HOW OLD IS THE EARTH? AGE OF THE EARTH

Age of the Solar System

In this section we will examine the arguments of evolutionists and their creationist opponents regarding the age of the Earth. As you know, materialists estimate the age of our planet, as well as the entire solar system, in billions of years. A common figure is 4.5 billion years. But creationists are not sure about the venerable age of the Earth, because God did not need a huge period of time for creation. A number of creationists are convinced that the Bible is correct, and according to its chronology, the Earth and the Sun are approximately 6 thousand years old. There is a huge difference between 6,000 years and 4,500,000,000 years. Let's now look at the arguments from both of these sides.

The Big Bang Theory

There is a theory that the Universe is expanding. According to materialistic views, the Universe was formed billions of years ago as a result of a big bang. However, the explosion theory has obvious shortcomings. According to the law of conservation of angular inertia (conservation of angular momentum), after the explosion all its parts must rotate in one direction. However, Pluto, Uranus and Venus rotate in different directions; this proves that there was no explosion. In addition, Neptune, Saturn and Jupiter have several moons that orbit their planets in different directions.

Meteor dust

Tens of thousands of tons of meteor dust fall to Earth every year. These tiny particles from outer space contain more than 2% nickel. If we calculate the amount of nickel in the ocean, where it comes directly from the atmosphere and where rivers bring it, washing it off the soil surface, we will see that there is little nickel there. A huge “shortage” of this element was also discovered in the earth’s crust, which over billions of years should have accumulated much more than what is available today. Creation scientists argue that, based on the amount of nickel in the soil and ocean, our planet is several thousand years old, not billions.

All this speaks about the young age of the Earth and the Moon. Considering the above, is it possible to answer the question: “How old is the earth?” Reply: “The age of the earth is 4.5 billion years”!?

Comets. Oort cloud

Comets are fairly small astronomical bodies, up to several kilometers in diameter. Based on the big bang theory, their age should coincide with the age of the solar system, which, according to materialists, we recall, is 4.5 billion years.

Comets are made of ice, gases and grains of various metals; revolve around the Sun in elongated orbits. Passing near the Sun, these cosmic bodies, heating up, lose part of their mass, which, breaking away from the core, forms a trail called a tail. Naturally, due to such losses, the comet disappears over time - evaporates. According to scientists, a comet with a short rotation period only needs several thousand years to disappear. But for some reason, there are many comets in the Solar System, and the vast majority of them have not disappeared anywhere, which confirms the young age of our Solar System.

To somehow explain this fact, material scientists suggested that there is a certain region that is “hidden” somewhere on the outskirts of the Solar system and periodically exposes new comets to our view. This imaginary part of the Universe was even given a name - the Oort cloud. And now materialists peer with faith into the sky, hoping to find there the “parent” of all comets.

Considering the above, is it possible to answer the question: “How old is the earth?” and unambiguously say: “The age of the earth is 4.5 billion years”!?

Radiocarbon dating is wrong

Currently, several methods are used to determine the age of archaeological finds, the most reliable of which is considered to be radiocarbon dating. However, even this most reliable method has huge errors. Thanks to the analysis of the data obtained, scientists realized that the rate of radioactive decay is not constant, as previously thought, since it is influenced by many external factors. This means that the “atomic clock” gets lost depending on external conditions.

Here are just some examples of dating with the “most accurate” method. Carbon-14 (14 C) dating showed that the newly killed seal died 1,300 years ago; the shells of living snails were 27,000 years old; the age of a shell of a living mollusk is 2,300 years old, etc. In the Belt cave (Iran), the underlying layer is dated to be approximately 6,000 years old, and the overlying one is 8,500 years old. That is, the reverse sequence of layers is obtained, which, of course, is impossible. And there are many similar examples.

How can we explain this magnitude of error in the most accurate method?

Considering the above, is it possible to answer the question: “How old is the earth?” with confidence: “The age of the earth is 4.5 billion years”!?

Radioisotope dating

There are just as many problems with radioisotope dating. The essence of this method is that the number of atoms of a radioactive decaying element in a rock is compared with the number of atoms of a stable element resulting from its decay. Methods based on reactions are mainly used: uranium → lead; potassium → argon; rubidium → strontium.

Radioactive decay can be compared to an hourglass. However, this method has serious drawbacks: we cannot be sure of the constancy of the decay rate, since observations were carried out for less than 100 years, and scientists operate with an age of billions of years; the initial amount of the test substances in the sample is unknown; external factors that could change the ratio of the chemical elements under study and affect the reaction rate are not taken into account. All these reasons, both individually and in combination, can radically change the results of calculations.

It was found that the radioisotope dating method can lead to erroneous results hundreds of thousands of times! Creation geologists submitted samples for research whose age was known for certain. As a result of a study, rocks from a volcanic eruption that occurred in 1800 (that is, a little over two hundred years ago) in the Hawaiian Islands were erroneously dated to be between 22 million and 2 billion years old...

Considering the above, is it possible to answer the question: “How old is the earth?” definitely say: “The age of the earth is 4.5 billion years”!?

The Earth's magnetic field is weakening

According to observations, over the past one and a half hundred years, the strength of the Earth's magnetic field has been decreasing. Since the German scientist Carl Friedrich Gauss began making these observations in 1845, it has decreased by 10%. It is reasonable to believe that tensions have eased before, although perhaps at a slower rate. That is, several tens of thousands of years ago, the planet’s magnetic field should have been much stronger, which would have made life on Earth impossible. This means that our planet is relatively young.

There is a theory among materialists that the weakening is associated with a slow change of poles: the South Pole moves to replace the North Pole, and vice versa. A number of researchers believe that magnetic reversal of polarity is not new for our planet and occurs without a certain periodicity...

Moon close to Earth

The Moon is slowly moving away from the Earth - at least 4 cm per year. This means she was closer before. As you know, the Moon is the cause of the ebb and flow of the tides. Millions of years ago, all the inhabitants of our planet would have died from frequent ebbs and flows, because water would have covered the entire Earth at least once a day. How were land animals able to survive?

Considering the above, is it possible to answer the question: “How old is the earth?” clearly state: “The age of the earth is 4.5 billion years”!?

It is known that during the decay of uranium, lead and helium are formed, which are released into the atmosphere. As the lightest gas, helium accumulates in the upper layers of the atmosphere. Over billions of years, it must have accumulated in huge quantities - hundreds of thousands of times more than today. This confirms that the age of our planet is calculated in thousands, not millions of years.

Ice rings do not show years

Today you can hear about dating the age of the Earth using ice rings. It is believed that in the Greenland ice sheet every year a dark ring is supposedly formed in the summer (snow melting), and a light ring (ice growth) in the winter. However, an incident that occurred during World War II refuted this hypothesis. The planes made an emergency landing in Greenland. When, 48 years later, an expedition was sent there to seize documents, the planes were buried under a large layer of ice - 75 m, that is, the build-up was about 1.67 m in 1 year. To get to the cars, a well was drilled, and then they discovered that the ice rings are not annual, like those of trees. It turned out that dark rings of glaciers are formed not in the summer, but during the thaw period, which can occur dozens of times a year.

Age of the coral reef

The largest coral reef, the Great Barrier Reef, is located in the Coral Sea on the northeast coast of Australia. It attracted attention after being partially destroyed during World War II. As is known, coral reefs are formed by living marine colonial invertebrate polyps with a calcareous skeleton. Therefore, after the destruction, the reef continued to grow. His “wounds” began to heal, and the growth rate began to be regularly monitored. Knowing the size of the reef and its growth rate, creationists were able to determine its full age - 4.5-5 thousand years. Material scientists estimate the age of the reef at 8 thousand years. Both dates are not far from the biblical chronology, but do not fit well into the theory of a billion-year-old planet.

Understanding the seriousness of the arguments voiced, is it possible to answer the question: “How old is the earth?” say with conviction: “The age of the earth is 4.5 billion years”!?

Polonium radio halo

Radiohalos are visible traces (in the form of rings) that are left in a mineral by emitted alpha particles when a radioactive element decays. Geologists were very surprised when they examined the structure of granite under a microscope. In this solid material they discovered a radiohalo of polonium-218.

Polonium-218 (218 Po), a product formed during the decay of uranium, has a very short half-life of only 3 minutes. Researchers have found it in huge quantities in granite on all continents...

Soil erosion

Many researchers believe that if our planet were several billion years old, its surface would have long ago become equal to sea level, because the earth is washed away by rain into the ocean. The process of soil destruction by winds, water and other natural factors is called erosion. But we still see mountains, hills and fells. This means that erosion occurs over a fairly short period of time.

Well-preserved coastlines also indicate the relatively recent division of one large continental mass into continents. Look at the shape of South America and Africa, they can still be “connected” (especially taking into account the shelf), like putting together a puzzle. But if we accept the theory of materialists, then in the hundreds of millions of years since the split (presumably 200–750 million years ago), erosion would have long ago eroded the coastlines.

Today, the rate of coastal erosion of the oceans (sliding, collapsing, washing away) varies in different places - from several tens of centimeters to several tens of meters per year. But even its lowest indicators do not fit into the multimillion-dollar age of the continents. For example, 10 cm x 1,000,000 years = 100 km. That is, in 200 million years, 20,000 km of land on each side should have disappeared. If we apply this calculation, then the modern map of the world should clearly look different: islands and peninsulas would have disappeared under the ocean water in hundreds of millions of years and the continents would have lost most of their land. Note that many countries invest a lot of money to strengthen their coastlines.

One more fact. Rain washes salts from the soil into the ocean. Today, the salinity of ocean water is only 3.2-3.5% (32-35 ppm). According to the calculated rate of salt accumulation, modern seas and oceans cannot possibly be billions of years old. Lakes, like seas and oceans, accumulate salts, but their salinity is low, which indicates their young age and indirectly confirms the young age of the Earth. Also, a number of scientists point to an insufficient amount of barium, cobalt, nickel, antimony and other chemical elements in the seas and oceans, which enter there in greater quantities than are removed.

Geological column

The geological column as a sequence of layers of the Earth was proposed at the beginning of the 19th century. Today, with its help, evolutionists are trying to explain the multi-billion-year age of our planet, during which these layers (layers) of the earth’s crust were supposedly formed.

However, this same geological column is evidence against evolution. The fact is that geological layers in the form in which they are presented on the geochronological scale generally accepted by materialists are extremely rare. In the vast majority of cases they are significantly mixed up and many are missing. According to geologist John Woodmorappe, 80 to 85% of the Earth's surface does not even have 3 geological periods represented in the "correct" sequential order. Of course, material scientists are trying to explain this by the movement of layers as a result of the movement of layers of the earth. Such an argument could be accepted if this “confusion” of layers were rare. But, as noted, the situation looks exactly the opposite.

Is it possible, after analyzing the above information and understanding this possibility, to answer the question: “How old is the earth?” answer with conviction: “The age of the earth is 4.5 billion years”!?

Canyons

Often, as evidence of the great age of our planet, materialists demonstrate canyons - deep ravines, on the slopes of which layers of earth are clearly visible. In their opinion, such canyons were formed by rivers that flowed through one place for a long time and washed these ravines to a depth of several tens of meters to one and a half kilometers.

However, creationist geologists, on the contrary, see the canyons as confirmation of a grandiose catastrophe. For example, in the Grand Canyon in the USA, at an altitude of more than 1.5 km, you can find sea shells, although this area is far from the ocean. By the way, the remains of marine life are found even on Everest, the highest mountain in the world. This can only be explained by the fact that previously these earth layers were covered by sea water. It is also significant that the sandstone and limestone layers of the Grand Canyon contain breccias - pebbles from crumbled hard rock. They could appear inside the layers only as a result of a catastrophe and the subsequent “mixing” of the consequences of destruction. At the same time, the pebbles have sharp corners, and the oblong breccias are oriented in one direction. These facts prove that the breccias were in a liquid environment, but for a short time, since the water did not have time to “sharpen” their edges. It is obvious that this picture could well have formed after the retreat of the flood waters. In addition, the canyons contain sharp bends of parallel strata. It is very clear from them that the deformation occurred when the rocks were still unhardened and soft, since there are no large cracks, breaks or breaks in the places of bends.

Mutual responsibility

As for the names of geological layers, sonorous names were often invented for them without a direct connection with science. For example, a number of layers were named after the areas in which they were discovered (for example, Cambrian, Devonian, Permian, Jurassic), and some in honor of the ancient peoples who lived there (for example, Vendian, Ordovician, Silurian). Let us recall that scientific materialists imagined the possible vertical evolutionary development of organisms and arranged them according to the layers of the earth, in which theoretically their dead remains should have been located - each in its own era. But in reality, it is almost impossible to find places on Earth where the layers are located in the same sequence as shown in textbooks.

Therefore, the work of geologists, paleontologists and archaeologists is always complicated by one problem - to determine the name of the layer that they are studying. Both do not have the tools to accurately date the layer on their own. Therefore, until now, scientific geologists determine geological layers by the fossilized remains of organisms found there. And accordingly, archaeologists and paleontologists determine the age of finds by the name of the layer that geologists told them. It turns out to be a “mutual responsibility”, or rather a circle closed on itself. Of course, this practice is not scientific, but is based solely on an evolutionary worldview. But there is no other data for a reasonable and at least somehow proven dating of the layers.

Is it possible to think about the arguments presented here to the question: “How old is the earth?” declare with 100% conviction: “The age of the earth is 4.5 billion years”!?

Oil, coal, peat. Pierced layers

It’s no secret today that oil, coal and peat are organic substances that have changed over time. These are mostly former forests. These natural fossils are dated by materialists hundreds of millions of years ago, since, in their opinion, this is exactly the time needed for their formation. Therefore, some evolutionists consider minerals as one of the proofs of the venerable age of our planet. However, not all scientific materialists are categorical on this issue. The fact is that there are indisputable facts that make us think about the objectivity of popular opinion.

As already mentioned above, all the most ancient organic substances studied, including minerals, contain a decent amount of carbon-14, which cannot be according to the evolutionary model, since this radioactive substance should have completely decayed in fifty thousand years.

In addition, studies have shown that the formation of these fossils does not require millions of years. The above-mentioned volcanic eruptions on Mount St. Helens destroyed many of the arguments of the materialists. Landslides caused by the volcano filled the large Spirit Lake with tens of thousands of broken and uprooted trees. Floating on the surface in large groups, the trunks, rubbing against each other, dropped bark to the bottom. After some time, the trees began to drown. A few years later, researchers who descended under the water saw a most interesting picture: at the bottom of the lake in some places there was a three-meter layer of bark that began to turn into coal or peat...

Here it is worth stopping a little in the discussion about minerals and switching to another topic. The fact is that the scuba divers were surprised not only by the rapidly forming combustible fossils... The bottom landscape was a strange forest - tree trunks protruded vertically from the sedimentary layers. The physics of the formation of this “forest” is simple: some trees were uprooted, and therefore sank with their rhizomes down, where their base quickly drifted, so that they seemed to have grown into the bottom sediments. The speed of their flooding was different and so was the depth of the lake at which they found their refuge. Therefore, these trees were something similar to the remains of petrified forests that supposedly previously inhabited the Earth at different stages of time: below are more ancient, above are closer to us. Until this discovery was made, the US Yellowstone National Park was proud of its petrified forest, located at various altitudes, supposedly demonstrating different time periods of the Earth's life. As it turned out, such a forest could arise quickly as a result of a disaster, which is why the Yellowstone trees have the same short, broken rhizomes as the drowned trunks in Spirit Lake.

Upright petrified trees provide good evidence of rapid deposition of layers. Today, in hard rocks, vertical tree trunks are often found, as if “piercing” several layers of sandstone, coal, limestone..., indicating the rapid formation of layers. This situation is only possible if, during a flood, some trees sank with their heavy rhizomes down, and then the soil settled to the bottom in fractions. And this happened quite quickly, otherwise the upper part of the trunk would have had time to rot.

Rice. Petrified trees penetrate several layers

Let us now return to minerals again. There are several other related facts that confirm the young age of our planet.

For example, many oil and gas fields are located in porous rocks. However, to this day they are located in the bowels of the earth under very high pressure. If these minerals were formed many millions of years ago, then this pressure would have long since dissipated into the porous medium.

There is also a clearly beneficial effect from the practical application of the theory of creation: creation scientists, realizing that it took a short time for the formation of oil and coal, as a result of experiments discovered the process of quickly producing liquid combustible materials from organic matter and coal from wood. It was enough just to subject the samples to pressure at high temperatures. The results of these studies are now widely used in business activities in different countries of the world. That is, fossil oil and coal are organic matter (animals, plants) that somehow ended up in one place and was modified under the influence of pressure and temperature. It is difficult to imagine how this could happen over millions of years. After all, if trees and living organisms died gradually over a long period of time, then, like today, they would simply rot, forming soil - the top layer of the Earth. But the catastrophe of the flood explains this phenomenon well. During the flood, huge masses of vegetation and animal remains were carried by streams of water and currents to certain places, where they were subsequently overwhelmed by erupting hot rocks, moving landslides or layers of earth, and then covered with huge thicknesses of water, which created pressure of thousands of atmospheres, forming in a matter of months peat, coal or oil (depending on conditions). After the disaster, during the uplift of the soil, such deposits ended up in different places and at different distances from the surface.

It is surprising that seeing the presence of such facts, many people answer the question: “How old is the earth?” They declare with full confidence: “The age of the earth is 4.5 billion years”!?

The layers contain the results of human activity

Human products and traces of human activity are periodically found in coal and limestone layers, supposedly “hundred-million-dollar”. They even received the scientific name "Palaeoartifacts" or Unidentified Fossil Objects (UNFOs). These include, in particular, a metal parallelepiped of regular shape (“Salzburg parallelepiped”), found in a piece of hard brown coal; an iron nail embedded in a block of sandstone taken from the Kingudi quarries; An iron hammer “embedded” in rock, the wooden handle of which was petrified on the outside and turned into coal on the inside, discovered in Texas sandstone dating back 450 million years. At the Texas Museum of Creation, a pot found in a piece of coal is displayed next to a hammer. There are so many such finds that a number of books have already been written about them. Unidentified fossil objects include human footprints imprinted on fossilized rocks. Of course, all these findings can only be explained if we accept the Biblical flood theory.

Rice. An iron hammer, the wooden handle of which was petrified on the outside and turned into coal on the inside, and a kettle are in the Museum of Creationism in Texas

Dinosaurs are reliable witnesses

According to accepted materialist theory, dinosaurs lived more than 65 million years ago. According to creationists, lizards were created along with all animals, which means that their remains cannot be more than 6-7.5 thousand years old. And this chronology is confirmed by numerous facts. Thus, many dinosaurs found have a low degree of bone fossilization. Due to their increased thickness, they apparently simply did not have enough time to mineralize completely. There were even bones with soft tissue and red blood cells. It is clear that such organic matter does not survive for millions of years.

How can you, having studied and analyzed this question, continue to claim that the age of the earth is 4.5 billion years, realizing that it is impossible to know exactly how old the earth is and that dinosaurs lived 65 million years ago...?!

All people descended from "Adam" and "Eve"

Eve's mitochondrial DNA and Adam's Y chromosome are now scientific concepts of geneticists. Many scientists, including materialists, today agree that all women of the surviving human species Homo Sapiens come from one “first” - “Eve”, and similarly all men from one “first” - “Adam”. Attempts to determine their age give conflicting results... However, one thing is clear - the genetic paths each lead to their own point, which is extremely difficult to imagine if you follow the logic of Darwin's theory, according to which the monkey population gradually evolved into humans over millions of years.

In addition, it is also interesting that the age of the “first” man is determined to be 60–90 thousand years, and the “first” woman – 140–230 thousand years. According to scientific materialists, it turns out that a woman of the genus Homo (humans), 50 - 170 thousand years after the emergence of man, met a man of the same genus Homo, but of a different species, from which modern people of the species Homo Sapiens came. And the descendants, that is, entire clans and peoples... from other men and women of the genus Homo, who multiplied on the planet before and after this meeting, strangely all subsequently died out. Even a non-specialist understands that it is simply impossible to imagine such a picture in real life. But scientific materialists are forced to believe in this, otherwise the platform of their evolutionary theory will collapse.

Population growth corresponds to the Biblical age of the earth

To determine the approximate population growth, it is necessary to know two basic quantities: the average number of children in a family and the average age of a generation. Using these parameters, it is possible to at least approximately calculate the population of the Earth. If we accept the theory of evolution, according to which man has existed on Earth for about 200,000 years, then with an average age of generations of 25 years, it turns out that there have been 8,000 generations on the planet. And if we assume that for each generation the population of the Earth increased by 20% (this figure can be reduced, which will not change the order of the numbers much), then it turns out that by our time the number of people on the planet should have been an immeasurably fantastic figure! So, the twentieth generation from the first two people should have numbered about 60 people, the fiftieth - already about 15,000, the hundredth - about 140,000,000, and the one hundred and twenty-second - already exceeded the modern population of the Earth - 7,600,000,000. And if it comes about thousands of generations, then even an engineering calculator cannot calculate this figure... And the area of ​​the entire Earth would not be enough to simply put people living on it side by side. According to modern studies of the growth of the Earth's population, taking into account wars and epidemics, people may well live on our planet for about 4.5 - 6 thousand years, that is, the time after the biblical flood.

Also interesting is the fact that there are no numerous burial places on our planet of people who, according to materialists, lived on it for 200 thousand years. We find many skeletons of a wide variety of dinosaurs and other fossil animals... but not so many human bones. Although, logically, the earth should abound in human skeletons, since the intelligent being that is man should have been more attentive to the corpses of his ancestors. Even if all human bones rotted, how could numerous stone tools that people used, according to evolutionists, for tens and even hundreds of thousands of years, rot into dust?

Ancient civilizations are no more than 5.5 thousand years old

The most ancient well-known human civilizations, like their writing, according to the most daring estimates, date back to no more than 5.5 thousand years old. Note - not 10 thousand, not 20 thousand, and especially not 200 thousand years, how long, according to evolutionists, Homo sapiens has existed. It is hardly possible that humanity lived for tens and even hundreds of thousands of years, without leaving behind evidence of intelligent life and writing, and then suddenly, no later than 5.5 thousand years ago, began to actively cover the earth with evidence of its existence.

How can you, having carefully studied these objective arguments, continue to talk about something other than “How old is the earth?” and insist that the age of the Earth is 4.5 billion years?!

Unique living conditions

The Bible says that God created the Earth specifically for habitation:

“The Lord, who created the heavens... formed the earth...; He approved it, not in vain...; He educated her to live" 1

Often, we people don’t even think about how unique living conditions surround us. Even materialists do not hide their surprise at the wonderful positive random “coincidences” that allegedly contributed to the origin of life on Earth. The combination of these conditions even received the scientific name “Anthropic principle”.

For example, if you change the distance from the Earth to the Sun up or down, then staying on our planet will become less comfortable or completely impossible. The same applies to many other factors. For example, the composition of air only as it is is optimally suitable for life on Earth. If you slightly reduce oxygen and slightly increase carbon dioxide, or vice versa... which also applies to other gases that make up the atmosphere, then all living things on the planet will immediately feel it. And with a change of a few percent in the ratio of gases in the air, everything breathing on the planet will face the end!

Not only the lower layer of the atmosphere is unique. In general, the entire atmosphere - external and internal - is extremely important for the planet. If its “protective” composition were weaker, then radiation from Space could kill all life on Earth. Or, on the contrary, if the atmosphere retained the sun’s rays to a greater extent than it does now, then the planet would not have enough heat, energy and ultraviolet radiation (which, in addition to negative ones, also has positive properties for the Earth and earthlings).

It is worth recalling photosynthesis. The air suitable for living beings contains oxygen. But what they exhale is carbon dioxide. That is, logically, after a certain time, everything breathing on the planet should have died, since oxygen would have run out in the atmosphere and carbon dioxide would have increased... But plants help maintain sufficient levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the air. In sunlight, with the participation of water, the process of photosynthesis occurs, which results in the absorption of carbon dioxide and the release of oxygen.

I think, dear reader, you understand that you can continue to list the unique facts of the “Anthropic Principle”. That is, all the basic parameters of the Sun and Earth, the subtle consistency of physical laws and world constants, cannot but make one admire either “your majesty’s chance” or the intelligent Creator of heaven and Earth.

1 Bible. Old Testament, book of the prophet Isaiah, 45:18

Lack of scientific evidence

There is a fact confirming that material scientists cannot provide unambiguous evidence of their theory about the random formation of the Earth, life on it and vertical evolution. More than 10 years ago, the famous proponent of scientific creationism, Kent Hovind, in a public appeal, offered $250,000 to anyone who could provide at least one piece of empirical evidence (scientific confirmation) of evolution. Until now, there has not been a single contender for this money!

Really, realizing that there is no real evidence, people answer the question: “How old is the earth?” will they consider: “The age of the earth is more than 4 billion years”!?

Conclusion to the section

If you look impartially at the facts, it will become objective that materialists do not have irrefutable scientific evidence of the evolution and great age of our planet. For all the theoretical arguments of adherents of the theory of Darwin and the Big Bang, there are weighty counter-arguments from creationists. And let me remind you that it is not scientists who argue with church ministers, but scientists with scientists. In the hands of opponents are diplomas, titles and regalia, as well as scientifically based evidence in favor of their position.

And at the same time, materialists do not have real indisputable evidence, but their theory has many contradictions and gives rise to questions for which there are no answers. Only some of these issues have been addressed in this book. I am sure that the readers are convinced that the questions posed are extremely important, since reasonable answers to them refute evolution and the multi-billion-year age of the Earth, but at the same time confirm Intelligent Creation. And since there is the possibility of an alternative, we simply cannot turn a blind eye to it. That is, the concept of creationism should be perceived as competitive - scientific, despite the fact that in essence it is religious.

How old is the earth, geological layers, age of the earth, Cambrian explosion, when dinosaurs lived, EXPOSING THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION

By the word of the Lord the heavens were created, and by the spirit of his mouth all their hosts: he gathered together the waters of the sea like heaps, and laid up the deeps in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all who live in the universe tremble before Him, for He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it appeared (Ps. 33:6-9).

Outdated methods for determining age in archeology

First of all, it is necessary to understand the methods that provide science with millions of years of dating to describe the existence of planet Earth.

Nowadays, when determining the age of archaeological finds, both human bones and ceramics, the following methods are used: radiocarbon, potassium-argon, uranium-thorium, rubidium-strontium, ionium-radium, etc. The radiocarbon method is considered the most trustworthy.

Western scientists, who, unlike the Soviet ones, were not subject to censorship, write the following: “The radiocarbon dating method undoubtedly has deep and serious shortcomings. Although it has been significantly improved and mastered over the past thirty-five years, the assumptions underlying it are still very controversial and there is much to indicate that it may soon find itself in a crisis situation... It is not surprising, therefore, that a good half of the dating results are in doubt” ( Robert E. Lee Radiocarbon Ages in Error, Anthropologial journal of Canada, 19, 1981, 9.).

“Regardless of the usefulness of the radiocarbon dating method, it must be recognized that it is not able to provide accurate and reliable results. The contradictions encountered within this method are enormous, the chronological data obtained are unsystematic and dependent on each other, and the dates considered correct are essentially taken out of thin air” (Ydid, p. 29.).

“In recent years, scientists have realized with horror that the rate of radioactive decay is not as constant as previously thought, and is also subject to the influence of external factors. This means that during global catastrophes, the “atomic clock” can go astray, and as a result it may turn out that the end of the Mesozoic period came not 65 million years ago, but quite recently, when man already existed on Earth” (Frederic B. Jueneman, “Secular Catastrophism,” Industrial Research and Development (June 1982), p. 21).

Let us give several dates of the most accurate, according to evolutionists and atheists, method.

“Carbon-14 dating showed that only the killed seal died 1,300 years ago” (Antarctic Jornal, Vol. 6, 1971, p. 211).

Testing the shells of living snails showed that they died 27,000 years ago! (Science, Vol. 224, 1984, P. 58-61.).

“The age of the shell of a living mollusk is determined to be 2300 years” (Science, Vol. 141, 1963, P. 634-637.).

Even in Soviet times, it was believed that “... the radiocarbon method can only be used in a limited chronological range... dates over 35-40 thousand years must be treated very carefully...” (Geochronology of the USSR, The Newest Stage, L., vol. 3, 1974, pp. 21-22).

In turn, with other dating methods the situation is even narrower. This was recognized even by Soviet scientists, but Westerners speak out uncompromisingly: “When using the potassium-argon method, it is common practice to discard those dating results that differ significantly more or less from the rest of the sample of results or from other available data, such, for example, as the existing geochronological scale. The difference between the data taken into account and the data discarded is inappropriately attributed to the capture or loss of argon" (A. Hayatsn, "Pottassium-Argon Ysocron Age of the North Mountain Basalt, Nova Scotia, Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 16, 1979, p. 974.).

Thus, with the collapse of the USSR, which was the center of evolutionary theory, discussions about the age of the earth in billions of years became quieter.

You can see from the example how the dating of the finds contradicts each other. The reign of King Hammurabi has not yet been precisely established. In scientific circles there are three options: 1955-1913. BC; 1792-1750 BC, and finally, 1728-1686. BC

There are other options that supposedly give the dates of his reign according to the Encyclopedia Britannica - 2067-2055. BC, according to the French encyclopedia "Larus" - 2003-1961. BC So you can see that even with a large number of finds (as in this case with the reign of Hammurabi) and the age of the finds is no more than 4000 years, disagreements reach up to 400 years. Soviet-era science, despite the restrictions on the impossibility of dating more than 35 thousand years, managed to date the remains of man and his tools to hundreds of thousands and even millions of years.

Material Evidence Refutes the Billions of Years Theory

There are irrefutable facts that confirm the youth of our planet. Let us consider them without delving into physical, chemical, astronomical scientific evidence.

– Earth's magnetic field. Everyone knows the fact about the strength of the earth's magnetic field, which drops by half every 1400 years. It turns out that 1400 years ago the planet’s magnetic field was twice as strong as it is today. 2800 years ago – the magnetic field was four times stronger than today. According to these indicators, the maximum age of the Earth was determined, which was about 10,000 years, since further the strength of the earth’s magnetic field would be unacceptable.

– Meteor dust. Tens of tons of meteor dust fall on the earth, taking this into account, the obvious conclusion is that if the age of the earth were millions of years, then our planet would be, first of all, under a large layer of cosmic dust (up to several tens of meters in height), and secondly, the earth's crust would have very large deposits of nickel (meteor dust includes up to 2.8% nickel). According to today's nickel content and the amount of meteoric dust, we can safely say that the earth is no more than 6000-7000 years old.

– Age of the Moon. When sending the American spacecraft to the Moon, there were fears that it might fall deep into meteor dust, since the Moon, according to the theory of evolution, was formed several billion years ago, just like the Earth, according to these conclusions, there should have been a lot of dust a large number of. To everyone's surprise, when the crew landed on the surface of the Moon, they found that the moon was covered with a thin layer of dust, it was discovered that the moon has a magnetic field, seismic activity, thermal radiation, and thus it was revealed that its age does not exceed 6000 years.

– The entry of silicon into the ocean with river water, does not make it possible to set the age of the earth to be more than 8000 years. The amount of nickel entering the ocean with river water indicates the young age of the planet - a maximum of 9000 years.

– The moon is slowly moving away from the Earth at a rate of 4 cm per year. Previously, the speed was higher. If we assume that the Moon came into contact with the Earth, then it would take 1.37 billion years to move away to its present distance. This age is not real, but the maximum possible, but even this age does not suit evolutionists, because they claim that the Moon is 4.6 billion years old. In addition, this age is much lower than the ages obtained from radiometric dating of lunar rocks.

– Salt is entering the oceans much faster than it is leaving them. If we assume that the processes took place over billions of years, then the water in the seas and oceans would be much saltier. Even with a variety of assumptions, the seas cannot be more than 62 million years old (this is not a real, but the maximum possible age); evolutionists claim an age of billions of years.

– Red blood cells and hemoglobin have been found in some (unfossilized) dinosaur bones. This gives us the right to say that the last dinosaurs existed no more than a few thousand years ago, and not 65 million years, as evolutionists say. (Humphreys, D. R., 1986. Reversals of the earth's magnetic field during the Genesis Flood. Proc. First ICC, Pittsburgh, PA 2:113-126.)

– Evidence for the rapid formation of geological strata after the Flood: absence of erosion between rock layers, which are supposedly separated by millions of years; the absence of a disturbed rock structure that appears as a result of the existence of organisms (worm tunnels, plant roots, etc.); lack of soil layers; polystrate fossils (they cross several layers of rock vertically - assuming that burial was slow and gradual, it turns out that they were in an upright position for millions of years); curved but solid layers are thick, indicating that the rock was once soft and flexible, and many other examples.

– Population growth. To correctly calculate population growth, it is important to know three indicators: the average number of children in a family, the average age of a generation, and the average life expectancy. Using these generally accepted parameters, we can calculate, based on chapter 5 of the book of Genesis, the approximate population size in the antediluvian world. When calculating, the following figures emerge: the average life expectancy is 500 years, the average age of a generation is 100 years, and suppose that the average number of children in a family is six, we get that 235 million people lived on the planet before the flood. Provided that man has existed for a million years according to the theory of evolution, and the average age of a generation is 35 years (taking into account epidemics, wars, and accidents), it turns out that there have been 28,600 generations on earth. If we assume that each family had an average of two children (this figure is deliberately underestimated), then it turns out that by now the world's population should have corresponded to an extremely fantastic amount: ten to the five-thousandth power of people! In turn, studying the growth of the world's population, we can say that our planet is more than 4000 years after the flood, and this exactly coincides with the data of the Bible (H. M. Morris ed. Scientific Creationism (public school), San Diego, 1974, p. 149- 157; 185-196.)

In his booklet Evidence for a Young World, Dr. Russell Humphreys talks about examples of other processes that are inconsistent with the billion-year theory.

Only 6 thousand years

While at school, the theory of evolution with billions of eras was diligently taught to us from an early age. It is important to note that the number of theories of evolution was about a thousand and they all often went in opposite directions, contradicting each other. We indicated that “was” in the past tense, because the theory evolution in the West is no longer taught in most schools and universities, since this theory does not correspond to scientific data and does not even have scientific justification.

Often in the territory of the former Soviet Union, the topic of the origin of life on earth was kept silent, because upbringing in an atheistic spirit did not allow talking about the Creator.

In turn, the Bible reveals to us a completely different picture. It says that man was created on the sixth day of creation about six thousand years ago. Thus, according to the timeline, which is based on Biblical data, man is located at the beginning of the history of the world, and not at the end, as the theory of evolution claims.

Nowadays, Eastern philosophy is very popular, which is admired by many and is elevated above the Bible in the understanding of the universe. It is worth turning to the “sacred” texts of Hinduism, which describe the state of the world at the very beginning: “When the world began to exist several million years ago, it had a flat triangular shape with high mountains and many bodies of water. He rested on the heads of elephants standing on a turtle, which in turn rested on a giant snake. If the elephants started to shake themselves off, an earthquake occurred.” In turn, the Bible talks about the structure of our world like this: “He is the One who sits above the circle of the earth...” (Is. 40:22) and “hung the earth on nothing” (Job 26:7).

That is, the Bible already said 2500 years before the discovery of Copernicus that the earth is round. About 1700 BC. Job wrote that the earth was “hanging on nothing.” Such information from Scripture was difficult to understand for many centuries, and today we can confidently say that God gave the ancient patriarch an understanding of the structure of our planet.

So on the scales on one side there are turtles and elephants that make you smile, and on the other side there are very accurate scientific data. However, the Bible describes the water cycle in nature many centuries before scientific conclusions appeared. “All rivers flow into the sea, but the sea is not overflowing; to the place from which rivers flow, they return to flow again” (Eccl. 1:7), it is also said that “air has weight”: “When He assigned weight to the wind, and arranged the water according to measure...” ( Job 28:25).

Which is true 6 days or 6 periods?

There are those who perceive the 6 days of the creation of the Earth as 6 great periods. Where is the truth? Everything was as described in the book of Genesis in the first chapter, and there the word “... and there was evening and there was morning...” (Gen. 1:5) is constantly used. “Day” in this case equals a day, namely 24 hours.

The fourth commandment again says that the days of creation were literal: “...for in six days the Lord created heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it” (Ex. 20:11).

Every day and every night they talk about the Creator, as the Creator of time for man - day and night, and a week of seven days.

Everything, however, turns out to be simpler than it seems at first glance. The fact is that from childhood, from school, we were “drilled into” the theory of evolution with its billion-era eras. It is worth noting here that there were about a thousand theories of evolution, and all of them often directly contradicted each other.

Often in the countries of the former USSR, the question of the origin of life on earth is often passed over in silence, since the atheistic upbringing received does not allow one to talk about the Creator. The scope of one article does not allow us to dwell even briefly on the analysis of the theory of evolution, and therefore we will dwell only on a few very clear evidence that the age of our planet cannot exceed 6000 years.

Without going into the depths of physical, chemical, astronomical scientific evidence, we will present 10 irrefutable facts of the youth of our planet.

1. Earth's magnetic field

It is well known that the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field drops by half in 1,400 years, that is, 1,400 years ago the planet’s magnetic field was twice as strong as it is today, and 2,800 years ago it was four times stronger than today. Based on these data, it was determined that the maximum possible age of the Earth is about 10,000 years, since further the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field will be unacceptably large.

2. Meteor dust

It is known that tens of tons of meteoric dust fall to the earth, and taking this into account, it becomes clear that if the age of the earth was calculated in millions of years, then the earth would, firstly, be covered with a huge layer of cosmic dust (up to tens of meters in height), and , secondly, the earth’s crust would contain huge deposits of nickel (as is known, meteor dust contains up to 2.8% nickel). Today, the nickel content and the amount of meteoric dust suggest that the age of the earth does not exceed 6000-7000 thousand years.

3. Soil erosion

Today it has been proven that if the age of the earth exceeded several million years, then the earth's surface would have long ago become equal to sea level.

It is known that during the decay of uranium, lead and helium nuclei are formed, which are released into the atmosphere in the amount of 300 thousand tons per year. Today it has been proven that the atmosphere contains more than 3 billion tons of helium, which means that the age of the planet does not exceed 6 thousand years.

5. Age of the Moon

When the American spacecraft was sent to the Moon, there was a serious fear that the ship might “drown” in meteor dust, because the moon, according to the theory of evolution, was formed several billion years ago, like the Earth, which meant that this dust on it should there would be an incredible amount. But after the crew reached the lunar surface, it turned out that there was a very thin layer of dust on the surface of the moon, and, in addition, it turned out that the moon has a magnetic field, seismic activity and thermal radiation, in other words, its age is no more than 6000 years.

6. River deltas

Studies of river deltas indicate that the age of the Earth is within 5000 years.

7. Silicon in the world's oceans

The entry of silicon into the ocean with river water does not allow us to say that the age of the Earth is more than 8000 years.

8. Nickel in the world's oceans

The entry of nickel into the ocean with river water also indicates the youth of the planet - within a maximum of 9000 years.

9. Comet Decay

The study of the decay process of short-period comets also suggests that the age of the Earth cannot exceed 10,000 years.

10. Radioactive substances on the Moon

The Moon contains a fair amount of uranium-236 and thorium-230, short-lived isotopes that would no longer exist if the Moon were billions of years old.

In fact, this list could be continued for a long time.

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In 1654, Archbishop Ussher, based on the Bible and data from astronomy and numerology, established that the Earth was created on October 23, 4004 BC. at 9 AM. Today, Christian, Islamic and Jewish theologians, based on religious texts, argue that the Earth and the Universe are no more than 6,000–10,000 years old. Chinese myths say that our planet is cyclically created and destroyed every 23 million years. According to Hindu cosmology, it is approximately 2 billion years old. Modern scientists using the radiometric dating method are absolutely sure that it has existed for 4.5–4.6 billion years.

It is equally difficult for us to imagine both a thousand and a million, and even more so a billion years. But still, something suggests that there should not be such fundamental differences in dating. Perhaps, by estimating the age of our Mother Earth in different ways, we are missing something every time if we get such different numbers from each other. We can prove the validity of any one method, or we can bring them to a common denominator, “reconcile” them - and this second, perhaps, will be the best criterion for the correctness of the assessment. But this will only become possible if we decide to leave each method the right to make mistakes. After all, if it is more or less clear that the sacred texts speak not about physical, but about symbolic years and periods, then modern scientific methods seem to be absolutely infallible. But is it?

Already in the 19th century, scientists tried to determine the age of the Earth, based on the assumption of the linearity and progression of the processes that occur on it today: an increase in the salinity of the oceans, the cooling of the planet, the formation of sedimentary rocks. Analyzing the speed of these processes, scientists calculated the time during which the Earth should have taken its modern form and condition. Final estimates of its age ranged from 3 to 15 million years. Perhaps because the observed processes were not fully understood. But in 1896, the phenomenon of radioactivity was discovered, and this led to the development of radiometric dating methods, which by the middle of the 20th century began to give seemingly reliable figures. In any case, disagreements between scientists on the issue of the age of the Earth have ceased: a method accepted by all has appeared. What is its essence?

The principle of radiometric dating is very simple. The atoms of some elements (uranium, radium, thorium and others) do not remain constant. The original element, called the mother element, spontaneously disintegrates, turning into a stable daughter. For example, uranium-238, decaying, turns into lead-206, and potassium-40 into argon-40. By measuring the number of parent and daughter elements in a mineral, it is possible to calculate the time that has passed since its formation: the higher the percentage of daughter elements, the older the mineral. True, there are some difficulties. Even if we assume the decay rate is constant (and radioactivity has been known for only 100 years), then some of the daughter elements could still be present in the mineral initially and distort the result. It is also known that if the mineral melts again after crystallization, the radioactive clock is restarted.

Today there are many examples of the failure of the radiometric dating method. For example, the potassium-argon method gave ages between 160 million and 2.96 billion years for Hawaiian lava that erupted in 1800! A similar story occurred with the determination of the age of the primate skull (this skull is known as specimen KNM-ER 1470). The result was 212–230 million years, but at that time there were no people at all! If we talk about the trend, then in many such cases the radiometric method “ages” the studied samples too much. Nevertheless, today it alone gives, with rare exceptions, consistent results: close dates for the same samples studied.

According to radiometric dating, the oldest minerals on Earth are 3.96 billion years old, and the oldest single crystals are 4.3 billion years old. Scientists, however, believe that the Earth itself is older, because radiometric counting is carried out from the moment of crystallization of minerals, and the planet still existed for some time in a molten state. These data, coupled with the results of studies of lead isotopes in meteorites, lead to the conclusion that the entire solar system was formed approximately 4.55 billion years ago. I repeat: this is the latest scientific data.

The closest to them, oddly enough, are the most ancient ideas about the age of our planet. According to Hindu philosophy, the Earth turned 1,972,949,109 years old in 2008, and in total it will live a total of 4.32 billion years - the “day of Brahma”, after which it will die, and all its lower, material elements will disintegrate. After a period of rest, or “night of Brahma,” of the same duration, she will be born again. Our compatriot Helena Petrovna Blavatsky argued that these figures more or less correspond to the doctrine of the Trans-Himalayan Brotherhood, of which she was an envoy. But they diverge almost twice, that is, significantly, from the data of modern science, despite the detailed indication of the timing. Does this mean that ancient Indian teachings should be considered erroneous? Only if we accept the key assumptions on which the radiometric dating method is based, namely that radioactive decay began as soon as the Earth was formed, and that its rate has remained constant throughout the planet's history. We cannot verify these assumptions, but we can delve a little deeper into ancient ideas about the evolution of the Earth.

According to theosophical teachings brought to the West by H. P. Blavatsky, the evolution of the Earth can be represented in the form of a descending and ascending arc. During the first half of its life (descending arc), the Earth gradually densified from the original ethereal state into an increasingly dense state. Approximately 4.5 million years ago, the second half of the Earth's life began (the ascending arc), during which it gradually returned to the etheric state again. From the point of view of ancient philosophy, which combined science and metaphysics, radioactive decay is precisely a sign of etherization, decompression of the Earth. Currently, 118 chemical elements are known. All transuranic (atomic number greater than 92) elements are highly unstable; some do not exist in nature and are known only because they were artificially synthesized in a laboratory. It is very likely that several million years ago, when the Earth reached its point of maximum materiality, these chemical elements were more stable than they are today. With the beginning of the second period of the Earth's life (the ascending arc), the heaviest elements became the first to become radioactive. As the decompression process continues, the lighter elements will also become unstable and the rate of decay will increase.

Thus, the ancient teachings do not say that decay rates were different in the past, but they do say that most of the history of the Earth up to the present time has been characterized by the densification of matter - a process opposite to radioactivity. On an ascending arc, heavier elements tend to break down into lighter ones, while on a descending arc, lighter elements tend to combine into heavier ones. The radiometric dating method does not allow such a representation. It is believed, for example, that all the uranium in the mineral was present from the moment of its formation and that the lead was obtained mainly from the decay of uranium. The fact that uranium could have been obtained by materializing lead is simply not allowed. This leads to a significant overestimation of the real age of the sample. It turns out that this method can give good relative, but not absolute, numbers.

Scientists acknowledge that lighter elements can turn into heavier ones through nuclear fusion, but the prevailing view today is that this only happens at temperatures in the millions of degrees thought to exist in stars. However, biologist Louis Kervran and other researchers have shown that in both living organisms and the mineral world, some elements are converted to heavier elements without extreme heat and pressure. (Read more on our website in the article “Living Alchemists.”)

Today, there are the following discrepancies between ancient teachings and modern science in the dating of geological periods.

1. The Paleozoic era began approximately 240 million years ago (science: 540 million). It is divided into the Cambrian, Silurian, Ordovician, Devonshire, Coal, and Permian periods.

2. The Mesozoic era began approximately 44 million years ago (science: 245 million). It is divided into Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

3. The Cenozoic era began approximately 8 million years ago (science: 66.4 million). It is divided into Tertiary (divisions: Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene), Quaternary (divisions: Pleistocene, Holocene) periods.

4. The Quaternary period began with the Pleistocene ice age approximately 870,000 years ago (science: 1.6 million), which ended with the extinction of many species of large mammals approximately 10,000 years ago during the Holocene transition.

These discrepancies, obviously, can be eliminated if we assume that there existed (even in distant times) a process of compaction, the opposite of what is called radioactivity today. In other words, if we give the right to exist to one of the most ancient models of the evolution of our planet.

Let's summarize briefly. Even such a cursory comparison of the high-tech modern dating method with archaic teachings not only does not reject the latter, but, on the contrary, indicates promising ways of interaction. The ideas of ancient philosophy can remove contradictions in calculating the age of minerals if they are accepted and applied in the scientific community. And one can only guess how many wonderful discoveries await us when the happy time comes, not of archiving, but of careful study of ancient traditions and the keys to understanding the world order that they keep.

for the magazine "Man Without Borders"

The history of the Earth is imprinted on its stones. In places like the Grand Canyon, water eroding its walls exposes the layers of rock that formed the walls.

Because the old layers lie beneath the new ones, geologists can gain some insight into how the Earth's crust folded. But knowing that the deeper layers are older tells us nothing about their absolute age, that is, how old they are.

How was the age of the Earth previously calculated?

Scientists in the 19th century tried to calculate the age of the Earth based on the timing of rock formations in modern times. But they could only guess. According to their results, the age of our planet ranges from 3 million years to 1.5 billion years. The spread is 500 times; such a result cannot, of course, be called accurate. Naturally, another method was required. Scientists wanted to find a clock that, having been wound up at the moment of creation, would continue to run until our time. By looking at such a watch, one could accurately indicate the age of the Earth.

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Earth's center and mantle

How can you accurately calculate the age of the Earth?

And it turned out that such clocks exist: in rocks, trees and in the depths of the ocean. These natural clocks are radioactive elements that decay over time to form other elements. Determining the age of rocks or fossils using radioactive elements is called radiometric dating. A strictly defined portion of radioactive material decays per unit time. This fraction does not depend on the mass of the original radioactive substance.

Radiocarbon method

Let's take the radiocarbon dating method as an example. It is based on the fact that living organisms absorb both ordinary carbon-12 and its radioactive isotope, carbon-14, from air and water. It is assumed that the ratio of these two isotopes in water and air remains constant.

It is in this ratio that carbon isotopes are found in living organisms. When an organism ceases its mortal existence, after many years, the amount of ordinary carbon in its remains remains the same as it was at the time of death, and the radioactive isotope decays (carbon-14). This isotope decays by half within 5730 years. So by measuring the ratio of two carbon isotopes in the remains of a once-living organism, scientists can determine the age of those remains.

Interesting fact : Radioactive elements can serve as natural clocks because radioactive decay follows strict timing patterns.

Checking the results

Of course, none of the dating methods can be considered completely reliable. Therefore, geologists study several radioactive elements, such as uranium or thorium, in addition to carbon-14, to be sure. Scientists check their results by performing duplicate tests with different radioactive isotopes on the same material. Sometimes the two methods give different results. For example, geologists took samples of a coral reef off the coast of Barbados for research.

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They measured the carbon content, as well as uranium and thorium. If the coral is “young”, that is, no older than 9000 years, then all methods give the same results. But if the coral turns out to be older, then the results may not be clear. The uranium-thorium method established the age of the coral at 20,000 years, and the carbon method - only 17,000 years. What is the reason for such a big difference? And which method is more accurate? Scientists believe that the uranium-thorium method is more accurate, because the radiocarbon method has previously given ambiguous or even dubious results.