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Rare-Earth Clocks, Sm-Nd and Lu-Hf Dating Models: Radioactive Dating, Part 5
Institute for Creation Research ^ | Mar 2015 | Vernon R. Cupps, Ph.D.

Posted on 03/04/2015 8:32:11 AM PST by fishtank

Rare-Earth Clocks, Sm-Nd and Lu-Hf Dating Models: Radioactive Dating, Part 5

by Vernon R. Cupps, Ph.D. *

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. (Colossians 2:8)

Author’s note: I was about nineteen when I realized Darwinian evolution was unscientific and completely rejected it, but I didn’t give much thought to a “young earth” at the time. Decades later, when I was in my mid-50s, I came to believe in a young-earth view of creation after taking the time to investigate the actual scriptural, observational, and experimental evidences for both the young- and old-earth hypotheses. Dr. Steven W. Boyd presented a particularly persuasive argument for this interpretation of Scripture in Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth.*

My search ultimately led me to conclude that the biblical account was absolutely accurate and that God did not expect me to believe in something that was counter to the rational evidence all around me.

I spent my career as a nuclear physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Fermi National Accelerator. Now in my 60s, God has placed me in a unique position here at the Institute for Creation Research to further dispel the common notion that radioactive dating somehow proves the earth is billions of years old.

(Excerpt) Read more at icr.org ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: creation; radioactive; youngearth

ICR article image.

* Dr. Cupps is Research Associate at the Institute for Creation Research and received his Ph.D. in nuclear physics from Indiana University-Bloomington.

1 posted on 03/04/2015 8:32:11 AM PST by fishtank
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To: fishtank
Thus, quantitative values for their half-lives rely heavily on analyses of rocks having a known age. This is circular reasoning at its best!

There is nothing circular about searching for consistency amongst candidate clocks. In particular, comparing two radioactive clocks is no more circular than comparing carbon dating with the counting of tree rings.

2 posted on 03/04/2015 8:44:42 AM PST by coloradan (The US has become a banana republic, except without the bananas - or the republic.)
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To: fishtank

Creationism really should be its own Christian denomination. That way we could have, for instance, ‘The First Creationist Church’ in different towns and cities.

I make this suggestion as at least on FR these days Creationism would appear to be a faith or denomination unto itself. Perhaps you folks could even post in the Religion forum under the Creationist Caucus.

Again, just a suggestion.


3 posted on 03/04/2015 8:47:48 AM PST by MeganC (You can ignore reality, but reality won't ignore you.)
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To: coloradan

You would expect that one means of dating rocks would conform with others. This is, in fact what you find. Ages reached by two radiometric dating would be expected to be consistent one with the other. If they are not, you have to examine your sampling protocol.

Further stratigraphy does not show any evidence for a worldwide flood or a young earth. It correlates with the radiometric dating. If there had been one global flood responsible for ever thing you see in the geologic column, you would expect to see rocks sorted out by size with the larger clast conglomerate below sandstone which is below mudstone which is below clay. This is the case with volcanic strata laid down at the same event (see the sorting out of Mt. St. Helens pyro clastic flows - much loved by creationists). However, this is not what you find in nature generally. You see sandstone above shale, above igneous rock, above life based limestone, above schist and so on. All indicative of changing environments, periods where layers of rock were eroded away before the upper layers were deposited (a disconformity). There are also thrust faults that can put older rock strata on top of younger rock. Flood geology can’t begin to handle any of this.


4 posted on 03/04/2015 9:42:03 AM PST by JimSEA
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To: JimSEA

JimSEA - your misguided viewpoint has no explanation for all of the limestone worldwide - only a global flood can account for the vast amounts of limestone presently.

Furthermore, you yourself contradict your ‘contradictions’ in the same post no less!

Micro-evolution is all you have and even that is actually devolution.

101 Evidences for a Young Age of the Earth...And the Universe http://creation.com/age-of-the-earth

Center for Scientific Creation - In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/IntheBeginningTOC.html


5 posted on 03/04/2015 9:57:28 AM PST by BrandtMichaels
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To: BrandtMichaels

Most limestone is life based. It is deposited in strata formed of shell, coral, algal and fecal debris in shallow waters. Other limestone is a chemical sedimentary rock formed by the precipitation of calcium carbonate. Both means require long periods of time to form and the fact that it is found in distinct strata rather than in some mishmash of rock types as would be the case after an event as catastrophic as a great flood is itself evidence against the flood. Take the chalk in the white cliffs of Dover. They are formed of tiny coccoliths laid done over eons and are still bedded in the orientation in which they were deposited. In other words, they died and settled to the ocean floor and were not spun around in some flood.

The amount of biological limestone is in itself testament to long ages of formation. No to mention marble that shows the some limestones formed, were subducted to some depth and experienced great pressure and heat then were thrust up by plate movements and eventually rock layers on top of the marble eroded to expose the marble.

No, the amount of limestone is evidence of the millions of years life had been around. It’s irrefutable evidence against a young earth.


6 posted on 03/04/2015 10:27:06 AM PST by JimSEA
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To: JimSEA

No flood hypothesis I’ve seen claims there would be a ‘mishmash’ of rock layers - just the opposite in the 2nd website I referred to you in my prior post.

Also there is no one geologic column as it varies greatly throughout the Earth and all of it gives evidence of rapid burial rather than being laid down in eons of time.


7 posted on 03/04/2015 11:20:41 AM PST by BrandtMichaels
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To: BrandtMichaels

You and your creationist web sites are misrepresenting the geological column, ignoring the effects of plate movements and discontinuities resulting from faulting and erosion occurring due to plate movements. It’s easy to win a debate if you define your opponents position. I’ve yet to see a creationist paper or sermon that didn’t misrepresent geological or biological findings. It’s actually the discontinuity that gives evidence of deep time and the tectonics at work.

How did the flood neatly sort the more primitive fossils into the deepest layers of limestone and more recent fossils into the older layers of limestone. How did the flood cause ancient fossils to be found with ancient fossils and thus, you can’t find trilobites with ocean dwelling reptiles ever. Humans are never found with dinosaurs in spite of the newly made “footprints” the ICR claims but doesn’t allow reputable scientists to examine. Never do you find elephants with triceratops but you do find human fossils with now extinct elephants (mammoths). If the flood wiped out all but eight humans, you would expect to find human fossils everywhere in the rock strata all over the world.

There is money to be made by creation scientists and they don’t have to work nearly so hard. Think of it. No laboratories mor complex than high school science labs and that for photo ops. You can just go out and create a controversy over scientific findings or go back and pick at Darwin’s lack of causes in some areas and ignore Amy modern science in those subjects and then run out saying, “I’ve disproven Darwin and thus evolution is false.”


8 posted on 03/04/2015 12:44:29 PM PST by JimSEA
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To: JimSEA

“No flood hypothesis I’ve seen claims there would be a ‘mishmash’ of rock layers”

Take a blender and toss in small rocks, pea gravel, sand fine mud along with enough water to fill to 3 or so inches above the solids. Run the blender a minute or so to simulate the flood. Stop it and wait for the solids to settle and what do you find? The larger rocks will be on the bottom with pea grave above followed by sand and the fines will be last to settle out and form the top layer. That’s not what you find in nature. Go out to a highway cut and see for yourself.


9 posted on 03/04/2015 1:02:51 PM PST by JimSEA
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To: JimSEA

sure a blender is as close as one gets to natural conditions... hmmm


10 posted on 03/04/2015 3:30:44 PM PST by BrandtMichaels
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To: JimSEA

Peruvian Indians, living in a place where groundwater has high levels of toxic arsenic, have a gene for metabolizing the toxin in a way that eliminates it from the body more rapidly than those who lack the gene, which might well be everybody else. http://www.newsweek.com/first-human-adaptation-toxic-chemical-uncovered-311288


11 posted on 03/04/2015 7:59:04 PM PST by coloradan (The US has become a banana republic, except without the bananas - or the republic.)
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To: coloradan

There you go. Thanks.


12 posted on 03/04/2015 8:03:14 PM PST by JimSEA (I'm)
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