Can science prove the age of the earth?

Originally posted by menace71
98. Length of recorded history. Origin of various civilizations, writing, etc., all about the same time several thousand years ago. See Evidence for a young world.

99. Languages. Similarities in languages claimed to be separated by many tens of thousands of years speaks against the supposed ages (e.g. compare some aboriginal languages in Australia with ...[text shortened]... ast 6 or 7K years ....something does not match up with what we are taught main stream

Manny

if we've been here millions of years then where is the written history ?

The reason is obviously; writing wasn't invented until within the last few thousand years. So of course there was no written history millions of years ago! Do you suppose primitive cavemen wrote books?

Am I to believe man has been around for millions of years but only learned to read and write in the last 6 or 7000 years ?

yes. Why imply the surprise? How can man learn to read and write well before writing was invented? Would you claim that you would have learned to read or write if you were a caveman back then who never heard of or seen writing? Would you have figured it out all out for yourself? You have the benefit of hindsight now but it wouldn't have been an obvious concept to come up with back then! Writing is a highly unnatural concept that people wouldn't generally independently come up with! I mean, think about it -a series of shapes you can make (symbols ) that represent sounds and meanings so that you can preserve and/or transport information/messages; -were the hell would you get that idea from back then!!! No wonder it took millions of years before someone came up with it!
Even if you were back then and you suggested the idea, I would guess the typical response might have been; "What's the point? If you want so say something, why not just say it!?".

Same with cities and agriculture did we just suddenly learn to build cities and farm in the last 6 or 7K years

I am guessing it was probably a gradual process over hundreds of years. And the reason why they didn't do so before is partly because the technological know-how how to do so didn't exist well before then. Again, if you lived back then, would you have figured it out all out for yourself? -even though you wouldn't have ever seen or heard of a brick/stone building let alone been shown how to build one!? Again, you have the benefit of hindsight now but it wouldn't have been an obvious concept to come up with back then!

In fact, despite my highly creative imagination, not even I would claim that I would have even come close to figuring it all out and invented writing and how to build cities if I was a caveman back then! (and would have died very ignorant and probability with a very short brutal life ) .
Remember, there was no science a million years ago to allow such innovation ; just ignorance, religion (I would guess there was religion back then but not sure ) and stupid superstition -which would not make fertile ground for such innovations!

Originally posted by menace71
98. Length of recorded history. Origin of various civilizations, writing, etc., all about the same time several thousand years ago. See Evidence for a young world.

99. Languages. Similarities in languages claimed to be separated by many tens of thousands of years speaks against the supposed ages (e.g. compare some aboriginal languages in Australia with ...[text shortened]... ast 6 or 7K years ....something does not match up with what we are taught main stream

Manny

Am I to believe mankind has been around for thousands of years but has only just learned how to make iPhones?

Originally posted by menace71
Am I to believe man has been around for millions of years but only learned to read and write in the last 6 or 7000 years ? Same with cities and agriculture did we just suddenly learn to build cities and farm in the last 6 or 7K years ....something does not match up with what we are taught main stream

How much do you know of the history of writing and agriculture? Can you tell us how many times either was discovered/invented in the last 6000 years?
How many groups of people during that time did not invent them? Why did the groups that did not invent them fail to do so?

"100. Common cultural "myths" speak of recent separation of peoples around the world. An example of this is the frequency of stories of an earth-destroying flood."

This applies only to the myths we happen to know about, which were recorded in writing and survived to our time.

"101. . Origin of agriculture. Secular dating puts it at about 10,000 years and yet that same chronology says that modern man has supposedly been around for at least 200,000 years. Surely someone would have worked out much sooner how to sow seeds of plants to produce food. See: Evidence for a young world."

This is not evidence for a young earth; only for a young written history of human development.

The origin of agriculture depended on several factors, including (but not limited to) the permanent retreat of ice sheets after the last ice age, social/cultural/political development of settlements, and several technological advances (such as metal implements for plowing, which required iron ore sources, smelting furnaces/charcoal-fired kilns, etc.). The development of writing took place during this period, too, so it is no wonder that no written records survive from the period before the establishment of agriculture. This is poor evidence for the age of the earth however.

Now, to set the chronology straight: The last glacial period, popularly known as the Ice Age, was the most recent glacial period occurring during the last years of the Pleistocene, from approximately 110,000 to 12,000 years ago. H. Saps existed before the ice age living in a very primitive state (hunter-gatherers, illiterate, non-numerate)--as fossil evidence indicates. Man survived that ice age only by following heard animals--during the ice age there were no settlements because there was no bare ground to plow, there was only bare subsistence with no time/need/resources to develop political institutions, writing, metal implements (iron ore smelting etc.). The ice has retreated by about 12,000 BC, the ground is laid bare, people settle, gradually discover how to smelt ores, make metal implements, learn to plow, begin to develop the social and civic institutions necessary to maintain settled life, which includes laws and law books (i.e., writing).

This account may have to be adjusted in details or the exact order in which things occurred, but it is broadly is consistent with the physical evidence available, without contorting the evidence to confirm a pre-conceived ideology. It accounts for the fact that the history available to us in writing is recent.

As to whether this constitutes "proof", well, that is a matter of definition. I believe that any scientist who is honest about what he is doing would say that science provides a best hypothesis based on available evidence, and that hypotheses are always in principle revisable. For some people, only what is absolute, immutable and never revised constitutes "proof".

"100. Common cultural "myths" speak of recent separation of peoples around the world. An example of this is the frequency of stories of an earth-destroying flood. "

Rather a lot depends on what you think is common. In Hindu mythology, which is common in Asia, the age of the universe is reckoned in Great Years—one great year encompasses 430,000 years, there are four Great Years to a Grand Cycle of creation and destruction, and there are indefinitely many Grand Cycles.
The story of the flood can be plausibly linked to the ice ages. When the great ice sheets which had covered most of the northern hemisphere started melting, the levels of the seas, lakes and rivers must have risen, giving rise widespread legends of a general flood. This did not mark the end of the world, however, just the end of the last ice age.

EDIT: there IS a written record, of sorts, which pre-dates the usual Young Earth age of roughly 6,000 years by an order of magnitude:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29415716

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Am I to believe mankind has been around for thousands of years but has only just learned how to make iPhones?

The iphone was actually put on sale for the first time in the so-called year 2007.
The world is actually only 14 years old and started in the so-called year of 2000 -which is actually year one because the false lying atheistic calender is designed by evil atheists and scientists.
Anyone who denies this known fact is evil and immoral and is part of a vast world wide atheistic conspiracy just to spite Bugs Bunny and the true creationists that rightly believe the world is 14 years old and Noah's flood happened last year as proved from the holly word of Bugs Bunny, the only true God that speaks to us all today. You all know deep down this is the truth.
Open your heart and just listen to the Bugs Bunny voice within you. Can't you hear voices in your head? Can't you hear him?

Originally posted by moonbus
The story of the flood can be plausibly linked to the ice ages.

Except there is absolutely no motivation for such a link. Floods are common world wide and always have been, why look for a particular flood or set of floods to attribute stories to?
Even in Livingstone, Zambia, which has the least annual rainfall in the country, there are floods every year, and some years, bridges get washed away, or houses get flooded.
Most of Western Province of Zambia is a flood plain and the people there traditionally have to move each year to the edge of the flood plain to avoid being washed away.
No ice age required.

Originally posted by menace71
98. Length of recorded history. Origin of various civilizations, writing, etc., all about the same time several thousand years ago. See Evidence for a young world.

Do cave paintings count?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting

~ 40,000 years

Originally posted by Paul Dirac II
Do cave paintings count?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting

~ 40,000 years

That's something cave paintings .....It just seems that technology has exploded in the last 6000 years or so and yet man has been around (if you ascribe to that) for over 100,000 years I would think that man would of started writing and things of that nature more than 6000 years ago and I agree in the last 100 years the explosion is amazing I bet graphed out it would look like a 90 degree up spike

Manny

Also I believe that some technology now being used was once used before and that some things were lost but that man by nature will always push the boundaries of what is possible through technology .....I guess I'm going conspiracy here a bit .....ancient technology may have been more advance in some cases

Manny

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_technology



Manny

Originally posted by RBHILL
http://www.raptureforums.com/CreationVsEvolution/ageoftheearth.cfm

101 evidences for a young age of the earth and the universe
By Don Batten
Published: 4 June 2009(GMT+10)

Some examples:

Human history is consistent with a young age of the earth

96. Human population growth. Less than 0.5% p.a. growth from six people 4,500 years ago would produce ...[text shortened]... ked out much sooner how to sow seeds of plants to produce food. See: Evidence for a young world.

Please.
This is the Science Forum.
The only reason YECers spout this moronic twaddle is as a desperate grasping at straws to support their simplistic take on the Bible - you won't find any non-Christian YECers.

Where are all the people?
If one supposes that there were originally two people and that they sired two more people who also sired two more people and so on and so on, it is easy to get the impression that there must have been billions of people within only a few generations. 2 to the 25th power (that is, 25 generations) already makes 33 and a half million, and 25 generations would have amounted to 1250 years (average lifespan of 50 years). Double the generations to 50 and the number is a whopping 16 digits long. So, where are all those people? And where are all their bones?
The aswer is multifarious, but basically reduces to this: there never were that many people, and that is why we don't find that many bones.
A) because the infant mortality rate was very high compared to today--some estimates range as high as 30 to 50 percent infant mortality. (http://historymedren.about.com/od/medievalchildren/a/child_survival_2.htm). Infant mortality rates declined dramatically only in the early part of the 20th c. with the advent of effective vaccines, antibiotics, and public hygiene/sanitation systems.
B) because food production would not sustain high populations until very recently with advent of mass-production, fertilizers and pesticides, refrigeration, and conservation chemistry. See for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
World population began to soar about 1900.
C) because infectious diseases took heavy tolls (it is estimated that the Black Plague killed one quarter of the population in Europe).
D) because bones decay; not every bone which is buried gets petrified to be found thousands of years later.
E) because not everyone who is born reproduces (hence the original equation of 2 to the x power is mathematically correct but emprically falacious).

Originally posted by menace71
That's something cave paintings .....It just seems that technology has exploded in the last 6000 years or so and yet man has been around (if you ascribe to that) for over 100,000 years I would think that man would of started writing and things of that nature more than 6000 years ago and I agree in the last 100 years the explosion is amazing I bet graphed out it would look like a 90 degree up spike

Manny

"yet man has been around (if you ascribe to that) for over 100,000 years I would think that man would of started writing and things of that nature more than 6000 years ago"

Man started writing only after he settled. Nomads have no need of writing; indeed, the implements and accouterments for producing and preserving writings are an encumbrance to nomads. Man settled only when agriculture produced more food and more reliably than hunting did. Agriculture became possible only after the ice receeded, by about 12,000 BC. That is why writing and other technologies (especially those dependent on the mining and production of metals) developed relatively late in mankind's evolution.

I suppose it is possible that agriculture, settlements, and technology developed BEFORE the ice ages--100,000 or more years earlier--and that these things had to be rediscovered after the ice receeded. But there is no evidence of this.

Originally posted by Pianoman1
Please.
This is the Science Forum.
The only reason YECers spout this moronic twaddle is as a desperate grasping at straws to support their simplistic take on the Bible - you won't find any non-Christian YECers.

I agree totally. The spiritual ones are constantly trying to make the Science Forum to a spiritual forum. This thread is their latest try. And we constantly fall into their trap. We discuss YEC "science".

"Spiritual science" should be discussed in the Spiritual Forum and there alone.

Don't feed the spiritual trolls.