Creation Science Rebuttals

Clues that the Earth is Young

First published 20 March 2006

One of the featured articles in the geology section of Kent Hovind's website, Creation Science Evangelism, supposedly gives "more clues that the earth is young."¹ This article is written by Bruce Malone. He starts out with an emotional appeal, painting a picture of man dropping out of trees (evolution). His simplistic approach says that evolution claims man became "modern" about 100,000 years ago, but civilization only arose 5,000 years ago. He sees this as a conflict...why did it take man 95,000 years to advance. This is answered by progressive creationism and theistic evolution, the two main forms of old earth creationism. The early modern humans were soul-less, not created in God's image. They may have been fully human anatomically, but not spiritually or mentally.

Malone moves on to some numbers. He claims that based on 10 million humans at any given point in time, with a lifespan of 25 years, there should have been 40 billion people during the last 100,000 years. And, since they buried their dead, these 40 billion graves should be easy to find. Since we don't have the graves, the old earth theory must be wrong. There are two points that argue against this...one from old earth theory, one from young earth theory.

First, there is evidence of primitive peoples burying their dead. But not all primitive peoples. We cannot say that everyone over the last 100,000 years was buried. Second, young earth theory states that in a globe full of water, you get great gyres of water, with velocities of up to 194 miles per our, centered over the continents. These waters provide the erosional forces necessary to erode rock, and deposit it elsewhere. Based on this, one would not expect to find any buried graves at all, as they would all be destroyed. Also, these gyres would destroy all "trace fossils," such as footprints (of man, dinosaurs or anything else). Since we have graves, and we have a large abundance of footprints, these gyres must not have existed (in other words, no global flood). For more on these gyres, see Baumgardner and Barnette.

For more proof of a young earth, Malone mentions the scarcity of meteors in sedimentary rock layers. This is simply not true. Many craters have been identified in sedimentary rock layers, and there is a database that tracks all of these impacts. He says there should be evidence of billions of them. However, the earth is a big place...we cannot be expected to find them all, as most are buried! The ones we have found confirm that ancient meteor impacts occurred.

There are only about 130 craters that have been found. According to the young earth theory, that means 130 impacts during the year of the flood, which is a much higher rate than currently observed. However, a meteor impact during the flood would not leave a crater. The water saturated muds would close around the impact point, leaving no trace. Based on a global flood, we should see no craters in these flood-deposited sediments. The very fact that we have 130 impact craters, formed upon dry land at the time, testifies against the flood model proposed by young earth creation science.

Malone lists other claims in rapid succession. Planetary rings, comets that should have burned up and exist no more, outer solar system planets that should have cooled long ago, and spiraled galaxies that should have unspiraled. All have simple answers.

Planetary Rings

Comets

Cooling Planets

Spiraled Galaxies- Malone actually gets this argument backwards! Spiral galaxies do indeed lose their shape. The creationist argument is the opposite...that they will get more tightly spiraled. However, this explanation is also explained by the link above (i.e., density wave).

Malone goes on to claim "Scientists working from the preconception that the universe is 10-20 billion years old have suggested..." Scientists have not preconceived the idea that the universe is old. This is what the scientific evidence says. There are no assumptions that the universe is old. This is a common ploy of young earth creation science advocates, to show that we approach the data with preconceived ideas of how old it is. The data itself shows us an old earth. There are no assumptions that it is old.

Finally, he mentions Carbon 14, and how the flood would have caused an enormous change in the total amount of carbon in the atmosphere. I agree, a worldwide flood would have had a drastic effect. Did it? We know from tree ring data how much carbon was in the atmosphere over the last 8,000 years...and it shows no great change such as the one a global flood would cause.

Overall, Malone has given no evidence for a young earth. All of his claims have already been answered, but he ignores the answers. His goal is not to present a true scientific argument. His goal is to tell his readers, who are already young earth, that their view is correct. Within the young earth community, the words of experts like Malone are taken at face value, and not investigated. For the purpose Malone intends, these words will succeed.

For More Reading

Meteor Impact Young Earth Claim

¹ More Clues that the Earth is Young, by Bruce Malone. Posted on the Creation Science Evangelism website at drdino.com/articles.php?spec=6

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