BeardOfZeus
New Member
What's the deal with radioactive decay? I keep hearing young-earth creationists saying that it's "been proven false."
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Radioactive Decay False?
- Thread starter BeardOfZeus
- Start date
Master_Ghost_Knight
New Member
Do you even take seriously anything that a creationist says?
BeardOfZeus
New Member
Pulsar said:
I agree with the first part totally. These so called fulfilled prophecies that they speak of are absolute twaddle.
PuppetXeno
New Member
I'm quite glad radioactive decay is pretty damn sound, else I could throw my education overboard and give up my job in the process. I hate stupid idiots who piss on other people's life's work or even people's dayjobs (as in my case) simply because they're allergic to reality. Arrogant dickheads. Radioactive isotopes save lives, producing them is a matter of very accurate irradiation processes and chemical extraction and well calculated amounts of application... If radioactive decay would be anywhere near unpredictable or if there was any guesswork involved or if any random anomalies ever emerged in any of the processes, you could expect, in the best case, null-yielding batches - or in the worst case: death of all operator personnel by over-exposure. Since this hasn't ever happened, in practice it turns out the theories are astonishingly correct, and many patients in hospitals around the world are served with the fine products from our little reactor at the seaside of our little country.
What a morons.
What a morons.
COMMUNIST FLISK
New Member
PuppetXeno said:I'm quite glad radioactive decay is pretty damn sound, else I could throw my education overboard and give up my job in the process. I hate stupid idiots who piss on other people's life's work or even people's dayjobs (as in my case) simply because they're allergic to reality. Arrogant dickheads. Radioactive isotopes save lives, producing them is a matter of very accurate irradiation processes and chemical extraction and well calculated amounts of application... If radioactive decay would be anywhere near unpredictable or if there was any guesswork involved or if any random anomalies ever emerged in any of the processes, you could expect, in the best case, null-yielding batches - or in the worst case: death of all operator personnel by over-exposure. Since this hasn't ever happened, in practice it turns out the theories are astonishingly correct, and many patients in hospitals around the world are served with the fine products from our little reactor at the seaside of our little country.
What a morons.
epic win right here, i agree totally, if what they say is right everything about physics, then therefore chimistry and ultimately biology has to be thrown out of the window, which is just not the case
I think most of the false claims are cleared up by potholder54.
I actually came across an idiot in my class in high school claiming we do not even know how old the world is. I replied we do due to carbon dating, geology, etc. He said, "Nuh uh! Carbon dating was proven wrong! They put a snail under the machine and it said it was really old! So much for evolution, heh!"
Well, this exact myth is addressed by potholder54 at around 10:00 into the video.
I actually came across an idiot in my class in high school claiming we do not even know how old the world is. I replied we do due to carbon dating, geology, etc. He said, "Nuh uh! Carbon dating was proven wrong! They put a snail under the machine and it said it was really old! So much for evolution, heh!"
Well, this exact myth is addressed by potholder54 at around 10:00 into the video.
There's actually beautiful evidence of constant decay rates found in observations of supernovae. The 'afterglow' of a supernova lasts several months, which is caused by the radiation of radioactive isotopes of cobalt, nickel and titanium (which is confirmed by spectroscopy). Since the decline in intensity matches the expected decay rates (*) of these elements, and distant supernovae exploded millions of years ago, the decay rates of these elements were the same then as now.
(*) To be exact, distant supernovae actually do appear to fade slower than nearby supernovae, by a factor of 1+z (z is their redshift). That's exactly what's expected from cosmic time delay, caused by the expansion of the universe. Ain't that nice?
(*) To be exact, distant supernovae actually do appear to fade slower than nearby supernovae, by a factor of 1+z (z is their redshift). That's exactly what's expected from cosmic time delay, caused by the expansion of the universe. Ain't that nice?
JacobEvans
New Member
Just a small point carbon dating is only accurate up to 50,000-60,000 years ago. It's not really used to date the age of the Earth.
I'm pretty sure we use radioactive dating in hundreds of different isotopes to find the ages of things, including Earth.
Hmm, someone may need to make a thread explaining the different radiometric dating methods...JacobEvans said:I'm pretty sure we use radioactive dating in hundreds of different isotopes to find the ages of things, including Earth.
JacobEvans
New Member
Hmm, someone may need to make a thread explaining the different radiometric dating methods...
what I meant to say was that we may not use carbon dating to determine the age of Earth, but we do use other radioactive isotopes.
And, lately people seem to be clumping all dating processes together and just calling it carbon dating.
JacobEvans
New Member
actually it's one less.
When people are given ANY chance to be just a little bit lazier, they will take that chance.
When people are given ANY chance to be just a little bit lazier, they will take that chance.
That sounds like some new hip thing in town... "Speed dating? Pfff, that's sooo last year, I've been 'tope dating yesterday. Man, she was radiant!"Aught3 said:hmmm is 'tope dating better?
The top misconceptions about dating (valid ones if asked honestly) are this:
1. The curious belief that Carbon dating is used to measure the age of rocks. As discussed earlier, C14 decay is only measurable from 50,000-60,000 years. New calibration techniques may push this up to 100,000. Still not even close to old enough to date rocks.
2. The strange conjecture that contamination cannot be accounted for. This is the goal of a flawless dating method, as seen in various methods of isochron dating.
1. The curious belief that Carbon dating is used to measure the age of rocks. As discussed earlier, C14 decay is only measurable from 50,000-60,000 years. New calibration techniques may push this up to 100,000. Still not even close to old enough to date rocks.
2. The strange conjecture that contamination cannot be accounted for. This is the goal of a flawless dating method, as seen in various methods of isochron dating.
D
Deleted member 499
Guest
TheJilvin said:The top misconceptions about dating (valid ones if asked honestly) are this:
1. The curious belief that Carbon dating is used to measure the age of rocks. As discussed earlier, C14 decay is only measurable from 50,000-60,000 years. New calibration techniques may push this up to 100,000. Still not even close to old enough to date rocks.
Also the issue that C14 dating relies on organic matter so you wouldn't get anything to date out of most rocks.