Let's Go Again to Niagara

[If You clicked "play" be patient: Ole Blue Eyes will start singing in about 15 seconds...]

This is a lengthy extract from the book "In the Minds of Men - Darwin and the New World Order" by Ian T. Taylor that I spoke about in a previous post. In chapter 4 on Science and Geology, Taylor describes the "scientific" methodology by which Lyell dated the gorge at Niagara Falls. I shake my head at the self-serving dishonesty that has now become a fixed part of the liturgy of scientism and evolutionism. The red text was inserted by me for clarity.

"Lyell talked to a local (Niagara Falls) inhabitant and was told that the falls retreat about three feet a year (due to erosion). He assumed that this was an exaggerated claim and concluded that one foot a year would be a more likely figure. On the basis of this guess, it was then a simple matter to equate 35,000 feet, or seven miles, as 35,000 years that the falls had taken to cut the gorge from the escarpment to the place it occupied in the year of his visit, which is how he arrived at the figure that he announced to the scientific world. The principle is sound enough, but his method can hardly be called scientific, or even honest.

In recent years the estimate has been revised downward, but in the mid-nineteenth century it had a most significant impact on the common man's beliefs. Lyell's Principles of Geology, as already mentioned, was published in 1830-33, and although it was met with opposition at first, it eventually became the standard work on the subject for the next fifty years, running to twelve editions. Charles Lyell became Sir Charles in 1848, principally because of his Scottish land-holdings. To the Victorian mind, this title gave his name and books tremendous credibility and authority; in a similar way today, the news media seek out a scientist with a legitimate Ph.D. when they want an authoritative scientific opinion. Lyell's figure of 35,000 years was thus accepted as an actual measurement made by a gentleman of integrity and quite beyond dispute. For the next few generations this estimate served wonderfully to demolish any credence in Archbishop Usher's date of creation and made the attempt to finish once and for all the orthodox belief in the Mosaic Flood, which was alleged to have occurred a mere four-and-a-half thousand years ago.

Measurement of the rate of recession of Niagara Falls has been made periodically since 1841, the date of Lyell's visit, and these published figures show that, far from exaggerating, the local inhabitant was too conservative. A rate of four or five feet a year is closer to the facts. Assuming as Lyell did that the rate of recession had always been the same, this measured value reduces the age of the falls to between seven and nine thousand years. Had it been honestly reported in the first place, this would not have been regarded as a refutation, but rather a near confirmation of the Mosaic Flood!"

In this book there are scores of similar examples of flaws in the so-called "scientific" approach. I learned from my father to be cynical. I learned from my Bible not to be cynical, but nevertheless to question everything I hear from a pulpit or in print that purports to be the truth. So when I read secular material purporting to be speaking truth I apply the same principles as I would in my Berean approach to sermons.

I am afraid that scientists are often blind to their own prejudices and of those of their predecessors. It doesn't make them any worse than anybody else. But, O the effect on the minds of men who blindly accept their poisonous mixture of truth and opinion as authoritative!

Before anybody goes off half-cocked on this post I am not against science. I love science. Science has given great things to society. Properly done and by the grace of God science has made our lives much better by means of its advances and discoveries. But I hate scientism with a passion - and as a religion, it is simply evil.