Hubble's Law Disproves Young Earth Creationism

I take the position that the Universe is about 13.8 billion years old and the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. In my opinion, one of the larger pieces of evidence against a young Earth, is Hubble's Law.Hubble's law states that galaxies outside of the Local Group are moving away from earth, and the speed at which they are moving away is proportional to the distance they are from Earth.In a formula Hubble's Law is the following:V=DHMeaning the speed at which a distant galaxy is moving in km/s is equivalent to its distance from earth in megaparsecs (mpc) multiplied by Hubble's Constant, which is about 71.With this formula we can calculate the age of the earth.V=DH(1/H)V=D1/H=D/VDistance divided by velocity is time. So we now know the age of the universe is equal to the inverse of Hubble's Constant.1/H=THubble's Constant is in [km/s]/[mpc] so we can plug that in.1/71([km/s]/[mpc])=TThere are 3.0857e19 kilometers in a megaparsec.1/71([km/s]/3.0857e19[km])=TWe can cancel out the kilometers and get the following:1/71/3.0857e19[s]=T1/171/3.0857e19[s]=T3.0857e19/71[s]=TSo the universe is 4.3460563e17 seconds old. Which is 13.78 billion years.So my question to young earth creationists is:How do you reconcile a belief that the earth is less than 10,000 years old with Hubble's Law?Edited by Calvin, : No reason given.

Thread copied here from the Hubble's Law Disproves Young Earth Creationism thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

I agree with your conclusion.But I don't understand how you got there. I understand how Hubble's law allows us to calculate how fast other galaxies are moving away.
And that "how fast they are moving away" is proportional to how far they are from Earth.But how do we get from that to calculating the age of the universe?Are you just taking the calculation back to when "all the galaxies were in 1 spot together?"
And assuming that "when all galaxies were in 1 spot together" is the same as "the beginning of the universe?"Or is it other logical connections you're making that I'm not understanding?Edited by Stile, : Fixing quotes

Would knowing the distance and the speed of light tell us how long light from the distant source had to travel for us to be able to see it?

Yes.This seems to be moving along the lines of these assumptions:

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Are you just taking the calculation back to when "all the galaxies were in 1 spot together?"
And assuming that "when all galaxies were in 1 spot together" is the same as "the beginning of the universe?"

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My question is whether or not these assumptions are being used to get to the conclusion.It that's what was intended, then I understand how the conclusion was obtained
If they are not... then what logical connections are being made between the rate of expansion and the beginning of the universe?

But if that was the assumption I can't see how that relates to the Young Earth Creationism. That assumption would hold true regardless of whether the Earth was 4.3 billion years old or 6000 years old.

I agree.
Hence my questions.I think there are other assumptions going on... either about physics, or about Young Earth Creationism (which flavour?)In general, though... I don't really care.
As far as I'm personally concerned, this isn't a matter up for debate (at least not in this way... the 'debate point' here all seems fairly clear and understood to me personally).I'm simply bored and attempting to engage/understand what the OP is, specifically, meaning.
I think some details the OP is taking for granted (assuming) have been left out of their message.I can guess at them.
Or I can ask.I asked.

The Age of the Universe | Astronomy 801: Planets, Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe

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You can actually calculate an estimate for the age of the Universe from Hubble's Law. The distance between two galaxies is D. The apparent velocity with which they are separating from each other is v. At some point, the galaxies were touching, and we can consider that time the moment of the Big Bang. If you take the separation between the two galaxies (D) and divide that by the apparent velocity (v), that will leave you with how long it took for the galaxies to reach their current separation.

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Yeah.That's the assumption.
(And rightly so, if you ask me).But, a YEC's response, if I were to guess... would be that the Big Bang never happened. So they simply would not accept such an assumption.
And therefore, the tracking-the-calculation-back-to-when-galaxies-were-touching would be irrelevant.Like taking the speed of someone on an escalator, tracking back their position and saying "10 minutes ago you were in the ground beneath this building!!"
To a YEC, it doesn't make sense to make a linear-ish assumption.

I think you can reconcile the two things with a version of last Thursdayism. The universe was created 6000 years ago with the stars and galaxies and space expanding at just about their current rates in just about their current positions, where just about means the minor adjustment for 6000 years.In short, it is enough to question your extrapolation to the time when everything was in one big giant cosmic atom. Any creationist worth the time to debate over the issue would raise that issue.

Actually have a couple questionsDoes the Hubble constant only apply to the current motions? Would it change with time? How would you prove either constant constant or variable with age?Why does velocity vary with distance? Is this where dark force/matter come in?

Yes. Yes. And no. Hubble's Parameter changes through time. Hubble's Constant is what it is at the moment - so it will always be what it is, given what time it is. Which does make 'constant' a bit of an odd term, but physics nomenclature is bit of a slave to tradition It's derived from General Relativity via the Friedmann equations. So that's the mathematical derivation / proof. Empirical proof comes from more and more precise measurements and clever inferences. Good question and I'm not sure there is a definitive answer but the general gist goes:There is something intrinsic to space that causes it to expand. So think of a unit sphere of space - it expands to twice the diameter. Now there is more space. And thus more 'expansion stuff'. From the centre of the sphere to edge there is twice as much stuff expanding as there was before so the edge is now being 'pushed' away at a greater rate than stuff only one unit away from the centre. The rate 'per unit' of space stays the same, but the more units of space there between point A and point B, the more space is expanding so it accumulates over distance.That's why more distance = faster expansion between those two points.The fact that the equation comes out the way it does, and the observations leads us to the conclusion that there is something intrinsic to space that causes the expansion. What that intrinsic something is is not completely understood I believe, but yes - a constant energy density to space - ala a cosmological constant with Dark Energy being the culprit of this is a commonly accepted understanding, though there are some weird quantum field ideas that I don't understand that have been proposed too.

Agreed - as far as disproving YEC it could even be viewed as begging the question: 'Given the Big Bang - the universe isn't young'.

The conversation would probably move to trying to prove the big bang then, which I think there is plenty of evidence for. Well, there's a reason last Thursdayism isn't scientificaly accepted. While it's possible, it's also a positive claim that requires the last Thursdayist to meet their burden of proof.I see the same thing with a univerese "created old" its a positive claim that requires proof and without that, I see no reason to believe it.

Actually, for the purposes of this discussion, it is you who are claiming that a single fact disproves creationism, so it is up to you to provide a reason for dismissing the Creatonist claims.On the other hand, if, as is actually the case, other evidence beyond the Hubble constant is available, then you would have a much better argument.