Don Batten #fundie creation.com

(Article title: 101 evidences for a young earth.)

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, but the fact that such a wide range of different phenomena all suggest much younger ages than are currently generally accepted, provides a strong case for questioning those accepted ages (about 14 billion years for the universe and 4.5 billion years for the solar system).

Also, a number of the evidences, rather than giving any estimate of age, challenge the assumption of slow-and-gradual uniformitarianism, upon which all deep-time dating methods depend.

Many of these indicators for younger ages were discovered when creationist scientists started researching things that were supposed to “prove” long ages. The lesson here is clear: when the evolutionists throw up some new challenge to the Bible’s timeline, don’t fret over it. Sooner or later that supposed evidence will be turned on its head and will even be added to this list of evidences for a younger age of the earth. On the other hand, some of the evidences listed here might turn out to be ill-founded with further research and will need to be modified. Such is the nature of science, especially historical science, because we cannot do experiments on past events (see “It’s not science”).

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. As such, the Bible is the only reliable means of knowing the age of the earth and the cosmos. See The Universe’s Birth Certificate and Biblical chronogenealogies (technical).

In the end the Bible will stand vindicated and those who deny its testimony will be confounded. That same Bible also tells us of God’s judgment on those who reject his right to rule over them. But it also tells us of his willingness to forgive us for our rebellious behaviour. The coming of Jesus Christ, who was intimately involved in the creation process at the beginning (John 1:1–3), into the world, has made this possible (see Good news).

34 comments

Confused?

So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!

To post a comment, you'll need to Sign in or Register. Making an account also allows you to claim credit for submitting quotes, and to vote on quotes and comments. You don't even need to give us your email address.