(November 24, 2014 at 1:30 am)Creatard Wrote: 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.