I shall articulate why Young Earth creationism is a bankrupt, incorrect, actively disproved notion that no one could defend except through willful adherence to an unyielding, inflexible dogma.
#1 Radioactive dating disproves Young Earth creationism.
Carbon-14 decays to Nitrogen-14; its half-life is 5730 years. Uranium-238 decays to Lead-206; its half-life is 4.5 billion years. Uranium-235 decays to Lead-207; its half-life is 704 million years. Other unstable isotopes include Potassium-40, Thorium-232, Rubidium-87 and Samarium-147. Several radioisotopes usually occur together, so the dates can be cross-checked, and the ages invariably agree. To put the lie to the Young Earth position, and demonstrate why the oft-repeated “uniformitarian assumptions” objection rings hollow, consider this: If a hunk of rock is radioactively dated at, say, 250 million years old, but in actuality it is only 6000 years old, per YEC, that would entail that the multiple radioisotopes present, all of which converge on an age of 250 million years, would have all had to change differently. Uranium-238 would have had to change differently from Uranium-235, and both would have had to change differently from Samarium-147. If several radioisotopes usually occur together, and they have different half-life values (those half-life values frequently crossing orders of magnitude), there is nothing in the cross-checking process that would require the separate calculations to converge on the same age. Yet, despite the fact it very well could be otherwise, it is not; the ages, across radioisotopes, invariably agree. The changing-decay-rate YEC hypothesis, barring a deceptive creator twist in which the creator wants to impart incorrect information, would be the equivalent of Rhology, Barack Obama, William Lane Craig and me all agreeing to meet at a particular diner “sometime in 2011” and, by sheer and utter coincidence, all four of us arriving at the diner on exactly the same day at precisely the same instant.Assumes uniformitarianism, w/o argument. In fact, it proudly proclaims that assumption, with only an argument from unsavory consequences (the Creator would thus be deceptive) and an argument from ignorance (we've never seen it act differently) as its support.
#2: Astronomic knowledge disproves Young Earth creationism.
Gaze up into the night sky. Proxima Centauri, the star nearest to our Sun, is 4.3 light years away, meaning that light from it takes 4.3 years to reach us. Our galaxy is approximately 100,000 light years across, meaning that it can take tens of thousands of years for light from some stars in our galaxy to reach us. For stars that we can see in nearby galaxies, it can take millions of years. The farthest objects we can see are quasars, which are so distant that the light we see from them today left billions of years ago. If the universe were merely 6000-some years old, the light simply would not have had the requisite time to reach us. Although I have heard the “god created the stars as well as light beams” response, I recognize it as a frantic harmonization scheme in which the YEC proponent is confronted with a fact that is utterly contrary to what the bible would predict and, thus, the creationist must confect an unparsimonious, tortured “explanation” that bespeaks not so much understanding as slavish, willful, dogged adherence.
Begs the question, namely that God didn't create the stars and the light from those stars reaching between Earth and said stars.
JN says: I recognize it as a frantic harmonization scheme in which the YEC proponent is confronted
Hahaha, God made man and all the other stuff mature. How is it "frantic" to think God did the same with other things in the universe? And surely the JN doesn't want to say that harmonisation is a bad thing - we all do that, and he's doing it right here.
#3: Dendrochronology disproves Young Earth creationism.
An 11,500-year dendrochronological record, existing wholly independently from radiocarbon dating and that is to-the-year accurate, has been achieved through a daisy-chaining process having to do with characteristic tree-ring sequences in a particular geographic area. Utilizing those characteristic tree-ring sequences, scientists can daisy chain their way back thousands and thousands of years, thus disproving a young Earth. Furthermore, those to-the-year-accurate dendrochronological records can be, and indeed are, used to calibrate our radiocarbon dating, thereby allowing us to date many things of the relatively recent past (but considerably beyond 6000-some years).
Ignores the YEC position entirely, that God created organisms mature at creation.
Furthermore, those to-the-year-accurate dendrochronological records can be, and indeed are, used to calibrate our radiocarbon dating
One fallacious and question-begging assertion is bad enough, but the JN apparently thinks that stacking them atop each other is in reality a really good thing.
Why is it that, if these are the JN's 3 trump cards against YEC, that none of them even get out of the gate? Where are the hardcore, well-thought-out critiques?
So of course God creates trees that "appear" to be 7000, 8000, 10000 years old because? Why the variability? How is that not deceitful?
ReplyDelete1) Argument from unsavory consequenecs. Does nothing to help the old-earth naturalist cause.
ReplyDelete2) If naturalistic atheism is true, deceit has no objective moral value. So in case you think it's morally wrong to deceive someone, well, sorry, you're incorrect - what's wrong about deceiving hairless apes, bags of protoplasm?
3) God already said how it all went down, whereas here we see limited men using limited methodology, limited instrumentation, limited assumptions and limited means to substantiate those assumptions, limited time, limited knowledge, and limited access to try to overturn what God said.
Here's another way of looking at it: In the case of the question of evolution, old-earth evolutionists have set out, as I have said before, to take the equivalent of a 1,000,000-year-old auto accident, to disregard completely the testimony of the 100% trustworthy eyewitness who actually even decreed that the whole thing happen, and to send a forensics (CSI) team to the scene to dig around and find scattered pieces of car and glass, 1,000,000-year-old grooves and scratches, and not reconstruct but rather construct what happened in opposition to what the witness says he decreed to happen.
Why would what the CSI team said matter to me? Why would I trust their findings and conclusions? And that's just 1 million years!
As for the variability, make the argument that we can trust these varied readings.
ReplyDeleteWhy would what the CSI team said matter to me? Why would I trust their findings and conclusions? And that's just 1 million years!
ReplyDeleteBecause witnesses lie, especially where they have vested interests, while forensic evidence doesn't.
You might argue that this witness doesn't lie, but you've only got his word for it.
Yes, the Word of the living God, Who cannot lie.
ReplyDeleteIf He has lied, then there is no way to know anything.
If you disagree, I invite you to show how you can know you know anything.
And compare that to the pitiful strength of the "testimony" of...rocks.
Although I will not have the time, until perhaps later this evening, to compose a proper rebuttal to your criticisms of my points, I will simply mention that, with respect to point one, your response so completely fails to interact with my discussion--fails to engage with my points, fails to comprehend my line of reasoning, fails to recognize that one of my principal strategies was to assume non-uniformitarianism in radioactive decay rates in my “hunk of rock” example--that I am forced to conclude either (a) you were being disingenuous and intellectually dishonest in replying (which I do not think is the case), or (b) I failed to explicate my reasoning in an easily understandable way, leading to a comprehensive misapprehension on your part that, in turn, led to an entirely inadequate response.
ReplyDeleteWell, you said:
ReplyDeleteUranium-238 would have had to change differently from Uranium-235, and both would have had to change differently from Samarium-147.
and
The changing-decay-rate YEC hypothesis, barring a deceptive creator twist in which the creator wants to impart incorrect information...
etc.
I'd be surprised if what you say in your comment is correct. I don't know what recourse you have otherwise.
Since, in my “hunk of rock” example, I discussed, on the Young Earth creationist position, the radioactive decay rates having to have changed, and postulated, for the sake of said example, that they did, in fact, change, I can hardly be accused of assuming strict uniformitarianism with respect to decay rates. All I was saying was, since the half-lives are all different, and the cross-checking invariably works, if the YEC position is correct, and the decay rates did all change, they would all have had to change differently and, somehow, beggaring all belief and all statistical likelihood, they somehow managed all to change in such a way that, even now, post-change, they converge on the same radioactively dated age.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is not so much assuming Assumption X but that you feel free to assume anything with any confidence. What you assume, you assume to fulfill your position. If you deny that, prove it by assuming a totally agnostic position about the age of the Earth.
ReplyDeleteRho:
ReplyDelete2) If naturalistic atheism is true, deceit has no objective moral value.
Whether deceit is moral/immoral/amoral is irrelevant to the existence of the deceit.
Rho:
If He has lied, then there is no way to know anything.
Then there is no way to know if He has lied and hence, your statement is self-defeating.
I shall not bother spending any additional time on point one, given the fact that, as explained above, you entirely misapprehended the point I was attempting to make, as evidenced by your false assertion that the quoted portion, “assumes uniformitarianism” when it does no such thing.
ReplyDeleteWith respect to point two, aside from your strange choice of wording when you implied that a universe that is “mature” would have light beams reaching Earth (seems like an odd use of “mature” to me), your response, which I anticipated in my original post, about god creating the stars and then stretching the light beams to Earth, is exactly the kind of harmonization scheme to which I referred in said original post: an unparsimonious, tortured “explanation” that bespeaks not so much understanding as slavish, willful, dogged adherence. Do you really mean to propose that your explanation, with god poofing stars and light beams into existence, is equally as parsimonious as mine is: that being, for the stars we can see in nearby galaxies, which are millions of light years away, it took millions of years for the light to reach us?
Not all explanations are created equal, Rhology, and you would do well to mind that. Suppose a tornado were to strike a town in Oklahoma, the result of which was comprehensive destruction of the town. A bare fact might be this: “The schoolhouse is utterly destroyed and now a pile of rubble.” There is no reason whatsoever to think that all explanations a priori are equal. I might say, “The tornado destroyed the schoolhouse.” You might say, “The schoolhouse was destroyed when a spaceship from the Andromeda galaxy arrived in town, the aliens saw that nobody was worshipping their kind, they became angry and decided, as punishment, to destroy the one significant structure that the tornado spared.” Not all conclusions or implications equally flow from bare facts. Some conclusions are better, whereas others bespeak frantic harmonization schemes.
With respect to point three, your “appearance of age” appeal remains unconvincing and, again, seems much more like a harmonization scheme to try to fit the data to your preexisting, presupposed, taken-for-granted, biblically derived conclusion. It might be worth mentioning that your worldview is so slippery that, whatever the data might have been with respect to dendrochronology (or anything else), you could have confected a harmonization scheme to fit the data to the bible. Tree rings dating back more than 10,000 years? Young Earth. Tree rings dating back no further than a few thousand years? Young Earth. Light from distant stars reaching us? Young Earth. No starlight reaching us except for that from our closest cosmic neighbors? Young Earth. If you have a harmonization scheme for every conceivable state of affairs, your position fails to make any predictions at all, let alone meaningful, risky ones.
Incidentally, it is also laughable that, when I referenced to-the-year-accurate dendrochronological records being useful in calibrating radiocarbon dating, you accused me of stacking fallacious assertions atop one other. By looking at the carbon-dated ages of wood samples whose age is independently known from tree-ring dating, we can calibrate the fluctuating errors in carbon dating. Then, we can use these calibration measurements when we go back to organic samples for which we do not have tree-ring data (that being, the majority). There is no intrinsic connection between tree-ring dating a sample and dating it via radiocarbon; there is not a single element of the methodology that would force the two arrived-at values to converge. Nevertheless, they do converge, and that fact, pooh-pooh it though you might, is significant.
You have tethered yourself to a discredited, bankrupt hypothesis, Rhology, and your adherence thereto seems, by association, to make the entirety of your worldview equally weak, nay, indefensible.
Then there is no way to know if He has lied and hence, your statement is self-defeating.
ReplyDeleteWhich simply disproves your position. It shows that we can know at least one thing, and therefore God hasn't lied.
In other words, a "lying God" would be an incoherent idea, and therefore you have undercut the atheist contention that God would be a liar if He created things with age. NAL, are you an apologist?
ReplyDeleteBMH:
ReplyDeleteNot quite. My argument does refute the claim that "then there is no way to know anything."
Rho,
ReplyDeleteCould you please define the term "argument"? What is the difference between "argument" and "assumption"?
You said "God already said how it all went down". How do you know that God already said how it all went down?
Could you help me with a radiometric dating question? A volcanic layer is formed during the Flood. Once the layer is formed, the K-40 trapped in that layer begins to decay and the radiometric clock begins to tick. Within a few orders of magnitude, what is the half-life of K-40 at this point in time, and what events will cause it to change to its current half-life? Remember, your answer to the half-life question must explain why a rock layer would give a date of, say, 500 million years instead of 5000 years.
Oh, one other thing from a previous thread. Do we agree that we can use the geological record to do relative dating?
ReplyDeleteGive it up, guys. Rho is appealing to Last Tuesdayism, but his last Tuesday is somewhere between six and ten thousand years ago. Not falsifiable, not even remotely plausible, but it fits the Bible, so that's the way it went down. Can't argue with that, any more than you can argue with someone who thinks he's Napoleon.
ReplyDeletecheers from been-raining-since-Tuesday-Vienna, zilch
NAL,
ReplyDeleteI'd add to what bossmanham said:
Whether deceit is moral/immoral/amoral is irrelevant to the existence of the deceit.
Correct.
Deceit exists. So does vanilla ice cream, and plastic bottles.
So what?
Rho: If He has lied, then there is no way to know anything.
Then there is no way to know if He has lied and hence, your statement is self-defeating.
And yet there is no way to know that that statement is self-defeating. Calling it self-defeating w/o proposing an alternative is itself self-defeating.
JN,
your response, which I anticipated in my original post, about god creating the stars and then stretching the light beams to Earth, is exactly the kind of harmonization scheme to which I referred in said original post: an unparsimonious, tortured “explanation”
OK, thanks for your opinion. I note you don't argue for it.
And it's VERY parsimonious. Two steps:
1) God exists.
2) God created stars and their light beams.
The parsimony argument from an evolutionist always cracks me up.
I might say, “The tornado destroyed the schoolhouse.” You might say, “The schoolhouse was destroyed when a spaceship from the Andromeda galaxy arrived in town, the aliens saw that nobody was worshipping their kind, they became angry and decided, as punishment, to destroy the one significant structure that the tornado spared.” Not all conclusions or implications equally flow from bare facts.
The explanation that we accept as reasonable depends on our presuppositions. But in this case, of course, we'd both conclude a tornado hit.
But we can observe the tornado hit and have seen many tornados hit in the past. We can't observe the alternatives with respect to light beams from stars.
An old earth means that God communicates badly or doesn't communicate. If either of those is true, the epistemological implications are staggering, and as a big-picture type guy, I take that into acct as well when I consider starlight, but it's not as if you have bare facts that can without question contradict my own conclusion. You have a datum: starlight. You have assumptions: It must've taken those beams millions of yrs to get here. I question your assumptions, not the bare fact of starlight.
Also you never responded to the fact that the Bible's been around a lot longer than you or modern science, and so such types of harmonisation are hardly "frantic".
a harmonization scheme to try to fit the data to your preexisting, presupposed, taken-for-granted, biblically derived conclusion.
You do the same thing. EVERYONE does, EVERY time a new discovery is made. So what?
If you have a harmonization scheme for every conceivable state of affairs, your position fails to make any predictions at all, let alone meaningful, risky ones
Or my position is true b/c it can acct for all the data.
There is no intrinsic connection between tree-ring dating a sample and dating it via radiocarbon
But both share the same assumption of old earth. That's what I'm getting at.
there is not a single element of the methodology that would force the two arrived-at values to converge
That's demonstrably false - they both assume an old earth.
David,
ReplyDelete(And I haven't given up on the last thread, BTW. I'll get to it. Thanks for your patience.)
Could you please define the term "argument"?
A process of reasoning; series of reasons. The science of proper inference, basically.
An assumption is something taken for granted beforehand.
How do you know that God already said how it all went down?
1) It's in Genesis and references to Genesis' historicity are all through the rest of God's revelation of Himself.
2) How do you know that man already figured out how it all went down? Have you examined all the evidence? Have you questioned every authority? What makes you so confident in the authorities that say how it went down? What makes you so confident that these authorities can actually access Deep Time?
Once the layer is formed, the K-40 trapped in that layer begins to decay and the radiometric clock begins to tick.
1) There's one problem there. Why would we say it "begins" to tick then? It's not as if the Flood created new material.
2) What studies have you done to figure out how K-40 reacts when crushed under 10s of 1000s of feet of water depth while mixed with other sediments that are commonly found above water?
3) What studies have you read that other authorities have done to figure out how K-40 reacts when crushed under 10s of 1000s of feet of water depth while mixed with other sediments that are commonly found above water?
(No #2 and #3 are not the same, and I ask them separately for a reason.)
I ask all three of these to demonstrate the vast assumptions you bring to the table. You're not devoted to where the evidence leads you. Your interest lies in protecting your assumptions and you latch on to data that can work under your scheme while ignoring the rest.
zilch,
Rho is appealing to Last Tuesdayism
Come now, I've pointed you to this at least once before. I hope you won't show yourself to be intellectually dishonest.
Rho: yes, I remember that post. So what? You didn't give me any reason then, and you haven't now, to regard your position as any more plausible, or falsifiable, than Last Tuesdayism.
ReplyDeletecheers from sunny Vienna, zilch
"A process of reasoning; series of reasons."
ReplyDeleteWell, what JN said about dendrochronology and C-14 dating is a product of reasoning. The conclusions are based on a series of reasons.
"An assumption is something taken for granted beforehand."
But EVERYTHING we do, think and argue is based on assumptions. Therefore, there are no arguments. For example, the statement..."it's in Genesis and references to Genesis' historicity are all through the rest of God's revelation of Himself"...contains or requires numerous assumptions.
"How do you know that man already figured out how it all went down, etc.?"
I don't know anything with absolute certainty. What I do know is that the old earth hypothesis stands up much better to testing than any young earth hypothesis. If only you would show the same extraordinary level of skepticism when it comes to your own beliefs.
“There's one problem there. Why would we say it "begins" to tick then? It's not as if the Flood created new material. “
Yes, new material DOES form during the Flood, specifically, a layer of igneous rock forms during the Flood. The clock begins to tick at this point, because this is the point in time when the K-40 containing crystals are formed. This is the point in time when we have X number of K-40 atoms in a given volume of crystal, and this is the point in time when we begin to trap Y number of Ar-40 atoms in the rock. Yes, the K-40 existed before the igneous layer was formed, but until the layer forms, any Ar-40 produced by decay would be driven off by the heat of the molten rock (this is not an assumption; it can be shown by experimentation). So, the clock starts ticking at the point when the molten rock cools and solidifies and K-40 containing crystals form. Now, you can estimate the number of K-40 atoms, and now the change from K-40 to Ar-40 can be followed.
“What studies have you done to figure out how K-40 reacts when crushed under 10s of 1000s of feet of water depth while mixed with other sediments that are commonly found above water?”
I pretty sure that folks have looked to see of decay rates change under conditions of extreme heat and pressure. You can duplicate the conditions you describe in the lab, so no need for assumptions. The classic paper on the subject is (Emery, G. T., 1972. "Perturbation of nuclear decay rates" in Annual Reviews of Nuclear Science 22 , pp. 165-202). As far as I know, no one has shown that the heat and pressure found a few thousand feet below the surface will change decay rates for the isotopes used in dating rocks that are hundreds of millions of years old.
In any event, this does not address my question. Let’s say that heat and pressure could change decay rates. Change the rates all you’d like. Let’s say my “authorities” are wrong. Given this, what is the half-life of K-40 at this point in time (when the igneous rock forms), and how does this change over the next 5000 years such that scientists would get a date of 500 million years ago when the rock is analyzed today? What's the number? I’ll take an estimate that is good to a couple of orders of magnitude.
"What studies have you read that other authorities have done to figure out how K-40 reacts when crushed under 10s of 1000s of feet of water depth while mixed with other sediments that are commonly found above water?"
Here’s a little reading on the subject from a Christian authority.
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html#page 19
“I ask all three of these to demonstrate the vast assumptions you bring to the table. You're not devoted to where the evidence leads you. Your interest lies in protecting your assumptions and you latch on to data that can work under your scheme while ignoring the rest.”
Holy projection, Batman! You want to go where the evidence leads you? Check out how limestone forms, then explain how a global flood can produce a limestone layer that is thousands of feet thick.
"A process of reasoning; series of reasons."
ReplyDeleteWell, what JN said about dendrochronology and C-14 dating is a product of reasoning. The conclusions are based on a series of reasons.
"An assumption is something taken for granted beforehand."
But EVERYTHING we do, think and argue is based on assumptions. Therefore, there are no arguments. For example, the statement..."it's in Genesis and references to Genesis' historicity are all through the rest of God's revelation of Himself"...contains or requires numerous assumptions.
"How do you know that man already figured out how it all went down, etc.?"
I don't know anything with absolute certainty. What I do know is that the old earth hypothesis stands up much better to testing than any young earth hypothesis. If only you would show the same extraordinary level of skepticism when it comes to your own beliefs.
“There's one problem there. Why would we say it "begins" to tick then? It's not as if the Flood created new material. “
Yes, new material DOES form during the Flood, specifically, a layer of igneous rock forms during the Flood. The clock begins to tick at this point, because this is the point in time when the K-40 containing crystals are formed. This is the point in time when we have X number of K-40 atoms in a given volume of crystal, and this is the point in time when we begin to trap Y number of Ar-40 atoms in the rock. Yes, the K-40 existed before the igneous layer was formed, but until the layer forms, any Ar-40 produced by decay would be driven off by the heat of the molten rock (this is not an assumption; it can be shown by experimentation). So, the clock starts ticking at the point when the molten rock cools and solidifies and K-40 containing crystals form. Now, you can estimate the number of K-40 atoms, and now the change from K-40 to Ar-40 can be followed.
“What studies have you done to figure out how K-40 reacts when crushed under 10s of 1000s of feet of water depth while mixed with other sediments that are commonly found above water?”
I pretty sure that folks have looked to see of decay rates change under conditions of extreme heat and pressure. You can duplicate the conditions you describe in the lab, so no need for assumptions. The classic paper on the subject is (Emery, G. T., 1972. "Perturbation of nuclear decay rates" in Annual Reviews of Nuclear Science 22 , pp. 165-202). As far as I know, no one has shown that the heat and pressure found a few thousand feet below the surface will change decay rates for the isotopes used in dating rocks that are hundreds of millions of years old.
In any event, this does not address my question. Let’s say that heat and pressure could change decay rates. Change the rates all you’d like. Let’s say my “authorities” are wrong. Given this, what is the half-life of K-40 at this point in time (when the igneous rock forms), and how does this change over the next 5000 years such that scientists would get a date of 500 million years ago when the rock is analyzed today? What's the number? I’ll take an estimate that is good to a couple of orders of magnitude.
"What studies have you read that other authorities have done to figure out how K-40 reacts when crushed under 10s of 1000s of feet of water depth while mixed with other sediments that are commonly found above water?"
Here’s a little reading on the subject from a Christian authority.
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html#page 19
“I ask all three of these to demonstrate the vast assumptions you bring to the table. You're not devoted to where the evidence leads you. Your interest lies in protecting your assumptions and you latch on to data that can work under your scheme while ignoring the rest.”
Holy projection, Batman! You want to go where the evidence leads you? Check out how limestone forms, then explain how a global flood can produce a limestone layer that is thousands of feet thick.
“A process of reasoning; series of reasons."
ReplyDeleteWell, what JN said about dendrochronology and C-14 dating is a product of reasoning. The conclusions are based on a series of reasons.
"An assumption is something taken for granted beforehand."
But EVERYTHING we do, think and argue is based on assumptions. Therefore, there are no arguments. For example, the statement..."it's in Genesis and references to Genesis' historicity are all through the rest of God's revelation of Himself"...contains or requires numerous assumptions.
"How do you know that man already figured out how it all went down, etc.?"
I don't know anything with absolute certainty. What I do know is that the old earth hypothesis stands up much better to testing than any young earth hypothesis. If only you would show the same extraordinary level of skepticism when it comes to your own beliefs.
“There's one problem there. Why would we say it "begins" to tick then? It's not as if the Flood created new material. “
Yes, new material DOES form during the Flood, specifically, a layer of igneous rock forms during the Flood. The clock begins to tick at this point, because this is the point in time when the K-40 containing crystals are formed. This is the point in time when we have X number of K-40 atoms in a given volume of crystal, and this is the point in time when we begin to trap Y number of Ar-40 atoms in the rock. Yes, the K-40 existed before the igneous layer was formed, but until the layer forms, any Ar-40 produced by decay would be driven off by the heat of the molten rock (this is not an assumption; it can be shown by experimentation). So, the clock starts ticking at the point when the molten rock cools and solidifies and K-40 containing crystals form. Now, you can estimate the number of K-40 atoms, and now the change from K-40 to Ar-40 can be followed.
“What studies have you done to figure out how K-40 reacts when crushed under 10s of 1000s of feet of water depth while mixed with other sediments that are commonly found above water?”
ReplyDeleteI pretty sure that folks have looked to see of decay rates change under conditions of extreme heat and pressure. You can duplicate the conditions you describe in the lab, so no need for assumptions. The classic paper on the subject is (Emery, G. T., 1972. "Perturbation of nuclear decay rates" in Annual Reviews of Nuclear Science 22 , pp. 165-202). As far as I know, no one has shown that the heat and pressure found a few thousand feet below the surface will change decay rates for the isotopes used in dating rocks that are hundreds of millions of years old.
In any event, this does not address my question. Let’s say that heat and pressure could change decay rates. Change the rates all you’d like. Let’s say my “authorities” are wrong. Given this, what is the half-life of K-40 at this point in time (when the igneous rock forms), and how does this change over the next 5000 years such that scientists would get a date of 500 million years ago when the rock is analyzed today? What's the number? I’ll take an estimate that is good to a couple of orders of magnitude.
"What studies have you read that other authorities have done to figure out how K-40 reacts when crushed under 10s of 1000s of feet of water depth while mixed with other sediments that are commonly found above water?"
Here’s a little reading on the subject from a Christian authority.
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html#page 19
“I ask all three of these to demonstrate the vast assumptions you bring to the table. You're not devoted to where the evidence leads you. Your interest lies in protecting your assumptions and you latch on to data that can work under your scheme while ignoring the rest.”
Holy projection, Batman! You want to go where the evidence leads you? Check out how limestone forms, then explain how a global flood can produce a limestone layer that is thousands of feet thick.
Almost forgot. One other thing. The igneous rock layers that I'm talking about, you know, the ones that are the source of material for radiometric dating? They didn't form under water. I'm pretty sure that the layers used come from igneous rock produced by terrestrial volcanic activity. In other words, the layers that I'm talking about are layers that were deposited when the land was above sea level and not under thousands of feet of water. And all of this is occuring during a global flood.
ReplyDeleteDavid: nice work, but Rho doesn't care. He has his truth already, and will simply invoke the "necessary appearance of age" that God imparted the world a few thousand years ago. No discussion possible.
ReplyDeleteRho: I just hope you're happy. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, but there's only so much we can do.
cheers from abendlichen Wien, zilch
Rhology,
ReplyDeleteOK, thanks for your opinion. I note you don't argue for it.
And it's VERY parsimonious. Two steps:
1) God exists.
2) God created stars and their light beams.
The parsimony argument from an evolutionist always cracks me up.
To start, your god conception is not a parsimonious explanation for anything, inasmuch as an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent creator deity who has the ability to monitor the thoughts, deeds and desires of every human who has ever existed while, simultaneously, listening to billions of prayers and, if so moved, answering them (while also, of course, reigning over heaven) could never be ultimately simple and, thus, would beg for an explanation. Secondly, with an eye to one of your earlier replies, pertaining to “assuming a totally agnostic position about the age of the Earth,” no honest reasoner, upon taking such an agnostic position, would conclude, given the bare fact of starlight from extremely distant stars reaching us, that a mind-meltingly complex god character stretched the light beams to Earth when, as an alternative, the reasoner could conclude that, given the star is a million light years away, meaning it takes the light a million years to reach us, that it did just that.
An old earth means that God communicates badly or doesn't communicate. If either of those is true, the epistemological implications are staggering, and as a big-picture type guy, I take that into acct as well when I consider starlight, but it's not as if you have bare facts that can without question contradict my own conclusion. You have a datum: starlight. You have assumptions: It must've taken those beams millions of yrs to get here. I question your assumptions, not the bare fact of starlight.
It is not really an “assumption” that, when a star is one million light years from Earth, it takes one million years for the light to reach Earth; that is basic science. Your choice is to confect a harmonization scheme to make sure the facts with which we are confronted fit the bible, however tortured and transparent doing so might be. And, incidentally, since the three points in my legendary “masterstroke” all feed into each other, my old Earth position is buttressed by compounding facts. For instance, with respect to radioactive dating, even on the assumption of non-uniformitarianism, the bare fact remains that, now, with current rates of decay, when radioisotopes occur together, enabling the dates to be cross-checked, the ages invariably agree, meaning that, beggaring all belief and all statistical likelihood, the decay rates have all changed in such a way, despite the orders-of-magnitude differences among them, that they currently converge on the same incorrect, mistaken old Earth ages; were this to be the case, the only way to beat the statistical unlikelihood of all the decay rates changing differently in such a specific way would be to posit intention: in this case, the intention to deceive scientific investigators.
If it helps, think about my argument, which, once again, is assuming non-uniformitarianism, as a variant of the well-worn Fine-Tuning Argument that is often applied to the statistically unlikely, too-good-to-be-true universal fundamental physical constants.
Also you never responded to the fact that the Bible's been around a lot longer than you or modern science, and so such types of harmonisation are hardly "frantic".
ReplyDeleteThey are frantic inasmuch as, even though the bible provides no genuine astronomic knowledge of which to speak, were it to have gone out on a limb and provide a discourse about the cosmos, stars and how distant starlight reaches us, it seems unlikely that it would have articulated a prediction (untestable at that point) about light beams having been stretched a million light years to reach our eyes.
You do the same thing. EVERYONE does, EVERY time a new discovery is made. So what?
Yes, but, on your First Principle, the god of the bible exists and the bible is the inerrant, perfect word of that god, meaning that your matrix of assumptions is so vast and comprehensive as to preclude, in my judgment, any genuine, open-minded reasoning; the same cannot be said of everyone, who, even if they have a First Principle, almost surely do not have one as all-encompassing as yours is.
Or my position is true b/c it can acct for all the data.
It is true that, with enough tortured harmonization, your position can probably account for every bit of data we have found, although the emphasis should certainly be on the tortured harmonization required to make the pieces fit. However, your position can account for all the data in another sense, too, and it is one that serves to undercut you deeply: Your position could make the puzzle pieces fit together in conformity to the bible no matter what data has been, is or will be found. Whether investigators find “X” or “not-X,” you will exclaim, “This is exactly as the bible predicted!” If the bible can be harmonized to ANYthing, it essentially predicts NOthing.
But both share the same assumption of old earth. That's what I'm getting at.
At their most fundamental, tree-ring dating and radiocarbon dating only assume that, by counting tree rings and studying carbon decay, respectively, organic samples can be dated. Why, in principle, would it have been impossible for both dating methods never to have given us a date older than 6000 years?
That's demonstrably false - they both assume an old earth.
This is kind of a non sequitur, inasmuch as I was talking about how, across the two methods, the arrived-at values invariably converge when, in principle, there is no reason to assume they necessarily would. Dendrochronological dating and radiocarbon dating are independent, but, when the same organic sample is tested both ways, the age always matches, within a small scientific uncertainty. That is a bare fact, proved repeatedly, and there is nothing in the mathematical or analytical process, with respect to the two calculations, that would compel the arrived-at ages to converge as they do.
zilch,
ReplyDeleteSo, I show you the answer and you have no response but to ignore it, and then you accuse ME of refusing to acknowledge the truth? K.
Also, what exactly am I losing out on by believing Christianity rather than atheistic naturalism? You think the latter is true. So, what good is it to believe in atheistic naturalism? What's it going to matter in 40 years whether I blvd it or not, whether I gave all I have to the poor, whether I kill 6 million ppl? Nothing. Dust. Sell your empty product to someone who hasn't thought it thru.
David,
what JN said about dendrochronology and C-14 dating is a product of reasoning.
Based on assumptions, which I am challenging. You and he respond by bringing fwd more of the same. Which I challenge. And on and on.
The conclusions are based on a series of reasons.
The most an assumption-free conclusion, given these data, could be is "this test yielded X result". Then based on the assumption, you interpret that to mean, for example, that the Earth is old. I question the underlying assumption - you have only arbitrary (and sinful) reasons to accept it.
But EVERYTHING we do, think and argue is based on assumptions.
Exactly! So what I'd like to do is stop discussing that this or that test gave this or that result and start talking about how to justify the underlying assumptions. Mine can withstand scrutiny, and from experience and God's revelation I know yours can't.
the statement..."it's in Genesis and references to Genesis' historicity are all through the rest of God's revelation of Himself"...contains or requires numerous assumptions.
Which I've told you multiple times.
I don't know anything with absolute certainty.
You certainly seem like you think you do. Why are you backing down now on your strong positioning?
Speaking of "frantic harmonisations" as the JN apparently likes to do, this seems pretty ad hoc, given that your structure's sandy foundation has been exposed.
If only you would show the same extraordinary level of skepticism when it comes to your own beliefs.
That's very ironic coming from someone who's on record saying what you've said here.
How do you know I haven't done so and concluded that the skepticism was unwarranted, that my position is true? You don't. You're ignorant of me, but that doesn't stop you from throwing out ignorant statements like that.
Besides, if we find the fundamental and ultimate basis for thought and rationality, it is self-defeating to remain skeptical of it. That's what God is, whereas you have none on your own position and thus no reason for either skepticism or trust.
Yes, new material DOES form during the Flood, specifically, a layer of igneous rock forms during the Flood.
1) And you know this how?
2) And you know that's when the clock begins to tick how?
You weren't there. Spare me the fundamentalist assertions of your blind faith.
zilch,
ReplyDeleteSo, I show you the answer and you have no response but to ignore it, and then you accuse ME of refusing to acknowledge the truth? K.
Also, what exactly am I losing out on by believing Christianity rather than atheistic naturalism? You think the latter is true. So, what good is it to believe in atheistic naturalism? What's it going to matter in 40 years whether I blvd it or not, whether I gave all I have to the poor, whether I kill 6 million ppl? Nothing. Dust. Sell your empty product to someone who hasn't thought it thru.
David,
what JN said about dendrochronology and C-14 dating is a product of reasoning.
Based on assumptions, which I am challenging. You and he respond by bringing fwd more of the same. Which I challenge. And on and on.
The conclusions are based on a series of reasons.
The most an assumption-free conclusion, given these data, could be is "this test yielded X result". Then based on the assumption, you interpret that to mean, for example, that the Earth is old. I question the underlying assumption - you have only arbitrary (and sinful) reasons to accept it.
But EVERYTHING we do, think and argue is based on assumptions.
Exactly! So what I'd like to do is stop discussing that this or that test gave this or that result and start talking about how to justify the underlying assumptions. Mine can withstand scrutiny, and from experience and God's revelation I know yours can't.
the statement..."it's in Genesis and references to Genesis' historicity are all through the rest of God's revelation of Himself"...contains or requires numerous assumptions.
Which I've told you multiple times.
I don't know anything with absolute certainty.
You certainly seem like you think you do. Why are you backing down now on your strong positioning?
Speaking of "frantic harmonisations" as the JN apparently likes to do, this seems pretty ad hoc, given that your structure's sandy foundation has been exposed.
If only you would show the same extraordinary level of skepticism when it comes to your own beliefs.
That's very ironic coming from someone who's on record saying what you've said here.
How do you know I haven't done so and concluded that the skepticism was unwarranted, that my position is true? You don't. You're ignorant of me, but that doesn't stop you from throwing out ignorant statements like that.
Besides, if we find the fundamental and ultimate basis for thought and rationality, it is self-defeating to remain skeptical of it. That's what God is, whereas you have none on your own position and thus no reason for either skepticism or trust.
Yes, new material DOES form during the Flood, specifically, a layer of igneous rock forms during the Flood.
1) And you know this how?
2) And you know that's when the clock begins to tick how?
You weren't there. Spare me the fundamentalist assertions of your blind faith.
They didn't form under water.
ReplyDelete1) And you know this how?
2) Only one layer of stuff is on the top of the surface of the flooded "ocean" at any given time. Didn't have to form under water to later be exposed to water for a time.
I pretty sure that folks have looked to see of decay rates change under conditions of extreme heat and pressure.
Which is not what I asked you.
That's OK - I knew you didn't have an answer.
You can duplicate the conditions you describe in the lab, so no need for assumptions.
Which would be Intelligent Design. You realise that, don't you?
Given this, what is the half-life of K-40 at this point in time (when the igneous rock forms), and how does this change over the next 5000 years such that scientists would get a date of 500 million years ago when the rock is analyzed today? What's the number?
I don't know. OTOH, I don't see how it's relevant. Could you please show why it's relevant?
The article you cite says:
Several hundred laboratories around the world are active in radiometric dating. Their results consistently agree with an old Earth...Radioactive decay rates have been measured for over sixty years now for many of the decay clocks without any observed changes
This doesn't answer the questions I'm asking. I'd ask them the same, but I'd also ask them why they prefer "60 yrs of radioactive clocks" and reading that back into history over the Word of God they claim to believe. What we'll find is that they don't really believe the Word of God like they say they do. They prefer to believe the parts they like and make up stuff when it says things they find inconvenient.
Check out how limestone forms, then explain how a global flood can produce a limestone layer that is thousands of feet thick.
Which, again, assumes the present is like the past. How many times do I have to point this out to you?
JN,
ReplyDeleteyour god conception is not a parsimonious explanation for anything,
1) You say it isn't, I say it is. This concept of parsimony doesn't seem all that useful.
2) You have to posit numerous trillions of separate events and causes. I posit ONE. That's pretty simple. You're letting your bias get in the way.
no honest reasoner, upon taking such an agnostic position, would conclude, given the bare fact of starlight from extremely distant stars reaching us, that a mind-meltingly complex god character stretched the light beams to Earth
Argument?
It is not really an “assumption” that, when a star is one million light years from Earth, it takes one million years for the light to reach Earth; that is basic science.
How precisely did you test that assertion scientifically?
Oh, that's right - you ASSUMED the light beams didn't originally stretch all the way to Earth originally. That's called an ASSUMPTION. I'm sorry you need a refresher on what science covers, but it's not science until you apply the scientific method to it and observe repeated results. If you can give me an experiment that's repeatable by which you could test this whole thing, let me know, but don't call it "science", let alone "basic science", until you do.
with respect to radioactive dating, even on the assumption of non-uniformitarianism, the bare fact remains that, now, with current rates of decay, when radioisotopes occur together, enabling the dates to be cross-checked, the ages invariably agree,
For the 4th time or so, all that tells you is that these tests agree. Then come the assumptions to interp what that means and apply to the age of the Earth.
What on your naturalistic framework makes you think that there's a telos to these decay rates, that they're meant and intended to tell you their age? You don't have one and your worldview doesn't support it. But since you're wedded to finding confirmation for your assumption, that's how you present it.
beggaring all belief and all statistical likelihood, the decay rates have all changed in such a way
1) How is belief relevant? Plenty of ppl believe that God created the world. More than believe evolution, BTW.
2) How precisely did you calculate the likelihood? What kind of probability measurement?
They are frantic inasmuch as, even though the bible provides no genuine astronomic knowledge of which to speak,
It tells us God created the world in an instant and approximately how long ago it was. It's not hard to go from there. I have no education in astronomy, and I figured it out.
It's not as if scientific conclusions are against my position, let's be clear. ASSUMPTIONS OF SCIENTISTS are against it, but so what?
your matrix of assumptions is so vast and comprehensive as to preclude, in my judgment, any genuine, open-minded reasoning
OK, thanks for your opinion. I think yours is, so...
It is true that, with enough tortured harmonization, your position can probably account for every bit of data we have found
"Tortured" is an opinion, and it is quickly becoming clear you're not an unbiased arbiter thereof.
And I'd fully expect a worldview that is true to acct for all data. Wouldn't you?
If the bible can be harmonized to ANYthing, it essentially predicts NOthing.
Or the Bible is true.
Maybe you prefer a worldview that DOESN'T acct for all the data. If that's the case, stay where you are - you're in the right place.
Why, in principle, would it have been impossible for both dating methods never to have given us a date older than 6000 years?
It wouldn't be. But I deal in facts and logic, not dreams.
Peace,
Rhology
Wow, Zilch was right. This really is a complete waste of time. It’s just the same trick over and over again. Just ask someone to prove with absolute, 100% metaphysical certainty that the universe behaved in the same way one second ago as it behaves today. And when that can’t be done, you are free to use your imagination to create whatever world you need to create to sustain your beliefs. Observations, data, facts, evidence, logic, reason…none of this matters. One need not bother with such trivial things.
ReplyDeleteHalf-lifes must be 100,000 times in the past? Done. Fossils on top are deposited before fossils on the bottom? Done. A random and chaotic process somehow creates a taxonomically sorted fossil record? Done. Come with me, And you'll be, in a world of pure imagination. You are free to think magically and without restrictions in imagining a past that is consistent with your presupposition.
And what is that presupposition? What is your alternative? Why, it’s an ANE Iron Age myth, a myth that you accept as absolute truth without any possibility of testing or disproof. How do you do this? Of all the assumptions that one might make, this is the one that you chose?
You give with one hand and take back with the other, David.
ReplyDeleteHere's how this has gone:
You claim you have the evidence. Mountains and mountains of evidence.
I show you that all your evidence is just as easily explained by YEC and that your position is heavily infested with assumptions for which you have no evidence.
You bring fwd more of the same evidence.
I repeat what I did.
You repeat what you did.
I repeat what I did.
You flame out and pretend to admit that I'm being unreasonable, even though I'm just doing what atheists usually do, which is to ask for evidence for a given position.
You also, even though you have no effective argument for your position, retreat to mere mockery. Yet if you can't argue effectively for your position, then your position is just as suspect as you say mine is.
Mockery is not a good replacement for giving a good acct of your position. Obviously you can't do it, so yes, continuing in this vein would be a waste of time. You tried, you failed.
My recommendation is that you repent.
It is true that, with enough tortured harmonization, your position can probably account for every bit of data we have found, although the emphasis should certainly be on the tortured harmonization required to make the pieces fit.
ReplyDeleteAs a Christian who agrees with Rho on a number of things, I would need the following to seriously consider accepting this claim:
1) An objective definition of "tortured harmonization"
2) A valid argument that demonstrates how the YEC position "torturously harmonizes" Scripture and facts, making use of the definition in (1).
Your position could make the puzzle pieces fit together in conformity to the bible no matter what data has been, is or will be found. Whether investigators find “X” or “not-X,” you will exclaim, “This is exactly as the bible predicted!” If the bible can be harmonized to ANYthing, it essentially predicts NOthing.
The issue is not prediction, but refutation. The Bible is not a formal scientific theory, as if it needed to be validated by the quality of its predictions. To treat it as such is to commit a category error. Scripture is revelation - a medium of transmission for testimonial knowledge. Scientific theories are inductive generalizations from repeated observations. While testimony is concerned with knowledge and truth, science is concerned with producing theories that best explain our empirical observations and allow us to make useful predictions for interacting with the physical world. Thus, the measure of a scientific theory is how well it predicts, for its value as a theory is dependent upon how many useful predictions it can make. However, to hold Scripture to this standard is to fail to recognize the difference between the categories of testimonial knowledge and scientific theory.
Knowledge is truth, and does not "need" to predict anything. The fundamental issue in this context is whether or not the Bible is true - specifically whether or not the creation account is true. If it is claimed that some proposition p is true, then such a claim can be refuted by showing that ¬p is actually the case. In this specific context, there are two sets of propositions: S (all of the propositions contained in Scripture are true) and F (all of the empirical facts are true). The claim is S. The reasoning of the atheologian goes as follows, in order to refute that claim:
1) F
2) ¬◇(S∧F)
3) ∴ ¬S
That is, the facts are true, it is impossible for both Scripture and the facts to be true, therefore not all of the propositions contained in Scripture are true. The arguments concerning trees, rocks, light, etc. are attempts to establish premise (2), that ¬◇(S∧F).
Now, the above argument is valid, but the Christian can respond by showing that it is unsound. To do this, it suffices to show that ¬¬◇(S∧F), or ◇(S∧F) - namely, that the propositions of Scripture are consistent with the facts.
So, when Rho argues that Scripture can account for what is observed, he is simply doing his part to demonstrate ◇(S∧F), that Scripture is consistent with the facts. This defeats these particular attempts at refuting the claim that the propositions of Scripture are not true. To criticize this in terms of "predications" is, as previously stated, to commit a category error.
"I show you that all your evidence is just as easily explained by YEC.."
ReplyDeleteNo, Rho, it isn't. I tried to show you this, but you won't listen. The only way the evidence is explained by YEC is by appeal to magical thinking.
"...and that your position is heavily infested with assumptions for which you have no evidence."
Of course there's evidence to support the assumptions. For example, the BioLogos link showed you the evidence to support the assumptions about C-14 dating. You just choose to ignore the evidence.
"I'm just doing what atheists usually do, which is to ask for evidence for a given position."
I gave you evidence, but you rejected it by appeal to Last Thursdayism. And you haven't brought any evidence to the table of your own to support your ANE myth.
"You tried, you failed."
Of course, I failed. See Last Thursdayism.
Oh, by the way, you confused utter exasperation with mockery. I'm not trying to mock you, I'm just kicking myself for wasting time.
ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteAs for Last Thursdayism, see my response to zilch. Your position has MUCH more problems with that issue than mine does. I recommend you don't bring that up anymore with Christians.
Oopps I forgot to say God also made human-manufactured tools appear tens and hundreds of thousands of years old also. He's juz like that yo.
ReplyDelete