Inspired by this thread started by roli, I thought it would be interesting to consider how things would be if the Earth were actually 6000 years old.
I'm going to show my bias for geology over biology here, but everyone else is free to add points as they see fit.
If the Earth were actually 6000 years old, I can think of a few big things that would be different:
Compasses would flip direction every 30 years on average
The crystal structure of the rocks in the sea floor show about 200 geomagnetic reversals, or instances when the poles flipped: south became north and north became south.
Modern science says that the sea floor is 200 million years old at its oldest (since it is constantly welling up from mid-ocean spreading ridges, sliding across and subducting under continental plates). If, as a lower limit, we assume that the oldest section of sea floor now is as old as the Earth (a baseless assumption, but just for illustrative purposes) and that the Earth is 6000 years old, then those 200 reversals would happen every 6000/200 or 30 years on average.
Since the discovery of the magnetic compass, we would have observed countless times that our compasses spontaneously pointed opposite to their regular direction.
Humans would have witnessed Pangaea form and separate
If we look at soils and fossils along the Atlantic coast in Europe, Africa and the Americas, we notice something odd: there are slivers of land in Europe and Africa that match the Americas (but nowhere else in their own continents) and slivers of land in the Americas that match Europe and Africa (but nowhere else in their own continents). There is very strong evidence that the Americas started separate from Europe and Africa, then came together to form the supercontinent "Pangaea", and then split apart again.
This process may have happened multiple times (and in fact, there is evidence to suggest that it did), but assuming that it happened even once in the past 6000 years, humans would have witnessed the continents come together and then separate. We would be able to read historical accounts of people walking from England to New England, or from Africa to Brazil.
There would be no oil
The process by which organic matter turns to oil takes millenia. In 6000 years, no oil would have formed.
So... have we seen these bits of evidence for a young Earth? Anyone have others to add? Anyone have anything to refute these points?
I'm going to show my bias for geology over biology here, but everyone else is free to add points as they see fit.
If the Earth were actually 6000 years old, I can think of a few big things that would be different:
Compasses would flip direction every 30 years on average
The crystal structure of the rocks in the sea floor show about 200 geomagnetic reversals, or instances when the poles flipped: south became north and north became south.
Modern science says that the sea floor is 200 million years old at its oldest (since it is constantly welling up from mid-ocean spreading ridges, sliding across and subducting under continental plates). If, as a lower limit, we assume that the oldest section of sea floor now is as old as the Earth (a baseless assumption, but just for illustrative purposes) and that the Earth is 6000 years old, then those 200 reversals would happen every 6000/200 or 30 years on average.
Since the discovery of the magnetic compass, we would have observed countless times that our compasses spontaneously pointed opposite to their regular direction.
Humans would have witnessed Pangaea form and separate
If we look at soils and fossils along the Atlantic coast in Europe, Africa and the Americas, we notice something odd: there are slivers of land in Europe and Africa that match the Americas (but nowhere else in their own continents) and slivers of land in the Americas that match Europe and Africa (but nowhere else in their own continents). There is very strong evidence that the Americas started separate from Europe and Africa, then came together to form the supercontinent "Pangaea", and then split apart again.
This process may have happened multiple times (and in fact, there is evidence to suggest that it did), but assuming that it happened even once in the past 6000 years, humans would have witnessed the continents come together and then separate. We would be able to read historical accounts of people walking from England to New England, or from Africa to Brazil.
There would be no oil
The process by which organic matter turns to oil takes millenia. In 6000 years, no oil would have formed.
So... have we seen these bits of evidence for a young Earth? Anyone have others to add? Anyone have anything to refute these points?
Most YECS don't know much about science and would be likely to avoid this type of forum (and thread) like the plague. I was once a YEC (much to my present shame) and I didn't avoid this type of thread... and look what happened to me.. now I'm an atheist. Come to think of it, it is almost like natural selection isn't it? RF exerts evolutionary pressure on its' member population that favours those with the beliefs that hold up best to scrutiny - meaning that the proportion of those members who are atheists/agnostics should be markedly higher than would be expected if the member list were an accurate cross section of society. Lol.