Kestegs
New member
- Aug 27, 2008
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Interesting stuff, you guys sure know how to type! I'm also glad to stay out of this morality discussion, my head hurts from reading it, but I do find it very interesting.
I don't agree that carbon dating is reliable.
I was more looking for evolutionary fossils showing single cell---> human. I already stated I believe in "micro" evolution.
See above for my response. Yes, I meant transitional fossils.
I found this video, Since you didn't leave me one to watch
It kinda ties into my distrust of carbon dating above I suppose. But I'll admit, I'm no scientist, and these things aren't always easily understandable. As a lay person on a subject I am inclined to believe the experts, which is why most people agree with your theories and not mine.
Don't you find it ironic that he never proves that I don't actually know what's inside the box?
The Bible has proven to be a credible source of information by other historical documents, for one. Nothing that the Bible states can be proven to be inaccurate. This is not the case with many other books (I'm no expert, but I know many of them have things that have been proven inaccurate)
Organized religion is indeed responsible for some real bad stuff, and is often only after money and power. I'm reluctant to call myself a Christian for those reasons.
Something important to consider is that just because someone does something in the Bible doesn't mean its God's desire. The Bible condones slavery for only one reason that I can think of (there may be more, just going from memory) If you couldn't pay your debts or similar situations you could be subject to slavery. This was only for a specific time frame though, I think 7 years max. The Bible never condones racial slavery, which is what we easily define the word as these days. It also says that you should treat your slaves well (paraphrase)
(Murder: wikipedia) I can't think of anything that God commanded that doesn't fit into this definition. Do you think that the death penalty is murder? war? (Not trying to start a tangent discussion, just curious)
I don't agree that carbon dating is reliable.
Reference here. I tried to just quote the part that I found most relevant to be slightly succinct, but you can read the article in its entirety if you want.
A critical assumption used in carbon-14 dating has to do with this ratio. It is assumed that the ratio of 14C to 12C in the atmosphere has always been the same as it is today (1 to 1 trillion). If this assumption is true, then the AMS 14C dating method is valid up to about 80,000 years. Beyond this number, the instruments scientists use would not be able to detect enough remaining 14C to be useful in age estimates. This is a critical assumption in the dating process. If this assumption is not true, then the method will give incorrect dates. What could cause this ratio to change? If the production rate of 14C in the atmosphere is not equal to the removal rate (mostly through decay), this ratio will change. In other words, the amount of 14C being produced in the atmosphere must equal the amount being removed to be in a steady state (also called “equilibrium”). If this is not true, the ratio of 14C to 12C is not a constant, which would make knowing the starting amount of 14C in a specimen difficult or impossible to accurately determine.
Dr. Willard Libby, the founder of the carbon-14 dating method, assumed this ratio to be constant. His reasoning was based on a belief in evolution, which assumes the earth must be billions of years old. Assumptions in the scientific community are extremely important. If the starting assumption is false, all the calculations based on that assumption might be correct but still give a wrong conclusion.
In Dr. Libby’s original work, he noted that the atmosphere did not appear to be in equilibrium. This was a troubling idea for Dr. Libby since he believed the world was billions of years old and enough time had passed to achieve equilibrium. Dr. Libby’s calculations showed that if the earth started with no 14C in the atmosphere, it would take up to 30,000 years to build up to a steady state (equilibrium).
If the cosmic radiation has remained at its present intensity for 20,000 or 30,000 years, and if the carbon reservoir has not changed appreciably in this time, then there exists at the present time a complete balance between the rate of disintegration of radiocarbon atoms and the rate of assimilation of new radiocarbon atoms for all material in the life-cycle.2
Dr. Libby chose to ignore this discrepancy (nonequilibrium state), and he attributed it to experimental error. However, the discrepancy has turned out to be very real. The ratio of 14C /12C is not constant.
The Specific Production Rate (SPR) of C-14 is known to be 18.8 atoms per gram of total carbon per minute. The Specific Decay Rate (SDR) is known to be only 16.1 disintegrations per gram per minute.3
What does this mean? If it takes about 30,000 years to reach equilibrium and 14C is still out of equilibrium, then maybe the earth is not very old.
Magnetic Field of the Earth
Other factors can affect the production rate of 14C in the atmosphere. The earth has a magnetic field around it which helps protect us from harmful radiation from outer space. This magnetic field is decaying (getting weaker). The stronger the field is around the earth, the fewer the number of cosmic rays that are able to reach the atmosphere. This would result in a smaller production of 14C in the atmosphere in earth’s past.
The cause for the long term variation of the C-14 level is not known. The variation is certainly partially the result of a change in the cosmic ray production rate of radiocarbon. The cosmic-ray flux, and hence the production rate of C-14, is a function not only of the solar activity but also of the magnetic dipole moment of the Earth.4Though complex, this history of the earth’s magnetic field agrees with Barnes’ basic hypothesis, that the field has always freely decayed.... The field has always been losing energy despite its variations, so it cannot be more than 10,000 years old.5Earth’s magnetic field is fading. Today it is about 10 percent weaker than it was when German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss started keeping tabs on it in 1845, scientists say.6
If the production rate of 14C in the atmosphere was less in the past, dates given using the carbon-14 method would incorrectly assume that more 14C had decayed out of a specimen than what has actually occurred. This would result in giving older dates than the true age.
Genesis Flood
What role might the Genesis Flood have played in the amount of carbon? The Flood would have buried large amounts of carbon from living organisms (plant and animal) to form today’s fossil fuels (coal, oil, etc.). The amount of fossil fuels indicates there must have been a vastly larger quantity of vegetation in existence prior to the Flood than exists today. This means that the biosphere just prior to the Flood might have had 500 times more carbon in living organisms than today. This would further dilute the amount of 14C and cause the 14C/12C ratio to be much smaller than today.
If that were the case, and this C-14 were distributed uniformly throughout the biosphere, and the total amount of biosphere C were, for example, 500 times that of today’s world, the resulting C-14/C-12 ratio would be 1/500 of today’s level....7
When the Flood is taken into account along with the decay of the magnetic field, it is reasonable to believe that the assumption of equilibrium is a false assumption.
Because of this false assumption, any age estimates using 14C prior to the Flood will give much older dates than the true age. Pre-Flood material would be dated at perhaps ten times the true age.
A critical assumption used in carbon-14 dating has to do with this ratio. It is assumed that the ratio of 14C to 12C in the atmosphere has always been the same as it is today (1 to 1 trillion). If this assumption is true, then the AMS 14C dating method is valid up to about 80,000 years. Beyond this number, the instruments scientists use would not be able to detect enough remaining 14C to be useful in age estimates. This is a critical assumption in the dating process. If this assumption is not true, then the method will give incorrect dates. What could cause this ratio to change? If the production rate of 14C in the atmosphere is not equal to the removal rate (mostly through decay), this ratio will change. In other words, the amount of 14C being produced in the atmosphere must equal the amount being removed to be in a steady state (also called “equilibrium”). If this is not true, the ratio of 14C to 12C is not a constant, which would make knowing the starting amount of 14C in a specimen difficult or impossible to accurately determine.
Dr. Willard Libby, the founder of the carbon-14 dating method, assumed this ratio to be constant. His reasoning was based on a belief in evolution, which assumes the earth must be billions of years old. Assumptions in the scientific community are extremely important. If the starting assumption is false, all the calculations based on that assumption might be correct but still give a wrong conclusion.
In Dr. Libby’s original work, he noted that the atmosphere did not appear to be in equilibrium. This was a troubling idea for Dr. Libby since he believed the world was billions of years old and enough time had passed to achieve equilibrium. Dr. Libby’s calculations showed that if the earth started with no 14C in the atmosphere, it would take up to 30,000 years to build up to a steady state (equilibrium).
If the cosmic radiation has remained at its present intensity for 20,000 or 30,000 years, and if the carbon reservoir has not changed appreciably in this time, then there exists at the present time a complete balance between the rate of disintegration of radiocarbon atoms and the rate of assimilation of new radiocarbon atoms for all material in the life-cycle.2
Dr. Libby chose to ignore this discrepancy (nonequilibrium state), and he attributed it to experimental error. However, the discrepancy has turned out to be very real. The ratio of 14C /12C is not constant.
The Specific Production Rate (SPR) of C-14 is known to be 18.8 atoms per gram of total carbon per minute. The Specific Decay Rate (SDR) is known to be only 16.1 disintegrations per gram per minute.3
What does this mean? If it takes about 30,000 years to reach equilibrium and 14C is still out of equilibrium, then maybe the earth is not very old.
Magnetic Field of the Earth
Other factors can affect the production rate of 14C in the atmosphere. The earth has a magnetic field around it which helps protect us from harmful radiation from outer space. This magnetic field is decaying (getting weaker). The stronger the field is around the earth, the fewer the number of cosmic rays that are able to reach the atmosphere. This would result in a smaller production of 14C in the atmosphere in earth’s past.
The cause for the long term variation of the C-14 level is not known. The variation is certainly partially the result of a change in the cosmic ray production rate of radiocarbon. The cosmic-ray flux, and hence the production rate of C-14, is a function not only of the solar activity but also of the magnetic dipole moment of the Earth.4Though complex, this history of the earth’s magnetic field agrees with Barnes’ basic hypothesis, that the field has always freely decayed.... The field has always been losing energy despite its variations, so it cannot be more than 10,000 years old.5Earth’s magnetic field is fading. Today it is about 10 percent weaker than it was when German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss started keeping tabs on it in 1845, scientists say.6
If the production rate of 14C in the atmosphere was less in the past, dates given using the carbon-14 method would incorrectly assume that more 14C had decayed out of a specimen than what has actually occurred. This would result in giving older dates than the true age.
Genesis Flood
What role might the Genesis Flood have played in the amount of carbon? The Flood would have buried large amounts of carbon from living organisms (plant and animal) to form today’s fossil fuels (coal, oil, etc.). The amount of fossil fuels indicates there must have been a vastly larger quantity of vegetation in existence prior to the Flood than exists today. This means that the biosphere just prior to the Flood might have had 500 times more carbon in living organisms than today. This would further dilute the amount of 14C and cause the 14C/12C ratio to be much smaller than today.
If that were the case, and this C-14 were distributed uniformly throughout the biosphere, and the total amount of biosphere C were, for example, 500 times that of today’s world, the resulting C-14/C-12 ratio would be 1/500 of today’s level....7
When the Flood is taken into account along with the decay of the magnetic field, it is reasonable to believe that the assumption of equilibrium is a false assumption.
Because of this false assumption, any age estimates using 14C prior to the Flood will give much older dates than the true age. Pre-Flood material would be dated at perhaps ten times the true age.
I was more looking for evolutionary fossils showing single cell---> human. I already stated I believe in "micro" evolution.
@BBS_Agonistes I don't believe there is an objective moral truth or however that is best worded. I'm not sure if this puts me under one kind of relativism or another because I've read almost nothing about the philosophy behind it. In other words, I don't believe in "good" and "evil", though I definitely use those words out of convenience.
I don't know what "evolutionary fossils" are, but I'm guessing it's supposed to be some gap (transitional species...?) between different species. If that's what you're referring to, we have literally thousands of such fossils. Ofc, we shouldn't expect to find fossils of every generation of every species ever because the conditions under which fossilization take place are limited, and resources are limited, too.
There are several different dating methods used to determine the age of the earth and the sun and other things. I don't like to just say "watch more of those videos" but he will explain it much more simply than me. Plus, it's not my expertise. Ofc, most of this is also introduced reasonably well on wikipedia and other places
What's in the box?
See above for my response. Yes, I meant transitional fossils.
I found this video, Since you didn't leave me one to watch
It kinda ties into my distrust of carbon dating above I suppose. But I'll admit, I'm no scientist, and these things aren't always easily understandable. As a lay person on a subject I am inclined to believe the experts, which is why most people agree with your theories and not mine.Don't you find it ironic that he never proves that I don't actually know what's inside the box?
The Bible has proven to be a credible source of information by other historical documents, for one. Nothing that the Bible states can be proven to be inaccurate. This is not the case with many other books (I'm no expert, but I know many of them have things that have been proven inaccurate)
Organized religion is indeed responsible for some real bad stuff, and is often only after money and power. I'm reluctant to call myself a Christian for those reasons.
Something important to consider is that just because someone does something in the Bible doesn't mean its God's desire. The Bible condones slavery for only one reason that I can think of (there may be more, just going from memory) If you couldn't pay your debts or similar situations you could be subject to slavery. This was only for a specific time frame though, I think 7 years max. The Bible never condones racial slavery, which is what we easily define the word as these days. It also says that you should treat your slaves well (paraphrase)
(Murder: wikipedia) I can't think of anything that God commanded that doesn't fit into this definition. Do you think that the death penalty is murder? war? (Not trying to start a tangent discussion, just curious)
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