The estimates of the age of the world vary from 16,000,000 years to 100 times this number or 1,600,000,000 years. Even H.G. Wells admits these estimates “rest nearly always upon theoretical assumptions of the slenderest kind.” This is undoubtedly true of the reckless estimates of evolutionists, whose theory requires such an enormous length of time that science can not concede it. Prof. H.H. Newman says, “The last decade has seen the demise (?) of the outworn (?) objection to evolution, based on the idea that there has not been time enough for the great changes that are believed by evolutionists to have occurred. Given 100,000,000 or 1,000,000,000 years since life began we can then allow 1,000,000 years for each important change to arise and establish itself.”
An objection is not “outworn” until answered, and to speak of the demise of a generally accepted theory is hardly scientific. We will not allow the evolutionist to dismiss so weighty an objection with a wave of the hand. Prof. Newman, in his “Readings in Evolution,” p. 68, gives 60,000,000 years as the probable time since life began. The writer, having based arguments upon that assumption, was surprised to receive a private letter from him claiming that life has existed for 500,000,000 years. Indeed Prof. Russell, of Princeton, says, in his “Rice Lectures,” that the earth is probably 4,000,000,000 years old, possibly 8,000,000,000! We can do nothing but gasp, while the bewildering guesses come in, and we wait for the next estimate. We note their utter abandon, as they make a raid on God’s eternity to support a theory that would dethrone Him. But these extravagantly long periods required by the theory, science cannot grant, for the following reasons:—
1. According to the nebular hypothesis, and Helmholtz’s contraction theory, accounting for the regular supply of heat from the sun, the sun itself is not likely more than 20,000,000 years old, and, of course, the earth is much younger. Both of these theories are quite generally accepted by scientists, and have much to support them. Prof. Young, of Princeton, in his Astronomy, p. 156, says, “The solar radiation can be accounted for on the hypothesis first proposed by Helmholtz, that the sun is shrinking slowly but continually. It is a matter of demonstration that an annual shrinkage of about 300 feet in the sun’s diameter would liberate sufficient heat to keep up its radiation without any fall in its temperature”.... The sun is not simply cooling, nor is its heat caused by combustion; for, “If the sun were a vast globe of solid anthracite, in less than 5,000 years, it would be burned to a cinder.” We quote from Prof. Young’s Astronomy: “We can only say that while no other theory yet proposed meets the conditions of the problem, this [contraction theory] appears to do so perfectly, and therefore has high probability in its favor.” “No conclusion of Geometry,” he continues, “is more certain than this,—that the shrinkage of the sun to its present dimensions, from a diameter larger than that of the orbit of Neptune, the remotest of the planets, would generate about 18,000,000 times as much heat as the sun now radiates in a year. Hence, if the sun’s heat has been and still is wholly due to the contraction of its mass, it can not have been radiating heat at the present rate, on the shrinkage hypothesis, for more than 18,000,000 years; and on that hypothesis, the solar system in anything like its present condition, can not be much more than as old as that.” If so, evolution, on account of lack of time, can not possibly be true. If we add many millions of years to this number, or double it more than once, the time is not yet sufficient. For if the sun is 25,000,000, or even 50,000,000 years old, by the time the planets are thrown off, in turn, from Neptune to the earth, and then the earth cooled sufficiently for animal life, only a few million years would be left for evolution, a mere fraction of the time required. This is a mathematical demonstration that evolution can not be true. The same calculations, 18,000,000 to 20,000,000 years, have been made by Lord Kelvin, Prof. Todd and other astronomers.
2. The thickness of the earth’s crust is fatal to the theory of the great age of the earth, required by evolution. The temperature increases as we descend into the earth, about one degree for every 50 feet, or 100 degrees per mile. Therefore, at 2 mi., water would boil; at 18 mi., glass would melt (1850°); at 28 mi., every known substance would melt (2700°). Hence the crust is not likely more than 28 miles thick,—in many places less. Rev. O. Fisher has calculated that, if the thickness of the earth’s crust is 17.5 mi., as indicated by the San Francisco earthquake, the earth is 5,262,170 years old. If the crust is 21.91 mi. thick, as others say, the age would be 8,248,380 years. Lord Kelvin, the well known scientist, who computed the sun’s age at 20,000,000 years, computed the earth’s age at 8,302,210 years. Subtract from these computations, the years that must have elapsed before the earth became cool enough for animal life, and the few millions of years left would be utterly insufficient to render evolution possible. Note how these figures agree with the age of the earth according to the Helmholtz contraction theory. The thinness of the earth’s crust is also proven by the geysers, the volcanoes, and the 9000 tremors and earthquakes occurring annually in all parts of the world.
3. The surface marks on the earth point to much shorter periods of time since the earth was a shoreless ocean than those required by evolutionists, who are so reckless in their guesses and estimates. They help themselves to eternity without stint. Charles Lyell, a geologist of Darwin’s time, set the example when he said, “The lowest estimate of time required for the formation of the existing delta of the Mississippi is 100,000 years.” According to careful examination made by gentlemen of the Coast Survey and other U.S. officers, the time was 4,400 years—a disinterested decision. In the face of these three arguments, it is a bit reckless to say the earth has existed, 1,600,000,000 years,—nearly 100 times as long as proven possible by mathematical calculation. And still more reckless is the estimate of Prof. Russell, 4,000,000,000 to 8,000,000,000 years, founded on the radio-activity theory. All these wild estimates are out of the question.
The recession of the Niagara Falls from Lake Ontario required only 7,000 to 11,000 years. It required only 8,000 years for the Mississippi River to excavate its course.
Prof. Winchell estimates that the Mississippi River, has worn a gorge 100 feet deep, 8 miles long, back to the Falls of St. Anthony, in about 8,000 years. The whole thickness of the Nile sediment, 40 feet in one place, was deposited in about 13,000 years. Calculations by Southall and others from certain strata have fixed man’s first appearance on the earth at 8,000 years, in harmony with Scripture.
LeConte, in his Geology, p. 19, says, “Making due allowance for all variations, it is probable that all land-surfaces are being cut down and lowered by rain and river erosion, at a rate of one foot every 5,000 years. At this rate, if we take the mean height of lands as 1200 feet, and there be no antagonistic agency at work raising the land, all lands would be cut down to the sea level and disappear in 6,000,000 years.”
May we not from these data, judge approximately of the age of the world, and show by this proof also, that the world can not be at all as old as the evolution theory demands? If the surface of the earth will be worn down 1200 feet on an average in 6,000,000 years, would it not also be true that the surface has been worn down at least 1200 feet in the last 6,000,000 years? For the higher the surface, the more rapid the erosion. And if the earth is 8,302,210 years old, as Lord Kelvin computes, then at the same rate, it must have been worn down an average of 1660 feet,—38% more than remains. Is this not a fair estimate for the amount of erosion and the age of the world? How high must the land have averaged, if the world is even 60,000,000 years old?
If this be true, how long would it have taken erosion in the past, to reduce the land to its present configuration,—the short period indicated by science, or the immensely long period required by evolution?
But the evolutionists are clinging to the radio-activity theory desperately, an S.O.S. of a lost cause, depending, like evolution, on a great many assumptions, and unproven hypotheses. The assumption is that a radio-active substance, like uranium, “decays,” or passes into many other substances, of which radium is one, finally producing lead in 1,000,000,000 years or more. From this theory, Prof. Russell concludes that the earth is 4,000,000,000 to 8,000,000,000 years old, and the sun is older still. During this inconceivably long period, the sun was giving out as much heat as at present, which is 2,200,000,000 times as much as the earth receives. The heat of the sun can not be accounted for, by either the combustion or cooling off theory. By the commonly accepted contraction theory, the heat has been maintained only about 20,000,000 years. How could it have been sustained 4,000,000,000 to 8,000,000,000 years? Prof. Russell answers: “We must therefore suppose that energy from an ‘unknown source’ becomes available at exceedingly high temperatures.... We can not do more than guess where it is hidden.” Is this scientific? This theory, moreover, is interlocked with Einstein’s theory of Relativity, which holds that all energy has mass, and all mass is equivalent to energy. Although 2700 books have been written, pro and con, upon Einstein’s theory, yet he says only 12 men understand it, and a scientist retorts that Einstein can not be one of the 12. The contraction theory, the thickness of the cooled crust of the earth, and the conformation of its surface, all give mathematical proof that evolution is impossible because of lack of time.
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