Hi, guys.
When you're talking about circular reasoning, please, let's keep in mind
that *by its very nature* the apparent age argument is the most circular
reasoning on the planet. It comes from creationists who say, "If the
evidence shows that the earth is young, then this is true science." (Of
course, "scientific creationism" has become, deservedly, extremely
noteworthy for its scientific deficiencies.) They also say, "If the
evidence shows that the earth is young, then the evidence is not real."
For example, even though with SN1987A astronomers observed the explosion
of a star that took place about 168,000 years ago, the apparent age
concept says that this explosion never actually occurred even though the
event is directly observed. Another example would be impact craters
(on the earth and the moon): "Apparent agers" would consider these to be
not the remains of impacts that actually happened, but merely
"landforms" that God created "in situ" when he created the earth and the
moon.
So when young earth creationists complain about circular reasoning, and
they turn around and use the apparent age argument, there's this
hypocrisy thing that stinks to high heaven.
Incidentally, I hashed out this apparent age argument in discussions
archived at my website:
"The YEC Discussion in the Mars-List Forum"
"The YEC Discussion in "Evolution Talk"
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/7755/essays.html
Regards,
Todd S. Greene
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