Bill Nye Choked on Radiometric Dating Question

Comedian, actor and former mechanical engineer William Sanford Nye (b. 1955) is best known for the show Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993–98).  Nye gave a very poor response to the question regarding radiometric dating in the recent debate with Ken Ham (see the 2 hour and 7 minute mark).

First, he side-stepped the issue and brought up old stars.  That’s right, he was dancing with the stars!  Russell Humphreys (Ph.D. Physics, formerly with Sandia National Labs) wrote Starlight and Time in 1994 and gave a plausible answer to this question based on the General Theory of Relativity and gravitational time dilation.  A reasonable man or woman can see that the light travel problem applies to both the Big Bang and Creation models (as Ken pointed out regarding the horizon problem).

Nye defended an old earth based on depositional rates.  In 1883, Alexander Winchell, former State Geologist of Michigan, estimated the age of the earth at 3M years. [1]  That’s a far cry from 4.5 billion years.  That was back when gradualistic uniformitarianism was in vogue.  But now catastrophism has a wide following even within mainstream Geology.  So, if most deposits were formed rapidly, such as turbidites, the depositional rates favor Young Earth Science (YES).

Nye said Charles Lyell (d. 1875) came up with the phrase “deep time.”  Actually, it was John McPhee who wrote Basin and Range in 1980.  McPhee said, “The human mind may not have evolved enough to be able to comprehend deep time” (p. 133). 

Marie Skłodowska-Curie (d. 1934) came up with the term “radioactivity.”  Nye made the very common mistake in stating that radioactivity contradicted Kelvin’s age for the Earth (his final estimate was 24M).  In 1895, before the discovery of radioactivity, John Perry showed that convection in the Earth's interior modified Kelvin’s age of the Earth.

Some claim that YES is pseudoscience.  Bill Nye the Science Guy had an episode on that topic.  Nye said there must be aliens because there are so many stars.  Yet no one has seen aliens and there are no cities on Mars.  Extraordinary claims (aliens) require extraordinary evidence.  Nye was skeptical of the Loch Ness Monster.  According to the Smithsonian’s online encyclopedia, “Even though most scientists believe the likelihood of a monster is small, they keep an open mind …”  Perhaps Nye should be open minded towards YES.  An article in National Geographic was very fair towards Nessie and included reports from very reliable witnesses. [2]

A number of times in the debate ice core dating was brought up.  We have a post on ice cores.

Nye should read Kicking the Sacred Cow by former aeronautical engineer and award winning SciFi author James Hogan.  Hogan is very sympathetic to YES.  Ken Ham sent Nye a book in The New Answers Book series – will Nye have an open mind and read it and seriously consider the evidence?

As for the question posed to Nye in the debate, Ephraim Fischbach (Purdue University) gave a talk at the Institute for Theoretical, Atomic and Molecular and Optical Physics (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) providing firm data that indicates that the sun affects radioactive decay rates.  John Woodmorappe (M.A. Geology) has written an excellent book refuting radiometric dating and millions of years.  Jay Wile (Ph.D. Nuclear Chemistry, Univ. of Rochester), at one time a skeptic regarding accelerated radioactive decay, has some great info on varying decay rates.

Soft tissue in dinos, as discovered by Mary Schweitzer and others, says that dinos are young and the dating methods are wrong.  As Tim Stafford (The Adam Quest) asks, “How could something as delicate as blood cells survive sixty million [sic] years?” [3]

Pray for Bill.  The Apostle Paul persecuted the church.  Bill is persecuting YES.  Paul was gloriously converted (Acts 9, 22, 26).  The same thing can happen to Bill!  Will Bill Nye the Science Guy be blinded by the light (Acts 22:11)?

Nye is the head of the Planetary Society.  Feel free to send him a letter of encouragement or some creation books (such as the New Answers Books):

Attn. Bill Nye

The Planetary Society

85 South Grand Ave

Pasadena  CA  91105

Notes:

1) "Celebrating the age of the Earth" by Simon Knell and Cherry Lewis, Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 2001, vol. 190, p. 1-14, p. 7.

2) “Loch Ness: the lake and the legend” by William Ellis, National Geographic, Vol. 151, No. 6, June 1977, p. 759.

3) The Adam Quest by Tim Stafford (Nelson Books, Nashville, TN, 2013), p. 105.

Adam to Abraham (A2A): The Dating Game

Orthodox Protestants who take Genesis as Historical Narrative (OPGHN, “opgane”) believe the Genesis record gives us a clear chronology from Adam to Abraham. There is no evidence of gaps. [1] Seth named Enosh (Ge 4:26) so he was his direct descendant and not a distant relative. In Jude 14 we are told that Enoch was the seventh from Adam, so no gaps are possible there. Lamech named Noah (Ge 5:29) so he was his biological father and not his great great grandfather. Arphaxad must be the son of Shem and not his grandson since he was born just two years after the flood. Methuselah’s name means “when he dies it shall be sent” and the year of his death is when the Global Flood started. This shows how accurate and tight the historical chronology from Genesis is - Methuselah could not have died after the Flood!

Adam and Eve lived at the beginning of creation not millions of years later (Mk 10:6). Since the beginning of creation man has been able to see God’s eternal power and divine nature through observing creation (Rom 1:20) – man has existed since the beginning and is not a latecomer in cosmic history. If millions of years really existed before the Flood, scripture could have made that plain. Second Chronicles 14:9 refers to a million man fighting force.

Jacob told Pharaoh that his life so far was short (130 years) compared to his forefathers (Ge 47:9), thus confirming the long ages of the antediluvians (900’s). The Sumerian King List also documents long ages before the Global Flood and a drastic reduction in life spans afterward. The Sumerian King List shows eight kings before the flood and if we don’t include Adam and Noah, this matches the historical chronology from Genesis. The Sumerian system of math was based on 60 instead of the decimal system (base 10). If we convert the life spans of the line of Seth from decimal to base 60 we can see that the Sumerian King List is somewhat close to the actual values from Genesis. For Mahalalel we have 8*3600=28,800 and 9*60=540. The totals for all eight differ by only 5%.














To many, long life spans seem incredible. Just think of the number of dreams Adam had in 930 years. One way to live longer is to avoid disease. A group of dwarfs in southern Ecuador get neither cancer nor diabetes due to their unique genetic makeup.

We can see from this chart by Walt Brown (click to see larger image) that Adam lived at the same time as Methuselah, Methuselah lived at the same time as Shem and Shem lived at the same time as Isaac! So Isaac could have verified Shem’s first hand knowledge of the genealogy, Shem could have done the same with Methuselah and Methuselah could have checked his facts from Adam himself! A chronology you can trust from the man made from dust. Adam and Eve had plenty of practice with number theory when they counted the thousands of stars at night. Bookkeeping the “begats” would be no problem for the first Edenite.

From Adam to the Flood is 1656 years. For hundreds of years people could chat with the perfect couple (initially) who once lived in a utopia named Paradise. Both Genesis and Josephus agree that Abraham was born 290 years after the Flood. [2] Abraham could have compared his genealogy with Shem, who was still alive in his time. Abraham is generally considered to be living around 2000 BC. Therefore, the traditional date of creation of around 4000 BC seems correct. The Mayan calendar places creation at 3114 BC which is not that far from the date of 4004 BC given by Ussher.

Some reply that radiometric dating forces a lengthening of the Genesis chronology. The book and DVD “Thousands not Billions” provide decisive evidence that radioactive dating actually supports the Young Earth Science (YES) position. This book, which summarizes the findings of the RATE project includes both scientific and biblical evidence.

All the men named in these genealogies were sinners: “Here’s a word you can take to heart and depend on: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. I’m proof—Public Sinner Number One” (1 Tim. 1:15, Message).

NOTES:
1) Refuting Compromise by Jonathan Sarfati (Master Books, 2004), pp. 289-297.
2) ibid., p. 291.