It is instructive to compare evidence for an ancient Earth to claims of evidence for a young Earth.
| Old earth | Young earth | |
|---|---|---|
| Extent of data | Hundreds of thousands of measurements | A few hundred measurements |
| Sample sizes | Significant sample sizes | Tiny sample sizes |
| Precision | High precision (error bars in the ±0.01-5% range) | Low precision (error bars several orders of magnitude). Many claims have no quantitative basis whatsoever but just appeal to incredulity. |
| Assumptions | Assumptions of constant rates have a strong theoretical and experimental basis for assuming that they were constant. For these assumptions to be incorrect, science fiction-level new physical phenomena would be required (e.g. accelerated nuclear decay, catastrophic plate tectonics) that would have introduced numerous additional problems (e.g. the heat problem). Multiple different physical phenomena would also have to have changed in complete lock-step with each other. | Calculations are based on rates of change that could not realistically be expected to have been constant under any scenario, either old Earth or young Earth (e.g. the Earth’s magnetic field, influx of salt or sediment into the oceans, changes in the Earth’s population). Yet any suggestion that they weren’t constant under an old Earth scenario is dismissed as a “rescuing device.” |
| Predictions | Precise and specific | So broad as to be effectively meaningless (e.g. Humphreys’ “predictions” of the magnetic fields of the Solar System’s outer planets) |
| Cross-checking | Extensive cross-checking between different methods. Discrepancies are the exception, not the rule. | Ad-hoc, frequently mutually contradictory explanations with little or no cross-checking |
| Standards of peer review | Peer review looks for rigour, factual accuracy, precision, mathematical correctness, and adherence to proven best practices | Peer review looks solely for being “on message” about the age of the earth and doesn’t even mention accuracy |
| Qualifications of peer reviewers | Peer review carried out by subject matter specialists | Peer review carried out by people whose area of expertise lies elsewhere |
| Reproducibility | Common | Rare if not nonexistent |
| Response to falsification | Findings are discarded if further studies contradict them | Studies that contradict the claims are dismissed as “rescuing devices” or “uniformitarian presuppositions” |