Depends. How old is George Clooney? You know it's his world, and we just live in it.
This figure is interesting as it comes up often with studies of isotopes. It assumes that there were equal amounts of, say U238and U235, created at the beginning (a reasonal assumption, but an assumption none the less) so the ratios of these isotopes still present and their known decay rates give a marker for their supposed date of creation.
All indications are that the earth is very old, certainly more than 10,000 years, and that still doesn't threaten the Biblical record or substantiate the theory of evolution.
The answer has been surmised enough. No human was there to observe its beginning who also is able to report with accuracy how much time has passed since. And even if he were, his report would have to be received with as much faith as anything that purports to be divine revelation.
The question assumes the earth has a beginning. In the end all of us make a leap of faith when we decide whether matter has a beginning or not, let alone the planet we inhabit. I've always wondered r.e. carbon dating whether scientists are measuring the age of a FORM or a SUBSTANCE.
Wrong. The theory of evolution by natural selection arose in the 1860's, with the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. We didn't know the age of the Earth until the 1950's, when the wide variety (not just one isotope system) of radiometric dating procedures were developed. Darwin didn't have the faintest idea how old the Earth was -- he just knew it was at least millions of years old.
The list of “anomalies” in planetary science is a good example of why “creation science” is laughed at by most real scientists. Every one of the supposed “facts” are either wrong, misleadingly stated, or completely irrelevant.
Mercury should be stone dead but has a global magnetic field.
Magnetic fields don’t mean a planet is “alive” – it just means that some portion of the object has acquired some type of stable remnant magnetization. In Mercury’s case, this is probably a result of its relatively large iron core.
If Venus’ surface had a 4.6 billion year history, the first 90% has been obliterated.
So what? The same happens to be true of Earth and Io, only in those cases, the fractions are closer to 98% and 99.99%, respectively.
Earth’s magnetic field is decreasing at an alarming rate.
”Alarming to who? And so what if it is?
The Grand Canyon could have been carved in just the last few thousand years.
More like a couple of hundred thousand years, but even if I accept this estimate, what does that have to do with the age of the Earth?
The moon and meteorites contain short-lived radionuclides.
Yes, because short-lived nucleides are constantly created by cosmic ray bombardment of the lunar surface.
The moon should be stone dead, but shows evidence of activity today (transient lunar phenomena).
Not a single shred of evidence has ever emerged that these “transient events” relate to anything other than observer hallucination. And anyway, why should the Moon be “stone dead”?
Comets are burning up too fast (all the ones we know would be gone in 5000 years), and the hordes of spent bodies that should exist after 4 billion years cannot be found. Furthermore, the hypothetical Oort Cloud of comets could only contain 10% of earlier estimates.
Numbers pulled out of the air, but the highlighted phrase is the one that gets me – a lot of the “missing” comets have hit the planets, creating the heavily cratered surfaces we see throughout the Solar System, from Mercury to the satellites of the outer planets.
Meteorites are young, based on cosmic ray exposure.
Their exposure to cosmic rays is recent, but that doesn’t mean that the rockes themselves are young. Most meteorites have spent their existence deep within larger parent bodies, broken up through collision and tidal forces.
Some groups of asteroids have preferential spin orientations, that should have been randomized by now.
Then why are the satellites of the planets synchronously locked in rotation with their revolution periods around their primaries? Shouldn’t they have all been “randomized” by now?
Many asteroids are binary, but gravitational forces would tend to disrupt them in short order.
Asteroids are being constantly collided with, impacted, and re-assembled. At any given time, we only see a “snapshot” of the population. How many is “many”?
Assumed cratering rates on Mars could be way off the mark, casting into doubt a widely relied on method of estimating ages.
We use crater counts to estimate ages where we don’t have rocks to date – the Mars ages are tied to the lunar ones because we have lunar samples from known locations. Most of the “facts” in this list are way off the mark, casting doubt on its potential use for anything other than backup toilet paper.
Large areas of Martian bedrock are exposed, but should have been buried deep in dust by now.
Large areas of Earth’s bedrock are exposed too. So what?
Io has far more volcanic activity than can be explained by tidal heating.
In fact, the level of volcanic activity on Io is perfectly predicted by tidal heating theory. We know this because Io volcanism was predicted BEFORE the arrival of Voyager 1 in 1979.
Io and Europa are losing a ton of their mass every second.
They also gain mass by accretion of debris.
Europa might have active geyser activity even today.
So? What does this have to do with the age of the Solar System?
Enough. You get the picture. Half-truths and misleading concepts, presented as conundrums.
You are vastly mistaken.
I'm working on a big project and don't have time to address each of your errors in detail, but just for fun let's look at a few items from your Big List of things that (you claim) "set upper limits much younger than" a few billion years for the solar system:
Earth’s magnetic field is decreasing at an alarming rate.
Wow, that old chestnut again. It has been debunked countless times over the past few decades, but creationists just keep trotting it out again. Yes, the Earth's magnetic field is decreasing. No, it is not decreasing at an "alarming" rate. No, that doesn't "prove" that the Earth must be younger than a few billion years old. The Earth's magnetic field doesn't just keep fading forever, it in fact "rises and falls" in a periodic fashion, and we're currently in one of its waning periods. There is irrefutable geologic evidence for this. Someday perhaps the creationists will finally crack open a textbook and learn a few basic things before they go tearing off on another "magnetic field" rant.
The Grand Canyon could have been carved in just the last few thousand years.
No it couldn't, but no need to quibble -- even if it could have, how exactly is that supposed to "prove" that the Earth can't be very old? Are you somehow under the impression that the Earth itself can't be older than the Grand Canyon? (The same goes for another favorite creationist "proof" about the age of Niagara Falls -- yes, Niagara Falls is indeed of rather recent vintage; but this in no way proves that the Earth itself must not be old.)
The moon and meteorites contain short-lived radionuclides.
...because they have no atmosphere and are exposed to cosmic rays, which form *new* short-lived radionuclides when they hit. This is also where most of the "new" Carbon-14 in the Earth's atmosphere comes from. Again, I invite creationists to try reading a textbook or two before they attempt another "scientific" analysis of something.
Io and Europa are losing a ton of their mass every second.
Presuming this is even true (and creationists have a bad habit of stating "facts" that simply are not the case), this means that Europa, the smaller of the two moons, would have lost a whopping one quarter of one percent (0.0025) of its mass during the last four billion years. I'm sorry, how was this supposed to "lead one to estimate much lower ages"? Why exactly would this "have to be str-r-r-r-r-etched by many orders of magnitude" in order "to fit the 4.6 billion year timeline"? Actually, instead of "leading one to estimate much lower ages", it instead leads me to conclude that creationists don't know how to use calculators.
Io has far more volcanic activity than can be explained by tidal heating.
...which is no problem because "tidal heating" is only *one* of several mechanisms driving volcanic activity. I refer you to that "textbook" thing again...
Europa might have active geyser activity even today.
That's nice. Here's a cookie. Again, there are many mechanisms which contribute to geyser activity even on billion+ year old moons.
Neptune is the farthest large planet but has the strongest winds, and shows evidence of seasonal activity.
Okay, I'll bite -- how do either of these observations (presuming they're true) suggest that Neptune must be "younger" than currently believed? In other words, how would being "younger" help better explain seasonal activity or stronger winds on Neptune than on the other gas giants? Oh, right, it doesn't... Ditto for many other items on your list.
Titan’s surface should be blanketed with half a mile of hydrocarbons by now, but large patches of bedrock ice are found.
Ever hear of a process called "erosion"? It's in those "textbook" thingies... Titan has an atmosphere denser than Earth's, and methane falls as liquid rain. Both would remove hydrocarbon solids from elevated areas and wash them down into lower-lying areas (and into the postulated methane oceans, if they exist), leaving large patches of exposed rock and water ice (which at Titan's temperatures would be permanent as rock itself). "Problem" solved using High School level knowledge. May the creationists someday rise to that level in their analysis.
And so on...