This is the genealogy of Shem: Shem was one hundred years old, and begot Arphaxad two years after the flood. After he begot Arphaxad, Shem lived five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters.
(Genesis 11:10-11) NKJV
A paradigm is the set of assumptions that you make about the world and what you want to believe about it. Within it evidence is evaluated, sorted, and incorporated into the narrative that you’ve chosen.
Most human cultures have flood mythology because we’re all descended from the survivors. Cultures which don’t have any flood mythology arose after the flood. They’re ancestors forgot the knowledge of the flood, which is why it didn’t leave any trace in the cultural records.
This meme illustrates a choice of paradigm.
The person who made the graphic believes what we call the popular science paradigm (SciPop).
They’re blissfully unaware that their choice of paradigm determines how they have to understand evidence.
There are other ways to understand the same evidence.
But let’s not worry about details. Whoever made the meme believes that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old and the first time that there was something resembling modern humans was about 2 million years ago.
Part of this belief system is that radioisotopes have always decayed at a constant rate, therefore their ratios are an indication of the age of the source material. There’s no way to prove that radioisotopes have always decayed at a constant rate. The decay constant isn’t constant. It’s a contrivance that’s used to get dates that are older than Biblical history. In this paradigm then, Carbon dating is used to date artifacts and gives us a timeline of human culture back to an ice age that happened over 10,000 years ago. The premise came before the evidence. It’s an induced narrative.
Inductive reasoning (as opposed to deductive reasoning or abductive reasoning) is reasoning in which the premises are viewed as supplying strong evidence for the truth of the conclusion. While the conclusion of a deductive argument is certain, the truth of the conclusion of an inductive argument is probable, based upon the evidence given.
– Inductive Reasoning, definition (Wikipedia)
Evidence didn’t lead to the conclusion that human cultures are older than Noah’s flood. The first thing in the logical development of this paradigm is a desire to have an alternative to the Biblical narrative. This led to the development of the technique of radioisotope dating, which led to the ability to interpret evidence in a way that would seem to show that the Biblical narrative is impossible.
Noah’s flood has been rejected in favor of a narrative of godless existence which is how the evidence is then described. It’s an example of circular reasoning. God is rejected, therefore the Bible is wrong. Therefore Noah’s flood is impossible. It’s a choice.
The very same evidence can be interpreted in such a way that Noah’s flood is blindingly obvious. The fossil record, for example, from the Cambrian to the Quaternary, was deposited during the year that the world was flooded, about 4,350 years ago. SciPop interprets the same fossil record as having been deposited sequentially, over 500 million years. Which is it? One year or 500 million?
The experimental procedure used to get dates that supports the 500 million years is only possible if you have already decided to believe the premise that the Earth is billions of years old. It’s circular reasoning. Radiometric dating is pseudoscience.
Likewise, the reason why the legend of the flood arose in all countries of the world is because everyone is descended from the survivors, Noah’s family. Once you eliminate carbon dating as inherently flawed it’s very easy to fit all of human history into the 6,000 years or so accounted for in the Bible.
Most modern theology is a capitulation with the SciPop paradigm and so it frequently contradicts the Biblical narrative. It can be confusing. Best to avoid it.
Matty's Paradigm 