Junk-Science and Crypto-Cult

Cartoon From: 'Of course, the really big money is in junk science.' - CartoonStock

In a post titled "The Moon Confirms a Young Universe" Ken Ham, arch-supremo of a Young Earth theme park adamantly informs us: 

On this International Moon Day, I thought I’d highlight how the moon confirms a young universe.....

Every year, it drifts about an inch and a half further away from us due to gravitational forces involved with the tides. Every year, it drifts about an inch and a half further away from us due to gravitational forces involved with the tides.....this rate gives a maximum age for our earth-moon system....... the moon is supposed to be 4.5 billion years old. Over that amount of time, an inch and a half a year adds up! It adds up so much that if we extrapolate this recession rate back into the past, the moon would’ve been touching the earth just 1.5 billion years ago. And that doesn’t match with lunar origin stories or the scientific data 

Of course, rescuing devices have been proposed, but they all fail for one reason or another. The truth is that our moon displays the glory of God and confirms exactly what we’d expect starting with Scripture: It’s not billions of years old. [But does it confirm that it is a mere 6000 years old?]

Ken links to an article that discusses the issues with the lunar orbit more fully.  That article, which is equally as adamant, tells us...

For decades, creationists have cited this phenomenon as powerful evidence in favor of the Bible’s history. 

So, in view of those confident statements does this mean that these Young Earthists have at last come up with strong evidence confirming that the universe is only about 6000 years old? Needless to say neither post derives a 4000 BC creation date from any evidence. They use a tactic we've seen before: They take a complicated system that current science has yet to successfully model and then used this proto-science as confirmation and powerful evidence of a young universe. We've seen this tactic before. For example I've seen Young Earthists attempt to exploit the surface appearance of Pluto as evidence of a 6000 year old Solar System. Also, the problem of the origin of comets has been exploited to convince the unscientific of Young Earthism. See here: 

Quantum Non-Linearity: Comets: Deconstructing fundamentalist anti-science.

Quantum Non-Linearity: More Substandard Analysis from "Answers in Genesis"

Quantum Non-Linearity: Of Comet Tails and Cat Tails

The science in these subjects is prototypical. In fact given that the epistemic distances here entail a paucity of observational samples, then it may never become settled science....least of all allowing Ken to say that it's scientific confirmation of a 6000 year old Earth. The intellectual sleight of hand here will fool many of Ken's followers. 

Ken and his sidekick have only succeeded in showing  that simplistic models of the Moon's recession don't sufficiently explain the phenomenon: The recession is likely related to ocean tides transferring energy to the Moon's orbit. That in turn is a function of landmass positioning. So given that continental drift has a complex history and that the epistemic distance imposed by time means that the observational data samples are sparce, then the issues here may never be finally settled; and least of all allowing science to settle on a 6000 years old Earth. 

The article Ken refers to is a junk-science cliche surfing post which will convince the scientifically uninitiated......

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YOUNG EARTHIST: Evolution is based on a uniformitarian approach, that is, that “the present is the key to the past. Yet in an attempt to solve their lunar recession problem, secular thinkers claim that the earth was much different in the past than it is observed to be today

MY COMMENT: I'm not aware that this Young Earthist's naive caricature of uniformitarianism is valid anymore. The Young Earthist "observational science vs historical science" is a fallacious philosophy of science which fails to understand that all science is about joining the dots of observation abductively. The science of the past is not a case of a simple back extrapolation of modern processes but rather that of farming & joining the dots of observation abductively as best we can in the face of varying epistemic distances. 

But the above YE sales talk will strike a chord with those scientifically benighted followers of Ken who have heard the same YE fallacies time and again. 

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YOUNG EARTHIST: We can use this limit as a sort of clock. According to this clock, the earth-moon system cannot be more than 1.5 billion years old. 

MY COMMENT: ....no we can't because as this Young Earthist admits.... 

YOUNG EARTHIST: Lunar recession is not precise enough to give us the actual age of the earth-moon system (which is only thousands of years). 

MY COMMENT: ....the reason why it is not precise enough is because the phenomenon is complex and the observational data samples relatively thin on the ground. Least of all it certainly doesn't  give us an Earth age of only a few thousands of years.. 

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A more thorough analysis of this Young Earthist junk-science is possible but as I have already thoroughly aired YE "science" in many posts, I nowadays consider it to be time ill-spent. In any case Kultic-Ken can only spiritually abuse those who contradict him rather than provide a rational repsonse.