Seven reason why we should accept millions of years - Part 6 - the wrinkles tell it all

Doctor Mortenson’s 6^th argument is undoubtedly the weakest.

The sweeping generalization that evidence for millions of years was not rooted in science, but in atheistic and philosophical thought dating back to the 18^th century, is naïve.

Its like saying that my guess of my grandma's age, based on wrinkles, hair color, her recollections of history or her grandson's birth certificate, is pure speculation. 

I dare not now also speculate about the age of a Model T Ford. 

But let's look beyond such contentions

Let’s not even open a reference work for a while and do what the bible permits: deduce the nature of our creator from the visible things that are clearly seen and heard.

Let’s also ignore sciences like geology, geography, astronomy and physics as potential conjecture.

That would potentially leave me with the earth in its current state and a lot of questions about how it got there. But, well with no science to support any hypothesis, I need to gaze up into the heavens and ask some more contemporary questions.

After all the heavens are alive and changing, plus the speed of light is such that I can actually observe the past with a high degree of reliability. 

So, let’s haul out Galileo’s old friend and observe that.

Aside from Galileo, the Maji also used the stars above to trace the advent of Jesus. They may have been pagan, but their projections were spot on, validating, at least in part, that the heavens present sufficient consistency to make such measurements possible.

Standing on their shoulders we find Edwin Hubble, who was not an atheist and certainly no abstract philosopher. He observed that the heavens are dynamic, expanding, and so on.

The Hubble telescope or Kobe satellite observe all that data every day of the week, so do earth based observatories all over the earth.

All their observations point to a pretty old universe. Nope I did not dig into the earth’s geology to assert that – it is out there and signs of life dating back to the inception of our universe are still reaching us every day.

There is little speculation involved. The past can be seen and objectively quantified.

By a relatively simple method, current expansion trends can be traced back to a common point of inception dating back to around 13.8 billion years back.

We can also use simple trigonometry, by observing a distant galaxy at two moments on our annual solar orbit, to accurately determine our distance from that galaxy and so deduce how long it took to be visible to us.

That is not even sophisticated stuff. Hardly in the reams of speculation and totally permitted by the scriptures, as said earlier.

Ah, not enough I can hear them cry. So then we can use spectrometers to observe the chemical composition of such remote objects so we can derive their age based on isotope decay rates. That might not be conclusive, but it can at least confirm ages greater than millions of years.

Of course using radiometric instruments to measure age can also be used to age the earth. A differentiation between Potassium 40 and Argon 40, into which Potassium decays, can provide a sound basis for measuring the age of a rock sample.

That was used to age the earth at between 3 and 5 billion years. But new earth thinkers dispute that too. They would also dispute the more trusted dating of zircon crystals in Australia.

What about meteorites

I suppose they would also dispute the relative objectivity of meteorite ageing and yet, like observing space, meteorites are a valid objective yardstick.

Meteorites were not influenced by our timeline, but to be embedded in our earth the earth had to have been there to hit. That confirms other dating methods that place the earth’s age at around 3 to 5 billion years.

It seems they might feel James Usher’s unsophisticated genealogical dating method might be more trustworthy than the ramblings of some well-schooled scientists.

Another method for ageing the universe is to look at massive stars that are still burning and to then extrapolate from the rate of burn, to determine how old such objects are.

Needless to say, few if any large bodies contradict the notion of an old universe.

We can also observe the mean density of the universe, for which space probes were built. The mean density is a valid measurement of age. Logically, if expanding from a singularity, the universe went from infinite or near infinite density, to its current density.

How long did it take to get there? Well it is theoretically straightforward to compute but we can generally deduce that its current density could only be reached over a considerable lapse of time.

Of course we can go on. 

However, the argument that some ill-equipped quacks invented the age of the universe, to detract from the creation story, is dubious. So, now space offers an objective set of tools for confirming that they were, in fact, on the right course.

How the work of past scientists came to be antagonistic to the creation story is beyond me. My faith is not diminished by one iota for accepting that the earth or the universe is pretty old. Indeed, my intuition accepts that as a reasonable conclusion of my faith.

Actually, I find that defiance of science, to the extent implied by Mortenson, undermines my faith more. It  removes all reasonability from the creation story, which collapses it all into the very fairy tale that atheists accuse us of. It also detracts from the long history of God’s engagement of man.

That leaves me with little explanation for the protracted waits that God imposed on so many souls throughout the biblical narrative, so in contrast to the instantaneous God.

  

(c) Peter Missing @ Bethelstone.com