Here is part of it cleaned up. Some interesting things, for your comments:
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Here are a dozen natural phenomena which conflict with the evolutionary
idea that the universe is billions of years old. The numbers I list below
in bold print (often millions of years) are maximum possible ages set by
each process, not the actual ages. The numbers in italics are the ages
required by evolutionary theory for each item. The point is that the
maximum possible ages are always much less that the required evolutionary
ages, while the biblical age (6,000ö10,000 years) always fits comfortably
within the maximum possible ages. Thus the following items are evidence
against the evolutionary time-scale and for the biblical time-scale.
Much more young-world evidence exists, but I have chosen these items for
brevity and simplicity. Some of the items on this list can be reconciled
with an old universe only by making a series of improbable and unproven
assumptions; others can fit in only with a young universe. The list starts
with distant astronomic phenomena and works its way down to Earth, ending
with everyday facts.
1. Galaxies wind themselves up too fast.
The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic
centre with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer
ones. The observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were more
than a few hundred million years old, it would be a featureless disc of
stars instead of its present spiral shape.(1)
Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion years old.
Evolutionists call this 'the winding-up dilemma', which they have known
about for 50 years. They have devised many theories to try to explain it,
each one failing after a brief period of popularity. The same 'winding-up'
dilemma also applies to other galaxies.
For the past few decades the favoured attempt to resolve the dilemma
has been a complex theory called 'density waves'.(1) The theory has
conceptual problems, has to be arbitrarily and very finely tuned, and
lately has been called into serious question by the Hubble Space
Telescope's discovery of very detailed spiral structure in the central hub
of the 'Whirlpool' galaxy, M51.(2)
2. Comets disintegrate too quickly.
According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same
age as the solar system, about five billion years. Yet each time a comet
orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not
survive much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical
maximum ages (on this basis) of 10,000 years.(3)
Evolutionists explain this discrepancy by assuming that (a) comets
come from an unobserved spherical 'Oort cloud' well beyond the orbit of
Pluto, (b) improbable gravitational interactions with infrequently passing
stars often knock comets into the solar system, and (c) other improbable
interactions with planets slow down the incoming comets often enough to
account for the hundreds of comets observed.(4) So far, none of these
assumptions has been substantiated either by observations or realistic
calculations.
Lately, there has been much talk of the 'Kuiper Belt', a disc of
supposed comet sources lying in the plane of the solar system just outside
the orbit of Pluto.
Even if some bodies of ice exist in that location, they would not
really solve the evolutionists' problem, since according to evolutionary
theory the Kuiper Belt would quickly become exhausted if there were no Oort
cloud to supply it.
3. Not enough mud on the sea floor.
Each year, water and winds erode about 25 billion tons of dirt and
rock from the continents and deposit it in the ocean.(5) This material
accumulates as loose sediment (i.e. mud) on the hard basaltic (lava-formed)
rock of the ocean floor. The average depth of all the mud in the whole
ocean, including the continental shelves, is less than 400 metres.(6)
The main way currently known to remove the mud from the ocean floor is
by plate tectonic subduction. That is, sea floor slides slowly (a few
cm/year) beneath the continents, taking some sediment with it. According to
secular scientific literature, that process presently removes only one
billion tons per year.(6) As far as anyone knows, the other 25 billion tons
per year simply accumulate. At that rate, erosion would deposit the present
amount of sediment in less than 12 million years.
Yet according to evolutionary theory, erosion and plate subduction
have been going on as long as the oceans have existed, an alleged three
billion years. If that were so, the rates above imply that the oceans would
be massively choked with mud dozens of kilometres deep. An alternative
(creationist) explanation is that erosion from the waters of the Genesis
Flood running off the continents deposited the present amount of mud within
a short time about 5000 years ago.
4. Not enough sodium in the sea.
Every year, rivers(7) and other sources9 dump over 450 million tons of
sodium into the ocean. Only 27% of this sodium manages to get back out of
the sea each year.(8,9) As far as anyone knows, the remainder simply
accumulates in the ocean. If the sea had no sodium to start with, it would
have accumulated its present amount in less than 42 million years at
today's input and output rates.(9) This is much less than the evolutionary
age of the ocean, three billion years. The usual reply to this discrepancy
is that past sodium inputs must have been less and outputs greater.
However, calculations which are as generous as possible to evolutionary
scenarios still give a maximum age of only 62 million years.(9)
Calculations(10) for many other sea water
elements give much younger ages for the ocean.
5. Earth's magnetic field is decaying too fast.
The total energy stored in the Earth's magnetic field has steadily
decreased by a factor of 2.7 over the past 1,000 years.(11) Evolutionary
theories explaining this rapid decrease, as well as how the Earth could
have maintained its magnetic field for billions of years, are very complex
and inadequate. A much better creationist theory exists. It is
straightforward, based on sound physics, and explains many features of the
field: its creation, rapid reversals during the Genesis Flood, surface
intensity decreases and increases until the time of Christ, and a steady
decay since then.(12) This theory matches paleomagnetic, historic, and
present data.(13) The main result is that the field's total energy (not
surface intensity) has always decayed at least
as fast as now. At that rate the field could not be more than 10,000 years
old. (14)
6. Many strata are too tightly bent.
In many mountainous areas, strata thousands of feet thick are bent and
folded into hairpin shapes. The conventional geologic time-scale says these
formations were deeply buried and solidified for hundreds of millions of
years before they were bent. Yet the folding occurred without cracking,
with radii so small that the entire formation had to be still wet and
unsolidified when the bending occurred. This implies that the folding
occurred less than thousands of years after deposition.(15)
7. Injected sandstone shortens geologic 'ages'.
Strong geologic evidence(16) exists that the Cambrian Sawatch
sandstone ÷ formed an alleged 500 million years ago ÷ of the Ute Pass
Fault west of Colorado Springs was still unsolidified when it was extruded
up to the surface during the uplift of the Rocky Mountains, allegedly 70
million years ago. It is very unlikely that the sandstone would not
solidify during the supposed 430 million years it was underground.
Instead, it is likely that the two geologic events were less than hundreds
of years apart, thus greatly shortening the geologic time-scale.
8. Fossil radioactivity shortens geologic 'ages' to a few years.
Radiohalos are rings of colour formed around microscopic bits of
radioactive minerals in rock crystals. They are fossil evidence of
radioactive decay.(17) 'Squashed' Polonium-210 radiohalos indicate that
Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene formations in the Colorado plateau were
deposited within months of one another, not hundreds of millions of years
apart as required by the conventional time-scale.(18) 'Orphan' Polonium-218
radiohalos, having no evidence of their mother elements, imply either
instant creation or drastic changes in radioactivity decay rates.(19,20)
9. Helium in the wrong places.
All naturally occurring families of radioactive elements generate
helium as they decay. If such decay took place for billions of years, as
alleged by evolutionists, much helium should have found its way into the
Earth's atmosphere. The rate of loss of helium from the atmosphere into
space is calculable and small. Taking that loss into account, the
atmosphere today has only 0.05% of the amount of helium it would have
accumulated in five billion years.(21) This means the atmosphere is much
younger than the alleged evolutionary age.
A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows that
helium produced by radioactive decay in deep, hot rocks has not had time to
escape. Though the rocks are supposed to be over one billion years old,
their large helium retention suggests an age of only thousands of years.(22)
10. Not enough Stone Age skeletons.
Evolutionary anthropologists say th at the Stone Age lasted for at
least 100,000 years, during which time the world population of Neanderthal
and Cro-magnon men was roughly constant, between one and 10 million. All
that time they were burying their dead with artefacts.(23) By this
scenario, they would have buried at least four billion bodies.(24) If the
evolutionary time-scale is correct, buried bones should be able to last for
much longer than 100,000 years, so many of the supposed four billion Stone
Age skeletons should still be around (and certainly the buried artefacts).
Yet only a few
thousand have been found. This implies that the Stone Age was much shorter than
evolutionists think, a few hundred years in many areas.
11. Agriculture is too recent.
The usual evolutionary picture has men existing as hunters and
gatherers for 100,000 years during the Stone Age before discovering
agriculture less than 10,000 years ago.(23) Yet the archaeological evidence
shows that Stone Age men were as intelligent as we are. It is very
improbable that none of the four billion people mentioned in item 10 should
discover that plants grow from seeds. It is more likely that men were
without agriculture less than a few hundred years after the Flood, if at
all.(24)
12. History is too short.
According to evolutionists, Stone Age man existed for 100,000 years
before beginning to make written records about 4,000ö5,000 years ago.
Prehistoric man built megalithic monuments, made beautiful cave paintings,
and kept records of lunar phases.(25) Why would he wait a thousand
centuries before using the same skills to record history? The biblical
time-scale is much more likely.(24)
References
1.Scheffler, H. and Elsasser, H., Physics of the Galaxy and Interstellar
Matter, Springer-Verlag (1987) Berlin, pp. 352ö353, 401ö413.
2.Zaritsky, D., et al, Nature, 22 July, 1993. Sky & Telescope, December
1993, p. 10. 3.Steidl, P.F., 'Planets, comets, and asteroids', Design and
Origins in Astronomy, G. Mulfinger, ed., Creation Research Society Books
(1983), 5093
Williamsport Drive, Norcross, GA 30092, pp. 73ö106.
4.Whipple, F.L., 'Background of modern comet theory', Nature 263 (2
September 1976), p. 15.
5.Gordeyev, V.V. et al, 'The average chemical composition of suspensions
in the world's rivers and the supply of sediments to the ocean by streams',
Dockl. Akad,
Nauk. SSSR 238 (1980), p. 150.
6.Hay, W.W., et al, 'Mass/age distribution and composition of sediments
on the ocean floor and the global rate of subduction', Journal of
Geophysical Research, 93, No. B12 (10 December 1988), pp. 14,933ö14,940.
7.Maybeck, M., 'Concentrations des eaux fluviales en elements majeurs et
apports en solution aux oceans', Rev. de Geol. Dyn. Geogr. Phys. 21 (1979),
p. 215.
8.Sayles, F.L. and Mangelsdorf, P.C., 'Cation-exchange characteristics
of Amazon River suspended sediment and its reaction with seawater',
Geochimica et
Cosmochimica Acta 41 (1979), p. 767.
9.Austin, S.A. and Humphreys, D.R., 'The sea's missing salt: a dilemma
for evolutionists', Proc. 2nd Internat. Conf. on Creationism, Vol. II,
Creation Science
Fellowship (1990) pp. 17ö31. Address in ref. 12.
10.Austin, S.A., 'Evolution: the oceans say no!', ICR Impact, No. 8
(October 1973). Institute for Creation Research, address in ref. 2.
11.Merrill, R.T. and McElhinney, M.W., The Earth's Magnetic Field,
Academic Press (1983), London, pp. 101ö106.
12.Humphreys, D.R., 'Reversals of the earth's magnetic field during the
Genesis flood', Proc. 1st Internat. Conf. on Creationism (Aug. 1986,
Pittsburgh), Creation
Science Fellowship (1987) 362 Ashland Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15228, Vol.
II, pp. 113ö126.
13.Coe, R.S., PrŽvot, M., and Camps, P., 'New evidence for extraordinary
change of the geomagnetic field during a reversal', Nature 374 (20 April
1995), pp. 687ö92.
14.Humphreys, D.R., 'Physical mechanism for reversals of the earth's
magnetic field during the flood', Proc. 2nd Internat. Conf. on Creationism,
Vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1990), pp. 129ö142, address in ref.
12.
15.Austin, S.A. and Morris, J.D., 'Tight folds and clastic dikes as
evidence for rapid deposition and deformation of two very thick
stratigraphic sequences', Proc. 1st Internat. Conf. on Creationism, Vol.
II, Creation Science Fellowship (1986), pp. 3ö15,
address in ref. 12.
16.ibid, pp. 11ö12.
17.Gentry, R.V., 'Radioactive halos', Annual Review of Nuclear Science 23
(1973) pp. 347ö362.
18.Gentry, R.V. et. al., 'Radiohalos in coalified wood: new evidence
relating to time of uranium introduction and coalification', Science 194
(15 October 1976) pp. 315ö318.
19.Gentry, R.V., 'Radiohalos in a Radiochronological and cosmological
perspective', Science 184 (5 April 1974), pp. 62ö66.
20.Gentry, R.V., Creation's Tiny Mystery, Earth Science Associates
(1986), P.O. Box 12067, Knoxville, TN 37912ö0067, pp. 23ö37, 51ö59, 61ö62.
21.Vardiman, L., The Age of the Earth's Atmosphere: a study of the helium
flux through the atmosphere, Institute for Creation Research (1990), P.O.
Box 2667,
El Cajon, CA 92021.
22.Gentry, R.V. et al, 'Differential helium retention in zircons:
implications for nuclear waste management', Geophys. Res. Lett. 9, (October
1982), 1129ö1130. See also ref. 20, pp. 169ö170.
23.Deevey, E.S., 'The human population', Scientific American 203
(September 1960), pp. 194ö204.
24.Marshak, A., 'Exploring the mind of Ice Age man', National Geographic
147 (January 1975), pp. 64ö89.
25.Dritt, J.O., 'Man's earliest beginnings: discrepancies in the
evolutionary timetable', Proc. 2nd Internat. Conf. on Creationism, Vol. I.,
Creation Science Fellowship (1990), pp. 73ö78, address in ref. 12.
For information on obtaining a copy of the sources quoted above please
contact Answers in Genesis or Creation Science Foundation.
Author: Dr. Russell Humphreys, Creation Ex Nihilo 13(3):28-31, June-August 1991
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