How do creationists reconcile Adam and Eve's date to the 4.5 billion years age of the Earth?

Answer 1

Creationists don't generally attempt to reconcile the two. In relation to the date of 4.5 million years they point to a number of scientific objections to this date being regarded as absolute. Three totally unprovable assumptions underly radiometric dating methods and so they cannot be absolute dates. In addition to this, such dating methods have been demonstrably false when dealing with rocks of known age and geologists in the field also regard them with some suspicion and use them when they agree with their own conclusions and discard them when not. So in practical science it is obvious the date is certainly questionable.

Further to this, creationists point to various scientific evidences of a young earth and universe, of which there are scientifically quite a number. Included in this are details of the soft T. Rex tissue discovery by Dr. Mary Schweitzer, which, even in ideal conditions, cannot have survived for that length of time.

People such as Hugh Ross are essentially attempting to stretch the biblical chronology to fit the evolutionary time scale. So evolution is the absolute and The Bible comes second in his mind and is able to be changed to fit evolution, despite the clear meaning of the Hebrew word yom (day) in its context in Genesis 1. Although yom can indeed be used for an indefinite period of time, it is never so meant when it has the qualifiers evening and morning (remembering that the Hebrews regarded the day as beginning in the evening) which can only refer to 24 hour day as we have today.

Answer 2

The microbiologist Michael J. Behe is a creationist, but also a believer in evolution, even if some of his statements question aspects of evolution. In Darwin's Black Box, he repeatedly and clearly states that he accepts age of the Earth as approximately 4.54 billion years. Although a creationist, he has little time for "young-earth" creationists, and regards them as placing faith before fact. As a scientist, he does not attempt to relate Adam and Eve's date to the real age of the Earth.
Other creationists, such as Hugh Ross (Creation and Time: A Biblical and Scientific Perspective on the Creation-Date Controversy), say that the "days" of the Bible were not literally days, but eons - because the ancient Hebrew language did not have enough words to adequately explain long durations of time. Experts in the Hebrew language dispute this explanation.

Of course, "young-earth" creationists say that the Earth really is only a few thousand years old. For them, scientists have got the data wrong.

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Answer 3

No need. "Radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age-estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often very different. There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological clock. The uncertainties inherent in radiometric dating are disturbing to geologists and evolutionists." William D. Stansfield, Ph.D., Instructor of Biology, California Polytechnic State University.

"Even total rock systems may be open during metamorphism and may have their isotopic systems changed, making it impossible to determine their geologic age." Prof. Gunter Faure (Department of Geology, The Ohio State University, Columbus.)

a). At current rates of erosion the amount of sea-floor sediments actually found do not support a "billions of years" age for the Earth.
b) The amount of Sodium Chloride in the sea, also, is a small fraction of what the "old Earth" theory would postulate.
c) The Earth's magnetic field is decaying too fast to extrapolate a long age for the Earth.
d) The rate of accumulation of Moon-dust has been measured; and the amount of dust on the Moon was found to be vastly less than what scientists had predicted before the Moon-landings.

See: Problems in Evolutionary astronomy

e) Helium is generated by radioactive elements as they decay. The escape of this helium into the atmosphere can be measured. According to the Evolutionary age of the Earth there should be much more helium in the atmosphere, instead of the 0.05% that is actually there.

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