h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As you requested, I will provide links which should answer all your questions regarding the age of the earth:

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I was actually NOT familiar with this and I am not quite sure what you mean. So I hope some of the following are of some use:

http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-252.htm
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/docs/tree_ring.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i1/patriarch.asp

If these are of no use then please tell me.

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Here is a link to the plane incident:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i3/squadron.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v26/i1/plane.asp


As for these layers taking hundreds of thousands of years to form, you are basing that on the assumption that 1 layer is formed in one year. The following links deal with this:

http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-226.htm
http://www.icr.org/newsletters/impact/impactjuly03.html

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First of all, starlight is actually a problem for the Big Bang as you can see here:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i4/lighttravel.asp

And second, Dr. Humphreys’ model is actually quite straightforward if you start with the assumption that the universe has a boundary rather than the usual assumption that the universe just goes on and on forever. I would invite you to read his theory at:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/405.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/267.asp


As for your final points, I am not too sure how abiogenesis is relevant to the age of the earth. You seem to be saying that since life DID form by chance in a chemical soup, it must have taken more than 6000 years. I don’t see how that argument makes sense. I don’t think life can appear by chance (they have never shown that it can) so asking how long ago it happened is pointless.

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No, I don’t think I am. I think that if you read some of the stuff above, you will see that there are two sides to every story and I just happen to agree with a different interpretation of the facts we see on the earth. So please read the above but also, please read them with an open mind.
I am sorry that I did not have the time to answer these myself but I only hope these can be of some use.

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Firstly, the usual "assumption" (I'll come back to that) is that the universe is finite but boundless. Although you can never reach the edge, it doesn't go on and on forever - *eventually* you would come back to a place in space that you had been before. On the other hand:

"Dr Humphreys’ new creationist cosmology literally ‘falls out’ of the equations of GR, so long as one assumes that the universe has a boundary. In other words, that it has a center and an edge—that if you were to travel off into space, you would eventually come to a place beyond which there was no more matter. In this cosmology, the earth is near the center, as it appears to be as we look out into space."

The problem here is that the notion of a "boundary" has not been conceptualised. The way it is phrased here "space" is absolute, and "carries on" even when matter (and presumably energy) are absent. It is in fact a model where space carries on forever.

It is arguable that not only has a genuine boundary not been conceptualised, but that if you try to conceptualise what is entailed it leads to the conclusion that there can be no such boundary (see F104208?thread=544572 ). Therefore the "assumption" that the universe is finite but boundless becomes a logical necessity.

In short, Humphreys' theory is worthless unless he can give an adequate account of what he means by a "boundary". Until then it's not worth the paper it's written on.

Noggin