Carbon Dating

by Wolfgirl 86 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  hooberus

  hawkaw said:

  " All dating has an error factor. That is what a lot of people tend to really go after geoscientists on when they are trying to prove the world is only a few thousand years old. Problem is that the errors are small compared to the ages the element describes in a geological timeframe. For example plus or minus error of a few million years on an age of 4.3 billion years means the earth is still really old."

  The "error factor" that hawk is referring to is not a measurement of actual error, as to get this you would have to have the actual historical age (which is impossible to get unless you actually were there when the rock formed.) The "error factors" commonly expressed refer I believe to equipment measurement errors of small amounts of isotopes. No one disputes that modern equipment can within a few percentage points accurately measure the current isotope ratios of a rock. However a 98% accurate measurement of the current isotope ratio does not directly tell us the "age" of the rock to within 2%, it only tells us the current ratios to within 2%.

  For example potassium/argon dating is supposed to tell us the "absolute ages of lava flows.1986 lava flows from Mt. St. Hellens should have yielded a zero date, but potassium/argon "dating" gave an age of 350,000 years! And the "error factor" was plus or minus 50,000 years giving a "dating range" using "error factors" of 300,000-400,000 years.

  So even though the youngest error factored date gave a date in the " hundreds of thousands" of years class it proves nothing.

  Edited by - hooberus on 22 October 2002 20:9:48
• 

  hooberus

  I believe most of the CRS members degees (masters and doctorates) come from secular universities.
• 

  cellomould

  There was an article in Scientific American recently about 'why smart people believe stupid things'. Quite an amusing yet eye-opening article it was. I think that most people here understand this phenomenon to a certain extent. The obvious example is the cult mentality.

  Cult members are, on the average, average. No, they are not any less intelligent.

  Take a look at the Church of Scientology's website...they will tell you all about the well respected physicians, lawyers, scientists, etc etc etc in their ranks.

  John Travolta is a member of that church. Yes, it is a cult.

  So the question for all of us is not so much, 'what do you believe?'...but, rather, 'why?'

  Hooberus, you are straining your brain to continue believing what you believe. If I were doing the same thing, my brain would be hurting. You see, I don't have any psychospiritual issues riding on my belief that dinosaurs went extinct long before humans lived. If evidence is revealed which shows otherwise, I will change my belief.

  cellmould
• 

  rem

  Hooberus,

  First some information on the Creation Research Society (CRS). They are quite blatant that their aim is not science at all. They have a shameless Bible inerrancy agenda. This is the opposite of science and critical thinking. Here is their statement of belief, which their members have to agree to:

  http://www.creationresearch.org/contact_crs.htm
  http://www.creationresearch.org/belief_wndw.htm

  CRS Statement of Belief

  All members must subscribe to the following statement of belief:

  1. The Bible is the written Word of God, and because it is inspired throughout, all its assertions are historically and scientifically true in the original autographs. To the student of nature this means that the account of origins in Genesis is a factual presentation of simple historical truths.

  2. All basic types of living things, including man, were made by direct creative acts of God during the Creation Week described in Genesis. Whatever biological changes have occurred since Creation Week have accomplished only changes within the original created kinds.

  3. The great flood described in Genesis, commonly referred to as the Noachian Flood, was an historic event worldwide in its extent and effect.

  4. We are an organization of Christian men and women of science who accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. The account of the special creation of Adam and Eve as one man and one woman and their subsequent fall into sin is the basis for our belief in the necessity of a Savior for all mankind. Therefore, salvation can come only through accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior.

  Tell me this is objective science. I don't care what degrees a person may have - if they agree to this then they are in no way dispassionate, unbiased, objective scientists.

  Now for the "Dinosaur Blood"

  First, it is possible for a dinosaur bone to not be completely fossilized in the center if water was not allowed inside through the thick bone casing. This has been observed. It seems the CRS article is confusing the issue. Scientists agree that fossilization can occur very quickly, but it usually doesn't. Also, the bones are not dated by how "fossilized" they are. They are dated by other, independent, means including noting which strata the fossil was found in, other ancient organisms that are fossilized in the same strata, and the ratios of isotopes that are found. There is no reason to expect that every millions of year old fossil that is found will be completely fossilized. This is a strawman argument.

  Second, it is possible for stable proteins that have not been fossilized to survive for millions of years in tact. Blood cells themselves will not last that long, but the actual heme proteins within the cell can survive mellenia trapped in sediment. Here is a good explanation:

  http://www.bibleandscience.com/ken%20ham.htm

  ...blood cells can easily fall apart, but the proteins heme and hemoglobin can survive for a very long time. A heme is a very stable structure of a ring like organic compound called porphyrin bound to an iron atom (p.56). Porphyrins have been found in sediments dating back to the Carboniferous Period which was 286 million years ago (p.56). This is at least 100 million years before T. rex. So it should not be surprising to find heme.

  Also, There is some research that shows that the fossilization process itself can create formations that resemble blood cells, though they are not:

  http://www.cmnh.org/dinoarch/1998Jul/msg00464.html

  SMALL SPHERES IN FOSSIL BONES: BLOOD CORPUSCLES OR DIAGENETIC PRODUCTS?
  David M. Martill and David M. Unwin, Palaeontology, Vol. 40, Part 3,
  1997, pp. 619-624
  
  Abstract. Mineralized spherical structures within blood vessels of an
  archosaurian (possibly pterosaurian) limb bone from the Lower Cretaceous
  of the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, England, superficially resemble blood
  corpuscles, but are shown here to be pyrite framboids. ..........
  Previous records of so-called blood corpuscles within dinosaur bones may
  also be of a purely diagenetic origin and should be re-examined.

  Basically, what it comes down to is that, no blood has actually been found in dinosaur bones. Dinosaur bones that have not been completely fossilized have been found and this is not unheard of and certainly does not imply that the bones are in any way 'young' (younger than at least 65 million years). Certain structures have been found in both fossilized and incompletely fossilized bone that look like blood cells or blood cell components. No complete blood cells have been found. It is possible that stable blood proteins have survived fossilization deep inside the bone, but this is not more surprising than it is rare. Stable protein structures have been found to survive longer periods of fossilization. Further, it has been shown that inorganic structures can imitate organic structures and fool people into thinking they are seeing something they are not.

  So finding 'blood' (possible blood structures) in dinosaur bones does not suggest that dinosaurs walked the earth only thousands of years ago. If it did, then the scientists who discovered it would be rich and famous nobel prize winners by now.

  rem
• 

  hawkaw

  I noted this morning that Hooberus decided to attack the "dating" information by clearly misrepresenting the facts.

  It also is clearly interesting that Hooberus won't even touch lacustrine clay varves nor go after deposition/erosion processes. Say's a lot .... doesn't it.

  I could see Hooberus still trying to explain that the earth was flat if there were no pesky round the world ships, planes and space craft.

  hawk

  Edited by - hawkaw on 23 October 2002 10:40:21
• 

  hooberus

  hawkaw said:

  "I noted this morning that Hooberus decided to attack the "dating" information by clearly misrepresenting the facts"

  Please list the facts on the dating information that you charge me with "clearly misrepresenting" You made an accusation without presenting.

  Also, Just because I haven't responed yet to your varve and erosional arguments doesn't "say alot"

  I don't believe in a "flat earth" nor does the Bible teach a flat earth. The bible teaches that the earth is a sphere which hangs on nothing. see Job and Isaiah. Just because some mideval church men taught a flat earth doesn't mean that I believe it.

  Edited by - hooberus on 23 October 2002 18:53:37
• 

  hooberus

  cellmould talked about smart people who believe in stupid things.

  Like an evolutionary "professor" who upon stumbling on a fish fossil says:

  "This is my great-great-great-etc. grandmothers remains . . . its only scientific to say so . . . all the other intellectual professors believe this too . . . only religious quacks disagree . . .

  "Professing themselves to be wise they became fools . . . " Romans chapter 1
• 

  rem

  Hooberus,

  Like an evolutionary "professor" who upon stumbling on a fish fossil says:
  
  "This is my great-great-great-etc. grandmothers remains . . . its only scientific to say so . . . all the other intellectual professors believe this too . . . only religious quacks disagree . . .

  Yes, this would be an extremely stupid thing to say. Is this a real quote by a real professor?

  There would be no way of knowing if an ancient fossilized fish was an ancestor of ours. The odds are overwhelmingly against such a thing. At best we are distantly related, like cousins - extremely distant cousins. But even that analogy is stretching it a bit. It's best to say that all life on earth is (usually extremely distantly) related and shares a common ancestor at the beginning (almost 4 billion years ago).

  Could you provide the cite for this quote or did you make it up? Just curious.

  rem
• 

  hooberus

  No rem, its not an actual quote, however it is factually accurate in that that evolutionists do believe that we came from extinct fish. Some might argue that we only share a "common ancestor" with the fish, however this common ancestor was itself a fish. These fish supposedly evolved into amphibians, then reptiles, then mammals, finally culminating in beautiful people like Cindy Crawford. Yes, evolution teaches that our great grandmother was in fact a fish, as fish are portrayed as being on the evolutionary path culminating in man. Evolutionary professors have in fact pointed to certain types of extinct fish fossils as being direct ancestors in the pathway leading to man, hense our grandparents.

  Edited by - hooberus on 23 October 2002 21:58:14
• 

  hooberus

  Yes to become a member of the Creation Research Society, you must agree with the statement of beliefs. In fact to become a member of most societies you must agree with their statement of beliefs. For example if you had a "Physicians for a Vegitarian Diet" society, you would to join have to be a physician who subscribes to a vegitarian diet. This however would not mean that your views aren't valid. We could form a group called the "The Watchtower is A False Prophet Society" Membership would be composed of those who have studied the history of the WTBTS and have come to the conclusion that the WT is indeed a false prophet. This would be a "biased" society, however our views would still be vaild. In the same way just because the CRS has a belief statement doesn't invalidate their views, Just as "Evolutionary Societies" views aren't invalidated by their members being required to believe in macro-evolution. Many of the members of the CRS used to be evolutionists, but based on a personal re-evaluation of the data they come to believe that creation is more scientifically accurate, thus they joined the CRS.