RE: How old is the Earth?
October 13, 2010 at 4:31 pm
(This post was last modified: October 13, 2010 at 4:38 pm by Statler Waldorf.)
(October 13, 2010 at 3:59 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote:(October 13, 2010 at 3:53 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Well if the Earth is really 4.5 billion years old then you cannot "observe" that decay rates are constant because yoru observation is vastly too small and insignificant compared to the whole time period. Even if you could observe it for 100 years it would still only be 2.2X10^-11 percent of the total time. Even a curved line looks straight when you only observe an insignificant portion of it. So you're going to have to provide some other backing as to how you know those rates are constant.
This reminds me of the arguements people used to make around here that unless someone was around during the big bang event then I could never truely prove that it happened.
Either way, the concept is ridiculous. Given the sheer volume of radioactive material on the planet and the fact that the laws of physics have been consistent throughout the entirety of human experience and beyond (since we can actually see billions of years into the past by simply looking up into the sky) we can easily tell that radioactive decay is consistent with mathmatical precision simply for the same reason that all radiation, everywhere, throughout human history has been consistent and not just with one material but all materials at their individual decay rates. Not only that, but people who measure these things can calculate the decay rate of a material to an insignificant fraction of a second.
If radioactive materials were inconsistent or could change to any degree over any length of time, it would have been spotted long, long ago by someone from somewhere around the planet because that kind of flaw would be obvious to anyone who makes their career around such concepts and it would affect many other areas of science.
Using Old-Earth presuppositions to justify Old-Earth presuppositions....classic! Well people who say you cannot prove the Big Bang unless you were there to observe it are correct in a manner of speaking. If your definition of "proof" is at the emperical level then they are correct.
(October 13, 2010 at 4:19 pm)Chuck Wrote:(October 13, 2010 at 3:53 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: Well if the Earth is really 4.5 billion years old then you cannot "observe" that decay rates are constant because yoru observation is vastly too small and insignificant compared to the whole time period. Even if you could observe it for 100 years it would still only be 2.2X10^-11 percent of the total time. Even a curved line looks straight when you only observe an insignificant portion of it. So you're going to have to provide some other backing as to how you know those rates are constant.
Therefore a bunch of gullible desert herders who hasn't heard of the concept of "experiment", but carry around a divine box that talks to them through a hereditary priesthood, were right, and the earth is no more than 6000 years old.
Incidentally people who actually do experiments with much better boxes can directly measure forces governing decay directly over the entire 4.5 billion years in which the earth existed. By measuring the decay in the output curve and spectrum of supernova at different distances, we directly observe radio active decay behavior of very specific isotopes created during the supernova at different times in the past, and we directly constraint the behavior of nuclear strong force underlying those decays. So, yes. We've checked the decay rate over the entire 4.5 billion years, we've done 11 orders of magnitude better than your severely order-of-magnitude-befuddled 2.2 E-11 assessment, and found that force governing radio active decay has not changed.
The old Red Herring comes out. We are not talking about the Ark of the Covenent if that is what you are mischaracterizing here.
Again, you are using an Old-Earth presuppostion (That Starlight propagation is isotropic) to justify another Old-Earth presupposition. I don't hold either of these presuppositions, so you missed my position on that shot.
(October 13, 2010 at 4:25 pm)Shell B Wrote:(October 13, 2010 at 3:59 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: You may not classify personal attacks as Ad Hominem but they do nothing to add to the Logical Validity of the argument (aslo are against forum rules) so essentially they are just as fallacious.
It's not really about opinion. An ad hom is an insult used to refute someone else's argument. For example, "You're an asshole, therefore you are wrong." That is an ad hom, by the only definition. Being against the rules doesn't make an insult fallacious. It just makes it a no-no.
I do think that insults can add to the "logical validity" of an argument on rare occasions. However, they are largely unnecessary.
How is an insult ever a valid argument?