Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
Concerned over growing antagonism toward science in their community, evangelical
Christians formed the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA) in 1941 to promote study of
the relationship between science and the Bible. One of its key members was J. Laurence
Kulp, a PhD chemist from Princeton University who had mastered radiocarbon dating in
Libby's lab at the University of Chicago. He went on to become a leading authority on
the method and established his own carbon dating lab at Columbia University. In an article
published in 1950 in the
Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation
, Kulp attacked flood
geology as an embarrassment to both science and Christianity.
Kulp's influence helped split the ASA into two camps: old-Earth believers and young-
Earth creationists. The former believe that God created the world, but at a geological pace.
Bitter disagreements grew into a rift that still characterizes evangelical Christianity today
as young-Earth creationists began attacking the idea of an old Earth that allowed time for
evolution.
Kulp noted basic creationist errors that he thought reflected a lack of education and train-
ing among prominent advocates of flood geology, especially in the important subdiscip-
lines of field mapping, paleontology, and structural geology. Creationists held that geology
and evolution were synonymous even though the geological basis for determining the re-
lative age of rocks did not actually rely on fossils. Creationists also claimed that the con-
ditions under which rocks formed and deformed were not well understood. Kulp attributed
the confidence of flood geologists to their sincere belief in these fallacious convictions.
Finally, he charitably maintained that flood geologists were simply out of date. They relied
on Price's work, which predated the development of radiometric dating, the perforation of
Earth's sedimentary cover by oil wells, and studies that conclusively documented the con-
ditions under which sedimentary rocks form and deform. In other words, so-called flood
geologists simply didn't know what they were talking about.
In debunking flood geology, Kulp focused on the formation of sedimentary rocks, point-
ing out how it was impossible for them to have all formed during a single flood. In the
1930s, cores from Venezuelan oil wells documented a complete section showing the com-
paction and transformation of river mud into hard shale. Penetrating through two vertical
miles of muddy sediments, the drill cores revealed that loose mud had to be buried under at
least a mile of sediment before it solidified into rock. A mile of water would not do the trick
