Customer Reviews

Thousands not Billions: Challenging the Icon of Evolution, Questioning the Age of the Earth

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So, let me just start off by saying the following:

1. Young-earth creationists will like this book and think that it shows the unreliability of modern dating methods.
2. Evolutionists will dismiss it immediately.
3. Open-minded people who are perhaps on the fence on the issue of the earth's age will benefit from the point of view and the challenges the RATE group's 8 years of research present.

It is clear that the reviews so far of 'Thousands not Billions' support my hypothesis.

Now, on to the book.
Here's a list of the chapters:

Ch 1: A Brief History of Radiation Studies
Ch 2: Overview of Radioisotope Dating
Ch 3: Carbon-14 Dating
Ch 4: Helium Retention in Zircon Crystals
Ch 5: Radiohalos in Granite
Ch 6: Fission Tracks in Zircons
Ch 7: Discordant Radioisotope Dates
Ch 8: Radioisotope Dating Case Studies
Ch 9: Theories of Accelerated Nuclear Decay
Ch 10: A Proper Reading of Genesis 1:1-2:3
Ch 11: RATE Conclusions

Quotes from Ch 11, with summaries by me:

"For some years there has been a growing realization that carbon-14 atoms are found where they are not expected." -Pg 175
Since C-14 only has a half-life of 5,730 years, there should not be any measurable amount of it in substances over 100,000 years old. However, measurable amounts of C-14 have been found in what are assumed "ancient" materials, such as coal and diamonds. Diamonds I think are the most significant, since they are assumed to be like a billion years old, and they are also the hardest natural substance on earth, so they know there isn't any contamination in the system. So the fact that there exists carbon-14 in diamonds that are supposedly a billion years old should raise some flags to people.

"The New Mexico zircons studied by the RATE team have a radioisotope age of 1.5 billion years. If this were true, then the internal helium atoms should long ago have escaped from the zircons. Instead, however, the RATE scientists and others find high concentrations of helium still present inside the zircon crystals." -Pg 176
Zircons, unlike diamonds, are not a closed system, and helium atoms that are produced in the zircons escape over time into the surroundings. However, the helium should no longer be present if the zircons are really a billion years old or older.

Another important aspect of the RATE research is the discordance among results when multiple dating methods are used on the same rock. Several different dating methods should all give the same date for a specific rock if they really are accurate measures. However, RATE has found that very different dates are given for a rock, depending on which method is used.

Another thing that's really interesting is that RATE team had the Mt. Ngauruhoe site in New Zealand dated using several different dating techniques. The site formed only a few decades ago, but dates ranging from 0.27 million years (K-Ar) all the way up to 3,908 million years (Pb-Pb) were determined for the rock. This should also show the amazing unreliability of radiometric dating methods. If dating methods are shown to be grossly inaccurate for rocks of known age, how can we trust them for rocks of unknown age?

I also really liked the chapter on interpreting the creation account of Genesis 1:1-2:3. It is a popular view among Christians that the creation account is poetry and not narrative. RATE did some analysis of the Hebrew verb forms of both poetry and narrative all throughout the Old Testament, and the results were overwhelmingly in favor of Genesis 1 being narrative, based on the type of verb forms found in the chapter. (Poetry generally uses imperfect, while narrative uses preterit.)

Anyway, I would have liked to see a little more explanation/elaboration of research. But I do realize that this book is meant to be for the general public. RATE has produced two technical volumes from their 8 years of research that I think people who are advanced in science will benefit from more.

Note: I think it's worth noting that the RATE team contracted out the dating of the materials in their research to well-respected professional laboratories, so the idea that their data is not reliable is totally ridiculous and unfounded.

The chief complaint against this book seems to be "...This book is another example of TRUE scientific theory mixed with UNTESTED hypothetical ideas (somewhat like "bait and switch"). The end result is that the author claims to prove his ideas when in fact the untested hypotheses are still untested."

I would say the same for evolutionary theory since TRUE SCIENTIFIC METHODS CANNOT BE APPLIED IN BOTH CASES. No human being was there during creation or evolutionary beginnings to observe the actual event, so we cannot test and observe either hypothesis. To me, the biggest issue here is not which is the more accurate theory. But rather, both positions cannot be solved scientifically and that it takes a measure of FAITH & a healthy dose of WORLDVIEW to believe which ever side you believe. The author of this book casts significant doubt on the VALIDITY of old earth age radioisotope dating methods which he purports to be the "lynchpin" of old earth views.

* The RATE Project tested coal beds throughout North America. They requested & received coal samples from the US Geological Dept. They received coal from the top of the coal bed and the bottom of the coal bed over many sites. You know what they found? The coal samples had the "same" (same within the sample statistics) C14 levels whether it was on the top or bottom.
* Also, they tested diamonds from nearly 100 miles within the earth. And you know what? They also had C14 in them. Diamonds are supposed to be billions of years old, one of the first minerals formed when the earth "evolved" 3.5 billion years ago; yet they have C14 in them. We have NO instrument that can measure C14 levels past 100,000 years.
* They observed that most of known fossils are found within one layer of sediment (which implies a quick, catastrophic event, a.k.a. flood)
* They discuss helium diffusion within zircons. These zircons mean something very important to geologists. And I admit, this was a little over my head since I have not taken the time to study these. But suffice it to say, the amount of helium still in rocks indicates a "younger" earth.
* They discuss all the forms of radioisotope dating and show how worldview "taints" the "scientific" principles that govern them. Also, many assume a steady state of radioactive decay, however, there is compelling evidence that shows the steady state theory is not accurate. That there may have been accelerated decay in the past and it has been slowing down (which I think aligns nicely to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics).

To me, these are the most important issues this book addresses.

I'm currently re-thinking my indoctrination into the evolution theory. I have kept science separate from my faith in God and had always believed that the earth was very old. However, recently, I have found that this belief is irreconcilable with my belief in a loving God. I had never even read any creationist literature, thinking, like most people that it is "hokum". Most of the creationist literature is unconvincing to me. However, after reading icr.org I wanted to find out more about the RATE project in detail because I was especially curious about two research projects that seemed to be convincing, the helium diffusion in zircons (helium should have long ago escaped into the atmosphere after millions of years, yet why is it still in zircon?) and the radiohalos found in rocks (has there been rapid nuclear decay in certain periods of history?) I read this book in conjunction with "Starlight and Time" by Humphreys. I realized that there are some very intelligent people who believe in a young earth and have made some major scientific contributions that will definitely have an impact on science, that is, if people would read this literature. I especially liked the paragraph that says, "Some critics have argued that the young-earth viewpoint is a hindrance to scientific progress. They claim that belief in biblical creation returns us to the dark ages of naive, pre-scientific, and false views of natural history. However, such claims are mistaken. The questioning of radioisotope dating and the geologic time scale neither stifles inquiry nor hinders sceintific progress. Instead, it serves the healthy purpose of uncovering assumptions and bias. The reappraisal of earth history also opens up entirely new areas for study and research as the RATE project has shown." I agree that the RATE project has done exactly that and this book is worthwhile reading for any scientist.

One problem that I had was statements like "The original creation from nothing, or ex nihilo in Latin, was clearly supernatural. Likewise, the theological reasons for accelerated decay and the mechanisms behind it may lie entirely beyond the limits of scientific inquiry. Still, it is of interest to apply our present knowledge of the nucleus to explore possible mechanisms for accelerated decay." The problem I have with statements like this in creationist literature, is that unsolved mysteries are commonly relegated to the "supernatural". Also in "Starlight and TIme" the author did the same thing, for the things he couldn't explain in his theory, he assumes that God stepped in and acted supernaturally and "suspended the laws of nature." I'm not sure if God would actually suspend His own laws and act beyond the scope of his own creation. I believe that everything God does is purposeful and he placed specific laws in nature that we are to obey-- I don't think he would want to confuse us by acting outside of His own laws. So I think that everything that exists should have a "reasonable" or "natural" explanation. I believe everything has a purpose and this whole universe speaks of who God is. While I do believe in the miracles of the bible and have personally experienced so many miracles (things way beyond mere chance or coincidence) I'm wondering if these events are not beyond the scope of probablility and also within the realm of scientific explanation. It may be a mistake to view things as "supernatural" which actually take place within the natural realm-- and I don't believe that Christians need to be apologetic in acknowledging the fact that yes, miracles do happen (things beyond mere chance), and yet they also have scientific explanations. In any case, these statements make creationist scientific inquiries very unconvincing to athiests. Miracles never have and never will convince the unbelievers, unless it is a miracle in which God touches a person in a very personal way. I think this is what the Intelligent Design movement does an excellent job of opening people's eyes to.

The creationists will have to approach things from all angles at once if there is any hope in collapsing the evolutionary and old earth theories, and as the book acknowledges, there is a lot more work to be done. It should have an impact on science if people are open minded enough to read it. There will also be economic impacts as a result of their research since radiohalos will help with locating certain metals and uranium. Since money is always a motive, I'm sure that scientists will have more motive into looking into this more seriously. This book in conjuction with "Starlight and Time" is a pretty convincing start in breaking down the evolutionary theory in my opinion. I'm anxious to read "Not by Chance" next.

I've read thousands of books to try to keep up to date - and this book has got to be one of my favorite books of all. The book summarizes eight years of research by a team of scientists. Not only does the book provide the results of radioisotope dating tests, but it explains the process as well as what the results mean. This book found the perfect balance to being readable yet precise and detailed. It also refers the readers to two other books that are much more detailed regarding the radioisotope dating discused in the book.

The book explains about some of the radioisotope methods in use, such as:

* Carbon-14 dating
* Potassium-Argon
* Rubidium-Strontium
* Lead-Lead
* Samarium-Neodymium

The book also explains both alpha decay and beta decay, and why it matters.

This team of scientists not only reference published dating test results but also did their own dating tests utilizing multiple state-of-the-art commercial radioisotope dating laboratories.

The book also explains a vitally important concept: Iscochrons
(Isochrons are utilized today in almost every radioisotope dating experiment)

Ini order to give an age estimate for a rock using radioisotope dating, there are several assumptions that are made ... three fundamental assumptions are:

1) the initial conditions of the sample are known accurately
2) we can tell whether or not the rock has exchanged atoms with the surroundings during its history
3) the nuclear decay rate or half-life of the parent isotope has remained constant since the rock was formed. (isochron methods are not sensitive to testing the correctness of this assumption)

The book presents the evidence of the results of careful testing that you can analyze on your own. However, the team of scientists also provide their summary of what the results show and provide possible explanations as to what they mean and what could account for the evidence.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in finding out just how radioisotope dating is done and in reviewing evidence from a variety of tests performed recently. It provides scientific evidence gathered by a team of scientists presented in an easy to read format with tables, charts and figures.

Do you believe in the scientific "theory" that makes your microwave oven work? How about the scientific "theory" that makes electricity available when you plug in your toaster? How about the scientific "theory" that water is comprised of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. These and ALL theories are ideas that have been tested and tested and NEVER found to be wrong. If you believe that all of these theories are true, why question the theory of carbon dating accepted by ALL PEER REVIEWED SCIENTIFIC DOCUMENTATION?

This book is another example of TRUE scientific theory mixed with UNTESTED hypothetical ideas (somewhat like "bait and switch"). The end result is that the author claims to prove his ideas when in fact the untested hypotheses are still untested.

I love God, people and our planet but feel that books like this one prevent us from seeing the entire truth, unfortunately.

I don't think he read the book, honestly. There are MANY intriguing issues that are brought up in this book by SCIENTIFIC, PHYSICAL EVIDENCE. If you think that evolution has all the answers in the bag, think again. Why is Carbon-14 found inside of diamonds? Diamonds are supposedly 3.3 billion years old. Carbon-14 has a half life of 5,700 years. Do the math. It is beyond me to figure out how this is not physical evidence. Why is there Helium in Zircon crystals when it should have dissipated a very long time ago? It seems to me like some people don't even read the book, that they just have a chip on their shoulder and feel it is nessecary to TRY and belittle the work these SCIENTISTS have done. Even if you are against Creationism this is still a good scientific book to dive into. The book even admits that there are many problems yet to be solved. I look foward to further research in these fields.

I was hoping for a completely scientific explanation of radioisotope dating that would not, in any way, have to change natural phenomena (make natural things act in "unnatural", never observed since, supernatural ways) to explain the age of the earth. After all, the earth is either X number of years old...or it's not! The Bible really has nothing to do with it. However, Chapter 10 is entitled, "A Proper Reading of Genesis". After sharing a statistical analysis of various words in the New Testament, the authors conclude that Genesis 1:1-2:3 is narrative, NOT poetry or metaphor. In other words, the creation account "describes actual events, and God created everything during six literal days".

What is worrisome, is that the authors then state: "The RATE team concludes that Scripture is the standard to which interpretations of scientific data must conform. This does not imply the rejection of any data whatsoever. However, it does call for the positive channeling of data interpretation in a proper biblical direction."

I wonder what a proper biblical direction means? Who is deciding "proper"? But that is beside the point. What really bothers me is that the RATE team is saying that scientific data MUST conform. Data is data. Data has no intention or motivation. It can't alter itself to conform to anything. It "is". People, however, do "conform".

The final chapter, "RATE Conclusions" shows how they will make the data conform. They have two guiding principles:
1) The earth is young, on the order of 6,000 years old ("drawn from the biblical record of creation as written by the only One who was present, God himself.")
2) A large amount of nuclear decay has taken place in the past... "Alongside this principle, however, there is not the usual constraint that radioisotope decay has always been governed by today's measured nuclear half-life values. Instead, the RATE team concludes that there have been episodes of major acceleration of nuclear decay in the past." In other words, the RATE team suggests that natural phenomena that we measure today, might not have acted the same way in times past. People may have lived a whole life in 900 years (as some did according to the Old Testament). Or, in the case of radioisotope decay, a "whole life" might have occurred in a few minutes...hence, chemical elements acted as if the world had aged billions of years when only thousands of years had passed (accelerated nuclear decay). In addition to accelerated nuclear decay occurring during the creation, the RATE team also suggests this happened during the year long flood. "Halos are present in abundance in granites whose formation accompanied the Genesis flood. This indicates that a large-scale acceleration of nuclear decay occurred during the year-long Flood event."

So, the authors have decided, by counting the generations of people recorded in the Old Testament, how old the earth is. That really is the age of the earth they are searching for...not the actual half-life of nuclear particles. Then, they spend a lot of time noting how the dating of nuclear particles is complicated, and imprecise (especially if you are talking millions and billions of years). Finally, they come up with a way to make the data fit. In other words, the data do point to an older earth. So, they say that there must have been times, in the past, when nuclear decay was accelerated...like during the creation and during the Flood. The earth's natural laws were suspended during these times........how convenient!!

So, did God create man on the sixth day AFTER plants and animals (Genesis 1:1-2:3), or before the plants and animals (Genesis 2:4-25)? It seems that RATE might have a problem here since they insist that the Bible be considered a literal description of the creation and that scientific data MUST conform to scripture.

Those who cannot examine their own presuppositions will not like this book. It is not a charge that can be levelled at its authors.

It is an unabashed attempt to critique radioisotope dating, based on an open profession of adherence to Genesis. It reminds me that earth dating is not based on isotopes, for it was largely determined before their discovery, it also points out how discrepant dating methods can be (with some published inconsistencies reaching 1 or even 2 orders of magnitude), of how isotope dating or recent volcanic eruptions can overdate by tens or scores of millions of years, and of how radioisotope dates are overruled by index fossil dates.

Nevertheless the problem for young earth creationists of rapid radioactive decay and its problematic consequences are handled with brutal and self effacing honesty. No one in his right mind could honestly claim this is a sinister work of propaganda (did Marx, Goebbels or Mao Tse Tung ever use such an approach to persuade gainsayers?!).

The work cites empirical data for heavily disproportionate helium trapping in zircons and revisits the polonium radiohaloes the creationist Gentry first published about in Science. Whilst there are aggressive and often vituperative critiques of this on the internet, and some make reasonable methodological and interpretative criticisms, I have still not read a convincing alternative explanation for these phenomena. There are still charges to be answered.

Whilst the idea of change in radioisotope decay rates seems almost as outrageous as changes in c or the idea of interaction speeds faster than c that Einstein so despised, both these latter have since been empirically been demonstrated. When faced with the huge black holes of ignorance about basic matter and the nuclear forces, a wise man holds his peace and gathers all the data carefully.

Scoffers will probably not find themselves persuaded, believers may be mildly comforted but will draw their root assurances from stronger data of another kind, and critical readers will take some interesting challenges to our generation's sacred cow of uniformitarianism away with them.

As I expected, this book is poorly disguised pseudoscience. The first part that I read was the references: Only 16 references for a work of such potential *revolutionary* import, with just four of these from recognized peer-reviewed scientific journals, and none of the article authors were authors of the chapters in this book. Red Flag. That provided a good indicator of where this book was going to go. But each chapter provided some basic scientific background (physics/chemistry/geology as relevant) and this was informative and generally well-written (made understandable for the non-specialist). Be not deceived, however.

"Thousands Not Billions" (TnB) went to great lengths to highlight discordance among radiodating methods and results, and other radiodating pitfalls. This may indeed be the case but that in and of itself is not the same as saying that because there are discrepancies, the universe is 6,000 years old! TnB made everything all nice and tidy by way of pushing a completely unsubstantiated theory called "Accelerated Nuclear Decay" which apparently took place during the first two days of creation and during the Flood (and ultimately explains the title of this book). A quote (my emphasis): "These results *imply* that accelerated decay *likely* persisted throughout the year of the Flood." Then TnB played the apologist-pot calling the kettle black by stating: "The questioning of radioisotope dating and the geologic timescale neither stifles inquiry nor hinders scientific progress. Instead it serves the healthy purpose of uncovering *assumptions* and *bias*". (My emphasis to highlight their hypocrisy in hammering the 6,000 year square peg of young earth age dogma as science into the round hole of legitimate geologic dating inquiry).

Then things got really bizarre. Proposing "string theory" as a possible explanation for accelerated decay! Well, if you ask me, this is "grasping at ... strings". Then there is this quote about the danger of accelerated decay to life: "There is the obvious issue of protecting the precious animal and human life on board [Noah's] ark. The water barrier between the ark and the earth's rock layers could have played a major role *along with* divine intervention" (my emphasis). Stating the obvious as an afterthought, "In fact, most Biblical miracles require a temporary suspension of basic natural laws." Why is it then necessary to try and convince the reader that natural laws are valid when they support young earth theory, but that God needed to suspend them for the week of creation and the Flood (due to too high radiation/heat levels!!)? This is farce! If that was the case they are not laws at all. And why would God need them ... sometimes? In fact, why not just drop the pretense of science altogether if it is not constant and not needed? The authors are using science in a way that undermines science; it doesn't ring true or righteous. It is an affront to science and does a disservice to Christianity.

The last chapter before the conclusion convinced me that OK, there is both poetry and narrative in the Bible (Well duh). It did not make me believe that by virtue of being narrative (as determined through a convoluted statistical analysis of Hebrew verb type), narrative is necessarily always literal and never allegorical. Besides failing because it makes a mockery of the scientific method, TnB also fails to convince because its authors come across as apologists not scientists.

A detailed account of the many, flawed methods of scientific measurement for the purposes of identifying age. The field of science, along with all others, is also at the mercy of pre-conceived theories, theologies and world views. This book will allow you to ponder and weigh all our so-called scientific evidence for millions and billions of earth age, after carefully detailing the assumptions, statistical manipulations and flaws found in all our dating methods. The evidence does not uniformly point to an old earth, unless you have such an preconceived notion.