From Jonathan Baker, doctoral candidate geoscience, Christian:
How do we know the Earth is older than literalistic readings of the Bible seem to imply?
Geologists have been wrestling with this question for centuries, especially those pioneers in the Earth sciences (e.g. Nicolas Steno, William Buckland, Hugh Miller, Thomas Chalmers, and even Charles Darwin) who were also devout clergymen or at least trained in natural theology. The 19th century in particular may be characterized by the massive, interdisciplinary effort that sought to answer the question scientifically: how old is the Earth? But it was not until the mid 20th century that all efforts began to converge on the value we now accept: 4.56 billion years.
Today, a resurgence of young-Earth creationism has many persuaded that science, when applied faithfully, still supports a much smaller age—close to only 6,000 years. While the arguments behind this movement are not convincing to professional geologists, as I’ve sought to elucidate on this blog, their popularity highlights the need to summarize coherently the positive evidences in favor of ‘deep time’. Below, I have compiled what I deem the 100 most convincing reasons—in no particular order—that the Earth is not less than 10,000 years old.
Those readers from a young-Earth background might be quick to point out that many of the evidences listed below have been refuted by creation ministries in their article databases. But that’s no coincidence. Those article databases are primarily built to rationalize what are indeed strong evidences against the young-Earth position. So please note, I am keenly aware of those counter-arguments, and therefore I encourage you either to follow the links to in-depth discussions of each evidence or to contact me directly about why I find such counter-arguments unsatisfactory.