Unnecessary Conflict

Why the Age of the Earth Is Irrelevant in the Creation-Evolution Debate

In 1980, PBS launched “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage,” a TV series written and hosted by Carl Sagan. Each episode opened with Sagan’s lyrical phrase, “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” The implied foregone conclusion is that Science (with a capital “S”) gives us the truth—biblical teaching need not apply.

Has this conflict between the Bible and science been ongoing since ancient times? The simple answer is, no. After the Roman Empire fell, much of “science” was dominated by Greek and Roman philosophies; the gods controlled the fates of men. But as Europe emerged from the Middle Ages, there was a rapid increase in scientific research. Many of the scientists were Christians, and so for the most part, science and the Bible coexisted peaceably. There were only two controversies that mattered.

Controversy One: Geocentric or Heliocentric Solar System?

Prior to the 1500s, almost everyone believed that the earth stood still, and the sun and planets revolved around it. This made intuitive sense. To one standing on the earth, it was obvious that the sun moved and not the earth. In addition, the Bible supported this idea in passages such as:

• “Its [the sun’s] rising is from one end of the heavens, and its circuit to the other end of them” (Psalm 19:6);

• “The world is firmly established; it shall not be moved” (Psalm 93:1); and

• Joshua’s famous command that the sun stand still: “so the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies” (Joshua 10:13).

In addition, scientists, then known as natural philosophers, had adhered to an Earth-centered universe for centuries.

Then Nicolaus Copernicus, while working on the problem of the relative motions of the planets and the sun, realized that a lot of the problems he was struggling with could be resolved if the sun were the center of the solar system rather than the earth. He delayed publishing his work, as it contradicted all accepted science and plain readings of the Bible, but he finally published On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in 1543, the year of his death.

In fact, the disagreement got entangled with the Protestant Reformation, as Copernicus remained in the Catholic Church, while former friends, also scientists, were part of the new Protestant movement. Martin Luther stated, “This fool [Copernicus] wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the Sun to stand still, and not the Earth.” Philipp Melanchthon, a reformer and collaborator with Luther, wrote, “Some people believe that it is excellent and correct to work out a thing as absurd as did that astronomer [Copernicus] who moves the earth and stops the sun. Indeed, wise rulers should have curbed such light-mindedness.” Fortunately, Copernicus’s work was mostly accepted within eighty years of his death, when astronomical tables were published and accepted by many of the scientists working in the field.

Controversy Two: Young or Old Earth?

The only other (major) conflict between the Bible and science is that of the age of the earth. At the time when Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species (1859), no one had any idea of the incredible complexity of biological systems. The cell was thought to be a simple bag of protoplasm that had emerged in some “warm little pond,” as Darwin postulated, and had developed by gradual random processes into all the diversity of plant and animal life. In addition, geological investigations pointed to an earth much older than 6,000–10,000 years, which gave even more credence to Darwin’s theory of evolution.

As Darwin’s ideas gained mainstream acceptance, the young earth interpretation of the Bible became a central touchpoint for those opposing this godless theory. Early in the 20th century, Christian leaders became vocal about the earth indeed being young and how evolution could not be true for that reason. Later in the 20th century, organizations such as the Institute for Creation Research (1970) and Answers in Genesis (1994) were formed specifically to provide evidence for a young earth. If the earth were only 6,000–10,000 years old, the argument went, surely that was not enough time for Darwin’s theory to be true.

Enter ID

Ironically, while these Christian organizations were promoting young earth creationism in opposition to evolution, the field of molecular biology was rapidly developing. New techniques such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR), invented in 1983, were employed to synthesize customized DNA that could then be inserted into the genome of E. coli, a type of bacteria. The machinery in the E. coli would then “read” the modified DNA, translate the information in the inserted DNA into its corresponding sequence of amino acids, and produce the protein encoded in the inserted segment along with all the proteins encoded in the naturally occurring DNA. These and other techniques made it possible to learn how cells “worked.” The more molecular biology techniques advanced, the more researchers were able to discover the multitude of molecular machines, sophisticated control systems, exquisite feedback signaling systems, etc., inside a cell. It became very clear that the cell was not a simple bag of protoplasm. However, these discoveries were only being reported in research journals, and thus, the general public was unaware of these spectacular advances of knowledge.

In 1991, Phillip E. Johnson published Darwin on Trial. Johnson was a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law School and was then a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. As a lawyer skilled in the use of language, he “took up the study of Darwinism because he saw that the books defending the theory were dogmatic and unconvincing. He wrote this book to give Americans the information they need to make up their own minds.”¹ Darwin on Trial was instrumental in launching the scientific movement now known as intelligent design (ID), and in 1996, the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture was founded specifically to promote ID, a scientific theory based, in part, on new discoveries about the incredible complexities inside the cell.

Still Not Enough Time

Today, the disagreement over the age of the earth continues. Many Jewish and Christian scholars estimate the earth to be about 6,000 years old. Mayan astronomers calculated the age of the earth to be approximately 5,000 years, and some Hindu texts say it is more than 150 trillion years old. Scientific calculations indicate that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old and that the universe is about 13.8 billion years old. However, none of these calculations—none of them—allow enough time for natural processes alone to produce the complexities now known to reside within the cell.

What this means is that a young earth is no longer “needed” to argue against the theory of evolution. Advancements in science have disqualified Darwin’s theory on other grounds. The question that remains to be answered is, “Will the age-of-the-earth controversy go the same way as the earth-is-the-center-of-the-universe controversy?” As more data and viewpoints on this issue are developed, it will be interesting to see whether a consensus can be reached. Meanwhile, it seems that the age of the earth is still an unsettled question.

Note

1. “Philip [sic] Johnson’s Darwin on Trial,” Physics Forums (May 12, 2005).