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Calling all Young Earth Creationists
- Thread starter Rew_10
- Start date
Rew_10 said:
Well, I don't consider myself to be a "Young Earth" Creationist (as you appear to be using the term). However, I do not believe the earth is as old as you are saying. How did you come up with that age?
The Grand Canyon was formed either during or immediately after the Flood of Noah. Check out the mini-Grand Canyon that formed at the foot of Mount St. Helens. It formed within a matter of hours following the collapse of the dam on the lake.
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Does it make any difference? There is an earth, we live on it. We live for 70 or 80 years, then pass from view. As Christians, we'll have a new Home. There is a Heaven, and we will live in it. We'll live forevermore. Our super-knowledge then will leave the most advanced computer ashamed that it was ever developed. As the character in Mad Magazine used to say, "What? Me worry?"
:godisgood:
:godisgood:
DQuixote said:
Yes it makes a difference because there are those people out there that use the evolutuionary theory to crush the faith of young, immature, uneducated Christians. Thus, they lead them (and non-Christians) into a false belief system that rejects belief in God. We must be ready at all times to give an answer for the hope within us (1 Pet. 3:15).
So back to my questions for the original poster. How did you come up with the age of the earth you are espousing, how is the date determined?
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BobRyan
Well-Known Member
The bottom line is that there are many many sound solid Christian resources for showing the scientific truth of what our Creator has done IN His creation.
There are also many resources exposing the junk-science methods of atheists promoting atheist-darwinism "no matter what".
But you have to read them - study them -- gain knowledge in at least one or two of the areas before confronting the wild-storytelling myth-spinning tangled webs of atheist darwinist.
STARTING off with the atheist darwinists is where many Christians fail.
They take their Bibles into the discussion only to find that what they needed was a good science text book and a bit of non-revisionist history. As for untangling the "Coverup" of history done by atheist darwinists - few have exposed their fraud better than Philip Johnson - "Darwin on Trial".
in Christ,
Bob
There are also many resources exposing the junk-science methods of atheists promoting atheist-darwinism "no matter what".
But you have to read them - study them -- gain knowledge in at least one or two of the areas before confronting the wild-storytelling myth-spinning tangled webs of atheist darwinist.
STARTING off with the atheist darwinists is where many Christians fail.
They take their Bibles into the discussion only to find that what they needed was a good science text book and a bit of non-revisionist history. As for untangling the "Coverup" of history done by atheist darwinists - few have exposed their fraud better than Philip Johnson - "Darwin on Trial".
in Christ,
Bob
While I'm here...
The question is how do we know the age of the earth.
We can date some rocks directly, but this does not so much give the actual age of the earth as it gives us a minimum age of the earth. There is not a guarantee that you have found the oldest rocks, after all, or even that they still exist.
The current record holder, as far as I know, is a zircon that is 4.404 billion years old (plus or minus 8 million years). Here is the paper that describes the find and a link to the whole paper which you can peruse. If you can prove them wrong, I am sure the journal Nature would love to hear from you.
Wilde SA, Valley JW, Peck WH and Graham CM (2001) Evidence from Detrital Zircons for the Existence of Continental Crust and Oceans on the Earth 4.4 Gyr Ago. Nature. 409: 175-178.
http://www.geology.wisc.edu/~valley/zircons/Wilde2001Nature.pdf
Now if you want to know how old the earth is, you can turn to a few other sources. First off, another bound is found by the dating of meteorites making the assumption that they formed at about the same time as the earth. According to Dalrymple [Dalrymple, G. Brent, 1991. The Age of the Earth, California, Stanford University Press. 474 pp] about 70 meteorites have given with low error (see the +/- of the date listed above as an example) out of about 100 that have been dated. Most of the dates group around 4.4 to 4.5 billion years old.
The more interesting part may be that several of these have been tested with multiple, independent methods and that these generally agree well.
Now some will quibble with dating methods, but they do not have much to stand on. If the method were so flawed, why would the dates have such close agreement?
Some may argue that you do not know if they have been contaminated. Again, it seems strange that contamination of different samples would yield dates with such agreement. Even stranger that different methods in the same sample would yield the same age if there was such error. Also, one of the most common methods used has a built in check for such contamination. If material was leached into or out of the rock, the dating method would not yield a result at all.
Some may argue that you do not know the initial concentrations of the parents and daughters. For some methods, this is actually a decent argument. (But one that has been chacked out by other dating methods and found to be a good assumption when used correctly.) But for most it is not. For some methods, you do know the initial ratios because the chemistry dictates it. (Crystals form with very specific chemical formula.) For others, you do not need to know the starting ratios at all.
But we still do not know the age of the earth. All we have done so far is to set lower bounds.
The question is how do we know the age of the earth.
We can date some rocks directly, but this does not so much give the actual age of the earth as it gives us a minimum age of the earth. There is not a guarantee that you have found the oldest rocks, after all, or even that they still exist.
The current record holder, as far as I know, is a zircon that is 4.404 billion years old (plus or minus 8 million years). Here is the paper that describes the find and a link to the whole paper which you can peruse. If you can prove them wrong, I am sure the journal Nature would love to hear from you.
Wilde SA, Valley JW, Peck WH and Graham CM (2001) Evidence from Detrital Zircons for the Existence of Continental Crust and Oceans on the Earth 4.4 Gyr Ago. Nature. 409: 175-178.
http://www.geology.wisc.edu/~valley/zircons/Wilde2001Nature.pdf
Now if you want to know how old the earth is, you can turn to a few other sources. First off, another bound is found by the dating of meteorites making the assumption that they formed at about the same time as the earth. According to Dalrymple [Dalrymple, G. Brent, 1991. The Age of the Earth, California, Stanford University Press. 474 pp] about 70 meteorites have given with low error (see the +/- of the date listed above as an example) out of about 100 that have been dated. Most of the dates group around 4.4 to 4.5 billion years old.
The more interesting part may be that several of these have been tested with multiple, independent methods and that these generally agree well.
Now some will quibble with dating methods, but they do not have much to stand on. If the method were so flawed, why would the dates have such close agreement?
Some may argue that you do not know if they have been contaminated. Again, it seems strange that contamination of different samples would yield dates with such agreement. Even stranger that different methods in the same sample would yield the same age if there was such error. Also, one of the most common methods used has a built in check for such contamination. If material was leached into or out of the rock, the dating method would not yield a result at all.
Some may argue that you do not know the initial concentrations of the parents and daughters. For some methods, this is actually a decent argument. (But one that has been chacked out by other dating methods and found to be a good assumption when used correctly.) But for most it is not. For some methods, you do know the initial ratios because the chemistry dictates it. (Crystals form with very specific chemical formula.) For others, you do not need to know the starting ratios at all.
But we still do not know the age of the earth. All we have done so far is to set lower bounds.
But we are not through. We have another tool. We can use a lead-lead isochron using materials from both the earth and from meteorites. The assumptions that must be made here are that the earth and the rest of the solar system were made from a common pool of materials and that the various isotopes of lead and uranium were distributed across the solar system in the same ratios at the time of formation.
Fortunately, out method will not yield a date if these assumptions are not true, so the method includes a built in check just as it does for the other potential problems listed above.
The age that is arrived at for the formation of the earth is 4.55 billion years old. So that is the age of the earth.
And, here are three more of those pesky references, including one peer reviewed and one book. We are up to five, so far. See what you get in the peer reviewed category from YEers.
Murthy, V. R., and C. C. Patterson, 1962. "Primary isochron of zero age for meteorites and the Earth" in Journal of Geophysical Research 67, p. 1161.
York, D., and R. M. Farquhar, 1972. The Earth's Age and Geochronology, Oxford: Pergamon Press, 178 pp.
Dalrymple, G. Brent, 1986. Radiometric Dating, Geologic Time, And The Age Of The Earth: A Reply To "Scientific" Creationism, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 86-110. 76 pp.
Fortunately, out method will not yield a date if these assumptions are not true, so the method includes a built in check just as it does for the other potential problems listed above.
The age that is arrived at for the formation of the earth is 4.55 billion years old. So that is the age of the earth.
And, here are three more of those pesky references, including one peer reviewed and one book. We are up to five, so far. See what you get in the peer reviewed category from YEers.
Murthy, V. R., and C. C. Patterson, 1962. "Primary isochron of zero age for meteorites and the Earth" in Journal of Geophysical Research 67, p. 1161.
York, D., and R. M. Farquhar, 1972. The Earth's Age and Geochronology, Oxford: Pergamon Press, 178 pp.
Dalrymple, G. Brent, 1986. Radiometric Dating, Geologic Time, And The Age Of The Earth: A Reply To "Scientific" Creationism, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 86-110. 76 pp.
[ETA: Please see part 1 and 2 at the bottom of the last page.]
We have one more objection that can be raised. That is the issue of rates of radioactive decay. Now no one has ever proposed a method of accelerated decay that has withstood scrutiny. But rather than review the possible objections, I would like to instead give one example, of many, of how we can tell that the decay rates have not changed.
Let us consider the Hawaiian Islands. When we examine these islands, we see that the lie in a chain. At the east end of the chain, we see islands still being built up by active volcanoes. The furtherest east, Hawaii, remains very rocky. As you move west, the islands show progressively greater signs of weathering and the activity of the volcanoes reduces and ends. Continue to move west and you find islands crumbling under their own weight and even more weathering. If you go far enough west, the islands no longer even poke above the surface, many having turned into ghostly atolls.
In other words, simple observation shows that they lie over a hot spot, that the ocean crust is moving relative to the hot spot and the the eastern islands are the youngest.
It is even possible to accurately measure the current rate of movement of the islands.
Now here is where it gets interesting.
You can also go gather samples from the islands and date them. At the same time, you can observe just how far apart the islands are.
With a little simple math, you take the difference in ages between the islands and their physical distance from one another and calculate just how quickly the islands are moving over the hot spot.
As it turns out, the islands of various ages give results that closely match the currently observed rate of motion. That rate happens to be about 10 cm/yr.
If you wish to assert that the rate of decay of radioactive materials has changed in the past, then you must also explain just how it is that the motion of the islands has varied in lock step with the variation of decay rates. (4.5 billion years in 6000 years. You want to suggest that the islands moved at hundreds, even thousands of kilometers per year and have slowed down to 10 cm/yr and they slowed down at exactly the same proportion as the change in radioactive decay rates. Good luck.) Throw in the collapse and weathering rates that are consistent with the measured ages and distances while you are trying to explain this away.
I won't even ask you to tell us how we can make things like nuclear bombs and power plants and smoke detectors if our understanding of the physics of radioactive decay is so flawed. (In fact, decay rates are fairly well grounded in theory and quantum mechanics would not allow such changes. If you can prove otherwise, the Nobel committee awaits.)
We have one more objection that can be raised. That is the issue of rates of radioactive decay. Now no one has ever proposed a method of accelerated decay that has withstood scrutiny. But rather than review the possible objections, I would like to instead give one example, of many, of how we can tell that the decay rates have not changed.
Let us consider the Hawaiian Islands. When we examine these islands, we see that the lie in a chain. At the east end of the chain, we see islands still being built up by active volcanoes. The furtherest east, Hawaii, remains very rocky. As you move west, the islands show progressively greater signs of weathering and the activity of the volcanoes reduces and ends. Continue to move west and you find islands crumbling under their own weight and even more weathering. If you go far enough west, the islands no longer even poke above the surface, many having turned into ghostly atolls.
In other words, simple observation shows that they lie over a hot spot, that the ocean crust is moving relative to the hot spot and the the eastern islands are the youngest.
It is even possible to accurately measure the current rate of movement of the islands.
Now here is where it gets interesting.
You can also go gather samples from the islands and date them. At the same time, you can observe just how far apart the islands are.
With a little simple math, you take the difference in ages between the islands and their physical distance from one another and calculate just how quickly the islands are moving over the hot spot.
As it turns out, the islands of various ages give results that closely match the currently observed rate of motion. That rate happens to be about 10 cm/yr.
If you wish to assert that the rate of decay of radioactive materials has changed in the past, then you must also explain just how it is that the motion of the islands has varied in lock step with the variation of decay rates. (4.5 billion years in 6000 years. You want to suggest that the islands moved at hundreds, even thousands of kilometers per year and have slowed down to 10 cm/yr and they slowed down at exactly the same proportion as the change in radioactive decay rates. Good luck.) Throw in the collapse and weathering rates that are consistent with the measured ages and distances while you are trying to explain this away.
I won't even ask you to tell us how we can make things like nuclear bombs and power plants and smoke detectors if our understanding of the physics of radioactive decay is so flawed. (In fact, decay rates are fairly well grounded in theory and quantum mechanics would not allow such changes. If you can prove otherwise, the Nobel committee awaits.)
UTE, people have been responding to you for years to no avail.
In answer to the OP, the age of the earth may be roughly arrived at by taking into account the Zero Point Energy of 'free space', the measured changes in Planck's Constant and the speed of light, and the quantized red shift measurements. When this is all put together, the cosmos is less than ten thousand years old.
Radiometric dating is correct for atomic ages. However atomic clocks do not run at a constant rate, but were much faster in the past, as were atomic processes (when the parent cause, the ZPE, was much lower). In Genesis 1:14 God told us to use the sun, moon, and stars as our timekeepers. There is a very good reason for this -- the gravitational/orbital clock runs at a constant rate, unlike the atomic clock.
The Grand Canyon's strata were built up over several hundred years, but the carving out was a sudden, catastrophic event.
In answer to the OP, the age of the earth may be roughly arrived at by taking into account the Zero Point Energy of 'free space', the measured changes in Planck's Constant and the speed of light, and the quantized red shift measurements. When this is all put together, the cosmos is less than ten thousand years old.
Radiometric dating is correct for atomic ages. However atomic clocks do not run at a constant rate, but were much faster in the past, as were atomic processes (when the parent cause, the ZPE, was much lower). In Genesis 1:14 God told us to use the sun, moon, and stars as our timekeepers. There is a very good reason for this -- the gravitational/orbital clock runs at a constant rate, unlike the atomic clock.
The Grand Canyon's strata were built up over several hundred years, but the carving out was a sudden, catastrophic event.
Laugh all you want, EG, I see that you did not address any of the actual material presented. Care to explain the consistency of the dates of how the radioactive dates of Hawaiian Islands matches their distances from one another?
As far as c-decay goes, the answers I have been given over the years amount to little more than hand waving. Let's go back in time.
A long standing objection to the c-decay idea has been that it should cause some observational anomalies that simply are not observed. These predictions come straight from the idea itself and are fairly simple to understand once you consider the changes in the apparent rate of processes. (As the speed of light slowed, objects that emitted light at the higher speed would appear to go in slow motion. It is actually a key part of the idea. For example, the idea goes that the slowdown exactly cancels out the faster rate of atomic processes in the past.)
One objection is that the measured rates of galaxy rotation should be much lower in a c decay universe. I'll just quote myself from a thread that Helen started specifically to address the issue and then had closed when it was shown that she was basing her defense on an error of simple algebra.
Here is the thread.
http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?t=1574&highlight=galaxy+rotation
Here is an excellent post on the matter from another poster.
http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=22771&postcount=11
And two posts of mine.
There are other objections that can be made along the same lines. One of my favorites goes something like this.
Many stars are found in binary pairs. For some of these, the orbits are such that one star eclipses that other as seen from the earth during each orbit. From spectral data of each star, we can determine their mass. From physical measurment, we can see how far apart they are. Well known physics then tells us how quickly they should orbit one another. If the speed of light were faster in the past, we should make two observations. First, because of the slowdown effect, the orbital periods that are observed should be longer then predicted. Second, as time passes and the speed of the light when emitted from these objects decreases, the orbital periods that are observed should slowly decrease towards the predicted values.
It is a simple prediction that falls straight out of the idea. These are observations that would be easy to make and would be plentiful. And these are not things that have been observed.
The claim is made that the speed of light has been observed to change right up to relatively recently. This means that these observations should work for binary pairs in far away galaxies and, if you measure closely enough, even in nearby pairs in our own galaxy.
As far as c-decay goes, the answers I have been given over the years amount to little more than hand waving. Let's go back in time.
A long standing objection to the c-decay idea has been that it should cause some observational anomalies that simply are not observed. These predictions come straight from the idea itself and are fairly simple to understand once you consider the changes in the apparent rate of processes. (As the speed of light slowed, objects that emitted light at the higher speed would appear to go in slow motion. It is actually a key part of the idea. For example, the idea goes that the slowdown exactly cancels out the faster rate of atomic processes in the past.)
One objection is that the measured rates of galaxy rotation should be much lower in a c decay universe. I'll just quote myself from a thread that Helen started specifically to address the issue and then had closed when it was shown that she was basing her defense on an error of simple algebra.
Here is the thread.
http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?t=1574&highlight=galaxy+rotation
Here is an excellent post on the matter from another poster.
http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=22771&postcount=11
And two posts of mine.
There are other objections that can be made along the same lines. One of my favorites goes something like this.
Many stars are found in binary pairs. For some of these, the orbits are such that one star eclipses that other as seen from the earth during each orbit. From spectral data of each star, we can determine their mass. From physical measurment, we can see how far apart they are. Well known physics then tells us how quickly they should orbit one another. If the speed of light were faster in the past, we should make two observations. First, because of the slowdown effect, the orbital periods that are observed should be longer then predicted. Second, as time passes and the speed of the light when emitted from these objects decreases, the orbital periods that are observed should slowly decrease towards the predicted values.
It is a simple prediction that falls straight out of the idea. These are observations that would be easy to make and would be plentiful. And these are not things that have been observed.
The claim is made that the speed of light has been observed to change right up to relatively recently. This means that these observations should work for binary pairs in far away galaxies and, if you measure closely enough, even in nearby pairs in our own galaxy.
HELLO, it's called Genesis 1 & 2, faith in the true word of God, you can not merge scripture with science, a compromise must happen, and scripture is the one always compromised. Why, becasue it must be taken by faith, science 'seems' to 'show you something concrete', when in reality it is all theory.Rew_10 said:
UTE, you have made a number of errors there and in the past. Some have been addressed and you have paid no attention to what Barry has said. However, I have just finished formatting a major paper he has written for the web which puts together most of his work since the 1987 paper for Stanford Research Institute International. He needs to proof the equations to make sure I didn't miss something when I copied them, and then I think -- I hope -- you will find your objections are based on fallacies and poor thinking and use of the data.
Donna, God has not lied in His creation. It is not science which is at odds with Scripture, but the interpretations of scientists regarding the data which have declared war on Scripture. The data itself, true science, leads straight to a confirmation of Genesis as historical and scientific fact. You do not need to be afraid of science -- only of what some people have done with it.
Donna, God has not lied in His creation. It is not science which is at odds with Scripture, but the interpretations of scientists regarding the data which have declared war on Scripture. The data itself, true science, leads straight to a confirmation of Genesis as historical and scientific fact. You do not need to be afraid of science -- only of what some people have done with it.
Magnetic Poles
New Member
What a bunch of pseudoscience garbage. orbital and rotational speeds are not constant, but slow down over time due to tidal forces of gravity. But this type of nonsense is typical for those who's main goal is not to approach the issue with an open mind, following observations wherever they lead; but rather begin with the answer and try to pidgeonhole the observations to match their predetermined conclusion.Helen said:
Magnetic Poles
New Member
Then is ceases to be science and becomes faith. My point is don't try to use science as a pretext to confirm one interpretation of scripture. Science seeks answers; it doesn't seek to confirm preconceived conclusions, even those based on religious conviction.tinytim said: