Old Earth, Young Earth

[FaithT]

What makes you think they are old?

Dating. What makes you think that they’re young?

 

[Job 33:6]

The discovery of soft tissue in dinosaur bones calls into question the assumptions that form the basis of radioisotope dating, as soft tissue could not survive millions of years.

From Chatgpt,

Discoveries of dinosaur “soft tissue” do not prove a young Earth. What scientists have found are rare, highly altered remnants of original biological material—such as flexible, vessel-like structures and fragments of proteins—preserved inside dense fossilized bone. These are not fresh flesh, muscle, or skin. Laboratory experiments and chemical analysis show that iron from blood, rapid burial, mineralization, and low-oxygen conditions can stabilize and preserve microscopic structures and molecular fragments for tens of millions of years, much like how charcoal can preserve the structure of wood without the wood being recent.

The young-Earth claim assumes that such material cannot survive long timescales, but this ignores known preservation mechanisms and extensive experimental evidence. It also fails to address the many independent dating methods—radiometric dating of surrounding rock layers, stratigraphy, plate tectonics, and fossil succession—that consistently place dinosaurs in the Mesozoic era, tens to hundreds of millions of years ago. Even the scientists who made these discoveries explicitly reject a young-Earth interpretation. In short, dinosaur soft tissue is scientifically interesting, but it does not challenge an old Earth.

 

[FaithT]

From Chatgpt,

Discoveries of dinosaur “soft tissue” do not prove a young Earth. What scientists have found are rare, highly altered remnants of original biological material—such as flexible, vessel-like structures and fragments of proteins—preserved inside dense fossilized bone. These are not fresh flesh, muscle, or skin. Laboratory experiments and chemical analysis show that iron from blood, rapid burial, mineralization, and low-oxygen conditions can stabilize and preserve microscopic structures and molecular fragments for tens of millions of years, much like how charcoal can preserve the structure of wood without the wood being recent.

The young-Earth claim assumes that such material cannot survive long timescales, but this ignores known preservation mechanisms and extensive experimental evidence. It also fails to address the many independent dating methods—radiometric dating of surrounding rock layers, stratigraphy, plate tectonics, and fossil succession—that consistently place dinosaurs in the Mesozoic era, tens to hundreds of millions of years ago. Even the scientists who made these discoveries explicitly reject a young-Earth interpretation. In short, dinosaur soft tissue is scientifically interesting, but it does not challenge an old Earth.

I didn’t know all of that. Thanks!

 

[chevyontheriver]

Dating. What makes you think that they’re young?

One caution in this discussion: We may disagree about the science and we can even discuss and even argue about the science. What we cannot do, as Catholics, is to tell people we differ with in regards to evolution or the age of the earth, and I know you haven't done that, but to tell them they have a deficient faith. We can freely believe in a young or and old earth as we see fit. And so can others, in good faith. We do need to hold to the unity of the human family, but otherwise we are free to follow the science wherever it goes.

 

[prodromos]

Laboratory experiments and chemical analysis show that iron from blood, rapid burial, mineralization, and low-oxygen conditions can stabilize and preserve microscopic structures and molecular fragments for tens of millions of years

Really? How could you possibly determine that from a lab experiment, even one that hypothetically lasted a century?

 

[prodromos]

Dating.

Dating makes a lot of assumptions about conditions being consistent with no other sources for the isotopes being tested, or the leaching of isotopes from the rock being tested. In a perfect world they may be perfectly valid assumptions but we don't live in a perfect world. Rock formed by fresh lava flows from Mt St. Helens for example showed a radioisotope date of 340,000 years.

 

[Job 33:6]

Really? How could you possibly determine that from a lab experiment, even one that hypothetically lasted a century?

If you look at the rate at which something decays, you extrapolate. It's like asking how you know that you can land a drone on mars if no one has ever traveled that far. You look at the rates of motion and you extrapolate.

But also, soft tissue hasn't actually been found in dinosaurs to begin with. Degraded heme compounds have. And degraded heme is highly stable, just like dinosaur bones themselves, they can last an indefinite period of time.

The Hemoglobin Challenge

Challenging young-earth and intelligent design misunderstanding and faulty descriptions of reports of soft tissue preservation in fossils.

youtube.com

And you can see young earth creationists changing the words that they use over time to discuss this issue. As noted in the above playlist. Young earth ministries just aren't being honest about the topic. We find DNA in species like mammoths and neanderthals etc. but never in dinosaurs, which also doesn't make any sense for a young earth where everything is the same age, allegedly.