I can’t believe we still have to cover this. We know how old the Earth is. The science on this is pretty darn good. It is 4.54 billion years old plus or minus about 1%.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio does not know how old the earth is. Here is what he says about it:
I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.
Phil Plait has responded with this:
Actually, it’s not a great mystery. It used to be … a century ago. I am a scientist, and I can tell you that nowadays—thanks to science—we know the age to amazing accuracy. The age of the Earth is 4.54 billion years … plus or minus 50 million years. That’s a number known to an accuracy of 99 percent, which is pretty dang good.
Sen. Rubio’s answer, however, is so confused and error-riddled its difficult to know where to start.
And then, Phil goes ahead and addresses that, HERE.
The Maddow Blog also addresses Senator Rubio’s miscarriage of intelligence.
And, the thing is, the actual story about how we know about the age of the earth is not only well established science, but it is intrinsically interesting. Following is from a post I wrote about this a while back, slightly edited:
How old is the earth?
Short answer: 4,540,000,000 Earth-years, plus or minus 1%.
Long answer: We don’t know exactly because direct dating of the earliest material on the surface of the Earth will only tell use a minimum age; Prior to that, the Earth’s surface was probably molten, and even after that, it may be that the earliest non-molten material has been recycled into the planet’s interior by tectonic processes. Also, the earth is a big round ball of stuff that condensed into this shape from part of a large disk-shaped blob of stuff known as the Solar Nebula. When exactly, given this, did the Earth become the Earth? Since the process took millions of years, we can’t pinpoint the age of the Earth more exactly than a certain range.
Continue reading How old is the Earth? →
