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To: metmom
Prove that the rate of decay WAS always the same as claimed.

That's simple, it is reproduced in the lab every day and observed. We also can test objects of a known age, such as when specific monuments where built or burnt areas in the tree ring history. It is shown through observation and testing.

Add to that, exactly how much mother material there was to start with and when it occurred so that we are able to make precise and accurate calculations.

Some specific isotopes are created specifically from this decay. They aren't isotopes found in nature outside this process.

Count backwards? shakes head in disbelief.....

Here is a simpler analogy. You started typing this comment and I have a recording of it. I want to know when you started typing, so I look at the time now, then I watch the recording and see how long it is. That gives me the start time.

Besides, you just contradicted yourself...Does it vary like you said here?

Poor wording on my part, I should have said factors that impact results, not variances in the actual decay rates. For example, a common misused 'proof' that it is flawed is seal carcasses in the arctic sometimes showing to be millions of years old even though they are recently killed. The rate of decay didn't change, however, we know that there is a certain amount of dissolved carbon dioxide in the water from ancient deposits. That is a known factor and is taken into account with the results. The actual decay didn't change but the amount of additional carbon from outside, older sources has to be accounted for.

41 posted on 07/30/2009 11:25:21 AM PDT by mnehring
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To: mnehring
That's simple, it is reproduced in the lab every day and observed. We also can test objects of a known age, such as when specific monuments where built or burnt areas in the tree ring history. It is shown through observation and testing.

First off, reliable historic records only go back a few thousand years. There are "older" records, but you'll find they're generally a bunch of local mythos, such as the Japanese emperor-gods and the like. Dendrochronology records go back to about the time of the flood, and they get really spotty in the early years; there's a lot of criticism of them at over 5k-6k years. But you're not making claims of 5-6k years; you're making claims of billions.

Secondly, your "reproduced in the lab every day" line is exactly what you're being criticized for -- assuming that whatever applies today applies to yesterday, or is at least linearly correlated. But that's not even what many of the physicists who promote radiometric dating say about, for example, the Big Bang. Even physicists admit that "universal constants" can be radically different at different times.

To put it another way. I could have stood by Mount St. Helens every day for a hundred years up to May 17th, 1980, making measurements of how many catastrophic eruptions there were. Each day I would have put a "zero" on my tally sheet. The conclusion, by your logic? Mount Saint Helens has never erupted and never will.

Reality doesn't work that way. Just because a measurement one day is the same as it was a previous day doesn't mean it's eternally unchanging.

62 posted on 07/30/2009 11:59:58 AM PDT by OldGuard1
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To: mnehring
Some specific isotopes are created specifically from this decay. They aren't isotopes found in nature outside this process.

The presumption, then, is that there were none of those isotopes at one point. How is that point in time determined?

Wouldn't the material have started decaying as it was formed? Unless it all formed at once, there would be no accurate way to determine the age, as some of the parent material would already have been decaying as other of the material would be forming.

65 posted on 07/30/2009 12:06:25 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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