The punch up of science and religion?

Science and Religion

 

Throughout my thirty years in the ordained ministry I have always been surprised at the number of people who are baffled by how I can be both scientist and clergyman. Many are convinced that the two must conflict and this is as common among Christians as non–Christians. Once a liberal bishop asked me how I could be an evangelical and a geologist! In England, as in America, there is a deep–seated perception that science and religion are in conflict and one must choose one or the other.

Thus we need to ask two separate, but related, questions. First we need to ask what the actuality is. Have Christianity and science always conflicted in the past and do they conflict today? And if so, then how? And secondly, we need to ask what the perception is of the relationship of science and Christianity.

Now let’s look at one example and ask questions both about actuality and perception. From there we can consider other examples as well and consider the relationship over the last half a millennium. This example is of Christopher Columbus in 1492 shortly before he sailed across the Atlantic. Every high school student knows that theologians advised Columbus that he could not sail around the world because it was flat and he would sail off the edge. The common account is that Columbus had great difficulty in persuading the Roman Catholic theologians in Spain that the earth was spherical. The theologians were adamant that the earth was flat. However in the end the heroic Columbus persuaded the King to let him try despite the theologians. Off Columbus sailed and he landed in the New World and returned to tell the tale. The atmosphere of the whole incident is evoked by Joseph Chiari’s play Christopher Columbus (1979);

Columbus; The earth is not flat, Father. It’s round!

The Prior; Don’t say that!

Columbus; It’s the truth; it’s not a mill pond strewn with islands. It’s a sphere.

The Prior; Don’t say that; it’s blasphemy.

 

This perception is very deep–seated among people of all ages and education, but the actuality was very, very different. Only about two theologians in the previous thousand years believed in a flat earth. So where did this story come from? The writer Washington Irving fabricated it when he wrote a biography on Columbus in 1828. In this he included a long account that the sphericity of the earth was condemned at the Council of Salamanca. What a creative author! The truth is that the Council of Salamanca never occurred, but it was reported in the two classic works on the conflict of science and religion by Draper and White and has been repeated ever since. It is a prototypical example of an urban myth and most people in Britain and America believe it to be true. The actuality is that no theologian challenged Columbus about a flat earth. But the perception of what is true about Columbus is utterly false, and perniciously encourages the idea that science and faith are at loggerheads.

The perception that science and faith are mutually exclusive has had and continues to have a disastrous effect on our churches today. Rather than being simply a double bind, it is a triple bind as this perception militates against Christianity in three different ways.

First, it makes Christians very suspicious of science because they believe science intends to disprove the Bible, which encourages many to believe that if one studies science in-depth it may destroy a person’s faith. As far as the myth of Columbus goes this unsettles Christians and makes them doubt whether or not Christianity can be true.

Secondly, it makes some Christians think that only a liberal Christianity can be intellectually coherent. Thus to have a faith which is acceptable scientifically one must reject miracles, creation, and anything concerned with the supernatural elements of faith, including the Virgin birth and the resurrection. This is the appeal of the way–out ideas of Bishop Spong and other liberal Christians, who claim to incorporate science into their faith.

Thirdly it makes non–believers think that Christianity is rooted in anti–science and is thus anti–intellectual and rooted in Medieval superstition. Thus no intelligent being could possibly be a believer. Richards Dawkins and others repeat this like a mantra.

 

Conflict Thesis of Science and Religion

 

Science versus religion – the antithesis conjures two hypostatized entities of the later nineteenth century; Huxley St George slaying Samuel smoothest of dragons; a mysterious undefined ghost called Science against a mysterious indefinable ghost called Religion; until by 1900 schoolboys decided not to have faith because Science, whatever that was, disproved Religion, whatever that was.

So wrote the great Church Historian Sir Owen Chadwick on the common understanding of the conflict of science and religion in a send up of the clash between Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s Bulldog, and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce over The Origin of Species in 1860. Most accounts tell us that Huxley trounced the good bishop and made him look stupid. It is quoted frequently to show how the church has always opposed science with bigoted obscurantism. Even the BBC produced a re–enactment for television and the book Evolution, the triumph of an idea, which accompanied the PBS series on Evolution, repeats a similar story. Like many good stories it has only one fault and that is that it is wrong! Those who have studied all the evidence have found this to be a fabrication and a legend. The story was not told until thirty years after the event and it transpires that Huxley’s memories played tricks on him as he compiled his memoirs in the 1890s. In fact Huxley could hardly be heard and his friend Hooker had to take the bishop to task. Even so Wilberforce made some telling criticisms of evolution and was supported by scientists including Sir Benjamin Brodie – the President of the Royal Society.

Huxley was not alone in peddling this conflict of science and religion. Two of the foremost were the Americans J. W. Draper and Andrew Dickson White of Cornell University. White wrote a book The Warfare of Science with Theology, which is in the form of a historical account of the way the church has always opposed science from the time of Christ to 1895. The historian of science Colin Russell described the book as a ‘polemic tract masquerading as history’. That is an English understatement! It is a book which raises the blood pressure of many historians as, if you check out the references as I have, you promptly find misquotation after misquotation. Yet for over a century White’s book has encouraged people to believe that there has always been a conflict and is still in print and available on line. His errors are copied in other books, at times in a plagiaristic manner. They are then copied by students who expect to get high grades!

They re-surface frequently in a wide variety of writings – “pop” history of science, popular science (often written by atheists with an axe to grind), college, and even evangelical, surveys on the history of ideas, and many works by theologians and church historians (both liberal and evangelical). Usually these focus on one or more of three main issues;

1. The Churches’ opposition to Copernicus and Galileo
2. The Churches’ opposition to Geology around 1800.
3. The Churches’ opposition to Darwin in 1860.

In many books Calvin’s opposition to Copernicus is cited from his commentary on Genesis where he refers to Psalm 93:1 and then asks, “Who will dare to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?” (I even have it in French!) This quote is not to be found in Calvin’s commentary on Genesis, nor is it to be found in any of Calvin’s writings. Calvin did believe the earth to be at the center of the universe, but he died in 1564, 21 years after Copernicus. His commentaries on Genesis and the Psalms were published in 1554 and 1557 – within 15 years of the publication of  de Revolutionibus. In the 1550s only a handful of people would have accepted Copernican ideas as anything other than a mathematical description. Yet the charge sticks, and generations of students are still taught such legends and I still put a red line through when a student quotes it. The Galileo myth is even stronger and was briefly discussed earlier.

In a previous section I discussed the rise of geology and the fact that many early geologists were Christians. Yet the common view is that the church opposed geology at every turn. A minority of vocal Christians did oppose geology from 1800 to 1850 but did not represent the mainstream of the churches or evangelicalism. Some years ago Simon Winchester, a journalist with an Oxford degree in geology, wrote a life of William Smith entitled The Map that changed the World. It became a best–seller and had rave reviews, but on many pages it lambasted the church for opposing geology. Winchester wrote on page 29, ‘The hunch that God might not have done precisely as Bishop Ussher had suggested [creation in 4004BC],…, was beginning to be tested by real thinkers, by rationalists, by radically inclined scientists who were bold enough to challenge both the dogma and the law, the clerics and the courts.’ Winchester seemed oblivious to the fact that Smith’s main advisors and supporters were three clergymen, one an Evangelical. He does not mention which law forbade people to re–consider the age of the earth (assuming there was one!). The brief treatments in this chapter should demonstrate the falsity of his statement, but I wonder how many readers, Christian or not, will swallow his fabrications. Winchester is not alone as many writers repeat similar inaccuracies.

My favorite story about the response to Darwin in 1860 is what the Bishop of Worcester’s wife is supposed to have said, “Oh, my dear, let’s hope that what Mr Darwin says is not true. But if it is true, let us hope that it will not become generally known.” The source of this story is unknown and is regarded by many historians as an Urban Myth. Yet it appears on BBC documentaries about Darwin.

The Oxford biologist, Richard Dawkins, also is in error when he wrote in The Oxford Companion to Animal Behaviour, ‘… in 1862 the eminent physicist Lord Kelvin greatly worried Darwin by ‘proving’ that the …earth could not possibly be more than 24 million years. Although this estimate was considerably better than the 4004BC date then favored by churchmen…’p155 Apart from inaccuracies about Kelvin, Dawkins did not state which churchmen, presumably because he could not name any!

Sometimes when browsing in bookshops, I check history, theological and scientific books and usually find a few more examples of these alleged conflicts between science and faith. Unfortunately it is the minority who do not repeat these myths. We may ask what the effect is on the readers. I am sure that it re–inforces the popular perception that Christianity is in opposition to science. There is also a negative reverse side to the conflict thesis which, I believe, affects numbers of Christians for the best of motives. The effect here is to convince some Christians that much of science is wrong and atheistic in intent. The result is that Christians may be susceptible to believing the truth of any attack or demolition of science, which appears to contradict the Bible.

 

Refs J.H.Brooke Science and Religion, some historical perspectives, 1991, Cambridge University Press

Brooke and Cantor Reconstructing Nature, 1999, T & T Clark

**Denis Alexander Rebuilding the matrix, 2001, Lion (most readable of these!)

Lindberg and Numbers God and Nature, 1985, Univ of California Press

Lindberg and Numbers, When Science and Christianity meet,  2003 Univ of Chicago Press

And also the grossly unreliable

1. D. White , The Warfare of Science with Theology, 1895 and reprints.

 

Influence of Science on Belief

 

Many Christians would be horrified that science can affect our belief and understanding of the Bible. It does, but it may be for good or ill. For example, there are many instances where archaeology illuminates the Bible and suggests that one interpretation is better than another. One simple example is that nature of the manger that Jesus was born in.  It was not a rustic log cabin but rather an extension carved into the limestone hillside of Bethlehem, which was common in that town.

On matters astronomical we will reject the type of astronomy suggested in Genesis 1 and Isaiah 40:22. It clearly depicted a flat earth with a firmament above, which was the common cosmology before 500BC. I do not think many will insist on a three–decker universe today! After doubts about Copernicanism until about 1650 hardly any theologians since then have opted for geocentrism. They accepted heliocentricity for scientific reasons and reckoned it was not important theologically. However it must be said that some Lutheran theologians did reject heliocentricity until the 19^th century in the American Mid-West.

The question of the age of the earth is more problematic. Geologists have been categorical that the earth is millions of years old only from the late18th century. Before then there was no way of reckoning the age. So from the time of Christ until shortly before 1800 both “scientists” and theologians gave no clear answer as to the earth’s age. Thus a biblical commentator could do no more than guess and many left the question open. Thus for 1800 years commentators gave differing answers to this question. They also varied over their interpretation of the Bible. But by the early 19^th century even the most conservative and evangelical commentators accepted the findings of the geologists and thus rejected a simple 6-day creation. To them geological findings eliminated one possible interpretation of Genesis.  They argued that this was no more significant than theologians who rejected geocentrism two centuries earlier. These include some of the most prominent evangelicals of the 19^th Century – Chalmers, Candlish, Hodge father and son, B. B. Warfield, J. C. Ryle, Handley Moule, Gaussen among others. Several of these contributed to The Fundamentals of 1910 and are thus the earliest Fundamentalists.

Against this, some argued that science undermined the Christian Faith. From the time of Copernicus some Christians have thought that new science was a threat to faith. This is seen in some Lutheran reactions to Copernicus and the Inquisition’s opposition to Galileo. From the late 17^th century until the middle of the 19^th century a minority opposed early advances in geology on the grounds that it contradicted scripture, especially on the Creation and Flood. Thomas Burnet was criticized by some in 1690 because he suggested that the Days of Genesis might be longer than 24 hours, even though others put forward the same ideas. At the end of the 18^th century some opposed geology in Britain and France. The major opposition to geology took place in Britain from 1817, when a small minority of Christian leaders argued that geology had to be wrong as it contradicted a literal Genesis and that the existence of animal death prior to the Fall negated the atonement. Most had no geological skills but a few had a smattering, and are variously termed Scriptural or Anti–geologists. They published a flurry of pamphlets and books, which were roundly opposed by leading evangelicals such as Sumner and Chalmers. However by 1855 hardly any Evangelicals still insisted on a literal Genesis. I give these two examples as they demonstrate a reaction against science by some Christians.

Since the 18^th century various thinkers of an agnostic or atheistic persuasion have used science to undermine Christian belief, seeking to demonstrate that science has made faith untenable. Some argue that every scientific discovery since Copernicus has negated faith and here they adopt an extreme conflict of science and faith perspective. Such writers as Draper and White are typical, as are Jones and Dawkins today. Very often writers like these trot out the old stories of Columbus, Galileo, opposition to Geology and Darwin without much concern as to accuracy. As this is the dominant opinion of popular scientists today it molds the beliefs and perspectives of many and is often what is presented in the teaching of science at all levels from high–school to post–graduate.

Science has also affected the way that miracles are understood. Before the rise of science miracles were seen as acts of God and not given any explanation. David Hume changed that in the 18^th century in his attack on miracles. The key was to define miracle as an event contrary to scientific law and his definition is now the accepted one. The Bible does not see miracles like this, as the Bible is prescientific, and considers them as particular acts of God. This is very clear in the treatment of “signs” in John’s Gospel. (In John’s Gospel miracles are always called “signs”.) This definition has taken root by Christian and non–Christian alike with unfortunate consequences. It has meant that the biblical miracles can be rejected as contrary to science and this has been the theme of much liberal theology since 1800. Some of the early examples are the re–writing of the New Testament to eliminate the miraculous by D. F. Strauss and F.C. Baur in the 1840s. From then on there has been a tendency to reject the Virgin Birth and Empty Tomb and bodily resurrection and if faith is retained the content is purely naturalistic and rejects the possibility of the miraculous. Thus today many Christians in mainstream denominations will reject core doctrines for being anti–scientific. Arthur Peacocke, a recipient of the Templeton Prize, argues very strongly that miracles have no place in the Christian faith as he believes God does not intervene in that way.  Questions about miracles are never far away when one considers the relationship of science and faith, but miracles have been given careful study by writers like C.S.Lewis, Colin Brown and Denis Alexander.

 

C.S.Lewis Miracles

Colin Brown Miracles and the Critical Mind

**Forster and Marston Reason, Science and Faith, 1999 Monarch, and on website

 

Genesis 1 to 11

When it comes to science, Genesis 1 to 11 is the locus of most controversy and confusion. There are basically four problem areas; a) the days of Genesis One, b) the Creation of Man and Woman En 1.26 – 2, c) the Fall of Man and the nexus of sin and death and d) the Flood.

As the focus of this volume is on the age of the earth, I shall only consider the first. I have already been sharply critical of those who falsely accuse Christians of hindering the rise of geology. In the two millennia of Christian history there has not been one fixed or even dominant interpretation of the Days of Genesis. The New Testament is silent on the matter and perhaps that should tell us not to make it a touchstone of orthodoxy. The Early Fathers of the first Five Christian Centuries were divided on the matter. Some took the days literally and reckoned the earth would last only 6,000 years as did Barnabas and Theophilus in the second century. Other writers including Augustine did not take the days literally. From this we may conclude that the duration of the Day is a secondary matter, unlike the Trinity and the Person of Christ which were the dominant theological questions of the early church. Further, at that time there was simply no geological evidence on the age of the earth, so people could only speculate from the Bible or various Greek and Roman myths.

The general opinion is that the Christian Church of whatever denomination believed Genesis literally until geological evidence forced them to reconsider the matter in the 19^th century. Most writers claim that literalism and a young earth was the orthodox position until Chalmers succumbed to geology in 1802 and put forward his Gap Theory. Many secular and liberal Christian writers argue from this that the church was obscurantist and anti–science and thus Christianity had to bow the knee to science. Some liberal Christians like Bishop Spong use this as an argument as to why Christians must reject the authority of the Bible and discard most of the classical Christian doctrines. Some Christian writers argue differently and posit that to be orthodox in belief, as the church was before 1800, a Christian must believe in a literal Six-Day Creation. This almost pincer movement of atheists and liberal Christians on one side and young earthers on the other often makes it difficult for a Christian to claim that it is perfectly orthodox to believe in an old earth now and it was also orthodox to do so in 1800.

Though this is a very common perception, there was not a unanimous belief in a Six-day creation in the past. It is, of course, correct to say that most writers in the Reformation period and many until the early 19^th century did believe that Creation took place in about 4000BC, but many did not. Sir Walter Raleigh (1552?-1618) in his History of the World (1614) written in the Tower of London considered the world to be created in about 4000 BC. Raleigh’s date was the same as that proposed by the Protestant reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546), the Roman Catholic Cardinal Bellarmine (1542-1621), and the devisor of the map projection, Mercator (1512-1594). A century earlier Columbus (1451-1506) was more generous with 5443 BC. These few dates show how widely accepted a date of 4000 to 5000 BC was for the origin of the earth. The majority of Protestant and Roman Catholic theologians concurred on about 4000BC and the Geneva Reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) typically reckoned “the present world is drawing to a close before it has completed its six thousandth year.”

As the Reformation progressed some developed a revamped Chiliasm, that is that the earth will last “six days” of one thousand years (a millennium) followed by the seventh chiliastic day  – the Millennium. In the early 1600s the Dutch Protestant theologian Josef Scaliger put creation at 25 October 3950 BC. (Autumn was a favored time for Creation, as the fruits would provide sustenance for the winter.) The best known Chiliaist was Archbishop James Ussher of Armagh (1581-1656). Ussher wrote Annales Veteris Testamenti in 1650, which was a solid piece of chronological scholarship in which he argued from historical grounds that Jesus was born in 4BC. But he is remembered for his date of creation – 4004 BC. Despite popular representations, he did not arrive at this figure from arithmetic applied to dates of patriarchs and other Old Testament figures. To Ussher there were six Chiliastic days of 1000 years apiece followed by the seventh day of the Millennium. There were four Chiliaistic days before Christ and thus Creation took place in 4004 BC, on the night before 23 October. Adam was created on 28 October. This date causes amusement to many, but the rest of Ussher’s chronology was very sound for the 17^th century, as he was a careful scholar. ( figure n.) His chronological calculations for the rest of the Old Testament are close to today’s estimates. Had not Ussher’s chronology been inserted in many English Bibles from 1704, he would probably have been forgotten, except to historians who valued his careful work on most of the Old Testament. As a result Ussher’s date of 4004BC is even today regarded as official church doctrine until the geologists demonstrated the vast age of the earth.

And this is where the story stops for most, but it is where the story begins. We have already considered how geology and its arguments for a vast age developed from early beginnings in the late 17^th Century. One of the features of the Renaissance as understood by the various churches was that all knowledge was part of a unified whole and thus ‘Biblical History’ was related to other spheres of knowledge both classical and modern. Thus Genesis was not considered in isolation but with reference to those classical writers like Heisiod who spoke about chaos. It was widely held that God first created chaos (identical with tohu vabohu – the ‘without form and void’ of Genesis 1:2) and sometime later re–ordered the chaotic creation in Six Days. This extended understanding of Genesis predates any scientific influence.  In the early 17^th century the Arminian Hugo Grotius in The Truth of the Christian Faith in Six Books argued that ‘the most antient tradition among all Nations [Phonecian and Greek] is exactly agreeable to the Revelation of Moses’[1] and his work was later translated and widely available and used throughout Europe. Many later writers, like Nathaniel Grew, cited Grotius in support of a chaos of undefined duration. In 1624 Mersenne, priest–mathematician, wrote a massive commentary of early Genesis (size 18”x12”x5”!!) adding much mathematics to his exegesis which included many references to classical writers.[2] He also included a chaos of undefined duration.

Some decades later from the 1660s Steno, Ray, Woodward, Whiston and others began to study the earth and laid the foundations of geology. Several wrote Theories of the Earth, which built geology around Genesis 1 to 11. Most take these Theories as teaching a literal Six-Day Creation and Flood, but in fact they all speak of the initial creation of chaos, which lasted for some time. Burnett wrote of indefinite chaos, ‘so it is understood by the general consent of commentators’ and the commentator Bishop Patrick wrote of the duration of chaos that’ (I)t might be a great while’. A survey of these Theories and theological writings of this period show that most did not follow Ussher’s chronology and allowed more time for creation. I am tempted to call these writers MECs (middle–aged earth creationists). This view was the dominant one until after 1760, when an increasing number of writers, acknowledging geological arguments for a great age, interpreted Genesis accordingly. They did this in two ways. Some argued that the Days were indefinitely long – extending Whiston’s idea that the Days were each a year long. The Swiss geologist de Luc reckoned the days to be a few thousand years, but Buffon, who was no atheist or deist, argued for tens or hundreds of millennia. Others kept the Six Days of re–ordering and extended the duration of chaos to include all geological time. Thomas Chalmers classically expressed this in 1802 with his Gap Theory. All Chalmers did was to tweak the common interpretation of Genesis.

By considering the way these interpretations developed we can see that Christians did not suddenly realize in about 1800 that geologists were arguing for millions of years and then as a desperate expedient made up the Gap Theory or the Day–Age Theory in a last–ditch attempt to save Christianity from geologists. This is how it is often presented in popular books and websites. In fact, Chalmers’ Gap Theory is a gradual development over two centuries from Grotius’s apologetics, as he himself claimed.

Though there are theological problems with the Gap Theory it was the dominant view held by conservative Christians until the last thirty years when many began to insist on a literal Genesis. However forms of the Day Age theory and the Gap Theory have been held by Christians since the time of the early church which saves them from the charge of being sops to geological ages. During the 19^th Century most evangelical Christians held to one or the other and that includes the architects of Inerrancy – the Princeton theologians Charles and Archibald Hodge and the great B.B.Warfield. Space forbids listing any others. Many of the contributors to The Fundamentals and early 20^th Century Fundamentalists agreed with Hodge and Warfield. It is often not known that very few 19^th Century Evangelicals took Genesis literally and denied geological ages.

However in the 21^st Century we cannot consider Genesis independently of our understanding of modern science. That is the case, whether we are Christian or not, or whether we accept the findings of science or not. The result is that the options presented are often reduced to either accepting Genesis in a literal sense, or else bending or breaking Genesis to conform to the dictates of science and rejecting the “traditional” literal interpretation. A consideration of the history of the interpretation of Genesis One will prevent such a stark choice and much heartbreak.

Today several liberal theologians claim that before Darwin all took the Bible literally and now cannot. Thus today that means one can accept neither Genesis nor the rest of the Bible, thus the OT becomes folk tales about Israel and the NT is demythologised. The existence of Jesus is accepted but his Divinity, the Virgin Birth and any objectivity of the Resurrection are firmly denied. This is also the common fare of the humanist, atheist and confused unbeliever. The net result is a considerable scepticism and resistance to the Bible and Christ’s claims.

 

Refs

Forster and Marston Reason, Science and Faith

 

The Problem of Perception

 

Last year a colleague of mine was unjustly critical of American churches at a meeting. I confess to interrupting him and saying that this was racist. It stopped him in his tracks! He suffered from a false perception of American churches and only focussed on the bad. I have spent too much time with American Christians to allow such false perceptions to go unchallenged. Unfortunately false perceptions of America and her churches are rife in Britain, as are false perceptions about the British in America. It is essential to have a good knowledge of the other nation so we can see both the good and the bad in them and discern where the two nations are simply different.

There is also a serious problem of perception on the relationship of science and religion. The alleged conflict is often a matter of perception, and at times this perception can be fuelled by ideological concerns, especially by some with an atheistic axe to grind. Believing the atheist to be correct in their historical facts some Christians react and thus develop a perception, which perceives that science is anti–Christian. The two mis–perceptions feed each other and cause havoc both in churches and in the classroom.

One of my purposes in this short account of the history of changing concepts of science is to challenge false perceptions both by agenda–driven atheists and Christians as they have both done so much damage to the Gospel over the last century. Despite the fact that today there is so much good history of science (and its relationship with Christianity), whether by believers or not, it is simply overlooked and ignored by many Christians. There are many fine Christian historians of science who can help our understanding; Mark Noll, David Livingstone, Edward Davies, David Knight, the late Reijer Hooykaas, Colin Russell, Paul Marston, Martin Rudwick, Ted Larsen, and also many historians, who make no Christian claims, whose work is sympathetic and helpful; Geoffrey Cantor, Michael Ruse, Ron Numbers, Peter Bowler, Hugh Torrens. Perpetuating false perceptions mars much popular writing on the subject from non–believers and believers alike. The one presents scientists as anti–Christian and the other Christians as obscurantist bigots.

 

Conclusion

 

Very briefly, we have selectively looked at the development of science in the last 3000 years. It shows how we have moved from a pre– and non–scientific culture to one dominated by science. Particular emphasis has been given to geology and astronomy because of the implications on the age of the earth and the universe.

The development of the sciences has been put into the cultural and religious context of the time, so that any possible conflict can be seen in context rather than according to atheistic spectacles, which makes us judge the Christian Church in a negative way.

It cannot be denied that science causes a major problem to many Christians and that non–Christians often believe that science contradicts Christianity. As a result unbelievers believe that science has disproved faith and good numbers of believers hold that to be a Christian one must reject large parts of science. However by looking at the issues historically, the problem of perception is raised and identified. Here the whole issue is confused and inflamed by the Conflict Thesis of Science and Religion, which was introduced by 19^th century polemicists like Draper and White. This misperception has been widely accepted and is used by atheistic popularizers to denigrate Christianity. Though the conflict thesis has been refuted by many historians, both non–Christian and Christian, it still forms the perception of the majority of people.

It is this false perception that does so much damage to the Christian Faith throughout the world. One of the purposes of this chapter is to change that misperception and recognize that in the past many of the scientists who developed their particular fields were devout Christians.

I will conclude with the epitaph to Adam Sedgwick, the greatest evangelical geologist of all, in the church of his birth at Dent in the Yorkshire Dales;

 

IN MEMORY OF

THE REVEREND ADAM  SEDGWICK L.L.D.

 

AS A MAN OF SCIENCE AND A CHRISTIAN

HE LOVED TO DWELL ON THE ETERNAL POWER

AND GODHEAD OF THE CREATOR AS REVEALED IN NATURE

AND THE FULLER REVELATION OF HIS LOVE

AS MADE KNOWN IN THE GOSPEL OF HIS SON JESUS CHRIST

 

 

 

[1] Grotius, The Truth of the Christian Faith in Six Books tr John Clarke, 1719, section XVI

[2] Mersenne

Not 4004 BC. The Doctrine of Creation considered geologically.

Some years ago I was asked to write an Anglican view of creation for the Geological Society of London’s Special Publication on  Geology and Religion. 

Here it  is. My brief was to deal with the relationship of geology  to Christianity. Hence I omitted the important issue of the environment which would have required as much wordage again. Hence I only deal with the Geology/Genesis aspects and consider the variety of responses from the Sea of Faith, throught the (sane) views of those like Peacocke, Polkinghorne and McGrath and finally Creationism  in its various forms.

 

Needless to say Triceratops-riding Christians were never far away.

 

Here is my chapter

An Anglican priest’s perspective on the doctrine of creation in the church today

339lgscreation

How geology has changed in 350 years, with a snook to Creationists

From very early times people had observed and made use of the geological environment. Minerals have been mined for millennia and one of the earliest accounts of mining is to be found in Job 28.

1 “Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold to be refined.

2 Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted from ore.

3 Miners put an end to darkness, and search out to the farthest bound the ore in gloom and deep darkness.

4 They open shafts in a valley away from human habitation; they are forgotten by travelers, they sway suspended, remote from people.

5 As for the earth, out of it comes bread; but underneath it is turned up as by fire.

6 Its stones are the place of sapphires, and its dust contains gold.

7 “That path no bird of prey knows, and the falcon’s eye has not seen it.

8 The proud wild animals have not trodden it; the lion has not passed over it.

9 “They put their hand to the flinty rock, and overturn mountains by the roots.

10 They cut out channels in the rocks, and their eyes see every precious thing.

11 The sources of the rivers they probe; hidden things they bring to light.

12 “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?

13 Mortals do not know the way to it, and it is not found in the land of the living.

The sheer number of mines in the ancient world shows just how much practical knowledge of rocks and minerals there was. There is a mine for copper and base metals near Mt Sinai which dates back to 1400 BC, which may well have provided the metals, needed for the tabernacle. Old Testament Cosmology reflects its origin in 500-1000BC

Many Greeks and Romans observed natural phenomena and Pliny was the first vulcanologist to be killed by a volcano in 79 AD, when he was helping people to escape from the eruption of Vesuvius.

Today Creationists reject all geology and suggest bizarre alternatives but none as humorous as this one

Out on a cycle ride pedalling over hills made of 330 my old Carboniferous limestone and smeared with Glacial Till some 20,000 years ago I saw this sign outside an Anglican church. It is both true and dishonest. Theories do change as this essay describes, but the purpose of the poster was to sow seeds of doubts and open the way fro Creationism.

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Try another thought experiment in the year 1650. You are interested in fossils, minerals and rocks and wonder how they all got there. You are very well–read and can read all the Latin works on minerals, but you want to get back to the beginning. So you read the Bible with creation in six days and an enormous deluge. As many had worked out the Biblical Chronologies, with Ussher’s Annales Veteris Testamenti published in 1656 as the most famous, it was thought that the age of the earth was to about six thousand years.

And then there was the Deluge. Most people in Europe were aware of the devastating effects of floods. They were intimately acquainted with flooding of the Severn and Trent in England, the Seine, Rhine and Danube on the continent, not to mention flash floods in hilly areas. Sudden floods could not only wash away river banks and property, they could also leave thick deposits of sand and silt. A primitive understanding of sandstones and silts would compare them to mud and sand and thus it was believed they were deposited by water.

What would you conclude? You would think that the earth was not very old, humans had been around about 6000 years and that the Flood had mashed up the earth’s surface and could well have laid down strata, just as you had seen by a river bank. You have ended up with a fairly typical Theory of the Earth of the late 17^th Century, which were produced by the dozen.

As savants (I use the French word as many of these highly educated writers were not scholars in the usual sense of the word, as some were men of means, others university professors or in secular employment.) began to look at the earth and its rocks after 1660, the formed stones or fossils began to be studied in earnest. Any substance embedded in a rock was called a fossil, whether they are human artifacts, minerals or plant– or animal– like objects. These formed stones became a center of controversy in the late 17^th Century. Some argued that they were impressions of dead animals or plants and others denied it. What is obvious to us was not at all obvious then, as no one would expect plants or even sea–shells to be turned into stone. It was contrary to commonsense and observation. By the end of the century most savants accepted the organic origin of formed stones, but that created another problem. How could one explain fossils found at high altitudes, say at 2,000 feet in the limestones of Northern England or many thousand feet high in the Alps? Something watery had to deposit them there and the obvious culprit was the Deluge.

So by 1700 most savants in Europe reckoned the earth to be thousands of years old – probably somewhat older than Ussher’s date of 4004BC – and that most rocks were laid down by the Flood. To make it more plausible, Whiston and Halley suggested that a passing comet affecting the oceans caused the Flood, thus giving a naturalistic twist to this scriptural geology. Therefore until nearly 1800 most early geologists followed a Flood Geology model as this made greatest scientific sense to them.

The progress of geology appears to us to be painfully slow. Until 1760 the 18^th Century was not a very fruitful period for geology but observers added to the knowledge of the earth. After mid–century many savants throughout Europe turned their eyes away from the stars above to the rocks below. Often the story is told that it was the heroic efforts of a few men like Hutton and Lyell who argued for an ancient earth in the face of virulent opposition from the church. That has the same truth content as the flat–earth story, even when put forward by learned scholars from Cambridge or Berkeley. It is perfectly true that some Christians opposed geology but most did not.

It is difficult to say exactly who first argued for an ancient earth in the 18^th century as scientists were arguing for it in many European countries from 1760 to 1800. Like many scientific discoveries it was a culmination of previous work and no one scientist should take all the credit. It was a cross–fertilizing, trans–European venture with significant workers including Whitehurst, Hutton

and Smith from Britain, Buffon, Cuvier and Soulavie from France, de Saussure and de Luc from Switzerland and Werner and Blümenbach from Germany. There was considerable diversity between them, both in religious belief and scientific method. They differed on the age of the earth: de Luc and de Saussure favored an age of tens of thousands of years (MECs –Middle-aged Earth Creationists!) whereas Hutton, Buffon and Soulavie favored millions. However both of these views would be lethal to a young earth. Geologists were slowly piecing together very fragmentary evidence and there is no sense that any started from an assumption of an old earth in some kind of materialist opposition to the Christian Church. It would be truer to say that geologists started with young earth and flood geology assumptions and then changed them, as contrary evidence proved irresistible. A good example is Sir William Hamilton, plenipotentiary at Naples, who is best known to the British as the husband of Lord Nelson’s mistress, Emma. However before he married Emma in 1791 he carried out much research on Mt Vesuvius. He observed that in between many bands of lava was a band of burnt soil indicating sufficient time between volcanic eruptions elapsed to allow the formation of soil and vegetation. He concluded that the earth must be more than thousands of years old.

We move from Naples to Chamonix in the Alps. Henri de Saussure of Geneva was a great explorer of the Alps and the second to climb Mt Blanc. His Voyages dans les Alpes (1779-96) is a wonderful account of his explorations and geology. When he commenced his work he was convinced that the rocks in the heart of the Alps were those formed during the early stages of Creation. He began to question this as a result of his exploration of the Arve Valley from Geneva to Chamonix. This included ascending the precipitous Mt Buet (10,500ft) with a large barometer and Mt Blanc. Two places were of prime importance in convincing de Saussure of the earth’s vast age. First are the waterfalls at Nant d’Arpenaz, near Sallanches. Water plunges down a vertical cliff of over 1000 feet and the cliff is a synclinal fold of Mesozoic limestone rotated though 90 degrees. (Figure 3.) The second are vertical sediments (actually Ordovician) at Vallorcine 10 miles east of Chamonix. These were thought to be crystalline-like granite but de Saussure found rounded pebbles indicating water–erosion. Instead of crystalline “creation rocks” (i.e. those formed in the initial creation) followed by sediments, de Saussure now had older sediments underlying the newer sediments. He concluded that the earth had to be old but never speculated in print what the age could be and simply considered it to be “très vieille”.

Writers like de Saussure and Hamilton published their findings either in tomes or journals, which were widely read throughout Europe. During the last decades of the 18^th Century the question was not whether the earth was considerably older than Ussher suggested, but whether its was millions of years old as Buffon, Fr Soulavie, Fr J. Needham (both Roman Catholic priests) and Hutton suggested or tens of thousands as de Luc and de Saussure posited. The choice was OEC or MEC!

So much for the age of the earth, but how were the rocks deposited? The proto–geologists of the 17^th century were convinced of the major and, possibly, only cause – The Noachian Deluge. It is fashionable to make jest of this and to claim that this was the pernicious influence of the church. This is standard fare of the “pop” atheist but is rejected by any competent historian of geology. With Genesis as the only writing available, which spoke of the early story of the earth, it was almost inevitable that they should opt for the Flood. It made a tremendous amount of sense as no one had any inkling how old the earth was. The Flood could apparently explain how strata, which looked similar to river deposits, were formed and why fossils could be found on high ground. The realization of the true nature of fossils served to confirm this and thus until about 1830 the Flood was seen to be an important geological agent. Consequently, the many Theories of the Earth written in the 17^th Century all emphasized that the strata with fossils were laid down by the Flood. As the 18th century wore on, several observers began to question it. In 1749 Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle questioned the flood arguments of Whiston, Woodward and Scheutzer and offended the theologians at the Parisian University of the Sorbonne. These theologians objected to Buffon minimizing the effect of the Flood rather than raising the age of the earth – a point which is often lost.

Towards the end of the 18^th century some geologists, notably Hutton, ignored the Flood altogether. Others suggested the strata were deposited by  a succession of catastrophic floods, and that the Noachian Deluge was the last of many. After Lyell published his Principles of Geology in 1830, Whewell named Hutton, Fleming, Lyell and similar geologists Uniformitarians in distinction to the Catastrophists, who included George Cuvier, Jameson and many geologists on both sides of the Channel. Most notable in the 1820s were the English clergy –geologists Sedgwick, Henslow, Conybeare and Buckland who was reckoned to have believed in some fifty deluges! As a high proportion of strata (in today’s terms from the Cambrian to the Quaternary) was clearly deposited by water and contained marine fossils, multiple floods, or catastrophes, made sense. However by 1820 only the Quaternary deposits were regarded to be Noachian. As it turned out these were drift deposits formed during the Ice Age.

The differences of Uniformitarians and Catastrophists are often reduced to parody as if one group were reasonable scientists escaping the clutches of the churches and the other second–raters beholden to church dogma which insisted on the Flood. It is frequently claimed that Lyell enabled geologists to escape dogma and become free in their science, especially in regard to the age of the earth. This argument is wrong on several counts. First, all geologists sought to explain geological events by natural causes (even by comets causing floods) and by comparing present processes with what happened in the past, thus Catastrophists were uniformitarian in one sense. Secondly, both Uniformitarians and Catastrophists were equally convinced of the vast age of the earth. Thirdly, from 1780 to 1830 Catastrophists had made a larger contribution to geology than Uniformitarians, particularly on the Geological Column. And fourthly, many Uniformitarians, most notably the Reverend John Fleming were devout evangelicals.

So far, we have considered many aspects but not the historical order of strata, which geologists call the Geological Column. This is one of the most important interpretative constructs of all geology, but its origin even confuses many geologists. There are several principles behind its method. First there is the Principle of Superposition, which was grasped in the 1660s by Nils Steno, later a Roman Catholic Bishop. This simply states that in a pile what lies at the bottom was put there first and what lies on the top was put there last. Very obvious and very simple and inevitable because of Gravity. However the out–working of these principles is never easy because at times strata are folded or inverted. By 1790 i.e. before Cuvier and Smith

began to use fossils there was a rudimentary geological column with rocks in approximate order that gave us the Primary, Secondary and Tertiary strata in descending order of age. (diagram ex Laudun) The Primary rocks were mostly granites and gneisses and were thought to be the rocks of the original creation. (Remember that both Christians and Deists believed that God originally made the world.) These were overlaid by newer and newer rocks. It was relatively easy to work out a rough order where strata were more or less flat and folded rocks. Hutton was the first to work out The Principle of Cross–cutting Relationships and the occurrence of unconformities in the 1780s.

During the 18^th Century many workers produced their tables of strata, but these remained rudimentary until the important breakthroughs of the 1790s. The German geologist Blümenbach worked out that animals and plants could go extinct – with great implications for the history of life. Also in that decade fossils were first used to work out the order of strata. The French say Cuvier and Brogniart were first with their work on the chalk (Cretaceous) around Paris, but the English claim priority with William Smith who mapped the limestones (Jurassic) around Bath. It is often portrayed that they used only fossils to work out the relative order of strata, but they could do this only because the strata were almost horizontal and the Principle of Superposition enabled them to work out the order of the strata in the first place. As they also noticed that certain fossils always appeared in the same order, they realized that the order of fossils was a historical sequence. If they then went somewhere else and found those fossils they could correlate them with those they had already found. By 1799 Smith had worked out the succession of strata from the Coal Measures (Pensylvanian) to the Chalk. This he improved in 1816, when his new Geological Column was essentially that of 1860 and today. (see Figures 4 and 5 ) In his work Smith was encouraged by three Anglican clergy – Warner, Richardson and Townsend. What is often not known is that in 1797 Smith believed all rocks were laid down at the same time, i.e. about 6000 years ago but by 1805 realised that the earth was ancient. With these breakthroughs using fossils the elucidation of the history of the earth and the Geological Column could begin in earnest. It is often claimed that the use of fossils in dating rocks and producing the Geological Column is a case of circular argument from evolution. As Cuvier and Brogniart were dogmatic anti–evolutionists and Smith knew nothing about it, that charge is falsified. Fossils are not absolutely necessary to elucidate the order of strata as I found when I mapped a large area of fossil–free Precambrian in South Africa, by working out which strata lay above another, and working out the displacement due to faults.

From then on geologists gradually began to work out the Geological Column and tried to work upwards and downwards from the Jurassic and Cretaceous. They used a mixture of the Principle of Superposition and the use of index fossils. By the 1820s they had worked out most of the strata from the Carboniferous (Mississipian and Pennsylvanian in the United States) to the top of the Cretaceous, but had problems with the Permo–Trias (New Red Sandstone) owing to the lack of fossils. What was above and below defied them. The newer strata – the Tertiary – did not contain easily identifiable stratigraphic units and the fossil contents of different layers seemed to merge into each other and contained some forms living today. In 1831 Adam Sedgwick

and Roderick Murchison began to work on what are now the Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian rocks of Wales. Sedgwick worked on the Cambrian in Snowdonia where the strata contained few fossils and were heavily folded and thus relied more on the principle of superposition. Murchisons’s task was easier as he found more fossils and encountered less folding. He was also fortunate to have a Shropshire vicar the Reverend Thomas Lewis, a former pupil of Sedgwick, to direct him to sections passing down from the Old Red Sandstone (Devonian) to the older strata which he termed Silurian. Murchison, to his shame, never gave full recognition to Lewis. The work was slow and laborious and resulted in fractured relationships between Sedgwick and Murchison and was only completed after their deaths when Lapworth suggested the Ordovician to lie in between the Cambrian and Silurian. What is not widely known is just how many of the early 19^th century geologists were devout Christians, including several evangelicals such as Sedgwick, Fleming, Lewis and Townsend.

By about 1850 the whole of the geological column was more or less worked out and it is almost identical to what we have today. (Figure 5.) The main differences are some name changes of stages and the recognition that parts of the Cambrian and Silurian are now Ordovician. The whole succession of life from the base of the Cambrian was also worked out. Up to then there had been little work on the Precambrian and much of that waited until the 20^th Century. From reading this you may think that the Geological Column is of only local value as initially it was worked out in Britain and the European mainland. However, the same sequence was found throughout Europe and, given local variations, is the same throughout the world. I had its universal validity demonstrated to me while teaching geology for Wheaton College in the Black Hills. Almost all strata from the Precambrian to the Tertiary are present in a small area. Very quickly I could make sense of the geologic succession by comparison with British formations, as they were remarkably similar. Even the fossils were similar. I found the same comparison in the Grand Canyon the year before. By 1850 geology had come a long way in two hundred years, but no one had any idea of the real age of the earth. It would be correct to say that in the 17^th Century geologists started with the assumption of a young rather than an old earth and during the 18th century were forced, by geological evidence to accept an old earth. Until 1910 there were many guestimates, both educated and uneducated, on the age of the earth. From the middle of the 18^th century it was clear that the earth was more than a few thousands of years old, but how old was not known.

The authors of the various Theories of the Earth reckoned the earth to be thousands of years old – older than Ussher suggested but not much. Two who broke loose from the Theories of the Earth were de Maillet and Buffon. Benoit de Maillet (1656-1738) was a French diplomat who wrote Telliamed: or conversations between an Indian philosopher and a French missionary in 1748. It was an odd work both accepting mermaids and that the earth to be over two billion years old. The second was Buffon, born as Georges-Louis Leclerc (1707-88), the Keeper of the Jardin du Roi in Paris. He published many volumes of Histoire Naturelle. Buffon also carried out experiments on the cooling of red-hot globes of iron and then applied his findings to the cooling of a globe the size of the earth and estimated the age of the earth to be about 75,000 years.  In unpublished manuscripts Buffon reckoned the earth to be 3 million years old.

By 1800 many thought that the age of the earth was millions of years, yet no precise figure could be given. Twenty years later, the eccentric British clerical-geologist William Buckland (1784-1856) was reckoning “millions of millions” of years.

There was no concerted attack by the church as most educated Christians happily accepted geologists’ findings, which was not surprising as many were clergy. When Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859, the vast, but unspecified, age of the earth was as established as heliocentricity. The Reverend Samuel Haughton (1821-97), Geology Professor at Dublin and an ardent opponent of Natural Selection, suggested that 1,526 m.y.(million years) had passed since the beginning of the Cambrian, three times the present figure. That was too cavalier for William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin), who believed in the precision of physics. From 1855 Kelvin reckoned the age of the earth to be no more than 100 m.y. With the authority of physics against them, most geologists succumbed.

In the 1880s Kelvin reduced his estimates to about 24 m.y. and for a half-century from 1860, few geologists dared to suggest more than 100 m.y. for the age of the earth. In 1860, John Phillips (1800-74), nephew of William Smith and geology Professor at Oxford, suggested 96 m.y. He estimated that the rate of deposition today is one foot in 1,332 years. As the estimate of the thickness of fossiliferous strata was 72,000 ft, that made about 96 m.y. This date gave credence to Kelvin’s 1868 estimate of 100 m.y.  Though rates of deposition were very much guesses the thickness of strata in the various periods are good indication of the relative length of the periods. Despite this great disparity of estimates, the one agreement was that the age of the earth was to be measured in millions of years. This was shared by most Christians, including the evangelicals, whose ideas of time were included in the booklets published in 1910, entitled The Fundamentals.

While Kelvin was shrinking the age of the earth, the French physicist Henri Becquerel (1852-1908) discovered radioactivity in 1896. Radioactivity had two major implications for the age of the earth. The first was that radioactive decay created immense energy, thus negating Kelvin’s arguments for a cooling earth. The second was that radioactive elements could be used to measure time as they disintegrated at a fixed rate – known as their half-life.   In 1905 the English physicist John William Strutt, later Lord Rayleigh (1842-1919) showed that a mineral containing radium was 2 billion years old because of its helium content. In the same year Bertrand Boltwood suggested that Lead may be the end product of the decay of uranium and calculated the ages of 43 minerals from 400 to 2,200 my. The radiometric dating game had begun.

 

Arthur Holmes and the Age of the Earth

For the next fifty years the most innovative geologist on the dating-game (and on plate tectonics) was Arthur Holmes.

He wrote many articles on geological time and several editions of a short, but profound book The Age of the Earth in 1913, 1927 (this edition cost sixpence) and 1937. In 1913 he based his work on three Uranium-Lead results from the Paleozoic. Combining this with the thickness of sediments, he estimated the base of the Cambrian to be 600m.y., remarkably close to present figures of 550m.y. Whatever flaws there were in his early work, they show remarkable geological insight. As time wore on the number of age determinations multiplied and is now almost infinite. A study of Holmes’s work over half a century (as carried out by Cherry Lewis) shows how an initially tentative scientific theory can be gradually supported by strong experimental data.

Initially Holmes reckoned the age of the earth to be under 2 billion years, but from 1946 this was seen to be nearer 4.6 billion, with the Cambrian commencing in about 550-590 m.y., with the lower estimate being accepted today. Despite the many refinements and explosion of methods and age determinations, this figure has remained the same for half a century. There are three basic methods of determining the age of the earth. The first is to date the oldest rocks on earth, as this will give a minimum age of the earth. The ages of the Amitsoq gneisses of Greenland, first “dated” by the Oxford geologist Stephen Moorbath and others in the early 1970s, have not yet been bettered.  The five methods used give an average of 3.65 billion years, with a variation of less than 0.1 b.y. either way, which is about 2%. Nearby the Banded Ironstones give ages of 3.8 b.y. These are for whole rocks and in the last ten years minute fragments of detrital Zircons in early Precambrian sediments have given ages up to 4.4 b.y. indicating that the grains may have been formed at that time yet deposited by water about 3 b.y. ago. That indicates that the earth had cooled to form a crust with 200 M.y. or so from the formation of this planet. The second are the ages of meteorites, which give ages between 4.5 and 4.7 b.y.  The second are the ages of meteorites, which give ages between 4.5 and 4.7 b.y. The third is more theoretical and is to determine “model lead ages” from the decay of uranium into lead for the Earth, Moon and meteorites. It was developed independently by Holmes and Houtermans in 1946. (For a more technical discussion read Dalrymple, The Age of the Earth.)

The greatest advance in the late 20^th Century was the discovery of plate tectonics and its precursor continental drift. Though this came to be geological orthodoxy in the 1970s, Wegener, Holmes

and du Toit were suggesting continental drift from the fit of continents in the 20s and 30s. Most significant was the matching–up of the geology of Africa and South America. To give an example, I worked in the Precambrian strata near the mouth of the Orange River in South Africa. When a geologist friend returned from Uruguay I was able to describe to him the Precambrian geology of Uruguay, without having been there or read a book on the subject. The discovery of subduction and ocean floor spreading turned old ideas of continental drift into a highly plausible theory. Plate tectonics has a superb explanatory power and explains so many geological riddles of the past. As a result it has come to be seen as the over–arching theory of geology and has unified the somewhat disparate geology of the last 200 years.

 

References;

Rudwick The Meaning of Fossils, 1972 London

Young, Davis, & Stearley; The Bible, Rocks and Time  IVP 2008

The Biblical Flood, 1995, Eerdmans

Roberts, M Evangelicals and Science 2008 Greenwood

1. J. Gould, Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle, 1988 Viking

** A. Cutler, The Seashell on the Mountaintop, 2003. (A readable and superb biography of Steno, a 17^th century geologist and anatomist.)

1. Winchester, The Map that changed the World, 2001, Penguin (Readable, but anti-Christian)

 

Historical Box

Geologist                           Dates                                 Contribution                             Religion

Steno                               1638-1686                             Principle of superposition       RC Bishop

Ray                                 1627-1705                            Hints of older earth                   Minister

Buffon                            1707-1788                          Great age                                     Nominal RC

J-L Soulavie                1752-1813                             Great age                                    RC Priest

de Luc                         1727-1817                            Much geology                               devout Prot

Werner                       1749-1817                           Much geology                              ?prot?

Hutton                         1726-1797                         Unconformities etc                     Deist

Smith                           1769-1839                         Use of fossils                               anglican?

Cuvier                         1769-1832                          Fossils, strat,                                nom prot

Sedgwick                    1785-1873                          Cambrian etc                              Evang clergy

Buckland                     1784-1856                          fossils, ice age                          Anglican clergy

Lyell                            1797-1875                         Uniformitarianism                        Unitarian

Murchison                   1791-1871                          Silurian                                        nom Anglican

Thomson (Ld Kelvin) 1824-1907                   Physicist, age of earth                     Presbyterain

Holmes                        1890-1964                   Radiometric dating                            none

 

 

3quarksdaily: The “scientific method”, a needless stumbling block; with a note on falsification

One of the favourite appeals of Creationists is that science must be experimental and repeatable and as no one was there when rocks were laid down we cannot experiment on them and thus “historical sciences” like geology are not science but faith arguments from a set of beliefs.  That is persuasive to some.

As a geologist I always groan when I read that the “scientific method” involves repeatable experiments.

Most of the time as a geologist you are study rocks in situ and observe , record and analyse and often do no experiments.

Here is one of my favourite Cross-sections of the Bowland shales. It is the top of the shales and then there are alternate shale and grit, followed by massive grit. You can observe the thickness and make-up of the strata and from Steno’s principle of superposition work out the order of deposition.

The next photo is a close up of Pendle Grits overlying Bowland Shales and for good measure cross-cut by some injectites of sand.

Wherever you go in the North of England and particularly in the Bowland area, you will find the same sequence with only minor variations. And so it follows my rough cross-section and, if you want more detail , the detailed cross-section in Little Mearley Clough on Pendle hill

 

I could have taken any of dozens of examples, but it shows that geology is, or rather was, primarily an observational and not an experimental science. That does not mean it is not repeatable as lots of geologists have looked at the same strata, to confirm or correct.

In this excellent article Paul Braterman deals with this issue and is critical of many popular definitions of the “scientific method” which litter our textbooks and misinform so many what science is.

I like Medawar”s comment that there is no one scientific method.

 

Now read what Paul says

 

Source: 3quarksdaily: The “scientific method”, a needless stumbling block; with a note on falsification

Creationist nonsense on geology; the odd case of Prof McIntosh D.Sc.

THE GEOLOGY OF GENESIS FOR TODAY

One of the best selling British creationist books is Genesis for Today by Andy McIntosh, which is now in its 5th edition. https://www.dayone.co.uk/products/genesis-for-today

Most of the book is a popular exposition of Genesis 1 to 11 – and some of it I agree with, but not his insistence that it is literal history.

In Genesis for Today McIntosh gives three scientific appendices, which are much the same in the 1st and 5th editions.  I could either go through and nit-pick his geological errors or consider them under main headings. I have chosen the latter.

Most would think that a professor in a scientific discipline at a leading university (with a first-rate geology department) would be able to make a reasonable showing on geology.Many amateurs and non-geologists I’ve met in geological societies have a clear grasp.

From the whole of his book, other writings and having sat through a meeting he lead for the Blackburn Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship, where reckoned all my geological criticisms were wrong. As I challenged him one nice Christian lady asked me if I were a Christian 😦

The major part of his book is biblical and scientific aspects put in the appendices. Here he simply re-iterates standard young earth arguments

ASSUMPTION OF GRADUAL DEPOSITION

McIntosh claims that “Uniformitarian geologists” assume that all strata were deposited slowly, and makes this claim on p185-6, p186, line 17-8; p195 lines16-20 (citing Andrews); p198 line 16 ff (largely citing Austin), p199-201 on fossilized tree trunks.

This is simply a false claim as geologists make no such assumption and for centuries have been aware of varying rates of deposition.

This is especially so in my neighbourhood as the Bowland Shales were laid down incredibly slowly and the overlying Pendle Grits are turbidites and deposited very rapidly

Type section of Bowland Shales on Pendle Hill, and rough x-section by Bleasdale

Top of Bowland Shales nr Bleasdale with Pendle Grit above. The thick grits were deposited in days and the thin shales in many thousands of years. Some may see injectites! The 18inch band of grit was probably laid down in one turbidite event – meaning days. The shales would be 10s of thousands. (The injectites were probably pushed up soon after deposition.

On p186 the allegation of “this assumption of gradual deposition” is false, negating what he says about the working out of geological history aka the geological column. A familiarity of the history of geology (see MJS Rudwick, Bursting the Limits of Time, 2005aka BLT) and any other work on the history of geology will refute this claim. In fact the contrary is true as most early geologists before 1830 were Catastrophists and had no clear idea of geological time and varied from young, middle or old earth in perspective! In the 1790s Smith was young earth but accepted an old earth from the evidence he found soon after 1800. Most allowed a variable rapid rate of deposition but even Lyell, that champion of slow deposition, allowed some rapid deposition.

P193 gives Andrews misrepresentation of geologists “supposed evolutionary slow rate of formation of rock strata”. When someone, even with a D.Sc makes such elementary errors they can be safely ignored.My comments above on turbidite grits and shales in Bowland contradicts him, as does almost all study of sedimentary rocks, especially following Keunen’s work on turbidity currents in the early 50s.

P197-199 deals with mudflows. McIntosh gives the impression that catastrophic events and deposition have long been denied by geologists. That is simply not the case, even by Lyell, though it must be said that from 1840 to 1970 many geologists had an aversion to catastrophe. However geologists have long known that erosion can occur very rapidly despite what Austin is quoted as saying on p 198.

The section of Fossilized Tree Trunks p199-201 is similarly flawed. Taking the example of “polystrate fossils” or tree trunks, no geologist has ever said that these were exposed for millions of years. Further they were in swamps not at “the bottom of the ocean” The quote from Morris is risible. The main paragraph on p200 contains much error. No geologist says trunks were exposed for “at least a million years”. Further if mudflows carried the tree trunks to their positions (and cleverly deposited them mostly vertically!) how can one explain that fossil trees are in sandstones and are now of sandstone and not in mudstone, shale or siltstone? The quotes referring to millions of years from J D Morris are simply misrepresentation as no geologist says that.

This cartoon is from  Ackermann It’s a young world after all (p85)  and is a dishonest parody of fossil tree trunks

 

 

I could say more on Mt St Helens

One needs to explain how all the mud from the postulated mudflows has disappeared without trace!

In reference to Austin and Nevins’ comments on the coal measures (which are the same person as Austin used the name Nevins when working for his Ph D at Penn State) the standard interpretations of coal deposition do not eliminate an element of catastrophism. Fred Broadhurst of Manchester argued with evidence that the deposition of coal seams individually took tens of thousands of years whereas the much thicker intervening sandstones were deposited rapidly. No geologist would say otherwise that sands are deposited speedily and muds and silts slowly. There have been many careful sedimentological studies on this type of question. Finally geology has advanced a little since the days of Lyell, excellent geologist though he was!

 

 

CIRCULAR ARGUMENT IN GEOLOGICAL DATING

On p 187 McIntosh writes, “The cyclical nature of the reasoning now becomes apparent….” And then cites J D Morris, who basically reiterates the accusations made by his father in his many books. (The Genesis Flood p130-6, Scientific Creationism p 94ff,) and repeated by many other writers.

This is false for several reasons. First, much of the geological column was worked out without the use of fossils as it was by workers before 1810 or so and by Sedgwick on the Cambrian in the 1830s. Secondly the Geological Column was worked out in considerable detail well before 1859 by geologists who rejected evolution. (To take the Palaeozoic –Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian, the main workers were Sedgwick, Murchison and Conybeare who rejected evolution, and worked out the historical order from a combination of superposition (i.e. the order of strata) and the use of fossils interpreted in an anti-evolutionary way). Sedgwick and Conybeare were evangelical Anglican clergy as well; Sedgwick both taught Darwin geology and opposed The Origin.

The use of fossils in stratigraphy is derivative from the Principle of Superposition, which is an extension of the law of gravity; i.e. the stuff at the bottom of a pile got their first (unless someone/something squeezed it in later) and was first put forward by Steno in the 1660s. During the 18^th this was applied by various “geologists” e.g. Strachey, and Michell, who produced a geological column from the coal beds to the chalk, now known as Carboniferous to Cretaceous. Work exploded in the late 18^th century over all of Europe and Hutton was only one of many. The use of fossils to “date” was developed by Smith and Cuvier in particular (both anti-evolution) because they were empirically found to come in the same order wherever you went. This was in Europe first and then further afield. This is well explained in Rudwick’s Bursting the Limits of Time.

Hutton and Smith

Lyell and Henslow’s 1822 map of Anglesey

Memorial to Sedgwick in Dent

            The pen-ultimate sentence at the end of the section on p187 is meaningless. The last sentence is simply wrong,

“Even indirect dating of sedimentary rock is impossible when it contains no fossils.”

as all Pre-Cambrian strata have been put in historical order WITHOUT the use of any fossils. I did this personally in South Africa where I mapped a large area of late Precambrian strata in the NW Cape, without any fossils to help except a lone stromatolite. I worked out my own geological column, as I was only the third geologist to map this area in 1970 for a mining company when Alfred Kroner was also doing it for Univ of Cape Town. (The previous geologists were Rogers in the 1910s and de Villiers and Sohnge in the 40s, who basically agreed with my re-writing of the local column and is what is now accepted for the whole area.)

So much for it being impossible! Also Sedgwick mapped much of North Wales without fossils and all historical geology is in principle possible without fossils, but they do make life easier.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

From the top of Y Garn 3105ft. Sedgwick went up this during a 12 hours day looking at Cambrian slates and diverse igneous rocks

The order of fossils in historical sequence has been worked out by sheer observation e.g. trilobites only in the Palaeozoic and then particular trilobites in certain strata. This information, since 1859 has been used as evidence for evolution (or more strictly in Darwin’s notebooks from 1838). Some geologists do put this in terms of circular reasoning e.g. R H Rastall, but have failed to understand the way that the Geological Column and the fossil succession was elucidated. There is no circular argument as its basis. However if you found a fossil dinosaur you can be fairly sure that you are in Jurassic or Cretaceous sediments.

 

Now here is the Geological Column which was largely set-up by clerical geologists who rejected evilution 🙂

But of course a rabbit in the Precambrian would prove all geologists to be wrong!!!

rabbit

ERRORS ON RADIOMETRIC AGE-DATING

A good summary of radiometric age dating by a Christian is to be found at http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html. So I will not deal with general issues. McIntosh raises the usual objections, which have been dealt with by Wiens and Talkorigins. However I will note some other errors.

P186 line 11. “Radioisotope techniques … can only be used on igneous rock… . He is false when he says that methods can only be used on igneous rock. They are widely used on metamorphic rock of all kinds and accessional on sedimentary rocks. He clearly has not grasped how radiometric methods are used to give dates. E.g. lavas and other igneous rocks give dates, so if a lava is dated at say 320my then the strata adjacent are about the same age etc. He gets more confused on p190 l3 on K/Ar dating and only mentions volcanic rock, overlooking plutonic and metamorphic rocks and the occasional sediments.

On p 195 he discusses an 1801 eruption in Hawaii, and fails to record what the papers cited which gave such a wide range of dates were about. One was to test how accurate the method was and the other giving results of billions was not on lava, but on ultramafic inclusions within the lava, whereas the host lava gave young ages with acceptable limits of error. As I wrote in Evangelicals and Science;

Perhaps the most serious and persistent charge against YEC publications
is that many quotations are taken out of context. (See the review
of TGF by van de Fliert cited earlier.) It is often accompanied by accusations
of lying. Thus on the talkorigins Web site, http://www.talkorigins.
org, documents many examples, which in turn are denied. A commonly
cited example is lavas from Hawaii, which were “dated” in the
60s. “In 1968 scientists applied radiometric dating to some rocks which
known to be less than 170 years old. [1801 eruption on Hualalai.] The
radioactive ages determined for those 170 year-old rocks ranged from
160 million to 3 billion years” (Ackermann, 1991, p. 81). Ackermann
then commented, “Obviously, something is wrong with this method.”
However if one reads the paper cited (Funkhouser and Naughton, 1968,
pp. 4601–4607) a very different picture emerges. The material dated
were ultramafic inclusions in the lava of mantle material and thus not
lava. The geochronologist Brent Dalrymple (a witness at Arkansas in
1981) made this clear in 1982, but the Hualalai example is still cited
today; http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v27/i2/cause.asp. During
these twenty-five years Dalrymple’s criticisms were simply ignored. This
is one of many examples.

McIntosh is simply one of many who repeats such old oft-refuted claims!

I will respond by saying of McIntosh’s unintentional misrepresentation, “This hardly inspires confidence.” Sadly the quote from Andrews on page 195 does not inspire confidence either, and he also misrepresents radiometric age-dating both in print and in public lectures. Having read the original papers from the 60s on these determinations I am appalled by the way that for 30years they have been misquoted, even though Brent Dalrymple exposed all this misquotation in 1982. It beggars belief.

As for the Cardenas Basalt of the Grand Canyon, I refer readers to the talkorigins site as this explains better than I can.

Many years ago McIntosh went to Utah to look at Coconino sandstone and petroglyphs. Here is his Answers in Genesis article which describes the dinosaurs in petroglyphs.

https://answersingenesis.org/geology/natural-features/utahs-testimony-to-catastrophe/

CONCLUSION

McIntosh has clearly misunderstood the principles of geology and his arguments are usually fallacious. This may be due to the fact that he relies on unreliable sources like Henry and John Morris, Edgar Andrews and other YEC writers. It is tragic that he has not applied his scientific skills to geology and thus opens himself up to charges of incompetence and misrepresentation. What would he say if I claimed that a mixture of 2 parts of hydrogen to one of oxygen was non-inflammable?

 

Two excellent books by Christian geologists for further reading

 

 

Spring is here; but are the four seasons evil?

Creation, writes Paul, has been subjected to futility (Romans 8.20). Don’t we know it: the tree reaches its full fruitfulness and then becomes bleak and bare. Summer reaches its height and at once the days begin to shorten. Human lives, full of promise and beauty, laughter and love, are cut short by illness and death. Creation as we know it bears witness to God’s power and glory (Romans 1:19-20) but also to the present state of futility to which it has been enslaved.

Read that quotation slowly and carefully and consider what it actually says. but first the Four Seasons by camera and not Vivaldi. I am puzzled by how the fact that “Summer reaches its height and at once the days begin to shorten.” show creation has been subjected to futility. Thus the four seasons are a result of creation being subject to futility. Until I read this the thought hadn’t crossed my mind and ten years on I am still baffled how anyone could write it. I thoroughly enjoy the changing seasons and never thought them futile.

But before considering the reasoning and theology behind it, I will take you through the fours seasons remaining 30 miles from our home in lancashire. (I have a small waterproof camera, which I always take when out on my bike or walking.) I will show that the seasons are not futility but utterly glorious and reflect the wonder of God the Creator.

SPRING

On the 23rd March we are now officially in spring and everything is coming to life. I am waiting to see my first primrose, cowslip, bluebell and frogspawn.  just today, despite battling a headwind, all the hawthorn hedges were developing an emerald sheen.

A favorite spot for bluebells is up by Abbeystead, but I will have to wait a few weeks. Bluebells are one of the finest British flowers. I love that steep lane, either to whizz down or struggle up.

Here are a clump of daffs by the River Wyre and then a swan on her nest on the canal two miles from home as seen from a bridge over the canal.

Summer

Soon, almost too soon, spring turns to summer and trees are in full leaf.

This is by Sykes in the Forest of Bowland (my car is just visible). I often park here for a long walk or cycle past six times a year or so on a hilly bike ride. It is in full summer (July) glory here but I love it in all seasons and once cycled it in snow. I’ve walked the ridge in the distance many times and have a variety of routes depending on mood. Purple Loosestrife is my favourite summer flower which loves the wet, has square stems and has sex in three different ways which enthralled Darwin.

I tend to go high on the fells. Here is a peat bog with cotton grass and sphagnum in the pool and next is one of the little falls found all over the Bowland fells. I had my lunch listening to the music of the water.

Autumn

And so to autumn as the colours turn and nights are nippy.

Back to Bowland; here is a remote valley hemmed in by ancient landslips and the heather in full bloom. The path IS marked on the map. On a bike ride I always stop at the same place and look up Langdon Brook. This is september with the bracken turning colour.

There is something glorious about this tired old oak and the leaves turning in Nicky Nook.

Winter

And so the leaves have gone and everything is “bleak and bare”. No, it is not, it has a unique beauty of its own.

Here is Ingleborough, my favourite mountain in the Yorkshire Dales. I first climbed it in 2001 and climb it several times a year. It is gorgeous under snow, but last month I nearly turn back because of ice! Next is a frozen pool on the Howgill Fells.

One of my favourite views is Fairsnape Fell, whether in summer or winter. Shortly before taking that shot I was in a total white-out. Great fun! In January we get the portent of spring – snowdrops. These are on the banks of the River Wyre. Who would have thought that a month before the river flooded and deposited four inches of sand over the snowdrops. And so back to spring and soon that bank will be covered with ramsons reeking of garlic.

This is a snapshot of Lancashire in four seasons. It is glorious rather than subject to futility, and I think it is a perverse perspective on the natural world to say that the seasons show that creation has been subject to futility

Many think that only Young Earth Creationists have this idea of creation not being now as god intended, but some others agree!! YECs often argue that creation was perfect with a perfect climate with no frosts or hail or storms. To some this carried on until the flood when the Water Vapour canopy collapsed and we started to have our terrible weathers and seasons which mark god’s displeasure.

The ideas come out in John Milton’s  Paradise Lost of the 1650s where he weaved a fantastic poetic drama of creation, fall and flood. Or was it fantabulisation?

https://michaelroberts4004.wordpress.com/2016/02/19/why-the-apple-didnt-kill-adam-and-eve/

Here is Milton on how the flood caused  (or was it the Devil and his minions?) shifted the axis of the Poles when Adam took a bite out the apple  (or unzipped a banana).

Paradise Lost book x; 668-79

Some say, he bid his Angels turn ascanse
The poles of earth, twice ten degrees and more,
From the sun’s axle; they with labour pushed
Oblique the centrick globe:  Some say, the sun
Was bid turn reins from the equinoctial road
Like distant breadth to Taurus with the seven
Atlantick Sisters, and the Spartan Twins,
Up to the Tropick Crab: thence down amain
By Leo, and the Virgin, and the Scales,
As deep as Capricorn; to bring in change
Of seasons to each clime; else had the spring
Perpetual smiled on earth with vernant flowers,
Equal in days and nights, except to those
Beyond the polar circles; to them day
Had unbenighted shone, while the low sun,
To recompense his distance, in their sight
Had rounded still the horizon, and not known
Or east or west; which had forbid the snow
From cold Estotiland, and south as far
Beneath Magellan.  At that tasted fruit
The sun, as from Thyestean banquet, turned
His course intended; else, how had the world
Inhabited, though sinless, more than now,
Avoided pinching cold and scorching heat?
These changes in the Heavens, though slow, produced
Like change on sea and land; sideral blast,
Vapour, and mist, and exhalation hot,
Corrupt and pestilent:  Now from the north
Of Norumbega, and the Samoed shore,
Bursting their brazen dungeon, armed with ice,
And snow, and hail, and stormy gust and flaw,
Boreas, and Caecias, and Argestes loud,
And Thrascias, rend the woods, and seas upturn;
With adverse blast upturns them from the south
Notus, and Afer black with thunderous clouds
From Serraliona; thwart of these, as fierce,
Forth rush the Levant and the Ponent winds,
Eurus and Zephyr, with their lateral noise,
Sirocco and Libecchio.  Thus began
Outrage from lifeless things; but Discord first,
Daughter of Sin, among the irrational
Death introduced, through fierce antipathy:
Beast now with beast ‘gan war, and fowl with fowl,
And fish with fish; to graze the herb all leaving,
Devoured each other; nor stood much in awe
Of Man, but fled him; or, with countenance grim,
Glared on him passing.  These were from without
The growing miseries, which Adam saw
Already in part, though hid in gloomiest shade,
To sorrow abandoned, but worse felt within;
And, in a troubled sea of passion tost,
Thus to disburden sought with sad complaint.

So we have the 20 degree tilt on the axis Thus causing seasons hence futility and then predation began “Beast now with beast ‘gan war, and fowl with fowl,”

Now one would expect Answers in Genesis and other Young Earthers to follow Milton, but these comments from a leading theologian are not from that stable. They are not from John Piper or Albert Mohler or those of a similar ilk.

While I leave you to guess his identity I will give another quote

The height of satan’s aim , in other words, is death; the death of humans and the death of creation itself

And I suppose the seasons reflect just that.

Lastly, another quote which gives some interesting insights into induced earthquakes, but leaves me somewhat overwhelmed by a theological tsunami

What then about the tsunami? There is of course no straightforward answer. But there are small clues.

We are not to suppose that the world as it currently is, is the way God intends it to be at the last. Some serious thinkers, including some contemporary physicists, would actually link the convulsions which still happen in the world to evil perpetrated by humans; and it is indeed fair enough to probe for deeper connections than modernist science has imagined between human behavior and the total environment of our world, including tectonic plates. But I find it somewhat easier to suppose that the project of creation, the good world which God made at the beginning, was supposed to go forward under the wise stewardship of the human race, God’s vice-gerents, God’s image-bearers; and that, when the human race turned to worship creation instead of God, the project could not proceed in the intended manner, but instead bore thorns and thistles, volcanoes and tsunamis, the terrifying wrath of the creation which we humans had treated as if it were divine.

Fracking quakes in Pennsylvania

An interesting article of quakes in the USA. Pinched from  https://energyindepth.org/marcellus/what-you-need-to-know-about-fracking-earthquakes-pennsylvania/#comment-112304 

It fits in with the Lancashire experience

What You Need to Know About Fracking and Seismicity in Pennsylvania

Earthquakes are not something typically discussed in Pennsylvania, as there have only been a handful of felt events in the history of the state. That’s not to say earthquakes don’t occur — just that most are centered in two regions of the state and very few are felt at the surface. So it isn’t surprising there was considerable media coverage of this week’s release of a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) study that concluded that microseismic events in Lawrence County had a temporal and spatial relationship with a hydraulic fracturing operation that took place nearby.

Fortunately, DEP held a webinar on Friday that should have alleviated most of the fears and corrected the misinformation surrounding this finding, in large part because this is the only instance of seismic activity being correlated to oil and gas operations in Pennsylvania’s history.

Let’s take a look at what DEP’s study did — and did not — find on earthquakes and fracking in Pennsylvania.

Background

On April 25, 2016, the Pennsylvania State Seismic Network (PASeis), the Ohio Seismic Network (OhioSeis) and the Lamont-Doherty Cooperative Seismic Network (LCSN) recorded microseismic events (five total) ranging from 1.8 to 2.3 on the Richter Scale in Mahoning, North Beaver and Union Townships just west of New Castle in Lawrence County. These were not felt earthquakes, meaning they not only caused no structural damage, but people would not have even been able to feel when they happened.

DEP notified Hilcorp, a company that had been conducting hydraulic fracturing operations roughly five miles from the epicenters, of the events that day. The company immediatelyvolunteered to stop all operations and begin demobilization of the site, and later informed DEP that they had voluntarily stopped all fracking and stimulation on the well pad indefinitely.

Upon further investigation DEP concluded,

“Although there is no definitive geologic association of events at this time, there is a marked temporal/spatial relationship between fracking/stimulation activities at the North Beaver NC Development well site and the seismic events on April 25, 2016.”

FACT: This is the only time in Pennsylvania’s history that oil and gas operations have been correlated with seismic activity.

This finding is the exception, not the norm by any stretch of the imagination. As expert after expert —including officials from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Research Council — have said, it is only under certain unique and limited geological conditions that completion activities are capable of inducing seismic events that can be felt at the surface.

The USGS has been monitoring seismic activity in Pennsylvania since around 1970, and since that time have identified two more seismically active parts of the state. One is the Triassic Rift basin in the Southeastern part of the state, while the other is located in the northwestern part of the state that includes Lawrence County and is part of a glacial retreat from Lake Erie. Yet not one of the seismic events mapped below has had any link with the hundreds of thousands of oil and gas wells in the state, which date back to the 1800s.

Here’s just how significant that is. From January 2004 to April 2016 there were 9,710 unconventional oil and gas wells drilled in Pennsylvania, including 71 drilled in Lawrence County. If we include conventional wells, there were actually 38,976 total wells drilled during that time period, including 75 in Lawrence County. FracFocus.org has records for 6,254 wells — including 61 in Lawrence County — that were hydraulically fractured during that same time period. And in that roughly 11-year period, only two wells have ever even been considered possible contributors to induced seismic activity.

That means that 99.98 percent of all unconventional wells drilled and 99.97 percent of all the wells hydraulically fractured during that time period never had a link to induced seismic activity — and no other wells have since.

Even in Lawrence County, where there have been far fewer wells drilled, 97.19 percent of those drilled and 96.72 percent of those fracked never had any links to induced any seismic activity.

A Penn State study analyzing seismic activity in Pennsylvania in 2013-2014 also found that “there is little evidence, if any, in the PASeis catalog for fracking-related seismicity. If the catalog does contain such events, then they are no larger than the mining-related events occurring on a regular basis throughout the Commonwealth.”

FACT: These events were microseismic, meaning they were below a level that would be felt by humans and caused no damage.

The earthquakes in Lawrence County ranged from 1.9 to 2.3 on the Richter Scale, which the following DEP graphic illustrates are “microseismic” events that are well below the level that can be felt by humans, much less cause damage.

 

Stanford geophysicist Mark Zoback has previously given some perspective to the term “microseismic”:

 “It is important to note that extremely small microseismic events occur during hydraulic fracturing operations. These microseismic events affect a very small volume of rock and release, on average, about the same amount of energy as a gallon of milk falling off a kitchen counter.”

Here’s another way to think of it. If you’ve attended a Pittsburgh Steelers or Penn State game, you know that the enthusiasm displayed by fans can be quite astounding, and when all of those people start stomping and cheering at the same time, a phenomenon scientists are calling a “fan quake” occurs. These “fan quakes” are being measured by how they would compare to an earthquake on the Richter Scale. Microseismic events don’t even come close to what fans are capable of producing.

FACT: DEP has made very specific recommendations for future risk mitigation that apply to a select area of the state, only involving the Utica Shale.

One of the major questions that came up during DEP’s webinar was how this will impact operations in other parts of the state, other operators, or even areas in Lawrence County outside of the three townships where the epicenters were located. The short answer is it won’t.

As a result of these events DEP has made very specific recommendations for future development, and those will only apply in “areas of alternative methods.” This is because seismic activity is so unlikely to occur in other parts of the state—and even more so unlikely in Marcellus Shale development. In fact, DEP specifically noted these areas of alternative methods would only apply to the Utica Shale formation because there are places, such as Lawrence County, where the Utica is notably closer to the basement rock formation. That’s not the case with the Marcellus.

Now, does that mean that any operations in that zone would be likely to induce seismic activity? No—but it does mean that DEP now has recommendations that will be written into future permits, and possibly turned into new regulations for those specific areas that will outline exactly what a company and the regulatory agency must do in the event of highly unlikely future seismic activity. While these are specifically outlined for Hilcorp, they will be applied to future operators as necessary as well. Some of these recommendations include:

DEP has enough confidence that these were isolated events to have already accepted Hilcorp’s seismic monitoring program, which includes DEP’s recommendations. The agency has also issued a new permit for operations with a condition including the recommendations.