Vaccines, Climate & the Age of the Earth

Why journalists speak of these the way they do.

Script from a newscast on my former station, WFMZ-TV, in 2021:

» WENDY DAVIS: If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to walk with dinosaurs…you finally have your chance.

» ROB VAUGHN: We’ll get a sneak peek a a big event in Allentown — 165 million years in the making.

Photo by Fausto García-Menéndez on Unsplash

I immediately thought, after those words left my lips, 165-million years — will some of my evangelical Christian brothers and sisters chafe at my saying “165-million years,” as if it’s a fact? Many believe the world is only a few thousand years old.

It’s okay, if you’re a Christian believer, to have different convictions about that sort of thing. The “young earth” (YE) view is not irrational, however much current science is against it, which even many YE proponents acknowledge.¹

But I want to argue here that journalists can say that sort of thing without having to add qualifications, or to put the word “allegedly” in front of it, for the same reason that they can speak — without similar modifiers or qualifications — about the consensus on vaccine effectiveness and climate change.

Please hear me out.

Knowledge we can rely on

We’re dealing here with weighty issues of

1) epistemology (how we know things)…

… and, for my Christian readers, of

2) common grace (God’s favor shown to everybody, whether they believe in Him or not; we are all showered, indiscriminately, with thousands of blessings. Common grace enables common good will in the world despite the ubiquity of sin, and it allows believers and unbelievers alike to discover truths about our world, and thereby to do science and philosophy and great art and much more² ).

When scientists reach a consensus about something — especially when they reach an overwhelming consensus — we can be confident that they have discovered real truths we can hang our hats on. We depend on this every day: we trust that our medicines are thoroughly tested; we trust that the principles of lift are solid and will keep our airplanes in the air; indeed, we rely on the discoveries and ingenuity of experts from moment to moment, from the workings of our smartphones and our water treatment plants, to the production of our food and the wisdom of our doctors, therapists, judges, researchers and (dare I say) journalists. Regardless of their faith commitments.

I am looking out my window right now at the homes of neighbors who work in pharmaceutical research, highway construction, health care and the military — all of them endowed with skills that — from my perspective — are owing to common grace. (Again, you, dear reader, don’t have to believe that God is behind all that, or behind anything at all; but Christians find — in all of those abilities, technologies and practical workaday wisdom — among believing and unbelieving friends — reasons to praise their God.³ )

So how do we non-experts know stuff?

I was reading a news story on the air one night — a story about the latest findings on climate change — and, later, a colleague who believes global warming is a “hoax” objected to our reporting the story (a little scene I have written about before).

Recently, at the UN, President Trump called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” If that’s his view, and others think that too, how could I, as a reporter, simply refer to climate change as the truth? And why shouldn’t I, as a reporter, just listen to my colleague’s complaint and allow him a veto: “OK, thanks. We’re killing the story”?

Well, we have thousands of experts around the globe to thank for our knowing what’s happening with our climate. Nearly all say the same thing. From a U.S. government agency’s report:

There is near-universal consensus (97–99.9%) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature that the climate is changing as a result of human activity.⁴

It’s about as overwhelming a scientific consensus as we can get.

So, how should a journalist write her story? Cite the experts. The near-unanimous consensus. And when the consensus is that overwhelming, involving scientists the world over (most of them with no interest in American politics!), the journalist can refer, simply, to “human-caused climate change.”

How about vaccines?

Since we in the U.S. are suddenly in the midst of skirmishes at the highest levels over vaccines, this is an important question. The world has seen vaccines save countless lives and practically exterminate various diseases for decades. Now, with skepticism on the rise and some parents declining to get their kids the shots, we’re seeing some deadly illnesses make comebacks.⁵ Is there a strong consensus on the effectiveness and safety of vaccines? There is. “Vaccines are safe, effective and life-saving,” says the World Health Organization. We Americans have all seen that they work, how various illnesses have been all but stamped out. We’ve lived it.

How should a journalist talk about this?

We can write about “the effectiveness and safety of vaccines” without flinching. Oh, we may want to say, “medical experts say vaccines are safe and effective,” sure. And, we can point out that vaccine skepticism is very much a minority view in the medical community. But, as a matter of epistemology and common grace, we don’t have to speak as though there’s no solid consensus. There is.

What does this have to do with the age of the earth?

Similarly, if I write a news story about a dinosaur exhibition, I don’t have to say some thing happened “allegedly” 165-million years ago. The science is settled. Many lines of evidence show that the earth’s age is measured in billions of years. I don’t want to open a can of worms (or a can of anything) with my evangelical friends! As I said at the outset, having different convictions about the age of the universe, based on one’s interpretation of Scripture, is okay. Scripture itself allows for a variety of views; after all, it does not address modern concerns about how long ago everything was made.⁶ After noting the many lines of evidence for the age of the universe — i.e., the reason for the scientific consensus — popular evangelical theologian Wayne Grudem says,

These scientific observations are the reason so many thousands of Christians hold to an old-earth position, and one can hardly expect us to change our minds if no convincing alternative interpretation of this evidence can be given.⁷

(And see, again, footnote 1, quoting a young earth scholar.)

Elsewhere Grudem says:

[T]he observable facts of creation seem increasingly to favor an old-earth view. Both views are possible…. And we must say very clearly that the age of the earth is a matter that is not directly taught in Scripture.⁸ (emphasis mine)

All that to say, the science is clear⁹ and there are a number of “old earth” options for interpreting Genesis 1. Now, again, as I said above, it is not irrational to hold to a “young earth” view for interpretive reasons — as many of my friends do! It’s okay. I simply want to make the point that it’s also okay for journalists and other writers and speakers to refer to the commonly understood age of the earth/universe without having to add qualifiers to accommodate Christians who believe in a recent creation.

And that’s for the same reasons that we can say what we say about climate and vaccines (to name just two big subjects): we know what we know because of the exertions of scientists and researchers and experts, people who are especially qualified to speak where most of us cannot. Yes, their findings do sometimes change over time, but usually things settle, with time and research, into a strong consensus.

And we who hold to a biblical worldview can acknowledge those exertions (see, again, Calvin in footnote 2), and receive those findings, with gratitude to God, who has showered the world with his common grace.

1. “Recent [i.e., young earth] creationists should humbly agree that their view is, at the moment, implausible on purely scientific grounds…” — Paul Nelson and John Mark Reynolds in “Young Earth Creationism,” a contribution to Three Views on Creation and Evolution, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999).

2. The Reformer John Calvin said that to reject truth, whoever discovers it, is to dishonor the God who “irradiates” even the minds of unbelievers with “sparks of his light.” (From Calvin’s Commentary on Hebrews.) “If the Lord has willed that we be helped in physics, dialectic, mathematics and other like disciplines, by the work and ministry of the ungodly, let us use this assistance” (Calvin, Institutes, II: 2.16). That’s “common grace.”

3. “Common grace suggests that all truth, whether revealed through Scripture or nature, originates from the same divine source. Therefore, Christians can view scientific discoveries as revelations of God’s handiwork, not as threats to their faith.” (Pastor David P. Cassidy, from this helpful blog post.)

4. From a report from an agency that’s part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11493676/). See many similar reports, including this one from Cornell University: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/10/more-999-studies-agree-humans-caused-climate-change.

5. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/05/facts-research-what-to-know-measles-outbreak-vaccine-safety-immunization

6. Many conservative evangelical theologians say this. Norman Geisler: “I believe the weight of biblical and scientific evidence does not favor [a young earth view].” Wayne Grudem: “God does not intend in the Bible to tell us the age of the earth, and an overwhelming amount of evidence from many different fields of science leads us to conclude that the universe is 13.8 billion years old and the earth is 4.5 billion years old. God created a truly amazing, truly gigantic universe.”

7. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/a-response-to-young-earth-arguments

8. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 1994 edition, p. 308.

9. The science is so clear that many “young earth” proponents lean on the “appearance of age” argument — the idea that everything in creation looks like it’s very old but really isn’t. But you can see that this is a big concession that the evidence is against the young earth view. And as Grudem asks: “Why would God create so many different indications of an earth that is 4.5 billion years old if this were not true? Would it not be better to conclude that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, and that God left many indications there to show us this fact rather than in any way imply that he deceived us?” (Systematic Theology, p. 306)