Epic's Young Earth Challenge
What is the evidence that dates the Earth's creation to 6000 years ago?
I'm looking for something that when you run the data, the age comes
out to approximately 6,000 years old. If the Earth and universe
are really only 6,000 years old, then the majority of the various
methods used to date the Earth should converge on about that age.
It would be reasonable if some didn't. That would be
understandable. But as it stands, I know of no dating method that
produces an age of about 6,000 years.
If the Earth is really 6,000 years old, then surely there would be at
least one dating method that gave a figure close to that. After
all, if the Earth is only a few days older than mankind himself, then
the physical evidence for its age should be overwhelming and easily tested.
So where is it? Why is it that vast majority of the evidence indicates a
very old Earth? If the Earth was young, then the evidence should
converge on about 6-10 thousand years.
So here's the challenge:
Let's say that people didn't interpret the Bible to say the Earth was
6,000 years old.
Question: What physical evidence could a scientist provide to give a
date of 6,000 years for the age of Earth?
Note, this is not the same as evidence showing it's not billions of
years old. The evidence needs to show that the Earth is about 6,000 years
old.
Surely, with as many people out there who believe in a 6,000-year-old
Earth, someone out there has the answer to this.
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Responses to the Challenge
2006-01-06 LA wrote
The following is one reasonable example;
"Recently, studies in dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) have
tended to support, or even to stretch, radiocarbon chronologies. The
bristlecone pine, of California and Nevada, is the basis for this
type of dating. However, the oldest living tree of this sort is
supposedly 4900 years old (assuming that every ring represents one
year, an assumption which almost certainly will give an age at least
20 percent too large, since two or more growth periods frequently
occur in a single year)". "The tree ring chronology has been
extended by superimposing what are interpreted as equivalent
patterns of growth cycles from a number of dead trees, starting from
a living tree 1200 years old, and going back to 8200 years ago".
(Scientific Creationism, ed. Henry M. Morris, Creation-Life
Publishers, 1985, p. 193)
Thus we have evidence that is in the approximate ball-park age.
Creationists propose that these "living trees" would be post-flood trees
of course, but since evolutionists generally desperately try to dismiss
the flood (in spite of the rehabilitation by evolutionists themselves of
catastrophism in the last several decades), then these facts still
provide an age indicator that has significant force.
epicidiot Reply: Interesting reasoning. Just by chance, my
ancestral history has been traced back to the early 1700's.
Attempts to trace it back farther have failed. Using your
reasoning, I guess I must conclude that I have no ancestors before
1700. I think you should add something to show whether the
record stops there because there were no trees before then, or
because the data are simply inadequate to continue the lineage.
Because like my family history, just because records aren't
available before the 1700s, I don't assume my family, much less all
of
human history,
stopped there. Simply not being able to trace the lineage a
particular group of trees back farther than 8,200 years doesn't show
that there were no trees before then.
Henry Morris is correct in that multiple bands
(false bands) can appear in tree for a
single year (there can also be missing bands). However,
what is not mentioned is that the extra false bands are visually
different from true bands and molecular study of the bands will
show whether a band is a true band or a false band. Also,
these false bands can be identified by comparing the band sequence
to other trees. Contrary to what Morris would have you
believe, tree dating is not done by simply counting rings and false bands pose little problem
to dendrochronology. What Morris also fails to mention is that
while false bands are common in some
types of trees, they are extremely rare in the bristlecones he uses
for his example. Bristlecones
are more likely to skip bands, thus making them actually older than
they would appear by simply counting their bands. In any case,
false bands are easily distinguished from real bands.
Morris' data is not quite correct either. He ignores German
and Irish oak, and German pine that have been counted back to 11,800
years ago using the same method. Maybe this and other Morris
claims should be taken with a grain of salt, since he seems to be a
little selective and misleading with his facts and data.
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2006-03-20 Anonymous, Old Earth Creationist, wrote
So So, Factual, Fair and Balanced
The two theories that date the earth as young in astronomy are c-Decay
and a theory by Humphreys.
First the problem: If the earth is only 6,000 years old, then we should
not be able to see stars that are further than 6,000 light years away.
c-Decay is a theory that says that light went to infinitely fast at the
creation of the universe (or from the fall) and has been decaying ever
since. The data is to use the historic measurements of light speed and
attempt to fit them into a curve that extropolates back to creation.
There has been some that doubt this theory in YEC circles.
Humphreys has a theory contains black holes, white holes, and time
distortion to date the earth back to 6,000 years.
epicidiot reply: Your first item doesn't meet the basic
requirement set forth by the challenge. It has to show that
the Earth is 6-10,000 years old, not just that it's not billions of
years old. But I will address it anyway. There are
several theories that the speed of light was accelerated in the very
first few "moments" (typically the first 10-43 second or
so) of the Big Bang. But since the stars formed long after
this, these theories would have no effect on how long it took the
light to get here. There is much compelling evidence that the speed
of light has not changed by more than a few percent in the last few
billion years. See
The Distance to Supernova SN1987A and the Speed of Light.
Thus, dating methods based on the speed of light could be off a few
percent, but could not be anywhere near 10,000 years.
Your second entry is intriguing, but doesn't provide enough
information to be evaluated. Please provide more information
on it. How does his theory show an age of 6-10,000 years?
2006-03-26 Anonymous, Atheistic Evolutionist, wrote
Boring, Bogus, Biased to Creation/ID
epicidiot reply: Biased to Creation/ID? Really?
Are you sure you read it?
2006-08-18 Young Earth Creationist wrote
Interesting
OK, I'll admit that I don't have the numbers with me, but the sahara is
growing at a measurable rate. If this rate is reversed it shows that the
sahara is about 4000-4500 years old. This strongly correlates to the
date of the flood. OK... I know this isn't proof, but like the tree
rings it certainly lands you in the right ballpark...
epicidiot reply: At best, this would only show the maximum
age for the Sahara desert (but it really doesn't even do that).
Your claim assumes a constant expansion rate for the desert, rather
than acknowledging periods of expansion and contraction. There
is no evidence to support that assumption. Deserts experience
periods of growth and contraction. To attempt to estimate the
age of a desert based on its current rate of growth is absurd (as
any geologist will tell you). This is another one of those
creationist claims that is intended to dupe those not familiar with
basic geology. You may want to see
A Close Look at Dr. Hovind's List of Young-Earth Arguments and Other
Claims.
2006-08-18 Atheistic Evolutionist wrote
So So, I'm not sure of the accuracy, Biased to Evolution
2006-10-01 Young Earth Creationist wrote
So So
2006-12-07 D, Atheistic Evolutionist, wrote
Interesting, I'm not sure of the accuracy, Fair and Balanced
2006-12-10 Theistic Evolutionist wrote
Interesting, Factual, Fair and Balanced
2006-12-21 Theistic Evolutionist wrote
Interesting, Factual, Biased to Evolution
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