As I mentioned in my post, “Age of the World is a Critical Issue for Understanding the Bible”, Dr. Humphreys reveals in his book Evidence for a Young World that there is a great deal of evidence for the short timescale given in the Bible: galaxies wind themselves up too fast, comets disintegrate too quickly, not enough mud on the seafloor, not enough sodium in the sea, the earth’s magnetic field is decaying too fast, biological materials (found in dinosaur bones) decay too fast, too much helium in minerals, and too much carbon -14 in deep geologic strata.

Last post we looked at the earths magnetic field and the fact it is decaying too fast for the world’s history to be more than thousands of years, certainly not billions.

Dr. Humphreys was part of a very important RATE project (Radioisotopes and the age of the Earth). It involved eleven Ph.D. scientists pictured below. This helped answer a major old-earth argument about radiometric-dating.

Dr Humphreys work concerned small, hard mineral crystals called zircons, which often contain radioactive elements. As these decay, they produce helium. Helium leaks out quickly due to its very small hard atoms. The hotter the material the faster it leaks out. Dr Humphreys measured amounts of helium in zircons, and compared it to the amount expected from the decay and helium leakage measured in the laboratory.

Zircon crystals from a borehole in New Mexico have a helium leakage of about 6000 years. In contrast the uranium-lead age of the crystals is about 1.5 billion years. The uranium-lead age of course assumes that the decay rate is the same slow rate we measure today.

The Bible reveals that God created a mature world. Hence the Rate Team believes the decay rate initially was speeded up, also the catastrophic plate tectonic upheaval at Noah’s Flood would have had an effect on the decay rate. It cannot be assumed that no daughter elements existed at the beginning and the decay rate was uniform.

There is a great deal of evidence for a young world that supports the Bible’s history of around 6000 years, certainly not billions of years.

The book and video, Evidence for a Young World are available from http://www.creation.com.