: Evolutionists love to cite their dating methods as "proof" that the earth is old. : Can you explain these?
: Volcanism -- If the current rate of lave production of today's approzimately 450 active volcanoes were constant for 4 1/2 billion years, the amount of lave produced would be equivalent to the size of the earth. If volcanic activity were greater at some time in the past -- which most of us believe it was, the amount would be even greater.
You're forgetting that the Earth's crust is being destroyed as fast as it is created; subduction zones at tectonic plate boundaries. The net change in Earth surface area is zero.
: Water formation -- Water is being formed and added to the earth at the rate of about 1 cubic mile per year. If the earth were billions of years old, far too much water would have been formed to have any remaining dry land.
Care to cite your sources?
Examine the rate of evaporation from the oceans and you find that the rainfall over land matches up to the evaporation rate. There is no net creation of water; it would have to come from somewhere. Even with a continual influx of comets, there would not be enough spaceborne water incident on the Earth to match your claims.
: Meteoric dust -- About 14 million tons of dust from outer space fall to the earth each year. In about 4 billion years, enough dust should have fallen to cover the earth to a depth of 54 feet up to 100 miles. It just isn't there.
To quote the standard reference on these issues:
"1.3: "...at the present rate of influx of meteoritic dust from space, the earth and moon after 5 billion years should each be covered with a meteoritic dust layer more than 180 feet thick". This calculation is based on a long outdated, speculative estimate by Hans Pettersson (1960). The ICR seems unaware of data since derived from space technology that reveals a much lower rate of dust influx - a rate that causes the creationist argument to collapse." (Ecker, 1990, 183)"
: Soil formation -- Soil can actually be formed at a rate of several inches in less than 100 years.
And? Soil erosion takes place equally fast elsewhere. See the Dustbowl; the meat industry has resulted in the loss of 65% of the USA's arable topsoil in this century.
: Human population statistics -- Considering plagues, wars, famines, etc., 8 people at the time of Noah's Flood would have multiplied to about 4 billion people today (roughly the current population of the earth). If man evolved a million years ago, there should be 10e27,000 people on th earth. (And no, we have never even come close to reaching the maximum that the earth could support.)
Cite your workings; you are merely making a bald assertion here. You are also ignoring the mechanics of natural selection; which apply to humans as much as any other lifeform; it is only in the last 10,000 years or so that human civilisation has rendered humanity a super-predator.
To quote from the page above;
"4.17: Given uniform population growth rates, we can extrapolate backwards from today's population to prove that there could not have been humans before 10,000 years ago. According to Robert Pennock:
While application of the principle of uniformity makes good sense when speaking of radioactive decay or random mutation, it does not work so simply given what we know of the history of human population size...Data on other animal species in nature reveal that population size is typically highly variable, with cycles of increase and decrease that average to a growth rate of zero, which is what scientists believe held for most of the early history of the human species as well. It was only the advent of agricultural production, the development of permanent settlements and cities, and the introduction of mechanization that allowed the rate of human population growth to depart significantly from this norm to achieve exponential increase. (Pennock, 1999, 225) "
: Decay of the earth's magnetic field -- At the present rate of decay (measured over the last 100 years), if we calculate backwards about 7000 years, the earth's magnetic field would have been 32 times stronger than it currently is. Ten thousand years ago it would have been as magnetic as a magnetic star, which is improbable. Even 1 million years ago its strength would have been impossible.
Again, to quote the page I cited (which I did mention 3 days ago; had you read it, you would not be advancing these old points with such carefree abandon...);
2.3: The rate of decay in the geomagnetic field sets an outside limit of 10,000 years for the age of the earth. "...only the dipole-field strength has been 'decaying' for a century and a half... the strength of the nondipole field (about 15 percent of the total field) has increased over the same time span, so that the total field has remained almost constant. [Creationist physicist] Barnes' assumption of a steady decrease in the field's strength throughout history is also irreconcilable, of course, with the paleomagnetic evidence of fluctuations and reversals [in the geomagnetic field]" (Ecker, 1990, 105). Evidence of the reversals have been found in the magnetic orientation of rock on the sea floor.
: Scarcity of helium -- Helium is a natural product of many radioactive decay processes. In billions of years, there should be huge quantities of helium in the earth's atmosphere; however, its presence is relatively rare, indicating an earth-age of only several thousand years.
Except that helium is a light gas (atomic weight 4) and escapes the atmosphere (average atomic weight about 16); thus, the majority of helium produced in the Earth's history merely rose to the top of the Earth's atmosphere and escaped; in much the same way that an air-filled balloon rises to the top of a bath. Thus helium levels is no guide to the Earth's age.
To quote the cited page again;
"2.4: If the earth were as old as geologists say, uranium decay would have put more helium into the atmosphere than we currently find there.The extra helium, like normal helium and hydrogen, is terribly light and escapes the earth's atmosphere into space. Thus, helium quantities in the earth give no evidence at all for the age of the earth, and we must look elsewhere - to sediment deposition rates or radiometric dating, for instance - to establish this age. (Berra, 1990, 127)"
: Moon dust -- Anyone remember why Armstrong et al had to jump from the bottom of the ladder on the lunar lander and why it had such long spindley legs? If the moon had been here as long as evolutionists say, the amount of dust should have been several feet thick, not the extremely thin layer it is.
See above; Pettersson's estimate has long since been shown to be inaccurate.
Try and come up with something slightly better next time; and do read the page I mentioned a few days ago; it will save you from being shot down like this again.
Gideon Hallett
(...aah, what better than a nice bit of crispy Creationist?)
