12/31/11

Does science show us what happened in the past?

by Dr. Andrew Snelling, AiG–U.S.
December 30, 2011

In our three-article series on radiometric dating, we discuss in depth the assumptions that scientists must make. For example, it has to be assumed that all the daughter isotopes found in rocks today have been derived by radioactive decay of the parent isotopes. It also has to be assumed that the rate of decay of the parent isotopes in the past has occurred constantly at the same rates measured today. There is absolutely no way any scientist can know whether these two assumptions are correct, because the evidence only exists today in the present, and we can’t go back to test the past millions of years and check that the rates of radioactive decay were the same then as they are now. Thus science is not the “window to the past”! This notion is based on a complete misunderstanding of the nature of evidence. What we observe and measure today exists in the present. We can repeat our observations tomorrow, but we can’t go back to last week to repeat them. The only way we know our observations were the same last week as they are today is if we have an eyewitness testimony from someone who made the same observations last week. In the Bible, we have the eyewitness testimony of someone who has been present throughout all of history and who has told us what happened. And what we read in the Bible is confirmed by the observations we make in the world around us.

Continue reading as Dr. Andrew Snelling addresses questions about radiometric dating, biblical creationism, and the true nature of science.

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