Early One Friday Morning

Creationism, Evolution, and other science issues

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SallyF
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Early One Friday Morning

Post #1

Post by SallyF »

In 1642, Dr. John Lightfoot wrote that man was created at 9:00 a.m., and in 1644, he wrote that the world was created on Sunday, September 12, 3928. http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/ussher/white_ad.html

(The mythological, biblical) Jehovah god formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (Genesis Chapter 2)

Now, the length of a biblical "day" can be whatever one chooses it to be, and one can apply that to the rest of the biblical creation mythology, but not to the creation of the mud-man. If one is a biblical scholar, one is obliged to add up the biblical "begats" to arrive at somewhere near the 3,928 years before the Son of Jehovah arrived on this planet in some sort of mysterious transference of divine DNA to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

On the evidence-based, scientific side of things, however:

The skull, detailed in the first of two papers in Nature, is set to rewrite our understanding of where A. anamensis fits between primitive hominins that lived more than 4 million years ago, and Australopithecus afarensis, the species made famous by the Lucy skeleton. https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/201 ... p/11444130

Pope Francis: ‘Evolution … is not inconsistent with the notion of creation’
https://religionnews.com/2014/10/27/pop ... -creation/

Would His Holiness need to toss his Bible in the trash can to make that claim …?
"God" … just whatever humans imagine it to be.

"Scripture" … just whatever humans write it to be.

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Post #31

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to post 30 by Seth]
What is your alternative to radiometric dating?


Creationists seem to have no alternative, and rely solely on biblical chronology which they attempt to defend by bashing those areas of science that threaten the ridiculous ages that chronology produces. Radiometric dating especially bothers them because it shows they are not just a little off, but nearly six orders of magnitude off, so of course they have to try and find fault with the physics in various ways.

Much like flat-earthers and all the gyrations they go through to try and support something that has been shown conclusively to be wrong. It is often difficult to tell if they really believe what they are claiming, or just like stirring the pot for some fun. ESG's favorite tactic is to change the subject entirely, or steer it to origins in order to suggest that because science can't yet detail the mechanisms for how life originated on this planet, or how the universe came into existence, it therefore must be wrong on whatever point is being debated and (somehow) this makes the bible's description correct by default. Faulty logic, obviously, but it seems to be a creationist favorite.
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Post #32

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to Seth]

Why would you need an alternative for radioactive dating?

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Post #33

Post by Seth »

EarthScienceguy wrote: [Replying to Seth]

Why would you need an alternative for radioactive dating?
Perhaps to prove that radiometric dating is false, otherwise you should accept radiometric dating as true.

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Post #34

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to post 33 by Seth]
Perhaps to prove that radiometric dating is false, otherwise you should accept radiometric dating as true.
Ok,

There are at least four mechanisms that are active in the magma chamber that cause the sorting of the minerals in the magma chamber.

1. Differences in melting
2. Differences in melting points
3. Minerals that form crystals at the top of the chamber can fall and combine with other elements as they sink.
4. Differences in solubility.
5. Minerals can also crystalize and recrystallize with different mineral content losing some minerals and adding other minerals.

How can this affect the magma and rocks produced by lava solidification? Here is what geologists observed.

Geologists have found that various eruptive stages of the same volcano often extrude lavas exhibiting somewhat different mineral compositions, particularly if an extensive period of time separated the eruptions. Evidence of this type led them to look into the possibility that a single magma might produce rocks of varying mineral content.

Conclusion: Geologists discovered that even one type of magma can have a variety of different mineral makeup. This means that the minerals in the magma are not mixed evenly or in the same way because of the factors mentioned above.

The process involving the segregation of minerals by differential crystallization of a separation is called fractional crystallization. At any stage in the crystallization process, the melt might be separated from the solid portion of the magma. Consequently, fractional crystallization can produce igneous rocks having a wide range of compositions. Bowen successfully demonstrated that through fractional crystallization one magma can generate several different igneous rocks.

This process is called the Bowen reaction series.

Contamination and fractionation issues are frankly acknowledged by the geologic community. For example, if a magma chamber does not have homogeneously mixed isotopes, lighter daughter products could accumulate in the upper portion of the chamber. If this occurs, initial volcanic eruptions would have a preponderance of daughter products relative to the parent isotopes. Such a distribution would give the appearance of age. As the magma chamber is depleted in daughter products, subsequent lava flows and ash beds would have younger dates.


This is a simple example of how the solidification of magma and lava is a very dynamic process and there is no way to know how much of each type of parent , daughter or isochron isotope a sample starts with.

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/dating2.html

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Post #35

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to post 34 by EarthScienceguy]
This is a simple example of how the solidification of magma and lava is a very dynamic process and there is no way to know how much of each type of parent , daughter or isochron isotope a sample starts with.


And irrelevant to whether or not radiometric dating is a valid technique (as it has proven to be in countless other examples having nothing to do with magma). Like most scientific measurement techniques, especially sophisticated ones, there are situations where the technique cannot be applied accurately for one reason or another (eg. carbon dating of certain shellfish due to the reservoir effect), or is limited in range, etc. Thorough understanding of sample preparation requirements, sample history, instrumentation characteristics and limitations, etc. are necessary in order to achieve reliable and reproducible results. It is not as simple as stepping on a scale and reading a number from the display (although even that requires using the correct scale designed for the target range of weights it will measure).

If someone tries to extract accurate dates from a sample that is not suitable for radiometric dating due to contamination, unknown history, instrument limitations, etc., and they get garbage results, it is not the fault of the technique itself. Radiometric dating is well understood from the physics standpoint, and when applied properly using suitable samples, good equipment, and competent operators, it produces reliable results as has been demonstrated countless times across a very wide range of samples and dates. And we now have other dating techniques that can be used to confirm the results from radiometric dating in some cases (eg. thermoluminescence, and optically stimulated luminescence). Professionals who do radiometric dating are generally aware of the limitations and the sample requirements, and don't blindly assume that anything from anywhere can be thrown into a machine and be dated correctly.
In human affairs the sources of success are ever to be found in the fountains of quick resolve and swift stroke; and it seems to be a law, inflexible and inexorable, that he who will not risk cannot win.
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Post #36

Post by Diagoras »

[Replying to post 34 by EarthScienceguy]

In post 25:
viewtopic.php?p=999331#999331

I posted an extract from an article at https://ncse.ngo/radiometric-dating-does-work which stated (in part):
If the earth were only 6000–10 000 years old, then surely there should be some scientific evidence to confirm that hypothesis; yet the creationists have produced not a shred of it so far.
It’s telling that, in your link to an article on a creationist website (last updated March 2006, according to its home page), there’s zero scientific evidence to support a young earth. Once you read all the way to the bottom of the article, you read this:
Still, the creationist task is not finished by proposing all of these mechanisms for invalidating radiometric dating. We can explain many dates away, but a question creationists need to face is which is the best explanation of the data. Can we find evidence that shows that an explanation of radiometric dates in terms of a young geologic column is more plausible than an explanation in terms of an old geologic column?
<bolding mine>

Answer: No. You can’t.
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Post #37

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to post 36 by Diagoras]
I posted an extract from an article at https://ncse.ngo/radiometric-dating-does-work which stated (in part):
1st let us start with your article. In your article, it mentions dating a meteoroid by using the argon-argon method.

The problem with the argon-argon is that it diffuses when it is heated. And because of molecular weight argon 39 diffuses faster than argon 40. This would result in older radiometric dates.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 379090130D
Quote:
If the earth were only 6000–10 000 years old, then surely there should be some scientific evidence to confirm that hypothesis; yet the creationists have produced not a shred of it so far.
Now, this does not have a bit of truth to it.
1. Carbon 14 in diamonds
2. The rate project
3. Predicting magnetic fields using 6000 years since the creation model.

Just to name a few.
Quote:
Still, the creationist task is not finished by proposing all of these mechanisms for invalidating radiometric dating. We can explain many dates away, but a question creationists need to face is which is the best explanation of the data. Can we find evidence that shows that an explanation of radiometric dates in terms of a young geologic column is more plausible than an explanation in terms of an old geologic column?
<bolding mine>

Answer: No. You can’t.
We do not have to.

The author of that article went through and refuted radiometric dating. His research basically said that the process used to produce these radiometric dates is useless as a dating method. So I seriously do not understand his comment.

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Post #38

Post by EarthScienceguy »


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Post #39

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to post 37 by EarthScienceguy]
3. Predicting magnetic fields using 6000 years since the creation model.


You can't use that Russell Humphreys garbage article on planetary magnetic fields to support anything. It is clearly nonsense. The very fact that you continuously defend it, and reference it as if it were a legitimate science source, is all the justification needed to discard any claims you make using this article as supporting evidence (and ditto for any other reference to nonscientific nonsense such as this).

Creation "science" is not real science, and these articles creationists publish in their own journals and websites, which are not accepted by the legitimate science community as they are not peer reviewed, cannot be used as legitimate science references. They are opinions, and very often demonstrably wrong (such as this Humphrey's article).
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Post #40

Post by Diagoras »

EarthScienceguy wrote: [Replying to post 36 by Diagoras]
I posted an extract from an article at https://ncse.ngo/radiometric-dating-does-work which stated (in part):
1st let us start with your article. In your article, it mentions dating a meteoroid by using the argon-argon method.

The problem with the argon-argon is that it diffuses when it is heated. And because of molecular weight argon 39 diffuses faster than argon 40. This would result in older radiometric dates.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 379090130D
Your quoted abstract is from 1990 and doesn’t make clear what quantitative impact it has to radiometric dating, whereas my linked article, written 18 years later, states:
The results of the Manson Impact/Pierre Shale dating study (Izett and others 1998) are shown in Figure 1. There are three important things to note about these results. First, each age is based on numerous measurements; laboratory errors, had there been any, would be readily apparent. Second, ages were measured on two very different minerals, sanidine and biotite, from several of the ash beds. The largest difference between these mineral pairs, in the ash from the Gregory Member, is less than 1%. Third, the radiometric ages agree, within analytical error, with the relative positions of the dated ash beds as determined by the geologic mapping and the fossil assemblages; that is, the ages get older from top to bottom as they should. Finally, the inferred age of the shocked quartz, as determined from the age of the melted feldspar in the Manson impact structure (74.1 ± 0.1 Ma), is in very good agreement with the ages of the ash beds above and below it. How could all of this be so if the 40Ar/39Ar dating technique did not work?
What’s not stated in that article, but can be readily deduced, is that the Manson Impact dating study was published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Part of that peer-review process would undoubtedly have been to assess the reliability of the Ar-Ar dating methodology, given that your article would have been available for eighteen years prior to the Manson study.
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