Evolution requires an old earth, solar system, and universe. Without billions of years, virtually all informed evolutionists will admit that their theory is dead. Therefore, most people instinctively believe that things are old, and it is disturbing (at least initially) to hear evidence that our origins are relatively recent (as the Bible implies).
Listed below are just a few evidences.
1. The Earth’s Spin
Atomic clocks, which measure the earth’s spin rate to the nearest billionth of a second, have consistently found that the earth is slowing down at the rate of almost one second a year. (It continues to spin on its axis at approximately 1,000 miles per hour at the equator.) If the earth were billions of years old, its initial spin rate would have been fantastically rapid – so rapid that major distortions of the shape of the earth would have occurred. The continents would have been sent to the equatorial regions and the overall shape of the earth would have been a flat pancake. But the earth is a sphere.
2. The Earth’s Magnetic Field
Direct measurements of the earth’s magnetic field over the past 140 years show a steady and rapid decline in its strength. This decay pattern is consistent with the theoretical view that there is an electrical current inside the earth which produces the magnetic field. If this view is correct, then 25,000 years ago the electrical current would have been so vast that the earth’s structure could not have survived the heat produced.
3. Niagara Falls
Because the rim of the falls is wearing back at a known rate every year, geologists recognize that it has only taken about 5,000 years to erode from its original precipice.
4. Stalactite Growth in Caves
Stalactites are said to develop very slowly over a period of more than 100 thousand years. Under the Lincoln Memorial stalactites had grown to five feet in less than 50 years.
5. The Oldest Living Thing On Earth
Some of the giant redwood trees in California are estimated to be over 4,000 years old. But in the White Mountains bordering California and Nevada, there are bristle-cone pine trees, which have been growing for about 6,000 years. Scientists believe these trees could grow for additional thousands of years, barring any catastrophe that would remove them. The question is: Why don’t we have any of these trees dating back to 8,000 years or longer.
6. Top Soil
The soil that sustains life lies in a thin layer of an average depth of seven or eight inches over the face of the land; the Earth beneath is as dead and sterile as the moon. Scientists estimate that the combinations of plant growth, bacterial decay, and erosion produces six inches of top soil in 5,000 to 20,000 years. If the Earth has been going on about the same as it is today for millions of years, why isn’t there a whole lot more top soil than there really is?
7. Population Growth
Evolutionists believe man has been on earth for at least one million years, whereas creationists believe he has been around for only a few thousand years. At the average growth rate of only 1/2%, which is 1/4 the present rate, the present population would have been multiplied from two people in just 4,000 years. Also at this rate, 10 (with 2100 zeros) people would have resulted from one million years of evolutionary history. There are only 10 (with 130 zeros) electrons in the entire universe. And even with all these people, why are the bones of ancient man so hard to find. We should be swimming in them.
8. Meteoritic Dust
The rate at which meteoritic dust is accumulating on the earth is such that after 5 billion years, the equivalent of 182 feet of this dust should have accumulated. Because dust is high in nickel, there should be an exceedingly large amount of nickel in the crystal rocks of the earth. No such concentration has been found – on land or in the oceans. Consequently, the earth appears to be young.
9. The Moon
If the moon were billions of years old, it should have accumulated extensive layers of space dust – possibly a mile in thickness. Before instruments were placed on the moon, NASA was very concerned that our astronauts would sink into a sea of dust. This did not happen; there is very little space dust on the moon. Conclusion: the moon is young. The moon’s distance from Earth is constantly increasing. Two inches a year may not sound like much, but working it back would mean the moon and Earth would be touching only two billion years ago. Of course, to an evolutionist this is ridiculous. At the present rate, the moon should have been out of sight within 5 billion years.
10. The Shrinking Sun
Since 1836, over one hundred different observers at the Royal Greenwich Observatory and the U.S. Naval Observatory have made direct visual measurements which show that the diameter of the sun is shrinking at a rate of about 0.1% each century or about 5 feet per hour! Furthermore, records of solar eclipses infer that this rapid shrinkage has been going on for at least the past 400 years. Using the most conservative data, one must conclude that had the sun existed a million years ago, it would have been so large that it would have heated the earth so much that life could not have survived.