# Where do people get the idea that the earth is less than 10,000 years old? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 13, 2014, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007 "2014-07-13T18:30:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/61 "2014-07-18T04:06:55Z")
Asimov’s _The Relativity of Wrong_ is on point. He doesn’t mention Darwin directly (though he touched on the age of the Earth) but he does talk about now Relativity was a refinement and not a replacement of Newton. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/62 "2014-07-18T04:16:13Z")
> [@Mk\_VII](#): > > Archbishop Ussher’s chronology dated the act of creation to the night before October 25th, 4004 BC. It was thought to be a considerable feat of scholarship at the time. Ya think maybe the Lord just got REALLY hammered on the 24th, and did the whole thing to settle a bar bet? And then on the 25, with the Mother of all hangovers, just tried to think of some way to just MAKE IT GO AWAY!!! ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/63 "2014-07-18T04:21:33Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > 10,000 years ago, not 10,000 BC. So up to 8,000 BC or 3,700 BC for Wikipedia’s low estimate. In the modern age they can say “carbon dating is flawed, because it didn’t work 0.01% of the time so the 99.9% is invalid!” They also feel that it would undermine much of their other beliefs. > > Ussher was Church of Ireland, and ironically most people in the CoI/Anglican Communion/Episcopal Church do not believe this. His Calvinism mostly disappeared from this church. > > JW also believe that only 144,000 people get into heaven, or something. They were right about that one. Problem is, it was 144K from all periods of history, and as near as I could make out, from every inhabited planet in the Universe. None of us could understand one another. So I just flagged down an angel who happened to speak hoo-man and asked to be sent back. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/64 "2014-07-18T05:24:01Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Asimov’s _The Relativity of Wrong_ is on point. He doesn’t mention Darwin directly (though he touched on the age of the Earth) but he does talk about now Relativity was a refinement and not a replacement of Newton. A truly magnificent essay! What is actually seriously amazing is how very, very little refinement has been necessary in Darwin’s ideas. He may not have been quite as on-target as Newton was – Newton works to seven or eight decimal places! – but modern “Neo-Darwinism,” as a working science, is still almost exactly what Darwin said, some 150 years ago. Niels Bohr wasn’t as close to right as Darwin was! ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/65 "2014-07-18T07:56:29Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Actually, Darwin was remarkably correct. For instance, he figured out that the material – whatever it was – of heritability had to be discrete. Granular. He deduced this from statistical observation in the breeding of pigeons and other animals. > > He indirectly inferred what we know today as chromosomes. And he was right. > > Yes, most certainly, there was much he didn’t know. DNA wasn’t discovered until well within the lifetime of many who are posting on these boards today. But don’t go pushing the “Darwin was wrong” button, because, frankly, it exposes you to being corrected by those who know slightly better. > > You might as well say that “Newton was wrong” because of Relativity and QM. Maybe true in the strictest sense…but it was Newton, not Einstein, who got us to the Moon and back. > > Save “wrong” for exploded theories entirely. Phlogiston, Larmarckism, the Steady-State theory of the cosmos…and Creationism. IIRC Darwin’s hypothesis was somewhat Lamarckian - which does not contradict it being granular. But he was far from sure about it, and did not claim to be sure. Him being wrong about something should only matter to those who think that the lie about him renouncing evolution and embracing Christianity on his deathbed means diddly. Almost always the first discoverer of something is right about the big picture but wrong about the details. Like I said, the fact that genetics explains how evolution works so well is the astonishing part. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/66 "2014-07-19T16:03:34Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Got a link to this book? What does he say? The point is, since he didn’t understand the basics of how reproduction works, he can’t be right except by chance. That’s not a criticism of him - I’d suspect he was doing the best he could with the data he had available. > If you taught freshman physics students that Newton’s laws apply at relativistic velocities, you’d be wrong. If you taught it 150 years ago you’d still be wrong but you’d be teaching it as science then understood it. _Scientific American_, August 1954, I assume it’s still under copyright protection. So, my dog-earred copy of Halliday/Resnick introduces relativity in their very last chapter. That’s 39 chapters where relativity isn’t considered. Maybe the most commonly used freshman physics textbook is bogus? > [@Voyager](#): > > That’s the 1936 reference. As for Wald, [here](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part4-2.html) is the talk.origins article on it. > Now, I don’t know how much the importance of the DNA finding was appreciated by Wald - but once is enough could be true, but it is also likely that it happened often. Not sure about that site you linked to, looks self-published to me. However the quote is correct: > [@](#): > > The important point is that since the origin of life belongs in the category of at-least-once phenomena, time is on its side. However improbable we regard this event, or any of the steps which it involves, given enough time it will almost certainly happen at least once. And for life as we know it, with its capacity for growth and reproduction, once may be enough. If this has been proved to be false, please give your citation. > [@Voyager](#): > > Evolution, as Darwin used it, means descent with modifications. Descent implies reproduction. The change from molecules which do not replicate themselves to those which do is not a product of evolution - it just starts evolution. Are you suggesting that biologists don’t understand or apply the instantaneous? You said the 1936 reference is too old to be valid, yet you demand a definition from 1859. That comes across as contradictory, would you mind elaborating? > [@Voyager](#): > > I don’t understand what power base you are talking about. Like in any field, understanding evolution deeply requires a lot of work. But the basic principle is very simple, and can be explained to almost anyone. I think most people who don’t accept evolution have never had it explained simply, or had people lie to them about what it says (like a cat giving birth to a dog.) **Or they are told it goes against God’s law, and if you accept it you must give up the religion they depend on.** > Evolution is descent with modifications and natural selection. Couldn’t be simpler. It gets complicated when you study how it works. Bolding mine … actually, not all that long ago, you’d be executed as a heretic. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/67 "2014-07-19T16:11:57Z")
Of course, fortunately, as Christopher Hitchens said: “Xians lost their best defense when they stopped burning people alive on stacks of firewood”. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/68 "2014-07-19T16:15:28Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Save “wrong” for exploded theories entirely. Phlogiston, Larmarckism, the Steady-State theory of the cosmos…and Creationism. Creationism is not a scientific theory, it cannot be falsified. **wolfpup** made a brilliant observation [on another thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17545455&postcount=6). How can anyone prove the Genesis story is not a written record of the oral tradition that existed after 46,000 years of telling? We don’t know exactly what happened, but the folks then sure did. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/69 "2014-07-19T16:17:50Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Of course, fortunately, as Christopher Hitchens said: “Xians lost their best defense when they stopped burning people alive on stacks of firewood”. Only women were burned at the stake, it was considered immodest to drag, hang and quarter them. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/70 "2014-07-19T16:47:10Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Only women were burned at the stake, it was considered immodest to drag, hang and quarter them. 😕 Giordano Bruno, and many other men that were burned beg to differ. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/71 "2014-07-19T16:52:56Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > 😕 > > Giordano Bruno, and many other men that were burned beg to differ. That’s not what they were begging for. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/72 "2014-07-19T16:53:57Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > 😕 > > Giordano Bruno, and many other men that were burned beg to differ. Plenty of hanged women from history who would disagree with him, too. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/73 "2014-07-19T17:00:21Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Plenty of hanged women from history who would disagree with him, too. I wonder if \*\*watchwolf49 \*\*thinks that they begged for that too :rolleyes: ;). Really, when one does not acknowledge that he or she is wrong, even attempts at humor backfire. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/74 "2014-07-19T19:00:38Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Plenty of hanged women from history who would disagree with him, too. Do you have a citation on that particular Papal Bull where women heretics were to be hanged? ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/75 "2014-07-19T20:02:02Z")
What are you even trying to argue? You’re dancing around some sort of position but if you’ve actually stated it clearly I must have missed it. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/76 "2014-07-19T20:13:54Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Creationism is not a scientific theory, it cannot be falsified. Good point. Rather than calling it “wrong,” it belongs in the “Not even wrong” category. It isn’t a wrong theory…because it isn’t even a theory. > [@](#): > > . . . How can anyone prove the Genesis story is not a written record of the oral tradition that existed after 46,000 years of telling? We don’t know exactly what happened, but the folks then sure did. The fact that Genesis seems to consist of two different written records, stitched together (elegantly) suggests that the tradition had become significantly different over time. It “evolved.” The people who originated the stories might have been thinking of Marduk or Ashur, and the regional Yahweh replaced him thousands of years later. Where did the number “46,000” come from? In a thread about ideas about the age of the world, this seems a relevant matter. Which specific group/denomination/team of researchers advances 46,000 years for the age of the earth, and how do they derive that number? ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/77 "2014-07-19T20:15:45Z")
My position is that we cannot compare Creation with Evolution, one asks “why” and the other asks “how”. I would expect completely different answers. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/78 "2014-07-19T20:20:25Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Where did the number “46,000” come from? In a thread about ideas about the age of the world, this seems a relevant matter. Which specific group/denomination/team of researchers advances 46,000 years for the age of the earth, and how do they derive that number? Sorry, I thought it common knowledge that DNA evidence suggests a genetic bottleneck in humans around 50,000 years ago. My Bible says the Red Sea parted in 1491 BC, so 46,500 years or thereabouts. Maybe these storys were case at the advent of written language, just none survive today. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/79 "2014-07-19T20:49:15Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > _Scientific American_, August 1954, I assume it’s still under copyright protection. So, my dog-earred copy of Halliday/Resnick introduces relativity in their very last chapter. That’s 39 chapters where relativity isn’t considered. Maybe the most commonly used freshman physics textbook is bogus? You are confusing the book you referenced from the '30s with the Wald article from the '50s. As for physics books, I suspect none of the first 39 chapters says that Newton’s laws hold without modification at relativistic velocities. > [@](#): > > Not sure about that site you linked to, looks self-published to me. However the quote is correct: Self published? For a web site? What does that even mean. [talk.origins.org](http://talk.origins.org) is a spinoff of the talk.origins Usenet group, which I used to read and mostly view the excellent posts by real biologists. It had a somewhat better class of creationists than we get here, some of them even knew what evolution means. When the Web began they migrated there. You should start browsing it immediately, since it will tell you what you need to know to have a reasonable discussion on this subject. Their page on the Wald article is not attacking Wald, it is showing how creationists quote mine Wald to make it seem like he says something he is not saying. It is a common creationist tactic. The most famous example is quoting Darwin saying that there are problems with the evolution of the eye (how is half an eye useful?) which would invalidate evolution. Darwin then goes on to anwer the question with multiple examples. This just shows the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of creationism. > [@](#): > > If this has been proved to be false, please give your citation. It is of course not false - but with today’s knowledge it is less likely to be necessary. Wald couldn’t know that back then. > [@](#): > > Are you suggesting that biologists don’t understand or apply the instantaneous? No, that you don’t. > [@](#): > > You said the 1936 reference is too old to be valid, yet you demand a definition from 1859. That comes across as contradictory, would you mind elaborating? You haven’t told us what the 1936 reference says. Darwin’s definition is at a very high level - you wouldn’t depend on that book for doing research, obviously. > [@](#): > > Bolding mine … actually, not all that long ago, you’d be executed as a heretic. Only if you insist on following the facts and the evidence instead of the Bible. These people reject the evidence of their eyes and so are not heretics, the are Good Christians. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007/80 "2014-07-19T20:57:09Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > My position is that we cannot compare Creation with Evolution, one asks “why” and the other asks “how”. I would expect completely different answers. So you accept evolution? Evolution says nothing about why. If you, like the theistic evolutionists, want to think God’s thumb was on the scale go ahead. That is truly unfalsifiable. Special creation - however long ago, can and has been falsified. We can tell that the earth is far older then those claims. A genetic bottleneck does not mean that the species was just created - we’ve had lots of nearly extinct species, now recovered, with genetic bottlenecks also. (If the bottleneck even exists.) Care to come up with a position you can actually defend? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-people-get-the-idea-that-the-earth-is-less-than-10-000-years-old/693007.md?page=5)