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Evidence for a Young World
by D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D
Translated by:______
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12 Scientific & Logical Evidences Showing the
Entire Creation to be Less than 10,000 Years Old
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http://wwwcreationism.org/english/YoungWorld_en.htm
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From: Creation
Matters, Volume 4, No. 4 - July / August 1999
A bimonthly newsletter of the Creation
Research Society (CRS) |
Dr. Humphreys and the CRS have given permission for
"Evidence for a Young World" to be copied (include this
notice, please) for any educational, non-profit purpose.
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Here are a dozen natural phenomena which conflict
with the evolutionary idea that the universe is billions of years old.
The numbers I list below (often millions/billions of years) are maximum
possible ages set by each process, not the actual ages. These numbers are
the ages required by evolutionary theory for each item. The point is that
the maximum possible ages are always much less than the required evolutionary
ages, while the biblical age (6,000 to 10,000 years) always fits comfortably
within the maximum possible ages. |
Thus - the 12 items below are evidence
against the evolutionary time scale and for the biblical time scale.
Much more young-world evidence exists, but I have chosen
these items for brevity and simplicity. Some of the items on this list
can be reconciled with an old universe only by making a series of improbable
and unproven assumptions; others can fit in only with a young universe.
The list starts with distant astronomic phenomena and works its way down
to earth, ending with everyday facts.
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1.
Galaxies wind themselves up too fast
2.
Comets disintegrate too quickly
3.
Not enough mud on the sea floor
4.
Not enough sodium in the sea
5.
The earth’s magnetic field is decaying too fast
6.
Many strata are too tightly bent
7.
Injected sandstone shortens geologic “ages”
8.
Fossil radioactivity shortens geologic “ages” to a few years
9.
Helium in the wrong places
10.
Not enough stone age skeletons
11.
Agriculture is too recent
12.
History is too short
1. Galaxies wind themselves up too fast
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The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic
center with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer
ones.
The observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were
more than a few hundred million years old, it would be a featureless disc
of stars instead of its present spiral shape.1
Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion years old. Evolutionists
call this “the winding-up dilemma,” which they have known about for
fifty years. They have devised many theories to try to explain it, each
one failing after a brief period of popularity. The same “winding-up”
dilemma also applies to other galaxies.
For the last few decades the favored attempt to resolve the dilemma
has been a complex theory called “density waves.”1 The theory has conceptual
problems, has to be arbitrarily and very finely tuned, and lately has been
called into serious question by the Hubble Space Telescope's discovery
of very detailed spiral structure in the central hub of the “Whirlpool”
galaxy, M51.2
Also see:
The Lord has "Stretched the Heavens" Since Creation Week
2. Comets disintegrate too quickly
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According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same
age as the solar system, about 5 billion years.
Yet each time a comet orbits
close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive
much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical ages of
10,000 years.3
Evolutionists explain this discrepancy by assuming that (a) comets
come from an unobserved spherical “Oort cloud” well beyond the orbit
of Pluto, (b) improbable gravitational interactions with infrequently passing
stars often knock comets into the solar system, and (c) other improbable
interactions with planets slow down the incoming comets often enough to
account for the hundreds of comets observed.4 So far, none of these assumptions
has been substantiated either by observations or realistic calculations.
Lately, there has been much talk of the “Kuiper Belt,” a disc
of supposed comet sources lying in the plane of the solar system just outside
the orbit of Pluto. Even if some bodies of ice exist in that location,
they would not really solve the evolutionists’ problem, since according
to evolutionary theory the Kuiper Belt would quickly become exhausted if
there were no Oort cloud to supply it.
3. Not enough mud on the sea floor
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Each year, water and winds erode about 25 billion tons of dirt and rock
from the continents and deposit it in the ocean.5
This material accumulates
as loose sediment (i.e., mud) on the hard basaltic (lava-formed) rock of
the ocean floor. The average depth of all the mud in the whole ocean, including
the continental shelves, is less than 400 meters.6
The main way known to remove the mud from the ocean floor is by plate
tectonic subduction. That is, sea floor slides slowly (a few cm/year) beneath
the continents, taking some sediment with it. According to secular scientific
literature, that process presently removes only 1 billion tons per year.6
As far as anyone knows, the other 24 billion tons per year simply accumulate.
At that rate, erosion would deposit the present amount of sediment in less
than 12 million years.
Yet according to evolutionary theory, erosion and plate subduction
have been going on as long as the oceans have existed, an alleged 3 billion
years. If that were so, the rates above imply that the oceans would be
massively choked with mud dozens of kilometers deep. An alternative (creationist)
explanation is that erosion from the waters of the Genesis Flood running
off the continents deposited the present amount of mud within a short time
about 5000 years ago.
4. Not enough sodium in the sea
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Every year, rivers7 and other sources9 dump over 450 million tons of
sodium into the ocean.
Only 27% of this sodium manages to get back out
of the sea each year.8,9 As far as anyone knows, the remainder simply accumulates
in the ocean. If the sea had no sodium to start with, it would have accumulated
its present amount in less than 42 million years at today's input and output
rates.9 This is much less than the evolutionary age of the ocean, 3 billion
years. The usual reply to this discrepancy is that past sodium inputs must
have been less and outputs greater. However, calculations which are as
generous as possible to evolutionary scenarios still give a maximum age
of only 62 million years.9 Calculations10 for many other sea water elements
give much younger ages for the ocean.
5. The earth’s magnetic field is decaying too fast
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The total energy stored in the earth’s magnetic field has steadily
decreased by a factor of 2.7 over the past 1000 years.11
Evolutionary theories
explaining this rapid decrease, as well as how the earth could have maintained
its magnetic field for billions of years, are very complex and inadequate.
A much better creationist theory exists. It is straightforward, based
on sound physics, and explains many features of the field: its creation,
rapid reversals during the Genesis flood, surface intensity decreases and
increases until the time of Christ, and a steady decay since then.12 This
theory matches paleomagnetic, historic, and present data.13 The main result
is that the field's total energy (not surface intensity) has always decayed
at least as fast as now. At that rate the field could not be more than
10,000 years old.14
6. Many strata are too tightly bent
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In many mountainous areas, strata thousands of feet thick are bent and
folded into hairpin shapes.
The conventional geologic time scale says these
formations were deeply buried and solidified for hundreds of millions of
years before they were bent. Yet the folding occurred without cracking,
with radii so small that the entire formation had to be still wet and unsolidified
when the bending occurred. This implies that the folding occurred less
than thousands of years after deposition.15
7. Injected sandstone shortens geologic “ages”
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Strong geologic evidence16 exists that the Cambrian Sawatch sandstone
- formed an alleged 500 million years ago - of the Ute Pass fault west
of Colorado Springs was still unsolidified when it was extruded up to the
surface during the uplift of the Rocky Mountains, allegedly 70 million
years ago.
It is very unlikely that the sandstone would not solidify during
the supposed 430 million years it was underground. Instead, it is likely
that the two geologic events were less than hundreds of years apart, thus
greatly shortening the geologic time scale.
8. Fossil radioactivity shortens geologic “ages” to a few years
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Radiohalos are rings of color formed around microscopic bits of radioactive
minerals in rock crystals.
They are fossil evidence of radioactive decay.17
“Squashed” Polonium-210 radiohalos indicate that Jurassic, Triassic,
and Eocene formations in the Colorado plateau were deposited within months
of one another, not hundreds of millions of years apart as required by
the conventional time scale.18 “Orphan” Polonium-218 radiohalos, having
no evidence of their mother elements, imply either instant creation or
drastic changes in radioactivity decay rates.19,20
9. Helium in the wrong places
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All naturally-occurring families of radioactive elements generate helium
as they decay.
If such decay took place for billions of years, as alleged
by evolutionists, much helium should have found its way into the earth's
atmosphere. The rate of loss of helium from the atmosphere into space is
calculable and small. Taking that loss into account, the atmosphere today
has only 0.05% of the amount of helium it would have accumulated in 5 billion
years.21 This means the atmosphere is much younger than the alleged evolutionary
age.
A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows
that helium produced by radioactive decay in deep, hot rocks has not had
time to escape. Though the rocks are supposed to be over one billion years
old, their large helium retention suggests an age of only thousands of
years.22
10. Not enough stone age skeletons
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Evolutionary anthropologists say that the stone age lasted for at least
100,000 years, during which time the world population of Neanderthal and
Cro-magnon men was roughly constant, between 1 and 10 million.
All that
time they were burying their dead with artifacts.23 By this scenario, they
would have buried at least 4 billion bodies.24 If the evolutionary time
scale is correct, and if buried bones are able to last for much longer
than 100,000 years (as is the case with “70 million-year-old” dinosaurs),
then many of the supposed 4 billion stone age skeletons should still be
around (and certainly the buried artifacts). Yet only a few thousand have
been found. This implies that the stone age was much shorter than evolutionists
think, a few hundred years in many areas.
11. Agriculture is too recent
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The usual evolutionary picture has men existing as hunters and gatherers
for 100,000 years during the stone age before discovering agriculture less
than 10,000 years ago.23
Yet the archaeological evidence shows that stone
age men were as intelligent as we are. It is very improbable that none
of the alleged 4 billion people mentioned in item 10 should discover that
plants grow from seeds. It is more likely that men were without agriculture
less than a few hundred years after the flood, if at all.24
According to evolutionists, stone age man existed for 100,000 years
before beginning to make written records about 4000 to 5000 years ago.
Prehistoric man built megalithic monuments, made beautiful cave paintings,
and kept records of lunar phases.25 Why would he wait a thousand centuries
before using the same skills to record history? The biblical time scale
is much more likely.24
REFERENCES
1. Scheffler, H. and H. Elsasser, Physics of the Galaxy and Interstellar
Matter, Springer-Verlag (1987) Berlin, pp. 352-353, 401-413.
2. D. Zaritsky et al., Nature, July 22, 1993. Sky & Telescope,
December 1993, p. 10.
3. Steidl, P. F., “Planets, comets, and asteroids,” in Design
and Origins in Astronomy, G. Mulfinger, ed., Creation Research Society
Books (1983), pp. 73-106.
4. Whipple, F. L., “Background of modern comet theory,” Nature
263 (2 Sept 1976) 15.
5. Gordeyev, V. V. et al., “The average chemical composition of
suspensions in the world’s rivers and the supply of sediments to the
ocean by streams,”
Dockl. Akad. Nauk. SSSR 238 (1980) 150.
6. Hay, W. W., et al., “Mass/age distribution and composition
of sediments on the ocean floor and the global rate of subduction,” Journal
of Geophysical Research, 93, No B12 (10 December 1988) 14,933-14,940.
7. Maybeck, M., “Concentrations des eaux fluviales en elements
majeurs et apports en solution aux oceans,” Rev. de Geol. Dyn.
Geogr. Phys. 21 (1979) 215.
8. Sayles, F. L. and P. C. Mangelsdorf, “Cation-exchange characteristics
of Amazon River suspended sediment and its reaction with seawater,” Geochimica
et Cosmochimica Acta 41 (1979) 767.
9. Austin, S. A. and D. R. Humphreys, “The sea’s missing salt:
a dilemma for evolutionists,” in Proc. 2nd Internat. Conf. on Creationism,
Vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1991).
10. Austin, S. A., “Evolution: the oceans say no!” ICR Impact
No. 8 (Oct. 1973) Institute for Creation Research.
11. Merrill, R. T. and M. W. McElhinney, The Earth’s Magnetic
Field, Academic Press (1983) London, pp. 101-106.
12. Humphreys, D. R., “Reversals of the earth’s magnetic field
during the Genesis Flood,” in Proc. 1st Internat. Conf. on Creationism,
Vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1987), pp. 113-126.
13. Coe, R. S., M. Prévot, and P. Camps, “New evidence for extraordinarily
rapid change of the geomagnetic field during a reversal,” Nature
374 (20 April 1995) pp. 687-92.
14. Humphreys, D. R., “Physical mechanism for reversals of the
earth’s magnetic field during the Flood,” in Proc. 2nd Intern. Conf.
on Creationism, Vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1991).
15. Austin, S. A. and J. D. Morris, “Tight folds and clastic dikes
as evidence for rapid deposition and deformation of two very thick stratigraphic
sequences,” in Proc. 1st Internat. Conf. on Creationism, Vol.
II, Creation Science Fellowship (1986), pp. 3-15.
16. Ibid, pp. 11-12.
17. Gentry, R. V., “Radioactive halos,” Annual Review of
Nuclear Science 23 (1973) 347-362.
18. Gentry, R. V. et al., “Radiohalos in coalified wood: new evidence
relating to time of uranium introduction and coalification,” Science
194 (15 Oct. 1976) 315-318.
19. Gentry, R. V., “Radiohalos in a radiochronological and cosmological
perspective,” Science 184 (5 Apr. 1974) 62-66.
20. Gentry, R. V., Creation’s Tiny Mystery, Earth Science
Associates (1986) P.O. Box 12067, Knoxville, TN 37912-0067, pp. 23-37,
51-59, 61-62.
21. Vardiman, L., The Age of the Earth’s Atmosphere: a Study
of the Helium Flux through the Atmosphere, Institute for Creation Research
(1990) P.O. Box 2667, El Cajon, CA 92021.
22. Gentry, R. V. et al., “Differential helium retention in zircons:
implications for nuclear waste management,” Geophys. Res. Lett.
9 (Oct. 1982) 1129-1130. See also ref. 20, pp. 169-170.
23. Deevey, E. S., “The human population,” Scientific American
203 (Sept. 1960) 194-204.
24. Marshak, A., “Exploring the mind of Ice Age man,” Nat.
Geog. 147 (Jan. 1975) 64-89.
25. Dritt, J. O., “Man's earliest beginnings: discrepancies in
the evolutionary timetable,” in Proc. 2nd Internat. Conf. on Creationism,
Vol. I., Creation Science Fellowship (1990), pp. 73-78.
Dr. Russell Humphreys, a Senior Physicist at Sandia National
Laboratories, is a board member of the Creation
Research Society, and is a leader in the Creation Science
Fellowship of Albuquerque.
"Evidence for a Young World"
<http://www.creationism.org/english/YoungWorld_en.htm>