Age of the earth
101 evidences for a young age of the
earth and the universe
by Don Batten
Published: 4 June 2009(GMT+10)
There are many categories of evidence for
the age of the earth and the cosmos that indicate they are much younger
than is generally asserted today.
Can science prove the age of the earth?
No scientific method can prove the age of the
earth and the universe, and that includes the ones we have listed here.
Although age indicators are called “clocks” they
aren’t, because all ages result from calculations that
necessarily involve making assumptions about the past. Always the
starting time of the “clock” has to be assumed as well as
the way in which the speed of the clock has varied over time. Further,
it has to be assumed that the clock was never disturbed.
There is no independent natural clock against which
those assumptions can be tested. For example, the amount of cratering
on the moon, based on currently observed cratering rates, would suggest
that the moon is quite old. However, to draw this conclusion we have to
assume that the rate of cratering has been the same in the past as it
is now. And there are now good reasons for thinking that it might have
been quite intense in the past, in which case the craters do not
indicate an old age at all (see below).
No scientific method can prove the age of the
earth or the universe, and that includes the ones we have listed here.
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.
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 young age of the earth.
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).
Biological evidence for a young age of the earth
Image: Dr Mary Schweitzer
The finding of pliable blood vessels,
blood cells and proteins in dinosaur bone is consistent with an age of
thousands of years for the fossils, not the 65+ million years claimed
by the paleontologists.
- DNA in
“ancient” fossils. DNA extracted from bacteria that are
supposed to be 425 million years old brings into question that age,
because DNA could not last more than thousands of years.
- Lazarus
bacteria—bacteria revived from salt inclusions supposedly 250
million years old, suggest the salt is not millions of years old.
- The decay in the human genome due to multiple
slightly deleterious mutations each generation is consistent with an
origin several thousand years ago. Sanford, J., Genetic entropy
and the mystery of the genome, Ivan Press, 2005; see review of the book and the
interview with the author in Creation
30(4):45–47,September 2008. This has been confirmed by
realistic modelling of population genetics, which shows that genomes
are young, in the order of thousands of years. See Sanford, J.,
Baumgardner, J., Brewer, W., Gibson, P. and Remine, W., Mendel’s Accountant: A biologically realistic
forward-time population genetics program, SCPE8(2):147–165,
2007.
- The data for “mitochondrial Eve”
are consistent with a common origin of all humans several thousand
years ago.
- Very limited variation in the DNA sequence on the
human Y-chromosome around
the world is consistent with a recent origin of mankind, thousands
not millions of years.
- Many fossil bones “dated” at many
millions of years old are hardly mineralized, if at all. This
contradicts the widely believed old age of the earth. See, for example,
Dinosaur
bones just how old are they really?
- Dinosaur blood cells, blood vessels, proteins (hemoglobin, osteocalcin, collagen) are not
consistent with their supposed age, but make more sense if the remains
are young.
- Lack of 50:50 racemization of amino acids in
fossils “dated” at millions of years old, whereas
complete racemization would occur in thousands of years.
- Living
fossils—jellyfish, graptolites, coelacanth, stromatolites,
Wollemi pine and hundreds more. That many hundreds of species could
remain so unchanged, for even up to billions of years in the case of
stromatolites, speaks against the millions and billions of years being
real.
- Discontinuous fossil sequences. E.g. Coelacanth, Wollemi pine and various
“index” fossils, which are present in supposedly ancient
strata, missing in strata representing many millions of years since,
but still living today. Such discontinuities speak against the
interpretation of the rock formations as vast geological ages—how
could Coelacanths have avoided being fossilized for 65 million years,
for example? See The
“Lazarus effect”: rodent “resurrection”!
- The ages
of the world’s oldest living organisms, trees, are consistent
with an age of the earth of thousands of years.
Geological evidence for a young age of the earth
Photo by Don Batten
Radical folding at Eastern Beach, near
Auckland in New Zealand, indicates that the sediments were soft and
pliable when folded, inconsistent with a long time for their formation.
Such folding can be seen world-wide and is consistent with a young age
of the earth.
- Lack of
plant fossils in many formations containing abundant animal / herbivore
fossils. E.g., the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) in Montana. See Origins
21(1):51–56, 1994. Also the
Coconino sandstone in the Grand Canyon has many track-ways (animals),
but is almost devoid of plants. Implication: these rocks are not
ecosystems of an “era” buried in situ over eons
of time as evolutionists claim. The evidence is more consistent with
catastrophic transport then burial during the massive global Flood of
Noah’s day. This eliminates supposed evidence for millions of
years.
- Thick, tightly bent strata without sign of melting or
fracturing. E.g. the Kaibab
upwarp in Grand Canyon indicates rapid folding before the sediments
had time to solidify (the sand grains were not elongated under stress
as would be expected if the rock had hardened). This wipes out hundreds
of millions of years of time and is consistent with extremely rapid
formation during the biblical Flood. See Warped earth.
- Polystrate fossils—tree trunks in coal (Auracaria
spp. king billy pines, celery top pines, in southern hemisphere coal).
There are also polystrate tree trunks in the Yellowstone fossilized forests
and Joggins, Nova Scotia and in many other places.
Polystrate fossilized lycopod trunks occur in northern hemisphere coal,
again indicating rapid burial / formation of the organic material that
became coal.
- Experiments show that with conditions mimicking
natural forces, coal forms
quickly; in weeks for brown coal to months for black coal. It does
not need millions of years. Furthermore, long time periods could be an
impediment to coal formation because of the increased likelihood of the
permineralization of the wood, which would hinder coalification.
- Experiments show that with conditions mimicking
natural forces, oil forms
quickly; it does not need millions of years, consistent with an age
of thousands of years.
- Experiments show that with conditions mimicking
natural forces, opals form
quickly, in a matter of weeks, not millions of years, as had been
claimed.
- Evidence
for rapid, catastrophic formation of coal beds speaks against the
hundreds of millions of years normally claimed for this, including
Z-shaped seams that point to a single depositional event producing
these layers.
- Evidence for rapid petrifaction of wood
speaks against the need for long periods of time and is consistent with
an age of thousands of years.
- Clastic dykes and pipes (intrusion of sediment
through overlying sedimentary rock) show that the overlying rock strata
were still soft when it happened. This drastically compresses the time
scale for the deposition of the penetrated rock strata. See, Walker,
T., Fluidisation pipes:
Evidence of large-scale watery catastrophe, Journal of
Creation (TJ) 14(3):8–9, 2000.
- Para(pseudo)conformities—where
one rock stratum sits on top of another rock stratum but with
supposedly millions of years of geological time missing, yet the
contact plane lacks any significant erosion; that is, it is a
“flat gap”. E.g. Coconino sandstone / Hermit shale in the
Grand Canyon (supposedly a 10 million year gap in time). The thick
Schnebly Hill Formation (sandstone) lies between the Coconino
and Hermit in central Arizona. See Austin, S.A., Grand Canyon,
monument to catastrophe, ICR, Santee, CA, USA, 1994 and Snelling,
A., The case of the
“missing” geologic time, Creation 14(3):31–35,
1992.
- The presence of ephemeral markings (raindrop marks,
ripple marks, animal tracks) at the boundaries of paraconformities show
that the upper rock layer has been deposited immediately after the
lower one, eliminating many millions of “gap” time. See
references in Para(pseudo)conformities.
- Inter-tonguing of adjacent strata that are supposedly
separated by millions of years also eliminates many millions of years
of supposed geologic time. The
case of the “missing” geologic time; Mississippian and
Cambrian strata interbedding: 200 million years hiatus in question, CRSQ23(4):160–167.
- The lack
of bioturbation (worm holes, root growth) at paraconformities (flat
gaps) reinforces the lack of time involved where evolutionary
geologists insert many millions of years to force the rocks to conform
with the “given” timescale of billions of years.
- The almost complete lack of clearly recognizable soil
layers anywhere in the geologic column. Geologists do claim to have
found lots of “fossil” soils (paleosols), but these are
quite different to soils today, lacking the features that characterize
soil horizons; features that are used in classifying different soils.
Every one that has been investigated thoroughly proves to lack the
characteristics of proper soil. If “deep time” were
correct, with hundreds of millions of years of abundant life on the
earth, there should have been ample opportunities many times over for
soil formation. See Klevberg, P. and Bandy, R., CRSQ39:252–68;
CRSQ40:99–116, 2003;
Walker, T., Paleosols:
digging deeper buries “challenge” to Flood geology, Journal
of Creation 17(3):28–34, 2003.
- Limited extent of unconformities (unconformity: a
surface of erosion that separates younger strata from older rocks).
Surfaces erode quickly (e.g. Badlands, South Dakota), but there are
very limited unconformities. There is the “great
unconformity” at the base of the Grand Canyon, but otherwise
there are supposedly ~300 million years of strata deposited on top
without any significant unconformity. This is again consistent with a
much shorter time of deposition of these strata. See Para(pseudo)conformities.
- The amount of salt in the world’s oldest lake
contradicts its supposed age and suggests an age more consistent
with its formation after Noah’s Flood, which is consistent with a
young age of the earth.
- The discovery that underwater landslides
(“turbidity currents”) travelling at some 50 km/h can
create huge areas of sediment in a matter of hours (Press, F., and
Siever, R., Earth, 4th ed., Freeman & Co., NY,
USA, 1986). Sediments thought to have formed slowly over eons of time
are now becoming recognized as having formed extremely rapidly. See for
example, A classic tillite
reclassified as a submarine debris flow (Technical).
- Flume tank research with sediment of different
particle sizes show that layered rock strata that were thought to have
formed over huge periods of time in lake beds actually formed very
quickly. Even the precise layer thicknesses of rocks were duplicated
after they were ground into their sedimentary particles and run through
the flume. See Experiments
in stratification of heterogeneous sand mixtures, Sedimentation Experiments:
Nature finally catches up! and Sandy Stripes Do many layers
mean many years?
- Observed examples of rapid canyon formation; for
example, Providence Canyon
in southwest Georgia, Burlingame
Canyon near Walla Walla, Washington, and Lower
Loowit Canyon near Mount St Helens. The rapidity of the formation
of these canyons, which look similar to other canyons that supposedly
took many millions of years to form, brings into question the supposed
age of the canyons that no one saw form.
- Observed examples of rapid island formation and
maturation, such as Surtsey,
which confound the notion that such islands take long periods of time
to form. See also, Tuluman—A
Test of Time.
- Rate of erosion
of coastlines, horizontally. E.g. Beachy Head, UK, loses a metre of
coast to the sea every six years.
- Rate of erosion
of continents vertically is not consistent with the assumed old age
of the earth. See Creation22(2):18–21.
- Existence of significant flat plateaux that are
“dated” at many millions of years old (“elevated
paleoplains”). An example is Kangaroo Island
(Australia). C.R. Twidale, a famous Australian physical geographer
wrote: “the survival of these paleoforms is in some degree an
embarrassment to all the commonly accepted models of landscape
development.” Twidale, C.R. On the survival of paleoforms, American
Journal of Science5(276):77–95, 1976 (quote
on p. 81). See Austin, S.A., Did landscapes evolve? Impact118,
April 1983.
- The recent and almost simultaneous origin of all the
high mountain ranges around the world—including the Himalayas,
the Alps, the Andes, and the Rockies—which have undergone most of
the uplift to their present elevations beginning “five
million” years ago, whereas mountain building processes have
supposedly been around for up to billions of years. See Baumgardner,
J., Recent uplift of today’s mountains. Impact
381, March 2005.
- Water gaps. These are gorges cut through mountain
ranges where rivers run. They occur worldwide and are part of what
evolutionary geologists call “discordant drainage systems”.
They are “discordant” because they don’t fit the deep
time belief system. The evidence fits them forming rapidly in a much
younger age framework where the gorges were cut in the recessive stage
/ dispersive phase of the global Flood of Noah’s day. See Oard,
M., Do
rivers erode through mountains? Water gaps are strong evidence for
the Genesis Flood, Creation 29(3):18–23,
2007.
Measured erosion rates at places like
Niagara Falls are consistent with a time frame of several thousand
years since Noah’s Flood.
- Erosion at
Niagara Falls and other such places is consistent with just a few
thousand years since the biblical Flood.
- River delta growth rate is consistent with thousands
of years since the biblical Flood, not vast periods of time. The
argument goes back to Mark Twain. E.g. 1. Mississippi—Creation
Research Quarterly (CRSQ) 9:96–114, 1992; CRSQ
14:77; CRSQ25:121–123.
E.g. 2 Tigris–Euphrates: CRSQ 14:87,
1977.
- Underfit streams. River valleys are too large for the
streams they contain. Dury speaks of the “continent-wide
distribution of underfit streams”. Using channel meander
characteristics, Dury concluded that past streams frequently had
20–60 times their current discharge. This means that the river
valleys would have been carved very quickly, not slowly over eons of
time. See Austin, S.A., Did landscapes evolve? Impact 118, 1983.
- Amount of salt
in the sea. Even ignoring the effect of the biblical Flood and
assuming zero starting salinity and all rates of input and removal so
as to maximize the time taken to accumulate all the salt, the maximum
age of the oceans, 62 million years, is less than 1/50 of the age
evolutionists claim for the oceans. This suggests that the age of the
earth is radically less also.
- The amount of
sediment on the sea floors at current rates of land erosion would
accumulate in just 12 million years; a blink of the eye compared to the
supposed age of much of the ocean floor of up to 3 billion years.
Furthermore, long-age geologists reckon that higher erosion
rates applied in the past, which shortens the time frame. From a
biblical point of view, at the end of Noah’s Flood lots of
sediment would have been added to the sea with the water coming off the
unconsolidated land, making the amount of sediment perfectly consistent
with a history of thousands of years.
- Iron-manganese nodules (IMN) on the sea floors. The
measured rates of growth of these nodules indicates an age of only
thousands of years. Lalomov, A.V., 2007. Mineral deposits as an example
of geological rates. CRSQ44(1):64–66.
- The age of placer deposits (concentrations of heavy
metals such as tin in modern sediments and consolidated sedimentary
rocks). The measured rates of deposition indicate an age of thousands
of years, not the assumed millions. See Lalomov, A.V., and Tabolitch,
S.E., 2000. Age
determination of coastal submarine placer, Val’cumey, northern
Siberia. Journal of Creation (TJ)14(3):83–90.
- Pressure in oil / gas wells indicate the recent
origin of the oil and gas. If they were many millions of years old we
would expect the pressures to equilibrate, even in low permeability
rocks. “Experts in petroleum prospecting note the impossibility
of creating an effective model given long and slow oil generation over
millions of years (Petukhov, 2004). In their opinion, if models demand
the standard multimillion-years geochronological scale, the best
exploration strategy is to drill wells on a random grid.”
Lalomov, A.V., 2007. Mineral deposits as an example of geological
rates. CRSQ 44(1):64–66.
- Direct evidence that oil is forming today in
the Guaymas Basin and in Bass
Strait is consistent with a young earth (although not necessary
for a young earth).
- Rapid
reversals in paleomagnetism undermine use of paleomagnetism in long
ages dating of rocks and speak of rapid processes, compressing the
long-age time scale enormously.
- The pattern of magnetization in the magnetic stripes
where magma is welling up at the mid-ocean trenches argues against the
belief that reversals take many thousands of years and rather indicates
rapid sea-floor spreading as well as rapid magnetic reversals,
consistent with a young earth (Humphreys, D.R., Has the Earth’s
magnetic field ever flipped? Creation Research Quarterly 25(3):130–137,
1988).
Along the mid-ocean ridges, the detailed
pattern of magnetic polarisation, with islands of differing polarity,
speaks of rapid changes in direction of Earth’s magnetic field
because of the rate of cooling of the lava. This is consistent with a
young Earth.
- Measured
rates of stalactite and stalagmite growth in limestone caves are
consistent with a young age of several thousand years. See also articles on limestone cave
formation.
- The decay
of the earth’s magnetic field. Exponential decay is evident
from measurements and is consistent with theory of free decay since
creation, suggesting an age of the earth of less than 20,000 years.
- Excess heat flow from the earth is consistent with a
young age rather than billions of years, even taking into account heat
from radioactive decay. SeeWoodmorappe, J., 1999. Lord Kelvin revisited on the
young age of the earth. Journal of Creation (TJ)13(1):14,
1999.
Radiometric dating
- Carbon-14 in coal
suggests ages of thousands of years and clearly contradict ages of
millions of years.
- Carbon-14 in oil again suggests ages
of thousands, not millions, of years.
- Carbon-14 in fossil wood also indicates
ages of thousands, not millions, of years.
- Carbon-14 in diamonds suggests ages of
thousands, not billions, of years.
- Incongruent radioisotope dates using
the same technique argue against trusting the dating methods that
give millions of years.
- Incongruent radioisotope dates using
different techniques argue against trusting the dating methods that
give millions of years (or billions of years for the age of the earth).
- Demonstrably non-radiogenic
“isochrons” of radioactive and non-radioactive elements
undermine the assumptions behind isochron “dating” that
gives billions of years. “False”
isochrons are common.
- Different faces of the same zircon crystal and different zircons from the
same rock giving different “ages” undermine all
“dates” obtained from zircons.
- Evidence of a period of rapid radioactive decay in the
recent past (lead and helium concentrations and diffusion rates in
zircons) point to a young earth explanation.
- The amount of helium, a product of alpha-decay of
radioactive elements, retained in zircons in granite is consistent with
an age of 6,000±2000 years, not the supposed billions of years.
See: Humphreys, D.R., Young helium diffusion age of zircons supports
accelerated nuclear decay, in Vardiman, Snelling, and Chaffin (eds.), Radioisotopes
and the Age of the Earth: Results of a Young Earth Creationist Research
Initiative, Institute for Creation Research and Creation Research
Society, 848 pp., 2005
- Lead in zircons from deep drill cores vs. shallow
ones. They are similar, but there should be less in the deep ones due
to the higher heat causing higher diffusion rates over the usual long
ages supposed. If the ages are thousands of years, there would not be
expected to be much difference, which is the case (Gentry, R., et
al., Differential lead retention in zircons: Implications for
nuclear waste containment, Science 216(4543):296–298,
1982; DOI: 10.1126/science.216.4543.296).
- Pleochroic halos produced in granite by concentrated
specks of short half-life elements such as polonium suggest a period of
rapid nuclear decay of the long half-life parent isotopes during the
formation of the rocks and rapid formation of the rocks, both of which
speak against the usual ideas of geological deep time and a vast age of
the earth. See, Radiohalos:
Startling evidence of catastrophic geologic processes, Creation28(2):46–50,
2006.
- Squashed
pleochroic halos (radiohalos) formed from decay of polonium, a very
short half-life element, in coalified wood from several geological eras
suggest rapid formation of all the layers about the same time, in the
same process, consistent with the biblical “young” earth
model rather than the millions of years claimed for these
events.
- Australia’s
“Burning Mountain” speaks against radiometric dating
and the millions of years belief system (according to radiometric
dating of the lava intrusion that set the coal alight, the coal in the
burning mountain has been burning for ~40 million years, but clearly
this is not feasible).
Astronomical evidence
Photo by NASA
Saturn’s rings are increasingly
recognized as being relatively short-lived rather than essentially
changeless over millions of years.
- Evidence of recent volcanic activity on Earth’s
moon is inconsistent with its supposed vast age because it should have
long since cooled if it were billions of years old. See: Transient
lunar phenomena: a permanent problem for evolutionary models of Moon
formation and Walker, T., and Catchpoole, D., Lunar
volcanoes rock long-age timeframe, Creation 31(3):18,
2009.
- Recession
of the moon from the earth. Tidal friction causes the moon to
recede from the earth at 4 cm per year. It would have been greater in
the past when the moon and earth were closer together. The moon and
earth would have been in catastrophic proximity (Roche limit) at less
than a quarter of their supposed age.
- Slowing down of the earth. Tidal dissipation rate of
Earth’s angular momentum: increasing length of day, currently by
0.002 seconds/day every century (thus an impossibly short day billions
of years ago and a very slow day shortly after accretion and before the
postulated giant impact to form the Moon). See: How long has the moon been
receding?
- Ghost craters on the moon’s maria
(singular mare: dark “seas” formed from massive
lava flows) are a problem for long ages. Evolutionists believe that the
lava flows were caused by enormous impacts, and this lava partly buried
other, smaller, impact craters, leaving “ghosts”. But this
means that the smaller impacts can’t have been too long after the
huge one, otherwise the lava would have hardened before the impact.
This suggests a very narrow time frame for lunar cratering, and by
implication the other cratered bodies of our solar system. They suggest
that the cratering occurred quite quickly. See Fryman, H., Ghost
craters in the sky, Creation Matters4(1):6,
1999; A biblically based
cratering theory (Faulkner); Lunar
volcanoes rock long-age timeframe.
- The presence of a significant magnetic field around Mercury
is not consistent with its supposed age of billions of years. A planet
so small should have cooled down enough so any liquid core would
solidify, preventing the evolutionists’ “dynamo”
mechanism. See also, Humphreys, D.R., Mercury’s magnetic field is
young! Journal
of Creation 22(3):8–9, 2008.
- The outer planets Uranus and Neptune have magnetic
fields, but they should be long “dead” if they are as old
as claimed according to evolutionary long-age beliefs. Assuming a solar
system age of thousands of years, physicist Russell Humphreys
successfully predicted the strengths of the magnetic fields of Uranus
and Neptune.
- Jupiter’s larger moons, Ganymede, Io, and Europa, have
magnetic fields, which they should not have if they were billions
of years old, because they have solid cores and so no dynamo could
generate the magnetic fields. This is consistent with creationist
Humphreys’ predictions. See also, Spencer, W., Ganymede: the
surprisingly magnetic moon, Journal of Creation23(1):8–9,
2009.
- Volcanically active moons of Jupiter (Io) are consistent with
youthfulness (Galileo mission recorded 80 active volcanoes). If Io had
been erupting over 4.5 billion years at even 10% of its current rate,
it would have erupted its entire mass 40 times. Io looks like a young
moon and does not fit with the supposed billions of year’s age
for the solar system. Gravitational tugging from Jupiter and other
moons accounts for only some of the excess heat produced.
- The surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Studies
of the few craters indicated that up to 95% of small craters, and many
medium-sized ones, are formed from debris thrown up by larger impacts.
This means that there have been far fewer impacts than had been thought
in the solar system and the age of other objects in the solar system,
derived from cratering levels, have to be reduced drastically (see
Psarris, Spike, What you aren’t being told about astronomy,
volume 1: Our created solar system DVD, available from CMI).
- Methane on
Titan (Saturn’s largest moon)—methane would all be gone
because of UV-induced breakdown to ethane in just 10,000 years. And
large quantities of ethane are not there either.
- The rate of change / disappearance of Saturn’s
rings is inconsistent with
their supposed vast age; they speak of youthfulness.
- Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, looks young. Astronomers
working in the “billions of years” mindset thought that
this moon would be cold and dead, but it is a very active moon, spewing
massive jets of water vapour and icy particles into space at supersonic
speeds, consistent with a much younger age. Calculations show that the
interior would have frozen solid after 30 million years (less than 1%
of its supposed age); tidal friction from Saturn does not explain its
youthful activity (Psarris, Spike, What you aren’t being
told about astronomy, volume 1: Our created solar system DVD;
Walker, T., 2009. Enceladus: Saturn’s sprightly moon looks young,
Creation31(3):54–55).
- Miranda, a small moon of Uranus, should have been
long since dead, if billions of years old, but its extreme surface
features suggest otherwise. See Revelations in the solar system.
- Neptune should be long since “cold”,
lacking strong wind movement if it were billions of years old, yet
Voyager II in 1989 found it to be otherwise—it has the fastest
winds in the entire solar system. This observation is consistent with a
young age, not billions of years. See Neptune: monument to creation.
- Neptune’s rings have thick regions and thin
regions. This unevenness means they cannot be billions of years old,
since collisions of the ring objects would eventually make the ring
very uniform. Revelations
in the solar system.
- Young surface age of Neptune’s moon,
Triton—less than 10 million years, even with evolutionary
assumptions on rates of impacts (see Schenk, P.M., and Zahnle, K. On the Negligible Surface Age of Triton, Icarus
192(1):135–149, 2007.
<doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2007.07.004>.
- Uranus and Neptune both have magnetic fields
significantly off-axis, which is an unstable situation. When this was
discovered with Uranus, it was assumed by evolutionary astronomers that
Uranus must have just happened to be going through a magnetic field
reversal. However, when a similar thing was found with Neptune, this AD hoc explanation was upset. These observations are
consistent with ages of thousands of years rather than billions.
- The orbit of Pluto is chaotic on a 20 million year
time scale and affects the rest of the solar system, which would also
become unstable on that time scale, suggesting that it must be much
younger. (See: Rothman, T., God takes a nap, Scientific American
259(4):20, 1988).
- The existence
of short-period comets (orbital period less than 200 years), e.g.
Halley, which have a life of less than 20,000 years, is consistent with
an age of the solar system of less than 10,000 years. AD hoc hypotheses have to be invented to
circumvent this evidence (see Kuiper Belt). See Comets and the age of the
solar system.
- “Near-infrared spectra of the Kuiper Belt
Object, Quaoar and the suspected Kuiper Belt Object, Charon, indicate
both contain crystalline water ice and ammonia hydrate. This watery
material cannot be much older than 10 million years, which is
consistent with a young solar system, not one that is 5 billion years
old.” See: The
“waters above” .
- Lifetime of long-period comets (orbital period
greater than 200 years) that are sun-grazing comets or others like
Hyakutake or Hale–Bopp means they could not have originated with
the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. However, their existence is
consistent with a young age for the solar system. Again an AD hoc Oort Cloud
was invented to try to account for these comets still being present
after billions of years. See, Comets and the age of the
solar system.
- The maximum expected lifetime of near-earth asteroids
is of the order of one million years, after which they collide with the
sun. And the Yarkovsky effect moves main belt asteroids into near-earth
orbits faster than had been thought. This brings into question the
origin of asteroids with the formation of the solar system (the usual
scenario), or the solar system is much younger than the 4.5 billion
years claimed. Henry, J., The asteroid belt: indications of its youth, Creation
Matters11(2):2, 2006.
- The lifetime of binary asteroids—where a tiny
asteroid “moon” orbits a larger asteroid— in the main
belt (they represent about 15–17% of the total): tidal effects
limit the life of such binary systems to about 100,000 years. The
difficulties in conceiving of any scenario for getting binaries to form
in such numbers to keep up the population, led some astronomers to
doubt their existence, but space probes confirmed it (Henry, J., The
asteroid belt: indications of its youth, Creation Matters11(2):2,
2006).
- The observed rapid rate of change in stars
contradicts the vast ages assigned to stellar evolution. For example,
Sakurai’s Object in Sagittarius: in 1994, this star was most
likely a white dwarf in the centre of a planetary nebula; by 1997 it
had grown to a bright yellow giant, about 80 times wider than the sun (Astronomy
& Astrophysics 321:L17, 1997). In 1998, it
had expanded even further, to a red supergiant 150 times wider than the
sun. But then it shrank just as quickly; by 2002 the star itself was
invisible even to the most powerful optical telescopes, although it is
detectable in the infrared, which shines through the dust (Muir, H.,
2003, Back from the dead, New Scientist 177(2384):28–31).
- The faint young sun paradox. According to stellar
evolution theory, as the sun’s core transforms from hydrogen to
helium by means of nuclear fusion, the mean molecular weight increases,
which would compress the sun’s core increasing fusion rate. The
upshot is that over several billion years, the sun ought to have
brightened 40% since its formation and 25% since the appearance of life
on earth. For the latter, this translates into a 16–18 ºC
temperature increase on the earth. The current average temperature is
15 ºC, so the earth ought to have had a -2 ºC or so
temperature when life appeared. See: Faulkner, D., The young faint Sun paradox
and the age of the solar system, Journal of Creation (TJ)
15(2):3–4, 2001. As of 2010, the
faint young sun remains a problem: Kasting, J.F., Early Earth: Faint
young Sun redux, Nature 464:687–689, 1 April
2010; doi:10.1038/464687a;
www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7289/full/464687a.html
- Cometesimals. From his studies, astronomer Louis
Frank says that 100 million tonnes of water is being added to Earth
every year in cometesimals (small comet remnants). This has strong
implications for the supposed age of the oceans, if confirmed. See:
Bergman, J., Advances in integrating cosmology: The
case of cometesimals, Journal of Creation (CENTJ)
10(2):202–210, 1996.
- The giant gas planets Jupiter and Saturn radiate more
energy than they receive from the sun, suggesting a recent origin.
Jupiter radiates almost twice as much energy as it receives from the
sun, indicating that it may be less than 1 % of the presumed 4.5
billion years old solar system. Saturn radiates nearly twice as much
energy per unit mass as Jupiter. See The age of the Jovian planets.
- Speedy stars are consistent with a young age for the
universe. For example, many stars in the dwarf galaxies in the Local
Group are moving away from each other at speeds estimated at to
10–12 km/s. At these speeds, the stars should have dispersed in
100 Ma, which, compared with the supposed 14,000 Ma age of the
universe, is a short time. See Fast
stars challenge big bang origin for dwarf galaxies.
- The ageing of spiral galaxies (much less than 200
million years) is not consistent with their supposed age of many
billions of years. The discovery
of extremely “young” spiral galaxies highlights the
problem of this evidence for the evolutionary ages assumed.
- The number of type I supernova remnants (SNRs)
observable in our galaxy is consistent with an age of thousands of
years, not millions or billions. See Davies, K., Proc. 3rd
ICC, pp. 175–184, 1994.
- The rate of expansion and size of supernovas
indicates that all studied are young (less than 10,000 years). See supernova remnants.
Human history is consistent with a young age of the
earth
- Human population growth. Less than 0.5% p.a. growth
from six people 4,500 years ago would produce today’s population.
Where are all
the people? if we have been here much longer?
- “Stone age” human skeletons and
artefacts. There are not enough for 100,000 years of a human population
of just one million, let alone more people (10 million?). See Where are all the people?
- Length of recorded history. Origin of various
civilizations, writing, etc., all about the same time several thousand
years ago. See Evidence for
a young world.
- Languages. Similarities in languages claimed to be
separated by many tens of thousands of years speaks against the
supposed ages (e.g. compare some aboriginal languages in Australia with
languages in south-eastern India and Sri Lanka). See The Tower of Babel account
affirmed by linguistics.
- Common cultural “myths” speak of recent
separation of peoples around the world. An example of this is the
frequency of stories of an
earth-destroying flood.
- Origin of agriculture. Secular dating puts it at
about 10,000 years and yet that same chronology says that modern man
has supposedly been around for at least 200,000 years. Surely someone
would have worked out much sooner how to sow seeds of plants to produce
food. See: Evidence for a
young world.
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