Geologists - please give me 3 of the best responses to creationists?

Question

I have some geological knowledge just from an interest point of view living in a very geologically active country, New Zealand. But I always fall a bit short, when creationists say "give me proof of the advanced age of the Earth".

What I would like is the best possible ammunition to throw at these people. What are the most obvious signs of the age of the Earth? If I quote deep river valleys and U-shaped valleys, they simply come up with the old "they were cut by the Biblical flood".

I would appreciate just your 3 best indications that anybody with eyes could see.

Thanks in anticipation.

Hey, somebody gave "best answer" to the answer about me going to hell, simply because I have an inquiring mind.

My God, there are some poor, sick people in the world.

Thanks all those who responded sensibly.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, Creationists are very good at ignoring evidence that doesn't fit their pre-conceived notions, even when it is literally right in front of their eyes.

The most obvious, visually identifiable, verifiable and consistent piece of evidence is the stratification and correlation of geological layers throughout the world. These geological strata are visible in many places, particularily river valleys, gorges, mountain passes and other regions where water has cut through older layers of rock.

Simple logic would indicate that new layers of silt, sand and rock laid down in lakebeds, river deltas, etc are laid down on top of older layers. There are lake beds in areas such as Wyoming that literally show millions of seasonal varves as one layer is laid down every year. Other areas show large numbers of layers in some areas, and a few of these layers can be corellated through chemistry or fossil assemblages to be the same age as similar layers in other locales (i.e. the irridium layer that appears at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary). Even if these don't give an exact date of the age of the Earth, they certainly indicate that it must be older than 6000 years.

Radiometric dating methods (such as those discussed above) have given absolute, chronometric dates to many of those geological layers. Creationists will hold that these methods are unreliable, although they are unable to explain why the dates given match between layers, and consistently give older dates at the bottom of geological collumns than the tops. They also claim that the rates of radioactive decay have changed over time - thus making it appear that more decay has occurred and the rocks are older. However the theory of stellar evolution follows the same rate of radioactive decay we have measured in laboratories on Earth and used to determine geological ages. The evidence from astronomy fits the constant radioactive decay theory - if radiation had decayed at different rates in the past, the stars would be completely different than we see them today. Also, if radioactive decay in the past was rapid enough to create 4.6 billion years worth of aging in only 6000 years, the radiation released by rocks during the Garden of Eden days would have been sufficient to melt the Earth - not to mention what it would have done to Adam and Eve and their genes.

Growth rings in trees: Some of the oldest living trees on Earth are bristlecone pines, some of which are over 5000 years old according to their yearly growth rings. Correlating the growth rings of living pine trees with identical growth ring sequences in dead pine trees gives an unbroken, yearly progression of tree rings going back over 11,000 years. This alone disproves a 6000 year old Earth.

For more evidence, look at the distribution of animals around the world. Lemurs found only in Madagascar, marsupials as the dominant mammals in Australia, differences in related groups between old world and new world species, and even the number and type of critters that exist in New Zealand are all indicative that plate tectonics and other forces are better at explaining modern biogeography than Noah's Ark is. Although not directly evidence for a specific age of the Earth, they definitely support the scientific explanation over the religious.

Answer 2

I got my BA in geology and never used it. I like some of the answers, but if you are looking for obvious signs, I'd choose these:

the oldest fossils appear in the Cambrain period (about 600 million years ago). They can be dated as noted above. Before that there was no fossil record, indicating only simple organisms with no shells were present. This time is called the Cambrain Explosion when life flourished. Hence we named the era the Paleozoic (old life)

The second is the Permian Extinction when about 90 percent of life died off for several reasons. This was a greater die off then the one that killed off the dinosaurs. This marked the end of the Paleozoic and the start of the Mesozoic (middle life).

At the end of the Mesozoic the dinosaurs were killed off and the Cenozoic (new life) era began. This was marked with the emergance of mammals as the dominant species today.

Those are the 3 main events in geologic history. The timetables for them can be looked up, and prove the earth is 4.6 billion years old. But this doesn't say god didn't have something to do with it.

Answer 3

Im not a geologist. But I can point out that the Sphinx in Egypt has visible horizontal fissues, which is related to rain water erosion. The Sphinx is in a desert. The last time this area was a rainforest was 12000 years ago - twice the age they claim for the earth.

Of course, you can also give a circular reasoning for the age of earth, as they provide circular reasoning to explain the existence of their God. So, you can point out the fossils date rocks, and that these rocks date the fossils that are found in those strata...... And when they laugh at you, ask them why the Bible is such an authority - the response will be because it is the word of God. When you ask how they know this, the response is "because the Bible says so>" Give them their own medicine....

Answer 4

I usually ask them where in the Bible it talks about scientific theories that are important in modern life. For instance, "Where in the Bible does it talk about the Electro-magnetic Spectrum? Well, if you can't find it in the Bible then it must not be valid. You have to give up your electricity, because Maxwell described it in the EM Spectrum". Another is: "Where does it talk about the Weak Internucleic Force? We base nuclear power on concentrating uranium to speed up this force. You have to give up any power generated by this method since the Bible doesn't mention it. Another is: "If the Bible isn't a book on science then why should anyone look for science in it. If I want guidence on how I should treat God or my fellow man I don't turn to science, I turn to the Bible. If I want to try to understand the natural world around me I turn to science, not to the Bible.

Answer 5

My 3 best indications are the 4 methods of dating materials found on Earth (please see below).

The oldest rocks which have been found so far (on the Earth) date to about 3.8 to 3.9 billion years ago (by several radiometric dating methods**). Some of these rocks are sedimentary, and include minerals which are themselves as old as 4.1 to 4.2 billion years. Rocks of this age are relatively rare, however, rocks that are at least 3.5 billion years in age have been found in North America, Greenland, Australia, Africa, and Asia.

While these values do not compute an age for the Earth, they do establish a lower limit (the Earth must be at least as old as any formation on it). This lower limit is at least concordant with the INDEPENDENTLY DERIVED figure of 4.55 billion years for the Earth's actual age.

The source cited below also discusses Creationists' arguments and why they are absurd. Such inane responses to your question like "God can fool us if he wants to" is really, really lame and need not be discussed. Arguing with fools just puts you down on their level.

_______________________

**1. Radiocarbon dating. This technique measures the decay of Carbon-14 in organic material (e.g. plant macrofossils), and can be applied to samples younger than about 50,000 years.

2. Uranium-lead dating. This technique measures the ratio of two lead isotopes (Pb-206 and Pb-207) to the amount of uranium in a mineral or rock. Often applied to the trace mineral zircon in igneous rocks, this method is one of the two most commonly used (along with argon-argon dating) for geologic dating. Uranium-lead dating is applied to and confirms samples that are older than about 1 million years.

3. Uranium-thorium dating. This technique is used to date speleothems, corals, carbonates, and fossil bones. Its range is from a few years to about 700,000 years.

4. Potassium-argon dating and argon-argon dating. These techniques are used to date metamorphic, igneous and volcanic rocks. They are also used to date volcanic ash layers within or overlying paleoanthropologic sites. The younger limit of the argon-argon method is a few thousand years.

Answer 6

You can't beat the logic that if God is all-powerful, he can create objects that, when brand new, appear to be millions of years old. Give up trying to convince and just be content with your own beliefs. Live and let live.

Answer 7

Sorry..but it's been scientifically proven that the Earth can't be more than 5,000 years old cause of the rate of the weakening of the Earth's magnetic field.

It's also what causes our lifespan to be significantly shorter than in the Biblical times & our reptiles(aka dinosaurs) to be a lot smaller.

Since reptiles do not stop growing over their lifetimes...imagine how huge they would be if their lifespan was 3-4 times longer!


Carbon dating is based on theory...thus making all the aging of earth's layers not reliable.

Answer 8

you cant beat them......nothing proves that the earth is more than 6,000 years old.......God is all powerful do anything as a test make anything appear to be as old as he wants....plus how do you explain this: they say petrified wood takes hundred if not thousands of years to become that state.........and yet i have proven against that.........i have cut up logs on year and left them to dry in the field and lo and behold the next year......they were PETRIFIED.........COMPLETLY..........and people have also buried a ceramic bowl and 10 years later dug it up..washed all of the dirt off and it dated 1000 years old........care to explain that?

Answer 9

Nick you have no faith and you and your family are going to hell. Idiot.

Answer 10

Decay rate of Carbon 14 molecules, in rock strata.

Carbon 14 decays at a constant rateRadiocarbon dating
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring isotope carbon-14 to determine the age of carbonaceous materials up to ca 60,000 years. Within archaeology it is considered an absolute dating technique. The technique was discovered by Willard Frank Libby and his colleagues in 1949 during his tenure as a professor at the University of Chicago. Libby estimated that the steady state radioactivity concentration of exchangeable 14C would be about 14 disintegrations per minute (dpm) per gram carbon (ca. 230 mBq/g). In 1960, Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his method to use carbon-14 for age determination.
Contents
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* 1 Furthering the technique and applications
* 2 Basic chemistry
* 3 Measurements and scales
* 4 Calibration
o 4.1 The need for calibration
o 4.2 Calibration methods
* 5 Radiocarbon half-life
o 5.1 Libby vs Cambridge values
* 6 Examples
* 7 See also
* 8 Note
o 8.1 Computations of ages and dates
* 9 References
* 10 External links

[edit]

Furthering the technique and applications

Hessel de Vries, at the University of Groningen furthered the detection methods and applications to a variety of sciences. He has been called "the unsung hero of radiocarbon dating" (cf Willis).
[edit]

Basic chemistry

Carbon has two stable, nonradioactive isotopes: carbon-12 (12C), and carbon-13 (13C). In addition, there are tiny amounts of the unstable isotope carbon-14 (14C) on Earth. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5730 years and would have long ago vanished from Earth were it not for the unremitting cosmic ray impacts on nitrogen in the Earth's atmosphere, which forms more of the isotope. When cosmic rays enter the atmosphere, they undergo various transformations, including the production of neutrons. The resulting neutrons participate in the following reaction on one of the N atoms being knocked out of a Nitrogen (N2) molecule in the atmosphere:

1n + 14N → 14C + 1p

Atmospheric 14C, New Zealand[1] and Austria[2]. The New Zealand curve is representative for the Southern Hemisphere, the Austrian curve is representative for the Northern Hemisphere. Atmospheric nuclear weapon tests almost doubled the concentration of 14C in the Northern Hemisphere [3].
Enlarge
Atmospheric 14C, New Zealand[1] and Austria[2]. The New Zealand curve is representative for the Southern Hemisphere, the Austrian curve is representative for the Northern Hemisphere. Atmospheric nuclear weapon tests almost doubled the concentration of 14C in the Northern Hemisphere [3].

The highest rate of carbon-14 production takes place at altitudes of 9 to 15 km (30,000 to 50,000 ft), and at high geomagnetic latitudes, but the carbon-14 spreads evenly throughout the atmosphere and reacts with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide also permeates the oceans, dissolving in the water. For approximate analysis it is assumed that the cosmic ray flux is constant over long periods of time; thus carbon-14 could be assumed to be continuously produced at a constant rate and therefore that the proportion of radioactive to non-radioactive carbon throughout the Earth's atmosphere and surface oceans is constant: ca. 1 part per trillion (600 billion atoms/mole). For more accurate work, the temporal variation of the cosmic ray flux can be compensated for with calibration curves. If these curves are used, their accuracy and shape will be the limiting factors in the determination of the radiocarbon age range of a given sample.

Plants take up atmospheric carbon dioxide by photosynthesis, and are eaten by animals, so every living thing is constantly exchanging carbon-14 with its environment as long as it lives. Once it dies, however, this exchange stops, and the amount of carbon-14 gradually decreases through radioactive decay.

14C → 14N + 0β

By emitting a β particle (Beta decay), carbon-14 is changed into stable (non-radioactive) nitrogen-14. This decay can be used to get a measure of how long ago a piece of once-living material died. However, aquatic plants obtain some of their carbon from dissolved carbonates which are likely to be very old, and thus deficient in the carbon-14 isotope, so the method is less reliable for such materials as well as for samples derived from animals with such plants in their food chain.
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Measurements and scales

Measurements are traditionally made by counting the radioactive decay of individual carbon atoms by gas proportional counting or by liquid scintillation counting, but these are relatively insensitive and subject to relatively large statistical uncertainties for small samples (below about 1g carbon). If there is little carbon-14 to begin with, a half-life that long means that very few of the atoms will decay while their detection is attempted (4 atoms/s) /mol just after death, hence e.g. 1 (atom/s)/mol after 10,000 years). Sensitivity has since been greatly increased by the use of accelerator-based mass-spectrometric (AMS) techniques, where all the 14C atoms can be counted directly, rather than only those decaying during the counting interval allotted for each analysis. The AMS technique allows one to date samples containing only a few milligrams of carbon.

Raw radiocarbon ages, i.e. not calibrated are usually reported in years "before present" (BP). This is the number of radiocarbon years before 1950, based on a nominal (and assumed constant - see "calibration" below) level of carbon-14 in the atmosphere equal to the 1950 level. They are also based on a slightly off historic value for the half-life maintained for consistency with older publications (see "Radiocarbon half-life" below). See the Note, below, for the basis of the computations. Corrections for isotopic fractionation have not been included in the present note.

Radiocarbon labs generally report an uncertainty, e.g., 3000±30BP indicates a standard deviation of 30 radiocarbon years. Traditionally this includes only the statistical counting uncertainty and some labs supply an "error multiplier" that can be multiplied by the uncertainty to account for other sources of error in the measuring process. Additional error is likely to arise from the nature and collection of the sample itself, e.g., a tree may accumulate carbon over a significant period of time. Such wood, turned into an artifact some time after the death of the tree, will reflect the date of the carbon in the wood.

The current maximum radiocarbon age limit lies in the range between 58,000 and 62,000 years. This limit is encountered when the radioactivity of the residual 14C in a sample is too low to be distinguished from the background radiation.
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Calibration
[edit]

The need for calibration
Calibration curve for the radiocarbon dating scale. Data sources: Stuiver et al.[4]. Samples with a real date more recent than AD 1950 are dated and/or tracked using the N- & S-Hemisphere graphs. See preceding figure.
Enlarge
Calibration curve for the radiocarbon dating scale. Data sources: Stuiver et al.[4]. Samples with a real date more recent than AD 1950 are dated and/or tracked using the N- & S-Hemisphere graphs. See preceding figure.

A raw BP date cannot be used directly as a calendar date, because the level of atmospheric 14C has not been strictly constant during the span of time that can be radiocarbon dated. The level is affected by variations in the cosmic ray intensity which is affected by variations caused by solar storms. In addition there are substantial reservoirs of carbon in organic matter, the ocean, ocean sediments (see methane hydrate), and sedimentary rocks. Changing climate can sometimes disrupt the carbon flow between these reservoirs and the atmosphere. The level has also been affected by human activities—it was almost doubled for a short period due to atomic bomb tests in the 1950s and 1960s and has been reduced by the release of large amounts of CO2 from ancient organic sources where 14C is not present—the fossil fuels used in industry and transportation, known as the Suess effect.
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Calibration methods

The raw radiocarbon dates, in BP years, are therefore calibrated to give calendar dates. Standard calibration curves are available, based on comparison of radiocarbon dates of samples that can be independently dated by other methods such as examination of tree growth rings (dendrochronology), ice cores, deep ocean sediment cores, lake sediment varves, coral samples, and speleothems (cave deposits).

The calibration curves can vary significantly from a straight line, so comparison of uncalibrated radiocarbon dates (e.g., plotting them on a graph or subtracting dates to give elapsed time) is likely to give misleading results. There are also significant plateaus in the curves, such as the one from 11,000 to 10,000 radiocarbon years BP, which is believed to be associated with changing ocean circulation during the Younger Dryas period. The accuracy of radiocarbon dating is lower for samples originating from such plateau periods.

It has been noted that the plateau itself can be used as a time marker when it appears in a time series.
[edit]

Radiocarbon half-life
[edit]

Libby vs Cambridge values

Carbon dating was developed by a team led by Willard Libby. Originally a Carbon-14 half-life of 5568±30 years was used, which is now known as the Libby half-life. Later a more accurate figure of 5730±40 years was determined, which is known as the Cambridge half-life. However laboratories continue to use the Libby figure to avoid inconsistencies when comparing raw dates and when using calibration curves to obtain calendrical dates.
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Examples

* Haraldskaer Woman
* Thera eruption
* Vinland map
* Skeleton Lake
* Kennewick Man
* Shroud of Turin

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See also

* Absolute dating
* Cosmogenic isotopes
* Environmental isotopes
* Radiometric dating
* Relative dating
* Discussion of half-life and average-life or mean-lifetime

[edit]

Note
[edit]

Computations of ages and dates

The radioactive decay of carbon-14 follows an exponential decay. A quantity is said to be subject to exponential decay if it decreases at a rate proportional to its value. Symbolically, this can be expressed as the following differential equation, where N is the quantity and λ is a positive number called the decay constant:

\frac{dN}{dt} = -\lambda N.

The solution to this equation is:

N = Ce^{-\lambda t} \,,

where C is the initial value of N.

For the particular case of radiocarbon decay, this equation is written:

N = N_0e^{-\lambda t}\,,

where, for a given sample of carbonaceous matter:

N0 = number of radiocarbon atoms at t = 0, i.e. the origin of the disintegration time,
N = number of radiocarbon atoms remaining after radioactive decay during the time t,
λ = radiocarbon decay or disintegration constant.
Two related times can be defined:

* half-life: time lapsed for half the number of radiocarbon atoms in a given sample, to decay,
* mean- or average-life: mean or average time each radiocarbon atom spends in a given sample until it decays.

It can be shown that:

t1 / 2 = \frac{\ln 2}{\lambda} = radiocarbon half-life = 5568 years (Libby value)

tavg = \frac{1}{\lambda} = radiocarbon mean- or average-life = 8033 years (Libby value)

Notice that dates are customarily given in years BP which implies t(BP) = -t because the time arrow for dates runs in reverse direction from the time arrow for the corresponding ages. From these considerations and the above equation, it results:

For a raw radiocarbon date:

t(BP) = \frac{1}{\lambda} {\ln \frac{N}{N_0}}

and for a raw radiocarbon age:

t(BP) = -\frac{1}{\lambda} {\ln \frac{N}{N_0}}

After replacing values, the raw radiocarbon age becomes any of the following equivalent formulae:

using logs base e and the average life:

t(BP) = -t_{avg}\; ln \frac{N}{N_0}

and

using logs base 2 and the half-life:

t(BP) = -t_{1/2}\; log_2 \frac{N}{N_0}