Age of Earth?
Offline So a very strong creationalist from my school has been talking to me and last night at a football game, we got into another friendly debate. We are friends but we both enjoy debating which is a good thing.
Anyway, so he believes the Earth is only like 6,000 years old or so. Or older, I suppose and that the Flood DID happen and it happened in around 4,000 BC -ish. Then he also talks about the whole dinosaur idea and about how dinosaurs were alive when people were and many tribe chiefs (a slavic chief for instance) became chief for killing dinosaurs. And their was a book a long time ago talking about how to kill a beast that is described the same as a T-rex.
Then this is what I really have questions about. He was talking about how Radioactive Carbon 14 dating is false. I understand it only goes to about 50,000 years ago, but if that's the case, that instantly debunks his 6,000 year old Earth arguement. He then goes into how the different environmental effects change the decay of the carbon 14 isotope (such as atmospheric conditions, and the flood).
He got a LOT of this information from the book "The Creation Answers Book" which I read part of and it just smells of a creationalist writer. So is there anything about the book that I can say is completely false (or is it actually all true?) and how do I prove the age of the Earth is older than what he says?
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The Age of the Earth
A Radiometric Dating Resource List
Young-Earth Arguments: A Second Look
No way. Rates of decay are fixed. the decay of C-14 into N-14 is Beta radiation. Nothing, absolutely nothing, changes rate of decay. You can shoot it, burn it, you can even fire particles at it. You can dip it in lead, molten lava, acid. Nothing will happen. It will still convert C-14 into N-14 at exactly the same rate. Rates of decay are governed by quantum tunnelling. No event, not the flood, not anything, can change it.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
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Thank you for the list of links. I learned some good information.
Two other things he brought up that I forgot to mention.
He says according to science, the decay rate of Carbon 14 is becoming faster and is almost at the same rate as Carbon 16 (no source)
And that the moon is actually moving away from us. I had always thought it was coming closer due to our gravity. Any light on these two things?
Uh...what?
The three main isotopes of Carbon are 12, 13, 14, with 12 being the most stable (12 is not radioactive, nor is 13).
Almost as fast as C-16? Creationism is a malaise on the brain. C-14 has a half-life of 6000 years. C-16 is extremely unstable and has a half-life of half a second.
Actually, for all intents and purposes, 12, 13 and 14 are the only isotopes of carbon that exist in real quantities. All the others are so unstable they decay immediately. C-21 has a half life of one billionth of a second. C-8, the most unstable, has a half-life of one billionth of a femtosecond (a femtosecond is 1x10^-15 seconds)
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
How does a crationist use this argument?
This idea stems from the theory that the moon was formed by a a BIG collision with a smaller (Mars size) planet. Molten lava and fragments spun off from this and became the moon. This theory origniated from an observation of tidal changes annually - finding that the moon's pull has changed and continues too which would be the case if it was moving away.
Again, interested in how a creationist uses the moon moving away argument though because if you track the moon back to where it was in the same spot of the earth you end up coming with a number MUCH MUCH larger than 6,000 years. I believe it's around 4 and a half billion.
If you are intrested in the change of lunar orbit it is actually moving away from us at the rate of about a half an inch a year. If you plot this back 6000 years it comes out to about 3000 inches give or take. The exact number might be different but in terms of relative concept you get the idea that the moon has moved about 250 feet from the earth in the last 6000 years. As a foot note this distance is not very big on even an earth based scale let alone in comparsion to the size of space. Extrapolate back 4.5 billion years the sum comes out to about 35511 miles which is considirable but considering that over time the rate of motion away from earth would have increased over time because the moon was now farther away leads to a slightly more modest conclusion. As a last note although 35000 looks big you have to consider that the moon is more than 200000 kilometers away and the date of 4.5 billion is tenative so the numbers would change somewhat.
Step 1. Not know what the fuck you're talking about.
Step 2. Use this argument!
Götter sind für Arten, die sich selbst verraten -- in den Glauben flüchten um sich hinzurichten. Menschen brauchen Götter um sich zu verletzen, um sich zu vernichten -- das sind wir.
The moon was most likely formed with the Earth. I don't think it 'chipped' off Earth or was 'grabbed' by Earth.
4 simple words to debunk the earth-moon conundrum:
Earth came before moon.
Its as easy as that. The assumption that the earth and the moon must have been created at the exact same time, and therefore if the moon is not older than, say, 60,000 years, so should the earth be, is proposterous.
As for the Carbon thing, well, if the decay was this fast, the energy released would be enough to fry the surface of the planet into a crisp. When you consider the fact that every single molecule with a half life of +3000 years(which is basically 100+ of the elements. Even Carbon has a half life of 5000 years), would have to undergo "accelerated decay", the energy(in the form of radiation), released, would instantly vaporize, or atleast superheat our atmosphere.
And, as stated above, Carbon is only the begining. Argon and Potassium, Uranium, have much much MUCH longer half lives.
So, all in all, science > creation. Any day.
I'm infallible. I don't know why you can't remember that.
I seriously doubt that a moon as large and close as ours could have formed at the same time as the planet. Gravitationally speaking, our planet would have eaten up all the dust and matter in its orbit, leaving little for any orbiting satellites. Our moon is also probably not a captured asteroid or meta-planet, because of its spherical nature and similar chemical composition to earth. Furthermore, if the moon were as old as the Earth, it would have far more collisions with asteroids and would be more weathered than it is today.
Chemical analyses of moon rocks brought back during the apollo missions confirm that moon rocks are much younger than the oldest of earth rocks, and given that the moon lacks volcanic activity, the state of its rocks should have been more-or-less unchanged in spite of the numerous asteroid impacts it has had since its formation.
doesnt it say heavens and earth were all supposedly created at the same time in the bible? Well how about telling him this....The speed of light is 300,000 km/s about. There are stars and galaxies that are visible well over 10,000 lys. After you tell him that he might say something like well god caused the light to be at a certain point or something to get here at earth. I would likely say something to the effect of god purposly confusing us mortals on the age of the universe and say wait a minute....confusion isnt that the work of the devil
. Why cant people just accept the facts......
Doubt is the root of all wisdom. - Unknown
Knowing will come from the practice of understanding - Myself
One should be careful when using this argument. Time is relative. There is a model that allows light to arrive on earth from many lightyears away, on the same day it was created. I will post the link once I have located it. For ow, if you wish to read more on this idea, try http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/405.asp and read the last two sections of the article.
Thanks for the laugh, it's been a while since I've read anything from the comic geniuses at AiG.
Organised religion is the ultimate form of blasphemy.
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The last line of that link: "By basing our scientific research on the assumption that His Word is true (instead of the assumption that it is wrong or irrelevant) our scientific theories are much more likely, in the long run, to come to accurately represent reality."
confirmation bias, anyone?
I am glad that you appreciate good comedy.
I apologize for not being able to locate the link that I thought I had. I would be interested in seeing if anyone would like to debunk this, even though I do not have the detailed link I hoped I would.
What is there to debunk? The page basically says that time is relative and even though there isn't conclusive evidence some things support that idea and christians shouldn't doubt god. uh huh...
Ok, well first of all it comes from AiG. Secondly they state ...
It's the creationist "scientists" making the assumption here, not actual scientists. "secular scientists" don't make any assumption at all. It's more a case that there's no evidence for an edge to the universe so there is no reason to make the assumption that there is.
Without this little assumption, the whole argument on the last few sections of that page falls apart, and making such assumptions is bad science.
Organised religion is the ultimate form of blasphemy.
Censored and blacked out for internet access in ANZ!
AU: http://nocleanfeed.com/ | NZ: http://nzblackout.org/
There is at least one other white hole universe theory that I have heard of, though I have done no research into it myself. I have very little time for that, but this theory is not entirely baseless. I am now wondering if someone here knows of this, and wishes to address the issue, rather than just brush it off.
I did not mean to veer this topic off, and if I have, I apologize. I mearly wished to present the other side of the issue on this topic, and perhaps enhance the arguments that can be made against creationism.
In6Days, why don't you locate the link you are referring to and start a new thread to discuss that topic. The AiG page is admittedly unscientific.
Sorry, my internet connection is so slow, that my posts are coming in after some of yours. I appreciate the critique thus far presented. I just get kind of frustrated with this, "it was proposed by a YEC, it must be unscientific" attitude, and wanted real, rational criticism rather than ignoring the topic. I will create a thread for this, and I will be interested to see where this goes.
I think that the link I thought I could find does not exist. Sorry.
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Perhaps your god is trying to keep you from embarrassing yourself.
I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins
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