Hi, bd.
I often hear YEC objections to mainstream geology based on the assertion that it is impossible to know with certainty events that occurred prior to human history because nobody was there to witness it.
And, you know, geology is no different, really, than any other contemporary science. Most of the other scientific fields haven't studied anything directly observable to human beings since at least the early 20th century. The vast majority of science studies things that are too small, too far away, too fast, and/or are too inaccessible to be directly observed. Science today studies these things by observing their effects that can be observed directly.
In this light, geology is pretty much like all the sciences. Once one accepts that a definite past has occurred, and that this past has left evidence that can be observed here and now, then one can begin to test hypotheses about the past by comparing the predictions of those hypotheses against phenomena observable today. Just like every other science.
Q: If science doesn't know where this comes from, then couldn't it be God's doing?
A: The only difference between that kind of thinking and the stereotype of the savage who thinks the Great White Hunter is a God because he doesn't know how the hunter's cigarette lighter works is that the savage has an excuse for his ignorance. --
jhuger
™ Version 4.2
