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Author Topic:   Okay to all Creationist: Here's some things for you to consider
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 12 of 34 (15217)
08-11-2002 7:16 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by blitz77
08-11-2002 8:28 AM


blitz77 writes:

However, there are many anomalies-dating supposedly hundreds of millions of years rock using carbon dating gives only a few thousand years
...
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?

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:

...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.
--Percy

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 Message 10 by blitz77, posted 08-11-2002 8:28 AM blitz77 has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 20 of 34 (15292)
08-12-2002 12:20 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by wj
08-12-2002 3:07 AM


wj writes:

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?
Perhaps I'm not picking up on any irony and sarcasm, but Velikovsky's views on scientific matters shouldn't be invested with any credibility. His best known work, Worlds in Collision, attempts to draw correlations between astronomical and Biblical events. According to Velikovsky, the earth suffered near collisions with Venus once and Mars twice some thousands of years ago.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by wj, posted 08-12-2002 3:07 AM wj has replied

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