Young-earth creationists say that the universe is 6,000 years old. Scientists say the universe is around 14 billion years old.
Young-earth creationists say this is because scientists are part of a vast, nefarious conspiracy designed to cast doubt on the literal words of a literal Bible by the evil practice of measuring and counting things. I’m not a scientist, but I am part of this conspiracy (the only way to make such a conspiracy work is to include all sorts of non-scientists — doctors, manufacturers, engineers, teachers, librarians, journalists, hobbyists, etc.).
So as part of my contribution to our old-universe conspiracy, here is a list of Seven Things Recently in the News That Are Older Than Young-Earth Creationists’ Universe:
1. A 55,000-year-old accumulation of hyrax urine. (Bonus: Hyraxes are my favorite biblical animal.)
2. A 26,000-year-old portrait of a woman carved from a mammoth tusk.
3. Whale fossils found under a California highway belong to the genus Morawanocetus. They date from the early-mid Miocene epic, 17 to 19 million years ago, “making them the youngest known toothed whales.”
4. 500,000-year-old Siberian stalactites and stalagmites are helping us understand climate history.
5. The 33,000-year-old skull of a partially domesticated wolf helps us learn about the history of man’s best friendship.
6. Monorhaphis chuni is a kind of sea sponge. This one, from the East China Sea, lived for about 11,000 years.
7. “Adam.” Scientists used to think that the genetic common male ancestor of the Y chromosome all men now carry lived somewhere between 60,000 and 140,000 years ago. But it turns out our Y chromosome traces back to a male who lived at least 338,000 years ago.
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