Measure the ratio of isotopes in the rock. Not assumed. It is a measurement.
Measure the decay rate of the parent isotope and the decay products. Not assumed. it is a measurement.
Determine the starting concentrations of parent and daughter produce in the rock. Once again, not assumed. With isochron dating, you can measure the starting concentrations of both parent and daughter isotope as the y-intercept of the isochron. For methods such as K/Ar or U/Pb, we can observe that the rocks used in these methods don’t have appreciable amounts of daughter isotope when they form. It is a measurement.
We can determine the mechanisms that give rise to radioactive decay, and they are mechanisms based on the most fundamental forces in nature. We continually measure these same processes in astronomy where decay rates are observed to be the same in the past as they are now. We can also measure decay rates in all sorts of extreme environments, and they are not observed to change. It is a measurement.
There are no assumptions. These are all measurements.
Why should anyone accept such a thing “in faith” when the scripture doesn’t make that claim?
The only reason anyone would think that they’re history is because they didn’t have the humility to ask, “What kind of literature did the inspired writer select for his message(s)?”
Deceptiveness: those who considered Genesis 1 to be allegory “believed the Bible as written”; those who acknowledge that it was written in an ancient literary form not meant to be history “believed the Bible as written”; even those who considered it to be theological mythology “believed the Bible as written”.
This point to the core: the disagreement is not about the Bible, but about assumptions as to *how/as it was written". The early church had no problem with people believing different things about that, and given that they were far, far closer to the Apostles I’d say their view should be taken seriously.
I begin with the text, and in my view YEC does not believe the Bible as written, they believe it as though it is a twentieth-century newspaper report, a view which tosses most of the message(s) of Moses in the trash. So I have a question: why should I give any credence at all to a view that throws away the powerful theology of Genesis 1?
It’s an argument I encountered talking to Muslims about the Quran.
You believe the age of the earth by faith. Just say it and leave it at that. BUT NO, you and YEC try to come up with alternative science to “prove” your view. That’s not faith, and it’s also not science.
It’s not. YEC is based on faith. In fact, all the “scientists” who work for AiG and ICR and similar orgs have signed a pledge that “true” science cannot contradict the scripture, so they aren’t really searching for truth in any sense, and definitely not Truth with a capital T. They’re simply producing scientific-sounding propaganda to shore up their shoddy theology.
I think we need to explain some of the rules that we have been talking about, and why statements such as this one do not obey them.
In this case, the rule in question is you must address how a scientific technique works in reality, and not an inaccurate or incorrect misunderstanding of it.
It has been explained to you several times by myself and others not just that your statement here is untrue, Jon, but why it is untrue. You have been given multiple explanations of techniques that are perfectly capable of getting to an age from measurements alone without making untestable assumptions and without any philosophical elements. Isochron dating and lead in zircon crystals are just two examples. And it has been explained to you not only that these methods can be tested without having been there to check but how they can be tested without having been there to check.
It is dishonest to claim that scientific techniques are more unreliable than they actually are. It is dishonest to claim that they make assumptions that they do not. It is dishonest to claim that the assumptions that they do make cannot be tested when in actual fact they can. It is dishonest to claim that assumptions could be violated in ways that are totally unrealistic. It is dishonest to claim that just because a scientific technique makes “assumptions” that you can disregard the results willy-nilly just because you don’t like them. It is dishonest to claim that scientific techniques are dependent on some philosophical worldview or other when in reality they are based entirely on measurement and mathematics. And it is dishonest to keep repeating a claim parrot fashion after you have had it explained to you not only that it is untrue but why it is untrue. I know you don’t like being told that you’re being dishonest, but if you don’t want to be told you’re being dishonest then don’t say dishonest things.
The scientific skepticism kicks in when I hear the word “consistent” used. For something to be consistent with a theory or hypothesis there needs to be at least a potential observation that would be inconsistent, and a set of criteria for differentiating between the two. Since there appears to be no potential observation that would be inconsistent with YEC, then there can’t be observations that are consistent with it. A claim that can explain anything explains nothing.
One thing I took away from an interview of an ex-YEC is that at some point they began to notice that there was one group of people who were trying to protect what they hoped to be true and another that was just seeking what is true (with a little t), the latter being the scientific community. I think that trends with what a lot of us see.
Methods not based on 14C can also be correlated with non-radiometric methods of dating. For example, when we draw a line of best fit through the measured K/Ar dates of the Hawaiian islands and Emperor seamounts we get a slope of about 8 cm/yr from the current location of the Hawaiian hotspot. What is the measured velocity of the plate over the Hawaiian hotspot? 7 to 11 cm per year.
There are two points that young earthists fail to grasp when they make claims such as these, that show that they are the ones who do not understand the science.
First, they drastically underestimate the amount of research that goes into identifying, quantifying, testing and eliminating assumptions.
Popular young earthist critiques of radiometric dating are often hopelessly out of date. Their standard claim about the three basic assumptions of radiometric dating (initial conditions, contamination/leakage and constant decay rates) may have been legitimate concerns in the 1920s when radiometric dating was in its infancy, but they are not legitimate concerns in the 2020s. Isochron dating was invented in the 1950s by G Brent Dalrymple, Clair Cameron Paterson and George Tilton, building on ideas first proposed by Gunter Wetherill in 1956-1957. It eliminates the first assumption altogether and provides a built-in test for the second.
The physical, chemical and crystallographic properties of the different minerals involved have been thoroughly researched, and these allow us to place tight constraints on the initial conditions and their susceptibility to contamination and leakage. Environmental factors such as metamorphism can be used to identify when these considerations are likely to be a problem. They attempt to quantify the extent to which unknowns such as initial conditions, contamination or leakage could have skewed the results. Minerals or samples where those factors can not be quantified are not used in radiometric dating.
Additionally, where there is still uncertainty, multiple dating methods are used and cross-checked against each other. Young earthists like to make a song and a dance about cases where they don’t match up, but that’s just a diversionary tactic because it’s the cases where they do match up that they have to account for. These cases are far too numerous to make cherry-picking of the results by “evolutionists” a plausible explanation.
Secondly, they drastically overestimate the extent to which worldviews or philosophical factors could skew the results.
Allowing your worldview or philosophy to affect the results is sloppy science, and if done deliberately, it can be outright scientific fraud. The aim of scientific research is to come up with techniques that will give the same results for everyone, whether you are a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew or a Hindu or a Buddhist or an atheist or an agnostic.
There are a lot of protocols that can be used to eliminate biases from worldviews or philosophical factors. These include such things as double-blind studies, or peer review of experiment design before samples are collected and measurements taken.
Additionally, conventional old earth geochronology is routinely used in situations of high commercial value or to establish safety, such as oil exploration or mining. This is where the distinction between “operational science” and “historical science” breaks down. In situations such as these, you cannot afford to allow assumptions or worldviews to skew the results. If petroleum geologists were adjusting their geology to fit their theology, they would end up drilling in all the wrong places and their employers would lose a LOT of money.
Mining engineers need to accurately figure out where coal seams are and what is immediately above or below them. Often it is not possible to do this accurately using remote sensing alone, so they have to rely on an accurate understanding of their geological history. Once again, if they were adjusting their geology to fit their theology, they would end up getting these factors wrong in situations where people’s lives are at stake.
Hi T_aquaticus,
actually that is incorrect though I see that you absolutely believe that what you are claiming is correct.
It does appear to be a bit of a blind spot here on this forum, where matters that are demonstrably unknowable, are claimed to be known, through measurements made in the present, you ‘assume’ that the sample behaved in an identical manner and assume the starting ratios of isotopes in samples being tested are identical to the measurements in the present. Thus, despite you and others claims that there are no assumptions, the matters above identified must be assumed, to determine an age using radiometric dating methodology, hence there are assumptions.
And that does not even take into account the assumptions made about what quantity of each isotope may have been added to the sample in the past, and the assumptions made about what quantity of each isotope may have been leached out and lost in the sample in the past. Thus, in Truth there are assumptions made!
Of course, there are no surprises here on this website, that this REALITY is either ignored or flat out denied. Perhaps some people here that claim that no assumptions are made in radiometric dating of samples claimed to be hundreds of millions of years old, are simply not aware of the intrinsic assumptions embedded within the dating methodology rationale; I just don’t know the answer to that.
In my view, Adam’s original sin was taking something to eat that was not his that changed his nature to nephesh. The ‘original creation’ runs concurrent with the Garden narrative. When Adam and Eve are sent out of the Garden, they were leaving the plant kingdom and entering the animal kingdom… the difference between plants and animals being that plants produce their own food and animals don’t. Animals correlate to nephesh.
So, in holding to the biblical definition of nephesh that are the first things that can sin, the first animals (metazoans) are where sin entered the world. This make more sense of how death extends not just to humans but also to all animals because that is where sin originates.
This would be the whole of creation except for the plants and microbes that remain in the Garden. So sin entered the world approximately 870 mya with the first metazoans and all ‘death’ prior to that was ‘withering’ plants.
In my view, if Adam was made nephesh right then (which can die), then death preexisted the first sin by billions of years. First life (chay) is about 3.4 bya and first metazoans (nephesh) are 870 mya. But God does not say it happened with “no delay” or say “and it was so” after making Adam in the Garden.
You were knit together in your mothers womb, alive from when you were a single cell and then subdivided into two, four, eight cells, etc. You were ‘mankind’ the whole time.
Its a repeated process from the first single celled organisms becoming multicellular. The cells divide in half and this is represented by God making Eve from Adam. The word for ‘rib’ means side.
‘rib’ (6763. צֵלָע tsela) - side, side chambers, sides
Eve was made from the whole side of Adam and then they came together as one being, multicellular.
In my view this is skipping ahead. Adam was made on Day 1, they left the Garden at the end of Day 4, and we are all made in God’s image through Jesus at the end of Day 6.
This isn’t in anyone’s blind spot, Jon. Factors such as these have been fully accounted for by scientists as I explained in my last post which I submitted eleven minutes before you posted this one. Did you even read it?
There’s one thing that’s in your blind spot though. Assumptions have rules too, and so do challenges to those assumptions.
Here are three of them for starters.
First of all, you must state what the assumptions are. OK, so you’ve done that.
Second, you must make sure that the methods concerned (still) make the assumptions that you are claiming that they make, and that they haven’t been supserseded by anything that manages to test them or eliminate them altogether. As I’ve pointed out, young earthist arguments against radiometric dating were already out of date in this respect when they were first published in The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb & Morris in 1960.
Third, you must come up with a plausible explanation as to how the assumptions could have been violated in a way that is consistent with both the physical evidence and whatever alternative explanation you are proposing. These need to do so in detail, right down to the measurements, and not just in vague generalities. You haven’t even started to address that one.
There are far too many young earthists who believe that “assumptions” is some sort of magic shibboleth that lets them hand-wave away anything and everything about science that they don’t like. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work that way.
He formed a single cell from even smaller particles.
I don’t think this is justification for the death penalty but see it more as looking forward to Christ. The perfect is in Him and He is the only just judge to shed the blood of man who is made in Him. He did this at the Cross.
Yes, the image of God is completed in Jesus who died for all sin, including for murderers. But for the safety of all humanity, they most definitely should get life in prison.
I’ve seen several YEC advocates quoting research into whether or not particular types of material could be carbon dated as evidence that carbon dating was flawed.
(That’s when they aren’t simply lying about it. Compare the ‘quotes’ here with the original here, for example)
@T_aquaticus covered those ‘assumptions’ in his post, and explained how they were either not assumed, or could be checked as part of the measurement process.
You have neither quoted nor commented on any part of his explanation.
This type of behaviour is one reason why YEC advocates are considered dishonest.
Dear Roy,
what is dishonest are the perpetual claims made by some on this site, including yourself that aim to denigrate honest Holy Bible Believing Christians.
Evolution is a myth. Deep Time is a myth. It’s as simple as that!
Rigorously performed operational science is very different to the pseudo-science of deep time and evolution philosophical beliefs that have nothing whatsoever to do with the Truth revealed to us about creation week and the Global Flood in the Holy Bible by the Creator, Who is an eyewitness of those events, He was there.
Choosing to put pseudo-science ahead of the revealed Word in the Holy Scriptures is the error.
Modern science was founded by Christians who believed the Holy Bible.
The obfuscation, deception and plethora of baseless accusations made against honest Bible believing Christians here on this website is shameful.
Dear Roy,
it appears that there’s no real understanding that faith is always built on knowledge, faith is not some ethereal thing that doesn’t have any rational or logical support.
Our Faith is strengthened when we apply our brains and our intellect and our reasoning to important matters such as Gods existence, our repentance and His gracious gift of Salvation. Honestly performed real operational science supports the Truth revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures.
The imposters here are ‘deep time’ and ‘evolution’, both of which are imaginary, and devoid of real evidence.
I never claim that people are dishonest. I demonstrate that they are dishonest.
Have you found any examples of unmineralised dinosaur bones sticking out of the surface of the ground in locations with a mean temperature exceeding 25C yet?
“ Jon, calling radiometric dating ‘assumptions’ is like calling a thermometer a guess—both rest on measurements we can test, repeat, and cross-check.
God Bless,
Terry
