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OP by Calilasseia » Mar 06, 2010 5:31 am
".. I shall first begin with a discourse on the underlying physics of radionuclide decay, the precise mathematical law that this process obeys, and how that law is derived, both empirically and theoretically."

If your intent by posting all this detail about the physics of radionuclide decay and such is to claim creationists do not agree with this, it is a strawman. This is not the point of disagreement.

"The reason I have chosen these isotopes is very simple. Namely, that they would all be present in measurable quantities in the Earth's crust, and detectable by modern mass spectrometry among other techniques, if the planet was, say, only 6,000 years old, as various enthusiasts for mythology continue to assert. This is because because the half-lives of all these radionuclides are a good deal longer than 6,000 years. So, what do we find when we search for these isotopes in Earth rocks?"

Your argument presupposes that all possible elements were present initially in the earth. On what basis do you assert this? If you are speaking from a stellar evolution position, would it not be more correct to assert that only the elements present in the star that our planet came from would be present? I make this distinction because according to stellar evolution new elements are created within the stars over time.

"Indeed, thanks to the large body of knowledge bestowed upon geologist by inorganic chemists, all manner of tests can be performed in order to determine if transport is likely to be a problem before a sample is submitted for dating analysis, so that this can be taken into account and proper corrections applied to the material in question."

If this is so well established, why are so many radiometric dates rejected after the fact? Since such tests are expensive, why would they do the test without first confirming whether contamination occurred? If this were true there should be virutally no radiometric tests which are claimed to be invalid due to contamination. But it is still typical for a large percentage of tests to not give correct dates according to the evolutionary and old earth paradigms and are therefore posteriotically declared the result of contamination or some such.

"Indeed, scientists have spent time devising a technique, known as isochron dating, whose purpose is specifically that of checking whether the isotopes used for dating have been subject to transport, and developing appropriate corrections to the dates that would have been obtained without such checking."

If isochron dating tests are so accurate and reliable, why are there terms like 'false isochrons'? There are known cases of historic lava deposits which have been dated with the isochron method and gave results of millions or billions of years. Other isochrons have given negative values, meaning the rock should not cool down for millions of years yet. These false isochrons still gave nice linear plots, the supposed indicator that they are correct. They have even done isochron dating on rock samples not from the same location and had nice linear plot results. Radiometric dating, including isochrons, are virtually useless in dating rocks and only show the evolutionary long ages bias of the experimenters because only the results which agree with that bias are accepted as valid.

http://www.icr.org/research/index/resea ... hpbdating/
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007.. ... 1844.shtml

"The moment any detectable traces of Sr87 appear in a sample, however, then we're dealing with a rock that is at least 45 million years old, which flushes blind assertions about the Earth being only 6,000 years old down the toilet to begin with."

This seems to contradict what you said before, when you claimed all possible elements were present initially in the earth, and used it to support your assertion that the earth is old. Now you are claiming that if this particular element is now present it too supports your assertion that the earth is old. The underlying assertion is that Sr87 can only come about through radiogenic decay. How do you know this? That it does come about through radiogenic decay does not mean that has to be the only way it can come about. You even imply in a following statement, "Now, since all the minerals that acquire strontium will acquire the same ratio of Sr86 to Sr87 at the start.." that the initial Sr87 is not necessarily zero.

"Apart from the fact that this mechanism requires ludicrously absurd conditions to have occurred in the Earth's crust in order for it to happen, and apart from the fact that this mechanism is useless for U238 and several other important isotopes used in radionuclide dating, because they do not decay via electron capture, it's actually a waste of time trying to argue against the constancy of the decay law under normal conditions, because this one exception requires such extreme conditions that the Earth would not have remained a solid planet if they had been present."

You imply that this is the only radioisotope which has been found to have it's decay rate changed. Current research proves radiometric decay rates are not constant. The distance the Earth is from the sun affects the decay rates of certain elements, and solar flares also affect decay in others. Therefore a rational person should abandon the position that radiometric decay must have been constant forever into the past, and thus abandon all testing as unreliable which is predicated upon such an assumption.

"But as Fischbach and other scientists looked at their data and data from other labs, a strange trend showed up: the decay rate of at least two isotopes seemed to vary, slightly, with the seasons (during which time the earth’s distance from the sun varies). Further, Purdue nuclear engineer Jere Jenkins observed a decrease in the decay rate of manganese-54 that occurred during a solar flare in 2006."
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/augu ... 82310.html
as quoted in
http://www.answersingenesis.org/article ... 282010#one

"Among a number of requirements for a radioactive element and its daughter product to constitute a "clock" for geological events is the necessity that the "clock" run without variation. Well, evolutionist geologists have long ignored the evidence of variability in the radii of pleochroic haloes, which shows that the decay rates are not constant and would, thus, deny that some radioactive elements such as uranium could be clocks. But now there is excellent laboratory evidence that external influences can change the decay rates. Fourteen different radionuclides have had their decay properties changed by effects such as pressure, temperature, electric and magnetic fields, stress in monomolecular layes, etc.

Dudley has proposed, "Rather than assuming that radioactivity is a series of (spontaneous) unrelated events occurring without prior cause, a theoretical approach was developed which translates the ‘neutrino sea’ concept of astrophysics and cosmology to nuclear physics. This postulates a radioactive atom to be a ‘linear resonant system, subject to parametric excitation.’" Thus, the decay constant used in the equations for obtaining ages of geological events becomes a variable dependent on the energy state of all the atom and not just the nucleus. Half-lives would not be constants. The decay constant would instead be a stability index of the element."
http://www.icr.org/article/some-recent- ... with-time/

by byofrcs » Mar 08, 2010 4:05 am
".. I like radon gas arguments as the gas kills mostly innocent people and yet it is the byproduct of a decay chain from the longest lived chains (the disintegration chain of U 238). We're talking billions of years here and it'll be doing this for billions of years to come."

This appears to me to not be nearly as simple and clear-cut as you make it sound. Thus you commit the fallacy of bifurcation, not allowing for any other solution besides the obviously absurd and denigrating ones you list. Have you thought this through, done the calculations on how much radon gas would be produced, or are you just guessing that it would be too much?

Since Radon222 has a half-life of 3.8 days an increase of it during the Flood would not result in any increase today. Therefore we cannot look to any present measurement of radon as disproof of an increase in the past. I don't see the problem with air-breathing life dying from drowning or dying from radon poisoning then being buried. Since radon inhalation itself doesn't kill (except in very high concentrations by displacing normal air), it's the radioactive byproducts of it that do, it's even possible life was irradiated but then was drowned before cancers could form.

Thus the only question remaining is if the radon gas accumulated in sufficient quatities to fill the Ark and thus poison or suffocate the life within. The Ark was sealed to keep water out so the radon gas would not come into the Ark through the hull. Since radon is heavier than air this would require for there to be enough radon gas to cover the whole planet to a depth greater than the height of the windows in the Ark. We know the overall height of the Ark and we can infer the draft, so it's an easy calculation to give us the depth required. Then all we need to do is calulate the volume of air that would have to be displaced. I don't know of and can't find total volume of radon gas in the atmosphere presently but:
"Radon is present in the atmosphere in only trace amounts."

http://www.scienceclarified.com/Mu-Oi/Noble-Gases.html

Radon diffusion rates I have found assume 100% of radon gas reaching the top meter of water will be released into the atmosphere. This implies diffusion rates for deeper water is not 100% so depth of water may have to be included in the calculations as well. Radon is water-soluble, since it is a source for radon in homes. Do you have numbers so feasability calculations could be made about the rate of decay acceleration to support or disprove your claim? If you don't have them, that would confirm my suspicion that you have only guessed as I said earlier.

Beelzebub » Apr 02, 2010 7:39 am
//Alas, all this does not address the primary question - why should we expect to find isotopes with half-lives shorter than, say, 100 million years on a planet created only 6000 years ago? - If the matter it was created from originated from a supernova > 2 billion years ago? (more than 20 half-lives).
So long as a creationist is prepared to accept an old Universe, then a young Earth would not be contradicted by the absence of < 100 million year half-life isotopes.

Though I doubt any of them would like this scenario - if an old Universe, then why not an old Earth?//

You are still presuming stellar evolution and not creation for the earth and all it's elements. If the earth was created 6000 years ago there is no reason to insist it could not have been created with a variety of isotopes. Therefore to claim the earth must be old is begging the question.

Calilasseia » May 04, 2010 9:09 am
//Oh, and since large scale variation would, as I stated above, have impacted heavily upon our existence, namely because it would have resulted in stable atoms other than hydrogen being impossible to form, we can conclude independently of the above that your apologetic attempt to hand-wave away nuclear physics in order to prop up mythological assertion is horseshit.//

What you have done is show that stellar evolution could not have happened, not that creation could not have happened. Thus you have strengthened the creationist case, not overturned it.

by Calilasseia » May 04, 2010 9:09 am
"Therefore, in order to support the claim that the universe is only 6,000 years old, creationists are required to deny the validity of basic trigonometry and elementary Euclidean geometry."

Fallacy of equivocation. What you have proven by your math is the distance to the object, not the amount of time it takes for the light of the object to reach the earth.

Adkinsjr » Jun 23, 2010 11:54 am
"Secondly, I don't see how creationists explain the agreement between different isotopes, as indicated on the talkorigins page:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html

They show data from different samples, and different dating methods, which give the same age."

That is a product of selective reporting. They only report the results which do agree, and discard the ones which do not agree. And then they have the audacity to claim the few selected results which do agree proves the method works. Here is information about moon rock dating. Even the isochron dating methods did not all agree, as you can see if you click on the link on the page for the full list. They dated 116 samples using a variety of methods, and picked less than 10% of those as valid simply because they agreed with their expected age according to microbes to man evolution.

"Sample 10017 was dated by five different sources with nineteen different results."
http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v12i9f.htm

Now compare that to moon rock dating results published elsewhere, and you see only the results which agree with the long ages. There are 12 results for this sample as seen in the full table from the above link, yet they only listed the 8 which agreed - and claim this proves the dating method is accurate!:
Description Sample # Technique Age (in billions of years)
Apollo 11 - High-K basalt 10072 40Ar/39Ar whole rock 3.49 +- 0.05
Apollo 11 - High-K basalt 10072 40Ar/39Ar whole rock 3.52 +- 0.04
Apollo 11 - High-K basalt 10072 40Ar/39Ar plagioclase 3.57 +- 0.05
Apollo 11 - High-K basalt 10072 40Ar/39Ar plagioclase 3.56 +- 0.06
Apollo 11 - High-K basalt 10072 40Ar/39Ar ilmenite 3.58 +- 0.05
Apollo 11 - High-K basalt 10072 40Ar/39Ar pyroxene 3.55 +- 0.05
Apollo 11 - High-K basalt 10072 Rb-Sr isochron 3.57 +- 0.05
Apollo 11 - High-K basalt 10072 Sm-Nd isochron 3.57 +- 0.03
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/AgeEarth.html

OHSU » Jun 23, 2010 5:58 pm
"As has previously been discussed, the situation with radioisotopes is such that there are really only two possibilities (for a creationist).

1. Things are as they appear to be.

2. God is a hoaxter."

God is not responsible for man's misinterpretation of evidence.

hotshoe » Jun 24, 2010 10:59 pm
"The (current) decay rate of a specific isotope is measured in an element freshly created from a nuclear reactor. Then, the (ancient) decay rate of that same isotope is is measured in the spectroscopic lines of a distant (therefore, old) supernova. The decay rates are measured to be constant in both. So the universe has not "slowed down" or "sped up" or whatever the creationist imagines would make the decay rates unreliable when we apply them to old Earth rocks."

That's the fallacy of begging the question. You're still assuming distance equals age, which is part of what is contested, so you cannot use it to support your argument.

"Time again for me to mention my favorite christian article: Radiometric Dating A Christian Perspective
http://www.asa3.org/asa/resources/wiens.html

The science is accurate, the first half dozen pages are technical and sort of difficult, but the advantage of this paper is that Dr. Wiens explains why common christian objections are not valid, and briefly deals with how christians can reconcile the old age of the Earth (and our universe) with faith. I recommend it most highly for anyone who has a christian friend who is having trouble accepting the unbiased scientific evidence."

Dr. Roger C. Wiens is not a YEC. Thus you are committing the fallacy of equivocation to claim that since he calls himself a Christian that his argument is accepted by all other Christians, OEC and YEC alike. You commit the fallacy of false neutrality as well by claiming your position is unbiased. In matters of origins there is no such thing.

Rumraket » Jul 19, 2010 11:04 pm
"That's because creationists are stupid and/or deluded and take the fantasist writings of bronze-age goat-herders.."

"Bronze-age" is an evolutionary presupposition, thus you commit the fallacy of begging the question by using it in your argument to assert that evolution is true. Likewise claiming the Bible was authored by goat-herders and not by God (and written by men) is begging the question, assuming the Bible is not authored by God to argue that the Bible was not authored by God.

Laurens » Jun 15, 2011 8:43 am
"I wonder if creationists would change their minds about dating methods if they were applied to Biblical manuscripts, and artefacts?

Something tells me that they would accept them if we found a piece of wood supposedly from Jesus' cross, and it dated to around 2000 years ago..."

There have been carbon dating tests done on wood, etc. by YECs from rock layers that have been dated (by superposed layers) as being millions of years old. Since the results came back with an in-range value, (not >50,000 years) it only shows that neither dating method provides correct results.

Calilasseia » Jun 15, 2011 1:35 pm
"That's the fun part, they already do accept dating results that happen to confirm the occasional bit of their mythology, but then go on in the next breath to assert that it magically stops working the moment anything older than 6,000 years is dated. Indeed, an even funnier part of the screed AiG posted on their website, trying to hand-wave away radiocarbon dating, centres upon the fact that biblical artefacts were used as test materials by Willard Libby in order to provide the calibration data for the technique, as cited in his Nobel Lecture, and of course, because the liars for doctrine at AiG didn't actually bother to read that Nobel Lecture when they were rushing to traduce his work and his reputation.."

Please provide examples of this selective acceptance, to prove this is not simply wishful thinking on your part asserted as fact. I see nowhere in the AiG site, where they mention Willard Libby or elsewhere for example, that they accept such dating methods.

willhud9 wrote:Welcome Rod!

Thanks!

hackenslash wrote::popcorn:

Might just join you there. Fireworks must be due to start....................

rodcarty wrote:

willhud9 wrote:Welcome Rod!

Thanks!

Hi Rod. Have a read of this. An example of consilient evidence using coral growth rings.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podca ... y-09-03-13

Steve: You tell a great story in the book. There is evidence that people might be familiar with or at least the kinds of evidence that they have seen before, but there was something in the book about using coral reefs to gauge the length of the day or the number of days in the year, that I had never seen before that was really fascinating and kind of beautiful and elegant. You want to talk about that?

Coyne: Yeah, just briefly. I am not sure I can recall the details, but the fact is that due to motion of the tides, the earth's rotation has been slowing down overtime, so a day used to be a lot shorter than it is now. But a the day is the time it takes the earth to go around in its axis once, so if it has been slowing down then days are getting longer over time, which means that a year, which is the time that takes the earth to go around the sun once, which doesn't change and would consist of more days in the past than it does now. So we can actually calculate from the rate of tidal friction, how fast the earth is slowing down, make calculations with that. And then you can use it to predict how long days were in the past and there is another way to check that out too—and this is what Jonathan Wells did at Cornell it's a really elegant experiment. He looked at fossil corals in which they deposit both daily and annual growth rings and you can tell by looking at how many daily rings separated [an] annual ring how many days there were in a year. And they lived, I believe, about 400 million years ago in the Devonian; so he calculated that back in that time, a day would have to be about 22 hours long instead of 24. And then when we looked at the growth rings of the corals and calculated how long they would have to be to make that many growth rings for a year; it was 21.9 hours, so it was bingo, right on the [money]. So that's, you know, a good way of not only dating organisms but showing that a) the earth is really old, b) it's been slowing down over time, and c) these corals lived a long time ago.

Steve: [It's] beautiful piece of work.

Coyne: Yeah that really was a quite elegant and it's not very well known; I am surprised that it isn't.

Institute of Cretinous Research and ArseholesInGenesis citations?

(Rod)

"That's the fun part, they already do accept dating results that happen to confirm the occasional bit of their mythology, but then go on in the next breath to assert that it magically stops working the moment anything older than 6,000 years is dated..

Cool! It's magic then. God assembled a complex set of rocks to look like something happened for billions of years. I am impressed by Magick!

Oh look, it's creationist spam. Haha, oh well.

Hey rodcarty, the only pertinent question here is, if your fundamental creotard doctrine is really true, why do you have to lie to support it?