Did the Flood really happen?

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Your first sentence would sound better if it is a question

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No it is a fact that your point is completely redundant. We know how much water the Earth has. More, if the amount of granite matters then the amount on the Earth matters not the amount on the Moon. And simply asserting that the Earth has a lot of water is not nearly enough to provide any significant support for a global flood.

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It is your second sentence that turned me off. I really don't like to reply when I see a person talk with that attitude. Why should I?

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It is a fact that my own investigations have not found anything that really supports your claim. At most the crystallisation of granite might release water trapped in the minerals. Which means that the water must already be there.

It is also a fact that you have contradicted yourself, a fact that you use vagueness to pretend to have an important point and a fact that you claim to know better even when you obviously don’t. If you don’t like being distrusted then you shouldn’t do do much to earn that distrust.

Juvenissun writes: All the water came out of the earth in a sudden.

Then that creates an even bigger problem for you.

But you didn't answer any of my questions:

1. Where does the input energy come from?

2 What triggers the reaction to make the water for the flood?

3. What triggers the reverse reaction that hides the water in the rock after the flood?

And don't forget my question from an earlier post:

4. Where does the extra H come from to turn OH into HOH?

Be specific. Answer each question individually and in detail.

While you are sitting in the corner during your time-out, this would be a good time for you to engage in some self-examination and contemplation over what had landed you here. Not that I can imagine you ever doing that.

Repeatedly and with sickening regularity, you make blatantly false claims which you refuse to support in any manner whatsoever. Furthermore, you expect us to do all your work for you and then, when we do that, you ignore our answers and just repeat that stupid cycle yet again. If you think that our harsh judgement of you is unjustified, you are very seriously dead wrong.

Obviously, you need to reform your misconduct into something more constructive, socially acceptable, and conducive to discussion. Instead, your persistent conduct is that of typical creationists who are capable of nothing more than regurgitating false "creation science" claims with absolutely no comprehension of what they are spouting. As a result, when we attempt to engage them in a discussion of their claims they try to hide their abject ignorance of their own claims through many dishonest polemic tactics all designed to avoid discussion, the same ones that you yourself use persistently. If you actually had any clue what you were talking about, you should have no reason to always resort to such polemic tricks.

At that other forum, you claim to be a geologist. You have hinted here that you hold a doctorate in that field and that you have taught the subject. It is abundantly clear from your persistent actions that none of that is true. And if you had actually taught classes in that or any scientific subject, how would you treat a student who did as you do, make wild assertions that he then refuses to support with anything but frantic hand-waving and proclaiming himself to possess an intellect far superior to your own? Yeah, you would also give that idiot the bum's rush out the door. And you have the gall to expect different treatment?

I just looked at the graduation requirements for a BS Geology from a local state university. 30 semester units are required from related fields, such as biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics, so your demonstrated abject ignorance of such subjects (especially mathematics and physics) exposes your fraud. Even if a student were to avoid the physics classes, one of the required major courses is geophysics ("Physics for Stoners" akin to "Physics for Poets"?), so there should be absolutely no excuse for a geologist to demonstrate such abject ignorance of physics as you present here.

Now, there is a history of creationists claiming credentials such as doctorates but which they did not earn but rather had either purchased from a degree mill or received as an honorary degree.

For example, convicted fraud Kent Hovind bought a "PhD" in Religious Studies so he calls himself "Dr. Dino" (which was also the domain name of his previous website before his decade-long stint in federal prison) and which he used to deceive his followers into thinking that he must be a scientist (he would just stress the "Dr", not what it was supposed to have been in). He even went so far as to force the phone company to list him in the phone book as "Dr. Hovind".

Another example is Harold Slusher who in the early days of "creation science" had strong ties with the ICR and had written a lot of early "creation science" materials (eg, the ubiquitous appendix listing uniformitarian estimates showing young earth ages, including his bogus moon dust claim in which he misquoted his source and violated basic mathematical principles in order to inflate his results by a factor of 10,000 (ie, his expected "284 foot thick" layer of meteoric dust on the moon actually turns out to be 1/3-inch thick, which is pretty much what we actually found). He appears to have actually earned an MS Science degree, but he also received a couple honorary degrees. When he joined the Physics Dept of the University of Texas at El Paso, he was at first listed as "Dr. Slusher", for which he had clearly misrepresented his honorary degrees to the university. Then mysteriously the faculty list for that department went missing, but finally it reappeared and Slusher was still there but no longer listed as "Dr." I just now went back to their site and Harold Slusher is no longer listed as faculty or staff, so he must have since retired and/or moved on. BTW, over the years I have received a number of emails from his students all complaining about him (and not in a good way).

So, I don't know what degree mill you bought your degree from.

What if the collision was between a moon-size or larger body and the earth? And they hit at an angle? Even at a 90° angle?

As I've already told you, you need to start doing your own homework. And then present your findings to us showing your work. I've done it at least a few times here already, whereas you have never even begun to do the same.

And this brings us back to that very basic question and problem which you have consistently ignored: If you require certain effects (eg, the length of the year having changed drastically to account for the reported extreme longevity of the Patriarchs), then you must first determine how much of that change is required. Then and only then can you even begin to figure out what mechanisms could produce those required effects, if any.

OK, I'm thinking like an engineer here, but then I am a retired engineer (albeit a software engineer, which other engineers think isn't real engineering, much as how physicists and other real scientists think that geology isn't a real science -- refer to Sheldon Cooper's statements about geology, now that you have all this free time on your hands). A basic software design approach is to first define the outputs that you need, then define the inputs that you would need, and finally the data processing that would be required to convert those inputs into those required outputs.

Whenever you wish to endeavor to design a new product, the very first step you absolutely must take is to specify exactly what that product shall (an extremely special and all-powerful word in any and all specifications) do. You have never ever provided us with that absolutely essential specification.

You have consistently and persistently refused to define what your bizarre scenarios would require. You couldn't even figure out on your own how many times greater 950 years would be than 120 years. That is simple division! And yet performing simple division is completely beyond your extremely limited mental capacity? And you want to claim to have an advanced degree in a science? Really?

 
In Message 2336 I have presented you with the actual results of your "asteroid hits and mountain range collapses" (paraphrased scare quotes). We know all too well how insignificantly those would affect the earth's orbit.

Now you demand for me to calculate this: "What if the collision was between a moon-size or larger body and the earth? And they hit at an angle? Even at a 90° angle?" OK, you unthinkingly reject absolutely everything that I or the rest of the forum membership present to you. At the same time you persistently refuse to seek any answers yourself. That is actually understandable, as presented by Wakefield when trying in vain to work with Robert Gentry:

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Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)

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BTW, Gentry's "basement Genesis" rock from which he had extracted his polonium halo samples turned out to be in igneous intrusions into metamorphic rock. If you actually had any background in geology, you would understand that, but I doubt that you will.

In another Wakefield article on that subject which I do not have access to right now, that was worded in this manner (ie, I am very strongly paraphrasing here):

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When a scientist sees a mystery, he wants to solve that mystery.
When a creationist/religionist/God-of-the-Gaps-ist sees a mystery that he identifies as "God", he wants to keep it a mystery.

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At all costs, because the creationists' god can only be supported and defended through lies and deception.

So then, what are the results we should expect from your own calculations for that problem that you presented me with?

And in addition, since all such massively astronomical events that you now assert and require (ie, "The earth was hit by asteroids, moons, planets many many times.") must have occurred within human history. That is directly and verbatim from your Message 2305. And the only reason that you are invoking such events are is to invoke sudden and drastic astronomical changes (ie, to the earth's orbit) within human history! OK, so tell us everything about those "asteroids, moons, planets" that had hit the earth "many many times." Give me a such event, Vasili. Just one! That's all we need. Oh! You cannot? Интересно! (sorry, I did try to avoid switching to thinking in Russian there; that reference to "The Hunt for Red October" undid me -- Interesting!)

You want to know what the effect would be of: "What if the collision was between a moon-size or larger body and the earth? And they hit at an angle? Even at a 90° angle?" So figure it out for yourself! One definition of a PhD I recently heard is that its real measure is for your ability to do inhumanly long hours of incredibly tedious work. And yet you, who wants to claim a PhD, cannot even do such simple calculations yourself, let along simple division?

Just what the hell is wrong with you?

You have about three days to formulate your response. I am not holding my breath, having had to deal with you f*cking creationists since 1981.

 
OK, you have a few days of soul-searching (not that you would ever find one) to think about what you are doing.

Your move.

Look at the geologic recent, how much orbit shift took place by the hit that killed dinosaurs 60 m.y. ago?

I know that I have already shown you that your hand-waving ravings are nonsense that do not come anywhere close to supporting what your false assertions would require. But since I just got more information on that geologic event and the asteroid, the Chicxulub impactor, I felt that we should use the information in that article to run through this evolution again, even if only for sh*ts and giggles.

Here are the salient facts that we will work with:

• We are using the MKS system from physics: meter-kilogram-second

• I am using computer program notation for scientific notation which is <mantissa>E<signed exponent> to represent <mantissa> × 10^{<signed exponent>}; eg, 2.34E-2 means 2.34×10^-2.

• Linear momentum = <mass> × <velocity> = mv

• Velocity is a vector which means that it has direction and magnitude. You can specify the value of a vector either with polar coordinates (radius and angle) or with its Cartesian components (x,y).

• Again, I'll assume the earth to be our frame of reference, so its momentum will be zero and the magnitude of the resultant vector from the collision will be the change in the earth's velocity due to that impact. The direction of the earth's motion along its orbit will be our +x axis. Also, I'll assume an impact angle of 90°; ie, in the direction of the +y axis, which should impart the most change in the earth's orbit.

• Mass of the earth: 5.97237E+24 kg

• Orbital speed of the earth: 30 km/sec = 30,000 m/sec

• Maximum estimated mass of Chicxulub impactor: 4.6E+17 kg

• Estimated speed of impact: 20 km/sec = 20,000 m/sec

• Calculated linear momentum of Chicxulub impactor: 9.2E+21 kg m/sec

• Earth's additional velocity vector in x,y-components due to conservation of linear momentum: (0 mps, 1.54E-3 mps)

• Adding the vectors: (30000,0) + (0,1.54E-3) = (30000,1.54E-3) m/sec. In polar coordinates, that translates to 30,000 mps at 5.54 seconds of arc.
  

Still too insignificant to have any meaningful effect.

I think I would like to reiterate there is evidence of a flood.

There is. The B.E.D.S model, inselburgs, (erosional remnants), experiments for progradation showing facies can be laid down both laterally and superposed in hydraulic conditions with flume experiments proving it. Water gaps, polystrate fossils, standing arches, paraconformities (flat gaps), and some methods of dating. (Geochronomoters). Trackways in straight lines indicating fleeing organisms. New experiments have also now shown bouyancy counters any sedimentation meaning you need a LOT of sediment to counter the gases in the carcasses of animals, which leads to bloat-and-float disarticulation of fossils. A flood is the perfect mechanism for fossilisation because of the large sediment hauls conducive to quick burial and preservation. There is also C14 in diamonds and soft tissue in various dino bones more favourable to youth, despite the desperate explanations put forward for why they could last millions of years.

There is also the correctly qualified evidence we would expect from a flood. Obviously because of what the bible says about the flood, a flood would have been easy to falsify, all you would have had to say before finding the rock record is this;"well if the flood killed everything while it was living, all we need to do is show we won't find every phyla or type of animal preserved dead killed by a flood."

That would have been easy, because obviously the bible says all life perished. But the fact we find fossils fighting, in the suffocation position, tracks of them scurrying, digesting meals, giving birth, and the fact we find all types of life, is the exact type of evidence to expect from a flood.

There is simply PLENTY of evidence better answered by a flood.

In the rocks we would also expect to NOT find any intermediates for bats, pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs, snails, trees. Obviously if it is a history of created kinds, no matter how far back we went in the rock record we would expect to find things that pretty much look the same as they do today.

Here's a little list I prepared earlier of some that appear with no evolutionary history and can be found today and even compared to their living counterparts and they look IDENTICAL. To say this is not the evidence expected from a flood/creation scenario is to LIE, and LIARS will have to answer to God when they stand before Him.

The Coelacanth Fish (340 million years old)
Gingko Trees (125 million years),
Crocodiles (140 million years),
Horseshoe Crabs (200 million years),
The Lingula lamp shell (450 million years),
Neopilina Molluscs (500 million years),
The Tuatara Lizard (200 million years).
Avocets (65 million years)
Wollemi Pine (150 million years)
Ferns (180 million years)
Nightcap Oak (20 million years, based on fossilized nut)
Maple Tree (30-50 million years/ Eocene)
jellyfish (500 million years)
Alligators (75 million years)
Gracilidris Ant (15-20 million years preserved in amber)
Turtles (110 million years)
Gladiator Insect (45 million years)
Lace Bugs (15 -200 million years, amber)
Starfish (500 million years)
Bats (48-54 million years)
Golden Orb-Weaver Spider (165 million years)
Pelican Spider (44 million years)
Shrimp - (100-300 million years)
Rabbitfish - (150 million years)
Gall Mites - (amber - 230 million years)
Sponge, Nucha naucum - (220 million years)
Octopus - (90 million years)http://creation.com/...octopus-fossils
Dragonflies. (can't find a date, but they were a lot bigger but that's all, I guess the Carboniferous)
Laonastes Rodent (10 million years up, can't find exact date)
Millipedes. (3-400 million years, aprox)
Sharks: (450 million years)
Vascular plants, land plants. (400 million)
Proxylastodoris kuscheli Beetle. (40-50 million) --was believed extinct until recently--?
non-marine ostracod. Eocene --was believed extinct until recently--
Sabalites Palm tree - Eocene (30-50 million years)http://www.fallsofth...ymnosperms.html
Hydrangea? (23-33 million years/Oligocene) http://www.fallsofth...ymnosperms.html
Alnus flower (23-33 million years/Oligocene) http://www.fallsofth...ymnosperms.html
Swartzia is a tropical tree with some 200 species today (30-50 million years/ Eocene))
Sycamore. "The leaf is not too different from those on the living tree" (30-50 million years/ Eocene)
Crinoid Anthedon (150 million years)
Eophis underwoodi (snakes) - (167 million years)
Tardigrada (micro-bears) - 520 million years. (they have many things that large animals have including a gut, eyes, osphagus, brain and mouth)
Sulfur bacteria - 1.8 billion years.
Pollen - (Roraima) an indisputable case of pre-Cambrian 550 million years or so.
Shovelnose Ray (Belemnobatis sismondae) 150 million years
Mayfly - 97-110 million years.?
Moss - 330 million years,. (Apparently no evolution of this moss has occurred for 330 Ma. The fossil record of Sphagnum moss itself occurs in the Cenozoic, which means that the record of this type of common moss appears to be pushed back at least 265 Ma.)

(nitpicking one or two examples then complaining, won't change the overall theme here which is that evolution is fiction.)

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I think I would like to reiterate there is evidence of a flood.

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Well let’s see how you do presenting it.

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There is. The B.E.D.S model, inselburgs, (erosional remnants), experiments for progradation showing facies can be laid down both laterally and superposed in hydraulic conditions with flume experiments proving it. Water gaps, polystrate fossils, standing arches, paraconformities (flat gaps), and some methods of dating. (Geochronomoters).

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So, claims of a model, small scale experiments carried out under artificial conditions which likely won’t scale up, and things which are unexplained (as far as I am aware any dating method that works confirms the antiquity of the Earth).

And I’d love to know how your floating fancies can preserve trackways.

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New experiments have also now shown bouyancy counters any sedimentation meaning you need a LOT of sediment to counter the gases in the carcasses of animals, which leads to bloat-and-float disarticulation of fossils.

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And no explanation of why this should be considered evidence, especially in the light of the order of the fossil record.

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A flood is the perfect mechanism for fossilisation because of the large sediment hauls conducive to quick burial and preservation.

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And this contradicts the “bloat and float” which argues that a flood is not that great for sudden burial compared to landslides or sandstorms.

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There is also C14 in diamonds and soft tissue in various dino bones more favourable to youth, despite the desperate explanations put forward for why they could last millions of years.

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C14 is only found in trace amounts, and no actual soft tissue has been found - only it’s altered remains (if that).

quote:

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There is also the correctly qualified evidence we would expect from a flood. Obviously because of what the bible says about the flood, a flood would have been easy to falsify, all you would have had to say before finding the rock record is this;"well if the flood killed everything while it was living, all we need to do is show we won't find every phyla or type of animal preserved dead killed by a flood."

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This is just silly. It would only be “easy” to refute the Flood were like that if at least one extant phylum didn’t escape fossilation. Which is not even remotely likely. The desperate clutching at straws makes the weakness of the case perfectly obvious.

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That would have been easy, because obviously the bible says all life perished. But the fact we find fossils fighting, in the suffocation position, tracks of them scurrying, digesting meals, giving birth, and the fact we find all types of life, is the exact type of evidence to expect from a flood.

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Or the exact evidence we would expect from the conventional view. Indeed the “bloat and float” model predicts none of this.

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In the rocks we would also expect to NOT find any intermediates for bats, pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs, snails, trees. Obviously if it is a history of created kinds, no matter how far back we went in the rock record we would expect to find things that pretty much look the same as they do today.

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Cherry picked examples - even if they were entirely true - are hardly good evidence. For instance, the early ichthyosaurs are so different from the later, that it is questionable if they should be included in the group. Which is an example of how things do not look the same as today, when there are no ichthyosaurs at all.

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Here's a little list I prepared earlier of some that appear with no evolutionary history and can be found today and even compared to their living counterparts and they look IDENTICAL. To say this is not the evidence expected from a flood/creation scenario is to LIE, and LIARS will have to answer to God when they stand before Him

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Of course it isn’t. Especially as I only need look at the “examples” to see who the “LIAR” is. Modern coelacanths are NOT identical to the fossil varieties- they aren’t even considered to be in the same genus.
Finding outright falsehoods is not not nitpicking.
(And there are fossil crocodilians unlike any extant today - even bipedal crocodiles. Yes, the ancient world looked “pretty much the same as today”. Ha!)

Wow, so much empty verbiage, so little time.

It's like trying to discuss anything with a Trumpian "Republican" troll. They immediately start spewing a constant fire-hose stream of pure BS that no rational person could possibly respond to in real time. We also know it as the "Gish Gallop".

You say:

(nitpicking one or two examples then complaining, won't change the overall theme here which is that evolution is fiction.)

Rather, pointing out that some of your "examples" are pure BS is an indication that all your other "examples" are also pure BS.

There is also C14 in diamonds ...

Really? Do you have any clue at all what radiocarbon dating is or how it works? Any clue at all? It really is not at all complicated. So how could you be so completely stupid about it? Except that that is what your "creation science" requires of you. Do please respond directly to this one so I can explain to you how the cow ate the cabbage (one of my father's Texanisms meaning explaining how things actually work).

Sycamore. "The leaf is not too different from those on the living tree" (30-50 million years/ Eocene)

Oh! A quote! A direct quote! Yet completely devoid of any actual citation. WHO THE HELL ARE YOU QUOTING? And where the frak is your bibliography? Oh, yeah, right. This is just yet another example of lying creationist quote-minining, you f*cking lying creationist! Why do you believe that your god can only be served through lying and deceiving? Obviously you know nothing about Christian doctrine, since you cannot immediately identify the one and only Christian deity who is served by lies and deception (HINT: Lucifer).

Now, back around 1990 I personally did find an article in either Nature or Science about "green fossils". I'm sure I have a photocopy of it somewhere in my boxes of files, but I cannot lay my hands on it immediately.

The thing about "green fossils" is that they still contain DNA. Also, this article dealt with magnolia leaves instead of sycamore. What they found was that morphologically all the samples were identical, but genetically they were quite different. Indeed, the genetic differences provided enough data that the researchers were able to create a phylogenetic tree of descent for those trees.

 
The rest of your "little list" consists of nothing other than morphological sameness that says nothing at all about genetic differences (which admittedly would be very difficult). Oh! Gee! Some of that "soft tissue in various dino bones" should provide us with exactly that kind of DNA data! Any one? Any one? Bueller? Bueller? Any one? Why do I hear nothing except for crickets?

Of course, none of that explains why you would ever think that your "little list" should have any validity at all. What is your gross misunderstanding of evolution that would lead you to think that your "little list" should be any kind of a problem for science? After many decades, I have yet to see any such explanation from any creationist.

I think I would like to reiterate there is evidence of a flood.

Yeah, Mikey, keep trying to piss up that rope. You folks lost that argument a hundred years ago and nothing you can conjure is going to change that.

But, if it helps you cope with life to stomp your feet, stick you fingers in your ears, close your eyes and shout your errant catechism then we will be patient until you grow up.

*
See Twenty-one Reasons Noah’s Worldwide Flood Never Happened by LORENCE G. COLLINS
Here’s a geologist’s critical analysis of false perceptions held by many creationists about the Worldwide Flood and the age of the Earth.

*

Floods ain't flumes.

Creation, in 6 days, got a mention during the Deuteronomy version of the 10 commandment's sabbath words ( cast into the stone tablets in Deuteronomy, but not Exodus 20).

Your new thread talks about literal "Biblical" views, based on plain readings, of scripture.

You referenced Genesis 1 to 2.

But there was no Genesis 1:1 to 2: 1, in the days of the former prophets. Jeremiah ( not to be confused with the mentioned former prophet reference) did not seem to have the first 3 and a half verses of Genesis 2, nor did the actual Isaiah ( the one who wrote the first 39 chapters).

Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

I confused thread authors.

I thought Mike the Wiz started this.

Those responding to mike the wiz should read Message 2 of Mike's Everyone is a bible literalist or nobody is thread proposal.

Mike's recent Message 2360 is just a cut-n-paste of his earlier Message 255. Of the 5 replies to that message, Mike replied to none of them.

ABE: ABSTRACT
{

Mike repeated/alluded to the creationist claim that C14 dating is false because traces of C14 can be found in obviously very old things like coal seams and diamonds.

That claim is blatantly false because radiocarbon dating is based on atmospheric C14, not C14 inside the earth's crust which is produced by other means (eg, nearby radiation sources). Trace amounts of C14 in coal and diamonds, etc, have absolutely nothing to do with radiocarbon dating.

And if mike disagrees, then he can always explain why he thinks that his claim is true. Nothing and nobody are keeping him from doing that.

}

To start with, we fully acknowledge that mike-the-whizzer is a hit-and-run troller who engages in run-by copy-and-paste word-saladings. As Percy demonstrated in his Message 2 reply to Whizzer's latest word salad PNT, which he just pointed us to.

mike writes: There is also C14 in diamonds ... C14 is only found in trace amounts, ...

I also asked mike to explain what he was talking about and never got any answer. Not even any kind of direct statement of his implied claim. No actual direct claim, just a shady implication that something might be wrong without ever telling us what he thinks is wrong and why. IOW, typical dishonest creationist deception.

As always, since creationists refuse to ever tell us what they are talking about (not that any of them understand it themselves, but that's another story), we have to take what little they do say and try to reconstruct their argument for them.

It appears that their argument is that "evolutionists" say that, because of C14's short half-life (5,730 ± 40 years), any sample containing C14 will end up having none after about 50,000 years. And yet we find samples, such as coal and diamonds, which are much older and still have trace amounts of C14. Therefore they must actually be younger than 50,000, radiocarbon dating is false, the earth is young, and their entire intricate fundamentalist theology is proven to be absolutely true. Amen.

ABE:
{

So many creationist claims are sketchy in both ways: 1) they are highly questionable if not outright dishonest, and 2) they lack details and any clear statement of the assumptions or reasoning behind the claim or even of the claim itself. Since they lack a clear statement of the claim, in order to respond we are forced to fill in all the blanks and gaps.

A number of times in the past, the creationist's response would be to complain that I was putting words in his mouth, to which I would respond by requesting that he explain what he was objecting to, why he was objecting to it, and also that he clearly describe and explain his own claim. The creationist response to that has always been to either try to change the subject or to run away.

So if mike wants to object that I just misrepresented his claim, then he needs to point out where I had done that, explain why he feels that it's a misrepresentation, and he must present his own claim completely and clearly. Which decades of bitter experience has taught me he will never do.

Of course, part of the reason for creationists not even trying to present their claims clearly and completely and avoiding any discussion of them is because they don't understand their own claims. All they are doing is mindlessly parroting what they have been told. For that matter, if they did actually understand their own claims, then they would know better than to present them in public where they are not able to control the venue and conditions as strictly as they need -- examples of a venue where they have strict control would be in a creationist debate, in a presentation at a church, in a creationist-run forum, anywhere that they can prevent any critics from speaking.

}

They are leaving out two very important issues:

1. They do not understand what radiocarbon dating is based on, namely one particular way in which C14 is produced. And,

2. That there are several ways in which C14 can be produced, but there is one and only one way which has any bearing on radiocarbon dating.
   

Basically, C14 is produced when a nitrogen nucleus (At.No. 7, At.Wt. 14) is hit by and absorbs a neutron which causes a proton to be expelled resulting in an isotope of carbon (normally 6/12), carbon-14 (6/14). There are other reactions that would produce C14, but this is given as the main one.

Basically, all you need is some radiation source (though lightning will also work) which are plentiful in the earth's crust and so will account for the on-going production of trace amounts of C14 in coal, diamonds, and the like. That explains what actually causes the "mysterious" appearance of C14 that the Whizz is talking about. And those sources of C14 have nothing whatsoever to do with radiocarbon dating.

Another source of radiation is cosmic rays penetrating the earth's atmosphere. Now that is the source which radiocarbon dating is based on. And here is basically how radiocarbon dating works:

1. Cosmic radiation impinges upon the earth's atmosphere and produces C14.

2. Some C14 becomes incorporating in plant tissue in proportion to the proportion of C14 to C12. That process is called photosynthesis which results in the production of carbohydrates.

3. Some animals eat plants for food. That results in the plants' C14 entering the animals' bodies and becoming incorporated there.

4. Some animals eat other animals for food, which results in those prey animals' C14 becoming incorporated in the predators' bodies.

5. When plants and animals die, they no longer incorporate "new carbon" into their bodies. Since no new C14 enters their tissues, the C14 that is already there decays over time. Measuring the remaining C14 versus the current levels of C14 is what radiocarbon dating is basically based on.
   

Note a few important points:

• The only C14 that has any bearing on radiocarbon dating is atmospheric C14. The trace amounts found in coal and diamonds are not atmospheric C14 and hence have nothing to do with the dating method.

• Because of basic biology, animals cannot obtain C14 from the atmosphere, but rather only plants can do that.

  Think about it (especially if you are a creationist lurker/visitor who is hearing this for the first time):
  

  • When we breathe, we take in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide. We do not take in carbon dioxide (and hence C14), but rather we expel it, so we do not get our C14 from the atmosphere.

  • However, through the process of photosynthesis plants do take in carbon dioxide (and hence C14) from the atmosphere. They use that carbon dioxide and water to produce carbohydrates and oxygen. Carbohydrates are not only sugars and starches, but also the cellulose which form the very structure of plants.

  • Because only plants can incorporate C14 from the atmosphere and animals cannot, animals get their C14 by eating the plants and non-herbivore animals get theirs by eating the herbivores or other predators whose food chain eventually works its way down to herbivores and hence eventually to plants. As we have already gone over.
    
  
  
• When animals obtain their carbon from other sources which contain "old carbon" and in which most of their original C14 has already decayed away, then the radiocarbon dating method no longer applies to them. A prime example is the ocean.

  This creates what is referred to as the "reservoir effect"., of which that article says regarding the ocean:
  

  quote:

  ---

  Creatures living at the ocean surface have the same ¹⁴C ratios as the water they live in, and as a result of the reduced ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio, the radiocarbon age of marine life is typically about 400 years. Organisms on land are in closer equilibrium with the atmosphere and have the same ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio as the atmosphere. These organisms contain about 1.3% of the carbon in the reservoir; sea organisms have a mass of less than 1% of those on land and are not shown in the diagram. Accumulated dead organic matter, of both plants and animals, exceeds the mass of the biosphere by a factor of nearly 3, and since this matter is no longer exchanging carbon with its environment, it has a ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio lower than that of the biosphere.

  ---

  Examples include:
  

  • Fresh water clams in streams fed by springs that run through limestone.
    Limestone consists of ancient shells and hence consists of "old carbon". The water flowing through that limestone dissolves it and the clams get their shell-building carbon, which is "old carbon", from the water.

    As a result, radiocarbon testing of those shells yield an anomalously old age. This is the basis for one of the first creationist claims I heard around 1970.

  • While seals are air-breathers, they do not get their C14 from the atmosphere (being animals, after all) but rather from their food as is the case for all animals. Their diet consists entirely of sea life which, as we have already seen, is somewhat isolated from the atmosphere and hence forms a carbon exchange reservoir as described in the quote above.

    Seals are thus affected by the reservoir effect and performing radiocarbon dating on them will be expected to produce anomalous results.
    

  Creationists frequently and regularly cite many cases of anomalous ages from applying a radiocarbon dating method on specimens subject to the reservoir effect. Misrepresenting those anomalous results as invalidating radiocarbon dating is yet another example of creationist dishonesty and deception.
  

 
In most cases, all it takes is basic knowledge of the subject matter to completely refute creationist claims. Something that mike and other creationists obviously do not have (or do have but they're lying).

Of course and as always, if mike disagrees and truly believes that his claim has any merit, then he is free to explain why he believes that. Nobody is keeping him from doing that. Nothing is keeping him from doing that -- except maybe his knowledge that his claim is completely false and deceptive, but that assumes that he has some integrity ("integrity" and "creationist" are two words that do not go together). Of course, mike will never do that.

Edited by dwise1, : added subtitle and final sentence

Edited by dwise1, : ABEs, plus added final paragraph

Edited by dwise1, : "then they would know better than to present them in public outside of conditions that they cannot control very strictly." in the second ABE doesn't read well. Corrected it.

Edited by dwise1, : changed subtitle