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Young Earth creationism is the belief that the Earth and life on Earth were created by a direct action of God a relatively short time ago. The belief is held by the Christians, Jews, and Muslims who believe that the ancient Hebrew text of Genesis is a historical account.

The vast majority of mainstream scientists believe that Young Earth Creationism is not scientifically viable. Young Earth creationists challenge the mainstream view by disputing the assumptions of Philosophical naturalism and Uniformitarianism. See Creation vs. evolution debate and Views of creationists and mainstream scientists compared for a more complete discussion.

The contemporary model of young earth creationism

Young earth creationists take the account of Genesis to be a historical account of the origin of the Earth and life.

Genesis reports that God created the Earth in 6 days, and rested on the seventh. After creating the Earth and all the animals and plants, God planted a Garden with all the pleasant trees, and domesticable plants, referred to as "plants of the field," as well as the "Tree of Life" and the "Tree of the knowledge of good and evil." He planted the field in Eden. There, God breathed life into Man, who named many of the animals and birds; then, God created woman from a rib in Adam's side, and gave her to him. They were naked, but were not ashamed, and walked and talked with God.

However, Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which they had been instructed not to do; As a result, God removed them from the Garden, forcing Adam to work hard to feed himself and Eve, giving Eve pain in childbirth, and denying them access to the "Tree of Life," so that they would die.

The Geneologies of Genesis record the line of descent from Adam to Noah to Abraham, with the ages at which they had the next in line and the ages at which they died [[1]].

The geneology reports that Adam lived 130 years before bearing his son Seth, and died at the age of 930. Ages of between 777 and 969 years are reported for all people until Noah (except for Enoch, who didn't die).

According to the account, over time, man became corrupted and filled the Earth with violence. Seeing this, God came to regret having made them. He found one man, Noah, who was just, and walked with God. He determined to end the violence and wickedness of men by sending a flood to wipe out the evil, but preserve Noah and his family on an ark. He instructed Noah to build an ark of gopher wood of particular dimensions and design, and to bring 7 of each clean animal and 2 of each unclean animal into the ark.[2].

According to the figures in the genealogies, God sent the flood 1656 years after he created Adam, in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, "in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month." According to the account, "the fountains of the great deep and windows of heaven broke open," flooding the Earth. Noah was instructed to bring his wife, and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives, for a total of eight people. All other people were to be destroyed. The geneologies indicate that Methuselah, Noah's grandfather, died in the same year as the flood, meaning he could have died in the flood. All his other ancestors were already dead, including his father Lamech, who died 5 years before the flood. Alternatively, it has been suggested that God waited for him to die before he sent the flood.

Contemporary creationists assert that the flood was a combination of radical geological motion (the fountains of the great deep opening) and extreme rain. They argue that the land before the flood was much more level, but that extreme geological action during the flood raised mountains to new heights and dropped the sea-bed, so that the water that had covered the land flowed into the sea. Flood geology argues that the fact that 80% of the Earth's crust is covered in deep sedimentary strata is a result of liquefaction after the flood. According to the account, the rains lasted 40 days, and the waters covered the earth for 150 days, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ar'arat, and in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month of Noah's life, the face of the Earth was dry. And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month of Noah's life, the earth was dry, and God instructed Noah to leave the ark.

From that point, the account indicates that lifespans dropped quickly from an average of 900 years at the time of Noah to an average of 100 by the time of Abraham. Contemporary creationists have suggested that this is due to the effects of the inbreeding that took place after the flood, as only eight people remained. Creationists also assert that all the contemporary species of animals are descended from those original animals on the ark; that the animals adapted to their environements by the process of variation and natural selection. Contrary to the theory of evolution, however, Young Earth Creationists assert that the process of variation and natural selection resulted in a loss of genetic potential.

Subsequent geneologies in the text identify individuals named Egypt, Gomer, Sheba, Canaan, and Sidon, who are believed to have founded the cities and civilizations that were later to bear their names.

Distant Stars

One of the major problems in the young Earth theory is visible astronomical objects many millions of light years distant. According to conventional science, the light that we are observing therefore began its journey millions of years ago, and this would not have been possible in a universe only a few thousands of years old.

Young Earthers have put forward various responses to this question:

Light created in transit

Some young Earthers hold that God might have created light that appeared to have come from these objects, but created it 'in transit'. This is a limited form of the Omphalos hypothesis. This theory is inherently unverifiable, and is a philosophical viewpoint rather than a scientific viewpoint. Most now reject this idea, however.

Inaccurate astronomy

Early responses by young Earth creationists tended to challenge the astronomical measurements, i.e. to assert that distant objects were not as far away as thought. When distance measurements were entirely reliant on red-shift calculations, it was easy to challenge the assumption that red-shift and distance were necessarily correlated. Since measurements of astronomical distances are now much better authenticated this approach has fallen into disfavour.

Decreasing speed of light

Another approach was to consider that the speed of light may not have been constant. If the speed of light were significantly faster in the past, light from distant objects could have reached earth in much less time. Such an approach is attractive — after all, it seems impossible to prove today that fundamental physical constants have not changed over time. This hypothesis, called the "C decay" hypothesis, was originally proposed by Barry Setterfield.

A change in the speed of light of the necessary magnitude would have had profound implications on other physical processes, particularly the nuclear fusion reactions that power the Sun. Secondly, measurements of the speed of light have revealed no noticeable change in the speed of light in the time we have been measuring it. Given that these measurements have been extremely accurate over a long period it seems unlikely to opponents of this theory that there were substantial changes in the last few thousand years.

This theory also does not explain why distant pulsars do not appear to speed up, as they would if the speed of light was indeed slowing down. More information.

Relativistic shifts

A more recent theory holds that, in a bounded universe, relativistic effects might cause time to pass more slowly near the centre of the universe than at its periphery. If the Earth were near the centre, then far-away stars might indeed be millions of years old, while the earth might be thousands of years old, even if created at the same time. The author of this theory is Dr. Russell Humphreys (Link).

This theory also assumes the existence of an edge to the universe. Mainstream scientific theories regarding the topology of the universe do not consider a physical edge. In order for Humphreys to be correct, the observed expansion of the universe would have to be explained as being due to an effect that was not found in Friedmann cosmology. The unexplored cosmological implications and the lack of explanations for cosmological observations cast major doubts on this explanation.

White hole cosmology

The theory holds that the universe did not arise as described in inflationary Big Bang cosmology, but from a white hole, hence the name white hole cosmology. This theory attempts to fit the same cosmological data that the Big Bang theory purports to explain. It does not, however, explain the existence or detail measurements of the cosmic microwave background, the observed abundance of light elements, or the large scale structure observations of the means by which galaxies and clusters of galaxies are organized. What it does do is provide the YEC (Young Earth Creationist) model with a theoretical underpinning for the question how light from distant stars millions of light years away could be visible from Earth if our planet is only 6,000 years old as postulated by the theory (Link to PDF).

YEC organizations like the Institute for Creation Research, the Creation Research Society, and Answers in Genesis subscribe to this view.

Early civilisation

Many young Earthers believe that dinosaurs and other creatures of their geological era existed contemporaneously with human beings, but not necessarily sharing the same geographic space (though it should be noted that dinosaurs have been found on every continent). Mythologies of dragons and other creatures, such as the Behemoth in the Book of Job, bear a strong resemblance to dinosaurs and occur frequently in many parts of the world. (Indeed, the Chinese interpreted fossilised dinosaur bones as being "dragon bones".) Some have claimed that cave paintings depict animals that should have been extinct long before the paintings were executed.

Many Young Earthers argue that, based on the Biblical story of Genesis in Adam's day, humans lived longer (1000 years) and had few disabilities and malfunctions. This was a result of early humans being more genetically pure, therefore enabling them to live more successfully. Young Earthers hold that, since expulsion from Eden, humans have slowly declined as a result of genetic mutations.

By contrast, mainstream science maintains that dinosaurs died out long before human beings existed. Conventional scientific methods of dating separate the last known dinosaurs and the first known humans by some 65 million years. The remains of humans and dinosaurs have never been found in the same fossil layers, indicating a lack of contemporaneity between the two. Genetic mutations are conventionally seen as benefiting species in the long term, allowing them to evolve to better fit their environment. Mainstream archaeology pictures a progression from a lengthy Stone Age to the relatively rapid development of technological civilisation over the last 9,000 years - a timescale which of course contrasts many Young Earth views. Nor does mainstream archaeological and paleontological interpretation of the evidence support the view that ancient humans lived longer than today. The bulk of the evidence suggests that life expectancy was far shorter in the past, with the ancient Romans (at the beginning of the current era) having an average life expectancy of 40 years or less. Biblical chronologies which indicate very long life spans taper off at about 2,000 B.C. (following the chronology established in the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar). However, this is well within recorded history and is long after the first mummies were created, around 3300 B.C.; examinations of ancient corpses have revealed no anatomical differences from modern humans.

Young Earth Creationism and the Omphalos hypothesis

Young Earth creationists usually distinguish their own hypotheses from the Omphalos hypothesis put forth by Philip Henry Gosse. Gosse's hypothesis claims that, just as Adam had a navel, evidence of a gestation he never experienced, so also the Earth was created ex nihilo complete with evidence of a prehistoric past that never actually occurred. Gosse's hypothesis allows for a young earth without giving rise to any predictions that would contradict scientific findings; Young Earth Creationists, by contrast, attempt to re-interpret scientific data to support their hypothesis that the earth is in fact young.

External links

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 According to the account, the rains lasted 40 days, and the waters covered the earth for 150 days, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ar'arat, and in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.  In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month of Noah's life, the face of the Earth was dry.  And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month of Noah's life, the earth was dry, and God instructed Noah to leave the ark.
-From that point, the account indicates that lifespans dropped quickly from an average of 900 years at the time of Noah to an average of 100 by the time of Abraham.  Contemporary creationists have suggested that this is due to the effects of the inbreeding that took place after the flood, as only eight people remained.  Creationists also assert that all the contemporary species of animals are descended from those original animals on the ark; that the animals adapted to their environements by the process of variation and natural selection.  Contrary to the theory of evolution, however, Young Earth Creationists assert that the process of variation and natural selection resulted in a ''loss'' of genetic potential.  Which fits with observed data.
+From that point, the account indicates that lifespans dropped quickly from an average of 900 years at the time of Noah to an average of 100 by the time of Abraham.  Contemporary creationists have suggested that this is due to the effects of the inbreeding that took place after the flood, as only eight people remained.  Creationists also assert that all the contemporary species of animals are descended from those original animals on the ark; that the animals adapted to their environements by the process of variation and natural selection.  Contrary to the theory of evolution, however, Young Earth Creationists assert that the process of variation and natural selection resulted in a ''loss'' of genetic potential.
 Subsequent geneologies in the text identify individuals named [[Egypt]], [[Gomer]], [[Sheba]], [[Canaan]], and [[Sidon]], who are believed to have founded the cities and civilizations that were later to bear their names.