“That just doesn’t sound right.” Ever since I was a kid, that was my gut reaction to those well-meaning people in my church and school who told me that despite what many in the sciences were saying, the earth and the entire universe were actually of relatively recent manufacture.

Students of geology learn in their first semester that uniformitarianism is the guiding principle by which geologists interpret Earth’s history. The premise, as articulated by James Hutton and Charles Lyell, is that geological processes we observe today can be used to explain ancient geological materials and structures.