Weekly Column #57
July 25, 2000
By David Mathews
E-mail David Mathews: david_mathews@geocities.com
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Ineffective Arguments: Refuting Young Earth Evidences
"Our media and text books have implied for
over a century that this almost unimaginable
age is correct, but practically never do they
or the professors examine the shaky assumptions
and growing body of contrary evidence."
(Dan King, "The Days of Genesis 1 (4)", Truth Magazine, July 6, 2000)
The Earth is billions of years old and the Universe is much older. Young Earth advocates and the Institute for Creation Research have made an attempt to formulate a scientific argument on behalf of a young age for the Earth. Dan King presents twenty-one evidences on behalf of a young earth in his article titled "The Days of Genesis 1 (4)." His arguments are worthy of examination and refutation. I will examine each and make comments.
1. The Atomic Clocks & the Earth's spin rate: "Atomic clocks, which have measured the Earth's spin rate to the nearest billionth of a second, have consistently found that the Earth is slowing down at the rate of almost one second a year ... If the Earth were billions of years old, its initial spin rate would have been fantastically rapid -- so rapid that distortions in the shape of the earth would have occurred."
Comment: The above evidence and argument is inconclusive at best. Variations in the Earth's spin rate are subject to many forces and we have no means of knowing how those forces affected the Earth in the distant past. The argument does not and can not disprove that the Earth is actually billions of years old.
2. The Earth's Magnetic Field: "If this view is correct, then 25,000 years ago the electrical current would have been so vast that the Earth's structure could not have survived the heat produced. This would imply that the Earth could not be older than 10,000 years."
Comment: The Magnetic Field problem was solved a long time ago. The Earth's magnetic field reverses from time to time. That is why the magnetic field varies in intensity and also why we cannot extrapolate the amount of weakening of the present field into the distant past. The magnetic field's variations do provide a most powerful argument on behalf of an ancient Earth, however, as rocks record the orientation of the magnetic field at their origin. The basalt of the oceanic crust provides a history of the Earth's magnetic field over the past hundreds of millions of years.
3. Oceanic Sedimentation: "However, when we divide the total mass of oceanic sediment by that rate, we find the outer limit of the age of the earth's oceans to be 30 million years!"
Comment: Dan King has successfully demonstrated that the Earth is 30 million years old? The oceans are actually much older, hundreds of millions of years. In contrast to the continents, whose oldest rocks are many billions of years old. The reason why the oceans are younger than the continents is the process of destruction which the oceanic rocks experience: They are denser than continental crust and hence they become subducted below less dense rocks (such as continental rocks) and are melted deep within the Earth (thereby producing magmas which create volcanoes, such as those found in the Western United States).
4.Volcanic Origin of Water: "Six hundred volcanoes comparable to Paricutin could account for the present oceans in approximately 0.5 billion years."
Comment: Dan King has demonstrated that the Earth is 500 million years old? The water expelled by volcanoes often comes from the oceans as subducting slabs of oceanic crust carry a huge volume of water into the Earth's interior, where the slab melts and becomes magma and the magma rises to the surface where it escapes forcefully in a volcanic eruption.
5. Volcanic Origin of the Earth's Crust: "It has been estimated that four volcanoes spewing lava at a rate observed for Paricutin and continuing for five billion years could almost account for the volume of the continental crust."
Comment: Dan King is to correct to note one creative geological force. Volcanoes expel lavas and these lavas cool down and crystallize to form rocks. The Earth's crust is formed predominantly of rocks of a volcanic origin. The continental rocks, it is quite true, have a history extending back almost four billion years. Oceanic rocks, which are denser and therefore subject to subduction and recycling through melting in the Earth's mantle, are only several hundred million years old.
6. Atmospheric Helium: "The atmosphere has less than 40,000 years worth of helium, based on the production of helium -- (the most abundant isotope of helium) from the decay of uranium and thorium. There is no known means by which large amounts of helium can escape from the atmosphere. If the present rate of accumulation had been constant through four billion years of the earth's history, there should be thirty times as much helium in our present atmosphere as is presently there."
Comment: An inconclusive argument, at best. Helium is the lightest gas and it can escape the atmosphere. So the lack of helium in the atmosphere indicates that the gas can and does escape from the atmosphere.
7. Accumulation of Metals in the Ocean: "The rate of which elements such as copper, gold, tin, lead, silicon, mercury, uranium, and nickel are entering the oceans is very rapid when compared with the small quantities of these elements already in the oceans."
Comment: The oceans are open systems in which elements can enter and leave. Atoms which enter the ocean may become deposited on the shore, on the ocean bottom and in the Earth's crust through a variety of processes.
8. Accumulation of Salts in the Ocean: "In fact, it is possible to calculate the rate at which the level of salt is increasing. By using the standard assumptions used by evolutionists, geologists Steve Austin and physicist Russell Humphreys calculated that the oceans must be less than 62 million years old."
Comment: Dan King has established that the oceans are 62 million years old? Of course the oceans are that old, even much older. There are extensive salt deposits throughout the world, each of which records a time in which a significant amount of water from the ocean evaporated leaving its salt. These salt deposits demonstrate that salt can leave the ocean, just as salt enters the ocean.
9. Erosion of Continents: "Evolutionists believe that the continents have existed for at least one billion years. However, the continents are being eroded at a rate which would level them in a relatively short 14 million years."
Comment: The continents have existed for four billion years, though they have changed constantly over that time span. The mountain ranges are subject to demolition by the erosive forces of water and atmosphere, and they can only exist for millions of years. The youngest mountain ranges and those which continue to grow preserve their haughty height, and more ancient mountain ranges are humbled by time so that they become smaller over time and eventually cease to exist. Mountains continue to exist on the Earth, in spite of its great age, because continents collide with oceans, islands and other continents. Continental collisions create the mountains, and erosion demolishes the mountains.
10. Oil and Gas Pressure in Rocks: "The occurrence of abnormally high gas and oil pressures within relatively permeable rock implies that these fluids were formed or encased less than 10,000 years ago. If the hydrocarbons had been trapped more than 10,000 years ago, there would have been leakage which would have dropped the pressure far below what it is today."
Comment: An argument which is spectacular in its irrationality. Of course, if the oil had escaped the pressure would reduce. The persistence of the pressure would seem to indicate that the oil was trapped by an impermeable layer which does not allow it to escape.
11. Meteorites in Sedimentary Rocks: "There have been no authenticated reports of the discovery of meteorites in sedimentary material ... If the sediments, which have an average depth of one and one-half miles, were laid down over hundred of millions of years, many of these steadily falling meteorites should have been discovered. Therefore, the sediments appear to have been deposited rapidly; furthermore, since there have been no reports of meteorites beneath the sediments, they appear to have been deposited recently."
Comment: An uninformed argument. Meteorites that fall the earth's surface are subject to the same weathering forces that disintegrate other rocks. If a meteorite is not protected from erosion, weathering and the deposition of sediments will eventually make the meteorite indistinguishable from any other rock. That is why a meteorite are rarely found in sedimentary rocks. In contrast to meteorites, meteorite craters are much larger and easier to recognize. Meteorite craters are found throughout the Earth in various states of preservation and destruction.
Meteorite craters are found underneath sedimentary layers in different places on the Earth, most notably the Chixulub crater, which is located under several thousand feet of later sediments (reference: http://bullard.esc.cam.ac.uk/~birps/chix. html). Millions of years are required to cover a crater of this magnitude under that much sedimentary rocks.
12. Accumulation of Meteoritic Dust on the Earth: "The rate at which meteoritic dust is accumulating on the earth is such that after five billion years, the equivalent of 182 feet of dust should have accumulated."
Comment: Sedimentary accumulations of 50,000 feet are known, so 182 feet of dust accumulation over five billion years seems relatively inconsequential. Meteorite dust are subject to the same erosion, transportation and deposition forces as any other sediment. Those sediments which enter the oceans are subject to subduction and destruction in the Earth's mantle.
13. Accumulation of Meteoritic Dust on the Moon: "If the moon were billions of years old, it should have accumulated extensive layers of space dust -- possibly a mile in thickness. Before instruments were placed on the moon, NASA was very concerned that our astronauts would sink in a sea of dust. This did not happen; there is very little space dust on the moon. Conclusion: the moon is young."
Comment: I believe that it is significant to note that the Earth's potential accumulation of dust over five billion years (182 feet) is much less than the assumed depth of lunar dust (5000+ feet). There is apparently an error in the lunar estimate, presumably caused by the lack of direct measurement prior to the Apollo lunar landings.
14. Micrometeorites in the Solar System: "The sun acts as a giant vacuum cleaner which sweeps up about 100,000 tons of micrometeorites per day. If the solar system were significantly older than 10,000 years, no micrometeorites should remain since there is no known source of replenishment. A large disk shaped cloud of these particles is orbiting the sun. Conclusion: the solar system is less than 10,000 years old."
Comment: No known sources to replenish the supply of micrometeorites? Here are a number of sources: Comets, meteorite impacts and the destruction of asteroids by the gravitational forces of the giant planets.
15. Shrinkage of the Sun: "Since 1836, more than one hundred different observers at the Royal Greenwich Observatory and the U.S. Naval Observatory have made direct visual measurements which show that the diameter of the sun is shrinking at a rate of about .1% each century or about five feet per hour! ... Using the most conservative data, one must conclude that had the sun existed a million years ago, it would have been so large that it would have heated the earth so much that life could not have survived."
Comment: The sun's variations are consistent with the behavior of stars throughout the Universe. Gravitational forces which desire to shrink a star's size compete against the heat of the nuclear reaction which would tear a star apart. When gravity wins, a star collapses to a pulsar, neutron star or black hole. When the nuclear reaction wins, a star expands to become a red giant, or it explodes as a Nova or Supernova, expelling its gases at high speeds to form a nebula. Stars such as the sun are relatively stable so its variations are slight, variable stars have a much greater range of size and temperature, and their changes occur over a period of days, months and years.
16. Comets: "Short period comets ‘boil off' some of their mass each time they pass the sun. Nothing should remain of these comets after about 10,000 years. There are no known sources for replenishing comets. If comets came into existence at the same time as the solar system, the solar system must be less than 10,000 years old."
Comment: When comets "boil off" they supply a vast quantity of rocky material into the solar system, supplying micrometeorites (see #14). There is a known supply of comets: the Oort cloud at the boundaries of the Solar System. Gravitational forces cast these comets into the inner solar system where the sun evaporates their gasses and liquid components.
17. Radiation of Jupiter and Saturn: "Jupiter and Saturn are each radiating more than twice the energy they receive from the sun ... Calculations show that it is unlikely that this energy comes from radioactive decay or gravitational contraction. The only other conceivable explanation is that these planets have not existed long enough to cool off."
Comment: The Earth is much smaller than Jupiter and Saturn, and yet it still radiates heat. Jupiter and Saturn radiate more heat because of their size and composition.
18. Radiometric Dating: "Radiometric dating methods for rocks are said to be the most dependable of all methods in use today. Yet they are acknowledged to be completely inadequate. ... It is evident that radiometric dating techniques may not be the absolute dating methods they are claimed to be."
Comment: Even with all of the potential problems with radiometric methods, they do consistently report that rocks of the Earth's crust, the moon's crust and meteorites are billions of years old. Relative methods of determining a rock's age are consistent with these measurements, and measurements of continental movement and interaction (plate tectonics, continental drift) are also consistent with the measured ages of rocks.
19. Jurassic, Triassic and Eocene Epochs: "According to the standard geological time scale, the Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene epochs represent hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Fossils in Colorado, however, indicate that they are actually not so far apart. This has been determined by examining radiohalos, which are rings of color that form around microscopic traces of radioactive minerals. The Polonium-210 radiohalos in the Colorado fossils indicate that the Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene formations were deposited within months of each other. Thus, rather than representing hundreds of millions of years of evolution, the deposits in Colorado are suggestive of a single cataclysmic event (i.e. the Genesis Flood)."
Comment: The argument appears irrational. Radiohalos could not demonstrate that these epochs were accomplished in a time period of months.
20. "Polystrate" Fossils: "Some of the big polystrate trees transgress multiple strata otherwise thought to have required tens of thousands of years. Apparently, the entire section required less time than it takes a tree to rot and fall over, else these trees would have done just that."
Comment: A polystrate tree may indicate sudden burial. But these occurrences are rare and they do not compress the entire geological column (many tens of thousands of feet of sediments) into a ten thousand year time span.
21. Population Growth: "If humanity is really about 2.5 million years old (as claimed by Dr. Louis Leakey), creationists calculate from conservative population estimates (2.4 children per family, average generation and life span of forty-three years) that the world population would have grown from a single family to 10 to the 2700th power of people over one million years. The present world population is about 2x10 to the 9th power, an infinitestimal part of 10 to the 2700th power."
Comment: The so-called "conservative" estimates of human life spans and reproductive efficiency are erroneous. In ancient times, humans lived much shorter and children died more often. During long ages human population was stable or increasing only marginally. In the past several centuries, human population has increased exponentially because of technology, medicine and improvements in diet.
Conclusion
None of the above twenty-one evidences proves that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old or disproves that the Earth is billions of years old. Geological evidence of the Earth's age are numerous and they converge on the answer that the Earth is billions of years old. Arguments on behalf of a Young Earth have about as much scientific potency as arguments on behalf of a flat earth. For over two centuries, scientists have known that the Earth is much older than 10,000 years, today scientists know that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old.
Christians would do well to acquire knowledge about this subject by reading geological textbooks or attending classes on geology at their local colleges or universities. Do not depend upon the Institute for Creation Research because that organization is not always accurate in its depiction of scientific evidence and procedures. Science is qualified to speak accurately about the history and age of the Earth. Preachers are not always as reliable or effective as science. Doubt everything that you hear, but do not dismiss scientists without carefully listening to their arguments and investigating their evidences.
The above essay was written to the Age of Earth controversy currently troubling the church of Christ. A collection of relevant materials and additional essays is found on the following page: The Gibson - Mathews Discussion
© 2000 david_mathews@geocities.com
