In one of the subforums, someone asked for the evidence in favor of an old earth. This reminded me that a long time ago, in another forum, I asked for folks from both sides of the debate to provide their strongest evidence for an old or young earth. I waited a few weeks, then compiled the list. I say "list" rather than "lists" since the YEC's had failed to post any evidence at all. Not a peep. Here was is my compilation. I issue the same challenge here to any YEC's, either add your own "best evidence" or scientifically refute those provided (and, no, "God created light in motion" is not a scientific refutation):
"Here is the result of my request for the strongest evidence for an old earth or young earth. Oddly, I only got responses from old earth advocates, and these arguments are listed below. Since no young earthers gave their own best evidence, I would at least challenge them to point out why any or all of these are *not* actually evidence of an old earth.
1. The observed size of the universe.
2. Correspondingly, the age of the light observed being orders of magnitude
order than 6KY.
3. The White Cliffs of Dover
4. The Green River varves and other such varves in lakes all over the world.
5. The existence of iron and everything after it on the periodic table.
6. The fact that short half life elements are not found in nature.
7. Angular unconformities
8. Andromeda galaxy M31:
With "naked eyes" (well pair of glasses allowed) I can just and just
distinguish AO Cassiopeiae as single star which twinkles at about 6 000
light years from us.
I can see Andromeda galaxy M31 as "fog" or "nebula" too. But even my
binoculars and my 150x magnifying telescope doesn't help me to
resolve it into stars. You need bigger telescopes and fine CCD-cameras
for distinguishing stars in M31.
So M31 must be really far far away from us, much more than 6 000 light
years. In fact easy to convinse myself that it is over 2 million light
years from us.
So the foggy light I see in direction M31 started its travel to earth over
2 million years ago.
Metaphor. Look spruces in backyard. You may distinguish single needles
nearby in few metres away. Look further and you can distinguish sprigs
and furher (kilometres away) only trees. You'd need good telescope to
distinguish single needles in distant trees/woods near horizon kilometres
away from You. If You cannot distinguish even sprigs but trees in horizon
using telescope then the trees must be much further than just 6,000-10,000
millimetres from You as the "backyard-tree-creationists could claim".
It's that simple to make sure that stars and trees are really far away.
9. Why Tecnetium(Tc) not found in nature?
Why Plutionium mines not exist in Iraq or elsewhere on earth?
-These not found in nature:
Pu-239 half life 24 000 years
Tc-98 half life 1.5 milj. years
Tc-97 half life 2.6 milj. years
...
-These found in nature:
Pu-244 half life 82 milj. years (only very small amounts found)
U-235 half life 704 milj. years
U-238 half life 4470 milj. years
K-40 half life 1250 milj. years
10. Because earth is so old that elements shorter half lifes than 80 million
years have disappeared, decayed away. (halfed more often than 4500/80=56
times).
11. Iron and other products of nucleosynthesis.
12. Cosmic microwave background/size of universe etc.
13. Isochron data.
14. Clay and sand
15. What makes the old universe so overwhelmingly compelling is not any
individual piece of evidence, but the fact that so many different
lines of evidence, based on totally different principles, and subject
to different uncertainties, all independently converge on the same age.
16. We get the _same_ age (within errors) for the universe from:
* Backwards extrapolation of the expansion pattern
* Age of the oldest star clusters
* Nucleocosmochronology
* Cooling of white dwarfs
* ...
We get the _same_ age (within errors) for the solar system from:
* Multipe different radioactive-dating methods, using different isotopes
on different bodies.
* Age of the sun calculated from fuel consumption
I would not single out any one of them -- it is their sum that
establishes the age far beyond reasonable doubt.
It is their concordance that effectively eliminates the risk of
systematic errors.
17. If you look at the Hubble Deep Field picture you notice that there is indeed
something very strange about these galaxies. Since these galaxies were just
formed within one or two billion years of the big bang you can see that they
are not very well developed compared to modern galaxies which have distinct
characteristics. This is pretty new evidence so I don't think the Yecs even
have a rebottle but its so damning that whatever they come up with will just
make them look more foolish.
18. The Internal self-consistency between radiometric dates, bio-stratigraphy and
magneto-stratigraphy."
"Here is the result of my request for the strongest evidence for an old earth or young earth. Oddly, I only got responses from old earth advocates, and these arguments are listed below. Since no young earthers gave their own best evidence, I would at least challenge them to point out why any or all of these are *not* actually evidence of an old earth.
1. The observed size of the universe.
2. Correspondingly, the age of the light observed being orders of magnitude
order than 6KY.
3. The White Cliffs of Dover
4. The Green River varves and other such varves in lakes all over the world.
5. The existence of iron and everything after it on the periodic table.
6. The fact that short half life elements are not found in nature.
7. Angular unconformities
8. Andromeda galaxy M31:
With "naked eyes" (well pair of glasses allowed) I can just and just
distinguish AO Cassiopeiae as single star which twinkles at about 6 000
light years from us.
I can see Andromeda galaxy M31 as "fog" or "nebula" too. But even my
binoculars and my 150x magnifying telescope doesn't help me to
resolve it into stars. You need bigger telescopes and fine CCD-cameras
for distinguishing stars in M31.
So M31 must be really far far away from us, much more than 6 000 light
years. In fact easy to convinse myself that it is over 2 million light
years from us.
So the foggy light I see in direction M31 started its travel to earth over
2 million years ago.
Metaphor. Look spruces in backyard. You may distinguish single needles
nearby in few metres away. Look further and you can distinguish sprigs
and furher (kilometres away) only trees. You'd need good telescope to
distinguish single needles in distant trees/woods near horizon kilometres
away from You. If You cannot distinguish even sprigs but trees in horizon
using telescope then the trees must be much further than just 6,000-10,000
millimetres from You as the "backyard-tree-creationists could claim".
It's that simple to make sure that stars and trees are really far away.
9. Why Tecnetium(Tc) not found in nature?
Why Plutionium mines not exist in Iraq or elsewhere on earth?
-These not found in nature:
Pu-239 half life 24 000 years
Tc-98 half life 1.5 milj. years
Tc-97 half life 2.6 milj. years
...
-These found in nature:
Pu-244 half life 82 milj. years (only very small amounts found)
U-235 half life 704 milj. years
U-238 half life 4470 milj. years
K-40 half life 1250 milj. years
10. Because earth is so old that elements shorter half lifes than 80 million
years have disappeared, decayed away. (halfed more often than 4500/80=56
times).
11. Iron and other products of nucleosynthesis.
12. Cosmic microwave background/size of universe etc.
13. Isochron data.
14. Clay and sand
15. What makes the old universe so overwhelmingly compelling is not any
individual piece of evidence, but the fact that so many different
lines of evidence, based on totally different principles, and subject
to different uncertainties, all independently converge on the same age.
16. We get the _same_ age (within errors) for the universe from:
* Backwards extrapolation of the expansion pattern
* Age of the oldest star clusters
* Nucleocosmochronology
* Cooling of white dwarfs
* ...
We get the _same_ age (within errors) for the solar system from:
* Multipe different radioactive-dating methods, using different isotopes
on different bodies.
* Age of the sun calculated from fuel consumption
I would not single out any one of them -- it is their sum that
establishes the age far beyond reasonable doubt.
It is their concordance that effectively eliminates the risk of
systematic errors.
17. If you look at the Hubble Deep Field picture you notice that there is indeed
something very strange about these galaxies. Since these galaxies were just
formed within one or two billion years of the big bang you can see that they
are not very well developed compared to modern galaxies which have distinct
characteristics. This is pretty new evidence so I don't think the Yecs even
have a rebottle but its so damning that whatever they come up with will just
make them look more foolish.
18. The Internal self-consistency between radiometric dates, bio-stratigraphy and
magneto-stratigraphy."
