THE AGE OF THE UNIVERSE

Reference Information from Kent Hovind

(Compiled and Comments by Harold M. Lind)

 

 

How old is the earth?  Here is what scientists have told us through the years:

 

In 1770 George Buffon said the earth was 70,000 years old. (Integrated Principles of Zoology 1996, p. 151).  In 1905 the age of the earth was officially 2 billion years old (Newsweek July 20, 1998 p. 50).  In 1969, the year we went to the moon, the official age of the earth and moon was 3.5 billion years.  (The Minneapolis Tribune Monday, August 25, 1969).  Today, students are taught that the earth is 4.6 billion years old.

 

They say that the universe is older; about 16 billion years, give or take.  But how do we know that is true?

 

Since we would all agree that no one was present at the beginning of the universe, nobody really knows how old it is.  Many of the attempts at giving the universe an age are rife with assumptions that have not been proven.  So we really have no way of knowing exactly how old the universe really is.  With that in mind, and only counting on observations that can actually be proven (which would be the scientific way), what are some age ranges that we can narrow it down to?  We will look at observations that can scientifically establish an upper limit.  It is the overall analysis of all these events that will give us a better idea for the age of the earth and the universe:

 

  1. July 24, 1999 (star tribune, Minneapolis, Minn.) newspaper reported that the world’s population topped 6 billion.  In 1985 there were 5 billion.  1977, 4 billion, 1962 3 billion, 1930 2 billion, and 1800 1 billion.  At about 0 BC (Christ’s birth), there were about 250 million.  This makes the start of the population from 8 people at around 2400 BC very possible.  The world is not overcrowded.  The entire worlds population would fit in Jacksonville Florida twice.  There is 25 billion square feet in Jacksonville.  Evolution believes that man started 3 million years ago.  Doing the math for population growth would put 150,000 people per square inch on the earth.  So according to population growth statistics, the earth is not millions of years old.

 

  1. If we were to say that there was a very high mortality rate to explain why there aren’t 150,000 people per square inch, where are all the skeletons and bones?  We have not found any where near that many bones.

 

  1. Spiral Galaxies:  They are still spinning, and the inside is spinning faster than the outside.  If they were billions of years old, they would have lost their spiral shape.

 

  1. Super Nova:  They happen every 25 or 30 years.  If the universe is billions of years old, then why can we find only about 300 dead stars?  Doing the math, this would make the universe from 7500 to 9000 years old.  If it were even millions of years old, there should have been more dead stars.  Where are they?

 

  1. Red Giants:  Science says that red giants evolve into white dwarfs over billions of years.  This is not true.  Egyptian hieroglyphs from 2000 BC described Sirius as red.  Cicero, in 50 BCc stated that Sirius was red.  Seneca described Sirius as being redder than mars.  Ptolemy listed Sirius as one of the six red stars in 150 AD.  Today, it is a white binary star.  This timeline for this observation was about 4000 years.

 

  1. Jupiter is cooling off, loosing heat twice as fast as it receives it from the sun.  If it were billions of years old, it would be cold; it would have cooled off long ago.

 

  1. Jupiter’s moon Ganymede has a strong magnetic field.  “Magnetic fields are generated by the liquid motion of molten metal inside a body.”  Yet Ganymede should have cooled solid billions of years ago. (Denver Post, Dec. 13, 1996 Jupiter Probe Detects Mysterious Moon Dust. By K.C. Cole).

 

  1. The rings of Saturn are moving away from Saturn.  If they were billions of years old, it would not have rings, as they are unstable.

 

  1. The moon is gradually getting further away from the earth.  It used to be closer.  1.2 billion years ago the moon would be touching the earth.  Long before, the tides would have swamped the land and washed everything into the sea.

 

  1. Comets are losing material, which is why they appear to have a tail.  They don’t last longer than 10,000 years.  Why are there still comets?  They should have all disintegrated.  Scientists think there is a cloud of comets called the Oort cloud that is 50,000 au (astronomical units – 1 unit is 93 million miles, the distance from the earth to the sun).  It can’t be seen.  Pluto is 39 AU away, and it can hardly be seen with the most powerful telescopes.  “Oort proposed a cloud of comets surrounding the solar system based on mathematical errors.” (Raymond Littleton, The Non-existence of the Oort Cometary Shell.  Astrophysics and Space Science, Vol. 31, December 1974, pp. 385-401).

 

  1. Earth is a big magnet, and magnets lose their strength over time.  The earth has lost 6% of its magnetic strength in the last 150 years (Astronomy and the Bible, Donald DeYoung, p. 18).  30,000 years ago the field would have been so strong that life couldn’t have existed.  This also messes up carbon 14 dating because it assumes a constant rate of C14 is entering the atmosphere.  With a stronger magnetic field, less C14 would be able to get through.  So carbon dating doesn’t work.  Some would say that the magnetic field reverses, and that is why it is diminishing.  This is not true.  It is based on incorrect observations of cracks in the ocean floor where basalt has come up.  This causes variations in the strength of the magnetism, not reversals.

 

  1. Earth spins at about 1041 mph.  But it is slowing down.  Every once and a while there is a leap second to adjust for the earth slowing down.  If the earth were billions of years old, it would be spinning real fast.  Winds would be moving at 5000 mph, and centrifugal force would be flinging things off.

 

  1. Sahara Desert:  Prevailing winds mostly blow in one direction.  It is growing about 4 miles a year because of winds drying out areas and increasing it.  This is known as desertification.  Scientists believe that the desert is about 4000 years old.  (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, July 15, 1999 Geophysical Research Letters).  If the earth is billions of years old, why is the oldest desert on earth only 4000 years old?  That is also about the time of the flood, which would have wiped out any desert that was there before it.

 

  1. When drilling for oil, sometimes they hit some that is under tremendous pressure, as much as 20,000 PSI.  Scientists say that because the pressure is greater than the force exerted by the rock, that the pressure should have equalized in about 10,000 years.  Yet it hasn’t equalized.  So the earth can’t be billions of years old.

 

  1. Ice cores supposedly prove that the earth is at least hundreds of thousands of years old due to the hundreds of thousands of “annual rings” found in the cores.  (The longest core was 10,000 feet long and had 135,000 rings).  The “lost squadron”, which had run out of gas and landed in Greenland during WW2 in 1942, disproves this.  They were left there until 1990.  They had to use ground-penetrating radar to find them, because after being there for 48 years, they were under 263 feet of ice.  That would be 5.5 feet of ice falling on them per year to bury them 263 feet deep.  They did not sink, because they were found horizontal.  If they sank, they would go nose down because with the engines, the nose would be heavier than the tail.  Taking the same 5.5 feet and dividing 10,000 feet by it gives 1824 years.  Deeper ice is pressed into finer layers so 4400 years to accumulate the ice at the poles is not a problem.  The guys digging the planes out of the ice also saw the “annual rings”, but in the 163 feet there were many hundreds.  Since it was only 48 years old, the rings could not be annual.  It turns out that the rings are not deposited in summer and winter; they are deposited in warm and cold weather.  And there could be more than 10 rings a week.

 

  1. The Mississippi river deposits sediments at a rate of 80,000 tons an hour, day after day, year after year, at the point where the river flows into the Gulf of Mexico.  This is by New Orleans on a big delta that is getting larger and larger.  Scientists studying the delta say it took about 30,000 years to deposit the amount of mud that is there.  If the earth is millions of years old, why isn’t the whole Gulf of Mexico full of mud?  Why is there just 30,000 years of mud?

 

  1. The oldest tree in the world is a bristle cone pine tree in the white mountains of California, also known as the Methuselah tree.  It is 4300 years old.  If the earth is millions of years old, why is the oldest tree in the world only 4300 years old?

 

  1. During WW2, part of the Great Barrier Reef was destroyed.  This is a large coral shelf out by Australia and New Zealand.  Environmentalists went out there to see how fast it grows back.  They did this for 20 years.  After that, they said that the reef was 4200 years old.  This is the oldest reef in the world.  If the earth is millions of years old, why is the oldest reef in the world only 4200 years old?

 

  1. The rocky ledge above Niagara Falls has been eroding for nearly 9,900 years (Holt Earth Science, 1989, p. 279).  All waterfalls do this.  You can observe the rocks falling off.  Crest lines showing recession of Horseshoe Falls since 1764.  It has receded 865 feet in 185 years, which is about 4.7 feet per year (Niagara Falls Museum Guide).  If the earth is millions of years old, why isn’t there more erosion?

 

  1. It has been calculated that Carbon 14 would reach equilibrium in about 30,000 years.  Readings taken 10 years ago are less than readings taken today.  This means that the C14 is still increasing.  We haven’t reached equilibrium yet, so the earth must be less than 30,000 years old.

 

  1. Oceans are 3.6% salt.  This is caused by the constant runoff of minerals from rain on land.  It could have taken as little as 5000 years for this to happen.  If the earth is millions of years old, why aren’t the oceans saltier?

 

  1. Along with minerals deposited into the oceans when it rains, soil also erodes.  At the current rate of erosion, the continents would erode flat in 14 million years.  If this is true, how can we have fossils that are 300 times older than that above sea level?  They should have washed out to sea 300 times by now.

 

  1. The oldest languages in the world are only 5000 years old.  “The first fully developed systems of word writing appeared only about 5000 years ago.” (World Book Encyclopedia).  “The oldest language that can be reasonably reconstructed is already modern, sophisticated and complete from an evolutionary point of view.”  (The Biological Nature of Man, G.G. Simpson.  Science Vol. 152, April 22, 1966, p. 477).

 

  1. Chinese calendar says that this is year 4700.

 

  1. The Hebrew calendar says it is year 5761.

 

  1. A petrified metal hammer with a wooden handle was found in a rock that also had seashells that had been dated as 400 million years old.  (Dr. Carl Baugh).

 

  1. Textbooks say that coal formed 250 million years ago in the Carboniferous Period.  But Newton Anderson found a bell inside a lump of coal in 1944.  (Ammunition by Norm Scharbough, Communiqué Conservative Publishers).

 

  1. On June 11, 1891, the Morrisonville Times reported:  “A curious find was brought to light by Mrs. S.W. Culp last Tuesday morning.  As she was breaking a lump of coal apart, embedded in a circular shape a small gold chain about 10 inches in length of antique and quaint workmanship.”  (The Hidden History of the Human Race, Michael A. Cremo, p. 113).

 

  1. A Cast iron pot was found in coal in 1912 at the Municipal Electric Plant in Thomas, OK.  Now in Creation Evidence Museum.  See http://www.creationevidence.org/.

 

  1. A 4 ½ inch high zinc and silver vessel found in solid rock that was dated to “over 600 million years old” in Dorchester, Mass.  In 1851.  (Readers Digest Mysteries of the Unexplained, p. 46, also Scientific American June 1851, p. 289-299).

 

  1. A clay doll was found by a well driller at a depth of 430 feet near Nampa, Idaho in 1889.  The rock layer was supposedly 12 million years old.  The doll is at the Idaho State Historical Society in Boise.  (Ammunition by Norm Sharbough, p. 177).

 

  1. Workers found human bones and a well-tempered copper arrowhead in a vein of silver at the Rocky Point Mine in Gilman, Colo. in 1865.

 

  1. In 1880, J.D. Whitney, the state geologist of California, published a lengthy review of advanced stone tools found in California gold mines.  The implements, including spear points, mortars and pestles, were found deep in mine shafts, underneath thick, undisturbed layers of lava, ranging from 9 to 55 million years old.  (The Hidden History of the Human Race, Michael A. Cremo p. xvii, 95).  W.H. Holmes, of the Smithsonian Institution, one of the most vocal critics of the California finds wrote:  “Perhaps if Professor Whitney had fully appreciated the story of human evolution as it is understood today, he would have hesitated to announce the conclusions, not withstanding the imposing array of testimony with which he was confronted”.  This basically means that he shouldn’t have told anyone about this, since it contradicts evolutionary theory.

 

  1. In the 1950’s, Thomas E. Lee of the National Museum of Canada found advanced stone tools in glacial deposits at Sheguiandah, on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron.  The deposits were 65,000 to 125,000 years old.  The director of the museum was fired for refusing to fire the discoverer.  Tons of artifacts disappeared into storage bins at the NMC.  The discovery had to be killed.  “It would have forced the rewriting of almost every book in the business.”  (The Hidden History of the Human Race.  Michael A. Cremo, p. xviii).

 

  1. A coin like object, from a well boring near Lawn Ridge, Illinois, was reportedly found at a depth of about 114 feet below the surface.  According to information supplied by the Illinois State Geological Survey, the deposits containing the coin are between 200,000 and 400,000 years old.

 

  1. As elements decay they produce helium.  This helium slowly escapes through the rocks into the atmosphere.  Very little is able to escape into space.  After all factors are considered the helium in the atmosphere indicates the earth is less than two million years old.  (Blowing Old Earth Belief Away, J. Sarfati, Creation 20(3) pp. 19-21, 1998).

 

  1. The overall trend for the sun is that it is shrinking.  It is loosing 5 million tons per second.  It used to be larger.  If the universe (and the sun) were billions of years old, the gravitational pull of the sun would have drug the earth in.

 

Stalactites and stalagmites take millions of years to form.  An example would be Carlsbad Caverns.  When you go there you will be told that it took 250 million years to form.  They say that they grow at a rate of one inch in a thousand years.  This is not true.  Many formations have been found that have formed in only decades: 

 

  1. There are 50 inch stalactites growing under the Lincoln Memorial which was built in 1922.  They were found in 1960, only 38 years later. 

 

  1. Dead bats have been found covered with flowstone making a type of stalagmite, before it even had a change to rot. 

 

  1. A refrigeration shed inside Fort Pickens in Pensacola Florida had 2 inch stalactites growing off of it.  It was built in 1926-1927. 

 

  1. A building in Indiana had a giant flowstone formation (stalactite growing to the floor), which was only 40 years old. 

 

  1. A mine in Australia, which had been shut down for 55 years, was reopened.  They found the mine loaded with stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, ribbons, and many other types of formations.  Looked just like a natural cave would have looked. 

 

  1. The basement of a building at an Air Force Base (Hurlburt Field, FL) had a 13-inch stalactite next to a water pipe.  The building was only 7 years old.  It also had a 3-inch stalagmite on the floor below the stalactite. 

 

  1. The teepee fountain in Thermopolis, Wyoming is an incredible flowstone formation that is about 100 years old.  It started as a small pipe sticking out of the ground which water was running out of.  As the years passed, minerals were deposited on the pipe.  After 100 years, it is a 20-foot high mountain that is probably 75 feet in diameter.  After only 100 years.

 

Where did oil come from?  “Oil and gas are from organisms that once lived in the sea and were changed by heat and pressure”. (Holt General Science, 1988, p. 294)  It was said that it took a long time for the transformation.  “In 1996 a $22.4 million proposal was approved in Western Australia that will build a plant to create oil from sewage sludge in 30 minutes.

 

They tell you that things petrify over millions of years.  This is not true.  Here are some examples of petrification where we actually know that age of the artifact.  Again, science says that things petrify over millions of years, but they weren’t there to observe this:

 

  1. A piece of wood was found in Arizona’s Petrified Forest that had been chopped by an axe.  (World Explorer, p. 65).

 

  1. A petrified piece of a pallet was found at a company in Canada.

 

  1. In the early 1900’s a flour mill in Eureka Springs, AR. Was flooded.  The have recently found petrified sacks of flower that happened as a result of the flooding.

 

  1. A petrified dog was found in the middle of a hollow tree.  It is currently at the Southern Forest World Museum in Wayoross.

 

  1. A petrified cowboy leg found in a dry creek bed near the West Texas town of Iraan, about 1980 by Mr. Jerry Stone, an employee of Corvette Oil Company.  The bones of the partial leg and foot within the boot were revealed by an elaborate set of C.T. Scans performed at Harris Methodist Hospital in Americus, AART.  A complete set of these scans remains with the boot at the Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, Texas.

 

  1. An incredible fossil of an ichthyosaur, buried and fossilized while giving birth, is clear evidence of its having been buried quickly by water-borne sediments.  The fossil record is consistent with creatures having been buried suddenly, otherwise most creatures would either rot of be devoured by scavengers.

 

This proves that petrification does not take millions of years, and actually can happen very quickly.

 

The above evidence proves that the earth and the universe cannot be “billions of years old”, let along millions.  This is what evolutionists want you to think, because they need this time to magically make evolution work.  Evolution supposedly happened over billions of years, and has either stopped, or is happening so slowly that we cannot observe it today.  But there is nothing that can be scientifically proven to be billions of years old, this means that evolution could not have had the time to do the things it is said to have done.