Radiocarbon Dating Can't Prove an Old Earth

[Bigun]

In the grand scheme of things we know very little and much of what we think we know now will eventually be proven incorrect.

[Smokin Joe]

In the grand scheme of things we know very little and much of what we think we know now will eventually be proven incorrect.

It has been that way so far, either incorrect or incomplete. That doesn't stop us from trying to figure things out, and it's fun (and occasionally profitable), but a guy has to keep in perspective. Phrases like "we believe", "data we have indicate", are relevant hedges against reality.
As Einstein said, "As the diameter of a circle of light increases, so does the circumference of the darkness around it."

Or, simply put, the more I learn, the less I know. Every answer just leads to more questions.

If we don't approach science, even now, with that sort of humility, we're going to all look like idiots some day.

[roamer_1]

Not to be a pain, folks, but did the first amoeba ever die?

I think we need to stop and recognize that "With God, all things are possible. " (MATT 19:26)

Science is our attempt to explain what is.

It used to be... It has a different agenda now...

Often that attempt is inadequate due to perception, measurement, missing data, or plain lack of understanding. We do not understand some of the fundamental forces in nature, much less the details of creation.

more than that - Science at one time was not about the evidence, but rather the errata - One single piece of errata collapses even the most elegant of theories. Or, at least, it used to...
 

As a scientist, I know our interpretations are necessarily flawed. Our data has its peculiar problems, and our interpretation is open to being incorrect. That doesn't stop trying to sort it all out from being fun, and even useful, but as the great and golden truth, it falls short.

I will stick with the revealed Truth in Scripture.

Bravo.

As for me, when science gets over itself, and quits trying to prove that a 4bit self-replicating, self-healing programming code, not to mention it's mechanical interpreter and builder (which necessarily must be present whole cloth), came together by chance, in a bucket of rock soup, THEN I might be willing to take another look.

A premise, by the way, which defies the law of entropy, and is several exponential orders beyond the probability limit which defines the scientifically absurd... But who's counting?

[Oceander]

In the grand scheme of things we know very little and much of what we think we know now will eventually be proven incorrect.

And some things we do know, and know quite well.  Basic thermodynamics is one of those things.  Young Earth theories all catastrophically violate God's own laws of thermodynamics. 

If it makes you feel better about yourself to pretend otherwise, so be it; but then, that's not really any different from the cultists who believe human beings are causing the climate to change:  just as much a religion standing athwart rational enquiry.

Such is life. 

[Smokin Joe]

And some things we do know, and know quite well.  Basic thermodynamics is one of those things.  Young Earth theories all catastrophically violate God's own laws of thermodynamics. 

If it makes you feel better about yourself to pretend otherwise, so be it; but then, that's not really any different from the cultists who believe human beings are causing the climate to change:  just as much a religion standing athwart rational enquiry.

Such is life.

All our scientific Laws are based on human observation and the assumption that the same interactions we observe today proceed in exactly the same fashion, at the same speed, with the same energy releases or consumption as they always have and always will. That principle of Uniformitarianism is the fundamental weakness in many of our theories.
That tells us it is not possible to halt the motion of celestial bodies, yet that is documented in the Bible, along with six days of Creation.

Uniformitarianism and our observations provide us with a workable framework, in that 2+2 can reasonably be anticipated to equal 4, at least in the situations we work in, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they will not be proven inadequate to explain all situations in the distant future or the past.
Certainly the creation of a universe, a solar system, a planet is something we have not documented scientifically. We are just reaching the point where we are beginning to understand gravity, not just as a force, but a propagated energy form. We have much left to discover, and that may mandate revisiting the working assumptions of today in the future in light of new discoveries, and may well elicit an entirely new understanding of how things can and did work from a scientific viewpoint.
That does not include relativistic differences in time frames, either.
In the end, it is a matter of what you want to believe.

[Oceander]

All our scientific Laws are based on human observation and the assumption that the same interactions we observe today proceed in exactly the same fashion, at the same speed, with the same energy releases or consumption as they always have and always will. That principle of Uniformitarianism is the fundamental weakness in many of our theories.
That tells us it is not possible to halt the motion of celestial bodies, yet that is documented in the Bible, along with six days of Creation.

Uniformitarianism and our observations provide us with a workable framework, in that 2+2 can reasonably be anticipated to equal 4, at least in the situations we work in, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they will not be proven inadequate to explain all situations in the distant future or the past.
Certainly the creation of a universe, a solar system, a planet is something we have not documented scientifically. We are just reaching the point where we are beginning to understand gravity, not just as a force, but a propagated energy form. We have much left to discover, and that may mandate revisiting the working assumptions of today in the future in light of new discoveries, and may well elicit an entirely new understanding of how things can and did work from a scientific viewpoint.
That does not include relativistic differences in time frames, either.
In the end, it is a matter of what you want to believe.

Logic still plays some small role.  One need not get into that chestnut to nonetheless point out that a young Earth hypothesis necessarily requires that God have created a false Earth.  If God created the Universe in six days, as a day is measured now, why did He go to such lengths to make everything appear as if it had taken aeons and aeons?  Why deceive?  What end is gained?

If the Bible can only be read to mean that it only took six days, or only took 50,000 years, then the Bible is in error.  It was written by human hands and has been repeatedly transcribed and translated, and those who wrote it did not have the observational tools available to us, so the existence of an error of this sort is wholly understandable. 

If you can't deal with that, if you prefer the dried ink of a dead sinner's hand to the living Word of God writ in existence itself, so be it.  Just don't be too surprised that so few people are willing to take you seriously. 

[driftdiver]

Logic still plays some small role.  One need not get into that chestnut to nonetheless point out that a young Earth hypothesis necessarily requires that God have created a false Earth.  If God created the Universe in six days, as a day is measured now, why did He go to such lengths to make everything appear as if it had taken aeons and aeons?  Why deceive?  What end is gained?

If the Bible can only be read to mean that it only took six days, or only took 50,000 years, then the Bible is in error.  It was written by human hands and has been repeatedly transcribed and translated, and those who wrote it did not have the observational tools available to us, so the existence of an error of this sort is wholly understandable. 

If you can't deal with that, if you prefer the dried ink of a dead sinner's hand to the living Word of God writ in existence itself, so be it.  Just don't be too surprised that so few people are willing to take you seriously.

@Oceander
You keep building an argument that God is a liar and the Bible is fake.  Could it just be that you don't understand?   Perhaps the universe isn't defined by your perception of it?

The Bible has been translated by many hands, that is true.   However the original texts are available so instead of the many hands creating man made mistakes they simply verify what is already known.   All the attempts to spread doubt and fear are really pretty telling.   If you were so certain of your version of science why are you so threatened by the Word of God?

[IsailedawayfromFR]

And some things we do know, and know quite well.  Basic thermodynamics is one of those things.  Young Earth theories all catastrophically violate God's own laws of thermodynamics. 

If it makes you feel better about yourself to pretend otherwise, so be it; but then, that's not really any different from the cultists who believe human beings are causing the climate to change:  just as much a religion standing athwart rational enquiry.

Such is life.

A very arrogant assessment, thinking one knows more than one does.  That is the pretense.

One needs humility in comprehending the immensity of what the Creator has given us and understanding that what humans have derived to explain this creation is insufficient.

[Oceander]

@Oceander
You keep building an argument that God is a liar and the Bible is fake.  Could it just be that you don't understand?   Perhaps the universe isn't defined by your perception of it?

The Bible has been translated by many hands, that is true.   However the original texts are available so instead of the many hands creating man made mistakes they simply verify what is already known.   All the attempts to spread doubt and fear are really pretty telling.   If you were so certain of your version of science why are you so threatened by the Word of God?

I'm not threatened by the Word of God - I embrace it - I just prefer what God actually wrote: the physical creation itself to the words of other human beings, no matter how well-intentioned or how divinely inspired they claim to have been. 

Why are you so afraid of God's creation that you feel so compelled to hide from it behind the dried ink of long-dead human beings?

[Oceander]

A very arrogant assessment, thinking one knows more than one does.  That is the pretense.

One needs humility in comprehending the immensity of what the Creator has given us and understanding that what humans have derived to explain this creation is insufficient.

And for this we sneer at the Creation itself and hide behind the dried ink of long dead human beings?

[driftdiver]

I'm not threatened by the Word of God - I embrace it - I just prefer what God actually wrote: the physical creation itself to the words of other human beings, no matter how well-intentioned or how divinely inspired they claim to have been. 

Why are you so afraid of God's creation that you feel so compelled to hide from it behind the dried ink of long-dead human beings?

FUD will get you no where.

Gods creation is wondrous.  Far more wondrous than I can comprehend.   I have accepted that and am comfortable with my Faith.   I have felt God; seen Gods hand in my life and in those around me.   The infallible Word of God says he created the universe is 6 days.   I don't understand how and thats ok.   I don't understand how the dinosaurs fit in, and thats ok too.   

It takes far more faith to think I can define with certainty something that happened 'millions' of years ago based off a small piece of mineralized bone then to accept the God that has touched my heart.

[driftdiver]

And for this we sneer at the Creation itself and hide behind the dried ink of long dead human beings?

@Oceander
So its dried ink that you have an issue with?   Or perhaps long dead humans?

So if the ink is wet and the humans are alive then you are ok with accepting their word?   Does that mean you believe in the living version of our Constitution as well?   That old pesky Bill of Rights has ink thats really dry and was written by long dead humans.

FUD

[Sanguine]

FUD will get you no where.

Gods creation is wondrous.  Far more wondrous than I can comprehend.   I have accepted that and am comfortable with my Faith.   I have felt God; seen Gods hand in my life and in those around me.   The infallible Word of God says he created the universe is 6 days.   I don't understand how and thats ok.   I don't understand how the dinosaurs fit in, and thats ok too.   

It takes far more faith to think I can define with certainty something that happened 'millions' of years ago based off a small piece of mineralized bone then to accept the God that has touched my heart.

I completely agree with you except for the bolded part.  The Bible also says that His days are not our days.  It is not given to us to know how long it took Him - except through observation and measurement we can make some suppositions.

[driftdiver]

I completely agree with you except for the bolded part.  The Bible also says that His days are not our days.  It is not given to us to know how long it took Him - except through observation and measurement we can make some suppositions.

@Sanguine

I think we're saying the same thing.  Whether the "6 days' is 6 of our current 24 hour days is unimportant.  Its attempting to put our rules on the Creator.  God created everything and folks want to quibble over the measurement of how long it took.  IMO thats an effort to reduce the Creator.

[Sanguine]

@Sanguine

I think we're saying the same thing.  Whether the "6 days' is 6 of our current 24 hour days is unimportant.  Its attempting to put our rules on the Creator.  God created everything and folks want to quibble over the measurement of how long it took.  IMO thats an effort to reduce the Creator.

Oh, I see.  But, no, I don't see it as an effort to reduce - merely the very human quality to try to understand and describe.  Science merely reveals the infinity of the Creator.

[Suppressed]

A year of paleontology did convince me of a couple of things: there are a lot of hypothetical ancestral forms which allegedly predate fully developed and significantly different organisms ("missing links"), and when rocks are dated by their preserved fauna, there is an element of circular reasoning which can creep in.

Agreed.

Not only are faunal assemblages found in specific and different depositional environments which are possibly contemporaneous (as are the rocks they are preserved in), but apparent successions can result, when in fact, those are just different critters living in different niches at the same time and changing climate moves the areal boundaries of those niches (and those faunal assemblages) around. Thus in one spot, we can find apparent faunal successions in different rock layers and correlate those with the same rock type and fauna elsewhere, and have identified not necessarily an age as is so often accepted, but the preserved remains of critters which lived in a specific environment.

On the other hand, we have sequences that are described sufficiently in areal extent that we can see very clearly a larger picture.  And we see regressive -- and transgressive -- sequences.  Where do we get transgressive sequences with receding floodwaters?  And how do we get colloidal sediment to settle out so quickly?  How do we get these faunal assemblages changing so rapidly in a sequence, when depositional characteristics wouldn't account for it?

While stratigraphy is a good working framework for finding oil, coal, and other resources, and even establishing relative ages (and depositional/living environments), it may fall well short in telling all of the tale.

Agreed that we don't know all of the tale, but that doesn't mean we don't know parts of it. 

As a scientist, I know our interpretations are necessarily flawed. Our data has its peculiar problems, and our interpretation is open to being incorrect. That doesn't stop trying to sort it all out from being fun, and even useful, but as the great and golden truth, it falls short.

QFT

[driftdiver]

Oh, I see.  But, no, I don't see it as an effort to reduce - merely the very human quality to try to understand and describe.  Science merely reveals the infinity of the Creator.

@Sanguine
I can see that.  I guess I refer to the tendency that when people don't accept the 6 days and instead of assuming their understanding is incomplete they assume the Word of God is wrong.  Nothing inherently wrong with science though, until it becomes a tower of Babel.

[Sanguine]

@Sanguine
I can see that.  I guess I refer to the tendency that when people don't accept the 6 days and instead of assuming their understanding is incomplete they assume the Word of God is wrong.  Nothing inherently wrong with science though, until it becomes a tower of Babel.

Yes, the Tower of Babel story was about what we could call today "reaching a consensus".

[Oceander]

@Oceander
So its dried ink that you have an issue with?   Or perhaps long dead humans?

So if the ink is wet and the humans are alive then you are ok with accepting their word?   Does that mean you believe in the living version of our Constitution as well?   That old pesky Bill of Rights has ink thats really dry and was written by long dead humans.

FUD

Now that's a straw man argument!!!

Whenever human words, claiming to be the Word of God, and whether new or old, conflict with the actual Word of God, which is the Universe itself, then I prefer the Universe over the babbling of human beings, no matter how long ago that babbling took place.

God's Word, the Universe itself, says in an almost infinite number of ways, that the Universe was not formed in six days, as humans measure them, or in 50,000 years, as humans measure them, because the basic laws of physics that must be true if gasoline engines run, comets leave tails, and even cups of coffee boil and cool, all as they do every day. 

So that leaves only two alternatives: (1) the Universe, and the Earth, took a lot longer to form than any young Earth hypothesis can allow, or (2) God intentionally made a Universe and an Earth in such a way that His actual acts cannot be observed and instead observation, no matter how painstaking, leads to false conclusions about how God made the Universe and Earth. 

Maybe I'm being naive, but I find the second alternative abhorrent because it requires that God be a liar, who created a false world for the purpose of tricking and cheating us. 

Which leaves only the first alternative:  God created the Universe and the Earth on a time scale that is consistent with observations, and therefore the young Earth hypothesis is false. 

I don't believe God lies to his creations - us - and intentionally made the world so as to mislead us.  And if that means acknowledging flaws in the Bible, so be it.  I side with God first. 

[Idaho_Cowboy]

Huh?  Point out where I said you did!

The piece was loaded with scholarly citations.  Your ad hominem attack against the source is ridiculous, especially since you obviously haven't read it or the references it cites.

So it's adhominem to call WordPress, WordPress? Okay you win, sorry I forgot my trigger warning on that post.

[driftdiver]

Now that's a straw man argument!!!

Whenever human words, claiming to be the Word of God, and whether new or old, conflict with the actual Word of God, which is the Universe itself, then I prefer the Universe over the babbling of human beings, no matter how long ago that babbling took place.

God's Word, the Universe itself, says in an almost infinite number of ways, that the Universe was not formed in six days, as humans measure them, or in 50,000 years, as humans measure them, because the basic laws of physics that must be true if gasoline engines run, comets leave tails, and even cups of coffee boil and cool, all as they do every day. 

So that leaves only two alternatives: (1) the Universe, and the Earth, took a lot longer to form than any young Earth hypothesis can allow, or (2) God intentionally made a Universe and an Earth in such a way that His actual acts cannot be observed and instead observation, no matter how painstaking, leads to false conclusions about how God made the Universe and Earth. 

Maybe I'm being naive, but I find the second alternative abhorrent because it requires that God be a liar, who created a false world for the purpose of tricking and cheating us. 

Which leaves only the first alternative:  God created the Universe and the Earth on a time scale that is consistent with observations, and therefore the young Earth hypothesis is false. 

I don't believe God lies to his creations - us - and intentionally made the world so as to mislead us.  And if that means acknowledging flaws in the Bible, so be it.  I side with God first.

@Oceander
Strawman?  Hardly, you said you disbelieved the Word of God (aka the Bible) because it had dry ink and was "written" by people long dead.  So using that criteria the Constitution must be junk too.   How about the works of Plato?  Socrates?  Capernicus? Madam Curie?  Einstein?  Planck?   Carl Sagan has a video so you must really think he's cool.

I think what you mean to say is that you will only believe what you see yourself.   Scientific observation or even plain old casual observation is not the Word of God.   To use such a descriptor is a construct of your own.

But put all that aside; prove to me that a comets tail behaves in each of the solar systems in each of those 10,000 galaxies (or even one) in the Hubble Deep Space image.  Make sure you don't use any soon to dry ink or writings from dead people to do so.  Wait you can't because you cannot personally observe said phenomena.   All you can really do is point to a comets behavior in our solar system and extrapolate that out to mean all comets work  the same way.  Now that takes a lotta faith.

Heck you don't even know those galaxies are real.  All  you know is the Hubble collected photons which made it look like a bunch of galaxies.   For all we know we're in a giant set like that stupid Jim Carey movie Truman Show .  Someday we'll board a space ship and run into the wall at Warp 12.

[Oceander]

Strawman?  Hardly, you said you disbelieved the Word of God (aka the Bible) because it had dry ink and was "written" by people long dead.  So using that criteria the Constitution must be junk too.   How about the works of Plato?  Socrates?  Capernicus? Madam Curie?  Einstein?  Planck?   Carl Sagan has a video so you must really think he's cool.

I think what you mean to say is that you will only believe what you see yourself.   Scientific observation or even plain old casual observation is not the Word of God.   To use such a descriptor is a construct of your own.

But put all that aside; prove to me that a comets tail behaves in each of the solar systems in each of those 10,000 galaxies (or even one) in the Hubble Deep Space image.  Make sure you don't use any soon to dry ink or writings from dead people to do so.  Wait you can't because you cannot personally observe said phenomena.   All you can really do is point to a comets behavior in our solar system and extrapolate that out to mean all comets work  the same way.  Now that takes a lotta faith.

Heck you don't even know those galaxies are real.  All  you know is the Hubble collected photons which made it look like a bunch of galaxies.   For all we know we're in a giant set like that stupid Jim Carey movie Truman Show .  Someday we'll board a space ship and run into the wall at Warp 12.

Would that you would respond to what I wrote and not what you wished I'd written. 

I never said the Bible was nothing but junk just because it's so much dried ink.  I said when it comes to a conflict between the Universe as it presents itself and statements in ancient texts about what the authors thought the Universe is, I tend to favor what the Universe has to say for itself over what a bunch of ancient humans had to say about it.  And that's the case even if one has to be careful about how one evaluates ones observations of the Universe. 

And as far as that goes, it doesn't take a lot of nuanced tea-leaf reading observation of the Universe to realize that the laws of thermodynamics as laid down by God when he spoke the Word make a young Earth hypothesis impossible. 

And if you want to go down the rabbit hole of omphalos and navel-gazing, and say I can't prove that anything I see is anything other than my own imagination, all I need point out is that your criticism applies with equal force to you, and makes your belief in God as false as you claim it makes my belief in observation.  Quite honestly, I've never really seen the utility of the navel-gazing argument because it cannot prove anything and accepting it simply begs the question of why you continue to have imaginary arguments with imaginary antagonists. 

The Universe is as it is, and internal consistency, particularly to the extent one posits it about Gods actions, seems to be a priori necessary because otherwise you are left with caprice and arbitrariness, which seem to be more the purview of the Devil than of God. 

Insisting that every jot and tittle in the Bible must be literally true or else the entire thing is false strikes me as another one of Emerson's foolish hobgoblins.

[driftdiver]

You just dont like getting called on your words.

Either the Bible is the infallible Word of God or its a collection of neat stories.   For if each individual can proclaim a particular piece to be wrong then the entire book is not divinely inspired or infallible.

Your (or mine) lack of understanding of Gods Word does not make it incorrect.   

You have chosen to worship your own view of the Universe and not Gods.   I'd urge you to reconsider.

[Suppressed]

So it's adhominem to call WordPress, WordPress? Okay you win, sorry I forgot my trigger warning on that post.

Yes, I again note no substantive rebuttal.

[Idaho_Cowboy]

Yes, I again note no substantive rebuttal.

Linking a blog is not a substantive argument.