There is a huge gap between young earth creationists and scientists regarding the age of the earth. Are there people who think the earth is 50 million, 500 thousand, 1 billion, etc. years old?
Posted Feb 2, 2011, 9:19 AM UTC
Well, no, because scientists are right and YECs are wrong. I mean there might be some goofy fringe groups with strange estimations for the age of the earth, and a crackpot justification. There several different dating methods in different branches of science that all point to around the same age.
I have thought this, and the answer is no, but I bet you could find some loose evidence that the Earth is however many years old you want, but this evidence would be limited, unlike 4.54 billion years which has numerous evidence.
Some Christians can push it back to 10,000 or 12,000. Others believe the planet is 6 billion years old, but God still specially created life on it with the literal garden story 6000 years ago, and there are many other alternate ways to resolve cognitive dissonance.
I do not believe that we can know how old the earth is ... I believe it is a lot older than 6000 years, but not necessarily 4.54 billion or whatever the latest ''scientific'' belief is
Why would you believe that? Granted there is a margin of error and all, but we certainly can know about how old it is given the available evidence.
I'm not disputing the calculations which are based on many assumptions, I'm sure the calculations are accurate, given the assumptions ... it might be 4.54 billion years old, or it might not be, we don't know because all the measurements rely on the assumption that rates of change are constant over billions of years and regardless of changing influencing factors
Ah, so you are arguing that radioactive half lives change? I'm curious as to what reasons you have for thinking that.
No, I'm not arguing that radioactive half lives change, I'm saying we cannot know if they change over billions of years due to various influences of which we are not aware ... I do not believe that science ''knows it all'' yet, I believe there is still much left to be discovered
After following the very long back and forth between you and TheRedTeam, I'm going to reply here at the root comment.
I'm not disputing the calculations which are based on many assumptions
You posit scientists have relied on certain assumptions in order to calculate an age of the planet Earth ("the latest 'scientific' belief"). Then you go on (through that long back and forth) to make a very large and unsupported assumption of your own to call into question the assumptions you doubt (without stating which assumptions those are). Could you be right? It's within the realm of possibility, but you have no basis to call into question the reliability of half-life based on a "what if" scenario that to date in this discussion has no evidence of ever having occured or being possible of occuring.
Basically, TheRedTeam wants something, however small, to suggest your assumption could be a valid basis for reexamining the latest scientific age of the planet Earth.
this is quite amusing, it's like some people have replaced religion with science, and they believe whatever the latest theory is, and if anyone is skeptical, they treat them as if they are fools for not believing ... then a new theory replaces the current one, and the skeptics are once again treated as fools by the believers, who are proud of having changed their belief, not at all humbled by having been wrong, just as arrogant as ever, saying ''we now know'' ... and so on, and so on
You've stated your belief and shouldn't be downvoted for it, but would you care to elaborate why you think the age of the earth cannot be known?
yes I just replied to TheRedTeam who asked the same question :)
Seriously this is a question?