Why a Young Earth?

Updated: November 17, 2025

The theory of evolution requires what is called “deep time,” that is, millions and even billions of years. This is necessary because evolution attributes nothing but impersonal, unintelligent processes to finally arrive – after much trial and error – at the traits and features that we see in nature today. Evolution says the earth is 4.6 billion years old. However, the Bible does not allow for deep time. A literal interpretation of the book of Genesis puts the age of the earth (and our visible universe) at about 6000 years. How can this be right? After all, haven’t scientists proven that our universe is very old?

The summary answer is that no one has ever been able to prove deep time. In fact, modern research continues to affirm that the earth is very young. Consider the following:

• Concentration of elements and erosion. Detectable Carbon 14 can’t last more than 100,000 years, and yet it has been found in diamonds that evolution says were formed billions of years ago. Helium shouldn’t exist in zircons found in million-year-old granite, but it does. A 2011 worldwide study showed that the earth should have eroded to sea level in less than 50 million years. The oceans have too little salt in them (3.5%), and they have too little sediment to account for millions of years.
• Astronomical data. Supernovas occur every 25 years in galaxies like ours, but we only see evidence of about 200 here. Comets are supposed to be as old as our solar system, yet they lose too much material for this to be true. Galaxies wind too fast for the spiral structures we see to have lasted more than a few hundred million years.
• Soft tissue in dinosaur bones. This is possibly the most striking condemnation of deep time theories, and of evolutionist timelines in general. Since its discovery in 2005, many such samples have been found in fossils around the world. Study after study has concluded that this is, in fact, the original soft tissue of dinosaurs. Evolutionists maintain (no negotiation allowed!) that dinosaurs long predate mankind. There is simply no way that this tissue could survive millions of years under any conditions.

Consider these facts about deep time theories:

• Progression of life on earth. Evolutionists widely accept that the earth is about 4.6 billion years old. Even if this were true, many point out that this is not nearly long enough, since the mathematical probabilities of natural processes resulting in earth’s present biosphere are so astronomical as to be impossible in even trillions of years.
• Starlight. Many suggest that our ability to see distant starlight is proof that the earth is old. However, if this and stellar evolution were true, distant starlight should show stars and galaxies in their infancy, and they do not. There are theories (consistent with General Relativity) that explain the observable data and validate a young age for our universe.
• Radioisotopes and decay rates. Recent studies have shown that the decay rates traditionally used to calculate the age of rocks and fossils has not always been constant in earth history, and that those rates were at one time much higher than they are today. This alone effectively invalidates radioisotope dating methods (though they might still be useful for dating objects relative to one another) which up to now have provided a foundation for deep time.

Facts like these continue to pile up, and they should have purged deep time theories by now. Bizarre and unproveable explanations are given for each of these facts, all requiring immense leaps of faith. The only reason they persist is a stubborn insistence that there is no God, and that the Bible is wrong. In the United States, those accused of a crime are “innocent until proven guilty.” Why can’t we assume the Bible is correct until it is proven otherwise? It has been proven historically accurate time and again over the millennia, even by 21^st century science. How many other ancient writings have this track record? None. The Bible stands alone.

At this point, those who disagree with Bible history should recognize that the burden of proving it to be incorrect lies with them. The rest of us (including a multitude of well-known scientists throughout history to the present day) will continue to accept the Bible’s account of world history, as well as its foretelling about the world’s future. (For more information, visit https://www.icr.org/ and https://answersingenesis.org/ and see other articles here with the Creationism tag)