You’ve probably heard from someone in “mainstream science” that the biblical idea of the earth only being six to ten thousand years old is totally preposterous. They will say that there is no evidence for a young earth or universe. But the age of the earth really cannot be proven, because beyond recorded history, assumptions have to be made about the “clock” being used. And it turns out that there are many evidences that fit a young world much better than they fit a billions of years old world. Since you aren’t likely to hear about these because of the current hold that the worldview of long ages and evolution has on modern science, let me clue you in on some positive evidences for a thousands of years old earth.
1. The Earth’s magnetic field points to a young earth: The earth is surrounded by a magnetic field, that among other things, protects this planet from harmful radiation from space. But the field strength and energy are decaying, at a rate which some scientists believe shows that this field has an upper age limit of about 10,000 years. The decay has been confirmed by several measurements. Since 1845 the field has been decaying at a rate of 5% per century, and archaeological measurements show that it was 40% stronger in A.D. 1000. Some scientists have proposed that the magnetic field is caused by an electrical current in the earth’s core which has been decaying exponentially, and although different from the conventional model, the electric current model has been confirmed by field data from geology. The alternative conventional dynamo model contradicts some basic laws of physics, and has some problems explaining the data, including the evidence for rapid magnetic field reversals. And the electric current model was used to make predictions of the magnetic field strengths for other planets, which were subsequently verified, even though many charge that creationist models don’t make predictions! For a good summary article on this, see The earth’s magnetic field: evidence that the earth is young. For an article showing how the creationist model explains rapid reversals of the magnetic field, see Can Catastrophic Plate Tectonics explain Flood Geology?
2. Radiocarbon found in ancient organic materials: First of all, anyone who claims that radiocarbon dates prove that the earth is billions of years old shows that they don’t really understand the radiocarbon method. Radiocarbon, or Carbon 14, is a radioactive isotope of Carbon. It is formed from nitrogen in the atmosphere by the bombardment of cosmic rays, and decays back into nitrogen with a half-life of 5,730 years. So there should be no Carbon 14 detected in any fossils or coal said to be over about 100,000 years old. Yet many fossils have been found containing Carbon 14, which were found in rocks from all levels of the geological column, usually dated in the millions of years range. Carbon 14 has also been found in coal seams, natural gas, oil and even diamonds, all of which were dated many times too old to contain Carbon 14. See articles: Radioactive “dating” in conflict- (article on fossil wood containing radiocarbon), Diamonds: a creationist’s best friend, Carbon 14 Evidence for a recent global flood and a young earth by Dr. John Baumgardner Objections that all of this is a result of contamination do not hold up, since there are standard procedures that are designed to test for and eliminate the contamination factor: Measurable C 14 in Fossilized Organic Materials (somewhat technical article)
3. Population of the world: Starting with just 2 people 4500-6000 years ago, with an average population growth rate of only about .5%, much less than today’s rates of about 1-2%, we could easily reach today’s population numbers of 6-7 billion people, even taking into account wars, famines, medical advances, and the like. By contrast, if the human race had been around for 1 million years, it would take an average population growth rate much less (.01%) than any every measured in recorded history, to reach today’s population from 2 people. And even if it had happened that way, there would have been so many people that had lived and died that the volume of them would not fit on the earth. We should also be able to find billions of bodies buried, since many ancient cultures buried their dead. Even if their bodies were disintegrated, artifacts should still abound. Population growth rates have varied throughout history, and so this is not a proof of a young earth by any means. However, the data fit the young earth scenario well, and do not fit the old earth model at all. It’s significant that our recorded human history (not based on radiocarbon dates and interpretations of artefacts) only goes back about 6,000 years. For more facts and figures on this, see these articles: How did we get so many people in such a short time? Where are all the people?
4. Soft tissue found in dinosaur fossils: When many people are asked how they know the earth is millions or billions of years old, they will point to dinosaur fossils as proof. The prevailing wisdom teaches that we know they died off 65 million years ago or so. But recently, there have been some startling finds in dinosaur fossils that have their discoverers scrambling to explain these findings in an old-earth context. In the early 90’s paleontologist Dr. Mary Schweitzer discovered what appeared to be blood vessels in the bones of a T-rex fossil. She was quoted in Science magazine in 1993: “It was exactly like looking at a slice of modern bone. But, of course, I couldn’t believe it. The bones, after all, are 65 million years old. How could blood cells survive that long?” [1] (also see article: The Mysteries of stunning soft tissue fossil finds)
Over the years since then, she and others have discovered red blood cells with nuclei, branching blood vessels, flexible tissue, several proteins including collagen, immunological evidence of hemoglobin, and DNA, all in dinosaur bones. (See article: Dinosaur soft tissue and protein-even more confirmation!
The collagen is very significant because it cannot be found in bacteria and so cannot be the result of bacterial biofilms[2]. DNA that has been found could not possibly survive over millions of years according to all laboratory evidence. (See article by biochemist Dr. Jonathan Sarfati: DNA and bone cells found in dinosaur bone
Efforts to prove these structures as something other than they appear to be have not been successful so far, but the old-earth paradigm has such a strong hold that most are not willing to consider that these bones are not millions of years old.
See articles: Doubting doubts about the Squishosaur Squishosaur scepticism squashed and most recently:Dinosaur Soft Tissue
While this evidence does not prove a young earth, it is highly consistent with that model and problematic for the millions of years old model.
5. Bent and Folded Rock Layers: A problematic geological find for an ancient earth are bent rock layers in sedimentary rock strata. Often rock layers believed to have been laid down over time periods of hundreds of millions of years, such as in the Grand Canyon, are found with bends and folds in them, sometimes up to 90 degrees, as if they were in a soft condition when bent. These layers can be up to thousands of feet thick, yet were bent and folded without apparent cracking or breaking. Rock layers laid down by water could be bent and folded when in a soft condition, but would harden in at the most 100 years.
For example, in the Grand Canyon, there are several layers believed to have been deposited from 520 to 250 million years ago, then all these layers uplifted around 70 million years ago, yet they did not break or crack, but look as though they were folded and bent while in a soft condition. How could they have remained in a soft condition for all that time? But if they were laid down relatively rapidly, then they could have been bent or folded before they hardened. This phenomenon is not a local one, but can be found in formations that are almost continent-wide.
The standard answer to this finding is that supposedly if there is enough heat and pressure from all sides on a rock, it can be made bendable. The problem is that this would visible alter and elongate sand grains or cement in the rock, and they would be in either a broken or recrystallized state, and these features are not seen in the bent rock layers. Also the rock itself is not different then the surrounding rock that is not bent. It has not been transformed into metamorphic rock such as quartzite or marble, by the heat and pressure, if this were the correct explanation for the bending.
If the Genesis Flood happened as in the Bible, we would expect these sediments to be laid down quickly and would have been deformed during the flood as tectonic uplifting took place. More recent post-flood uplift and faulting would have broken or cracked these same sediment layers. In fact, additional evidence that fits the Flood model is the fact that the rocks believed to be pre-flood, such as the Vishnu Schist, did break during tectonic uplifting as would be expected.
This geological phenomenon does not prove a young earth or Noah’s flood, but is consistent with both, and inconsistent with an old-earth model.
For reference articles on this subject, see below :
Rock Layers Folded, not Fractured,
Grand Canyon strata show geologic time to be imaginary
In the next article in this series, we will look at some more evidences for a young earth and universe.
[1]Morell, V, Dino DNA, the hunt and the hype, Science 261 (5118): 160,1993.
[2] Wieland, C. and Menton, D. Answering Objections to creationist “Dinosaur Soft Tissue” age arguments, Journal of Creation, 19 (3):54-59, 2005.
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