Young Earth Creationism Vs. Science (Statler Waldorf Contd)

[Thor]

[quote='Thor' pid='110800' dateline='1292860408']

Where did I say that scientific facts are established by consensus? Because I didn't.

Oh whew! I was worried you actually believed that because you said, ““So, I'll throw my lot in with the 99.5% of scientists who conclude that the Earth is over 4 billion years old. You can join the handful of kooks who want to believe in an Earth that is only a few thousand years old.” I am glad that you realize that throwing your lot in with the majority is not any more rational than throwing it in with the minority since scientific facts are not determined by the majority.

Yeah, I figured you were going to come back with this bullshit.

Way to twist around my meaning.

I never said or implied that scientific facts are determined by the majority. However, when 99.5% of scientists agree on something (such as the age of the Earth) and they can support their contention with solid evidence, I'm inclined to believe their conclusion. In contrast, when a very small minority wants to claim that the 99.5% are off by a factor of over 400,000, and they have no evidence to support this notion, I am inclined to label them as kooks. Do you seriously think scientific dating methods are so far off that they would show the Earth to be over 4 billion years old when it is truly only 10,000 years old? This is absolutely ludicrous! This would be like scientists measuring the distance from NY to LA and concluding it's 3,000 miles. Then people like you come along and want to insist that the measuring instruments are unreliable, and the actual distance from NY to LA is only 35 FEET!

Yeah, sign me up for your camp.

And that "consensus" was hardly scientific. It was based on nothing but belief, not science.Today we have scientists from all over the world in a variety of disciplines using different dating methods all concluding that the Earth is somewhere around 4-4.5 billion years old. Now, what dating methods are you using to conclude that the planet is less than 10,000 years old?

On the contrary, the majority of the greatest scientific minds the World has known, many of whom opened up the very disciplines you are referring to were creationists.

So what?

So to say their beliefs were not founded upon science is absurd.

What's absurd is you constantly wanting to credit creationism with scientific discoveries. Sorry, the creationist beliefs of religious scientists like Newton or Galileo were NOT based on "science". They were based on blind faith. Just like yours.

There are dozens of dating methods that indicate the earth and universe are very young. Do you want them from any particular discipline or just from many disciplines?

Really? Dozens, huh? Since you have "dozens", give me two dozen.

You may as well be arguing that the Earth is flat.

Non-sequitur. The shape of the Earth can be directly observed and our beliefs about it are shaped by operational sciences. The age of the earth cannot be directly observed and our beliefs about it are not based on operational sciences but rather origins/historical sciences.

No, it's not a non-sequitor. My point is that there is just as much support for a flat Earth in the scientific community as there is for a young Earth.

You don't think C-14 dating has any validity. So how can you make any assertions based on C-14 data?

Where did I say it has no validity at all? It was not calibrated correctly so its ages are not exact, but it is completely legitimate for establishing a maximum age for organic matter (around 100,000 years for the lowest detectable amounts) because we can empirically measure its current rate of decay. So finding it in diamonds means the maximum age for those diamonds is around 40,000 years old. Remember this is only a maximum, so the diamonds could be much younger, but cannot be any older.

I see... so you want to use C-14 for your purposes even though you say "it was not calibrated correctly". Ya got a source to back up that statement, by the way?

All it means is that we have an anamoly that bears investigating. You want to jump to the ludicrous conclusion that it means the planet is only a few thousand years old.

Translation: “I am going to wait until someone can show me how I can force this evidence to fit my paradigm. Even though there seems to be all of this amounting evidence that does not fit an old earth paradigm, I still think believing in a young earth is ludicrous, just because.”

Yeah, that's it...

It's more like, "Since there is a mountain of evidence that indicates the planet is much older than 10,000 years, I'm going to wait until experts have had a chance to investigate this anomaly before deciding that the Earth is much younger than previously thought."

So then you don’t trust the method.

Thanks for putting words in my mouth.

If you trusted the dating method, when it said the diamonds were nearly four million times younger than originally thought you would believe they were four million times younger than originally thought.

Can you provide a scientific source that reached this conclusion? Because I'll bet you can't.

Because I do not need an actual age for the diamonds, I just need a maximum. Radiocarbon dating is excellent for establishing a maximum age for organic matter. The maximum age for the diamonds tested is around 40,000 years. So of course a 6000 year old age for the earth is consistent with these results since it is less than the maximum. If a global flood did occur I would expect these inflated ages for organic matter, so again it’s completely consistent with my axiom.

And how can you be confident "the maximum" is valid when you said that it's "not calibrated correctly"?

Yes, radiocarbon dating is horribly flawed! That's why the scientific world uses it.

Oh yes, I forgot the scientific community is infallible in your eyes. My bad.

Putting words in my mouth again. I never said the scientific community is "infallible". However, it does police itself pretty well and bad science is usually exposed rather quickly.

Again, I do accept radiocarbon dating as being reasonably accurate. If radiocarbon dating reveals something we wouldn't expect, then we should investigate the cause. Not jump to unrealistic conclusions.

Circular argument. Tsk tsk.

1: “How do you know the Earth is 4.5 billion years old?”
2: “Well several dating methods suggest it’s that old.”
1: “What about when those and other dating methods suggest it is far younger?”
2: ‘well those ones need to be investigated.”
1: “Why?”
2: “Well they yield results we didn’t expect.
1: “Why didn’t you expect those results?”
2: “Well because we know the earth is 4.5 billion years old”
1: “But how do you know the earth is that old?”

Yeah, this is the argument I made.

Why don't you stop putting words in my mouth and read my posts?

Try this analogy:

An autograph of Abraham Lincoln surfaces. Experts examine it and declare that the paper it is written on wasn't manufactured until 1920.

Would you now consider the autograph to be a forgery? Or would you think this is proof that Abraham Lincoln was alive in 1920?

So when a dating method suggests an age you like, you accept it. When it suggests one you don’t like, you say it needs to be investigated because it doesn’t fit the ages suggested by the ones you accept. Bad logic.

Not at all. See above example.

Ok, well then you are accepting the fact that others have observed boulders falling off cliffs, and applying that through reasoning to the boulder you see at the bottom of the cliff. Your reasoning is still based off of observation. Nobody observed the forming of the earth so this boulder analogy does not apply to origins sciences.

Wrong. My reasoning is based upon logic, not observation. No matter how you want to twist it to match your argument.