The earth is only a few thousand years old. That’s a fact, plainly revealed in God’s Word. So we should expect to find plenty of evidence for its youth. And that’s what we find—in the earth’s geology, biology, paleontology, and even astronomy.
Literally hundreds of dating methods could be used to attempt an estimate of the earth’s age, and the vast majority of them point to a much younger earth than the 4.5 billion years claimed by secularists. The following series of articles presents what Answers in Genesis researchers picked as the ten best scientific evidences that contradict billions of years and confirm a relatively young earth and universe.
Despite this wealth of evidence, it is important to understand that, from the perspective of observational science, no one can prove absolutely how young (or old) the universe is. Only one dating method is absolutely reliable—a witness who doesn’t lie, who has all evidence, and who can reveal to us when the universe began!
And we do have such a witness—the God of the Bible! He has given us a specific history, beginning with the six days of Creation and followed by detailed genealogies that allow us to determine when the universe began. Based on this history, the beginning was only about six thousand years ago (about four thousand years from Creation to Christ).
In the rush to examine all these amazing scientific “evidences,” it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture. Such a mountain of scientific evidence, accumulated by researchers, seems to obviously contradict the supposed billions of years, so why don’t more people rush to accept the truth of a young earth based on the Bible?
The problem is, as we consider the topic of origins, all so-called “evidences” must be interpreted. Facts don’t speak for themselves. Interpreting the facts of the present becomes especially difficult when reconstructing the historical events that produced those present-day facts, because no humans have always been present to observe all the evidence and to record how all the evidence was produced.
Forensic scientists must make multiple assumptions about things they cannot observe. How was the original setting different? Were different processes in play? Was the scene later contaminated? Just one wrong assumption or one tiny piece of missing evidence could totally change how they reconstruct the past events that led to the present-day evidence.
When discussing the age of the earth, Christians must be ready to explain the importance of starting points. The Bible is the right starting point.
That’s why, when discussing the age of the earth, Christians must be ready to explain the importance of starting points and assumptions. Reaching the correct conclusions requires the right starting point.
The Bible is that starting point. This is the revealed Word of the almighty, faithful, and true Creator, who was present to observe all events of earth history and who gave mankind an infallible record of key events in the past.
The Bible, God’s revelation to us, gives us the foundation that enables us to begin to build the right worldview to correctly understand how the present and past are connected. All other documents written by man are fallible, unlike the “God-breathed” infallible Word (2 Timothy 3:16). The Bible clearly and unmistakably describes the creation of the universe, the solar system, and the earth around six thousand years ago. We know that it’s true based on the authority of God’s own character. “Because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself” (Hebrews 6:13).
In one sense, God’s testimony is all we need; but God Himself tells us to give reasons for what we believe (1 Peter 3:15). So it is also important to conduct scientific research (that is part of taking dominion of the earth, as Adam was told to do in Genesis 1:28). With this research we can challenge those who reject God’s clear Word and defend the biblical worldview.
Indeed, God’s testimony must have such a central role in our thinking that it seems demeaning even to call it the “best” evidence of a young earth. It is, in truth, the only foundation upon which all other evidences can be correctly understood!
The 10 Best Evidences from Science that Confirm a Young Earth
considering flood survivors: 6-8 populating the world. Approximate about half a percent growth rate on the conservative side (today is like 1% or more, which is slow) over 4,500 years which is more than sufficient to allow for wars, famines, and diseases.
You end up at about 8 billion…over hundreds of thousands of years or more – it would be trillions of people running around alive by now…
Contrast: If mankind was 100s of thousands or millions of years, where are all the people? We should be crammed in shoulder to shoulder.
They tell us it took most of human history to figure out how to put seeds in the ground and harvest it with farming and exponentially grow the population. They had the same genetics and intelligence as we do.
Young Earth Shows Sudden Changes Del Tackett, DM ˙ Mount St. Helens
Many people look at the earth and assume uniform processes acted over long ages to form what we see around us. Yet Mount St. Helens reveals how major
catastrophes can quickly create geological formations. It also shows how eyewitness accounts are necessary to understand what happened in the past. The book of
Genesis lays out a clear history of the earth, although many people do not accept it as an accurate witness. Is it truly history?
“Did God create the world in a few days or billions of years?” —Del Tackett
What do the Rocks Tell Us?
Steven Austin, PhD (Geologist) ˙ Grand Canyon
The greatest catastrophe recorded in the Bible is the Flood. Such an event would have transformed everything on the earth’s surface and left an enormous amount of residue. That is what we see when we look at the layers of sedimentary rock that cover the planet. There are huge megasequences that stretch across continents stacked one on top of the other; there are countless marine fossils in those sedimentary rock layers; and there is evidence of major erosion on the earth from the advance and retreat of the flood waters. These evidences, and many more, point to a major catastrophe in the earth’s past just as the Bible records.
“It’s not a little water and a lot of time. It’s a lot of water and a little time.” —Steve Austin
How Do You Measure Time?
Andrew Snelling, PhD (Geologist) ˙ SP Crater & Sedona, Arizona
If the Bible presents a concise timeline of history, where does the idea of millions of years come from? Geologists like Charles Lyell wanted to replace the
history recorded in Genesis with a naturalistic history of their own construction. They started with the idea of long ages, then interpreted the rocks in light of their new paradigm. Today, geologists rely on measuring radioisotope decay and interpret its results in terms of the conventional paradigm. Yet anomalies in these dating methods question these conclusions. Instead, one can look at geological formations to see evidence of a young earth transformed by a global catastrophe: the flat and enormous extent of sedimentary layers; a lack of deep and widespread erosion between most layers; and evidence that sediment was rapidly deposited by huge amounts of water.
“The Bible would say that the past is the key to the present.” —Andrew Snelling
A Brief History of the World
Kurt Wise, PhD (Paleontologist) ˙ Pocket Wilderness, Dayton, TN
The Creation of the universe in six normal days was the first epoch. During that period, God rapidly created everything in a miraculous, unrepeatable fashion. The Edenian epoch followed with Adam and Eve living in the garden of Eden. It is impossible to understand the setup of the laws of the universe since death had not entered the world. With the Fall, God cursed the creation and changed those universal laws. The children of Adam lived in the Ante-Diluvian epoch, a world with a very different arrangement and variety of organisms compared to our world today. The Flood destroyed everything. The Post-Flood epoch was therefore marked by a series of unique environments as the earth settled down from the global catastrophe. Before and during the Ice Age, the world recovered to the Modern epoch. We can now only look into the Bible and the rocks to see evidence of those prior worlds.
“The Bible lays out what I would call epochs of earth history.” —Kurt Wise
The Origin of Fossils
Marcus Ross, PhD (Paleontologist) ˙ Discovery Park of America
There are billions of fossils in the earth. Most are from animals that lived in the Ante-Diluvian epoch before the Flood, but some are from the
Post-Flood epoch when the world was recovering from the global catastrophe. During the Flood, as huge tidal waves pulsed back and forth over the existing continents, different types of sediment and ecosystems were picked up, carried, then deposited in massive layers on top of each other. The presence of marine
fossils on the continents, the sudden appearance of complex fossils in the lowest Cambrian layers, the widespread extent of fossilization, and the pattern of trackways (footprints) below body fossils, all point to the record in Genesis where God said He was going to wipe out a violent earth with a global flood.
“Man and all of the animals over which we ruled were judged at the time of the Flood.” —Marcus Ross
When Dinosaurs Walked the Earth
Arthur Chadwick, PhD (Taphonomist) ˙ Hanson Ranch, Wyoming
An examination of an actual ‘bone bed’ reveals unique aspects that could only occur during a massive flood. A layer of mudstone 3 to 4 feet thick is spread over a 100-acre area and contains the remains of 5,000 to 10,000 large dinosaurs. Millions of bones are disarticulated (separated) and display a unique sorting process: they are in a graded bed with larger, heavier bones at the bottom and smaller, lighter bones at the top. This could only occur through a major, waterborne catastrophe. Evidence for these kinds of burials is seen throughout the fossil record, with animals suddenly appearing fully-formed, then disappearing from higher layers.
“We don’t ever see changes from this form into this form in the rocks themselves.” —Art Chadwick
When Dinosaurs Walked the Earth
Arthur Chadwick, PhD (Taphonomist) ˙ Hanson Ranch, Wyoming
An examination of an actual ‘bone bed’ reveals unique aspects that could only occur during a massive flood. A layer of mudstone 3 to 4 feet thick is spread over a 100-acre area and contains the remains of 5,000 to 10,000 large dinosaurs. Millions of bones are disarticulated (separated) and display a unique sorting process: they are in a graded bed with larger, heavier bones at the bottom and smaller, lighter bones at the top. This could only occur through a major, waterborne catastrophe. Evidence for these kinds of burials is seen throughout the fossil record, with animals suddenly appearing fully-formed, then disappearing from higher layers.
“We don’t ever see changes from this form into this form in the rocks themselves.” —Art Chadwick
Soft Tissue in Dinosaur Bones
Kevin Anderson, PhD (Microbiologist) ˙ Van Andel Creation Research Center
In 2005, soft tissue was discovered inside the femur of a dinosaur bone. More discoveries followed by other scientists. In 2012, Kevin Anderson and Mark Armitage dug out a large section of a triceratops brow horn in Montana. Although the normal process of finding soft tissue is through decalcification of the bone, when Mark opened up the horn, he discovered uncalcified soft tissue that was stretchy and pliable. Although surprising to everyone, the presence of these intact organic materials is better explained by the bones being only thousands rather than tens of millions of years old. These discoveries can be seen as a method of dating, but they challenge the concept of ‘deep time,’ a critical component of evolution.
“Clearly this is in violation of the dating process. It challenges the entire dating process.” —Kevin Anderson
The Genius of Design
Robert Carter, PhD (Marine Biologist) ˙ Coral World, St. Thomas, USVI
Although evolutionary theory says all creatures descended from a common ancestor, when one looks at animals today (or in the fossil record), they appear to be unique creations with the ability to change to fit their environments. That ability to live and change is programmed in at the deepest levels of the
genome in ways we do not fully understand. What we do see is that the human genome works as a four-dimensional ‘computer’: our three billion letter sequence of DNA is able to turn sections of itself on and off; it is coiled into 3D fractal spheres where sections folded near each other combine to create new levels of information; and it changes shape over time to expose different areas of DNA needed to create tens of thousands of different proteins. This level of complexity is not just limited to the genome, but can be seen in the interdependent relationships between living creatures throughout every ecosystem in the world. Such highly-engineered structures and relationships can only exist if they are created simultaneously in a short space of time — which is exactly how Genesis says God
created everything.
“Life is so complex that small changes can’t explain it.”
—Robert Carter
The Potential of Created Kinds
Todd Wood, PhD (Biologist) ˙ Memphis Zoo
One of the conclusions of evolutionary theory is that natural selection working over millions of years formed all the diversity of life we see in the world. Genesis, however, says God created animals fully-formed “according to their kinds.” When one studies the similarities and differences of animals, a better explanation is that each created kind possesses enormous potential for genetic change. These changes within kinds have often been pointed to as arguments for evolution, but changes between kinds have not been observed. Instead of a single tree of life growing from a common ancestor, each created kind has its own unique tree forming an orchard of life. Humans are part of their own kind and include relatives like Neanderthals, but not extinct primates like Australopithecus. God made Adam and Eve in His image, and gave them the unique role of stewarding His creation.
“All we see are variations that happen within a created kind.” —Todd Wood
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