Dave, fascinating discussion.

InuyashaPHB, a few quick thoughts on your comments - first, I applaud your seeking after truth, and I hope that you will continue to do so in an unbiased and sincere way.

Thank you…

Second, you're correct that there are several scientific observations which appear to show an old earth, in a forensic way (rather than a purely "scientific" way, because we cannot go back and perform experiments on the origin of the universe).  The three main old-earth arguments are: starlight from distant stars, radiometric dating, and the fossils buried in rock layers.

I argue less with the fossils idea, but you seem to be hitting things right on the mark so far.

Although I believe in the Biblical creation account for reasons other than uniformitarian dating methods, I have personally found the hypotheses of young earth creationism quite scientifically legitimate and plausible.  I have also found that the "assured results of modern science" tend to be much less assured than commonly supposed, when you look beneath the hype and PR.

This might be the first point where I would disagree.  Scientific findings, when assured, are assured.  Up until then the scientific community attempts to look at it as a theory, or a plausible idea.  That is a big trick we use to keep from putting our foot in our mouth.  Facts are facts, and theories, are not.  Though, even on occasion, facts can be disproven.  And when they are, life goes on, new theories are formed from what was found that disproved the fact and the scientific process begins once more.  That is personally why I like science.  It is soft and malleable, capable of taking the shape it needs to in order to be most accurate.

For example - on the starlight problem, you are probably aware that naturalistic 'Big-Bangers' have their own starlight problem - the homogenization of space matter temperature across vast distances.  As for creationist explanations of why we can see starlight, it seems quite plausible that relativistic time-dilation scenarios can reasonably provide "mostly-naturalistic" explanations for our view of the stars (and of course it would be naive anyway to assume complete atheistic naturalism because we're talking about the very creation of space/time and matter/energy from nothing). The "creation-with-appearance-of-age" scenario is also possible.

The starlight problem, while apparent, is not proof that the speed of light argument cannot be used.  In fact, it can be used on both models fairly and equally.  However, in the case of the CMB, it stopped propagating when the universe was somewhat around the age of 400,000 years of age; this was when the universe cooled to allow neutral hydrogen to form, from which microwave radiation did not emanate.  This also was when the universe was one eleven hundredth its size.  However, it still took starlight of things that occurred much, much, much later on the universal timeline a long time to reach us.

The second link in that paragraph did not load for me, in fact, it crashed my computer.  Perhaps because my adobe is out of date.  If you could find an html format for it or give me a summary of the main points that would be appreciated.  But, I did catch the name of the link.  From what I have studied of relativity, the very basics mind you, I have found that our time, the one we measure can only be altered by our own speed, or gravity warping space-time (ala black holes).  To assume that light has altered our personal time without moving us, as well as the constant speed we have documented it at, does not seem plausible.  But, this is without me being able to read the article, so I am likely raising an argument that has nothing to do with it.

To find the cause of the beginning of the universe is a goal that scientists have had for ages.  Everyday, new findings and new theories are expanded upon as well as new theories created.  What we are currently doing is working backwards.  Eventually, you come to the point of occurrence, not necessarily creation.  And that, is a world that we truly cannot use science on as of yet.  And until we find what the reason the universe exists, we will forever be plagued by arguments of infinite regression.

As for the creation-with-appearance-of-age situation.  That would stem more towards philosophy in my mind because it raises the issue of what the purpose of making the universe like that was.  I won’t go into that because it requires the acceptance of a creator in order to work and in turn, prove a creator.  Circular logic proves circular logic.

On radioactive dating, you may be aware that most of the radiometric isochronic methods have been known to give erroneous ages for certain geological samples (reasons include geochemical migration of elements, and thermally-induced decay rate changes).  If a method gives wrong ages in situations where we can check it, why should we trust it in situations where we can't check it?    However, this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Radiometric dating depends heavily on uniformitarian assumptions, which are questionable at best.  Why would a creationist assume, for example, that God would create all of the radiometric element as the "mother" isotope of the mother-daughter decay sequence, rather than some "apparently old" mother-daughter percentage?  We can certainly make assumptions of this sort, but they seem rather unfounded and arbitrary.

In counterpoint to your first argument in that paragraph, I am merely going to copy and paste from a site I have read over.

[Referring to the erroneous age of rocks from the Mt. Saint Helen’s eruption]There are indeed ways to "trick" radiometric dating if a single dating method is improperly used on a sample. Anyone can move the hands on a clock and get the wrong time. Likewise, people actively looking for incorrect radiometric dates can in fact get them. Geologists have known for over forty years that the potassium-argon method cannot be used on rocks only twenty to thirty years old. Publicizing this incorrect age as a completely new finding was inappropriate. The reasons are discussed in the Potassium-Argon Dating section above. Be assured that multiple dating methods used together on igneous rocks are almost always correct unless the sample is too difficult to date due to factors such as metamorphism or a large fraction of xenoliths.
And I will be frank; I had neither the time, nor the interest to read through that entire article.  I will, however, in the process of a few days, go back to it and read it in the whole.  If I do happen to find something interesting that is not substantially explained in the above paragraph, I will leave a fresh comment.  Please bear with me, I am not trying to dodge the excellent points you raised.
Moving on to the billion-fold decay rate increase; even if in lab settings, would such a thing occur on the earth safely?  As we know, or should know, radioactive decay heats the earth.  If such decay rates were altered in the neighborhood of a billion-fold, the earth would substantially, melt, seeing as it was occurring on a large enough scale.  Melted earths are generally bad as they do little to allow life.  It would leave a lot of evidence of such heat.  However, I am intrigued by this sped up radioactive decay.  Such a discovery could have very excellent applications to power plants, supposing it was energy efficient.  But I doubt, even though such an occurrence is possible in the lab and under specific “natural” situations.  The evidence just does not show this.

Finally, the layers of rock containing fossils tend to fit much better into a global flood theory than a uniformitarian, gradual-deposition-of-layers theory. 

I’d say on this matter, they fit about the same.  There is a lot of logic that supports both sides.  And this is not me turning a blind eye to a great flood possibility.  My main issue with the great flood is the source of all the water.  Enough to cover the entire earth.

Interestingly, there are quite a few scientific facts pointing to a young earth / recent creation, although they are almost always ignored by mainstream materialistic science.

Biological decay rates, both in living and dead organisms (i.e. DNA, "soft tissues" in dinosaur bones, "Mitochondrial Eve" and associated mutation rates)

Alright, I did inform people earlier that biology, I did not understand much.  Perhaps that is why I found it hard to understand that article.  I apologize if I come across as a bumbling idiot, but I cannot say this article, or point is either valid or invalid.  Please forgive.

Sea floor mud, and dissolved sea minerals

The sea floor mud argument will do little to sway either side.  As the mud moves from land to sea, it also accumulates in deltas, and in riverbed, and pretty much everywhere on it’s path to the sea.  But there is also the tidal flow of the ocean that can take sediments and put them along shores, and likely add to land mass.  There is a possibility of either side being right.  But this argument does not make or break anything.

The salt water argument actually leads me to worry about the future of the seas.  In the time long before us, going by an atheist timeline, far beyond 6,000 years ago, during the time of the ancient dinosaurs, the seas were much larger and the climate much warmer.  There was a lot of water and a lot of sodium chloride.  They were in a good balance with one another, roughly.  When the seas receded to make way for more land, they left massive sodium deposits, these are finding their way back to the sea and this could have dire consequence for future life.  But the primordial seas would explain why the ocean has lasted so long.  (I hope that made sense, I think my mind is starting to loose its agility)

Helium atmospheric accumulation, and helium mineral-escape rates

There are a lot of reactions occurring in our atmosphere, helium, as the gas lighter and less dense than the others in our atmosphere, it right up there near the top, getting all those beautiful cosmic rays.  There are also very high velocity impacts occurring in the high up atmosphere, enough to break apart said atoms of helium.  One of the culprits for helium murder is the OMG cosmic particle.  (No joke, that is what they named it)  It is a subatomic particle with about the same amount of power as a fastball.  It travels at a speed close to the speed of light.  More than enough to kill a helium.

Radiohalos (especially the "squished" ones and "orphaned" ones), and other evidence of accelerated nuclear decay

Radio-halos do little to prove anything.  Again I will cite the source I had used for the radiometric dating.  My fingers are numb from all the typing.

This refers to tiny halos of crystal damage surrounding spots where radioactive elements are concentrated in certain rocks. Halos thought to be from polonium, a short-lived element produced from the decay of uranium, have been found in some rocks. A plausible explanation for a halo from such a short-lived element is that these were not produced by an initial concentration of the radioactive element. Rather, as water seeped through cracks in the minerals, a chemical change caused newly-formed polonium to drop out of solution at a certain place and almost immediately decay there. A halo would build up over a long period of time even though the center of the halo never contained more than a few atoms of polonium at one time. "Hydrothermal" effects can act in ways that at first seem strange, such as the well-known fact that gold--a chemically un-reactive metal with very low solubilities--is concentrated along quartz veins by the action of water over long periods of time. Other researchers have found halos produced by an indirect radioactive decay effect called hole diffusion, which is an electrical effect in a crystal. These results suggest that the halos in question are not from short-lived isotopes after all.

Earth's magnetic field decay

This is not a decay, but a magnetic reversal.  If you would like, I can get the source.  This was actually the cause of a documentary which raised several good points.  I believe it was Nova, but I am not sure.  I will try to track it down on demand.

etc...

Anyway, just some thoughts to ponder.  I appreciate your honest inquiring, and wish you the best.

So long, so very painfully long.  I hope I did a good job in this rebuttal.
 
But I will combine your two comments.
 

Hello again InuyashaPHB,

Some more quick comments - you wrote against "the use of the bible as a concrete source", and you wrote: "I could just say it’s wrong and you could just say it’s right and that would be the end of it."

Unfortunately, this seems rather naïve. The Bible is a book of testimony, not of myth (in fact, "eyewitness testimony", since God was there to observe creation, and He claims to have inspired the Bible).  The Bible claims that the events actually did happen in the way it describes. Thus it is analogous to an eyewitness in a court trial.

Here it seems that you may be being inconsistent. For example, would you accept "the use of an eyewitness in court as a concrete source?" If you did accept this, it would be in spite of the fact that this eyewitness testimony is not "scientific" in the slightest (by naturalistic definitions).

For another example, how about some document written by an eyewitness that claims to tell the factual story of historical events surrounding some phase in the War for Independence, over 200 years ago? This is obviously nonrepeatable and strictly nonscientific, yet most people are willing to accept such written historical testimony after investigating its quality.

That brings us back to your other statement - "I could just say it’s wrong and you could just say it’s right and that would be the end of it."  Is this the way it is in a court of law?  Two lawyers get up, one says "guilty," and the other says "innocent," and "that's the end of it?"       It should be quite obvious that in the real world, testimonial sources must be verified, checked for accuracy, and backed up by circumstantial evidence whenver possible.  Yet in the end, after the truthfulness of the witness has been checked by evidential verification, his or her testimony in itself is a powerful piece of evidence for the jury to decide "what really happened."

Is not the same true for Genesis?

Luckily, this does not take much to explain.  In a scientific debate, or in the scientific world in general, a eye-witness report is about the lowest form of evidence possible.  These are generally taken with little regards and often not taken at all.

Along side with that, there is the fact that the bible could be, in itself, false.  But this is an idea that causes an offense to many people, so I avoid using the argument.  Because in order to accept the bible as evidence, you must accept the bible, as true.  So it is kind of like using the bible to prove the bible.  Circular logic which baffles and irritates me.  XD

I hope that was taken with little offense, and is understandable.  This response took me so very long to write due to all the sources you cited.

I hope it is legible, I also hope the bold carries through to your comment box as I wrote this in MSWord.  If they don't and you cannot read it clearly, I would be glad to email it to you.