Radiometric Dating

[littlegrimlin1]

I was browsing the web and came across "proof" that radiometric dating inaccurate and therefore useless. Of course, this was research done by creationists...

http://creationwiki.org/Radiometric_dating

I may know to not trust this site, b/c it's probably super-baised towards creationism. I want to know the common refutes to the problems that theists seem to have with these problems...

here are some problems stated by these people:

1. Radiometric Dating: despite evolutionist claim that Radiometric dating works. This depends on Radioactive decay rates to be constant. Now the truth; Radioactive decay rates are not constant. This show by the amount of helium in both the rocks and the atmosphere.

they argue that macro evolution is not possible

2. There is no proof for Macro evolution. If you have taken the time to read this entire post, you would have seen that the 4 or 5 Atheists that have showed what they claimed as evidence, could not come up with any verifiable proof. However you are welcome to try and convince us. So tell me how can you look at the mechanical way the earth system works and be convinced it is an accident? How can the DNA that has the information in it to build an entire person or animal be an accident?

what do you all think, I am relatively low on this knowledge, enlighten me, I am only a template...

[chris]

Hello again all

OK to begin with evolution is not my speciality but I've read a lot but I'm going to give my understanding of the above Creationists arguament.

1. Radiometric Dating is based on Quantum Mechanics which is a highly successful area of physics and makes a lot of accurate predictions without which the modern information age and electronics would not be possible. Basically it relies on the fact that certain elements are unstable and over time will decay into a more stable element. We can not predict that any one molecule will decay at any specific time, but accurate predictions can be made with large samples, and by knowing what proportion has decayed we can fairly accurately calculate how long that element has been in existence in its current form.

2. There is plenty of evidence for evolution ranging from fossil records and how they change over time, observation of species which have been cut off from other members of the same species and have changed to take maximum advantage of the new environment (hate saying this as it implies that the species themselves that decide to change rather than environmental pressures favouring certain adaptations over others), also the DNA of different species can be examined and a relation tree created by observing the differences, and ring species.

I was going to continue this post by discussing "What is Science", but I think I'll leave it there and maybe do it in a new thread later.

Hope this helps

All the best


Chris

[rjh4 is back]

If you want to read more on radiometric dating, I found this article in the past few days. This article presents the problems with radiometric dating and references to support those positions (not all of which are creationist in origin). Based on the reasoning provided in the article, I do not know why anyone would trust it. But then again I am biased. Read for yourself though and see what you think. It is long but comprehensive.

Radiometric Dating

The same author has an article on the

Geologic Column

and

Fossil Record

Again to me the argumentation along with the evidence presented is convincing to me that a recent global catasrophic event produced the fossil record and the geologic column, not millions/billions of years. But, again, I am biased. Read for yourself. Look up the references. See if what you have been taught all these years still makes sense.

[Darwinian]

I started with Fossil Records because, well, I like fossils. Trouble is I only got a few paragraphs down before I got fed up with it. Why? Because it was so full of errors and faulty premises and logical inaccuracies that a child could spot there seemed very little point in reading the rest.

The author seemed to be having trouble with there being no trilobites and lobsters together in the fossil record during the Cambrian era and wondering why, if they lived together are they not fossilised together.

His actual question was...

"Why would creatures that would seem to share the same general environment while alive be so widely separated in the fossil record if they did indeed live at the same time and in pretty much the same location?"

The answer is because they didn't live during the same time. Trilobites appeared during the Cambrian and Lobsters appeared during the Cretaceous. What's so hard to understand about that?

[rjh4 is back]

I started with Fossil Records because, well, I like fossils. Trouble is I only got a few paragraphs down before I got fed up with it. Why? Because it was so full of errors and faulty premises and logical inaccuracies that a child could spot there seemed very little point in reading the rest.

The author seemed to be having trouble with there being no trilobites and lobsters together in the fossil record during the Cambrian era and wondering why, if they lived together are they not fossilised together.

His actual question was...

"Why would creatures that would seem to share the same general environment while alive be so widely separated in the fossil record if they did indeed live at the same time and in pretty much the same location?"

The answer is because they didn't live during the same time. Trilobites appeared during the Cambrian and Lobsters appeared during the Cretaceous. What's so hard to understand about that?

Now there is an open mind. You run into one thing that has another possible answer and conclude the author is wrong and it is not worth your time. That is certainly your prerogative. But could it be that your own bias, assumptions and presuppositions are kicking in and not allowing you to look at the entire case being made with an open mind? Maybe you don't even recognize your own bias in reading such material (or maybe you do??) The facts are the facts. The question really is which interpretation is more consistent with all the facts. Certainly one argument is not enough to make a valid case on either side because some facts do seem to fit one interpretation better while other facts seem to fit the other interpretation better.

[Tiberius]

The question the guy asked was concerning predictions. This is a good example of science:

You have a hypothesis (all animals lived at the same time, 6000 years ago, and died in the same flood).

You make a prediction (trilobites and lobsters should be found in the same places in the fossil record).

You make an observation (trilobites and lobsters are not found together in the fossil record).

Your observation contradicts your prediction, hence either the observation or the prediction are wrong. If repeated observations keep on contradicting your prediction, then you prediction is wrong (or at least not fully correct).

I find it laughable that you would accuse Darwinian of bias when he is simply pointing out the hypocrisy of the man's position (and indeed, the bias). The guy who wrote the paper has evidence against his position, he knows it (since he stated it), and yet because of his presuppositions (i.e. "Trilobites and Lobsters did live together") he cannot reject his beliefs.

Science looks down upon such people. You may argue your belief for eternity, but at the end of the day, if the evidence is contradicting you time after time, your belief *is* wrong. That is how science works, it's how it has always worked. It's how we have doubled life expectancy in a matter of years, how we have mastered technology for long distance communication, cracked the genome, etc, etc.

Science has no time for people who cling onto beliefs despite the opposing evidence. If your hypothesis doesn't hold out, it is rejected. Simple as that.

[Minimalist]

Oh, look...here's a xtian who isn't a total asshole on the subject...they are so rare!

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/RESOURCES/WIENS.html

Radiometric dating--the process of determining the age of rocks from the decay of their radioactive elements--has been in widespread use for over half a century. There are over forty such techniques, each using a different radioactive element or a different way of measuring them. It has become increasingly clear that these radiometric dating techniques agree with each other and as a whole, present a coherent picture in which the Earth was created a very long time ago. Further evidence comes from the complete agreement between radiometric dates and other dating methods such as counting tree rings or glacier ice core layers. Many Christians have been led to distrust radiometric dating and are completely unaware of the great number of laboratory measurements that have shown these methods to be consistent. Many are also unaware that Bible-believing Christians are among those actively involved in radiometric dating.

This paper describes in relatively simple terms how a number of the dating techniques work, how accurately the half-lives of the radioactive elements and the rock dates themselves are known, and how dates are checked with one another. In the process the paper refutes a number of misconceptions prevalent among Christians today. This paper is available on the web via the American Scientific Affiliation and related sites to promote greater understanding and wisdom on this issue, particularly within the Christian community.

[rjh4 is back]

The question the guy asked was concerning predictions. This is a good example of science:

You have a hypothesis (all animals lived at the same time, 6000 years ago, and died in the same flood).

You make a prediction (trilobites and lobsters should be found in the same places in the fossil record).

You make an observation (trilobites and lobsters are not found together in the fossil record).

Your observation contradicts your prediction, hence either the observation or the prediction are wrong. If repeated observations keep on contradicting your prediction, then you prediction is wrong (or at least not fully correct).

I find it laughable that you would accuse Darwinian of bias when he is simply pointing out the hypocrisy of the man's position (and indeed, the bias). The guy who wrote the paper has evidence against his position, he knows it (since he stated it), and yet because of his presuppositions (i.e. "Trilobites and Lobsters did live together") he cannot reject his beliefs.

Science looks down upon such people. You may argue your belief for eternity, but at the end of the day, if the evidence is contradicting you time after time, your belief *is* wrong. That is how science works, it's how it has always worked. It's how we have doubled life expectancy in a matter of years, how we have mastered technology for long distance communication, cracked the genome, etc, etc.

Science has no time for people who cling onto beliefs despite the opposing evidence. If your hypothesis doesn't hold out, it is rejected. Simple as that.

I guess you didn't read about the times when scientists throw out radiometric dates when they do not conform with their evolutionary/uniformitarian position. Note, when scientists do this it occurs even after the rock samples have been carefully selected to make sure that there is no evidence of contamination. But when the dates do not conform with predictions, they are thrown out as contaminated, even though there was no evidence of contamination when the rock was determined to be free of contamination for testing. So I disagree. I think there reason to believe that science has plenty of time for people who cling onto beliefs despite the opposing evidence.

So this author recognizes that there is an argument that seemingly is inconsistent with the hypothesis that the geologic column is a result of recent catastrophe and then he tries to explain why it is not inconsistent. Do you think with just this one fact that it (the hypothesis) should be thrown out? Is that what scientists do when the first person criticizes their hypothesis? I don't think so. They try to explain how it is consistent even though it might seem that it is not. That is all this author was trying to do. There is certainly no doubt that some of the observations are more easily explainable on its face by the evolutionary/uniformitarian view of things. This is probably one of them. However, there are other observations that I think are much better explained by a recent catastrophe view of things, such as polystrate fossils and paraconformities. Again, I think one needs to look at all the evidence and I provided these articles because I think the author did a good job in presenting the overall case.

[Darwinian]

---

I started with Fossil Records because, well, I like fossils. Trouble is I only got a few paragraphs down before I got fed up with it. Why? Because it was so full of errors and faulty premises and logical inaccuracies that a child could spot there seemed very little point in reading the rest.

The author seemed to be having trouble with there being no trilobites and lobsters together in the fossil record during the Cambrian era and wondering why, if they lived together are they not fossilised together.

His actual question was...

"Why would creatures that would seem to share the same general environment while alive be so widely separated in the fossil record if they did indeed live at the same time and in pretty much the same location?"

The answer is because they didn't live during the same time. Trilobites appeared during the Cambrian and Lobsters appeared during the Cretaceous. What's so hard to understand about that?

---

Now there is an open mind. You run into one thing that has another possible answer and conclude the author is wrong and it is not worth your time. That is certainly your prerogative. But could it be that your own bias, assumptions and presuppositions are kicking in and not allowing you to look at the entire case being made with an open mind? Maybe you don't even recognize your own bias in reading such material (or maybe you do??) The facts are the facts. The question really is which interpretation is more consistent with all the facts. Certainly one argument is not enough to make a valid case on either side because some facts do seem to fit one interpretation better while other facts seem to fit the other interpretation better.

Maybe you're right, maybe I should have read the whole thing and maybe I will. But you see, this is the problem with starting off with what you think is a fact and then trying to get the evidence to fit it. In this case, either the fact is wrong or the evidence. This of course can never make any sense as to arrive at a fact you must first have the evidence and if the evidence contradicts your fact then you must assume that your fact is at fault.

It's a bit like saying that we know that the Universe is only 6-10 thousand years old so how is it possible that we can see objects that are million and even billions of light years away especially as the evidence for the latter is beyond all reasonable contestation.

Even if you hate the idea of the universe being that ancient you cannot simply reject the evidence or try to twist it to fit your own personal theory as this way lies ignorance. We must never fall in love with our theories and if contradictory evidence arrives then we must abandon them but we will have learnt something in the process.

This is how we grow, no matter how unsavory it may seem.

[Tiberius]

I guess you didn't read about the times when scientists throw out radiometric dates when they do not conform with their evolutionary/uniformitarian position. Note, when scientists do this it occurs even after the rock samples have been carefully selected to make sure that there is no evidence of contamination. But when the dates do not conform with predictions, they are thrown out as contaminated, even though there was no evidence of contamination when the rock was determined to be free of contamination for testing. So I disagree. I think there reason to believe that science has plenty of time for people who cling onto beliefs despite the opposing evidence.

Point me to one documented (note: documented) occurrence of this. There are instances when contamination is found (even in unlikely samples). You are all hearsay and no evidence of your position.

So here is my challenge. Show me one documented case of this happening, and I will look at it. I predict that there will be a real rational explanation for such data being thrown out that has simply been misinterpreted by yourself and all other creationists.