X-Files, Catastrophism and a Young Earth

In the first episode of the X-Files (Sep. 10, 1993), special agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) said this about alternate explanations,

J. Harlen Bretz proposed a huge flood through Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington that formed the Channeled Scablands.  The flood cut canyons up to 900 feet deep‼  For decades, Bretz suffered ridicule for his radical views.  However, in 1963, the International Association for Quaternary Research sent a telegram to Bretz ending “We are now all catastrophists.”  Bretz received the Penrose Medal (highest geology award) and claimed, "Perhaps, I can be credited with reviving and demystifying legendary Catastrophism and challenging a too rigorous Uniformitarianism." [1]

Should we always trust the experts?  Sometimes they are dead wrong.  Two intriguing books highlight this fact:

Consider the great Life-on-the-Moon hoax of 1835.  The New York Sun reported about research claimed to be from the Edinburgh Journal of Science that claimed that sentient beings were seen on the moon. [2]  This discovery was allegedly made by the very real mathematician, astronomer and chemist  Sir John Herschel (son of William Herschel who discovered Uranus ♅).

Scientific fraud is real.  In 2005, it was revealed that anthropologist Reiner Protsch von Zieten had fabricated false dates for ancient human fossils for decades. [3]  If the common dating methods are wrong and most of the rock record was formed catastrophically, then Young Earth Science (YES) is plausible.     

Are members of the academic elite ever willing to challenge ensconced conclusions?  Former Editor-in-Chief of the journal Philosophy of Science, Philip Kitcher, boldly declared that, “it is not necessary, and it may not even be true, that all species are historically connected.” [4]  If our favorite planet is young, evolution is left out in the cold.

Be curious - learn the facts that support YES - Young Earth Science.

Notes:

1) YES - Young Earth Science by Jay Hall (IDEAS, Big Spring, TX, 2014), p. 93.

2) Regret the Error by Craig Silverman (Union Square Press, NYC, 2007), pp. 30-35.

3) Wrong by David Freedman (Little, Brown & Co., NYC, 2010), p. 256.

4) see the bottom of p. 347.