• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Seven Days

paximperium said:
I don't believe much about the Bible. It tells a nice wishy-washy story that can be interpreted many different ways. It's a good story but can be pretty nasty at times.

So?
Click to expand...

So then as far as this thread goes you should have no interest. Because this thread is about what the Bible says and doesn't say about creation. It doesn't say the universe was created in 6 literal days.
 
devnull said:
A lot of dreamtime rock art has been radiocarbon dated between 10000 and 40000 years old.
Click to expand...

Thats a 30000 year margin of error.

A conference of radio chemists, archaeologists and geologists in Uppsala, Sweden concluded that radiocarbon dating was unreliable for dating objects older than 2000 years.

What if the cosmic rays have varied in the past 15000 to 20000 years? Or the total amount of stable carbon in the exchange reservoir hasn't been constant. Carbon dioxide in the air? Are the samples contemporaneous with the event which it marks?

What about a potassium-argon clock instead?
 
Last edited:
David Henson said:
Perhaps it didn't. What evidence is there that the art in question is in fact 29,000 years old?
Click to expand...
Did you not read the article? It was from the ABC's science division.

Look, nobody denies you your faith, but please don't try to use your distorted view of science to prove the historical truth of the bible. You are looking really foolish.
 
David Henson said:
Thats a 30000 year margin of error.
Click to expand...

Did he say a single rock dated that wide a range?


David Henson said:
A conference of radio chemists, archaeologists and geologists in Uppsala, Sweden concluded that radiocarbon dating was unreliable for dating objects older than 2000 years.
Click to expand...

Suuuure they did. Evidence?

David Henson said:
What if the cosmic rays have varied in the past 15000 to 20000 years? Or the total amount of stable carbon in the exchange reservoir hasn't been constant. Carbon dioxide in the air? Are the samples contemporaneous with the event which it marks?
Click to expand...

You are right, scientists have never thought to calibrate their dating methods. :boggled:
 
lionking said:
Did you not read the article? It was from the ABC's science division.
Click to expand...

No, I didn't. I assumed the blurb you provided was the relevant information. That is what I responded to.

lionking said:
Look, nobody denies you your faith, but please don't try to use your distorted view of science to prove the historical truth of the bible. You are looking really foolish.
Click to expand...

This isn't about faith, faith has nothing to do with it. I am addressing the possiblity of the flood. Not to "prove" it. I will do this today.
 
temporalillusion said:
Did he say a single rock dated that wide a range?
Click to expand...

Are you answering his question? Wouldn't the rocks in question only be relevant if they were the rocks that had the art or was it intended that the art spanned a period of time consisting of 30000 years?

temporalillusion said:
Suuuure they did. Evidence?
Click to expand...

Would you agree that the following assumptions must all be true in order for radiocarbon dating to be accurate?

1. That carbon 14, the radioactive component of natural carbon, decays with a half-life of 5,568 years.

2. That the ratio of carbon-14 atoms to the stable carbon-12 atoms in “live” carbon has always been the same as it is today. This depends on two other assumptions (2a and 2b).

2a. That the number of carbon-14 atoms has been constant; this means that the cosmic rays that form them must not have varied in the past 15,000 or 20,000 years.

2b. Also, that the total amount of stable carbon in the “exchange reservoir” has been constant during the same time. This includes the carbon dioxide in the air, as well as the organic carbon in living things, because they are continually taking up carbon dioxide by photosynthesis and releasing it by respiration. Also, carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater, where it forms carbonic acid and carbonate, which becomes mixed with the dissolved carbonate in the ocean. This process also is reversible, although it may take fifty years. Mineral carbonate in the rocks is, of course, not considered to be part of the exchange reservoir.

2c. Related to number two is the assumption that the production of carbon 14 has continued steady all this time, and this implies that its decay, on a worldwide basis, is in balance with its production.

3. That any living thing, plant or animal, incorporates radiocarbon in its tissues while it is alive; then, after its death, the activity decreases mathematically according to the natural radioactive decay; it does not pick up radiocarbon through contact with younger materials, nor lose it by exchanging atoms with older carbon.

4. That for practical use of radiocarbon dates, the sample must be contemporaneous with the event that it marks, and not something that grew a long time before.

temporalillusion said:
You are right, scientists have never thought to calibrate their dating methods. :boggled:
Click to expand...

That wasn't the question.
 
Last edited:
David Henson said:
Genesis 1:1. Remember my commentary which concluded that the language in the Bible makes it clear that the creation was complete. The language indicates completed action.

Then the first creative "day" or period begins.
Click to expand...
I don't know why you are putting quotes around it, as I pointed out above the Bible explicitly defines them as actual earth days.

The making of land mass. plants, Sun, Moon, fish, birds, animals, humanity is completed in six actual earth days. There is no ambiguity in Genesis about that.
 
The heavens had been created at this point, including the sun and moon and stars.
Click to expand...

sure they had to be there already, because without the stuff that was created in the first stars, we would not be here, also not our Planet. No heavy elements without the fission reactors called stars.

atleast something the fantasy book got vaguely right.
 
David Henson said:
No, I didn't. I assumed the blurb you provided was the relevant information. That is what I responded to.
Click to expand...

Okay. So I hope you don't expect members to read your posts in detail then. Any chance of addressing the point I was making?
 
Last edited:
I've read that ABC link...do we accept web-based news media output as equivalent to peer-reviewed scientific journal publication now? Or only when we're mocking believers?

From my reading of it, it seems that it was the rock surface beneath the pigment that was tested, with the explanation that the painting couldn't be any older than the surface it was painted on - can't argue with that...though I can argue with their conclusion that the painting is as old as the rock it's painted on. My geology is limited, but wouldn't most rocks be a lot older than 29,000 years anyway?

There's only one picture in that link, of one picture...typical primitive daubings of hunters and their prey. As evidence for 'creation myths' predating the written account of Genesis, that's pretty weak, don't you think?
 
David Henson said:
A conference of radio chemists, archaeologists and geologists in Uppsala, Sweden concluded that radiocarbon dating was unreliable for dating objects older than 2000 years.
Click to expand...

That's just BS. Since the half-life of C14 is about 5500 years, something 5500 years old is right in the sweet spot for carbon dating. There have been variations in the rate of production of C14, but those are fairly minor, and anyway have been calibrated by comparison to objects whose age we know.

But what gets me is that you're trying to use uncertainties in carbon dating, which are fairly minor, to cast doubt on the idea that there are creation stories that are much, much older than Genesis. It's like you're trying to argue that something measured as one centimeter long, could be longer than something we measured as ten centimeters, because the ruler we're using may not have been calibrated.
 
David Henson said:
Would you agree that the following assumptions must all be true in order for radiocarbon dating to be accurate?
Click to expand...

I would not, nor would any professional scientist who works with C-14 dating.

1. That carbon 14, the radioactive component of natural carbon, decays with a half-life of 5,568 years.

2. That the ratio of carbon-14 atoms to the stable carbon-12 atoms in “live” carbon has always been the same as it is today. This depends on two other assumptions (2a and 2b).

2a. That the number of carbon-14 atoms has been constant; this means that the cosmic rays that form them must not have varied in the past 15,000 or 20,000 years.

2b. Also, that the total amount of stable carbon in the “exchange reservoir” has been constant during the same time. This includes the carbon dioxide in the air, as well as the organic carbon in living things, because they are continually taking up carbon dioxide by photosynthesis and releasing it by respiration. Also, carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater, where it forms carbonic acid and carbonate, which becomes mixed with the dissolved carbonate in the ocean. This process also is reversible, although it may take fifty years. Mineral carbonate in the rocks is, of course, not considered to be part of the exchange reservoir.

2c. Related to number two is the assumption that the production of carbon 14 has continued steady all this time, and this implies that its decay, on a worldwide basis, is in balance with its production.

3. That any living thing, plant or animal, incorporates radiocarbon in its tissues while it is alive; then, after its death, the activity decreases mathematically according to the natural radioactive decay; it does not pick up radiocarbon through contact with younger materials, nor lose it by exchanging atoms with older carbon.

4. That for practical use of radiocarbon dates, the sample must be contemporaneous with the event that it marks, and not something that grew a long time before.
Click to expand...

What you list as assumption 2 is known to be false and is controlled for accordingly. Geological events -- volcanos are among the largest contributors -- can add or subtract carbon from the cycle. There are published (peer-reviewed) "calibration curves" (this one is from IntCal04) that are used specifically to address this issue.

Notice that this is a calibration "curve." Simple visual inspection will show that the carbon levels are not only not "assumed" to be stable and uniform, but they are actually known to be non-uniform. And the degree of historic non-uniformity can be inferred from other geological sources (volcanic ash is a good one, as are glacial core samples) to produce these curves.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom