Subject and Expectation:
In his first submitted piece of work to The Small Town Humanist, guest author Mike Markowitz tackles the big question that science and religion have been debating for centuries…how old is the Earth? The reader will easily recognize that Mike is writing about what he loves, Astronomy and Science. He writes, not from a position to change beliefs, but simply to state all sides in the debate clearly, encouraging the reader to consider scientific findings and data, alongside the opinions of religion. We hope you enjoy friends. Please, all welcome our new friend, Mike Markowitz!
Introduction – Time
“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.” – Madeleine L’Engle
Think of the simplistic/complex duality of the word Time. It is remarkably unsophisticated in one sense considering how we ALL dismissively take time for granted – “I’ll take care of that later.” Conversely, the complexity of time as a significant unit of measure has baffled and been the cause of constant debates amongst the scientific community. But time is the element in which we all exist and perform our functions in our daily lives. That is, of course, unless you happen to be one of the few that completely lives “off the grid.“
A common scientific notion pertaining to time argues that the concept is a human-made construct developed to establish a sense of order. Our perception of time, for example, is directly related to our position in the solar system and how the earth rotates around the sun.
The Building Blocks of Early Astronomy
Let’s keep the scientific talk going. In fact, let’s get downright scientifically historical to that exact point.
The purely observational and mathematical genius of early astronomers such as Ptolemy, Aristotle, and Copernicus all played a significant “building block” role, culminating in Galileo’s day when he invented the very first telescope in 1609. Galileo used this new device to conclusively support Copernicus’ theory of a heliocentric system – confirming that the sun was indeed at the center of our solar system, thus debunking the geocentric system stating that the sun revolved around the Earth.
Yes, I’m an astronomy geek. Guilty as charged!
The reason for conjuring “The Father of Observational Astronomy” Galileo into the discussion is essential in connecting how we not only see the world, our galaxy, and by extension, our universe, but also how these pinnacle discoveries added to previous works on how we calculate the time of day, the days of the month, the months of the year, and as a result, scientifically determining AGE – including the age of Earth!
Beginning to Form a Measurable Time Calculation
Take the word calendar for example. The word itself is a Roman derivative of the word calendae/kalendae referring to the “calends” – the first day of the Roman month when debts fell due and accounts were reckoned. Yikes, I better go pay my credit card!
Varied forms of the development of the calendar date back to Mesopotamia, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and Israelites, just to name a few. Of course, it’s not surprising to note that essentially all forms of societal life had their methods of time calculation as a necessity, mainly for agricultural purposes. And throughout human history, the common denominator to all methods of calculating the days of the week and months of the year all lead to looking up to the cosmos. Irrefutable scientific observation to the core!
“When I was a boy the Dead Sea was only sick.” – George Burns
This article is by no means a call to arms to change the minds, to influence a gross alteration of belief, or to dismiss one’s notion of time/age. The intent here is to simply lay out high profiled scientific and theological notions pertaining to the age-old question, “How old is our Earthly home?” The answer to that question does, however, have an absolute effect on the total biblical belief system, simply because of the major contradiction between what science claims and what the Bible claims as to the age of the Earth.
There is somewhat of a main event debate facing off between the Creationists vs. the scientific community as a whole. But perhaps an even more intriguing debate is within the Christian faith itself, referred to as Young-Earth vs. Old-Earth.
The Theological Perspective: (Young Earth/Old Earth)
To break it down, Young-Earth proponents believe the biblical age of Earth and the universe is about 6,000 years old. Old-Earth believers prescribe to the notion of the secular age with Earth being about 4.5 billion years and a universe about 14 billion years old. Despite their differences, there is a collective agreement within the Christian faith that regardless of the age of the planet, Earth was/is still the design of God.
Interestingly (and not by any means to oversimplify the debate), the viewpoint on how Young and Old Earth defenders base their stance is on the single word, “Yom”, which comes from the Old Testament meaning, “day”.
This debate lies in the multiple interpretations of the word “Yom” as a measure of time.
In the Jewish faith, for example, Yom Kippur literally translates to mean “Day of Atonement”. Young Earth defenders are under the belief of a single interpretation of the word “Yom” translating to a day being 24 hours in length. Therefore, the first chapter of Genesis would have proponents of a Young Earth prescribe to God creating Earth in 6 days, with one additional day of rest, with each day being 24 hours long. This is the basis for the argument that Earth and the Universe are roughly 6000 years old.
The Expressed Opinion of Ken Ham
In March of 2018, nationally known Creationist Ken Ham was asked in an interview conducted by chrisitanchronicle.org editor-in-chief Bobby Ross Jr., “How old is the Earth — 6,000 years old or 4.5 billion years old?”
According to Ham and many of his followers, “Ultimately, the only way to determine the age of the Earth is if you were there and could recount it all. Now we weren’t there, but I would say there was someone who was, and that is the God who created things. And so, the only absolute age-dating method that I know is the Bible. ”
Ham continued by saying, “That God himself reveals to us that he created in six days, and on day six he made Adam and Eve. It tells us that Adam died when he was 930 years old, but it tells us that at 130 years, Adam had a son called Seth. And regardless of whether they skip a generation or two, it has dates for their ages, and you can add up all those dates, and it comes to about 6,000 years. So, if those days are ordinary days, then you’ve only got about 6,000 years.”
New Earth defenders, however, see writings in the Bible to suggest that there are several literal definitions of the word “Yom” which poses the question of the length of a day when God created Earth.
Dr. Hugh Ross is the president and founder of Reason to Believe (RTB) whose mission is to “to spread the Christian Gospel by demonstrating that sound reason and scientific research-including the very latest discoveries—consistently support, rather than erode, confidence in the truth of the Bible and faith in the personal, transcendent God revealed in both Scripture and nature.” – reasons.org
According to Dr. Ross, there are four different literal meanings of the word Yom: “1) the daylight portion of a day, 2) part of the daylight hours, 3) an ordinary day (now 24 hours), and 4) a longer but finite period of time.” Old Earth believers argue that the biblical text indicates each day of creation must have lasted significantly longer than an ordinary calendar day.
To explain why, Dr. Ross notes the following; “Days 1-3 cannot be ordinary days as humanity defines them because the Sun does not become visible until the fourth day. On the sixth day, Adam tends the garden, names all the animals, undergoes divine surgery and marries Eve. These events seem too significant and long to happen in one ordinary day. The Bible never declares an age for the Earth, but evidence derived from the text fits most comfortably with a date far older than a few thousand years.“
RTB holds the position that the six days of creation represent long time periods and that the “creation accounts reconcile well with the scientific date for Earth’s formation 4.6 billion years ago.”
“I don’t believe in aging. I believe in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun. ” – Virginia Woolf
The Scientific Perspective:
We’ve explored but just one single debated aspect of aging the Earth from a faith-based perspective where a portion of the faith believe the age of Earth to be approximately 4.6 billion years old. But Old Earth followers still base their belief on the interpretation of a word and not from a scientific standpoint.
So scientifically speaking, how was Earth’s age determined?
Since plate tectonics are ever-changing Earth’s crust and uppermost mantle, it’s difficult to gain evidence of the earliest parts of the Earth’s formation. But even with plate tectonics, the age of Earth rocks have been accurately measured by the decay of long-lived radioactive isotopes of elements that occur naturally in rocks and minerals. These dating techniques are known collectively as radiometric dating. Using radiometric dating, ancient Earth rocks exceeding 3.5 billion years in age have been conclusively found on all of Earth’s continents.
In Western Australia, for example, single zircon crystals found in sedimentary rocks have radiometric ages of as much as 4.3 billion years, making these tiny crystals the oldest materials to be found on Earth to date. Click here for an even more detailed explanation.
How the Discovery of Meteors Changed Everything
But to truly determine the age of Earth and our solar system, scientists once again were required to bring out their “Inner-Galileo.” Except this time instead of looking up towards the cosmos, scientists could now use what deep space has brought to us to help scientifically determine the age of Earth.
How? With the assistance of meteors that successfully journeyed through the Earth’s atmosphere only to be discovered after becoming impacted meteorites and the many craters that have formed upon colliding with our planet.
In a 2015 article on smithsonian.com, records indicated that Earth had 128 identified meteor craters. The Canyon Diablo meteorite, which created the Barringer Crater in Arizona around 50,000 years ago, is the most notable, resulting in a massive crater 3400 feet across, 600 feet from rim to floor, and a rim that rises 200 feet above the plain. Canyon Diablo is a key landmark consisting of iron meteorite fragments that assisted in more precise dating.
Clair Patterson, an American geochemist with a specialty in geochronology (the dating of the Earth), is credited for the comprehensive study of the Canyon Diablo meteorite. In 1956, Patterson developed even more precise radiometric dating measuring which placed the age Earth at 4.550 billion years, with an error of +/- 70 million years. Patterson’s 1956 findings have stood the test of time with little debate from the scientific community. But just the scientific community.
The Creationist/Scientific Debate:
The Creationist-Young Earthers point of view is that “meteorites have not proved to be the ancient objects from the sky that one might imagine” and that “most meteorites have lead isotope ratios similar to those of present-day common lead”. With that mindset, “since the lead isotope ratios for the majority of meteorites are the same as present-day common lead ratios and may also be assumed to represent primordial lead, the billion year age chronology disappears.” Reference site creation.com
Concluding Thoughts
Say you have a meeting scheduled tomorrow morning at 8:00. If you arrive at 8:00, are you on-time? Depending on your “individual perception”, one can argue that if you show up at 8:00, you are in fact, late! Those with this mindset would likely say, “To be at an 8:00 meeting on-time means you need to be there a few minutes beforehand.”
However, if you have the perspective that if the meeting starts at 8:00 and you arrived at that time, where you were supposed to be and when you were supposed to be there, you are therefore in fact on-time.
Semantics? Maybe.
Perception, mindset, and belief? Definitely.
When we extrapolate that microcosm of an argument and exponentially expand it to the discussion of either time as a construct, we fall into the same dilemma when talking about the age of Earth.
As earlier stated, this is not a position paper nor an article to change one’s mind or belief. The truth of the matter is that most of us are considered logical and rational beings (again, most of us). With that, there’s an understanding that science and religion are two different institutions that deal with two different realms of the human experience. While religion deals with the spiritual, science deals with the natural world. And although conflict exists between the belief and methodology in determining the age of Earth is a true conflict, it’s not a war.
For me, I know I could easily go to that 8:00 meeting on-time and sit in a conference room with both a colleague who has the mindset that the Earth is 6000 years old and a colleague who is of the thought that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old.
From my perspective, as long as there’s good coffee and the group can work together, I think we’d get through our meeting with differing perspectives unscathed.
I’ll just let you decide if I got to the meeting at 8:00 or a few minutes beforehand.
Thank You to The Small Town Humanist!
My sincerest gratitude to The Small Town Humanist for inviting me to create and submit a piece of work on a subject matter that is very dear to my heart. I think what this site is doing is wonderful; happy to be a part of helping to open minds and spread knowledge. It was such an enjoyable experience working together in creating this article. So professional and courteous. I really hope the article is able to help many people critically think their way through these questions and assist them in having a more educated opinion as to the age of the Earth because it really does affect so much more than our own personal beliefs.
