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! 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

! 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.”»'' 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

| 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.  

|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;">&mdash; 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>

*''«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

|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>

*''“I do not have millions of years”'' Gail E. Kennedy, Associate Professor, Anthropology, [[UCLA]]<ref>{{cite web |title=Evolution Vs. God Movie |publisher=Living Waters |pages=14min:48sec|date=6 Aug 2013 |url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0u3-2CGOMQ&feature=youtu.be&t=885 |accessdate=25 July 2015}}</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;">&mdash; 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

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

The doctrine that the Earth was of unlimited age allowed Uniformitarian geologists to evade [[explanation in science|explaining]] any [[phenomenon|phenomena]] by laws of [[physics]] and resort to [[Fog displacement|blurring]] them by ''“reckless drafts on the bank of time”'' instead. For the legendary British physicist William Thomson, later known as [[Lord Kelvin]], this game without rules was simply not scientific. The speculations of uniformitarians on age of the Earth were forbidden by the laws of the thermodynamics, which he had helped in developing. He showed with the full force and prestige of mathematical physics, that, if one were to assume that the Earth is a solid body cooling from an initially high temperature, measurement of the rate of heat loss from its surface would clearly place limits on its age.  

The doctrine that the Earth was of unlimited age allowed Uniformitarian geologists to evade [[explanation in science|explaining]] any [[phenomenon|phenomena]] by laws of [[physics]] and resort to [[Fog displacement|blurring]] them by ''“reckless drafts on the bank of time”'' instead. For the legendary British physicist William Thomson, later known as [[Lord Kelvin]], this game without rules was simply not scientific. The speculations of uniformitarians on age of the Earth were forbidden by the laws of the thermodynamics, which he had helped in developing. He showed, with the full force and prestige of mathematical physics,{{#tag:ref|cf.

*''"Religion and natural science are fighting a joint battle in an incessant, never relaxing crusade against skepticism and against dogmatism, against unbelief and superstition … [and therefore] ‘On to God’"'' [[Max Planck]]<ref name="Flew"/>|group=note}} that, if one were to assume that the Earth is a solid body cooling from an initially high temperature, measurement of the rate of heat loss from its surface would clearly place limits on its age.

Kelvin started to advance his arguments under the title ''“Note on Certain Points in the Theory of Heat”'' first in 1844 in ''Cambridge Mathematical Journal''. After clarifying some of Fourier’s mathematics related to the conduction of heat and the dissipation of energy, he presented the upper boundary for the age of the Earth in his 1863 classic paper ''On the Secular Cooling of the Earth'' as '''98 millions of years'''.<ref name="OnSecularCooling">{{cite web |title= On the Secular Cooling of the Earth |author=W. Thomson (Lord Kelvin) |publisher= Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh |year=1864 (Read 1862) |volume= XXIII |pages= 167-169 |url= http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/on_the_secular_cooling_of_the_earth.html |aaccessdate=June 14, 2015}}</ref> The figure was based i.a. on following assumptions and considerations:

Kelvin started to advance his arguments under the title ''“Note on Certain Points in the Theory of Heat”'' first in 1844 in ''Cambridge Mathematical Journal''. After clarifying some of Fourier’s mathematics related to the conduction of heat and the dissipation of energy, he presented the upper boundary for the age of the Earth in his 1863 classic paper ''On the Secular Cooling of the Earth'' as '''98 millions of years'''.<ref name="OnSecularCooling">{{cite web |title= On the Secular Cooling of the Earth |author=W. Thomson (Lord Kelvin) |publisher= Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh |year=1864 (Read 1862) |volume= XXIII |pages= 167-169 |url= http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/on_the_secular_cooling_of_the_earth.html |aaccessdate=June 14, 2015}}</ref> The figure was based i.a. on following assumptions and considerations:

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

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

|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].

|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].

|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  

|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  

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

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

|author=Charles Darwin

|author=Charles Darwin

|publisher= Darwin Correspondence Database

|publisher= Darwin Correspondence Database

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

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

|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  

|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 ''"[[Geologic_system#The_system|Cretaceous period]]"'', and later withdrew the discussion altogether from the third edition.<ref name="Holmes1913"/><ref>{{cite web  

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

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

|author=Charles Darwin

|author=Charles Darwin

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

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

|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.

|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.

|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  

|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  

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

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

|author=Charles Darwin

|author=Charles Darwin

|publisher= Darwin Correspondence Database

|publisher= Darwin Correspondence Database

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

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

|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)

|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: [Charles Darwin] 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)

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

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