Walters.SoftArts%MIT-MULTICS@sri-unix.UUCP (10/26/83)
A couple of years ago I got a copy of "The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth" by Henry M. Morris, Ph. D., the head of the Institute for Creation Research. As one of the key books from the primary creationist "research institute", I had hoped to find some convincing arguments for their curious position. I was very disappointed. One of the more interesting arguments is stated on pp. 17-18: "The Second Law of Thermodynamics, no less than the First Law, is a universal law governing all processes...Everything tends to wear out, to run down, to disintegrate, and ultimately to die...Somehow it seems contrary to the nature and purposes of God that He would create a universe in which decay and death constitute one of the basic principles....Is this what God intended, when He finished His creation and pronounced it all "very good" (Genesis 1:31)? Obviously not; God is not capricious, and we can be absoulutely sure He will accomplish His good purpose in creation...The imposition of the principle of decay and death on the original creation was the result of man's sin." Yes, the original creation did not obey the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Other "proofs" are even more entertaining: the fossils were all created at once by the Great Flood (the bigger fossils are on top because those animals were able to climb higher). Where did all the water come from? The earth was surrounded by clouds of water vapor which produced a "marvelous worldwide 'greenhouse effect'. The climate was warm and mild everywhere." Radioactive dating is not acceptable since the Flood undoubtedly mixed everything up. The detailed physics of this antedeluvian, pre-entropic hothouse are apparently left as an exercise to the reader. The book closes by saying that "Maybe this is 'naive literalism,' but it is what God has said...If the earth is really only several thousand years old, as the Bible teaches, then there obviously is no time for any significant evolutionary process to have occurred...The only way we can determine the true age of the earth is for God to tell us what it is. And since He @i(has) told us, very plainly, in the Holy Scriptures that it is several thousand years in age, and no more, that ought to settle all basic questions of terrestrial chronology". The appendices give the necessary Biblical references. No scientific literature is cited. This ought to give a feeling for the style of argument followed in this book. I certainly have nothing against the Bible, but I prefer observation as the primary benchmark for scientific theories.