Age of the Earth

Introduction:

Many opportunities come our way to tell others of God, our Creator.  We need to be ready to answer questions concerning the creation of the earth and how it is proven by the evidence around us corresponding to the account of the Bible. 

The following information is from the writings of Don Batten in  Age of the Earth, 101 Evidences for a Young Age of the Earth and the Universe,  Published 4 June 2009(GMT+10).

Body:

I.             Can science prove the age of the earth?

·         No scientific method can prove the age of the earth and the universe.  Although age indicators are called “clocks” they aren’t, because all ages result from calculations that necessarily involve making assumptions about the past.

·         Ages of millions of years are all calculated by assuming the rates of change of processes in the past were the same as we observe today – called the principle of uniformitarianism.  If the age calculated from such assumptions disagrees with what they think the age should be, they conclude that their assumptions did not apply in this case, and adjust them accordingly.  If the calculated result gives an acceptable age, the investigators publish it.

·         Examples of young ages listed here are also obtained by applying the same principle of uniformitarianism.  Long-age proponents will dismiss this sort of evidence for a young age of the earth by arguing that the assumptions about the past do not apply in these cases.  In other words, age is not really a matter of scientific observation but an argument about our assumptions about the unobserved past.

·         The assumptions behind the evidences presented here cannot be proved.  Such is the nature of science, especially historical science, because we cannot do experiments on past events.  Science is based on observation, and the only reliable means of telling the age of anything is by the testimony of a reliable witness who observed the events.  The Bible claims to be the communication of the only One who witnessed the events of Creation: the Creator Himself.

II.           Biological evidence for a young age of the earth

·         DNA in “ancient” fossils   DNA extracted from bacteria that are supposed to be 425 million years old brings into question that age, because DNA could not last more than thousands of years.

·         Many fossil bones “dated” at many millions of years old are hardly mineralized.  The finding of pliable blood vessels, blood cells and proteins in dinosaur bone is consistent with an age of thousands of years for the fossils, not the 65+ million years claimed by the paleontologists.

·         Living fossils:  jellyfish, graptolites, coelacanth, stromatolites, Wollemi pine and hundreds more   That many hundreds of species could remain so unchanged, for even up to billions of years in the case of stromatolites, speaks against the millions and billions of years being real.

·         Polystrate fossils – tree trunks in coal   There are polystrate tree trunks in the Yellowstone fossilized forests and Joggins, Nova Scotia and in many other places.  Polystrate fossilized lycopod trunks occur in northern hemisphere coal, again indicating rapid burial/formation of the organic material that became coal.

·         Experiments show that with conditions mimicking natural forces, coal forms quickly; in weeks for brown coal to months for black coal.  It does not need millions of years.  Furthermore, long time periods could be an impediment to coal formation because of the increased likelihood of the permineralization of the wood which would hinder coalification.

·         Experiments show that with conditions mimicking natural forces, oil forms quickly; it does not need millions of years, consistent with an age of thousands of years.

·         The presence of ephemeral markings (raindrop marks, ripple marks, animal tracks) at the boundaries of paraconformities show that the upper rock layer has been deposited immediately after the lower one, eliminating many millions of “gap” time.

·         The amount of salt in the world’s oldest lake contradicts its supposed age and suggests an age more consistent with its formation after Noah’s Flood, which is consistent with a young age of the earth.

·         Observed examples of rapid canyon formation; for example, Providence Canyon in southwest Georgia, Burlingame Canyon near Walla Walla, Washington, and Lower Loowit Canyon near Mount St. Helens.  The rapidity of the formation of these canyons, which look similar to other canyons that supposedly took many millions of years to form, brings into question the supposed age of the canyons that no one saw form.                      

     Creationists assign most sedimentary rocks to the great Flood of Noah’s day, which then eroded as the Flood ended and the waters rushed off the rising continents.  Seeming problems arise in attributing all this erosion to the short time period assumed for the Flood and the centuries following.

     Cavitation, a process well-studied by engineers and geologists today, is known to be quite capable of eroding huge volumes of rock and concrete quickly.  As water moves at a high velocity over a rough surface, vacuum bubbles form and implode with such a great force that they fracture the adjacent rock, thereby accelerating erosion.

     The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reckons that cavitation was the culprit that eroded enormous thicknesses of reinforced concrete and the surrounding rock under a spillway draining Glen Canyon Dam in 1983, just upriver from Grand Canyon.  Within minutes, a cavern 32 by 40 by 150 feet had been excavated. Never again can we doubt that dynamic moving waters are capable of doing extensive geologic work in a hurry, even under “normal” conditions.                                                     

     We are still left to ponder the effects of the much more intense great Flood, which would have produced erosion on an even grander scale with waters flowing at much greater sustained volumes and velocities.

“CAVITATION” by John D. Morris, PhD,                                 ACTS & FACTS VOL. 41 No 8, August, 20112 

·         Rate of erosion of coastlines, horizontally   Beachy Head, UK, loses a meter of coast to the sea every six years.

·         Water gaps   These are gorges cut through mountain ranges where rivers run.  They occur worldwide and are part of what evolutionary geologists call “discordant drainage systems.”  They are “discordant” because they don’t fit the deep time belief system.  The evidence fits them forming rapidly in a much younger age framework where the gorges were cut in the recessive stage/dispersive phase of the global Flood of Noah’s day.

·         Erosion at Niagara Falls and other such places is consistent with just a few thousand years since the Biblical Flood.  However, much of the Niagara Gorge likely formed very rapidly with the catastrophic drainage of glacial Lake Agassiz.

·         River delta growth rate is consistent with thousands of years since the Biblical Flood, not vast periods of time.

·         Measured rates of stalactite and stalagmite growth in limestone caves are consistent with a young age of several thousand years.

III.         Radiometric dating and the age of the earth

·         Carbon – 14 in coal suggests ages of thousands, not millions, of years.

·         Incongruent radioisotope dates using the same techniques argue against trusting the dating methods that give millions of years.

·         Incongruent radioisotope dates using different techniques argue against trusting the dating methods that give million of years or billions of years for the age of the earth.

IV.         Astronomical evidence for a young(er) age of the earth and the universe

·         Recession of the moon from the earth   Tidal friction causes the moon to recede from the earth at 4 cm per year.  It would have been greater in the past when the moon and earth were closer together.  The moon and earth would have been in catastrophic proximity (Roche limit) at less than a quarter of their supposed age.

·         The presence of a significant magnetic field around Mercury is not consistent with its supposed age of billions of years.  A planet so small should have cooled down enough so any liquid core would solidify, preventing the evolutionists’ “dynamo” mechanism.

·         The existence of short-period comets (orbital period less than 200 years), such as Halley, which have a life of less than 20,000 years, is consistent with an age of the solar system of less than 10,000 years.

·         Lifetime of long-period comets (orbital period greater than 200 years) that are sun-grazing comets or others like Hyakutake or Hale-Bopp means they could not have originated with the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.  However, their existence is consistent with a young age for the solar system.

·         The rate of expansion and size of supernovas indicates that all studied are young (less than 10,000 years).

V.           Human history is consistent with a young age of the earth.

·         Human population growth   Less than 0.5% p.a. growth from six people 4,500 years ago would produce today’s population.  Where are all the people if we have been here much longer?  Everyone should know that the cosmos was created.  It also stands to reason that those who “listen to Moses and the prophets,” as Jesus said, should be able to see more specific evidence of Biblical creation.  One such evidence is human genetic diversity, which leaves evolutionary history in a quagmire, while confirming a straightforward interpretation of Genesis.

      Geneticists recently analyzed human gene differences.  The research team investigated the amount of diversity among today’s human genes and how long it took to reach the current amount of diversity.  They concluded that human genes diversified recently.  “The maximum likelihood time for accelerated growth was 5,115 years ago.”

     If the evolutionary timeline is true, then human population growth and genetic diversity were miraculously unchanged for a few million years before suddenly exploding in just the last few thousand years.  What are the odds that every married couple would have had almost exactly two offspring – just enough to replace the parents – survive into the next generation for over two million years or 100,000 generations?  Where are all the human remains that should litter the planet after having been peopled for so long?

     In short, why does the human genetic diversity data fit so well with Biblical creation?  Evolutionary thinking provides no real answer to what caused the radical bottleneck in the worldwide human population at that time, whereas the Bible teaches that it was Noah’s Flood.     “A Recent Explosion of Human Diversity” by Brian Thomas, M.S.                      ACTS & FACTS VOL 41 No. 9, September, 2012

·         “Stone age” human skeletons and artifacts   There are not enough for 100,000 years of a human population of just one million, let along more people (10 million?).

·         Origin of agriculture   Secular dating puts it at about 10,000 years and yet that same chronology says that modern man has supposedly been around for at least 200,000 years.  Surely someone would have worked out much sooner how to sow seeds of plants to produce food.

Conclusion:

Given the increasing anti-Christian sentiment in society and the academic persecution in the secular universities, there may very well come a day when it will no longer be possible for a Bible-believing Christian to get an advanced degree in the natural sciences.  Academically gifted young Christians should therefore “redeem the time” (Ephesians 5:16) before that door of opportunity closes.                                                                                                          

Dr. Jake Hebert PhD, Research Associate at the Institute for Creation Research

Presented by Bobby Stafford   [Sources listed within the sermon]                                                   

December 2, 2012