Age Correlations and an Old Earth

Hi, I'm also a newbie here. Atheist, but not really a skeptic.I think the six days of creation in the Bible are clearly meant to be 24-hour periods. I have the following arguments for this:- the hebrew word used in the original text is Yom, which means (period of) daylight. It can also mean an unspecified period of time (as in "in the days of adam"), but never in connection with a number, such as "first yom", "second yom" etc. It then always is a literal day.- the plural yamim always means literal days, and never an undefined period. In Exodus 20:11 it says "for in six days (yamim) the Lord made the heavens and the earth..."- even if yom is to be understood as an undefined period of time, then how are we to understand "evening" and "morning" in gen.1:8-31? Surely they refer to literal days.- Adam was created on day 6. If day 7 in fact was thousands of years, then he would haven been at least thousands of years old when he died. But the Bible tells us that he lived a mere 900 years.And as a sidenote I would like to know this: if God is all powerful, why did it take him six days to create the universe? Why didn't he just snap his fingers and create in an instant?

Edited-off topic[This message has been edited by Lam, 04-27-2004]

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The Laminator

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Ok, please read the topic title again and get back to it. Genesis interpretation is not it.

For further discussion of items in your post see new proposed topic The Gap Theory (Fossils Young / Earth Old) genesis 1:3/ 1:1 (click)ALL further discussion on this subject should take place on that topic (once it gets released) -- it is off topic here.The topic of the thread is the correlations of dating methods used by scientists to date objects, specifically to annual phenomena that can be counted to verify actual elapse years (see Original post for reference):Counting annual growth rings in several species of wood correlate between the different species and locations and theycorrelate to counting annual varve layers in a lake in Japan andcorrelate to radiocarbon dating andcorrelate to counting annual layers in ice cores in several locations andcorrelate to counting annual layers in calcite in Devil's Hole Nevada andcorrelate to Thorium-230 Radiometric Dating andcorrelate to Protactinium-231 Radiometric Dating.All these methods correlate not just on years but on climate and significant events. This means that any discussion of errors in one must show why the same errors in the same patterns occur in all the others.I would be happy to discuss this evidence for an old earth with you.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

reply forum now open at
EvC Forum: The Gap Theory (Fossils Young / Earth Old) genesis 1:3/ 1:1

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

wj -see rickrose post: http://EvC Forum: The Gap Theory (Fossils Young / Earth Old) genesis 1:3/ 1:1

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

RAZD,what are some ages of post mortum bristle cone pines, fosilized ones. Do you know?Lake Suigetsu: quote you: "We have performed AMS C-14 measurements on more than 250 terrestrial macrofosil samples of the annual laminated sediments from Lake . . .I think your line of reasoning is that C-14 dating is callibrated by such means as lake . . . sediment - logical. But please describe how this was achieved. I mean it seems plain that they reached diatom layer, say, 24,300. Then they perhaps calibrated the microfosil find to match 24,399 - correct or not? If this is correct, did they then compare the c14 in the thin diatom layer(s) to the contiguous macrofosil. If this was all proved, then I believe I would rely on this sort of c14 calibration down to the depth of the deepest macrofosil. You didn't say that macrofosils were found at the bottom extremes. Thanks, rickrose

Rickrose:
The Lake Suigetsu calibration was done by comparing two sets of "absolute" numbers. One set, as you say, was the actual count of dark/light pairs in the core they drilled - say, your layer number 24,300. The other set of numbers was actual calculated figures from the amount of carbon-14 left in leaves, insect parts, etc. picked from a numbered layer and from the known (5730 year) half life of C-14. The numbers were expected to disagree somewhat, because we already knew that the formation rate of C-14 hasn't been constant. (That's actually the whole point of the paper - to calibrate that inconstant supply to something - the varves - that are more "countable.")Now there are possible errors in either set of numbers. The cores could have lost some varves when they were drilled, and there could have perhaps been years where layers didn't get laid down. The 14C numbers have some inherent measurement error and the possibility of some contamination. But if you look at the graph.....
The 14C dates uniformly get older as you go deeper. The layer count gets older as you go deeper. There's very little scatter in the numbers.And then add to this one lake the correlation of the "wiggles" in the curve with wiggles from tree rings in Finland and in Germany, ice layers in Greenland, Bolivia, Chile, Kenya, and Antarctica, corals in Barbados, varves on the seafloor off Venezuela...
it starts to add up.Bristlecone pine chronology only goes back about 8000 years, IIRC. Google "dendrochronology" and look for Grissino-Meyers' site and you can eventually find enough dates to choke a tortoise.[This message has been edited by Coragyps, 04-28-2004]

I think there is a mix up on a pretty basic point. If sound circular if you say you use the varve count to calibarate the C-14 date and that the C-14 dates corroborate the varves. (or something like that).Some points:
1)It is understood that C-14 dates, taken raw, are not perfect.2)It is also understood from dates that are know (historic things for example) that the amount of error is reasonably small. (IIRC about 5%)3)Given the above the C-14 dates taken without correction are not satifactory for many archeological purposes.4)However, for the kind of argument we are having here, that is, is the earth about 6,000 years old or greater than 50,000, the raw dates are fine.5)Without correction, as noted in the previous post, the C-14 dates go up as the number of varves is counted. They are within a few percent of the varve count. The dates from C-14 are that right, at least.6)Once you've established that the varves are yearly (both by watching them form, aligning them with historic events AND matching them to C-14 dates)) then you can use them to refine (calibrate) the C-14 dating for other purposes.The use of the varse for calibration of the C-14 dates can be, for our purposes ignored. It is not calibrating (as in setting the scale in totality) it is really just fine tuning it.I can conceive of no reasonable suggestion that has both the varve counts and the C-14 dates matching at all (talk about within even 10 or 20 %) other than they are both measuring years. And that is just taking this one site and measurements, without taking any others.As has been noted all the data must be considered. However, even ignoring all the rest I don't see being able to reject this.[This message has been edited by NosyNed, 04-28-2004]

Thanks for that clarification, Ned. I don't have the Lake Suigetsu paper in front of me, but as I remember the agreement of varve with 14C is maybe 10% at the very worst - a time of particularly anomalous 14C production in the atmosphere - and usually more like 3% or so.

thanks for the good reply

First, I have been taking your earlier suggestion and reading the rules. I also just read about c-14 on wicipedia. I think you have cleared up most of my misunderstanding. So they date, say, a leaf at the 20 thousandth varve with then used instramentation. The c14 dating mechanics say leaf is 20,000 years old. They note they were at 20,000 varves (Under the sea- humor)and conclude c14 matches varve layer anual deposition count. Simple enough. Got another glimmer of light after reading wicapedia,c14. Atmosphere must have been stable for number of macrofosil/varve years.Do you know if the varve layers reached right to the surface of the lake. RAZD said that core was 75 meters. What I'm asking is this: They date the biblical flood at 4350 +-BP. Was the first macrofosil before 4350BP? Was there a thicker non varve deposition in the upper core? Please don't anyone out there get onto flood theology. And I hope I'm respecting this thread. Or does my question deviate too much. My quest is truth, not bias. Thanks, rickrose. And by the way, I do have thin skin.

Rick, you can read the paper with the link in the first post of thie thread.
This particular study started at ~10 meters deep, or ~8000 years ago, as tree ring and glacier varves had already done the calibration back to that point. The authors mention that varves measure "typically 1.2 mm/year during the Holocene" which is the last 10,000 years or so. There's a footnote to another article where I presume this part is reported on more fully, but I'm 85 miles from a real academic library....

thanks. Yes the bristle cones cover the first eight thousand years. And I will read earlier in the thread to see if I can find the site of the lake study. Maybe I'll find answer on my own. But did the lake study skip the first eight thousand years because they didn't need the info? That would mean that my Q. could not be answered by the lake.I'm progressively working my way through the first stitch. I'm past the trees. No disagreement there. I think I swam the shallow part of the lake. No disagrement there. I requested a book from the local library called Two Mile Time Machine. I will learn about ice cores. I want to work my way to the caves in france as a goal. When I progress that far I know I will halt for some time. But I'm not yet ready for that.
In quest of truth, rickrose

Good question. I'm not interested in any 'flood' date but it would be interesting to see any "markers" in the varve deposits that correspond to historic events both very recent and more ancient.I know that Vesuvius shows up in ice cores. Does it show up in the varves too? How about Mt St Helen's and Krakatoa?