Bronzesnake
Member
OK, I'm going to start off this discussion with a story.
Some aliens came to study high school students.
They wanted to know the average age of high school students using the scientific method, and so they split into two groups.
The first group went to Ontario high schools and discovered the average height of the high school student was 65 inches.
Over three years the aliens discovered the average height gain of a high school student was 1 inch.
Extrapolating, they recorded the average age of a high school student was 65 years old.
The second group of aliens went to B.C. high schools and discovered the average weight of a high school student was 130 pound.
Over three years the aliens discovered the average weight gain by high school students was 2 pound.
They extrapolated and recorded the average age of a high school student was 65 years old.
The parents of the students protested and told the aliens the kids were just teenagers, and yet the aliens disregarded this testimony choosing to stick rigidly to the scientific method.
OK, so what did the aliens do wrong?
1) They assumed constant rate, and extrapolated the height and weight over the life of the student.
2) They assumed "zero" initial condition. That is that babies were born with zero height and weight.
3) They disregarded eye witness accounts, choosing to stick with the “reliable†scientific method.
The radioisotope dating method suffers from the same assumptions.
Radioactive atoms decay into stable atoms.
For example, uranium decays into lead. The radioactive atom is known as the “parent†atom and the stable atom is the “daughter†atom.
The radioactive atoms decay at a known rate into the daughter atoms.
An hour glass has been used as a good analogy.
We can estimate how much time has passed with an hourglass by calculating how much sand has escaped from the top to the bottom.
Think of a rock as an hourglass. The scientist first measures the parent atoms (sand at the top of the hourglass) then the daughter atoms (sand at the bottom of the hourglass)
Based on their observation, and the known rate of decay from parent to daughter, scientists are able to calculate the age of the rock by estimating the time it took for the daughter isotope to accumulate in the rock.
We can check an hourglass’ accuracy by resetting it and measuring the time it takes for the sand to empty with a reliable clock, however we cannot do the same with a rock.
We are forced to make three huge improvable assumptions for the radioisotope method, just as the aliens did.
There is no way to know what the parent/daughter composition was when the rock was formed.
So assumption 1 is what were the starting conditions
For example, with regard to volcanic lavas that erupted, flowed, and cooled to form rocks in the unobserved past, evolutionary geologists simply assume that none of the daughter argon-40 atoms was in the lava rocks.
Evolutionary scientists have assumed that by analyzing multiple samples of a rock body, or unit, today it is possible to determine how much of the daughter isotopes were present when the rock formed by using the isochron technique, which is still based on unproven assumptions 2 and 3.
This method fails because we have lava flows from the present which have been tested soon after they erupted, and they invariably contained much more argon-40 than expected.
For example, a sample of the lava in the Mt. St. Helens crater that had been observed to form and cool in 1986 was sent in to be analyzed in 1996 and it contained so much argon-40 that it had a calculated “age†of 350,000 years!
There are also examples from lava flows on the sides of Mt. Ngauruhoe, New Zealand known to be less than 50 years old, which have yielded “ages†of up to 3.5 million years!
So it is logical to conclude that if recent lava flows of known age yield incorrect old potassium-argon ages due to the extra argon-40 that they inherited from the erupting volcanoes, then ancient lava flows of unknown ages could likewise have inherited extra argon-40 and yield excessively old ages.
There are also huge problems for example with Grand Canyon’s basalts.
There are places on the North Rim where volcanoes erupted after the Canyon was formed, sending lavas cascading over the walls and down into the Canyon.
These eruptions took place very recently, after the Canyon’s layers were deposited. These basalts are dated at ages of up to 1 million years based on the amounts of potassium and argon isotopes in the rocks. But when they date the rocks using the rubidium and strontium isotopes, we get an age of 1.143 billion years! This is the same age as the basalt layers deep below the walls of the eastern Grand Canyon. How could lavas at the top and one at the bottom of the Canyon be the same age?
It’s obvious that what is happening is that the recent and the early lava flows share the same source for their rubidium-strontium chemistry. So the methods used do not give accurate ages, rather they show how lava flows from different time periods can be infused with the same rubidium-strontium (in this case)chemistry. They share the same source the deep in the earth’s upper mantle. This source already had both rubidium and strontium.
To make matters even worse for the claimed reliability of these radiometric dating methods, these same basalts that flowed from the top of the Canyon yield a samarium-neodymium age of about 916 million years, and a uranium-lead age of about 2.6 billion years!
The conclusion is obvious. The dates are way off and completely unreliable for giving accurate information.
The only usefulness these dating methods have is to perpetuate the dying last gasps of a terminally ill theory.
Assumption 2 is contamination
Unlike the hourglass, where its two bowls are sealed, the radioactive “clock†in rocks is open to contamination by gain or loss of parent or daughter isotopes because of waters flowing in the ground from rainfall and from the molten rocks beneath volcanoes. Similarly, as molten lava rises through a conduit from deep inside the earth to be erupted through a volcano, pieces of the conduit wallrocks and their isotopes can mix into the lava and contaminate it.
Because of such contamination, the less than 50-year-old lava flows at Mt. Ngauruhoe, New Zealand, yield a rubidium-strontium “age†of 133 million years, a samarium-neodymium “age†of 197 million years, and a uranium-lead “age†of 3.908 billion years!
Assumption 3 constant rate of decay
It has been assumed by evolution scientists that decay rates have always been the same.
However new evidence, has recently been discovered that can only be explained by the radioactive decay rates not having been constant in the past.
For example, the radioactive decay of uranium in tiny crystals in some New Mexico granite yields a uranium-lead “age†of 1.5 billion years. Yet the same uranium decay also produced abundant helium, but only 6,000 years worth of that helium was found to have leaked out of the tiny crystals.
This means that the uranium must have decayed very rapidly over the same 6,000 years that the helium was leaking. The rate of uranium decay must have been at least 250,000 times faster than today’s measured rate.
Hey, if you want to gamble your life on this kind of shaky methodology then go right ahead my friends, but it’s this very kind of information that opened my eyes.
I would have to be purposefully and wilfully blind to the truth for me to accept evolutionary ages based on these kinds of tests.
John
Some aliens came to study high school students.
They wanted to know the average age of high school students using the scientific method, and so they split into two groups.
The first group went to Ontario high schools and discovered the average height of the high school student was 65 inches.
Over three years the aliens discovered the average height gain of a high school student was 1 inch.
Extrapolating, they recorded the average age of a high school student was 65 years old.
The second group of aliens went to B.C. high schools and discovered the average weight of a high school student was 130 pound.
Over three years the aliens discovered the average weight gain by high school students was 2 pound.
They extrapolated and recorded the average age of a high school student was 65 years old.
The parents of the students protested and told the aliens the kids were just teenagers, and yet the aliens disregarded this testimony choosing to stick rigidly to the scientific method.
OK, so what did the aliens do wrong?
1) They assumed constant rate, and extrapolated the height and weight over the life of the student.
2) They assumed "zero" initial condition. That is that babies were born with zero height and weight.
3) They disregarded eye witness accounts, choosing to stick with the “reliable†scientific method.
The radioisotope dating method suffers from the same assumptions.
Radioactive atoms decay into stable atoms.
For example, uranium decays into lead. The radioactive atom is known as the “parent†atom and the stable atom is the “daughter†atom.
The radioactive atoms decay at a known rate into the daughter atoms.
An hour glass has been used as a good analogy.
We can estimate how much time has passed with an hourglass by calculating how much sand has escaped from the top to the bottom.
Think of a rock as an hourglass. The scientist first measures the parent atoms (sand at the top of the hourglass) then the daughter atoms (sand at the bottom of the hourglass)
Based on their observation, and the known rate of decay from parent to daughter, scientists are able to calculate the age of the rock by estimating the time it took for the daughter isotope to accumulate in the rock.
We can check an hourglass’ accuracy by resetting it and measuring the time it takes for the sand to empty with a reliable clock, however we cannot do the same with a rock.
We are forced to make three huge improvable assumptions for the radioisotope method, just as the aliens did.
There is no way to know what the parent/daughter composition was when the rock was formed.
So assumption 1 is what were the starting conditions
For example, with regard to volcanic lavas that erupted, flowed, and cooled to form rocks in the unobserved past, evolutionary geologists simply assume that none of the daughter argon-40 atoms was in the lava rocks.
Evolutionary scientists have assumed that by analyzing multiple samples of a rock body, or unit, today it is possible to determine how much of the daughter isotopes were present when the rock formed by using the isochron technique, which is still based on unproven assumptions 2 and 3.
This method fails because we have lava flows from the present which have been tested soon after they erupted, and they invariably contained much more argon-40 than expected.
For example, a sample of the lava in the Mt. St. Helens crater that had been observed to form and cool in 1986 was sent in to be analyzed in 1996 and it contained so much argon-40 that it had a calculated “age†of 350,000 years!
There are also examples from lava flows on the sides of Mt. Ngauruhoe, New Zealand known to be less than 50 years old, which have yielded “ages†of up to 3.5 million years!
So it is logical to conclude that if recent lava flows of known age yield incorrect old potassium-argon ages due to the extra argon-40 that they inherited from the erupting volcanoes, then ancient lava flows of unknown ages could likewise have inherited extra argon-40 and yield excessively old ages.
There are also huge problems for example with Grand Canyon’s basalts.
There are places on the North Rim where volcanoes erupted after the Canyon was formed, sending lavas cascading over the walls and down into the Canyon.
These eruptions took place very recently, after the Canyon’s layers were deposited. These basalts are dated at ages of up to 1 million years based on the amounts of potassium and argon isotopes in the rocks. But when they date the rocks using the rubidium and strontium isotopes, we get an age of 1.143 billion years! This is the same age as the basalt layers deep below the walls of the eastern Grand Canyon. How could lavas at the top and one at the bottom of the Canyon be the same age?
It’s obvious that what is happening is that the recent and the early lava flows share the same source for their rubidium-strontium chemistry. So the methods used do not give accurate ages, rather they show how lava flows from different time periods can be infused with the same rubidium-strontium (in this case)chemistry. They share the same source the deep in the earth’s upper mantle. This source already had both rubidium and strontium.
To make matters even worse for the claimed reliability of these radiometric dating methods, these same basalts that flowed from the top of the Canyon yield a samarium-neodymium age of about 916 million years, and a uranium-lead age of about 2.6 billion years!
The conclusion is obvious. The dates are way off and completely unreliable for giving accurate information.
The only usefulness these dating methods have is to perpetuate the dying last gasps of a terminally ill theory.
Assumption 2 is contamination
Unlike the hourglass, where its two bowls are sealed, the radioactive “clock†in rocks is open to contamination by gain or loss of parent or daughter isotopes because of waters flowing in the ground from rainfall and from the molten rocks beneath volcanoes. Similarly, as molten lava rises through a conduit from deep inside the earth to be erupted through a volcano, pieces of the conduit wallrocks and their isotopes can mix into the lava and contaminate it.
Because of such contamination, the less than 50-year-old lava flows at Mt. Ngauruhoe, New Zealand, yield a rubidium-strontium “age†of 133 million years, a samarium-neodymium “age†of 197 million years, and a uranium-lead “age†of 3.908 billion years!
Assumption 3 constant rate of decay
It has been assumed by evolution scientists that decay rates have always been the same.
However new evidence, has recently been discovered that can only be explained by the radioactive decay rates not having been constant in the past.
For example, the radioactive decay of uranium in tiny crystals in some New Mexico granite yields a uranium-lead “age†of 1.5 billion years. Yet the same uranium decay also produced abundant helium, but only 6,000 years worth of that helium was found to have leaked out of the tiny crystals.
This means that the uranium must have decayed very rapidly over the same 6,000 years that the helium was leaking. The rate of uranium decay must have been at least 250,000 times faster than today’s measured rate.
Hey, if you want to gamble your life on this kind of shaky methodology then go right ahead my friends, but it’s this very kind of information that opened my eyes.
I would have to be purposefully and wilfully blind to the truth for me to accept evolutionary ages based on these kinds of tests.
John
why do these debates wind up with my source is better then yours?