Since the only argument a creationist can make is "God did it", their argument is by default, invalid in scientific terms.

(October 14, 2010 at 4:31 pm)LastPoet Wrote: If he could prove the earth to be 6000-7000 years old he would get the nobel prize

No, right, he will say his papers were refused because there is a world conspiracy to shun creationists out of science

Haha, this right here shows your lack of knowledge on the subject. It is impossible to prove the age of something you never observed. Hence why nobody has gotten the nobel prize for proving the Earth was any age. Hence why the age of the Earth keeps changing. Someone who claims emperical proof in the Historical Sciences is committing a serious category error and should go back and take some basic Science courses at a Junior College somewhere near them.

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(October 14, 2010 at 4:54 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote:

(October 14, 2010 at 3:54 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: You keep appealing to "high school science", I am beginning to think that is all the Scientific Education you possess. Am I right? :-) Well you played the game that because someone is a Creationist it instantly invalidates their argument (your fantasy), so I am just playing that game right back with you :-) It is kind of a lame game huh?

Actually, I'm glad you mentioned that.
I keep bringing it up for two reasons -
The first and most important reason is because you've identified yourself as a former math and science teacher and a current government scientist (no doubt given job when the Bush Administration was still in power, assuming you work in the United States - but that's just one of my patented baseless assertions).
The second reason in order but not stature is to examplify how easily your arguements are refuted using concepts you should be intimately familiar with as someone who should have an understanding of math and science at least to the level of a teenage student.

The fact that your statements and beliefs clearly fail to live up even those standards helps to prove my point becuase so far you don't seem to have actually made any counterpoints to my refutations of that light propogation nonsense given that it cannot conform to a basic understanding of math and science.

As such, I've no reason to believe any of your arguements or credentials have any validity.

Haha, I am sure you are aware that high school textbooks are written for a specific age range, just as are junior high books and so on. These books do not contain the cutting edge research in any of their disciplines (I sure hope they don't). If you were in a high school debate you would certainly not appeal to an elementary school textbook just as you should not appeal to a high school textbook in a discussion at this level (assuming we have both graduated high school, I know I did). These textbooks do nothing to refute the an-isotropic propagation of light which I pointed out earlier in a post you either ignored or didn't understand. What you are arguing for uses a calculated time definition, which under this defintion light is indeed isotropic. However, using the observational time defintion light becomes an-isotropic. They are both valid definitions of time and can be converted back and forth just like meters and centimeters. The Creation account in Genesis uses the observational time definition, so to argue against this reality by using the calculated time definition would be completely invalid. It would be like saying, "no no no, that's not a mile, it's 5280 feet!". Clear now?

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(October 14, 2010 at 5:34 pm)orogenicman Wrote: Since the only argument a creationist can make is "God did it", their argument is by default, invalid in scientific terms.

Haha, well that's not the only argument Creationists make. According to whom is that by default an invalid argument? You? Methodolgocial Naturalism is not the only valid Science my friend, anyone who believes this needs to brush up on Science.

(October 14, 2010 at 5:37 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Haha, this right here shows your lack of knowledge on the subject. It is impossible to prove the age of something you never observed.

What crap. Scientists can certainly determine the approximate age of things they've never observed. How about tree rings? And you can't look at a person you've never met and come within ten years or so of guessing their age?

Quote:Someone who claims emperical proof in the Historical Sciences is committing a serious category error and should go back and take some basic Science courses at a Junior College somewhere near them.

And do you suppose that a science class at that Junior College will teach that the Earth is 6,000 years old?

(October 14, 2010 at 5:37 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Haha, I am sure you are aware that high school textbooks are written for a specific age range, just as are junior high books and so on. These books do not contain the cutting edge research in any of their disciplines (I sure hope they don't). If you were in a high school debate you would certainly not appeal to an elementary school textbook just as you should not appeal to a high school textbook in a discussion at this level (assuming we have both graduated high school, I know I did). These textbooks do nothing to refute the an-isotropic propagation of light which I pointed out earlier in a post you either ignored or didn't understand. What you are arguing for uses a calculated time definition, which under this defintion light is indeed isotropic. However, using the observational time defintion light becomes an-isotropic. They are both valid definitions of time and can be converted back and forth just like meters and centimeters. The Creation account in Genesis uses the observational time definition, so to argue against this reality by using the calculated time definition would be completely invalid. It would be like saying, "no no no, that's not a mile, it's 5280 feet!". Clear now?

You certainly keep saying this to be the case anyway, but other than telling me that I'm wrong, you've done nothing to actually make that case.
You're absolutely right that school textbooks are written for a specific age range and they do not contain cutting-edge research, which makes it all the more hilarious when it so easily can be used in a manner that refutes young-earth creationism, as highlighted in the video or that well established theory that by that famous physicist you continue to dismiss but haven't actually refuted.

You're right. Genesis does refute established scientific understanding of physics.
That was only pointed out in that youtube video and a number of times by people on this and the other thread. That's why the genesis account is ignored by people studying physics, astronomy, and so on.

Quote:Haha, this right here shows your lack of knowledge on the subject. It is impossible to prove the age of something you never observed. Hence why nobody has gotten the nobel prize for proving the Earth was any age. Hence why the age of the Earth keeps changing. Someone who claims emperical proof in the Historical Sciences is committing a serious category error and should go back and take some basic Science courses at a Junior College somewhere near them.

Wow, that just takes my breath away. First of all, Marie and Pierre Curie were awarded Nobel prizes for their discovery of radioactivity and the creation of the theory of radioactivity. That theory was later used by Ernest Rutherford to elaborate on the concept of isotopic decay, work which lead to the measurement the age of the Earth. But you are essentially correct that no one received a Nobel for proving the age of the Earth. But then, no one has ever received a Nobel for simply compiling data. Now, I don't know to what "historical science" you are referring, but physics is not one of them.

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Quote:Haha, well that's not the only argument Creationists make. According to whom is that by default an invalid argument? You? Methodolgocial Naturalism is not the only valid Science my friend, anyone who believes this needs to brush up on Science.

"God did it" is NEVER a valid scientific argumeent. EVER. I challenge you to prove otherwise. Good luck with that.

I'll ask again, where science and the bible differ, do you take the opinion that it will be science that is wrong?

(October 14, 2010 at 5:37 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Haha, this right here shows your lack of knowledge on the subject. It is impossible to prove the age of something you never observed. Hence why nobody has gotten the nobel prize for proving the Earth was any age. Hence why the age of the Earth keeps changing. Someone who claims emperical proof in the Historical Sciences is committing a serious category error and should go back and take some basic Science courses at a Junior College somewhere near them.

You obviously don't understand what counts as empirical. If we can determine that the decay rate of uranium happens on average after 4.5x10^9 years we can also say that if you have a pool of uranium containing 4.5x10^9 atoms, then one will decay every year. If you have 4.5x10^90 atoms you can see that 10 will decay every year, this is what has been done and it's been verified as consistent.

The empirical evidence of the average decay rates can be used to calculate how many isotopes of a certain atom should be present in a composite material, by judging that a given percent of the substance in a composite are of a certain kind you can determine how long it would have taken for this composite l to decay from the original state into the state it is currently found.

(October 14, 2010 at 6:04 pm)Thor Wrote: What crap. Scientists can certainly determine the approximate age of things they've never observed. How about tree rings? And you can't look at a person you've never met and come within ten years or so of guessing their age?

That is because we have observed trees growing and people aging so we can apply what we have learned to trees and people that we have never seen before. But no one has ever observed how the universe began.

Scientific estimates of age are based on the assumption that everything developed by natural means alone without any divine intervention. If this assuption is wrong then all of the estimates will be wrong.

http://atheistforums.org/thread-4052.html

(October 15, 2010 at 12:59 pm)theophilus Wrote: That is because we have observed trees growing and people aging so we can apply what we have learned to trees and people that we have never seen before. But no one has ever observed how the universe began.

Or it's because we've cut a number of trees open and simply noticed that the younger ones have fewer rings than the older ones.
The funny thing is that the oldest tree in the world is older than what creationists believe the earth is.
See how that works? We didn't even need to observe a tree from sapling to death to know something like that. Utterly perposterous notion about observations you have.

(October 15, 2010 at 12:59 pm)theophilus Wrote: Scientific estimates of age are based on the assumption that everything developed by natural means alone without any divine intervention. If this assuption is wrong then all of the estimates will be wrong.

http://atheistforums.org/thread-4052.html

Scientific estimates of the earth's age is based off of empirical evidence and nothing more, nothing less. If the evidence showed 6000 years, then scientists would say 6000 years. If it showed 4.54 billion years, then that's what they'd say it is. Unfortunately for creationists, it's the latter estimate.

Edit: Nice link you provided. It's too bad all of the 'evidence' against evolution and whatnot is wrong.

(October 14, 2010 at 6:04 pm)Thor Wrote:

(October 14, 2010 at 5:37 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Haha, this right here shows your lack of knowledge on the subject. It is impossible to prove the age of something you never observed.

What crap. Scientists can certainly determine the approximate age of things they've never observed. How about tree rings? And you can't look at a person you've never met and come within ten years or so of guessing their age?

Quote:Someone who claims emperical proof in the Historical Sciences is committing a serious category error and should go back and take some basic Science courses at a Junior College somewhere near them.

And do you suppose that a science class at that Junior College will teach that the Earth is 6,000 years old?

Lol, two mistakes in this post. First of all, an approximation is not "proof", so you didn't get anywhere with that. Secondly the only reason you can approximate someone's age is because you have observed other people's lives. When was the last time you observed an Earth aging for 4.5 billion years? Never. So you have nothing to compare it to. A funny little side note- even if I thought I knew how old someone was, but their parent's told me they were a different age than I thought, I would believe the parents. So when God says the Earth is young I tend to believe Him, and not you. It just so happens there is lots of evidence to back up God's claim on this one, so it's a win-win.

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You just re-stated your initial assertion. You didn't answer my question. According to whom is a supernatural explaination not valid to explain natural phenomena?

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If you knew enough about that beloved physicist's theory, you would know that you can't use a theory that deals with calculated time definition to refute someone who is using observational time definition. Tsk tsk tsk.

You keep using high school textbooks, wikipedia, and youtube. I will keep using peer-reviewed scientific journals. I like it better this way.

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When Physics is used to make claims about the past then it loses its Emperical tag and becomes a Historic Science. Pretty simple. I know I was right about the Nobel thing, you don't have to tell me that.

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(October 14, 2010 at 6:52 pm)theVOID Wrote:

(October 14, 2010 at 5:37 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Haha, this right here shows your lack of knowledge on the subject. It is impossible to prove the age of something you never observed. Hence why nobody has gotten the nobel prize for proving the Earth was any age. Hence why the age of the Earth keeps changing. Someone who claims emperical proof in the Historical Sciences is committing a serious category error and should go back and take some basic Science courses at a Junior College somewhere near them.

You obviously don't understand what counts as empirical. If we can determine that the decay rate of uranium happens on average after 4.5x10^9 years we can also say that if you have a pool of uranium containing 4.5x10^9 atoms, then one will decay every year. If you have 4.5x10^90 atoms you can see that 10 will decay every year, this is what has been done and it's been verified as consistent.

The empirical evidence of the average decay rates can be used to calculate how many isotopes of a certain atom should be present in a composite material, by judging that a given percent of the substance in a composite are of a certain kind you can determine how long it would have taken for this composite l to decay from the original state into the state it is currently found.

Oh you were doing so good until you then used these emperical observations (that emperically prove the current decay rate of uranium not the age of the Earth) to extrapolate and make claims that don't qualify as emperical. If you can't directly observe it, and repeat it, then it's not emperical science. You can't observe 4.5 billion years. So this will never be an emperical claim. You can make all sorts of emperical experiments, but none of them "prove" emperically the age of the Earth. I will never apologize for having a stricter definition of emperical evidence than you do.