Florida Senator Says He Doesn’t Know How Old the Earth Is

The entire universe in blog form
Nov. 19 2012 1:47 PM


Image of Earth from Apollo

Image credit: NASA

The Earth is 4.54 billion years old.

Phil Plait Phil Plait




So why does U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) say he doesn’t know how old the Earth is?

In an interview published by GQ magazine, reporter Michael Hainey asks the senator simply, “How old do you think the Earth is?” The answer too should be simple. Rubio’s reply, however is anything but:


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.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla).

Image credit: Getty images

Right off the bat, he mentions the Bible in terms of the Earth’s age several times, including the “seven days” part. This is not necessarily an indication he’s a young-Earth creationist—that is, he thinks the Earth is ten thousand years old or less—but it does indicate some pretty fuzzy thinking on his part, and it makes me think he supports religious findings over scientific ones (or is trying to not tick off an electorate who does). The fact that he says theologians argue over interpreting the biblical age of the Earth, and doesn’t mention that scientists know the actual number, is distressing to say the least.

When he does mention science, he downplays it. About the age of the Earth, he says, “I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that.” In fact, the age of the Earth and the solar system is one of the unifying concepts of science specifically mentioned in the U.S. National Education Standards—an educator-created list of concepts which all students should know upon graduating high school.

Which makes his equivocation all the more tragic. I know that a large fraction of the people in the United States think the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. These people are wrong, and provably so, but of course they have the right to believe anything they want. But when someone believes in something that is provably false, and then they act on this belief … that’s when it gets very, very dangerous.




And all of science points to the age of the Earth being much, much older than Senator Rubio intimates. Astronomy, biology, relativity, chemistry, physics, anatomy, sociology, linguistics, cosmology, anthropology, evolutionary science, and especially radiometric dating of rocks all indicate the Universe, and our home planet Earth, are far older than any claims of a few thousand years. The overwhelming consensus is that the Earth is billions of years old.* And all of these sciences are the basis of the technology that is our country’s life blood.


That’s a formula for failure. And you don’t need to be a scientist to see that.

 Tip o' the obliquity to Talking Points Memo via Fark.com

Correction, Nov. 19, 2012: This article originally suggested that sociology, linguistics, anthropology, and other sciences indicate that the Earth is billions of years old. Those sciences establish that Earth is much more than a few thousand years old, but other sciences established the precise age of the Earth.