Age of the earth?

Question

I was recently in an argument with a friend who was saying the earth is only around 6 thousand years old. he said thats what the bible and all that stuff says..and the way scientists determine the ages of stuff is wrong. Does anyone have any proof that the earth is billions of years old?

Answer 1

Hi Xover,

I'm afraid you've stumbled upon a very old and very tired debate. Your friend is religious, and he believes that the earth is 6000 years old because this is what it says in the bible. He is telling you that scientists dating methods are wrong because he is completely ignorant of what scientists dating methods actually are, and he must REMAIN ignorant of them and assume them to be wrong in order to continue believing his beliefs.

The earth is about 4.5-4.6 billion years old. Lines of evidence that support this include a variety of radiometric dating methods (NOT carbon dating as other answerers have said, but plenty of other ones), calculations using the earth's heat budget, isotopic analyses of earth components and meteorites left over from the formation of the solar system, and many others. In science, nothing is ever PROVEN, but there is an EXTREMELY LARGE amount of evidence that the earth is 4.5 billion years old.

However, you will NEVER convince your friend of this. Your friend's belief in a 6000 earth comes from a misguided faith in a literal interpretation of the bible, and you will never be able to convince him to abandon the bible in any way, shape, or form. My advice to you is to just drop the subject, and talk about things that you have in common and enjoy his friendship without debating things like this. My experience is that on this particular topic, creationists don't want to listen to evidence and don't want to listen to logic, they just want to stick to the comfort of their beliefs.

Hope this helps you!

Answer 2

Wayner is right. The earth is 4.5 billion. You can tell him to forget about all the controversy regarding radioactive testing. There are many ways to determine that the earth is far older than 6000 years. As a geologist, I have seen layer upon layer of sediment that is deposited as rock. It is easy to determine if sediment was deposited in a flood (many different sized particles and very energetic environment) or if it was formed from slow depositions such as clays in an offshore marine environment. Another way is to look at the evidence at spreading centers. It was noticed that magnetic anomolies occur as bands moving away from the mid-ocean ridge. The ridge forms as magma soilidifies here as the oceanic crust is formed and spreads from the ridge. Because the magnetic field of the earth changes periodically, every 100,000 years or so. The pattern is the same on both sides of the spreading center. You can watch sea floor forming and it is obvious that this has been happening for millions of years. It is obvious to those willing to look at the evidence which may not be the case with your friend.

Answer 3

This argument is a popular one, if you try to combine scientific facts with the bible or the torah, usually the scientific facts win. You see, the bible can be correct exept that the part about the beginning of earth and all that, the bible only tells the history of humans, but it leaves out everything about the ancestors of humans. Australopithecines(about 3-4 feet tall, lives no longer than 30 years) are the oldest fossils ever found. The fossils of these Austalopithecines date back to 4.5 million years ago. Most of these arifacts were found in Ethiopia.
The latest species of these early humans are the Neanderthals. Of course, there are many other similar species in between, but i dont remember all of them.
Neanderthal bones were found in caves of France. They were to be thought as brutal people, but they were found t be gental and caring. Flowers and offerings were found at the graves of their kind.
I have consulted the teachers before, one of them, he said, ' if you were to shrink 4 million years onto a peice of average sizd computer paper, then, the history of the earth is as long as a peice of rope wrapped around a 12 by12 feet bedroom 99 times.
You see, fossils dont all survive, they can survive a long time, but eventually, they's break down too.

Answer 4

The age of the earth, determined by radiometric dating of rocks, is about 4.55 billion years old. BUT-carbon-14 is NOT used to date rocks. It is only used to date organic matter (plants, animals, natural fibers, etc.) and is only good for stuff less than about 50,000 years old.

The 6,000 year old figure comes from Archbishop James Ussher, who in the 16th century, using the only tools available at the time (the genealogies in the Bible) calculated the earth to have been created in 4004 BC. You can't really fault him for his estimate - you can fault people you continue to use it when better tools (like radiometric dating) have come along.

Many, many Christians accept the scientific age of the earth.

Answer 5

The Bible is not a scientific journal, base your morals on it, but do not rely on it for pertinate scientific information. The Earth is billions of years old as proved by carbon-date testing of rocks and fossils.

Answer 6

carbon tested rocks appear to have a half-life of decaying which is 4.5 billion years old and there are still rocks like this, symbolizing that the Earth was here 4.5 billion years ago.

Answer 7

Well, considering that certain ancient cultures have recorded history that continuously covers more than that 6000 years, with no break for Noah's Flood either, I don't think it really matters what your friend thinks about scientific dating. His "Biblical" 6000 years is bunk.

Why trust his opinion any further?

Answer 8

It doesn't matter what evidence you accumulate, he's not going to listen to you

Answer 9

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html