An A to Z of Creationist Fallacies: D is for Dating

Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags, Edinburgh

The entire creationist claim in Christianity hinges upon the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis in the Bible. Some creationist fundamentalist Muslims have taken up and also purport this claim, despite the fact that the Qur'an makes no mention of timescales for creation. Interestingly enough, there are very few creationist Jews. This is perhaps because Judaism teaches that 'Man needs the Talmud, and the Talmud needs man.' Creationist Christians are Biblical literalists who maintain that the Bible is the word of God, written down by men who were divinely inspired by God to copy and interpret the oldest surviving copies of copies of the scriptures, and with their hands being guided by God, no mistakes could ever be made, nothing could be omitted and nothing could be added, and thus the Bible must be the perfect, unerring word of an omnipotent and omniscient God. There's only one problem with this claim; it is complete and utter bollocks.

If one thinks that the above claims are bold, bolder still were the claims of Archbishop Ussher, who not only set out to date the creation of the Earth to the year, but went as far as to claim to have accurately dated it to the year, month, day, and right down to the very time. He is important to this narrative because so many creationists stand by his chronology today. James Ussher (1581-1656) was Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of All Ireland in the reformed protestant Church of Ireland. Possibly going for the record for the world's longest book title, in 1647 Ussher published his Annales Veteris Testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti, una cum rerum Asiaticarum et Aegyptiacarum chronico, a temporis historici principio usque ad Maccabaicorum initia producto. ("Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world, the chronicle of Asiatic and Egyptian matters together produced from the beginning of historical time up to the beginnings of Maccabes”), more commonly known as the “Ussher Chronology”.

Ussher had not been the first theologian to attempt to date the scriptures, but 'corrected' the dates proposed by Jose Ben Helafta (3761 BCE), Bede (3952 BCE), Scaliger (3949 BCE), Johannes Kepler (3992 BCE) and Sir Isaac Newton (c. 4000 BCE). Ussher looked at the chronologies of descendants in the Old Testament, and took into account the claim in 2 Peter 3:8; “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” By these and looking at the Hebrew Bible as well as the Christian scriptures, cross-referencing with known rulers, linking with recorded historical events, and taking into account that Josephus gave the date of the death of Herod as 4 BCE, then Jesus could not have been born after then, Ussher was able to give a year for the creation at 4004 BCE.

Going further, Ussher deduced that if God created all things in six days, then rested on the seventh, the Jewish Sabbath being Saturday, the creation must have began on a Sunday. Then looking at the Jewish calender, and tying in the creation of the stars and planets with Kepler's astronomical tables, he deduced that creation would have taken place on the Autumnal Equinox, which for the year 4004 was Sunday, 23 October in the Julian Calendar. As God rested and thereby instituted the first Jewish Sabbath at nightfall, which according to Judaism is when the first three stars appear, it would logically follow that the creation would have began at the same time, six days previously. Again, from astronomical tables, Ussher was able to deduce that would have been 6:00pm in Jerusalem on the day. Therefore, Archbishop James Ussher proclaimed that the creation took place at 6:00pm on Sunday, 23 October, 4004 BCE.

Archbishop Ussher's chronology is a beautiful piece of logic, deductive reasoning and sheer number crunching. However, it has several problems which render the source material unreliable. We cannot even be sure if many of the 'heroes' of the Old Testament even existed, and the great ages of some of them lived to, including Adam (930), Noah (950) and Methuselah (969) are sheer biological impossibilities. Then of course, Ussher had to have a place for the creation as well as a time, and that had to centre upon Jerusalem, which was still considered the centre of the universe. Anyone who accepts that, would likewise have to accept another Biblical claim; that of a stationary geocentric Earth, and all that footage you've ever seen of the Earth in rotation, any mobile devices you have or anything else served by a satellite must be a government / NASA / Illuminati conspiracy, and solar and lunar eclipses are either shot onto a backscreen, or a figment of your own deranged imagination.

The Judeo-Christian accounts of the creation were the accepted 'facts' for thousands of years, and Ussher's chronology held good for over 100 years. Then some troublesome Scot had to go and upset the entire applecart. James Hutton (1726-1797), came from a farming background, but showed great intelligence from an early age, variously worked as an experimental agriculturalist, canal builder, chemist and physician, which amassed him a not inconsiderable income, enabling him to buy a rather nice house in the St John's Hill area of Holyrood, then still a separate burgh, just outside Edinburgh. Hutton would take exercise in Holyrood Park adjacent to his home; an ancient hunting park of the Kings of Scots (and still officially Crown Estate), dominated by the 823 feet high volcanic cone of Arthur's Seat, and with it's high basalt cliffs of Salisbury Crags overlooking Hutton's home. By observing the rock strata of the volcano complex and comparing it to how erosion and sedimentation work, Hutton came to the conclusion that far from being a mere 6000 years old, the Earth must be very ancient indeed. James Hutton travelled the length and breadth of Scotland (which is a geologist's playground), taking and observing rock samples, which further convinced him of his hypothesis. It took 25 years of research but finally Hutton had a paper, Theory of the Earth; or an Investigation of the Laws observable in the Composition, Dissolution, and Restoration of Land upon the Globe, read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1785. Shortly afterwards a shorter abstract of his theory was read at the Royal Society and subsequently published, in which James Hutton outlaid his findings;

The solid parts of the present land appear in general, to have been composed of the productions of the sea, and of other materials similar to those now found upon the shores. Hence we find reason to conclude:

1st, That the land on which we rest is not simple and original, but that it is a composition, and had been formed by the operation of second causes.

2nd, That before the present land was made, there had subsisted a world composed of sea and land, in which were tides and currents, with such operations at the bottom of the sea as now take place. And,

Lastly, That while the present land was forming at the bottom of the ocean, the former land maintained plants and animals; at least the sea was then inhabited by animals, in a similar manner as it is at present.

Hence we are led to conclude, that the greater part of our land, if not the whole had been produced by operations natural to this globe; but that in order to make this land a permanent body, resisting the operations of the waters, two things had been required;

1st, The consolidation of masses formed by collections of loose or incoherent materials;

2ndly, The elevation of those consolidated masses from the bottom of the sea, the place where they were collected, to the stations in which they now remain above the level of the ocean.

James Hutton had been wary about publishing his findings, and with good reason. When word of his theory reached the ears of the Church of Scotland, they were in uproar that this farmer had dared to question the Holy Word of God, in challenging not only that the Earth was formed only 6000 years ago, but had suggested that some mountains must have once been underwater. This was to lead to a rift between Hutton and the Kirk, which was never to heal and which saddened him greatly. Nonetheless, James Hutton had given birth to the modern science of geology, it's key theory of uniformitanism – which asserts that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe – and where Hutton led, a great many more were to follow, pushing the age of the earth further and further back into the past.

To go into detail would take too long (and you probably wouldn't read it) but to cut a long story short, James Hutton was not of course the first to have such ideas, but that he laid it out and presented it was the first real catalyst to the scientific findings which would come after. After all, if the Earth were extremely ancient, it thereby logically followed that all life on Earth must likewise be ancient, and the universe itself had to be even more ancient still. Patrick Matthew of Gowrie, another nippy Scotsman, set out the basis of natural selection in his 1829 paper On Naval Timber of Arboriculture, then Charles Darwin followed with On the Origin of Species. By 1915 Albert Einstein had formulated his Theory of General Relativity, then Hubble and others discovered other galaxies beyond ours (an idea which the 16^th century renegade monk, Giordano Bruno, had postulated and had paid for that by being burned at the stake) that far from a Steady State Universe, the universe was in fact receding in all directions, which infers that it must be receding from an original point where all matter came from, and of course, the further away they are, the further back in time they must be. Viola! The Initial Singularity (Big Bang) Theory was founded. The religites steadfastly tried to stand against every one of these discoveries, despite a, more and more solid evidence coming to light, and b, the fact that many of these sciences agree with and support each other, building up a standard model of deep time. Which brings us up to the present day, where the accepted standard model is that the universe formed from an initial singularity 13.82 billion years go, the Earth was formed 4.53 billion years ago, life began on Earth 3.8 billion years ago, and evolved through millennia, leading eventually to the rise of our species, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, a mere 200,000 years ago.

And still the creationists try to argue against this, despite enormous amounts of evidence, despite various sciences supporting and agreeing with each other, despite being able to observe and demonstrate certain aspects of the sciences, they dig their heels in and assert that all this science must be wrong, and that their holy book is the truth, without offering a single shred of evidence to back that up.

Creationists question the dating of the universe and ask how we can come about with the dates given. Well, quite simply actually, for the simple fact that the further away we see light, the further back in time that light originated. For people fond of banging on about how complex the human eye is, it astounds me how few realise just how it works. Our eyes work by processing light and reflecting images, therefore when we see something, unless it is right in front of our eyes, we are seeing it as it was, not as it is. Strange as it may seem, if you see a friend across a road, you are not seeing them as they are at the same moment as you, but a tiny fraction of a second ago in your own personal past. Similarly, we know that the Sun is 92,955,807 miles from Earth, and that light from the Sun takes approximately 8½ minutes to reach us. Therefore, the light from more distant objects has to take much longer to reach us. Mankind has looked at the stars since our earliest ancestors and dreamed of flying to them, but the fact is that they are so distant, we may never even reach even our nearest neighbour, Proxima Centauri, a mere 4.2 light years away.

A word here about light years, for this is important. A light year is the time it takes light to travel in one year. Light of course travels at 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum, which is a constant. This equates to some 670 million mph and 6 Trillion miles in one Earth year. Therefore we can use the constant to measure the incredible distance to other stars, planets and galaxies in the universe and use the term “light year” to make the figures managable. I can already hear the creationists reading this parroting their old favourite “A light year is a measure of distance, not time.”, and guess what? You are absolutely correct, I wholly agree with you, and well done you for stating a scientific fact. That distance measurement however is immensely useful in calculating distance, so permit me to educate you in some basic high school mathematics. Distance and speed can be easily used to measure time, just as distance and time can be used to measure speed, and speed and time can be used to measure distance; all of them interlock in these three simple equations;

Distance = Speed x Time

Speed = Distance / Time

Time = Distance / Speed

It is the last of these we are interested in. Think of it this way. A commuter train travelling between the two Scottish cities of Edinburgh and Dundee travels at an average speed of 30mph, to cover the 59¼ miles. Take the distance and divide by the speed ; 59.25 / 30 = 1.975, which as we are dealing in minutes, we have to then multiply the result by 60; 1.975 x 60 = 118.5, or 1½ minutes off 2 hours. I chose those two cities because they are close to 60 miles apart, so a train travelling at 60mph would take just under one hour, therefore a train travelling half that speed would take close to 2 hours. So, using exactly the same principle, if we use light years divided by the speed of light, we can accurately calculate the age of the source of the light. And by using the same principle, science takes the age of the oldest stars and the rate of expansion, then work back to find a point of origin, which is precisely how the universe can be aged. Ain't numbers beautiful?

The more and more sophisticated science has become, the deeper and deeper astronomers have been able to look into space, and as a result, the more distant the objects they look at, the further back in time they are able to observe. Cosmology uses the redshift of distant objects in space to determine their distance and thus their age. Redshift occurs when light moves into the red end of the spectrum; the further away, the higher the redshift. This is based on the “Doppler Effect”, which works in the same way as sound; an emergency vehicle's sirens are constant in a vehicle, but as it comes towards the observer the note increases in pitch, then changes and drops as it passes and moves away. By using these relatively simple principles, the Hubble telescope eXtreme Deep Field has managed to measure objects in the universe some 13.2 billion years old, amazingly close to the origin of the universe, 13.82 billion years ago.

So, that explains the age of the universe. How do we know the age of the Earth? Well, we need to turn to radiometric dating of rock samples. One of the most common war cries of the creationist when this is mentioned is “Carbon 14 cannot accurately date geology”. Correct. Carbon 14 can be used on organic substances, which is precisely why geology does not use it but relies instead upon other means of radiometric dating. The spontaneous breakdown or decay of atomic nuclei, termed radioactive decay, is the basis for all radiometric dating methods. In simplest terms, the older the rock, as it's atomic nuclei breaks down, 'parent' atoms decay to stable 'daughter' atoms, and each disintegration results in one more atom of the daughter than was initially present and one less atom of the parent. The probability of a parent atom decaying in a fixed period of time is always the same for all atoms of that type regardless of temperature, pressure, or chemical conditions. This probability of decay is the decay constant. The time required for one-half of any original number of parent atoms to decay is the half-life, which is related to the decay constant. In this way Uranium 237 will decay to Lead 207 in 0.704 billion years.

The decay constant is enormously useful to date rock samples, using simple maths but by hugely technological means. First one needs to determine the number of original parent atoms. Simples – that is merely the number of parent atoms apparent plus the number of daughter atoms formed by decay. Then by applying the time which the atoms take to break down from father to daughter, you have the original age of the rock. Science originally looked for the oldest rocks on the face of the Earth, and of the oldest meteorites they could find. Everything changed on 20 July 1969, when Neil Armstrong took one small step, and one of the giant leaps was being able to compare Moon rock samples to Earth rock, finding they were mostly the same as Earth, and that their age corresponds to the age of Earth rock. By doing this the Moon has been dated to 4.4-4.5 billion years old, and the Earth to 4.4-4.6 billion years old. Again, different sciences support and confirm each other – and of course, radiometric dating absolutely confirms the original assertions of James Hutton.

One of the most bizarre claims I have heard from creationists is that one element cannot change into another. Ermm, just how do you think you are getting heat and light from the sun? The sun, just like any star, is constantly fusing hydrogen and creating helium and other elements. At the end of a star's life, when it's hydrogen fuel runs out, helium atoms create carbon and oxygen, carbon and oxygen then fuse into neon, sodium, magnesium, sulphur and silicon. And so the fusion chain goes on, creating calcium, iron, nickel, chromium, copper and others, then heavier elements, until the star, attempting to create heavier and heavier elements, first implodes, then violently explodes outwards, spewing the elements necessary for life out into the universe. Elements are changing all the time, even at the lower level. Nuclear reactors burn uranium and produce plutonium and other elements as waste products. Even in nature, granite rock will break down over time and emit radon gas. Just a point, creationists, the periodic table has moved on somewhat since the days of Earth, Air, Fire and Water.

As geology dates rock, and thus the Earth, so it also compliments palaeontology, and helps to date fossils and thus gives us an insight into evolution and the age of fossils. Enter another creationist liar and shyster, Kent Hovind. Kent Hovind, off the creationist circuit for 10 years during which he served a jail sentence for tax evasion, tries to claim that science is dealing in circular reasoning. One famous quote of his; “How do they date the fossils? From the age of the rock. How do they date the rock? From the age of the fossils.” The lack of intelligence alone is worrying enough. More worrying still were the large number of his audience who laughed at this. Of course, it is not that simple. There is however a grain of truth in it, and one which is going to stick in the craw of every creationist; that this again are different branches of science supporting and confirming each other's findings. If a fossil is found in certain strata of rock, dated by radiometric dating, then it logically follows that the creature which formed that fossil must have lived in that era. Similarly if the fossil of a creature has been found and dated, then other fossils of the same creature will confirm that the rock strata must be of the same era. And then of course, fossils can help in other ways, even the absence of them. After Hutton kick-started geology, and Darwin increased the interest in evolution, scientists were taking rock samples all over the world, and not least from Scotland. Those who came to Scotland found a curious thing in the Torridon Hills, in Wester Ross, north-west Scotland; not one fossil was found in any sample of Torridon Sandstone. It was not until the advent of radiometric dating however, that the hypothesis for this was confirmed; the Torridon Hills were formed before life began on Earth. When we in Scotland that something is “Old as the hills.”, we really mean it. Told you it was a geologist's playground.

Seems to me that Kent Hovind would do better to reflect on the fact that revenue services work out tax due upon earnings, and earning money means paying your taxes.

As we see, Kent Hovind's claim is not as crazy as it may seem; it's not circular reasoning, it's all about fitting pegs into holes (and as I never tire of saying, you never find the fossils of modern creatures besides ancient ones) and Hovind & Co are behaving like the imbecilic child, who continually tries to force the square peg into the round hole, despite being shown several times that's not how it goes; it's either their way, or no way at all. But Hovind is only giving half the picture, and this is where our friend carbon can indeed make an entrance. Carbon, coming from the stars and thus evident everywhere, occurs naturally all over the planet. However, carbon-13 (C-13) is much rarer than carbon-12 (C-12), the latter of which is concentrated in living organisms. As organic debris fell to the ocean floor of our ancient Earth, the C-12 to C-13 ratio rose in sedimentary rock which formed, and that ratio is preserved in rock formed billions of years ago. As Craig Manning, a geologist at the University of California at Los Angeles states, “In the modern world, the only way you can generate such a high ratio of carbon-12 relative to carbon-13 is if some sort of fractionation (or preferential use of carbon-12) occurs in living organisms.”

But can this prove the age of or date of life? Well, not prove, but a branch of geology called geochronology can deduce a minimum age by dating igneous intrusions cutting through sedimentary rock. The intrusions are “nature's timekeepers” - zircons. Zircons are of course yet one more form of carbon, forming from molten igneous rock as it cools. When first formed, zircons contain uranium, which as I have said above, converts to lead over time. As all the lead present in a zircon sample will reflect the ratio to uranium over time, that gives the age since the zircon first formed. Thus, this is how science, using several disciplines, has managed to equate that life on Earth began at least 3.8 billion years ago, beginning with simple, single-celled organisms from whence all life, me, you, the dog next door, even Kent Hovind as strange as it seems (yep, you are distantly related to him – we all are, as unsavoury as that fact may be), all arose.

And of course, it is indeed by using the same principles of radiometric and stratigraphic (dating fossils from the geological strata they are found in) dating that the age of fossils, and their progress through biological evolution can be observed, and demonstrated to give fairly accurate dates. Much more accurate, and with much more evidence and reliable source material which, as undoubtedly as clever he was, Archbishop Ussher was ever working upon.