Going to the new museum

[oenophile]

The old geological earth is based on an assumption that slow erosion caused formations like the Grand Canyon. All new ideas are assumed to fit under the old idea.

Not so. Old geological earth is based on empirical data. Namely, the "clock in the rock." Radioisotope dating is based upon the constant rate of decay of U-235 to becoming lead. Since we know that the half life of U-235 is approximately 700 million years, we can compare percentages of U-235 to lead found in rock formations in order to determine the age of the rock. If for instance an imprint of a fossil is found in sedimentary or perserved in volcanic strata, radioisotope dating is valuable in determining its age.

Edited July 13, 2007 by oenophile

[Bolshevik]

The idea that the Earth is old began before radiometric dating was known.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth

Early calculations: physicists, geologists and biologists

In 1862, the physicist William Thomson (who later became Lord Kelvin) of Glasgow published calculations that fixed the age of the Earth at between 24 million and 400 million years[3]. He assumed that the Earth had been created as a completely molten ball of rock, and determined the amount of time it took for the ball to cool to its present temperature. His calculations did not account for the ongoing heat source in the form of radioactive decay, which was unknown at the time.

Geologists had trouble accepting such a short age for the Earth. Biologists could accept that the Earth might have a finite age, but even 100 million years seemed much too short to be plausible. Charles Darwin, who had studied Lyell's work, had proposed his theory of the evolution of organisms by natural selection, a process whose combination of random heritable variation and cumulative selection implies great expanses of time. Even 400 million years did not seem long enough.

In a lecture in 1869, Darwin's great advocate, Thomas H. Huxley, attacked Thomson's calculations, suggesting they appeared precise in themselves but were based on faulty assumptions. The German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz and the Canadian astronomer Simon Newcomb contributed their own calculations to the debate: they independently calculated the amount of time it would take for the Sun to condense down to its current diameter and brightness from the nebula of gas and dust from which it was born. They came up with a value of 100 million years, which seemed to set an upper limit on the age of the Earth that was consistent with Thomson's calculations. However, they assumed that the Sun was only glowing from the heat of its gravitational contraction. The process of solar nuclear fusion was not yet known to science.

Other scientists backed up Thomson's figures as well. Charles Darwin's son, the astronomer George H. Darwin of the University of Cambridge, proposed that the Earth and Moon had broken apart in their early days when they were both molten. He calculated the amount of time it would have taken for tidal friction to give the Earth its current 24-hour day, and concluded that Thomson was on the right track.

In 1899, John Joly of the University of Dublin calculated the rate at which the oceans should have accumulated salt from erosion processes, and determined that the oceans were about 90 million years old.

Edited July 14, 2007 by Bolshevik

[oenophile]

New Earth Proponents generally believe:

• The Universe is 6,000 to 10,000 years old.
  
• The earliest life forms appeared 6,000 to 10,000 years ago.
  
• There were no hominid ancestors of man.
  
• Mankind is 6,000 to 10,000 years old.
  

For these to be true the following must also be true:

• The speed of light must have slowed down.
  
• The half life of U-235 must not more than 10,000 years.
  
• Dinosaurs lived concurrently with modern humans and died out only within the last 10,000 years.
  
  
  

[Bolshevik]

New Earth Proponents generally believe:

• The Universe is 6,000 to 10,000 years old.
  
• The earliest life forms appeared 6,000 to 10,000 years ago.
  
• There were no hominid ancestors of man.
  
• Mankind is 6,000 to 10,000 years old.
  

For these to be true the following must also be true:

• The speed of light must have slowed down.
  
• The half life of U-235 must not more than 10,000 years.
  
• Dinosaurs lived concurrently with modern humans and died out only within the last 10,000 years.
  
  
  

Do creationist think that U-235 doesn't have a half-life of more than 10,000 years? My question has to do with the rocks and such. The different types of radiometric dating correspond, but does that mean we can follow the curve back the whole way? How does the sun affect them? How does large amounts of heat affect them? Pressure? If they were all affect by the same things of course they would still correspond.

Is light wave energy or a particle? How well do we understand light? Isn't there something that travels faster? (Quasars?) We can bend light with prisms and gravity can pull it in (black holes).

Dinosaurs were big. So we couldn't possibly have lived along side them? What do you make of T-Rex soft tissue? T-Rex blood vessels left intact for 65 million years?

The Quantum Revolution. Every time science thinks its got it figured out, someone comes up with a revolutionary idea.

[oenophile]

Dinosaurs were big. So we couldn't possibly have lived along side them? What do you make of T-Rex soft tissue? T-Rex blood vessels left intact for 65 million years?

According to Dr. Mary Schweitzer of North Carolina State University, her team treated the fossilized T Rex thighbone to remove the mineral content from the marrow. The minerals essentially had mummified the soft tissue.

[Bolshevik]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4379577.stm

Do you have the link? It's still weird that it is flexible. And blood cells?

[lindyhopper]

From the link you posted:

Dr Schweitzer is not making any grand claims that these soft traces are the degraded remnants of the original material - only that they give that appearance.

and

Inevitably, people will wonder whether the creature's DNA might also be found. But the "life molecule" degrades rapidly over thousand-year timescales, and the chances of a sample surviving from the Cretaceous are not considered seriously.

a bit different from

What do you make of T-Rex soft tissue? T-Rex blood vessels left intact for 65 million years?

This is exactly what I was talking about earlier when I said, "What you are referencing are people that assume first that the Bible's literal version of origins is correct and then try to find the science to back up their view, meanwhile ignoring or dismissing mountains of other evidence. It is not honest or genuine science."

As to other things you said...

Light has both wave (energy) and particle properties. It is dualistic in this way. It is a very cool topic, IMO. As far as the faster than light idea, read here.

I'm not sure what you mean by "assumptions." There has been and is still a lot of work being done with dating methods.

I'm a scientist. When I write a report, I indicate my assumptions. Science does not, and cannot, know everything. I do not know why people think that science is separate from biased opinions of human beings. As data comes in, old theories are challenged, even gravity. The old geological earth is based on an assumption that slow erosion caused formations like the Grand Canyon. All new ideas are assumed to fit under the old idea.

I can't think of a person who has said that science knows everything or that it is free from bias 100% of the time. Science tries to make closer approximations to the truth. Sometimes it is wrong, sometimes it is right. Religion on the other hand....has the big guy who is always right, never wrong, knows everything and is free from bias 100% of the time on their side. Now only if we could get past that assumption and get past the bias that props up some people's entire theology and world view. Seems awfully coincidental that the only people that believe this "new earth science" are also people who believe in a literal version of the Bible. Maybe one is influencing the other!

[Bolshevik]

I wanted to toss the Bible out. But the evolutionists could no longer convince me. I will consider what the creationist have to say.

What if they're right? It's bad science because why? They're cheating? The Bible is a very old book, it can't hold any clues?

Science has claimed to know everything. I referred to the Quantum Revolution more than once.

[Bolshevik]

. . .

I'm not sure what you mean by "assumptions." There has been and is still a lot of work being done with dating methods.

I can't think of a person who has said that science knows everything or that it is free from bias 100% of the time. Science tries to make closer approximations to the truth. Sometimes it is wrong, sometimes it is right. Religion on the other hand....has the big guy who is always right, never wrong, knows everything and is free from bias 100% of the time on their side. Now only if we could get past that assumption and get past the bias that props up some people's entire theology and world view. Seems awfully coincidental that the only people that believe this "new earth science" are also people who believe in a literal version of the Bible. Maybe one is influencing the other!

Do you only see two sides to this? Creationists are not united. Evolutionists are not united. Atheism doesn't guarantee a scientist believes in evolution, nor does a scientist being religious guarantee they don't believe in evolution.

http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/

[George Aar]

I don't mean to pry Bols., but is your degree from Bob Jones University perhaps?

Just curious.

And just a quick comment (I promised myself I wouldn't, but I just can't help it).

Re: Bias and Science.

The reason we have something called the "Scientific Method" was specifically to try to eliminate bias in research.

Was it absolutely 100% successful everytime toward that end? Of course not. Is anything humans do? But it's the best we've got.

Look at all the advancement in technical fields that are a DIRECT result of the method. On the "faith-based" side? Uh, not so much...

And peer-reviewed publications aren't designed to "prove" anything. They're there to REVIEW. One PEER looks over another's work, if he's interested in the work, maybe will try out the experiments himself and see if he gets the same results. If he does that tends to confirm the findings, but it's far from being a proof. But if he DOESN"T get the same results it immediately puts up a red flag, and everybody's on notice that the concept needs a lot more scrutiny.

Faith-based "science" OTOH, doesn't seem to care too much for real peer-review. Wild-a$$ed claims, vague assertions, and bizarre theories do just fine, so long as they seem to prop up a-priori assumptions about "scripture".

And just for fun, how many REAL "scientists" can you name that don't accept the basic concepts of Darwinian evolutionary theory, that AREN"T Christian fundies?

[Bolshevik]

Oh George,

I brought my education level up because someone told me on the other thread to go to college.

"Oh, you're not convinced of evolution? You therefore must . . .

be uneducated?

lack critical thinking skills?

worship a sky god?

have studied at diploma mill?

have an ulterior christian fundamentalist motive?

are set in your ways?

hit your head?"

Feel free to believe I'm just some kid using www.google.com

Where evolution matters most now is at the genetic level. How does it work? Really?

Until that question is answered for me in detail and it makes sense to me I'm open to the creationist ideas. (Oh wait, if I don't understand it, that means somethings wrong with me. I forgot. )

[Bolshevik]

. . .

And just for fun, how many REAL "scientists" can you name that don't accept the basic concepts of Darwinian evolutionary theory, that AREN"T Christian fundies?

Dr. Micheal Denton. I've read in a number of places he's a ex-evolutionist who is not Christian. Thus I'm confused as to why he's so associated with Creation Science.