Dale,
The folks at "Reasons to Believe" are certainly familiar with ASA, for at
least some are members. The ones whose material I have read are OEC
day-agers. This was clearly Dr. Ross's view when I heard him at Arizona
State. While they allow for a limited amount of evolution, for which
there is obviously time, they insist that at least the major categories
of living things were directly created on the specified day.
As for the orbit of the moon requiring recent creation, I have two
guesses. The one is that he got confused with the claim that the fact
that the astronauts did not sink out of sight "proves" that there has not
been eons of accumulation of meteoritic dust--obviously specious but
firmly believed. The other is that there is some kind of "measurement"
that they can extrapolate to a collapse of the orbit in a relatively
short time. I know they do that kind of thing with the century and a half
or so of measurements of the earth's magnetic field, extrapolating
backward to a ridiculous level 10 kya. The bands of normal and reverse
magnetism with varying intensity on either side of the mid-ocean ridges
also mean nothing to them. When you know the truth, a little matter of
Oort cloud (members have been observed recently) or magnetic records will
not cause a change of mind. Some of these guys are still touting the
Paluxy footprints even though CRI concluded they were fakes.
Dave
On Thu, 04 Oct 2001 17:04:02 -0400 Dale K Stalnaker
<Dale.K.Stalnaker@grc.nasa.gov> writes:
> Hello,
>
> Last week, a Christian group at my workplace hosted a speaker from
> the
> organization "Reasons to Believe". The man spoke about the
> relationship
> between a science and faith. People in the audience commented about
>
> problem areas such as evolution vs. Genesis, the age of the earth,
> and
> intelligent design. The speaker was very familiar with ASA. Some
> in the
> audience were surprised when he said he believed the earth to be
> very old
> and that evolution probably happened.
>
> Afterwards, I had a conversation with someone who believed in a
> 6000-year
> old earth who gave the following points in favor of his position:
>
> 1. The Moon's orbit shows evidence of a young earth. I couldn't
> see the
> logic here.
> 2. Comets are evidence of a young earth, since they are short-lived
> and a
> source for these comets has never been proven to exist. He rejected
> the
> existence of the "Oort Cloud". Ironically, I asked him if it would
> bother
> him if the Oort Cloud was proven to exist and he said "no".
>
> Any comments about these arguments from anyone in this forum?
>
> Thanks,
> Dale Stalnaker
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------
> Dale K. Stalnaker
> NASA/Glenn Research Center
> Power & Propulsion Office
> dale.k.stalnaker@grc.nasa.gov
> PHONE: (216) 433-5399
> FAX: (216) 433-2995
>
>
>
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