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NEWS > SCIENCE > NEW RESEARCH INDICATES THE EARTH IS DOZENS OF YEARS YOUNGER THAN PREVIOUSLY BELIEVED
NEW RESEARCH INDICATES THE EARTH IS DOZENS OF YEARS YOUNGER THAN PREVIOUSLY BELIEVED
October 24 2010
Cambridge, U.K. – There have been many debates when it comes to science versus religion but there has been no issue that has divided the two more than the age and nature of life on earth. The two disciplines offer fundamentally different views of the
process that put human beings, and all other life, on the planet, views that can never truly correlate with one another. Rooted in that debate is the issue of the earth itself, the medium on which all life was placed, and not only how it formed but when it came into being.
For science the issue of the formation of the planet is a simple geological process, an accretion of space dust and interstellar debris accumulated over millions of years while for religion it is the will of a Supreme Being who worked for six days to create existence. While science has used research and evidence to try and prove its theory, religion, Christianity in particular, has had the answers for thousands of years. New research now indicates that science may have been dramatically off in their estimates with the Earth possibly 70 million years younger than previously believed, about 120 years in religious terms, something scholars are unlikely to acknowledge.
“The whole issue hinges on working out how long it took for the core of the Earth to form, which is one of the big unknowns in this area of science. One of the problems has been that scientists usually presume Earth's accretion happened at an exponentially decreasing rate,” said Dr John Rudge of the University of Cambridge. “We believe that the process may not have been that simple and that it could well have been a much more staggered, stop-start affair. The bulk of the planet formed in about 30 millions years but then the process slowed, taking another 70 million years to complete. If correct, that would mean the Earth was about 100 million years in the making altogether.”
That difference amounts to about 2 per cent difference, which is about 120 years to a 6000 year old planet.
“Religion and science have always been competing models and in recent years, really the last 200 or so, science has really taken up the mantle. Through the 20th century religion declined significantly, something that seems to be continuing in this century making it likely, at least in western world that a more scientific view of the world will take precedence,” said Scrape TV Religion analyst Bertram Gas. “Of course they still seek the same answers. Both disciplines seek the answers to the same questions and simply go about them differently. One could make the argument that they are united in cause if different in procedure. One thing is undeniable though, that without the two of them our world would be a much different place and in that world it might not matter how old the world really is.”
Most modern interpretations of religious doctrine acknowledge that the earth is older than 6000 years making it unlikely that they will acknowledge the new 120 year gap.
“Whether its 70 million years or 120, it’s really just a blink of the eye when it comes to
the age of the planet. 2 per cent really doesn’t make a major difference one way or the other unless of course you follow the strict interpretation of the Bible, that would make the difference a little more difficult to change,” continued Gas. “The biggest question for religion would be whether or not the process to create the planet did in fact take longer. That would throw off much of what they have come to practice and give Sundays a whole different meaning. Most people will be loathe to believe that it took the Big Guy longer than six days to create the Earth, especially if that means they have to work on Sundays themselves.”
The Pope reportedly went about his Sunday duties as normal.
Anna Phillips, Science Correspondent
NEWS > SCIENCE > NEW RESEARCH INDICATES THE EARTH IS DOZENS OF YEARS YOUNGER THAN PREVIOUSLY BELIEVED
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