The earth is probably less than 10,000 years old.

== Overview == Remember, when considering which side has won under a preponderance of the evidence standard, you should picture a giant scale. Whichever side has more weight on their side of the scale wins. Weight is determined both by the quantity of evidence and quality [or credibility] of the evidence. Pro side evidence My opponent offered seven pieces of evidence of a Young Earth. I will go through each one, but first, a general note about the credibility of the evidence. My opponent relies on two Young Earth Creationist researchers: William Gibbons and Russell Humphreys. Both of them start with the premise that the Earth is young and work backwards to justify this belief. In contrast, when scientists estimate the age of a particular object, they are working forwards. They don’t pre-decide what age they want to find. Because this methodology is more scientific, all my sources should be weighed as more credible than Pro’s. (1) The Bible The Bible should be given zero weight. I have shown why the Bible should not be read literally as a source meant to date the Earth with scientific precision. Genesis was written around 1600 BC, prior to the advent of archeology, physics, or chemistry. The Flood story reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of where rain comes from. The Exodus has proven to be historically inaccurate: the Jews were never in Egypt, according to archeological data. The Creation story fundamentally misunderstands evolution, leaving out intermediate hominid species between humans and apes. Due to these glaring misunderstandings of science, using the Exodus and the genealogies from Genesis to date the Earth holds no scientific merit. Don’t weigh this evidence at all. (2) Helium in zircon crystals As geologist Kevin Henke has explained, Humphreys’ work on Helium diffusion is “based on many false assumptions.” The uncertainty surrounding Helium diffusion rates is why Helium is not used in dating. Although Helium is one byproduct of Uranium decay, Lead is a far more stable byproduct. The amount of Lead in the zircon samples yielded an age of the samples of 1.5 million years. If anything, the zircon crystals are placed on the Con side of the evidentiary scale. (3) Supernovas There are no “missing” supernova remnants. There are simply a bunch of supernova remnants that we have not found yet because they are hidden in dust clouds or behind other matter. If anything, this evidence goes to the Con side because we have dated supernova fragments as being older than 10K years based on their “radii and rate of expansion,” not based on radiometric dating (as Pro asserts). (4) Mitochondrial Eve My opponent’s study author (Gibbons) is not even a biologist; he majored in Religious Studies at Immanuel Baptist College. His methodology was deeply flawed. Multiple biologists have estimated Mitochondrial Eve’s age at 200,000 years, using both mtDNA and X-Chromosomal DNA. This evidence definitely goes to the Con side. (5) Population My opponent’s assumption (of a constant, positive growth rate) is wrong. The further back in time you go, the lower the population growth rate due to disease, famine, and predation [lions used to eat us]. The actual growth rate between 1000 AD and 1800 AD was four times slower than the rate Pro used to calculate a 10,000-year old Earth. Assuming Pro’s math is correct, using the actual slower rate means the Earth is older than 10,000 years. This evidence goes to the Con side. (6) Magnetic field Pro’s study wrongfully assumes exponential decay and does not account for the ability of the field to reverse polarity. Magnetic reversals (171 of them) prove the Earth is at least 76 million years old. This argument also goes to the Con side. (7) YEC Predictions These predictions come from an apologetics study by Humphreys that attempted to explain why distant starlight is red-shifted (indicating that the universe is 14 billion years old). My opponent never explains why any of these predictions disprove an old universe. There are alternate explanations for all these predictions. For example, moon rock is magnetic because the moon had a molten core [that magnetized the rock] 4.2 billion years ago. [1] Any predictive model is going to be right some of the time because “even a broken clock is right twice a day.” To prove Humphreys’ model valid, Pro would need to prove that all of its predictions have proven true, not just a cherry-picked few. Therefore, give little to no weight to this argument because Pro offers no explanation of how it proves a Young Earth. Con Side Evidence Not only have I turned five of Pro’s seven arguments against him, but I also offered ten proofs that the Earth is older than 10,000 years. Even assuming Pro is right that two are redundant with radioactive dating because they also rely on the physics of radioactive decay, that is still eight proofs to Pro’s remaining two [the Bible and YEC predictions]. The preponderance of the evidence is clearly on my side. (1) Radioactive dating This should be weighed very heavily in the debate. Pro never refutes it, except to say that Helium from one sample indicates that the Uranium-Lead dating of the sample might have been wrong. However, Helium diffusion is not a reliable or recognized dating technique. Radioactive dating has found tens of thousands of samples to be older than 10,000 years. The only way to explain away these results is to assume that God sped up the rate of radioactive decay during the Flood, but the heat from all these accelerated decays would have vaporized the Earth. The fact that Uranium-Lead dating can be independently verified using fission track dating (which also involves estimates based on the half life of Uranium) proves that radioactive dating is accurate and internally consistent. (2) Erosion This should also be weighed very heavily. Pro’s only response was that my source mentioned that radioactive dating was used to confirm that erosion of the Grand Canyon took millions of years. However, he has no refutation to the argument that the geological process of erosion would take millions of years to form the Grand Canyon. Erosion of that magnitude could not happen in 10,000 years. (3) Ice layering This should be weighed very heavily. Pro only nitpicks my source, but does not refute that the dating of the oldest observed ice layers proves the Earth is at least 160,000 years old. (4) Nitrogen in diamonds This should be weighed very heavily. Pro never refutes the study that it would take at least 200 million years of intense pressure to force nitrogen into the strong carbon bonds of a natural diamond. Pro only complains that the study is not recent enough. (5) Continental Drift This should be weighed very heavily. Even if Pro is correct that the continents can move four times faster than they do today, this still yields an estimate that the continents converged 50 million years ago. (6) Chromosomal Adam This should be weighed very heavily. Pro never refutes that based on Y-Chromosomal mutation rates, the last man with currently-living descendants lived 200,000 years ago. (7) Dendrochronology This should be weighed rather heavily. Pro is correct that there are minor problems with false “stress rings” forming. However, expert dendrochronologists know how to check for and correct for false rings. Dendrochronology proves 11,000 year old trees. (8) Amino acid dating This should be weighed somewhat heavily. My opponent is correct that amino acid dating sometimes relies on making certain assumptions about temperature. However, historical temperature data is known (going back 56 million years), thus yielding accurate estimates. Amino acid dating proves the Earth is millions of years old. Conclusion: with the 5 arguments I turned against Pro, plus the 8 arguments above, that’s 13 strong arguments for an Old Earth against 2 very weak arguments for a Young Earth [the Bible, and unexplained YEC predictions]. The weight of the evidence is clear. Vote Con. [1] http://tinyurl.com...