The Earth Is Young — Here Are 10 Reasons Why

10 Reasons the Earth Can’t Be Billions of Years Old (Part 1)

A Fast-Paced Guide to Defending Biblical Creation with Science

By Donny Budinsky

Abstract

The debate over the age of the Earth often hinges on assumptions rather than direct data. Evolutionary models assume naturalism and uniformitarianism, while biblical creation begins with God’s eyewitness testimony in Scripture. Yet scientific evidence increasingly confirms the biblical timescale of thousands, not billions, of years. This article presents ten concise lines of evidence for a young Earth, functioning as a go-to resource for evangelism, Bible studies, and debate preparation.

1. The Bible: The Birth Certificate of the Universe

The strongest evidence for a young Earth is Scripture itself. Genesis is God’s eyewitness account: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1, KJV). Just as we consult history books to learn about George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, we look to the Bible for the origin of time, matter, and space. Old-earth interpretations rest on philosophical assumptions such as naturalism and uniformitarianism. The Bible provides the true record of creation.

2. Thermodynamics Demands a Creator

  • First Law of Thermodynamics: Matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
  • Second Law of Thermodynamics: Entropy is increasing — the universe is running down.

The universe cannot be eternal, since it is winding down. But matter and energy also cannot create themselves. This requires an external cause outside time, matter, and space. The God of the Bible uniquely fits this description: eternal, immaterial, and personal (choosing to create).

3. Radiocarbon Everywhere (C-14 Evidence)

Carbon-14 decays quickly; none should remain after 100,000 years. Yet it is consistently found in coal, diamonds, and fossils claimed to be millions or billions of years old (Baumgardner, 2005). This contradiction undermines deep time but aligns perfectly with a world only thousands of years old (Budinsky & Nailor, 2025).

4. Comets Cannot Last Millions of Years

Comets lose material every time they orbit the sun. At observed depletion rates, they cannot survive billions of years (Whipple, 1950). The unobserved “Oort Cloud” is invoked as a rescue device, but it has never been detected. The very existence of comets is powerful evidence for a young solar system.

5. Earth’s Magnetic Field Is Rapidly Decaying

Measurements show Earth’s magnetic field is decaying exponentially (Humphreys, 1990). If the Earth were even 60,000 years old, the field would have been catastrophically strong — stronger than a neutron star, easily tearing apart biological molecules. The magnetic field confirms a young Earth.

6. Dinosaur Soft Tissue: Original Biomolecules

Collagen, proteins, and blood vessels have been recovered from dinosaur fossils dated at tens of millions of years (Schweitzer et al., 2005). Laboratory experiments demonstrate collagen can only last thousands of years — at most ~500,000 under idealized conditions. These discoveries confirm the biblical timeline of thousands, not millions, of years.

7. Helium in Zircons: Radioactivity in Fast-Forward

Radioactive decay of uranium produces helium, which quickly diffuses through rock. Yet zircons from granitic rock are packed with helium, far too much for billions of years to have passed (Humphreys et al., 2003). The logical conclusion: large amounts of decay occurred recently (other YEC hypotheses exist to account for the presence of lead), in line with accelerated nuclear decay during the Flood year, Creation Week, or both. If the earth really were billions of years old, the large amounts of helium we find would have leaked out, with very little left behind. The abundance of helium demands a young Earth.

8. Fossils: Sudden Appearance, Stasis, and Living Fossils

The fossil record consistently shows:

  • Sudden appearance.

  • Stasis (no significant change).

  • Extinction.

So-called “living fossils” like the coelacanth and Wollemi pine appear unchanged after supposed tens or hundreds of millions of years (Gibbons, 1998). This is consistent with biblical creation, not evolutionary deep time.

9. Mutation Rates in Mitochondrial DNA and the Y Chromosome

Both uniparentally inherited systems confirm a recent origin:

  • mtDNA: ~0.1 substitutions per generation. Global diversity traces back to a single woman about 6,000 years ago (Parsons et al., 1997; Howell et al., 2003).

  • Y chromosome: ~1–3 mutations per generation. Global diversity points back to a single man about 4,500 years ago (Jeanson & Tomkins, 2016).

Additionally, mtDNA falls into three major haplogroups (L, M, N), which could represent the three post-Flood founding mothers — the wives of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

10. Supernova Remnants: Cosmic Clocks

A supernova is a violently exploding star. Astronomers estimate one occurs in the Milky Way every 25 years. If our galaxy were billions of years old, thousands of remnants should be visible. Instead, only about 200 are observed — exactly what one would expect for ~6,000 years (Clark & Caswell, 1976).

Author’s Note

This article is not designed to cover every objection or rebuttal. Rather, it provides a cheat sheet for evangelism and discussion. At Standing For Truth Ministries, we leave no stone unturned, engaging objections in books, debates, seminars, and peer-reviewed articles.

For deeper treatments, see:

  • Budinsky, D. (2025). Helium and Zircon Crystals: What Tiny Atoms Reveal About Earth’s Age.

  • Budinsky, D., & Nailor, M. (2025). Radiocarbon Revelations.

Part 2 will continue with additional evidences for a young Earth.

References

Baumgardner, J. R. (2005). Carbon-14 evidence for a recent global flood and a young earth. Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: Results of a Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative, 587–630.

Budinsky, D., & Nailor, M. (2025). Radiocarbon Revelations: Why Earth’s timeline might be far shorter than you think. Standing For Truth Ministries.

Clark, D. H., & Caswell, J. L. (1976). A study of galactic supernova remnants. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 174(2), 267–305.

Gibbons, A. (1998). Living fossils of the deep. Science, 279(5352), 1329–1330. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.279.5352.1329

Howell, N., Smejkal, C. B., Mackey, D. A., Chinnery, P. F., Turnbull, D. M., & Herrnstadt, C. (2003). The pedigree rate of sequence divergence in the human mitochondrial genome: There is a difference between phylogenetic and pedigree rates. American Journal of Human Genetics, 72(3), 659–670. https://doi.org/10.1086/368264

Humphreys, D. R. (1990). Physical mechanism for reversals of the earth’s magnetic field during the Flood. Creation Research Society Quarterly, 27(1), 8–17.

Humphreys, D. R., Austin, S. A., Baumgardner, J. R., & Snelling, A. A. (2003). Helium diffusion rates support accelerated nuclear decay. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Creationism, 175–195.

Jeanson, N. T., & Tomkins, J. P. (2016). The Y chromosome molecular clock. Answers Research Journal, 9, 157–184.

Parsons, T. J., Muniec, D. S., Sullivan, K., Woodyatt, N., Alliston-Greiner, R., Wilson, M. R., Berry, D. L., Holland, K. A., Weedn, V. W., Gill, P., & Holland, M. M. (1997). A high observed substitution rate in the human mitochondrial DNA control region. Nature Genetics, 15(4), 363–368. https://doi.org/10.1038/ng0497-363

Schweitzer, M. H., Wittmeyer, J. L., & Horner, J. R. (2005). Soft tissue and cellular preservation in vertebrate skeletal elements from the Cretaceous to the present. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 272(1563), 739–748. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2004.2793

Whipple, F. L. (1950). A comet model. I. The acceleration of Comet Encke. Astrophysical Journal, 111, 375–394.

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