Do you believe that the world is only a few thousand years old?

[TotallyBS]

A long time ago I saw the episode of Friends where Ross tried to convince Pheobe that dinosaurs walked on the earth milions of years ago and that the world was not created a few thousand years ago like it says in the Bible.

I thought nothing of it until recently where I saw videos of the US elections.. Basically, you had evangelical Republicans standing up and saying that the world is a few thousand years old. One politician was chairman of some science committee.

This is a genuine. question (I bet they all say that :) ) if this is what you believe then how does dinosaurs and cavemen bones fit into your beliefs?

[MostlyLovingLurchers]

Radiocarbon dating is not used to date dinosaur bones. Radiocarbon dating is one type of radiometric dating. For objects of this age carbon 14 does not have a long enough half life so other isotopes are used, usually potassium or uranium, which have a much longer half life, over a million years.

Even with c14 dating for human artifacts it is not used in isolation - it is one tool in the kit, albeit a very important one . If anyone is interested in how we first began to realise the antiquity of the human species i would highly recommend The Idea of Prehistory by Glyn Daniel and Colin Renfrew.

[HolofernesesHead]

Thanks for answering. So, IYO, is it the belief in young earth creationism that is the problem per se, or the power of 'the church' to dictate belief (which church, btw? This is a proper question, not a swipe - is it churches in general that are a problem IYO or one particular church / type of church?), or the lack of critical thought? If so, how about non-religious people who simply couldn't care less one way or the other, whether the world is 6000 years old or many million years old? Are they are scary as people whose thinking is formed by particular religious traditions?

[seeker]

"so, how about non-religious people who simply couldn't care less one way or the other, whether the world is 6000 years old or many million years old? Are they are scary as people whose thinking is formed by particular religious traditions?"

Presumably, even if they don't care either way, once shown the evidence they would accept the truth, not say "Ah, God put the fossils there as a test"

[HolofernesesHead]

How about people whose eyes glaze over at the very word 'evidence'? People who are much more interested in Hello! magazine or the betting odds than where the world came from? People who know a tiny, tiny scrap of science barely remembered from school and use this scrap, along with skim-read articles from the Daily Mail, to argue anything just so they can hear themselves sound clever? Are they scary too? If so, more or less than religious Creationists?

[CoteDAzur]

I haven't met anyone whose eyes glaze over at the mention of the word "evidence". Are those people the ones we would call "stupid"?

Seriously, I've never heard of anyone with an aversion to the word "evidence".

[seeker]

Well, these mythical people will obviously believe what the Daily Mail tells them. And fortunately, in this at least, even the Daily Mail gets it right.

[HolofernesesHead]

You might call them stupid. You might say (if you were feeling charitable) that theor terrible childhood and lack of education has Given them a phobia of anything resembling learning. I've met quite a few people like this, and as I font believe that anyone us stupid, I'm inclined to go with the more charitable view.

Seeker: you missed my point, which was: some people believe anything in the newspapers, of which the DM is, sadly, the most influential.

[seeker]

I'm sorry, I don't understand your point. In order to believe that the world is 6000 years old, you have to wilfully ignore the evidence- up to and including putting your fingers in your ears and singing. That is rather different to not being interested in the subject at all. Being a young earth creationist is active and deliberate ignorance, not passive uninterest.

[sieglinde]

seeker, agree. I don't know any creationists, though. do you? have you ever tried to discuss with them?

[seeker]

I know one family. I have never raised the issue with them. But they are loons in many other ways too!

[TotallyBS]

sieglinde - I thought that was we were trying to do here. Talk to creationists, I mean.

[MostlyLovingLurchers]

There was an interview on R4 a few weeks ago with a chap called Malcolm Bowden discussing his creationist views. You can download it from the website (it's under the One to One strand). He also believes that the earth is at the centre of the universe, and that the speed of light was very much higher in the past. He's got graphs and everything.

[sieglinde]

but they seem to have gone away, totallybs

[TotallyBS]

Here in the UK it isn't much of an issue but it does concern me that the creationists and the religious right in the US have such influence.

At least here we can inwardly smile at the thought that the person next to us, so to speak, believes that dinosaur bones were placed in order to test us. But in the US these words are coming out of the mouth of politicians that control federal money for stuff like stem cell research and the like.