Talk:Age of Earth/Archive 7

Archive 1

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Archive 7

Archive 8

Images

Images! The page looks pretty dull without any. Surely there are plenty that would be suitable here. Richard001 (talk) 04:44, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree, someone should find a photograph of the earth as it was forming ;) --Lightnin Boltz (talk) 10:25, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

That's just your lack of imagination; there are surely plenty of images that are relevant. I have added 'reqimage', though it remains unclear if this is the appropriate way to make such a request. Richard001 (talk) 07:11, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Molten Mantle

Re: Statement about molten mantle

The Earth's mantle is solid, apart from some partial melting in the asthenosphere. True over time it exhibits rheological properites similar to those of a fluid- such as convection, but it is at all times quite solid —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dekitchen (talk • contribs) 18:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Jeudo-Chrisitan WHAT?

There's no such seperation between Haredi jews and Orthodox jews. Both believe that, to-date, the universe exists for 5768 years. Cycles/lifetime differ, but not between orthodox/haredi, but between individuals, relying on Rabbis stating some facts, All of them say the universe will exist for 6000 years, Most of them (and the most valued ones) state that the universe will go through a transformation and exist forever. Some say it will re-crate itself, again and again untill the 50,000th year where it will cease to exist. (a thousand jubilees) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.139.199.114 (talk) 14:48, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Citation Needed

Somebody's crapped citation needed's on almost every sentence, a third of which actually needed them, a third is well known, and a third is already covered by the citations in place. Somebody edit this please. 24.252.195.3 (talk) 04:37, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, we'll just get the person who is maintaining this article. *Knock knock* ... *doesn't expect answer* Richard001 (talk) 07:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

What's the deal with "our Sun" ?

Why is it important to some to change the Sun to our Sun? Saros136 (talk) 05:02, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't rightly know. All those "ours" seem glaringly unneeded as there's only one Sun with a capital S. The anon seemed rather obsessed with it, grammatical correctness or some such ... so I left it for awhile. Vsmith (talk) 14:47, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

It's also a clear example of Sol-pov; even though all of Wikimedia's servers are located in the Solar System, we don't want to offend the Alpha Centauris if we can avoid it! --Saforrest (talk) 20:43, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Although it is not specifically spelled out, I think that "our" may not be following the spirit of Wikipedia:MoS#Usage. It also seems unencyclopedic language.—RJH (talk) 23:26, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Could this article link to Earth?

I was reading this article's intro and went to click on Earth... but there is no such link. I was a little shocked. Perhaps there should be a link to that article, here? -Miskaton (talk) 17:30, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I've added two. One in an image caption, and the other is the first instance of the word that isn't part of the bolded article title. Ben (talk) 18:03, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Religion

Religious content keeps being edited into this page and removed from this page by certain individuals. I am under the impression that this page is meant to be strictly a scientific discussion involving geology and not intended to incorporate religion/myths (which there is the page Creation Myths for). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.33.134.62 (talk) 18:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Elfguy (talk) 13:30, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

surely using the word "myth" is not WP:NPOV 203.211.90.46 (talk) 10:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The title of the article isn't "Age of the Earth (science)". It's interesting to include religious views of the world on the subject; it provided a nice consolidated place for different religious doctrines' statement of the Earth's age.--Loodog (talk) 20:51, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

It's true that that isn't the title, but the scope of the article is explicitly scientific.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 22:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The word myth doesn't necessarily imply falsehood only storytelling- see mythology.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 22:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Where is scope defined? By the editors largely, clearly it is seen by many that this is within the scope. 203.211.90.46 (talk) 05:29, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The age of the Earth is principally a matter of Geochronology. Creation myths are not directly relevant to this issue as they predominantly deal with 'how', not 'when', the religion in question teaches that the Earth was created (the latter being added as an extra layer through interpretation of the former). I would support a consensus that constrains this article to being about the scientific research, evidence and consensus about the age of the Earth. For one thing, allowing religion in creates all sorts of WP:DUE weight problems -- which religions' viewpoints do we allow in, and who do we allow to speak on their behalf? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 06:26, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

ah, thank you for clearing this up. So now this makes it clear that you wouldn't want to include ages calculated from outside the scope of Geochronology within that article. Yet obviously this article Age of Earth has no such limitations that Geochronology would have. As for the how/when question, the answer to this is easy too. As simply those which do not touch at all upon the when would be excluded. Easy as pie, no troubles there. 203.211.90.46 (talk) 11:18, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

This article does have the same limitations as the geochronology article, as discussed in the WP:UNDUE link provided. You are also welcome to read Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Scholarship, in particular Material that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable; this means published in peer-reviewed sources, and reviewed and judged acceptable scholarship by the academic journals. Until you can produce reliable sources for any material you want to include in this article, there is little point in discussing this any further. Ben (talk) 12:15, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I am a little unclear on exactly how NPOV policy is to be applied. Isn't labeling a particular world-view of the Age of the Earth as "mythical", while clearly favoring a view based on a scientific worldview distinctly POV? Especially since approximately 45% of Americans believe the age to be under 10k years, how is it determined that the scientific view should be the only one represented on this page as being the "real" age of the Earth, while others are relegated to belief pages? I'm sure ample scholarly references could be found to support the contention that the Bible asserts a young Earth; so that then brings the matter to favoring materialistic science over scriptural revelation: again, apparently NPOV. --Sylvank (talk) 22:27, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

First off, that poll you refer to doesn't say anything about the age of the Earth, and this isn't an American-centric encyclopedia anyway. Secondly, there is also no physical evidence that suggests a young age for the Earth; instead multiple lines of evidence show it to be roughly 4.3 billion years. And finally, whether the Bible suggests a young earth is debatable even among Christians; in fact most Christians are not young earth creationists. I hope that helps answer your question. Aunt Entropy (talk) 22:48, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid it doesn't. The significance of the poll is that, at least in the US, roughly equal numbers of people believe in an old and young Earth. I think this qualifies the view under notability. Furthermore, you state there is "no physical evidence". This seems to be POV: there are people who say the evidence supports an old Earth, while others say that evidence supports a young Earth. While more scientists may prefer the former to the latter, my impression, from a previous NPOV discussion, is that it is not up to editors to decide which is "factual", but rather to represent all viewpoints fairly. It's also true that not all Christians are young-Earthers, but a sizable minority are. I would certainly agree the evidence points overwhelmingly to an ancient Earth. But it does so for those who accept methodological naturalism, empiricism, and materialism. Deciding that this view is "correct", whereas those who believe scripture trumps the possibly flawed, possibly agenda-driven (eg. evil atheist conspiracy) scientific interpretation of evidence are "wrong", seems to be a clear display of bias. I would agree that scientifically, the age of the Earth is a fact. But it is also in dispute. What I'm trying to find out, is if relegating WorldView X to "myth", while asserting WorldView Y as the primary and factual information about a subject, is consistent with WP's NPOV policy. Thanks. --Sylvank (talk) 23:15, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I just read Wikipedia:Fringe_theories. Would it be reasonable to assume that the young-Earth position qualifies as a fringe theory, and while it may have many adherents, it is overwhelmingly dismissed by mainstream science and academia, thus can be relegated to a secondary article? --Sylvank (talk) 23:32, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. All current cited 'evidence' for the various young-earth theories is easily debunked by high school students (even under the "optional" constraint of the scientific method), qualifying such theories as psuedoscience as well. --Kingoomieiii ♣ Talk 15:30, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

But this article isn't (explicitly) about science. There's no question on what science says or its verifiability, but many people might be interested in the religious views.--Loodog (talk) 15:40, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The age of the Earth is a scientific topic. We don't inject the views of the religious, politicians, popular opinion, and so on, into these articles. Cheers, Ben (talk) 15:47, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I've clarified this with a WP:DAB template. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 17:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Excellent work Hrafn, very well done. This resolves the issue nicely. Doc Tropics 18:01, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Why are we adding disambiguation templates to point to mythology articles? The age of the Earth is not an ambiguous topic, we can't possibly do this for every article that conflicts with a known myth and the creation myth article doesn't address the age of the Earth at all. This is wrong from every angle. Ben (talk) 00:19, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

In an ideal world you would be entirely correct, and there would be no need for a hatnote. However, even the briefest review of this talkpage will prove that we don't live in an ideal world. There is absolutely no need, and no one is suggesting, that we add hatnotes "...for every article that conflicts with a known myth." We are attempting to use this hatnote in a singualr, specific, very appropriate, and clearly necessary fashion. A single line of text on the article page could easily obviate hundreds of lines of pointless, repetitive text on the talkpage. I'm going to restore it now, not because "I like it" (which was moderately offensive of you), but because so far two editors have made numerous valid points and your only apparent opposition seems to be "I don't like it". How does the shoe feel on that foot ? Doc Tropics 00:44, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

You've failed to address my comment, you haven't made valid points, and since this is a discussion from mid-2008 that was recently revived, I don't see the urgency of a hatnote that you're now alluding to. If someone comes to the talk page and asks that religious material be added here, we carefully explain to them why we shouldn't. We don't add hatnotes to point to mythology articles. I didn't say we should add a hatnote to other articles, I suggested that the reasoning used here could be used on any article that conflicts with a known myth. I also suggested that redirecting readers to an article that doesn't discuss the age of the Earth is ridiculous, and now that I think about it so is redirecting readers to a different POV. Ben (talk) 01:44, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The point of the dab is that we have two umbrella groupings. (i) we have scientists estimating the age of the Earth, according to the scientific method. (ii) We have a bunch of groups, most notable Young Earth creationists & Hindu creationists, coming up with different ages of the Earth based upon their respective divine revelations. This article is currently on (and WP:CONSENSUS would appear that it is intended to be on) the first aspect. The point of the dab is to tell readers (and editors) not to look for (and not to add) information on the second aspect here. It has the effect of more clearly delineating the topic of this article, directing traffic, and avoiding repeated introduction of off-topic information (and talk-threads explaining why it is off-topic and has been removed). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 03:29, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

(←) That isn't what dabs are for, and is unlikely to have any effect on what is essentially zero talk page discussion on the matter anyway. In fact, in my experience any use of the term myth tends to get people in more of a complaining mood. There would barely be an article on Wikipedia that some notable group doesn't largely agree with, and we can't go around using dab templates as 'POV traffic lights'. If you think the introduction isn't clear enough in some respect, we can work on that. If you want to curb talk page use, we can consider a template at the top of this talk page. Ben (talk) 04:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

What about this?: http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers/topic/age-of-the-earth It has many contradictions to what is on Wikipedia, and shows that it is only 6,000 years old. Jumper4677 (talk) 13:12, 29 March 2009 (UTC)Jumper4677 29 March 2009 (UTC)

No, it doesn't show that. It is apologetics, not science. Aunt Entropy (talk) 18:19, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

So just because it's Christian means that it can't be true? Jumper4677 (talk) 16:17, 30 March 2009 (UTC)Jumper4677

It's not science if you categorically refuse to change your preconceived notion of how something "should" be in the face of overwhelming evidence of the contrary, no matter how much research you do (and how many biblical verses you use as footnotes and citations). It's deliberate, stubborn ignorance. I believe Wikipedia's policy on scientific articles (which this is) limits sources to accurate, reliable sources. Genesis isn't one of those, and ANYONE in the (respected, actual) scientific community will tell you as much. --Kingoomieiii ♣ Talk 17:47, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

What "overwhelming evidence?"Jumper4677 (talk) 21:57, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

How does the fact that you haven't done *any* research make it okay for you to throw stuff into quotes like it's not true? Read the entire article you vandalized, it's ALL overwhelming evidence against the Young Earth theory. --Kingoomieiii ♣ Talk 14:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

And by the way, this little nugget- "When a scientist’s interpretation of data does not match the clear meaning of the text in the Bible, we should never reinterpret the Bible." (http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-c14-disprove-the-bible) - there are no words for how absurd this philosophy is. The site you linked is in no way scientific. --Kingoomieiii ♣ Talk 18:12, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

No, it's fine. Just show us the peer-reviewed scientific journal it's been published in and we'll include it.;)--Loodog (talk) 16:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Interesting wording...http://www.trueorigin.org/helium01.aspJumper4677 (talk) 21:57, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

There are three levels of insufficient here:

1. True.Origin is non-peer reviewed secondary source. The article you link to by Humphreys did not have a scientific peer-review to be posted.

2. Even were we to ignore #1, The Creation Research Society Quaterly, contrary to Humpreys's claim, is not scientific.

3. Even were we to ignore #1 and #2, Humpreys discusses why a particular man's nonpeer-reviewed posting is inaccurate, and not the peer-reviewed literature.

Still, provide a link to an article in a scientific peer-reviewed journal, then you could start making the case for its inclusion as part of the scientific consensus.--Loodog (talk) 22:16, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why you act like you make up the definition of scientific.Jumper4677 (talk) 22:50, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

E.g. Nature, Physical Review, or really anything on this list. If you don't have an article to contribute from that, our discussion is over.--Loodog (talk) 02:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know...I found some stuff. One's from the NASA/NY Times and one's form the Boston Times. http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/library/Scientists_Chip_Away.pdf http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-8692963.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jumper4677 (talk • contribs) 14:46, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Not only do these articles not produce evidence (psuedo-scientific or otherwise) to support YEC, they're actually completely unrelated. They're only tangentially related even to the age of the Earth. At this point, your contributions to this article (and its talk page) have been 100% unconstructive and, frankly, have wasted our time. If you're REALLY looking for something to do, watch for vandals over at Young Earth Creationism. --Kingoomieiii ♣ Talk 16:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

They say that the moon is slowly drifting away. So billions of years ago the moon would have been touching the Earth.Jumper4677 (talk) 18:30, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry. Since you have nothing constructive to add to the article, this discussion is done.

I'll address your moon comment on your talk page since such a digression wouldn't be productive here.--Loodog (talk) 18:38, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

They say the inside of the earth is cooling down. So billions of years ago it would have been molten. Oh, wait...

Misconception + Bad Math + Once again, No Research, as you post on this ENCYCLOPEDIA ≠ Proof.

This actually reminds me of an article on AnsweringGenesis, which stated as a one-off, without any backup, that the inherent "beauty" in numbers was "proof" of the existance of god. As Douglas Adams said, "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" -Kingoomieiii ♣ Talk 19:46, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, Loo; I've got a bad habit of hitting Edit directly from the Diff page.  :( --Kingoomieiii ♣ Talk 20:03, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Age of the Earth vs. Age of Earth

The article title is Age of the Earth, yet the first sentence in the article uses the age of Earth. Which is it? The second seems more correct to me, but English teachers have been known to come running at me with a red pen in the past. Either way, we should stick to one or the other. Cheers, Ben (talk) 12:47, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Interesting question. My language instinct tells me both are ok, but I prefer the version with the article. I'd also say: "age of the sun", "age of Mars", "age of the moon", "age of Jupiter", "age of the galaxy", not to mention "the Age of Aquarius". Hmm ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:28, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Earth is one of those where we use the, I believe. Age of the Earth certainly sounds better than Age of Earth. --Narson ~ Talk • 09:30, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Adjusted accordingly. I suspect it has something to do with proper nouns, and Earth is something of a borderline case there ("the Queen", but "Elizabeth II", "the shrub", but "George Bush"). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:14, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Both usages are perfectly fine. One of the things I've learned teaching English here in Taiwan, and discussing English with other native English speakers from other places, is that there is no consistency with usage of "the". Americans say "in the hospital", but the Australians say "in hospital". To me, the former tallest building in the world is "Taipei 101", but my friends from Texas and Chicago say "the Taipei 101". There's really no pressing reason to move this. Nor is there any reason to push the article language towards one or the other. I usually push for consistency, but in this case the consistency brings no real advantage. I can say that to me "Age of Earth" sounds like it means something similar to "Age of Aquarius", whereas "Age of the Earth" sounds like it's talking about the length of its existence, but that is purely my gut instinct, and should not be used to determine wording, naming, or anything else beyond what I feel like eating. (Speaking of which...)--Aervanath's sock lives in the Orphanage, too 14:33, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

To gauge usage I quickly googled "Age of Earth" (giving ~1,610,000 hits) and "Age of the Earth" (giving ~263,000 hits). We also have History of Earth, and Earth speaks about Earth, not the Earth, consistently. If the word "the" is a cultural thing in cases like this, as suggested above, then that is fine, but since this is topic is about as global as a topic can get, I'd prefer to stick to the more common usage. Cheers, Ben (talk) 19:11, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind too much either way. But your Google search is not conclusive - more than half of your "age of Earth" results boldly contain "age of the Earth", often in the title. I suspect Google is trying to be smart. Also, I noted false positives like "age of Earth's formation". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:43, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

more than half of your "age of Earth" results boldly contain "age of the Earth"

How did you conclude that? As far as I can see it's impossible, since otherwise the second figure would be at least 800,000. I fully expect there to be some overlap (an instance of which is the reason for this discussion), but I made sure Google wasn't being smart since I searched for exact phrases. As for the false positive, no it's not. It could be either "age of the Earth's formation" or "age of Earth's formation". Cheers, Ben (talk) 21:10, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been more specific. More than half of the "age of Earth" results on the first page contain "Age of the Earth". And Google is smart even if you use quotes. Looking at the first hit (the Talk.origins page, [1], it does not contain the phrase "age of Earth" at all. Check the cached version, which highlights the phrases, and it will tell you that "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: age of earth". Point taken about the other false positive. But looking at Google Scholar (since this is a scientific topic), the outcome is actually reversed: 6000 vs. 600 --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:25, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I think that "Age of the Earth" is better English than "Age of Earth", which sounds very wrong to me. I also strongly feel that the article text should match the title. If consensus is to move it, then it can be moved, but either way the phrase should be consistent. Finally, I think that Google searches are a distraction. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 21:30, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I concur. Age of Earth (dirt?) is ambiguous, whereas Age of the Earth is pretty clearly about the planet.—RJH (talk) 21:34, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. Should History of Earth be moved too? Also, if Age of the Earth is better English, can you please explain this to me, since I really don't understand. The age of the Saturn sounds really wrong to me. Ben (talk) 21:42, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I was tought that our planet is called "the Earth", its natural satellite is called "the Moon", and its nearest star is called "the Sun". In my experience, no one would say "This plane could fly around Earth before having to refuel" any more than they would say "I see Moon is bright tonight" or "I was hoping to sunbathe, but Sun went behind the clouds". Other planets, by contrast, have proper names which are never preceded by "the". Of course, as pointed out earlier, non-British English users may have different ideas about the use of the word "the". This is just the British perspective, of course. THESHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 21:56, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I always thought the preceded Sun and Moon because there exist other suns and moons. In a sense we elevate our sun and moon above all others by calling them the Sun and the Moon. Another example would be the dog, as if some sort of context were already established. This plane could fly around Earth before having to refuel sounds perfectly normal to me, but your Sun and Moon examples I completely agree with. Can I ask then, why are the article titles Earth and Sun? Why does the (the?) Sun article start with The Sun ..., yet the Earth article with Earth ...? And we still have History of Earth too. I'm not trying to be difficult, just thinking out loud now and I would like to get some consistency between these articles. I might even make my old English teachers proud at long last! :) Ben (talk) 22:16, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, for article titles we have WP:MOS#Article_titles and in particular WP:NAME. As a general rule, English is messy, so WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS applies even less to the finer points of the language. And for me, "fly around Earth" is ok, unless I contrast it with "fly around the Earth", which is oker ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:26, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we should necessarily try too hard to get consistency between articles. Consider WP:ENGVAR - different articles are expected to use different variations of the language, and we should only strive for consistency within articles. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 22:27, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Personally I'd say "yes".—RJH (talk) 16:11, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I too would probably support moving History of Earth to History of the Earth. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:49, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose move to Age of Earth. The only argument in favour seems to be that English is or should be consistent. The claim that it is is quite simply false; The claim that it should be runs foul of WP:NOT. Either way, no move please. Andrewa (talk) 08:55, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. I was ready to support this move based on the google search count results, but then I did some poking around in the search results and realized the significance of the leading "The" in the results. When I modified the search criteria to take care of this case, it showed that "Age of the Earth" is clearly preferred to "Age of Earth" (see below). --Born2cycle (talk) 18:59, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose per idiom. The best explanation I can give for the idiom is that the Earth is a proper name for the planet, whereas Earth is a proper name for Ge/Demeter/Erda; but the fact of idiom is deniable only by the tone-deaf. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:38, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

For the record, I'm not opposed to keeping the article where it is. The article title and the article were different, Age of Earth sounded better to me, and Google 'seemed' to support it, so I started a discussion, noting that I was happy to be corrected. I have been corrected and I don't think there is any argument for a move now. However, I still think there should be some consistency between other similar articles - if it's considered proper for this article, why not others? WP:ENGVAR seems to talk about national varieties, and that isn't really the problem here (is it?). Should I start a discussion on History of Earth or not? Ben (talk) 00:41, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I applaud your efforts to create naming consistency where reasonably possible. So, yes, I urge you to withdraw this move proposal and start one over there. By the way, please read my proposal for a somewhat more ambitious effort to bring more consistency to Wikipedia naming. Your comments would be appreciated. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:48, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I've started a discussion at Talk:History of Earth, so if anyone is interested can you please weigh in, and then I'll put in a move request if the consensus is to move. Cheers, Ben (talk) 00:39, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose this is better English. 70.55.86.100 (talk) 06:33, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose Age of Earth is grammatically correct if the name of this planet is Earth. However, it could also be Terra. On this note, has anyone considered that the age of the moon could be named "Age of Luna" and the Age of the Sun be named "Age of Sol". I believe that these are valid names for our planet's sattleite and our solar system's star. Rolinator (talk) 07:29, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Google results

Basic:

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,300,000 for "age of earth".

Results 1 - 10 of about 261,000 for "age of the earth".

On the surface, "Age of earth" appears to be favored.

Now search each phrase excluding the other.

Results 1 - 10 of about 2,940,000 for "Age of Earth" -"Age of the Earth".

Results 1 - 10 of about 388,000 for "Age of the Earth" -"Age of Earth"

"Age of Earth" is still favored over "Age of the Earth" by a factor of 10 to 1. Seemingly a slam dunk. But wait, many of those hits include "The age of the earth" and "The age of earth", so let's search for "The Age of Earth" and "The Age of the earth".

Results 1 - 10 of about 182,000 for "The age of earth".

Results 1 - 10 of about 163,000 for "The age of the earth".

Seems like a wash, but is it? What we really want to know is whether the current title, "Age of the Earth" (not counting "The Age of the Earth"), is favored over the proposed title, "Age of Earth" (not counting "The Age of Earth"). Here we go...

Results 1 - 10 of about 6,180 for "Age of Earth" -"The age of Earth".

Results 1 - 10 of about 101,000 for "Age of the Earth" -"The age of the Earth".

So when we exclude the leading "The" (as it is excluded in both titles being considered), "Age of the Earth" appears to be favored over "Age of Earth" by over a factor of 15 to 1. In contrast, "history of the Earth" is only slightly (arguably inconclusively) favored over "history of earth" when comparing those phrases in an analogous manner:

Results 1 - 10 of about 15,000 for "History of Earth" -"The history of earth"

Results 1 - 10 of about 23,900 for "History of the Earth" -"The history of the earth"

--Born2cycle (talk) 18:59, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Note that many of the google results for "age of Earth" pick up non-scientific biblical studies and creationism pages, &c. So I'm a little skeptical of drawing conclusions from these mass results. I prefer the more selective google scholar, which gets 6,140 ghits for "Age of the Earth" and 599 for "Age of Earth". This is a scientific article, after all.—RJH (talk) 16:17, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the listing from Requested Moves per the withdrawal above.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:35, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Age of the planet

The Baker et al (2005) gives 4.5662 Gyr as the minimum age of the Solar System, so this serves as an upper bound for the Earth's age. The references used in the Earth article (listed below) give a planetary age of 4.54 Gyr (with an error of 1%) for the planet. How should we reconcile these? Thanks.—RJH (talk) 16:29, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

1. Dalrymple, G.B. (1991). The Age of the Earth. California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-1569-6.
2. Newman, William L. (2007-07-09). "Age of the Earth". Publications Services, USGS. Retrieved 2007-09-20.
3. Dalrymple, G. Brent (2001). "The age of the Earth in the twentieth century: a problem (mostly) solved". Geological Society, London, Special Publications. 190: 205–221. doi:10.1144/GSL.SP.2001.190.01.14. Retrieved 2007-09-20.
4. Stassen, Chris (2005-09-10). "The Age of the Earth". The TalkOrigins Archive. Retrieved 2007-09-20.

At the risk of sounding facetious:- find a reliable source that reconciles these numbers, and quote it. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 21:36, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

RJH, I don't see what needs to be reconciled about those numbers. The age of the solar system should be somewhat higher than the age of the earth.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 07:28, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

The 4.54 given in the sources rounds to 4.5, rather than 4.6 as is given in the lead for this article. This was raised as a discrepancy on the Earth article, so I thought I'd mention it here.—RJH (talk) 15:51, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Seems the first # is within the 1% margin of the second; and what is the margin of error of the first? Vsmith (talk) 12:00, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

My concern is with the rounding to single digit, which created an apparent discrepancy. I'm sure the margins of error may overlap.—RJH (talk) 15:51, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

my suggestion is to quote the whole geochronological determination. With the uncertainty of both determinations. This way, it is explicit that the 2-sigma ages do/do not overlap. If you go further, and quote the geochronological methods used, the reader can then also determine themselves (after doing a course on geochron) which is more applicable in informing on the validity of the others. Rolinator (talk) 07:34, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Patterson vs. Tera

Dalrymple (2001) says, "Patterson in 1953 of a valid age for the Earth of 4.55 Ga", but that, " value for the age of the Earth in wide use today was determined by Tera in 1980, who found a value of 4.54 Ga". The various journal sources list either 4.55 or 4.54. When they bother to list a source for the 4.55 value, it's usually based on Patterson (1953). This article states that the accepted value is 4.55, but 4.54 seems more appropriate. Any suggestions? Thanks.—RJH (talk) 20:00, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Its 100Ma, and often within error. I mean, uncertainty of course. Rolinator (talk) 07:31, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not even 100Ma, it's only 10Ma. 71.79.76.45 (talk) 04:58, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

What do we mean by "Earth"

Modern scientific theory states that Earth is the way it is today because we collided with a sister planet a long time ago. So does this article mean post-collision or Earth in general, including pre-collision? Glefistus (talk) 11:08, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Have you a WP:RS for this "modern scientific theory"? If so, then it should state when this collision took place, thus answering your own question. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 11:20, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

On closer examination, the subject is addressed in History of the Earth#The giant impact. Given that the age given for the Earth and the Moon is roughly similar, it is safe to conclude that the date is post-collision (which is hardly surprising as there probably wouldn't be any rocks surviving in tact from before the collision to be dated). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 11:26, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

All the dating is measuring time since the planet was molten, and History of the Earth#The giant impact states that both Earth and moon were molten following the impact. So yes, the date is post-collision. Agathman (talk) 16:21, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Remarks

• Per WP:LEAD, the content at the top is normally a summary of the material in the article body. Because the lead emphasizes the Jack Hills Zircon, I was a little surprised not to see this mentioned in the article.
• Should this article mention the Giant impact hypothesis?[2]

Thanks.—RJH (talk)

• This page is valuable for the scientifically literate. I believe that the introductory sections could be rewritten to make them more helpful for the 40% of the US population who are still Young Earth Creationists - without sacrificing its value for the better informed. Whilst only a few techniques are of value for precise dating there is a vastly greater range of evidence that the Earth came into existence earlier than 4004 BC. The section on the 'Development of modern geologic concepts' indicates how estimates of the age of the Earth have greatly increased over time then narrowed in onto a precise date. It would not be difficult to add references to many facts such as, for example, that:

- historical documents and archeological evidence shows that human civilization is older than this. -Carbon 14 dating and fossil records extend the record of the human presence to over a million years - geological evidence and basic assumptions about erosion rated reveal that mountain ranges and valleys must be tens or hundreds of millions of years old -Tectonic evidence reveals that the continents and oceans must be hundreds of millions of years old etc --Tediouspedant (talk) 14:10, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Religious Estimates

I am an atheist, so I'm not suggesting this on bias, however for an article on 'Age of the Earth', shouldn't estimates from religious sources be included? For example, Dr. John Lightfoot in the 17th century estimated creation at around 4004BCE. DanEdmonds (talk) 02:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

See Talk:Age of the Earth/Archive 7#Religion. And on a related note, can we now have this dab back again, as it is clearly needed. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 05:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

That discussion is based on the fact that "The age of the Earth is a scientific topic". That is just not true and wikipedia is not a scientific encyclopedia. The title of this page is “Age of the Earth”, and all opinions on that matter should be stated here. The dab links to a page which does not discuss the Age of the Earth, but how it came into existence. I see no reason not to include various non-scientific views here. Chesdovi (talk) 12:29, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Geochronology and Exegesis are two unrelated fields, and attempting to cover both in a single article would be impractical. This article is explicitly, and by consensus, about a subtopic of the former (whose name is in fact means 'dating of the Earth'). If you wish to create a separate article on the subtopic of the latter relating to religious estimates of the age of the Earth (and can meet wikipedia policy in doing so) then you are welcome to do so. [Belatedly signed Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 05:28, 4 August 2009 (UTC) ]

Precisely. If that content were added here (legitimately, it's VERY often added here as vandalism), I'd vote for it to be split to Religious Estimates For The Date Of Creation, and linked to in this article's hatnote. --King ♣ Talk 11:31, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Agree with the sentiment, but are those really estimates? Some, sure (the Usher-Lightfoot chronology seems to have several unfounded assumptions), but others, like to Maja calendar, are remarkably precise (if not accurate ;-). Religious Dating of Creation? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:51, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

A number of (mainly religious) dates are already included in Dating creation. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 13:41, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I estimate the earth to be 24162,67 years old. That is my religious estimation, now I demand it to be put into this article, since Wikipedia is not to be taking sides in religious views. I can go write a few pages of fancy words and complicated equations if that's required, all leading to the fact that they are nothing but my own views of course, but nevertheless, fancy words and complicated equations.

Note: Irony may have been used. -- 88.85.60.103 (talk) 01:28, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

If we put every opinion on the age of the Earth, this article would be bigger than every article on Wikipedia combined. We wouldn't be able to put just Christianity's opinion, or Muslim's opinion, but EVERYBODY's opinion. Might as well put down my personal opinion while we're at it. Stick to facts, stick to science, or this article is gonna get real messy real fast. If we put "various non-scientific views", then who gets to decide which views get put in and which get left out? Supergoalie1617 (talk) 16:04, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Young Earth Creationists, apparently, judging by my previous reverts to this article. --King Öomie 16:10, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The dab template

In response to Mithridates' recent changes:

• "historical and non-scientific estimates" was ambiguous as it can mean either 'estimates that are both "historical and non-scientific"' or 'estimates that are "historical" combined with estimates that are "non-scientific"'

• In this case it is also misleading as 'estimates that are "historical"' is actually a subset of 'estimates that are "non-scientific"'

• "historical and modern non-scientific estimates" = "non-scientific estimates", so the "historical and modern" is redundant.

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 10:40, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not redundant simply for the reason that those methods that predate science are technically pre-scientific, not simply non-scientific. It's similar to the difference between a pre-technological society (one where technology has not been invented) and a non-technological society. The page as it is now gives the impression that the Dating Creation page is simply full of modern non-scientific methods of dating when most of them are historical. Mithridates (talk) 10:47, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

1. Yes, it is redundant as "historical and modern" = 'all' and the dab makes no mention of "pre-scientific".
2. In any case, "pre-scientific", except in cases which are 'proto-scientific' (which is not the case here) is simply a subset of "non-scientific" (note that many of the historical "pre-scientific" methodologies are very similar to the modern "non-scientific" ones). I would however not object to the addition of "pre-scientific" to the dab for clarification (though would prefer it to be listed as a subset of "non-scientific" rather than a conjunction with it).

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 11:05, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's the thing: before I clicked on the link I was under the impression that I would be going to a list of modern non-scientific ways of dating the Earth, and found myself on a page largely full of historical methods. It's vague. I'm not particularly attached to any wording but the way it is now is insufficient. Also note that previous methods of dating the Earth weren't strictly non-scientific, since science deals with evidence and at the time there were many pseudo-scientific methods of dating the Earth that shouldn't strictly be called non-scientific. Since you seem most interested in this page I'd like to hear your suggestion for a clearer dab. Well, your preferred wording with something like pre-scientific included, that is. Mithridates (talk) 11:10, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, you already changed the wording. Looks good. Mithridates (talk) 11:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Yes they were "non-scientific", as they were based upon supernatural revelation. Suggestion already given, both here & in dab. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 11:16, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

On a related note, the current hatnote is incorrect. It says "This article is about scientific estimates of the age of the Earth. For religious and other non-scientific estimates of the age of the Earth, see Dating Creation.". Dating creation does not describe any non-religious estimates of the age of the Earth. Hello, My Name Is SithMAN8 (talk) 01:47, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

1st Sentence

I changed it to be more direct.Desoto10 (talk) 01:47, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Carbon Dating

Why is there so much about carbon dating? Shouldn't the carbon stuff go on the Carbon Dating page? Orthora (talk) 03:04, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see anything about carbon dating...? Awickert (talk) 03:23, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Probably meant the long section on radiometric dating. That section is pretty long, but it seems to stick to the topic of how it relates to the age of the earth.Desoto10 (talk) 04:09, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Absolute Nonsense

After reading the first paragraph, I nearly threw up. Since when where Creationist views on the age of the earth un-scientific? There exists boatloads of real evidence pointing to a much younger earth. Someone should go read the definition of science. 216.198.139.84 (talk) 05:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the laugh! I'm having a hard time catching my breath! bravo :) Nefariousski (talk) 05:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The scarey thing is, I have heard hard-core young-earthers making exactly the same argument: that real science -- ie, their concept of science -- proves that the Earth is 6,000 years old and everyone else is part of a vast anti-God conspiracy. Are you sure that this person is writing satire? TechBear | Talk | Contributions 13:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Ahh, good 'ole Poe's Law. Ben (talk) 13:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I've heard that sentiment before, in various forms, but I wasn't aware that it had been systematized. Alas, it is all too accurate: certain segments of society write their own self-satire. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 14:48, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

To answer your questions a little more seriously:

"Since when where Creationist views on the age of the earth un-scientific?"

Since forever. Literally since the beginning of anything resembling current scientific practice. If it requires the existence of a higher power, it's not science.

"There exists boatloads of real evidence pointing to a much younger earth."

There exists nothing of the kind. You have to deliberately ignore several dozen branches of science, and assume that carbon dating constants are totally different (with no, zero, nada evidence), to even approach this view. --King Öomie 15:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh wow, this one caught me off guard, I didn't actually think this the IP editor was serious. In that case please let me change my official stance to the initial statement from laughter to , Nefariousski (talk) 17:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Laughter may be more appropriate and more useful. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:56, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

When did carbon dating suddenly become able to date things older than about 80,000 years? And please name the so-called evidence you are ignoring when you believe in a young earth. How do you explain red-blood cells in dinosaur bones? Or that Mt. St. Helen's eruption caused many changes in hours, that people thought took millions of years. (Like canyons forming, etc.)? 72.25.192.4 (talk) 20:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

A) 80,000 is significantly longer than 6,000, so what's your point, also, read the article, that's not what it says, B) Evolution, geology, astronomy, basically anything ending in -ogy or -omy, C) Completely made-up, D) Completely made up. That's how. --King Öomie 20:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Specific links for A, C and D- [3][4][5]. --King Öomie 20:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I refer you to the article on radiometric dating, particularly the entries for uranium-lead dating and potassium-argon dating. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 21:04, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I guess I should have been more specific about radiometric dating - I was referring to Carbon-14 dating. But let's not forget that all dating methods are based on assumptions. (Certain processes take a set time, etc.) As for the sources, here are a couple http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4379577.stm and http://answersingenesis.org/docs2/4305news5-17-2000.asp 72.25.192.4 (talk) 23:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Dating methods have assumptions - so what? So does medicine. Your first source gives part of the same explanation on T rex as this one and the arguments on Mt St Helens in your second source are refuted here, as referred to above. Babakathy (talk) 23:31, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I disagree, assmptions on what? Rates of decay? Halflife? We can objectively measure halflives (even really long ones) by measuring the number of atoms in a given mass of said radioactive material that decay over a period of time and then using that ratio determine how long it would take for half of that mass to decay. Rates of Decay are assumed stable because there's no reason to assume that they would significantly vary and no credible scientific evidence supports such a claim not to mention science isn't in the business of proving a negative for further reading feel free to look at the following sites that explain the basic concept. As for your articles the BBC article nothing in that article supports any inaccuracy of carbon dating even though it was snatched up and misconstrued by other sources, please see Tyrannosaurus#Soft_tissue for scientific explanations. And not to be snarky but I take something by Ken Ham the banana man regarding science just about as seriously as I take my 5 year old daughters explanation of what rainbows are made of. Nefariousski (talk) 23:44, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not saying that those assumptions are wrong (in regards to the dating methods) but rather simply that they exist. No one was there at the time in question - all we can do is observe what we have now and extrapolate backwards. (Or you could just believe Someone who was there - but that's what we're discussing.) There are plenty of other observations that suggest a young earth: the magnetic field of the earth[6], the rate of salt accumulating in the oceans[7], and the origins of race[8]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.102.21.253 (talk) 01:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but this stuff only appears to point to a young earth if you have a layman's perspective of the relevant scientific field. None of that stuff holds any weight in the face of actual evidence. And please don't link to AIG as a source for anything scientific. Nef's daughter has more scientific chops than they do. All you get from an AIG article is hyperbole, exaggeration, conjecture, and insistence that "evolution has been rocked to its core". Everything they do is colored by their acceptance of the Bible as a scientific text. --King Öomie 01:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

You need to back up your claims. Stand behind what you say. Don't just say "None of that stuff holds any weight," you need to explain why. (And sorry for forgetting to sign my last comment.) 207.102.21.253 (talk) 01:38, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm about to. I'm off finding links. --King Öomie 01:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

We can indeed measure the decay rate of many radioactive isotopes by looking at the afterglow of distant supernovae. And those confirm that they have remained stable over long periods of time. The magnetic field has flipped many times, as can be seen by the magnetization of rocks at e.g. the mid-atlantic ridge. And the "salt" argument is nonsensical - it ignores processes that remove salt, and if applied to other chemical compounds, indicates vastly different ages, including about 100 years of age for aluminium. A good source with pointers into the primary literature is here. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 02:10, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Magnetic field, Salt. --King Öomie 02:13, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in answering. The point I am trying to make has more to do with highlighting a young earth as a valid conclusion and not so much with disproving an older earth. Since there is some evidence suggesting a young earth (and none that explicitly contradicts it - please comment otherwise), it is a valid conclusion and for that reason, I think the first paragraph needs to be reworded. 64.141.83.253 (talk) 04:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

No. There is no evidence that can be scientifically interpretted as suggesting a young earth and plenty of evidence (starting with the whole of radiometric dating that explicitly contradicts the idea of a young earth. Babakathy (talk) 09:51, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Just because young earth creationists may use scientific terms does not make their conclusions, theories or ideas scientific. To be scientific you must strictly abide by the Scientific Method. Asserting a bunch of convoluted explanations with the use of scientific terms in order to fit a pre-established hypothesis is the opposite of scientific. Which is exactly what young earth creationists are constantly doing. The controversy arises out of the unfortunate need to clarify what they're doing wrong, which seems to be in vain, because really... where and how do you start trying to explain a scientific idea to someone who has already made up their mind? - Reaper —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.56.194.53 (talk) 15:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

This. If, when your evidence is discredited, your first thought is "Well there must be SOME way to prove <pre-established conclusion>" you're not performing science. The evidence leads you to a conclusion. Nothing good (or accurate) comes from starting at point Z and working backwards. They look at the evidence and tweak the numbers, stopping when it hits "6000", regardless of where it makes the most sense to stop according to the actual methodology they're using. And any OTHER science that gets in the way gets trampled or ignored. It's shameful. --King Öomie 15:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Note that the 6000 year nonsense was refuted pre-Darwin, pre-radiometric dating, pre-dendrochronology, pre-ice core analysis, pre-seafloor-spreading, pre-plate-tektonics, pre-stellar-astronomical-distance-measurements ... by early scientiests brought up in the Christian tradition, simply by looking at the evidence. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:50, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Good, can we move on now? Title of this section sadly sums much of the discussion up... Can't believe such things still need refuting in this day and age. Babakathy (talk) 18:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

A compromise

Is it ok if I change it from "The age of the Earth is..." to "The age of the Earth is thought to be around 4.54 billion years or around 10,000 years old (depending on what you believe)... or "The age of the earth is thought to be around 4.54 billion..." Because I do not think this page has a neutral point of view. Thanks Parker1297 ( Talk to me please! · Sign my autograph page.) 22:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Uh, no. The scientific consensus is that the Earth is 4.54 billion years old, plus-or-minus 1 percent, or about 45 million years. To say otherwise is to give undue weight to fringe theories. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 22:18, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

"The earth is either an approximate sphere or a flat disk depending on what you believe."--Louiedog (talk) 22:41, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

"Depending on what you believe"? No, empirical facts are not subject to beliefs. If you 'believe' the earth to be 6,000-10,000 years old, you are incorrect, and it would in irresponsible to claim otherwise. --King Öomie 13:05, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I still do not the article is in a neutral point of view Parker1297 ( Talk to me please! · Sign my autograph page.) 11:14, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

• Come on now. You need to do a little more book learnin' about science v. creation beliefs, young man. Do you really think we should fill this article up with speculations about how old the turtle is upon which the Earth is built (the Iroquoi belief)?--Milowent (talk) 12:25, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

• Relevant policy for you to read is wp:weight - neutral point of view does not mean giving every single viewpoint equal weight at all. Babakathy (talk) 16:13, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

• And as young-earth theories are widely discredited, and make up a tiny minority or relevant experts, it can be safely excluded from this article under that policy. Parker was advocating a violation of WP:GEVAL, actually- mentioning a scientific estimate and a religious guess in the same sentence, as though they were comparable. --King Öomie 17:16, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe to be NPOV we can just average the two values and use an age of 2.27 billion years :) 71.237.210.137 (talk) 19:17, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

While we are at it, we can average the shape of the earth and say it is a plate with a slight downward bend at the edges. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 13:22, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Request for Page Protection

I have requested indefinite semi-protection for this page due to on-going input from IP-editor young-earth Creationists. Happy editing, hajatvrc with WikiLove @ 20:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Misuse of sources

Jagged 85 (talk · contribs) is one of the main contributors to Wikipedia (over 67,000 edits; he's ranked 198 in the number of edits), and most of his edits have to do with Islamic science, technology and philosophy. This editor has persistently misused sources here over several years. This editor's contributions are always well provided with citations, but examination of these sources often reveals either a blatant misrepresentation of those sources or a selective interpretation, going beyond any reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent. Please see: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85. I searched the page history, and found 3 edits by Jagged 85 in September 2008. Tobby72 (talk) 17:12, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

The material in question is (see article for claimed refs):

Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī (11th century) discovered the existence of shells and fossils in regions that were once sea floor, but were later uplifted to become dry land, such as the Indian subcontinent. Based on this evidence, he realized that the Earth is constantly changing and proposed that the Earth had an age, but that its origin was too distant to measure. The principle of superposition of strata was first proposed by Avicenna (11th century). He outlined the principle while discussing the origins of mountains in The Book of Healing in 1027. Shen Kuo (11th century) also later recognized the concept of deep time.

Based on similar claims I have seen in other articles, I recommend that this section be removed, and that any editor in good standing who verifies a claim, should add that claim back with a reliable source. Johnuniq (talk) 04:48, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

More detail of the history of accepted ages

I must start out by asking that this is not taken the wrong way because I'm not one of "those" people. I was researching the controversy over the age of the earth and wanted to get an idea of just what is out there. So I started with google, "how old is the earth," and found along with the many diverse answers (6000 vs 4.54 billion) this page as currently number 3. Though such a simple question, it has such a history. I was watching a thing on Nova about Darwin, Darwins Darkest Hour, and found (according to the film) how strong the cultural influence of that time really was. I feel it is important to either mention the history of how Europe's religious ideology (specifically on Genesis) affected science or to dedicate a completely different article to the subject and give a link on this page. I have not started such a project because I would ask for someone with a better knowledge of the history of science to do so (or just tell me a good page to link to). Thanks so much. Sidious1741 (talk) 02:32, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I think the header should be removed

I do not think this header is appropriate in this article:

This article is about scientific estimates of the age of the Earth. For religious and other non-scientific estimates of the age of the Earth, see Dating Creation.

While there may be incessant vandalism to this article from creationists adding incorrect, religious ideas about the age of the Earth, and this header may help to stave off some of this vandalism, it is just not appropriate. The age of the Earth is the subject of this article; mythological interpretations of this should be kept in a section within the article, not as a header. It would be the same if we put a header on the Sun article saying:

This is about the physical star, for the religious interpretation of this star as a god, see Solar deity.

Thoughts?. — CIS ^(talk | stalk) 23:24, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I think that the original header is very appropriate. And indeed, if Sun would have just one disambiguation list entry, your Solar deity header would be appropriate. DVdm (talk) 07:56, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was not moved per unanimous opposition.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:05, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

---

Age of the Earth → Age of Earth — I think the use of "the" here is redundant. We wouldn't make an article titled Age of the Venus or Age of the Mars. Granted, many people do say "the age of the Earth" in common parlance, but "Age of Earth" as an article title works better in my opinion; it's more succinct and professional. To me, saying "Age of the Earth" doesn't work unless you're saying it mid-sentence as with "we're talking about the age of the Earth". — CIS ^(talk | stalk) 02:07, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

• No. "Age of Earth" sounds like it's discussing the age of dirt (however inaccurate that inference is). Has this been discussed recently? Why start a "requested move" if no recent prior discussion? Johnuniq (talk) 03:56, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Google scholar search shows that "Age of the Earth" is 10x the more common usage.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 04:14, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose WP:COMMONNAME per Milowent. 76.66.193.119 (talk) 06:16, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. The analogy between the Earth and the Mars fails completely; The former is common English, the latter is not. Andrewa (talk) 06:51, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't see anything wrong with the existing title, it's how it's normally referred to. Mikenorton (talk) 07:51, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose WP:COMMONNAME: I think a more apt comparison would be age of the universe. We don't say age of universe. The only way it would work would be if it were changed to age of Terra, but again, not that's the common name at all. —Torchiest ^talk/_contribs 10:39, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Not quite totally apt; our planet is sometimes referred to as just "Earth", without the definite article (as in "Earth is our home" or "This is the best thing on Earth!"). Powers ^T 11:31, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Interesting. So Torchiest is correct, it's more apt, but it's more complicated still. No change of vote. Andrewa (talk) 21:41, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
• Comment Perhaps Age of Planet Earth could be a compromise. DVdm (talk) 11:57, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment: It could be, but what's the point? We look like getting rough consensus that there's nothing wrong with the current name. No change of vote. Andrewa (talk) 06:35, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. I have no problem with any of the possible choices. So I oppose nor agree. It was just a comment, not a !vote :-) - DVdm (talk) 07:55, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose: I would say common sense says the current name sounds and reads better in English. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 06:53, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose: "The Earth" is an accepted name for this planet. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 22:07, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

6000 years ago

According to the Holy Bible, the Earth was created 6 thousand years ago. This article is biased and is written by evolutionists! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.242.250.195 (talk) 12:41, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Please sign your talk page messages with four tildes (~~~~)? Thanks.

See the disambiguation header. This article is about scientific estimates of the age of the Earth. For religious and other non-scientific estimates, you can turn to the article Dating Creation. DVdm (talk) 13:30, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Hatnote again

Is the "disambiguation header" really necessary? The article is about the age of the earth. Must we tag every scientific article?Desoto10 (talk) 20:11, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Clearly not, but in this case it seems to serve a good purpose, as of course do other tags on other selected science articles. A possible alternative could be to rename the article to Scientific age of the Earth, but then we might have to create a separate ambiguation page, with one pointer to this one and another to the other page. As long as there's only one, this seems OK. See discussions in archives. DVdm (talk) 21:16, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Wikipedia is a compendium of information from multiple sources: scientific, mathematical, cultural, religious, etc. Non-scientific views of the age of the Earth are a major element of human culture, particularly in the United States where the topic is hotly debated. The disambiguation notice on this page and Age of the universe simply acknowledges this fact. Uncle Dick (talk) 21:44, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Sounds nuts to me. To DVdm, I see your logic but disagree with your conclusion. Uncle Dick, I totally disagree with you. While non-scientific views may be a major element of human culture, they have nothing to do with the age of the earth or the universe. Who decides which article gets such a disclaimer? Do we put disambiguation clauses into the religious articles? Do you think that this kind of capitulation to the religious sector might have something to do with why US children score so poorly on science tests?Desoto10 (talk) 22:54, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Religious articles absolutely include disambiguation where alternative views are discussed. The article on Jesus, for example, includes links to Islamic views (despite the fact that most Christians would repudiate those views), historical views (which may or may not agree with Christian orthodoxy), and even speculation about his sexual proclivities! Jesus is a major figure in world history and has had an indisputable impact on world culture and religion. Thus, it is appropriate to include both orthodox Christian and non-Christian views of Christ.

To deny that the age of the Earth is a major topic in human culture with fully developed scientific, religious, psuedo-scientific, and philosophical perspectives worthy of elucidation in a compendium of knowledge like Wikipedia is to deny reality. It has nothing to do with "capitulation". Uncle Dick (talk) 23:11, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Hatnotes are not WP:WEIGHT issues. If users wanted to include a long section in the article proper on YEC views of the age of the earth I would be just as opposed as I would be to those who wanted to claim for equal treatment that the earth has four corners (Isa. 11:12, Rev. 7:1) or rests on pillars (1 Sam. 2:8) in Earth#Shape; that disease is caused by demons (Matt. 17:14-18; Luke 13:10-16) in Disease; that the moon gives off its own light (Gen 1:16) in Moon, and that mustard seeds are the smallest of all seeds (Matt. 13:31-32 RSV) in Mustard seed, but the purpose of a hatnote is simply to assure that those who land on an article who might be looking for another subject, actually reach their target. It is not unreasonable at all to suppose, given the mass credulity and magical thinking of many from that oh-so-unreliable of sources, their revealed-truth, holy book, whatever its flavor, that some percentage landing here are looking for the fairy version of the age of the earth, so a hatnote works well to direct them to that destination.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:37, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree, keep the hatnote. Babakathy (talk) 14:32, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I've reworded the hatnote as a compromise. There are no religious "estimates" about the age of the Earth, only ideas. An estimate is usually an educated guess. — CIS ^(talk | stalk) 16:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Misuse of sources

(Retrieved from archive.)

Jagged 85 (talk · contribs) is one of the main contributors to Wikipedia (over 67,000 edits; he's ranked 198 in the number of edits), and most of his edits have to do with Islamic science, technology and philosophy. This editor has persistently misused sources here over several years. This editor's contributions are always well provided with citations, but examination of these sources often reveals either a blatant misrepresentation of those sources or a selective interpretation, going beyond any reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent. Please see: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85. I searched the page history, and found 3 edits by Jagged 85 in September 2008. Tobby72 (talk) 17:12, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

The material in question is (see article for claimed refs):

Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī (11th century) discovered the existence of shells and fossils in regions that were once sea floor, but were later uplifted to become dry land, such as the Indian subcontinent. Based on this evidence, he realized that the Earth is constantly changing and proposed that the Earth had an age, but that its origin was too distant to measure. The principle of superposition of strata was first proposed by Avicenna (11th century). He outlined the principle while discussing the origins of mountains in The Book of Healing in 1027. Shen Kuo (11th century) also later recognized the concept of deep time.

Based on similar claims I have seen in other articles, I recommend that this section be removed, and that any editor in good standing who verifies a claim, should add that claim back with a reliable source. Johnuniq (talk) 04:48, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Tobby72 removed the section again pointing to archived talk. Mann jess restored (apparently due to talk page not found). I have moved the section from the talk page archive and removed the content from the article again. This was an instance of that very large string of edits with misused sources - see all over the place. DVdm (talk) 08:37, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

A summary of the situation is at WP:Jagged 85 cleanup, and a discussion of how to proceed is at WT:Requests for comment/Jagged 85#Recent edits by Jagged 85. Johnuniq (talk) 09:20, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Got it now. I hadn't seen this discussion when you referred to "see talk page", but now that it's back I'm totally on board. Jess_talk|_edits 09:52, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Welcome on board again :-) - DVdm (talk) 11:31, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Revised date - Earth about 70 million years younger

If anyone could find more scientific reference (e.g. a journal article, New Scientist etc.) for this I'd be grateful, but it looks like the article needs to be revised: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10577055.stm 62.56.67.85 (talk) 09:39, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

The headline doesn't really do justice to the content, as is all to often the case in the media, I don't have access to Nature so I'll have to go on the BBC report. These researchers have used a different technique to give an age but note that it's not necessarily inconsistent with other estimates, it just requires a longer period for the formation of the earth. Anyway, this sort of finding needs to wait until other groups have had a chance to have their say. Once the findings have been repeated, or obviously widely accepted, that would be the time to change the article. Mikenorton (talk) 09:54, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Data from a newly studied meteorite recovered from the Saharan Desert show that the solar system formed 4,568.2 million years ago, 0.3 million to 1.9 million years earlier than other estimates. The results were published online August 22, 2010 in Nature Geoscience. http://news.discovery.com/space/solar-system-age.html 98.192.80.133 (talk) 18:02, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Do we have better source than this, and has this been confirmed elsewhere? DVdm (talk) 18:22, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Fact?

How can we possibly state, as an absolute fact, that the world is such and such an age? We can't, it's a theory, and estimate. And it will, without a doubt change in the future. We will become more accurate with our science, and know more. To say "is" as one use wrote it, is not true. Even the +/- thing. There's no way. Scientists in 100 years will laugh at us.

In other words, I'm arguing for my restored intro. 216.66.59.102 (talk) 01:46, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

To say is only asserts it as a good approximation, and the best we have. It has held up well for decades. Your edit only said what was already clear in the sentence: it is an estimate. Saros136 (talk) 08:11, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the new wording, and I'm surprised it was reverted. It is clearer and obfuscates nothing. Dawnseeker2000 02:06, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

"Absolute fast" ... no, "theory" ... no. We report the current age based on valid scientific evidence. Will future scientific evidence change? Quite possibly - and most likely to reduce the +/- "thing". We follow the current scientific findings and report the uncertainty of their numbers with that +/- bit. It is scientific fact based on solid evidence. Vsmith (talk) 02:55, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Methinks someone doesn't understand science. Science is characterized by its falsifiability, not verifiability. In fact (get it?), nothing in science is ever proven, only given evidence to support. Therefore, all theories in science have the built in qualification, "until proven wrong or further refined." 68.107.22.105 (talk) 17:16, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I thik that is why scientific fact was cursified in Vsmith's remark: scientific fact indeed simply implies "until proven wrong or further refined", as is somewhat verbosely explained in Science#Certainty and science, Fact#Fact and the scientific method, and Scientific method#Elements of scientific method. DVdm (talk) 18:31, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. This is why we don't need to remind people that the Germ Theory of Disease is not fact and may someday yet be disproved. 76.212.163.234 (talk) 22:31, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Almost. I.m.o. it is why we don't need to remind people that this theory is fact but may someday yet be disproved. But that is off-topic here. DVdm (talk) 05:21, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

This article is in dire need of a controversy section

Kent Hovind & his ministry is an infamously unreliable source -- dismissed even by many creationists, and thus no basis for adding material to the article, and a very poor basis even for article talk discussion. WP:NOTAFORUM
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The stance of Creation Science Evangelism as well as CMI and many other creationist ministries is that the earth is NOT billion of years old as is seen throughout their audio-video materials available online such as this one from CSE http://www.drdino.com/seminar-part-1-the-age-of-the-earth In regards to the carbon dating bezerk stuff which is all one big huge assumption based on the CIRCULAR REASONING of the geologic tables (the fossils are dated by the layers and the layers are dated by the fossils) their stance is also the same, as in it being an utter fairy tale. Here is one source content from CSE http://www.drdino.com/questions-and-answers-seminar-part-7a Someone REALLY has to add this section to the article due to the fact that after watching these 2 videos in their entirety (the first deals with the ASSUMPTION that the earth is millions of years old based on the same ALLEGED datings by carbon dating which is covered in video number 2) one CAN NOT ascertain that the statement according to which the earth is billions of years old (As the fairy tale line says "Once upon a time") is anything buth a lie, myth and deliberate speculation. PLEASE ONLY COMMENT TO THIS POST AFTER WATCHING BOTH VIDEOS YOU CAN NOT APPROPRIATELY COMMENT IF THE CONTENT THAT IS ACCUSING THIS HAS NOT BEEN VIEWED AND UNDERSTOOD Sergiu-Daniel (talk) 18:09, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

As is noted in the first line of this article, for religious ideas about the age of the Earth, see Dating Creation. Feel absolutely free to develop a controversy section overthere. Every religion of this planet has its own view on this question, so there's a ton of material waiting to be added there. This page is about the mainstream scientific treatment of the topic and that would be unduly drowned by an overwhelming amount of contradicting religious material. Cheers and good luck. - DVdm (talk) 18:18, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Especially overwhelming given that you're only suggesting we provide ONE religion's alternate reasoning. I really don't understand why, any time a scientific figure is questioned, people assume "Well, I guess that means my church was 100% right all along" (although in this case, the "circular reasoning" brought up isn't circular at all, and your description of 'carbon dating' suggests that you don't really have a grasp of how it works) --King Öomie 20:09, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Nobody dates the Earth by carbon dating. Carbon dating only works well for a few 10000 years. We date some artifacts by carbon dating, and calibrate it using a number of techniques, most of which do not use any geological layers, and certainly not dating by fossil strata. The Earth is about 100000 times older than the oldest stuff we can usefully use carbon dating on. We use other radiometric dating techniques now, but an fairly old Earth (many millions of years) was already scientific knowledge before radioactivity was even discovered. If you do not understand the basic science and history of science, don't watch DrDino. He is lying to you. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:17, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Just wanted to add that I agree with the above editors; there is no scientific controversy about the age of the Earth. —Torchiest ^talk/_edits 22:57, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, actually there is a controversy. But purely a scientific discussion. There is some discussion of dating methods which provide ranges as broad as .5 Billion Years in variation. 174.99.111.66 (talk) 23:10, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

"Discussion" is not the same as "controversy." TechBear | Talk | Contributions 00:35, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, scrap Hovend, what about CMI http://creation.com/age-of-the-earth and other creationist ministries that clearly refute the "once upon a time the earth formed" phrase and support the young earth theory. Their arguments are the same as Hovend's, the gology column is based on circular reasoning, the layers are dated by the fossiles and the fossiles are dated by the layers. Can any of you give me one bit of scientific evidence for this fairy tale of a geology column? Who came up with the numbers? The radiocarbon dating that can't properly date a NY Times paper, or anything else of known age for that matter? Here are some of CMI's arguments: Many fossil bones “dated” at many millions of years old are hardly mineralized, if at all. (http://creation.com/dinosaur-bonesjust-how-old-are-they-really) They have at least 101 arguments against your holy geology column which atheists venerate so religiously!!! "Billions of years agooooo........" Do you think that 101 arguments from only 1 website (with accredited scientific research) is enough for you guys to start a controversy cathegory on this article??????????????????????? Sergiu-Daniel (talk) 20:59, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Australia’s “Burning Mountain” speaks against radiometric dating and the millions of years belief system (according to radiometric dating of the lava intrusion that set the coal alight, the coal in the burning mountain has been burning for ~40 million years, but clearly this is not feasible). http://creation.com/age-of-the-earth http://creation.com/australias-burning-mountain http://creation.com/the-way-it-really-is-little-known-facts-about-radiometric-dating There goes radiometric dating out the window.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sergiu-Daniel (talk • contribs) 21:02, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

1) This is not a forum for discussing your views on the topic, and 2) there's no point in discussing anything if you aren't going to read the replies you get. King Oomie gave you multiple links to answer your questions. Please read them, and if you have specific suggestions for changing the article with reliable sources which conform to WP:RS and WP:DUE to back them up. Jess_talk|_edits 21:07, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I have read the replies. When I was in high-school they told us carbon dating tells us the earth is billions of years old. Now it's radiometric dating. What about you guys looking at some of my link? Sergiu-Daniel (talk) 21:10, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Then you must have gone to an extraordinarily bad high school. Please stop trying to hijack scientific articles to push your fringe religious agenda. DuncanHill (talk) 21:13, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

The links King Oomie posted answer the questions you asked in your latest reply... which you made after he posted them. This isn't a forum for discussing the topic. Per WP:Due, we represent the majority scientific view, and per WP:Fringe, we can't represent fringe or pseudoscientific views with the same prominence. If you have evidence that there is scientific debate published in reliable sources about the age of the Earth, we can consider that. Otherwise, we can't make the changes to the article you want. Jess_talk|_edits 23:07, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

What about CMI? To the best of my knowledge, they have nobody there who is an expert in geochronology. The guy they had write their 'Age of the Earth' article is a horticulturist, for heaven's sake (talk about an utterly irrelevant qualification)! CMI does no "accredited scientific research" -- they are a Christian apologetics ministry whose pseudoscientific claims have been disputed and debunked by pretty much the entire scientific community. In any case:

1. Wikipedia is WP:NOTAFORUM for arguing the validity of radiometric dating, scientific evidence of the Age of the Earth, etc.
2. Per WP:STRUCTURE, controversy sections are depreciated.
3. Any addition to the article would require a WP:RS. For the record, neither CSE, CMI, ICR, AiG, CRS, GRI, or anything similar are considered reliable by Wikipedia (but please feel free to take the issue to WP:RSN, if you don't believe me).

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 03:03, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

It's time to close this discussion down and stop feeding this troll and stop the troll at all other talk pages. This person is here to discuss his religious views, not to improve this article. The former is an abuse of a wikipedia article talk page. It's time to stop. --Kleopatra (talk) 05:26, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Pictures

Hello, I'd like to write an analogous article on the french wikipedia. I was wondering if I could use the pictures on this article. Thank you. Geologeek (talk) 09:38, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

There shouldn't be any problem with that. I believe all the images are in the WikiCommons, which is meant for use in other parts of the Wikipedia Project. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 13:49, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Lead

The first couple of sentences sound like they were written by a creationist to me. Plus they missed a space. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.231.80.25 (talk • contribs)

The content has been changed back to the previous version, per WP:WEIGHT. - SudoGhost™ 03:35, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Anyone else feel at least slightly suspicious of the fact that the same day Musicalcrossbow gets stomped for edit-warring, a completely new account is registered whose first act on Wikipedia is to make exactly the same edit? I'm going to follow ReneeSaffron's career with interest... Yunshui (talk) 14:27, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting find. I thought it was suspicious alone on the grounds that another user would make that same edit, but I didn't bother to notice the account was created today. Not surprising that young earthers would have to resort to sockpuppeting - what other resources are at their disposal? Certainly not scientific evidence. John Shandy` • talk 14:38, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

RE: John Shandy, please present what evidence you obtain to support the statement "Not surprising that young earthers would have to resort to sockpuppeting- what other resources are at their disposal? Certainly not scientific evidence." These comments seem based on an invidual bias, not actual fact. Thank you for your time. Musicalcrossbow (talk) 18:40, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks do not help make a point; they only hurt the Wikipedia community and deter users from helping to create a good encyclopedia. If there is a serious question of sockpuppetry, then I think the best action would be to open an WP:SPI. Otherwise, I don't think such speculations are appropriate on the talk page, even if they are identical edits, especially as such comments have no purpose towards improving the article, which is the purpose of the article's talk page. - SudoGhost 14:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I see how my comment appears to be uncivil, so that's my bad. I am not interested in attacking the contributor, but I will attack the contributions because even if carried out in good faith, such edits are obviously pushing a young Earth POV without adhering to any of the 3 core content policies, which the involved users have been made aware of on numerous occasions through reversion summaries and talk page messages - even administrative action. The involved users have shown little interest in engaging us in discussion to address any genuine concerns over the lead paragraph of this article. No evidence to support the edits, and no introduction of reliable sources into the equation are matters of fact, and if users do happen to be promoting the truth (which is not to assume bad faith, as they do it in good faith), then calling attention to it here is certainly a matter of improving this article. I have no doubt that the users restoring the disputed verbiage are acting in good faith. I am sure Yunshui will do whatever is appropriate, be it talk page warnings, WP:SPI, or nothing at all should the user observe WP standards. John Shandy` • talk 16:47, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

RE: John Shandy, if Wikipedia is truly 'neutral' then such as page as "The Age of the Earth" would be required to have all views presented, not merely one alone, however popular the view may be. True neutrality would require an unbiased account of each theory with no favoring any one side. This does not seem to be happening on "The Age of the Earth", and the multiple deletions and revisions alone of minor words show this clearly. Musicalcrossbow (talk) 18:40, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I did miss a space on my first edit, but fixed it immediately afterward. It was just a human typo. :)

I think the first few sentences sound like they were written by an Evolutionist unless edited. Evolutionists think they sound like a Creationist unless un-edited. Edited, it does not contradict the Evolutionary viewpoint. Edited, it most certainly contradicts the Creationist beliefs and is decidedly not neutral. Un-edited, it obviously pushes the Evolutionist point of view at least in my opinion. Edited, it lets people know that we don't know for sure that the "THEORY of Evolution" is fact as even Scientists who believe in Evolution and an old Earth agree. Looks like we're at a standstill.

I certainly would not want anyone to suspect foul-play and I understand how that could easily be assumed in this case. Just for clarification, I do happen to be acquainted with the other person who attempted to edit the page, but we are definitely not the same. The situation on the Age of the Earth page was brought to my attention and since I almost never edit anything on Wikipedia and forgot my old username and password, I had to create a new account. I did not repeat the other edit which had been removed, but rather came up with my own, albeit similar, compromise that I felt would be more palatable to the Evolutionist's worldview.

One of the links I was given, (thanks John Shandy!) contains this statement, "Rather, to be neutral is to describe debates rather than engage in them. In other words, when discussing a subject, we should report what people have said about it rather than what is so." This is what I attempted to do. The original article simple stated "what is so" by saying that the Earth is such and such years old. I edited the page to clarify that this is what is believed. Any knowledgeable Evolutionary Scientist will tell you that it is a theory, not actual fact. That is why it's called the "Theory of Evolution" and not the "Law of Evolution".

As for evidence, there is plenty of it available for the Young Earth viewpoint. The problem is that Creationists and Evolutionists look at the evidence and come to different conclusions based on their pre-conceived ideas. Both sides do it. Both sides think the other is crazy. You have probably heard a lot of "evidence" that Creationists use to support their arguments, but often, in fact most of the time, that evidence is nothing but straw men. Arguments that one side thinks the other side uses so they set up the argument and then refute it making those who adhere to the opposing belief look uneducated and insanely stupid when in reality they do not use those arguments and do have valid points. I'm not going to get into a debate on here. If you want to understand what the Creation Scientists believe, you must study for yourself. Read what they say. Here's one article to get you started: [url]http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v2/n1/radioisotopes-earth[/url] There are plenty of others on that site. Please don't bash us until you're thoroughly acquainted with what we have to say in defense of our beliefs.ReneeSaffron (talk) 19:09, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

We aren't particularly interested in your beliefs: Wikipedia isn't a platform to push the viewpoint of a small faction of one particular faith-based group. And there is no such thing as 'Creation Science' - as the US courts have noted, this particular neologism was invented to try to get round constitutional bans on the teaching of religion in schools. This is a talk page for discussions concerning our 'Age of the Earth' article, which is based on the scientific evidence - it isn't a forum for the general propagation of religious dogma dressed up as 'science'. This is Wikipedia policy. It isn't open to negotiation here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:21, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I would point out that Answers in Genesis is considered only to be a reliable source for the beliefs of Young Earth creationists (per WP:QS & WP:ABOUTSELF). I would further point out that out NPOV policy, at WP:WEIGHT explicitly tells us not to "have all views presented"' -- but only those that have significant academic (and thus, in this context, scientific) support. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 19:33, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Re: AndytheGrump A bit grumpy are we, eh? :) "We" probably are not interested in my beliefs. You obviously are not. No problem. I was replying to what someone else, not you, said concerning the lack of evidence for my point of view. That is all.

It is not my goal to push my beliefs on here, but I will defend them when under attack and I would like to see Wikipedia (and the world in which we live for that matter) give equal recognition to the belief that we live on a young Earth and the evidences for that belief as are given to the Theory of Evolution. If the Theory of Evolution can really hold up to criticism, there should be no problem with publishing what the critics have to say. In this case, because Wikipedia is not the proper forum for pushing one's beliefs, I merely attempted to come up with a compromise that would get a little closer to pleasing both sides.

There is plenty of academic support for both views if you're willing to look for it.70.242.160.156 (talk) 19:57, 18 July 2011 (UTC)ReneeSaffron

1. Wikipedia explicitly and as a matter of core policy DOES NOT "give equal recognition" to beliefs rejected by the academic community. If you cannot live with this fact, then kindly go elsewhere.
2. No, there most certainly IS NOT "plenty of academic support" for creationism. It is rejected by very close to the entirety of the scientific community -- as lists such as List of scientific societies explicitly rejecting intelligent design should tell you.

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 20:03, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

70.242.160.156, all of our arguments aside, we can challenge your edits on grounds of WP:V and WP:NOR because you are taking a statement that cites three sources and then manipulating it to say something that is not stated by those sources. Further, if you have a wealth of academic/scientific literature published in reliable sources to support your point of view as having equal weight to an old Earth, then by all means, please share them with us - after all, the burden of proof rests on your shoulders as you are making the claim here. We are standing behind the lead paragraph, which is well-referenced and has consensus, and our supporting evidence is made available to you in a neat and organized fashion at the bottom of the article under the References heading.

As I told ReneeSaffron on SudoGhost's talk page, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth - meaning what's important is whether content has been published by a notable author in a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true. Unfortunately, Wikipedia's policy on neutral point of view gets misinterpreted to mean neutral to all sides, when in reality it means neutral to the points of view in proportion to their weight within the available reliable sources because Wikipedia only represents viewpoints published in reliable sources. This policy fully recognizes that authors of sources have biases, and that those biases should be represented in (or channeled into) an article in direct proportion to their prominence in the mainstream (in this case, the academic/scientific community). This means that majority views should be represented as such, and minority views should be represented as such (and if they aren't a significant minority, they don't warrant representation at all in Wikipedia, per WP:NPOV#Controversial subjects). To give a majority view and a minority view equal weight (see WP:GEVAL) would be to interfere with a neutral point of view. This means that, despite that all editors have biases, editors are meant to keep their own biases out and refrain from manipulating or distorting the biases held by the authors of the sources we cite in Wikipedia articles. It would be non-neutral of editors to represent Flat Earth theory as holding equal weight to the Spherical Earth, because in the relevant field, researchers overwhelmingly support a spherical Earth and denounce the validity of a flat Earth. Over time I have noticed that this is either a deal-maker or a deal-breaker for new editors. Unfortunately, these are the standards Wikipedia strives to adhere to. If you can understand why these standards are necessary for Wikipedia content to be encyclopedic, then you're welcome to help us out in articles so long as your edits are supported by references with full citations, and comply at minimum with WP:Verifiability, WP:No original research, and WP:Neutral point of view, which encompass all of the things that SudoGhost has been trying to explain to you. If you do not agree or cannot accept these standards, I respectfully suggest that you might consider starting a free personal blog where you will be able to publish content under your chosen standards and free from interference by other contributors. John Shandy` • talk 20:14, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Re: John Shandy Thank you for your contributions. I still disagree with you, but I appreciate that you have at least replied civilly instead of just reacting without being informed.

I still do not see how it is a problem or how it would be possible for me to add a reference supporting the idea that "the Earth is believed to be 4.54 billion years old" which is the edit that I attempted to make. I don't see how that contradicts any Evolutionist's view. Actually, I should have added that edit along with a section further down explaining the opposing viewpoint and the problems with dating methods...with plenty of references of course. But I doubt that anyone would be any happier with that. :)ReneeSaffron (talk) 21:03, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

The age of the Earth has nothing whatsoever to do with evolution. This article is about geology, not biology. And no, you can't add 'a section explaining the opposing viewpoint' - you have already been told why. I suggest you stop wasting your time and everyone else's here, and expound your views elsewhere. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:16, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Question

Possible to lock the article? Thangalin (talk) 05:36, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

You mean protect the article? You can request that at WP:RFPP. I'm not sure it's necessary in this case, but I haven't been following the history closely. By the way, please make sure to put your comments (like this) in a new section, not at the top of an existing discussion on a different topic. I've moved it down to this new section, so it's easier for people to spot and address. Thanks!   — Jess· Δ♥ 06:32, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Small Reword

I changed the hatnote to 'religious myths and other non-scientific sources' from 'religious and other non-scientific estimates', since it seems a little more neutral. I normally wouldn't make a talk page note but considering the history of this article... 173.66.186.172 (talk) 06:58, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Though I freely and openly acknowledge the "mythness" of religious ideas about the age of the Earth, I think your change is likely to be interpreted to be non-neutral by those who hold religious ideas about the age of the Earth, and I wouldn't be surprised if creationists or other groups arrive here to challenge it. John Shandy` • talk 14:10, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't be surprised but they won't fare very well as "myth" doesn't mean "false" in this context. We've had a problem with creationists on the Creation myth page based on this reason but the term is well established and sourced so it's never more than a minor nuisance. Refer to this discussion: Talk:Creation_myth/Archive_4#Using_the_word_Myth_is_NOT_NPOV N^oformation ^Talk 19:34, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

The irony, of course, being that you're the one who posted that link on the Creation myth page in the first place :D. N^oformation ^Talk 19:46, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Yea, I've actively lurked overly every instance of debate over "myth" at Creation myth's talk page in recent years. As you've seen though, an anonymous editor yet again challenged the neutrality of "myth." It never really ends. With regards to this article, I don't think the previous hatnote was any less neutral than the IP's proposed rewording of it. I do think the previous wording was perhaps less provocative. The myth debates are tiresome and I'm wondering if we really are committed to rehashing them all on this talk page as well. Doesn't make much difference to me since this is one of the lower priorities on my article watchlist, I just think it's a question worth consideration by the editors that most often deal with keeping this article liberated from nonsense and dogma. Being that this is just a simple hatnote, I think exercising some strategy in choosing how it is worded is permissible. John Shandy` • talk 19:53, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Would "For religious beliefs and other non-scientific sources" be better? "Beliefs" neither endorses nor dismisses. Actually, we could probably drop the second part as well-- I don't see any "other non-scientific sources" in Dating Creation. -- LWG ^talk 21:25, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I think LWG's suggestion is a good one. It accomplishes the task without bearing the same risk of side effects. John Shandy` • talk 22:58, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Good with me. N^oformation ^Talk 21:38, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

If there are no objections I will make the change shortly. -- LWG ^talk 15:06, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Age of the Earth—source of uncertainty?

It would be good to state already in the Introduction what the main sources of the 1% uncertainty of the age are. Is it the accretion time? (100 million years is indeed 2% of the 5 billion years age.) Could an expert please clarify this and add it? Wolfsson (talk) 09:37, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Most likely just the margin of error in the various dating methods. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 12:54, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Overall its just very difficult to calculate an exact age. Small differences in dating is definitely one factor, as well as the fact that the Earth didn't form suddenly, it accreted over millions of years. Cadiomals (talk) 14:24, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

This is just what my question is about: which one is the dominant uncertainty factor: the error of the dating methods, or the (uncertainty of the) time interval of the Earth's formation? Wolfsson (talk) 18:53, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I think that stating that we know the age of the Earth or especially stating for certainty that we know its age is akin to scientists of the first millennia stating for a fact that they knew the Earth was flat. There isn't enough scientific evidence to state it as fact and it shouldn't be stated as fact.TheShadeTrees (talk) 01:53, 16 October 2012 (UTC)TheShadeTrees

Did you read the article, and more importantly, the sources used to support its assertions? They contain a good amount of the evidence you're looking for. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 01:57, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Probable age of the earth

I noticed that the addition of a qualifier "according to the majority of the scientists" was swiftly reverted per WP:YESPOV, which says "Avoid presenting uncontested factual assertions as mere opinion". However, I had a look at the first reference cited, which says

Nevertheless, scientists have been able to determine the probable age of the Solar System and to calculate an age for the Earth by assuming that the Earth and the rest of the solid bodies in the Solar System formed at the same time and are, therefore, of the same age.

So my question is - are we being more certain than the reliable sources, which qualify their statements with words like "probable"? StAnselm (talk) 20:21, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if "is estimated to be" is better than "is". After all, the hatnote directly above it refers to "scientific estimates". StAnselm (talk) 20:34, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm fine with "estimated to be". There are some risks for people with limited exposure to scientific language either way, but nothing dramatic. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:39, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

The 'qualifier' looks to be nothing more than an attempt to imply that there are significant numbers of scientists in the appropriate fields who reject the estimate entirely on scientific grounds - this is blatantly untrue. As for the word 'probable' in the USGS source, it needs putting in context - the doubt seems to be more about exactness than about the methods used to arrive at the figure. As I understand it, more recent research has tended to refine confirm the accuracy of the calculations, making 'probability' more 'certain'. Of course one can never be absolutely certain about anything in science, but I'd suggest that from the viewpoint of science - which is what the article describes - the figure arrived at is as near to an 'uncontested factual assertion' as one is likely to get. Or if it isn't, we'd need appropriate evidence from mainstream peer-reviewed science sources to demonstrate that it is scientifically 'contested'. As for 'estimated to be', I'm unconvinced that we really need this. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:49, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

So what has changed since the USGS article was written in 2007? Because it has the result we are using in the article: 4.54 ± 1%. Do you mean recent research has refined the precision of the calculations? StAnselm (talk) 21:06, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

The USGS article dates from 1997 - but you are probably correct, in that I should have written that later results 'confirm the accuracy' rather than 'refine' it. The cogent point is that if you arrive at the same result via different methods, the degree of confidence that they are valid can only increase. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:20, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

The page says Last updated July 9, 2007. StAnselm (talk) 22:06, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

The article citation includes a link to a version archived in 2005 [9] that states "Last updated October 9, 1997" - presumably the publication date? I've not done a word-for-word comparison, but they seem to be much the same. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:03, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

None of the three sources (at least the parts that I have access to) for that sentence use the word "estimate". They say "the age of the earth is...". Desoto10 (talk) 05:55, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

No, the first source says, in effect, "the probable age of the earth is..." StAnselm (talk) 06:11, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't have access to the second and third articles, but looking at the abstracts, I suspect we have the same sort of cautious statement:

The value for the age of the Earth in wide use today was determined by Tera in 1980, who found a value of 4.54 Ga from a clever analysis of the lead isotopic compositions of four ancient conformable lead deposits. Whether this age represents the age of the Earth’s accretion, of core formation, or of the material from which the Earth formed is not yet known, but recent evidence suggests it may approximate the latter.

— G. Brent Dalrymple, "The age of the Earth in the twentieth century: a problem (mostly) solved"

Notice the qualifiers: "in wide use today" "suggests", "may approximate". StAnselm (talk) 06:38, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

There is a big difference between how (evidence-based-)scientist communicate and how Wikipedia should be written (Just think of how law is communicated and how it is represented on Wikipedia). I'm going to clear up your examples:

• "in wide use today" refers to the age that is used the most which is the lead isotopic age. Planetary formation takes millions of years and has many different stages with different physical and chemical processes. These different stages can be dated by using different radiometric dating methods. But at no point of this process can you speak of a moment of creation or moment of formation of the earth. Just because a lot of people want simple answers doesn't mean that there is such a thing. The lead isotopic age is just what it is. It dates a certain stage of planetary formation and it was deemed the most useful to quote when speaking of "formation" of earth. Scientist of course knowing that there is no such thing.
• "recent evidence suggests it may approximate": Your last two examples are actually from the same sentence. Here the author explains that evidence (read: thousands of isotopic analysis) suggests (scientists usually communicate very modest) that the lead isotopic age may approximate (again: the world has no simple answers) the material from which the solar system formed (think meteorites).

I hope this helps you to understand the sources used in this article. I should actually try to make time to rewrite some of this article to clarify these simplistic notions of "formation of earth" etc ... :) cheers --Tobias1984 (talk) 08:44, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Just in case anyone is wondering, I am not arguing that the figure given in the first sentence is not an estimate. Pretty much all scientific measurements are estimates. However, this is an encyclopedia and we need to summarize the sources and make statements giving the most reliable conclusions. The way we currently state the age of the earth as XX +/- xx means that the exact age of the earth is unknown, but the currently accepted age is XX, but this number could be off by x. This is fine for the first sentence in the lead. This should be followed by an explanation of how this age was obtained. Tobias is rightly concerned that it may not be clear exactly what is meant by the "age of the earth" in the first place. In the Age of the Universe, this meaning is made clear in the first sentence. Perhaps we could do something similar here.Desoto10 (talk) 04:22, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I note the Age of the universe article has "The best current estimate of the age of the universe is..." and then has the value with error margin. I don't quite understand why people are resistant to that here. StAnselm (talk) 08:13, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion the opening paragraph of the Age of the universe article has to be rewritten. Again the wording from scientific journals is not the wording that should be chosen for Wikipedia:

• "best" means that it is the age determination method that most scientists think of as the best approximation for the concept of an "age" of the universe
• "estimate" is again a mix out of scientific modesty and acknowledging the fact that every measurement is an estimate.

Scientists, like everyone else, have their own way of communicating. It would not be helpful if scientists would change biography articles by saying that:

"... the currently best estimate of Tom Hanks' birthday is the 9th July 1956 which was determined by a calendar entry. The observational error of the birth includes the time from the first appearance of Tom Hanks' head and the first appearance of Tom Hanks' feet. Other dating methods include hospital records..."

This example clearly shows that every measurement is an estimate, not only scientific ones. Please consider this before you criticize the sources and the wording of this article.--Tobias1984 (talk) 09:01, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Tobias1984--Are you saying that we should change the first sentence or leave it as is? Thanks, Desoto10 (talk) 01:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Right now the article reads "the age of the earth is" and I think that is fine. --Tobias1984 (talk) 07:59, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Tobias, in principal at least. We shouldn't be using nuanced scientific language in the first sentence of an article about such a common subject. There are a lot of assumptions being made which we could qualify: "according to scientific estimates", "within a margin of error", "according to these certain methods", etc... We should not do that. Our sources indicate that we have a relatively precise age for the Earth, and that scientists are fairly certain of that estimate. Per WP:YESPOV, it makes sense to say "The age of the Earth is". We can explain our assumptions and methods later.   — Jess· Δ♥ 08:40, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

And to be clear, I think we should be explaining these assumptions, methods, and degree of certainty in the article. It just doesn't belong in sentence 1.   — Jess· Δ♥ 08:41, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree.Desoto10 (talk) 21:38, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Yup - Mann jess is spot on here. ( ± 0.05% ;-) )AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:30, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

'Big white space'

I see a big white space has appeared at the start of the article. How do we get rid of it?Desoto10 (talk) 00:04, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

If you mean the space to the right of the contents list, it is a consequence of the way the page layout software works, and there isn't much that can be done - try changing the width of your browser to see how the text flows, and you'll get an idea of the problem. See Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2012 October 10#Contents box for a report of a similar issue. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:41, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

It is gone.Desoto10 (talk) 04:11, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

The Age of the Earth

This article makes no sense. See http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/05/30/how-old-is-earth and fix article accordingly, please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.185.176.214 (talk) 23:46, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

This article is based on science. It is not based on the belief system of a particular faith. There is nothing to 'fix'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:00, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with AndyTheGrump, and I feel that this page is a place for facts, not fiction. However, as an encyclopedia article, it seems that this page could include more history on how the age of the earth was studied/calculated/guessed before Kelvin. Many different groups, religious and otherwise, have come up with dates; see estimates of the age of the earth as an example. Could be interesting to add to the history how before Kelvin, people made guesses and based their ideas on various holy books. And this page could include a section on the impact of the age of the earth on our society - as in, why we care about the age of the earth at all. However, what I do NOT want to see is any "equal time" nonsense. Skinrider (talk) 15:46, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

I think it would be a mistake to expand the article much beyond its existing scope. The article already makes clear that it is discussing "the scientific age of the Earth", rather than religious concepts: we have the article dating creation for that. As for "the impact of the age of the earth on our society", we'd need to find sources which specifically discussed this - and again, I think it would be best addressed in another article, assuming such sources could be found. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:21, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, per the talk note above, in gold, it looks like there are already other pages for religious objections to the age of the earth. So ya this page is fine as is. Skinrider (talk) 16:40, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

FAQ

This page so often has same issues raised, explained etc. Maybe it needs an FAQ like here? Babakathy (talk) 16:48, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

We already have a giant yellow box at the top of the talk page explaining (much more concisely than an FAQ would) what this article and talk page are about. There's also a hatnote on the article. I don't think editors pushing a non-neutral point of view are less likely to ignore an FAQ than the warnings they're already ignoring. Best to reply very concisely and then ignore these common questions. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 01:16, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

I like this page how it is. At the same time, as you can see from my comment above, I missed this part in the yellow box when I first came to this talk page: Explicitly, this talk page is not for discussing religious beliefs about the age of the Earth (this topic is discussed in the article on Dating creation) or religiously motivated (particularly creationist) objections to the scientifically derived age of the Earth (these are covered in such articles as Creation geophysics). The reason I missed that is because, in my typical information skimming (and yes, I acknowledge in advance that the fault lies with me), I saw the start of the yellow box: This is not a forum for general discussion about Age of the Earth. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about Age of the Earth at the Reference desk, discuss relevant Wikipedia policy at the Village pump, or ask for help at the Help desk. and I assumed that the entire box was basically generic, bot-generated info text. My only recommendation would be to possibly move the explicitly text into a separate box, or bold it. But like I said, the problem was that I lazily skimmed the text my first time through, so feel free to ignore me here :-D Skinrider (talk) 14:00, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Intro

Two thoughts: (1) - Rather than '"The age of the Earth is 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years...", perhaps, "The current scientific estimates for the age of the Earth range from x to y"; and (2) - There's far too much technical detail about "Ca-Al-rich inclusions" and suchlike - an intro should be a succinct summery of the body. I'm looking through the archive of this talk page to get a sense of the issues around this that have been discussed before, but would appreciate any helpful comments from those with an interest in the health of the page before I start hacking away. Snori (talk)

I'd strongly recommend proposing any major revisions in draft form here, rather than 'hacking away'. There has been a considerable amount of discussion involved in arriving at the current article, and it would be preferable to keep the article in a stable form while changes are discussed. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:30, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

The first sentence is better as it is currently written. The uncertainty is contained in the error bounds. As written in the article header, this is a scientific article, so calling the age of the earth a "scientific estimate" is redundant. It also implies that there are other estimates with similar validity, which is not the case. Desoto10 (talk) 03:49, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Controversy

Why isn't there a controversy section in this article? If Wikipedia is not going to approach this topic from a NPOV, the least that can be done is acknowledging that controversy exists. All For Jesus Christ (talk) 11:27, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Please read the note with an exclamation mark at the top of this page - and as it says at top of the article This page is about the scientific age of the Earth. For religious beliefs, see dating creation. Babakathy (talk) 15:18, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

There is no controversy section because there is no actual controversy about the age of the earth. Claims that the earth is only a few thousand years old are very much on the fringe, and fringe theories just aren't notable. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 15:23, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

That's nice and all, but there is criticism that is scientifically based. Pretending that the criticism does not exist does not make it so. Additionally, when did I say anything about the religious age of the Earth? I am a big fan of solid non-politically motivated science. All For Jesus Christ (talk) 10:39, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

There really isn't much scientifically based criticism on the accepted age of the earth among scientists - and "creation science" isn't science by a long shot. As for why most editors would assume you were talking about the religious - or to blunt, the christian - idea of a young earth... well, your username gives the impression you have a certain bias. WegianWarrior (talk) 10:58, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Please read the note at the top of this page! It is there for a reason. There are articles about Creation geophysics and Flood geology for example. This page is about the scientific age of the Earth - it is not about Creation science. Babakathy (talk) 12:01, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Please provide reliable sources to back up your statement. Being slightly more technical, the reason this Wikipedia article has no mention of the controversy is that there are no sources which meet Wikipedia's definition of a reliable source which support the argument that there is a scientific controversy. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 02:42, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

As a new editor to this project, let me first start by saying that I would hope all of you would assume good faith on my part. I am aware that this is a page about the scientific dating of this planet. However, simply because I am Christian, I find it absurd to think that my religion necessarily leads to an uncontrolled bias on my part anymore than not being a Christian would lead others to an uncontrolled bias. We all come from a worldview which will color our view of the world, but to dismiss one worldview as necessarily biased while pretending that bias does not exist in other worldviews (specifically the secular-progressive worldview) is a horrible way to approach this project in my humble opinion.

I personally have no idea how old the Earth happens to be (granted, as a philosopher and Christian theologian, I would strongly argue that the age is in the thousands of years range and not in the billions of years range), but as an academic, I am able to set aside the knowledge that I've acquired from my fields of study in order to comply with the policies of this project.

Factually, highly credentialed scientists disagree about the age of the Earth, including those who would agree that the Earth is billions of years old, and those who would argue that it's age is in the thousands of years range (Dr. Jason Lisle, Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Colorado, for example). My point is simple. I agree that the majority of this article should focus on the majority scientific view -- per Wikipedia policy, but there is a minority view and that minority view, whether one labels it as pseudoscience of not, is notable and documentable. Therefore, it's existence ought to be acknowledged.

In my humble opinion, censorship of a significant minority view, especially when that view has a serious impact upon this world (there are elected state [and probably federal] legislators who argue that the Earth is only thousands of years old and base their public environmental policy positions on their belief, for example), is not beneficial to this project. All For Jesus Christ (talk) 11:28, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

"creation was supernatural, therefore cannot be understood scientifically" - Dr. Jason Lisle, Ph.D. This is not the mindset of a "scientist" who has anything even vaguely relevant to say about the scientific basis of the formation of the Earth.TheNeutroniumAlchemist (talk) 03:49, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

If highly credentialed scientists do disagree about the age of the earth, then providing reliable sources to cite would be no problem for you. What laypeople and politicians believe is irrelevant to this article which - as you yourself points out - is about scientific dating of this planet. WegianWarrior (talk) 12:04, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Please take a read through the reliable sources guideline, especially WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Argument from authority is not the approach - if Lisle has published something in a reliable source which is relevant to the age of the Earth, then bring it up. But if I remember correctly, his main peer-reviewed work is on solar physics. Babakathy (talk) 13:18, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Indeed it was - "Probing the Dynamics of Solar Supergranulation and its Interaction with Magnetism." Sounds somewhat interesting in it's own right, but a quick skim of the abstract shows no bearing on the age of the Earth. RationalWiki has an article about the man btw. WegianWarrior (talk) 14:41, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Article should clearly explain where the current figure comes from

For such a long, meandering, well-cited article, it's disappointing that it never actually says how we know the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. There are clues - we can see that the main evidence has to do with the radioactive decay of uranium into (ultimately) lead and the Canyon Diablo meteorite, but there should be a couple of paragraphs that fill in the missing details and connect the dots. I certainly don't know how radiometric dating gets us a number, but it seems like you'd have to know how much uranium was in the Canyon Diablo meteorite at the time Earth was formed, and I don't see anything that explains that.

Calculations aren't necessary - just the concepts. And it should be in a section at the top of the article and not interspersed with history. It doesn't matter for this purpose who figured it out and when.

So if someone understands how the age of the Earth is known, please write such a section.

This is the topic of the science of geochronology. Geochronology has its own wikipedia article already.

One other thing: it's probably not obvious to every reader what the definition of the age of the Earth is, so a paragraph explaining how the Earth was formed and what constitutes its birth would also be helpful. Likewise, the article speaks in places about the age of rocks and it isn't clear what counts as the birth date of a rock. I tend to think I've created a rock when I chip a piece off of a boulder, but I know that's not the kind of age we can get from radiometric dating. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Giraffedata (talk • contribs) 06:57, 30 April 2014

The first two paragraphs of the lede do a good job of summing up that information, and the bulk of the article covers radiometric dating and how several different techniques and methodologies all converge to the same date. What more do you want? TechBear | Talk | Contributions 13:13, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

We have a separate article on Uranium-lead dating, which is linked from the lede, and explains the method(s) in quite a bit of detail. There are different methods, but in general, no, you don't need to know the amount of uranium in the original sample, either because one uses a mineral that by its crystalline structure has none of the daughter element (in this case, lead) when it forms, or because one uses isochron dating, where the different ratios in different minerals are used to establish the original distribution. But I think these details are indeed better off in the specialized sub-articles. Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:34, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

The birth date of a rock was when it last froze from a molten state (lava). Potassium-Argon dating is the easiest to understand in this context:

Contradictory figures in first sentence

Maybe I'm missing something here, but surely 4.54 ± 0.07 billion years is 4.54 × 10⁹ years ± 2%, not 4.54 × 10⁹ years ± 1%. Doesn't 1% of 4.54 × 10⁹ = 0.0454 billion? Benboy00 (talk) 22:56, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the sources I had access to, as well of the rest of the article, it seems to me that the 1% figure is much more prevalent. Therefore, I changed the lede to read 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years (rounding up from 0.0454 to make the sig figs match). Benboy00 (talk) 23:06, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Earth calendar

I want to use Earth age instead our current date.--158.181.175.87 (talk) 09:33, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Incorrect Application of Molecular Clock

I think that the parenthetical sentence in the second paragraph referring to the molecular clock is a misapplication of that principle. Read it as shown in the article:

<<(Modern geneticists have measured the rate of genetic divergence of species, using the molecular clock, to date the last universal ancestor of all living organisms no later than 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago).>>

If you read the article for the molecular clock, under the heading Calibration, you learn that the molecular clock can not assign absolute dates such as 3.5 to 3.8 billion years; instead, it is used to give a fraction for comparing two time intervals between taxa.

So that means that all the durations that come out of the molecular clock are in fact in units of "L", with L being the longest duration measured (3.5 or 3.8 billion years). For instance, the clock might say that from x bacterium to y large mammal, there is a molecular clock duration of approximately 0.945 L. And if we take L to be 3.5 billion years, then that duration is 3.3 billion years (0.945 X 3.5 = 3.3).

My point is that whatever the longest duration is that is used by the molecular clock, it is not generated by the molecular clock but provided by some other method. Thus the statement in this article is not a good application of the molecular clock method.

E.S. 146.23.3.250 (talk) 15:18, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I see some sources in the lead of last universal ancestor that might be able to clarify/correct that. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 15:27, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I didn't check the sources, but the text of the last universal ancestor article gives an age as some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years, and identifies the source of this age as being some famous biogenic geological samples from Greenland and also Western Australia. Note that the article does not date these samples by the genetic content of the biogenetic material; instead, the article dates the biogenetic material by the geological age of the samples. This means that geological measurements form the basis for molecular clock determinations. -E.S.146.23.3.250 (talk) 22:54, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Paragraph now re-written to correctly make the point regarding what is the length of the earth's history in the discussion of what would be required for evolution to do its work... without mis-stating the application of the molecular clock by supposing DNA work to yield an absolute age in years.SocraticOath (talk) 17:58, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Religious Interpretation

Section added to specify the conflict between religious believers (which appears on the first line of the article as well) with the scientific ideas. Similar to section in Big Bang. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SocraticOath (talk • contribs) 22:31, 13 March 2015

I can see no need for this - the article already makes it entirely clear what the subject is, and explicitly excludes discussion of religious beliefs. Furthermore, the sections seems to be conflating Christian fundamentalism with religion in general, and the statement about "the harmonization of radiometric-sourced ages with the Bible's timeline" is not only unsourced, but entirely ambiguous. Per WP:BRD, I am going to revert this material until such time as the issues are addressed, and consensus for inclusion can be established. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:44, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

(Following edit conflict) Seems a bit of WP:OR, although I see a reference has been added re: The Great Monkey Trial. The 1968 book by a science fiction author would seem a stretch - however w/out a quote or at least a page reference .. I'd be dubious. What does L. Sprague De Camp say in the book? Vsmith (talk) 23:01, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree that it doesn't belong here; this is an article with a quite narrow focus on the scientifically-measured age of the Earth. A small section on religion seems appropriate in Big Bang, but that doesn't mean similar content should be here as well. The religious interpretations section of the Big Bang article is also appropriately neutral and well-sourced. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 23:53, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

@SocraticOath: Incidentally, the version bit you added about religious interpretations said "see Old Earth creationism" saying that that article discusses "harmonization of radiometric-sourced ages with the Bible's timeline", but there is no mention of that at all in that article. It would be great if something got added there. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 23:59, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

RE: WP:OR, I'll propose a few pretty good references, which I obtained by a quick Google Scholar search:

“In the nineteenth century, geology emerged as a distinct academic discipline. It pointed the way towards the theory of evolution, as scientists including Gideon Mantell, Adam Sedgwick, Charles Lyell and Roderick Murchison began to use the evidence of minerals, rock formations and fossils to demonstrate that the earth was older by millions of years than the conventional, Bible-based wisdom had supposed.” Seward, Albert Charles. Fossil plants: a text-book for students of botany and geology. Vol. 4. Cambridge University Press, 2011. preface

“Modern science is a crown of thorns to people who read the Bible as God’s actual word. Evolution talks of a common ancestor for both man and ape; they were not made in an instant by an all-powerful Creator. Geology says that the Earth has been spinning for millions of years, not six thousand as the Old Testament has it.” Ferst, Barry. "The Chronicles of Bible‐Science: A Short History of People Who Take the Good Book for a Science Textbook." Journal of American Culture 8.3 (1985): Page 1

“The challenge of geology to Genesis is often perceived to be one of the issues of the ‘Victorian Crisis of Faith’. Geologists had, since … 1831, been demonstrating that the earth was somewhat older than Archbishop Ussher’s 6,000 years.” Roberts, Michael. "Geology and Genesis unearthed." ref 15 (1998): Page 1

Note that in geology#history of geology (did this link work?) there's a link to the 19th century debate about the age of the earth, but with no mention of what's clearly (to me anyway) a popular conflict revolving around people, geology, and the Bible.SocraticOath (talk) 14:10, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Again, this article and the ideas would be better served with a paragraph covering the reception to the ideas by the public, as acknowledged (in parallel) by editors of the Big Bang article. If not, then what difference between Big Bang and Age of the Earth justifies the different treatment?SocraticOath (talk) 17:01, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

You are still conflating 'religion' with Christian fundamentalist Biblical literalism. And ignoring the fact that this article makes quite clear what its subject matter is. In any case, we already have an article on dating creation, which gives a broad overview of the question as understood by followers of many faiths, which is the appropriate approach - we cannot duplicate all the content here, and selecting one particular belief system for special mention is a violation of NPOV. As for other articles, I see no reason to blindly follow them. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:24, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree: this context is an appropriate to express facts about things, and not to delineate conflicts in ideology. This is why my proposed language is: "The age of the earth is commonly considered to falsify religious texts". If the information were available, this would go side-by-side with a brief summary of the age of the earth that was recognized scientifically by other cultural places. Perhaps this rework of the sentence would be more accurate: "The age of the earth is commonly considered to falsify the timelines included in religious texts (see article Dating Creation)".

Regarding the scope of this article: there is a large amount of this article that is dedicated to history of geology, the introduction of geologic hypotheses in the 19th century and before, and mentions of other ways of determining age. I think the article on radiometric dating is a much better example of an article that is "science only". It seems clear that the large body of historical commentary justifies some current commentary on how these ideas are received.SocraticOath (talk) 15:45, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Again, regarding the scope of this article as being limited to "scientific age of the earth": looking at the article on scientific revolution, it seems that this period is described as being over in the 17th century, and it was when new developments in sciences "transformed views of society and nature". Either "views of society and nature" should be included in this article, in the form of history of the ideas (re: sections on Development of modern geological concepts, Early calculations, Invention of radiometric dating, etc.) or the article should focus solely on reporting facts about the earth and leave out facts of history. SocraticOath (talk) 17:24, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

The Development of modern geologic concepts section simply provides a short background for the development of the concept of the age. The Early calculations section provides a brief discussion of attempts to scientifically determine/understand Earth's age. These are short preludes to the discovery and application of radiometric dating techniques to solve the question. Such facts of history as you call them are important to understand the development of the concept. The two sections are brief, do report the facts about the Eath. and are relevant and important as background. Vsmith (talk) 17:47, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Wouldn't you agree then that some background info is appropriate to explain why there might be the need to separate "scientific age of the earth" from "dating creation"? The article provides very little insight for this question other than to name individuals who were instrumental in establishing today's concept. SocraticOath (talk) 17:59, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

No. This article is neither about the development of the scientific method, nor about debates between religion and science. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:04, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Agree w/Andy, the dabnote is right there at the top of the article and that is adequate. Vsmith (talk) 18:09, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Debates between religion and science characterized the development of modern geological concepts in the 19th century. This should either be shown here or the subject removed. SocraticOath (talk) 18:33, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Since removing the subject doesn't seem controversial, here is my plan for eliminating material that is best left to "history of geology": deletions italicized

1 Development of modern geologic concepts 2 Early calculations 3 Radiometric dating 3.1 Overview 3.2 Convective mantle and radioactivity 3.3 Invention of radiometric dating 3.4 Arthur Holmes establishes radiometric dating 3.5 Modern radiometric dating 3.5.1 Why meteorites were used 3.5.2 Canyon Diablo meteorite

3.6 Helioseismic verification

4 See also 5 References 6 Bibliography 7 Further reading 8 External links SocraticOath (talk) 16:55, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

I can see no reason to remove material which is entirely on-topic. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:07, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

All the topics you wish to remove are explanations on how the age of the Earth was calculated. They most certainly should stay. CanadianLinuxUser (talk) 17:18, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Development of modern geological concepts is not only the same subject as history of geology, it's inferior by being less thorough and limited by the subject of this article, which does not allow for proper coverage of the topic. Early calculations is acceptable. Not on the remove list anymore. Radiometric dating is multi-bulleted section that is the same subject as radiometric dating. Perhaps this should be presented here as one or two sentences if we insist that it must be included? SocraticOath (talk) 21:41, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

We don't need the whole history of geology here, just the relevant works leading to the understanding of the age of the earth. Radiometric dating is key to understanding the age, therefore it needs more than just a brief summary. Vsmith (talk) 22:23, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

This article is about the scientific age of the Earth. For religious beliefs, see dating creation.

This article is to deal with the scientific investigation of the age of the earth. There are multiple articles dealing with the religious views. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 01:30, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Adding or not of category Young Earth Creationism

There is a desire to add the category Young Earth Creationism to this page. Should we should not keep science articles on science pages? It's pretty much the exact same discussion that was had in the previous section of this page (Religious Interpretation). As this is a science page, this category should not be added. CanadianLinuxUser (talk) 14:26, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't belong there - as the note at the top of the article makes clear, the scope is limited to science-based discussions of the topic. In any case, 'see also' section that extended over every creation myth and fringe theory regarding the age of the Earth would grow to an unwieldy size, and including this particular link alone would violate WP:UNDUE. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:34, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for creating this section, and yes, those were precisely my concerns. Additionally, within the scientific community, young earth creationism isn't even a minority view, so mention of it isn't warranted.   — Jess· Δ♥ 14:41, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 May 2015

Please change the cited age of the Earth from "4.54 ± 0.05 billion years (4.54 × 109 years ± 1%).[1][2][3]" to "4567.30 ± 0.16 million years". Change the citation to Connelly et al. "The Absolute Chronology and Thermal Processing of Solids in the Solar Protoplanetary Disk", Science Vol 338 2 November 2012.

The cited age of the Earth (4.54 x 10^9 years) is out of date. The best current date is 4.567 x 10^9 years. Newer and more accurate Pb-Pb dating of Calcium-Aluminum inclusions in Connelly et al. "The Absolute Chronology and Thermal Processing of Solids in the Solar Protoplanetary Disk", Science Vol 338 2 November 2012 finds ages of CAIs to be 4567.30 ± 0.16 million years. 70.179.14.230 (talk) 08:18, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Gparyani (talk) 00:00, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

They have cited a source - twice. [10] As to whether Connelly et al's conclusions are sufficiently accepted to merit revising the article, or whether they actually support the proposed change, I'm not best placed to judge. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:51, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

The new result is within the uncertainty of the number currently quoted. I think the review-type references to a long-accepted number (4.54±0.05 billion years) are better than a single recent Science paper for the number quoted in the lede. New results in high-profile journals don't always stand up over time. Though the new result certainly merits mention in the body of the article with a sentence briefly describing the methods. —Alex (Ashill | talk | contribs) 14:24, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Talk archive broken

@JorisvS: The move to Earth's age broke the talk page archive links, since the archives are at Talk:Age of the Earth/Archive 1 through Talk:Age of the Earth/Archive 7, not Talk:Earth's Age/Archive 1. Does anyone know how to easily fix or move those archives (unless the rename gets reverted)? —Alex (Ashill | talk | contribs) 15:24, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't know of an easier way than moving each one (please correct me if there is!) But, I undid the move for now, per the section above. Thanks.   — Jess· Δ♥ 15:58, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Earth vs the Earth

A user has changed two instances of "Earth" to "the Earth". Meanwhile, the rest of the article uses "Earth". There have been several discussions about this in the past (see Talk:Age of the Earth/Archive 7), and the previous article title used "the Earth". But since both "the Earth" and "Earth" are acceptable and the rest of the article uses "Earth", I think the current de facto consensus is Earth, which I also marginally prefer. Therefore, I'll revert to the status quo a second time but not again. —Alex (Ashill | talk | contribs) 15:27, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I see that this was changed as part of the move to Earth's age, so it hasn't been "Earth" for a while as I thought. So this is just a subset of the move discussion. —Alex (Ashill | talk | contribs) 17:08, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 September 2015

I just want to edit the 4.53 billion years to 4.567 billion years

Cooldude60606 (talk) 15:13, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

 Not done The only use of 4.53 is in the range "4.53 to 4.58" - all these figures have a tolerance - we need to show that not pick on one "headline" figure - Arjayay (talk) 15:32, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Change in title

I agree that the new title is "shorter", but that doesn't necessarily equate with "better". My experience is that the original title is the most used by some way and that is backed up by looking at both Google Books (via ngrams) [11] and Google Scholar [12] v. [13]. Mikenorton (talk) 12:02, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I too prefer the original title. DuncanHill (talk) 14:54, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I think I too prefer "Age of the Earth" to "Earth's moon", although only marginally. Mostly because possessives in article titles for which there isn't a WP:COMMONNAME are, I think, a bit unusual and strike me as informal writing. —Alex (Ashill | talk | contribs) 14:58, 28 July 2015 (UTC) edited 23:46, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Yup - the original title seems more encyclopaedic to me. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:08, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

It's also consistent with Age of the universe. I think we should move it back and discuss before making the change.   — Jess· Δ♥ 15:51, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

"Earth" without the definite article is pretty common, like "Mars" etc. are not with a definite article and is the style used in most astronomy articles, notably Earth itself. To reflect that, I wanted to move it, but "Age of Earth" (somehow) sounds rather weird to me, which is why I ended up at "Earth's age". Therein lies also the difference with "Age of the universe" (it properly needing to be capitalized notwithstanding): "Universe" is always accompanied by the definite article, whereas "Earth" isn't. --JorisvS (talk) 16:08, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

It's worth noting that a direct comparison from Earth and Mars isn't a perfect example, as the word Earth has several meanings, so sometimes it's necessary to clarify using a definite article, for example earth can be found on the Earth, that's a rather unique sentence that makes sense, but only for Earth (you can't say mars can be found on Mars). The NASA style guide uses both as appropriate (the Moon orbits the Earth, not the Moon orbits Earth) and while it's not a huge concern, saying the Earth makes it more clear what we're referring to the age of the planet and not the age of the soil, IMO. The current title, Age of the Earth, makes sense grammatically; just because "Earth" without the definite article is frequently used doesn't mean "the Earth" is incorrect usage, as NASA refers to it as the Earth pretty frequently. - Aoidh (talk) 22:43, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that both "Earth" and "the Earth" are acceptable but "Earth" sounds better in some context and "the Earth" sounds better in other contexts. So we should be consistent for a particular usage (eg we shouldn't say "The Moon orbits Earth" in one place and "The Moon orbits Earth" in other places in the article), but I'm fine with using both forms in the article depending on context and precedent. I think that "Age of the Earth" sounds better than "Age of Earth", and both are better than "Earth's age" for the formality reasons I gave above, but I don't feel strongly; any of the three are fine. —Alex (Ashill | talk | contribs) 23:50, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

First anon talk page comment ever. I have no conflicting bias; the lock made me curious as to why it's locked. Both are descriptive and probably wouldn't fail to convey their points. Note it's not confusing to google's engine: google returns this Wikipedia page as the top link for "Age of the Earth" and "Earth's Age"; however, my thinking is in the minority by a factor of 10 (based on quantity). A point not mentioned, however: "Age of the Earth" kind of intimates the comical notion that Earth "was, is, or will" become the center of power and reason and influence in "the Universe" (but not as much as if it was 'The age of the Earth'). "Earth's age" has a very direct point: the time between Earth's formation and now, but is more succinct and uses a sort of "this is so" tone. Also, supposing at some time in the future, humans live on Mars, I highly doubt they will have found the concept of naming matter on the surface of the planet as "earth" or "mars" alien. I also think "Earth's age" would not bewilder someone who has gathered samples of Earth's crust and wants to find the age of it. 158.222.171.203 (talk) 08:52, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 March 2016

38.121.52.36 (talk) 19:15, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 20:24, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Lunar Recession Rate and the Age of the Earth

An alternative way to calculate the age of the Earth is to use the entire rate at which the Moon moves away from the Earth to calculate the Age of the Earth. The entire rate of recession is made up of two parts. The dominate part is from Lunar Laser Ranging where the recession rate was measured at 38.2 mm per year, and the subordinate part is the average increase in the radius of the Earth per year from the 2003 re-callibration of the Global Positioning system. The average increase was 4.16 mm per year. The total is thus 38.2 + 4.16 = 42.36 mm per year of center to center Lunar recession. The distance from center to center ( Earth to Moon) is 385,000.6 km = 385,000,600,000 mm. The ratio is thus 385,000,600,000 / 42.36 = 9,088,777,148 :1. This ratio needs to be divided by 2 to get the age of the Earth. That is 9,088,777,148 / 2 = 4,544,388,574 years to an absurd number of digits. This would reduce to 4.5444 E9 years. Note this is very close to the number of 4.543 Billion Years listed by other methods such as Radiometric Dating of Iron Meteorites. If Lunar Laser Ranging can be improved with a new " Larger " corner reflector placed on the Moon near the visual center, and " Gates " could be improved to open and close for about 3 nanoseconds at the optical telescopes such as APOLLO, Lunar Laser Ranging and additional re-callibrations of the GPS system could give the age of the Earth to 4 or 5 digits within about 15 years of continued observations. The original 2003 Re-Callibration of GPS had approximately 1200 points that averaged to + 4.16 mm. The People at GPS wanted delta Z to sum to zero, so they chose 157 points between -4 mm and + 4 mm of delta Z so their " surveying system" has no change in the Radius of the Earth. For Surveying, this seems logical, but for other applications like dating the Earth, we need the original data points, all of them. 63.225.17.34 (talk) 23:37, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't know where all your calculation come from. You might cite sources. Books by Munk and Revelle, and by Lambeck discuss tidal dissipation. I believe this is mostly due to ocean tides, and the amount of dissipation is a function of ocean basin geometry, which has changed over time as the continents have moved around. This makes your extrapolation difficult. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 23:49, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Early Calculations

Hi,

In the early calculations Lord Kelvin is referred to, however, later he is referred to as Thomson (attack on Thomsons calculations), which is confusing. Not everyone knows that Lord Kelvin is also William Thomson. I would suggest just adding his name in parenthesis after the first mention as Lord Kelvin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.89.49.172 (talk) 06:27, 27 July 2016 (UTC)  Done Thank you. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 12:51, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

I made a minor edit so that the link in question was unaliased. The generally correct protocol, though, would be to use Kelvin in the article and not Thomson: in the UK, titled aristocrats whose family name is different from their title name are known by their title. That is why we speak of the Kelvin scale and not the Thomson scale. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 19:52, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, TechBear, before I made my edit, I had a look at the article: William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin and found that it mostly refers to "Thomson". Should that article be fixed to say "Kelvin"? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 21:44, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

I looked at a number of other articles about British peers, and most of them use the person's family name rather than title. So I don't think there is any need to change Thomson to Kelvin. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 00:30, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

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Reporting Ages and Uncertainties

Hello! Sorry for not doing this myself, but I am not yet a confirmed user.

"The age of the Earth is approximately 4.54 ± 0.05 years." <-- Seems to me that the age of the Earth IS 4.54 ± 0.05 years. Not approximately- the confidence interval is thrown in there already. Just how I was taught (as a chemist, not a geologist, but still). Furthermore, if we're throwing error bars on things, it would be nice to do it for everything, at least in the introduction. These were really easy to find on the reference papers' abstracts, and I'll do them if I remember to.

Secondly, also in that Introduction- "Because the exact amount of time this accretion process took is not yet known, and the predictions from different accretion models range from a few million up to about 100 million years, the exact age of Earth is difficult to determine." Am I missing something? The confidence in the initial age is smaller than these ranges, and ± 1% seems to be a pretty good determination to me. This is unsourced, and again, I ain't no geologist.

Toodle-oo! Mack Robot (talk) 21:48, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Vectorsite

The following was removed as unresponsive:

• Vectorsite.net—Initial version of this article was based on a public domain text by Greg Goebel

Recovery of the lost text by Greg Goebel may be possible. — Rgdboer (talk) 23:21, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

For example, WayBackMachine has his Unmanned Aerial Vehicles — Rgdboer (talk) 23:27, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

An index is available here but it's unclear yet which part was used. —PaleoNeonate – 23:52, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Estimated

@Minerman30: per WP:BRD since it was reverted it's best to discuss it here before restoring. Estimated is true although since it's the best current estimate, my impression is that WP:YESPOV probably applies. —PaleoNeonate – 03:12, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: Fair, it just seems to me that since we can't directly measure its age it seems more fitting to say estimated rather than just presenting it as straight fact. -User talk:Minerman30 23:28 2019-06-29 UTC

2001 Update - an 'accident' and new criticism of Patterson 1956

Hello!

I just learned that Cherry Lewis and Hofmann have been calling Claire Patterson's 1956 work out for having assumed things that are no longer regarded as true. They go on to say that it is the result of "a geochemical accident" that the number reported for the age of the earth by Patterson in 1956 is still our best number. I thought that this would be a good thing to include here, since it is an accepted part of the history of our dating of the age of the earth.

See these papers:

https://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/190/1/139.short

https://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/190/1/223.short

170.54.118.141 (talk) 17:33, 19 March 2020 (UTC)