Allen Roy wrote:
> George M. wrote:
> > These two items together show the incoherence of this man's
> > thought on these matters. Of course assumptions need to be made in
> > order to use radioactive dating - but assumptions have to be made in
> > any scientific work. The argument, however, is not "circular" in the
> > proper sense - i.e., one doesn't assume the antiquity of the earth but
> > only something about the original abundances of isotopes.
>
> Come on, George:
> One MUST assume that antiquity of the earth before one accepts or applies
> computed radiometric dates. Here is why:
From this emphatic statement one would get the impression that you were
going to give a general proof that radioactive dating methods "MUST" assume the
antiquity of the earth. In reality do nothing of the kind, but instead present
one supposed anomaly. That is something quite different.
Whether or not radioactive dating always gives the correct answers, whether it
is always consistent with other dating methods, whether its assumptions about
constancy of decay rates or initial abundances, &c are correct is not the
issue. The question is, is the argument involved circular in the sense that one
has to assume that the ages involved are much greater than those assumed by YECs
in order to calculate the ages - whether those calculations agree with the real
age of the system or not. The answer is "No."
You will probably want to deflect the argument to focus on your supposed
anomaly, ignoring
all the cases in which various dating methods consistently give ages much
greater than those believed by YECs and the fact that no recognized scientific
methods give ages of the earth on the age of 10^4 years. But that has nothing
to do with the logic of the argument.
> But then there is apparently complete unawareness of the fact that
> > he is making presuppositions, & the most naive ones possible, about
> > the character of the biblical text. & this naiveté is accompanied by
> > the hubris of telling us, as if he were a biblical scholar how Genesis
> > was written
>
> The Tablet theory (the idea that literary structural evidence in Genesis
> parallels literary structures of writings from the same era (and before) as
> Moses) is based on solid archaeological evidence. While such a whacked out
> delusion as the JEPD (or what-ever) theory was developed from an
> anthropological theory (that the concept of a Supreme God was the final
> religious stage evolving from polytheistic spiritism) that was disproven and
> discarded over three quarters of a century ago.
This last sentence is a perfect illustration of the orator's maxim,
"Argument weak here - shout like hell!"
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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