From: Duff,Robert Joel (rjduff@uakron.edu)
Date: Wed Oct 01 2003 - 13:46:47 EDT
Burgy,
I think your perception that RATE is where creation scientists will be focussing the efforts is right on. I've started to see the RATE research filtering down to the dialogue among lay people in the church. The rate :-) at which the work is being disseminated is impressive and the RATE project appears to be a unifying piece of work among the various organizations at a time when some cracks had been beginning to show themselves. I have to admit that the articles generated by the last ICC appear to many to be more substantial at first glance.
Even without specific training in physics and geology I could easily pick out flaws in past research but these new articles ratchett up the lingo enough that when I was confronted recently with some of RATE conclusions recently I had to admit they sounded pretty good. The conclusions they are drawing from these studies would appear to draw a clear line between an old and young earth. While the rhetoric appears to be very strong with this new work and will likely be even more effective with the masses, I would imagine that the strategy could potentially be quite devestating to creation science if they are shown to be clearly wrong.
Although a seeming waste of money to some, I've often thought that it would be interesting to present a specific challenge to the YEC community. The challenge would be for a couple Christians who are persuaded by the old earth evidence and a group of YECs to jointly derive research experiments to directly test the assumptions of the two competing theories. Each group would devise two expeiments that they feel would test this theory. Presumably each group would derive test they think would provide evidence in support of their model BUT in each case the other group would have a chance to a priori write about what there expectations would be for those same experiments. Both groups would eventually have to agree to a set of hypotheses and agree on how they would interpret the result prior to collecting the data. The data would be collected as agreed upon by both parties and published with both sides interpreting the data. I've always wondered if such an arrangement could!
be made if NSF could be coaxed into supporting the challenge. My guess is that no YEC volunteers would be found for such a challenge. I like to think of this as an equivalent to the $250,000 Hovind challenge (or has he upped that to a million now?).
Joel Duff
* I'd like to start a new topic, very tightly focused.
*
* AIG sent me this ad:
* ----
* Don't miss it. A bombshell for anyone who believes in
* millions of years!
* Startling breakthroughs in radiometric dating--announced by the
* five-year-old RATE (Radioactivity and the Age of The Earth) research
* group--will put scientists who believe in 'millions of years'
* on the run.
* Make sure to tell your friends!
*
* Read about this cutting-edge research that confirms biblical
* history this
* week at:
* http://www.AnswersInGenesis.org
* -----
* The October 2003 Acts and facts, from ICR, also features this work.
*
* One claim being made includes the fact that "100 million year
* old" coal
* still contains C14. It should contain none. A second claim, made by
* Humphreys, is that, based on the helium content of granite,
* the flood was
* 5680 +- 2000 year ago. "This is prima facie evidence for a
* young earth,"
* he writes (pg 2).
*
* My perception is that ICR, AOSA and AIG are using this
* research (?) as a
* major new thrust to argue their YEC claims.
*
* ICR's "Impact #364" contains a somewhat technical (high school level)
* analysis of Humphrey's claim by John Baumgardner, an ICR geophysicist.
* Page iii of that monograph has a graphic which renames C14 as "modern
* carbon" and is clearly created by someone who never read
* Tufte's book on
* how to make graphics.
*
* Comments?
*
* Burgy
*
* www.burgy.50megs.com
*
*
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