Umm...???

[chcr]

The evidence clearly does not overwhelmingly point to one over the other

Sorry, I disagree. the evidence clearly does point to one over the other, some people just refuse to accept it, instead throwing up spurious and highly doubtful objections.

An example that points to a relatively young earth would be found in a recent discovery by Montana State University. An article published in 1997

I've never heard of this study and can find no reference to it. Do you have one? The earth can appear younger than it actually is because it is geologically active. Anyone who has taken a high school earth sciences course understands this. However, to accept the biblical scenario, we must assume an age on the order of 10,000 years. Clearly not possible, unless god is a trickster and set everything up to mislead us.

Dinosaur and other fossils could not have formed in the way suggested by most Evolutionary books. Animals of moderate to large size almost never fossilize unless they are buried quickly and deeply - before scavengers, bacteria and erosion reduce them to dust.

Which explains why dinosaur fossils do not litter the earth. They were the dominant life form for millions upon millions of years, yet finding fossilized remains is a relatively rare occurence. This is addressed in every book supporting evolution that I've ever read. Really, I'm 48 years old and have had this argument dozens of times. I have examined the evidence as it has been presented and the conclusion is clear. Sorry you don't see it, but I'm afraid I really have more important things to do than re-hash old arguments for your benefit (especially since these arguments rarely change the minds of the faithful). I don't mean this personally, understand. I just don't see you coming up with objections that I haven't heard time and again, and I'm going to choose not to argue it further. Evolutiuon clearly occured. I would like a reference to that University of Montana study you cite, however. I would like to read it. In science, if a fact disproves your theory, you have to come up with a new one.

 

[RDX]

Well, if we're not getting anywhere, then I suppose that we shouldn't waste our time rehashing these arguements. BTW, the article that I was referring to can be found in Earth June 1997 p.55 by M. Schweitzer and T. Staedter. If that sort of thing gets you interested you can read a book entitled The Great Alaskan Dinosaur Adventure which provides a detailed account of a similar unfossilized specimen fround in Alaska. Another reference to a similar find can be found in the Journal of Paleontology 61: p.198. I'm not sure if any of these Journals are found online, but it shouldn't be too hard to have these files retrieved from a decent library.

 

[chcr]

Well, if we're not getting anywhere, then I suppose that we shouldn't waste our time rehashing these arguements. BTW, the article that I was referring to can be found in Earth June 1997 p.55 by M. Schweitzer and T. Staedter. If that sort of thing gets you interested you can read a book entitled The Great Alaskan Dinosaur Adventure which provides a detailed account of a similar unfossilized specimen fround in Alaska. Another reference to a similar find can be found in the Journal of Paleontology 61: p.198. I'm not sure if any of these Journals are found online, but it shouldn't be too hard to have these files retrieved from a decent library.

Edit: I found references, misinterpretation of the data, I'm afraid. Fossilization depnds on where and how the bones were deposited, not necessarily on time.

Oh, and re a decent library, I live in rural Tennessee.

 

[freako104]

I personally believe in evolution. There are facts to support it. Thats not t sya there arent holes but it has more backing than creationism.

 

[Thulsa Doom]

Drat! I missed all the fun AGAIN.....

 

[RDX]

I found references, misinterpretation of the data, I'm afraid. Fossilization depnds on where and how the bones were deposited, not necessarily on time.

While this is definetly true, animal remains will either NOT remain unfossilized for millions of years. The only exception would be if they were frozen, which is definetly not the case here. Examining remains from people buried by mudslides caused by volcano eruptions in such places as Thera, later known as Santorini that took place sometime between 1410 and 1645 BC, we see that all of the human remains have been fossilized completely. Looking at people buried by mud in the Mt. Vesuvius eruption of 79AD, we see a large amount of fossilized remains, but still in some cases small segents of the bodies buried in the eruption have not fossilized. While looking at the remains of the 2nd great eruption of Vesuvius in 1631, we see a fair portion of the bodies buried unfossilized. Yes, the circumstances under which the bones were buried makes a difference on how fast the bones will fossiize, but these few examples give you an idea of how fast fossils really form. The exact placement and circumstances will make a difference on how fast bones fossilize(and hence some bodies had fossilized and others had not completely), but not that much of a difference. The circumstances can shorten or lengthen the time it take to fossilize a bone by a matter 100 fold at max, but saying that it can make something that should have completely fossilized in a few thousand years not fossilize in a matter of tens of millions of years is absurd. Fossils can be formed from objects in as little as 10 years if the conditions are right. In fact, as long as I have looked, I cannot find any reference to unfossilized bodies of people of known time periods (ie. Sumerian, Hittite, etc) before ~1500BC. The bones either decayed, were fossilized, or were retained by some other mechanism (tree sap, ice, etc) I'm not saying that the T. Rex existed in the last 4,000 years, it was subject to conditions that led to the fossilization of its bones. It's only because of the large diameter of the long bone that helped delay the fossilization process of the interior portions of the bone. The fossilization process would have continued and a steady state. Given a linear relationship of mineral seepage over time and taking into account fossilization times of the SLOWEST recorded fossilization times in humans (femur, 1.2inch radius @ 3500 years), we would still arrive at the conclusion that this T Rex is less than 35,000 years old.

 

[chcr]

The U of M archeologists do not agree with you. Niether do a lot of others.

 

[freako104]

we would still arrive at the conclusion that this T Rex is less than 35,000 years old

I thought ti was proven that most dinosaur if not all fossils were billions of years not thousands

 

[Thulsa Doom]

what about the hundreds of thousands of fossils that DO check out as MUCH older then a few thousand years. How would young earth creationists explain all of them exactly? If you are using one (dubious) example to show that dinosaurs arent really that old well can you possibly explain EACH instance of ancient fossil found and verified?

 

[RDX]

And just how do they determine that they are more that these fossils are millions of years old? C-14 decay measurements? potassium-argon decay measurements?

The U of M archeologists do not agree with you. Niether do a lot of others.

Any what part do they not agree with?

 

[BeardofPants]

And just how do they determine that they are more that these fossils are millions of years old? C-14 decay measurements? potassium-argon decay measurements?



Any what part do they not agree with?

Dammit all sonny jim, carbon dating doesn't extend past the ballpark of 60,000 years BP! Don't make me dig up my notes on dating, cos I will you know.


edit: too bad. I decided to throw information at an empty hole just to waste time.

 

[BeardofPants]

Principles of Radiometric Dating

Naturally-occurring radioactive materials break down into other materials at known rates. This is known as radioactive decay.

Radioactive parent elements decay to stable daughter elements.

Radioactivity was discovered in 1896 by Henri Becquerel. In 1905, Rutherford and Boltwood used the principle of radioactive decay to measure the age of rocks and minerals (using Uranium decaying to produce Helium. In 1907, Boltwood dated a sample of urnanite based on uranium/lead ratios. Amazingly, this was all done before isotopes were known, and before the decay rates were known accurately.

The invention of the MASS SPECTROMETER after World War I (post-1918) led to the discovery of more than 200 isotopes.

Many radioactive elemtns can be used as geologic clocks. Each radioactive element decays at its own nearly constant rate. Once this rate is known, geologists can estimate the length of time over which decay has been occurring by measuring the amount of radioactive parent element and the amount of stable daughter elements.

Examples:

• Radioactive parent isotopes and their stable daughter products:
  
  
  Radioactive Parent Stable Daughter
  
• Potassium 40 Argon 40
  
• Rubidium 87 Strontium 87
  
• Thorium 232 Lead 208
  
• Uranium 235 Lead 207
  
• Uranium 238 Lead 206
  
• Carbon 14 Nitrogen 14

In the above table, note that the number is the mass number (the total number of protons plus neutrons).
Note that the mass number may vary for an element, because of a differing number of neutrons.
Elements with various numbers of neutrons are called isotopes of that element.

Each radioactive isotope has its own unique half-life.
A half-life is the time it takes for half of the parent radioactive element to decay to a daughter product.

Examples:

• Half Lives for Radioactive Elements
  
  Radioactive Parent-Stable Daughter: Half life
  
• Potassium 40-Argon 40: 1.25 billion yrs
  
• Rubidium 87-Strontium 87: 48.8 billion yrs
  
• Thorium 232-Lead 208: 14 billion years
  
• Uranium 235-Lead 207: 704 million years
  
• Uranium 238-Lead 206: 4.47 billion years
  
• Carbon 14-Nitrogen 14: 5730 years

Radioactive decay occurrs at a constant exponential or geometric rate.
The rate of decay is proportional to the number of parent atoms present.

The proportion of parent to daughter tells us the number of half-lives, which we can use to find the age in years.
For example, if there are equal amounts of parent and daughter, then one half-life has passed.
If there is three times as much daughter as parent, then two half-lives have passed. (see graph, above)

Radioactive decay occurs by releasing particles and energy.

Uranium decays producing subatomic particles, energy, and lead.

As uranium-238 decays to lead, there are 13 intermediate radioactive daughter products formed (including radon, polonium, and other isotopes of uranium), and 8 alpha particles and 6 beta particles released. There are three types of subatomic particles involved:

1. Alpha particles
   large, easily stopped by paper
   charge = +2
   mass = 4
2. Beta particles
   penetrate hundreds of times farther than alpha particles, but easily stopped compared with neutrons and gamma rays.
   charge = -1
   mass = negligible
   
3. neutrons
   highly penetrating
   no charge
   mass = 1
   
4. Gamma rays (high energy X-rays) are also produced.
   Highly penetrating electromagnetic radiation. Photons (light).
   No charge or mass.
   Can penetrate concrete. Lead shield can be used.

Minerals you can date:

Most minerals which contain radioactive isotopes are in igneous rocks. The dates they give indicate the time the magma cooled.

• Potassium 40 is found in:
  
• potassium feldspar (orthoclase)
• muscovite
• amphibole
• glauconite (greensand; found in some sedimentary rocks; rare)

• Uranium may be found in:
  
• zircon
• urananite
• monazite
• apatite
• sphene

Note that some elements have both radioactive and non-radioactive isotopes. Examples: carbon, potassium.

As seen in the tables above, there are three isotopes of uranium. Of these, U-238 is by far the most abundant (99.2739%).

Radioactive elements tend to become concentrated in the residual melt that forms during the crystallization of igneous rocks. More common in SIALIC rocks (granite, granite pegmatite) and continental crust.

Radioactive isotopes don't tell much about the age of sedimentary rocks (or fossils). The radioactive minerals in sedimentary rocks are derived from the weathering of igneous rocks. If the sedimentary rock were dated, the age date would be the time of cooling of the magma that formed the igneous rock. The date would not tell anything about when the sedimentary rock formed.

To date a sedimentary rock, it is necessary to isolate a few unusual minerals (if present) which formed on the seafloor as the rock was cemented. Glauconite is a good example. Glauconite contains potassium, so it can be dated using the potassium-argon technique.

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).

Fission Track Dating:

Charged particles from radioactive decay pass through mineral's crystal lattice and leave trails of damage called FISSION TRACKS. These trails are due to the spontaneous fission of uranium.

• Procedure to study:
• Enlarge tracks by etching in acid (so that they may be visible with light microscope)
• See readily with electron microscope
• Count the etched tracks (or note track density in an area)

• Useful in dating:
• Micas (up to 50,000 tracks per cm squared)
• Tektites
• Natural and synthetic (manmade) glass

Reheating "anneals" or heals the tracks.

The number of tracks per unit area is a function of age and uranium concentration.

 

[BeardofPants]

Superposition -- It's a Law : One of the most fundamental principles of archaeology is the Law of Superposition. The law states that strata that are younger will be deposited on top of strata that are older, given normal conditions of deposition. This law is the guiding principle of stratigraphy, or the study of geological or soil layers. Stratigraphy is still the single best method that archaeologists have for determining the relative ages of archaeological materials.

Geologic Time: Relative Time Scale : James Hutton and William Smith advanced the concept of geologic time and strengthened the belief in an ancient world. Hutton, a Scottish geologist, first proposed formally the fundamental principle used to classify rocks according to their relative ages. He concluded, after studying rocks at many outcrops, that each layer represented a specific interval of geologic time. Further, he proposed that wherever uncontorted layers were exposed, the bottom layer was deposited first and was, therefore, the oldest layer exposed; each succeeding layer, up to the topmost one, was progressively younger. The Major Divisions of Geologic Time are shown here, arranged in chronological order with the oldest division at the bottom, the youngest at the top.

Stratigraphy:

• Stratigraphy and Cross-Dating/Biostratigraphy : Stratigraphy is the study of strata, or layers. Specifically, stratigraphy refers to the application of the Law of Superposition to soil and geological strata containing archaeological materials in order to determine the relative ages of layers. Cross-dating is a technique used to take advantage of consistencies in stratigraphy between parts of a site or different sites, and objects or strata with a known relative chronology. A specialized form of cross-dating, using animal and plant fossils, is known as biostratigraphy.
  
  Correlation by Fossils : Correlation means matching the order of geologic events in one place with the order of geologic events in another place. By far, the most widespread method of correlation uses fossils
  
  Geologic Time: Index Fossils : Keyed to the relative time scale are examples of index fossils, the forms of life which existed during limited periods of geologic time and thus are used as guides to the age of the rocks in which they are preserved.

Dendrochronology:

• The Principles of Dendrochronology (link)
  
  Dendrochronology -- Tree Rings : Tree-Ring dating is based on the principle that the growth rings on certain species of trees reflect variations in seasonal and annual rainfall. Trees from the same species, growing in the same area or environment will be exposed to the same conditions, and hence their growth rings will match at the point where their lifecycles overlap.
  
  Bristlecone Pine Dendrochronology : Earth's oldest living inhabitant "Methuselah" at 4,767 years, has lived more than a millennium longer than any other tree.

Ice Cores

• Are We Right About Icecap Dating?(link) : Scientists think that they have counted ice layers accurately. And, they think that one layer almost always means one year. The GISP2 workers believe that they were very careful, and that they are off by less than 5% at 50,000 years before present. But are they right?

Varves(link)

• eMuseum -- Varve Analysis : Varves form two or more distinctive layers at different seasons of the year. Gives a nice description about overcoming problems in the use of this method.
  
  Counting Sediment Layers in Rock : The basic reason for varves is that rivers run faster in the spring. A flooding river carries coarse material. During the rest of the year, the river is slower, and carries finer material. The result is that lake bottom deposits tend to alternate, coarse/fine/coarse/fine.

Pollens(link)

• eMuseum -- Pollen Analysis : The pollen analysis, study of vegetation history using the microfossils (pollen grain and spores of size 15-50 um), can give us useful information about the target area's condition in the present and past. Since the outside of the pollen grain wall is made of highly resistant material, the pollen spores from 400 million years ago can be found today. Each pollen grain and spore is different in structure and shape, thus, the morphology is the key to understanding the kinds of vegetation that existed and their evolutionary development. Nice graphic of pollen history at this site.
  
  Stratigraphic Palynology : Palynology is the branch of science dealing with microscopic, decay-resistant remains of certain plants and animals. It has many applications including archaeological palynology, Quaternary palynology , and stratigraphic palynology.

Corals

• Coral Slide Set from NOAA : Corals exhibit seasonal growth bands very much like those in trees. Sometimes these bands are visible to the naked eye; usually, however, they are more visible in an x-ray like the one shown at right. When paleoclimatologists drill a coral core, they can count the growth bands and date samples exactly. Long cores can cover several hundred years; this portion of a core from Urvina Bay in the Galápagos Islands covers the period from 1716 to 1735 A. D.
  
  
  
  
  
  Tidal Slowdown, Coral Growth, and the Age of the Earth : In certain modern corals we find growth-bands that indicate yearly, monthly, and even daily growth. There are about thirty daily bands per month and about 365 daily bands per year for modern corals and shellfish. But careful analysis of the growth-bands of fossil corals and shellfish from the Devonian and Pennsylvanian has confirmed that years in these periods contained more days than years do now (about 400).

 

[chcr]

 

[RDX]

Yes, that's quite lovely. I am familier with dating methods (geology minor), but I was wondering what type you were considering.

If you ask to take a C-14 test on most fossils, you will just get laughed at as you said. It should be worthless after 50,000-70,000 years because none would be detected. If you calculate it out, a sample should have about 1 atom of c-14 for every gram of carbon in the sample, and after 1 million years there should be NO c-14 left. Do you know what happens when you measure samples containing carbon that are supposedly millions of years old? That's right, you get c-14 readings! I have acutually done it here at the university. Most people that I've talked to put off these findings as 1) a contamination of the sample 2) C-14 created there by nuclear synthesis. I consider the contamination theory to be bogus, because the readings are very consistant. Using multiple samples prepared separately from another on a carefully calibrated machine produces the same results.

On the nuclear synthesis,

"One can hypothesize that neutrons were once much more plentiful than they are now, and that is why there is so much carbon-14 in our experimental samples. But the number of neutrons required must be over a million times more than those found today, for at least 6,000 years; and every 5,730 years that we put the neutron shower back doubles the number of neutrons required. Every time we halve the duration of the neutron shower we roughly double its required intensity. Eventually the problem becomes insurmountable. In addition, since nitrogen-14 captures neutrons 110,000 times more easily than does carbon-13, a sample with 0.000 0091% nitrogen should have twice the carbon-14 content of a sample without any nitrogen. If neutron capture is a significant source of carbon-14 in a given sample, radiocarbon dates should vary wildly with the nitrogen content of the sample. I know of no such data. Perhaps this effect should be looked for by anyone seriously proposing that significant quantities of carbon-14 were produced by nuclear synthesis in situ."

That's a better explanation than I can give, so I will use his.

On the other long term isotopic readings, A recent test was conducted at Mt St. Helens on the rock formed after the blast. K-Ar readings showed that the rock was between 340,000 - 2.8 million years old. Tests from other recent formations have been done and have been getting even older results. Radioactive decay is not an accurate method of dating fossils imo because it assumes a 0% reading for Ar-40 in the rock when it was first formed. Other forms of Radioactive decay measurements assume a same initial state.

As far as using Stratigraphy to determine the age of fossils, it can work in positioning things relative to each other, but finding absolute age based on Stratigraphy is well...all but impossible. How do they determine the age of the layers? Well simple, by the fossils they contain! But how do they determine the age of the fossils? Simple, from which layer they're in...

 

[Professur]

Baaaaaaaaaaaaa



*walks out, shaking head slowly*

 

[BeardofPants]

Yes, that's quite lovely. I am familier with dating methods (geology minor), but I was wondering what type you were considering.

If you ask to take a C-14 test on most fossils, you will just get laughed at as you said. It should be worthless after 50,000-70,000 years because none would be detected.

How nice that you've done it. Who paid for it, may I ask? And if you are aware that carbon dating is only useful for a certain timeframe, then why ask if you can use it for dinosaurs? And er.... just because you can't date carbon reliably back beyond 60,000 years doesn't mean that it suddenly winks out of existence after that. It just means that it can't be reliably dated.

As far as using Stratigraphy to determine the age of fossils, it can work in positioning things relative to each other, but finding absolute age based on Stratigraphy is well...all but impossible.

And I agree. That is because Stratigraphy is a relative dating method.

If nothing else, the plethora of dating methods available should tell you one thing: that there are many ways to verify the approximate age of something. You can use dendrochronology, you can use cores, you can use radiometric dating methods, you can use stratigraphy, you can use varves, and so on. If they all point at a certain time frame, chances are you've got a pretty valid result.

 

[RDX]

Exactly, carbon 14 dating is not supposed to work for dinosaurs, but many times it does.

Well, yes the c-14 does wink out of existance. After 1million years there should be NO C-14 left in the sample. There will still be c-12 and c-13, but the c-14 should have completely decayed. You're not supposed to be able to reliably date it, because there is no c-14 left to measure. The whole system of using c-14 dating is to compare the number of c-14 atoms to the rest of the carbon in the sample. Past 60,000 years or so there just shouldn't be enough c-14 to get a decent reading to measure the rest of the carbon against, but there is.

 

[BeardofPants]

Um, re-read what I said. I said it doesn't suddenly wink out of existence.

As for dinosaurs: well I'm going to have to ask you to qualify that statement. Come on, show us some examples, links, whatever. Since carbon dating is utilised for organic compounds, and fossilised remains from millions of years ago are ROCK, I'm afraid I don't see how carbon dating can be used.

 

[chcr]

Well, he did have that thing about the University of Montana report. If you research it, it wasn't a report, it was a press release. They didn't find anything like hemoglobin, they found the remnants of heme the oxidized iron in hemoglobin, and all of the U of M scientists call this find a fossil. The only people I could find who called it anything else were the creationists. Typically they make up the facts when the actual facts don't fit what they're trying to shovel.

Don't waste your breath BoP.