Dr. Wiens has a PhD in Physics, with a minor in Geology. His PhD thesis was on isotope ratios in meteorites, including surface exposure dating. He was employed at Caltech's Division of Geological & Planetary Sciences at the time of writing the first edition. He is presently employed in the Space & Atmospheric Sciences Group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
It would not be inconsistent with the scientific evidence to conclude that God made everything relatively recently, but with the appearance of great age, just as Genesis 1 and 2 tell of God making Adam as a fully grown human (which implies the appearance of age). This idea was captured by Phillip Henry Gosse in the book, "Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot", written just two years before Darwin's "Origin of Species". The idea of a false appearance of great age is a philosophical and theological matter that we won't go into here. The main drawback--and it is a strong one--is that this makes God appear to be a deceiver. However, some people have no problem with this. Certainly whole civilizations have been incorrect (deceived?) in their scientific and theological ideas in the past. Whatever the philosophical conclusions, it is important to note that an apparent old Earth is consistent with the great amount of scientific evidence.
As Christians it is of great importance that we understand God's word correctly. Yet from the middle ages up until the 1700s people insisted that the Bible taught that the Earth, not the Sun, was the center of the solar system. It wasn't that people just thought it had to be that way; they actually quoted scriptures: "The Earth is firmly fixed; it shall not be moved" (Psalm 104:5), or "the sun stood still" (Joshua 10:13; why should it say the sun stood still if it is the Earth's rotation that causes day and night?), and many other passages. I am afraid the debate over the age of the Earth has many similarities. But I am optimistic. Today there are many Christians who accept the reliability of geologic dating, but do not compromise the spiritual and historical inerrancy of God's word. While a full discussion of Genesis 1 is not given here, references are given below to a few books that deal with that issue.
As scientists, we deal daily with what God has revealed about Himself through the created universe. The psalmist marveled at how God, Creator of the universe, could care about humans: "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that You are mindful of him, the son of man that You care for him?" (Psalm 8:3-4). Near the beginning of the twenty-first century we can marvel all the more, knowing how vast the universe is, how ancient are the rocks and hills, and how carefully our environment has been designed. Truly God is more awesome than we can imagine!
This is what happens when dating outside yer own race is allowed to occur... ;^)