How old is the Earth?!

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Originally posted by GregP618:
Ok, fair enough, I should've phrased the question better, but that avoids the original question! I don't believe that EITHER of them is anywhere near as old as that. I've already given allegance to the viewpoint that the universe/Earth is much younger than is generally accepted.

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As for the big bang theory, may I quote an article from Nature (10th August 1989) - "Apart from being philosophically unacceptable, the Big Bang is an over-simple view of how the universe began, and is unlikely to survive the decade ahead...In all respects save that of convenience, this view of the origin of the universe is thoroughly unsatisfactory. It is an effect whose cause cannot be identified, or even discussed."

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I think it's true to say that whilst many people still hold true to the big bang theory, they are the people that haven't really looked into the evidence. No leading scientist would hold allegance to this theory today. Remember that people once thought the Earth was flat!!

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There is lots of evidence to reject a young earth. In the 1700's-1800's people thought the earth was young 6000-10000 years and that all fossils had been laid down during the Noachian flood. The people who held that position (Christian fundamentalists) thought they would verify it through observation. Like all good scientists, they looked at the rock record and found it did not support either the flood or a young earth. In fact, all the evidence pointed to an old earth and no flood. It was these fundamentalist Christian scholars who overturned the untenable view of a young earth. It was not atheistic scholars. Some of the evidence they looked at were glacial deposits, the order of the fossil record, the presence of paleosols within sedimentary sequences, the presence of desert deposits within what they previously thought were all flood deposits. Today, we can study radioactive elements. I am not necessarily talking about radiometric dating so stay with me. We know that some isotopes have short half lives (such as 26Al). If the Universe and the earth were young, we should be able to find these short-lived isotopes, but all we can find are their daughter products. On the other hand, the relative abundances of 235U, 238U and their daughter products are exactly what we would expect for a 4.5 Ga old earth.CheersJoe Meert

[QUOTE]Originally posted by GregP618:
[B]JM: This is incorrect. Evolution is both a fact (observable undebatable) and a theory. We observe the genetic changes through time (fact). We theorize about what might cause the changes. The Big Bang is indeed, a theoretical approach towards explaining the observations within the Universe. However, creation is not a theory in the scientific sense of the word. The is no comprehensive a testable theory for special creation. It is solely a religious approach to explain the unexplainable. Be careful tossing the word 'theory' around in a happenstance manner. Science has a very rigorous distinction between theories, hypotheses and random musings.CheersJoe Meert

You might also explain http://gondwanaresearch.com/radiomet.htm
http://gondwanaresearch.com/hp/adam.htmCheersJoe Meert

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mark24:
[B] Joe is best qualified to talk on this, since he has met one of the authors, but from memory, the effect occurred at an actual polarity reversal, when the flux was at or near zero (kind of like standing at the north pole with a compass, with the needle swaying in any direction). The phenomenon isn't well understood, but (again from memory), theoretically occurs whenever the earth actually does change N/S polarity, & the flux is at or near zero at any particular point. It most certainly doesn't indicate rapid, sudden polarity reversals (ie north pole becoming south)This was my understanding, & I stand to be corrected.Regardless, Prevot & Coe aren't happy with the creationist misinterpretation.Mark[/QUOTE]JM: Indeed, Coe and Prevot have discussed several alternative explanations since the original paper and concluded that the observations in the original paper (which was never claimed to be a rapid reversal as others have noted) may have a more mundane explanation. I'll have to dig out the more recent papers, but it's July 4th. Anyway, Coe and Prevot did not claim a rapid reversal originally, but a rapid excursion of the field. I spoke with Rob Coe about this a few years ago and he most certainly was surprised that it is being misrepresented.CheersJoe Meert

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[This message has been edited by Joe Meert, 07-05-2002]

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Take salt in the oceans. If the earth really is as old as the billions of years, the oceans should be a helluva lot saltier than they are.

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JM: If you take the amount of Aluminum in the ocean, then the earth is only 50-100 years old. This means Jesus is made up.CheersJoe Meert

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Greg

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The mainstream guys who have responded here are correct - there is very good evidence for 4.5 billion years of decay in the rocks. The only way out for YECs is accelerated decay. There are hints of this in scripture and science and it can all work together if accelerated decay generated the crustal heat that tectonically brought on the flood. Search for 'accelerated decay' on this web site for discussions.

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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 07-05-2002]

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Of course, there is no evidence for accelerated decay either (it's all made up!). In fact, Adam would have had some problems:
http://gondwanaresearch.com/hp/adam.htmCheersJoe Meert

More on Coe and Prevot:Their latest paper on the subject was published in JGR (1999)v. 104, 17,747-17,558 (Camps, Coe and Prevot). It is titled "Transitional geomagnetic impulse hypothesis: geomagnetic effect or rock-magnetic artifact?Let me restate the conclusion of the first paper which is that Coe and Prevot found rapid directional changes between a reversly magnetized section of lavas and a normally magnetized section of lavas. What Coe and Prevot suggested was that during the interval of reversal (however long it took) there existed periods of rapid fluctuations in magnetic directions (or excursions). They did not, nor have not, implied that these represent the time it takes for magnetic reversals. In their latest paper, they examined another 'transitional' section (different from the earlier work) and found similar rapid fluctuations. Here are their conclusions from the most recent paper:The Steens Mountain transition record, which has become somewhat of a benchmark in paleomagnetic reversal studies, is augmented in this study by three Steens B flows and one Steens F flow that record two new intermediate directional groups at the level of the second directional gap (JM NOTES: These B and F levels refer to the original paper). It is further strengthened by 22 consecutive overlying lava flows that overlap and correlate extremely well with the earlier directional record of Mankinen et al. (1985) at Steens A. The new directions make the record more complex, with two rebounds from normal polarity instead of one (JM Notes: a rebound is where the magnetic field begins to 'flip' and then returns to the original polarity). The preferred position for the new directions is within the second directional gap as defined by Steens A. This choice makes the hypothesis of rapid field change during cooling of the lavas in the gap more ad-hoc, and therefore we now regard it as less likely. The more likely hypothesis, however, of thermochemical remagnetization of a flow that originally recorded the pre-gap direction, induced by heating from the overlying flow, still suffers from our inability to detect the variable rock magnetic properties as a function of vertical position in the flow that could be responsible for its unusual pattern of variable remanence directionsSome final notes: What Camps et al have argued all along is that during the transition from normal to reverse (or vice versa) there may exist periods of rapid excursions from the main polarity. The best way to imagine this is that if a reversal takes 1000 years or so to complete, there may exist a number of aborted attempts to fully reverse within that 1000 year interval. This is quite different from how creationists present this work because they claim that Coe et al found evidence for a rapid reversal. Indeed the point that Coe et al are making is that NO REVERSAL takes place in these transitional lavas.CheersJoe Meert

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[This message has been edited by Joe Meert, 07-05-2002]

Blitz,Repeating the same arguments and ignoring the many corrections that people have pointed out to you is a sure way to earn the ignore button. You've just lost my interest.CheersJoe Meert