Okay to all Creationist: Here's some things for you to consider

To all the Creationist:
You all "seem" to sound "reasonable" and "open-minded". Here's some questions for you. You seem to always come up with convuluted answers to these questions. After much research and debates with some of your good old "creationist" folk, there are just some questions that you avoid and do not answer. If you can post accetable scientifically well-thought out answers then by all means post all you want. And if you cannot post answers that show much thought and education and are full of ignorance, then by all means post, I need some good entertainment.FABNAQ (Frequently Asked But Never Answered Questions)[Cut-n-paste of material from Talk.Origins replaced with link. --Admin]Oh, and while we are at it, let's throw in some more. Look for it in another topic that will be posted. And yes, if these questions look familiar, I got them off a website, that after much thought and digging has proven to myself that these are legitimate questions that have a right to be asked and deserve to be answered in a logical manner. These questions were penned very wonderfully that are very reflective of similar questions that I have asked creationist at one time or another. And to date, no answers that have been satisfactory have been submitted[not just this post but to several websites].
Again, thanks for your time.
And have a nice day.
P.S. Let's try and keep this scientifically based and use empirical data and observations in this post. You are welcome to state your beliefs, but they will hold no credibility in this post.
Again, have a nice day.------------------
Anne C. McGuire
Student at Texas Tech University
Mathematics, Cell and Molecular Biology, and Piano Performance major[This message has been edited by Admin, 08-10-2002]

Rule 6 of the Forum Guidelines requests that material which you yourself did not write not be posted without attribution, so thank you for noting that the primary portion of your post came from another website. It was a cut-n-paste from FABNAQ (Frequently Asked But Never Answered Questions) over at Talk.Origins. This portion has been replaced with a link to the original material.----------------EvC Forum Administrator[This message has been edited by Admin, 08-10-2002]

To the Administration,
I apologize for that. I am very sorry this happened, and it will never happen again. It is not amusing to see myself almost if not committing plagarism. I do take this very seriously.
From now, on I will give credit where credit was due.
So thanks.
To the other guys
These questions still remain unaswered. And yes, the post was sarcastic, but it is in my nature to be very sarcastic. I cannot change my nature.
Have a Nice day.------------------
Anne C. McGuire
Student at Texas Tech University
Mathematics, Cell and Molecular Biology, and Piano Performance major

I'll try to answer some of them-1b. Why are many Christians evolutionists?
Many believe in evolutionary theory, but not the status quo theory-rather progressive creation-however, many of them do not realize that if you take a look at the Hebrew used in Genesis, there is no way in which the Hebrew text of Genesis 1-11 can mean anything other than what it says, literally. Quote Professor Barr, who at the time was Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford-

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Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Gen. 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours as we now experience (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the biginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story (c) Noah's flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguished all human and animal life except for those in the ark. Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the gigures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.

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4. Why is there the remarkable coherence among many different dating methods -- for example: radioactivity, tree rings, ice cores, corals, supernovas -- from astronomy, biology, physics, geology, chemistry and archeology? (This is not answered by saying that there is no proof of uniformity of radioactive decay. The question is why all these different methods give the same answers.)This can be partly answered by how evolutionists "calibrate" their dating to each other. However, there are many anomalies-dating supposedly hundreds of millions of years rock using carbon dating gives only a few thousand years. There are also numerous problems with the dating-excess helium, polonium 218 halos are but to name a few.4a. Explain the distribution of plant and animal fossils. For example, the limited distribution of fossils of flowering plants.I'm sure you can refer to the standard YEC flood model-hydrothermal sorting, mobility, etc, but there is the other one I talked about-here for a simple answer.10. Is it possible to fit the pairs (male and female) of all kinds of land animals and birds on the Ark? The answer must give a detailed calculation. Remember to include all invertebrates as well as vertebrates, food and water, and neccesary environmental controls. Remember to include all kinds of cattle. Explain the meaning of the word "kind".Refer to this site that says that the "cubit" could be 250 feet. (Remember, Noah had 120 years to build and prepare for the flood!)
>[This message has been edited by blitz77, 08-10-2002]

[QUOTE][B]This can be partly answered by how evolutionists "calibrate" their dating to each other.[/QUOTE][/B]I don't see where the "calibrating" fits in. You take concentrations of parent and daughter isotopes and you use the decay equation. I'd like more information on your argument here. [QUOTE][B]However, there are many anomalies-dating supposedly hundreds of millions of years rock using carbon dating gives only a few thousand years.[/QUOTE][/B]Ouch. Wrong on two points: (1) You cannot carbon date rock. You can only carbon-date organic materials. (2) You cannot carbon date anything older than about 50,000 years of age, because by then the ¹⁴C in the sample falls below reasonably measurable limits. The testers have to search the sample harder and harder before they start finding any ¹⁴C to measure. However, there are air pockets in the machine and in the sample, and in those airpockets are molecules of ¹⁴CO₂. In all probability with a really, really old sample those CO2 molecules will be the only carbon-14 found, along with the occasional microbial or pollen contaminent, and there is no telling what age the sample will give. [QUOTE][B]There are also numerous problems with the dating-excess helium, polonium 218 halos are but to name a few.[/QUOTE][/B]Both of these can be refuted at TalkOrigins but since you only mentioned them in passing I'm not going to try to your construe your argument for you just so I can refute it. [This message has been edited by gene90, 08-10-2002]

Not to be rude or anything,
Where did your quotes come from? I am interested in the sources. For a long time the system has taken a lot of faith in believing them, which I still do. If it is from scientific standpoint, please post the sources of the quotes.
As to replying to your message, I am digging for information. I should reply later this week.
Have a nice day.
See you later.------------------
Anne C. McGuire
Student at Texas Tech University
Mathematics, Cell and Molecular Biology, and Piano Performance major

Anne, what quotes are you referring to? I don't see any quotes in Gene90's message #5.If you want reading material on the topic I suggest the reference library at this site. It has links to soem excellent web articles.Go to resources/reference library.[This message has been edited by wj, 08-10-2002]

[QUOTE][B]Anne, what quotes are you referring to? I don't see any quotes in Gene90's message #5.[/QUOTE][/B]The only two quotes came from Blitz's post. The rest was typed-to-order.

Professor Barr's letter can be found here but I think she was referring to the refutations for polonium halos and excess helium-on which incidentally there are many rebuttals to the talkorigins rebuttal
Incidentally, why do most samples given in for carbon dating dont give an infinite date-as there should be too little C-14? Only rarely are there radiocarbon samples that give an "infinite" date.

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MOST CARBON-14 DATES DO NOT AGREE WITH THE THEORY
So the evolutionists throw them away.

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"It may come as a shock to some, but fewer than 50 percent of the radiocarbon dates from geological and archaeological samples in northeastern North America have been adopted as `acceptable' by investigators."*J. Ogden III, "The Use and Abuse of Radiocarbon," in Annals of the New York Academy of Science, Vol. 288, 1977, pp. 167-173.

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"If a C-14 date supports our [evolutionary] theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely `out of date,' we just drop it."*Pensee, 3(1):44.

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INNACURATE AS IT IS, C-14 DATING RARELY PRODUCES VERY OLD DATES
In spite of its flaws, it is far more accurate than radiodating.

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"At 600 B.C., the C-14 activity level is about -10%. Before this, the atmospheric activity is observed to decrease in such a way that, by about 2000 B.C., it is of the order of +50%. Clearly, the trend for older samples to have progressively lower delta % levels is observed. In other words, the whole picture is now consistent with the non-equilibrium model. Before 2160 B.C., there are no suitable [historically dateable] materials for calibration purposes, and so it is not possible to trace the curve back further in time . .

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"Conventional C-14 calibration has the effect of `stretching out' radiocarbon time and slowing down, for example, the rate of man's cultural development. By contrast, this revised approach has the effect of `compressing' radiocarbon time,' and speeding up the rate of man's cultural development."Erich A. von Fange, "Time Upside Down," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1974, p. 22.

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"Although it was hailed as the answer to the prehistorian's prayer when it was first announced, there has been increasing disillusion with the [radiocarbon] method because of the chronological uncertaintiesin some cases absurditiesthat would follow a strict adherence to published C-14 dates . . What bids to become a classic example of `C-14 irresponsibility' is the 6,000 year spread of 11 determinations for Jarmo, a prehistoric village in northeastern Iraq which, on the basis of all archeological evidence, was not occupied for more than 500 consecutive years."*C.A. Reed, "Animal Domestication in the Prehistoric Near East," in Science, 130 (1959), p. 1630.

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There are also two main assumptions that radiocarbon dating depends on-

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"There are two basic assumptions in the radiocarbon method. One is that the carbon 14 concentration in the carbon dioxide cycle is constant. The other is that the cosmic ray flux has been essentially constantat least on a scale of centuries."*J.L. Kulp, "The Carbon 14 Method of Age Determination," in Scientific Monthly, November 1952, p. 261.

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--extracts taken from : 2021this site gives the alternative solution.[This message has been edited by blitz77, 08-11-2002]

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Ouch. Wrong on two points: (1) You cannot carbon date rock. You can only carbon-date organic materials. (2) You cannot carbon date anything older than about 50,000 years of age, because by then the 14C in the sample falls below reasonably measurable limits. The testers have to search the sample harder and harder before they start finding any 14C to measure. However, there are air pockets in the machine and in the sample, and in those airpockets are molecules of 14CO2. In all probability with a really, really old sample those CO2 molecules will be the only carbon-14 found, along with the occasional microbial or pollen contaminent, and there is no telling what age the sample will give.

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I was referring to the layers underneath the lava flows-which by inference should be older shouldn't they? And how can that explain why the lava flows can give millions of years while the layers underneath only a few hundred?

blitz77 writes:

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However, there are many anomalies-dating supposedly hundreds of millions of years rock using carbon dating gives only a few thousand years
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I was referring to the layers underneath the lava flows-which by inference should be older shouldn't they? And how can that explain why the lava flows can give millions of years while the layers underneath only a few hundred?

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First, C-14 dating cannot be used on material older than 50,000 years. The half-life of C-14 is about 7500 years, so in 50,000 years the original amount of C-14 would have been cut in half about 6 times, leaving less than 1/64-th as much C-14, virtually indetectable since the amount of C-14 in still living organisms is about 0.00000000010%, and it begins decreasing immediately once they die and metabolism ceases (ie, cease taking in fresh carbon).So if you use carbon dating on any old carbon-containing rock (eg, coal) you'll find that it's age is unknown but is at least 50,000 years old.Second, about the "many anomalies", there simply aren't any. We could get into great detail about this, and I think we already have in other threads, but the simplest reason is that if there were many anomalous dates then there wouldn't be widespread agreement among scientists about the ages of the geological layers. Many anomalous dates would have split scientists into many different camps, each advocating their own preferred dates. That this hasn't happened tells you the dates are largely in agreement.The more important question is why, if the various dates and dating methods are largely consistent, do Creationist books and websites state unequivocally that radiometric dating is unreliable. This is a question I think only they can answer, but you might consider these words from your fellow Creationist Tranquility Base in Message 3 of thread Two questions concerning Radioisotope dating:

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...Most modern creaitonists have recently (the last 10 years) begun to accept that the decay has actually occurred...But to deny that there is more decay in deeper rocks or that the decays haven't occurred is simply incorrect.

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--Percy

Good old creationist quote mining. It really gets tedious."If a C-14 date supports our [evolutionary] theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely `out of date,' we just drop it."*Pensee, 3(1):44."If this quote is to be taken at fact value, and you believe it is authoritative enough to support your beliefs, how about providing some contextual information?Who is Pensee?
What are Pensee's qualifications and areas of expertise and experience?
In what publication was Pensee writing?
What was the title of Pensee's writing?
How old is this writing?
What are the immediately preceding, including and succeeding pargraphs?A quick web search reveals nothing about Pensee or the quotation. Your source of quotations also offers no further information.Something which you should learn about science - unverifiable evidence is not evidence. Now can you provide further information or do we simply discount Pensee's view?BTW, why is it that the vast majority of the quotes on the "unreliability" of radiometric dating are old (eg. your 4 dated quotations are between 25 and 50 years old) or from creationists? Certainly doesn't help the credibility of the creationist argument.[This message has been edited by wj, 08-11-2002]

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Originally posted by wj:
"If a C-14 date supports our [evolutionary] theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely `out of date,' we just drop it."*Pensee, 3(1):44."
...

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Who is Pensee?
What are Pensee's qualifications and areas of expertise and experience?
In what publication was Pensee writing?
What was the title of Pensee's writing?
How old is this writing?
What are the immediately preceding, including and succeeding pargraphs?

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Unfortunately for evolutionists, this quote comes from an impeccable source. The "Pensee" in question is actually the fourth volume of Velikovsky's "Pensee" (Thought)Index to the Works of Immanuel VelikovskyNow, with a scientist of the calibre of Velikovsky supporting them, surely now you accept that radiocarbon dating is as useless as creationists claim?

Well I'm not prepared to give up the ghost yet, even though Mr P has unmasked the quote from Pensee as actually being from Velikovsky. What do they say about strange bedfellows?How about J Ogden III's quote? It appears that he may have been at one time a Professor of Biology and Director of Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, Dalhousie University. Therefore prima facie he would appear to have good qualifications to comment on the matter. Any chance we can have the context of his quote? Surely it couldn't be taken out of context and appear to express a view which does not accurately reflect the person's true opinion?[This message has been edited by wj, 08-12-2002]

[message deleted as made redundant by Master Pamboli][This message has been edited by blitz77, 08-12-2002]