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Age of the Earth (view source)

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→‎Evolutionists vs. Kelvin: Darwin's reaction to Kelvin ++

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Included in Hales' list is [[James Ussher]], who calculated the '''famous date of 4004 B.C.''' for creation. Young Earth creationists still consider this date to be close to the actual date.

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=== Evolutionists vs. Kelvin ===

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=== Evolutionists vs. “odius spectre” Kelvin ===

{| class="infobox bordered" style="font-size:95%; width:25em;"

! style="font-size:120%; background:lightgray; text-align:center; padding:5px 0;" | Time as key hero for [[naturalistic]] ‘[[Fog displacement|explanation]]’

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In 1830 [[Charles Lyell]], despite being familiar with Fourier's arguments<ref name="PerryKelvinCritique"/>, supported, with a convert's zeal, the Hutton's idea of a

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steady-state Earth of indefinite age in ''Principles of Geology''<ref name="ingv" />, a book that later influenced [[Darwin]]. Lyell started his book with a self-serving history of geology that [[Academician Burdenko syndrome|uncritically hailed]] any insight anticipating uniformitarianism and under the banner ''“to free the science from Moses”''<ref>{{cite book |author= Charles Lyell |title= Principles of Geology |Volume= 1 |year=1881 (1990)|publisher=University of Chicago Press (reprint) |pages=268 (XVII) |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=9WjnbzHpvfEC |quote=Most other geologists, whether or not they agreed with Lyell on specific issues, would in fact have considered themselves his allies in hoping “to free the science from Moses” (Lyell 1881, vol.1, p.268).}}</ref> [[Kerkut’s student syndrome|utterly dismissed]] the contributions of [[Catastrophism|catastrophists]] including [[Georges Cuvier]], the "lion of nineteenth-century French science" and founder of modern comparative anatomy and paleontology, who as early as 1796 announced ''"the existence of a world previous to ours, destroyed by some kind of catastrophe"'' and whose scientific arguments for the theory of special creation held back the tide of evolutionary thought for a generation.<ref name="Larson"/> Lyell shown up to be a disciple of Buffon, who resolutely refused to accept the notion of catastrophes, including the [[Noah's Flood|Biblical Flood]], which many of their contemporaries upheld. Before Darwin boarded the HMS Beagle in 1831, his Cambridge tutor Adam Sedgwick, who had supplied just twenty-two years old Darwin with a reading list for the voyage, conspicuously omitted controversial Lyell’s ''Principles''. Darwin was however given a copy of the book by the ship's aristocratic captain Robert FitzRoy, who wished to have some scientific person on board.<ref name="Larson"/><ref>{{cite web |title=The Voyage of Charles Darwin, Part 1 |publisher=BBC |year=1978 |pages=7-part series Part 1, 46min:15sec |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hoDaxVIVPE&feature=youtu.be&t=2850 |accessdate=May 17, 2015 |quote=}}</ref> Darwin was fascinated by book, he dedicated his own writings about the voyage to Lyell, and in his letters claimed that ''"I always feel as if my books came half out of Lyell's brains ... the great merit of the Principles, was that it altered the whole tone of one's mind & therefore that when seeing a thing never seen by Lyell, one yet saw it partially through his eyes."''<ref>{{cite web |title=Darwin Correspondence Database: Darwin, C. R. to Horner, Leonard 29 Aug 1844 |author=Ch.Darwin |publisher=Darwin Correspondence Project by Cambridge University Library |url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/entry-771 |accessdate=May 17, 2015}}</ref>

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steady-state Earth of indefinite age in ''Principles of Geology''<ref name="ingv" />, a book that later influenced [[Darwin]]. Lyell started his book with a self-serving history of geology that [[Academician Burdenko syndrome|uncritically hailed]] any insight anticipating uniformitarianism and under the banner ''“to free the science from Moses”''<ref>{{cite book |author= Charles Lyell |title= Principles of Geology |Volume= 1 |year=1881 (1990)|publisher=University of Chicago Press (reprint) |pages=268 (XVII) |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=9WjnbzHpvfEC |quote=Most other geologists, whether or not they agreed with Lyell on specific issues, would in fact have considered themselves his allies in hoping “to free the science from Moses” (Lyell 1881, vol.1, p.268).}}</ref> [[Kerkut’s student syndrome|utterly dismissed]] the contributions of [[Catastrophism|catastrophists]] including [[Georges Cuvier]], the "lion of nineteenth-century French science" and founder of modern comparative anatomy and paleontology, who as early as 1796 announced ''"the existence of a world previous to ours, destroyed by some kind of catastrophe"'' and whose scientific arguments for the theory of [[special creation]] held back the tide of evolutionary thought for a generation.<ref name="Larson"/> Lyell shown up to be a disciple of Buffon, who resolutely refused to accept the notion of catastrophes, including the [[Noah's Flood|Biblical Flood]], which many of their contemporaries upheld. Before Darwin boarded the HMS Beagle in 1831, his Cambridge tutor Adam Sedgwick, who had supplied just twenty-two years old Darwin with a reading list for the voyage, conspicuously omitted controversial Lyell’s ''Principles''. Darwin was however given a copy of the book by the ship's aristocratic captain Robert FitzRoy, who wished to have some scientific person on board.<ref name="Larson"/><ref>{{cite web |title=The Voyage of Charles Darwin, Part 1 |publisher=BBC |year=1978 |pages=7-part series Part 1, 46min:15sec |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hoDaxVIVPE&feature=youtu.be&t=2850 |accessdate=May 17, 2015 |quote=}}</ref> Darwin was fascinated by book, he dedicated his own writings about the voyage to Lyell, and in his letters claimed that ''"I always feel as if my books came half out of Lyell's brains ... the great merit of the Principles, was that it altered the whole tone of one's mind & therefore that when seeing a thing never seen by Lyell, one yet saw it partially through his eyes."''<ref>{{cite web |title=Darwin Correspondence Database: Darwin, C. R. to Horner, Leonard 29 Aug 1844 |author=Ch.Darwin |publisher=Darwin Correspondence Project by Cambridge University Library |url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/entry-771 |accessdate=May 17, 2015}}</ref>

{| class="infobox bordered" style="font-size:95%; width:25em;"

! style="font-size:120%; background:lightgrey; text-align:center; padding:5px 0;" | About people who admit how incomprehensibly vast have been the past periods of time

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| style="padding:15px;" |''If the question "When?" is asked, the natural reply is merely a look of astonishment, and persistent enquiry elicits '''nothing more definite than a vague "Long ago."'''{{#tag:ref|Ad. ''“nothing more definite than a vague ’Long ago’”'' cf. ''«I asked Ramsay how long a time he allowed for that history. He answered that he could suggest no limit to it. I said “You don’t suppose geological history has run through 1,000,000,000 years?” “Certainly I do.” “10,000,000,000 years?” “Yes.” “The sun is a finite body. You can tell how many tons it is. Do you think it has been shining for a million million years? ” “I am as incapable of estimating and understanding the reasons which you physicists have for limiting geological time as you are incapable of understanding the geological reasons for our unlimited estimates.” I answered, “You can understand the physicists’ reasoning perfectly if you give your mind to it.”»''<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Age of the Earth as an Abode Fitted for Life

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| style="padding:15px;" |''If the question "When?" is asked, the natural reply is merely a look of astonishment, and persistent enquiry elicits '''nothing more definite than a vague "Long ago."'''{{#tag:ref|Ad. ''“nothing more definite than a vague ’Long ago’”'' cf. ''«I asked Ramsay how long a time he allowed for that history. He answered that he could suggest no limit to it. I said “You don’t suppose geological history has run through 1,000,000,000 years?” “Certainly I do.” “10,000,000,000 years?” “Yes.” “The sun is a finite body. You can tell how many tons it is. Do you think it has been shining for a million million years? ” “I am as incapable of estimating and understanding the reasons which you physicists have for limiting geological time as you are incapable of understanding the geological reasons for our unlimited estimates.” I answered, “You can understand the physicists’ reasoning perfectly if you give your mind to it.”»'' Lord Kelvin, conversation on geological time with Sir Andrew Ramsay during the meeting of the British Association at Dundee in 1867<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Age of the Earth as an Abode Fitted for Life

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|journal=Science |publisher= American Association for the Advancement of Science |volume=9 |issue=228 |date= May 12, 1899 |page=668 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1626214?seq=4#page_scan_tab_contents |acessdate=July 18, 2105}}</ref>|group=note}} Anything else, of course, could not be expected from a people whose conceptions of the development of the universe are limited to a recognition of the alternation of seasons and the [[Abiogenesis|insistent mysteries of life]] and death.''<div style="padding-left:40px;">— Arthur Holmes <ref name="Holmes1913">{{cite web |title= The age of the earth |author= Arthur Holmes |publisher= Harper |place=London |year= 1913 |pages=2|url= https://archive.org/details/ageofearth00holmuoft |accessdate=July 18, 2015 |quote= }}</ref></div>

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|journal=Science |publisher= American Association for the Advancement of Science |volume=9 |issue=228 |date= May 12, 1899 |page=668 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1626214?seq=4#page_scan_tab_contents |acessdate=July 18, 2105}}</ref>|group=note}} Anything else, of course, could not be expected from a people whose [[Big Bang theory|conceptions of the development of the universe]] are limited to a recognition of the [[Geologic_system#The_system|alternation of seasons]] and the [[Abiogenesis|insistent mysteries of life]] and death.''<div style="padding-left:40px;">— Arthur Holmes <ref name="Holmes1913">{{cite web |title= The age of the earth |author= Arthur Holmes |publisher= Harper |place=London |year= 1913 |pages=2,11 |url= https://archive.org/details/ageofearth00holmuoft |accessdate=July 18, 2015 |quote=As an example of one of the more extravagant demands, mention may be made of Darwin’s estimate in 1859 of the time elapsed since the latter part of the Cretaceous period. From the rate of chalk erosion in Kent, he deduced that the excavation of the Wealden valleys had required a period of 300 million years. Referring to this estimate, Jukes gave his opinion that while it might be a hundred time too great, it was equally probable that it was hundred times too small. Evidently 30,000 million years, in the absence of more reliable data, was not considered an absurdly excessive period for the erosion of the Weald. It should be noticed, however, that after the publication of Thomson’s views, Darwin withdrew this estimate from the origin of species.}}</ref></div>

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In his 1859 ''[[The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection|Origin of species by means of Natural selection]]'', Darwin declared that ''‘He who can read Sir Charles Lyell’s grand work on the Principles of Geology, which the future historian will recognise as having produced a revolution in natural science, yet does not admit how incomprehensibly vast have been the past periods of time, may at once close this volume.’''<ref name="KelvinOnDynamics"/><ref>{{cite book |title= On the Origin of Species |author= Charles Darwin |year=1859 |pages=282 |edition=1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RdIp_XRopbcC&q=incomprehensibly+vast#v=snippet&q=incomprehensibly%20vast&f=false}}</ref> Darwin based his views on Hutton and Lyell who were dedicated not to modern notions of geological dynamism but to antique ones of geological steady-state.<ref name="GOULDinNYT"/> It is believed a feeling of guilt at having helped Darwin arrive at his heretical theories was a factor that might have contributed to FitzRoy’s tragic decision to suicide on 30th April, 1865.<ref>{{cite web |title= FitzRoy's Bicentenary|publisher= The Friends of Charles Darwin |url=http://friendsofdarwin.com/articles/fitzroy/ |quote= The ridicule over the weather forecasts was probably the last straw that drove FitzRoy to suicide on 30th April, 1865. But there were numerous other factors that might have contributed to his tragic decision: his failed New Zealand governorship; a feeling of guilt at having helped Darwin arrive at his heretical theories; his belief that suicide was a family trait; who knows what else might have helped push him over the edge? |accessdate=May 17, 2015}}</ref><ref name="BBC67">{{cite web |title=The Voyage of Charles Darwin, Part 6&7 |publisher=BBC |year=1978 |pages=7-part series Part 6&7, 1h:49min:35sec |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXY-EWZU5qo&feature=youtu.be&t=6575

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After taking into account the estimated uncertainties in thermal gradient and thermal conductivity, Kelvin broadened an upper limit for the age of the Earth to interval between 20 and 400 millions of years (20 ~ 400 Ma). In a later paper, based on experimental results performed by Carl Barus (who found out that diabase, a typical basalt of very primitive character, melts between 1100°C and 1170°C and is thoroughly liquid at 1300°C)<ref name="KelvinNature1895">{{cite journal |title=On the Age of the Earth |author= Lord Kelvin |journal= Nature (reprint in SA)|date= January 3, 1895 |pages= 334-337 |url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lord-kelvin-on-the-age-of-the-earth/ |accessdate=14 June 2015 |quote= Carl Barus (Phil. Mag., 1893, first half year, pp. 186, 187, 301-305) that diabase, a typical basalt of very primitive character, melts between 1,100° C. and 1,170° and is thoroughly liquid at 1,300°.}}</ref>, he modified the value for supposed initial molten rock temperature to 1200°C<ref name="Richter"/>, thus by the end of the 1800s narrowed down the interval to 20 ~ 40Ma<ref name="chemeu">{{cite web |title=William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin |publisher=chemeurope.com |url=http://www.chemeurope.com/en/encyclopedia/William_Thomson%2C_1st_Baron_Kelvin.html |accessdate=14 June 2015 |quote= Thomson ultimately settled on an estimate that the Earth was 20-40 million years old }}</ref>, with personal preference for the lower value which is also the most quoted one.<ref>{{cite book |title= The Dating Game: One Man's Search for the Age of the Earth |author= Cherry Lewis |publisher= Cambridge University Press |year= 2012 |pages= 39 |isbn= 978-11076-59599 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=vU1yZQ03Kz0C }}</ref><ref name="West"/>

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Many scientists liked these values, since they appeared to be consistent with calculations made by [[Hermann von Helmholtz]], who in 1854 estimated the age of sun to be between 20 and 40 million years,<ref name="ingv"/><ref>{{cite web |title= Trial balloons and the age of the earth |author= Tas Walker |publisher=CMI |url= http://creation.com/trial-balloons-geochronology |accessdate= 14 June 2015}}</ref> but for both evolutionists in biology as well as uniformitarians in geology they were distastefully low.<ref name="KelvinRevisited">{{cite web |title= Lord Kelvin revisited on the young age of the earth |author= John Woodmorappe |publisher=CMI |url= http://creation.com/trial-balloons-geochronology |accessdate= 14 June 2015}}</ref>

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Many scientists liked these values, since they appeared to be consistent with calculations made by [[Hermann von Helmholtz]], who in 1854 estimated the age of sun to be between 20 and 40 million years,<ref name="ingv"/><ref>{{cite web |title= Trial balloons and the age of the earth |author= Tas Walker |publisher=CMI |url= http://creation.com/trial-balloons-geochronology |accessdate= 14 June 2015}}</ref> but for both evolutionists in biology as well as uniformitarians in geology they were distastefully low.<ref name="KelvinRevisited">{{cite web |title= Lord Kelvin revisited on the young age of the earth |author= John Woodmorappe |publisher=CMI |url= http://creation.com/trial-balloons-geochronology |accessdate= 14 June 2015}}</ref> Darwin wrote in his letters that he has ''“not as yet been able to digest the fundamental notion of the shortened age of the sun and earth,”''<ref>{{cite book |author= Loren Eiseley

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|title=Darwin’s Century: Evolution and the Men who Discovered It

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|publisher=Anchor

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|place=New York

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|year=1961

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|pages=234, 235, 240

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|isbn= 978-03850-81412

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|url=http://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Century-Evolution-Men-Discovered/dp/0385081413

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}}</ref> and admitted that ''“Thompson's views of the recent age of the world”'' have been for some time one of his ''“sorest troubles.”'' (1869).<ref>{{cite web

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|title= Darwin, C. R. to Wallace, A. R., Letter 6706

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|author=Charles Darwin

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|date= 14 Apr 1869

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|publisher= Darwin Correspondence Database

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|url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-6706#mark-6706.f4

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|quote=Thompson's views of the recent age of the world have been for some time one of my sorest troubles, & so I have been glad to read what you say.f4:William Thomson held that the crust of the earth had solidified only 100 million years ago, and had criticised [Charles Darwin]'s estimate in the first edition of Origin of 300 million years for the denudation of the Weald (see W. Thomson 1862a, pp. 391--2). See also Correspondence vol. 16, letter to G. H. Darwin, [9 December 1868].

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|accessdate=21 July 2015}}</ref> Notwithstanding some Croll's ''"excellent remarks on the work which can be effected within a million years,"'' he felt ''"greatly troubled at the short duration of the world according to Sir W. Thompson,"'' for Darwin required for his ''"theoretical views a very long period before the Cambrian formation"''.<ref>{{cite web

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|title= Darwin, C. R. to Croll, James, Letter 6585

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|author=Charles Darwin

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|date= 31 Jan 1869

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|publisher= Darwin Correspondence Database

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|url= http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-6585

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|quote= The physicist William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) had calculated the age of the earth based on its cooling from a molten ball. He concluded that the earth could not possibly have existed with its crust in a similar state as at present for the length of time proposed by geologists (see W. Thomson 1865). In Origin 5th ed., p. 379, [Charles Darwin] noted that based on Thomson's calculation of the age of the earth and Croll's estimation that 60 million years had passed since the Cambrian period, the time left for the pre-Cambrian period (140 million years) was `hardly sufficient for the development of the varied forms of life which certainly existed towards the close of the Cambrian period'.|accessdate=21 July 2015}}</ref> After the publication of Kelvins’s views, Darwin first halved, in the second edition of the ''[[Origin of species]]'' (p. 287), his own estimate of the time (''"far longer than 300 million years"'') allegedly elapsed since the latter part of the conjectured ''"Cretaceous period"'', and later withdrew the discussion altogether from the third edition.<ref name="Holmes1913"/><ref>{{cite web

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|title= Darwin, C. R. to Hooker, J. D., Letter 6841

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|author=Charles Darwin

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|date= 24 July 1869

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|publisher= Darwin Correspondence Database

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|url= http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-6841#back-mark-06841.f7

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|quote= In [Tait] 1869, p. 429, Tait had quoted [Charles Darwin]'s conjecture, based on his estimate of time needed for the denudation of the Weald, that far longer than 300 million years must have elapsed since the latter part of the secondary period (Origin, p. 287). In response to criticisms in the Saturday Review, 24 December 1859, however, [Charles Darwin] halved his estimate in the second edition of Origin, and removed the discussion altogether from the third edition.

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|accessdate=21 July 2015}}</ref>. In 1871 he even named Kelvin ''“an odious spectre”'' that came so that Darwin could not ''“rely much on pre-Silurian times.”''<ref>{{cite web

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|title= Darwin, C. R. to Wallace, A. R., Letter 7858

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|author=Charles Darwin

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|date= 12 July 1871

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|publisher= Darwin Correspondence Database

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|url=https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/entry-7858

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|quote=I can say nothing more about missing links than what I have said. I should rely much on pre-Silurian times; but then comes Sir W. Thompson like an odious spectre. Footnote: CD discussed the absence of transitional forms in the fossil record in Origin 5th ed., pp. 208–15, 346–8. He thought William Thomson’s estimate of the time elapsed since the consolidation of the earth’s crust was probably too short for species to evolve according to his theory (Origin 5thed., p. 379)

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|accessdate=21 July 2015}}</ref>

== The game changer: Radioactivity mythmaking==

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