Why not here (re: Joe's geomagnetism web page)

"No, it doesn't. In fact, it proves an ancient earth. You can measure the reversal of the magnetic poles along the seafloor. A direct calculation shows that the earth is much older than YECs claim."
--I completely agree with you. That is, if I assume that nuclear decay has been constant since the origin of the earth. Because as far as I am aware, that is the only thing that can directly support this conclusion.Cheers,
-Chris Grose[This message has been edited by TrueCreation, 10-28-2003]

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Well, there are direct measures that it has been constant over long periods of time. In addition, our understanding of the physics gives no way for it to change under earthly conditions so what would you take to be the most likely thing to be true?

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--I don't think it is that simple. You see, if the earth is indeed young (or at least, that a catastrophic flood of some sort is responsible for "500 Myr" of Geologic time) than an accelerated decay rate is an inevitable requisite. Therefore, it is (in my opinion) completely fine to put this falsification in a box temporarely because in the long run, the acceleration of the nuclear decay rate is the only thing I presume would not have been natural(indeed, if it wasn't and the genesis flood could be completely natural, who need's God? The atheist could believe the story of Noah and get away with it). All other things should be resultant from that occurrence. If the falsification of the flood event all comes down to the radioisotopic data, than I think an argument in its favour is very good. Of course, however, this has not happened; there are hundreds of difficulties and inconsistencies in catastrophic geology to be delt with, but I presume the radioisotopic decay rate will be all that remains in the end if catastrophic geology is indeed viable.--Any and all geomagnetic data on the seafloor and on land (or the fact of the many hundreds of geomagnetic reversals themselves) are not a very good falsification of catastrophic geology without coupling it with radioisotopic dating.Cheers,
-Chris Grose[This message has been edited by TrueCreation, 10-28-2003]

"Unless you couple it with the physics of heat flow and the cooling of rocks, or with sedimentology, ...... "
--Well, I admit, with as much as I know about cooling plutons and intrusive lavas, you probably would have a pretty good argument there. I havent done much on intrusive lavas, but I am currently doing some research on the mineral structure (mainly on crystal size data) of the ocean lithosphere and crust, hopefully I will come to some viable conclusions.Cheers,
-Chris Grose

"TC, all the research you are going to try to do has already been done."
--If it has, I will discover it in my independent studies. But as far as I have done so, I sincerely doubt that it has been done. No one in the mainstream community cares about putting in countless of tedious hours of work into figuring exactly what would happen with hydrothermal systems when plates are moving at catastrophic velocities. No one in the mainstream community cares about the implications for island arc volcanism with high subduction velocities. It seems to me that most of the concerns of catastrophic geodynamics are not concerns of the mainstream community.Cheers,
-Chris Grose

"I have no idea why Joe gave such a vague, non-discriptive title to this topic.
I have added the "(re: Joe's geomagnetism web page)" to the title."
--He posted this a few days back on the christianforums board for discussion, I think he subconsciously assumed we knew that.Cheers,
-Chris Grose

"But so what? That does no damage to the real message of the bible unless you and others choose to allow it to do the damage. The real bible is NOT in danger from science it is in danger from those who try so hard to put it in the path of advancing knowledge. Don't be one of those! "
--If it was so detrimental to my faith, I would not readily assert that I have no definite conclusion regarding how old the earth is or whether a global flood occured some time in the recent past. I am not a YEC. I merely say 'us' and 'we' when refering to young earth research because it is easier to say.Cheers,
-Chris Grose

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I'm not a geophysicist but I think that one reason that those things aren't concerns of the mainstream is that they are falsified

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--Impossible. If they are not concerns of the mainstream community, how can you infer that they have been falsified (ie, they are not concerns, there has been no research, therefore no definite conclusion in their regard). I think the main reason they are not concerns of the mainsteam community is that they are (apparently)doing just fine with research under the uniformitarian philosophy. Not to mention that you believe catastrophic geology was substantiated as impossible 150-200 years ago.

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, they predict things which didn't or can't occur.

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--Accelerated decay is the only thing which cannot occur as a natural phenomena. The other 'inconsistencies' are all topics of research which are not concerns to the mainstream community.

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Once a hypothosis is shown to be wrong then it isn't given much consideration after that. Not without new information anyway.
[emphasis mine]

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--Exactly. That new information (or research) has yet to be done.Cheers,
-Chris Grose

"The point is *no longer* a concern. The path there has been closed off by what is known. It simply doesn't fit."
--What do you mean, "no longer a concern", runaway subduction and CPT is relatively new, and I don't know of any rigorous mainstream studies on its veracity. More importantly, as I noted in my earlier post:

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No one in the mainstream community cares about putting in countless of tedious hours of work into figuring exactly what would happen with hydrothermal systems when plates are moving at catastrophic velocities. No one in the mainstream community cares about the implications for island arc volcanism with high subduction velocities. It seems to me that most of the concerns of catastrophic geodynamics are not concerns of the mainstream community.

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--I cited two very relevant examples and I could give hundreds more if I camped at my computer writing them down, none of which are concerns to the mainstream community, and probably never were.

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It appears you are going down this path assuming you will have to invoke a miracle for accelerated decay. If so why don't you just invoke miracles to get rid of excess heat, vicosity problems etc. as well.

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As long as you have one "supernatural" explanation left in there you will not be successful in convincing anyone.

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Additionally, if you look to the thread here disucssing this you will find you need more than one miracle. If you can use one miralce as an explanation then why not use more?

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--The ultimate point is that the most fundamental aspect of science is potential falsification. If any miracle can be potentially falsified, bring it on. I think that as we start piling up the research on heat flow physics the excess heat problems will begin to disipate (or will begin to become more pronounced, I have no pre-concieved conclusion. But I have an opinionated hope). Indeed, I think they already have begin to dim. And the simple fact is that if a global flood is responsible for the last "500 Myr" of the earths geology, than accelerated decay is an inevitable requisite. Therefore, if it can be substantiated that such an episode of accelerated decay would indeed induce a chain reaction in all the relevant geodynamic systems to produce this amazingly complex geological history, in my opinion catastrophic geology is more than plausible. It is my aim to do the relevant research required to make the conclusion. I feel that this conclusion cannot yet be made(at least in the fields I have studied in some depth).--BTW, there is no 'viscosity problem'.Cheers,
-Chris Grose[This message has been edited by TrueCreation, 10-30-2003]

"How do you know that God is following a rule of "The fewer miracles the better"? Maybe God likes miracles, and the more miracles the better!"
--Good point. Well I think that if he really did use numerous miracles that could not have left some kind of suggestive evidence, I feel that (in the long run) my transition to the old earth perspective is inevitable.Cheers,
-Chris Grose

"Of course, this is what is wrong with miracles as an explanation. They can be constructed anyway you like so they can not be falsified. They can explain *any* observation and therefore can explain none of them.If you want to do science, fine. If not, then I don't care what you have to say."
--I've explained my reasoning for having no problem with invoking some kind of miracle to explain the isotopic data. There isn't a lot to 'construct' with accelerated decay; either it accelerated, or it didn't. Accelerated decay isn't ad hoc, but I presume it was miraculous.

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No, viscosity problem? I guess I've been mislead into thinking that moving the continents at rates 1,000,000 times more than they are presents some problems. Could you explain where that is wrong? I think you could go to the threads for that.

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--What thread? I think Baumgardner's 2D simulations model this quite well. Viscosity can be decreased by many orders of magnitude without even approaching melting temperature. What exactly is the 'viscosity problem' you think is so problematic? If you want to open a new thread I might discuss this there.Cheers,
-Chris Grose

"What on earth do you mean that accelerated decay issn't ad hoc ? The only possible reason for believing it is an assumption that the Earth is young in the first place."
--The reason it isn't ad hoc is because it is invoked to explain the distribution of radioisotopes in the earths crust, as well as a potential initiation for CPT. I suspect that with further studies plenty more implications can also be found. For instance, all of the successive fossil forests at specimen ridge in Yellowstone could be spaced over a very short time scale (recalling from memory; with 200 year old trees, 200-500 years for pedogenic development required for the volcanic soil to be capable of sustain living trees, and 12 forests) with a lower limit of approximately 4800-8400 years for the entire lithofacies to be buried from bottom to top if they did indeed grow there. And so it would be expected that if accurate radioisotopic dates were taken from material in the specimen ridge forests the radioisotopic record should reflect this. However if we take into consideration accelerated radiosotopic decay in catastrophic geology 5000-8500 "years" of radioisotopic decay would be accomplished in no time:Assuming a uniform increase with no variation during accelerated decay, and packing approximately 500 Myr of isotopic decay in 1 year means that every day there would be about 57,000 "years" of decay. This would mean that all these forests would have to be layed down in a couple hours if we found what would be expected in the uniformitarian scenario. So if the fossil forests were deposited in a scenario of catastrophic geology, than these fossil forests should reflect a much larger radioisotopic difference (several million years of decay).--I could also hypothesize similar expectations in various areas where we find mud cracks, coprolites (and their dessication cracks), nests, and other trace fossils which we know would have to take some time to form.

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What is more you need a very specific miracle that speeds all the relevant decay rates by the same amount, somehow keeps the spreadign rates close to proportional on top of explaining how carbon dating goes back beyond your Flood and has been calibrated and tested against independant measures such as dendrochronology and the varves of Lake Suigetsu to dates that go past the usual YEC creation, let alone the Flood.

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--Well I'm glad you realize the complexity of the issue.Cheers,
-Chris Grose

"What you're left with is a miracle. But why would God fool with isotope decay? It makes no sense. Why would he destroy evidence of a young earth when it is not necessary in any way. It's like turning back the odometer in your car just before you total it. "
--There are ways to tell if you have turned back the odometer. God may have 'fooled with isotopic decay' because it would result in what he wanted, a global catastrophe.Cheers,
-Chris Grose

"And that is the entire reason that it is invoked. It is, therefore, ad hoc."
--You should have read the entire post."Exactly what does it tell us about the distribution of radioisotopes in the earth's crust?"
--Shouldn't this be obvious to a geologist like yourself? Theres an entire field dedicated to it, radiogenic isotope geology. The distribution of isotopic ratio's in the crust is indicative of its age."Nope, it tells us nothing about the potential of CPT. You have to invoke even more ad hoc arguments in order to apply it to CPT."
--How sure are you about that statement?"What is your point here?"
--Well I tried to make it clear, I guess I failed. If the trees were transported, radioisotopic data should show that this occured over a long span of time. However if we consider uniformitarian geology, the radioisotopic data should give a very short age between the top and bottom of the specimen ridge lithofacies."Are you saying that if something takes a long time then it really doesn't?"
--No, I'm saying that if something takes some time to form (eg, dessication cracks in coprolites, mud cracks, etc.) than there would be a big difference from that expected in the radioisotopic data between uniformitarian and catastrophic geology."The question is, do you?"
--I don't think that is the question....Cheers,
-Chris Grose

"Just as there should be ways to tell if accelerated decay actually occurred. Just what was the process by which accelerated decay occurred according to you? In other words, 'why did decay accelerate?' And then decelerate?"
--I don't know, ask God or something. Again I don't presume that accelerated decay was in any way a natural phenomena."How many times did it accelerate?"
--I don't know."And why did it leave no trace of its happening?"
--I think taht if accelerated decay occured, than catastrophic plate tectonics would have also."Why is the appearance of age necessary?"
--Because, the radioisotopic data suggest that if we apply the current decay constant, the geologic column is very old. But if accelerated decay happened, this absolute "age" inference is incorrect.Cheers,
-Chris Grose