Umm...???

[RDX]

Hmm.... A 1987 article in newsweek states "By one count there are some 700 scientists with respectable academic credentials (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) who give credence to creation-science..."

And you guys are giving me crap about Seve Austin.

So Newsweek took an opinion from some unknown guy who is taking a guess...Not even a little polling evidence to back it up. Just..."Oh, in my opinion I bet there are only 700 respectable creation scientists out there...yep, 700 looks good to me."

Your professors are scientists? Most of mine were teachers.

Most of them are still doing active research and testing in their fields. Very few (actually none that I know of) went straight from getting their PHD into teaching.

 

[a13antichrist]

Using the red-shift and hubble constants to date the universe requires a few assumptions that I do not agree with. First, dating the universe using these methods require the assumption that the universe started from a particular point in the big bang.

You've got it the wrong way round. The evidence gleaned from redshift indicates that the universe is expanding, and they use this knowledge, along with other evidence, to infer that there must have been a Big Bang. One does not necessitate the other, so you'll need to do more than object to the big bang to discount hubble-constant universe-age measurements.

More importantly, what you've said here is "I don't believe in the Big Bang, so anything related to it must be rubbish." That's the worst sort of head-in-the-sand-ness you can get. You haven't even considered the option that the evidence provided by the occurrence of redshift could possibly lead to a re-evaluation of the validity of the Big Bang theory.
Now as I said, that's irrelevant because does not necessitate the other. Redshift measurements PROVE that the universe is expanding. They SUGGEST - but not prove - that the universe was created at a singularity. And they also PROVE with complete independance to an other phenomenon that the universe must be at least 5 billion years old - that is the lowest age for the universe EVER arrived at from redshift measurements.

Objecting to the Big Bang is no exemption - and even talking about redshift measurements is unnecessary. One thing that is CERTAIN beyond all doubt is that, as Luis said, the light from certain stars has taken a few hundred million years to get here. 25,000 years for the age of the universe is a cosmological impossibility, whichever way you look at it.

Btw, nice to have you back, RD.

 

[RDX]

Um.. did you even read that large post I made on the previous page. I went over a few theories that discussed reasons that would account for a young aged universe despite seeing light that has comes from distances that are supposedly millions of light years away.

And no, the redshift measurements do not prove that the universe is expanding, it only suggests it. The redshift measurements are very sketchy. For instance, did you know that objects both receding and approaching us will both give us redshift measurements? Only objects that are approaching us VERY quickly will give us blue shift measurements. This is because time dialation has not been calculated into almost every redshift measurement.

Red shifts taken from many quasers have found them to be receding at speeds faster than the speed of light! Some have been found to be receeding at 200-300% or even up to 800% the speed of light. (You can read about these discoveries in the book Origin of Matter p40-44).

Halton Arp, of the Mount Wilson and Las Campanas Observatories has made thousands of redshift readings on various galixies and has found overwhelming evidence against the accuracy of red shift ananlysis. He has published a catolag which records hundreds of these discordant red shifts.

Another assumption that is made in red shift analysis is that the light has traveled towards is in a straight undisturbed line. In all likelyhood, this is very seldomly the case. It is known that strong gravitational fields ater the path of the light and bend the waves that pass near to them; this alters the spectrum. If the light must pass by many gravitational fields or by any extremely intense fields, the wavelengths received would be very distorted.

 

[a13antichrist]

And no, the redshift measurements do not prove that the universe is expanding, it only suggests it.

Isn't that precisely what I just said?

You know what's great about science? It FITS. Things concur with each other & suggest one another. Creationism on the other hand has the enormous task of explaining away each new piece of evidence in turn - which goes against the principle of Occam's Razor. If 12 ideas (eg, carbon dating, redshift, supernovae, evolution) all point to a 10-billion-yr+ universe, and each challenge to that suggestion has to develop new & complex, & most importantly individual, explanations for each one then the alternative (i.e, an extremely young universe) is to be treated very suspiciously at best.

Redshift calculations may well be faulty. Carbon-dating may well be faulty. Do you think then that it's just pure coincidence that all these faulty methods point to the same unique age (around 12-18billion years) or do you think that God did that on purpose to try to trick us?

 

[chcr]

No, a13, if you are a young earth creationist, any piece of anomalous data whatsover disproves any theory you disagree with and proves your own theory conclusively. You should read some of their stuff. Creative writing.

 

[RDX]

And no, the redshift measurements do not prove that the universe is expanding, it only suggests it.

Isn't that precisely what I just said?

Redshift measurements PROVE that the universe is expanding.

Redshift calculations may well be faulty. Carbon-dating may well be faulty. Do you think then that it's just pure coincidence that all these faulty methods point to the same unique age (around 12-18billion years) or do you think that God did that on purpose to try to trick us?

But they don't point to the same unique age. As I had stated on the last page, carbon dating distictively points to a young age earth, that's why many people ignore it when figuring the age of the universe. Redshift calculations on the other hand do point to an old age universe. Not all of these methods point to an old age universe, several of them point in the opposite direction. Your point about compounding explantions to explain the discrepencies of these tests is well taken. On the other hand, as I point out an increasing number of tests that point to a young age universe, evolutionists must do the same.

 

[a13antichrist]

Carbon dating of fossils points to an earth at least 100 million years old. How is that in line with a "young earth"?

 

[RDX]

Posts 115 & 118

 

[BeardofPants]

Carbon dating of fossils points to an earth at least 100 million years old. How is that in line with a "young earth"?

Okay, I'm gonna assume language barrier, and presume you mean radiometric dating methods, because carbon dating only accurately dates back around 60,000 years, and prior to 1950AD, due to having a short half life.

 

[BeardofPants]

Principles of Radiometric Dating
How does Carbon-14 dating work?

1. Cosmic rays from the sun strike Nitrogen 14 atoms in the atmosphere and cause them to turn into radioactive Carbon 14, which combines with oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide.
   
   
2. Living things are in equilibrium with the atmosphere, and the radioactive carbon dioxide is absorbed and used by plants. The radioactive carbon dioxide gets into the food chain and the carbon cycle.
   
   
3. All living things contain a constant ratio of Carbon 14 to Carbon 12. (1 in a trillion).
   
4. At death, Carbon 14 exchange ceases and any Carbon 14 in the tissues of the organism begins to decay to Nitrogen 14, and is not replenished by new C-14.
   
   
5. The change in the Carbon 14 to Carbon 12 ratio is the basis for dating.
   
   
6. The half-life is so short (5730 years) that this method can only be used on materials less than 70,000 years old (BoP notes: and before AD1950 due to industrialisation). Archaeological dating uses this method.) Also useful for dating the Pleistocene Epoch (Ice Ages).
   
   
7. Assumes that the rate of Carbon 14 production (and hence the amount of cosmic rays striking the Earth) has been constant (through the past 70,000 years).

Check out my posts on page 3 for more details on radiometric dating methods.

 

[chcr]

Thank you dear.

 

[BeardofPants]

Uh... welcome?

I should also add (reiterate) that carbon dating is only used on organic material, and fossils from millions of years ago are rock, so...

 

[RDX]

post #122

 

[BeardofPants]

"Carbon dating also cannot be used on artifacts over about 50,000 years old. These artifacts have gone through many carbon-14 half-lives and the amount of carbon-14 remaining in them is miniscule and very difficult to detect.


Carbon dating cannot be used on most fossils, not only because they are almost always too old, but also because they rarely contain the original carbon of the organism. Also, many fossils are contaminated with carbon from the environment during collection or preservation proceedures.

http://www.acad.carleton.edu/curricular/BIOL/classes/bio302/Pages/CarbonDatingBack.html

"We can't date fossils, for three reasons. First, they are almost always too old. Second, they rarely contain any of the original carbon. And third, it is common to soak new-found fossils in a preservative, such as shellac. It is also standard to coat fossils during their extraction and transport. Acetone is sometimes used while extracting fossils, because it dissolves dirt. In short, unless you have evidence to the contrary, you should assume that most of the carbon in a fossil is from contamination, and is not originally part of the fossil."

http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/carbon.html


However, if that ain't good enough for you, how about this from the ICR:

"Perhaps no concept in science is as misunderstood as "carbon dating." Almost everyone thinks carbon dating speaks of millions or billions of years. But, carbon dating can't be used to date either rocks or fossils. It is only useful for once-living things which still contain carbon, like flesh or bone or wood. Rocks and fossils, consisting only of inorganic minerals, cannot be dated by this scheme."

http://www.icr.org/pubs/btg-b/btg-115b.htm

Yes, that is right: from the Institute of Creation Research.

 

[RDX]

Just because I believe in a Creation theory of origin does not mean I hold everything that the ICR says to be true.

http://www.grisda.org/origins/51006.htm

This is a pretty good read and addresses your points very well.

 

[a13antichrist]

Posts 115, 118 talk about the unsuitability of carbon-dating. 122 talks again about carbon-dating, suggesting an age of around 5,000 years, for the sample concerned. This information is more or less irrelevant as we have already established, through posts 115 & 118, that anything dated using carbon-dating will only be reliable back to 50,000 years or so - and what we want to talk about is dating methods that place samples at millions of years old. What explanation does Genesis give for the reason every respected archaeologist has gotten her/his fossil dating (obviously using methods other than carbon-dating) so fantastically wrong?

 

[RDX]

every respected archaeologist

Once again, quite untrue; maybe every archaeologist that you respect.

What explanation does Genesis give for the reason every respected archaeologist has gotten her/his fossil dating (obviously using methods other than carbon-dating) so fantastically wrong?

The only true test that can be conducted here on earth that really hopes to give us a test about the age of the earth if it is millions of years old is radiometric dating. If this one method is flawed, than archaeological dating methods cannot date the earth. I have already addressed why I believe this method is flawed.

If you don't want to dig through my posts on this thread, you can read about it here:

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/dating.html#Varves

 

[Thulsa Doom]

The only true test that can be conducted here on earth that really hopes to give us a test about the age of the earth if it is millions of years old is radiometric dating. If this one method is flawed, than archaeological dating methods cannot date the earth. I have already addressed why I believe this method is flawed.

If you don't want to dig through my posts on this thread, you can read about it here:

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/dating.html#Varves

So EVEN if we were to assume the patently nonsensical logic that atomic particles can randomly and massively increase their rate of emergence out of the NUCLEAUS of an atom by means of heat and water… which by the way has never ever been observed to happen at all… (sudden massive changes in rate that is) or that sub atomic particles have inexplicably increased their effect on these same atomic particles sometime in the distant pas… OOPS I mean in the past few thousand years… (which ALSO has never been demonstrated… at all…) then you would never even begin to condense the time measurements down enough to account for young earth age limits. It wouldn’t even be close. So I don’t understand why a young earth creationist would argue these arguments when they lead to a (wrong) answer that is STILL too old for what is stated in the bible. Please let me know if you are NOT a young earth creationist so that we don’t need to worry about this little problem. Of course if you are not then what point is it you are trying to prove by saying the earth may be only millions instead of billions years old?

By the way why would radiometric dating also point to parallel ages of non-earth bodies like asteroids (DOZENS of asteroids) if the contention you make is that the earth rocks have been messed up by random changes caused by heat and water and neutrino bursts. Are you saying every asteroid in the solar system was also effected by conditions that just happened to match these exact same earth conditions? How would that work exactly? Some of these asteroids were billions of miles beyond earth under radically different conditions. Wouldn’t it take just incalculably enormous odds that EVERY one of those non-earth bodies happened to undergo each their own unique set of super bizarre conditions that lead to the EXACT erroneous ancient date? My god you talk about long odds. Or was this phenomenon universe wide? And if so whats all that talk on their about heated rocks and water percolation then?

You also fail to take into account that even IF we are once again to assume that there was some inexplicable and rather fundamentally impossible acceleration in decay rates then you would see literally reams of evidence of this mysterious force in SO many other places on earth (and beyond earth) that it would have been a well known concept by now. Why has NOTHING else been effected by such an enormous event? Odd.

Finally, is it your supposition that the vast majority of scientists, geologists, biologists, chemists, physicists, nuclear physicists, mathematicians, etc., etc, are in fact either all involved in some vast secular conspiracy to randomly age the earth billions of years (not sure what they gain in doing this) OR that they are all deluded and inept in their approach to science in the same exact way? And if not either of those well what other options are there to explain this “mass incorrectness” about such basic fundamental laws of nature and science. This has something to do with the shriners doesn’t it!! I knew it!!

 

[RDX]

Finally, is it your supposition that the vast majority of scientists, geologists, biologists, chemists, physicists, nuclear physicists, mathematicians, etc., etc, are in fact either all involved in some vast secular conspiracy to randomly age the earth billions of years (not sure what they gain in doing this) OR that they are all deluded and inept in their approach to science in the same exact way?

Most secular scientists do not consider a young age universe because there is no explanation for its existance rather than one being "created". Many scientists today feel the need to distance any scientific ideas from "religious notions".

By the way why would radiometric dating also point to parallel ages of non-earth bodies like asteroids (DOZENS of asteroids) if the contention you make is that the earth rocks have been messed up by random changes caused by heat and water and neutrino bursts. Are you saying every asteroid in the solar system was also effected by conditions that just happened to match these exact same earth conditions? How would that work exactly? Some of these asteroids were billions of miles beyond earth under radically different conditions. Wouldn’t it take just incalculably enormous odds that EVERY one of those non-earth bodies happened to undergo each their own unique set of super bizarre conditions that lead to the EXACT erroneous ancient date? My god you talk about long odds.

It doesn't make a difference if you date rocks on earth or from mars, you have to make the same set of assumptions to use them to date the rocks. If you look at the assumptions made on the initial conditions of the rock, you will see that although it makes the process much easier, they are not exhibited in relatively new rocks that we have examined.

You also fail to take into account that even IF we are once again to assume that there was some inexplicable and rather fundamentally impossible acceleration in decay rates then you would see literally reams of evidence of this mysterious force in SO many other places on earth (and beyond earth) that it would have been a well known concept by now. Why has NOTHING else been effected by such an enormous event? Odd.

The primary error is when initial conditions are assumed, not the rate of decay. Athough the rate of change of the atomic species in the rock can be affected by other factors other than decay, I do not see these as a very large factor.

 

[a13antichrist]

Most secular scientists do not consider a young age universe because there is no explanation for its existance rather than one being "created". Many scientists today feel the need to distance any scientific ideas from "religious notions".

Many scientists today feel the need to distance any scientific ideas from "religious notions" because scientific ideas are based, funnily enough, on SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE, rather than on simple religious belief. And the reason most secular scientists do not consider a young age universe has got nothing to do with whether we can explain its existance - it's simply that the evidence we have for the age of earth & universe points OVERWHELMINGLY to a non-young-age Earth (and universe).


Oh and I haven't bothered with the rest of your post because you clearly made no effort to address the actual arguments presented.