I was curious to know what is the generally accepted age of the earth? And, how was this determined? Was it simply carbon-dating of rocks (hmm, can a rock be carbon dated?) Or, perhaps by deductive reasoning from empircal data provided by fossils, and such?
I read a book which says the granite ledge I frequent at Peggy’s Cove, NS, Canada is estimated to be 400 million years old. But, for some reason, I thought the earth was believed to be younger than this…or, have I missed a few of Mother Earth’s b-days?
According to Medieval Jewish scholars, the world would presently be 5762 years old. Greek Orthodox theologians would say that the Earth is as old as 7510 years.
Archbishop James Usher (1580-1656) published Annales Veretis Novi Testamenti in 1654, which suggested that the Earth was created in 4004 BC. One of his underlings worked the calculation further and was able to determine that the Earth was created on Sunday October 21st, 4004 BC, at exactly 9:00 am (because God likes to get all his work done in the morning while he’s still feeling fresh). So, that’d put the age of our planet at 6006 years, one month, six days and some-odd hours, minutes & seconds.
bryanmcc’s citation of talkorigins.org should answer the question, but let me just add an incidental plug for G. Brent Dalrymple’s The Age of the Earth (Stanford, 1991). An entire book devoted to just this question and a fabulous piece of exposition to boot.
The date determined by Ussher is October 23, 4004 BC (technically, 710 Julian).
The date was determined by Ussher, not one of his underlings.
The time of 9:00am was not determined by Ussher (or an underling), but by Sir John Lightfoot in 1644. Ussher did not mention a specific time for the creation.
BWAH hah hah hah hah! Tidal forces scale as the inverse of the third power of the distance!!! 1/3 the distance, twenty-freakin’-seven times the tidal force. They could have had a whole 'nother power of three, but they were too damn ignorant.
Bwaaah hah hah! Pod wipes a tear from her eye. Oh, Og love 'em all.
(The naive assumption that the rate of recession of the Moon has been constant for its entire history is funny, too, though not quite as much.)
The creationist fellow in my now-defunct writers’ group insisted that the Earth was only a few thousand years old. He wrote some rather odd science fiction as a result of this belief.
