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Radiometric Dating: Back to Basics (does it really prove the Earth is millions of years old?)
Answers Magazine ^ | June 17, 2009 | Andrew A. Snelling, Ph.D.

Posted on 06/18/2009 8:48:47 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts

Radiometric dating is often used to “prove” rocks are millions of years old. Once you understand the basic science, however, you can see how wrong assumptions lead to incorrect dates.

Most people think that radioactive dating has proven the earth is billions of years old. After all, textbooks, media, and museums glibly present ages of millions of years as fact.

Yet few people know how radiometric dating works or bother to ask what assumptions drive the conclusions. So let’s take a closer look and see how reliable this dating method really is...

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


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Political Humor/Cartoons
KEYWORDS: antiscience; antisciencedarwin; belongsinreligion; bsalert; coloringbookcreation; cowdungalert; crackerheadsunited; crap; creation; cretinism; darwindrones; dumdums; evolution; evoreligion; fools; forrestisstoopid; frembarrassment; goodgodimnutz; intelligentdesign; jihad; kkkmeeting; magicdust; moreembarrassingcrap; pseudoscience; ragingyechardon; science; templeofdarwin
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To: Buck W.
Leftist! That was the insult you used earlier that I couldn't recall.

Amazing

“You’re retreating from the point (leftist tactic).”

First it's persistence and then its called retreat, leftist retreat yet. amazing.

181 posted on 06/18/2009 2:10:33 PM PDT by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: metmom
OK, tell us why they CAN be assumed to have been constant for all those millions or billions of years.

Because it's never been observed to be variable.

How do scientists KNOW for sure?

They don't. In fact they can't know for sure anything that is accepted as a physical constant was the same before it was first measured, or that any of them will be the same tomorrow as they were today.

You could argue that no one can really KNOW that any of the accepted physical constants really are constant, and none of the calculations based on them can be assumed to be reliable - none of the calculations that are done in the course of scientific research or even in engineering and design work.

What do you think the end result of that line of reasoning would be?

182 posted on 06/18/2009 2:11:59 PM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: count-your-change

Are you really as dumb as you seem to be?


183 posted on 06/18/2009 2:12:25 PM PDT by Buck W. (The President of the United States IS named Schickelgruber...)
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To: Buck W.; ShadowAce

If you claim the Bible is allegory, as you have on so many other threads, do you believe that sin and Jesus are real?


184 posted on 06/18/2009 2:13:49 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom

Litmus test alert! Time to fill in the Christian scorecard! Am I Christian enough for metmom?


185 posted on 06/18/2009 2:15:01 PM PDT by Buck W. (The President of the United States IS named Schickelgruber...)
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To: blowfish
So it used to be variable, but now it has decided to be constant?

You still didnt' read it I see. They never said that it used to be variable.

And, my dear, I don’t hate creationists or Christians. I just think the attempts of some of them to use the bible as a science text are silly.

And your trying to refute something when you clearly didn't read the article makes you look silly. Tilting at windmills does that.

186 posted on 06/18/2009 2:16:05 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom
But if "it may have changed at one or maybe two different times in the past" how on earth can you claim with a straight face that's it's constant now? It's like saying you're a teetotaler because you haven't had a drink today.

Of course, there's not the slightest bit of physical evidence that radioisotopes had measurably different decay rates in the past, but don't let that stop you.

187 posted on 06/18/2009 2:16:58 PM PDT by blowfish
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To: GourmetDan
What says that the energy output of radiometric decay is constant?

Repeated observatoins and consistent results. The same thing that's produced every other accepted physical constant that's used in scientific and engineering calculations.

188 posted on 06/18/2009 2:18:07 PM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: Buck W.

You’re so predictable.....


189 posted on 06/18/2009 2:18:47 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: Buck W.; metmom
Do you buy all of your slaves from the nations near you?

Do you always argue like a 4 year old?

Don't worry, it's not a trick question...you evo-liberals have only just so much at your disposal.

190 posted on 06/18/2009 2:19:11 PM PDT by tpanther (The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for g!ood men to do nothing---Edmund Burke)
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To: tpanther; metmom

“Do you always argue like a 4 year old?”

I’m surprised you ask that question. I am merely attempting to ascertain whether you are in compliance with scripture as written in Leviticus 25:44-45.

So I ask again, where do you buy your slaves?

While you’re at it, does pi=3?


191 posted on 06/18/2009 2:24:31 PM PDT by Buck W. (The President of the United States IS named Schickelgruber...)
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To: ShadowAce

They are “linked” simply because they are chemically identical, and thus mixed in the same way everywhere. There’s no process in nature that can cause one sample to have a certain ratio of isotopes and the next sample to have a different ratio (other than through radioactivity).
From what I’ve read of the Manhattan project, I believe the hardest part of creating the A-bomb was in gathering a sample of Uranium which is made mostly of U-235, which is needed for the bomb. In nature, it’s usually found in the form of U-238 and thus most the U-238 has to be separated, which is probably the hardest part of making a bomb. (A sample of Uranium which is mostly U-235 is often called “enriched Uranium”, and that’s why we become so nervous whenever a country is making it.)


192 posted on 06/18/2009 2:24:36 PM PDT by goodusername
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To: tacticalogic
Because it's never been observed to be variable.

For all of how many years that we've known about radioactivity?

You could argue that no one can really KNOW that any of the accepted physical constants really are constant, and none of the calculations based on them can be assumed to be reliable - none of the calculations that are done in the course of scientific research or even in engineering and design work. What do you think the end result of that line of reasoning would be?

Honesty, maybe?

Of course you can argue those points, that know one knows if what we know as constants today were always constant. Scientists say they were, as if it's written in stone. On what basis? Because of what we've observed in the last couple hundred years or so.

Talk about having faith.....

193 posted on 06/18/2009 2:26:14 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: Buck W.

I see. You apparently follow Chris Matthews and Al Gore much more closely than I do, so I’ll take your word for it.

Further evidence that your a leftie, I’d say.


Riiiight, so you’ve never heard algore exclaim the debate is over?

Uhhhh...OK.

This isn’t gong well for you.


194 posted on 06/18/2009 2:26:28 PM PDT by tpanther (The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for g!ood men to do nothing---Edmund Burke)
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To: tpanther
Easy panther, you might be stalking from the left side of the liberal closet because of weak faith.
Dear me. I'd put one of those sideways happy faces or a LOL but it's just sad that Darwinism distorts all it touches.

Be gentle with the thin-skinned Darwinists.

195 posted on 06/18/2009 2:26:37 PM PDT by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: metmom
Talk about having faith.....

When you get on an elevator, do you have faith that whoever designed it made the cables thick enough?

196 posted on 06/18/2009 2:31:48 PM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: metmom

As I said earlier, my son is a Nuke on a US Navy submarine. If the decay rate of the uranium in their reactor core changes substantially, they’re probably all dead meat. If it slows down, they left without power. If it speeds up, it will melt the containment. On what basis do we trust the lives of those sailors to the assumption that decay rate is and will remain constant?


197 posted on 06/18/2009 2:42:02 PM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: CottShop

You obviously did not read my linked article as that deals comprehensively with the issues raised about the Green River warves.


198 posted on 06/18/2009 2:44:51 PM PDT by Natufian (The mesolithic wasn't so bad, was it?)
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To: Westbrook

“Social Darwinism has nothing at all to do with Capitalism. It is strictly a social, not an economic, theory.”

—The term was actually coined by communists as a derisive epithet for capitalism (which showed their contempt for both capitalism and Darwinism). The term has picked up many other connotations as well though.

“Besides, this principle existed in Capitalism long before Darwin.”

—Yes, it’s believed by many that Darwin borrowed the principle from Adam Smith. As Gould put it, the two used the same argument in different fields and thus are “isomorphic”.

“The “fittest” Automobile maker emerges as the number-one seller, as long as it remains more fit than its competition. However, it’s still an Automobile maker. It does not “evolve” into a manufacturer of Televisions.”

—An automobile manufacturer could certainly develop something to replace the automobile and begin manufacturing that instead. Some oil companies are working on developing green technology.

“Likewise, the strongest and smartest of a feral animal population has a better chance at surviving and propagating its genetics. However, nobody has seen this principle cause a population of animals of one kind to “evolve” into a population of animals of a different kind, e.g. from dinosaurs to birds.”

—Of course if we DID see dinos become birds, than they’d be a single kind. ;-)


199 posted on 06/18/2009 2:49:01 PM PDT by goodusername
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To: tacticalogic
When you get on an elevator, do you have faith that whoever designed it made the cables thick enough?

Yes. If I didn't I wouldn't get on it.

200 posted on 06/18/2009 2:58:33 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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