How Young is the Earth?
"We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it
may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat
it" - Thomas Jefferson.
Most children are brought up to believe that the earth and
the universe are very old, that is, millions or billions of years old, but
there is a large amount of scientific evidence which indicates that this
conclusion is totally wrong. Much of the evidence indicates that the earth and
universe are in fact only a few thousand years old.
Here is some of that evidence.
THE ROTATIONAL SPEED OF GALAXIES
The stars of our galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate around the
galactic centre at different speeds. The inner ones rotate faster than the
outer ones. From observations, including those made by the Hubble telescope,
many scientists have realised that the shape of our galaxy does not match its
proposed age, which is usually measured in billions of years.
If our galaxy is as old as 10 billion years, it should not
have its present spiral shape, but instead should be a featureless mass of
scattered stars.
This observed phenomena is called the "winding-up dilemma"
and many theories have been proposed for it, all of which have come and gone as
more evidence comes to hand.
The most logical conclusion is that our galaxy is really
very young, and that it was formed and set in motion only a very short time ago
- perhaps only a few thousand years - otherwise it would not have its present
shape.
COMETS DISINTEGRATE QUICKLY
Comets are usually said to be the same age as our solar
system, which is usually said to be about 5 billion years. The presence of
comets totally contradicts this.
Comets which orbit close to our sun always lose a huge
amount of their material. Even the biggest comet possible could not last much
longer than 100,000 years at this rate, yet the average maximum age for a comet
is about 10,000 years. If our solar system is as old as some scientists say,
there should not be any comets in it.
Possible theories to explain this problem are that :
1. comets might come from an unobserved 'Oort cloud' which
is said to be well beyond the orbit of Pluto,
2. comets might come from improbable interactions between
passing stars which might knock them into our solar system,
3. comets might come from some sort of planetary effect.
So far none of these three theories have been substantiated
by any observed or calculated proof.
The best conclusion which explains the presence of comets is
that they are very young - perhaps only a few thousand years - otherwise they
would not be there.
MUD ON THE SEA FLOOR
Every year, water and winds erode about 25 billion tons of
dirt and rock from the continents. This material is washed down from the land
by rivers and deposited on the floor of the ocean, where it accumulates as
sediment on the hard basaltic ocean floor. The average depth of all the mud in
the whole ocean, including the continental shelves, is less than 400 metres.
How old is the earth? Some theories say about three billion
years. If the earth is three billion years old we should expect to find
sedimentary layers several kilometres deep, but of course we do not. The
present depth of sediment is consistent with a very young earth.
One theory for getting rid of the sediment is plate tectonic
subduction. This means that the sea floor slides slowly beneath the continents,
taking some sediment with it (about 1 or 2 cm per year). This process removes
about 1 billion tons per year. Obviously, this leave about 24 billions tons to
account for, which does not exist.
SODIUM IN SEA WATER
Every year, rivers carry about 450 million tons of sodium
off the land and into the sea. Only 27% of this sodium leaves the sea in
different ways, leaving the remaining 73% in the oceans. This means that the
sodium content of the oceans must be steadily increasing, which presents a very
difficult problem to those who say that the oceans, along with the earth are
three billion years old.
The oceans should be outstandingly salty today if they are
as old as the theories say they are, but if the earth is relatively young, then
present saltiness (salinity) is about what we should expect to find.
EARTH"S DECAYING MAGNETIC FIELD
The total energy stored in the earth's magnetic field has
steadily decreased by a factor of 2.7 over the past 1000 years. If the earth is
as old as some theories would have us believe, the magnetic field should have
long disappeared, but if the earth is only a few thousand years old, the
present magnetic field is exactly what we would expect to find.
BENT STRATA
In many mountainous areas, strata thousands of metres thick
are bent and folded into hairpin shapes. The usual theory is that, millions of
years ago, these strata were buried as relatively horizontal or straight layers
of sediment, and then later bent, but modern observers have noted that the
bending has not cracked or disrupted the layers.
The only possible explanation for this is that the layers of
strata were formed very quickly, and bent into their present shapes very soon
after they were formed. This means that the formations must be very young.
Since no such formation of similar bent strata is occurring today, the
formation of these shapes must also have been quite recent, perhaps only a few
thousand years ago - otherwise they would not exist.
RADIOHALOS
Radio halos are rings of colour which form around
microscopic bits of radioactive minerals in rock crystals. They are records of
radioactive decay.
For example Polonium-210 radiohalos in three different
layers of rock in the
HELIUM
All naturally occurring families of radioactive elements
generate helium as they decay. If such decay took place through billions of
years, much helium should be in the earth's atmosphere. At the same time,
helium is being lost all the time to space, but at a very low rate.
Working with the amount of helium being produced and the
amount being lost, we find that earth's atmosphere has only 0.05% of the amount
of helium it would have accumulated if the earth is several billion years old.
Logically, the earth must be much younger that the theories say it is.
Another measurement of the age of the earth can be calculated
from the rate of radioactive decay in deep, hot rocks. These rocks are supposed
to be billions of years old, yet their helium has still not escaped into the
atmosphere as it should have by now.
The helium retention of these rocks shows that they must be
only a few thousands of years old, otherwise they would not contain so much
helium.
paleontologists
STONE AGE SKELETONS
Man, that is theoretical primitive Man, is supposed to have
been on earth for millions of years. The Stone Age, as it is called, was
supposed to have lasted about 100,000 years, during which time Cro-Magnon and
Neanderthal men were supposed to have numbered around 10 million. All that time
they were burying their dead with artefacts.
If this is so, then there should be about 4 billion bodies
available to examine. Buried bones can last for many thousands of years - some
scientists (paleontologists) say well over 100,000 years in good conditions,
yet there are hardly any bones to be found.
Only a few thousand bodies and a handful of artefacts have
been found so far - this implies that the so-called Stone Age was only a few
hundred years, which means that earth's history is a lot shorter than many
people believe.
HUMAN POPULATION
In modern times human populations are seen to be increasing
consistently at more than 1% per year. Allowing for disease, famine, war and so
forth, and taking a much more conservative figure of 0.5% every year, we can
work backwards to estimate the population of the world in the past. At the rate
chosen, it would take only about 4,000 to 5,000 years, starting with four
couples, to reach present world population figures.
RADIOMETRIC DATING METHODS
Carbon-dating is often used to determine the age of an
object, but contrary to popular belief, carbon-dating has nothing to do with
millions of years. Even with the best analytical equipment available today, the
carbon-dating method can be used only to make estimates to an upper limit of
100,000 years.
What usually happens is that those who operate the carbon-dating
system calibrate the measurements with great age already built into it. An
assumption is made that the substance or object to be tested is already x
number of years old, so this is added to the final answer, thus supposedly
providing support for what was already assumed.
Carbon-dating can only date things which contain organic
carbon - which rules out most fossil bones.
As an example of how unreliable carbon dating methods are :
Carbon dating of wood found under lava, which came from the Rangitoto eruption
about 200 years ago gave it about the correct age. But when the lava on top of
the wood was tested, the result gave it an age of half a million years. How can
the lava be older than the wood under it?
As an example of how unreliable carbon-dating is :
living mulluscs have had their shells carbon dated at 2,300
years,
new wood was dated at 10,000 years,
mortar from
and freshly killed seals were dated as 1300 years
while mummified seals only 30 years old were dated as 4,600
years.
How too, can a dating method which is so far out with known
dates, be used to measure things in terms of millions of years?
FOSSILS
What is a fossil? Usually, it is a plant or animals which
has been buried quickly and thoroughly by water-borne sediment. Most fossils
show evidence of rapid burial because the impression made by softer tissue is
still there.
Fossils are said to be millions of years old, yet some
fossil bones have been found with the remains of blood cells still in them. How
can this be, if the bones are millions of years old? The evidence points to a
recent event, otherwise decay would have obliterated the tissues completely.
UNDERSEA RIVER-MOUTHS
When rivers reach the sea, they usually continue into the
water, dropping their sediments in a fan-shape. The
The average rate of silt-dumping under the sea can be
measured, and projections made forward and backward in time, which in turn can
give us an estimate of the age of the river.
At present average rates, the fan-shaped deposits should be
enormously bigger than they are, if the earth is as old as we are told. But if
the earth is only a few thousand years old, and present rates of erosion and
silt-dumping have remained constant, then the earth must be only a few thousand
years old.
PRESSURE OF OIL FIELDS
Rocks around oil beds are not stable. measurements have
shown that they gradually give way to the enormous pressures exerted by the oil
beds under and inside them. If oil is as old as we are usually told it is, then
it should not be trapped so securely under the rock - but if oil beds are only
a few thousand years old, then we should find them as they are at present.
The powerful pressures found within oil beds indicates that
they and the rock they are a part of were formed about 10,000 years ago.
(It is also known that oil and coal can be produced in a
matter of weeks or even hours in the case of oil, using heat and pressure.)
LAND EROSION
Present-day rates of erosion can be quite rapid. Some
mountain ranges are being eroded away at 2 to 3 cm per year. This may not sound
much, but multiply it over a few million years and the entire mountain range is
gone. Even allowing for upthrust forces of the earth's crust, the present shape
of the earth, given a few million years, should not be what we see today.
But if the earth is only a few thousand years old, and given
that erosion has been relatively unchanged, the present shape of the earth is
what we would expect to find.
FORMATION OF COAL
Coal (and oil and gas) are called fossil fuels because they
can be burned by Man. Coal is the remains of wood, mainly trees, which were
buried very quickly and covered, or sealed, thus preventing the usual breakdown
of the cellulose - as we see when a tree falls to the ground in a forest. Under
the seal of sediment, the wood turns black and becomes coal.
How is a coal field formed. It must be a rapid event,
because natural processes are quick to recycle wood if they are allowed to
proceed. Coal fields are often very thick, sometimes whole kilometres thick,
representing millions and millions of buried trees.
One theory has it coal is formed by forests constantly
dropping leaf and twig litter, which builds up over millions of years. Nowhere
in the world has this been seen to be happening. What usually happens is that
the litter becomes humus, on which the successive generations of trees feed,
thus keeping the layer of humus much the same over thousands of years.
Coal fields are full of tree trunks, which lie at all
angles, as if they were tumbled and pushed roughly together. Often the trunks
stand vertically through other layers, which shows that rapid burial took
place, otherwise the upper part of the trunk would have long decayed.
Coal also often contains marine fossils, which shows that it
was not formed in a fresh-water swamp.
Because coal does not require millions of years to form, its
presence indicates that the earth may be much younger than some people would
believe.
All the above can be said of oil too.
METEORITE DUST
Space researchers were worried that when the first vehicles,
or the first men landed on the moon, they would sink into something like 60
metres of dust. This figure was arrived at by a simple calculation based on the
presumed age of the earth and moon times the amount of meteorite and
cosmic dust dropping down.
If - as it was correctly reasoned - the moon had been there
for millions of years, there should be a large quantity of dust on the surface,
sufficient to soak up any moon lander - hence the large, round feet on the
lander, to help prevent it from sinking in.
If, on the other hand, the earth and moon were very young,
perhaps only a few thousand years old, the amount of dust on the moon should be
almost insignificant.
As we all know now, the astronauts found a very thin layer
of dust, which shows that the moon is probably very young.
THERMODYNAMICS
It is a fact that all natural processes tend to go from a
higher energy level to a lower energy level. To illustrate this, take a brand
new car. It arrives as a fully organised machine, with everything working,
clean and complete - but leave it outside for a few years and drive it for a
while and it gradually falls apart. The paint work flakes off, the plastic
perishes and cracks, the tyres wear down . . . eventually it rusts away and is
no longer a car.
The world and the universe show the same process. Whole,
complete systems are gradually winding down, or falling apart. Galaxies are
flying apart. The earth is cooling. The gravitational forces in the earth are weakening.
Animal and plant species are disappearing with no new species taking their
places. The land is eroding away. The seas are becoming saltier. The atmosphere
is degrading.
It should be obvious that a system which is slowly winding
down must have, at some point in the past, been 'wound up' to start it all off.
It should also be obvious that no disorganised collection of things is working
the other way today - that is, nowhere do we find the opposite to the laws of
thermodynamics. Disorder never forms into order without some external help.
(For example, a house left to itself, will not keep itself clean and tidy
without an intelligent organiser).
CONCLUSION
Reasons why people believe that the earth is millions of
years old :
1. They were taught it at school,
2. They think science in general teaches this unanimously
3. They get this message from books, videos, movies,
advertising, television programs, songs, paintings, and they hear it from
experts in teaching positions,
4. They hardly ever hear the other side of the argument.