How Old is the Earth?

[perfessor]

This topic is a spin-off from "Was There a Flood?" Much of that discussion hinges on being able to corroborate a time-frame (Young Earth or Old Earth) with scientific data. The question I asked there - which I am transposing here, was:

Are there any non-Biblical dating techniques that indicate a young earth? Do they hold up to scientific scrutiny? If you took a team of android scientists – with no religious, cultural, or scientific dogma to taint their researches, and asked them to answer a simple question: How old is the Earth? What answer do you think they would come up with, and why? What evidence might they use that would point to a young earth?

[anchorman]

Some "young earthers" would use the arguement that the earths magnetic field is decaying at a rate that points to evidence of a young earth. However obviously your question can never be answered because we all have our own bias and presuppositions. Who knows what "android scientists would say".

[seventil]

I have researched this topic a bit.

What I have concluded is:

All modern scientific dating methods (carbon-14, radioisotope dating, etc) use assumptions or presuppositions in dating.

However, in the defense of the dating methods, they are using the best assumption according to reasonable logic. Meaning, ignoring the fact of a Biblical Flood, they can "assume" that constants have been the same, there has been no contamination, etc.

I also believe many attempts to debunk the "perfected methods" have some merit to them.

[jwu]

We can be quite confident about these assumptions.

E.g. the decay rates were the same (within the accuracy of the measuring instruments) like 169,000 years ago, as an analysis of a supernova that many light years away has shown.
Contamination, except in very rare cases, is indicated by isochron dating methods, and contamination with daughter product also makes the samples appear to be *younger*, so the actual age would be older and even further off the YEC timescale.
Also, many radiometric dating methods would be unaffected by a flood, and there is pretty much no geological for such a flood (that's a topic for a different thread though...).

jwu

[hiramabbi2]

This topic is a spin-off from "Was There a Flood?" Much of that discussion hinges on being able to corroborate a time-frame (Young Earth or Old Earth) with scientific data. The question I asked there - which I am transposing here, was:

Of course, there was a universal flood BUT not on this present earth, the world we now live in. The flood happened on the 1st. heaven or universe created on the 2nd day. Gen. 1:6-8 That's where the garden of Eden used to be, the world of Adam thru Noah's time - which was completely destroyed by waters when the windows of heaven were opened. Gen. 7:11

2 PETER 3
v5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of OLD, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: v6 Whereby the world that then WAS, being overflowed with water, PERISHED: (gone)

v7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

This present earth was created on the 3rd day and is very old. Scientific findings put it 10-15 billions of years of age. I tend to agree give and take.

[jwu]

Scientific findings put it 10-15 billions of years of age.

Could you tell us more about those?

jwu

[hiramabbi2]

Scientific findings put it 10-15 billions of years of age.

Could you tell us more about those?

jwu

Oppsss, sorry, I should have said this universe of ours? The latest scientific findings for our specific earth is apx. 4.5 Billion years of age.

Here's the link compliment by ST88

REFs:
http://id-archserve.ucsb.edu/Anth3/Cour ... ating.html
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html
and for those of like mind:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html