Difference between revisions of "Counterexamples to an Old Earth"

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=== Biology ===
 
=== Biology ===
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# The intelligence of humans is rapidly declining, whether measured by SAT scores,<ref>SAT scores have been rapidly decreasing in real terms.</ref> music, personal letters,<ref>E.g., Civil War letters.</ref> quality of political debates,<ref>E.g., contrast the Lincoln-Douglas debates with debates today.</ref> the quality of news articles,<ref>''The Federalist'' was written for the newspaper audience in the late 1780s, but is far too intellectual for newspapers today.</ref> or any other measure.
 
# The age of onset of [[puberty|sexual maturity]] is rapidly changing, suggesting that life is in a short-term rather than long-term equilibrium<ref>For evidence of a rapidly changing age for sexual maturity in fish, see http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/46/3/235</ref>
 
# The age of onset of [[puberty|sexual maturity]] is rapidly changing, suggesting that life is in a short-term rather than long-term equilibrium<ref>For evidence of a rapidly changing age for sexual maturity in fish, see http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/46/3/235</ref>
 
# The high observed rate of [[extinctions of species]] and harmful [[genetic mutation]]s suggest a relatively short period for the existence of life rather than a long one.
 
# The high observed rate of [[extinctions of species]] and harmful [[genetic mutation]]s suggest a relatively short period for the existence of life rather than a long one.

Revision as of 00:49, April 20, 2010

It takes only one "counterexample" to disprove the theory of an Old Earth. As with any logical proposition, one contradiction disproves the proposed rule.

Counterexamples

The growing list of counterexamples to the theory of an Old Earth includes:

Astronomy

  1. The moon is receding from the Earth at a rate suggesting it would have been too close a billion years ago
  2. Spiral galaxies appear to be young, and only implausible proposals of the existence of dark matter can reconcile with belief in an old universe
  3. The planetary orbits in the solar system - including Earth's - are unstable and unsustainable over the very long time periods asserted by atheists[1]

Geology

The Unconformity is readily apparent in the Grand Canyon where foliage and ground cover do not obscure the rock face.
  1. The massive Great Lakes are receding in volume too rapidly to have existed millions of years ago
  2. Freshwater lakes are known to be relatively young.[2]
  3. The existence of inland saltwater lakes, such as Mono Lake and the Great Salt Lake, suggest a recent global flood
  4. The plentiful supply of high concentrations of underground well water, which would be expected based on familiar principles of entropy to dissipate over a long period of time.
  5. The Earth's magnetic field is changing at too fast a rate for the Earth to be old. It is weakening in strength by 5% every 100 years[3]. Exponential decay at that rate is not compatible with an old Earth, since it would have required the Earth's magnetic field to be impossibly large at the times postulated by old-Earth theory.
  6. Earthquakes alter the Earth's rotation every century; extrapolating by orders of magnitude in time would have resulted in the occurrence of much larger earthquakes that would have destabilized the rotation[4]
  7. The lack of erosion between rock layers[5][6]
  8. Levels of contamination in water are rising, as water procedes through the water cycle it becomes progressively more contaminated. If earth (and life) had existed for billions of years, a limit would have long been reached where water (essential to life) was too contaminated for life to continue.
  9. Paraconformity and unconformity such as that seen at the Grand Canyon disprove the uniformitarian view of earth history.

Biology

  1. The intelligence of humans is rapidly declining, whether measured by SAT scores,[7] music, personal letters,[8] quality of political debates,[9] the quality of news articles,[10] or any other measure.
  2. The age of onset of sexual maturity is rapidly changing, suggesting that life is in a short-term rather than long-term equilibrium[11]
  3. The high observed rate of extinctions of species and harmful genetic mutations suggest a relatively short period for the existence of life rather than a long one.
  4. The age of onset of cancer is markedly decreasing,[12] suggesting rapid changes inconsistent with an alleged long existence to life
  5. The oldest direct evidence of life -- written documents, remnants of civilizations, tree rings, etc. -- is no older than about 3000 B.C.
  6. The number of natural, pure-bred bred dogs declines over time as dogs naturally crossbreed; a short period of time is suggested by the fact that there are over 100 different natural, pure breeds of dog thriving today
  7. Lack of genetic diversity among the Homo sapiens species. Were evolution and the old earth true, the human population would show a much larger genetic variance.[13]

References

  1. Newsweek: "An embarrassing little secret of astronomy ....".
  2. Ice Age theories were developed to try to explain this, but massive freshwater lakes exist even near the equator
  3. Earth's Magnetic Field and its Changes in Time, from NASA
  4. A similar analysis may be performed for the likelihood of devastating collisions with meteors as time is extrapolated by orders of magnitude.
  5. http://www.amazon.com/review/R1WTZL8GG4H9K0
  6. http://www.knowthebible.net/id115.html
  7. SAT scores have been rapidly decreasing in real terms.
  8. E.g., Civil War letters.
  9. E.g., contrast the Lincoln-Douglas debates with debates today.
  10. The Federalist was written for the newspaper audience in the late 1780s, but is far too intellectual for newspapers today.
  11. For evidence of a rapidly changing age for sexual maturity in fish, see http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/46/3/235
  12. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/109865519/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
  13. http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/descent.html#rpafAHIwKHS7

See also