Are we simply learning more through better science and technology or is this the result of a continuing trend away from the Bible?
Estimates for the Age of the Earth:
Throughout History – Bible-believers – based on genealogies – about 6,000 years
1779 – Comte de Buffon – 78,000
1786 – Abraham Werner – 1 million years
1800’s – Charles Lyell – estimated 80 million years for the Cenozoic Era alone.
1860 – based on amount of fossil-filled sedimentary rocks – 3 million years
1897 – Lord Kelvin – based on Earth’s cooling – 24-40 million years
1899 – John Joly – based on salt accumulation in the Ocean – 90-100 million years
1910 – Arthur Holmes – based on amount of fossil-filled sedimentary rocks – 1.6 billion years
-Today we see first fossils in rock assumed to be around 500 million years.
1956 (Modern) – Clair Patterson – based on Radiometric dating of meteorites (assumed to form at the same time that the Earth formed – about 4.5 billion years
-“In 1972 this assumption was shown to be highly questionable. Despite this, the momentum gained in the two decades prior to 1972 has made 4.5 b.y. a popularly accepted “universal constant” even though the foundations on which it was based have been virtually removed.” (http://creation.com/radiometric-dating-age-of-earth)
Sources:
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/lectures/age_of_the_earth/age_of_the_earth.html
https://answersingenesis.org/age-of-the-earth/how-old-is-the-earth/
