Young-earth "proof" #24: Given the rate of salt influx to the oceans, they should be much saltier than they are if the earth were billions of years old.
24. Dr. Hovind is assuming that salt cannot be removed from the oceans. The more sophisticated creationists, such as Melvin Cook, know better than to make that assumption. Here’s what Cook had to say:
The validity of the application of total salt in the ocean in the determination of age turned out to have a very simple answer in the fact shown by Goldschmidt (1954) that it is in steady state and therefore useless as a means of determining the age of the oceans. [Cook, 1966, p.73]
Thus, salt is being removed from the oceans as quickly as it is being added by the world’s rivers. Consequently, no age can be calculated, save a minimum age based upon an assumption of initial salt content. There is no comfort here for the young-earth creationist.