Updating The Theory of the Earth

[Astrophile]

I am aware that the mainstream geologic method for dating events in millions of years does not use carbon dating. Are you aware of the faith required to use the dating methods developed in the last 50 years, and the physical observations of maybe the last 200 years, to extrapolate those observations back in time to billions of years? My faith pales in comparison.

No scientist has been around to measure the C12/C14 ratio back when supervolcanoes blew or comets impacted the earth. Scientists who don't believe the Bible have been mainstream for under 200 years. If they are right that the earth is billions of years old, and we don't yet have a way of measuring c12/c14 ratios in the deep past, how can they be confident that it hasn't changed significantly? I'm a professional mathematician, and I would the sample was not credible. Therefore, faith.

First you say that you know that geological methods for dating events in millions of years don't use carbon dating. Then you appear to imply that all radiometric dating of the deep past (billions of years ago) depends on knowledge of the carbon-14/carbon-12 ratio at that time. Aren't you contradicting yourself? Could you explain what you mean in more detail?

 

[Doveaman]

Let's not make the mistake of confusing catastrophism with a counterpoint to uniformitarianism, eh? Uniformitarianism is based on, well, every measurement we have to date. We don't have a method for significantly altering radioactive decay rates. We're not aware of any way to change the speed of light in a vacuum. We're not aware of any way to alter G, or C, or any other other universal constants, and through all our experimenting, they have remained constant. So what reason should we have to suspect that they can change, let alone that they have in the past?

Scientists have a very convenient way of deluding themselves. They observe universal constants as they are today and then delude themselves into believing those constants has never changed.

The arrogance.

I posit that were you not a bible-believing Christian, you would not even begin to make these assumptions.

Yes, we would have blindly followed human ignorance instead.

They are made not out of scientific inquiry but out of necessity to defend a dogmatic belief.

The idea that decay rates cannot be significantly altered is a dogmatic belief. So don't act like there are no dogmatic beliefs in science.

 

[The Cadet]

Scientists have a very convenient way of deluding themselves. They observe universal constants as they are today and then delude themselves into believing those constants has never changed.

No, we accept tentatively that given the fact that we have never been able to observe these values changing, they do not change. There is absolutely no reason to believe they would change. Additionally, if they did change, there would be absolutely no reason to believe that anything about our past was in any way stable. Last tuesdayism would be an entirely viable thing, in other words.

The idea that decay rates cannot be significantly altered is a dogmatic belief. So don't act like there are no dogmatic beliefs in science.

No, it's not dogmatic. It's based on the evidence we have.

 

[Loudmouth]

Scientists have a very convenient way of deluding themselves. They observe universal constants as they are today and then delude themselves into believing those constants has never changed.

If these universal constants did change in the past then we would see it in distant stars and galaxies. For example, type Ia supernovae would brighten and fade for shorter or longer time periods. Their brightness would be different. We also observe radioactive decay in distant stars, and the decay of those isotopes is the same in those stars as it is on Earth. Since these stars are hundreds of thousands of light years away, we know that these constants were the same in the past.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF210.html

The only reason that you are suggesting that things were different in the past is because the evidence is problematic for you.

 

[ddubois]

I know Velikovsky's training. I've read a number of his books and lots of stuff about him. He claimed and I believe him that he sought advice and help from the supposed experts. Some gave him encouragement, some like Shapley gave him rather poor treatment. I understand that a number of his predictions came true, like about the temperature of Venus, and certainly he did a lot of research. Sometimes I think God works through amateurs, as he did with Schliemann in discovering Troy, and the Wright Brothers with the airplane.

 

[Loudmouth]

I know Velikovsky's training. I've read a number of his books and lots of stuff about him. He claimed and I believe him that he sought advice and help from the supposed experts. Some gave him encouragement, some like Shapley gave him rather poor treatment. I understand that a number of his predictions came true, like about the temperature of Venus, and certainly he did a lot of research. Sometimes I think God works through amateurs, as he did with Schliemann in discovering Troy, and the Wright Brothers with the airplane.

Any comment on our actual posts where we demonstrated that we don't assume that carbon isotope ratios were constant in the past?

 

[ddubois]

1. First you say that you know that geological methods for dating events in millions of years don't use carbon dating. Then you appear to imply that all radiometric dating of the deep past (billions of years ago) depends on knowledge of the carbon-14/carbon-12 ratio at that time. Aren't you contradicting yourself? Could you explain what you mean in more detail?

   First you say that you know that geological methods for dating events in millions of years don't use carbon dating. Then you appear to imply that all radiometric dating of the deep past (billions of years ago) depends on knowledge of the carbon-14/carbon-12 ratio at that time. Aren't you contradicting yourself? Could you explain what you mean in more detail?

   
   Modern conventional scientific thinking is that the earth is billions of years old. I lean towards 6000-8000 years. I know the carbon dating age limit is something like between 50 and 150,000 years. For you, that limit may be recent, for me it is deep past. But if we allow for a very significant change in the C12/14 ratio around 3000 BC due to a huge destruction of living biomass containing very little C14, apparent ages of 30 to 100,000 BC produced for various dinosaurs (which evolutionists claim is all due to contamination, but I don't think so), can be reduced to under 8000 years.
   

 

[Loudmouth]

But if we allow for a very significant change in the C12/14 ratio around 3000 BC due to a huge destruction of living biomass containing very little C14, apparent ages of 30 to 100,000 BC produced for various dinosaurs (which evolutionists claim is all due to contamination, but I don't think so), can be reduced to under 8000 years.

We already know what those levels were, and they don't deviate much from modern levels.

The time period you are talking about is early on the x-axis, in the green region. As you can see, it doesn't deviate much from the 1:1 line which represents no change in 14C.

 

[Astrophile]

1. 
   
   
   Modern conventional scientific thinking is that the earth is billions of years old. I lean towards 6000-8000 years. I know the carbon dating age limit is something like between 50 and 150,000 years. For you, that limit may be recent, for me it is deep past. But if we allow for a very significant change in the C12/14 ratio around 3000 BC due to a huge destruction of living biomass containing very little C14, apparent ages of 30 to 100,000 BC produced for various dinosaurs (which evolutionists claim is all due to contamination, but I don't think so), can be reduced to under 8000 years.

The age of the earth was not obtained from carbon dating. During the 1930s, before carbon-14 was discovered, uranium-lead (U-Pb) dating had already shown that the earth's crust was at least two or three billion years old. Now we have potassium-argon (K-Ar) dating, Ar-40/Ar-39 dating, Rb-Sr dating, and Sm-Nd dating, all of which can determine the ages of rocks over several billion years. Moreover, it is not only terrestrial rocks that can be dated; lunar rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts and meteorites (including fragments of Mars) have all yielded maximum ages of 4.4-4.6 billion years, confirming the ages obtained for the oldest terrestrial rocks.

Incidentally, analysis of the frequencies of solar vibrations has yielded an age for the Sun of 4.57±0.11 billion years -http://www.faculty.washington.edu/stn/ess_461/reading_restricted/Bonanno_helioseismic_age_astr%5E2.pdf - in perfect agreement with the radiometric ages of meteorites.

To deal with one of your points, studies of tree-rings and varved sediments have not shown any large change in the C-14/C-12 ratio at 3,000 years BC, or at any time in the last 50,000 years.

Essentially all professional Earth scientists think that the Earth is 4540±20 million years old. If your belief that the Earth is 6000-8000 years old is correct, the scientists are wrong by a factor of 600,000 to 750,000. Do you really think that such an enormous error is probable? Have you tried to find out how such an error could arise?

 

[ddubois]

Any comment on our actual posts where we demonstrated that we don't assume that carbon isotope ratios were constant in the past?

I know that the graph for carbon dating has been modified slightly to take account of known deviations in the c12/c14 ratio, and possibly also input from dendrochronology. But I believe the modifications have been relatively minor, perhaps around 3%. In my response to Astrophile, which I just did recently, I am proposing a much greater modification to the c12/c14 ratio. Just as relatively historically minor Mt St Helens explosion in the 1980's produced as a byproduct of a megaton blast a mini-grand canyon over 100 feet deep in a day, I believe Noah's flood and the accompanying and/or following vulcanism and/or meteoric or comet impacts and/or tectonic plate shifts (probably many orders of magnitude greater force) produced over many days most of the fossils and sedimentary layers we see today. So where atomic testing might account for a 3% deviation, I would propose closer to a 1000% deviation, largely due to the huge destruction of biomass which I hypothesize would have had a far lower percentage of C14 in it than we see today.

 

[ddubois]

The age of the earth was not obtained from carbon dating. During the 1930s, before carbon-14 was discovered, uranium-lead (U-Pb) dating had already shown that the earth's crust was at least two or three billion years old. Now we have potassium-argon (K-Ar) dating, Ar-40/Ar-39 dating, Rb-Sr dating, and Sm-Nd dating, all of which can determine the ages of rocks over several billion years. Moreover, it is not only terrestrial rocks that can be dated; lunar rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts and meteorites (including fragments of Mars) have all yielded maximum ages of 4.4-4.6 billion years, confirming the ages obtained for the oldest terrestrial rocks.

Incidentally, analysis of the frequencies of solar vibrations has yielded an age for the Sun of 4.57±0.11 billion years -http://www.faculty.washington.edu/stn/ess_461/reading_restricted/Bonanno_helioseismic_age_astr%5E2.pdf - in perfect agreement with the radiometric ages of meteorites.

To deal with one of your points, studies of tree-rings and varved sediments have not shown any large change in the C-14/C-12 ratio at 3,000 years BC, or at any time in the last 50,000 years.

Essentially all professional Earth scientists think that the Earth is 4540±20 million years old. If your belief that the Earth is 6000-8000 years old is correct, the scientists are wrong by a factor of 600,000 to 750,000. Do you really think that such an enormous error is probable? Have you tried to find out how such an error could arise?

 

[ddubois]

ICR literature (from scientists who are creationists) indicates that there are many different dating methods. I have read speculation as to why potassium-argon and other long half-life dating might be misleading, but at this point it seems to me just plausible speculation. On the other hand, most of the newer methods I have heard about (for example, the rate of helium release from zircon crystals) produce an age for the earth under 20,000 years. It is a truism that people believe what they want to believe, which holds for mainstream scientists as well as for Bible-believing Christians as myself. Moreover, University tenure and funding tends to be dependent on holding mainstream beliefs. Also who likes to hear that one's years of education and research were going in the wrong direction? So among other things, there is strong financial and emotional motivation for long earth age and geologists and evolutionists to cling to their existing beliefs when the facts start to go against them.

 

[Loudmouth]

I know that the graph for carbon dating has been modified slightly to take account of known deviations in the c12/c14 ratio, and possibly also input from dendrochronology. But I believe the modifications have been relatively minor, perhaps around 3%. In my response to Astrophile, which I just did recently, I am proposing a much greater modification to the c12/c14 ratio.

Your proposed modification is not supported by the data. We have organic and inorganic samples from that time period, and the ratios from that time period were nearly the same as now.

Just as relatively historically minor Mt St Helens explosion in the 1980's produced as a byproduct of a megaton blast a mini-grand canyon over 100 feet deep in a day,

What did it do to the ratio of carbon isotopes in the atmosphere?

I believe Noah's flood and the accompanying and/or following vulcanism and/or meteoric or comet impacts and/or tectonic plate shifts (probably many orders of magnitude greater force) produced over many days most of the fossils and sedimentary layers we see today. So where atomic testing might account for a 3% deviation, I would propose closer to a 1000% deviation, largely due to the huge destruction of biomass which I hypothesize would have had a far lower percentage of C14 in it than we see today.

Then why doesn't it show up in the data?

 

[ddubois]

Your proposed modification is not supported by the data. We have organic and inorganic samples from that time period, and the ratios from that time period were nearly the same as now.

If my proposed modification were correct, then while post-flood dating might still be relatively close, pre-flood carbon 14 dating (say before 3000 BC) would be giving incorrectly high ages. The c14/c12 ratio is 1 in 10^12 now. If it were 1 in 10^13 before the flood (due to greater c12 from the soon to be destroyed biomass and lesser c14 due to less cosmic rays getting through, say, then using the fraction modern equation, a true date of 3001 BC would show up about 18,500 years older, about 21,500 BC.



What did it do to the ratio of carbon isotopes in the atmosphere?

As indicated above, before the flood, c12 in total living biomass should be greater, and c14 less, making the ratio smaller before the flood than after.

Then why doesn't it show up in the data?

If we could get an accurate measure of the pre-flood total living biomass (all coal and oil added together, including that already consumed, and compare it to current living biomass, this could demonstrate the change in c12 I discuss above. I don't know how we could check the total amount of c14 in living biomass at ages that now look like 21,500 BC that was actually in existence then, do you?

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

I know Velikovsky's training. I've read a number of his books and lots of stuff about him. He claimed and I believe him that he sought advice and help from the supposed experts. Some gave him encouragement, some like Shapley gave him rather poor treatment. I understand that a number of his predictions came true, like about the temperature of Venus, and certainly he did a lot of research. Sometimes I think God works through amateurs, as he did with Schliemann in discovering Troy, and the Wright Brothers with the airplane.

Velikovsky's ideas about orbital mechanics are ludicrous.

 

[asherahSamaria]

It's probably worth mentioning that ice cores alone could go back to around 1.5 million years.

http://www.egu.eu/news/77/the-oldest-ice-core-finding-a-15-million-year-record-of-earths-climate/

The evidence that the earth is approx 4.5 billion years is just so overwhelming that it's really difficult to grasp how anyone could think otherwise.

 

[Loudmouth]

If we could get an accurate measure of the pre-flood total living biomass (all coal and oil added together, including that already consumed, and compare it to current living biomass, this could demonstrate the change in c12 I discuss above. I don't know how we could check the total amount of c14 in living biomass at ages that now look like 21,500 BC that was actually in existence then, do you?

We already have a record of the 14C content in organic matter from that time period. Whenever you measure the 14C content in terrestrial plants or the animals that derive their carbon from that biomass, you are measuring the atmospheric content of 14C. That's because plants take their carbon from the atmosphere, and the ratio of isotopes in those plants matches the atmosphere.

We also have direct measurements of the atmosphere in the form of bubbles in polar ice and precipitated CO2 in rock formations.

If there was a sudden change in the 14C content of the atmosphere, it would show up in these records (i.e. tree rings, lake varves, ice layers, speleothems). It doesn't.

 

[ddubois]

We already have a record of the 14C content in organic matter from that time period. Whenever you measure the 14C content in terrestrial plants or the animals that derive their carbon from that biomass, you are measuring the atmospheric content of 14C. That's because plants take their carbon from the atmosphere, and the ratio of isotopes in those plants matches the atmosphere.

We also have direct measurements of the atmosphere in the form of bubbles in polar ice and precipitated CO2 in rock formations.

If there was a sudden change in the 14C content of the atmosphere, it would show up in these records (i.e. tree rings, lake varves, ice layers, speleothems). It doesn't.

I just read an article which said they can date varies back 40,000 years and ice layers 200,000. Clearly if those datings were to be correct, they would disprove the young earth hypothesis. On the other hand, I have heard that mainstream scientists have refused to accept actual unadjusted carbon dating of dinosaur soft tissues to between 25,000 and 40,000 years because "everyone knows the dinosaurs dies out 65 million years ago".

I don't remember exactly what the creationist arguments against the ice layers going back so many years were -- something like a single year could have multiple layers -- but it wasn't quite the outright refusal to accept that they received in the dinosaur soft tissue case. In any case, I still think the weight of evidence is for a young earth, and so to be consistent, I wouldn't be able to accept air samples from what I believe are post-flood layers as being pre-flood. That being the case, I remain skeptical that reliable direct measurements of C14 from what I would consider pre-flood sediments have been taken. I suspect that my 3000 BC would translate to between 65,000,000 and 225,000,000 BC to you.

Whether or not you continue your efforts to improve my understanding, I thank you for a very stimulating time.

 

[Gene2memE]

I just read an article which said they can date varies back 40,000 years and ice layers 200,000. Clearly if those datings were to be correct, they would disprove the young earth hypothesis. On the other hand, I have heard that mainstream scientists have refused to accept actual unadjusted carbon dating of dinosaur soft tissues to between 25,000 and 40,000 years because "everyone knows the dinosaurs dies out 65 million years ago".

Firstly, I'd like to see the results of C14 testing of soft tissue that dates them at 25,000-40,000 years, because THAT would be headlines globally. The only references that I can find to these dates are from either young earth creationist sites or conspiracy theory sites (and that makes for a Venn diagram that has a lot of overlap).

Secondly,"everyone knows the dinosaurs dies out 65 million years ago" is not the reason why experts reject those age ranges for carbon dating of dinosaur soft tissue. There are a couple of very good reasons why they do though:

C14 dating has an upper limit of around 45-55,000 years. Anything that's older than this is going to default to roughly this upper limit.
The few actual carbon dating attempts by YECs I've read about included contaminated samples. Preservatives and similar impurities are going to affect test results, particularly when you don't tell the lab you sent the sample too that its been contaminated in the first place. Impurities can easily produce false results, such as the results from dating the shellac on dinosaur bones, instead of the bones themselves.
Mary Schweitzer and others have proposed several mechanisms that would allow for the preservation of organic tissue within dinosaur bones. The reason why no-one found it before 2001 was simply that no-one was looking. The 'looking' part is actually quite difficult and complicated.

 

[ddubois]

Firstly, I'd like to see the results of C14 testing of soft tissue that dates them at 25,000-40,000 years, because THAT would be headlines globally. The only references that I can find to these dates are from either young earth creationist sites or conspiracy theory sites (and that makes for a Venn diagram that has a lot of overlap).

Secondly,"everyone knows the dinosaurs dies out 65 million years ago" is not the reason why experts reject those age ranges for carbon dating of dinosaur soft tissue. There are a couple of very good reasons why they do though:

C14 dating has an upper limit of around 45-55,000 years. Anything that's older than this is going to default to roughly this upper limit.
The few actual carbon dating attempts by YECs I've read about included contaminated samples. Preservatives and similar impurities are going to affect test results, particularly when you don't tell the lab you sent the sample too that its been contaminated in the first place. Impurities can easily produce false results, such as the results from dating the shellac on dinosaur bones, instead of the bones themselves.
Mary Schweitzer and others have proposed several mechanisms that would allow for the preservation of organic tissue within dinosaur bones. The reason why no-one found it before 2001 was simply that no-one was looking. The 'looking' part is actually quite difficult and complicated.

Nice to hear from you again. You say "I'd like to see the results of C14 testing of soft tissue that dates them at 25,000-40,000 years, because THAT would be headlines globally." But then you say "The only references that I can find to these dates are from either young earth creationist sites or conspiracy theory sites (and that makes for a Venn diagram that has a lot of overlap)."

As to impurities, sure that could be a problem with dating, though I am suspicious it is really just an excuse not to bother with the results. Do you know of any mainstream scientist who would be willing to do C14 testing on dinosaur soft tissue? Or better yet, do it collaboratively with a young earth creationist? Until that happens, I think the mainstream scientists together with the mainstream media will suppress any global headlines about comparatively recent dinosaur deaths. What do you think?