One of the oldest books in the creation-evolution controversy is R. L. Wysong’s (a veterinarian) The Creation-Evolution Controversy, written in 1976. Interestingly, in the last 40 years, not much has changed. The “proof” of evolution is still used, despite being woefully inadequate relative to science. Also, the arguments for creation are still just as valid today.
The age of the earth is one aspect of this controversy that still seems to plague many people. The discussion can seem to be pedantic as it deals with chemistry and geology. But many Christians, it seems, have been enticed by the arguments for an ancient earth and then squished millions of years into the Genesis time frame. We will readily admit that the Bible does not say clearly how old the earth is. Yet, two things are obvious. The Bible will not allow an earth that is millions of years old because (secondly), the earth is only a few days older than human civilization.
In Wysong’s book, he cites an argument from Science magazine and other journals to show that dating methods are simply not reliable. For example… living mollusks have been dated by the Carbon-14 method to be as much as 2,300 years old. Trees that are alive have been dated by C-14 to be 10,000 years old. Mortar from a castle in England was dated (by C-14) to 7,370 years ago but it was actually built 785 years ago. Seals that were freshly killed were dated at 1,300 years ago and mummified seals, no older than 30 years, have been dated to 4,600 years!
The fact is no dating method is going to be accurate because all dating methods are based on assumptions that cannot be verified. Has the rate of decay changed over the past 10,000 – 5 billion years? No one could possibly know that. How much parent element was in the rocks versus how much daughter element, at the very beginning? No one could possibly know that answer. Lava that has been known to have flowed within the past 200 years has been dated to thousands of millions of years. Has any daughter element seeped in to the rocks over the past? Again, no one could possibly know the answer to that question.
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In his chapter on “Youth or Antiquity?”, Wysong goes on to list 33 methods of dating that would argue for a young earth: oil gushers, C-14 disintegration, decay of the earth’s magnetic field, and so forth.
Now, Wysong is not arguing that these methods are reliable; otherwise, he would be as guilty of false assumptions as the evolutionists. Rather, what he is showing is that based on the same assumptions, there are many scientific evidences for a young earth: “scientific dating techniques rest upon a series of assumptions which usually cannot be validated” (178, emph. mine).
It is imperative that our young people know these weaknesses and these facts. Parents, Bible class teachers, youth ministers, and preachers need to familiarize themselves with the basics of these dating methods and be able to explain to our young people why they need to let these dates go in one ear and out the other. The earth is only five days older than humanity!
–Paul Holland
