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"Your science class is going on a field trip, but this trip is a little out of the ordinary.  You're going to travel back billions  of years to the earliest days on earth . . . Enter the time machine and strap yourself in . . . a dial on the dashboard shows the number of years before the present.  You stare at the dial - it reads 4.6 billion years" (Science Explorer, Pearson Prentice Hall, 8th Grade textbook, p. 338).

Thus begins the section in the public school textbook titled "Early Earth."

The kids reading this fantasy are more likely  to actually hop in a time machine and strap themselves in than they are to find solid proof of anything stated in this entire chapter!  I do not even know where to begin to critique this section of the text being foisted on our children (assuming your children are in state run schools).  I have already pointed out that this section begins by refuting the premise already stated in the same textbook concerning the definition of "hypothesis."  Even though the first chapter laid down the law that a hypothesis must be testable, the rest of the book keeps using the term in contradictory ways.  So much for scholarship.  (See my previous post, "Weeping in the New Year.")

Let me quote some stuff from this section:

"How do sceintists know the age of Earth?  Using radioactive dating, scientists have determined that the oldest rocks ever found on Earth are about 4 billion years old . . . According to this hypothesis [misuse of the word again] Earth and moon are about the same age.  When Earth was very young, it collided with a large object.  The collision threw a large amount of material from both bodies into orbit around the Earth.  This material combined to form the moon.  Scientists have dated moon rocks that were brought to Earth by astronauts during the 1970s.  Radioactive dating shows that the oldest moon rocks are about 4.6 billion years old.  Scientists infer that Earth is also roughly 4.6 billion years old - only a little older than those moon rocks" (pp. 338-9).

OK, there is so much trash and non-sense in that one paragraph that it is mind boggling.  Let's see . . .

• Scientists "know" the age of the earth by radioactive dating?  Are you speaking of the dating method that has proven horribly inconsistent and inaccurate time and again?  The same method that says rocks exploded from Mt. St. Helens in the early 1980s are ridiculously old?
• Dr. Andrew Snelling in a lecture this past summer pointed out that 90% of the dating methods available to scientists indicate the earth is young.  But, Darwinian scientists choose to use only those methods (10%) that typically render a "billions of years" verdict.
• The only thing scientists can "know" about radioactive dating is it stinks as a scientific tool.  Why?  Because it assumes "the present is the key to the past," a principle spread by Charles Lyell (Darwin's mentor) that stated that if we observe slow processes today, that's how things have always been.  There are tons of scientists (many even non-Christian) who now call that theory into question.  Why?  Because the EVIDENCE of past global catastrophe's is strong, to put it mildly.  Large-scale cataclysms wreak havoc on any "radioactive clocks."
• I like how things are stated in the textbook so "matter of factly."  Like, "When Earth was very young, it collided with a large object."  And we know this how?
• While the text makes sure to tell students about scientists' dating moon rocks to 4.6 billion years old, it does not bother to relay the little factoid to students concerning the "surprise" NASA received when Armstrong set foot on the moon.  You see, many Darwinian scientists who assumed the moon was billions of years old assumed there would be a big, thich layer of dust on the moon.  They knew, based on their present observations, that exposure to the sun destroys rock layers and makes them into dust at few ten-thousandths of an inch per year.  At this rate, the billions of years old moon may very well have had a dust covering a few miles deep!  Armstrong was actually quite concerned about that "one small step for man."  Would he step off the module and instantly be buried alive in moon dust?  But alas, there was not much dust at all on the moon . . .whew!  Calculations showed there were only a few thousand years of dust accumulation on the moon (Douglas F. Kelly, Creation and Change, Mentor Books, 1997, p. 150-1).
• So, why so little dust?  Why the HUGE discrepancy between the radioactive dating and the dust accumulation methods?  More importantly, why are students not being told these things in their textbooks? 
• I also like how they imply all scientists are in universal agreement on these matters of origins and dates!

Friends of Christ, the issues with this one little paragraph in a school "science" text are myriad.  The paragraph I cited above is totally incompatible with the Bible's account of creation.  For example, the textbook assumes materials were already present before earth formed, asserting, "Scientists think that Earth began as a ball of dust, rock, and ice in space.  Gravity pulled this mass together" (p. 339).  The Bible says God created the whole universe out of nothing.  God did not need nor did He use pre-existing matter to create all that is or ever will be.  The textbook further claims the sun was in existence prior to formation of Earth (p. 339).  The Bible teaches God made the sun after the earth (Genesis 1:1-2, 16).  The list goes on.

You cannot have your cake and eat it too in this matter.  The Bible and this Onslow County public school textbook are diametrically opposed. 

Students of America - cry out!

Parents of America - cry out!

Public school teachers of America - cry out!

As for me and my house, we will take our view of origins from the only One who was there:

"In the beginning God . . ."