Apparent Age Theory

[LoG]

As 'valid' as a Nigerian scam email.

More valid than Protsch's "scientific data"

 

[KerrMetric]

More valid than Protsch's "scientific data"

At least an invalid and my guess is that Protsch didn't fabricate everything in his career.

 

[LoG]

At least an invalid and my guess is that Protsch didn't fabricate everything in his career.

Seems to be a whole lotta' guessing going on around here, so you are in good company.

 

[KerrMetric]

Seems to be a whole lotta' guessing going on around here, so you are in good company.

Nothing wrong with guessing. The problem is when it stops there which is the modus operandi of the creationist movement and gets us the nonsense they trot out.

 

[random_guy]

More valid than Protsch's "scientific data"

I like how Creationists keep pulling out a few examples of fraud to try to invalidate the entire field of science. I hope that logic doesn't apply when the atheists do the same thing to us.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

i hate to see such a promising thread fall apart.
Christians of all people should expect sinful behavior, in the sciences, in the government, in the church. The issue is how to detect it, get it out of the system and how to prevent it, not whether it has or will occur.


back to the issue of apparent age.

It seems to revolve around two related questions.

the difference between history as contingent and specific and the potential for miracles displaying the same outcome while remaining generic.

and the idea of a label, of justification via authentication outside of the event.

look at the water into wine miracle. it's a lot easier than a poof Creation in 4004 BC.

All wine that we experience is a result of a physical historical process. However some processes are much more specific than others. Generic blended wines loose their specificity by being combined with lots of other wines. I have no problem with thinking of them as generic, unlabeled wines. They are still wine, just unlabelled as to exact vineyard source. They have lost their contingency, their specificity, their history.

They are still wine, like a wine produced by a miracle, they are unlabeled. The water-into-wine wine did not come with a label "made in the last hour by Jesus", it was the story that accompanied it that was it's label as to miracle, the story authenticated it as miracle and not normal wine.

YECists essentially look at Gen 1 as a certificate of authenticity, a label of "made by God as is, where is, how it is", placed on the universe. It is this labelling, in contradiction to the internal labels science has found over the last 350 years that i find wrong headed.

interesting thread. thanks

 

[gluadys]

The Universe may be 14B years old but that doesn't negate Usshers timeline for this present biological creation.

Biological evidence does negate Ussher's timeline. Biological evidence places the origin of our species at least 140,000 years in the past. Biological evidence places the origin of our genus at least 2 million years in the past. Biological evidence ties us to a common ancestor we share with chimpanzees that lived at least 7 million years in the past.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

now the issue is if miracles issue invoices.
if a YECist 6K years ago creation is invoiced by Gen 1.
that is an interesting idea and is answered "of course" by YECists and others who would address specific scientific and historical questions to Genesis, such as "how old is the earth?"

....

Buried deeply (couched in the language of sciencespeak) in the secular history of earth are the necessary 'miracle invoices'.

 

[KerrMetric]

Buried deeply (couched in the language of sciencespeak) in the secular history of earth are the necessary 'miracle invoices'.

Aha, American anti-intellectualism at its finest.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Biological evidence does negate Ussher's timeline. Biological evidence places the origin of our species at least 140,000 years in the past. Biological evidence places the origin of our genus at least 2 million years in the past. Biological evidence ties us to a common ancestor we share with chimpanzees that lived at least 7 million years in the past.

Maybe that's the reason for the flood; to rid the earth of those ape-men. God seemed to be concerned with genealogy.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Buried deeply (couched in the language of sciencespeak) in the secular history of earth are the necessary 'miracle invoices'.

you are constantly confusing the levels of the discussion.

the question of if miracles issue invoices is a metaphysical question, not a scientific one.

the language is that of analogy, like the label on a bottle of wine, like the invoice accompanying an item specifying its date and place of manufacturer. the language is one of convenience and communicability, not one particular to science.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Aha, American anti-intellectualism at its finest.

Kerr, I believe you just blinked! AHA!

I read a lot of science stuff (thanks to this and other threads) and am struck by the need for a miracle every now and then in order for evolution to continue.

 

[KerrMetric]

I read a lot of science stuff (thanks to this and other threads) and am struck by the frequency of the need for a miracle every now and then in order for evolution to continue.

You are mistaking miracle need for your lack of comprehension. Getting science from threads on here or CNN reports is not a likely to engender an understanding beyond the rudimentary. You have amply exhibited this by your simplistic physics arguments with respect to celestial mechanics on here.

 

[gluadys]

Maybe that's the reason for the flood; to rid the earth of those ape-men. God seemed to be concerned with genealogy.

Getting rid of the "ape-men" does not undo the biological evidence of their existence and our relationship to them. So what's the point?

Besides there is no physical or biological evidence that any species in the genus Homo disappeared as a result of a global catastrophe.

 

[gluadys]

Kerr, I believe you just blinked! AHA!

I read a lot of science stuff (thanks to this and other threads) and am struck by the need for a miracle every now and then in order for evolution to continue.

What miracles would those be? As far as I know, the only thing needed for evolution to continue is continued reproduction with slight variations.

 

[The Lady Kate]

Maybe that's the reason for the flood; to rid the earth of those ape-men. God seemed to be concerned with genealogy.

And all this time I thought God was concerned with sin and wickedness...

 

[OldWiseGuy]

you are constantly confusing the levels of the discussion.

the question of if miracles issue invoices is a metaphysical question, not a scientific one.

the language is that of analogy, like the label on a bottle of wine, like the invoice accompanying an item specifying its date and place of manufacturer. the language is one of convenience and communicability, not one particular to science.

Ok then, I'll use this analogy to explain what I just said.

Science says (strongly implies) that it has all of its ducks in a row, going back billions of years. But when I read science texts I find that ducks are (admittedly) missing, but am assured that they will be found. So a miracle duck is put in place, to avoid any discontinuity. The invoice is an I.O.U for one real duck to be delivered at a later date.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

You are mistaking miracle need for your lack of comprehension. Getting science from threads on here or CNN reports is not a likely to engender an understanding beyond the rudimentary. You have amply exhibited this by your simplistic physics arguments with respect to celestial mechanics on here.

Read my response below to rmwilliamsll.

Regards my celestial physics: I offered no phsyics, you did. I presented a theory. You implied that it was impossible. Neither of us has proven a thing.

 

[shernren]

Sigh. How hijacked this thread is. My post itself is going to turn out to be highly disorganized.

here is the idea:
the context is the water into wine miracle at the wedding in Canaan.

the wine was not accompanied by an invoice from Gallo stating it's origin, age and wine type. it was UNLABELLED, uninvoiced.

Creation on the other hand is invoiced, it contains literally millions of little dated invoices that say: this process is historical and can be dated to X. or this tree has been here in this place and growing for 4K years.

But rmswilliams, I'm not convinced that it is possible to have an "invoice-less" configuration of matter, if that configuration of matter and its logical timelike evolution conforms to naturalistic possibilities.

E.g. the wine from water. Let's discuss its C-14/C-12 ratio.

If the ratio is higher than the atmospheric equilibrium, then we can describe it as technically having a negative invoice (being brewed in the future). Since we disallow any possibility of reverse causality, the only option is to say that it has no invoice. Note that this configuration of the carbon/carbon ratio has no possible naturalistic explanation, which is precisely what causes it to have no "invoice".
If the ratio is lower than the atmospheric equilibrium, on the other hand, it can be dated radiometrically to give an apparent age.
If the ratio is zero, i.e. there is no C-14 whatsoever, that does NOT equate to it not having an "invoice". It is still possible to derive an apparent age for it, i.e. the date of this wine is far older than a certain number of half-lifes of C-14.

So the wine Jesus had created would have had an "invoice", no matter what isotopic ratio He chose. Just that in some cases the number on the invoice would have been negative, and therefore it would have been illogical.

[complete switch of logical thread]

We can define the apparent age of a sample as the time taken for a given set of naturalistic processes to change its configuration from a given initial configuration to its presently observed configuration. Next, we define an apparent event as the most possible naturalistic occurrence which could result in a particular configuration of a sample. An apparent history is a set of apparent events interspersed by apparent age.

For example, let's say Adam was created with a fresh bleeding wound on his left knee. His apparent history would consist of the apparent event of getting cut by something 1 second ago followed by an apparent age of 1 second. If Adam was created with a belly button, his apparent history would consist of the apparent event of having his navel cut followed by an apparent age of say 20 years.

However, I think that "apparent age" is really the same thing as "apparent event", but taken over a larger timescale. To use mathematical ideas, an "apparent age" is the consequence of summing very many "apparent events" over a given period of time. For example, let's say Adam had a "childhood scar" on his left knee. We might say this represents an apparent event of falling down and cutting himself, followed by an apparent age of 15 years. But how do we know this age? Because if the wound was just 2 seconds old, a set of apparent events (e.g. clotting, growing of scar tissue, regrowing of severed capillaries) would not have occured. If it was 10 years old instead, a given proportion of the apparent events would not have occurred. When we count the apparent age of an event, we are actually counting the number of apparent events that have occurred since.

If 10 billion uranium decays give an age of 2,000 years, when we obtain an apparent age of 2,000 years for a freshly created specimen, we are really counting 10 billion apparent decay events.

As far as our limited understanding is concerned, it is possible to create a configuration of matter not showing evidence of apparent events. E.g. God could have created the face of the moon cratered (evidence of apparent events), or God could have created it smooth (no evidence of apparent events). But it is not possible to create a configuration of matter that does not give an apparent age, albeit some possible ages will be illogical.

But since an apparent age measurement is really the summation of a set of apparent event observations, isn't there a contradiction? Isn't it therefore impossible to create a configuration of matter which does not show some evidence of apparent events?

If you're not lost, you're smarter than me, because I'm lost.

 

[KerrMetric]

Read my response below to rmwilliamsll.

Regards my celestial physics: I offered no phsyics, you did. I presented a theory. You implied that it was impossible. Neither of us has proven a thing.

Because you haven't looked. Five minutes of checking would show your "theory" as nonsensical. In fact common sense should have.