#6 No @/clousems, it mustn't.Thinking and believing are not opposites. Maybe they are not same, but thinking people can believe and believing people can think.At least that's the case for me.
@AOOP09 said in #82:
> #6 No @/clousems, it mustn't.Thinking and believing are not opposites. Maybe they are not same, but thinking people can believe and believing people can think.At least that's the case for me.
This is questionable.
"Thinking" is the knowledge of (observable) facts and the combination of these by way of deduction and induction. The latter is commonly referred to as "theory building". In other words: scientific heuristics (i will forego some philosophical debates here like neoplatonism, critical theory, positivism, empirio-critizism, dialectical materialism, etc. - they are not relevant for this discussion).
"Believing" is exactly not that but accepting circumstances without any critical assessment whatsoever. "Believing in god(s)." is not only based on nothing but conjecture (or can you demostrate "god" like i.e. a planetologist can demostrate continental drift) and is against Occams razor.
So, basically, to be able to believe in something (foremost god) you need to at least selectively suspend your critical thinking in this regard and to think you need to stop believing otherwise you have no reason to think at all. Even Immanuel Kant says that in "Critique of Pure Reason":
> Ich bin zwar nicht der Meinung, welche vortreffliche und nachdenkende
> Männer (z.B. Sulzer) so oft geäußert haben, da sie die Schwäche der
> bisherigen Beweise fühlten: daß man hoffen könne, man werde dereinst
> noch evidente Demonstrationen der zwei Kardinalsätze unserer reinen
> Vernunft: es ist ein Gott, es ist ein künftiges Leben, erfinden.
> Vielmehr bin ich gewiß, daß dieses niemals geschehen werde.
>
> (Des ersten Hauptstücks Zweiter Abschnitt: Die Disziplin der reinen Vernunft in Ansehung ihres polemischen
Gebrauchs http://www.bundvfd.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/kritikderreinenvernunft.pdf)
> (translation by Philip McPherson Rudisill [2019] kantwesley.com/Kant/CritiqueOfPureReason.)
> Indeed I am not of the opinion, so often expressed by excellent and reflect-
> ing people (e.g., Sulzer), since they felt the weakness of the previous proofs,
> that we can hope one day to invent yet evident demonstrations of the two
> cardinal propositions of our pure reason: there is a God, there is a future life.
>
> I am far rather certain that this will never happen.
So, "believe" whatever you want - just don't expect anyone to appreciate what you believe to the same extent one appreciates scientific knowledge. Jumping out of a plane the knowledge of gravitation, air resistance, etc. and the application of that knowledge by way of a parachute is a much safer proposition than "I believe i can fly".
> #6 No @/clousems, it mustn't.Thinking and believing are not opposites. Maybe they are not same, but thinking people can believe and believing people can think.At least that's the case for me.
This is questionable.
"Thinking" is the knowledge of (observable) facts and the combination of these by way of deduction and induction. The latter is commonly referred to as "theory building". In other words: scientific heuristics (i will forego some philosophical debates here like neoplatonism, critical theory, positivism, empirio-critizism, dialectical materialism, etc. - they are not relevant for this discussion).
"Believing" is exactly not that but accepting circumstances without any critical assessment whatsoever. "Believing in god(s)." is not only based on nothing but conjecture (or can you demostrate "god" like i.e. a planetologist can demostrate continental drift) and is against Occams razor.
So, basically, to be able to believe in something (foremost god) you need to at least selectively suspend your critical thinking in this regard and to think you need to stop believing otherwise you have no reason to think at all. Even Immanuel Kant says that in "Critique of Pure Reason":
> Ich bin zwar nicht der Meinung, welche vortreffliche und nachdenkende
> Männer (z.B. Sulzer) so oft geäußert haben, da sie die Schwäche der
> bisherigen Beweise fühlten: daß man hoffen könne, man werde dereinst
> noch evidente Demonstrationen der zwei Kardinalsätze unserer reinen
> Vernunft: es ist ein Gott, es ist ein künftiges Leben, erfinden.
> Vielmehr bin ich gewiß, daß dieses niemals geschehen werde.
>
> (Des ersten Hauptstücks Zweiter Abschnitt: Die Disziplin der reinen Vernunft in Ansehung ihres polemischen
Gebrauchs http://www.bundvfd.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/kritikderreinenvernunft.pdf)
> (translation by Philip McPherson Rudisill [2019] kantwesley.com/Kant/CritiqueOfPureReason.)
> Indeed I am not of the opinion, so often expressed by excellent and reflect-
> ing people (e.g., Sulzer), since they felt the weakness of the previous proofs,
> that we can hope one day to invent yet evident demonstrations of the two
> cardinal propositions of our pure reason: there is a God, there is a future life.
>
> I am far rather certain that this will never happen.
So, "believe" whatever you want - just don't expect anyone to appreciate what you believe to the same extent one appreciates scientific knowledge. Jumping out of a plane the knowledge of gravitation, air resistance, etc. and the application of that knowledge by way of a parachute is a much safer proposition than "I believe i can fly".
I'm a theist and i believe evolution.But i also believe God.This is my case.Everybody has to respect each other,no matter what.
@AOOP09 said in #84:
> I'm a theist and i believe evolution.
And this is exactly the point. You SHOULDN'T, MUSTN'T "believe" evolution (or any other scientifc theory, for that matter). You should critically assess what the theory is able to offer and what the facts supporting the theory are. Then you should use that theory until some better theory comes along.
For instance: when Newton found out about gravity and the laws of motion this was such a theory. It proved to be useful and predict correctly what was going to happen, but then Einstein came along and showed that Newtons theory is only a good approximation and when velocities relevant vis-a-vis the speed of light are involved it is not correct. Since then (at least since Einstein explained the motion of Mercure correctly, which wasn't possible using Newtons theory) we use the theories of special and general relativity instead of Newtons theory - or we use it because it is still a good approximation for low speeds and is easier to handle, but we are aware that it is an approximation nonetheless.
But there is no need to "believe" in "gravitation as a theory" - just go to the roof of the next scyscraper, jump off and you will get an immediate result - just wait a few seconds. And that, regardless of you believing anything or not. This is the way science comes to results: they are
1 - observable (by anybody, no burning bushes somewhere in the desert involved)
2 - repeatable (also by anybody)
3 - they actually PREDICT something and what they predict can be shown to be correct or wrong
All these things are not true for the belief in invisible friends. So, again: believe whatever you want. The only problem with these invisible friends is that the first thing they tell there followers is that the are morally superior which is why crusades, inquisitions, burning heretics at the stakes and other examples of GODs undying love carried out by his followers are justified.
Just like you are probably feeling morally and ethical superior to me because you spam "Obey the forum rules!" into every second thread, but that only as an aside. Never mind. Just think about "doctor angelicus" and "Saint" Augustine, who wrote in "De Civitate Dei" that the redeemed ones will - to even enhance their joy - be able to watch the pain of the damned in hell clearly. Now, believers may be so morally superior that they take joy out of watching others suffer whereas i am only so rotten that other peoples pain invokes only pity in me.
> I'm a theist and i believe evolution.
And this is exactly the point. You SHOULDN'T, MUSTN'T "believe" evolution (or any other scientifc theory, for that matter). You should critically assess what the theory is able to offer and what the facts supporting the theory are. Then you should use that theory until some better theory comes along.
For instance: when Newton found out about gravity and the laws of motion this was such a theory. It proved to be useful and predict correctly what was going to happen, but then Einstein came along and showed that Newtons theory is only a good approximation and when velocities relevant vis-a-vis the speed of light are involved it is not correct. Since then (at least since Einstein explained the motion of Mercure correctly, which wasn't possible using Newtons theory) we use the theories of special and general relativity instead of Newtons theory - or we use it because it is still a good approximation for low speeds and is easier to handle, but we are aware that it is an approximation nonetheless.
But there is no need to "believe" in "gravitation as a theory" - just go to the roof of the next scyscraper, jump off and you will get an immediate result - just wait a few seconds. And that, regardless of you believing anything or not. This is the way science comes to results: they are
1 - observable (by anybody, no burning bushes somewhere in the desert involved)
2 - repeatable (also by anybody)
3 - they actually PREDICT something and what they predict can be shown to be correct or wrong
All these things are not true for the belief in invisible friends. So, again: believe whatever you want. The only problem with these invisible friends is that the first thing they tell there followers is that the are morally superior which is why crusades, inquisitions, burning heretics at the stakes and other examples of GODs undying love carried out by his followers are justified.
Just like you are probably feeling morally and ethical superior to me because you spam "Obey the forum rules!" into every second thread, but that only as an aside. Never mind. Just think about "doctor angelicus" and "Saint" Augustine, who wrote in "De Civitate Dei" that the redeemed ones will - to even enhance their joy - be able to watch the pain of the damned in hell clearly. Now, believers may be so morally superior that they take joy out of watching others suffer whereas i am only so rotten that other peoples pain invokes only pity in me.
Looks like someone is angry because he is not right about ''rules''.LOL.
I will continue believing God and evolution.If someone is atheist,no problem.If someone does not believe in evolution,no problem.
You are talking about truths,but you know what,truth is my religion according to me.Truth depends on person's ideas.
Nobody is going to change their beliefs because of what they see from a chess website, so i think this conversation is nonsense.
I will continue believing God and evolution.If someone is atheist,no problem.If someone does not believe in evolution,no problem.
You are talking about truths,but you know what,truth is my religion according to me.Truth depends on person's ideas.
Nobody is going to change their beliefs because of what they see from a chess website, so i think this conversation is nonsense.
@AOOP09 said in #86:
> Looks like someone is angry because he is not right about ''rules''.LOL.
Yes, sure. This insinuation is about as asinine as:
> You are talking about truths
I have not. In fact ii spent a whole apragraph explaining that there are no "truths" in science, only theories which hold until a better theory comes along. In fact i said:
> And this is exactly the point. You SHOULDN'T, MUSTN'T "believe" evolution (or
> any other scientifc theory, for that matter). You should critically assess [...]
It seems that your ability to understand my postings is about as big as your ability to understand the forum rules. I suggest reading the bible*) instead of both.
______________
*) or any other "holy book", for that matter
> Looks like someone is angry because he is not right about ''rules''.LOL.
Yes, sure. This insinuation is about as asinine as:
> You are talking about truths
I have not. In fact ii spent a whole apragraph explaining that there are no "truths" in science, only theories which hold until a better theory comes along. In fact i said:
> And this is exactly the point. You SHOULDN'T, MUSTN'T "believe" evolution (or
> any other scientifc theory, for that matter). You should critically assess [...]
It seems that your ability to understand my postings is about as big as your ability to understand the forum rules. I suggest reading the bible*) instead of both.
______________
*) or any other "holy book", for that matter
''It seems that your ability to understand my postings is about as big as your ability to understand the forum rules.''
I don't read nonsense things and waste my time.
Someone once said that if they get angry with you after an argument, know that you have won the argument! You're still talking about the incident from 2 days ago. LOL!
I don't read nonsense things and waste my time.
Someone once said that if they get angry with you after an argument, know that you have won the argument! You're still talking about the incident from 2 days ago. LOL!
@AOOP09 said in #88:
> Someone once said that if they get angry with you after an argument, know
> that you have won the argument! You're still talking about the incident from
> 2 days ago. LOL!
@Nomen-Nonatur said in #85:
> Just like you are probably feeling morally and ethical superior to me
As i said above, a good scientific theory is signified by being able to predict something correctly. My understanding of you seems to hit pretty close to home
> Someone once said that if they get angry with you after an argument, know
> that you have won the argument! You're still talking about the incident from
> 2 days ago. LOL!
@Nomen-Nonatur said in #85:
> Just like you are probably feeling morally and ethical superior to me
As i said above, a good scientific theory is signified by being able to predict something correctly. My understanding of you seems to hit pretty close to home
It's taken me quite some time to compile this answer and a lot of effort went into it. I'd be honoured if you took the time to read my reply in full. You're not obligated to do so of course. Thank you!
@ddfjdfjh said in #76:
> at Thalassokrator
> "Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon."
> This is copied by me from wikipedia in english
Yes, that's indeed what C14 dating is. I'm not quite sure where you're going with this? It's not relevant to the age of the earth. Due to the relatively short half-life of the Carbon 14 isotope (just over 5000 years), you can only use radiocarbon dating for determining the age of organic remnants which are younger than 75,000 years (which is the world record for radiocarbon dating):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating#Errors_and_reliability
It's pretty easy to see why that is, I already explained this in my post #73: After 75,000 years 13 half-lives will have elapsed, which means that only (1/2)^13 ≈ 0.0122% of the original Carbon 14 still remains, which isn't a lot. It's quite hard to measure such a small quantity, that's (very basically) why this particular isotope cannot be used for dating materials older than 75,000 years.
> The age of the universe is estimated based on the Big Bang theory.
Indeed it is. And the Big Bang theory makes testable predictions and is based on observable evidence:
Evidence such as the cosmological redshift of distant galaxies (increasing with distance, see Hubble's law), the cosmic microwave background radiation (predicted by the Big Bang theory prior to discovery, found accidentally by two radio engineers who didn't even know about the prediction, precisely measured since then by a multitude of radio telescopes both in space and on the ground), the relative abundances of elements in interstellar primordial gas clouds (which was correctly predicted by the theory of Big Bang nucleosynthesis prior to being vindicated by observation), etc.
> I'm not an expert but this is from scientists :
Which group of scientists, if I may ask? I'm curious!
> "The first radioactive dating technique, which was well studied and formed the basis for all the others, uses the fact that uranium-238, an unstable radioactive element, spontaneously decomposes into lead-206.
Corpses decompose. Molecules decompose. In mathematics numbers and functions can decompose. Radioactive isotopes do not. They decay.
Decompose makes it sound like it splits up into its constituent parts. It does not (necessarily). The number of protons in the parent isotope is not necessarily equal to the combined numbers of protons in the daughter isotopes. Radioactive decay is due to the weak nuclear force (one of the four fundamental forces of nature), which can actually change a proton into a neutron (and vice versa, it's called beta-plus/beta-minus decay). So the nucleus is not merely decomposing into its constituent parts. It is literally changing its internal composition during radioactive decay.
Whatever scientist wrote this doesn't seem to be well versed in radioactivity (judging by their lack of appropriate terminology).
> Proponents of the Old Earth concept believe that uranium-238 did not form here on Earth, but was formed by the fusion of smaller atoms inside stars, and was ejected into space during earlier supernova events. Both smaller and larger atoms are thought to be part of the interstellar dust that united and formed Earth billions of years ago.
Actually basically ALL physicists "believe" that. Or rather, it is made apparent to them by observation of primordial gas clouds in interstellar space (no leap of faith required). Those clouds are the future birthplaces of stars (again, from direct observation of stellar nurseries in such gas clouds, star formation is well understood). And these gas clouds don't contain elements heavier than Lithium at all! Big stars however DO contain elements heavier than Lithium. That's because they fuse lighter elements into heavier ones in their cores by a process known as nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion is not some obscure hypothesis, it's an observable process that is so well understood by physicists today, that they can build working nuclear fusion reactors like ITER here on earth (a possible future energy source).
See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER
Pretty clear, isn't it? A star forms from a cloud of gas. The gas cloud does not contain heavy elements. After a while the star contains a small amount of heavy elements (meanwhile it has radiated away energy in the form of light). The heavy elements cannot have come from outside the star, it's surrounded only by the gas clouds (which don't contain heavy elements). So the star must have produced the heavy elements itself! Not only that, but physicists can actually understand how it does it, can replicate it in the lab and can make predictions with their understanding of nuclear fusion that beautifully explain the energy output (in the form of light) of stars like our sun. Nuclear fusion makes the sun shine!
That's how physicists actually know that the elements present on earth cannot have formed on earth itself (planet earth is not nearly hot or dense enough to allow for nuclear fusion), but rather in the hearts of massive stars (and in the collisions of neutron stars, in supernovae, etc.). The earth, and you, and me, we are all literally star dust (at least our matter is, obviously there may be more to us than just our matter)!
> Simply put, when a scientist wants to determine the age of a rock, he must first study the current state of the rock. This means: measuring the amount of each required isotope in that rock, including the amount of uranium-238 and lead-206. This can be done with great precision. Since we already know the rate of decay from parental uranium to lead offspring, we can begin the process of answering the question, "How old is this rock?" How long, in other words, did it take this amount of decomposing uranium to produce the amount of lead present?
Correct. This is precisely how it works! Other than the continued false use of the word "decomposing".
> But is that how we determine the true age of this rock? As can be inferred, the assumptions involved in each dating attempt call into question the age obtained.
> The Bible says: On the first day, "God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1: 1). On the third day, the land was separated from the sea (verse 9). It is certain that the rocks that existed at that time were either those created directly by God, or those that were formed during these early processes.
All right, I see no problem with this paragraph.
> Had scientists been present during the sixth day of creation and taken a specimen of this newly created rock, it would obviously have been only a few days old. (For the sake of illustration, suppose radioactive isotopes began to decay immediately after they were created.) If this rock were taken to a laboratory and dated with a set of assumptions we discussed earlier, how old would this rock look? The question could be: When God created the earth, was lead-206 present then? Or, was this lead concentration too high? If so, the rock has shown an artificial illusion of history from the very beginning, if some assume that the excessive amount of lead-206 comes only from the decay of uranium.
Unfortunately this is not correct. The author speculates whether or not there might have been lead-206 in the mineral a priori, from the very beginning. Whether or not it might have been created with lead inside.
But he needn't speculate about this matter. The answer is actually known. Uranium-lead dating is done with a special mineral, namely zircon. I quote wikipedia:
"This mineral incorporates uranium and thorium atoms into its crystal structure, but strongly rejects lead when forming. As a result, newly-formed zircon deposits will contain no lead, meaning that any lead found in the mineral is radiogenic."
(Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium–lead_dating)
So zircon is known to reject lead, it doesn't like lead and doesn't incorporate it when forming. This fact is conveniently left out by the author you're quoting. Because it destroys their entire argument. The author makes a big deal about the supposed fact that "we cannot know whether or not there was lead to begin with" and "this is just an assumption". But both of those are palpably absurd propositions:
Geologists DO know that zircon rejects lead. That's why they DO know that the lead found in zircon also containing uranium has to be of radiogenic origin (meaning it's the end of the U-238 decay chain). Otherwise they should find zircon mineral that ONLY contains lead and NO uranium, shouldn't they? But when a zircon mineral is found, it contains lead-206 if and only if it also contains Uranium-238! Because zircon naturally repels lead. And by sheer coincidence there's a radioactive decay chain (directly observable in the lab) in which U-238 decays into Pb-206. Boy, what a surprise!
> The Bible says that at the end of the creation period, everything was "very good." Did lead atoms exist in the beginning? We think they are. The various isotopes of lead are indeed "very good" because lead has been used much more by humans throughout history than uranium, which has only been used in recent decades. In order for the Earth to be "very good", it would certainly have to have lead, and various isotopes of lead. We think the rocks looked "old" (if we used those dubious assumptions to date them), even though they were newly created.
Oh, of course there was lead present on earth when those zircon minerals (with incorporated uranium-238) were formed. Lead is lighter than uranium, so it forms more easily (in supernovae and neutron star collisions, look up the r-process and s-process if you want to know how that works). If the earth has uranium, it certainly also has some lead. But it wasn't in the zircon crystals because zircon rejects lead! That's the point.
The author pretends that the zircon minerals were the only possible place for the lead to be. That's absurd and a false dichotomy.
There obviously was lead elsewhere on the earth (more accessible to humans than in zircon minerals at remote locations in Australia). And this lead was indeed "good" in the sense of Genesis, used for plumb lines for example (although I wouldn't advise ingesting it, lead poisoning is not to be taken lightly). But there's nothing to suggest that there was lead (by itself) trapped in zircon crystals. Otherwise there would be zircon crystals with lead but without uranium inside, but such a thing has not been found!
Because not enough time has elapsed since the formation of the earth (which was barely one half-life of U-238 ago) for any U-238 containing zircon crystal to have its uranium depleted by alpha decay. That's because we conveniently live at a time, where the radiogenic origin of the lead-206 trapped inside zircon crystals is still easily detectable in the parent isotope (U-238).
> It is not an act of deception of God's work. The Bible is very clear about the fact that Creation took place only a few thousand years ago, unless we tend to misinterpret isotope relationships.
This is a hyper literalist reading of the bible. Why shouldn't Genesis be read as a metaphor? People who take Genesis to be hyper literal in my opinion don't appreciate the magnificent poetry it contains! The Bible is and was not ever intended to be a science book and that's ok, isn't it?
The parables of Jesus (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parables_of_Jesus#Themes) are not to be taken hyper literal, are they? Why then Genesis?
The author basically argues for the Omphalos hypothesis (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis) here. That God made the universe such that it APPEARED to be old, although NOT being old. The author merely asserts that this isn't deceitful, but I remain unconvinced.
Why should God create a mineral that doesn't naturally incorporate lead (can't be found containing lead without uranium), but does naturally incorporate uranium and why should God make it so that U-238 decays into Pb-206 with a half-life orders of magnitude longer than the actual age of the universe/earth? Why should he then artificially put excess lead into these lead-rejecting uranium-containing minerals, making them appear older than they are? God being omniscient knows that human scientists will one day discover those minerals and arrive at the inescapable conclusion that (without special pleading) the earth is old, very, very old indeed.
Of course we cannot categorically rule out that God has tricked us. But then we also cannot categorically rule out that the world was created five minutes ago, as the philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell once wrote:
"There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago."
—Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind, 1921, pp. 159–60)
The point is that such a view is unfalsifiable. And that isn't a good thing, it is a bad thing. It means that it cannot make any testable predictions. It's therefore worthless for science.
> The accepted age of the Earth today is about 4.61 billion years. Have you ever wondered: How did that number come about? Apparently, based on some of the radioactive dating techniques. But which rock is dated? What rock was there during the formation of the Earth, so that it can give the age of the Earth?
When the earth first formed (condensed from the swirling accretion disk of our young sun, which forms due to the conservation of angular momentum), it was extremely hot. Soon after its formation there was extreme volcanic activity and tectonic plate subduction, a churning cycle of molten rock being exchanged between the earth's interior and its crust. Therefore it indeed seems unlikely to find a rock still left unchanged since the formation of the earth. However, this only means that all rocks that originated on earth can only be dated to an age lower than the age of the earth. So dating such rocks gives a LOWER bound on the age of the earth! The earth is actually a bit older than the oldest found rocks (that originated on earth).
> Theories of origin differ, but all (except the theory of creation) believe that the Earth was once, either during or after its formation, a glowing sphere. There was no solid material then. Even young rocks have been subjected to strong metamorphism, so there is no possibility of dating that could estimate the time of their formation. Some rocks today are thought to be 3.8 billion years old or similar, but how did 4.6 billion years come about?
Exactly! 3.8 billion years is that lower bound I've been talking about above. The earth is AT LEAST 3.8 billion years old. But probably older.
Furthermore the author is conflating the colloquial use of the term "theory" with the meaning of a scientific theory (scientists demand a lot more than just plausibility from a framework of interconnected hypotheses before they agree to call it a theory) here, but I'll let that one slide.
> What is the answer? Meteorites! Rocks that fell from space. These meteorites were once dated to 4.6 billion years or similar, usually using the lead-lead isochron method.
>
> Theories about the formation of the solar system assume that the Sun and the planets from its system were formed by the thickening of intergalactic dust, at about the same time. Meteorites are thought to be mostly remnants of decaying planets after their thickening. So meteorites are the same age as Earth. Meteorite dating is the dating of the Earth, or, as it is considered.
Nearly correct. The sun formed from a cloud of interstellar (mostly hydrogen) gas (not just dust), like all other stars. You can see that process in action in the night sky. You can actually see protostars (that haven't yet fully formed), you can see stellar nurseries where star formation is happening. You can see planetary accretion disks, where planets are forming. You can see exoplanets (planets outside our solar system). All this is accessible through the lenses and mirrors of the world's telescopes.
Soon astronomers will be able to determine the chemical composition of the atmospheres of exoplanets to look for signs of life (the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope will be able to do this in 2022 or 2023 or soon thereafter depending on what research has been deemed most important).
And yes, for this reason, namely because astronomers and planetary scientists know how the process works in other star systems, it is assumed that it has probably worked in much the same way in our solar system. A good assumption, in my opinion. Because when you date the material of meteorites, you curiously get very similar ages. All around 4.6 billion years. Weird, isn't it? That all meteorites are coincidentally roughly equally old? Or is it really that surprising? When all we see from other star systems is that they form as one in a relatively short amount of time. Why should we be different?
> But, obviously, some things are assumed here, things that are not known to us..."
Not much is assumed. Certainly not what the author thinks is assumed is actually assumed. Science does not operate based on assumption alone. Science operates based on empirical evidence. It makes testable predictions that have to withstand all attempts of falsifying them by experiment.
A good scientist follows the evidence wherever it leads (whether he likes it or not). A good scientist doesn't try to prove his preconceived ideas right. A good scientist seeks to disprove (!) his best ideas, so that he can see which hypothesis can withstand the maximum amount of scrutiny. It is the hypothesis that survives this process of elimination that ultimately becomes part of a theory.
I repeat: The age of the earth is not a number that geologists invented or guessed or voted for. It is the number that most parsimoniously explains the evidence. It's the number concordant with all observational evidence! It remains so until new evidence suited to disprove it emerges. If there were new evidence, the geologists would be the ones most excited about it. Because scientists love to learn new things! They love to be proven wrong, because that means there's more for them to discover!
@ddfjdfjh said in #76:
> at Thalassokrator
> "Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon."
> This is copied by me from wikipedia in english
Yes, that's indeed what C14 dating is. I'm not quite sure where you're going with this? It's not relevant to the age of the earth. Due to the relatively short half-life of the Carbon 14 isotope (just over 5000 years), you can only use radiocarbon dating for determining the age of organic remnants which are younger than 75,000 years (which is the world record for radiocarbon dating):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating#Errors_and_reliability
It's pretty easy to see why that is, I already explained this in my post #73: After 75,000 years 13 half-lives will have elapsed, which means that only (1/2)^13 ≈ 0.0122% of the original Carbon 14 still remains, which isn't a lot. It's quite hard to measure such a small quantity, that's (very basically) why this particular isotope cannot be used for dating materials older than 75,000 years.
> The age of the universe is estimated based on the Big Bang theory.
Indeed it is. And the Big Bang theory makes testable predictions and is based on observable evidence:
Evidence such as the cosmological redshift of distant galaxies (increasing with distance, see Hubble's law), the cosmic microwave background radiation (predicted by the Big Bang theory prior to discovery, found accidentally by two radio engineers who didn't even know about the prediction, precisely measured since then by a multitude of radio telescopes both in space and on the ground), the relative abundances of elements in interstellar primordial gas clouds (which was correctly predicted by the theory of Big Bang nucleosynthesis prior to being vindicated by observation), etc.
> I'm not an expert but this is from scientists :
Which group of scientists, if I may ask? I'm curious!
> "The first radioactive dating technique, which was well studied and formed the basis for all the others, uses the fact that uranium-238, an unstable radioactive element, spontaneously decomposes into lead-206.
Corpses decompose. Molecules decompose. In mathematics numbers and functions can decompose. Radioactive isotopes do not. They decay.
Decompose makes it sound like it splits up into its constituent parts. It does not (necessarily). The number of protons in the parent isotope is not necessarily equal to the combined numbers of protons in the daughter isotopes. Radioactive decay is due to the weak nuclear force (one of the four fundamental forces of nature), which can actually change a proton into a neutron (and vice versa, it's called beta-plus/beta-minus decay). So the nucleus is not merely decomposing into its constituent parts. It is literally changing its internal composition during radioactive decay.
Whatever scientist wrote this doesn't seem to be well versed in radioactivity (judging by their lack of appropriate terminology).
> Proponents of the Old Earth concept believe that uranium-238 did not form here on Earth, but was formed by the fusion of smaller atoms inside stars, and was ejected into space during earlier supernova events. Both smaller and larger atoms are thought to be part of the interstellar dust that united and formed Earth billions of years ago.
Actually basically ALL physicists "believe" that. Or rather, it is made apparent to them by observation of primordial gas clouds in interstellar space (no leap of faith required). Those clouds are the future birthplaces of stars (again, from direct observation of stellar nurseries in such gas clouds, star formation is well understood). And these gas clouds don't contain elements heavier than Lithium at all! Big stars however DO contain elements heavier than Lithium. That's because they fuse lighter elements into heavier ones in their cores by a process known as nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion is not some obscure hypothesis, it's an observable process that is so well understood by physicists today, that they can build working nuclear fusion reactors like ITER here on earth (a possible future energy source).
See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER
Pretty clear, isn't it? A star forms from a cloud of gas. The gas cloud does not contain heavy elements. After a while the star contains a small amount of heavy elements (meanwhile it has radiated away energy in the form of light). The heavy elements cannot have come from outside the star, it's surrounded only by the gas clouds (which don't contain heavy elements). So the star must have produced the heavy elements itself! Not only that, but physicists can actually understand how it does it, can replicate it in the lab and can make predictions with their understanding of nuclear fusion that beautifully explain the energy output (in the form of light) of stars like our sun. Nuclear fusion makes the sun shine!
That's how physicists actually know that the elements present on earth cannot have formed on earth itself (planet earth is not nearly hot or dense enough to allow for nuclear fusion), but rather in the hearts of massive stars (and in the collisions of neutron stars, in supernovae, etc.). The earth, and you, and me, we are all literally star dust (at least our matter is, obviously there may be more to us than just our matter)!
> Simply put, when a scientist wants to determine the age of a rock, he must first study the current state of the rock. This means: measuring the amount of each required isotope in that rock, including the amount of uranium-238 and lead-206. This can be done with great precision. Since we already know the rate of decay from parental uranium to lead offspring, we can begin the process of answering the question, "How old is this rock?" How long, in other words, did it take this amount of decomposing uranium to produce the amount of lead present?
Correct. This is precisely how it works! Other than the continued false use of the word "decomposing".
> But is that how we determine the true age of this rock? As can be inferred, the assumptions involved in each dating attempt call into question the age obtained.
> The Bible says: On the first day, "God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1: 1). On the third day, the land was separated from the sea (verse 9). It is certain that the rocks that existed at that time were either those created directly by God, or those that were formed during these early processes.
All right, I see no problem with this paragraph.
> Had scientists been present during the sixth day of creation and taken a specimen of this newly created rock, it would obviously have been only a few days old. (For the sake of illustration, suppose radioactive isotopes began to decay immediately after they were created.) If this rock were taken to a laboratory and dated with a set of assumptions we discussed earlier, how old would this rock look? The question could be: When God created the earth, was lead-206 present then? Or, was this lead concentration too high? If so, the rock has shown an artificial illusion of history from the very beginning, if some assume that the excessive amount of lead-206 comes only from the decay of uranium.
Unfortunately this is not correct. The author speculates whether or not there might have been lead-206 in the mineral a priori, from the very beginning. Whether or not it might have been created with lead inside.
But he needn't speculate about this matter. The answer is actually known. Uranium-lead dating is done with a special mineral, namely zircon. I quote wikipedia:
"This mineral incorporates uranium and thorium atoms into its crystal structure, but strongly rejects lead when forming. As a result, newly-formed zircon deposits will contain no lead, meaning that any lead found in the mineral is radiogenic."
(Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium–lead_dating)
So zircon is known to reject lead, it doesn't like lead and doesn't incorporate it when forming. This fact is conveniently left out by the author you're quoting. Because it destroys their entire argument. The author makes a big deal about the supposed fact that "we cannot know whether or not there was lead to begin with" and "this is just an assumption". But both of those are palpably absurd propositions:
Geologists DO know that zircon rejects lead. That's why they DO know that the lead found in zircon also containing uranium has to be of radiogenic origin (meaning it's the end of the U-238 decay chain). Otherwise they should find zircon mineral that ONLY contains lead and NO uranium, shouldn't they? But when a zircon mineral is found, it contains lead-206 if and only if it also contains Uranium-238! Because zircon naturally repels lead. And by sheer coincidence there's a radioactive decay chain (directly observable in the lab) in which U-238 decays into Pb-206. Boy, what a surprise!
> The Bible says that at the end of the creation period, everything was "very good." Did lead atoms exist in the beginning? We think they are. The various isotopes of lead are indeed "very good" because lead has been used much more by humans throughout history than uranium, which has only been used in recent decades. In order for the Earth to be "very good", it would certainly have to have lead, and various isotopes of lead. We think the rocks looked "old" (if we used those dubious assumptions to date them), even though they were newly created.
Oh, of course there was lead present on earth when those zircon minerals (with incorporated uranium-238) were formed. Lead is lighter than uranium, so it forms more easily (in supernovae and neutron star collisions, look up the r-process and s-process if you want to know how that works). If the earth has uranium, it certainly also has some lead. But it wasn't in the zircon crystals because zircon rejects lead! That's the point.
The author pretends that the zircon minerals were the only possible place for the lead to be. That's absurd and a false dichotomy.
There obviously was lead elsewhere on the earth (more accessible to humans than in zircon minerals at remote locations in Australia). And this lead was indeed "good" in the sense of Genesis, used for plumb lines for example (although I wouldn't advise ingesting it, lead poisoning is not to be taken lightly). But there's nothing to suggest that there was lead (by itself) trapped in zircon crystals. Otherwise there would be zircon crystals with lead but without uranium inside, but such a thing has not been found!
Because not enough time has elapsed since the formation of the earth (which was barely one half-life of U-238 ago) for any U-238 containing zircon crystal to have its uranium depleted by alpha decay. That's because we conveniently live at a time, where the radiogenic origin of the lead-206 trapped inside zircon crystals is still easily detectable in the parent isotope (U-238).
> It is not an act of deception of God's work. The Bible is very clear about the fact that Creation took place only a few thousand years ago, unless we tend to misinterpret isotope relationships.
This is a hyper literalist reading of the bible. Why shouldn't Genesis be read as a metaphor? People who take Genesis to be hyper literal in my opinion don't appreciate the magnificent poetry it contains! The Bible is and was not ever intended to be a science book and that's ok, isn't it?
The parables of Jesus (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parables_of_Jesus#Themes) are not to be taken hyper literal, are they? Why then Genesis?
The author basically argues for the Omphalos hypothesis (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis) here. That God made the universe such that it APPEARED to be old, although NOT being old. The author merely asserts that this isn't deceitful, but I remain unconvinced.
Why should God create a mineral that doesn't naturally incorporate lead (can't be found containing lead without uranium), but does naturally incorporate uranium and why should God make it so that U-238 decays into Pb-206 with a half-life orders of magnitude longer than the actual age of the universe/earth? Why should he then artificially put excess lead into these lead-rejecting uranium-containing minerals, making them appear older than they are? God being omniscient knows that human scientists will one day discover those minerals and arrive at the inescapable conclusion that (without special pleading) the earth is old, very, very old indeed.
Of course we cannot categorically rule out that God has tricked us. But then we also cannot categorically rule out that the world was created five minutes ago, as the philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell once wrote:
"There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago."
—Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind, 1921, pp. 159–60)
The point is that such a view is unfalsifiable. And that isn't a good thing, it is a bad thing. It means that it cannot make any testable predictions. It's therefore worthless for science.
> The accepted age of the Earth today is about 4.61 billion years. Have you ever wondered: How did that number come about? Apparently, based on some of the radioactive dating techniques. But which rock is dated? What rock was there during the formation of the Earth, so that it can give the age of the Earth?
When the earth first formed (condensed from the swirling accretion disk of our young sun, which forms due to the conservation of angular momentum), it was extremely hot. Soon after its formation there was extreme volcanic activity and tectonic plate subduction, a churning cycle of molten rock being exchanged between the earth's interior and its crust. Therefore it indeed seems unlikely to find a rock still left unchanged since the formation of the earth. However, this only means that all rocks that originated on earth can only be dated to an age lower than the age of the earth. So dating such rocks gives a LOWER bound on the age of the earth! The earth is actually a bit older than the oldest found rocks (that originated on earth).
> Theories of origin differ, but all (except the theory of creation) believe that the Earth was once, either during or after its formation, a glowing sphere. There was no solid material then. Even young rocks have been subjected to strong metamorphism, so there is no possibility of dating that could estimate the time of their formation. Some rocks today are thought to be 3.8 billion years old or similar, but how did 4.6 billion years come about?
Exactly! 3.8 billion years is that lower bound I've been talking about above. The earth is AT LEAST 3.8 billion years old. But probably older.
Furthermore the author is conflating the colloquial use of the term "theory" with the meaning of a scientific theory (scientists demand a lot more than just plausibility from a framework of interconnected hypotheses before they agree to call it a theory) here, but I'll let that one slide.
> What is the answer? Meteorites! Rocks that fell from space. These meteorites were once dated to 4.6 billion years or similar, usually using the lead-lead isochron method.
>
> Theories about the formation of the solar system assume that the Sun and the planets from its system were formed by the thickening of intergalactic dust, at about the same time. Meteorites are thought to be mostly remnants of decaying planets after their thickening. So meteorites are the same age as Earth. Meteorite dating is the dating of the Earth, or, as it is considered.
Nearly correct. The sun formed from a cloud of interstellar (mostly hydrogen) gas (not just dust), like all other stars. You can see that process in action in the night sky. You can actually see protostars (that haven't yet fully formed), you can see stellar nurseries where star formation is happening. You can see planetary accretion disks, where planets are forming. You can see exoplanets (planets outside our solar system). All this is accessible through the lenses and mirrors of the world's telescopes.
Soon astronomers will be able to determine the chemical composition of the atmospheres of exoplanets to look for signs of life (the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope will be able to do this in 2022 or 2023 or soon thereafter depending on what research has been deemed most important).
And yes, for this reason, namely because astronomers and planetary scientists know how the process works in other star systems, it is assumed that it has probably worked in much the same way in our solar system. A good assumption, in my opinion. Because when you date the material of meteorites, you curiously get very similar ages. All around 4.6 billion years. Weird, isn't it? That all meteorites are coincidentally roughly equally old? Or is it really that surprising? When all we see from other star systems is that they form as one in a relatively short amount of time. Why should we be different?
> But, obviously, some things are assumed here, things that are not known to us..."
Not much is assumed. Certainly not what the author thinks is assumed is actually assumed. Science does not operate based on assumption alone. Science operates based on empirical evidence. It makes testable predictions that have to withstand all attempts of falsifying them by experiment.
A good scientist follows the evidence wherever it leads (whether he likes it or not). A good scientist doesn't try to prove his preconceived ideas right. A good scientist seeks to disprove (!) his best ideas, so that he can see which hypothesis can withstand the maximum amount of scrutiny. It is the hypothesis that survives this process of elimination that ultimately becomes part of a theory.
I repeat: The age of the earth is not a number that geologists invented or guessed or voted for. It is the number that most parsimoniously explains the evidence. It's the number concordant with all observational evidence! It remains so until new evidence suited to disprove it emerges. If there were new evidence, the geologists would be the ones most excited about it. Because scientists love to learn new things! They love to be proven wrong, because that means there's more for them to discover!
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