Macro evolution 4

While I concede that if the universe were only 6 to 10 thousand years old it would not be possible to have all organisms we have today with the highly evolved adaptations they possess. Although it is quickly becoming apparent evolution goes at a pace far beyond what we previously believed to be possible and most of human evolution over the last ten thousand years has happened in the last thousand years. It would not be possible to evolve all the adaptations we have today without a world far older than 6,000 years. I shall thusly focus on the claim of the age of the Earth. ---- The Earth is 4.54 billion years old (+- 100 million years). Therefore there is ample time for life to evolve. How do we know the age of the Earth? We have many independent lines of evidence within geology to calculate the age of the earth. Uranium for example slowly decays into lighter elements and comparing the ratio of what was previous a pure bit of uranium shows that it has undergone radiometric decay for over a billion years. The oldest such decaying substance we have found on the planet is a small crystals of zircon in Australia which show themselves to be 4.4 billion years old. A comparison between our sun's mass and luminosity allows us to calculate how long our sun has been working finds that the sun is about 4.5-4.6 billion years old. There are also a meteorites which one presumes are fairly unchanged since the start of our universe and the Ca-Al inclusions thereof allow us to track the age of the them to be about 4.56 billion years old (which is probably a bit older than our planet). The oldest rocks we find appear to be about 3.8 billion years old, which due to the early Earth's molten surface stands to reason. Let's look at a specific example, Uranium Lead decay. The ratio of Uranium-235 to Uranium-238 (.72%) is well known and when you hear about uranium enrichment they are talking about getting a higher ratio of U-235 than U-238 as the 235 has the added property of allowing a chain reaction of nuclear fission. Now, why is this ratio important? Because Uranium decays into lead. U-238 decays to Pb-206, and U-235 decays to Pb-207 so we can look at the ratio of Pb-207 and Pb-206 calculating from the half-life that this was a standard bit of uranium and calculate how much of it decayed. Calculating from the half-life we can tell how long this bit of Uranium has been decaying for. Picture this... several clocks running on different timing patters. 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9 1.....2.....3.....4.....5.....6.. 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.A.B.C.D.E.F.G.H 1..........2..........3.......... 1.............................2.. 1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9..A..B.. Now, even any one of these clocks if you know the rate they are clicking along can be used to calculate where they started. With radiometric dating this is exactly what we have. Now, looking at one clock you might be able to say we could have made a mistake, but here's the strength of radiometric dating... we look at all the clocks and they agree. So we track clock A to about the same time clock B tracks to and clock C to the same place and clock D... E... F, etc. Then we calculate it other ways like comparing the change in the brightness of the sun compared to the mass to determine how long it took to develop. If we use Sm-Nd dating on a Chondrite meteorite we get a 4.21 (+- .76) billion year age, or Rb-Sr we get about 4.50 (+-.02) billion years, Eucrites with Lu-Hf gives 4.57 (+- .19) billion, Diogenites with a Rb-Sr dating 4.45 (+-.18) billion years. -- We can run the different clocks back and we get pretty much the same date. The Earth is 4.54 (+- .1) billion years old. That's plenty of time for evolution to occur. ------ Further, your 6000 date comes from Usher who calculated the age of the planet by adding up the ages of the Biblical figures of the Bible. Frankly that's a bit silly. Seriously, you're going to tell me the universe was created 2000 years after the Egyptians first brewed beer? Thousands of years after the domestication of the dog? 4000 years after the oldest known living plant started to grow (King Clone Creosote bush 11,700 years old)? Our tree ring record goes back 5,000 years before the earth formed? We drive around in cars being powered by black goop millions of years older then the universe? We look into the sky and see stars hundreds of thousands of light years away with the light thereof traveling for hundreds of thousands of years prior to the universe being created? This is what you want us to believe? This is your argument?