# Debunking Young Earth Theory w/ everyday facts **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 4, 2012, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077 "2012-06-04T20:47:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![whc.03grady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a6a055/32.png) [@whc.03grady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whc.03grady)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/1 "2012-06-04T20:47:37Z")
Note: I’m not interested in _debating_ YE vs. OE here, that’s why I didn’t put this in GD. It’s all well and good to point to cosmic background radiation and the like to debunk the idea that the universe came into existence _ca._ 6,500 years ago, but what (if any) are some day-to-day things that’d be radically different if the Earth/universe were in fact created over the course of six days some 60 centuries ago? I’m looking for things like, “well, your car wouldn’t work because blah blah blah”. Things like that. ---
**Author:** ![whc.03grady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a6a055/32.png) [@whc.03grady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whc.03grady)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/2 "2012-06-04T20:49:17Z")
Like, would GPS not work? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/3 "2012-06-04T20:55:37Z")
The all purpose handwave is that God created the evidence of an older Earth as a test of faith. Not worth the bother. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/4 "2012-06-04T20:58:35Z")
As has been mentioned, they have an [escape hatch](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Escape_hatch) that is, in their minds, a perfect response to _anything and everything_ they can’t duck in a more direct fashion. Yes, it’s intellectually dishonest, but you’d never get them to admit that, either. [This article has a list of escape hatches more specific to creationists](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Creationist_escape_hatch), although creationists don’t have a monopoly on them as the other article I linked to shows. ---
**Author:** ![whc.03grady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a6a055/32.png) [@whc.03grady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whc.03grady)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/5 "2012-06-04T21:03:03Z")
I fully appreciate that the Young Earther will always have these tools (such that they are) at his/her disposal. For the purposes of the question, let’s assume I’m engaging a Young Earther who won’t use them. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/6 "2012-06-04T21:07:19Z")
Well, you could try and argue that there’s no way evolution could have worked that fast considering what we know of it, and as such we’d pretty much still be ornery plankton ; but for some reason I don’t think that’s going to fly 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/7 "2012-06-04T21:12:50Z")
You mean, like, evidence of geological events or deposition from greater than 6,000 years ago, or fossils, or light traveling from stars more than 6,000 light years away? Or things that have been carbon-dated to be older than that? ---
**Author:** ![whc.03grady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a6a055/32.png) [@whc.03grady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whc.03grady)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/8 "2012-06-04T21:20:04Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > You mean, like, evidence of geological events or deposition from greater than 6,000 years ago, or fossils, or light traveling from stars more than 6,000 light years away? Or things that have been carbon-dated to be older than that? No, carbon-dating is too esoteric and the really relevant geological events happen on too long a time scale. I remember reading something about how a car’s GPS, or GPS generally, has to take Relativity into account to work, and I assume (perhaps wrongly?) that _via_ Relativity we can get to a universe \>6,500 years old. Even that is probably too technical though. I’m trying to figure out a fairly simple RAA based on some premise that a YE theorist would readily accept, like that water flows downhill or something like that (I know it can’t be _that_ easy), which, coupled with “the Earth/universe is ~6,500 years old” leads to outright absurdity (meaning they’d have to either pitch “water flows downhill” or “the Earth/universe is ~6,500 years old”). ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/9 "2012-06-04T21:21:16Z")
(BTW, personally I’m fond of demonstration by the absurd, adamantly arguing that the world was, in fact, created last Tuesday. You get to use every last escape hatch in the book to support the assertion, and it drives 'em batty because they just don’t know how to respond to that, having prepared their mental checklist to “answer” traditional scientific responses rather than extensions of their own fallacious rhetorical devices. And you don’t have to know any scientific fact whatsoever, either ! Just give them a dose of their own medicine, keep asking them to prove a negative. “PROVE the world wasn’t created last Tuesday. Yes, the Bible too. Well, of course the Bible would say the world is really older, but that’s just God testing our faith, like the even older fossils.” And so forth… Hardly ever convinces because precious few get that “hey, he’s doing what I’m doing… and it’s dumb !” lightbulb moment, but it’s fun regardless.) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/10 "2012-06-04T21:40:05Z")
The problem you’re facing is that an attack on basic science can only be met by real science. “Common sense” won’t work, because so much of science is expressly contrary to common sense. If people won’t accept something as cool as dinosaurs, then what will they go for? But if you use science, then any science will give multiple examples of an old universe. Quasars, fossils, radioactive dating, stalactites, continental drift, the fact that the sun exists and continues to shine, that the earth continues to give off heat, that elements that can only be created by second or third generation stars constitute much of the planet, and on and on and on. It all comes together. You can’t give up on any part and have the rest work. But if you accept one than all the rest follow. If you reject all science, then there’s nothing left to argue with. Heck, there are everyday refutations of a flat earth and look how long that lasted. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/11 "2012-06-04T21:48:36Z")
I think what the OP is getting at is that there are some YE creationists who sincerely believe that their cosmology **is** consistent with valid scientific inferences from available evidence: they just think that current mainstream science has done its inferences “wrong”. So they don’t use escape hatches about “God faked the fossil evidence”, because they imagine that the fossil evidence and all the other scientific data, if “correctly” interpreted, actually **supports** their hypothesis. Consequently, what the OP needs is a simple example of interpreting scientific data in a way that they will common-sensically recognize as valid, but which **contradicts** their hypothesis. And depending on how “simple” the example has to be, that could be hard to come by. Could you work with some basic information on how long it takes to form coal or petroleum or diamonds, for example? Or how about the distances of some visible stars? If somebody is willing to accept that a visible star is more than 6000 light-years away, for example, then logically speaking they kind of have to recognize that its light took more than 6000 years to reach us. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/12 "2012-06-04T21:50:24Z")
[Here is what convinced the guy who convinced Darwin about it.](http://www.lindahall.org/events_exhib/exhibit/exhibits/vulcan/64.shtml) [More here.](http://www.strangescience.net/lyell.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/13 "2012-06-04T22:00:32Z")
> [@whc.03grady](#): > > I remember reading something about how a car’s GPS, or GPS generally, has to take Relativity into account to work, and I assume (perhaps wrongly?) that _via_ Relativity we can get to a universe \>6,500 years old. Even that is probably too technical though. FYI, the GPS argument doesn’t really work. While you need relativity to properly calibrate for GPS, there’s no reason you couldn’t have a capricious creator set up a universe with relativity that just happens to be really young. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/14 "2012-06-04T22:01:01Z")
I’m going to backup what Kobal2 suggested. Make the argument that the entire universe popped into existence 10 minutes ago (via God or just randomly if you wish), and ask them to prove that you are wrong. Refute everything they say using the same tactics they would use. “But I remember yesterday!” to which you respond, “You were created with the memory of yesterday, can you prove you were alive yesterday?” “Well what about all the other people, they can tell you that we all existed yesterday!” to which you respond, “There memories are all wrong too.” “But what about this essay I wrote yesterday, dated yesterday! Or these family pictures from 10 years ago!” to which you respond, “Those also just popped into existence 10 minutes ago. If you date them, they’ll APPEAR to be written yesterday and the photos 10 years old, but that’s just because that’s how they popped into existence, to make everything seem older than it is.” Just go on like this until they throw their hands up and say you are being ridiculous. Then you can “reveal” that you were just doing the same thing that all creationists do, and maybe they’ll appreciate what you’ve said after a while. ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/15 "2012-06-04T22:17:11Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > I’m going to backup what Kobal2 suggested. Make the argument that the entire universe popped into existence 10 minutes ago (via God or just randomly if you wish), and ask them to prove that you are wrong. Refute everything they say using the same tactics they would use. > > “But I remember yesterday!” to which you respond, “You were created with the memory of yesterday, can you prove you were alive yesterday?” > > “Well what about all the other people, they can tell you that we all existed yesterday!” to which you respond, “There memories are all wrong too.” > > “But what about this essay I wrote yesterday, dated yesterday! Or these family pictures from 10 years ago!” to which you respond, “Those also just popped into existence 10 minutes ago. If you date them, they’ll APPEAR to be written yesterday and the photos 10 years old, but that’s just because that’s how they popped into existence, to make everything seem older than it is.” > > Just go on like this until they throw their hands up and say you are being ridiculous. Then you can “reveal” that you were just doing the same thing that all creationists do, and maybe they’ll appreciate what you’ve said after a while. The more likely response is that they will either 1. say that you’re doing the Devil’s work 2. quietly wish they could _force_ you to believe what they want. Engaging with these people is fruitless, fruitless, fruitless. Believe me, I’ve been ever-so-gentle with them, and they don’t respond to THAT, either. There are two types of extremists, those who are willing to recognize evidence, and have just been fooled into believing a lie, and those who think faith is more important than evidence. Every Young-Earther I know of is in the second group. Facts are not interesting to them. ---
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/16 "2012-06-04T22:41:41Z")
If I were the OP, I’d be rather discouraged. I know that everyone is trying to help, but most posters are answering as if the OP had asked, “How can I win an argument with a young earther?” But the OP asked for suggestions for things that can be used to demonstrate that the Earth is more than 6,000 years old. Saying that young earthers will never accept such isn’t really helpful. A bit of Googling led me to this: [http://www.religioustolerance.org/oldearth.htm](http://www.religioustolerance.org/oldearth.htm). Scroll through that list. I like the one about the bristlecone pine trees. And the thickness of the coral reef at Eniwetok atoll. That page also lists the likely rebuttals for each item; whether that’s useful to you or not, I don’t know. And this page: [Arguments and Evidence for an Old Earth and Universe](http://paleo.cc/ce/oldevid.htm) has links to a bunch of other pages with similar arguments. This one in particular seems to have the kinds of things you want: [http://razd.evcforum.net/Age\_Dating.htm#TOP](http://razd.evcforum.net/Age_Dating.htm#TOP) ---
**Author:** ![Doubticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@Doubticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doubticus)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/17 "2012-06-04T23:07:47Z")
There are a lot of things you could point out, but will most likely be denied anyone. I’m fond of sea floor spreading. [Mid-ocean ridge - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-ocean_ridges). I’m sure the shape/composition of the Mid Atlantic Ridge would be way different if the Earth were 6000 years old. Magma seeps out the fault hardens, pushes the plates apart, etc. A process perfectly explain if it takes place over millions of years. If you believe that the Earth is 6000 years old you would also have to think God is purposely trying to mislead us by its very existence. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/18 "2012-06-04T23:09:07Z")
> [@Doubticus](#): > > If you believe that the Earth is 6000 years old you would also have to think God is purposely trying to mislead us by its very existence. Clever bastard, ain’t He? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2012, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/19 "2012-06-05T06:02:25Z")
Strange meme, that God would put all those ancient artifacts there at the creation just to “test our faith” – strange for a God that, according to another popular meme, will not / cannot / would not EVER EVER lie to us! An alternate line I’ve heard from time to time is that, at the creation, the Devil put all those ancient artifacts there to tempt us into disbelief! [sub]Makes more sense, actually, doesn’t it? If you believe that either of the above tales makes any sense, that is.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2012, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077/20 "2012-06-05T06:53:32Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Or how about the distances of some visible stars? If somebody is willing to accept that a visible star is more than 6000 light-years away, for example, then logically speaking they kind of have to recognize that its light took more than 6000 years to reach us. I thought about that myself, but it doesn’t work, not really - could just “mean” that those stars are older than 6.000 years and their light bathed the empty bit of space that would house Earth for a long time before _poof_, there’s an Earth and it’s lit by ancient stars. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunking-young-earth-theory-w-everyday-facts/624077.md?page=2)