http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/univ.htm
I’ve taken this information from the link above to demonstrate how some people neglect some facts when they attempt to make their point. My response is in yellow.
Age of the Universe
Just How Old Is The Universe?*
Have you ever wondered about the origin of the universe? Did it start with a whimper or a big bang? How old is the universe? Is it eternal or was it created out of nothing by nothing? And for good measure, how old is the planet on which we live?
Questions such as these are valid and demand careful attention because they provide important solutions to the great riddle of life. What is important is that these questions should be approached with an open mind instead of a predetermined judgment. We should follow the evidence wherever it leads.
Since the present popular evolutionary position is that the universe is 15 to 25 billion years old, we should check the evidence to see if this position is true. The following is a brief and partial list of some "puzzling" scientific facts which indicate the universe and the earth is not billions of years old. The evidence indicates that we should think in terms of thousands of years instead of billions of years.
I. The Top Soil Factor
It takes around a thousand years to produce one inch of top soil by the forces of erosion such as wind and rain. If the earth is billions of years old and the process by which top soil is created has been functioning all the time (i.e., uniformitarianism) there should be a thick layer of top soil on the earth's crust. But there is only an average depth of six to nine inches of top soil on the earth! This amount can only explain thousands of years of erosion. Where is the top soil created by billions of years of erosion? Where did it go?
Ans: Many of these questions and comments fail to take into account plate tectonics. The earth’s crust is dynamic and it continuously renews itself. The earth’s crust consists of about 12 major plates and they will collide and subduct back into the mantle where they melt.
Top soil doesn’t just sit still on the surface of the earth. Rain, wind, running water, gravity, and other processes tend to move soil into the oceans. The ocean plates subduct into the mantle and the topsoil is melted and becomes part of the mantle. By the way, continental plates are just ocean plates sticking up out of the water. So the continental plates are in a state of constant renewal as well.
II. The Ocean's Floor
Perhaps the vast amount of top soil created by billions of years of erosion has simply washed into the ocean and can be found in sedimentary deposits on its floor. If the earth is billions of years old and the erosion rate has been steady and of such a degree to explain where all the top soil went, the sediment at the bottom of the ocean should be miles deep. But the sediment on the ocean floor only has a 0.56 mile average thickness! This depth can only explain thousands of years and cannot represent billions of years of erosion. Where is the sediment created by billions of years of erosion. Where did it go?
Ans: Again, the surface of the ocean’s floor is constantly moving. The floor subducts, and sediment becomes part of the mantle.
III. Meteor Dust
When meteors collide with the earth's atmosphere they disintegrate into dust which settles on the earth's surface. Given the present rate at which meteor dust is settling on the earth, if the earth is billions of years old there should be at least fifty-four feet of meteor dust on the surface of the planet. Since the depths of top soil and ocean sediment do not contain billions of years of meteor dust, what happened to this dust? Where did it go?
Ans: Again, the dust doesn’t just sit still. It can make its way into the mantle as described above.
IV. The Helium Factor
As radioactive materials disintegrate, helium is released as a by-product into the atmosphere. Given the present rate at which helium is released into the atmosphere, if the earth is billions of years old, there should be enough helium in the atmosphere to make us all talk like Donald Duck. There is only enough helium in the atmosphere to explain thousands of years. Where did the helium produced by billions of years go?
Ans: Hydrogen and helium lack sufficient mass to be held by earth's gravity. Most of these light gases escape into space and aren’t held by our atmosphere.
V. The Salty Sea
Given the present rate at which salt and other materials are being washed into the ocean, if the earth is billions of years old, what should be the concentration of salt in the earth's oceans? There is only enough salt in the ocean to explain thousands of years of erosion. The concentration of such minerals as nickel as well as salt in the earth's oceans would be many times greater if the earth were billions of years old. Where has all the billions of years of salt and other minerals gone?
Ans: Again, plate tectonics. The floor of the ocean doesn’t just sit there and do nothing; it’s constantly moving, colliding, and subducting into the mantle.
VI. The Earth's Magnetic Field
The scientific evidence clearly indicates that the earth's magnetic field is decaying. With an understanding of the second law of Thermodynamics, this should be expected. Given the present rate of decay, if the earth were billions of years old, the earth's magnetic field would have passed into nonexistence long ago. If the earth is billions of years old, why does it still have a magnetic field?
Ans: There is much to consider. Far more than the oversimplification posted above.
For one thing, it’s been shown that the earth’s magnetic field has changed on a fairly regular cycle over millions and millions of years. In fact, the north magnetic pole and south magnetic pole swap. Magnetic readings taken from the ocean floor in areas where the seafloor is spreading apart shows this regular magnetic, cyclic flip-flop. Moreover, drill samples of rock on the earth’s surface show exactly the same thing.
To continue: The drilling evidence also shows a weakening in the magnetic field before it flip-flops. Computer modeling of tangible evidence shows magnetic anomalies in the earth’s field and how this leads to instability, reduction of the field, and ultimately the magnetic flip. After the flip, the poles are reversed and the field begins to increase in strength again. You can think of it as a runner slowing down and coming to a stop before he runs back to where he started from.
To address the decay portion of the question: The earth doesn’t just have one source of internal heat. Heat accretion is heat that’s converted from gravitational energy as the earth and the solar system formed. This isn’t an insignificant amount of heat energy. In fact, it’s now estimated that this heat makes up about 20% of the total heat flow from the interior.
The decay that the question talks about is from isotopes such as uranium, potassium, and thorium. This makes up most of the earth’s heat. This is called radiogenic heat.
The size of the earth is what makes all the difference. The earth is the largest of the rocky planets. The mantle is very thick and acts like an insulating blanket to bottle in the heat. If it weren’t for the size of the earth and its composition, the earth very well could be without a magnetic field as molten magma solidified.
VII. Moon Dust
The vehicles prepared for landing on the moon were equipped with special snow shoes because it was assumed that if the moon was billions of years old there should be an incredibly thick layer of dust on the moon created by such things as meteor impact. They discovered only one-fourth of an inch of dust on the moon! This amount of dust can account for only thousands of years. If the moon is billions of years old, where did all the dust accumulated during this time go?
Ans: To begin with, the dust layer on the moon is about 2.5 inches, not a quarter of an inch. Secondly, science is always reevaluating measurements, and new instrumentation usually produces more accurate results. The amount of meteor dust falling to earth is now thought to be about 18,000 to 25,000 tons per year; some indications are as low as 10,000. Anytime you have two adjacent masses in space, the more massive object will draw in more dust than the lesser object. The moon draws in far less dust then the earth. When you take a closer look and do more accurate calculations, you discover that the dust on the moon should be less than a foot, which is what we find.
To address the impact of meteors: The moon doesn’t have nearly the gravity the earth has. It’s more difficult to hold onto dust from impacts. These impacts are usually tremendous. They throw dust way out into space. Moreover, the moon doesn’t have an atmosphere like the earth. An atmosphere helps to slow down escaping dust from impacts. Then you need to consider that when an impact occurs, whatever is on the surface of a body is either buried from the force of the impact, or blasted out. I’ve already addressed the “blasted out” aspect. Basically, much of the dust is either buried or blasted out into space. Not all, of course, but a significant amount and this is overlooked.
VIII. The Shrinking Sun
The sun is shrinking as its energy is flung into the galaxy. Given the present rate of shrinkage, if the sun is billions of years old, it should have disappeared by now. Or, if the sun is billions of years old, in order for it to have shrunk down to the size it is now, it would have been at the beginning so big that it would have engulfed the space now occupied by most of the planets in this galaxy. If this is true, then where did the planets come from?
Ans: I’d say somebody needs to do some calculations over. For one thing, the sun is constantly sucking in more matter. We’ve observed many comets hitting the sun, and then there’s dust from meteors and smaller partials that cannot overcomes the gravitational pull of such a huge body as the sun.
If we assume that the sun is shrinking from its own gravitation, you need to consider the equation used to compare the luminosity change of the sun versus its radius. The sun would be shrinking about 29 inches each year. If this was really the case, we’d notice about a 0.005 arc second of change in the radius of the sun over the last few hundred years, and this just isn’t the case.
If we consider how much mass the sun is losing every year as partials are ejected from its surface, we can start with this:
Solar Mass = 1.989 x 10^33 g
Absolute luminosity = 3.86 x 10^33 erg/sec
Using E = mc^2, m = E/c^2
After doing some calculations, you come up with 1.353x10^20 g each year. This is how much mass the sun is losing. If you do some more calculations taking into consideration the current age of the sun (5 billion years old) you’ll see there is enough fuel to keep the sun alive for another 5 billion years or so. Multiplying 1.353 x 10^20 g per year by 10 billion years (the total life of the sun) doesn’t give you exactly the mass of the sun, but this doesn’t take into consideration that the sun burns its fuel more rapidly as it begins to die out, and the fact that the sun isn’t going to just burn into nothingness. It will become a white dwarf.
Another consideration is the loss of mass by converting mass into energy via fusion. During the hydrogen to helium conversion, about 0.7 percent of the mass is lost to energy. If you take into consideration the mass of the sun and its lifetime, you’d find that this 0.7 percent totals up to about 0.034 percent of the mass being lost to energy. This leaves the sun with 99.966 percent of its original mass.
IX. Active Volcanoes
Since the earth's moon is a dead world with no active volcanoes, it was assumed that this meant that the moon was billions of years old. It was also assumed that no moons would have active volcanoes. The evidence is now clear that at least one of the moons of Jupiter has active volcanoes. Does not this fact indicate that the assumption of the necessity of billions of years of the age of the universe is erroneous? As a matter of fact, if the universe is billions of years old, why and how should any planet or moon have active volcanoes?
Ans: I partially explained this when I answered: VI. The Earth's Magnetic Field
The heat within the earth is responsible for volcanic activity.
The mechanism for volcanic activity from the moon in question is different than the earth’s mechanism. While the volcanic activity associated with both bodies is from heat within those bodies, the heat within the moon is due mainly from gravitational forces. Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and has far more mass than the earth. A moon locked in orbit between other moons and this massive planet causes the volcanic moon to constantly stretch and pull. It’s like working a clothes hanger back and forth, creating heat as you stretch the metal. This relentless tug-of-war exerted over the entire body of the moon, not just the surface, causes the heat within it to drive volcanism. Jupiter’s volcanic moon is the right size, the right distance from Jupiter, and in the right position between the planet and other moons to cause the huge gravitational stresses necessary for a molten interior and volcanism.
X. The Rings of Saturn
If the universe is billions of years old, we must assume that the rings of Saturn are of this age. Given the rate of orbital and structural decay, if the rings of Saturn are billions of years old, they should have collapsed and blurred into one vast confusion. Yet the rings are so distinct that over a thousand of them can be counted and some of them look as if they were braided by twisting around each other. Given the laws of physics, the rings must be viewed as young and not old. If the rings are billions of years old, why are they clear and distinct?
Ans: Assuming the rings are billions of years old is a bad assumption. Examination of the rings indicate that they are maybe 100-million years old, or so. The point is, they are far younger than the solar system and the planet. The larger particles that make up the rings will sometimes collide with other large particles and create more dust, so the rings are constantly renewing themselves. Moreover, it’s widely accepted that the ring system will disappear well before the planet’s demise.
Conclusion
These are ten puzzling scientific facts which will lead any open-minded person to the conclusion that the universe is a lot younger than billions of years old. We should not let the religious prejudice of the evolutionists force us to accept their doctrines by a blind leap of faith when the scientific evidence does not correspond to their theories.
My Conclusion:
Ignorance. For starters, the “puzzling scientific facts” are not necessarily facts when you get things all wrong.
These are arguments that bible-bangers use to persuade an ignorant audience. People who aren’t scientists, or who aren’t good scientists, try to use science as a tool to support the idea of creation. It’s like a busboy without any medical training telling a friend she probably has a tumor because she has a headache. If you’re going to use science as a tool for argument, you better know science.
