Compile your evidences for an old creation

[Travelsong]

I've only been reading this forum for a couple of weeks now, but I notice the phrase "not one shred of evidence to support..." being used quite a bit by YEC's. I have indicated that I only have the most general understanding of the various scientific fields, so I would like to defer to the greater knowledge of those here who feel comfortable in presenting evidence for an old creation (and by extension, old earth).

My idea is to create a list from all scientific fields, from the vast expanse of space to the most minute particles, in an attempt to show that there are indeed quite a few shreds of evidence to support an old earth.Perhaps after a few of the more knowledgeable OEC's get a decent list going we can engage in an open dialogue.

 

[Helen]

Interesting request, Travelsong!

I can give you a few, actually:

1. If evolution is true (macro...), then enormous amounts of time are needed and therefore must have been.

2. If radiometric decay rates have remained constant, then radioactive dates indicate an earth over four billion years old and a universe perhaps ten billion (give or take a few) years older than that.

3. If the speed of light has remained reasonably constant through time, then the fact that we are seeing light from stars and galaxies billions of light years away indicates light must have been traveling for that amount of time.

4. If geologic processes progress at the rates we recognize as normal today (including the occasional catastrophe), then it has taken a VERY long time for the landforms we see around us to form.

There are more, but all of them are predicated upon suppositions. It's when you look into the suppositions that some real questions start to arise.

 

[Travelsong]

Thanks for getting things started Helen.

Originally posted by Helen:
4. If geologic processes progress at the rates we recognize as normal today (including the occasional catastrophe), then it has taken a VERY long time for the landforms we see around us to form.

Within this are all kinds of distinct evidences. We have Sedimentary deposits which form sedimentary rock sequences over long periods of time.

Then of course there is the fossil record.

Might want to throw in plate tectonics and continental drift as well.

Volcanic activity over long periods of time such as Yellowstone where we can see layers upon layers of forests wiped out and regrown only to be wiped out again.

Any others?

If I could go back in time and start college, I would without question become a geologist

 

[Deacon]

Actually the Yellowstone "forests upon forests" is not such a solid proof.

A while back I read some YEC research monitoring the lake near Mount St. Helens. It was shown that the floating logs would sink (in mass) at various times depending upon their makeup (poplar, spruce , hemlock etc.) and due to the enormous amounts of particulate matter settling out between the various types of trees sinking, would give the same appearance of forrest upon forest.
The logs would settle roots down at the bottom, all within a few years time.

Rob

 

[Travelsong]

That's fine Deacon. I was just thinking of stuff off the top of my head. I'd rather wait until there's a decent list (for the benefit of everyone) before critiqueing any of them.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Is there a possible way to check dating by radioactive means? Scientists have found three ways that annual layers form and each of them is a cross check on the other:

(a) Tree rings! See http://www.geo.arizona.edu/palynology/geos462/09dendrochron.html
This web site describes counting tree rings and correlating the resulting count with carbon 14 dates. There is an interesting graph at the bottom of the page at that site showing that the actual account does show some variation from the assumption of absolutly constant production of carbon 14 in the atmosphere. But not by very much! It appears Bristlecone Pine rings have been established back about 10,000 years:

(b) Lake bottom sediments! See http://www.cio.phys.rug.nl/HTML-docs/Verslag/97/PE-04.htm

This site describes the layers of sediment from a lake in Japan going back 40,000 years. They are able to tell the seasons changing in the lakes by means of the color of the diatoms in the lake.


(c) Ice layers in Greenland! See http://www.skepticfiles.org/science/pr9357.htm

Ice layers in Greenland are so interesting they continue on today. Annual layers of ice go back as far as 250,000 years in the most recent drillings!

All of these layers are correlated with each other. The ice layers, unfortunately, don't have much organic material for correlating directly with the carbon 14 method, but other correlations are available, such as dust and acid from known volcanoes to verify that indeed the counts really are annual layers.

So that's THREE KINDS of ways of finding an annual layer that goes back more than 6000 or 8000 years, definately showing that the world is older.


It's kind of difficult to imagine anything other than the actual years going by that would make each of these three methods independently come up with the same results. Some people have suggested that following Noah's flood there were a lot of "mini years" simulated by storms and such that would perhaps have caused the sediments in the lake to vary and the ice cores to show extra layers that simulate annual layers. But would those have also made the trees grow extra rings, enough so that the rings seem like whole additional years? Stress like that kind of climate variation would make trees shut down, not grow more than ever!

 

[Peter101]

Here is a partial list of evidences favoring an old earth:

1. The fact that three different and independent dating methods show that the moon is approximately 4.5 billion years old.

2. The fact that lake varves go back to at least 43,000 years and that the counted varves agree in age to the C-14 age.

3. The fact that Greenland Ice cores go back to more than 100,000 years.

4. The fact that the asteriod impact at the K-T boundary has been clearly dated to 65 million years ago.

5. The fact that most impact craters on the earth have been almost wiped out by erosion.

6. The fact that mutations of human genes are best explained as having taken place over many thousands of year, as measured by the degree of variability of these genes.

7. The evidence is that continents have drifted and that this requires many millions of years.

8. The fact that human-like ancestors of mankind have been dated as being hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of years old.

9. The fact that the red shift of starlight implies that the universe is expanding and has been for many millions of years.

[ July 17, 2003, 01:15 AM: Message edited by: Peter101 ]

 

[Paul of Eugene]

KIRKWOOD GAPS in the Asteroid belt. The asteroid belt contatins lanes that are free of asteroides. These have been shown to be the locations where orbits for asteroids would be unstable due to long-term resonances with the orbit of Jupiter. The time necessary for Jupiter to clear out these lanes is about 2 to 3 million years. The lanes have been cleared out now.

HAWAIIAN ISLAND CHAIN. The Hawaiian Island Chain, stretching all the way back to Midway Island and beyond when you count undersea mounts, was all formed by a single volcano. The Pacific Tectonic Plate slides over it, so that the volacano builds up each island in its turn. Then the islands all gradually wear away over the millinea. The speed of the plate is in inches per year. The speed of the plate moving over the volcano correlates perfectly with the radiologically determined age of the islands, each in turn. What an amazing coincidence, if the age is false!

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Vestigal Legs in Whales.

Here's a picture of vestigal (legs? Hips?) in whales today. How long did it take for the real legs to be reduced to these nubs? Certainly not a mere 10,000 years.

http://www.epud.net/~richmond/science/science.htm

 

[NeilUnreal]

I would like to emphasize something that several other posts have pointed out:

One of the main reasons to believe the earth is old is the confluence of evidence and the fact that multiple, independent methods correlate. This means that -- for the earth to be young -- tens of thousands of scientists must not only be wrong, but wrong by the same amount when using different methods. (Either that or they're part of a vast global conspiracy of which I'm also a member )

-Neil

 

[Peter101]

Although the age of the earth and the various arguments that support it, are available to some of the population, I would like to point out one thing that should be understandable by all.

The Appalacian mountains are thought to be about 200 million years old, while the Rocky Mountains are as young as 20 million years. I believe that is easily seen just by looking at the gross features of these two mountain ranges. Score another for the old earth.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

They just don't make globes without making them in relief these days. So if you have a globe, go to it and look at India and the hymalayan mountains along the top of India. Formed by the Indian tectonic plate shoving itself into the Asian plate above it. How long did it take to raise those mountains, now the highest mountains on earth? How long did it take for the plates to approach each other before they collided?