Do neutrinos affect radioactive decay? That’s what new research at Purdue seems to suggest.
When researchers at Purdue were looking for a reliable way to generate random numbers, they thought they were smart to use radioactive decay – after all the rate of decay was a known constant (for a given material) but the decay of any particular atom was truly random. But what they discovered may have huge implications for the Standard Model, for physics and for cosmology.
As the researchers pored through published data on specific isotopes, they found disagreement in the measured decay rates – odd for supposed physical constants.
Checking data collected at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island and the Federal Physical and Technical Institute in Germany, they came across something even more surprising: long-term observation of the decay rate of silicon-32 and radium-226 seemed to show a small seasonal variation. The decay rate was ever so slightly faster in winter than in summer.
In addition, during a solar flare event in Dec 2006, a Purdue researcher, observing day in manganese-54, noticed that the decay rate began to drop almost 36 hours before the flare event
became visible on earth. In a series of published papers, the Purdue team showed that the observed variations in decay rates were highly unlikely to have come from environmental influences on the detection systems.
Their findings strengthened the argument that the strange swings in decay rates were caused by neutrinos from the sun. The decay rates dropped as the Earth came closer to the sun (where it would be exposed to more neutrinos) and rose as the Earth moved farther away.
So there was good reason to suspect the sun, but could it be proven?
Enter Peter Sturrock, Stanford professor emeritus of applied physics and an expert on the inner workings of the sun. Sturrock knew from his experience that the observed neutrino intensity varies on a regular basis as the sun revolves and shows a different face to the Earth. He suggested that Purdue Look for evidence that the changes in radioactive decay on Earth vary with the rotation of the sun.
Looking again at the decay data from the Brookhaven lab, the researchers found a recurring pattern of 33 days, which differed from the observed solar rotation period of about 28 days. They explain this by suggesting that the core of the sun – where nuclear reactions produce neutrinos – spins more slowly than the surface.
The evidence points toward a conclusion that emissions from the sun are directly influencing radioactive isotopes on Earth.
However, no one knows how neutrinos could interact with radioactive materials to change their rate of decay. This result holds promise in many ways: as an early warning system for Solar Flares; as an avenue for new research on neutrinos; or as the first inking of even stranger new particles. “It would have to be something we don’t know about, an unknown particle that is also emitted by the sun and has this effect, and that would be even more remarkable,” Sturrock said.
H/T: io9 and Symmetry Magazine
I commend the scientists who have accepted that once assummed spontaneous random radioactive decay may actually have at least one enviromental factor that was not easily detected.
It makes no physical sense whatsoever to assume that what tips a nucleus beyond the point of stabiliy was only a matter of chance and beyond detectable cause and effect relationships.
My last comment was either lost or removed.
Again I commend the scientists at Stanford and Purdue who have dared crack the armor of the assumptions so dearly held behind the nature of sponataneous nuclear decay. This is indeed an interesting and remarkable piece of progress in radiation studies. Since High School I have thought it crazy that what ever tipped the stability of a atom into a decay mode was simply a matter of chance with no cause and effect relationships. Maybe next year we can start writing the assumption of invariant half lives out of the university propaganda.
Back when the effect was first noticed (2008), Karl and I discussed the slight variability in decay rates then correlated with distance from the sun on this site.
One point I kept making was that, although the precise beta decay rate may be varying proportional to neutrino flux, the flux averaged through a year doesn't significantly change. Averaged over a sunspot cycle and it's even more constant. Therefore any nuclear decay rate measured in years is still a nice, consistent, constant clock.
Re-read the comments on:
How Did Noah’s Flood Deposit the Iridium Layer?
Deep Water Effects on Radioactivity
or maybe
Why Choose Naturalist Explanations Over Biblical Creation?
The average may indeed not be changing very much if at all presently. But these studies could be indicating that half lives are not only a fixed random property of the atomic structure and internal nuclear forces, but that there may really be outside influences that are factors even though they are nearly undetectable at this point in time. The randomness might stem from which atom that has already absorbed some mass/energy is going to be interacted with again and thus have its fateful day of having absorbed enough mass/energy to produce natural radioactive decay.
The studies postulate that neutrinos are involved, but there might actually be something else or something in addition to neutrinos that may be affecting nuclear stabilities.
Karl, Dan
I think what we have here is something called 'science', where previous inviolate 'truths' are shown to be not quite so inviolate in all cases. (To paraphrase my favorite Irishman, Dara O'Briain "If science knew everything, it would stop!"
I tend to agree with Dan that (absent some other insanely large neutrino flux generator) the overall decay rates will average the same… so decay rates should still be appropriate for long scale measurement (just as we needn't delve into special relativity whenever we hit the gas pedal!). Our previous knowledge is not WRONG !IIll!1ELEVENTY!lI!ONElIl. It has merely been shown to be incomplete.
I will be very excited to learn what the researchers, and their observations, uncover in the coming years.
I loves me my paradigm shifts, I does!
Karl
One last point to notice…
The researchers notice a reduction in decay rate inversely proportional to the neutrino flux.
That means that the only effect on measurements made using 'constant decay rates' would be that they are under-estimated (a 'real' age of 10,000 years might be 'measured' as 9,870 years)
Not exactly helpful to anyone wanting age to be (say) 6000 years or so at most!.
In addition – our measurements are all relative – so we tend to corroborate and use multiple measurements and multiple threads of evidence for age (geologic or otherwise). That some are, perhaps, biased low, should not be a major catastrophe.
I wonder what would actually happen to natural decay rates if the sun has been slowly but consistently putting out ever so more or ever so fewer neutrinos for a few billion years? Either way the affect would prove that decay rates and half-lives in general are a factor that must include the environment as well as their internal supposedly spontaneous mathematically chance regulated behavior.
karl: what would actually happen to natural decay rates if the sun has been slowly but consistently putting out ever so more or ever so fewer neutrinos for a few billion years?
Great point. Obviously more research is needed – and a much longer baseline of the Neutrino flux from the sun is warranted before anyone can make a strong statement. However, like Newtonian mechanics, we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
We recognize a quirk in decay rates that seem to correlate with Neutrino flux. That observation warrants much further investigation from the team at Purdue, and also corroborative investigation for other labs around the world.
Last, but not least – I apologize for the snark in my earlier comment – I *know* you understand 'Science'.
I believe I understand how science operates, and perhaps one day the practicalities of science may not need to include the presumption of completely spontaneous explanations for matters where the null hypothesis reigns supreme concerning the physical world.
Asimov's "Songs From a Distant Earth" deals with the end days of the Sun and Earth from solar neutrino decay. I remember being saddened by the thought of everything going "boom" some 4 billion years from now.
My brother Dan got into trouble for recommending the book to his eight year old little brother but, the technology in the book inspired a new generation of design in our spaceships in our minds. My personally designed rockets had a knack for lateral rather than vertical flight!
FTL was pooh-poohed by Asimov in the book but, maybe one of the implications of this development is FTL as an explanation for the faster rate of decay from collisions with as yet unseen, undiscoverable FTL particles?
I declare them bensons after my son, Ben. Perhaps he'll continue to explore the universe deeply so he can find what we have agreed is hypothetically possible…a Star Wars Universe!
Karl: We all bring our prejudices and biases to our interpretation of the world. That's why I rely on Science (the methodology) rather than 'Science' (the fact book) or 'Dogma' (the wish-it-were-so book).
I think we can all agree that the scientific method allows us the greatest opportunity to expand our knowledge and understanding. Every generation appears to suffer the same ossification of their perspective (such as when Lord Kelvin confidently pronounced the impossibility of heavier than air flight).
That's why I think it extremely important that we do not burden children with narrow, prejudiced, and dogma laden world-views (aka religion) – since that does real harm to their ability to think and observe 'scientifically' (i.e. without bias). We impose ossification at birth, and many never break free of it! When you are taught to believe and trust in authority, it becomes very difficult to 'think outside the box' and distrust authority in any other aspect of your life – such as in science.
I know that zero bias is impossible. I simply think that we do terrible damage to children by foisting illogical dogma upon them before they are in any position to choose for themselves. And by damaging the children in that way, we damage our abilities as a species.
Tony,
I definitely agree that we all bring our biases to our interpretation of the world. This is why I don't choose to put the ideas and "well established facts" of any potentially biased scientific authority or even a media outlet ahead of a careful analysis of what is or isn't a valid question for a scientist to be trying to use science to answer in the first place.
Just because science can make abortions safer, to me this doesn't make them any more or less a matter of morality first and scientific opinion second.
It is obvious that in the past some leaders that have appealed to divine knowledge have been wrong in supporting various claimed scientific interpretations that in actuality only supported their own worldview. It is however also true that people that have tried to leave religious values and beliefs "out" of their interpretations of the natural world have also ended up with appeals to "undivine" knowledge that have been wrong in supporting various claimed scientific interpretations that were also based upon their worldviews.
Look at Hitler if you think science always mixes well with popular biases.
Just because a scientist can make a statement that something has or has not been going on for some for 3.5 billion years, doesn't make them anymore scientific. I'm going to evaluate what degree of faith I need to place in these ideas to call them good science.
When credible human authors historically claim to have observed and witnessed mountain tops being covered by water for months on end I will not discount them because my world view thinks it is not reasonable to believe this could happen.
This is where the battle of authority lies. Does the scientist who thinks something is unreasonable to their undivine but claimed scientific thinking have the authority to agree with other like minded experts and rewrite recorded history itself?
Do extremists of any persuasion have the authority to change worldviews into reality or should reality (past and present) temper the extent of the applicable interpretations of everyones worldviews?
When people push for their interpretaions as being more "scientific" or more "divine" for that matter, they reveal that they know their ideas are probably flawed but they would prefer to trust their own rather than those of others that don't have similar worldviews.
Karl
Somehow while agreeing with the premise that we need to be aware of our biases and 'control' for them, you still try to tout your unwavering acceptance of biblical authority. Your last statement seems to demonstrate a huge blind-spot
Do you read your own material? What is your rationale for belief in the divine? Why do you accept ancient tales as 'accurate eyewitness truth' and remain skeptical about careful scientific observation grounded in our best understanding of concrete reality – whenever those observations suggest a reality that is divergent from your 'received truth'?
Regarding the flood – read any histories of early Mesopotamia: until they learned to irrigate with ditches, and to build walls around their towns, they were subject to regular devastation. Quelle surprise! Most of the early Mesopotamian civilizations have 'flood' stories that are awfully similar to the later 'history' of Noah (and can you please tell me which particular story of Noah is the 'right' one, since the two versions obviously don't agree on many points – I'd also appreciate some reality-based insight into how in only a few thousand years we regained such a diversity of flora and fauna?). So divine truth, or merely historic 'tales' about how bad it was in the old days? Eyewitness, or simply the handed-down legends and tales common to any emergent human civilization?
Occam's razor cuts exceedingly finely – and your legends get repeatedly shredded by it.
As you say
Our understanding of reality changes as our observations grow in breadth and depth. Your worldview should not be static and unchanging, nor should reality be filtered by your current worldview. Unfortunately, you continue to demonstrate an unwillingness to truly be open minded, since you refuse to recognize any possibility that your stories are simply that – stories.
I am excited when my previous understanding gets revised and enhanced by new knowledge. It appears that you (along with most religionists) get challenged by the same thing.
Tim,
Not to be picky, but that was Clarke's novel, not Asimov's.
A number of attempts at Biblical chronology have dated the Flood. The most commonly accepted date seems to be around 2300 B.C.E.
Which puts it smack in the middle of a few going concerns that seem not have noticed. The Akkadians and the Egyptians, just to name a couple.
Another, less popular date I've seen, is around 1400 B.C.E. (which I found in Answers In Genesis) but we have the small problem of that being the period of both the Trojan War, the rise of the Kingdom of Mitanni, and the Hebrew conquest of Canaan (give or take a few years here and there) and yet still it seems all these other concerns didn't notice that they had all been drowned.
If we push it back further to around 4000 B.C.E. as a few other Biblical calendar crunches have done, that gets close to interfering with Creation itself.
Once you shove it back to between 5000 and 10,000, then you have left the chronology of the Bible altogether, but still there is no evidence of a global inundation around that time.
You have to fudge the numbers in every instance, but even if you do that cleverly you can still find people in the next county over that didn't get wet.
I haven't even addressed the issues of geologic time here, just the evidence at hand left behind by people who should have all died in this great event but who kept right on building cities, tilling field, making war, and all that other cool human stuff.
Karl. It didn't happen. Not globally. It's time maybe to get over it.
Sorry for my abruptness, but this gets silly after a while.
I went through this last year with Hank. You point out my apparent lack of awareness of my biases because I obviously state I have them and readily admit to one which you call a myth, tale tall or a legend.
You point out your superior ability to filter out or conrtrol your biases from "leaking" into your interpretations because the methodology of science is a better way to back up one's world view.
Your blinders come when you believe science can build a worldview that is the most free from assumptive bias.
I hope you don't get bent out of shape when I say you are biased in ways you will likely refuse to admit.
What difference would it make to you if there actually was a real Noah who wrote reliably about the physical conditions concerning a huge global catastrophy?
This is exactly what I was referring to. It is not a "divine thing" for a credible eye witness to historically record his or her real world observations. Local flood stories do abound, one happened in N'orlens several years back. Some local areas get flooded nearly every single year. Does that mean you can't believe a flood happened where the mountains were covered by water for months?
I don't think you really object so much to the extent of the devastation that Noah refers to. Rather what many reject about the written documantation of Noah has to do with whether or not catastrophic events can ever be linked in any credible way to the terms judgement, redemption and salvation.
The only fauna needing to be on the Ark were air breathing that couldn't survive for months in the water. Floods do not destroy species of flora, they disperse flora.
There were still ample varieties of CATTLE, HORSE, DOG, CAT, ETC, "species" contained in the animal "Kinds" on the Ark with enough genetic variation in the gene pools to still allow for the extent of the fauna we see today. The only creatures (not flora) needing to be aboard the Ark were air breathing animals and birds and perhaps some amphibians and reptiles that couldn't have floated well without ongoing physical exhertion. Everything that needed solid ground to keeps its head out of water was going to perish unless it was aboard the Ark.
Those "fat" air breathing critters that could tread water or float nearly indefinitely (with body densities less than 1.0 g/cc) like the mammoths, might have survived but the record was clear in that it says those air breathing animals that creep along the ground would perish if not on the Ark.
Does that mean all the air breathing animals that weren't on the Ark perished? Can't answer that one. Noah says that everything that breathed air and couldn't survive without needing ground to stand on was going to perish.
If various reptiles and amphibians could have floated that doesn't mean they had to be on the Ark but they may have been. Another significant problem that could have done in many of the larger floating animals would have been the potential lack of appropriate food for months on end. Even after the flood there would have been a greatly reduced amount of vegetation for at least months, and possibly even years.
Noah plants his own vinyard pretty quickly, somethings will never change.
Karl
Demonstrably true – for the past 300 years, the evidence about which worldview provides improvement in understanding has consistently fallen on the side of science.
Not something I've ever suggested. I have suggested that is the LEAST biased of our methodologies – AND when performed by millions of practitioners with independent verification of results a requirement of the methodology, then I'm happy to say that the biases I may have are largely self-correcting – so long as I recognize that I have some. Trusting in a single authority for anything is bad ju-ju. If you want to talk rationally about bias, start there.
Since you know me so well, please elucidate… Otherwise, accept that I admit my biases and work to correct and overcome them, whereas you seem to revel in your bias, and do all in your power to enhance and support them.
It would make no difference whatsoever, other than providing a datum for inclusion in our growing body of knowledge. However, not only is there no evidence of such a person, there is no evidence of any world-spanning flood – unless you are now going to play 'literal vs parable' regarding the story of the Flood and its timing. (see Mark's earlier comment, in this thread).
What ever happened to the Global flood, punishing everyone? And no – I cannot believe that such a flood occurred in out recent history (within 100,000 years) without some additional corroborating evidence in the geologic column (and seashells from the cambrian at the top of a current mountain do not count!)
But that's not what your famous eyewitness account says!
<code>Gen 7:6 And Noah [was] six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
</code>
<code>Gen 7:8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that [are] not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
</code>
<code>Gen 7:14 They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.
</code>
So – according to your eyewitness report, the ark held every single living thing that creepeth upon the earth, also every fowl, and every bird of every sort
Interesting. Nothing there about creatures in the water… in fact…
<code>Gen 7:21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
</code>
<code>Gen 7:22 All in whose nostrils [was] the breath of life, of all that [was] in the dry [land], died.
</code>
<code>Gen 7:23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained [alive], and they that [were] with him in the ark.
</code>
So – all the animals, all the plants, everything except that which was on the Ark. No mention of the amazing acquatic mammoths.
and lastly
<code>Gen 7:24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.
</code>
Really, Really great swimmers. Not only that, but they must have been really good at foraging for food in the sea, too.
Honestly, Karl. Your head must truly be in your ass if you expect anyone to believe any of that bullshit that you present as historic fact.
This is not silly (sorry Mark) – it is just appallingly, boringly, tiresome.
Mark,
The common accepted use of circa 2364 BC for Noah's flood is only fraught with complications if one tries to pit interpretations of Upper, Middle,and a Lower Egyptian houses as having no overlap with one another as well as taking several apparent separate and fictitious dynasties into account.
As far as I know there is no all conclusive work that has pieced the northern (upper) and southern(lower)kingdoms of Egypt together and interweaves them to the satisfaction of a fair number of scholars. The terms Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom with two intermediary periods with numerous names of missing dynasties doesn't add very much credibility to this chronology.
Akkaidian histories contain numerical enigmas that make their patriarch even longer lived than the Hebrews but their verifiable dates don't seem to go much earlier than circa 2360 BC
What are the other civilizations existent at the time that you refer to.
Karl
Karl
You do realize that using the phrase circa 2364 BC simply makes anything else you say look really, really dumb, don't you?
Also: s far as I know there is no all conclusive work ORLY? No all conclusive work?
Wow. Just Wow! I'm shocked.
However, and more to the point: Akkaidian histories … verifiable dates don’t seem to go much earlier than circa 2360 BC
So where does this fit with your opening statement?
From what you say, Noah and the Flood was c. 2360 BCE. Akkadian history goes back at least to 2360 BCE. the Egyptian dynasties overlap the time of the flood (before and after 2360 BCE).
So what, exactly, are you saying with regards to local dynasties and the global, world girdling, 40 days of rain and 150 days of flooding, flood?
Answers, on the back of a postcard, please…
Well, let's see…
Uruk culture, from which Sumer derived, goes back to roughly 3500 B.C.E. We take a side trip then into Ebla, the first construction of which dates around 2700 B.C.E.
The Sumerian kings' list and later archaeology refer to the city kingdom of Mari, 2900 B.C.E.
City states developed in the Palestine-Syria region and thrived from 3100 B.C.E. (commonly know collectively as the Canaanites).
The Second Dynasty of Awan (what is today Iran) covers the period from 2550 to 2230 B.C.E., so there's clear continuity with the Flood in the middle (that obviously killed them all and washed them away).
Then of course you have to explain how the New World cultures grew from a people who would have been decimated before establishing them after having gotten there by crossing the land bridge sometime around 8000 B.C.E., but couldn't have after 5000 B.C.E. since the land bridge was once more under water.
Besides, the time chosen—2364 B.C.E.—is not even agreed-to by all the folks playing with their calendars and just about any time period you choose that lies within archaeologically known historical periods still has a profound lack of physical evidence. (Local floods? Sure. Global? Nonsense.)
Point is, some of these cultures left behind accounts of floods, but not all, and there's NO EVIDENCE FOR ONE AT THAT TIME.
This is ridiculous. You accuse folks of not being willing to change there minds here, but this post itself is proof that such is not the case. New EVIDENCE has appeared and we're making the accommodation. You have insisted on a history that has been demonstrated to death to be unsupportable and yet find more ways than a tax dodger in March to avoid accepting that Biblically-based history is a bit off.
Oh, and I like that bit about "real or imaginary" civilizations. I suppose that's the equivalent of the "real or imaginary" Biblical accounts.
I'm done here. As I said before, this gets silly.
To elucidate . . .
Previously Tony states science is a "methodology" then Tony states "the evidence about which worldview provides improvement in understanding has consistently fallen on the side of science."
You can't have it both ways or it becomes a circular reasoning trap. Is science a worldview or a methodology?
People's biases create worldviews. But if science truly is just a methodology its purpose is not simplyto provide evidence to support the worldview of the scientist or the worldview of anyone else for that matter. The scientific method can not provide evidence beyond a reasonable doubt for unobservable events. The metodology of science establishes observable, measurable and repeatable laws and patterns, it does not look to support anyones worldview.
This entire thread is suppose to be dealing with the potential discovery that an assumed, declared and then much defended belief that "half-lives are invariant" and a totally spontaneous property built into the fabric of matter itself is starting to be reconsidered by some.
When science can not form an actual airtight law or pattern concerning the natural world it should refrain from
declaring the biases of the scientist as proven (or sometimes just the best we have to work from).
The proper use of science can only but add to a proper understanding of the natural world if one is willing to discard all held assumptions including the ones for which science has no business trying to answer.
When science can not determine observable, measurable and repeatable laws and patterns it should recognioze that anything it hypothesizes is not yet thoroughly developed science. These may be ideas that come from the worldview of a scientist but that does not make them scientific.
Any understanding of the natural world is predicated upon the values inherent in one's worldview, the two can never be completely separated. Sorry I seem to flaunt that I know what my biases are. I'm sure I have several that I am not aware of.
I attempted to describe a bit of what you call a myth and legend from the source, and you seem to first say it doesn't bother you. But then you use some explitives to state that you really want this to end. Sorry to have offended you by trying to answer your fauna and flora question.
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
You are so right, because I tried to correspond with Dr. Clarke in Colombo, Sri Lanka before he died to see about a bet on whether there'd ever be FTL. I tried to see if we could get a line in Vegas and spur development of FTL by the mechanism of gambling! I think the good doctor saw me writing about the bet, and declined the conversation.
The Akkadian chronology can not be shown to be verified to any date before the circa 2300 BC era.
I never said the Eygptian kingdoms overlapped the Flood although this might be possible. I said the Egyptian chronologies for the Upper and Lower kingdoms probably over lapped each other as there was constant struggles between them for ruling authority. Sometimes times even the rulers during the unified eras were up for debate probably because the titles in each kingdom were not the same.
Just a little more than a post card.
Karl:
Your earlier statement
Your current statement
You can't even keep your statements straight in the same damn thread!
Why then do you make the case that "the flood" is only complicated if you presume the "houses as having no overlap"
If there is no correlation between the supposed timing of the flood and Egyptian dynasties, why mention them at all?
Sheesh.
And you didn't answer the question: So what, exactly, are you saying with regards to local dynasties and the global, world girdling, 40 days of rain and 150 days of flooding, flood?
Mark,
You state well that the Flood account of Sumer does not match exactly with the account of Noah, But the dates of Sumer seldom match anything well enough because of their mixed use of the Sexidecimal number system. One needs to know the actual base unit to make sense out of what they are trying to indicate by their use of this system. It appears to me that when dealing with longer time periods that the base unit chosen by the Sumerians was either the week, month or week of weeks (i.e 49 days), but not the full year. At the time of Daniel even Babylon is still figuring using weeks of weeks as an important reference point.
The pre-flood Sumerians appear to track their ages much differently than the post flood Sumerians. The Hebrews through Moses appear to try and translate whatever reckoning system that was being used before the flood with the then common accepted annual calendar scheme of days, months and years.
Both the Hebrew and Sumerians have ancestral records that try to bridge over from before and after the great flood, but the records in both cases don't seem to make much sense to readers today, because we assume calendars and numerical schemes have always been recorded like we do.
We would hope to at least expect that years were always the same thing, but we have no clear way of knowing what a standardized year was until the Egyptians and also Moses enforced this meaning over on top of the seasonal and/or religious festivals observed by the people.
The surviving clay tablet of the Sumerian King's list was dated by the scribe who wrote it in the reign of King Utukhegal of Erech (Uruk), which places it around 2125 B.C
The people attempting to be described in both of these ancestral lists may actually be contemporaries of one another but because of the mixed numerology we take them to be distinctly separate and from isolated lineages from separate and isolated civilizations. The Pre-Flood Sumerians could very well have been some of the leaders that didn't survive the flood, yet the records they left behind on clay tablets bore witness to their existence.
Those who were the post flood Sumerians and then the Akkadians could have been the residents of the area after the flood that had a plethera of good clat tablet reading material which for some would have seemed like either fiction or nonfiction. They could have had little first hand knowledge of whether these characters described on the pre-flood clay tablets were real or just larger than life fables as well. Their numerology could have also been a source of confusion because they could have been using a different calendar and reckoning scheme for birthdays, months, seasons and years.
What would you do with a clay record that you weren't sure was fiction or historical? Copy it, translate it, try to interprete it, or just smash it to smithereenes? Some how I think your only concern would be trying to see if it was older than 2364 B.C.E. or if it somehow discredits the writings of Moses.
There were civilizations around before and after this Global Flood. I'm not like some who believe all traces of civilizations were lost from before the flood. Obviously the Hebrews carried records onto the Ark but other civilizations had some of their records in clay or stone.
Can't have it both ways? "Is science a worldview or a methodology?"
Replace "science" with "literacy" and see if that helps. A methodology is a way of doing something (like reading and writing) and a worldview is a perspective enhanced by that methodology (like how knowing the classics and how they were created lets you discern derivative works from independent creations).
That neutrino flux seems to affect decay rates is not actually paradigm challenging. Nuclear transformations that emit neutrinos would be expected to be matched by symmetric transformations that absorb them. Just like the symmetry between beta decay and electron capture transformations.
Karl
I'll try to be lovely and give you the benefit of the doubt in terms of intent…
Regarding science and worldview.
You erroneously conflated my initial statement about worldview, with my conditional statement suggesting that my worldview is built upon a foundation of science, and suggest that I (paraphrased) said science is a worldview.
The statement, parsed for beginners, is
the evidence about which worldview: we're going to talk about evidence, and specifically, evidentiary support for a worldview
provides improvement in understanding clarifying the subject, narrowing it to the kinds of evidence which improve understanding
has consistently fallen on the side of science.
in other words: Science (the methodology) has provided (and continues to provide) the evidence that provides growing support for a worldview that is evidence based. Phrased that way it is practically a tautology.
(Science :provides: Evidence) :supports: worldview
is not
Science == worldview.
You may also read 'science' as referring to the method PLUS the body of work, in which case it IS a worldview.
Semantics are slippery, especially when word-tokens get overloaded. Sorry you got so confused.
————–
You then go into a diatribe about the goal of this thread, and worldviews, and why I'm not dealing fairly
with regards to your admitted biases and your posts about biblical flora and fauna, beginning with this statement:
No – the initial posting was (somewhat) about that. Subsequent threads were derailed (by you) into biblical historical revisionism.
I strongly dispute your use of the phrase half-lives are invariant. There are no absolutes in science. Even the Planck constant (for instance) is only presumed to be invariant. I've read about some cosmologies (brane theory for one) that require a vast sheaf of varying 'constants' depending on which local manifold you happen to be observing at the 'time' (time in many cases being simply another local parameter). I've read of many others that propose that our constants, aren't. So much for absolutes in science.
All of science is mutable, awaiting better observation and more data.
That is all that happened here (in the study prompting this post). Better data. Leading to a review of what was previously an assumption – one which had been presumed through early experimentation to be a 'truth', that half lives are presumed to be reliably invariant. I used the analogy of Newtonian mechanics purposefully – this is not a tearing down of all that came before – it is a refinement. The future truth will likely read half-lives are generally invariant under conditions X, Y, and Z
Please do try to read for comprehension, it does help awfully.
And I'm sorry that your sensibilities are so easily offended, when I call your arguments about the biblical flood by the only name that fits – bullshit.
There comes a time in every bad conversation where one recognizes that one has expended too much effort for zero gain. You seem to use english, but not as I know it. You seem also to have your own mutable sense of semantics, that are invoked whenever convenient. You take common phrases and wilfully 'misunderstand'. You conflate to confuse, and cherry-pick to attack details while ignoring the actual meat of the discussion.
You piss me off.
I'll happily approve your future posts on this topic, but I won't respond. Response implies a conversation is taking place. It's clear that you don't wish to converse, only to pronounce.