many individuals are in the population. Natural rate of mutation is most easily estimated by looking at non-coding sections of DNA. Some sections of mitochondrial DNA might work, but I think using genomic introns would be best. (Exons are the stuff that code for proteins. Introns are essentially filler material that code for nothing, so can mutate at a natural rate without causing harm to the organism).

One can indeed determine potential bottlenecks in a population's past (i.e., down to only two or seven individuals) by looking at the genetic diversity of the present-day organism. The only problem is that you would have no control against which to compare it. If ALL organisms experienced the Noah's Ark bottleneck, how do you know if a genetic pattern is from that? You would have to rely on finding a difference between the clean and unclean animals, which may not be enough of a difference. But then again, it may...

There's an inherent problem, though. You have to pick and choose what science you wish to discount. I suppose you're going far enough to say that you believe in micro-evolution. Genetic mutation has been identified many times by scientists all over the world. But some religious people still do not believe even that exists. If you believe an organism can change at all, then it opens the possibility that it can change over a long span of time... which then allows evolution to exist. See the quandary?

Interesting ideas, though.

Answer 2

Great idea, but no.

As Desperado says, people will say 'Ooh, you're making too many assumptions!' ("Why does the earth have to be so old?")

We already have fossils. The fact that many species only exist in one place on Earth and yet are all supposed to have 'originated' on the Ark, even though there is no evidence for any major movements of landmass in recent millennia. And genetic diversity which, if all animals were created 'unique' and simultaneously, would be a bit pointless.

Despite this there are many who simply state that evolution never happened. Even that such ideas were planted by some evil entity to tempt man from god's side. So I doubt that any amount of 'science' will convince the doubters of religious persuasion.

And as for the 'scientific'; if you show that all animal life on earth did descend from ancestors 4,000 years ago, what have you proved? That there was indeed a disaster at that point that wiped out most of life on Earth. But not that the bible is the word of god.

So even if you resolve this one issue, the 'big' questions will remain.

Good try though!
.

Answer 3

It sounds like a fairly good study, and perhaps something someone could take a look at for a dissertation.

Aside from the issues with estimating reproductive frequency, a bigger problem will be your target audience. (See the second answer. "If I take these two apples and these two apples, that's five apples. What? You're going to disprove me with math of all things?")

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, whether or not an "ark incident" occurred is independent of evolution, which is really what YEC is all about. The experiment would only examine the possibility that such an ark incident occurred and wouldn't really address the evolution component as much, as that is a separate issue. However, even independent of the evolution issue, the discovery of such a bottleneck alone would make the study highly noteworthy.

Answer 4

No, we would have the same problem then as we do now. To begin with, you have to "assume" the diversity rate, and assume reproduction frequency, and so. Do you see the problem-you are forced to begin with an assumption, then you must operate on another assumption, and so on. The potential for error becomes exponential. However, old earth evolution now stands on this. It is just a guess.
The only fact we know for sure is that the Bible records the age of the earth to be about 6200 years old (depending on who adds it up and what may or may not be counted twice +/- 40 years). Very few believe this to be correct. But we do agree that the dates in the Bible do add up to this figure. And that it was recorded for the first time about 3,500 years ago. Like I said, most do not believe accuracy of this, but the fact remains that it is recorded, no question.
Now, evolutionists will tell us that a certain layer in the geologic layer is about 475 million years old. The majority accept this, but many will debate it. The fact is that the 475 m.y. is based on the "assumed" ages assigned to the geologic column and the index fossil well over 100 years ago. To wind this up-the 4.5 b.y. age accepted today for the earth is just an assumption that is based on-(you guessed it) another assumption. It is a guess at best. Maybe one should ask the question- why does the earth have to be so old? Because-evolution is impossible, and its remote possibility needs unimaginable amounts of time to hide in.
So, no, this will not settle the issue.

Answer 5

The same could be said of uranium-lead dating. That's the means by which the oldest rocks have been established as 4.4 billion years old. The rate of decay in uranium isotopes is 100% consistent. If the YECs wanted to prove the earth was only 6,000 years old, they need to use uranium lead, and possibly some other verifiable radiometric dating method (not C-14, obviously, it's useless for anything over 50,000 years old). Then, taking rocks believed to be among the oldest on earth by any creation story, they will find verifiable results that never exceed 6,000 years. If they find results that go beyond 6,000 years they either have to accept that the earth is older than that, or they have to provide a convincing explanation as to why the rate of decay in uranium isotopes suddenly changes to distort the figures so dramatically, in spite of this never having been observed in any other method of radiometric dating (indeed it is against the laws of physics).

Since all this has been done and the question isn't even a valid one any more, yet they persist in their ignorance, there's no point asking them to examine the mitochondrial DNA of unlcean beasts (that's a good test by the way, I reckon a margin of error of +/- 10% max). They've already rejected overwhelming evidence. There's just ignorance holding that boat afloat now.

Answer 6

Young Earth creationism is a religious doctrine which teaches that the Earth and life on Earth were created by a direct action of the God Elohim relatively recently (about 6,000 years ago). It is held by Christians and Jews who believe that the Hebrew text of Genesis can only mean a literal six (24-Hour) day account of creation, that evidence for a strictly factual interpretation of the text is present in the world today, and that scientific evidence does not support Darwinian evolution or geological uniformitarianism.
Your difficulty would be in choosing the clean and unclean species to carry out your testing on. Who is to say which is which? You, me, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims Jews? If so which sect Methodists, Catholics, Sunnis, Jains, Zoroastrians? While you may decide the issue to your own satisfaction would it convince the millions of others who have millions of conflicting ideas? Leave well alone and concentrate your energy on something more worthwhile.

Answer 7

i imagine there is sufficient info to practice that the earth is countless billion years previous yet what does that mean to us? in words of the 7 days that God took to create the earth, an afternoon change into in uncomplicated words defined as a era of time. it really is human beings that got here up with the concept of 24 hours being a million day, for God a million billion years isn't something compared to eternity. How about the actual shown reality that lots of the celebrities we see interior the sky being one billion mild years away, if we are able to work out those now then it really is, or might want to be, obvious that the universe is extremely darn previous. in case you imagine that the international is 6,000 years previous, all i will say is that I watched a documentary many years again the position there change into some experiments run on timber in a extreme stress field. The timber change into in uncomplicated words below that stress for some months yet after carbon relationship it it got here out that it change into more effective than a million a million years previous. perchance carbon attempting out isn't as precise as scientists imagine it really is.

Answer 8

Do not take lierally the animals,insects or beast as explained.The flood was meant to punish the human beings who required protection and only those who were disobeying Noah were at the high risk of perishing and punishment but not beast, insects and animals all over the world as a specy. The flood as described in the holy Quran was not only because of rain from above but also erruption from underground craters.Mostly like and logical would be to locate them in the Dead Sea.

Answer 9

Yep, it could decide the issue about whether or not this literalist interpretation of the Creation is accurate speculation nor inacurrate speculation. Personally, I've never seen much evidence supporting the YEC interpretation, either in the Bible or in science. Quite honestly, I don't know why people cling to something that doesn't really meet the common sense test nor is it really vital or relevant to the core teachings of Christianity.

Answer 10

That does indeed seem like a valid testing methodology. Wow. I would love to see this done. The only obstacle is that YECs won't commit to the point where they say what exactly was on the ark was it actual species (as defined by biologists) or was it kinds?

But man, that is a great point. Hats off to you for a great question.