May I simply state that there are people who still genuinely believe the earth is flat. There are still people who genuinely believe that we've never had men on the moon. And, there *were* people who believed a spaceship was waiting for them on the other side of a comet. Believing that the earth is 10,000 years old falls into the same category, with the only exception being that there are more people in the latter group than there were waiting for a ride across the galaxy. No amount of evidence has ever convinced the people of any of those groups otherwise. For every piece of evidence, they attempt to construct their own meaning out of it, often coming up with some of the most incredible, illogical, and contradictory meanings. Much of the rest of the time, those people simply fabricate evidence. I'll provide an example in a moment (or rather, I'll use the example that YOU provided.) When they distort or misunderstand what science has to say, they ignore any rebuttals from the scientific community. It reminds me of my kids when they were 4 years old, misunderstood something, then wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. Other times, those attempting to prove this latter theory (that the earth is 10k or fewer years) will take little snippets of information from obscure but credible sources in a manner like this:
credible source: "We can put lights on the christmas tree outside, but then we'd have a problem plugging them in. We would end up needing at least 3 separate extension cords."
anti-evolution site: "Scientists admit that they have trouble explaining how the lights on an outdoor christmas tree are lit, saying "we'd have a problem plugging them in." (reference to credible source.) The only reasonable explanation is that God makes them light up. And, of course, no one reading their sites ever visits the actual source of the information they're quoting.
credible source: "You didn't listen to us, we said 3 extension cords"
anti-evolution site: "lalalala lalalala lalalala ohh, sure, you need 3 extension cords to explain your theory, huh? Isn't it much more logical that God lights them?" [Note: in reality, everyone knows that the flying spaghetti monster uses his noodly appendages to cause the phenomenon of lights on a christmas tree ]
aside for a moment:
Now, at the risk of sounding like a jerk, I simply don't believe that you're actually here to "learn." You stated that you're becoming "more and more convinced that the earth is young (10,000 yrs or less)" And then, you ask "please don't turn this into an evolution vs creation thread." Well, IT IS! You made it into one, because what the entire premise of a 10,000 year old (or less) Earth boils down to is simply based on the age as calculated in the Bible. There are absolutely NO credible scientific theories which explain a younger earth. I'll give you credit for politely pretending you're serious though, and the benefit of the doubt that it's simply a matter of the goals of those responsible for your education.
Back to my reply:
Let me address the website you linked to - talkorigins.
1. "Evolutionists call this 'the winding-up dilemma,'" Now, simply do a google search for "winding-up dilemma" - Hmmmm... that's odd, none of the scientific sites call it a dilemma... In fact, the *ONLY* sites (and there are very few of them; it's easy to check) to use that phrase are sites with an agenda to prove that the earth is young or prove that evolution is wrong. Conspiracy by the evolutionists to hide the evidence? Maybe. Then again, almost every single one of those sites actually contains that *exact* phrase: "evolutionists call this..." Oddly, none say "astronomers call this..." Hmmmmm. But, search for an explanation for the spiral arms of the galaxy, and you'll have no problem finding one. (and usually, it's the astronomers)
Now, if you actually ARE willing to think with an open mind, I believe that at this point, it's painfully obvious that ONE person fabricated the phrase (or took it out of context) "evolutionists call this 'the winding-up dilemma" and all the anti-evolution sites have simply copied it. But, if that's not enough to convince you that virtually every site promoting a 10,000 year old view simply makes up many of their facts (or more often, copies them as facts from other anti-evolution sites), then perhaps you can ask this question: wtf does the milky way (astronomy) have to do with evolution (biology)??? Those working in the area of evolutionary theory have absolutely nothing to do with or say about the rate of rotation of our wonderful spiral galaxy.
Since you wanted something educational, go to
this site to see some *awesome* videos from simulations run on some of the fastest super-computers in the world. These simulations are made by carefully analyzing all the interactions between 100 million sources of gravitation in the milky way and andromeda galaxy. Of course, it's only a reasonable approximation - we simply don't and won't have enough data in our lifetimes to do a perfect simulation (and it'll be quite a few years before computers can handle simulations with that much data) Nonetheless, as long as you agree that scientists are at least "close" with the laws of gravity, then these types of simulations have no problem showing the development of the milky way. (Or, in this case, 1 billion years worth of the lives of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies as may occur about 3 billion years from now.)
More educational and back to "your" sites. From another one of the anti-evolution sites (earthage.org): "Astronomers believe this is because there is a lot more mass in the galaxies than can be detected, and so they have invented the theory of "Dark Matter" to account for their belief that the Galaxies are billions of years old, when (in fact) they look quite Young. " I might be stretching it a bit if I said that wouldn't the discovery of the hypothetical dark matter pretty much prove the scientists correct then? i.e. we'll let them play for all the marbles. If the scientists are correct, then the dark matter would explain the spiral arms. If dark matter is fiction, then the anti-evolutionists win, since it's lack of existence would prove the scientists wrong... I hate to burst their bubble, but strong evidence for dark matter due to gravitational lensing was discovered very recently.
not quite good enough... yet
That's just white dwarfs, and it does cause some *minor* refinements to current theories. But, this article is much better, and a very recent discovery (just a couple weeks ago)
NASA
One more thing: if someone can get the larger hi res version of spiral metamorphosis on that site I linked to above to play, can you please tell me what player/codec is necessary?? I absolutely loved showing that to my physics class to show them how beautiful the combination of math, physics, and computer science can be (as well as kill 6 minutes at the end of class when I finish early.) I can't play it at home, because I'm on dial up. (it'd never finish downloading), and they upgraded my computer at school this summer. A lot of my videos that worked just fine last year will no longer play... I have to break the rules and download the correct codecs myself.
Oh, and before I go, I have no beefs with religion. I was raised as a Catholic. However, I have a serious problem with people who take the Bible literally. It's supposed to be a guide and example for how to lead your life. If you do any research (with an open mind, of course), you would come to the realization that the Bible is allegorical, not literal. You need to keep in mind the context of the time during which the Bible was written. In fact, simply browsing the Book of Exodus should be more than enough to make you realize that the Bible was directed toward being a guideline.