(April 16, 2013 at 8:58 pm)popeyespappy Wrote: Sorry Stat but it looks you should have read the article before calling the kettle black. Doctor Wiens does address your concerns in his article starting on page 19 in the section titled Can We Really Believe the Dating Systems?. The essence of his argument is that there are basically only two variables in radiometric dating. Those variables are half life and time. The half life of the many radioactive isotopes used in radiometric dating are all different yet they all yield similar age ranges when materials are tested. That only leaves time. I don't remember you arguing anything about anyone playing with time.

I did read the article, and no that does not address my question. Even if the statement that all radiometric dating methods yield similar age ranges were true (which it is not, Potassium-Argon dating often gives radically discordant dates from other methods) that would not justify the assumption that the rate of decay has been uniform. If there was a period of accelerated decay in the Earth’s history all isotopes would have gone through the same period of synchronized accelerated decay and therefore would yield similar but erroneous ages; so for the third time, how do you know that the rate of decay has been uniform throughout Earth’s history?

Quote: Furthermore your statement, "Radiometric dating requires that the decay rate of Uranium is uniform for the entirety of Earth’s history" is incorrect.

No it’s not, if you take my statement in context you’ll notice I am referring to the radiometric dating of Zircon crystals, which uses the Uranium method, and what I said about that method was absolutely true.

Quote: There are many methods of radiometric dating.

Yes.

Quote: Most of them don't require uranium.

I never said they did, you’re attacking a straw-man; however they do all require that their decay rates be uniform for the entirety of Earth’s history, and that’s something you cannot demonstrate to be a reasonable assumption.

Quote: Once again, all of them yield similar results.

That’s not true at all; rocks that yield discordant dates are just assumed to be “open systems” and are thrown out. Weins even mentions that fact in the article, and If you’d read the article you’d know that. Different methods yield different dates all the time, in fact they even yield erroneous dates on rocks of empirically known ages; you’re totally over-playing your hand.

(April 17, 2013 at 2:28 am)cato123 Wrote: Scripture is infallible? I'll bring the leper, you can bring a couple birds. You can follow God's instructions and we'll see if the leper is cured. Of course, according to your God, the leper could be a house instead of a person.

Oops! Looks like you confused the Mosaic Covenantal spiritual cleansing laws and practices in Leviticus with actual physical cures for diseases; a lot of atheists make that blunder. I hope you were just ignorant of the difference between a spiritual cleansing and a physical cure and not intentionally being deceptive.

Quote: Do you know what cracks me the fuck up?

A better question would be, do I care?

Quote: If I were a deity and thought it important to write a book, I damn sure wouldn't include shit that wasn't true. Just saying.

Yet what was supposedly your best example of something untrue in the Bible just turned out to be nothing more than a classic display of scriptural ignorance. That’s what cracks me up.

(April 17, 2013 at 12:05 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: Demonstrating that a single anti-Biblical concept is unsound does not in any way shape or form demonstrate your claim, which is that they all are. See below.

Not quite, first of all, starting off with your own conceptual scheme is completely reasonable since if you didn’t think it was the best conceptual scheme available you certainly wouldn’t be ascribing to it, so if I can demolish the conceptual scheme that you view as the best you then have no basis to consistently object to my claim that all other conceptual schemes also fail because you yourself also believe they fail; as I already established I do not have to demonstrate a premise that you and I already both agree upon. Secondly, if all other conceptual schemes can be grouped because of one fatal flaw they share in common all I have to do is point out that flaw and I reduce them all to absurdity. So I will ask you again, please present me with your conceptual scheme and view of reality so we can get down to business.

Quote: Your usage of the word "absurd" was not the same definition I was thinking of. You're apparently using it as a synonym for "unsound". We can roll with that.

Absurdity is defined several ways in philosophy, none of which is something you want your view of reality to reduce to.

Quote: Hey, it's your claim, not mine. I'm under no obligation to help you in your case. That albatross is firmly around your neck, not mine.

Well if you’re unwilling to defend your own position then I can always just point out that my argument has gone un-refuted and therefore claim victory. In logic a person is not actually obligated to demonstrate their premises are indeed true, many premises just go un-refuted as apparently is the case here since you’re unwilling to defend your own view of reality. I suspect it’s because you know that it’s not defensible and that I can reduce it to absurdity.

Quote: That's quite the weighty claim. Looking only at the first sentence, you've got quite the task ahead of you:

Not really.

Quote: 1) The Biblical conceptual scheme and view of reality is logically cogent and consistent.

Yup.

Quote: 2) All extant or possible non-Biblical claims are necessarily not logically cogent and consistent.

That’s not actually what I said, but you know that. I said that they always reduce to absurdity. I find it a bit humorous though that you claim that a person must demonstrate the premises of their arguments all the while neglecting to demonstrate that very claim itself. If you’re not going to follow your own ridiculous standard then I see now reason as to why I should.
In the history of philosophy there hasn’t been one anti-Biblical view of reality proposed that hasn’t been reduced to absurdity, if you do not accept that fact then it’s up to you to refute that claim and present me with one. Until you do that you are merely making a fallacious argument from ignorance that there might be some anti-Biblical view of reality out there that doesn’t reduce to absurdity and we just don’t know about it yet, but that obviously isn’t a valid refutation of my argument. It actually adds support to my argument because it demonstrates that you have to resort to fallacious forms of argumentation in order to even raise objection to my argument.
Not only this, but since the Christian view of reality is logically consistent and has elements to it that we know our true that logically necessitates that all other views of reality are false because contradictory schemes cannot both be true.

Quote: I'm fairly certain you can't prove 1), and I'm pretty sure that no one can prove 2).

This is actually a common misconception people have about logic. There actually is no obligation to demonstrate either premise because that’s not how deductive argumentation functions. Once a valid argument is provided, which mine is, the onus is on those who reject the proof to refute it. We’ll look at the classic deductive example…

P1. All humans are mortal
P2. Socrates is a human
C. Therefore, Socrates is mortal

This syllogism is one of the most commonly used examples of both a valid and sound syllogism by logicians; and yet nobody has done the work to poll every single human in the Universe that has ever lived and ever will live in order to demonstrate that they are indeed all mortal. That’s a ridiculous notion, the syllogism is considered sound because it is valid and nobody can provide an example of a human who wasn’t mortal and thus refute the first premise (in fact, nobody has even demonstrated through DNA testing that Socrates was even a Human, but despite that the second premise is also considered to be true). So the onus is actually on the un-believer to either prove that the Biblical view cannot account for the preconditions of human experience and intelligibility or provide an anti-Biblical view of reality that can account for these preconditions. You’ve got your work cut out for you!

I do find it interesting though that I am sure you accept the conclusion of the above argument concerning Socrates even though the same objections you have raised about my argument apply to that argument as well, I smell special pleading. It never ceases to amaze me the pains atheists will go through in order to deny what is so obviously true to everyone else.

Quote: You're welcome to try, of course.

That ball is no longer in my court; you’d better get to refuting. If Christians are really as illogical as you seem to think they are, then it should take you hardly any effort at all to refute the argument, but your reluctance to do so makes me wonder…

(April 17, 2013 at 12:16 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: And you wonder why we don't take you seriously.

No I don’t wonder about it at all, I would not expect irrational people to take a rational person seriously.

Quote: Your style is to say "what if" and posit any claim unsupported by evidence you like to try and counter reality.

No, my style is to submit fallible sources to the authority of an infallible source, which is completely logical. You’re trying to prove the infallible source is untrue by pointing to fallible sources which is completely backwards and irrational.

Quote: But as all the actual real evidence supports what I said, your childish posturing just makes you look like a moron.

What’s the difference between real evidence and fake evidence? Personally attacking me doesn’t support your position any and only makes you look even more irrational, so by all means please continue doing it.

Quote: You have nothing to add to the debate other than the made up.

You talk a good game, but unfortunately that’s all it is…talk.

(April 18, 2013 at 2:41 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: Just a little reminder, Statler. You've neglected to support your claims. Just giving you another opportunity to do so.

…and you haven’t supported your claim that I am logically obligated to support my premises….oh no! You’re breaking your own silly rule! There is no obligation to demonstrate the premises of a deductive argument, anyone who has taken a course in logic knows that, or else should. Deduction is not contingent upon human experience.

(April 18, 2013 at 2:51 pm)thesummerqueen Wrote: I about spit out my ice cream reading these last couple of pages.

Infallible bible, my plump white ass.

Forgive me Your Highness, but you were the one who apparently thought science can disprove a deductive proof, so I am hardly concerned about whether you approve of my reasoning or not. In fact, I’d be a bit worried if you did.

See Stat that's the problem. The one your vast scientific knowledge should let you identify in the line of crap you are being fed. The different elements have different decay rates. If they had experienced accelerated decay rates in the past they would yield dissimilar results now instead of similar ones. If you speed up their various decay rates the error increases. It doesn't decrease. You have to speed up time not the decay rates if you want your argument to work.

(April 18, 2013 at 5:40 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Well if you’re unwilling to defend your own position

What position might that be? I'm waiting for you to support yours. I have presented none.

(April 18, 2013 at 5:40 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

Quote: That's quite the weighty claim. Looking only at the first sentence, you've got quite the task ahead of you:

Not really.

Quote: 1) The Biblical conceptual scheme and view of reality is logically cogent and consistent.

Yup.

So demonstrate that why this is so. Your argument hinges upon this proposition, and you've provided no justification to suppose that it is so. The soundness of your argument depends upon it. The ball is still in your court.

Quote: 2) All extant or possible non-Biblical claims are necessarily not logically cogent and consistent.

That’s not actually what I said, but you know that. I said that they always reduce to absurdity.
[/quote]

No, that is precisely what you said when you said this:

(April 16, 2013 at 5:17 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: only the Biblical conceptual scheme and view of reality is logically cogent and consistent.

Your use of 'only' implies that all others are not.

All. Not mine. Not ones with features in common with mine. All of them - extant and possible.

The rest of your TL;DR screed looked suspiciously like a smokescreen intended to distract from the basic fact that you did not provide any justification for point 1) above.

You don't get to assert point 1) and then move on as if you work were done. We can move on in this discussion once you've provided justification for that claim, otherwise, this discussion is dead on arrival.

People talking about measuring age with radiometric sources.... and using different sources giving you different ages...
Never forget science's golden rule: ERROR BARS!!! If the plot has no error bars, it's false, crap, invalid, useless.

If different methods yield different results, but the error bars overlap at some point, then there is a good chance that they are all correct.
And no, I didn't read the super mega long article on the topic...

(April 18, 2013 at 6:02 pm)popeyespappy Wrote: See Stat that's the problem. The one your vast scientific knowledge should let you identify in the line of crap you are being fed. The different elements have different decay rates. If they had experienced accelerated decay rates in the past they would yield dissimilar results now instead of similar ones. If you speed up their various decay rates the error increases. It doesn't decrease. You have to speed up time not the decay rates if you want your argument to work.

That’s not how accelerated nuclear decay works at all; each rate is accelerated proportionally, so it does not change their relation to one another at all.
Can you point to any examples where a rock of empirically known age has been accurately dated using radiometric dating?

(April 18, 2013 at 6:41 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: What position might that be? I'm waiting for you to support yours. I have presented none.

It doesn’t matter, if you think you have succeeded where all the great Western Philosophers have failed by adopting a logically consistent anti-Biblical view of reality then please do share, until you do that forgive me for being a bit more than skeptical.
I am not obligated to support mine any further, why is that so hard to understand? Human experience and intelligibility would not be possible if the Biblical view of reality were false, since those things are possible we know the Biblical view of reality is true. That’s a completely valid argument; it’s now up to you to refute it.

Quote: So demonstrate that why this is so.

Why do I have to?

Quote: Your argument hinges upon this proposition, and you've provided no justification to suppose that it is so.

I am not obligated to do so, it’s deduction.

Quote: The soundness of your argument depends upon it.

No it doesn’t, deductive soundness is not contingent upon anything I do.

Quote: 2) All extant or possible non-Biblical claims are necessarily not logically cogent and consistent.

Quote: No, that is precisely what you said when you said this:

I think you are confusing the word precisely with the word implicitly.

(April 16, 2013 at 5:17 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: only the Biblical conceptual scheme and view of reality is logically cogent and consistent.

Yes, and if the Biblical view is logically consistent and cogent and has any element to it that is true then the premise “all other views of reality are necessarily false” logically follows because the law of non-contradiction prohibits two contradictory views of reality from both being true.

Quote: All. Not mine. Not ones with features in common with mine. All of them - extant and possible.

Yup, but I am not required to demonstrate that.

Quote: The rest of your TL;DR screed looked suspiciously like a smokescreen intended to distract from the basic fact that you did not provide any justification for point 1) above.

Smokescreen? That actually seems to be what you are doing here.

Quote: You don't get to assert point 1) and then move on as if you work were done.

According to whom? You haven’t demonstrated your assertion above, I can only play by the same rules you are playing by.

Quote: We can move on in this discussion once you've provided justification for that claim, otherwise, this discussion is dead on arrival.

No, we can move on once you refute my argument, otherwise this discussion has proven that the God of scripture indeed does exist.

Are you really holding the position that the following proof is unsound?

P1 All humans are mortal
P2 Socrates is a human
C. Therefore, Socrates is mortal

(April 18, 2013 at 7:12 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Human experience and intelligibility would not be possible if the Biblical view of reality were false, since those things are possible we know the Biblical view of reality is true. That’s a completely valid argument; it’s now up to you to refute it.

Are you aware that you sound very much like a muslim?
Only, they claim that same thing about their Qur'an, instead of your bible.

So, which is right? which is wrong?
How to tell?

(April 18, 2013 at 7:06 pm)pocaracas Wrote: If different methods yield different results, but the error bars overlap at some point, then there is a good chance that they are all correct.

That’s not proper reasoning at all, if all the methods underwent the same period of accelerated decay they’d all be erroneous for the same reason and therefore yield similar but erroneous results.

Human specimen is 6 feet tall and weighs 144 pounds.

Dating method 1

The specimen has grown 0.5 inches in the last year, therefore the specimen is 144 years old.

Dating method 2

The specimen has gained 1 pound in the last year, therefore the specimen is 144 years old.

According to your reasoning, since these two dating methods yield similar results they are probably correct, therefore this hypothetical Senior in high school is really 144 years old and not 18 like he claims to be.

---

(April 18, 2013 at 7:17 pm)pocaracas Wrote: Are you aware that you sound very much like a muslim?
Only, they claim that same thing about their Qur'an, instead of your bible.

So, which is right? which is wrong?
How to tell?

That’s a fair enough question. I am not aware of any Muslim that makes that argument though and for good reason. According to Muslim theology, Allah transcends logic and is capable of contradictory thoughts and actions, and therefore the existence of Allah cannot account for universal, immaterial, and transcendent laws of logic. Muslims also have no direct revelation from Allah guaranteeing future regularity of natural law, thus they cannot account for induction and therefore science either. So unlike the Christian worldview, the Muslim’s view of reality cannot account for human experience and intelligibility.

(April 18, 2013 at 7:20 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

(April 18, 2013 at 7:06 pm)pocaracas Wrote: If different methods yield different results, but the error bars overlap at some point, then there is a good chance that they are all correct.

That’s not proper reasoning at all, if all the methods underwent the same period of accelerated decay they’d all be erroneous for the same reason and therefore yield similar but erroneous results.

Human specimen is 6 feet tall and weighs 144 pounds.

Dating method 1

The specimen has grown 0.5 inches in the last year, therefore the specimen is 144 years old.

Dating method 2

The specimen has gained 1 pound in the last year, therefore the specimen is 144 years old.

According to your reasoning, since these two dating methods yield similar results they are probably correct, therefore this hypothetical Senior in high school is really 144 years old and not 18 like he claims to be.

You'd have to argue very well for those two methods to be accepted as good measuring tapes.
All you've claimed in the past strikes me as someone who knows a bit about how radiometric dating works... but do you know how the scales for that dating are created?
Hint: not with two points.

(April 18, 2013 at 7:30 pm)pocaracas Wrote: You'd have to argue very well for those two methods to be accepted as good measuring tapes.

Yes I would, but the point is that I could use the same argument you are using to justify radiometric dating to justify both of those methods; so you’re going to have to use something else to justify radiometric dating. As far as I am concerned the elements went through a period of greatly accelerated decay in the past much like our hypothetical human would have gone through a period of accelerated growth earlier in his lifetime to throw off the other two methods.

Quote: All you've claimed in the past strikes me as someone who knows a bit about how radiometric dating works... but do you know how the scales for that dating are created?
Hint: not with two points.

Depends on what you mean by scales, are you referring to the parent to daughter element ratios? Feel free to elaborate, I am enjoying the discussion.

(April 18, 2013 at 7:37 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: As far as I am concerned the elements went through a period of greatly accelerated decay in the past much like our hypothetical human would have gone through a period of accelerated growth earlier in his lifetime to throw off the other two methods.

You say "as far as I am concerned." So this is not a proven claim, but one you feel is valid for correcting the measurements that indicate an 'old' Earth?