Evidence for a Young Earth

Someone recently asked me what I felt the strongest evidence for a young earth is. It occurred to me that I may have given this person the impression that I find the RATE studies to be the strongest evidence for a young earth. I want to back up in this post and explain the purpose of the RATE studies that I’ve been summarizing for you.

There is much in nature that suggests that the earth is only thousands of years old. An abbreviated list is as follows:

1. Living fossils- “Living fossils” are plants and animals thought to be extinct for at least several million years. Animal examples include the tuatara and coelacanth. Plant examples include the Ginkgo, and Metasequoia. These “living fossils” appear in so-called ancient rocks but not in more recent beds. The unchanged nature of their forms and their continued living presence on the earth testify that little time has transpired since a catastrophic flood entombed their relatives.

2. Tall mountains- The very existence of mountain ranges argues for a young earth. Current estimates of soil erosion say the earth is eroding down at the rate of about one foot every 5-10,000 years. This means that one mile of erosion would occur every 25-50 million years. Mountainous areas would erode at rates above average. At this rate most mountain ranges would have eroded to foothills by now. Some would argue that mountains have pushed up several times, canceling out erosion, but the lower sedimentary beds do not attest to this.

3. River deltas- It has been estimated that the Mississippi river delta has grown an average of 262 feet each year. Using this figure, the Mississippi river delta is around 4,500 years old. The growth of the Po river delta can be traced by historical and archeological records. Again, using the size of the delta to estimate its age, the Po river is only several thousand years old.

4. Shrinking sun- According to estimated measurements of the sun spanning hundreds of years, our sun is shrinking at a rate that would have required it to be so big 1,000,000,000 years ago that life could not have been sustained on earth.

5. Receding moon- It has been estimated that the moon is moving away from the earth at a rate of about 2 inches per year. If our solar system was 4.5 billion years old, we would no longer be able to see the moon because it would have drifted out of sight long ago.

6. High oil and gas pressures- The high oil and gas pressures within relatively permeable rock imply the oil and gas were encased there less than 10,000 years ago.

7. Elements and sediment entering the oceans- The rate at which elements such as copper, gold, tin, lead, silicon, mercury, uranium and nickel are entering the oceans is very rapid when compared with the small quantities of these elements already in the oceans. This discrepancy suggests the oceans must be much younger than 1 million years. And more than 16 billion tons of sediment is deposited in the oceans each year. Given enough time, the oceans would fill up, but before that happened, the land areas would erode down to sea level. Based on the presents rate of sedimentation in the oceans and consequent rise in sea level, the continents would lower to sea level within 15 million years.

8. Poynting-Robertson effect- The sun sweeps up an estimated 100,000 tons of space dust and debris each day. If our solar system was billions of years old, it should have been swept clean long ago! The persistence of space dust and micrometeoroids argues that the solar system is less than 10,000 years old.

9. Spin rate of earth- Current measurements suggest the earth’s spin is slowing by about 1 second per year. If the earth is billions of years old, the initial spin rate of the earth would have been too fast to support life.

10. Atmospheric helium- The amount of atmospheric helium requires the earth be less than 40,000 years old.

11. Short-term comets- Astronomers believe that short-term comets have a life-span of 1,500-10,000 years. We observed the death of 10 of these short-term comets in the last century. If the universe is billions of years old, these short-term comets should have died out eons ago.

12. Radiation of Jupiter and Saturn- Jupiter and Saturn radiate more than twice the energy they receive from the sun. It appears that these planets have not existed long enough to cool off.

13. The decline of the earth’s magnetic field- The earth’s magnetic field has declined by 7% since 1835 when it was first measured. This suggests that the field loses half its strength every 1400 years. Working backwards, the earth must be younger than 10,000 years old because any older and the earth’s magnetic field would have been too strong to sustain life.

Perhaps I should devote a post to each of the above or perhaps the list itself is enough to make my point. Young earth creationists have much evidence that points to a young earth. But, for years evolutionary scientists have discounted the above by arguing that radioisotope dating trumps all other lines of evidence. Radioisotope dating has been held up as the irrefutable “clock” of the earth and purported to be inarguable evidence that the earth is billions of years old. What the RATE study has done is introduced doubt as to the proper reading of the clock of radioisotope dating. In other words, the burden is really not on the scientists in the RATE study to prove that there have been multiple episodes of accelerated decay in the past. All the scientists in the RATE study had to do is introduce evidence that suggests we’ve been reading the radioisotope clock incorrectly. And this, they’ve done. I’ve described their helium diffusion study, and their polonium radiohalo study. The RATE team also conducted 3 other studies over isochron dating, fission tracks, and C14 in diamonds that add weight to their theory of accelerated decay. But, let me reiterate this point. They do not have to prove that accelerated decay occurred or how it occurred. All they had to do is introduce doubt about the so-called infallible radioisotope dating method. And they have done this.

Let’s think about this for a moment as a courtroom drama. I'm the lawyer trying to defend the position of a young earth. The list I gave above is my list of witnesses that testify to a young earth. I call in my witnesses, one by one and they present a good case, albeit largely circumstantial. But then the lawyer for the other side, arguing in favor of an old earth, calls his star witness, radioisotope dating. It's just so impressive and persuasive and it enjoys serving as a professional witness. For years, those trying to defend the theory of a young earth have tried to discredit the main witness for the other side, radioisotope dating. But until now our attempts to discredit the witness of radioisotope dating have only been hearsay. What the RATE study has done is finally introduced scientific evidence to corrorborate the hearsay, which means it's no longer just hearsay. For the first time, doubt has been cast on the testimony of radioisotope dating. The RATE study has shown that it is quite possible that we've been reading the "clock" of radioisotope dating incorrectly.

Now, instead of discounting my witnesses above and just assuming they must all be wrong and radioisotope dating right, we can begin to take a more serious look at the evidence for a young earth. Which do I feel is the strongest evidence? This might be cheating, but I feel their strength is in their numbers. I didn't list all known evidences of a young earth, just a few of the most obvious. I feel the strongest argument in favor of a young earth, other than the Word of God which I believe is inerrant and infallible, is that there is so much evidence for a young earth.

At the end of the day, it does require a measure of faith to believe either view. Psalm 19:1 says, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork." God has designed our world to give evidence of His greatness. I'm confident that in the years to come more and more evidence will come to light that corroborates the Biblical view of a young earth. And I count myself blessed to live in a time of such great scientific discovery that I can embrace both the Bible and science, without compromising either.