Young Earth Hypothesis

[The Engineer]

EDIT:
This comment has been censored by myself because it hurt Doveamans feelings.

And because he already quoted it himself.

 

[Doveaman]

By the way, if everyone has an idea about science, as you claim, then why do any attempts of you at using science to make your point fail spectacularly?

My point is that the dating method is based on silly assumptions. The fact that a number of scientists also agree that it is flawed simply confirms my concerns.

You're the very definition of an opportunist! Science is wrong, unless it serves your purpose!

That’s not how I see it. I reject science that contradicts the Bible, or science that is based on mathemagic and fairytales about the past.

How can you accept ANY scientific theory if the bad, bad scientists can't agree on anything, as you say? Shouldn't this also discredit the scientific theories that don't contradict the bible?

Science is not bad. There is just bad science. I prefer scientific demonstrations that produce results I can relate to in the real world, not thought experiments that people make up in their heads.

It is usually the scientific theories built upon a host of assumptions that contradict the Bible.

Scientific theories based on experimental results tend not to.

 

[RickG]

First of all, I don't depend on scientific papers to determine what I believe.

Scientific papers are about facts, not beliefs.

My beliefs are dependent on the divinely inspired papers. If the science contradicts those papers the science can take a hike.

I'm fine with that, but what you have been doing is posting things about radiometric dating that deliberately misrepresent and distort facts about radiometric dating. Is that the crowd you want to be associated with?

Secondly, even if that scientific paper is flawed it does not change the fact that there are a number of scientists who reject your dating method based on their own observations.

I never said the paper was flawed. I said it did not support your claim.

If you guys can't even agree, why should I?

The disagreement is in your mind, not the legitimate scientific community. If it were, you would be able to cite a number of published peer review research papers that contradict radiometric dating.

I'm not a scientists, so I may not fully understand all the disagreements and arguments going on between you guys regarding your dating method, but the fact that scientists disagree on the method gives me every reason to doubt it.

Again, the disagreement is in your mind, not the scientific community.

Thirdly, the assumptions you have to make for your dating method to be accurate are ridiculous.

I have already addressed that in a previous post. The assumptions you are suggesting being made are not assumptions at all. They are known facts based observation, facts and experience. We assume the sun will rise every morning. The assumptions made in radiometric dating are just as solid because they are as predictable as the sunrise.

You don't know what the composition of ancient rocks was to begin with. You blindly assume it.

In the course of studying the geologic sciences, one becomes schooled quite well in petrology, geochemistry, mineralogy and crystallography. yes, we know what rocks are composed of regardless when they were formed for the most part by just looking at them. For that matter, most amateur rockhounds can identify most rocks and their compositions.

And gradualism is a even more ridiculous idea on a planet bombarded by natural catastrophes throughout the earth's history, some known and unknown.

You are dwelling in the 18th century. The only place you will see gradualism mentioned in any geology textbook is in the first chapter which gives an historical overview of the beginning of geology.

The fact that your dating method contradicts the divinely inspired papers, and contradicts the observations of other scientists, and is based on ridiculous and laughable assumptions, this gives me every reason to reject your silly, myopic method.
Nonsense.

Do you think you could address the science with science instead of making absurd ad hominen attacks.

The experiment showed layers being laid down on top each other simultaneously as the water currents carried the sediment along.

The experiment showed how sediment moves in flowing water environments such as rivers. It is not a representation of sedimentary processes.

This is just another example of scientists disagreeing with scientists. No wonder creationists don't place much confidence in you guys. You don't even place much confidence in yourselves, except when you agree.

Ask yourself why the young earth literature is full of deliberate misrepresentations, quote mines, and outright lies.

I don't need to make stuff up and lie to myself in order to keep my faith in God; unlike those who originate the young earth literature do.

 

[Doveaman]

You sound like the caricature of a creationist

I am a bad caricature of a creationist.

Indeed you are.

Why do you have me quoting things you said about me.

Don't you know that's against the forum rules?

Desist or be reported.

 

[Doveaman]

Scientific papers are about facts, not beliefs.

Until they are falsified, right?

I'm fine with that, but what you have been doing is posting things about radiometric dating that deliberately misrepresent and distort facts about radiometric dating. Is that the crowd you want to be associated with?

That post simply showed that not all scientists agree with your dating method. That was not a distortion. That’s a fact.

The disagreement is in your mind, not the legitimate scientific community. If it were, you would be able to cite a number of published peer review research papers that contradict radiometric dating.

There are legitimate scientists whom you do not even acknowledge and who disagree with your dating methods. And there are legitimate scientists who recognize how biased your peer review process can be sometimes.

I have already addressed that in a previous post. The assumptions you are suggesting being made are not assumptions at all. They are known facts based observation, facts and experience. We assume the sun will rise every morning. The assumptions made in radiometric dating are just as solid because they are as predictable as the sunrise.
In the course of studying the geologic sciences, one becomes schooled quite well in petrology, geochemistry, mineralogy and crystallography. yes, we know what rocks are composed of regardless when they were formed for the most part by just looking at them. For that matter, most amateur rockhounds can identify most rocks and their compositions.

No.

You do not know how many daughter isotopes were present when rocks were first formed.

You do not know how many rocks were contaminated in the distant past.

You do not know how quickly radioactive atoms decayed in the distant past.

These are all assumptions.

You are dwelling in the 18th century.

You mean like when I read the Bible? Since when do good ideas grow old and outdated.

The only place you will see gradualism mentioned in any geology textbook is in the first chapter which gives an historical overview of the beginning of geology.

Your text books are written by uniformitarianists who support your model of the earth’s history. What do you expect?

Do you think you could address the science with science instead of making absurd ad hominen attacks.

I’m not playing that silly game. What the Bible says is relevant to science, especially when it reveals the flaws in your theories.

The experiment showed how sediment moves in flowing water environments such as rivers. It is not a representation of sedimentary processes.

It represents large scale flooding too. Like Noah's flood and the flooding the occurs when ice sheets melt following a global freeze.

 

[Orogeny]

The experiment showed layers being laid down on top each other simultaneously as the water currents carried the sediment along.

Time for a sedimentology lesson! HOORAY!

Walther's law: The vertical succession of facies [strata] reflects lateral changes in environment. It also states that when a depositional environment "migrates" laterally, sediments of one depositional environment come to lie on top of another.

Important point: nowhere in this definition is it stated that a single geologic stratum must be time-instantaneous or time-simultaneous. Quite the contrary: we EXPECT that deposition of a particular unit in one area is separate in time from the deposition of the same unit in a location miles away.

Graphic demonstration:
There are four depositional environments- A, B, C, and D. All four occur in the same basin at the same time, with environment A being the most landward (the beach, for example) and environment D being the most basinward (i.e. the abyssal plane). So at any given time, our depositional environments are arranged as such:

time 1: ABCDDDDD

If the basin is being supplied with a large amount of sediment or if sea level is falling, then our beach will move toward the center of the basin as it fills with sediment, thereby pushing the other environments toward the basin center as well, which would look something like this:

time 5: AAAAABCD
time 4: AAAABCDD
time 3: AAABCDDD
time 2: AABCDDDD
time 1: ABCDDDDD

So we can see that although all 4 depositional environments are always represented laterally at any point in time, there is a vertical progression of environments in space, with the deposition of environment B, for example, being diacronous even while it is represented in multiple locations.

What you fail to understand and your video fails to address is that this process is scalar, both in time and space- it works on the basin scale all the way down to the scale of laminae. On the basin scale, we're talking about distances of many miles and durations of thousands to millions of years, while our depositional environments are large, like rivers and beaches. At the lamina scale, we may be talking about just a few inches and seconds, while our environments are represented by simple changes in current energy (which is the variable creating distinct layering in your video). Still, the rule works. Hold a pencil vertically across the video. Although your voiceover gent says the beds are deposited simultaneously, you'll see that the lower bed intersects the line of your pencil before the others do. So, at any vertical position, deposition of the succession is, in fact, not simultaneous.

This is just another example of scientists disagreeing with scientists. No wonder creationists don't place much confidence in you guys. You don't even place much confidence in yourselves, except when you agree.

You and yours simply don't understand what you're criticizing. The above example is Geology 101, yet neither you or your video addressed the concept accurately. It's easy to dismiss what you don't understand, and you've fallen victim to this misstep once again.

 

[Orogeny]

The experiment showed how sediment moves in flowing water environments such as rivers. It is not a representation of sedimentary processes.

Ah! We disagree. I think flume experiments are great for demonstrating the basics of sedimentology and stratigraphy. This video is no different if you simply mute the moron; it's a textbook demonstration of Walther's law and the scalar nature of natural processes. It also demonstrates the primary method of creating bedding in aqueous environments: fluctuation of current direction or velocity. Science: it's rad.

 

[Guy1]

Until they are falsified, right?

Eh. Facts themselves are rarely falsified to the best of my knowledge. The constructs we use to interpret them are.

That post simply showed that not all scientists agree with your dating method. That was not a distortion. That’s a fact.
There are legitimate scientistswhom you do not even acknowledge and who disagree with your dating methods.

In this link here? I don't see any.

And there are legitimate scientists who recognize how biased your peer review process can be sometimes.

It's too late to read through these things, so I'll just offer something off the top of my head. Nobody said science, peer review, or anything relating to these was perfect. But you'll have to admit it's much better than the alternative you propose.

No.

You do not know how many daughter isotopes were present when rocks were first formed.

You do not know how many rocks were contaminated in the distant past.

I'll leave those to smarter, more awake people.

You do not know how quickly radioactive atoms decayed in the distant past.

Do you have any evidence to suggest that decay rates change over any period of time?

You mean like when I read the Bible? Since when do good ideas grow old and outdated.

When an even better one comes along.

I’m not playing that silly game. What the Bible says is relevant to science

Absolutely irrelevant.

, especially when it reveals the flaws in your theories.

Not a single one pointed out in the bible. Besides, most researchers are well aware of the gaps in their theories (If there are any). Does the bible make any mention of the problems with our understanding of gravity?

It represents large scale flooding too. Like Noah's flood and the flooding the occurs when ice sheets melt following a global freeze.

First of all, if there were a global freeze, the ice would all form where the water is (Pointing out the obvious for a moment). We wouldn't magically have ice appear out of nowhere and flood the world when the freeze is over. The ice would just melt again, contract, and leave the world about as flooded as it was prior to this ice age.

 

[The Engineer]

Why do you have me quoting things you said about me.

Don't you know that's against the forum rules?

Desist or be reported.

I removed the comment, don't worry. Which isn't that bad, considering you quoted it yourself already.

By the way, you're still a bad caricature of a creationist, no matter what you report.

And you have been unable, so far, to post a single peer reviewed scientific paper that supports anything you say.

 

[RickG]

Ah! We disagree. I think flume experiments are great for demonstrating the basics of sedimentology and stratigraphy. This video is no different if you simply mute the moron; it's a textbook demonstration of Walter's law and the scalar nature of natural processes. It also demonstrates the primary method of creating bedding in aqueous environments: rapid changes in current direction or velocity. Science: it's rad.

I agree, I wasn't exactly clear about the point I was trying to make, and I'm kind of melding the video with a paper he also cited, which aren't exactly the same thing. The idea being that the concept of the largest sediment being on the bottom with the finer particles remaining in suspension and being deposited last is wrong. This was claimed because many finer particles were found mingled with the larger bottom sediments. In other words, ignoring the fact that particles of all sizes can become trapped at any level in the sedimentation process of flowing water, and that the overall process is still dependent upon flow rate, particle size, and density. And as you also clearly point out changes in current direction.

 

[tbeliever]

Changes again
Last year, researchers at Purdue and Stanford published evidence that radio decay rates are not as constant as geochronologists have thought. Dating the earth through radiometric methods may therefore be even less simple than previously believed.

Dec 13, 2006, a magnificent solar flare flung radiation and solar particles toward Earth. Purdue nuclear engineer Jere Jenkins had been measuring the decay rate of manganese-54, and he noticed that a day and a half before the flare, the decay rate of Mn-54 started to drop a little. That was interesting.

Ephraim Fischbach, a physics professor at Purdue, had already found a variety of disagreements on decay rates in the literature. Fischbach had been looking for a good way to generate truly random numbers and had turned to radioactive isotopes. Chunks of radioactive elements might decay at steady rates, but the individual atoms within them decay unpredictably. Fischbach could therefore use the randomly timed ticks of a Geiger counter to generate lists of numbers.

As he did more research, though, Fischbach found variations in the published decay rates of certain isotopes. He also found that the decay rates of silicon-32 and radium-226 showed seasonal variation, according to data collected at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island and the Federal Physical and Technical Institute in Germany. When the decay rate of Jenkins' Mn-54 dropped during the solar flare, Jenkins and Fischbach stood up straighter and paid attention.

"Everyone thought it must be due to experimental mistakes, because we're all brought up to believe that decay rates are constant," Peter Sturrock, Stanford professor emeritus of applied physics, commented on the issue.

Discord Dating:
There is reason for skepticism. Age dating methods do not always produce correlating results. [See links below.] Wood buried in igneous rock in Queensland Australia has been dated to 40,000 years, while the basalt around it dated to 45 million years. Both dating subjects should have given the same date, since the igneous rock was formed at the same time the wood was buried (and the wood still had plenty of carbon-14 in it). Dalrymple himself reported "excess argon-36" in three out of 26 lava flows in his article, "40Ar/36Ar Analyses Of Historic Lava Flows". The excess argon gives negative age-dates because of too much daughter product. Since it is impossible to date a rock that hasn't formed yet, there was a good indication that the Ar-36 wasn't coming from just the parent material.

Geologist Steve Austin describes discordant age dates in his article "Excessively Old 'Ages' For Grand Canyon Lava Flows." He tested different layers of the Grand Canyon and got age dates for older layers that tested younger than the layers above them. The science of geochronology has a lot of room for error.

Ultimately, the researchers who age-dated the meteorites on Dalrymple's lists assumed the rocks were billions of years old, they used methods that fit their presuppositions, and they got results that fit their presuppositions. Would they have gotten younger chondrite ages if they had used different dating methods?

It is always dangerous to come to science with assumptions, regardless of one's position. Scientists have long assumed that radioisotope decay rates are constants, but the evidence now indicates that decay rates vary over time. If, as Jenkins and Fischbach have argued, solar neutrinos zipped through space, effecting Mn-54's decay rates in a Purdue laboratory, then those tiny energetic particles certainly have had the capacity to affect the decay rates of trace nuclides in chunks of rock floating out in space.

Are the observations of Jenkins and Fischbach minor fluctuations, or have decay rates actually slowed down over time? Has the very speed of light slowed through the years, and how might that have affected decay rates? Are there truly any physical constants in the universe?

These are the questions that astrophysicists and geochronologists can have a fun time trying to answer. In the meanwhile, we'll keep on watch for further developments. The variability of decay rates has massive implications - for medicine, for technology, and for mankind's longing to produce a birth certificate for the Earth.

 

[Elendur]

The A is based upon the divinely inspired record of history. God said it, therefore they are facts.

We can then measure all theories against those historical facts to determine which theories are acceptable and which ones are not.

It's not that difficult.

And you can pick and choose what is literal of course?

You know what, I have never seen a logical sound argument why the bible is a divinely inspired record.

I pick objective facts over your subjective 'facts' any time, so your interpretation can take a hike. Of course, feel free to provide evidence otherwise.

 

[The Engineer]

Changes again
Last year, researchers at Purdue and Stanford published evidence that radio decay rates are not as constant as geochronologists have thought. Dating the earth through radiometric methods may therefore be even less simple than previously believed.

Dec 13, 2006, a magnificent solar flare flung radiation and solar particles toward Earth. Purdue nuclear engineer Jere Jenkins had been measuring the decay rate of manganese-54, and he noticed that a day and a half before the flare, the decay rate of Mn-54 started to drop a little. That was interesting.

Ephraim Fischbach, a physics professor at Purdue, had already found a variety of disagreements on decay rates in the literature. Fischbach had been looking for a good way to generate truly random numbers and had turned to radioactive isotopes. Chunks of radioactive elements might decay at steady rates, but the individual atoms within them decay unpredictably. Fischbach could therefore use the randomly timed ticks of a Geiger counter to generate lists of numbers.

As he did more research, though, Fischbach found variations in the published decay rates of certain isotopes. He also found that the decay rates of silicon-32 and radium-226 showed seasonal variation, according to data collected at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island and the Federal Physical and Technical Institute in Germany. When the decay rate of Jenkins' Mn-54 dropped during the solar flare, Jenkins and Fischbach stood up straighter and paid attention.

"Everyone thought it must be due to experimental mistakes, because we're all brought up to believe that decay rates are constant," Peter Sturrock, Stanford professor emeritus of applied physics, commented on the issue.

Discord Dating:
There is reason for skepticism. Age dating methods do not always produce correlating results. [See links below.] Wood buried in igneous rock in Queensland Australia has been dated to 40,000 years, while the basalt around it dated to 45 million years. Both dating subjects should have given the same date, since the igneous rock was formed at the same time the wood was buried (and the wood still had plenty of carbon-14 in it). Dalrymple himself reported "excess argon-36" in three out of 26 lava flows in his article, "40Ar/36Ar Analyses Of Historic Lava Flows". The excess argon gives negative age-dates because of too much daughter product. Since it is impossible to date a rock that hasn't formed yet, there was a good indication that the Ar-36 wasn't coming from just the parent material.

Geologist Steve Austin describes discordant age dates in his article "Excessively Old 'Ages' For Grand Canyon Lava Flows." He tested different layers of the Grand Canyon and got age dates for older layers that tested younger than the layers above them. The science of geochronology has a lot of room for error.

Ultimately, the researchers who age-dated the meteorites on Dalrymple's lists assumed the rocks were billions of years old, they used methods that fit their presuppositions, and they got results that fit their presuppositions. Would they have gotten younger chondrite ages if they had used different dating methods?

It is always dangerous to come to science with assumptions, regardless of one's position. Scientists have long assumed that radioisotope decay rates are constants, but the evidence now indicates that decay rates vary over time. If, as Jenkins and Fischbach have argued, solar neutrinos zipped through space, effecting Mn-54's decay rates in a Purdue laboratory, then those tiny energetic particles certainly have had the capacity to affect the decay rates of trace nuclides in chunks of rock floating out in space.

Are the observations of Jenkins and Fischbach minor fluctuations, or have decay rates actually slowed down over time? Has the very speed of light slowed through the years, and how might that have affected decay rates? Are there truly any physical constants in the universe?

These are the questions that astrophysicists and geochronologists can have a fun time trying to answer. In the meanwhile, we'll keep on watch for further developments. The variability of decay rates has massive implications - for medicine, for technology, and for mankind's longing to produce a birth certificate for the Earth.

I found your source: Solar Flares, Radioactive Decay, and The Age of the Earth - eNews for May 03, 2011

The article mentions that the speed of light may have slowed down over time, but can't back this claim up.

RickG and I have pounded this issue to death already. According to the article, some radioactive isotopes changed their decay rates (and they did so for a reason - if they fluctuated randomly, that would make results unreliable; if they changed during certain events, as seems to be the case, you can cross-reference them with those events to increase the accuracy of your calculations). The article doesn't say how much they changed, but as far as I remember, they did so by less than one percent. This means that the error margin would increase by less than a percent when dating with them. In short, the dinosaurs didn't die 65 millions years ago, but 64,35 million years ago at worst - still enough to disprove young earth creation.

These isotopes aren't used for dating, anyhow. Nowhere in the article does it state that C14 decay rates changed, and that's the primary isotope used in dating.

In order not to disprove young earth creation, radiocarbodating would have to be 10000 times faster in the past, which would mean that it would emit 10000 times more energy, which would mean that the earth would boil away.

Let us summarize our findings, shall we?
Radioactive isotopes that aren't used for dating changed their decay rates by less than a percent
If those radioactive isotopes were used for dating, the error margin would increase by less than a percent.
If radioactive isotopes decayed 10000 times faster in the past, that would mean the young earth hypothesis could be right - but it would also mean the young earth would explode.

Another thing. Scientists already account for things that could throw off radioacarbodating.

One last thing. Before you make any mention of the daughter isotope being already present in the sample, you should probably think once about what the daughter isotope is, anyway. As far as I can see, the daughter isotope of C14 is nitrogen 14.

In short, for this objection to make sense, dinosaurs must have eaten more nitrogen than other animals! What's even more interesting is that there would be a correlation between nitrogen eating and going extinct...

So I guess dinosaurs must've gone extinct because they tried to eat air, or what?

EDIT:
This whole bit about dinosaurs starving to death because they ate nitrogen is not a scientific explanation for why they went extinct.

It's an argumentum ad absurdum. I intended to show you how ridiculous your argumentation was by presenting the conclusion of it to you.

I apologize for confusing certain people.

With certain people, I mean Doveaman.

 

[tbeliever]

So I guess dinosaurs must've gone extinct because they tried to eat air, or what?[/quote]

Dinosaurs extinction, so where are scientist upto on that one ? Seems like they have way too many speculative ideas about it.

 

[The Engineer]

Dinosaurs extinction, so where are scientist upto on that one ? Seems like they have way too many speculative ideas about it.

Thanks for dodging my whole post!

In case you haven't noticed, that whole thing about dinosaurs eating air was an argumentum ad absurdum against the objection that samples can be contaminated with the daughter isotope.

 

[Doveaman]

Although your voiceover gent says the beds are deposited simultaneously, you'll see that the lower bed intersects the line of your pencil before the others do. So, at any vertical position, deposition of the succession is, in fact, not simultaneous.

False.

Sediment is being laid down in layers simultaneous in a vertical position as the ends of each layer progresses forward together in a lateral direction, with the lower layer slightly ahead. It is a simultaneous lateral progression of all the vertical layers together, and it shows that the leading end of each layer in their lateral progression is always younger than the rest of the layer, because the leading end is being laid down last.

This means that fossils laid down in the leading end of the lower layer could have been laid down after the fossils in the upper layer, which would also mean that the fossils in the lower layer can be the same age or even younger than the fossils in the upper layer.

You and yours simply don't understand what you're criticizing. The above example is Geology 101, yet neither you or your video addressed the concept accurately. It's easy to dismiss what you don't understand, and you've fallen victim to this misstep once again.

Yes, I'm being deceived by scientists once again. Silly me.

You know what's weird about all this? It's that scientists A is telling me that scientists B is making a misstep, and scientists B is telling me that scientists A is making a misstep. Makes me wonder why I even bother listening to scientists at all, because they don't even listen to each other.

 

[Doveaman]

The experiment showed how sediment moves in flowing water environments such as rivers. It is not a representation of sedimentary processes.

Ah! We disagree.

Typical.

 

[Doveaman]

Eh. Facts themselves are rarely falsified to the best of my knowledge. The constructs we use to interpret them are.

Exactly.

Nobody said science, peer review, or anything relating to these was perfect.

So you agree it is biased at times, right?

Do you have any evidence to suggest that decay rates change over any period of time?

Do you have any evidence it didn’t, or are you just assuming it didn’t based on what you observe today?

The point is that you are making an assumption about the distant past based on what you observe today. Why don’t you just admit that?

First of all, if there were a global freeze, the ice would all form where the water is (Pointing out the obvious for a moment). We wouldn't magically have ice appear out of nowhere and flood the world when the freeze is over. The ice would just melt again, contract, and leave the world about as flooded as it was prior to this ice age.

Snow falls and accumulates and glaciers progress.

The Great Melt.

 

[Doveaman]

And you have been unable, so far, to post a single peer reviewed scientific paper that supports anything you say.

Your biased peer reviewed papers can take a hike.

My claims are supported by divinely inspired papers that are infallible.

 

[Doveaman]

And you can pick and choose what is literal of course?

I do that according to biblical context.

You know what, I have never seen a logical sound argument why the bible is a divinely inspired record.

There is a reason for that:

“The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” – (1 Cor 2:14).