There have been several efforts by Old Earth proponents to try to defend a 4.5-billion-year-old earth from laws of physics. Most responses to the lunar recession issue found on anti-creationist websites are little more than copy and paste jobs from other anti-creationist web sites. There is a common argument based on a paper written by Kirk S Hansen in 1982.
Secular Effects of Oceanic Tidal Dissipation on the Moon's Orbit and the Earth's Rotation
Reviews of Geophysics and Space Physics (Reviews of Geophysics) 20(3): 457-480, August 1982
The main argument is based on the notion that in the past the phase angel (θ) between the Earth's lunar tidal bulge and the moon was smaller than the current 3o. In the abstract to his paper Hansen says the past calculations leading to a 1–2-billion-year maximum age for the Earth - Moon system assume a "constant frictional phase lag angle". To reduce the phase angle, he claims that the current continental position has produced an unusually high phase angle. He further proposed that when there was a single super continent the phase angel was smaller than today. However later calculations including that done by Walt Brown and these articles make no such assumption showing that the phase angel (θ) is a function of the rotation rate of the Earth and the orbital rate the Moon resulting in a tendency of it to be higher in the past unless the moon is near geosynchronous orbit.
The conclusion given in the paper is that the Moon started at a distance of 151,000 miles with a 12hr day on Earth, though often the 12hr day is omitted. However, when this claim is studied more closely it does not work without specific tweaking to get the current Earth - Moon system from these starting conditions.
A parliamentary backwards calculation shows that a phase angle of less than 1o is needed for most of the Earth's history for the Earth - Moon system to be 4.5 billion years old. In this backwards calculation no geologic bases is used to get the 1ophase angel. It is just what is mathematically necessary to save the 4.5-billion-year figure from the laws of celestial mechanics.Furthermore, this paper predates the paleontological data that has already been mentioned previously in this series of articles.
When this 1o phase angle is used to project the number of days in a year backwards and compare it with old Earth proponents' own paleontological data it falls far short of that paleontological data. This shows that such a slow slowing of the Earth's rotation is not workable simply because it does not agree with other data that it must agree with to be correct.
When the starting conditions of this claim of a lunar distance of 151,000 miles and a 12hr Earth day are plugged into the math along with a phase angle of 0.942351o the resulting lunar distance today is today's value of 384,399 km.
However, the number of hours in a day at present comes to 26.44 hours, which is significantly above the present-day value of 24.
It also produces a days in a year projection totally below old Earth proponents' own paleontological data. This is so bad that it even goes below a fossil showing only 350 days.
In an effort to be as fair as possible I added a fudge factor to the Earth's rotation rate so as to get it in line with the observed present-day value. This fudge factor was originally designed to deal with the current relative proper secular acceleration of the Earth's rotation which is thought to result from the Earth rounding out following the Ice age. However, since this fudge factor is the percentage of the torque on the Earth from the Moon that actually slows the Earth's rotation. It can hence substitute for any unknown factor that reduces the slowing of the Earth's rotation without acting on the Moon. The phase angle was adjusted to 0.939o and the fudge factor was set to 91.5%. There is no known geological basses for this fudge factor, it is simply required to make this model fit reality.
By making these adjustments we once again get today's lunar distance of 384,399 km.
We also managed to get a 24-hour day.
However, the projection of the number of days in a year still falls far short of old Earth paleontological data. Thus, this model fails this critical test as well.
It gets even worse for this model since it starts with 729 days in a year which is actually less than at least two of old Earth paleontological data points.
However, the final nail in this model's coffin is that it runs afoul of the currently accepted and presented as truth theory of the Moon's origin. According to this now currently accepted model the moon resulted from an impact between Earth and a Mars-size planet 4.5 billion years ago. It also has the Moon-forming at one-tenth the distance from the Earth as the model we have been examining. As a result, this attempt to save the 4.5-billion-year figure from the laws of celestial mechanics fails every test that can be thrown at it.
------------------
Help support these articles.
https://tinyurl.com/GSM-give yeah
References
http://gscim.xyz/Articles/Advanced/Lunar_recession_and_the_Age_of_the_Earth/
http://gscim.xyz/Articles/Intermediate/Lunar_recession_and_the_Age_of_the_Earth/
