Much to the joy of the readers of the reflector, I'm sure, I'm biting
back me knee-jerk reaction to your post. Instead, I propose an excersize
for you...
On Wed, 20 Mar 1996, Tony Jester wrote:
> continued from last message
>
>
> SJ>2. Then radiometric dating established that the earth is
> >thousands of millions of years old.
>
> I'm sorry, radiometric dating relies on too many assumptions, and
> there are way too many known gigantic errors, such as the basaltic
> rocks of the Uinkaret Plateau of the Grand Canyon (an area I'm very
> familiar with), and many, many others, for it to be convincing to me.
>
Part One: Write down all the assumptions you think are involved with
radiometric dating in general, and if you can, write down all the
assumptions involved with each particular method (yes, there are
differences). Ask a question of each assumption - can it be tested in
any form? Also ask whether or not each assumption should be tested for
each individual case.
> SJ> 4. There is no positive evidence that the Earth is 10,000 years
> >old.
>
> I disagree. There is LOTS of evidence for this figure. First of
> all, as I have said, the Bible itself seems to indicate this, and
> IF we are Christians, we certainly ought to take this information
> seriously. Of course the Bible does not come out and tell us
> plainly these ages so we must rely on genealogies, etc. which of
> course could be wrong, but it does not seem reasonable to me that
> they could be off by so large a factor.
I disagree with you :)
>
> Science also provides us with much evidence to dispute the "old
> earth" idea. Examples:
>
> 1. There's not enough helium in our atmosphere.
> 2. Excessively high oil, gas, and water pressures existing within
> the relatively permeable rock. These pressures should have
> leaked down by now.
> 3. There's not enough volcanic sediment, considering the known
> amount of material being ejected each year.
> 4. There's not enough river sediment in the oceans to account for
> the known amount entering the oceans each year.
> 5. The continents are eroding WAY to fast for them to be
> "millions" of years old. They should be flat by now.
> 6. "The rate at which elements such as copper, gold, tin, lead,
> silicon, mercury, uranium, and nickel are entering the oceans
> is very rapid when compared with the small quantities of these
> elements already in the oceans. There is no known means by which
> large amounts of these elements can precipitate out of the
> oceans. Therefore, the oceans must be very much younger than
> a million years." "In The Beginning..." by Walter T. Brown, Jr.
> 7. Meteorite material is only found in the sediments near the
> earth's surface.
> 8. Meteoritic Dust. (One of my personal favorites) Remember those
> big pads on the Apollo spacecraft???
> 9. The decay of the earth's magnetic field. If indeed this field
> is caused by an electric current inside the earth, considering
> the rate of decrease, and extrapolating backwards, there would
> have been too much heat for the earth to be more than 20,000
> years old. (please don't remind me of "reversals". There is
> no direct evidence to support this, it is merely an assumption
> to explain away the obvious.
> 10.The fact that there are still so many comets left.
> 11.The fact of Galaxy clusters. (I know, I know. "Missing Mass".
> yea, right.)
> 12. And on and on...
Part two:
List all the assumptions involved in each of the above. Do the same as
mentioned for radiometric dating. By the way, if you say they make no
assumptions, you get an F. But another question must be asked about some
of the above: is it a _necessary_ prediction that fails (e.g. erosion)?
One frequently overlooked aspect of testing models and theories is that
the predictions must be testable, but the also must be _required_ by the
theory.
Oh, and also don't assume that they tell you allthe assumptions. Sit
down and try to think of more.
One last thing, don't immediately assume something is "wrong." Take, for
example, your statement about magnetic reversals. They aren't assumed,
as you state. Rocks are found all over the earth with they're ChRM
(Characteristic reminant mag) reversed. This is not an assumption, it's
a fact. Another fact is that self-reversal in rocks is very rare and
usually requires a very specific chemical content to occur. In other
words, you can't do what Barnes did and just dismiss them (If you do some
research you'll find that Humphreys now allows for magnetic reversals in
his "model"). In other words, dismissing reversal data is "an attempt to
explain away the obvious."
Remember that it isn't the number of assumptions that makes a method
useful or not. It's the validity of the assumptions made.
Tom