The
Omphalos hypothesis was named after the title of an
1857 book by
Philip Henry Gosse
in which he argued that in order for the world to be "functional", God must have created the
Earth
with mountains, canyons, trees with growth rings, Adam and Eve with hair, fingernails, and navels
("omphalos" is
Greek for "navel"), and that therefore
no evidence we can see
of the presumed age of the world can be taken as reliable.
An extreme version of this idea is that the world was created ten minutes ago, complete with all of our memories and records and fossils.
The idea has seen some revival in the twentieth century by modern
creationists who have extended the argument to light which appears to originate in far-off
stars and
galaxies.