Deep Water Effects on Radioactivity
August 28th, 2008 by Dan KlarmannWe’ve had a long comment aside in the Iridium Layer post about whether a Young Earth might be proven if one assumes that all isotopes “age” faster under water at some depth.
Let’s consider some of the repercussions if this were Truth instead of fantasy:
- Nuclear waste would not be a problem. If isotopes with surface half-lives of a billion years (U-238 has a 4.5 billion years half-life) decayed in a couple of hundred days to levels that we read now, the short-lived dangerous isotopes left over after fission would decay to nothing in a day or two at depth.
- Cheap energy: Long-life isotopes that are barely radioactive (like Lead-205 at 15 million years) could be immersed in water to increase their decay rate to give off their energy (as does Cobalt-57, 272 days) and used to run turbines.
- All isotopic dating methods would have to consider the depth and duration of immersion in water, even if we are looking at thousands instead of millions or billions of years.
But, to step back to reality: Why would the relatively level Atlantic ocean floor have isotope dates that consistently range from Now at the mid-Atlantic Ridge through 180 million years old approaching the continental shelf at Florida and Africa if water depth affects aging?
Also, why would rocks found in some mountain tops date as significantly younger than some at sea level, but still much older than Noah?
August 29th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Here’s something slightly related and highly fascinating: http://arxivblog.com/?p=596 (Do nuclear decay rates depend on our distance from the sun?)
I suppose certain creationists will take this as support for their view that decay rates could be variable and therefore compatible with a young Earth (despite the variation reported here suggesting no such thing), while simultaneously ignoring that this announcement is contrary to their view that scientists are far too dogmatically entrenched in their worldview to even consider variable decay rates.
August 29th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
That as much as 0.1% nuclear decay rate variation is across an annual cycle. Averaged over a year, decay rates are still steady. Also, they only monitored two isotopes with fairly short half-lives: Si-32=~ 100yrs, and Ra-226=~1,600yrs. Will the fluctuation be quantitatively different in isotopes with different orders of half-lives, like Uranium-238 at 4,467,000,000 years?
I will watch with great interest as they now explore in detail whether and why the rate changes. Is it based on solar gravitation (General relativity), neutrino flux (”strong” interactions), or some other feature?
Whatever turns out to be the cause of this fluctuation, I’ll bet that depth of water will not affect it.
September 1st, 2008 at 10:06 am
Dan writes:
“Nuclear waste would not be a problem. If isotopes with surface half-lives of a billion years (U-238 has a 4.5 billion years half-life) decayed in a couple of hundred days to levels that we read now, the short-lived dangerous isotopes left over after fission would decay to nothing in a day or two at depth.”
Karl responds:
I don’t think we have yet to pull any of the nuclear waste back up to see if it has stayed on its supposed half-live schedule ot not.
Neutrons are only effective as moderators of nuclear reations to a couple of meter depths. Neutrinos and cosmic rays are possibly factors up to hundreds of meters. Neutrinos can come from any direction, mostly from the sun, but some from the core of the planet.
Dan also writes:
“Cheap energy: Long-life isotopes that are barely radioactive (like Lead-205 at 15 million years) could be immersed in water to increase their decay rate to give off their energy (as does Cobalt-57, 272 days) and used to run turbines. ”
Thats exactly what they thought at Chernoble but the reactions came back to bite them big time. Putting stuff that they have not isolated and studied carefully into a water tank with a known source of neutrons makes virtually anything in the enviroment radioactive and resets the very nature of the radioactivity we label spontaneous.
September 1st, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Karl could really use an introductory course on nuclear chemistry or even quantum physics. He has no idea what research has been done, nor what the results mean.
Chernobyl has nothing to do with immersing isotopes in deep water. It was a Fermi-style reactor, of the sort that was determined by the late 1940’s to be too dangerous and unstable to use commercially in the U.S.
Cosmic rays have no effect at depth; primaries are stopped in a few miles of upper air, or a few inches of something more solid. Their tertiary products can be detected on the surface, and are part of the background radiation.
Neutrinos can indeed come from anywhere. This is because a 42,000,000 foot thick chunk of iron alloy (the Earth) has about a 50% chance of stopping one. The chance of any particular nucleus being affected by a neutrino is proportionally smaller. That 50% difference is how we know what direction neutrinos are coming from.
Every measurement of decay rates has taken all these external inputs into account. Look it up.
September 1st, 2008 at 4:16 pm
I don’t need a class in fundaments physics. I need to better explain where I see the issue.
It doesn’t matter if water or graphitre is used as the moderator, when the neutrons slow they more readily interact with other atoms making them potentially more unstable.
Fermi was the first to notice the effect that neutrons have on changing stable nuclides into unstable ones.
It may take a huge number of neutrinos to amount to the same effect as adding a single neutron. The effect would of course seem spontaneous because everyone recognizes that a single isolated neutrino poses virtually no danger to a stable nucleus. Even just the energy imparted from a faster neutrino might have the ability to cause radioactivity all around us just like it is detected in the huge water filled neutrinio tanks deep underground.
However over time and with the “flip of a coin,” it could appear that any individual atom was finally pushed over the edge and its time to deacy was finally arrived at.
Dan says: “Every measurement of decay rates has taken all these external inputs into account. Look it up.”
Every study I ever look up drives itself to eliminate curved lines until it gets a straight one, that sure looks like a bias to me.
First the background radiation is claimed to be removed from the data.
Then “known environmental influences” are figured into the calculations and viola the data is then reliable.
There is that scientific universal bias word “all of the influences are taken account.” Again you can accept the null hypothesis as correct and keep yourself from looking. I don’t feel so inclined to trust the judgement of others in this regard.
September 1st, 2008 at 8:14 pm
The top 1 to 7 meters of many calibrations of water radioactivity measuring devices consistently show a non-linear rise and then a non-linear drop off in radioactivity. What do we suppose that to mean?
Haven’t seen an explanation that suites me other than neutrons probably are slowing and getting absorbed by the water with a maximun absorption happening between 4 to 5 meters.
Karl Kunker
September 1st, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Karl: Read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes to get a primer for laymen on who discovered isotope production, what neutrons do in the process, how they determine half-lives, and other such basic principles. At least read the wiki on neutrons.
Neutrinos are not small neutrons; they aren’t even the same class of particles. Their etymological similarity comes from their shared characteristic of not having an electric charge, and one being enormously smaller than the other. Free neutrons have a half-life of about 15 minutes unless they are absorbed, so they are not common outside of fission reactions or related high-energy decay trains. That’s why they need a special neutron source (”walnut”) in the core of a plutonium pit to ensure detonation; there just aren’t enough free neutrons in a mass of plutonium to trigger the reaction!
The depth of water or paraffin, or the temperature of graphite do not affect the role of any of these substances as neutron moderators in any significant way. Show me any data that says otherwise.
I have no idea to what you are referring. Please specify an example of the “many”, what sort of “calibration” and what you mean by “water radioactivity”.
There is a bias in mathematical modeling to fit a smooth curve to jittery data. If the model predicts a straight line on certain scales and range, then data that doesn’t fit is examined to figure out why it doesn’t fit the model. If more data consistently doesn’t fit in the same direction, then the model is changed. A few odd points near the ends generally are ignored, within the limits of the characteristics of the experiment and the acknowledged error bars involved.
Please tell me what is this magical null hypothesis that you keep invoking? A theory is considered true until some evidence is produced to refute it. Are you simply using “null hypothesis” as a casual synonym for “theory”?
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:23 am
The null hypothesis is the easy way to prevent connecting the dots of inter relatedness.
One’s bias is revealed in pure science by what questions you consider of significance. Data can have relatedness written all over it, but for those who will not ask the proper questions, the hull hypothesis can actually block proper interpretation of the data.
For example,
If I believed in an earth that was 4.6 billion years old and;
If radioactive half lives as they are calculated and implemented in dating the igneous rocks found in the geo-historical record agree with my interpretation of an old earth, and;
If constant half-lives make for a nice concise way to allow me to confirm what I suspected all along concerning the age of the earth, and
If a mathematical model of dubious nature that includes a spontaneous unknown cause that can be mathematically quantified, and;
If a presumption of constancy of half-lives is required to keep the system intact;
I will have no reason to want to ask the questions about radioactivity that do not fit into these nested loops of my thought process.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:53 am
Karl: It’s important to keep an open mind regarding bits of evidence as well as overall theories.
Thoughtful people don’t enter the discussion with preconceived notions as to whether the earth is billions of years old. We examine things and follow where the evidence leads us.
Just like if you came home and saw that the door had been broken in, and your belongings were missing. You’d follow where the evidence leads and you wouldn’t be persuaded by your neighbor who held a Holy Book high and declared that, based on a scriptural passage, your house has never been burglarized.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:20 pm
It seems that Karl is too young to remember the battle as the age of the Earth raised to its present level. I watched with fascination as new evidence forced the age ever upward from the mere hundreds of millions of the early 1960’s up to halfway across the single-digit billions. If one reads some history of discovery, you can see what happens as the null-hypothesis of the Ussher time line was relentlessly and progressively driven to the age settled on in the 1970’s by many diverse and converging sources of evidence. The age of the planet was accepted as many millions by Darwin’s time, long before isotope dating.
Decay rates are not measured by how old we want the world to be. They are measured by Geiger and Cherenkov counters, and confirmed by chemical assay of the by-products. They are further confirmed by the reliable behavior of all the products that use such isotopes, like tritium watch dials, smoke detectors, nuclear medicine (thousands of different applications), atomic batteries, and so on.
The atomic batteries (based on decay, not fission) on the Voyager probes (and others) have delivered the amount of power expected (again, a measurement of the decay rate) from down here by the sun out to beyond the orbit of Pluto. If the distance from the sun does cause a measurable difference in decay rates based on the tiny difference in the Earth’s orbital position, the effects weren’t enough to be noticed in that application.
Before you say it, I agree: They were not looking for it. This just proves that (if such an effect does turn out to be real) it is not significant enough to affect the decay rate of a carefully monitored isotope battery at orders of magnitude change in distance from the sun over decades of observation.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Atomic radiation is very reliable for measuring time. Hence, the United States Naval Observatory Master Clock:
http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/clocks.html
“Since 1967, the International System of Units has defined the second as the duration of 9,192,631,770 cycles of radiation corresponding to the transition between two energy levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom. This definition makes the caesium oscillator (often called an atomic clock) the primary standard for time and frequency measurements.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_clock
“Ancient rocks exceeding 3.5 billion years in age are found on all of Earth’s continents. The oldest rocks on Earth found so far are the Acasta Gneisses in northwestern Canada near Great Slave Lake (4.03 Ga) and the Isua Supracrustal rocks in West Greenland (3.7 to 3.8 Ga), but well-studied rocks nearly as old are also found in the Minnesota River Valley and northern Michigan (3.5-3.7 billion years), in Swaziland (3.4-3.5 billion years), and in Western Australia (3.4-3.6 billion years).
*These ancient rocks have been dated by a number of radiometric dating methods and the consistency of the results give scientists confidence that the ages are correct to within a few percent.*
An interesting feature of these ancient rocks is that they are not from any sort of “primordial crust” but are lava flows and sediments deposited in shallow water, an indication that Earth history began well before these rocks were deposited. In Western Australia, single zircon crystals found in younger sedimentary rocks have radiometric ages of as much as 4.3 billion years, making these tiny crystals the oldest materials to be found on Earth so far. ”
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Karl, what is this obsession you have with neutron radiation and neutron moderators? Radioactive carbon-14 decays by BETA radiation; i.e., it emits ELECTRONS. Accordingly, its half-life has nothing to do with neutron radiation or neutron moderators…which means your arguments are irrelevant and nonsensical. Get with the program.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Neutrons do turn stable nuclei into unstable ones.
Tell me that they don’t and I’ll leave the discussion.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:41 am
Karl: Neutrons can turn stable elements into an unstable isotope, usually of the next element up. Hit carbon with a neutron and you get either heavier carbon or nitrogen plus a beta particle.
Even if free neutrons were common, they would not affect the ratios between isotopes measured for dating. Carbon-14 would become Nitrogen-15 at exactly the same rate (in proportion to original proportion) as Carbon-12 would become Carbon-13 or Nitrogen-13. The C-14/C-12 ratio remains essentially unchanged except through the natural, non-neutron-involved decay of the C-14 to N-14. Same goes for Potassium-Argon dating, and so on.
N-13 would immediately (within minutes) emit a positron to become stable C-13, and N-15 is stable. Nether would come back to affect the C-12/C-14 ratio if neutrons were involved.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Karl writes, “Neutrons do turn stable nuclei into unstable ones.”
Again, Karl, your obsession with neutrons is irrelevant to the present discussion. Whether neutrons can turn stable nuclei into unstable ones is as irrelevant as whether protons or other particles can turn stable nuclei into unstable ones. We’re dealing with beta decay of *unstable* carbon-14, not whether stable nuclei can be made unstable.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Okay!
Dan has just agreed that an absorbed neutron can cause a change to a nucleus.
Could it be possible now that a “non-absorbed” neutron or even a neutrino could cause a change to a nucleus?
The differing points of view come over when the nuclide is considered to become unstable. “Natural” radioactivity either has a cause or it is purely spontaneous.
You can never prove that anything is totally spontaneous (even evolution).
But if anything natural can be proven to have inter-related factors that show true causal relationships it is no longer purely spontaneous and should no longer be referred to as spontaneous.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Karl: You so silly! A non-absorbed neutron can change a nucleus as effectively as a non-hit baseball can cause a home-run.
Spontaneity is not the issue. The issue is predictability, measurability, and consistency. It doesn’t matter what causes each isotope to decay at the rate it does. The fact is: They do.
You obviously have no clue what a neutron is or does, nor how it relates to neutrinos. Nor what the relationships are between isotopes, nor the essential difference between the chemical and the nuclear spheres of influence in matter.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:51 am
Ben: Cesium atomic clocks are non-nuclear in nature. They make use of particular electron orbitals, a chemical-level characteristic of quantum physics. Cesium-133 is a stable isotope. All other cesium isotopes have extremely short half-lives, and therefore don’t confuse the issue.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Water stops neutrons. Neutrons are absorbed by the hydrogen in water. If a neutron is too fast, it gets re-emitted as a slower neutron (”moderated”). Once they are slowed, they simply stick to hydrogen, creating stable deuterium and tritium, that decays (hl=12.3yr) into stable Helium-3 that bubbles away.
That’s why it was safe for me to look down at a nuclear reactor in a few dozen feet of water and see the Cherenkov glow caused (in part) by the slowing of said neutrons myself.
September 6th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Dan says:
“Karl: You so silly! A non-absorbed neutron can change a nucleus as effectively as a non-hit baseball can cause a home-run.”
Why couldn’t a non-absorbed neutron or even an absorbed neutrino still possess enough energy/momentum to cause an unaccounted for interaction of somesort with a nucleus.
Spontaneous decay rests its entire formulation upon the belief that nothing is interacting to cause the radioactive decay to happen.
Again another circular assumption, if the interaction can’t be detected it can’t exist in the popular model of natural radiaoctivity.
Throw a hard ball at the batter and you won’t get a homerun, but you will sure get one irrate batter.
September 6th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Karl writes, “Spontaneous decay rests its entire formulation upon the belief that nothing is interacting to cause the radioactive decay to happen.”
Karl, the “belief” that you refer to is based on the *fact* that no “interacting cause” for spontaneous radioactive decay has ever been observed, including (to my knowledge) in environments that would make an “interacting cause” visible; i.e., in bubble chambers. Therefore, not only is it reasonable to conclude that spontaneous radioactive decay has no “interacting cause,” it would be contrary to available facts to suggest that it does. Moreover, there is, to my knowledge, no coherent theory that predicts the existence of such an “interacting cause.” Bottom line: neither theory nor empirical evidence supports what you are suggesting.
September 15th, 2008 at 5:06 am
But it is more elegant to presume non-interactions over unobservable evidence for the model to be invariant.
You have a right to believe what you do as do I.
September 15th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Can anyone explain what Karl means? As near as I can tell, a missing apple (non-interactions) is compared to an oxymoron orange (unobservable evidence) to proclaim the elegance of the unchanging state of some unstated model, as an exception to something (”But” what?).
Very concise, but semantically null. Or did I miss something?
Is he simply obscurely restating the Razor? That it is more correct to assume nothing happened than to assume that something unobservable happened?
September 18th, 2008 at 4:27 am
I’m stating in a normally agreeable way the unwary methodology of scientists who think they can control and isolate influences upon experiments that they either can’t explain or simply choose to ignore.
Statements like these:
The speed of light is constant (under certain conditions) is elegant but an assumption nonetheess.
Light travels in straight lines unless some extra unusual forces (like large masses distorting space) is elegant but an assumption nonetheless.
Radioactive half lives are invariant and are a reliable way to extrapolate time back beyond human observation is elegant but an assumption nonetheless.
Science likes to throw caution to the wind when ever an assumption about nature makes the assumptions inherent in idealistic mathematics agree with its own preconceived biases.
September 18th, 2008 at 7:54 am
Karl: 2 out of 3 of your "assumptions" have been measured in many ways. They are facts. The behaviors of bosons such as photons are very well vetted.
The third, that something always measured to be constant has therefore always been a constant, even before it was first measured, is based on Occam: If something has no reason to change, and there is no evidence that it ever changes, and the model developed to explain its every behavior and is useful to explain other things works well with this extrapolation, then that is the working model.
If you can come up with any (ANY) explanation that would indicate how the decay rates of unstable nuclei could have been significantly different in the past, plus any evidence to support it, the Nobel prize is waiting. You can put together a team to do this for much less than the cost of mega-church frills. Think of the good you would do for the Young Earth cause! Go for it! Prove that the physicists, chemists, cosmologists, geologists, astronomers, and biologists are all wrong. If the evidence can be found, may God bless and support your journey.
But please desist with the uninformed conjectures. Learn the history of modern math from the philosophy of Pythagoras forward. Learn some basic chemistry and physics. Take at least a year of each subject after you’ve learned the necessary differential equations. When you know how Fourier’s famous formula influenced Schrödinger, and what Darwin’s contemporary J.C. Maxwell contributed to our later understanding of quantum physics, let us know.
September 20th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Thank-you all wise and benevolent Dan.
Try reading some of the research indicating evidence for accelerated nuclear decay and you might need to reconsider your high horse, differential equations and all.
Any scientist who tries to wipe out the competetion using advanced mathematical constructs is only fooling themselves. Figures don’t lie but liars sure can figure. Someone should have told that that one to Freddy Mac and Freddy Mae.
You can rest assured that mathematics is the biggest smoke screen for dishonesty that ever existed.
There are other ways at looking a data that attempts to extraplolate beyond recorded or measurable history. Calculations are not measured in case you didn’t know that.
September 20th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Karl: The speed of light is measured in hundreds of different ways. The vector and path of photon travel is measured in dozens of different ways. What part of measured don’t you get?
Measured.
Between General Relativity (a well tested theory proven by measurement of photon path deflections, among other things) and Quantum Electro-Dynamics (”just a theory”), the definition of a straight line had to be adjusted, because of the way a “photon” “travels”. Photons are now used to define both distance and time to parts per trillion accuracy. They are well studied.
A straight line is a theoretical construct (read your Pythagoras and Euclid). The comparison of the path of a photon to this theoretical straight line is measurable.
The physical group velocity of electromagnetic radiation (the “speed of light”) has been compared to theoretical abstractions such as miles and hours many times in many environments. Measured.
Mathematical constructs such as counting numbers are the tools we use to understand the world. Because most people never learn any math beyond what was known in the time of Moses (like multiplying fractions and calculating interest), they are easily confused by 17th century or newer “razzle dazzle”.
But scientists are not the ones snowed by these things. There is no “smoke screen” of math to those who know the math. Statistics only lie to those who don’t have and use the math to understand them.
Again, please cite (provide a reference, a link) to any experiment showing accelerated nuclear decay rates in some given condition. As a dedicated reader of Scientific American and Physics Today and other similar magazines for 35 years, I have never heard of any such experiment producing other than baseline results.
As I said, the Nobel people are waiting.
I am not claiming to be an authority. Authority is anathema to the scientific process, anyway. But as a dedicated dilettante of nature, I know more than most people about areas of physics such as nuclear decay.
September 21st, 2008 at 11:43 am
Dan, Karl has proved repeatedly that he is a mental toddler. Because he believes he has direct access, via the Bible, to the omniscient mind of God, he has yet to learn how to live within the limits of his own mind. He refuses to subject his thinking to any sort of discipline. I don’t think you’re going to be able to teach him the necessity of doing so.
Just sayin’.
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:19 am
Just a hypothetical what if.
If the environment were subjected to the radiation from an immense widespread release, (like a huge nuclear explosion) would the materials exposed to this radiation have traceable linkage back to the original source which was external to the materials now under investigation?
Placing materials into a known source of nuclear radiation totally upsets the expected “natural extrapolation ability” of the rocks does it not?
What do you think?
September 22nd, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Silly Karl: The short answer is, no. Geologists (nuclear chemists) can detect where nuclear explosions have occurred by the traces of oddball chemical distributions, the decay products from the reaction. The Oklo reactor was discovered because of an uncharacteristic distribution of isotopes. Any such event leaves a distinct signature.
As I had explained before, an unexpected flood of neutrons changes the distribution of isotopes in a manner that all dating techniques are calibrated to cancel out. That is, it doesn’t matter if your uninformed ideas about neutrons are correct, they still would not affect the results of accepted dating methods.
As for large nuclear explosions: Any explosion large enough to affect the isotopic frequency distribution of deep strata would destroy those strata. Read the book suggested in this post to get an astronomers view of what is a big nuclear event.
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Dan: How well do you think that Karl and Erik B would get along? I know that they are different people, but I’m thinking of nominating both of them for the DI Persistence Award for 2008. http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/09/16/in-exactly-what-ways-should-we-keep-our-children-ignorant-about-sex/#comment-24772
September 23rd, 2008 at 6:27 pm
What would happen to the evidence of intense nuclear reactions if there were a water environment available to remove much of the evidence of the nuclear changes that were water soluble?
The concentrated remnants left behind in the rocks would chiefly be the insoluble radioactive chemical components, while the soluble remnants would have found themselves diluted down or even leeched into everything including dinosaur bones and they would be found widespread throughout sedimentary layer after layer. The most soluble of these would have the widest but most diluted concentrations.
September 24th, 2008 at 5:09 am
Dan stated
Again, please cite (provide a reference, a link) to any experiment showing accelerated nuclear decay rates in some given condition. As a dedicated reader of Scientific American and Physics Today and other similar magazines for 35 years, I have never heard of any such experiment producing other than baseline results.
This whole process depends upon the directly unobservable, but nonetheless shows results and evidence which is historically consistent with the ideas, just like the evolution of species according to Darwin.
No experiment has ever produced a new species of life, only modifications in existing species. The jump from a less complex to a more complex life form has not been observed in nature - but it has been assumed to be reasonable.
The process I refer to happens constantly but is never considered historically because it would upset the apple cart.
Nuclear decay would not be nuclear decay if the environment caused changes to the spontaneity of the atoms now would it. If a second reactant was even considerd the whole house of cards would collapse.
September 24th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Karl: I am strictly referring to the evidence found within the rocks used for dating. One of the evidences for our 5 bn year old neighborhood is the isotope distribution that we find everywhere, including on the moon. Does your flood theory also inundate the moon?
Anyway, a flood of neutrons would partially reset the isotope clock, making things appear younger. Study a table of the isotopes and see for yourself how neutrons do this.
A flood would redistribute all isotopes of each element equally. It would not change the measured ratios of the isotopes.
All the long term isotope dating methods use comparisons of elements held in a single crystal. Putting a chunk of quartz or fluorite in water of any depth will not change its internal arrangement. As isotopes decay, they are trapped in the matrix where that element cannot have naturally assembled. K-Ar dating is one of these methods, and accurate for the range from 10 million to about 4,000 million years.
Please, read some college physics and chemistry texts before trying to argue these things. Or maybe a 1950’s pamphlet about radiation.
September 24th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Karl: Obviously you don’t go to any of the links we provide in this blog. Yes, new species have been produced in laboratories. Yes new species have been observed to spontaneously occur in nature. Yes, new traits do spontaneously appear in DNA. Yes, complexity necessarily increases in sustainable self-replicating systems of any sort.
Nuclear decay is still nuclear decay whatever new factor might be discovered about it.
So far, you are only throwing uneducated guesses about things that might affect decay rates, if only apples really were unicorns in the past. We can’t prove they weren’t. But it is the way to bet.
One more time: Please provide any citation to any data or any consistent model (given what is actually observed) to support your wild guesses, and start on the path to that Nobel prize.
September 24th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Dan stated: “All the long term isotope dating methods use comparisons of elements held in a single crystal. Putting a chunk of quartz or fluorite in water of any depth will not change its internal arrangement. As isotopes decay, they are trapped in the matrix where that element cannot have naturally assembled. K-Ar dating is one of these methods, and accurate for the range from 10 million to about 4,000 million years.”
Why couldn’t an infusion of neutrons penetrate into a crystal and change its inner ratio of radionuclides?
Why can’t carbon-14 be forming inside of diamonds even while we are discussing these issues? Your “chart of radionuclides” shows that carbon-12 through carbon-whatever are all different by their number of neutrons.
Why must we assume that the inner structure of anything is never again influenced by the penetrating affects of all manner of ionizing radiation or high energy particles or even neutrons or neutrinos.
We are so blasted stuck on assuming an ability to fathom past conditions based upon present isotopic ratios that we will stay blinded to what is happening all around us, even this very moment.
September 25th, 2008 at 5:01 am
Dan asked for any research that indicates accelerated nuclear decay in the past. While some research being done does not indictate the cause of potential accelerated nuclear decay in the past, it does show the problems with tring to use both coal and diamonds in determining the “formation age” of materials.
C-14 studeies are not reliable for things from diamonds to dinosaur bones because we assume Carbon-14 can not form inside of an existing material. Its presence can become apparent even after a crystal like a diamond has already been formed.
Straight line extrapolations of nuclear radio-isotope ratios will soon become an act of the will, not an evidence from nature.
Check out this link as well as other C-14 studies being done with diamonds and coal.
http://www.twoorthree.net/2007/11/c14-in-diamonds.html
September 25th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Karl: C-14 is useless for testing ages outside of the 200-50,000 year range. Decay rates are not straight-line calculations, something taught in junior high, and proved in college quantum physics or second year chemistry.
C-14 in diamonds or dinosaur bones can only be (has always been found to be) there in trace amounts. If a diamond or dinosaur carbon dates as young as 50,000 years, then it is surely within the specified measurement error. The difference in carbon 14/12 ratio between 50,000 and 5,000,000,000 years is negligible.
Using C-14 to look for dates of rocks is like using a yardstick to measure the distance to the moon. It is the wrong tool, and can only give nonsense answers. Sure, you can see the moon from the end of the yardstick. That doesn’t mean that the moon is just beyond that end.
You keep asking questions of the order of “if light gets into the camera from the back, why aren’t all the faces in the pictures that I took turned away from it”? Because it doesn’t have that kind of effect. Learn the laws of physics and you will get a clue.
Please learn something from the table of isotopes besides the atomic weights. That part is merely taxonomy. What matters is which isotope decays into what isotope how fast with what transition. When you can knowledgeably read a Feynman diagram, try me again.
Also, as I’ve said before, if you dump neutrons into carbon, more carbon-12 becomes carbon-13 than does carbon-13 become carbon-14 or carbon-14 becoming Carbon-15. The ratio between 12 and 14 would change to make it appear YOUNGER. Not older. Net less C12 is older. Adding mystical neutrons would mean that we are presently underestimating the age, not overestimating. (As you can plainly see in any table of isotopes, we can safely ignore Carbon-11 becoming carbon-12. For chemical reasons, we can also ignore Boron-11 being bumped to carbon-12 via Boron-12).
And (please finally understand this) Carbon dating is only useful for the historical time span and slightly before. Other overlapping methods are used for finding older dates. Several overlapping isotope methods are used for dating rocks. Unless the rock is very young, carbon is not one of them!
September 28th, 2008 at 6:41 am
Dan stated:
“Also, as I’ve said before, if you dump neutrons into carbon, more carbon-12 becomes carbon-13 than does carbon-13 become carbon-14. The ratio between 12 and 14 would change to make it appear YOUNGER. Not older. Net less C12 is older. Adding mystical neutrons would mean that we are presently underestimating the age. (As you can plainly see in any table of isotopes, we can safely ignore Carbon-11 becoming carbon-12. For chemical reasons, we can also ignore Boron-11 being bumped to carbon-12 via Boron-12).”
I know full well that the the absorption of a neutron by either carbon 12 or carbon 13 is not likely to eventually transmute into carbon 14.
Our assumption has been for years that Carbon-14 only forms in the upper regions of the atmosphere. Nitrogen in either the element form or in one of many compounds could transmutate anywhere that it happens to absorb a neutron (fast, slow, or moderate)
If there is one substance that is probably found as an impurity to some degree in almost any thing that exists in the lithopshere on the earth it is nitrogen. Even things we assume are very pure like diamonds could contain some nitrogen atoms and we would probably never consider the need to determine how much of it is actually present.
So if nitrogen were present in any sample from diamonds (trace amounts) to dinosaur bones (protein material) it would be reasonable to model that if neutrons were present around any nitrogen in samples that aren’t just in the upper atmosphere, they too could transmutate into carbon-14 in situ.
Carbon-14 in diamonds is not just error of the equipment. A presumed error is written into everything with radioisotopes that doesn’t fit the assumptions of the models.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Karl: If C-13 absorbs a neutron, it immediately becomes C-14, so you are technically correct that it will not “eventually transmute into” it.
Also, the C-14 used for dating biological specimens primarily comes from nitrogen transmuted by beta particles and gamma rays, not neutrons. There are other paths to produce C-14 that don’t involve absorbing neutrons (as you can clearly see looking at a table of isotopes).
The chemical compound in which an element is found matters as little to the nuclei as does the temperature and pressure (until you get to levels found deep in stars). Those are all chemical-level characteristics. Not nuclear.
Trace amounts of anything can be found anywhere. Even the most purified elements produced by man contain traces of other things. The very elaborate and complex process for purifying the silicon that modern technology all depends on has traces of other things in it.
The process of diamond formation doesn’t care what isotope of carbon it uses, so there will be some C-14. Even after millions of years, there still will be some.
Any isotope decays toward a stability fraction, not quite zero.
Nitrogen present in a diamond proves that there was some C-14 in it when it formed. Nothing more.
The principle of error bars is an old and important part of the scientific process. Any precise result means only as much as the applicable error bar might indicate. The C-14 dating error bar at 50,000 years is about -5k/+∞. The remaining traces are too small to give any reliable answer beyond this time range.
I realize that even a Yale gradjit can be caught publicly saying “noocular”, but it doesn’t take much reading to learn something about the subject.
Please stop proving that you’ve never bothered to do this reading.
September 28th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Karl wrote, “Why couldn’t an infusion of neutrons penetrate into a crystal and change its inner ratio of radionuclides? Why can’t carbon-14 be forming inside of diamonds even while we are discussing these issues? Your “chart of radionuclides” shows that carbon-12 through carbon-whatever are all different by their number of neutrons.”
Karl is claiming that radiocarbon dating is invalid because fossilized bones might continue to be bombarded by radioactive particles (i.e., neutrons) that create more C-14 inside the fossil than would have occurred otherwise, thereby messing up the fossil’s “inner ratio of radionuclides.” Let’s assume this happens and see how it would affect the results.
In its simplest form, radiocarbon dating relies on the ratio of unstable C-14 to stable C-12, the theory being that the longer something has been dead (i.e., the *older* it is), the *fewer* atoms of unstable C-14 it will have relative to the number of stable C-12. Likewise, the *more* atoms of unstable C-14 in the sample, the *younger* will be its estimated age. Well, what happens if external radiation creates more atoms of unstable C-14 inside a fossil after the animal has died? Radiocarbon dating says that the *more* atoms of unstable C-14 (relative to C-12) that are found in a sample, the *younger* will be its estimated age. Thus, if Karl’s hypothetical situation actually occurs, and “an infusion of neutrons penetrate into” a sample and changes its “inner ratio of radionuclides,” then the sample will have an excess of C-14 and its estimated age will be *younger* than the sample’s actual age. So, if scientists estimate that a fossil is 100 million years old, but, unknown to the scientists, the sample has been contaminated by neutrons penetrating into the sample and creating excess C-14 atoms, then the contamination has caused the estimated age to be too young and the sample is actually *older* than 100 million years.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Natural radioactivity always operates on the assumption that nothing is capable of producing any new C-14 once the living thing dies, or once the crystalline structure of a diamond for example is formed.
Get your head out of the products side of the process and start looking at the reactants side and you will see that C-14 added to a sample does change the ratio of what was expected to be there. It continues to keep the sample more radioactive than it was assumed to be capable of.
You may reason from the products side of the process that this makes the sample appear younger, but any clear logic will tell you that the extension of a sample’s assumed radioactivity beyond where it was suppose to have stopped, makes it appear possible to date a material to be older than it actually is because the present ratio is higher than it ought to be. Think about it, the logic is not as you think.
If someone told you the sample had unaccounted for extra C-14 you would reason the rock is actually older and that it appears younger than it really is, but you wouldn’t have known that unless someone suspected the presence of the extra C-14.
I would logically tell you that if the ratio of C-12/C-14 never goes to zero then there appears to be a evel of equilibration not only in the C-12/C-14 ratio at time of formation, but also as one approaches the place where the rate of decay of the existing C-14 in a sample and rate of formation of new C-14 in the sample holds nearly steady as well.
Carbon dating does a miserable job at double “blond” studies unless someone tells the technicians where the sample was from and what they might expect to find. Talk about the power of suggestion.
September 29th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Lets see if I understand this correctly.
Nitrogen in the atmosphere can change into C-14, but nitrogen present in a diamond or DNA just doesn’t change into C-14. That’s kind of hard to understand why Nitrogen-14 couldn’t change into Carbon-14 in places besides the upper atmosphere. If all it takes is an energetic electron or some pretty basic electron capture by a common nitrogen-14 nucleus, why couldn’t C-14 be produced from nitrogen present in a sample?
This is one small but possible source for the ongoing production of C-14 in a sample.
Stable C-12 has a far greater abundance than stable C-13 which can form when C-12 absorbs a neutron. Stable C-13 can change into C-14 by the absorption of a neutron as well. So if this path of production of C-14 by neutron absorption were real we should expect less C-14 production than C-13 production, but the processes could both be taking place.
This is also a way in which C-14 could be produced in a previously presumed “closed” system.
C-14 could actually be more stable than we suspect, until it actually interacts with additional energy or collisions with particles in it’s environment. Always good to try to understand previously unexplained random acts of spontaneity from a scientific point of view.
So something does cause the C-14 to eventually decay at a rate faster than the rate of its production in a sample. However if the ratio never gets to the theoretical “mathematical” near zero ratio that the half life model seems to predict after an extended number of half lives, the higher than normal ratios actually observed must mean something more significant than simply staing the same error is fully possible for anything dated beyond 50,000 years to infinity.
People have a right to really question the workings of this model, just as they have a right to question the actually security of loans placed without sufficient equity in something other than ledgers and journals.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:06 am
Karl: Learn some math, take a course in statistics, find out what the scientific method is, learn the laws of nature, and read the contents of the links that we provide.
I tire of trying to explain that, no matter how many times you say that pi might really have been 3.0 in the distant past, a circle was always round.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Karl, try to understand this simple fact and very simple logic: radioactive C-14 decays over time. Therefore, the more time that has elapsed, the more decay that has occurred and the less the relative amount of C-14 the sample will contain. Thefore, the greater the relative amount of C-14 that a sample contains, the less time that has elapsed. Therefore, pumping more C-14 into a sample will create the impression that less time has elapsed. Therefore, pumping more C-14 into a sample will make it appear younger than it actually is.
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:54 am
Like I said, a sample appears younger because of the presence of extra C-14. If this extra C-14 was present at some point historically the matter couldn’t be determined presently. Assuming that all C-14 has always come from environmental factors at the time of formation is flawed.
October 2nd, 2008 at 8:50 am
Karl: C-14 dating is calibrated by several other dating technologies, such as dendrochronology for the first 10,000 years, and by ice core air samples to way beyond the limit of C-14 dating (we have 1,000,000+ years of ice-core info).
I think we’ve been through that discussion before.
Anyway, you had earlier indicated that you were trying to prove that C-14 dating was wrong because things are younger than C-14 indicates. Now you are arguing that C-14 might be wrong because things must be older than C-14 indicates.
Keeping in mind that C-14 is one of dozens of methods used to confirm an age, and each method has its own range and accuracy, which way are you trying to argue?
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:25 pm
My complaint has never been with the fundamentals of how carbon-14 is used to date many samples. Sometimes it gets it right and that is obvious. But the number of times it gets it wrong make the process so subject to various types of error that I don’t trust anyone who says it is beyon being questioned.
The only real bridge the reference you gave me that exists from the 10,000 years of dendrochronology to the multiple 100s of millions of years is the use of fission tracks in igneous crstalline structures.
Creationists have sufficient research that shows that helium retention in zircons is way more problematic that it is conclusive so the back bone of linkages is thoroughly disjointed as far as I see it.
October 2nd, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Karl: If you have read the contents of the two (2) links in my response, you know that the graph shows only a few of the many overlapping methods used for dating, not limited to the radiometric ones. I just grabbed the first chart that I found of showing several (7) overlapping methods to calibrate C-14.
C-14 only seems to give “wrong” results when used by the ICR or similar anti-science organization. Any reputable lab can tell you what mistakes were made to get each specific “wrong” answer.
As for trapped-helium dating, any error would be to the younger side. If a rock reads 3.2 billion years by its locked helium ratio, then it is at least 3,200,000,000 years old. Any uncompensated diffusion of helium from the lattice would cause its age to be underestimated.
Back to the original subject, again: Please cite any consistent model (falsifiable theory) or measured data (facts) that indicate that the depth of water affects a dating method in some way.
October 5th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
If a large amount of concentrated nuclear material were released into a large volume of water the soluble uranium salts would be diluted greatly sending this portion of the nuclear materials far and wide throughout many layers of sediments. The less soluble ones wouldn’t be carried as far away and the most insoluble one would end up in the highest concentrated locations.
This would give the appearance of greater age for the materials under consideration becuase less of the soluble materials would still be present.
This would fit with a model that there was indeed increased nuclear rates of decay in the past which then separated the evidences based upon solubilities.
October 5th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Karl: No. All isotope dating techniques always have accounted for solubility and transportation. The difference in transport rates and chemical reaction rates of different isotopes of the same element are negligible. And what does the chemical composition have to do with decay rates?
Again: Please cite any consistent model (falsifiable theory) or measured data (facts) that indicate that the depth of water affects a dating method in some way.
October 5th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Dan says: “No. All isotope dating techniques always have accounted for solubility and transportation. The difference in transport rates and chemical reaction rates of different isotopes of the same element are negligible. And what does the chemical composition have to do with decay rates?”
Karl states:
One has to assume this is the case to make the billions of years dating techniques work.
There’s a real scientific statement, “All” and “always” used within five words of each other in the same senence. If that appeared on a lab report it should get a failing grade. Universalities are beyond complete scientific proof so why make them? Maybe you think someone’s scientific beliefs sound defended by such logic but those type of extreme statements do not make one’s inductive generalities into deduced facts.
You are assuming that the geologic records which contain mostly chemical compounds started out rock solid side by side with an assumed deduced
isotopic ratio that has been very little affected by enivironmental factors.
Check out the solubility tables for yourself. Lead compounds are a great deal less soluble than uranium compounds. Naturally occuring uranium and lead is most often found in compounds - not pure metals.
If the waste materials from a nuclear power plant were releases onto the ocean floor in open sea water and then allowed to chemically react with the sea water, I believe we would find all manner of lead compounds close by but the uranium compounds which would better dissolve in the water would be transported much further away making the fuel look like it had been reacting for a great deal longer than it actually did.
The uranium that was then transported elsewhere would make any material that it leeched into seem like a more recent formation by isotopic dating techinques.
Don’t tell me to prove something that people do not want to look for and for which you tell me I shouldn’t be trying to study for my own health.
They have found uranium salts in dinoasur fossils, how do you suppose they got there? These are not high concentrations, but then a soluble ion keeps moving and leeching and doesn’t have to ever really become stuck anywhere unless the material somehow prevents the diffusive passage of water altogether.
If the evidence for accelerated nuclear decay were present it would consistently be labelled as background radiation that needs to be factored out of the situation.
The evidence would not be acknowledged even if it were staring a uniformitarian naturalist in the face.
October 5th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
I give up. I’ve tried to be nice. I’ve tried to educate. But now,
October 6th, 2008 at 4:57 am
Where is the rationality in that cartoon?
I guess I’ll be banned from the camp soon as well. Oh, well! I have tried to be a reasonable and non preaching as can be. I just don’t see how any “science of origins” can call itself that.
Actual origins weren’t humanly observed.
Actual origins can’t be measured, only attempted to be calculated.
Actual origins can’t be repeated.
Actual origins can only be modeled and deduced by those with a philosophical bent one way or the other.
I trust you’ll have a good life in case this post gets banned as well.
Karl Kunker
Schenectady Christian School
Scotia, New York 12302
October 6th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Karl, Your posts have been reasonable and polite and avoided preaching or citations from authority. I do feel abashed that I resorted to that comic to express my frustration.
But so many of your jabs demonstrate such a deep lack of understanding of the scientific method or of any particulars of the fields in which you are casting. I have done research in a radiological dating lab, and thus have a better than average apprehension of the topic at hand.
No one remembers his own birth, yet by observing others we accept how we were born. That is how each form of evolution was discovered. Galaxies, stars, geological features, species and societies all have been seen evolving. It is an assumption that our own galaxy, star, planet, continent, species, and society has followed the same course as all the others that we have observed. A likely one.
The Young Earth was taken as a given truth for millenia. Until overwhelming evidence to the contrary convinced everybody who actually looks at it that the observable natural universe is far larger in space, time, and complexity than was even imagined a mere few centuries ago.
It is not an assumption of age that produces the evidence; rather the uncaring evidence that proves the age.
October 6th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Karl, are you a teacher at Schenectady Christian School? What courses do you teach?
October 6th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Karl’s comments are followed by mine:
“Actual origins weren’t humanly observed.”
Your point being?
“Actual origins can’t be measured, only attempted to be calculated.”
Your point being?
“Actual origins can’t be repeated.”
Your point being?
“Actual origins can only be modeled and deduced by those with a philosophical bent one way or the other.”
Your point being?
Karl is among the many religious devotees who apply different standards of proof depending upon what they already believe. Without any evidence whatsoever, they will believe that someone 2000 years ago walked on water or rose from the dead, yet when they hear claims that might conflict with their religious beliefs, they will dismiss those claims as nonsense regardless of how much factual evidence exists to verify those claims. Let me emphasize that last point: to a true believer, facts simply do not matter; if they disagree with a claim, then no amount of factual evidence will be adequate.
Unfortunately, such misguided thinking has been responsible for all sorts of human tragedies. Bush’s needless invasion of Iraq — which was based on his complete rejection of facts in favor of his own irrational beliefs — comes quickly to mind.
October 6th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Just changed computers amd forgot to enter my name and email so I lost lost a great deal of a very long post and do not have time to recompose it but will send more of it in the days to follow.
I teach mainly high school chemistry and physics, but have taught earth science and biology as well. I have an A.S. degree in Engineering Science, a B.A in Christiian Education, and B.S. in Liberal Arts and an MSed in Educational Psychology. I have not sought after a doctoral degree because I believe the current use of the degree does not benefit most individuals who seek the degree. The degree needs to be more interdisciplinary and less a matter of specific details concerning a narrow field of specialization.
The current crop of univeristy experts controlled by naturalism are just as guilty of being conservators of truth as the univerisity experts contolled by the church were in Galilleo’s day. Any bunch of university experts are only fooling themselves if they think they have a corner on truth. We all know that pride goes before a fall, so be careful what your worldview is based upon.
There have always been two ways of looking at the world and life. One is secular and the other is sacred. One claims to decribe man’s point of view the other describes God’s point of view. I happen to believe that we need to look for both points of view concerning the same events or we are only fooling ourselves.
I am a young earth creationist that happens to believe that the earth is less than 13,000 earth years old. From God’s perspective that could mean as much as one thousand earth years could have transpired in one of his creation days. Adam could have been placed in the Garden of Eden towards the end of day six and then Adams’s fall could have been near the start of Day seven. Adam then would have indeed died in the day that He disobeyed even though he lived to be nearly one thousand years old.
I believe in the need to properly interpret evidence concerning historical geology. There is clearly evidence that is catastrophic and also some that is uniformitarian. The two should not be at odds with each other. Assuming one rules out the other is a philosphical predisposition that is very biased.
October 7th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Grumpypilgrim’s comments:
grumpypilgrim Says:
October 6th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Karl’s comments are followed by mine:
“Actual origins weren’t humanly observed.”
Your point being?
Karl responds: Anyone who uses any physical non-recorded historical evidence to speculate concerning origins is capable of error.
“Actual origins can’t be measured, only attempted to be calculated.”
Your point being?
Karl responds: Any proposed extrapolation of data or calculation of mathematics that assumes required specific conditions is capable of error.
“Actual origins can’t be repeated.”
Your point being?
Karl responds: Neither evolution nor intelligent design can be proven after the fact. They must be actually witnessed or they are both faith based.
“Actual origins can only be modeled and deduced by those with a philosophical bent one way or the other.”
Your point being?
Karl responds: Creationists will tell you what they believe is their philosphical predisposition is. Evolutionists will refuse to call naturalism a philosophical predisposition because that would make it appear a weaker perspective.
October 7th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Karl and grumpy: Ignoring the proofs of either for a moment, please tell me why you PREFER to accept Creationism or Evolution. Beyond the facts…why does it feel right to you?
October 7th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
For me, I happen to be very comfortable with the reliability of the historicity of at least one carefully written, passed along and compiled document that takes us as close to human origins as can be obtained.
I am comfortable with the material in Genesis both pre and post flood being the best evidence from an observational sense that we will ever get for the early years of man on planet earth.
I am quite certain that anyone who tries to say that they are being objective about a matter is blind to their own bias or they would not be indignant about what they consider truth.
Most knowledge and the use of knowledge has a values based component that determines what one holds to be of more importance than something else. If this is denied by an individual, circular reasoning (induction and deduction) can be used logically to convince like minded individuals that what they want to believe to be true is true. The value of the premises one accepts as true will pretty much dictate what a sane person will end up believing in the long run. Sometimes beliefs are claimed to be based upon logical reasoning, and that logical reasoning tends to hold as long as the values behind the original premises are never open to reconsideration.
I understand how many scientists have come to believe that the evidence in the geologic record can point to an ancient earth, but I also understand that evidence is always in the hands of individuals with values and premises that are not capable of being truly objective.
Interpretations of non direct observational evidence is very subject to error no matter what the individual believes about the natural world, the people they discuss these matters with, or whom they agree or disagree with concerning any past events that may or may not have actually occurred.
I am comfortable with trying to build a model of the cataclysmic events of the flood that doesn’t separate potentially inter-related events into eons and epochs that could never be be shown to be directly related to one another if 100 of millions of years keep them distant from each other.
October 7th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Mike asks, “…please tell me why you PREFER to accept Creationism or Evolution. Beyond the facts…why does it feel right to you?”
Both questions are absurd. First, it is not a question of creationism or evolution: creationism presumes to explain the origin of life; evolution presumes to explain speciation and does not make any predictions about how life originated. Second, if we go “beyond the facts” then there is no rational basis upon which to have a discourse: facts are what elevate evolution, and not creationism or “intelligent design,” to the realm of science.
October 7th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
All I can say is that I’m glad that my ideas of truth, justice, and goodness would not be shattered if Karl and his friends did the rather simple experiment we have described, and it turned out that deep water *does* have an effect on radioactivity. I might put money on the bet, but not my transcendent ideals.
Karl, I hope your students get a chance to examine real fossils like those described here:
A smiley face to anyone who can guess the author and approximate date - no fair googling!
October 8th, 2008 at 4:31 am
Some uniformitarian naturalist who assume a flood catastrophy would be entirely tsunami like and finished quickly writes:
“If the Deluge had carried the shells for distances of three and four hundred miles from the sea it would have carried them mixed with various other natural objects all heaped up together.
Karl writes:
The author definitely has not thought through the full ramifications of easily demonstrable water flow principles.
In some places we do find sea shells mixed in with various other types of fossils in a sudden tsunami or earthquake like fashion.
But for over several months the tides waxed and waned across a great deal of the areas where fossils are found, including what are now mountain tops.
Steady fast moving water clearly carries less dense materials away from more dense materials.
Shore lines in even just a few days have a clear ability to remove flotsam.
For debris that has been buried under multiple composite layer after layer of rock uniformitarians can’t wrap their thoughts around what clearly had to happen. The flood was not a one time event that surged and then quickly went away. At some point rock materials were transported from the northern regions off of places like the Canadian Shield and deposited over many fossil beds.
Many may claim that repeated ice ages cleared off the Canadian Shield but I do not believe that to be the case. I believe huge massive ice glaciers full of rock materials that came out of Hudson Bay itself moved down over North America and Northern Europe and susequently buried all manner of fossils that were already somewhat sorted by flowing waters.
For those with values diametrically opposing the proposal of a new model for the rock beds over all manner of fossils its time to reconsider the real evidence.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:50 am
Karl, thanks for your answer. You made some good points. Unfortunately you didn’t quite answer my question. We’re getting closer, though!
Let’s try this…I understand that you are comfortable, but WHY are you comfortable with the Genesis version of creation? Why does that make sense to you even though that account is widely disputed by many people?
Grumpy, I’m sorry if my terminology wasn’t exactly right, but I think you know what I mean. Your view of the origin and development of life and Karl’s view are very different. You rely on certain proven scientific facts which back up your view, I don’t dispute any of that.
But unless I’m mistaken, you weren’t on the archeological digs. You didn’t do the deep water experiments yourself. You haven’t drilled core samples of Arctic ice. You weren’t THERE while these things were being done and yet you accept the facts and their conclusions on the word of the scientists. I’m not suggesting the data was incorrect or falsified in any way, that’s not where I’m going with this. You CHOOSE to trust those facts even though your knowledge of them is second- or third-hand and those facts and their interpretation are widely disputed by many people.
What I am saying is that you accept your facts and Karl accepts his facts because they feel right to each of you for some deeply held reason that of which you may not even be entirely aware.
Let me rephrase the question so that it seems less absurd, although it will take a leap of your imagination to answer it honestly. It is the converse of the question I recently asked Erik B.
If tomorrow it were announced conclusively that the biblical account of creation was correct and the earth was only 6000 years old, (ignore for a moment the how and why, let’s just say there is no longer any question about it) would you be disappointed and why?
October 8th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Karl, please read this recent release from the National Centers for Science Education:
The International Planetarium Society recently issued a statement on the ancient age of the earth and universe, noting that “Many independent lines of scientific evidence show that the Earth and Universe are billions of years old. Current measurements yield an age of about 4.6 billion years for the Earth and about 14 billion years for the Universe.” The statement adds, “These measurements of age are accepted by nearly all astronomers, including both research astronomers and planetarium educators. These astronomers come from nations and cultures around the world and from a very wide spectrum of religious beliefs.”
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2008/US/682_ips_statement_on_the_age_of_th_9_26_2008.asp
October 8th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Karl, please enjoy this NASA tutorial on Geologic Time
http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect2/Sect2_1b.html
October 8th, 2008 at 11:24 am
I honestly prefer to believe that the so called facts of science has gotten things wrong in the past and could very well get things wrong now or even in the future concerning matters that are not really scientific in the clearest direct observational sense.
I am biased towards a model that I chose to believe could be wrong but I willfully chose to believe it because it provides a sense of meaning to existence and definition to knowledge in general that suits my philosophy of life.
The age of the earth can not be proven conclusively either way by science. If the consensus of the experts in the scientific community declared that they may have had their facts wrong and the earth could possibly be much younger than the 4.6 or so billion I wouldn’t be happy to see experts proven wrong, but I would be honest and say that I would be happy that science was not being monopolized by the interpretations of those with the predisposed point of view of naturalism.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Karl, Mike, Grumpy, etc: This is an interesting discussion, but not related to the Deep Water Effects on Radioactivity.
Might I suggest moving this conversation to Why Choose Naturalist Explanations Over Biblical Creation?
October 8th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
You’re right Dan. However I think this particular thread has run its course and I was interested in getting the two combatants away from their respective podiums and considering themselves for a moment. I always find people much more interesting than religion, science, theory, facts or faith anyway.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:56 am
Where is grumpy’s response?
October 9th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Karl wrote: “Where is grumpy’s response?”
My thoughts exactly!
Thanks Karl. Although I disagree with you in matters of science, I thought your answer was honest and good.
“…it provides a sense of meaning to existence and definition to knowledge in general that suits my philosophy of life.”
Please allow me to push you to self-explore a bit further. Please define what you mean by your “philosophy of life”.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Mike wrote: “…I’m sorry if my terminology wasn’t exactly right, but I think you know what I mean.”
No, I don’t know what you mean, because it is most definitely NOT merely a question of terminology. Creationism presumes to explain how life *began* on our planet. To the best of my knowledge, no existing theory of evolution presumes to explain how life *began*. Evolution theories seek to explain how life, however it began, *diversified* into the wide variety of species we find in the fossil record and which we see living today. Thus, creationism and evolution address two entirely different concepts…two different realms of knowledge. They have absolutely nothing to do with each other, except to the extent that (Biblical) creationism purports to also explain speciation; namely, by divine miracle. Many non-Christian cultures and religions have their own creation myths, but plenty of people who embrace those belief systems have no trouble understanding and accepting evolution — again, because evolution does not seek to explain how life originated on our planet.
I’m going to continue beating this point home to all of you because it is so vitally important. Biblical creationism is one myth among many creation myths that tries to explain how our planet came to have life on it. But evolution is the only coherent, fact-based theory that explains how speciation happened. It’s not a question of what “feels more comfortable”: evolution theories are based on fact and empirical research; creation stories are based on myth. This is why it simply makes no sense to ask, “If tomorrow it were announced conclusively that the biblical account of creation was correct and the earth was only 6000 years old, (ignore for a moment the how and why, let’s just say there is no longer any question about it) would you be disappointed and why?” We simply cannot “ignore the how and why,” because the how and why ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE DISCUSSION. To a great extent, they are the ONLY things that matter, because the great triumph of human reasoning over religious doctrine is not about evolution versus creationism — it is about the SCIENTIFIC METHOD versus every irrational thought that has ever entered a human mind. If we ignore the how and why, then one creation myth becomes just as valid as any other, because we have no rational basis for distinguishing between truth and fantasy.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Mike continues, “What I am saying is that you accept your facts and Karl accepts his facts because they feel right to each of you for some deeply held reason that of which you may not even be entirely aware.”
This comment continues to miss the point. The dispute between creationism and evolution is not a dispute about *facts*, it is a dispute about *methods*. It is the same with the ancient arguments that the Christian church had (and lost) about whether the earth or the sun was the center of our solar system, or whether germs or evil spirits were the cause of disease. The Christian church relies on dogma; science relies on the scientific method. That is the source of the conflict. Until you understand this critical point, your questions will continue to be nonsensical.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Grumpy, you truly live up to your moniker! Did you ever think about changing your pseudonym? It is well known that we very often live up to the meaning behind our name. I think that if you were “gentlepilgrim” or “mellowpilgrim” it might do your blood pressure some good!
I kid, of course!
Do you realize that if you boil down your recent posts in response to my “absurd” question and Dan Klarmans post, not-so-subtly chastizing this line of questioning…
http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/10/08/why-choose-naturalist-explanations-over-biblical-creation/
…you are both saying EXACTLY the same thing that Erik B said in his many responses to me which is, “The truth is the truth and I can’t (or won’t) even consider the alternative.”
But of course Erik B is insane and you and Dan are not.
Hey man, I’m on your side! I rejected my religion long ago and love keeping up with the latest scientific news about the nature of our universe. But I still have an imagination too! So, let me get this straight…you and Dan can no more imagine what it would feel like to find proof there IS a God any more than Erik B can imagine there is not?
October 10th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Mike: Before addressing the balance of this discussion, I want to point out that finding proof that there is a god, finding proof that the god-of-the-Bible exists, and finding proof that the Bible accurately describes the nature of our universe, are three completely different things. From your queries, it is unclear to me which of these issues you are concerned about.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Grumps: Move it over here: Why Choose Naturalist Explanations Over Biblical Creation?
Unless it has to do with Deep Water Effects on Radioactivity