An honest question for creos regarding dates and dating

As a Christian I really hate seeing folk say something like that. The reason is that sooner or later you will be forced to admit that the issue of an old earth, and even the issue of Evolution, have long been proven way beyond a doubt. There is simply too much evidence for any sane, rational, honest individual to ever doubt either.But when you reach that point, and hopefully you are sane, rational and honest, why should that cause you to give up your faith?There is no conflict between Christianity and either the billions of years old universe or Evolution. The vast majority of Christian Churches accept both Evolution and the Old Earth. They do not see any conflict, any dicotomy between the two.So maybe you should be asking, what is it that is different between the Creationists and all the other Christians out there in the world?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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The point I would abandon my faith is if you could prove something beyond a doubt.

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So, it must be absolutely proven? I have a feeling that Johnny Cochrane would like your phone number.

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For all your evidence, only some it is completely unexplainable from a YEC perspective.

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Care to be more specific?

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I understand that all your evidence corroborates each other, but it’s still only calculations and equations of the amounts of various elements, isotopes, etc.

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So, it is all a coincidence, eh?

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And most of the visual evidence (like varves, tree rings, geological formations like the grand canyon) potentially have alternate explanations that fit a young earth.

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Sure would like to hear them. You have made an assertion. Can you back it up?

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If the earth was created supernaturally, evidence of this would be hard to come by,...

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Not really. There would be evidence that is truly unexplainable. Unfortunately for all YECs, this is not the case.

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... and the process of creation could have left old earth evidence.

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Could have?? What is the evidence for this?

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I quoted the word ‘scientist’ because I don’t know the full extent of what they do, and I don’t know if you would consider them a scientist. I have a stereotypical image in my head of an old guy with lab coat in a lab with bubbling liquids in glass tubes. The guys I know don’t fit that image, so it seemed somehow appropriate to quote the word. It didn’t really mean anything, just seemed appropriate at the time.

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Okay.

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What we’ve been talking about in this thread is the evidence of an old earth. Varves, tree rings, etc. Why don’t creation scientists agree with this evidence? Is it their faith, so they ignore the evidence?

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That would be the simplest explanation.

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When I say they can’t agree with the evidence, I mean you have tree ring counts of 40,000. That is evidence. The YEC says there was more than one ring per year. You say one ring per year because you have carbon dating elsewhere that matches up. Why this different interpretation?

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Because they must deny the radiocarbon evidence. I suppose to you it is just a coincidence that there is a very good correlation.

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They don’t YEC consider the corroboration (like carbon dating) significant. Why? Faith? The question is actually more rhetorical, because I was getting to the point that creationists can’t agree on everything, just like non-creationists can't agree on every explanation.

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Not sure why this is important. THere are thousands of details in the study of evolution. However, we don't really have even a basic theory when it comes to YEC.

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When I ask if non-creationists agree on everything, I don’t mean down to the atomic level of every bit of knowledge. I mean on geological formations, varves, etc.

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What are the disagreements here?

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For example, I don’t mean does everyone agree that an electon has a negative charge. I’m not trying to nitpick. I’m not setting the bar higher than I do for creationists. I admit they don’t agree 100% on everything. For example, there are various explanations on why we can see stars millions of light years away, if the earth is only 6000 years old. One YEC things one thing, others thing another explanation is valid. They can't agree.

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Have you looked at the evidence for the different theories? There might be a clue there.

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I know science can’t describe or explain everything. I wasn’t trying to suggest that.

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Good. Evolution says nothing about morals, for instance. For some reason, YECs seem to think that it does or should. If you look up the definition of theory, you will note that there is nothing about will or ethics etc., just an explanation.

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My point is that doesn’t mean old earth is wrong, just because it doesn’t explain everything. But likewise, young earth isn’t wrong, solely based on the fact that we can’t explain everything.

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True. The problem is that YEC explains virtually nothing.

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And the fact that there is controversy tells me that all this evidence you have, that you all say plainly shows old earth, isn’t the whole story.

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Nonsense. It shows that science is alive and well. And you will notice that the 'controversies' are often manufactured by YECs anyway. You really should read some mainstream stuff.

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This is a nice discussion we are having here. It is rare that we see a creationist who is as civil as you are. Kudos.

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Thanks. I’ve read some other threads where neither side is nice. To me, any conversation like this is pointless if you can’t be civil and/or stick to the point. Too often I see people get sidetracked on a non issue during a debate like this.

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What Austin and others fail to mention is that the samples contained peices of older rock that would obviously cause the dates to be way off. From http://www.tim-thompson.com/plaisted-review.html :

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In other words, Austin used samples that even a geologist would reject before the dating was ever done. Therefore, Austin's work does nothing to invalidate K/Ar dating since he used samples that cannot give reliable dates for young rocks due to inclusion of older rock. You have to ask yourself if he did so in ignorance or if he knew the rocks were not datable but included them anyway assuming that his audience (non-technical christians) wouldn't know the difference.

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I’m starting to see the same arguments over and over again. Even AIG doesn’t seem to have much information that doesn’t have an objection somewhere. I was hoping to find a good refute to ar40-ar39 dating, but it’s hardly mentioned in the creationist circles. I haven’t given up. I think I need to change my tactics for searching..

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Yeah, I was unable to find a source for the 3 million limit as well. I remember reading it somewhere, but my memory could be failing so who knows. Anyway, the quality of the samples are enough to discredit the study so the precision of the lab is really a moot point.

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I did find a mention of this lab and the 3 million year limit reference. This page said they don’t even do k/ar dating anymore but when they did, there was a limit listed on their web page. I don’t remember where it was, but I figured since it supported your statement, you wouldn’t plague me a link request.

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If I made the statement "since the world was created last tuesday with the appearance of age, the Bible doesn't matter anyway" could I then ignore all of their data? Of course not. Also, there are dating methods that date younger ages, such as C14, and those dating methods correlate with other methods in such a way that it lends credence to all of the dating methods. For example, imagine if I had calipers and a yard stick. Using the calipers I verify that the inch marks on the yard stick are accurate. Therefore, if I want to measure something 24 inches long with the yard stick, I know that this measurement is accurate with measurements within the range of the calipers. Again, it is the correlation between radiometric and non-radiometric dating techniques that are the best support for the accuracy of both.

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Your yardstick scenario gives me an analogy. Tell me if I have this right. Let’s say I believe that nothing can exist that is longer than 12 inches. You give me an object 24 inches long to measure. I take out my ruler (a 12 ruler) and tell you it’s 12 inches. Furthermore, I tell you the rest of the material being measured doesn’t really exist since nothing is longer than 12 inches. Does that sum up your opinion of the YEC argument? If so, I can see why you are so incredulous. I admit that reading some of your material makes me think that’s what my argument adds up too. But I’m not ready to concede yet.

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Woodmorappe is claiming that if a dating method is off by 1% at 250 million years that it is not a trustworthy dating method. I happen to disagree, as would most people. This is how Woodmorappe argues his position (from the cited website):

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The problem is that K/Ar needs to be off by thousands of a percent in order for a 6,000 year old earth to be a reality. Instead, the errors are in the 1-4% range. Woodmorappe hopes that by selectively quoting (otherwise known as quote mining) he will be able to fool his audience into thinking that there are great discrepencies in the dating technique when in fact the discrepencies are very minor (1 to 4%). In my own work I shoot for under 5% sample to sample variation, as does most of the scientific community. In other words, these error ranges are well within accepted variances.

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There are some names that are completely blackballed in the non-creationist circles. I think the favorite is Austin, and the RATE group is getting slammed a lot too. I need to sit down at a library and look at some material that isn’t trying to disprove creation claims, or visa versa. Some objections are so riddled with obvious disdain that I can’t say their arguments are objective. One thing that comes to mind are letters to the editor about something Tas Walker submitted to TAG: http://www.uq.net.au/~zztbwalk/TAG.html. Instead of objecting to the content, they resort to ridicule and personal attacks. Not very helpful from my perspective.

Sidelined:

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Smart people are not,contrary to what you may think,less susceptible to errors in thinking and this is the reason for peer review processes.In point of fact,a smart person may be even in a greater danger of this problem since the arguements he forms to buttress his position can be more involved and convoluted and,therefore,harder to derail from their mind.

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Since the people at AIG and ICR would consider themselves peers of each other, and they mostly agree with each other, they think they are right? I know that doesn’t make them right, but it helps solidify their position in their mind.

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If you would like to get a start in checking out the various levels of investigation not just in evolution but also in many other disciplines concerning many different aspects of the world check out this site.

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http://www.origins.tv/darwin/creationism.htm#Creationism

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Let me know if you gain any help from this and always ask questions.

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Thanks. I was already reading on other subjects, but got sidetracked trying to keep up all the posts on this thread. This website you mention is from someone that has written off religion. I'm not so sure his comments about religion are going to be objective. One of the first things I read was his disdain from YEC. But there is more stuff I want to look at on there before I write it off completely.

fredsbank,Thanks for all of the replies. If you read the opening post in this thread you will notice that we have strayed away from the intended purpose. Hopefully I can ask some honest questions of you that are not intended to trap you into picking one side or another, but instead as a way of investigating what evidence you are using to gauge the age of the earth.1. What is the solid evidence that first led you to believe that a the earth was young and not old?2. What piece of evidence would falsify a young earth in your opinion?3. What procedures should we use for measuring the age of the earth?I will not debate the validity of your answers (at least I will try not to) and instead try to better understand your position.Just as an aside, you might want to check out Radiometric Dating . The title of the web page is "Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective" by Dr. Roger C. Wiens. His qualifications are as follows: "Dr. Wiens has a PhD in Physics, with a minor in Geology. His PhD thesis was on isotope ratios in meteorites, including surface exposure dating. He was employed at Caltech's Division of Geological & Planetary Sciences at the time of writing the first edition. He is presently employed in the Space & Atmospheric Sciences Group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory." Being a former christian, I know how important it is to have possibly anti-religious (but not anti-christian) perspective explained by someone who is also a christian. I am not intending this as a refutation of anything you have written, only as a suggestion on future reading. Have a good day.

Ned: Thank you for the nice post. I'm not insulted. I feel I'm doing you a disservice by not commenting more on your post, but I just can't keep up with the volume. I do have two comments:

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Here is another point. These two "disagreements" are not equivalent. Within the various scientists there will be very hot disagreements in somethings. However, after a time a consensus is developed and the disagreements become one of peripheral details. The core is agreed on.

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In creationist circles the core is agreed on. That would be the Bible.

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The controversy is only generated by the YECs.

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And the point is that popular science today is so indoctrinated with old earth, that even if concrete proof of a young earth existed, science wouldn't be able to recognize it. In my opinion, this thought has scared some people. Otherwise you wouldn't have the vast amount of criticism of YEC. I mean, if the science is so bad, why are so many people dedicating time to attack it (therefore feeding the controversy)? This web site is a prime example. In addition, when people feel cornered, they tend to resort to personal attacks, which I’ve seen in abundance. One of my last posts have a link to an example.(I tried to make a really long, multi-subject paragraph just for you!)As for the rest of your article, I can't refute your science. I just don't have the knowledge. I can appreciate what you are saying though, and I appreciate your time in writing it.

fredsbank Actually the idea of peer review is to present before experts in the field and allow them to mercilessly hack it to bits your work if they can do so.This serves two purposes: 1}it gets the positions out there where they can be checked by experts to determine its worth and 2}It forces the writer of the position to check his work thoroughly and in this way produce better work.That a person has written or not written off religion should not be anm issue. Rather does his/her position on a subject have evidence to back it up? In order to do this it is necessary on your part to have some idea of the means by which science is able to know what it knows by understanding how a branch of science comes to arrive at the position that it does.If you want to get a good idea of the power of science and the disconncet between the layman's view of the world and the scientists understanding of it I believe you would enjoy the following website.http://www.explorepdx.com/gates.htmlHere you can see for yourself how science is a great adventure that,when understood properly, reveals things you never suspected were there.Have fun and I will be back again soon.

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In creationist circles the core is agreed on. That would be the Bible.

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The opinion of many christian scientists is that we should study God's creation to allow us to accurately interpret the Bible. Creationists tend to ignore God's Creation and instead focus on their interpretation of the Bible. It seems like a very egotistical point of view to me, but it really isn't for me to judge. However, I am able to judge other people's representation of God's Creation through the scientific method, which is what I attempt to do with each post.

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Otherwise you wouldn't have the vast amount of criticism of YEC. I mean, if the science is so bad, why are so many people dedicating time to attack it (therefore feeding the controversy)? This web site is a prime example.

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Because creationists want to insert their work into public school curiculum. It is like inserting the teachings of the Aryan Nation Church into History class. I, for one, don't want my children taught that the Holocaust was faked. Not because I disagree with the thought of the Holocaust being faked, but because it has no place in an HONEST and FACTUALLY based course within History. For the same reason, I don't want my children (of which I have none at the moment) or anyone else's children taught false and disproven scientific theories in science class. Creationism is a political movement under a facade of pseudo-scientific theories. Creationists will latch onto anything as long as it gets God introduced in public schools. Also, it is just plain fun to talk about science with other people.

At the POTM I declared #68 to be part of an off-topic series. Now, after again looking at message 1, I may have to give it a greater "on-topic" rating.Anyhow, as a "what is the topic refresher", in message 1, Lam said: MooseThis message has been edited by minnemooseus, 08-24-2004 01:16 AM

Note: The following post(s) are in response the C14 discussion in "Theory: Why The Exodus Myth Exists"PaulK,

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The Geochron Laboratories site explicitly states that C14 dating is used for dates of up to 50,000 years. That isn't out of context that is what it says. There is NO other limit mentioned on that page. It clearly refers to the useful range, not a theoretical maximum.

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And this I do not deny. You are approaching the terminology from child’s perspective, without really investigating the technicalities. You remain surfacy and refuse getting to the bottom and distinguishing the differences between the ranges I mentioned.C14 is used for dates UP to 50,000 years to give us estimated results period, however we cannot expect the results to be 100% accurate beyond c. 3000 years. To expect 100% accurate results, we must not go beyond c. 3000 years. To get any results at all, we must not go beyond 50,000 years. One doesn’t virtually get any interpretable readings beyond 50,000 years. Can you see the difference here?I believe this is what is meant by Jonothan Gray's statement regarding Geochron Labs. You just want to call him a liar--instead of accepting that his statement is based on various attempts by archaeologists to get Geochron labs to do testing. They will perform dating up to 50,000 years, as long as you don't expect them to hold their word and make a claim the the results are reliable. They will, however, confidently rely on the outputted data from anything up to 3000 and safely make a claim.This should answer the rest of the points you raised. Same answer applies to the points jar raised.But once again, let us not lose focus that regardless how far this argument may extend regarding C14, no sincere debator can honestly expect to get any reasonable results on 3000+ year old coral encrusted chariot parts, or any parts that have been sitting in high-salt content waters--as we know that salt water--after an extended amount of time--leeches out the carbon 14 molecules. That is the main argument presented regarding C14 dating the chariot remains at the bottom of the Gulf of Aqaba.Unfortunately, however, both Jar and PaulK keep trying to divert the attention and argue on C14 SOLELY without wanting to take into consideration any of the good points I have made regarding the circumstances of why C14 dating would be USELESS in this instance. If the topic had remained on dating the chariot wheels, I wouldn't have had to switch this discussion to this topic.This message has been edited by Lysimachus, 08-29-2004 04:02 PM

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~Lysimachus

Lysimachus, you, your brother, Buz, WILLOWTREE, whatever, NOTHINGNESS and the rest have not provided one shred of evidence in any thread that you have participated in. In addition, when others have presented firm, hard evidence that pointed towards a different conclusion, you have simply attacked the poster.Once again, you are only making bare assertions with no evidence whatsoever to support your position. That is a nonsense statement since all dating is done within a margin of error. There is no such thing as 100% accurate dating. That whole statement is simply gibberish and whithout meaning. Jonothan Gray, like the rest of the Ron Wyatt crowd, at best doesn't know what he's talking about. Reliable results are always given with a margin of error. No, the main argument against the claims is that there is no evidence. So far there is nothing to show that Ron and successors have ever found even one chariot wheel in the whole Arabian Penninsula.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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But once again, let us not lose focus that regardless how far this argument may extend regarding C14, no sincere debator can honestly expect to get any reasonable results on 3000+ year old coral encrusted chariot parts, or any parts that have been sitting in high-salt content waters--as we know that salt water--after an extended amount of time--leeches out the carbon 14 molecules.

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Actually, I wouldn't trust an analysis on anyything that was encrusted by coral, regadless of the date unless there was some independent supporting data. I'm not sure what you are getting at here. Are are you just splitting hairs on when radiocarbon dating error becomes unacceptable? Certainly, in instances where the technique is applicable it can be quite accurate up to about 50ky. THis obviously involves some judgement, but that is why we don't usually let YECs do this at home.

Jar,

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Lysimachus, you, your brother, Buz, WILLOWTREE, whatever, NOTHINGNESS and the rest have not provided one shred of evidence in any thread that you have participated in. In addition, when others have presented firm, hard evidence that pointed towards a different conclusion, you have simply attacked the poster.

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If you think this is true, then I will turn it on you and say that you have not provided one shred of evidence against our claims. You still have not listed to me the campaigns I asked for that you claim took place in the Nuweiba area. You also outright attack people. At one point, you fumed with anger to the point where you just took my data and scribbled it over andwhereas other critics gave an honest answer and said our evidence was very convincing. As old as you are, you are very limited in knowledge and understanding. You disappoint me Jar, as your life is set against any science that may support the Biblical record. You claim to be a Christian, but not once have I ever read anything from you that supports the Bible. You cannot be a Christian and not believe in the Bible, as all Christianity stems from the Biblical teaching. A Christian is one who proclaims the name of Christ, and where do we learn of this Christ? From the Bible alone. But you believe in Evolution. The Bible does not support Evolution, so therefore, you cannot claim to be a Christian and an Evolutionist at the same time. You go around attacking people’s claims of having evidence, yet you yourself do not provide one shred of evidence yourself. Hopefully one day you will see the merit to the discoveries I have presented. The discovery of Noah’s Ark, Sodom and Gomorrah, The Red Sea Crossing, and Mt. Sinai have provided compelling evidence, and I have letters showing that many atheists have been converted. However, these were sincere atheistslike doubting Thomas’s, who needed to see evidence before they believed. They saw it finally, and they believed. You on the other hand, see the evidence and continue to deny it as evidence. So sad. But these discoveries will continue to manifest themselves, and they will forever torment you as long as you live. The evidence for these discoveries has been escalating ever since Ron Wyatt died in 1999, and the more evidence that is brought forth, the more humiliation the staunch critics will have to experience. Since you have been so staunchly against these discoveries, I see very little hope for you.

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C14 is used for dates UP to 50,000 years to give us estimated results period, however we cannot expect the results to be 100% accurate beyond c. 3000 years. To expect 100% accurate results, we must not go beyond c. 3000 years. To get any results at all, we must not go beyond 50,000 years. One doesn’t virtually get any interpretable readings beyond 50,000 years. Can you see the difference here?

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That is a nonsense statement since all dating is done within a margin of error. There is no such thing as 100% accurate dating.

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So you do not admit that the accuracy varies depending on the age of the material being dated? Sure there is a margin of error. Let me rephrase the 100% statement, since you are highly nitpicky. Though there may be a margin of error within the 3000 (some say 4000-4500)) years, it is generally accepted for one to claim the data as reliable in this range. Beyond that, the data is unreliable. Beyond 50,000 years (of course, we do not even believe that the earth is near that old, but this is based on the premise if it wasto play on under the Evolutionary turf), the results are virtually not interpretable.

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I believe this is what is meant by Jonothan Gray's statement regarding Geochron Labs. You just want to call him a liar--instead of accepting that his statement is based on various attempts by archaeologists to get Geochron labs to do testing. They will perform dating up to 50,000 years, as long as you don't expect them to hold their word and make a claim the the results are reliable. They will, however, confidently rely on the outputted data from anything up to 3000 and safely make a claim.

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That whole statement is simply gibberish and whithout meaning. Jonothan Gray, like the rest of the Ron Wyatt crowd, at best doesn't know what he's talking about. Reliable results are always given with a margin of error.

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Prove to me that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I just explained to you the context he is referring to, and that is under the context that there is a difference between the 3000 and 50,000 range. Even ICR specifically states thus: Obviously, if half the C-14 decays in 5,730 years, and half more decays in another 5,730 years, by ten half-lives (57,300 years) there would be essentially no C-14 left. Thus, no one even considers using carbon dating for dates in this range. In theory, it might be useful to archaeology, but not to geology or paleontology. Furthermore, the assumptions on which it is based and the conditions which must be satisfied are questionable, and in practice, no one trusts it beyond about 3,000 or 4,000 years, and then only if it can be checked by some historical means.

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The method assumes, among other things, that the earth's age exceeds the time it would take for C-14 production to be in equilibrium with C-14 decay. Since it would only take less than 50,000 years to reach equilibrium from a world with no C-14 at the start, this always seemed like a good assumption.

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That is until careful measurements revealed a significant disequalibrium. The production rate still exceeds decay by 30%. All the present C-14 would accumulate, at present rates of production and build up, in less than 30,000 years! Thus the earth's atmosphere couldn't be any older than this.-- Acts and Facts Magazine | The Institute for Creation ResearchAnd don’t start your spiel on me that I can’t trust ICR because they are Creationists, because I could just as easily accuse you of relying on a pro-evolutionary source. The scientific world involves both Creationists and Evolutionists. Evolutionists hate it when creationists rely on creation based sources, and creationists hate it when evolutionists rely on evolutionary based sources. So can you honestly say I am wrong for doing this?

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That is the main argument presented regarding C14 dating the chariot remains at the bottom of the Gulf of Aqaba.

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No, the main argument against the claims is that there is no evidence. So far there is nothing to show that Ron and successors have ever found even one chariot wheel in the whole Arabian Penninsula.

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My response regarding C14 stemmed from ramoss’s original quote:

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For example, what seperate labs were used to carbon date the wheel found?

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My answer was to prove the assertion that the wheels can be carbon 14 dated as wrong. Thus, the main argument regarding C14 dating was that we should use it to date the wheels. I intern provided evidence why I believe this cannot reliably be done.edge,

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But once again, let us not lose focus that regardless how far this argument may extend regarding C14, no sincere debator can honestly expect to get any reasonable results on 3000+ year old coral encrusted chariot parts, or any parts that have been sitting in high-salt content waters--as we know that salt water--after an extended amount of time--leeches out the carbon 14 molecules.

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Actually, I wouldn't trust an analysis on anyything that was encrusted by coral, regadless of the date unless there was some independent supporting data. I'm not sure what you are getting at here. Are are you just splitting hairs on when radiocarbon dating error becomes unacceptable? Certainly, in instances where the technique is applicable it can be quite accurate up to about 50ky. THis obviously involves some judgement, but that is why we don't usually let YECs do this at home.

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The reason why you don’t understand what I’m getting at here is because you did not read my posts in Theory: Why The Exodus Myth Exists on the last couple pages. People are asking why C14 dating has not been done on the chariot remains found at the bottom of the Gulf of Aqaba, and I’m only giving them reasonable answers as to why I believe using C14 would prove rather uselessseeing they are coral encrusted and sitting in a high-salt content sea for over 3000 years. That is all. You understand my point now?This message has been edited by Lysimachus, 08-29-2004 05:42 PM

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~Lysimachus

ICR says, apparently: "Present rates of production and build up"! Meaning the boys at ICR aren't aware that there was above-ground testing of nuclear weapons back in the 1950's and 60's? And they haven't heard that lots of jungle is burning in the tropics? It's just astounding to me that they can be this pig-ignorant about things they pretend authority about. I would really prefer to think they're being deliberately deceptive.

not if their purpose is to deceive.