NOTE: This document is for personal use only. It is not to be distributed in either print or electronic format.
Richard Bottomley
Argon-Argon Geochronologist
Canadian University College
FOR: Faith and Science Conference, Glacier View Ranch, CO — August 2003
I have been asked to explain why, as an Adventist and a believer in a Creator
God, that I am convinced that God is actually telling us that the earth has a
long history. I assume everyone here is familiar with the basic ideas of
inorganic radiometric dating (the non-14C dating methods) and has seen
comparisons of how different radiometric methods often give the same age for the
same rocks. So I am not going to try to overwhelm you by flashing screen after
screen of data tables and graphs today. You know this data exists. However, I
believe that most of you are troubled by these methods and are convinced there
is a hidden flaw or inherent bias somewhere in the works. I have experienced the
same pain and perplexity that you have faced in dealing with this data during
the growth of my Christian life. My choice of college majors – religion and
physics – was based on the immutable belief that the two books must be in
harmony in their witness to God and His kingdom. Remember that while God has
been a physicist for nearly 14 billion years, He has only been a theologian for
the last six thousand!
It appears that very few people in the Adventist church feel there is any reason
to believe that rocks can be dated accurately, whereas most other Christians
have no problem with these techniques. When one looks at why this is so, certain
evidence or reasons are always given. These evidences are commonly taught (and
preached) whenever the subject of creation is brought up. The most common of
these arguments is that God could have changed the radioactive decay constants
during the flood to make the young rocks look older and we would never know the
difference. Indeed, some short-term creationists believe that the constants may
have changed by a factor of as much as a million times to make rocks look old as
they do today. So what I would like to do is to examine this major and
widespread line of reasoning to show that it has been considered by
geochronologists and why it can be safely ruled out. And while this is certainly
the most commonly heard objection, I can assure you that all other objections to
radiometric dating have also been carefully explored by the geochronological
community.
To understand the background of this "change of constants" objection to the age
dating of rocks, we first look at how God constructed the matter of the
universe. It is an interesting design problem from God's point of view, and I
will outline the design of the underlying processes in a conversational manner
for clarity. This approach is clearly anthropomorphic, and I am in no way
implying that God actually used this order of thoughts during the design of the
universe.
The Design
To have a world that is as complex as ours, God needed about 100 elements, such
as hydrogen, carbon, iron etc. We all remember the periodic table from High
School, which is the basis of all chemistry. All 100 elements are based on the
same fundamental building blocks, two electrically charged particles – the
proton and the electron. Each element has of a nucleus with protons, surrounded
by an equal number of electrons.
Starting with hydrogen, the lightest element, the position of each new element
on the periodic table is created by adding one new proton to the nucleus.
Hydrogen has one proton, helium two protons, lithium has three and so on, right
up the chart. But, as God thought about using these basic building blocks, an
immediate problem arose. Electrical charges of the same sign repel each other
and do so with great force! It takes millions of electron volts of energy to
push just two protons next to each other, and the minute you let them go, they
fly off in opposite directions at high velocity. This meant that hydrogen was
the only stable element. A universe consisting of only hydrogen was possible but
not very interesting. There were no stable compound nuclei, and thus no periodic
table. Yet the design of terrestrial planets and life required the use of a
variety of electron clouds held in place by the positive charges on the nuclei
to create all of the richness of life and matter that we have come to know as
the universe. What could be done?
God simply developed another attractive force called the Strong Force which
didn't feel electrical charge, and which acted only at distances of trillionth
of a millimeter. This force was always attractive to protons but didn't affect
electrons. Thus it only had effect when you force the protons right next to each
other. Short range nuclear glue! Great idea! But even this couldn't keep
multiple proton nuclei together by itself. However, by creating a third
particle, which was electrically neutral, but otherwise identical to the proton,
the combination of protons and this new particle became stable for a large
number of combinations. This glue particle is called the neutron and it helps to
keep the nucleus together despite the very strong electrical repulsion of the
protons. The periodic system of elements now works beautifully. God could now
construct a universe with the periodic table we know so well. (For completeness,
God also created a third force called the Weak force which is also involved in
nuclei but at ranges even smaller than the range of the Strong force).
The neutron does introduce some unwanted complexity though. There can now be
many different versions of the same element differing only in neutron number.
Each isotope as they are called, will act chemically the same except for their
weight. Now the universe can have several thousand building block combinations
instead of the original one hundred because we can have multiple isotopes of
each element.
The Clocks
God now had a rich palette with enough elements to construct a universe as
complex as the surface of this planet. But many of these isotopes, and all
elements above number 83 (Bismuth) are not happy campers. They are unstable and
will decay into simpler isotopes in several ways in a process called radioactive
decay. Of these thousands of possible isotopes, most have too much internal
energy for their size and composition. The nuclear glue only holds for a short
time, before the nucleus starts to disintegrate by radioactive decay. Most decay
to stable nuclei in a matter of seconds or minutes after their creation. But
several have very low decay rates and still exist today. The rates at which they
decay are measurable and steady like the ticking of a clock. So if we put a box
of minerals away and come back years later we find the ratio of isotopes in the
minerals has changed; and changed in a predictable, time-related way, which can
be modeled by mathematics. Using some sophisticated measurements and some simple
assumptions, this time-related information can be extracted from minerals and
rocks. In some cases this will yield the age of the origin of the rock in
question.
Measurement of the ages of earth rocks using inorganic age dating methods yields
a continuum of ages between 4 billion to 2000 years ago. There are many
different and independent "clock" systems in rocks, which can be used depending
on the rock type and the event you are trying to date. It is a common
misconception that all dating is done to determine the time of origin of the
rock. Determination of the timing of later metamorphic or igneous events is
often the target of these investigations. Let me emphasize here that what we
measure in the lab is a ratio of daughter to parent isotopes and then we use
reasonable (and usually) testable assumptions to convert these measurements into
ages.
Now we probably know these facts already, so what's to stop God from just
adjusting the constants whenever He chooses? He is God after all. Here is the
key. The radioactive decay law actually models a statistical or stochastic
process, not a determinate process such as dynamic motion, which you know is
based on Newton's famous laws. When we calculate how much of the radioactive
parent will decay to its daughter element in a given time, we can predict the
behavior of the group of atoms as a whole but not the behavior of any particular
atom itself. The group behavior is described by a decay constant, which is not a
constant at all in the usual sense of the term, but simply a probability that a
given atom will decay in a given length of time. So, when people wonder if decay
constants could have changed in the past, it is not as simple a notion as
suggesting that the speed of light or the gravitational constant may have
changed in the past. We are really asking what would God have to do to speed up
the rate of decay. The answer is that God would have to change the underlying
processes that give rise to decay. There is no magical dial in heaven that God
can rotate to change the decay constants alone, He must change the strength of
the underlying glues themselves (electrical, strong and weak) – the very nuclear
forces which give us the periodic table. These determine the statistical rate of
decay, which we perhaps misleadingly call "constants".
Let's assume for a moment that God did reduce the nuclear glue strength in order
to make young rocks look old. The main difficulty is that even a slight
adjustment, let alone by orders of magnitude, of these forces would result in a
total collapse of all the elements into just protons and electrons. The earth
would disappear as we know it. Even if we assume that the planet had not
disintegrated, the heat energy given off would be more than enough to melt the
planet and the radiation levels would be lethal everywhere. And even if the
gluing problems and heat problems and the radiation problems could somehow be
overcome, the result would be many normally non-radioactive elements now
becoming radioactive because of the weaker glue, and we would find these
elements and their daughter products still with us because of the short period
between the flood and the present day. But we do not find any indication of
this. In fact the only radioactive elements found today that aren't produced on
an ongoing basis by naturally occurring processes have half lives on the order
of 100 million years or more, exactly what you would predict if the creation of
the planet was billions of years ago.
Also, the biochemistry of life is exquisitely fine-tuned to very weak bonding
forces, which allow the stereochemical synthesis of the proteins needed for life
at the cellular level. The electronic arrangements responsible for this
synthesis are governed by what atoms are involved in their construction of their
molecules. If the underlying atoms suddenly started to transmute into different
atoms because the glue strength started to change, life as we know it would
cease.
We just do not find any scientific evidence that would support a shift in the
basic forces that God used to make up the earth. So we can say with some
confidence, that this didn't happen. The ticking speed of the clocks in the
rocks has not been adjusted to give false readings.
This, of course, is only the most commonly heard objection to age dating of
rocks. You may have heard other objections such as:
But geochronologists find all these other arguments unconvincing, even the more technically sophisticated ones. These explanations either fail outright, or are examples of biased induction or can't explain the data as well as the simple explanation that the rocks really are the age that the radioactive clocks say they are.
If the Clocks are Right?
What should we take from all this in my opinion? Of interest to us is the fact
that it is radiometric dating which gives the actual ages in years to the
stratigraphic periods of the geologic column. (In Adventist literature, this is
often incorrectly called the "evolutionary time scale".) With or without the
fossil record the clocks in the rocks would give the same ages, their "ticking
rate" is independent of any record of life in the same rocks. And although the
methods are not perfect, there is no scientific doubt that there is a steady
increase in measured age as we move down the geological column from top to
bottom. Mostly importantly, repeated measurements on rocks from any particular stratigraphic unit give the same age, even if samples come from different areas
around the world. Because many of the rocks in the geologic column have evidence
of organisms in them, there is no scientific doubt that life (and death) has
been on this planet for millions of years. The data from geology are consistent
with a model of an old earth, which has undergone many processes and episodes
over periods of billions of years. The radiometric age data do not fit a young
earth model. The predictions of a young-earth flood model do not in any way
match what we see in the age data record.
As a practitioner of geochronology, I have not found any reasonable, logical or
scientific way to impugn the interpretation of this data as anything other than
the ages they represent. Nor to my knowledge have any of the other Adventists
who are geochronologists. As such, I believe an honest assessment of the data
from radiometric dating must be made when addressing the question of the
validity of a short chronology point of view. I know this is not a message we
want to hear, but we need not be fearful if it moves us closer to a clearer
picture of how God creates and sustains our world. Happily, the Christian church
has always survived its own predictions of doom when faced with some new
revelation from God's natural world.
A Few Points of Comfort
Yes!
Believing the earth is young is a perfectly valid position as long as we are
clear that it is:
This last point is the most difficult. Many scientist who personally believe in a young earth leave the impression with their audiences that because they are scientists, everything they say about creation has been proven by the scientific method which includes carefully and honestly weighing all data whether it supports our position or not. Doing science is more than using scientific jargon, or equations or making scientific prognostications which we never seriously test. Doing science includes using all the components of the scientific method including addressing the presently known data, making new models and rejecting ones that fail. That means honestly facing the data that is known and trying to model and predict in a testable way. Ignoring testable data constructions to the extent that we do in the young earth movement is not really the scientific method, but rather the buttressing of what is really a faith statement using sciencespeak. In the young earth creation movement we presently ignore not only the simple interpretation of the age data, but also the data of rock magnetism, heat flow, plate tectonics, stratigraphic, sedimentology, terrestrial cratering, energy conservation and more – not on scientific grounds, but simply because we don't know how to fit them into a young earth model. Sometimes the simplest explanation is really the correct explanation.
Can dishonesty explain why the age data supports an old earth model? This is
unlikely on several grounds. A recent survey of American scientists revealed
that about 40% of them believed in a miracle-working, prayer-answering God. My
own empirical observations (in the physical sciences) would boost this to a
level closer to 60-70% when you include other theists who believe in God, but
not at such an interventionist level. When you have this many Christians in the
scientific community, why would they not advance data or interpretations of a
recent young earth and universal flood if there really was any data which met
the criteria of the scientific method and supported this view?
And remember, worldwide and historical fame accompanies anyone who overturns any
presently accepted scientific paradigm. Are all these Christian scientists dumb?
Stupid? Are they all under the control of the devil perhaps? If the data for a
young earth is so obvious and compelling as we have been lead to believe, to
what do we attribute this deafening silence? It is in scientists best interests
both spiritually and professionally to advance any evidence of a young earth
paradigm!
If the flood really happened just a few thousand years ago then surely a flood model would more accurately describe the natural world, than an aged earth model, right? The oil industry spends billions of dollars every year on prospecting for oil. Yet they use an aged earth model. And it works. If the flood model was really a much better description of what happened geologically, would they use it? In a New York minute! I can assure you that they would have no hesitation if it was more effective or economical. When it comes to looking for oil, the bottom line is king.
But if we accept the data from age dating, would we not be theologically adrift
in a sea of uncertainty and chaos? In our personal struggle to comprehend these
issues we can take great comfort. There is no question that we can pose about
this issue that someone, somewhere hasn't wrestled with before. There are
myriads of thoughtfully written papers and books on this issue. We do not have
to reinvent the wheel. And for every outmoded view of God we leave behind, a new
clearer picture of God emerges to take its place. We don't lose – we gain!
I believe we need to learn to state our theology and beliefs in a way that is
not wholly dependent on the literal veracity of a young earth model in order to
be relevant, if not for every believer perhaps, then as a parallel path to
understanding the Adventist message. The current idea that if we do not support
a young earth-deluge model we cannot be Christians seems to be pathological
theology. Why would we knowingly structure our beliefs as a row of dominoes when
we know knocking down one destroys the whole structure? Take heart – throughout
the ages, the church has always survived when it thought it couldn't accept a
new view of nature. Yet the Christian Church has indeed survived and learned to
speak a newly relevant view of God's eternal principles to each succeeding
generation.
The evidence is still with us! No matter what God chose to do during creation or what processes He used, He left behind the final product – our earth and the life on it. The evidence is still here for us to study! Not only that, but from astronomy and cosmology we are learning more about how God did and does things from the study of the sinless universe every day! God allows us to probe nature with appropriate methodologies. So far, nature has always yielded answers to properly phrased questions. And as Christians we have been happy to accept the advances of the scientific method in our daily living. God has not blocked us from progressing using the scientific method even in such seemingly dangerous fields as cellular reproduction and cloning. It appears that He wants us to continue to probe nature. Surely if we go too far, God will block nature from answering our questions. But until then, is it not our duty to continue to try to understand the natural world and its history as much as we can? Is this not what we will do during eternity? And is this not part of living faithfully today in God's kingdom on earth?