Is the claim the Earth is 4.5 billion years old a fact?

Question

Or is it still just a theory based on Evolution timescale? If it is still a theory then why do we always hear things like " This is millions of years old", and not " This is possibly millions of years old based on Evolution time scale"

uh no, carbon datings doesnt date the earth or rocks, sorry answerer NO. 2, they only date things dated about 50,000 years or so.

fossil evidence, bookish, can you give some examples and what datings they use

Answer 1

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 2

There are many ways of dating rocks based on the various rates of decay of unstable isotopes. Carbon 14 is just one.

All potassium contains a 0.01% (i.e. one part in 10,000) of the radioactive isotope K-40. ("K" is the chemical symbol for potassium. K-40 means that the total number of neutrons and protons in the nucleus is 40. Ordinary potassium is K-39.) The half life of K-40 is 1.26 billion years. When it decays (explodes), the K-40 emits an electron, a neutrino, and the remaining nucleus turns into Argon-40, abbreviated Ar-40. This mean that if you have a gram of K-40, in 1260 million years, you will have a half a gram of K-40 and a half a gram of AR-40.

This is particularly useful for geology. Imagine that there was a volcanic eruption in the past, and a molten rock lands in the sea. Because the rock was hot and molten, any gas that was trapped inside it escapes. When the rock solidifies, it initially has no gas trapped inside. But here is potassium inside, and therefore there is also potassium-40 inside. Every year, some of that K-40 decays, turning into argon gas. Because the rock is solid, the gas cannot escape.

This rock might be trapped in sea floor sediment, where it becomes part of newly forming sedimentary rock. A million years later, this sedimentary rock might have been lifted above the sea as mountains formed. We examine the rock, and we see an interesting fossil. Perhaps the fossil of a dinosaur. We wonder, how old is the fossil? In the same sedimentary rock, the astute geologist notices a rock that he can tell (he is a geologist!) came from a volcano. He brings the rock to the laboratory, melts it, and measures the amount of argon gas that comes out. He then measures the amount of K-40 that is in the rock. From the ratio of those two measurements, the geologist knows how long ago the rock was formed, and so knows when the dinosaur bone was laid down.

It is this method, called Potassium-Argon dating, that has given us the best estimates for the ages of ancient fossils.

Answer 3

It is only theory. Why is it taught as fact? Political correctness I would say, though I do not put much into be politically correct.

ASSUMPTION: Evolutionists generally assume the material being measured had no original "daughter" element(s) in it, or they assume the amount can be accurately estimated. For example, they may assume that all of the lead in a rock was produced by the decay of its uranium.
PROBLEM: One can almost never know with absolute certainty how much radioactive or daughter substance was present at the start.


ASSUMPTION: Evolutionists have also tended to assume that the material being measured has been in a closed system. It has often been wrongly assumed that no outside factors altered the normal ratios in the material, adding or subtracting any of the elements involved.
PROBLEM: The age estimate can be thrown off considerably, if the radioactive element or the daughter element is leached in or leached out of the sample. There are evidences that this could be a significant problem. Simple things such as groundwater movement can carry radioactive material or the daughter element into or out of rock. Rocks must be carefully tested to determine what outside factors might have changed their content.


ASSUMPTION: They assume that the rate of decomposition has always remained constant - absolutely constant.
PROBLEM: How can one be certain that decay rates have been constant over billions of years? Scientific measurements of decay rates have only been conducted since the time of the Curies in the early 1900s. Yet Evolutionists are boldly making huge extrapolations back over 4.5 billion years and more. There is some evidence that the rate of radioactive decay can change. If the decay rates have ever been higher in the past, then relatively young rocks would wrongly "date" as being old rocks.

Answer 4

Yep. The entire Solar system has been dated at least 9 ways that I know of. They all come out between 4-5 billion.

Evolution was not used in the slightest way to date it. You have to realize that evolution would not be incompatible with the Earth existing barren of life for a long time, so the time frame for life has nothing at all to do with the age of Earth. In fact, most of the dating was done on meteorites, because a rock melting into lava is what starts the process that is used to date it.

Added: I can give examples. The primary one was U-Pb radioactive decay. It typically dates meteorite material to 4.5 billion years ago. The oldest Earth rock was 4.3 billion years if memory serves. But they can also tell how much fuel the Sun has used and get an age from that, they can use several other radioactive decays, they can study the cratering on planets that are static and get a decent guess.

Answer 5

Evolution has nothing to do with the age of the earth. And yes, the earth is around 4.5 billion years old. Carbon dating on fossils can put them back tens of millions of years, and radio isotope dating puts the earth back even farther.

Answer 6

Evolution has nothing to do with the Earth's age. Evolution is a biological theory, not an astronomical or geological theory. The evidence of the Earth's age at 4-5 billion years is backed up from thousands of samples and dating done on those samples from around the world; the evidence to back up that age range is greater than any evidence to the contrary.

Answer 7

Just how long ago the starry heavens and the earth were created is not stated in the Bible. Therefore, there is no basis for Bible scholars to take issue with scientific calculations of the age of the planet. Scientists estimate the age of some rocks as being three and a half billion years, and the earth itself as being about four to four and a half billion or more years.

Answer 8

You have it upside down.

A variety of techniques are used to geologically date the Earth, one of which is radiometric dating. These give the age of the Earth at around 4.5 billion years and also enable rock strata to be dated over this range.

The volutionary timescale follows directly from this dating. If fossils are found in a layer of rock it is reasonable to assume that they got there at the time the rock formed, and given the know date of rock formation from say radiometric dating you have a timescale.

(Radiometric dating uses known decay rates of very long lived isotopes).

Answer 9

Sigh...that "just a *theory*" thing again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory

The earth is indeed around 4.5 billion years old. This is both a fact and a theory, which you will understand if you read the above article which defines "theory" in the scientific sense. A "theory" in science is not "just some random, vague idea I came up with because I felt like it." The theory of the Earth's age has zero to do with evolutionary theory.

Please, in the name of all that's sacred, read something besides Creationist websites for once in your life.

Answer 10

Because, as many will happily point out, scientific theory, is taken as fact, untill proven otherwise.

It is just a theory, based on the big bang and the evolutionary time scare.

What is also a theory, is that we were all created in finished forms, and evolved slightly (micro evolution) in the 6,000 give or take, years that we have been here.

I found the same thing on a recent trip to the zoo.

Jessica - feel free to email

Answer 11

The best age for the Earth comes not from dating individual rocks but by considering the Earth and meteorites as part of the same evolving system in which the isotopic composition of lead, specifically the ratio of lead-207 to lead-206 changes over time owing to the decay of radioactive uranium-235 and uranium-238, respectively. Scientists have used this approach to determine the time required for the isotopes in the Earth's oldest lead ores, of which there are only a few, to evolve from its primordial composition, as measured in uranium-free phases of iron meteorites, to its compositions at the time these lead ores separated from their mantle reservoirs. These calculations result in an age for the Earth and meteorites, and hence the Solar System, of 4.54 billion years with an uncertainty of less than 1 percent.