Young Earth Science (YES)
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Young Earth Science (YES) is the idea that this planet is thousands of years old and not billions. Scientific and historical evidence supports this claim. Different accretion models for Earth’s formation range from a few millions up to about 100 million years, the exact age of the Earth is difficult to determine. It is also difficult to determine the exact age of the oldest rocks on Earth.
Introduction
A key presupposition in determining Earth’s age is the accuracy of radiometric dating. However, if radiometric dating is suspect then Young Earth Science (YES) presents a valid argument. As Alexander Bird, Professor of Philosophy, University of Bristol, states,
Hypotheses are not tested and falsified by having theory-free perceptions of the world. ...evidence of the age of rocks depends on the employment of hypotheses concerning radioactive decay. So the successful refutation of the young-Earth hypothesis depends on the truth of a theory in physics. But, according to [Karl] Popper’s own epistemology, if one cannot depend on the truth of the auxiliary hypothesis (the theory of radioactive decay) one cannot trust the resulting datum (the age of the rocks) used to refute the hypothesis (that the Earth is young).[1][2]
Some scholars write about YES. R. F. Diffendal wrote “Earth in Four Dimensions: Development of the Ideas of Geologic Time and History” in Nebraska History and describes the current situation,
To some extent the arguments about a short Earth history of a few thousand years versus a long history of billions of years are still going on today. Most natural scientists support the long history. However, some people including Richard Milton [Mensan, agnostic, science journalist] … support the idea of a short one. Many also think and write about time and our place in it (e.g. G. G. Simpson in The Dechronization of Sam Magruder).[3]
History of YES
Lucretius (c. 99 BC – c. 55 BC), Roman poet and Epicurean philosopher, advocated YES in his work On the Nature of the Universe:
Why have no poets sung of feats before the Theban War and the tragedy of Troy [c. 1200 BC]? The answer, I believe, is that the world is newly made: its origin is a recent event, not one of remote antiquity. That is why even now some arts are being perfected.[4]
If human history truly goes back tens of thousands of years, where are the epic poems honoring the great feats of those heroes who lived during the distant past? Technology is still improving. Could this be an indicator that civilization is not that old?
Philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) supported Young Earth Science (YES):
It is not two thousand years since vines were transplanted into France, though there is no climate in the world more favorable to them. It is not three centuries since horses, cows, sheep, swine, dogs, corn, were known in America. Is it possible that during the revolutions of a whole eternity, there never arose a Columbus, who might open the communication between Europe and that continent? We may as well imagine, that all men would wear stockings for ten thousand years, and never have the sense to think of garters to tie them. All these seem convincing proofs of the youth, or rather infancy, of the world; as being founded on the operation of principles more constant and steady than those by which human society is governed and directed. Nothing less than a total convulsion of the elements will ever destroy all the European animals and vegetables which are now to be found in the Western world.[5]
Hume saw that the rapid rise of technology and the progress of global travel favor the young earth view. However, if there is a devastating global natural disaster, then much of the Earth would appear new and young.
Some claim that the Piri Reis map of 1513 demonstrates global exploration by ancient civilizations. This map apparently shows the Antarctic coast. Here is support for the concept that humanity did not take many thousands of years to span the globe which is consistent with YES. This is the exact point that Hume is making.
History and YES
History only goes back several thousand years. Following Lucretius’ argument above, if mankind has been in existence for a hundred thousand years and more, where are the legends of the great heroes of the past such as those recorded by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey?
Neanderthals are generally regarded to have been around from about 200,000 years to 50,000 years ago. Genetic evidence published in 2014 suggests that Neanderthals contributed to the DNA of modern humans. Approximately 20% of the Neanderthal gene pool was present in a broad sampling of non-Africans.
So Neanderthals interbred with modern humans. In addition, they looked after the sick, buried their dead, decorated their bodies, used self-medication and practiced ritual burial which suggests that Neanderthals believed in an afterlife. That is, Neanderthals were truly human.[6]
Now consider Lucretius’ argument further. Neanderthals existed for as much as 200,000 years. Neanderthals and modern human interbred. Why do we not have epic tales of Neanderthal heroism along the lines of Homer? If the world is young and only thousands of years old this is no conundrum.
Some would argue that the Sumerian King List shows that history goes far back into the distant past since the reigns of monarchs totals to over 200,000 years. Notwithstanding this claim, the list can be converted from a sexagesimal (base 60) system to decimal (base 10) numbers and the sum is less than seven millennia:[7]
| King | Reign | (60^2)'s | 60's | 1's | Decimal Reign |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alulim | 28,800 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 800 |
| Alalngar | 36,000 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1,000 |
| En-men-lu-ana | 43,200 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 1,200 |
| En-men-gal-ana | 28,800 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 800 |
| Dumuzid | 36,000 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1,000 |
| En-sipad-zid-ana | 28,800 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 800 |
| En-men-dur-ana | 21,000 | 5 | 50 | 0 | 550 |
| Ubara-Tutu | 18,600 | 5 | 10 | 0 | 510 |
| Total | 6,660 |
Evidence for YES
Willard Libby (1908 - 1980) was a chemist noted for his role in the 1949 development of radiocarbon dating and won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960. Radiocarbon (14C) is increasing in the atmosphere through cosmic radiation. It is leaving the atmosphere by radioactive decay (14C turns into 14N). It is estimated that Earth’s atmosphere should reach equilibrium within 30,000 years since the time Earth formed and had a gaseous blanket. The production rate exceeds the decay rate by as much as 25 percent. A reasonable conclusion from these facts is that this planet is less than 30,000 years old.[8]
Jupiter and Saturn have amazingly strong magnetic fields. This is unexpected if they are really billions of years old. Even completely molten cores with rapid rotations will not create strong fields. Jupiter has a field ten times stronger at the surface than for Earth. Saturn also has a fairly strong field. These facts are consistent with Young Earth Science (YES).[9]
Trees in the fossil record usually have fewer rings than those we see today such as the giant redwoods (which may live over 3500 years). There is at least one fossilized Sequoia specimen with 815 growth rings. If the rocks are millions of years old, where are the fossil trees that are thousands of years old? A number of trees are quite old: Sequoias, Redwoods, Bristlecone pines, Junipers and Olive trees. Why are there no trees that are thousands of years old trees in the fossil record? These facts are consistent with YES. The oldest forest trees date to 385 million years ago. If the rock record of trees represents hundreds of millions of years, then we should find trees with 2,000 rings or 4,000 rings.[10]
Helium-4 (4He) is a terminal decay product of uranium. There should be vast amounts of 4He in the atmosphere if the Earth were billions of years old – this is not the case. As Richard Milton explains,
If the Earth were 4,600 million year old, then there would be roughly 10,000 billion tons of radiogenic helium 4 in the atmosphere. Actually, there are only around 3.5 billion tons present – several thousand times less than there should be.[11]
If we use these numbers to date the Earth we obtain an age of 175,000 years. This fact favors Young Earth Science (YES) in contrast to the old earth view.[12]
Flaws in Radiometric Dating
Historic lava flows are dated too old by radiometric methods. Researchers at the Hawaiian Institute of Geophysics used the potassium-argon method to date volcanic rocks from Mount Kilauea and they were dated at up to three billion years. The known source of these rocks is from an 1801 eruption. A scientist at the Australian National University dated a lava flow at up to 465,000 years old. These rocks were known to be less than one thousand years old.[13]
Uranium–lead (U-Pb) dating exhibits a significant flaw. As Richard Milton observes,
Uranium does not naturally occur in metallic form but as uranium oxide. This material is highly soluble in water and is known to be moved away from its original deposit in large quantities by ground waters. The type of effect this has on dating is unpredictable since some parts of a mineral deposit can be unnaturally enriched while others are unnaturally depleted.[14]
Thus, groundwater can have a major impact on radiometric dates.
Lake Turkana in Kenya provides a dramatic venue to judge the accuracy of radiometric dating. In 1969 F.J. Fitch and J.A. Miller using the potassium-argon (K-Ar) dating method initially dated the KBS tuff (Kay Behrensmeyer Site) at between 212 million to 230 million years old.[15] In 1972 hominid skull KNM-ER 1470 was discovered by Bernard Ngeneo, a member of Richard Leakey’s team, below the KBS tuff. Because of the implications for human evolution, the dating results were re-evaluated. Later dating estimates ranged from 500,000 years old to a date of 6.9 million years.[16]
Implications
If the Earth is thousands of years old, then this would pose a severe roadblock for evolutionary theory. What alternative is there? Stasis of Essential Types of Life (ETL’s). Consider Richard Milton’s thoughts on types of life,
The question whether biological types are real or exist only as labels, a mere by-product of human observation, is an ancient debate, nominalists versus realists, that stretches back to Plato’s time. As far as biology and evolution theory are concerned, the debate remains unsettled because, as Norman Macbeth has pointed out, nature herself capriciously provides evidence for and against both sides. Those who believe species [or ETL’s] are real can point to examples like the gingko tree which stands in magnificent isolation with no relatives and an unchanging form throughout the geological record.[17]
W.R. Thompson was the Director of the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control in Ottawa. Thompson wrote an introduction to a 1956 edition of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species and stated,
... taking the taxonomic system as a whole, it appears as an orderly arrangement of clear-cut entities which are clear-cut because they are separated by gaps. These gaps Darwin explained by the hypothesis that the intermediates are constantly eliminated by natural selection. … But in any case it has no bearing on the persistence throughout geological time, in spite of the fortuitous variation and natural selection, on the persistence of the fundamental anatomical plans exhibited by the great groups.[18]
Some scholars in the modern era agree that evolution lacks sufficient proof. Philosopher Mortimer Adler (1902-2001) was the Associate Editor of The Great Books series and co-author of the popular How to Read a Book. Adler was also the chairman of the Board of Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica for some time. Adler reveals his opposition to evolution in The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes:
Do human beings differ from the higher mammals only in degree or in kind; and if in kind, is the difference radical or only superficial? …when all this [lab and field] research is examined philosophically, clear reasons are found for the opposite answer: man differs radically in kind by virtue of an intellectual power possessed by no other animal and not seated in the human brain.[19]
What are the implications of these findings? Adler plainly states,
What is at stake here is not only the unbroken continuity as applied to the origin of man. That principle would be violated if man’s nature involves an immaterial component that could not possibly be transmitted by the material factors operative in the genetic process. ...As a result, a question that most evolutionists now think is solved, at least in principle, would become an open question ...the problem of the origin of man on earth might not be capable of scientific solution.[20]
In 1987, Dr. Benjamin Carson was the first surgeon to separate twins conjoined at the head. At age 32, Dr. Carson became Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins. In 2006 at the International Achievement Summit in Los Angeles, Dr. Carson was part of a panel discussion on evolution along with Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Francis Collins.[21] Dr. Carson opposed evolution. Dr. Carson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008. Ben Carson makes his position clear,
As a doctor, I have to say that it ...requires a great deal of faith to believe that an organ system as complex as the kidney or the eye formed through the process of natural selection, which states that things that are not useful to an organ simply disappear, whereas things that are useful are genetically passed on to the next generation. There are many components to organs like the kidney or the eye that are useless without all the other components and, therefore, according to the theory of evolution, should not be passed on to the next generation.[22]
Forrest Mims wrote the “Amateur Scientist” column in Scientific American for several issues in 1990. Mims edited The Citizen Scientist from 2003 to 2010. He is also the Chairman of the Environmental Science Section of the Texas Academy of Science. Mims teaches atmospheric science at the University of the Nations. In 2008 Discover named Mims one of the "50 Best Brains in Science." Mims is a Darwin skeptic and confirmed that, “Good science requires skepticism. Many of us who are skeptical of Darwinism are concerned that philosophical agendas have interfered with and even blocked solid science.”[23]
References
- ^ “The epistemology of science—a bird’s-eye view” by Alexander Bird, Synthese, Aug. 2010, Vol. 175, Issue 1 Supplement, pp 5-16, p. 7. [1]
- ^ [Knowledge, Rationality & Action [95]. [2]
- ^ “Earth in Four Dimensions: Development of the Ideas of Geologic Time and History” by R. F. Diffendal Jr., Nebraska History 80 (1999): 95-104, p. 103.[3]
- ^ “On the Nature of the Universe,” p. 137 (Book 5, 326). [4]
- ^ Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume (William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh, 1907), p.88, all caps modified. [5]
- ^ YES: Young Earth Science and the Dawn of a New Worldview by Jay Hall (Ideas, Big Spring, Texas, 2014), p. 22. ISBN 978-0-692-32007-5
- ^ Hall, p. 33.
- ^ Shattering the Myths of Darwinism by Richard Milton (Park Street Press, Rochester, Vermont, 1997), pp. 30-33, original title Facts of Life. ISBN 0-89281-732-1
- ^ “The Internal Temperatures and Magnetic Fields of the Planets” in The Planets by C.E. Seligman. [6]
- ^ Hall, pp. 20, 21.
- ^ Milton, pp. 43, 44.
- ^ Milton, p. 46.
- ^ Milton, p. 38.
- ^ Milton, p. 43.
- ^ “New Hominid Remains and Early Artefacts from Northern Kenya: Radioisotopic Age Determinations of Lake Rudolf Artefact Site” by F.J. Fitch and J.A. Miller, Nature 226, 226-228 (April 18, 1970).
- ^ Milton, pp. 53, 54.
- ^ Milton, p. 116.
- ^ Reprinted in “Critique of Evolution” by W.R. Thompson, JASA Vol. 9, No. 4, March 1960 pp. 2-10. [7]
- ^ The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes by Mortimer Adler (Fordham Univ. Press, New York, 1993), p. ix, original ed. 1967. ISBN 0-8232-1535-0
- ^ Adler, p. 291.
- ^ “2006 International Summit Highlights” [8]
- ^ One Nation by Ben Carson (Penguin Group, New York, 2014), p. 197. ISBN 978-1-59523-112-3
- ^ quoted in Milton, p. 267.
External links
“In Our Time – Debate” BBC, Ageing the Earth, Comments [9]
Dawkins-Dennett-Collins-Carson panel discussion audio [10]
Categories: Geochronology History of Earth science Geology theories