[_ Old Earth _] Millions of Years

[Soma-Sight]

How long were Adam and Eve in the garden BEFORE the fall?

 

[Radical Edward]

I read a study once where they did carbon dating on a dead animal which had died about a week before the test occured. The carbon dating system found that the dog was actually 60,000 years old. That seems reliable to me.

That seems faulty for a number of reasons

1) you swap from "animal" to "dog" was it a dog or not? I'd like to see the paper please

2) If it was in fact the numerous examples of people testing shellfish, seals or anything where the carbon source of the animal is not atmospheric (e.g. from dissolved limestone) then the experiment is invalid, since this only works for atmospheric carbon sources. so even if it was a dog, it's primary diet yould have been fish. This is also true for examples where the animal has been preserved, resulting in Hovind's mammoth with several ages.

3) The oldest date that carbon dating can return is about 50,000 years, and even this is suspect, since 50,000 years is equivalent to indeterminate age, since there is so little radioactivity from the carbon at that stage it is washed out by the background radiation. so even an animal with a little bit of carbon from a limestone source would appear younger than this. It almost sounds like someone forgot to turn on the geiger counter, or put the sample in the tray.

even from a cursory analysis, the example given is hideously flawed, I really wouldn't trust anyone who told you that sort of thing.

 

[jsasaki06]

Nothing in science is proven, but claims are made based on empirical evidence. Even if you don't believe that the earth is millions of years old, it is hard to see how the rest of the universe could have been formed in less time.

 

[John]

Nothing in science is proven, but claims are made based on empirical evidence. Even if you don't believe that the earth is millions of years old, it is hard to see how the rest of the universe could have been formed in less time.

Time dilation effect?

 

[Barbarian]

There would be no oil deposit pressure left

Don't see why. The gradual build-up of sedimentary rock overlaying deposits would assure that.

*Niagra falls only shows 5,000 years worth of erosion

That would work, if Niagra Falls were as old as the Earth, but those lakes and Rivers were formed after the last ice age, very recently.

*Coral reefs only show 3,000 years of build up (since the flood)

At Enitiwok atoll, navy SeaBees drilled nearly a mile down into coral, before they got to volcanic rock. Reef building coral grows about 0.5 cm per year, about 1/4 inch. That means even if Enitiwok was as old as the Earth (and is demonstrably is not) there would be hundreds of thousands of years of growth.

*The decay rate of the Earth's magnetic feild proves the earth is under 10,000 years old

We can detect ancient magnetic fields in rocks (iron particles align in molten rock and then freeze in position) and the Earth's field fluctuates in strength, sometimes stronger, sometimes it gets weaker. It can't be extrapolated from current rates.

There should be a far greater amount of atmospheric helium.

Geophysicists tell me that we have just the amount we should, given release from the Earth, and offgassing from our atmosphere.

Another thing ppl may want to check out is what they have been discovering as they study what has happend in the Mt. St. Helens area since May of 1980. They have been shocked to find that what they once thought took millions of years can happen in a few short hours, weeks and years.

Not shocked. Not even surprised. Geologists have always known that gulleys can form in soft deposits.

But they don't go a mile high. I've been there, and whenever they get a few meters high, they slump into the channel. Similar results have been seen in Tennessee, when soft mine tailings erode. I was there a few years ago; here's what happened:

Notice that it is what you'd expect; gullies cut in soft ash, with slumping as soon as it gets more than a few meters high.

On the other hand, do you think soft sediment and a sudden flood could do this:

 

[Patashu]

Re:

I am not saying the world is 6000 years old, the age of the earth is irrelevant to me. I just think that the whole mountain of evidence that the earth is 4 to 6 billion years old is ludacrious. I say that not froma Christian perspective, but as a person. How can we put our trust in a system that we haven't been around long enough to see if it actually works.

If the only form of scientific evidence is being around to observe the event itself, what do you think of the science of forensics?

I read a study once where they did carbon dating on a dead animal which had died about a week before the test occured. The carbon dating system found that the dog was actually 60,000 years old.

I call bull poo unless you can provide a source.
Also, I can use a watch to prove it is any time of the day. Watches calibrated for earth days will also be inaccurate on mars. Does this mean a watch is untrustworthy just because it can be misused to give incorrect results?

 

[Barbarian]

The animal in question wasn't a dog. It was a seal. Seals which eat mollusks, get much of their carbon from mollusks, which get it from geological (and therefore ancient) sources. Hence the erroneous results for such seals.

Scientists are well aware of such things. Besides, C-14 is not used to date the age of the Earth.

 

[lordkalvan]

Re: water to wine

Micah,

< I'm of the opinion that God created the world approx. 6000 years ago but that the world is about 6 million years old.>>

I think I agree with you brother. The Lord can do anything.....

If God can create with the appearance of age and the appearance of that age is millions (or billions) of years, then science can only look at the evidence and conclude that what appears to be millions (or billions) of years old is, in fact, millions (or billions) of years old. The argument of created age is wholly self-defeating as it makes no practical difference whether the world looks old because it is old or whether it looks old because it has been made to look old. It also implies a trickster God whose intent is only to confuse and mislead. This whole idea has been a dead donkey since Philip Henry Gosse tried to breathe life into it a century-and-a-half ago in Omphalos.