HOW OLD IS THE EARTH?
Has science proven that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old? The following will show that all methods of dating the Earth are based on unprovable assumptions about the unobservable and unrepeatable past. Furthermore, if these assumptions are consistently applied to many physical processes we get wildly contradictory ages, most indicating that the earth is not billions of years old.
RADIOACTIVE DATING - DATING BY ASSUMPTION
How do they get ‘ages’ of the billions of years? Only by radioactive dating. Radioactive elements in rocks change into non-radioactive elements called isotopes at a very slow rate. By measuring how much radioactive element and its isotope are in a rock its age can be calculated. This sounds good, but it relies on three unprovable assumptions about the unobservable past:
It assumes the starting amounts.
It assumes that no radioactive elements or isotopes have been added or removed from the sample.
It assumes that the rate of change has always been what we see today.
If any of these assumptions are wrong, then the ‘dates’ are wrong.
RADIOACTIVE DATING IS INCONSISTENT
Rocks that flowed from Mt. Ngauruhoe in New Zealand, between 1949-1975, gave ‘ages’ ranging from < 270,000 - 3.5 million years old.1
Rocks formed at Mount St. Helens in 1984 were ‘dated’ as ~340,000 to 2.5 million years old, depending on the minerals tested. Rocks at the Grand Canyon, thought by most to be only
thousands of years old, returned dates’ ranging from 10,000 - 2.6 billion years old, depending on which elements in the rocks were dated.2 If things don’t work with rocks of known age, how can we be sure they work with rocks of unknown age? We can’t; it’s a matter of faith.
CARBON DATING
Carbon dating is a kind of radioactive dating which only works on things that were
once living. It works like this - All living things contain two types of carbon - 12C, which is stable, and 14C (radiocarbon) which turns into Nitrogen at a measurable rate.
Living things theoretically contain the same ratio of 12C and 14C because they constantly take in both types by breathing and eating. At death, the amount of 12C in a creature remains stable, but the amount of 14C decreases, halving every 5,730 years. By measuring the ratio of 12C to 14C in a specimen, its age can be calculated. But this is based on assumptions:
1. That, when living, the specimen had the ratio found in living things today.
2. That 14C has always changed into Nitrogen at the rate we see today.
3. That no 12C or 14C has been added or removed since death.
DINOSAURS CARBON 'DATE' AS LESS THAN 40,000 YEARS OLD
It was previously considered pointless to carbon date dinosaur bones because they supposedly died many millions of years ago and, at the rate radioactive 14C diminishes in dead creatures, there should not be any 14C left in their remains after 100,000 years. However, the discovery of soft tissue and proteins in dinosaur bones (see next point), and more accurate equipment, has led to dinosaur remains being carbon dated, and those that have, ‘date’ between ~20,000-40,000 years old, not millions.3 The existence of soft dinosaur tissues and proteins means that the ‘dates’ of thousands of years old are more likely true than millions.
Furthermore, if levels of 14C in the living dinosaurs were lower than levels in living animals today, this would mean that the carbon dates of 20,000-40,000 years are actually too old.
DINOSAUR TISSUES, BLOOD VESSELS AND CELLS - LESS THAN 100,000 YEARS OLD
Soft, elastic dinosaur tissues, cells, blood vessels, fragments of DNA, haemoglobin, collagen and other proteins have been found in dinosaur bones that are supposedly 68 million years old. At the present rate proteins disintegrate these dinosaur remains cannot be more than thousands of years old.4
RAW DINOSAUR MEAT
shock discovery - Dinosaur blood & Soft stretchy tissue
How could it be 68 Million years old?
WHEN paleontologist Mary Schweitzer found soft, fresh-looking stretchy tissue
inside Tyrannosaur bone she shocked the scientific community. Some evolutionists would not believe it, and they denied her discovery. Science magazine quoted Schweitzer as saying, “It was totally shocking. I didn’t believe it until we had done it 17 times.” Science, 307:1,852, 2005.
Discover magazine reported, “...she noticed that the fossil exuded a distinctly organic odor. "It smelled just like one of the cadavers we had in the lab...
Schweitzer was anxious when mentioning this to Horner [her boss]. "But he said, 'Oh, yeah, all Hell Creek bones smell,'" she says.”
Soft tissue has since been found in other fossils supposedly 145-199 million years old. At the present rates proteins rot these dinosaur tissues could not be more than thousands of years old. This casts very serious doubts on the supposed age of the Earth, and therefore evolution, because without vast ages of time
evolution can’t happen.
www.newscientist.com/article/dn18882-soft-tissue-remnants- discovered-in-archaeopteryx-fossil/
www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur- shocker-115306469/
COAL, OIL AND DIAMONDS LESS THAN 100,000 YEARS OLD
We are told that coal is tens to hundreds of millions of years old, and that diamonds are supposedly over a billion. But they carbon date as only thousands of years old.3
CONTINENTS LESS THAN 10 MILLION YEARS OLD
At the current rate of erosion (~6cm/1000 years, based on the amount of sediment carried by rivers) the continents would be eroded down to sea level in less than 10 million years.6 Have they been renewed from below? No, because many rock layers, supposedly billions of years
old, are still present. Flat, featureless areas, like Kangaroo Island in Australia, show hardly any signs of erosion. How could this area be 160 million years old as claimed?
SEA LESS THAN 62 MILLION YEARS OLD
The sea has less than 62 million years worth of salt, based on the rate that rivers pour salts into the sea, and the amount of salt leaving the sea.5
SEDIMENTS < FIVE MILLION YEARS WORTH
If the sea were billions of years old it should contain billions of years worth of sediments dumped into it by rivers. It doesn’t. It only contains 5 million years worth, based on the rate it is building up today.7
CONTINENTAL 'DRIFT' LESS THAN 10 MILLION YEARS AGO.
The first to suggest that the continents once fitted together and have separated was Creationist, Antonio Snider Pellegrini, 1802-1885. He believed that this occurred during the year-long Genesis Flood.
Evidence that the continents were joined and have separated:
1. The jigsaw puzzle piece ‘fit.’2. Rocks and fossils sometimes match on
opposite sides of the oceans.
3. Rifts (splits) down the middle of the ocean floors.
4. Rocks that ‘date’ older as they move away from the rifts. It is assumed that the continents have moved apart at about the present rate, and therefore the separation has taken ~200 million yrs. However, assuming that erosion has also occurred at about the present rate, the continents would have been eroded to sea level about 20 times over in that time and there would be no matching shapes, rocks or fossils left!
The fact that the ‘fit’ is still so obvious indicates that separation occurred far more recently than commonly believed. This presents serious challenges to the radiometric ‘dates.’ Continental drift is not fully understood.8
SEDIMENTARY LAYERS FORMED RAPIDLY
Layers have squeezed up through overlying rock layers. This shows that the layers were laid down rapidly before the squeezed up layer had time to turn to stone.
The flat boundaries between sedimentary layers indicate that no long ages of erosion occurred between each layer being deposited.
Layers exist that have been bent without fracturing and show no evidence that heat has softened them (no re-crystalization). This indicates that the layers were deposited rapidly, and folded while still soft, not cemented hard after millions of years.9 See diagrams on the right.
CONCLUSIONS
Coal, oil, diamonds and dinosaur remains carbon dated as only thousands of years old; the existence of dinosaur proteins and tissues that are still soft and flexible; the amount of salt in the sea; the amount of erosion and sedimentation; the obvious fit of the continents; the rapid deposition of the sedimentary layers - all these things indicate that the earth is far younger than commonly believed, based on the long-agers‘ own assumptions.
Biblical Creationists realize that the age of the Earth cannot be determined by these assumption-based methods. Instead they accept the eye-witness testimony of God, who created the Earth, and sent the Genesis Flood which produced in months what would take millions of years at today’s rates.
** By the way ADAM & EVE were created old as adults but they were brand NEW.
References
1. Williams, A.R., 1992. Long-age isotope dating short on credibility, CEN Technical
Journal 6(1):2-5.
2. Austin, S.A. (ed) Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe. Institute for
Creation Research, Santee, California, pp. 120-131. 1994.
3.creation.com/c14-dinos
newgeology.us/presentation48.html
3. creation.com/diamonds-a-creationists- best-friend
4. Nielsen-Marsh, C., Biomolecules in Fossil
Remains, The Biochemist, pp 12-14, June 2002.
creation.com/realjurassic
creation.com/ancient-protein creation.com/dino-dna-bone-cells
5. creation.com/salty-seas-evidence-for-a young- earth
6. Dott RH, Batten RL. 1971. Evolution of the Earth, p. 136.
creation.com/eroding-ages
7. creation.com/sea-floor-sediment- and-the-age-of-the-earth
8. www.detectingdesign.com/geologiccolumn. html#Continental Site also explains ice cores.
9. creation.com/grand-canyon-strata- show-geologic-time-is-imaginary
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