Re: Kerkut (was: Re: A case for Christianity that does use ID orYEC arguments)

On Tue, 3 Feb 2004 21:21:45 -0000, Michael Roberts wrote:

>Kerkut also kept me from being TE in the 70s but I never ever flirted with
>YEC as I have always been so totally convinced by all geological argument
>for a vast age and contra Wally consider them as proven as any other
>science. However the consequences of denying the age of the earth are not as
>serious as discounting the acceleration due to gravity as it gets rather
>painful if you decide g is 9.81 cm/sec2 rather than 981.
>
>Michael

Thanks Michael, Paul and Ted for your feedback on this book. I used to be a
yec (with a small 'y') many years ago, since I had learned that people with
impressive qualifications could hold this view, apparently with sincerity
(I had no reason to believe otherwise). It was only when I started looking
more closely into the issue that I came to learn of the unreliability of (at least
most of) the YEC writers, and read of some things which seemed impossible
to fit into the YEC paradigm, that I changed my mind on this. (Alan Hayward's
books were the ones that first opened my eyes). I, too, see no reason not to accept
the age of the earth, more or less as given, since radioactive dating has been
confirmed to be accurate in archaeological cases, and it seems to me that there
is no reason why it shouldn't also be accurate over the longer timescales.
It may be out by a few percent, but not enough to make a case for a young
(< 10^4 y) earth. I have found Blocher's work to be some of the most useful
for the theological aspect of the creation issue.

I came across a reference to Kerkut many years ago (memory fails somewhat,
but I don't think it was a YEC source) and I'm pretty sure I once borrowed the
book from my local library. It doesn't seem to be in stock there anymore,
though. I too have heard nothing of him for many years, but something jogged
my memory the other day and I wondered what others thought of his work.
I think I will try to get hold of a copy for myself, maybe amazon or somewhere
will have one. I actually met Kerkut briefly, he was a professor at Southampton
University, where I once embarked on an ill-fated course in medicine. But I
wasn't aware of his book at that time, or else I didn't make the connection,
otherwise I would have asked him directly about his beliefs and his work.
I'm sure I read somewhere that he is/was an atheist. I don't know if he is still
alive now, my memory of him is of a man getting on in years a bit, and that
was <ahem!> years ago.

Thanks again,
/Gary
Received on Wed Feb 4 04:03:04 2004