We’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?
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.
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.
I give up. I've tried to be nice. I've tried to educate. But now,
<img src="http://www.plognark.com/Art/Sketches/Blogsketches/2008/thestupiditburns.jpg" width="400">
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
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.
Karl, are you a teacher at Schenectady Christian School? What courses do you teach?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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!
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.
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?
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…
Karl, please enjoy this NASA tutorial on Geologic Time
http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect2/Sect2_1b.html
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.
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?
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.
Where is grumpy's response?
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".
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.
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.
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-c…
…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?