386 CREATIONISM 83 Meteoritic dust is accumulating on Earth so fast that, after four billion years, the equivalent of more than 16 feet of this dust should have accumulated Because this dust is high in nickel, Earth’s crust should have an abun dance of nickel No such concentration has been found on land or in the oceans Therefore, Earth appears to be young Creation science proponents argue that, after the Flood, a strict uniformitarianism has held, but, during the Flood, God used processes that are different from those now in effect This selective catastrophism is necessary to avoid the implications of standard uniformitarian interpretations, which are overwhelming evidence for a slowly changing planet and thus an ancient Earth The young Earth model demands accelerated rates of change well beyond any observed today Coral reefs would have needed to accumulate at 40 000 times their current observed rate to form as quickly as a Flood Geology model requires The interior of the USA has sedimentary deposits of great thickness, averaging a kilometre in depth, some of which, such as calcareous muds, are the results of animal activity; these too would have needed to form at mind-boggling rates In the Grand Canyon, the Kaibab and Redwall limestones together comprise about 300 m of sediment; to produce deposits of this thickness during the year of the Flood would have required deposition of 80 cm per day – clearly more than has ever been observed or even imagined As part of the effort to attack the age of the Earth, creation science proponents hold that radiometric dating methods are unreliable The Grand Canyon Dating Project, a project of the ICR, recently attempted to demonstrate this by showing alleged discrepancies between dates of Grand Canyon lava flows collected by ICR staff and by others In the ICR study, Pleistocene lava flows were dated earlier than the Proterozoic Cardenas basalts, but other geologists have pointed out that the technique used by the ICR (Rb/Sr) may give false isochrons by reflecting the age of the mantle source from which the lava flows were derived, rather than the eruption time of the lava itself A more recent ICR research project critiquing radiometric dating is the Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth (RATE) project, begun in 1997 In 2000, Vardiman et al published a 675-page book describing the project and its expectations for research A final volume of conclusions from the project is expected in 2005 The fact that ICR scientists have undertaken research distinguishes them from their nineteenthcentury Scriptural Geology predecessors The amount of research performed to date, however, is very small, and its quality has been questioned by professional geologists Most of the literature consists of the selective search of scientific data for anomalies cited to disprove evolution, and the little actual research that has been performed, such as efforts to 14C date dinosaur bones or the Grand Canyon Dating Project, has not inspired confidence in the quality of creationist research efforts As a result, the professional geological community has largely ignored creation science, except as a social movement that has had remarkable success in popularizing poor science to the general public See Also Analytical Methods: Geochronological Techniques Evolution Famous Geologists: Cuvier; Darwin; Lyell History of Geology From 1780 To 1835 History of Geology From 1835 To 1900 History of Geology From 1900 To 1962 Trace Fossils Further Reading Cole JR, Godfrey LR, Hastings RJ, and Schafersman SD (eds.) (1985) The Paluxy River Footprint Mystery Solved! Creation/Evolution, 5(1), pp 56 Forrest B and Gross PR (2004) Creationism’s Trojan Horse, The Wedge of Intelligent Design Oxford: Oxford University Press Larson EJ (1997) Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion New York: Basic Books Lindberg DL and Numbers RL (eds.) (1986) God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter Between Christianity and Science Berkeley, CA: University of California Press Livingstone DN, Hart DG, and Noll MA (eds.) (1999) Evangelicals and Science in Historical Perspective New York, NY: Oxford University Press Lynch JM (ed.) (2002) Creationism and Scriptural Geology, 1817 1857 London: Bristol Thoemmes Press Numbers R (1992) The Creationists New York: Knopf Scott EC (2004) Creationism vs Evolution: An Introduc tion Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group Stassen C (2003) A Criticism of the ICR’s Grand Canyon Dating Project Retrieved December 29, 2003, from http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr science.html Strahler A (1999) Science and Earth History, The Evolu tion/Creation Controversy (revised edn.) Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books Vardiman L, Snelling AA, and Chaffin EF (eds.) (2000) Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: A Young Earth Creationist Research Initiative El Cajon, CA, and St Joseph, MO: Institute for Creation Research and Creation Research Society Wise DU (1998) Creationism’s geological time scale American Scientist 86: 160 173