On Sat, 16 Sep 1995 09:59:09 -0700 (PDT) you wrote:
SF>>On a personal note, I find it odd that we trust the use of 14C
>dating to find the age of old Biblical manuscripts, and pieces of
>wood that are purportedly from the ark, and other Biblical
>artifacts but distrust the methods when the same process is used
>to date objects to be much older than our world view allows. We
>can't have it both ways.
The problem is that the half-life of C-14 is too short to be
useful beyond historic times:
"Most carbon atoms have six protons and six neutrons (shown
as 12C, carbon twelve) and are not radioactive. However, 14C
(carbon fourteen) has six protons and eight neutrons and is
radioactive. With the release of radioactivity, 14C spontaneously
breaks down over a period of time into 14N (nitrogen fourteen).
A small amount of 14C is present in all living things. Scientists
can determine the age of a fossil because the rate at which 14C
breaks down is known. If the fossil still contains organic matter
the relative amounts of 14C and 14N are measured and the age
is calculated. However, this method is unreliable for measuring
ages in excess of twenty thousand years. The radioactivity becomes
so slight that it is difficult to make an accurate determination."
(Mader S., "Biology", 3rd Ed., 1990, Wm. C. Brown, Indiana, p25)
SF>I am very interested in these issues and would be interested in
>hearing any evidence anyone wishes to put forth about the relative
>youth of the earth. I am not opposed to the idea, I just find no
>scientific evidence for it.
Agreed. I have been having a debate with a couple of YEC's on our
Australian Fidonet Creation v Evolution echo. None of their evidence
cited for a young age of the Earth points to 6,000 - 10,000 years.
Most of it points to ages of millions of years, which while it is
an argument against extreme ages of billions of years, does not
support their young-Earth theory. Typical is the following:
"Salt is continually being washed into the sea. It has been
calculated that, even allowing for the formation of rock salt by
evaporation and making the unlikely assumption that no salt was there
in the first place, an absolute maximum of 200 million years would
give the amount now found. Again, this is far short of the 1,000
million years required by evolution. The Christian, of course,
believes that God would have created the sea with the correct content
of salt needed to support the marine life he intended it to contain.
These lines of evidence show that the earth is very much younger than
the 4,500 million years claimed by the evolutionist. The fact that
the dates they provide still sometimes run into millions of years
should not worry the Christian; as we have shown, they all depend on
assuming that processes have been constant in the past and on
unprovable assumptions concerning the original state of the earth.
These processes, however, have not always been constant, and the Flood
was a major catastrophe during which substantial physical changes
happened very rapidly. Moreover, the earth - created complete and
perfect by God - would after six days of existence already have
achieved the form that the evolutionist imagines it would have
acquired very gradually." (Baker S., "Bone of Contention", 1976,
Creation Science Foundation, Evangelical Press, Hertfordshire, p26).
Here Baker advances an argument for a younger age of the Earth, but
doesn't believe her own argument! The retreat to the old YEC standby,
the appearance of age argument, apart from implying deception by God,
is tacit acceptance that scientists are right their reading of the
evidence pointing to an old Earth!
Regards.
Stephen
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