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80-410: From 1814, Thomas Chalmers popularized gap creationism; he attributed the concept to the 17th-century Dutch Arminian theologian Simon Episcopius . Chalmers wrote: "My own opinion, as published in 1814, is that it [Genesis 1:1] forms no part of the first day, but refers to a period of indefinite antiquity when God created the worlds out of nothing. The commencement of the first day's work I hold to be

160-402: A Political Economy , the chief purpose of which was to argue that the right economic condition of the masses is dependent on their right moral condition, so that character is the parent of comfort, not vice versa. Parochial machinery gave Chalmers experience in dealing with the problem of poor relief. He became an influential thinker on poverty . Chalmers was a Malthusian in his belief that

240-517: A cosmological constant . The fractional contribution of each to the current energy density of the universe is given by the density parameters   Ω m   , {\displaystyle ~\Omega _{\text{m}}~,}   Ω r   , {\displaystyle ~\Omega _{\text{r}}~,} and   Ω Λ   . {\displaystyle ~\Omega _{\Lambda }~.} The full ΛCDM model

320-566: A natural theologian . A series of sermons on the relation between the discoveries of astronomy and the Christian revelation was published in January 1817, and within a year nine editions and 20,000 copies were in circulation. In 1808 Chalmers published an Inquiry into the Extent and Stability of National Resources , a contribution to the discussion created by Bonaparte 's commercial policy. He argued for

400-649: A "second creative act" was discussed prominently in the reference notes for Genesis in the influential 1917 Scofield Reference Bible . In 1954, a few years before the re-emergence of young-Earth flood geology eclipsed gap creationism, influential evangelical theologian Bernard Ramm wrote in The Christian View of Science and Scripture : "The gap theory has become the standard interpretation throughout hyper-orthodoxy, appearing in an endless stream of books, booklets, Bible studies, and periodical articles. In fact, it has become so sacrosanct with some that to question it

480-568: A long biography of his father-in-law. His second eldest daughter, Elizabeth (Eliza) Mackenzie , travelled to Therapia during the Crimean War to work as a Superintendent of nurses. His brother, Charles Chalmers, founded the Merchiston Castle School . Charles' son, David (Thomas' nephew) was a noted industrialist and owner of the Cowan & Co. paperworks. Attribution Age of

560-414: A lower limit on the age of the universe; these include The problem of determining the age of the universe is closely tied to the problem of determining the values of the cosmological parameters. Today this is largely carried out in the context of the ΛCDM model, where the universe is assumed to contain normal (baryonic) matter, cold dark matter , radiation (including both photons and neutrinos ), and

640-585: A measurement based on the observations of the local, modern universe, which suggest a younger age. The uncertainty of the first kind of measurement has been narrowed down to 20 million years, based on a number of studies that all show similar figures for the age. These studies include researches of the microwave background radiation by the Planck spacecraft , the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and other space probes. Measurements of

720-503: A memorial sermon for Princess Charlotte of Wales to appeal for a Christian effort to deal with the social condition of Glasgow. His parish contained about 11,000 persons, and of these about one-third were not connected with any church. He considered that parochial organizations had not kept pace in the city with the growing population. He declared that twenty new churches, with parishes, should be erected in Glasgow; and he set to work to revive

800-541: A more accurate number, the correction function   F   {\displaystyle ~F~} must be computed. In general this must be done numerically, and the results for a range of cosmological parameter values are shown in the figure. For the Planck values   ( Ω m , Ω Λ ) =   {\displaystyle ~(\Omega _{\text{m}},\Omega _{\Lambda })=~} (0.3086, 0.6914), shown by

880-719: A supersensitive antenna. The antenna persistently detected a low, steady, mysterious noise in the microwave region that was evenly spread over the sky, and was present day and night. After testing, they became certain that the signal did not come from the Earth , the Sun , or the Milky Way galaxy, but from outside the Milky Way, but could not explain it. At the same time another team, Robert H. Dicke , Jim Peebles , and David Wilkinson , were attempting to detect low level noise that might be left over from

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960-418: A taxation of " the excess of income above that which is laid out in purchasing the necessaries of existence ", and argued that there should be a personal (tax-free) allowance in income taxation. He argued for the necessity of taxation to sustain valid state expenditures, "if taxes were rightly laid, and the produce of them rightly expended, they admit of being most beneficially increased for the best interests of

1040-407: Is 13.787 ± 0.020 billion years. This number represents an accurate "direct" measurement of the age of the universe, in contrast to other methods that typically involve Hubble's law and the age of the oldest stars in globular clusters . It is possible to use different methods for determining the same parameter (in this case, the age of the universe) and arrive at different answers with no overlap in

1120-481: Is based on the assumption that the project's underlying model is correct; other methods of estimating the age of the universe could give different ages. Assuming an extra background of relativistic particles, for example, can enlarge the error bars of the WMAP constraint by one order of magnitude. This measurement is made by using the location of the first acoustic peak in the microwave background power spectrum to determine

1200-603: Is convenient to quote times measured "since the Big Bang" even though they do not correspond to a time that can actually be physically measured. Though the universe might in theory have a longer history, the International Astronomical Union presently uses the term "age of the universe" to mean the duration of the Lambda-CDM expansion, or equivalently, the time elapsed within the currently observable universe since

1280-502: Is described by a number of other parameters, but for the purpose of computing its age these three, along with the Hubble parameter   H 0   {\displaystyle ~H_{0}~} , are the most important. If one has accurate measurements of these parameters, then the age of the universe can be determined by using the Friedmann equation . This equation relates

1360-1027: Is equivalent to tampering with Sacred Scripture or to manifest modernistic leanings". Ramm's book became influential in the formation of another alternative to gap creationism, that of progressive creationism , which found favour with more conservative members of the American Scientific Affiliation (a fellowship of scientists who are Christians), with the more modernist wing of that fellowship favouring theistic evolution . Religious proponents of this form of creationism have included Oral Roberts , Cyrus I. Scofield , Harry Rimmer , Jimmy Swaggart , Perry Stone, G. H. Pember , L. Allen Higley, Arthur Pink , Peter Ruckman , Finis Jennings Dake , Chuck Missler , E. W. Bullinger , Charles Welch , Victor Paul Wierwille , Donald Grey Barnhouse , Herbert W. Armstrong , Garner Ted Armstrong , Michael Pearl and Clarence Larkin . Some gap creationists may believe that science has proven beyond reasonable doubt that

1440-559: Is named after him. He was born at Anstruther in Fife , the son of Elizabeth Hall and John Chalmers, a merchant. Age 11 Chalmers attended the University of St Andrews studying mathematics . In January 1799 he was licensed as a preacher of the gospel by the St Andrews presbytery. In May 1803, after attending further courses of lectures at the University of Edinburgh , and acting as assistant to

1520-562: Is not as sensitive to   Ω Λ   {\displaystyle ~\Omega _{\Lambda }~} directly, partly because the cosmological constant becomes important only at low redshift. The most accurate determinations of the Hubble parameter   H 0   {\displaystyle ~H_{0}~} are currently believed to come from measured brightnesses and redshifts of distant Type Ia supernovae . Combining these measurements leads to

1600-436: Is referred to as strong priors and essentially involves stripping the potential errors in other parts of the model to render the accuracy of actual observational data directly into the concluded result. The age given is thus accurate to the specified error, since this represents the error in the instrument used to gather the raw data input into the model. The age of the universe based on the best fit to Planck 2018 data alone

1680-459: Is that it forms no part of the first day but refers to a period of indefinite antiquity when God created the worlds out of nothing. The commencement of the first day's work I hold to be the moving of God's Spirit upon the face of the waters. We can allow geology the amplest time ... without infringing even on the literalities of the Mosaic record." This form of old Earth creationism posits that

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1760-551: Is that it is the Hubble parameter that controls that age of the universe, with a correction arising from the matter and energy content. So a rough estimate of the age of the universe comes from the Hubble time , the inverse of the Hubble parameter. With a value for   H 0   {\displaystyle ~H_{0}~} around 69 km/s/Mpc , the Hubble time evaluates to   1 / H 0 =   {\displaystyle ~1/H_{0}=~} 14.5  billion years. To get

1840-415: Is then given by an expression of the form where   H 0   {\displaystyle ~H_{0}~} is the Hubble parameter and the function   F   {\displaystyle ~F~} depends only on the fractional contribution to the universe's energy content that comes from various components. The first observation that one can make from this formula

1920-547: The Big Bang and could prove whether the Big Bang theory was correct. The two teams realized that the detected noise was in fact radiation left over from the Big Bang, and that this was strong evidence that the theory was correct. Since then, a great deal of other evidence has strengthened and confirmed this conclusion, and refined the estimated age of the universe to its current figure. The space probes WMAP, launched in 2001, and Planck , launched in 2009, produced data that determines

2000-524: The Doppler effect , thus indicating that these galaxies were moving away from the Earth. In addition, the farther away these galaxies seemed to be (the dimmer they appeared) the greater was their redshift, and thus the faster they seemed to be moving away. This was the first direct evidence that the universe is not static but expanding. The first estimate of the age of the universe came from the calculation of when all of

2080-500: The Earth is far older than can be accounted for by, for instance, adding up the ages of Biblical patriarchs as James Ussher famously attempted in the 17th century when he developed the Ussher chronology . For some, the gap theory allows both the Genesis creation account and geological science to be inerrant in matters of scientific fact. Gap creationists believe that certain facts about

2160-565: The Free Church of Scotland , with Chalmers as moderator. He had prepared a sustentation fund scheme for the support of the seceding ministers. In 1844, Chalmers announced a church extension campaign, for new building. In 1846 he became the first principal of the Divinity Hall of the Free Church of Scotland , as it was initially called. Later in life he was quoted as saying: "Who cares about

2240-678: The Free Church of Scotland . He has been called "Scotland's greatest nineteenth-century churchman". He served as Vice-president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh from 1835 to 1842. The New Zealand town of Port Chalmers was named after Chalmers. A bust of Chalmers is on display in the Hall of Heroes of the National Wallace Monument in Stirling . The Thomas Chalmers Centre in Kirkliston

2320-700: The Moderate Alexander Hill . Chalmers found himself at the head of the party in the Church of Scotland which stood for "non-intrusionism": the principle that no minister should be intruded into any parish contrary to the will of the congregation. Cases of conflict between the church and the civil power arose in Auchterarder, Dunkeld and Marnoch. The courts made it clear that the Church, in their opinion, held its temporalities on condition of rendering such obedience as

2400-405: The "errors". To best avoid the problem, it is common to show two sets of uncertainties; one related to the actual measurement and the other related to the systematic errors of the model being used. An important component to the analysis of data used to determine the age of the universe (e.g. from Planck ) therefore is to use a Bayesian statistical analysis, which normalizes the results based upon

2480-499: The ' nebulae ' ( galaxies ) by Edwin Hubble in a work published in 1929. Earlier in the 20th century, Hubble and others resolved individual stars within certain nebulae, thus determining that they were galaxies, similar to, but external to, the Milky Way Galaxy . In addition, these galaxies were very large and very far away. Spectra taken of these distant galaxies showed a red shift in their spectral lines presumably caused by

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2560-666: The Big Bang. In July 2023, a study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society journal put the age of the Universe as 26.7 billion years. The author Rajendra Gupta shows a new model that stretches the galaxy formation time by several billion years, leading to the conclusion that the age of the universe is roughly twice as long as thought. Using Zwicky 's tired light theory and "coupling constants" as described by Paul Dirac , Gupta writes that

2640-513: The Free Church compared with the Christian good of the people of Scotland? Who cares for any Church, but as an instrument of Christian good?" On 28 May 1847 Chalmers returned to his house at Church Hill in Morningside , near Edinburgh, from a journey to London on the subject of national education. On the following day (Saturday) he was employed in preparing a report to the General Assembly of

2720-471: The Free Church, then sitting. On Sunday, the 30th, he continued in his usual health and spirits, and retired to rest with the intention of rising at an early hour to finish his report. The next morning he did not make his appearance, and he was discovered lying dead in bed. Chalmers was interred in the Grange Cemetery on 4 June, the very first burial in that cemetery. His grave is on the north wall, near

2800-495: The Hubble constant and the age of the universe independent of galaxy distances, removing the largest source of error. The Lambda-CDM concordance model describes the evolution of the universe from a very uniform, hot, dense primordial state to its present state over a span of about 13.77 billion years of cosmological time . This model is well understood theoretically and strongly supported by recent high-precision astronomical observations such as WMAP . In contrast, theories of

2880-417: The Hubble constant came very close to the value range generally accepted today. Sandage, like Einstein, did not believe his own results at the time of discovery. Sandage proposed new theories of cosmogony to explain this discrepancy. This issue was more or less resolved by improvements in the theoretical models used for estimating the ages of stars. As of 2024, using the latest models for stellar evolution,

2960-502: The Hubble parameter and a matter-only universe. Introducing the cosmological constant allows the universe to be older than these clusters, as well as explaining other features that the matter-only cosmological model could not. NASA 's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) project's nine-year data release in 2012 estimated the age of the universe to be (13.772 ± 0.059) × 10 years (13.772 billion years, with an uncertainty of plus or minus 59 million years). This age

3040-513: The Universe In physical cosmology , the age of the universe is the time elapsed since the Big Bang . Astronomers have derived two different measurements of the age of the universe : a measurement based on direct observations of an early state of the universe, which indicate an age of 13.787 ± 0.020  billion years as interpreted with the Lambda-CDM concordance model as of 2021; and

3120-642: The University of Edinburgh, but was unsuccessful. In 1815 he became minister of the Tron Church , Glasgow, in spite of determined opposition to him in the town council on the grounds of his evangelical teaching. From Glasgow his reputation as a preacher spread throughout the United Kingdom. When he visited London Samuel Wilberforce wrote, "all the world is wild about Dr Chalmers." At this time he lived at Wellington Place in Glasgow. In November 1817 Chalmers used

3200-587: The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe ( WMAP ) was instrumental in establishing an accurate age of the universe, though other measurements must be folded in to gain an accurate number. CMB measurements are very good at constraining the matter content   Ω m   , {\displaystyle ~\Omega _{\text{m}}~,} and curvature parameter   Ω k   . {\displaystyle ~\Omega _{\text{k}}~.} It

3280-530: The article on Christianity was assigned to him in David Brewster 's Edinburgh Encyclopædia . The separate publication of this article, and contributions to the Edinburgh Christian Instructor and The Eclectic Review , enhanced his reputation as an author. Chalmers's writings are a source for argument and illustration on the question of Establishment. "I have no veneration", he said to

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3360-406: The box in the upper left corner of the figure, this correction factor is about   F = 0.956   . {\displaystyle ~F=0.956~.} For a flat universe without any cosmological constant, shown by the star in the lower right corner,   F = 2 / 3   {\displaystyle ~F={2}/{3}~} is much smaller and thus

3440-457: The cause of pauperism was the poor having too many children. He also thought that poor-relief officials should be tenured and business-like; and voluntary taxation was the correct way to support poor relief. When Chalmers undertook the management of the parish of St John's, the poor of the parish cost the city £1400 per annum, and in four years the pauper expenditure was reduced to £280 per annum. The investigation of new applications for relief

3520-414: The chair of moral philosophy at the University of St Andrews , the seventh academic offer made to him during his eight years in Glasgow. His lectures led some students to devote themselves to missionary effort. Among his pupils were William Lindsay Alexander , Alexander Duff , and James Aitken Wylie . At this period Robert Morrison and Joshua Marshman visited St Andrews. In November 1828 Chalmers

3600-412: The children. Two school-houses with four endowed teachers were established, where 700 children were taught, at moderate fees. Between 40 and 50 local Sabbath schools were opened, where more than 1000 children were taught. The parish was divided into 25 districts with 60 to 100 families. Chalmers was the centre of the whole system, visiting families and holding evening meetings. In 1823 Chalmers accepted

3680-401: The cosmic background radiation give the cooling time of the universe since the Big Bang, and measurements of the expansion rate of the universe can be used to calculate its approximate age by extrapolating backwards in time. The range of the estimate is also within the range of the estimate for the oldest observed star in the universe. In the 18th century, the concept that the age of Earth

3760-471: The courts required. The Church then appealed to the government for relief. In political manoeuvres with Westminster politicians, Chalmers was opposed by John Hope . In January 1843 the government put a final negative on the church's claims for spiritual independence. The non-intrusionist movement ended in the Disruption : on 18 May 1843, 470 clergy withdrew from the general assembly and constituted themselves

3840-554: The degree of DCL. At this time he was living at 3 Forres Street on the Moray Estate in the west end of Edinburgh . In 1834 he became leader of the evangelical section of the Scottish Church in the General Assembly. He was appointed chairman of a committee for church extension, and in that capacity made a tour through a large part of Scotland, addressing presbyteries and holding public meetings. He also issued numerous appeals, with

3920-427: The estimated age of the oldest known star is 13.8 ± 4 billion years. The discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation announced in 1965 finally brought an effective end to the remaining scientific uncertainty over the expanding universe. It was a chance result from work by two teams less than 60 miles apart. In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson were trying to detect radio wave echoes with

4000-471: The first cosmological model based on his theory. In order to remain consistent with a steady-state universe, Einstein added what was later called a cosmological constant to his equations. Einstein's model of a static universe was proved unstable by Arthur Eddington . The first direct observational hint that the universe was not static but expanding came from the observations of ' recession velocities ', mostly by Vesto M. Slipher , combined with distances to

4080-413: The generally accepted value for the age of the universe quoted above. The cosmological constant makes the universe "older" for fixed values of the other parameters. This is significant, since before the cosmological constant became generally accepted, the Big Bang model had difficulty explaining why globular clusters in the Milky Way appeared to be far older than the age of the universe as calculated from

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4160-401: The light of Christian teaching. Many of his lectures were printed in the first and second volumes of his published works. In the field of ethics he made contributions in regard to the place and functions of volition and attention , the separate and underived character of the moral sentiments, and the distinction between the virtues of perfect and imperfect obligation. At his own request

4240-613: The moving of God's Spirit upon the face of the waters. We can allow geology the amplest time...without infringing even on the literalities of the Mosaic record." Chalmers became a divinity professor at the University of Edinburgh, founder of the Free Church of Scotland , and author of one of the Bridgewater Treatises . Other early proponents of gap creationism included Oxford University geology professor and fellow Bridgewater author William Buckland , Sharon Turner and Edward Hitchcock . The idea gained widespread attention when

4320-400: The nation; and with no other sacrifice, than a sacrifice of luxury and splendour on the part of the landed proprietors." As a political economist he first dealt with: the relationship between the degree of the fertility of the soil and the social condition of a community; capital accumulation ; and the general doctrine of a limit to all the modes by which national wealth may accumulate. He

4400-496: The north-west access. A large crowd of persons of all denominations accompanied his remains to the grave. His wife Grace Pratt died 16 January 1850 and is buried with him, as is his daughter Grace Pratt Chalmers (1819–1851) and two of his other six daughters. James Sievewright , the moderator on the year he died, preached a eulogy. Chalmers's academic years resulted in a prolific literature of various kinds: his writings fill more than 30 volumes. Contemporaries regarded him highly as

4480-424: The objects must have started speeding out from the same point. Hubble's initial value for the universe's age was very low, as the galaxies were assumed to be much closer than later observations found them to be. The first reasonably accurate measurement of the rate of expansion of the universe, a numerical value now known as the Hubble constant , was made in 1958 by astronomer Allan Sandage . His measured value for

4560-432: The old parochial economy of Scotland. The town council agreed to build one new church, attaching to it a parish of 10,000 persons, mostly weavers, labourers and factory workers, and this church was offered to Chalmers. In September 1819 he became minister of the church and parish of St John , where of 2000 families more than 800 had no connection with any Christian church. He first addressed himself to providing schools for

4640-401: The origin of the primordial state remain very speculative. If one extrapolates the Lambda-CDM model backward from the earliest well-understood state, it quickly (within a small fraction of a second) reaches a singularity . This is known as the " initial singularity " or the " Big Bang singularity". This singularity is not understood as having a physical significance in the usual sense, but it

4720-450: The past and the age of the Earth have been omitted from the Genesis account; they hold that there was a gap of time in the biblical account that lasted an unknown number of years between a first creation in Genesis 1:1 and a second creation (or restoration) in Genesis 1:2–31 . By positing such an event, various observations in a wide range of fields, including the age of the Earth, the age of

4800-472: The period of similar views, that included also Samuel Richard Bosanquet , Thomas Mozley and Frederick Oakeley . The views from Chalmers and Edinburgh had a notable effect in Wales, through Lewis Edwards , Y Traethodydd , and Owen Thomas . In his St Andrews lectures Chalmers excluded mental philosophy and included the whole sphere of moral obligation , dealing with man's duty to God and to his fellow-men in

4880-404: The professor of mathematics at St Andrews, he was ordained as minister of Kilmany , about 9 miles from the university town, where he continued to lecture. Kilmany was a small and predominantly agricultural parish, with a population under 800 in 1811. Chalmers made an issue within the University of St Andrews of the quality of mathematics teaching. It came to involve attacks on John Rotheram ,

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4960-415: The professor of natural philosophy. His mathematical lectures roused enthusiasm, but they were discontinued by order of the authorities. Chalmers then opened mathematical classes on his own account which attracted many students; at the same time he delivered a course of lectures on chemistry , and ministered to his parish at Kilmany. In 1805 he became a candidate for the vacant professorship of mathematics at

5040-423: The rate of change in the scale factor   a ( t )   {\displaystyle ~a(t)~} to the matter content of the universe. Turning this relation around, we can calculate the change in time per change in scale factor and thus calculate the total age of the universe by integrating this formula. The age   t 0   {\displaystyle ~t_{0}~}

5120-409: The recent James Webb Space Telescope observations are in strong tension with existing cosmological models. Gupta says about his new theory: "It thus resolves the 'impossible early galaxy' problem without requiring the existence of primordial black hole seeds or modified power spectrum." Since the universe must be at least as old as the oldest things in it, there are a number of observations that put

5200-474: The result that in 1841, when he resigned his office as convener of the church extension committee, he was able to announce that in seven years upwards of £300,000 had been contributed, and 220 new churches had been built. His efforts to induce the Whig government to assist in this effort were unsuccessful. In 1840 Chalmers was unsuccessful in applying for the chair of divinity at the University of Glasgow . It went to

5280-819: The royal commissioners in St Andrews, before either the voluntary or the non-intrusive controversies had arisen, "for the Church of Scotland qua an establishment, but I have the utmost veneration for it qua an instrument of Christian good." Chalmers' Bridgewater Treatise , in the series On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God as Manifested in the Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man , appeared in two volumes 1833 and went through 6 editions. As noted by Robert M. Young , these books effectively represent an encyclopedia of pre-evolutionary natural history, commissioned and published whilst Charles Darwin

5360-705: The six literal 24-hour days of creation, does not posit any gap of time). The " New College ", as the Divinity School became known, was a centre of opposition to the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844). Chalmers himself did not mention the work, but indirectly attacked its view of development in writing for the North British Review . Chalmers and his wife, Grace, had six daughters. Chalmers' eldest daughter Anne married William Hanna , who wrote

5440-554: The six-day creation, as described in the Book of Genesis , involved literal 24-hour days, but that there was a gap of time between two distinct creations in the first and the second verses of Genesis, explaining many scientific observations, including the age of the Earth . Gap creationism differs from day-age creationism (which posits that the "days" of creation were much longer periods - of thousands or millions of years), and from young Earth creationism (which although it agrees concerning

5520-533: The size of the decoupling surface (size of the universe at the time of recombination). The light travel time to this surface (depending on the geometry used) yields a reliable age for the universe. Assuming the validity of the models used to determine this age, the residual accuracy yields a margin of error near one per cent. In 2015, the Planck Collaboration estimated the age of the universe to be 13.813 ± 0.038  billion years, slightly higher but within

5600-450: The specific linguistic reasoning behind this interpretation of the Hebrew text. A short list of examples is given below: Thomas Chalmers Christianity • Protestantism Thomas Chalmers FRSE (17 March 1780 – 31 May 1847), was a Scottish Presbyterian minister , professor of theology, political economist , and a leader of both the Church of Scotland and of

5680-450: The studies of thermodynamics , formalized in the mid-19th century. The concept of entropy dictates that if the universe (or any other closed system) were infinitely old, then everything inside would be at the same temperature, and thus there would be no stars and no life. No scientific explanation for this contradiction was put forth at the time. In 1915 Albert Einstein published the theory of general relativity and in 1917 constructed

5760-505: The uncertainties of the earlier number derived from the WMAP data. In the table below, figures are within 68% confidence limits for the base ΛCDM model . Legend: In 2018, the Planck Collaboration updated its estimate for the age of the universe to 13.787 ± 0.020  billion years. Calculating the age of the universe is accurate only if the assumptions built into the models being used to estimate it are also accurate. This

5840-410: The universe , dinosaurs, fossils, ice cores , ice ages , and geological formations are allowed by adherents to have occurred as outlined by science without contradicting their literal belief in Genesis . Because there is no specific information given in Genesis concerning the proposed gap of time, other scriptures are used to support and explain what may have occurred during this period and to explain

5920-459: The universe is younger for a fixed value of the Hubble parameter. To make this figure,   Ω r   {\displaystyle ~\Omega _{\text{r}}~} is held constant (roughly equivalent to holding the cosmic microwave background temperature constant) and the curvature density parameter is fixed by the value of the other three. Apart from the Planck satellite,

6000-407: Was both a paternalist , on the moral plane, and a supporter of economic individualism . Critics replied to Chalmers that his approach was impossible in large cities. William Pulteney Alison engaged in controversy with him; Chalmers countered with moral arguments. In arguing that private charity should outweigh public expenditure in relieving poverty, he was one of a group of British writers of

6080-560: Was given to the deacon of the district, and an effort was made to enable the poor to help themselves. At this time there were few parishes north of the Forth and Clyde where there was a compulsory assessment for the poor, but the English method of assessment was spreading. Chalmers opposed compulsory assessment as counter-productive, and believed that relief should instead be raised and administered by voluntary means. It has been argued that Chalmers

6160-422: Was millions, if not billions, of years began to appear. Nonetheless, most scientists throughout the 19th century and into the first decades of the 20th century presumed that the universe itself was steady state and eternal, possibly with stars coming and going but no changes occurring at the largest scale known at the time. The first scientific theories indicating that the age of the universe might be finite were

6240-614: Was on board the Beagle . In the area of natural theology and the Christian evidences he advocated the method of reconciling the Mosaic narrative with the indefinite antiquity of the globe which William Buckland advanced in his Bridgewater Treatises , and which Chalmers had previously communicated to him. In 1814 Chalmers lectured on the concept of gap creationism , also known as the "gap theory", and subsequently spread its popularity of this idea which he credited to Episcopius . He wrote of Genesis 1:1 : "My own opinion, as published in 1814,

6320-404: Was the first also to advance that argument in favour of religious establishments which met on its own ground the doctrine of Adam Smith , that religion—like other things—should be left to the operation of the law of supply and demand . In 1826 he published a third volume of The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns , a continuation of work begun at St John's, Glasgow. In 1832 he published

6400-462: Was transferred to the chair of theology at the University of Edinburgh. He then introduced the practice of following the lecture with a viva voce examination on what had been delivered. He also introduced text-books. In 1834 Chalmers was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh , and in the same year he became corresponding member of the Institute of France; in 1835 Oxford conferred on him

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