It is not easy to find quotations from young-universe creationists willing to admit where their greatest difficulties or faults lie. But, I have been able to dig up some, and I invite readers to send me more. The quotations, in these cases, speak for themselves. Once I have enough of them I suppose I could edit a Quote Book of my own!
STELLAR EVOLUTION
"...the theory of stellar structure appears to be founded on a good physical basis and...stellar evolution is intimately related to stellar structure...
"If creationists wish to scrap stellar evolution completely, then it is incumbent on us to rework stellar structure and/or physics in a convincing fashion...
"The standard observational tool used in studying stellar structure and evolution is the Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram... It consists of a plot of stellar luminosity increasing upward and temperature increasing to the left...Most stars are found on a roughly diagonal band called the main sequence (MS)...
"This agreement is quite impressive and the physical assumptions that go into it are so well founded it is doubtful that many creationists would have much to argue with in main sequence (MS) stellar structure. However, what is generally called post MS evolution is not far removed from the brief outline of stellar structure given above.
"The most massive stars may pass through successive steps of fusing helium nuclei with increasingly more massive nuclei up to iron...Note that these transitions have not actually been observed. However, they are based on physics principles and will naturally occur...
"The upshot is that the most massive stars have MS lifetimes of only a few hundred thousand years (of course, still much longer than young-age creationists would allow), while the lowest mass stars have MS lifetimes approaching 100 billion years...
"And evolutionary assumption concludes that the stars in a star cluster should form from a single cloud so that the members represent...a homogenous group. Different clusters should have different ages, and though they technically have different compositions, even large differences in composition do not seriously affect the overall appearance of an H-R diagram...
"The agreement of the theory [of stellar evolution] is quite impressive...
"[The expected evolutionary] trend between globular and open clusters is observed...
"Evidence [exists] that the formation of planetary nebulae and the evolution of white dwarfs are related...These two ages have a very good correlation...
"A similar relationship holds for neutron stars and supernova remnants. As with planetary nebulae, the expansion velocity and observed size of the remnant can be used to estimate the time since the explosion...Where a pulsar can be identified in a supernova remnant, the ages of the remnant and the pulsar are well correlated.
"Very brief discussions of stellar structure and evolution have been presented. Though it would seem that creationists would not have much with which to quarrel in the former, most would largely dismiss the latter. However, the two are intimately related, and one cannot be rejected without seriously calling into question the other. We are appealing to readers to give much attention to the study of stellar evolution..."
DANNY R. FAULKNER and DON B. DE YOUNG [young-universe creationists], "Toward a Creationist Astronomy," Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 28, Dec. 1991, pp. 87-91
"Perhaps the most important remaining question [in astronomy] for [young- universe] creationists is the origin of the turnoff points in the H-R diagrams of different clusters. The stars are real physical objects and presumably follow physical laws; we would rather not take the easy way out by saying simply that `God made them that way.' But if creationists take the position of rejecting stellar evolution, they should provide a feasible alternative."
PAUL STEIDL [young-universe creationist], The Earth, the Stars, and the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), p. 153 -- as quoted by Howard J. Van Till in The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens Are Telling Us about the Creation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 239
In future issues of Cretinism or Evilution? we will publish many more quotations from young-universe creationists admitting varying degrees of "difficulty" with specific creationist hypotheses, and/or the superiority of some evolutionary hypotheses. We also invite interested readers, both creationists and evolutionists, to send us quotations.
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