Why short-lived nuclides are not around (Miller)
November 25th, 2007 | Published in Nature, Science, Quotes
Every nuclide with a half-life of less than 80 million years is missing from our region of the solar system, and every nuclide with a half-life of greater than 80 million years is present. Every single one. These data are an unbiased atomic sampling of our corner of the known universe. And the results are crystal-clear. There is a reason that the short-lived nuclides are no longer around, and the reason is obvious: The solar system is much older than 80 million years. In the billions of years since its formation, the short-lived nuclides have simply decayed themselves out of existence.
–Kenneth R. Miller, Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (orig. 1999; Harper Perennial, 2002), p. 72