[split] Radiometric Dating

[Minimalist]

I'm getting ready to leave high school to pursue pastoral ministries

Why don't you do something useful with your life, instead. Churches are dying out in the west.

[Creatard]

By my name you probably know my position, but I have a little bit of a beef with radio metric dating because of its presuppositions. Basically there are three:
1) you have to assume the absence of the daughter isotope at the start of process.
2) you have to assume constant decay rates. We have only been able to observe their rates for the past 100-150 years. Before that we can reasonably guess the affects of the earth's magnetic field and other factors would have on decay, but that is all they will ever be: an educated guess.
3) no parent or daughter isotopes were lost or added during the process.
I'm going to leave it at that and see where the replies take it. Hope to here from you guys soon.

I can only come at this in a round about manner since I am ignorant regarding decay rates. Even so, perhaps you'd care to explain how positing a creator makes any account of this or any other natural phenomenon any more plausible. Beyond that, even if you could show there are some useful theoretical results of such an assumption, you'd still have to admit that what must be sacrificed to take a god hypothesis tempting is actually much more clarity and confidence that belief in god could ever give you back.

I don't know enough to say how radioactive decay would be different with/without a creator, but I don't see your argument there. I know it does explain phenomena puzzling secular scientists. For instance the presence of Carbon-14 in diamonds and coal that are supposed to be billions of years old, the presence of soft tissue in fossils supposed to be millions of years old, and other examples. There is also so much evidence for catastrophe throughout geology that it has sparked a new movement called neocatastrophism, in which geologists acknowledge the need for several catastrophes to create the geologic column without conceding to a Genesis flood.
By sacrifice do you mean that you would have to give up a materialistic bias or are you intending something different altogether?

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I'm getting ready to leave high school to pursue pastoral ministries

Why don't you do something useful with your life, instead. Churches are dying out in the west.

Yes, because mission projects in Africa and South America have done nothing to improve water systems and housing

[coldwx]

I have a novel idea that might help you. Instead of desperately searching for gaps in the current scientific knowledge(which incidentally this is not really one of them) in a vain attempt to convince yourself that a well established theory has problems, why don't you provide the evidence you have for intelligent design. How about your first post be "Here is why intelligent design is correct and here is the scientific evidence that supports it." If your belief can be tested and proved let's see the affirmation. Stop wasting our time with this modified gaps argument and present the confirmation of intelligent design.

[Minimalist]

Why don't you do something useful with your life, instead. Churches are dying out in the west.

Yes, because mission projects in Africa and South America have done nothing to improve water systems and housing

Yeah, horseshit. They are there to sell jesus to the ignorant. It's about the only place it sells.

[Esquilax]

I don't know enough to say how radioactive decay would be different with/without a creator, but I don't see your argument there. I know it does explain phenomena puzzling secular scientists. For instance the presence of Carbon-14 in diamonds and coal that are supposed to be billions of years old, the presence of soft tissue in fossils supposed to be millions of years old, and other examples.

As as been pointed out before, this is an argument from ignorance: "Scientists can't explain this, god does, therefore god is more likely." But also, on the soft tissue claim, that was fossl tissue that had been rehydrated, not naturally occurring soft tissue. You've fallen for a creationist exaggeration there.

By sacrifice do you mean that you would have to give up a materialistic bias or are you intending something different altogether?

You know, for someone who complains about the tones others use as much as you do, you really are being horrifically rude when you accuse someone you've never met and have only started interacting with today of bias. I know it might make you feel better to pretend the only reason we don't immediately agree with every point you make is because of some in-built bias that just makes us unreasonable, but you don't know us, you've never met us or spoken to any of us. You have no basis for saying that, and these kinds of reflexive, unthinking attacks on our character to cover for the inadequacy of your own points are dishonest and hostile to the tone of the conversation. Do try and avoid double standards in future.

On to the actual meat of your point, I see an issue nobody else has really addressed yet, so I figure I'd throw my hat into the ring. For the sake of discussion, let's say that radiometric dating is inaccurate and doesn't work at all. At best, what you have just determined is that we have an unreliable tape measure for indicating the age of the earth. What you haven't done is gone even one step toward demonstrating that the old earth proposed dates are wrong, or that your young earth dates are correct. Your argument at its strongest only shows the inadequacy of our measuring systems, and yet you're here claiming to know the age of the earth absent an accurate measure; how is it that you're doing that?

And how does a young earth, even if you can demonstrate it, point exclusively to your specific version of whatever god you worship? You've started a conversation that would produce a very mild result if successful, and then you're bootstrapping on a huge number of other claims that you seem content to keep hidden. Frankly I'm surprised my fellows here have let you get away with this kind of argument from ignorance for as long as they have.

[pocaracas]

On to the actual meat of your point, I see an issue nobody else has really addressed yet, so I figure I'd throw my hat into the ring. For the sake of discussion, let's say that radiometric dating is inaccurate and doesn't work at all. At best, what you have just determined is that we have an unreliable tape measure for indicating the age of the earth. What you haven't done is gone even one step toward demonstrating that the old earth proposed dates are wrong, or that your young earth dates are correct. Your argument at its strongest only shows the inadequacy of our measuring systems, and yet you're here claiming to know the age of the earth absent an accurate measure; how is it that you're doing that?

Well, you see, Esq.... he has this book...

[Anomalocaris]

1) you have to assume the absence of the daughter isotope at the start of process.

In deed that is a solidly and verifiably grounded assumption, if the substance at the start of the process is a liquid and any daughter element in it, by well known and substantiated chemical and physical property of the daughter elments, would either precipitate, or outgas out of the liquid before it solidifies. Thus solidification marks the last moment of near total absence of daughter element. This is a pretty good assumption by any absolute scale and infinitely better assumption than a bunch of impressionable iron age yokels would have had any of the wherewithall to really known it really was god when they heard of the rumor of a Jesus or when some voice is said by a bunch of priests to issue from a box,

Also a pretty good assumption if the substance formed part of a living organism that must carry on exchange of chemical elements with an external reservior of known or strongly predictable content as part of its metabolism, so you know exactly how much daughter element there must have been in the substance right up to the minute when metablic function stopped. Again a vastly better assumption that some silly iron age tract by the name of bible is the word of god - an identification which no one can be shown to have any credible wherewithall to make, or that some fantasy of hearing god that came to your eagerly wishthinking mind would happen to corresponding to any form of reality as might be understood by any slightly intelligent and critical person.

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Yes, because mission projects in Africa and South America have done nothing to improve water systems and housing

And the knowledge that improving water system matters and how to improve it didn't come from your filthy bible or your good for nothing Jesus, and falsely selling the fruit of science in the name of your religion so you can trick more desparate gullible people to worship your "god" is no credit to what you are about to do.

[Creatard]

By my name you probably know my position, but I have a little bit of a beef with radio metric dating because of its presuppositions. Basically there are three:
1) you have to assume the absence of the daughter isotope at the start of process.
2) you have to assume constant decay rates. We have only been able to observe their rates for the past 100-150 years. Before that we can reasonably guess the affects of the earth's magnetic field and other factors would have on decay, but that is all they will ever be: an educated guess.
3) no parent or daughter isotopes were lost or added during the process.
I'm going to leave it at that and see where the replies take it. Hope to here from you guys soon.

Oh awesome irony! A creatard! An actual creatard! One who is actually aware of its creatardness!

1) The start of the process can be analysed by the start of similar processes going on today, namely at active volcanoes.

2) When you measure decay rates of short lived isotopes, you get an exponential, not a constant. It is what the theory predicts, at least in first approximation. There's no actual reason why long lived isotopes would behave differently, seeing as they follow the same law, just with a different time constant.
What does the Earth's magnetic field have to do with nuclear decay rates?
You're wanting to compare the weak nuclear force with a far, far weaker magnetic force... it's effect is, at best, negligible.
3) Some radiometric dating methods actually rely on the presence of secondary and tertiary decay... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating Just look at all the possible methodologies!!
You'd do well to read actual scientific sources, if you're going to argue science. Refrain from using your creatard literature - it's skewed for your presuppositional god.

I actually selected that name intentionally to save you guys the time.
1) Again you are making an assumption that the composition of lava flows have always remained the same, and that atmospheric conditions would have the same effect as today.
2) Yes, I already knew that is was exponential decay. My basis for this claim is the ratio of Carbon 14 to Carbon 12 in the atmosphere, which would depend on cosmic ray fluctuation, which would in turn be dependent on the earth's magnetic field. I was not trying to say the magnetic field had a direct impact, and I apologize for not making that clear. The strength of the magnetic field would influence how many isotopes would be created by those rays. Take a look at the formation of Carbon 14 to see how influential it is.
3)You just added more variables that may have not always been constant or you have to assume their initial composition as well.
Hold on a sec, you just cited wiki but you say my sources aren't valid because they have a bias. Not only does every evolutionist article have a bias towards materialism, but in no world is wiki ever a valid source. The only people I will ever site will have Ph.Ds in their field. Also, by citing that wiki page you implied that I have not spent the time to study what I'm attacking. I've kind of spent the last 5 years of my life reading about this stuff from peer-reviewed journals on both sides. Nothing on that page was new to me. It also doesn't matter how many dating methodologies there are in this field, because they all have the three basic presuppositions that I posted.

[Alex K]

Why are you so concerned about C14 anyways? Its got a halflife of, what, 6000 years, so it's interesting for dating the shroud of turin, oetzie and cave paintings, but completely uninteresting when it comes to the age of the earth. Look at Potassium-Argon etc. for that, which does not depend on atmospheric conditions

By the way, hasn't C14 been verified and calibrated using dendrochronology very far back? There's not much wiggle room for your wishful thinking.

[Anomalocaris]

I actually selected that name intentionally to save you guys the time.
1) Again you are making an assumption that the composition of lava flows have always remained the same, and that atmospheric conditions would have the same effect as today.

Bullshit. The assumption is the chemical properties of the elements are the same as they are today, not the composition of lava flow have always been the same. If the same daughter elment would have outgassed or precipitated out of lava today, it would have outgassed or precipitated out of lava last year, a million years ago, or a billiom years ago. This is how we can assume up to the last period of time when the lava remained liquid, whatever the ratioactive decay had already happened, there would be little or none of the daughter elements in the liquid.

The same with C14 dating. If the cosmic ray conditions had been so different as to generate dramatically different atmospheric content of C14, then perhaps a tree whose rings tell you it is 7235 years old wouldn't have its wood test out to have a carbon date of pretty damned close to 7200 years, would it? Or do tree grow faster or were the years shorter in proportion to the degree of cosmic ray impact on the rate of C14 production?

You can safely assume if you believe in the bible, you are both too dumb and too ignorant, by a vast margin, to form any valid challenges to theory of science. Science is not always right. But it takes far greater insight than would be within the grasp of the typical bible believing creatardic excuses for minds to spot the errors and correct them. That includes you. You don't even play in the minor leagues.