Science and Exegesis

[Bonky]

[Tristen]

 

Hey Bonky, you said “the question I would have is whether or not the outside influence would affect all isotopes or just some?”

 

I think that’s a good question. I have several follow-up questions. 1) does this lack of knowledge for all isotopes mean that we can necessarily rely on those where we haven’t yet found an external influence on their decay rates, and 2) given that we are now aware that decay rates of isotopes can be influenced by outside forces, can we reliably accept and apply the assumption that isotope decay rates haven’t been influenced by any external forces; and thereby assume to make reliable extrapolations of magnitudes millions and billions of times that of any observed data?

You seem to have ignored the context of my statement. Based on additional investigation of this topic, others weren't able to replicate these findings [to my knowledge]. So I'm not sure it's fair to state yet that there are any external influences to decay rates [at least not yet].

 

 

 

“I'm rather surprised that you would bring up the marine carbon dating example”

 

I made a case including several (non-marine) examples that lead me to initially question the reliability of carbon dating. You became fixated with one of those examples (the marine one) because you believed you had some kind of ‘gotcha’. And you have since tried to wiggle your way around painting the use of this example as dishonest – even though we haven’t actually looked into the example itself. Was it creationist research or not? Was it prior to our knowledge of the reservoir effect or not (which would undermine any claim of dishonesty)? In all honesty, I don’t remember the details. I threw it in as part of an overall argument (including other, non-marine, examples) pertaining to my experience. And even now, after I thought we’d agreed that carbon dating has these extra complexities, you can’t help yourself but to throw some more innuendo my way over this example.

If someone truly went through with this exercise and then tried to use it as evidence that carbon dating is untrustworthy [or whatever] then that person is either uneducated in carbon dating OR they're dishonest. What I am surprised about is that you would come across this and find it useful to suggest the same thing. The only reason we haven't gone through this in more detail is because the detail hasn't been provided. I searched for this claim briefly and found variations in the story. Some say it was a penguin, some say a seal. Some say the sample was dated at 1300 years and some said 3000 etc. I wouldn't be surprised if this event is completely fabricated.

We can dispense with this example once and for all, it's a dead horse at this point. As I see it, what I'm being asked to consider [from those asserting a young earth and critical of radiometric dating] is that almost every single radioactive isotope has been wildly affected by some outside influence. Even though we have plenty of examples where we can cross date something using different methods, even though we have dating methods that utilize multiple decay chains, somehow the Earth really is roughly 7000 years old. I think it's much more likely that the great ages that radiometric dating suggests, are credible and reliable.

 

 

 “From the Oard discussion, you do strike me as someone who has a really hard time admitting a mistake”

 

Even here you are directly implying that I made a mistake – but without any supporting arguments. I don’t think you demonstrated any logical error in my position that would warrant such unmitigated confidence. I’m happy to go over it again if you like – and properly break down the logic.

Oard made a concrete statement about a research paper that wasn't warranted. If I were him I would have either reached out to the author to get clarification or I would have tempered my statement. He paraphrased them and had them stating that temperature fluctuations of up to 20C were happening in 1-3 years. They mentioned other time windows of up to 100k years if I recall right. If this situation was reversed I have a hard time believing that you wouldn't be responding the same way.

 

 

“In the past when I tried to narrow down what science would look like under your worldview I thought you ended up admitting [i apologize if my memory fails] that 'demon possession' would be a possible valid scientific explanation for certain behaviors”

 

My position is that no hypotheses should ever be dismissed arbitrarily. When it comes to things that cannot be directly observed/tested (e.g. a claim about the past or a supernatural claim), the only way to investigate them is indirectly; through modelling – then comparing the model against the current evidence. But even then, no legitimate scientific confidence could be attributed to the initial claim without committing the logical fallacy called Affirming the Consequent. So this indirect method is logically much weaker than the operational method – where the claims themselves are available and subject to direct and repeated observations.

 

Now you would readily recognise this weakness when it is applied to a supernatural claim (such as “demon possession”), or to the creationist model of history in general, but you have difficulty getting your head around the fact that the secular model of history employs the identical methodology, with the identical inherent weaknesses. Therefore, all I would propose is that; what constitutes a "valid scientific explanation" be fairly and objectively applied across the spectrum of possibility. Either all that utilise this method qualify; or none.

I don't know about identical methods, I agree that secular science employs models and those models have assumptions. But what "method" does one use to determine anyone has a condition brought on by a supernatural entity such as a demon? In my view, what can be arbitrarily asserted can be arbitrarily dismissed.

 

 

 

“if we're going to accept un-natural causes for things [or what have you] I'm going to need to understand why we're even entertaining it”

 

We “entertain” (aka consider) ideas because they there is a logical possibility that they represent the truth. Refusing to entertain an idea prior to consideration is an act of faith. The subsequent attributing of quality to an idea is in its testability (i.e. not as good for historical or supernatural claims – which is why we distinguish scientific confidence from faith), and in the testing itself (e.g. experimental results).

If you knew what I meant by "entertain" why did you feel the need to put it in quotes and then use a different word that means the same thing? I understand giving an idea [even radical] some time to kick around and ponder etc. But how much time would you spend considering the reason why you can't find your car keys is because a goblin hid them? You might respond by saying "Who believes goblins exist?" or something similar, well this is how I feel about demons. So absent of something tangible to go on, yeah there are some explanations that are not going to get much consideration.

 

 

 

“Additionally, the response I got from you regarding the flood and fossil placement was..."the mobile creatures were able to get to higher ground". I mean I don't even understand how this is to be taken seriously”

 

Whilst my answer was admittedly a concise summary of one of the creationist models, it was markedly more complicated than your mischaracterisation here. But note again your empty innuendo.  Just because you right something as though you think it should be thought of as silly, doesn’t make it silly. Why is it so ridiculous to suggest that flying birds, for example, would appear in a flood record towards the top – because of their superior capacity to move to higher ground, or find natural flotsam etc.?

Ok so they moved to higher ground while alive but aren't you suggesting that somehow they stayed there? Even though they eventually perished [like everything else] and would be subjected to whatever current, wave or turbulence post mortem. I see no reason to think that there's going to be any kind of sorting based on mobility, the flood is described as a catastrophic event!

 

 

 

“I know you don't like the phrase "God did it" to be used to describe creationist explanations. Yet I find a textbook example of a case where creationists are doing just that and your response is that I'm merely resorting to ad-hominem? And you wonder why creationists aren't taken seriously sometimes?”

 

I don’t “wonder why creationists aren't taken seriously sometimes”. I can see the influence of secular confirmation bias everywhere I look. It’s almost a sport for me now to see how long it takes a science show to squeeze Common Ancestry or Standard Cosmology into the narrative – even when the discussed topic couldn’t be further away from either of these issues. I see the letters from Journal editors stating how reluctant they would be to ever consider publishing an article stating creationist implications. I see publishing run dry for well-published scientists the moment they out themselves as creationists. I see, even secular scientists, loose prestigious positions because they dare to suggest that creationists should be engaged with. Anyone with open eyes can see the bias. The trick is to see how well you can justify it to yourself – i.e. to see if you can come up with some ad-hominem excuse to ridicule or ignore the creationist arguments altogether – before even bothering to consider them.

Bill Nye just had a public debate with Ken Ham and I didn't see any backlash against him. I know there were some who told him he's wasting his time but I don't know of any black eye whatsoever suffered by Nye. Michael Behe teaches at a public University and is a huge ID advocate. So I can't say that I'm seeing what you're seeing. Now I do see people laughing and mocking Ken Ham but then he's not writing scientific journals or anything and if you watch the debate, he was completely out of his element.

 

 

 

“If you understand the concept behind the dating method being used you know what environments are especially susceptible to producing inaccurate dates”

 

What constitutes an “inaccurate date”?

 

If we know that there are external forces at play that mess with the process, how can we assume any specific date is accurate? How do you know that a so-called ‘accurate’ date hasn’t been subjected to contamination? If we are able to simply explain away “inaccurate dates” as contaminated, have we not rendered the process logically immune to scrutiny?

Even when I presented you with the idea that we can use multiple techniques on the same sample and come up with very close dates you were unphased. You countered with the fact that because this success rate isn't 100% we can go back to suggesting the methods are unreliable. My understanding is that we can also utilize isochron diagram's to help determine if the sample has been contaminated.

 

 

 

“Ironically it looks like the same guy who you refer to regarding the lava flows also wrote an extensive article that is posted on talk origins”

 

It’s not really ironic or surprising – he has always expressed anti-creationist sentiments and hates that his data is used by creationists. But we are not claiming his data to mean anything beyond what is stated in his research. This data has valid implications for one of our arguments.

For one of the methods as used in 1969 perhaps. I don't know the past 45 has brought on additional tools or insight than what was used then.

 

 

 

“My understanding is that there needs to be enough time for the decay to be detected. Your objections are so bizarre sometimes”

 

You couldn’t help yourself. You are not filtering your arguments for assumptions – and you’re expressing generalisations as statements of fact.

 

Isn’t the point of carbon dating to determine the age of the material?

 

And again, the machines don’t detect decay; they detect absolute amounts of chemicals. In carbon dating, those chemicals are available in detectable amounts at the point of death (in many other methods, there is often the assumption of no daughter isotope at the time of formation – but that’s not a problem for carbon dating. In fact the C14 is theoretically at the highest amount at the point of death – and subsequently reduces/decays). The ratios may not be significantly different from the context of death – by which, according to carbon dating theory, we could assume that the death was recent. There is no reason that those chemical measurements can’t still be placed into the appropriate formula.

I may have misstated the reason why carbon dating something recently dead is problematic. It seems that nuclear tests in the 50's and fossil fuel burning today [suess effect] can cause problems for accurate carbon dating.

 

The problem arises when you don’t bother carbon dating material because you assume it’s already too old. That introduces a long-age bias into the process and skews the data towards this assumption (i.e. only using methods that give you the range you want).

Well considering carbon dating itself would be considered "long age" [in many cases] by young earth standards I don't see what it matters. You present radiometric dating like it's such a sloppy clownish approach to estimating the ages of things. I'm not so sure it's as flawed as you try to make it sound.

 

 

 

Hey Bonky, you said, “You seem to have ignored the context of my statement. Based on additional investigation of this topic, others weren't able to replicate these findings [to my knowledge]. So I'm not sure it's fair to state yet that there are any external influences to decay rates [at least not yet]”

 

The actual context is my suggesting that you investigate research into possible external sources influencing rates of radiometric decay (something I did for myself over a decade ago when I was looking into this). I suggested this to circumvent your tendency to assume that anything I present as inherently dishonest creationism (also because I’m quite bust ATM). So you went away and found something, then I pointed out the implications of the research – as you described it, and now you have found a reason to disregard it. But I played no role in this investigation, so it doesn’t have any implications for me. I would only suggest that you appear to be assuming that the one study you found is the only research on this issue (which if true, would itself be telling). ‘Back in the day’ I recall finding several studies citing several differing sources of influence over radioactive decay. I also recall (in the past few years) skimming over a paper claiming neutrinos as a possible source of flux in radiometric decay – to give you another target if interested.

 

 

 

    after I thought we’d agreed that carbon dating has these extra complexities, you can’t help yourself but to throw some more innuendo my way over this example.

“If someone truly went through with this exercise and then tried to use it as evidence that carbon dating is untrustworthy [or whatever] then that person is either uneducated in carbon dating OR they're dishonest”

 

Or it was done before the reservoir effect was understood. Or it was done after the reservoir effect was understood – and the reservoir effect was factored into the research. If it was done after the reservoir effect was understood, it wouldn’t be an issue – since the carbon context of the sample would be known (and therefore no calibration necessary). Also, if I understand the resource you provided, the reservoir would only account for relatively minor discrepancies.

 

 

 

“what I'm being asked to consider [from those asserting a young earth and critical of radiometric dating] is that almost every single radioactive isotope has been wildly affected by some outside influence. Even though we have plenty of examples where we can cross date something using different methods, even though we have dating methods that utilize multiple decay chains, somehow the Earth really is roughly 7000 years old”

 

I think you are parroting propaganda. You appear to have fallen for the myth of overwhelming universal agreement (with a tentative acknowledgement of a few possible, rare exceptions). Yet there are also “plenty of examples” where “different methods” disagree, or where they agree with each other – but not the accepted secular age of the sample. The existence of multiple decay chains has no logical impact on my argument (or at least, you haven’t presented an argument for it - beyond stating its existence).

 

 

 

“I think it's much more likely that the great ages that radiometric dating suggests, are credible and reliable”

 

You mean you consider the ‘good dates’ suggested by radiometric dating to be “credible and reliable” – i.e. the ones that conform to the accepted secular presupposition. And you are simply happy to ignore all the bad dates, and inherent assumptive weaknesses of the theory, and basically anything else which speaks to the unreliability of these methods – writing off any supposed inaccuracies as rare anomalies and probably (though untestably) contamination.

 

So your probability analysis (i.e. what is “more likely … credible and reliable”) is intrinsically linked to your preferred faith perspective.

 

 

 

“Oard made a concrete statement about a research paper that wasn't warranted. If I were him I would have either reached out to the author to get clarification or I would have tempered my statement. He paraphrased them and had them stating that temperature fluctuations of up to 20C were happening in 1-3 years. They mentioned other time windows of up to 100k years if I recall right. If this situation was reversed I have a hard time believing that you wouldn't be responding the same way”

 

I would not ever have questioned your honesty for having the gall to disagree with me. I would have requested your evidence and argument.

 

Oard said “uniformitarian scientists now are forced to believe that the temperature on Greenland changed up to 20°C in periods as short as 1 to 3 years!”

 

The original referenced article said “[1]From the central Greenland ice cores we now know that the Earth has experienced large, rapid, regional to global climate oscillations through most of the last 110,000 years on a scale that human agricultural and industrial activities have not yet faced. [2]These millennial-scale events represent quite large climate deviations: probably up to 20^oC in central Greenland, twofold changes in snow accumulation, order-of-magnitude changes in wind-blown dust and sea-salt loading, roughly 100 ppbv in methane concentration, etc., with cold, dry, dusty, and low-methane conditions being correlated. [3]The events often begin or end rapidly: changes equal to most of the glacial-interglacial differences commonly occur over decades, and some indicators, more sensitive to shifts in the pattern of atmospheric circulation, change in as little as 1-3 years.”

 

SENTENCE 1: The introductory sentence to this paragraph indicates that we should expect claims about changes to the climate (“climate oscillations”) which were “large” in scale and “rapid” in transition. This sentence also claims that the scope for this research is the “last 110,000 years”.

 

SENTENCE 2: The second sentence describes claims regarding the nature of the change involved (i.e. the types of “large climate deviations”), including the claim that these events lasted thousands of years (i.e. were “millennial-scale events”), and claims of temperature changes “up to 20^oC” – along with descriptions of other types of change which we don’t need to address for the sake of brevity and relevance.

 

SENTENCE 3: The third sentence describes claims about the transition period of the changes (i.e. how quickly they “begin or end”). There are two primary claims in this sentence; 1) “most” of these transitions occurred “over decades”, and 2) “some” transitions occurred “in as little as 1-3 years”.

 

NOW: The authors make no specific correlation between any of the specific nature-of-changes and any of the stated rates of transition. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that no such correlation was found in the data. That lack of stated correlation strengthens the validity of this assumption in the context of a scientific article.

 

THEREFORE: It is perfectly reasonable to interpret this passage as; “In most instances we found changes of up to 20^oC with transition times of over decades, and in some instances we found changes of up to 20^oC with transition times of as little as three years”

 

Oard characterised the research as claiming “the temperature on Greenland changed up to 20°C in periods as short as 1 to 3 years!” – IMO a perfectly reasonable paraphrase of one of the above claims.

 

I have never heard of anyone feeling obligated to contact the authors of every reference they use. The whole point of providing references is that a reader can look up the source of the information; and if necessary, determine for themselves the validity of the claim.

 

 

 

“I don't know about identical methods, I agree that secular science employs models and those models have assumptions. But what "method" does one use to determine anyone has a condition brought on by a supernatural entity such as a demon?”

 

Since one cannot directly observe any supernatural claim (e.g. “demon possession”), to investigate such a claim, anyone making the claim would have to model the claim (i.e. propose what facts we should expect to find if the claim were true - ancillary to the claim itself). [so the only logical limitation to this method is that the claim must incorporate some form of interaction with the physical universe]. Then the model would be tested against what we actually find. As previously discussed – this path of investigation is logically weaker than operational investigation because no matter how consistent the evidence is with the model, we can never logically verify either the initial claim, or that no other possible story can account for the same facts.

 

Now in the above paragraph, if you replace “any supernatural claim” with ‘any historical claim’, you have an accurate description of the logical method used to investigate secular history (and Biblical history; including both natural and supernatural claims). The same general logical framework is employed to investigate any claim that cannot be subjected to scientific and repeated observations.

 

 

 

“what can be arbitrarily asserted can be arbitrarily dismissed”

 

When did “arbitrary” assertion become the logical equivalent of impossible?

 

How do you know an idea is “arbitrary” if you dismiss it before consideration?

 

Very few ideas are completely “arbitrary”. Take your “demon possession” example; the concept of demon possession appears in the Bible. So any such suggestion is likely premised at least somewhat upon faith in scripture. You “arbitrarily dismiss” this possibility, not because the idea itself is arbitrary, but because it cannot be reconciled with your own faith perspective. This again speaks to a lack of objectivity. Arguments are only rationally obligated to be consistent with the context within which they are formulated. It’s irrational to judge an argument by a contrary premise.

 

I wonder if you apply this “arbitrarily asserted … arbitrarily dismissed” rule to the claims of secular models. For example, Standard Cosmology has encountered several embarrassing episodes over its lifetime. The concept of Inflation is simply a story invented to account for discrepancies between the model and observations (e.g. the Horizon Problem). Then Dr Guth comes along and says ‘maybe the initial Big Bang wasn’t quite so big, but then the universe, for no proposed reason, underwent some massively rapid expansion, and then, also for no proposed reason, slowed down again’. Now there is no other reason to assume inflation occurred beyond the discrepancy between the model and observations – but it can be mathematically described in a way that reconciles the two. And it’s now Standard Cosmology dogma. Similarly, the momentum of galaxies was found to not fit the Standard Cosmology model – not enough gravity. So a source of gravity was proposed that makes up over 90% of the matter in the universe – but which we’ve never actually observed – but which can be mathematically described to reconcile the model to the observations. Likewise, observations regarding the expansion of the universe contradicted the model. So a source of energy is proposed which, like dark matter has never actually been observed – but which can be mathematically described to reconcile the model to the observations. These ideas are just as “arbitrary” as anything described in the Biblical model – yet you have failed to “dismiss” them because they fall within the purview of the naturalistic faith.

 

 

 

“If you knew what I meant by "entertain" why did you feel the need to put it in quotes and then use a different word that means the same thing?”

 

In the context of your use, I considered “entertain” to have an emotive, patronising quality – as though we were merely tolerating the idea; rather than giving it serious and fair consideration.

 

 

 

“But how much time would you spend considering the reason why you can't find your car keys is because a goblin hid them? You might respond by saying "Who believes goblins exist?" or something similar, well this is how I feel about demons”

 

I understand that you don’t believe in demons. But objectivity incorporates the capacity to consider arguments in the context of their own premise; even when it disagrees with your own preferred premise – especially when it disagrees with your own preferred premise. Why bother even engaging in conversation if you can’t even consider the possibility of an alternative faith perspective being true? But if you are reasonable enough to realise that other perspectives are at least logically possible – then you have to consider their arguments in the context within which they are formulated. Otherwise you are being irrational; judging an argument by a premise with which the argument was never designed to agree with. You don’t have to give up your own faith perspective to be able to see alternative arguments through the eyes of their proponents – you just have to develop a capacity for objectivity.

 

 

 

“Even when I presented you with the idea that we can use multiple techniques on the same sample and come up with very close dates you were unphased. You countered with the fact that because this success rate isn't 100% we can go back to suggesting the methods are unreliable”

 

Again, I think your phrasing equates to a grotesque overstatement of the data and a mischaracterisation of my position. You are happy to accept dates from “multiple techniques” when they agree (with each other and the secular model), but seem uninformed or dismissive about when they disagree. You still haven’t defined how to determine a “success rate” beyond secular presupposition. Your use of “isn’t 100%” suggests some overwhelming agreement – even after I’ve made you aware of both disparate data and the logical flaws used to formulate this impression.

 

My actual argument is that these methods are unreliable because; a) They are all highly assumptive – with the foundational assumptions being demonstrated to be unreliable in several instances; which in any logical or scientific sense renders the methods themselves to be unreliable, and b) Many of these assumptions rely on extrapolations of magnitudes of millions and billions times the observed data, and c) The ‘accurate’, or ‘good’, or ‘successful’, or ‘accepted dates’ are determined by their conformity to secular presupposition; with no experimental way to determine good from bad dates beyond that presupposition, and d) There are many examples of so-called ‘bad dates’ in the literature including dates which (according to secular presupposition) are too old, or too young, or disagree with other dating methods etc., and e) The only way to account for these anomalies is some untestable, nebulous claim of contamination; which, if broadly accepted, renders the methods immune to rational scrutiny, and f) The recent tendency to simply disregard ‘bad dates’ gives a false impression of abundant consistency within and between the methods.

 

 

 

“My understanding is that we can also utilize isochron diagram's to help determine if the sample has been contaminated”

 

My understanding is that the opposite is true – there is no experimental way to distinguish an isochron from a (contaminated) mixed line.

 

 

 

“I may have misstated the reason why carbon dating something recently dead is problematic. It seems that nuclear tests in the 50's and fossil fuel burning today [suess effect] can cause problems for accurate carbon dating”

 

Yep – and solar events increase the concentration of C14, and volcanic events dilute C14 concentrations etc. But if the events occurred recently enough for the carbon context to be recorded – it shouldn’t be an issue.

 

 

 

“You present radiometric dating like it's such a sloppy clownish approach to estimating the ages of things. I'm not so sure it's as flawed as you try to make it sound”

 

I’m not claiming incompetence on the part of those employing the methods. I’m providing a reality-check for those under the false impression that radiometric dating is so supremely robust that it has put the issue to rest.

[a-seeker]

“Genesis 1 has the world made in 6 days, Genesis 2.4 opens up with it being a day.Again (but I have been over this so many times), in Genesis 2.18 God declares it is not good for man to be alone.  He declares he will make a helper fit for him.  What is the next thing he does...makes birds and beasts (not had made, but made)”

Is that really what it says? Read it again. Now read Genesis 2 after Genesis 1. I would suggest to you that anyone who had read Genesis 1  would not make the assumptions you are making about Genesis 2 (apart from external motivations). The tense of “formed” (or “made”) is somewhat obscure in relation to the immediate context (though both are implicitly past-tense in the absence of context), but when Genesis 1 is considered, not only is the order of creation explicit, but the language determining order is also explicit. Your assumptions regarding the order of events in Genesis 2 only stand if you, for some reason, eject Genesis 1 from the account – i.e. remove the account from its intended context. Decontextualizing is also considered bad interpretation methodology – and not just for scripture.

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Tristen,

 

I have read it numerous times since this last post.  Your suggestion insinuates that reading Genesis 1 and 2 as separate creation narratives is original to me!  May I inform you that it is quite a popular reading, and by no means modern (i.e. a response to modern science).  Even if it were, it is not as if only this reading is liable to charge of ulterior motives; motives exist on both sides.  What baffles me is that people like you don’t admit the several problems that arise from your own reading—or, when you do, you immediately dismiss it with the exegetical “Well, God can do what He wants.”

 

But I will attempt to play along: I present here a running commentary of my reading of Genesis; I will attempt to ignore issues typically answered by the “God can” trump card, i.e. the fact that vegetation sprouts at a miraculous rate, or that light appears without a physical source (suns), and indeed is held at bay without a physical object (light and darkness are equally present, yet there are no objects to cast a shadow upon regions of light).  So, here I go. (Oh, in order to avoid discussions of evolution, Big Bang, Age of the earth, I will call your reading of Genesis 1account, mine 2accounts.

 

On Day 3 of Genesis 1 we are told that God created at the very least a wide variety of plants.  There is no explicit indication of other species forthcoming.   At least not in English.  Now, perhaps, as some 1accounters claim, the Hebrew of Day three relays a very specific scope of vegetation.  A modern parallel would be a story in which a farmer says, “today I will plant every coniferous tree”—anyone with a smidgen of arboreal knowledge would see what was missing and might expect to hear of deciduous trees later. Some 1accounters have argued that the plants specified here are edibles; or perhaps there is a clue in the reiterated description SEED. So, if the Hebrew indeed indicates this, then we would have here a subtle, but not extradinary, instance of foreshadowing.  The original recipient of this narrative would pick up on what was missing as easily as we would in the farmer’s narrative given above.

 

But I have yet to find a lexicon that supports major distinctions among the vegetation mentioned on day 3.  On day 3 we are given (as of now) no indication, no hint, that God has done anything other than create every single species of plant.  The ancients did not make a distinction between seed and spore or pollen.  There is nothing in the plants here to suggest that only edible plants are being created.  As of now, the author has done his best to say, “We have them all”; God is done creating vegetation.  PLEASE REFRAIN FROM POINTING FORWARD TO GENESIS 2….WE ARE NOT THERE YET. IF I HAVE MISSED SOMETHING IN THIS SECTION, THEN THAT IS OBVIOUSLY PERTINENT TO THIS EXPERIMENT.

 

On day 4 God creates lights and fixes them in the “expanse of the heavens”.  IF I allowed my preconceptions to operate, this would be unproblematic.  The author has basically said, God created lights in space.  But when I go back and read carefully, that is not what the author has said.  God fixed lights in the “expanse”.  And the expanse is (day 2) what separates water below from water above.  That is strange cosmology: water above an expanse, luminaries below an expanse, and water below the luminaries…odd, moving on.

 

Day 6 clearly has beasts created from the earth, and then the creation of Man/Woman (interesting, I have always assumed that we have a single couple—but upon a fresh reading, I see that the numbers are not explicit; similar to the assumption, perhaps, that there were 3 wise men at Jesus’ birth).

 

2.4b says “on the day God made the earth and the heavens”.  Hmm, this is a little odd.  We just saw He made it over 6 days.  Why didn’t the author say, 6 days?  You urged me to read this again and see if “on the day” is really what the text says.  Perhaps you see something I do not?  I see “on the day”, nothing more.  I have looked up this detail and found that even answersingenesis and creation.com thought it worth solving (so, it is a potential problem for 1accounters).  Their answer is that the Hebrew construction used here can be translated “when”.  And of course this is true.  “When” can always replace “on the day” in any instance.  This is a subterfuge.  The real question remains: does this Hebrew construction ever, EVER, indicate a time period MORE than a day?  I have made it through the Pentateuch and found none.  It always points to a single 24 hour period.  The text says, "in the 24 hour time period that God created the heavens and the earth".  If we play with meaning of "day" here, we leave room for day=agers to play with the word elsewhere. Moving on.

 

v. 5 I read that no bush of the field or small plant had sprung up and this because it had not rained and there was no man to work them….

 

…now this is a little odd.  Last I heard plants were created several days before man and with no indication that their growth and survival depended on man.  So when is this taking place?  Day 3?  Well that would be very odd, for then days 4 and 5 are completely skipped.  Again, it is fruitless to explore the Hebrew as YECs do (or claim) and say that the plants here mentioned are quite distinct from those indicated on day 3.  The Hebrew does not support this.  To fit all this in day 6 (per YEC) the mind has to make a sudden revision of day 3,  and without any literary help from the author—no foreshadowing given on day 3; no explanation at 2.5 of plants missing on day 3.  Only a mind long fostered on a YEC reading would deny that this is odd; for of course hardened custom can make almost anything sound natural.

 

In v. 18 the Lord declares it is not good for man to be alone and that He will form a helper.  The Hebrew of “formed” is the same used wherever God is creating something new.  So one should expect God to make something new.  Now, what do we have?  Something to do with birds and beasts: beasts made from the earth and (hmm…day 4 didn’t have this detail) birds as well).  Hmm, that is odd.  I thought birds and beasts were created before Man?  Now, my ESV has “had formed” which would resolve this….but I look up the Hebrew and see that what would easiy yield a perfect, is absent.  It is used elsewhere to indicate things that had already happened, but not here.  Thus far, every time this form of “made” has been used it is used of things being created there and then.

 

Maybe the next verse illuminates….well, not exactly, we have Adam naming the beasts.  So, God just declared that he was going to make a helper, and now he has Adam naming beasts?!  Odd.

 

Next we see this highly suggestive bit, “But no helper was found for Adam”.  What?  God just said he was going to make Adam a helper.  We see something to do with birds and beasts.  We see Adam naming them, and somehow through this naming process, no helper is found.

 

What’s next?  The creation of Eve.  What happens after?  He names her, simultaneously with the realization that she is a suitable helper!

 

So, to yield a consistent account, I have to suppose something like this:

1. God declared he was going to make a helper
2. He postpones this by having Adam name birds and beasts already created.  How to explain…Either God, or the author, thought that perhaps a new creative process might not be necessary—“hmm. let’s see what we already have. No need for extra work, after all!”  Or God has Adam consider unsuitable creatures by naming them in order to show him how suitable Eve is (compare and contrast).   MASSIVE EISOGESIS.  Nowhere do we see this in the text. The author was very intentional in explaining why God had Abraham attempt a sacrifice on his son (Now I know!).  Nothing of the like is here.  We do not have a subjective explanation (but Adam could find no helper) or any kind of explanation from God, “Now you know that Eve is….”.  What we have is the very objective, “But for Adam there was no helper”. Even on your own reading, without eisogesis, God had Adam consider animals as a real, viable source for companionship.
3. Assuming a) (for only ‘a’ avoids the enormous amount of eisogesiis) Nope, I guess God will, after all, have to make something new; animals will not do
4. He makes Eve, Adam names her, lo and behold, she works.

 

 

Now, my request of you.  Do you recognize these are real difficulties in your reading?  To admit they are difficulties is not the same as admitting you were wrong.  But if you cannot even see these as difficulties, then we operate on such different planes of thought that discussion here is pointless. Of course, if you have solutions or corrections not mentioned above I am, of course, interested in hearing them.  Now, a second request, I invite you to treat my own reading similarly (showing the exegetical problems that arise from reading the two accounts as separate and distinct, though overlapping thematically).

 

clb

Edited August 31, 2014 by ConnorLiamBrown

[ARGOSY]

 

Well considering carbon dating itself would be considered "long age" [in many cases] by young earth standards I don't see what it matters. You present radiometric dating like it's such a sloppy clownish approach to estimating the ages of things. I'm not so sure it's as flawed as you try to make it sound.

 

Hi Bonky,

 

I haven't been following the whole thread, but just to interject with what I feel should be the main objection to current radiometric dating techniques. Purdue University and the Geological Survey of Israel have been establishing slight variation in decay rates and this has been consistently recorded over a number of studies so far. What was always thought to be an absolute constant albeit random process (that's ironic isn't it?)  unaffected by likely past conditions has now been shown to have definite patterns based on outside factors.

 

The proven changes in the decay rate relate to:

1) Solar flares (decay slows)

2) Midnight (decay slows)

3) Seasonal (in summer decay slows)

 

The fact that these slowdowns can be recorded on the other side of earth to the sun (at night during flares) made people suspect neutrinos as the culprit because they are uniquely penetrative, but then neutrinos would be less dense with earth-sun distance, and these tests have shown that in fact decay does not change with earth-sun distance which largely rules out neutrinos as the culprit that affects decay in these recorded patterns.

 

However if you take into account that the polar "holes" in the magnetic field tilt towards the sun in summer , and the daily peak in solar wind penetration occurs at the midnight point on earth we can see a more logical pattern than the neutrino hypothesis. 

 

Frankly whenever solar wind/ cosmic radiation peaks in penetrating the magnetic field, decay slows down.  The slight current changes are written off as negligible which is naive considering the obvious relationship between slight field penetration and slight decay rate changes would obviously be exacerbated by the proven regular increase in the strength of the magnetic field during large periods in history. ie a large historical DROP in penetration would have had the significant effect of a large increase in historical decay rates, thereby rendering all current assumptions of radiometric ages as under scrutiny. 

[Bonky]

Hi Bonky,

 

I haven't been following the whole thread, but just to interject with what I feel should be the main objection to current radiometric dating techniques. Purdue University and the Geological Survey of Israel have been establishing slight variation in decay rates and this has been consistently recorded over a number of studies so far. What was always thought to be an absolute constant albeit random process (that's ironic isn't it?)  unaffected by likely past conditions has now been shown to have definite patterns based on outside factors.

 

The proven changes in the decay rate relate to:

1) Solar flares (decay slows)

2) Midnight (decay slows)

3) Seasonal (in summer decay slows)

 

The fact that these slowdowns can be recorded on the other side of earth to the sun (at night during flares) made people suspect neutrinos as the culprit because they are uniquely penetrative, but then neutrinos would be less dense with earth-sun distance, and these tests have shown that in fact decay does not change with earth-sun distance which largely rules out neutrinos as the culprit that affects decay in these recorded patterns.

 

However if you take into account that the polar "holes" in the magnetic field tilt towards the sun in summer , and the daily peak in solar wind penetration occurs at the midnight point on earth we can see a more logical pattern than the neutrino hypothesis. 

 

Frankly whenever solar wind/ cosmic radiation peaks in penetrating the magnetic field, decay slows down.  The slight current changes are written off as negligible which is naive considering the obvious relationship between slight field penetration and slight decay rate changes would obviously be exacerbated by the proven regular increase in the strength of the magnetic field during large periods in history. ie a large historical DROP in penetration would have had the significant effect of a large increase in historical decay rates, thereby rendering all current assumptions of radiometric ages as under scrutiny.

Hi ARGOSY, there are a few takeaways I see reading what you've presented here. The research I read from Purdue admitted that more research is needed. From further research with Ohio State they suggest that the fluctuations actually come from the distance of the Earth in relation to the Sun. If this turns out to be the case, then the impact on radiometric dating would be pretty insignificant. Also if I recall right, they only tested on beta decay only and not alpha. So there is a whole lot more research needed to draw any solid conclusions.

Another thing to consider, if you want to speed of the rate of decay that much that we can make it fit a biblical model, you have enough heat generated now that the Earth would have been molten. Even ICR acknowledges this massive issue in a young earth model.

http://gondwanaresearch.com/hp/adam.htm

P.S. Your argument essentially rests on the Earths magnetic field being extremely [to say the least] strong in the past. Are there any implications in magnetohydrodynamics that would give us reason to reject the claim? Possibly, I don't have any education in that field unfortunately. If you have paleomagnetic evidence that gives us good reason to believe the field was this strong in the past, please offer it. Otherwise you just have a theoretical objection [which I'm not convinced is solid] and nothing else.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Bonky

[ARGOSY]

 

Hi Bonky,

 

I haven't been following the whole thread, but just to interject with what I feel should be the main objection to current radiometric dating techniques. Purdue University and the Geological Survey of Israel have been establishing slight variation in decay rates and this has been consistently recorded over a number of studies so far. What was always thought to be an absolute constant albeit random process (that's ironic isn't it?)  unaffected by likely past conditions has now been shown to have definite patterns based on outside factors.

 

The proven changes in the decay rate relate to:

1) Solar flares (decay slows)

2) Midnight (decay slows)

3) Seasonal (in summer decay slows)

 

The fact that these slowdowns can be recorded on the other side of earth to the sun (at night during flares) made people suspect neutrinos as the culprit because they are uniquely penetrative, but then neutrinos would be less dense with earth-sun distance, and these tests have shown that in fact decay does not change with earth-sun distance which largely rules out neutrinos as the culprit that affects decay in these recorded patterns.

 

However if you take into account that the polar "holes" in the magnetic field tilt towards the sun in summer , and the daily peak in solar wind penetration occurs at the midnight point on earth we can see a more logical pattern than the neutrino hypothesis. 

 

Frankly whenever solar wind/ cosmic radiation peaks in penetrating the magnetic field, decay slows down.  The slight current changes are written off as negligible which is naive considering the obvious relationship between slight field penetration and slight decay rate changes would obviously be exacerbated by the proven regular increase in the strength of the magnetic field during large periods in history. ie a large historical DROP in penetration would have had the significant effect of a large increase in historical decay rates, thereby rendering all current assumptions of radiometric ages as under scrutiny.

Hi ARGOSY, there are a few takeaways I see reading what you've presented here. The research I read from Purdue admitted that more research is needed. From further research with Ohio State they suggest that the fluctuations actually come from the distance of the Earth in relation to the Sun. If this turns out to be the case, then the impact on radiometric dating would be pretty insignificant. Also if I recall right, they only tested on beta decay only and not alpha. So there is a whole lot more research needed to draw any solid conclusions.

Another thing to consider, if you want to speed of the rate of decay that much that we can make it fit a biblical model, you have enough heat generated now that the Earth would have been molten. Even ICR acknowledges this massive issue in a young earth model.

http://gondwanaresearch.com/hp/adam.htm

P.S. Your argument essentially rests on the Earths magnetic field being extremely [to say the least] strong in the past. Are there any implications in magnetohydrodynamics that would give us reason to reject the claim? Possibly, I don't have any education in that field unfortunately. If you have paleomagnetic evidence that gives us good reason to believe the field was this strong in the past, please offer it. Otherwise you just have a theoretical objection [which I'm not convinced is solid] and nothing else.

 

 

I've read studies that largely eliminate the earth-sun distance hypothesis. They used a space probe and measured the decay , which never showed any significant  increase in decay as it moved further out from the sun where the solar wind would be weaker.

 

So the pattern that clearly exists, is that on the earth's surface  decay slows when penetration of the magnetic field is stronger.  The conditions in every study confirm this, even if the conclusions are not as clear.  The decay slowdowns are more consistent with daily/summer/flare peaks in background radiation.  Whenever conditions exist that would peak the background radiation, decay drops.

 

And yet they have shielded samples from neutrons etc and seen no significant changes in radioactive decay. I believe they are looking in the wrong place because its muons that actually cause most of the background radiation and these are highly penetrative and would produce background radiation within a sample.  So the attempts to eliminate background radiation as a source of changes in decay have neglected the main culprit, its muons that should be shielded to test for a before and after effect in decay rates.

 

Kindly re-think your "heat generation" hypothesis. In a stable world, every isotope rapidly decays into a stable state and this nearly eliminates radioactivity after the initial burst. For example no-one is concerned about the radiation and heat caused by iron rapidly decaying into a stable state. Unstable isotopes  stabilise over a few seconds or minutes quickly and is therefore no health/heat hazard from this. Its the long-life unstable isotopes that are a health problem and these would not exist under rapid decay conditions. Of course if the current sheer volume of long-life unstable isotopes all stabilise overnight we would have a massive heat problem on our hands, but continuously rapidly decaying isotopes would be as problematic as iron now is (ie no problem because it immediately decays into a stable state)

 

My hypothesis does not rest on an extremely strong magnetic field for two main reasons: 

1) Muons as an example of background radiation are easily susceptible to even air pressure. They are formed by high speed protons and these would be significantly deflected in a strong magnetic field, virtually zero penetration. At the moment there is still a steady flow of these turning into muons so that every few seconds a muon is colliding with your computer as you read this, creating a dispersion and shower of neutrons which are suppressing decay of stable isotopes in your vicinity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_particle_event

"Solar protons normally have insufficient energy to penetrate through the Earth's magnetic field. However, during unusually strong solar flare events, protons can be produced with sufficient energies to penetrate deeper into the Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere. Regions where deeper penetration can occur includes the north pole, south pole, and South Atlantic magnetic anomaly.

 

2) The source of the earliest dates are from studying decay rates of the long life heavy parent isotopes. These decay reaaaally slowly.  So if they are just losing a relatively few atoms every day (decayed into daughter isotopes) and the low background radiation is re-energising or maintaining the equilibrium of instability, this is enough to vastly change the rate of decay. What could have taken ten years without the radiation, could take 1 000 000 years with the background radiation.

 

The magnetic field was significantly stronger in the past, especially the last 4000 years. It also had long periods of being weaker, but I am proposing that the most intensive decay of long-life isotopes occurred during the 2500 BC to 1000 AD period. Thus certain patches of history could be artificially spread out by our historians, when these are merely short periods of time. Please see the attached image of magnetic field strength over time:

http://all-geo.org/highlyallochthonous/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Holocene_palaeointensity.jpeg

 

[Tristen]

 

“Genesis 1 has the world made in 6 days, Genesis 2.4 opens up with it being a day.Again (but I have been over this so many times), in Genesis 2.18 God declares it is not good for man to be alone.  He declares he will make a helper fit for him.  What is the next thing he does...makes birds and beasts (not had made, but made)”

Is that really what it says? Read it again. Now read Genesis 2 after Genesis 1. I would suggest to you that anyone who had read Genesis 1  would not make the assumptions you are making about Genesis 2 (apart from external motivations). The tense of “formed” (or “made”) is somewhat obscure in relation to the immediate context (though both are implicitly past-tense in the absence of context), but when Genesis 1 is considered, not only is the order of creation explicit, but the language determining order is also explicit. Your assumptions regarding the order of events in Genesis 2 only stand if you, for some reason, eject Genesis 1 from the account – i.e. remove the account from its intended context. Decontextualizing is also considered bad interpretation methodology – and not just for scripture.

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Tristen,

 

I have read it numerous times since this last post.  Your suggestion insinuates that reading Genesis 1 and 2 as separate creation narratives is original to me!  May I inform you that it is quite a popular reading, and by no means modern (i.e. a response to modern science).  Even if it were, it is not as if only this reading is liable to charge of ulterior motives; motives exist on both sides.  What baffles me is that people like you don’t admit the several problems that arise from your own reading—or, when you do, you immediately dismiss it with the exegetical “Well, God can do what He wants.”

 

But I will attempt to play along: I present here a running commentary of my reading of Genesis; I will attempt to ignore issues typically answered by the “God can” trump card, i.e. the fact that vegetation sprouts at a miraculous rate, or that light appears without a physical source (suns), and indeed is held at bay without a physical object (light and darkness are equally present, yet there are no objects to cast a shadow upon regions of light).  So, here I go. (Oh, in order to avoid discussions of evolution, Big Bang, Age of the earth, I will call your reading of Genesis 1account, mine 2accounts.

 

On Day 3 of Genesis 1 we are told that God created at the very least a wide variety of plants.  There is no explicit indication of other species forthcoming.   At least not in English.  Now, perhaps, as some 1accounters claim, the Hebrew of Day three relays a very specific scope of vegetation.  A modern parallel would be a story in which a farmer says, “today I will plant every coniferous tree”—anyone with a smidgen of arboreal knowledge would see what was missing and might expect to hear of deciduous trees later. Some 1accounters have argued that the plants specified here are edibles; or perhaps there is a clue in the reiterated description SEED. So, if the Hebrew indeed indicates this, then we would have here a subtle, but not extradinary, instance of foreshadowing.  The original recipient of this narrative would pick up on what was missing as easily as we would in the farmer’s narrative given above.

 

But I have yet to find a lexicon that supports major distinctions among the vegetation mentioned on day 3.  On day 3 we are given (as of now) no indication, no hint, that God has done anything other than create every single species of plant.  The ancients did not make a distinction between seed and spore or pollen.  There is nothing in the plants here to suggest that only edible plants are being created.  As of now, the author has done his best to say, “We have them all”; God is done creating vegetation.  PLEASE REFRAIN FROM POINTING FORWARD TO GENESIS 2….WE ARE NOT THERE YET. IF I HAVE MISSED SOMETHING IN THIS SECTION, THEN THAT IS OBVIOUSLY PERTINENT TO THIS EXPERIMENT.

 

On day 4 God creates lights and fixes them in the “expanse of the heavens”.  IF I allowed my preconceptions to operate, this would be unproblematic.  The author has basically said, God created lights in space.  But when I go back and read carefully, that is not what the author has said.  God fixed lights in the “expanse”.  And the expanse is (day 2) what separates water below from water above.  That is strange cosmology: water above an expanse, luminaries below an expanse, and water below the luminaries…odd, moving on.

 

Day 6 clearly has beasts created from the earth, and then the creation of Man/Woman (interesting, I have always assumed that we have a single couple—but upon a fresh reading, I see that the numbers are not explicit; similar to the assumption, perhaps, that there were 3 wise men at Jesus’ birth).

 

2.4b says “on the day God made the earth and the heavens”.  Hmm, this is a little odd.  We just saw He made it over 6 days.  Why didn’t the author say, 6 days?  You urged me to read this again and see if “on the day” is really what the text says.  Perhaps you see something I do not?  I see “on the day”, nothing more.  I have looked up this detail and found that even answersingenesis and creation.com thought it worth solving (so, it is a potential problem for 1accounters).  Their answer is that the Hebrew construction used here can be translated “when”.  And of course this is true.  “When” can always replace “on the day” in any instance.  This is a subterfuge.  The real question remains: does this Hebrew construction ever, EVER, indicate a time period MORE than a day?  I have made it through the Pentateuch and found none.  It always points to a single 24 hour period.  The text says, "in the 24 hour time period that God created the heavens and the earth".  If we play with meaning of "day" here, we leave room for day=agers to play with the word elsewhere. Moving on.

 

v. 5 I read that no bush of the field or small plant had sprung up and this because it had not rained and there was no man to work them….

 

…now this is a little odd.  Last I heard plants were created several days before man and with no indication that their growth and survival depended on man.  So when is this taking place?  Day 3?  Well that would be very odd, for then days 4 and 5 are completely skipped.  Again, it is fruitless to explore the Hebrew as YECs do (or claim) and say that the plants here mentioned are quite distinct from those indicated on day 3.  The Hebrew does not support this.  To fit all this in day 6 (per YEC) the mind has to make a sudden revision of day 3,  and without any literary help from the author—no foreshadowing given on day 3; no explanation at 2.5 of plants missing on day 3.  Only a mind long fostered on a YEC reading would deny that this is odd; for of course hardened custom can make almost anything sound natural.

 

In v. 18 the Lord declares it is not good for man to be alone and that He will form a helper.  The Hebrew of “formed” is the same used wherever God is creating something new.  So one should expect God to make something new.  Now, what do we have?  Something to do with birds and beasts: beasts made from the earth and (hmm…day 4 didn’t have this detail) birds as well).  Hmm, that is odd.  I thought birds and beasts were created before Man?  Now, my ESV has “had formed” which would resolve this….but I look up the Hebrew and see that what would easiy yield a perfect, is absent.  It is used elsewhere to indicate things that had already happened, but not here.  Thus far, every time this form of “made” has been used it is used of things being created there and then.

 

Maybe the next verse illuminates….well, not exactly, we have Adam naming the beasts.  So, God just declared that he was going to make a helper, and now he has Adam naming beasts?!  Odd.

 

Next we see this highly suggestive bit, “But no helper was found for Adam”.  What?  God just said he was going to make Adam a helper.  We see something to do with birds and beasts.  We see Adam naming them, and somehow through this naming process, no helper is found.

 

What’s next?  The creation of Eve.  What happens after?  He names her, simultaneously with the realization that she is a suitable helper!

 

So, to yield a consistent account, I have to suppose something like this:

1. God declared he was going to make a helper
2. He postpones this by having Adam name birds and beasts already created.  How to explain…Either God, or the author, thought that perhaps a new creative process might not be necessary—“hmm. let’s see what we already have. No need for extra work, after all!”  Or God has Adam consider unsuitable creatures by naming them in order to show him how suitable Eve is (compare and contrast).   MASSIVE EISOGESIS.  Nowhere do we see this in the text. The author was very intentional in explaining why God had Abraham attempt a sacrifice on his son (Now I know!).  Nothing of the like is here.  We do not have a subjective explanation (but Adam could find no helper) or any kind of explanation from God, “Now you know that Eve is….”.  What we have is the very objective, “But for Adam there was no helper”. Even on your own reading, without eisogesis, God had Adam consider animals as a real, viable source for companionship.
3. Assuming a) (for only ‘a’ avoids the enormous amount of eisogesiis) Nope, I guess God will, after all, have to make something new; animals will not do
4. He makes Eve, Adam names her, lo and behold, she works.

 

 

Now, my request of you.  Do you recognize these are real difficulties in your reading?  To admit they are difficulties is not the same as admitting you were wrong.  But if you cannot even see these as difficulties, then we operate on such different planes of thought that discussion here is pointless. Of course, if you have solutions or corrections not mentioned above I am, of course, interested in hearing them.  Now, a second request, I invite you to treat my own reading similarly (showing the exegetical problems that arise from reading the two accounts as separate and distinct, though overlapping thematically).

 

clb

 

 

 

Hey CLB.

 

I think your post demonstrates the clear difference between a) someone who has accepted the premise of the Bible as inerrant scripture and is sincerely seeking the author’s intent, and b) someone who is hyper-critically, super-pedantically analysing the text to expose any putative cracks and holes they can find in the traditional reading. I don’t have any problems with acknowledging the questions you raised, however, my default response is not to question the integrity of the text itself (as interprted in its own context), but to question the limits of my knowledge. That is, if I don’t understand something, then I assume that I don’t understand something. What I don’t do is assume the rest of the account to be therefore, suddenly invalidated as written – just because I don’t understand some of it.

 

Since your account has apparently been banned, I don’t think it would be good form for me to address your arguments more specifically – i.e. until you are afforded a right of reply.

[Bonky]

ARGOSY, according to what I'm reading, not only do secular experts acknowledge a heat problem with a young earth [extremely rapid decay] but creationist organizations do as well.

A simple calculation shows that crustal rocks with their present amount of radioactivity would melt many times over if decay rates were accelerated. However, I would like to emphasize here that all creationist Creation or Flood models I know of have serious problems with heat disposal. (Baumgardner 1986: 211, cited in Humphreys 2000: 369 –70)

As far as your hypothesis about the earths magnetic field and background radiation etc, I've read a fair amount from opponents of traditional nuclear decay models and I'm not seeing similar views. This of course doesn't mean that you're wrong, but to me I would be interested in feedback from folks who are experts in the subject matter.

[ARGOSY]

ARGOSY, according to what I'm reading, not only do secular experts acknowledge a heat problem with a young earth [extremely rapid decay] but creationist organizations do as well.

A simple calculation shows that crustal rocks with their present amount of radioactivity would melt many times over if decay rates were accelerated. However, I would like to emphasize here that all creationist Creation or Flood models I know of have serious problems with heat disposal. (Baumgardner 1986: 211, cited in Humphreys 2000: 369 –70)

As far as your hypothesis about the earths magnetic field and background radiation etc, I've read a fair amount from opponents of traditional nuclear decay models and I'm not seeing similar views. This of course doesn't mean that you're wrong, but to me I would be interested in feedback from folks who are experts in the subject matter.

 

Yes that heat problem is exactly what I admitted to. I said there would be a problem if all the existing unstable isotopes suddenly stabilised. However if unstable isotopes are continuously rapidly stabilising just like iron does, this causes no problem because there is not this huge accumulation of unstable isotopes as in current earth conditions. I dealt with your objection maybe you do not follow what I am saying but the logic is there.

 

I know I am not an expert , if you can find any experts who find a flaw in my reasoning I would appreciate that.

[Bonky]

Yes that heat problem is exactly what I admitted to. I said there would be a problem if all the existing unstable isotopes suddenly stabilised. However if unstable isotopes are continuously rapidly stabilising just like iron does, this causes no problem because there is not this huge accumulation of unstable isotopes as in current earth conditions. I dealt with your objection maybe you do not follow what I am saying but the logic is there.

 

I know I am not an expert , if you can find any experts who find a flaw in my reasoning I would appreciate that.

Well I don't know any experts personally, if you really are interested in getting feedback I'd post a write up of your hypothesis on a physics forum of some sort. Or contact Jere Jenkins who's one of the Purdue researchers working on this very topic.

https://engineering.purdue.edu/Engr/People/ptProfile?resource_id=7846