# What "used to" power the sun?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-used-to-power-the-sun/620210>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 28, 2012, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-used-to-power-the-sun/620210 "2012-04-28T06:12:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2012, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-used-to-power-the-sun/620210/21 "2012-04-29T03:20:34Z")

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> [@Hari\_Seldon](#):
>
> Lord Kelvin claimed that the fact that the sun could only be maybe 100 million years old at most refuted Darwin, since that was clearly not enough time for evolution to take place. He was right, that was not enough time, but how did he know how long evolution took?

Animal breeding, such as the breeding of cattle, dogs, and pigeons, gave a _rough_ guideline to the degree of change that could be expected in a given period of time. It was far from an exact scale of time, but was within a couple of orders of magnitude. This is one of the reasons Darwin spent so much time studying breeds of pigeons.

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