Deep Time: Why Are We Emphasizing This?
Deduced from The Origin of Time, and continued to the beginning of the Emperour Vespasians Reign, and the totall Destruction and Abolition of the Temple and Common-wealth of the Jews.
Containing the HISTORIE of the OLD and NEW TESTAMENT, With that of the MACCHABEES. Also all the most Memorable Affairs of Asia and Egypt, And the Rise of the Empire of the Roman Caesars, under C. Julius, and Octavianus.
COLLECTED From all History, as well Sacred, as Prophane, and Methodically digested,
By the most Reverend JAMES USSHER, Arch Bishop of ARMAGH, and Primate of IRELAND. LONDON
Printed by E. Tyler, for J. Crook, at the Sign of the Ship in St. Pauls Church-yard, and for G, Bedell, at the Middle-Temple-Gate, in Fleet-Street. M.DC. LVIII.
One of the great results of geology has been the concept of “deep time.” The world was once believed in some cultures to be only as old as the oldest historical records. The Archbishop Ussher of Ireland, in the year 1664, declared that based on Biblical chronologies, the creation of the Earth dates from October 26, 4004 BC, Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden on Monday, November 10 of that year, and Noah’s Ark landed on Mt. Ararat on Wednesday, May 5, 1491 BC. Other Biblical scholars obtained slightly different dates, but with broad agreement that the world was no older than the few thousand years that are documented in written histories.
Ussher’s date rested on a literal reading of the particular translation of the Bible he used, and on quite a number of questionable interpretations of the text—the Bible itself never gives an age for the Earth. Early geologists nonetheless struggled with the constraints provided by such chronological readings—how could all of geologic history fit into 6000 years? The early geologists ultimately reached the conclusion that the world looks MUCH older than 6000 years; either the world is older than this, or we have been deliberately fooled by some powerful being who crafted a young world to look old. As scientists, we work with the observable part of the world, and we have no way to detect a perfect fake, so we treat this as an old world. The geologic record speaks of “deep time,” billions of years, Shakespeare’s “Dark backward and abysm of time" (from The Tempest).
Most modern Biblical scholars have reached the same conclusion: the chronologies of Genesis do not give the precise age of the Earth, and are perfectly compatible with an old Earth. Most of the large Christian denominations, for example, have accepted an old Earth based on Biblical and on scientific interpretations. In 1996, the pope added the Catholic Church to the wide range of protestant denominations that accept an old Earth.
It remains that some denominations and people insist on what is often called a “literal” reading of the Bible. In addition, a few very vocal people continue to argue that the Earth looks young. Many more people hear all of this commotion and figure that maybe there is something wrong with the science, because “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Other people take it as an element of faith to disbelieve the scientific evidence, and even to accuse scientists of being bad people for opposing the young-Earth interpretations.
In this course, we go to some length to show you a small bit of the evidence that the Earth does not look young—it bears the marks of a deep and fascinating history. The annual-layer counts by themselves require an old Earth, because the tree rings, the lake sediments, and the ice cores all extend to older than the historical chronologies. The Irish oaks preserve rings from more than twice as many years as Archbishop Ussher of Ireland would have said were possible since Noah's flood, and many old trees that are still alive today sprouted before the date Archbishop Ussher gave for Noah’s flood with no sign of any damage, so his prediction was tested, and failed. Geologic and other scientific evidence from tree rings, lake sediments, ice cores, archaeological sites, and more match historical records well as far back as those historical records go; indeed, such science has been important in confirming the historical accuracy of some testable parts of religious texts. But as we shall see in the next sections, those annual layers and other “young” things are only the tip of a very old, very deep iceberg.
Please note that it is not the author’s intent to insult or belittle anyone’s beliefs here. Science, you may recall, has no way of verifying whether it has learned the Truth; it is a practical undertaking designed to discard ideas that fail, save the ones that don’t fail as provisional approximations of the truth, and push ahead. The hypothesis of an Earth that is no older, and looks no older, than historical records, leads to many predictions. Geologists began seriously testing those predictions in the 1700s, and found that those predictions were not supported, whereas predictions of an old-Earth hypothesis worked well—with very high confidence, the rocks look very old.
Consider two people, A and B. A has decided that belief in a literal interpretation of their favorite translation of the Bible is the most important thing in their life, as it controls the fate of their eternal soul and their relation with the most powerful being in the universe. Is it possible for A to look at the rocks, trees, ice and lakes, and find some way to explain those data in the context of that literal belief? The answer, obviously, is yes; many people do so, and some of them may be unhappy with us for what we wrote here. Next consider person B, who is working in an oil-company laboratory trying to improve dating of petroleum generation and migration. Which works best for B in making sense of the sedimentary record, A’s young-Earth interpretation or that of the geological profession? The answer is equally clear; A’s view is completely unhelpful, but geology works. Finally, ask whether A can be a geologist and use the old-Earth tools to find oil and minerals and clean water even while believing the Earth is young, or whether B can be a religious leader while doing geology, and the answers are yes; some people can hold a variety of ideas in mind at the same time. But recognize that the scientific evidence for an old Earth (and later, for evolution) is about as clear as science gets, and that the level of scientific disagreement on these issues is about as low as disagreement ever gets in science. Within the scientific community, there is no argument about whether the Earth really is older than historical records, just as there is no scientific argument about whether the Earth is roughly spherical. (Lively discussions clearly continue in the blogosphere and in other many non-scientific circles, but those discussions are at best rather weakly linked to the science.)