Where do people get the idea that the earth is less than 10,000 years old?

Great Debates
121

I dunno. I think any reasonable observer would first go through a phase of hypothesizing independent creation (not necessarily supernatural, just separate origins) for the major animal lines, and also a young-earth hypothesis.

If you look at things like the rate of river-delta formation, mountain erosion, etc., you pretty quickly arrive at an estimate of only 100,000 to 1,000,000 years for the age of the earth. It wasn’t until the advent of plate tectonics that we really understood the patterns of deep continental renewal.

And it took the very detailed observations of Wallace and Darwin to get past the idea of separate origins of species.

I think these errors – like Phlogiston! – are natural ones that any reasonable culture of natural observation must fall into. They will eventually outgrow them, but that takes a little more sophistication, hard work, extremely observant naturalists, and also some technological tools.

(Phlogiston works very well as a model for combustion, right up until the point where we learned how to measure the mass of gases. That isn’t a trivial accomplishment!)

Once the observations have exploded the old notions, then, yes, clinging to them is non-scientific and requires dismissal of the evidence.

There are still Flat Earthers!

It’s a variant of the creationist credo, “If you teach children they are descended from animals, they will behave like animals.” Now, this turns out to be an absurd fallacy. (Frankly, I could wish that humans behaved a little more like some animals, and less like some humans!) All it really means is that education needs to be comprehensive. The origin, not only of species, but of moral systems, needs to be taught, so that no child has to fall into the trap that the creationist so clearly foresees and dreads.

(Worst of all is the creationist who deliberately digs that trap, wanting children to fall into it, so that he will have evidence that the teaching of science and biology leads to children falling into traps. Circular logic from hell!)

122

I resurrect this July 2014 thread again.

I came across another explanation. Biblical inerrancy plays well in the pews. Thomas Powers reviews Robert Wuthnow’s Texas: The Southern Baptists in Power in the New York Review of Books (sub req). Adrian Rogers, pastor of a Memphis megachurch, was giving a sermon at the Southern Baptist Convention in 1979. He believed in: [indent]…the crucial importance of absolute faith in an inerrant Bible to make converts and win souls and build a church. “And if you don’t believe it,” Rogers said, “you go out and look at these guys who pussyfoot about the Bible and check [their] baptismal records.” He was delivering a practical pointer, one pastor to another: pussyfooters don’t build megachurches. [/INDENT] That makes sense in a way. Doubts and weighing evidence are for the lecture hall or the library: oratory is a separate category. The successful fundamentalist preacher maintains that the Bible is the truth and he has credibility because he praises and has mastered the Bible. Furthermore, he praises and flatters you, the faithful. And the praise is credible, since the speaker is credible. Because the Bible in inerrant and to hold otherwise is evil. And the Minister is an expert on that, an expert on everything really. And he praises you. Credibly. For your faith and attendance.

Such a posture attracts some, repels others. But those it attracts have better attendance I would think.

So it boils down to suspicion of outsiders on the one hand and pride on the other. A powerful combination. It is far better for an orator to engage with primaeval emotions than with intellect. At any rate this shtick implies a rejection of the scientific method, weighing of evidence, careful consideration, etc.

Of course there are plenty of mainline churches that don’t play this game. But are they megachurches? And for that matter how accurate are Adrian Rogers’ claims?

123

I think you’re right, MfM. After all, they think, if evolution is true, then my pastor is wrong. And he’s wrong about this, what else is he wrong about? He’s the Bible expert and tells us that this is in the Bible - so if the Bible is wrong about this, what else is it wrong about? And they see their faith begin to crumble around them.

Added to what you point out as the suspicion of outsiders and pride in oneself is also very powerful peer pressure. Their church more often than not includes all of their closest friends and is a very influential social group. Turning their back on the church dogma means breaking those relationships. Better just to swallow those doubts and go along with the party line.

I grew up in a small New England Baptist church where the pastor was a YEC believer, and I believed it too until I had some college under my belt.

I’m a southern Episcopalian now and I have the opposite problem with my kids - I’m trying to teach them to understand and respect science and evolution (as my church does) while their public school teachers disparage it.

124

Lebanon’s much less Muslim than Turkey, demographically. It’s estimated to be about 60% Muslim (though no one really knows for sure), Turkey’s over 95% Muslim.

In general, though, Lebanese Muslims are fairly liberal as far as social/religious attitudes go, if the World Values survey is reliable.

125

He thought they were terrorists?

126

Well, this was 1983 or so. More likely he thought they were related to Max Klinger.

127

I first heard the world was 10,000 years old in Sunday school, but it went like this: We were first told that the world was about 10,000 years old - scientist know this now. In addition, biblical scholars have added up the ages in the bible all the way from Adam and Eve to Jesus and they add up to the EXACTLY SAME AGE for the earth! How could that possibly be a coincidence?

To my young mind that left very little doubt as to the accuracy of the Bible … until I thought about it for a while. Then I felt stupid for falling for such an obvious misdirection.

128

This one says only around 10% believe in the Young Earth Theory.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/religion/christianity/gallup-right-about-nearly-half-americans-believing-earth-only-6000-years-old

Based on this evidence, Rosenau says there are probably only one in ten, 31 million Americans that actually believe the earth is 6,000 years old.

Sounds about right to me.

129

That is sad and hilarious at the same time.

“You mean… th-there’s a whole nation of them odd sexual degenerates? Well, I never!”
I grew up in the ultra-conservative Churches of Christ (who were God’s only true church, and thusly the only ones who would be let into the Pearly Gates) – I heard a lot of this dreck while I was growing up. I was always allowed to read actual Science books, however, and never bought into the Literal Six-Day Creation story.

130

This just proves that they’ve asked the same stupid question since 1982.

The part that makes it a dumb question is that every possible response includes some sort of extreme timeline, so basically they’re asking people to agree to “millions of years” or “less than 10,000 years” and completely leave aside any possible middle ground such as, I don’t know, say the 200,000 years that homo sapiens are thought to have existed. I’m positive there are plenty of people who don’t believe we evolved from other humanoid species but don’t think the earth is less than 10,000 years old either.

131

Nm

132

I followed your link to the poll on beliefs about Darwin at the National Center for Science Education website. I am less sanguine. Here are a sampling of the results:




The earth is less than 10 000 years old:         18%

God made the dinosaurs, along with all other
animals and humans, less than 10 000 years ago:  35%

The theory of evolution is not supported by 
any confirmed facts:                             35%

Dinosaurs lived at the same time as people:      40%

Human fossils have been found mixed in with
dinosaur fossils showing that humans existed
at the same time that dinosaurs existed:         43%

The Bible describes the creation of life
exactly as it occurred in six days:              50%

The theory of evolution proposes missing
links and speculates about how humans developed
but does not have strong factual evidence
to support it:                                   52%

There was a flood within the past 10 000 years
that covered all of the earth and was responsible
for most of the rock layers and fossils that
are seen across the world:                       60%

All people are descendants of one man and 
one woman — Adam and Eve:                        60%

I’d say opposition to evolution starts at around 18% and caps out at 60%. “Dinosaurs (c. 66 - 230 million years ago) lived at the same time as humans (3.9 million for Australopithecus),” is a form of confusion that gets 40% support, about halfway through.
elfkin477: There has been a fair amount of polling on evolution. I chose one particular poll, but I could have chosen others. It’s hard to get away from the conclusion that half the country embraces crackpottery.

133

Does DNA mean nothing to these Young Earthers?

134

DNA means different things to Young-Earth Creationists than it does to scientifically literate people. They argue that Adam’s DNA degraded with the Fall, and that the rate of DNA change was greater before the flood, etc. etc.

They’re involved with “system building,” where they have an answer for everything. The answers are purely ad hoc, having no purpose only than to reinforce the theory they walked in with, and the answers are either nonsensical (impossible to test) or, when testable, contradictory to evidence.

But you’ll never win against them by pointing to real evidence, because Creationism of this variety is not evidence-based. It’s purely ideological.

135

Welcome Back folks: I add to this summer 2014 thread again.

A poster here seems to agree with Ken Ham:

It seems that some fundamentalists perceive science not as an engine of economic growth but as a threat to traditional values. For me, scientific growth and progress is a traditional value, so I find this perspective to be pretty alien. Nonetheless Arcite’s candor was refreshing.

On the subject of Republican politicians, it seems that none of the GOP primary contestants were evolutionists according to this article. The author did allow for “Asterisks”: Jeb Bush accepts evolution but doesn’t believe it should be taught in public schools. Later Jeb endorsed “Varying viewpoints”. Christie took the opposite tact: he wouldn’t say what he believed, but that evolution should be taught in public schools. Etc.
At any rate here’s a question. Homophobia was much more accepted a decade ago: I locate the turning point in early 2011, when polls showed slightly more favoring gay marriage than opposing it, with the trends looking bad for hardened bigots. Conflating the gay stuff with evolutionary theory is new. So why did people believe the earth to be less than 10,000 years old before, say, 2005? I’m guessing that the gay marriage may be a red herring and that the older hostility to science is similar to the more recent sort.

136

Being a former member of the ultra-fundamentalist “Church of Christ”, I can vouch for this attitude towards science among conservative Christians. The all-important authority of the Bible must not be allowed to be undermined by facts. Thus, evolution must be fought by the one true church. Sad but true!

137

I, for one, am totally fine if the belief in evolution is an indirect way of attacking some religious text. Those need to be attacked and disproven, from every angle possible, to reduce the influence religion has in our lives

138

The Catholic Church made its peace with science long ago. Mainline Protestant denominations don’t have a problem with science either. Fundamentalism is a relatively recent development within Christianity anyway, dating from the turn of the 19th-20th century. And the overriding emphasis on the Bible arose after Gutenberg.

Resources for clergy are listed at the National Center for Science Education: http://ncse.com/religion/start

139

Loath though I am to defend Arcite, I don’t think gay rights was the key to his sentence. I think his point really was meant to be that the cultural left likes evolution because it weakens the Bible…and that gay rights was only one example of the kinds of things the left wants to obtain from a nation that is less devoted to the Bible.

His phrasing was careless and simplistic, but I don’t think he meant that gay rights was the key to support for evolution. He could have put “abortion” at the end, or “Muslim rights” or “racially mixed marriages” or “divorce.”

In any case, even taken in this more generous spirit, his claim is wrong, as the left’s support for evolutionary science is mostly based on a regard for real science and a disdain for the hypocritical lies published by Morris, Gish, Ham, and other arrant frauds. We’re opposed to the Moon-Landing Hoax for the same reason: it’s a goddamn lie.

ETA: the left’s support for evolution is also, in part, a reaction to the right’s frantic attack on evolution. Most of us wouldn’t care very much, if it hadn’t become so heavily weaponized a topic for them.

140

And they’re correct.

What they don’t realize is that it already happened, back in 2005, on May 12. I found myself floating, naked, through the ceiling, and up through the atmosphere. Eventually, I noticed I was walking on a lot of clouds, among 143,999 other Raptured souls. Since we came from the entire pool of humans who have ever (or ever will) exist, none of us were able to communicate with one another. There were a few angels flapping around with clipboards, walkie-talkies, and confused expressions.

It seems that SOMEBODY hadn’t thought things through when deciding on that number. Total clusterfuck. Nobody seemed to be particularly grateful to have made the cut.

I asked to go back, and they were kind enough (and apparently also embarrassed enough) to comply.