Does science prove that the earth is very old?

Why do some people who claim to be Christians, believe the world is billions of years old?

The Geologic Column

The Geologic Column is a diagram of sedimentary rock layers with the organisms that were fossilised in them (representing the imaginary evolutionary timescale).¹  The rock layers have names like the Cambrian, Silurian, Jurassic and Devonian. Each rock layer has a starting and end date for when it was laid down. The rock layers are supposed to indicate the dates that the fossils lived on earth. For example, dinosaur fossils are found in the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous rock layers. Thus it is taught that dinosaurs ‘reigned’ on earth from 225 – 65 million years ago.

Is the Geologic Column scientifically true?

Is the Geologic Column indisputable scientific proof that evolution is true and the earth is 4.5 billion years old? Did researchers use scientific methods to determine the dates of the rock layers and the fossils? No, because of the following reasons:

1. Even before radiometric dating, people like Charles Lyell (an attorney turned geologist who lived at the same time as Charles Darwin) helped with the design of the geologic column. Amongst other methods, they estimated how long they thought certain organisms took to evolve and then assigned those dates to the rock layers. They assumed the rate of evolutionary ‘progress,’ while today science has disproved any Darwinian evolution. So the method is invalid and false.²
2. Radiometric decay or dating (see article here) cannot ‘date’ sedimentary or metamorphic rocks that make up 75% of the earth’s surface and contain the fossils. Radiometric decay can only be used on volcanic rocks (hardened lava from volcanos) and they obviously don’t have fossils in them.
3. Radiometric dating cannot date fossils. Only carbon dating can be used on fossils of biologic origin. The problem is that carbon dating can only give ages of up to 100,000 years. That is too short for the evolutionist and Bible skeptics.
4. Because it was impossible to decide which earth rocks were the oldest, researchers decided to measure the age of a meteorite. They assumed that meteorites formed the earth after the big bang. So a meteorite would give the exact, precise age of the earth.³ Do we have testable science that proves that the earth was formed by meteorites? No, it was assumed! Assumptions help experimental science to arrive at the ‘science’ of dating.

Summary

Neither the Geologic Column nor the supposed age of a meteorite is proof for an old earth.

Post Scriptum. This discussion on the age of the earth is necessarily very brief. Yet the young age of the earth is a very important Christian doctrine. God has a ‘project,’ which is His Kingdom. He is not going to wait billions of years to get it finished. He is a God who decides, acts and finishes. Just like Jesus came, conquered and ascended.

References

1. R Moody, Nature Library Fossils, Optimum Books, 1983, p 13
2. R Milton, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, Park Street Press, 1992, p 67-69
3. CC Patterson, Age of Meteorites and the Earth, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 1956, 10:230-237, cited by T Walker, Western Culture and the Age of the Earth, Technical Journal 19(2), 2005, p 46-50