Message 19 of 144 (589791) 11-04-2010 2:16 PM

Reply to: Message 1 by Zubbbra25 10-18-2010 1:30 PM

The issue of the age of the earth is two-fold for the creationist. First, he needs to adress the lines of evidence that seem to indicate that the earth is very old. Nowadays this includes predominantly the various radiometric dating methods, but also geologic issues such as how long it takes for oil to form, for example. This is what the creationist you encountered was doing.

Second, he needs to find his own lines of evidence that seem to indicate that the earth is young. Contrary to the widespread ignorance displayed in this thread, creationist routinely write and discuss such issues.

Some will argue that they are wrong from the start, because they initially start with a 6k age for the earth because that is what the Bible implies. Because they get it from a religious book, they are wrong per se. But this is flawed logic, and in fact is routinely called the ''genetic fallacy''. This is because the origin of a statement is not relevant to it's truthfulness. It does not matter if it came from a book, or from a dream, or from my imagination while I was walking down the street; a statement is to be evaluated from it's claims, not where it originated.

With all this put into perspective (and I doubt anyone will disagree with what I just said), we can now discuss some positive lines of evidence for a young earth. There are also two different types of these:

- One that is consistent with the given age. For example, the accumulation of salt in the ocean gives a maximum age consistent with a young earth. This was in fact my very first thread at EvC, and if you want to discuss it you could dig up my old thread and we could start off from there.

- One that points to the given age. For example, the helium diffusion in zircon crystals experiment done by Humphreys and Baumgardner falls into this category.

Message 21 of 144 (589793) 11-04-2010 2:48 PM

Reply to: Message 20 by ringo 11-04-2010 2:26 PM

By any naturalistic model of the formation of the earth you choose, you will find that the oceans are pretty much as old as the earth itself. Putting a maximum age on them pretty much puts a maximum age on the earth itself. This is as close as you'll get to the researched proposition of ''Date of ____ roughly equals date of the earth''.

The zircon crystals issue is a tad more complicated, but when understood pretty much gives us something ressembling what the OP is asking.

Message 24 of 144 (589797) 11-04-2010 3:08 PM

Reply to: Message 23 by ringo 11-04-2010 2:59 PM

That's because it gives a maximum age. If you can't see the difference there is no bothering in discussing.

Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Message 30 of 144 (589816) 11-04-2010 4:45 PM

Reply to: Message 26 by Taq 11-04-2010 3:15 PM

You have an input, output and the total amount of something. This is the basic requirement for any dating method whatsoever. This alone shows that the accumulation of salt in the ocean can be used

But more importantly, you have to show that today's condition of the earth is appreciably different then at any other moment in the past. For all we know, there is nothing unusual about the current conditions that would suggest this is not representative of how it has generally always been.

Fallacious argument by analogy, because we are dating the rock, but we are finding a maximum age for the ocean. As I have said, the only reason this can be transposed to the earth is because of the relationship ''the age of the ocean is roughly equal to the age of the earth'', this relationship coming from the naturalistic models of the formation of the earth.

The same relationship cannot be said of a rock. Because of this, you are correct to say that dating a rock gives a minimal age for the earth. But it's really irrelevant because the two aren't affected by the same relation.

The salt in oceans is a maximum, because of the assumption that you start with an ocean with zero sodium in it. You can see this by realizing that by changing assuming there was an initial quantity, the age you get becomes lower.

Message 31 of 144 (589817) 11-04-2010 4:54 PM

Reply to: Message 29 by JonF 11-04-2010 4:42 PM

I see nothing wrong with Humphreys being able to admit he was wrong on this. I, however, see something wrong in that Henke makes an enormous case out of nothing, since the misreading is on a model of the past temperatures of the region, not experimental data of the region. Even then, the overall effect of all this on the end result is very small, and the fact that he makes it seem so important reveal how much he is scrubbing for details. The matter of the fact is that the experimental data still supports Humphreys approach, and trumps models any day of the week.

Message 37 of 144 (589886) 11-04-2010 9:46 PM

Reply to: Message 32 by ringo 11-04-2010 5:36 PM

Since the supposed age of the rock is older than my age of the ocean, there's obviously something wrong with your assumptions.

See what I just did ? Stating there's something wrong is the easy part, but if you can't find where it is wrong, you have no case at all, just assertion.

Message 38 of 144 (589890) 11-04-2010 9:51 PM

Reply to: Message 33 by Taq 11-04-2010 5:52 PM

Yet if you see the clock right now running forward at a constant rate, why think it was any different in the past ?

If you claim it was different, I'm sorry, but the burden of proof is on you unfortunately.

here you show a basic misunderstanding of the issue. It has nothing to do with concentrations, it is all about the total amount of sodium. If I put 10g of salt in 1L or 10L of water, sure the concentration changes, but it's still 10g of salt.

it is the salt that accumulates, not the concentration of salt, that much should be obvious.

See above

Message 40 of 144 (589894) 11-04-2010 10:03 PM

Reply to: Message 34 by Zubbbra25 11-04-2010 6:05 PM

Maybe that's the problem right. If you have a genuine interest to dig into the Evo/creo issue, you have to be able to not just go on talkorigins.org and have the impression they got it all figured out. You have to be able to also read the creationist litterature without preconceived notions and see how they approach the data.

Without that, all you'll get is your daily shot of confirmation bias.

They have this page (http://creation.com/age-of-the-earth) where they pretty much regrouped a whole lot of subjects they write about all in one list, but it's a mixed bag. Some relate pretty well with the age of earth such as it's magnetic field, salt in oceans, etc. and could be regrouped into a thread similar to RAZD's, while others are very peripheric; for example ''DNA in ancient fossils'' (as Taq said, just because you find something young on the earth doesn't mean the earth is young)

Message 41 of 144 (589898) 11-04-2010 10:18 PM

Reply to: Message 36 by Dr Adequate 11-04-2010 8:05 PM

92 million years I think. But of course, this is going all the way back to when there wasn't a grain of salt in the ocean, a situation that never was even in the naturalistic history of the oceans.

But hey, if RAZD can correlate a 8k year old tree with the 4,5Ba of the earth, why couldn't I correlate a maximum of 92Ma with a 6k year old earth ?

Didn't we discuss this once in another thread ? Those cases where something is only a sign of age if you presuppose it's naturalistic origin ?

The existence of the earth, for example, is hardly a sign of age unless you presuppose that it formed via naturalistic processes.

One exception per million years (random number) does not negate the fact, that for all intents and purposes the assumption that the current conditions are representative of how it has generally always been.

Of course, it then becomes a matter of determining if these rare occasions have effect so great as to reverse the accumulation to a near equilibrium.

Message 42 of 144 (589902) 11-04-2010 10:34 PM

Reply to: Message 39 by ringo 11-04-2010 9:57 PM

I think you'd be hard-pressed to find such a rock that has a single age from a dozen or more different methods. I really doubt such a rock exists to be honest.

That's because I never said it was a ''true'' age of the earth, just a maximum.

Concerning RAZD's thread, you do realize I could build a similar one, with a bunch of so-called ''PRATT's'' which correlate with a young earth.

You would then probably start by taking each one individually, and show where you think the reasoning is flawed in each one. Of course, at that point, we would agree that it would be stupid of me to just respond ''Yeah, but why do they correlate together so well then ?''. This wouldn't really add anything to the discussion, nor does it help discovering the truth of the matter.

Yet this is usually what effectively happens just about every time we discuss one of the points on RAZD list. (usually the dating method, but I suppose the same answer would be served when discussing about any other thing on the list)

Message 52 of 144 (590190) 11-06-2010 4:57 PM

Reply to: Message 43 by ringo 11-04-2010 10:45 PM

This just shows you don't really want to have an intelligent discussion. Because I give three back to back replies right, trying to get w worthwhile discussion going, and you come in with this nonesense that I ''run away''.

All the while, very few of you are really cutting down to the fact and implications of the salt-in-sea issue. Instead you just go around hand-waving and quite frankly, I'm not going to waste my time trying to get it through why a maximum of 92 million years for the age the oceans on this planet is a problem for a 4,5Byo earth but fits with the idea of a young earth. Really, if some of you can't see that, there's no point in me discussing with you.

Two however, did go on to discuss the facts. Dr.A's concern about halite depositions will be answered in the appropriate thread. Taq, unfortunately, did not see the difference between salt concentration and salt accumulation.

Message 53 of 144 (590191) 11-06-2010 5:00 PM

Reply to: Message 47 by NoNukes 11-05-2010 12:35 AM

Read my very first post in this thread, to see how this ocean salinity issue fits in the whole web of things. I never pretended that this was a dating technique that could be applied on a wide range of things.

Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Message 54 of 144 (590192) 11-06-2010 5:07 PM

Reply to: Message 48 by Zubbbra25 11-05-2010 3:21 AM

That's because while talkorigins still talk about Barnes 30 year old arguments as if they were still the cutting-edge creationist view, while on the other end of the spectrum, creationists actually have continued to develop the idea and answer the critics.

Maybe if you stay here long enough, and discuss with the right approach you will be able to see how I explain all the pieces fit into a recent flood model. But to do this, we just have to discuss each piece at a time.

Also, notice I haven't used a single 'what if' the whole time.

Message 55 of 144 (590193) 11-06-2010 5:09 PM

Reply to: Message 49 by Coragyps 11-05-2010 9:01 AM

You'll have to show me your math doc, 'cause I do think that if you take the input and the OUTPUT of Aluminium in the ocean, it comes around at a near equilibrium.

Which isn't the case with Sodium. Which is why the argument is based on sodium accumulation, not aluminium accumulation.