Creation & EvolutionForum for the discussion of this important topic. This forum is open to non-believers. There is a Christians-only forum in the Christians-only section too.
This accelerated decay would be pretty scary. It would need to be accelerated over 750,000X for it to fit within a 6000 year old earth.
We already know of one natural Nuclear reactor on the earth that formed naturally from current decay rates.
I would hate to see what would happen if these decay rates were increased almost a million fold. Not to mention all the evidence that would leave behind (if it left the earth behind at all. )
Next you have to ask, was this decay rate increase for the earth only? If not, then we have to think exactly what would our sun do if the decay rates were increased a million fold.
Technically, all elements undergo decay. It's just that many of them have half-lives so long you can wait around for as long as you like and never observe a single decay. YEC requires an increase in decay rates of at least six orders of magnitude, and perhaps as many as ten. That means that elements which are just the right side of stable, as it were, will decay at significant rates. These novel processes might be expected to leave daughter products not seen in known decay chains.
--Not if they were all accelerated by the same magnitude
How, exactly? Even a change in fundamental constants won't provide that.
It's just that many of them have half-lives so long you can wait around for as long as you like and never observe a single decay. YEC requires an increase in decay rates of at least six orders of magnitude, and perhaps as many as ten. That means that elements which are just the right side of stable, as it were, will decay at significant rates. These novel processes might be expected to leave daughter products not seen in known decay chains.
--Not necessarily. The same unstable radioisotopes have existed in the past, the hypothesis of accelerated nuclear decay merely proposes that somehow their half-lives drematically decreased for a period of time.
How, exactly? Even a change in fundamental constants won't provide that.
--I'm not the guy to ask I guess. I don't know the detailed nuclear physics behind it. Besides, I don't expect the acceleration to be naturalistic, and it is the only phoneomena which I expect to ever have been unnatural in earth history.
This accelerated decay would be pretty scary. It would need to be accelerated over 750,000X for it to fit within a 6000 year old earth.
We already know of one natural Nuclear reactor on the earth that formed naturally from current decay rates.
I would hate to see what would happen if these decay rates were increased almost a million fold. Not to mention all the evidence that would leave behind (if it left the earth behind at all. )
Next you have to ask, was this decay rate increase for the earth only? If not, then we have to think exactly what would our sun do if the decay rates were increased a million fold.
--I think that if we can solve the problem that the radiogenic heat gives us, the young earth is in pretty good condition, I think this is the highest hurdle imaginable. I presume that a variable decay rate would have been universal.
--I think I went over the oklo reactor and similar natural nuclear reactors a while ago somewhere else, but you can present it again if you like here.
--Just keep in mind that this thread is supposed to be about the Hawaiian island chain and the emperor seamounts.
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