Are these the false prophets God warned us about?

Faith & Science Conversation
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The problem there JPM is that dating of those kinds of fossils is not entirely dependent on radiometric dating. A uniformitarian presupposition is inserted into the equation to obtain millions of years of age. That is fundamentally at odds with YEC who do not agree with uniformitarian time spans.

The Petosky stone does not present a dilemma for Young Earth Creation Science…because we also use that very same stone as evidence to discredit Darwinian Evolution!

When one adds the above criticisms to the Biblical themes and statements about the age of the earth…Christian philosophy cannot reconcile the theological problems with Darwinian Science.

Given that all Christians must put Gods word first over that of man, we must disagree with Darwinian claims as, to ignore the philosophical writings from God himself is to ignore the gospel.

Christ didnt die physically on the cross in order to facilitate a symbolic outcome (Salvation of mankind from the wages of sin is death)

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The person claiming “a study” supports their claims should be the one providing the study and the primary data that supports it.
It isn’t the responsibility of the person who expresses doubt about the claim to do the homework.

If Baumgardner’s publication is incomplete, the person who wants to use the work support should be tracking down that information. Or stop using the incomplere “study” as support.

Anybody can publish anything, making any claim at all. And they do. An honest researcher making controversial or novel claims should have everything laid out and accessible for scrutiny by other experts in the field.

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Our state stone! I have still yet to find one on a beach myself. We haven’t gone to the beaches where rocks from that geological layer are exposed deeper and the wash up.

I have been looking for information about my new rock and ran across some neat videos from the Michigan Geological Survey about the Michigan Basin, its development and layering. Cool stuff!

I work at the state library where we have the published materials of the earliest studies of state geology, and next to the state archives that has unpublished materials like the actual surveyors’ notebooks. Some of our universities, like Western Mich U, have additional primary resources. And so on.

The primary reseach information is available, if one needs or wants it. Librarians and bibliographies exist to help researchers find that information. This is serious research, but it is the kind of work that is required, if there is doubt about the original lab and field research that had been done.

Thought experiments and “educated guesses” are really pointless. If one wants to demonstrate that a worldwide flood explains the earth’s geology better, they’ve got to do the same kind of work and produce the same kind of paper trail.

Michigan Grological Survey is probably rather late to the game, as it was established with our statehood in 1837. Still, that’s a lot of catching up to do and a relatively small region of the planet. YECs had better get crackin’.

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Adam,

If the time comes that you realize that chemistry, physics, geology and biology of “secular” scientists consists of legitimate conclusions based on legitiment research, how will your faith survive? What will be left?

I am concerned about many people in my life who have so much of their faith supported by something unrelated to it. You often say that science and faith are separate, but you demonstrate otherwise over and over.

YEC can’t help you. It only makes the challenge of faith much, much worse.

Kendel

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Wrong. False prophets are those who present a message as coming from God when it doesn’t.

And if you want to go NT.

Neither passage would support calling a different interpretation of scripture as coming from a false prophet.

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Once again, this is where young earthism comes into conflict with the core, central issue at stake: the need for accurate reporting of what scientists actually do. “A uniformitarian presupposition is inserted into the equation to obtain millions of years of age” is simply not how radiometric dating — or anything else for that matter — is done in reality.

Contrary to young earth claims, scientists do not just blindly assume that rates of change were constant. Nor do they do so just to get millions of years out of the equation. They only assume that rates are constant if they have strong theoretical or experimental reasons to do so, and they rigorously test those assumptions every way that they can.

Take, for example, the fundamental constants of nature. Things such as the speed of light, the gravitational constant, Planck’s constant, the electron to proton mass ratio, and others. These values aren’t taken as constant just to support “evolutionism” or “secularism” but because so many other observations depend on them. Everything from how atoms hold together to how the Sun produces energy. Change them even slightly, and you could alter chemistry, collapse stars, or make atoms themselves unstable. Life as we know it would not be able to exist.

Even then, scientists still do not blindly assume that the fundamental constants are constant. They carefully measure how much they could have changed in the past. For example, ultra-precise atomic clocks are sensitive to changes in those constants of one part in 1018 per year. These show no detectable drift. Astronomical observations show that atomic spectra from distant stars billions of light years away are exactly the same as those on Earth today. That would simply not happen if the fundamental constants of nature had changed.

For the earth to be six thousand years old, some of these constants would have to have changed by a factor of a billion in order for us to see the results that we observe in nature today. That wouldn’t just be a small tweak; it would have reduced the Earth to a ball of hot plasma. Clearly, that didn’t happen, neither in reality nor in the Biblical record.

So no, a “uniformitarian presupposition” is not just “inserted into the equation to obtain millions of years of age.” Constant rates are only treated as constant because experimental conclusions from multiple independent lines of evidence, from lab experiments to the furthest reaches of the cosmos, force us to conclude that that was indeed the case.

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Yep. Case in point, C14 / C12 ratios are known to have varied a bit over the past thousands of years. And there are known mechanisms for how this occurs. Cross comparison with other measurements like dendrochronology, and correlation with known dates of events allowed scientists to calibrate curves for C14 dating. These days, thanks to things like above-ground nuclear testing and living far into the anthropogenic era (i.e. burning fossil fuels), C14 dating curves are non-linear for carbon sequestered during the past century or so.

One might say, ‘See! C14 measurements can give incorrect dates. What if people from the future tried to date wood grown today?’ Well, that’s where examination of other, orthogonal measures matters, because processes that affect C14 concentration in the environment leave evidence in other ways, like in the ratios of other isotopes, and materials in ice cores. Basically, you don’t just take one readout and call it done. For every technique or ‘yardstick’ created, you examine how the results could go wrong and investigate means of controlling for those sources. Uniformity of conditions and change is not assumed: It’s tested.

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An interesting talk at the ASA meeting last month examined the reference to the flood in II Peter and found strong textual reasons to think that it is not pictured as global. Likewise, some roughly New Testament era Jewish writers affirmed that the land of Israel was not flooded in Noah’s day.

God does not change. Genesis 1 assures us that all things in nature are parts of His creation. It’s not random. Nor are there rival powers or untamed monsters out there. Therefore, we can expect creation to behave consistently, not varying randomly.

All reconstruction of the past depends on uniformitarian assumptions. If you believe that the resurrection of Jesus was a notable event, you are using the uniformitarian assumption that “dead people stay dead” is an unchanging natural pattern. You also are assuming that there were no abrupt changes in Greek meaning that no one noticed.

Many young-earth arguments are uniformitarian, often closely associated with bad arguments against uniformitarianism (but only when it says something they want to deny). Lyell was excessively uniformitarian in his ideas; most other geologists were rather doubtful about that aspect of his ideas. What follows constant trends? What is variable? What constraints do we have?

For example, using the laws of gravity, we can calculate orbits back in time. Tracing several asteroids back over 400 million years puts them all in the same place - they are pieces from a big collision. There is no evidence that gravity has changed. All that we can observe astronomically shows consistent patterns relative to gravity. We also find a bunch of meteorites in layers otherwise dated to the right time.

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Ron im not so sure about that because below is from a report from a lab test conducted in California where a radiocarbon date was determined from testing of diamond samples…in order to achieve that result it seems to me that the diamond samples must have contained enough carbon to test.

Confirmation that there is in situ carbon-14 in diamonds has now been reported in the conventional literature. R.E. Taylor of the Department of Anthropology at the University of California–Riverside and of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California–Los Angeles teamed with J. Southon at the Keck Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory of the Department of Earth System Science at the University of California–Irvine to analyze nine natural diamonds from Brazil. All nine diamonds are conventionally regarded as being at least of early Paleozoic age, that is, at least several hundred million years old. So, if they really are that old they should not have any intrinsic carbon-14 in them. Eight of the diamonds yielded radiocarbon “ages” of 64,900 years to 80,000 years. The ninth diamond was cut into six equal fragments, which were each analyzed. They yield essentially identical radiocarbon “ages” ranging from 69,400 years to 70,600 years. This suggests the carbon-14 was evenly distributed through this diamond, which is consistent with it being intrinsic carbon-14, and not contamination. Interestingly, samples of Ceylon graphite from Precambrian metamorphic rock (conventionally around 1 billion years old) were analyzed at the same time and yielded radiocarbon “ages” of from 58,400 years to 70,100 years.

a AIG criticism of the lab report done in California is here:

The University of California scientists, of course, did not conclude that the diamonds they analyzed are evidence that the earth is young. Instead, they interpreted these 64,900–80,000 year “age” to represent one component of “machine background” in the analytical instrument. Yet this begs the question as to why then did the Precambrian graphite contain on average more carbon-14 to yield younger ages than the diamonds? And why did the diamonds have such different carbon-14 contents to yield different apparent radiocarbon “ages”? Because the same instrument was used to analyze all the diamonds and the graphite, the results should surely have all been affected by the same “machine background.

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Well let’s look at what these figures actually represent.

  • 64,900 years is 11.3 half lives of carbon-14. That means 0.04% modern carbon. 400 parts per million.
  • 80,000 years is 14 half lives of carbon-14. That means 0.006% modern carbon. Sixty parts per million.

Modern carbon is about one part carbon-14 to 1012 parts carbon-12. That means that these samples will have 60-400 parts carbon-14 to 1018 carbon-12. For a 1mg sample, that is only a couple of thousand atoms of carbon-14.

Figures such as these are totally consistent with instrument background. It’s about as close to zero as you can possibly get.

AIG’s critique ignores the fact that contamination can creep in from multiple different sources. As well as instrument background, there is also sample preparation and storage, and in situ contamination. Graphite will be much more susceptible to in situ contamination and contamination from the atmosphere than diamond for starters because it has a much softer, more layered structure that is much more porous.

Once again, the claim that carbon-14 levels should be zero in old samples is simply not true. Dismissing contamination as a rescuing device is nothing more nor less than wilful ignorance of how accurate and honest measurement works in every area of science. There is no such thing as zero error bars.

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the thing is, it doesnt matter whether or not one is expecting to convert the regulars here…Young Earth Creationists posting on these forums is not about that, its about providing a balance to the opinions of those individuals who disagree with us on these forums.

We have a lot to offer other than just science. We offer a sound theological perspective which is extremely important to individuals who attend these forums who are smart enough to realize that the usual theological arguments presented by Biologos to overcome the biblical dilemmas just dont work. There appear to be a number of individuals on these forums who use the following defenses:

  1. dont cross reference bible passages (that is absurd given they rely on peer reviewing and cross reference in scientific experimentation methods all the flaming time)
  2. attempt to rewrite bible translations changing the meaning of ancient language…so much so that the very texts that they change start to create huge theological conflicts all throughout the bible (and that is the problem when one does that kind of thing)

The people we aim to reach are those who recognise that the usual Biologos answers are deficient (even untenable). These individuals are not so blind as to not see the intrinsic biblical problems in themes such as the physical death of Christ on the cross as atonement for what Biologos claim is a “symbolic fall of mankind” in the Garden of Eden. They recognise that a symbolic or metaphorical event has a symbolic or metaphorical solution…its impossible to read a metaphorical death of Christ on the cross or metaphorical second coming anywhere in the Bible. These things are clearly claimed to be literal all throughout the Bible and they are found in far more places in the scriptures than Genesis!
Some Biologos attempt to answer the above dilemma by inserting 2 creation events into the text…trouble is, theologically that is absolutely impossible to reconcile. The overwhelming biblical themes completely discredit such a notion and so do language contexts and interpretations all throughout the Bible that relate to Genesis creation and flood accounts (take Christs statement in Matthew about the flood as just one example)

What i have noticed more than anything else when engaging with individuals who defend ANE is this, their theology is generally extremely poor. Many of them simply dont have any answers to the overwhelming number of theological problems they face…so they just ignore them. Rarely do individuals on these forums ever present supporting bible references for the Biblical Old Earth dilemmas presented to them…usually these things are avoided (and thats how we know that they are philosophically in error).

A world view must be ecclectic and well rounded. We must be able to provide a sound responce on the balance of all of the evidence (not just science). Biologos spends far too much time avoiding the theological problems in their world view…they would rather make up entertaining songs about Evolution in order to muddy the waters of criticism rather than attempt to resolve the severe deficiencies in their theology.

BTW, when it comes to the age of the earth theology, Intelligent Design are just as bad.

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you didnt read AIG cricism about that…they are stating that if “instrument background” was the cause, then that should have been the result in both testing of diamond AND Precambrian graphite samples

They also state that the Precambrian graphite samples showed a younger age than the diamond samples!

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Yes I did. You didn’t read my response to the criticism. I made the point that graphite is much more susceptible to in situ and atmospheric contamination than diamond due to its much more porous structure. Their claim that both results should have been the same is simply not true.

Which is exactly what we would expect from in situ and atmospheric contamination for the precise reason that I’ve stated.

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wasnt it the precambrian graphite that tested to the “younger age” in the above and not the diamond?

thats why i included BOTH in my post above.

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Yes, and again, that is exactly what we would expect from contamination. It’s simply a larger source of error. Nothing more, nothing less.

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right so heres the thing…you claim its contamination because it tested to a younger age…more than half a dozen samples present the same age and because you dont agree with that, they must be contaiminated despite the other materials tested in the same machine do not show evidence of contaimination?

You see the problem there dont you…the second samples disgree with the contamination claims…because the notion that contamination inserts carbon 14 into the diamond but leaches out of the graphite to make it younger…sorry but that doesnt add up. you are essentially claiming that the only reason for the contamination is either of the following two:

  1. it was done on purpose
  2. stupidity

Given the experiments were done independently at the university of California i think this is nothing more than an explaining away of a very important result.

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You have it backwards. Contamination would make it younger (more C 14 is younger) so since graphite is subject to increased contamination it should be given a younger age.

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Link to the original paper.
“Use of natural diamonds to monitor 14C AMS instrument backgrounds”

R.E. Taylor, John Southon,
“Use of natural diamonds to monitor 14C AMS instrument backgrounds”
Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms,
Volume 259, Issue 1, 2007. Pages 282-287,
ISSN 0168-583X,
Redirecting.
(Use of natural diamonds to monitor 14C AMS instrument backgrounds - ScienceDirect)

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no the younger age is the graphite where it gains carbon 14.

So when the precambrian graphite in the lab tests gains carbon 14 in order to present a younger age, we have a problem…where did the radioctive carbon 14 come from in the test?

are you going to suggest that it came from the lab environment? Thats a stretch given that its more likely to go the other way because contamination and leeching work in opposite directions.

Now im assuming you are going to suggest that the extra C14 came from the diamond which already presented an older age than the graphite???

There are some inconsistencies in the theory of contamination there.

Also, where are the follow up tests that would have shown contamination? Are there any that produced different results? It appears that they simply made a conclusion and then did not retest to ensure that conclusion was correct.

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No, because the concentration of carbon-14 in the atmosphere is greater than the concentration of carbon-14 in the sample.

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