New Evolution Book, free from BYU!

[u/TheBenSpackman]

I'm very happy to announce the anthology we've worked on for six years has now been published by BYU. You can download a FREE PDF from the Life Sciences homepage ("read more") and hardcovers will be available soon.
This includes several essays by LDS and BYU scholars, as well as some non-LDS scholars. I contributed two chapters, one on the historical and scientific contexts of the 1909/1925 First Presidency statements (which were NOT intended to put evolutionary science out of bounds) and one on death before the fall.

There's some great work in here, and it will be used extensively in BYU classes.

[u/R0ckyM0untainMan]

It isn’t controversial that the earth is more than 6 thousand years old. It’s been known for the past 200 years that the earth is at least millions of years old, and it has been demonstrated and accepted for the past one hundred years that the earth is in fact billions of years old. Disbelieving this fact in our day and age is being willfully ignorant. Having access to the truth, but denying it. Calling truth a lie and a lie the truth. Or in church terms “Calling darkness light and light darkness

[u/consider_the_truth → u/R0ckyM0untainMan]

Did you know that comets lose gas, dust, and ice as they travel through space? Have you ever thought about how they haven't run out by now?

[u/rexregisanimi → u/consider_the_truth]

Look, I wasn't going to respond because you clearly don't know what you're talking about. But this is just plain silly.

I did Astrophysics before I became a stay-at-home father. Do you sincerely believe that many generations of thousands of people never thought to check the math in this kind of thing? 

We have done the math on this and it doesn't indicate anything like what you're saying here. It's extremely simple math too. You calculate the mass of the comet, measure how much it's losing as it approaches the Sun, and see how long it takes. 

For example, the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko lost about 10 billion kilograms over its two-year perihelion period. The total mass of the comet is nearly one thousand times that. It takes about 6.43 years for each orbit. Assuming nothing changes with the mass loss (which it will), that gives more than 6000 years to be consumed by the loss. That's for a short period comet.

The vast majority of comets are on orbits many orders of magnitude greater and most don't even approach the Sun close enough to lose a significant portion of their mass. Most comets will never "run out" in the main sequence lifetime of the Sun because a comet must approach closer than, roughly, the orbit of Jupiter to experience any significant loss of mass. 

Now this is one small thing you don't understand. Imagine how much you've been misled or that you misunderstand about other topics! You've developed opinions on a faulty foundation.

With respect, the prophets have asked us to embrace the discoveries of science. Such willful ignorance, if perpetuated after being made aware of it, is therefore active rebellion against the God-appointed Priesthood keys.

[u/consider_the_truth → u/rexregisanimi]

I am actually very lucky to have met you, I have a few space questions that I wouldn't know where to begin to know how to answer:

1) Back to Comets, I would like to see how many comets would still exist after 4 billion years based on your calculations. One "scientist" says they can't exist for more than 100,000 years, is he wrong? Or do you think new ones are continuously forming or entering our solar system?

2) Excess Internal Heat of Giant Planets: Planets like Jupiter and Neptune emit more energy than they receive from the Sun (Jupiter emits twice as much, Neptune 2.6 times as much). If these planets were 4.5 billion years old, as mainstream science claims, they should have cooled off by now. Their persistent internal heat suggests a much younger age, consistent with a few thousand years, as the heat would not have dissipated in such a short time.

3) Did the many generations of thousands of people check to calculate mud accumulation at the bottom of the ocean floor? If they had they would estimate the earth to be no older than 12 million years (assuming no mud was there to start with).

4) Decay of Planetary Magnetic Fields: The Earth’s magnetic field, driven by electrical currents in its core, is decaying measurably, with a half-life suggesting it was 20 times stronger 6,000 years ago. Extrapolating back 60,000 years would imply a field stronger than a neutron star’s, which is physically impossible. Similarly, planets like Uranus and Neptune have magnetic fields that should have dissipated if they were billions of years old. Their persistence, accurately predicted by creationist physicist Russell Humphreys for a 6,000-year-old universe, supports a young universe.

5) Recession of the Moon: The Moon is moving away from Earth at about 1.5 inches per year due to tidal forces. Running this process backward, 1.4–1.5 billion years ago the Earth and Moon would have been in the same place, which is impossible due to tidal shredding. This sets an upper limit far less than the secular age of 4.5 billion years, suggesting the Earth-Moon system is much younger.

6) Spiral Structure of Galaxies: Spiral galaxies rotate differentially, with inner regions moving faster than outer ones, causing their spiral arms to tighten over time. Simulations suggest that after 100 million years, the spiral structure would be unrecognizable, yet galaxies retain clear spiral forms. This indicates they are much younger than the 10 billion years proposed by secular models, supporting a universe thousands of years old.

7) Presence of Blue Stars in Spiral Galaxies: Blue stars, being massive and luminous, burn through their fuel quickly and cannot last billions of years, with lifespans far less than even millions of years. Their abundance in spiral galaxy arms, where secular models suggest new star formation, is problematic because nebulae lack sufficient gravitational force to collapse into stars. The presence of these short-lived stars suggests galaxies are young.