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Post by tohellwithhades on Oct 8, 2009 22:07:36 GMT -5
Haha, Jeremy, that looks like the creepy Lincoln/ape monument at the end of Mark Wahlberg's Planet of the Apes. |
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Post by Jeremy on Oct 8, 2009 22:42:55 GMT -5
ha, yea i guess it does
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Post by Scott on Oct 9, 2009 6:20:12 GMT -5
Here I am, back from the chasm of silence... How, then, do you explain fossils, radiometric dating, and all the other methods that are commonly used that show the earth as much, much older? Well... let's start here, shall we? First of all... fossils don't tell us crap-all. Fossils basically identify what layer we are in. For example, if you find a velociraptor, you're in the triassic period of the cenezoic era, but if you find a primitive trilobite fossil, you're in Cambrian sediment or even late pre-Cambrian. Other than that... fossils really don't do much for us. Radiometric dating is the key issue, but I do have a few issues with it, myself, and the main reason has been mentioned repeatedly in this thread, although in relation to something else: circular reasoning. Do you (and by "you" I'm not aiming at just Ferd) know how they determine which radioisotope to use when performing a radioactive dating? Someone mentioned Carbon 14 earlier, but it is only one radioisotope, which some recent research shows is actually pretty unreliable as a dating method beyond it's own half-life of some 5730 years, although I don't think anyone would stretch it too far beyond 60,000 years, anyways. To date different ages you must use different radioisotopes... zircon if you need to measure billions of years, but c14 if you need to measure only a few thousand. The strange thing is this: you can take the same rock and date it using a few different methods, and, as one would expect, you would get a few different answers. Say a Uranium-Thorium method, radiocarbon method and a Samarium-neodymium method are all used on a piece of rock I dig up in my backyard. I will actually get three results that are within the parameters of each different method... my rock turns out to be 200,000 years old according to the Uranium-Thorium method, 37,000 years old according to the Smarium-Neodymium method, and 9400 years old according to the radiocarbon dating method. We are then left with three drastically different ages: how do we know which one is the most accurate? Because, we have presupposed the approxiamate age of the sample. If there was a volcano in my backyard 10,000 years ago, we guess the rock came from it, so we use the radiocarbon method. However... upon further consideration, my rock I found probably was formed closer to the formation of the earth, so we should have actually used a better comparison, say zircon using the uranium-lead method. In order to get an accurate age, you must already know the approximate age of your sample. And how do you know it's approximate age? You look at what is in it! Does it have trilobites? Carbon 14 will tell you it's 60,000 years old. I mean... trilobytes were supposed to live, what, 500,000,000 years ago? It seems like circular reasoning, to me. You need the layer of rock to tell you how old your fossil is, but you need your fossil to tell you what layer of rock you are in. Obviously, the composition of rock layers comes into primary consideration, as well... but the geologic column doesn't actualy exist anywhere but in textbooks. When you have hundreds of millions of years missing, mixed, or even reversed in order all over the earth... I don't think it holds much salt. Eh, I know there are other related dating methods... but they suffer the same fate, it seems. Need sources plz. Otherwise you're just making up numbers. What does the 2nd LoT have to do with anything? |
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Post by clareabel on Oct 9, 2009 7:28:01 GMT -5
What does the 2nd LoT have to do with anything? Yeah, you can't really scare a Mathematics postgrad and a Physics undergrad by using science and maths to show your point. We won't just go "argh, scary sounding principals". I'm also failing to see the relevance of 2LoT. EDIT: Sorry, that sounded ridiculous. I'm not that far up my own ass. I also can't spell.  Also note that everything written below is written by someone who is not a geologist. The issues I have with catastrophic tectonics (by which, I assume, you mean the idea that the Flood laid down geological features) are: 1) Erosion should be uniform when a worldwide flood occurs, as the effect of the water will erode the rock beneath. However, erosion levels in the Rocky Mountains and in the Appalachians are different. 2) Geochronology is the term for the various different methods of dating rock. The methods used are radiometric dating, luminescence dating, and a couple of others that I'm not confident of explaining well. While you may discount carbon-dating (shown to be inaccurate for rock more than 60000 years old in this study), levels of other radioactive isotopes are also tested, depending on the material. Luminescence is a property of rock that varies with age, so can be used to determine the age of the rock. These methods show rock throughout the world to be older than young Earth theory would predict. 3) Fossil records show that there would have been 2100 vertebrates per acre just before the flood if flood geology is correct. This is ridiculous. I'm short on time, so can't explain why the other points you made don't prove the young Earth theory. |
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Post by Jeremy on Oct 9, 2009 9:26:40 GMT -5
3) Fossil records show that there would have been 2100 vertebrates per acre just before the flood if flood geology is correct. This is ridiculous. don't understand. explain? |
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Post by Scott on Oct 9, 2009 10:43:28 GMT -5
It means if most or all of the fossils buried in the sediments were a result of the flood, then as many as we are finding would have put 2100 vertebrates (animals with backbones of some kind) per acre. Given how big an acre is, that is ridiculous.
Clare, where did you find that number? Just curious.
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Post by clareabel on Oct 9, 2009 16:27:55 GMT -5
Wikipedia, I'm afraid to admit, but there were good citations on the article.
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Post by Metzuda on Oct 10, 2009 20:59:27 GMT -5
Need sources plz. Otherwise you're just making up numbers. Ha ha, sorry, mate. The only numbers I made up where the resultant ages in my hypothetical rock-in-the-backyard example. I just picked ones within normal range of the corresponding dating method and radioisotopes. You What does the 2nd LoT have to do with anything? Sorry, I don't understand your acronyms. Try using English. |
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Post by Jeremy on Oct 10, 2009 21:51:39 GMT -5
Obviously he was referring to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
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Post by alastairjohnjack on Oct 10, 2009 22:10:20 GMT -5
acronyms aren't always obvious fyi, I actually don't like it wen peeple use them.
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Post by Metzuda on Oct 10, 2009 22:14:47 GMT -5
What does the 2nd LoT have to do with anything? Yeah, you can't really scare a Mathematics postgrad and a Physics undergrad by using science and maths to show your point. We won't just go "argh, scary sounding principals". I'm also failing to see the relevance of 2LoT. EDIT: Sorry, that sounded ridiculous. I'm not that far up my own ass. I also can't spell. Also note that everything written below is written by someone who is not a geologist. No worries. I was a computer science major, let's agree that we're all smart people that work with numbers and equations, and leave it at that  . I hope you realised your response missed the whole object of my post. Also... go easy on the acronyms, again. It doesn't help you look more intelligent... The issues I have with catastrophic tectonics (by which, I assume, you mean the idea that the Flood laid down geological features) are: Catastrophic plate tectonics is not the idea that the flood laid down geological features (although some the flood would have) but a hypothetical event (kind of like macroevolution) unrelated to the flood, except as a possible cause. The basic idea behind it is this: if a large chunk from the bottom edge of the earth's crust broke off, what would happen? Anytime this happens, the result is that chunk of earth 1) descending through the mantle and 2) the chunk of the crust melts. If a big enough chunk (when I attended a seminar on this in 2005, the estimate was about 25km in breadth) the mantle disruption would be very significant, enough to disturb the convection current over a large area. As you know, I'm sure, the mantle is the primary cause of our continental drift, it is what controls the movement of the continents. Catastrophic plate tectonics is the idea that a geological event could so disturb the mantle that instead of continents moving inches per year, they move meters per day or hour. 1) Erosion should be uniform when a worldwide flood occurs, as the effect of the water will erode the rock beneath. However, erosion levels in the Rocky Mountains and in the Appalachians are different. This is assuming that both the Rockies and the Appalachians existed at the time of the flood, which not all young-earth supporters would agree on, and one that I personally don't, either... mostly due to the description of the flood we find in Psalm 104, which you can look up, if you please. The creation of mountains seems to be at the end of the flood, not predating it. Also, as far as I know (which, obviously, isn't all that much, haven't researched it... just from experience), the bulk of the erosion in the Rocky mountains is glaciatic in nature. 2) Geochronology is the term for the various different methods of dating rock. The methods used are radiometric dating, luminescence dating, and a couple of others that I'm not confident of explaining well. While you may discount carbon-dating (shown to be inaccurate for rock more than 60000 years old in this study), levels of other radioactive isotopes are also tested, depending on the material. Luminescence is a property of rock that varies with age, so can be used to determine the age of the rock. These methods show rock throughout the world to be older than young Earth theory would predict. I'm sorry if my post was unclear. I was not discounting carbon-dating. I was questioning the validity of using circular logic to date a fossil... determining the radioisotope and method used by the expected age of the fossil, determining the expected age by the strata the specimen was found in, and determining the layer of strata the specimen was found in by the type of specimen actually found in that layer (again, there are other methods, I am fully aware, of determining the identity of strata, but this is one of the primary ones, as well). Second, I didn't address luminescence (I had thought of doing so) because, as I said, "it suffers the same fate". You must first have a pre-conceived idea of the relative age of the specimen (and this can just be a plain old rock) in order to determine which isotope to test for. [/quote] I'm short on time, so can't explain why the other points you made don't prove the young Earth theory. I don't claim to prove the young earth theory. I believe it. Just like I can't prove that God created the world in six 24 hour days, but I still believe it, both because I don't think science causes me reason for disbelief (and I've been studying this for nearly 10 years now) and because I believe in a literal interpretation of Scripture. However... I'd be happy to continue the discussion. If I'm wrong, I will enjoy being brought to the light. |
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Post by Metzuda on Oct 10, 2009 22:20:22 GMT -5
Obviously he was referring to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It wasn't so obvious. My reference to the Second Law of Thermodynamics is more in reference to macroevolution, even so far as including the Big Bang, how we have order out of chaos without an outside influence. Also, I still have not gotten my head over the same thing that S. Hawkings pointed out... the impossibility of the physics involved beforet 10^-42s after the big bang... it should have stopped there. Maybe I'm just behind the times. After all... I just build web sites and work with youth... |
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Post by davo on Oct 11, 2009 3:15:37 GMT -5
Who is S Hawkings?
I've heard of S Hawking, but not S Hawkings.
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runny
New Member
I am cool or something.
Posts: 11
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Post by runny on Oct 11, 2009 10:15:16 GMT -5
Im gonna guess steven hawkings
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Post by Scott on Oct 11, 2009 11:26:22 GMT -5
Even if there were 800 million fossils buried there (and how the hell do you estimate a number that large when they are buried?) how did they all get there? Even if there were 200,000 fossils, in order for them to become fossils they would have to all died within a short time of each other and be buried, so that they would be preserved. How do you explain 800 million fossils dying simultaneously, all within on degree longitude and latitude of each other? Not simultaneously, or even close to the same time. The various layers in which the are found were laid down over millions upon millions of years. 2100 vertebrates building up in an acre over millions of years isn't that hard to imagine, I would think. |
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Also note that everything written below is written by someone who is not a geologist.
. I hope you realised your response missed the whole object of my post.
