S.America and Africa's rate of spreading

And that it is not assumed is his point.The constancy of radioactive decay is often listed as an assumption of rardiometric dating, but it is only an assumption in a specific and technical meaning of "assumption"; something taken for granted or accepted as true without proof within the context of the particular model. IOW, radiometric dating models are not used to prove the constancy of radioactive decay; they are based upon the assumption that radiocative decay is constant - if radiocative decay is constant, the radiometric dating models are valid, and if radioactive decay is not constant then the radiometric dating models are not valid. For that reason I prefer to list it as a premise of radiometric dating, to avoid the incorrect implication that it is not checked six ways from Sunday.However, the constancy of radiactive decay rates is not assumed by physicists, and they have checked it six ways from Sunday and more. Constant radioactive decay is an experimentally observed fact under an incredibly wide variety of conditions, and if radioactive decay were not constant at any time in the past there would be consequences which we do not observe (e.g. frying every living thing with the heat produced). Significant changes in radioactive decay rates are not possible unless just about everything we know about physics and quantum mechanics is wrong ... and quantum mechanics is arguably the most correct theory we have, in that it produces predictions that accord with experiments to an unheard-of degree.The only slight and insignificant changes that we have been able to produce in radioactive decay rates happen in decay schemes that are very seldom (if ever) involved in radiometric dating, and occur under conditions that are incompatible with the existence of the Earth, much less life on Earth.So don't say "they could have changed" or "you assume that they haven't changed". We have incredibly good evidence that they have not changed, evidence as good as that of the existence of a gravitational force. If you want to argue for changed radiometric decay rates at any time you need to present positive evidence of the change.

So we can do no experiments to test any of this? It is just another "miracle"? I conclude from this that you are not a creation scientist but just a creationist. There is not possible discussion in that case.Only if you think that there is any science involved and that you ideas have a place in science classrooms is there any issue to discuss. Since you want to invoke miracles that are untestable there is not science.You speak of further research. Existing research already demonstrates that all suggestions put forward so far to try to force fit the observations into a young earth with a flood are wrong. They don't fit facts.You may arm wave about future discoveries but that is, obviously, meaningless and also has no place in a classroom. If you stay out of the classroom you are welcome to believe whatever you want.

quote:

---

"I don't count "I haven't done research" as an adequate answer."
--Neither do I. Did I say it was an answer? Or even that I had one?

---

You certainly tried to imply as much. Why else object to the completely true observation that you failed to deal with that data ?

quote:

---

"And no constancy of radioactive decay rates is NOT simply an assumption."
--That it is assumed is my point.

---

Then your point was wrong. Since experiment has failed to find any way of changing decay rates that could be relevant and physical theory leads us to expect a constant decay rate it is not simply an assumption.

quote:

---

"The fact is that the relevant decay rates are very hard to change and there is no indication that any known effect could significantly alter any one of them under conditions that could plausibly apply. Moreover to affect ALL the decay rates that are relevant to radiometric dating to the same degree - as your scenario requires - is so far as we know impossible barring miracles."
--I admit that if accelerated decay has occured, it was caused supernaturally. Of course if it wasn't, the Flood could possibly be explained completely by naturalistic processes.

---

Assuming a convenient miracle is hardly scientific - even in a suggestion. If God wants to provide heat to produce CPT why mess about with radioactive decay ?
Indeed implicit in your assumption is the idea that God should choose to use methods that just happen to produce results that point to an ancient Earth rather than the "actual" course of events. You are dangerously close to implying deceit on God's part.

quote:

---

"And if I remember correclty creationist research on the Oklo natural reactor limits the degree of accelerated decay possible to little over one order of magnitude."
--So, do you remember correctly?

---

Close enough. http://arxiv.org/abs/nucl-th/0307007 The only figure given is a factor of 13.5 - far short of the figure you would need (a full 9 orders of magnitude if you limit the period of accelerated decay to around a year).

quote:

---

"And you're STILL handwaving over the biochronological dating."
--Why is my explanation inadequate?

---

I would say that it's worst defect is that it doesn't exist. YOu haven't GIVEN an explanation. That's WHY I state that you are handwaving.

quote:

---

"And finally your model DOES need radiometric decay to be proportional to spreading rate toexplain the match between the rates inferred from radiometric dates with the current spreading rates."
--As far as I know, yup. Then again, this is only something I have been musing on for a couple days... It would therefore be ridiculous for me to attach any more credibility to my suggestion
beyond what it is--a suggestion.

---

That does not excuse handwaving away the problem in posts 6, 8 and 10.The original paper was correct - big coincidences are required by your hypothesis - itself a major problem

quote:

---

"It seems your apprroach is simply to shout "catastrophe" and assume that the results will match what is actually observed."
--lol.. um, no.

---

So you wouldn't try to explain the match between the rates inferred for past spreading and the observed rates by just saying "--radiogenic heat. Hence the term 'thermal' runaway of subduction.", would you ?
Oh. You did. Post 8.

quote:

---

"And the reason why mainstream scientists are not looking at your ideas is obvious. They are just too implausible to be worth consideration."
--More accurately, they are not looking at these ideas because they already have their answers. Besides, when you have millions of years, who cares?

---

You mean that it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that you have to appeal to a convenient miracle to explain away the evidence ? Your last sentence is unworthy, a slur on working scientists - it is quite obvious from what you have written that your ideas ARE too implausible to be worth scientific consideration.

"CPT has several glaring fatal flaws, not the least of which is that there is no diagnostic evidence for it."
--Thats nothing new to me."And you have not addressed a single one of them except..."
--I haven't??"for the fanciful notion that radioactive decay somehow accelerated and then decelerated by many orders of magnitude at some time in the past and left no evidence of it ever happening."
--I suspect that the evidence would have to be the flood itself. Unfortunately, I havent substantiated this, nor do I pretend that I have.."It seems that you have already abandoned your magnetic stripes argument (wisely, I might add), so what have you got left?"
--I hope you don't mind if I do my research before I start wining about not having evidence. I've been rigourously researching the thermal evolution of the oceanic lithosphere for almost a year now and I still have yet to make a viable conclusion regarding what would be expected in a phase of CPT, though I know that there will be certain differences. I'd rather not think of it as a question of 'whats in my arsenal'."It seems that now your main contention is that uniformitarianism is the ultimate culprit here."
--Well, if the earth is young, or a catastrophic flood occured, uniformitarianism isn't exactly going to be a viable presupposition in interpreting the bulk of geologic data."If this is the case, you need to collect evidence to support it. First, I would expect that you show your understanding of the modern concept of uniformitarianism (actualism, I believe someone called it) by giving us a definition. Then you need to show where uniformitarianism is erroneous. After that you should give us some guiding principles, replacing uniformitarianism in the interpretation of the data. Please give us some actual evidence, and lose the vague generalities belittling the assumption of uniform processes."
--Uniformitarianism is the geologic principle in which the rate and mechanisms of geological change operating in modern times are sufficient to explain past changes. All I have been saying is what I stated in my reply to your last paragraph(Well, if the...geologic data). However, I will give you something more solid which suggests that a strict(or even a moderately flexible) interpretation of uniformitarianism is not necessarily valid.--There is the problem of explaining the bathymetry of old ocean floor by uniformitarian models of lithospheric cooling as a function of seafloor age [see Lister et al., 1990]. The cooling history of old seafloor is not simply an extension of the cooling history of young seafloor according to a simple plate cooling model. Seafloor basement depths actually decrease after ~90 Ma and crest at about 115-117 Ma, followed by a subsidence with distance/age from the ridge until about 140 Ma, followed by yet another decrease in basement depth for the remainder of the available data (165 Ma). I can't provide for you the data yet, though you may see references Stein and Stein [1992, 1993]Also, upper mantle heterogeny in the Pacific seem to reflect a not so uniformitarian cooling evolution[see Leeds, 1974; Turcotte and Schubert, 2002]:As you can see while what is predicted should resemble a smooth parabola, the data bares little resemblance. The data was gathered from studies of rayleigh wave dispersion data and show that while the
plate model predicts an equilibrium depth of lithospheric thickness, this is not what is observed. Instead the data show that there is significant heterogeneity in the structure of the upper mantle.
The corners at 30 Ma and 100 Ma are not accounted for by that predicted by either the HSCM or plate models. The error bars given to data points do not seem to warrant a smooth parabola for lithospheric thickness[see Leeds, 1974]. Not only that, but the predicted lithospheric thickness is much different from that observed in the wave dispersion data.See ref's:Leeds, Alan et al., Variations of Upper Mantle Structure under the Pacific Ocean. Science, Vol. 186, 1990Turcotte and Schubert, Geodynamics, 2002Lister, et al., Heat flow maintained in ocean basins of great age: Investigations in the north-equatorial west Pacific, Geophys. J. Int., 102, 603-966, 1991b.Stein, C.A., and S. Stein, A model for the global variation in oceanic depth and heat flow with lithospheric age, Nature, 359, 123-129, 1992.Stein, C.A., and S. Stein, Constraints on Pacific midplate swells from global depth-age and heat flow-age models, in The Mesozoic Pacific: Geology, Tectonics, and Volcanism, Geophys. Monograph Series., , vol. 77, edited by M.S. Pringle et al., AGU, 1993[This message has been edited by TrueCreation, 09-23-2003]

Heres some additional/omitted/better data:Bathymetric data from Drill cores [Johnson and Carlson, 1992, 1994] and mean depth data [Stein and Stein, 1992, 1993]A more accurate representation of the predicted lithospheric thickness and isotherms as a function of age or distance from the ridge axis:Where the predicted thickness y_L0 (red line) is defined byAnd predicted isotherms are defined bySee refs in last post as well as:Johnson, H. P., and R. L. Carlson (1992), Variation of sea floor depth with age: A test of models based on drilling results, Geophysical Research Letters 19, 1971-1974Johnson, H. P., and R. L. Carlson (1994), On modeling the thermal evolution of the oceanic upper mantle: An assessment of the cooling plate model, Journal of Geophysical Research, 99, 3201-3214[This message has been edited by TrueCreation, 09-24-2003]

quote:

---

e: "If this is the case, you need to collect evidence to support it. First, I would expect that you show your understanding of the modern concept of uniformitarianism (actualism, I believe someone called it) by giving us a definition. Then you need to show where uniformitarianism is erroneous. After that you should give us some guiding principles, replacing uniformitarianism in the interpretation of the data. Please give us some actual evidence, and lose the vague generalities belittling the assumption of uniform processes."

​

--Uniformitarianism is the geologic principle in which the rate and mechanisms of geological change operating in modern times are sufficient to explain past changes. All I have been saying is what I stated in my reply to your last paragraph(Well, if the...geologic data). However, I will give you something more solid which suggests that a strict(or even a moderately flexible) interpretation of uniformitarianism is not necessarily valid.

​

--There is the problem of explaining the bathymetry of old ocean floor by uniformitarian models of lithospheric cooling as a function of seafloor age [see Lister et al., 1990]. The cooling history of old seafloor is not simply an extension of the cooling history of young seafloor according to a simple plate cooling model. Seafloor basement depths actually decrease after ~90 Ma and crest at about 115-117 Ma, followed by a subsidence with distance/age from the ridge until about 140 Ma, followed by yet another decrease in basement depth for the remainder of the available data (165 Ma). I can't provide for you the data yet, though you may see references Stein and Stein [1992, 1993]

​

Also, upper mantle heterogeny in the Pacific seem to reflect a not so uniformitarian cooling evolution[see Leeds, 1974; Turcotte and Schubert, 2002](snip)

---

Okay, TC, tell us exactly what 'uniformitarianism' tells us about the cooling history and elevation of the oceanic crust.Do you really think that uniformitarianism in the modern sense actually means that cooling of the oceanic crust should follow an unvarying mathematical function? This is one of the problems with mathematical models as we have discussed elsewhere. They rarely take into account all of the factors involved in a process that occurs in a laboratory the size of an ocean basin.I also suspect that you are leaving something out of Turcotte and Schubert. Please reread it and tell us that they have NO IDEA what might cause these discontinuities of the oceanic crustal cooling. I mean, it is possible that they are completely oblivious, but usually earth scientists have some possible explanation of anomalous data. Or maybe it's not anomolous...

My guess is that S Gould used "U" to attempt to VALIdate causal macrodynamics but when I LOOK at models of continental drift I SEE eIther:
1) Wallace's Line as Croizat attempt to extend it in PANBIOGEOGRAPHY
or
2)TWO tracks across time looking from South =================>north.So just like in the California Race, if Gould can assert validation of his version of morpho space clumping by some reliance on Uni___________ then I can IN THE SAME GEOGRAPHY (attempt to) nanoengineer phsyiology (Bohr) to "express" a short time frame for a kinematic that binds the changes in form involved.We need to teach BOTH creation and evolution and try all the possibilites else evolutionary biology will attempt to force a Marxian result that IS NOT GEOMETRIC to biological reality but is to some hybrid geology.The choice would then APPEAR - as a more chaotic relative world probablism OR a formal biogeographic homlogy that may be primative but not conservative as humans learn to need xenobiotic knowledge if we continue to disagree here on Earth!! There should be equal time for the start of each even if society does not produce the same end equally. What is so hard about this to understand? For me there is no choice. Life remands both and both should be tried, regulated, and not torted.What I have not addressed and seems to be only appreciated by the likes of Lewontin is that some statistical sophistication is required in all of this. If creationism seems less statistically significant on this BASIS then let it be but to preclude the possiblity that is actual at the beginning of naming all these animals is like substitute DYLAN for geographic visualization software.I have no problem reading Croizat's position on Wallace's Line in Creationist Framework. There is Lots of USEFUL computer programming that could be done from this perspective even if over time age and area by error reverts to a longer time scale but to cite anti-Tompsonian estimates as justification for biological praxis OVER biophysical integration of developmental biology (by an ordinal view of HOX genes) is simply misleading as to the relevant available derivation of what Mendel actually meant and De Vries actually had some other things not far off to say...but this starts a different thread.We need a philosophy of biology that can hold different epistemologies of cellular time in ONE metaphysics. The first ontologist to write such a critique of judgement will have done Kant better than Aristotle. I open my mail every day hoping to find this author. Alas-all I see is spoofing. Grehan does have some good things to say about North America.