224
May 1929
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
How Old Is the Earth? B y D udley J oseph W h itney Exeter, California
The salt is increasing rapidly in the ocean, and every year that rivers flowed into the ocean during past time it in creased. If the ocean had been fresh to begin with, the earth would be only 70,000,000 years old now, provided present conditions offer a fair guide to the past; but if the ocean was not fresh, but partly salt to begin with, the earth would be very much less than 70,000,000 years old. That proposition is plain and simple for any man of ordinary intelligence. Remember it and then look at Gregory’s estimate of 700,000,000 years since the beginning of the alleged Paleozoic age, or (roughly) 1,400,000,000 years as the full age of the earth. The salt measure of geologic time is a legitimate measure as far as it goes, but Gregory calmly ignores it and takes an estimate 20 times as long. A thing like that is not science, it is .anti-science, a shameful trampling under feet of a plain simple fact. I am going to return to that matter of whether the ocean was salt to begin with or not, but first I will quote McCabe a little more and give his excuse for not using the salt measure and another like it. There was always a recognized weakness in this estimate. It supposes that through all geological time the rivers bore to the sea much the same proportion as they do today. The same weak ness, one may say the. same unjustifiable assumption, lay in the purely geological method of. calculating the age of the earth. The rivers bear mud and sand and stones to the sea, where new strata are formed; and patient investigation can find what bur den of sediment the great rivers transfer from the land to the ocean bottom every year. (This is the second measure of geo logic time.) American geologists have thus calculated how much of their precious land is deposited on the floor of the Atlantic and Pacific every year. When the majority of geologists working along this line reached a conclusion not very different—between fifty and a hundred million years for the formation of the strati fied rocks—it seemed very impressive. McCabe also ref ers to a third method of time measure ment worked out by Lord Kelvin on astronomical lines, which fitted excellently with the other two measurements, but we will not deal with that, particularly since Kelvin was wrong in his basic assumptions. This is McCabe’s excuse for not using the two mea sures of geologic time just described: The fallacy or weakness in both cases is to suppose that dur ing all geological time the rivers bore, on the average, much the same load of sediment [and I might say, salt too.—D. J. W.] to the seas that they do today. It is a big assumption in the case of a globe which, as we. now know, has had so many ups and downs in the course of its life. In other words, McCabe sees the rate at which both salt and sediment are being washed into the ocean and he refuses to use that measure because he does not know that the rate was the same in the past as it is now. He makes this the excuse for assuming the earth to be twenty times as old as these measures justify, even on top of the unwar ranted assumption that the oceans were fresh to begin with. This is, in effect, assuming that the rivers in the past averaged only one-twentieth as much of a burden of salt and sediment as they carry now. I assert flatly and emphatically that this assumption is contrary to reason and science, therefore that modern
I ^ P g H I S is a question of the utmost importance in connect’on with the problem of the Bible and science. For instance, these scientists who have the public ear and do not accept the Bible, assert 'MAj that the earth is millions of years old, and they speak of man living a million years ago and cer tain'plants and animals living hundreds of millions of years ago. Not only is this time scale definitely in conflict with Genesis, but if that time scale is wrong, the whole theory of earth history held by the evolutionists falls into a collapse. It is of the utmost importance, therefore, to ex amine these claims about the age of the earth and to find what the truth is. The proposition I put forward is that— as a matter of science—the earth is not as old as the evo lutionists assert and cannot possibly be that old. The evi dence in favor of this proposition is very simple and plain. As to the age given to the earth I will cite William K. Gregory, of the American Museum of Natural History, in an article published in Evolution for January, 1929: “If we accept Barrell’s estimates based on the rate of dis integration of uranium into lead and helium [note par ticularly how this man measures time], we find that even the Lower Pliocene is only some six million years distant from us . .'. .” He goes on to assert that the beginning of the Paleozoic was 700,000,000 years ago, which would make the geologic age of the earth a billion and a half years, or even more. Note that age, for it is a critical point. As it happens, the noted infidel lecturer, Joseph Mc Cabe, in the same issue discusses the amount of time which he figures remains during which life can exist on this earth, and speaks of various,ways for calculating time. H will ask special attention to the methods he de scribes and will use his own words, as he expresses him self well: Until twenty years ago we had three chief ways of determin ing the age of the earth, which is closely connected with the question how long it will be fitted to sustain life. The water of the ocean was originally fresh, because its salts are being actually conveyed into it today by the rivers. That is astounding reasoning for a scientist, if any one asks you about it. If he had said that the ocean was formerly not as salty as it is now, every one could agree with him, but to say that it was originally fresh on account of the reason he gives, makes me gasp. However, we will proceed: The water itself notoriously, evaporates, leaving the salt behind, and returns, with a fresh burden of salt, in the rivers. In other words, the proportion of salt in the ocean is steadily increasing, and by analysis of the water of many rivers we can ascertain, roundly, what quantity of salt is added to it yearly. Obviously, the further we go back in past time, the less salt there would be in the ocean, and it is a fairly simple mathematical sum to determine how far back we must go to find the waters of the earth free from salt. Somewhere about seventy million years, said the experts. Now, except for the folly of assuming that the ocean was originally fresh, I maintain that this is an excellent way of measuring the age of the earth, looking at the mat ter aside from the Bible and in a strictly naturalistic way.
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker