The Age of Ellipticals and the Color-Magnitude Relation
  Using new narrowband color observations of early-type galaxies in clusters,
we reconstruct the color-magnitude relation (CMR) with a higher degree of
accuracy than previous work. We then use the spectroscopically determined ages
and metallicities from three samples (Trager et al 2008, Thomas et al 2005,
Gallazzi et al 2006), combined with multi-metallicity SED models, to compare
predicted colors for galaxies with young ages (less than 8 Gyr) with the known
CMR. We find that the CMR cannot by reproduced by the spectroscopically
determined ages and metallicities in any of the samples despite the high
internal accuracies to the spectroscopic indices. In contrast, using only the
$<$Fe$>$ index to determine [Fe/H], and assuming a mean age of 12 Gyr for a
galaxy's stellar population, we derive colors that exactly match not only the
color zeropoint of the CMR but also its slope. We consider the source of young
age estimates, the H$\beta$ index, and examine the conflict between red
continuum colors and large H$\beta$ values in galaxy spectra. We conclude that
our current understanding of stellar populations is insufficient to correctly
interpret H$\beta$ values and that the sum of our galaxy observations supports
an old and monolithic scenario of galaxy formation. This result has a
devastating impact on every study that has used the H$\beta$ index to calculate
galaxy age, as the use of the H$\beta$ versus MgFe diagram will result in
incorrectly deduced young ages.
