Thousands or Billions? by RoseAnn Salanitri
Also, check out this excellent creation website: http://creation.com/
Anyone engaged in the creation/evolution debate understands how crucial the issue of long ages
is to the theory of evolution - given enough time, even the impossible seems possible.  On the
other hand, a literal interpretation of creation in Genesis states that God created everything in
six days approximately 6,000 years ago.  
    Evolutionists assume that fossils in the lower geologic layers must be older than those in the
upper, which is based on their belief that the layers took long ages to develop.  They use this
"assumption" to designate the age of the fossils found in these layers. Then they proceed to
assign ages to the layers the fossils were found in by citing the age of the fossils that were found
in those layers.  Confused?  You should be.  Creationists have always objected to the circular
reasoning employed in these assumptions.  Empirical (and observable) evidence to refute the
evolutionists' assumptions that the layers took long ages to develop surfaced after the Mt. St.
Helen's eruption, when these same geologic layers were laid down in a 24-hour period - hardly a
long age by anyone's interpretation. However, evolutionary-believing geologists largely ignored
this observable fact.
    Several years ago the Institute for Creation Research and the Creation Research Society (both
creation science think tanks that consist of hundreds of PhDs in a myriad of scientific fields)
decided to address the conflict by joining forces and putting together a scientific study regarding
the age of the Earth and radioisotope dating.  The project was named R.A.T.E., an acronym for
Radioisotope Age of The Earth, and it was conducted by some of the most accomplished
scientists in these two organizations.  Dr. Larry Vardiman,, professor of Atmospheric Science and
Project Manager, summarized the main findings:
    1.  A large amount of radioisotope decay has occurred.
    2.  Conventional radioisotope dates differ radically.
    3.  Nuclear processes were accelerated during certain periods of earth's history; and
    4.  Helium diffusion and carbon-14 dating in diamonds is strong evidence for a young earth.
    One of the contributing physicists, Dr. Russ Humphreys, stated that the amount of helium that
exists in zircons indicates that a lot of radioactive decay has happened quickly in the recent past
or the helium would have had time to escape.  A contributing geophysicist, Dr. John
Baumgardner, stated that the carbon-14 (which is found in most fossil material) is a short-lived
radioisotope that cannot survive for millions of years.  This carbon in coal and diamonds indicates
that they are only thousands of years old.
    For more information on the R.A.T.E. project, you can read the book "Radioisotopes and the
Age of the Earth Volume II" (technical) by Dr. Don DeYoung, or "Thousands...Not Billions"
(non-technical).  An informative article by Dr. Jason Lisle of AiG-USA entitled "RATE research
reveals remarkable results - a fatal blow to billions of years" can be read online at the Answers in
Genesis website:  www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/1107rate.asp.
    Perhaps there are those who will always support long ages, but one must ask why.
    The following arguments (1-3) are from Jonathan Sarfati's book "Refuting Compromise".  This is
an excellent work and we advise anyone who is interested in the Young Earth argument to read
the revised edition and all his arguments, which are more than the ones we have listed here.
    1.  The Earth's Magnetic Field Decay - The earth's magnetic field has been decaying so fast that
it couldn't be more than about 10,000 years old.  Rapid reversals during the Flood year, and
fluctuations shortly after, just caused the field energy to drop even faster (p 333).  In the more
detailed explanation for the above statement, Sarfati references many works that support this
conclusion, including his own work "The Earth's Magnetic Field: Evidence that the Earth is
Young," Creation 20(2)"15-19 (March-May 1998); www.answersingenesis.org/magfield>.
    2.  Helium in the Rocks - Evolutionists assume that helium comes from alpha-decay of certain
radioactive elements in the rocks.  Helium atoms are very small and chemically unreactive so can
quickly diffuse from rocks,  yet so much helium is still in some rocks that it couldn't have had time
to escape - certainly not billions of years.  This is strong evidence that nuclear decay rates were
much faster at some time in the past (p 341).
    In support of the above argument, Sarfati references R. Humphreys, "The Earth's Magnetic
Field Is Still Losing Energy" CRSQ 39(1)1-11 (March 2002)
www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/39/39_1/GeoMag.htm.  Since Sarfati's book was written,
The RATE project has been completed, which further supports these claims.
    Since all of Sarfati's claims are worth reading, we urge you to pick up a copy of his book.  It will
prove to be a valuable resource in the Young Earth debate.  Since the evidence supporting a
Young Earth is constantly growing, we urge anyone interested to go beyond this writing and
research the matter for themselves.