Evidence for the great age of the Universe

[lpetrich]

Evidence against a recent creation - RationalWiki has a big list of bits of evidence for the great age of the Universe. I will repeat the list while bolding the "primary" bits, those that are both relatively precise and not dependent on other dating methods.

1. >10,000
   1. Thermoluminescence dating: 10,000
   2. Dendrochronology: 11,700
   3. Oxidizable carbon ratio dating: 20,000
   4. Widmanstatten patterns: >57,300
2. >100,000
   1. Mitochondrial Eve: 99,000
   2. Lack of DNA in fossils: 100,000
   3. Ice layering: 145,000
   4. Rock varnish: 250,000
   5. Permafrost: 225,000
   6. Weathering rinds: 300,000
   7. Y-chromosomal Adam: 150,000-200,000
   8. Fission track dating: 700,000
3. >1,000,000
   1. Relativistic jets: >1,000,000
   2. Space weathering: >1,000,000
   3. Petrified wood: >1,000,000
   4. Naica megacrystals: >1,000,000
   5. Cosmogenic nuclide dating: >1,000,000
   6. Iron-manganese nodule growth: >1,000,000
   7. Amino acid racemization: >1,000,000
   8. Stalactites: >1,000,000
   9. Geomagnetic reversals: 5,000,000
   10. Erosion: 6,000,000
4. >10,000,000
   1. Milankovitch astronomical cycles: 23,030,000
   2. Sedimentary varves: 20,000,000
   3. Coral: 25,000,000
   4. Seabed plankton layering: 56,000,000
   5. Baptistina asteroid family: 80,000,000
5. >100,000,000
   1. Continental drift: 200,000,000
   2. Nitrogen impurities in natural diamonds: 200,000,000
   3. Impact craters: >313,000,000
   4. Rotation of the Earth: 620,000,000
6. >1,000,000,000
   1. Helioseismology: 4,460,000,000
   2. Radioactive decay: 4,540,000,000
   3. Recession of the Moon: 4,500,000,000
   4. Gyrochronology: 4,600,000,000
   5. Globular clusters: >10,000,000,000
   6. Distant starlight: 13,700,000,000

 

[Underseer]

Nice! Thanks for sharing the info. I'll use it.

 

[steve_bank]

A minor correction.

Evidence for the great age of the Observable Universe

 

[Random Person]

I'm surprised that "eternal" didn't make the list.

 

[Elixir]

I'm surprised that "eternal" didn't make the list.

Why? "Eternal" is an adjective. It belongs on that list as much as "deluded" or "mauve".

 

[Random Person]

I'm surprised that "eternal" didn't make the list.

Why? "Eternal" is an adjective. It belongs on that list as much as "deluded" or "mauve".

I'm sayin'

 

[none]

sad thing is the universe COULD be eternal, always there
but some folks can't account for that FACT

 

[skepticalbip]

sad thing is the universe COULD be eternal, always there
but some folks can't account for that FACT

And the irony is that it is those who's belief system depends on accepting that eternity is real that most avidly reject the concept of an eternal universe.

 

[none]

really

 

[Elixir]

I'm surprised that "eternal" didn't make the list.

Why? "Eternal" is an adjective. It belongs on that list as much as "deluded" or "mauve".

I'm sayin'

Sayin' you're surprised that an adjective didn't make a list composed of facts? That would be sad commentary on your intellectual state,

 

[Underseer]

I'm surprised that "eternal" didn't make the list.

What on Earth makes you think that?

- - - Updated - - -

I'm surprised that "eternal" didn't make the list.

Why? "Eternal" is an adjective. It belongs on that list as much as "deluded" or "mauve".

I'm sayin'

Are you a Young Earth Creationist?

Are you one of those people who believe that the universe was created nine thousand years after the domestication of dogs?

 

[Random Person]

What on Earth makes you think that?

- - - Updated - - -

I'm surprised that "eternal" didn't make the list.

Why? "Eternal" is an adjective. It belongs on that list as much as "deluded" or "mauve".

I'm sayin'

Are you a Young Earth Creationist?

Are you one of those people who believe that the universe was created nine thousand years after the domestication of dogs?

Not a Christian.

I noticed one thread says the universe has an age and therefore had a beginning and another thread says the universe is eternal. Seems like situational science.

 

[none]

What on Earth makes you think that?

- - - Updated - - -

Why? "Eternal" is an adjective. It belongs on that list as much as "deluded" or "mauve".

I'm sayin'

Are you a Young Earth Creationist?

Are you one of those people who believe that the universe was created nine thousand years after the domestication of dogs?

Not a Christian.

I noticed one thread says the universe has an age and therefore had a beginning and another thread says the universe is eternal. Seems like situational science.

well if you'd focus and not migrate so much you'd understand
I invite you back to the thread you abandoned
that light from stars suggests an age for the universe the nuance is creation or origin is not what is being discussed, it COULD be suggested though but that would be theoretical anyways
the operative word is COULD, but you are the one who claimed in other threads "time began" it is your own damn fault you are confused

 

[skepticalbip]

I noticed one thread says the universe has an age and therefore had a beginning and another thread says the universe is eternal. Seems like situational science.

Your interpretation is an indication of shallow thinking. The models that describe the "age of the universe" are describing the time elapsed since some specific event in an already existing universe. In the "Big Bang plus Inflation" model that event was the inflation stage... the model does not address what happened before the inflation phase.

By the way, I am still waiting for you to link a cosmological model that describes a "beginning" other than Krauss' "Universe from Nothing" model that you declared to be nonsense.

 

[steve_bank]

I believe in modern cosmology, aka Big Bang, the age of the universe is from the theoretical event. The BB does not start at time zero, it does not explain what created the initial conditions for the BB.

The theory predicts most or all of what we see today from particles to galaxies. Theoretically the time from BB is then predicable.

 

[Random Person]

What on Earth makes you think that?

- - - Updated - - -

I'm sayin'

Are you a Young Earth Creationist?

Are you one of those people who believe that the universe was created nine thousand years after the domestication of dogs?

Not a Christian.

I noticed one thread says the universe has an age and therefore had a beginning and another thread says the universe is eternal. Seems like situational science.

well if you'd focus and not migrate so much you'd understand
I invite you back to the thread you abandoned
that light from stars suggests an age for the universe the nuance is creation or origin is not what is being discussed, it COULD be suggested though but that would be theoretical anyways
the operative word is COULD, but you are the one who claimed in other threads "time began" it is your own damn fault you are confused

Not confused. Amused.

 

[none]

What on Earth makes you think that?

- - - Updated - - -



Are you a Young Earth Creationist?

Are you one of those people who believe that the universe was created nine thousand years after the domestication of dogs?

Not a Christian.

I noticed one thread says the universe has an age and therefore had a beginning and another thread says the universe is eternal. Seems like situational science.

well if you'd focus and not migrate so much you'd understand
I invite you back to the thread you abandoned
that light from stars suggests an age for the universe the nuance is creation or origin is not what is being discussed, it COULD be suggested though but that would be theoretical anyways
the operative word is COULD, but you are the one who claimed in other threads "time began" it is your own damn fault you are confused

Not confused. Amused.

yeah typical troll, not surprised

 

[Random Person]

Not a Christian.

I noticed one thread says the universe has an age and therefore had a beginning and another thread says the universe is eternal. Seems like situational science.

well if you'd focus and not migrate so much you'd understand
I invite you back to the thread you abandoned
that light from stars suggests an age for the universe the nuance is creation or origin is not what is being discussed, it COULD be suggested though but that would be theoretical anyways
the operative word is COULD, but you are the one who claimed in other threads "time began" it is your own damn fault you are confused

Not confused. Amused.

yeah typical troll, not surprised

I'm amused at your trolling.

The universe has an unknown finite age but also an infinite age. Ridiculous.

Every explanation and denial possible from Zeno's Paradox to, "you don't know the science." It's hilarious.

 

[none]

well if you'd focus and not migrate so much you'd understand
I invite you back to the thread you abandoned
that light from stars suggests an age for the universe the nuance is creation or origin is not what is being discussed, it COULD be suggested though but that would be theoretical anyways
the operative word is COULD, but you are the one who claimed in other threads "time began" it is your own damn fault you are confused

Not confused. Amused.

yeah typical troll, not surprised

I'm amused at your trolling.

The universe has an unknown finite age but also an infinite age. Ridiculous.

Every explanation and denial possible from Zeno's Paradox to, "you don't know the science." It's hilarious.

well, considering you are not willing to engage me when I pointed out your arguments failure due to a fallacy that you tried to use to support the claim "time began" it is no wonder you are confused.
if you understood the science behind the observation of stellar light you would understand that we have confirmation that the universe is ~14 billion years old but that doesn't mean it isn't older.
there is nuance which you are ignorant of and I am not sure your ignorance isn't deliberate.
now, plack epoch is ~14 billion years ago but that doesn't mean there is a limit to the possibility that there was time prior and since you think and approach time as separate from space it is no wonder you are looked at with contempt for both your lack of understanding and approach.
you are the one who said "time began", that is different than calculating an age for the universe that is evidence based but says nothing about what happened prior to the plank epoch if there was anything happening prior.
there is no evidence that excluded the possibility that the universe has always existed and the most most widely understood and supported theory mentions nothing of origin or creation it simply says inflation occurs and has occurred.
the most widely accepted and supported theory says that ~14 billion years ago there was inflation and it continues to this day, nothing about origin and creation
origin and creation are theoretical
now wait for another thread where you can migrate without actually addressing your trail of stupid content.

 

[Underseer]

What on Earth makes you think that?

- - - Updated - - -

Why? "Eternal" is an adjective. It belongs on that list as much as "deluded" or "mauve".

I'm sayin'

Are you a Young Earth Creationist?

Are you one of those people who believe that the universe was created nine thousand years after the domestication of dogs?

Not a Christian.

I noticed one thread says the universe has an age and therefore had a beginning and another thread says the universe is eternal. Seems like situational science.

Then you'll have to be a lot more specific.

For example, we can kinda claim that the universe is eternal in the sense that time dilation would produce the appearance of an infinite past under a certain unlikely scenario.

If you had one observer stay here and another observer travel backwards in time, from the point of view of the observer who remains here, the other observer would slow down as he/she moves backwards in time and never reach the beginning in the same way that an observer falling into a black hole appears to slow down to a stop at the event horizon to observers who are not falling into the black hole.

There are hypotheses that we are part of a "foam" of universes that pop in and out of existence over vast scales of time in much the same way that virtual particles pop in and out of existence on a much shorter scale. You could argue that from a certain point of view the multiverse is eternal, but given that we are talking about a very large number of spacetime continuums, I'm not sure how you would even begin to prove such a thing.

There's lots of hypotheses, but precious few facts.

Could you be more specific?