Where does the number 4.5 billion come from?

[DutchLiam84]

So a YEC, meaning you believe the Earth is only 6000 years old. Well, there are trees that are 10.000 years old...blows your 6000 years right out of the water. Dendrochronology can go back 13.000 years. Ice core chronology goes back 550.000 years. This is without any form of radiometric dating. Being a YEC is a very dishonest position that can't possibly be honestly defended by anyone. Even if the 4.55 byo is wrong.....the Earth is still at least 100 times older than you believe. Your thoughts on that?

There are no trees that are 10,000 years old. Your understanding of dendrochronology is incorrect. Trees can and do make more than one tree ring in a year.

I'm not talking about Bristlecone Pines. MY understanding? Do you really think actual dendrochronologists are a bunch of retards and never thought of that? But the 10.000 year old spruce was not measured with dendrochronology but with Carbon dating. And how about the ice cores.....any thoughts on that? I guess it somehow was the flood right?

See how easy you dismiss something with things I'm not talking about? And you wonder why we think your way of reasoning is flawed?

 

[australopithecus]

I interpret that as an abstract to a paper that we have now found, read, and understood to not have done that which you claimed it did. Your claim that Patterson was discredited was wrong, now it just looks like you're grasping at straws. Be man enough to admit when you are shown to be at error.

A "paper"? There was no paper involved. This was a pdf. Someone found a digital pdf and digitally emailed it to us. There was no paper. Please admit your error. And I'm not grasping at straws. I'm not even sure what straws you're talking about. Did anyone else see any straws?

Remember in the other thread when I talked about selective use of the English language, and how it is dishonest?

 

[Avatra1]

Oh Oh Oh!

I know a better one!

Is any of the "material" from creationists (which he deemed to be "so goood!") peer-reviewed?

Yes, there are creationist peer-reviewed scientific journals.

:lol:

Show More Hide

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[)O( Hytegia )O(]

Yes, there are creationist peer-reviewed scientific journals.

:lol:

Show More Hide

{TEXT}

Peer-review means that they actually present evidence and data that can be gathered by anyone, including a testing line they used to gather this data... Give me a single paper that ANYONE can execute with the proper reproductive scientific tools, YYNJ, and I'll be happy to perform the tests and establish the data for you.

That's the definition of "Peer-Review" in Science in terms of publishing papers. Give me a single paper that states a physical, testable, data-based claim and I'll pay for the equipment to reproduce it.
Peer Review is NOT the act by which someone agrees with you on something - it's where someone performs the same tests on the same data sets via reproduction of the test within the paper, and comes to a result. No matter how many people agree with you, you still need evidence and data!
[ShowMore=Spoiler!]I'm offering to pay thousands in order to replicate results to establish a point -
there are no Creationist papers that can be peer-reviewed by any sense of the word. Therefore, it's not subject to peer-review.[/ShowMore]

 

[Avatra1]

I need to facepalm myself for not writing that..

 

[Squawk]

Lets address the fixation with Patterson, very quick. He did some work, figured out the world was 4.5 billion years old, give or take.

What happened next? Blind adherance by the scientific community, or skepticism? The pointing out of methodological errors, the re-examining of data, the subsequent search to see if the conclusions really were valid.

What has been found? In short, though errors were made, they were not significant enough to cause a huge level of error. The quest to find those errors actually firms up the data.

I'd highlight this to pretty much anyone as a case to be studied to understand how science works. Do research, publish. Other people pick holes in it, point out errors, try to discredit, and the net result is that the conclusions get more and more accurate over time.

Also, hi everyone ;D

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Also, hi everyone ;D

Welcome back!

 

[YesYouNeedJesus]

Your link leads to an article, Evidence for multiple rings growth per year in Bristlecone Pines, written in 2006 by Mark Matthews. One would think Mathews was an archaeologist or perhaps a botanist, but no. According to CMI, Matthews is a Nuclear Engineer that worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleaning up hazardous waste and treating wastewater. It seems he has no real credentials for dendrochronolgy.

You lose credibility with a response like this. I personally care more about evidence than credentials. If you don't, that's a huge issue you should deal with.

A fact made clear by a quick look at Talk.Origins' An Index to Creationist Claims. Claim CB501 explicitly handles the claim Matthews makes about bristlecone pines having multiple rings. This includes the fact that we have multiple dating methods giving us roughly the same dates. Again, we come upon the problem of independent dating methods verifying each other. Consistency, something real science has and pseudoscience (creationism) can never achieve

Would you like to try again? Perhaps this time you could cite some evidence that has not already been debunked.

What were the top 3 arguments made by Matthews that they debunked?

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Your link leads to an article, Evidence for multiple rings growth per year in Bristlecone Pines, written in 2006 by Mark Matthews. One would think Mathews was an archaeologist or perhaps a botanist, but no. According to CMI, Matthews is a Nuclear Engineer that worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleaning up hazardous waste and treating wastewater. It seems he has no real credentials for dendrochronolgy.

You lose credibility with a response like this. I personally care more about evidence than credentials. If you don't, that's a huge issue you should deal with.

If he has evidence, than he can submit his article to peer-review. I doubt it would make it through because of reasons I have already pointed out. Just because he wrote something down does not mean it counts as evidence. Real science comes from the peer-review process.

A fact made clear by a quick look at Talk.Origins' An Index to Creationist Claims. Claim CB501 explicitly handles the claim Matthews makes about bristlecone pines having multiple rings. This includes the fact that we have multiple dating methods giving us roughly the same dates. Again, we come upon the problem of independent dating methods verifying each other. Consistency, something real science has and pseudoscience (creationism) can never achieve

Would you like to try again? Perhaps this time you could cite some evidence that has not already been debunked.

What were the top 3 arguments made by Matthews that they debunked?

I know the number one was that bristlecone pines make multiple rings per year. Again, if Mathews has some contrary evidence, he is more than welcome to submit his article to peer-review. He also does not account for the concordant dating methods.

 

[scalyblue]

What were the top 3 arguments made by Matthews that they debunked?

A loaded request. I would presume that even if every posit that Matthews made was refuted by a given paper, you would not accept it unless it was Matthews' posit, verbatim.

If you are willing to think and read, then by all means

RTFA

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea2.html#proof27

Your concerns regarding dendrochronological dating are addressed, with citations to peer reviewed studies, in this small portion of an entire book on the subject

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood.html

that addresses nearly any, if not all, young earth claims, with a fully cited bibliography.

One thing I've seen you neglecting in your attempts to understand science, is that any scientific theory will have a corresponding scenario that would refute it, if it were to occur. Any scientific theory creates valid predictions and is falsifiable. You cannot produce a predictable, falsifiable theory involving divinity.

 

[Gnug215]

Your link leads to an article, Evidence for multiple rings growth per year in Bristlecone Pines, written in 2006 by Mark Matthews. One would think Mathews was an archaeologist or perhaps a botanist, but no. According to CMI, Matthews is a Nuclear Engineer that worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleaning up hazardous waste and treating wastewater. It seems he has no real credentials for dendrochronolgy.

You lose credibility with a response like this. I personally care more about evidence than credentials. If you don't, that's a huge issue you should deal with.

You're not judged for your works.

Yes we are. I don't think your theology is too good, but that's not a slam. I don't expect it to be, since you're an atheist.

Seems like you DO care about credentials.

And it also seems you know a bit about why credentials matter now. It is of course true that evidence matters more, but I hope you understand why we're skeptical of an amateur (in the relevant field) comes in and makes some revolutionary new findings that don't add up to anything previously found. One should be especially skeptical if such an amateur is a creationist, or otherwise adhering to some kind of personal belief that is somehow not compatible with current scientific concensus. Because that indicates that said amateur has a massive personal bias and an a priori conclusion that he is trying to prove.

Additionally, we have heard plenty of Christians preaching to us that one of the things that makes Christianity special and awesome is that we are NOT judged by our works. But I suppose those Christians were wrong, or they weren't real Christians.

A fact made clear by a quick look at Talk.Origins' An Index to Creationist Claims. Claim CB501 explicitly handles the claim Matthews makes about bristlecone pines having multiple rings. This includes the fact that we have multiple dating methods giving us roughly the same dates. Again, we come upon the problem of independent dating methods verifying each other. Consistency, something real science has and pseudoscience (creationism) can never achieve

Would you like to try again? Perhaps this time you could cite some evidence that has not already been debunked.

What were the top 3 arguments made by Matthews that they debunked?

3 top arguments? I haven't read the article, but scientific papers usually don't have something like a "top 10 best arguments in this article" section.

No, you have to read the article, then make your case, and then we will read it and deal with your case.

Right now it seems you're just sitting there expecting us to do all the work, and it doesn't even seem like you've read the whole article yourself.

 

[CommonEnlightenment]

I think that a a very good "Starter" or laymen book on some of the things that are being described inside this thread would be the following:

"The Day We Found the Universe" - Marcia Bartusiak

Also, a slightly more advanced book but still along the lines of starter or layman would be:

"Big Bang" - Simon Singh


Carry on and good day.

I would like to see someone place the detail found in those books (it's a starter book) and compare it to what is found in the Bible. Then I would like to see a follower of the bible come in here and attempt to put those three pieces of literature in direct comparison with each other with the topic being Cosmology.


Oh..... And carry on again with a very special day.


OPPPPPPS Edit:

I MADE A MISTAKE AND REALIZED THAT THIS POST PROBABLY FITS IN THE LIGHT DISCUSSION THAT IS HAPPENING.

Carry, Carry, Carry on and have a superb day.

Edit: Author Edits and such.

 

[Lallapalalable]

Gnug said it best. There are definitely worse creationists, many of them trolls, who come through here (many possibly being just the one guy/gal), and the experiences left a bitter taste.

Id contribute more, but there's nothing I can say (not being a scientist and all) that hasnt already been said or linked to. Probably with better grammar, too. I can say that I do believe your question has been answered several times, with lots of sources. Yeah, some posts may be a bit sarcastic or vitriolic, but as Gnug said the average experience is frustrating and one sided with the typical YEC completely ignoring any sort of evidence provided, as per the first reply.

I do hope you take away from this a healthy respect for the actual work that goes into the 'claims' science makes about the age of the earth and the process called evolution, and any other facts that don't conform to YECism. I too held some beliefs very dear to myself that, upon learning some science, I had to let go. And you know what? I got over it! All I do want to say is that there may come a day for you, implier of my need for jesus, where you will have to change your mind on a belief that may or may not turn your friends and family against you and cast everything else you believe into doubt. There are thousands of distinct religions out there, are you so arrogant as to believe out of billions only a handful of you are perfectly correct, and that you lucked out to just be born into the answer?

Damn, that was more than I intended to write, but one idea lead to the next

To sum it up, the number was refined out of countless observations across just about every field of science, and any creation-'scientist' who has absolute proof of a young earth would be all over the media right now, and we'd have a whole subforum devoted to discussing it.

 

[TheOnlyThing2Fear]

Just out of interest; when all this is explained to you, and you're given evidence, what reason will you give as to why you're not going to accept it?

Just out of interest, when you obfuscate and predict the response to your supposed forthcoming explanation in your question, haven't you just conceded that your supposed evidence won't necessarily be acceptable?

 

[TheOnlyThing2Fear]

I'm relatively new to science and I'm a YEC. Some mentors of mine have explained lied to me that the age of the earth held by practically everyone, came from bad science. They said that number has absolutely no evidence and was actually concocted by an evolutionary scientist by the name of Patterson in 1955. The number 4.5 billion came from his beliefs about where the lead in meteorites came from.

But in 1972 research by a scientist named Gale disproved Patterson's work. And of course the number stuck and is still a widespread held belief by evolutionists today.

Is this true?

Would you change your mind if you saw evidence for real age of the earth? Could you?

I have asked for evidence of where on the earth I can go and see the geologic column and have not been given the coordinates as of yet, and am usually just told I'm an idiot. Hmmm, so I read something in a book that seemingly the entire scientific community believes in, yet has apparently never seen. Sounds like religion to me. Until I can see it, I can only assume it is a hypothetical, existing only in the hopes and beliefs of those who cannot accept special creation. That's just an opinion.

 

[TheOnlyThing2Fear]

Is that really necessary? If everyone holds to this number for the age of the earth, doesn't everyone know the science behind this number? Who cares what I was told by lunatic creationists. If a young boy asked anyone here why they believe the earth is 4.5 billion years old, what evidence would you give?

It's called citing your sources. It's also called polite.

But I'll do my best to answer the question which has already been answered above by Wark.

Yes, C.C Patterson did contribute to the age of the Earth figure of 4.5 billion years. No, his work was not discredited nor disproven (whoever told you that lied to you), and the reason the age of 4.5 billion has stuck is because it is the age that has been arrived at by various methods of dating over many years. Simply put, the evidences states 4.5 billion years is accurate. That's it.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html

So your evidence is based on someone else said it, wrote it down in a book, talked about it in a lecture, made a video about it, or perhaps you heard about "it" over a brew in a local pub. I'm just at the start of this thread and I can already see the trap was set and there appears to be one foot in the snare already. Th ease in which you call someone a liar does not make them liar. It might cause the readers here to wonder if you have command of the facts. I'm just stating the obvious. I'm guessing there's will be a source forthcoming for how this Patterson fellow's science was debunked. There's a scent of Haeckel in the air...

 

[TheOnlyThing2Fear]

Just out of curiosity, what do you think it would prove if the earth were not 4.5 billion years old? I mean, we know from a hundred other methods that the Earth is at least billions of years old.

Exactly what is the need for knowing the age of the earth?

 

[nudger1964]

[
I have asked for evidence of where on the earth I can go and see the geologic column and have not been given the coordinates as of yet, and am usually just told I'm an idiot. Hmmm, so I read something in a book that seemingly the entire scientific community believes in, yet has apparently never seen. Sounds like religion to me. Until I can see it, I can only assume it is a hypothetical, existing only in the hopes and beliefs of those who cannot accept special creation. That's just an opinion.

i hestitate to ask a question as much of what you say just seems like trolling to me... but just on the off chance that you genuinely believe what you have written, i would like to ask you why do you think we (those that accept scientific concensus) do so because we WANT to believe it true. I have no preference in the answer being one thing or the other, i just want to know what the answer is.
i would suggest that if you want co ordinates, you could do worse than buy yourself a copy of "Stratigraphic Database of Major Sedimentary Basins of the World"

 

[australopithecus]

So your evidence is based on someone else said it, wrote it down in a book, talked about it in a lecture, made a video about it, or perhaps you heard about "it" over a brew in a local pub. I'm just at the start of this thread and I can already see the trap was set and there appears to be one foot in the snare already. Th ease in which you call someone a liar does not make them liar. It might cause the readers here to wonder if you have command of the facts. I'm just stating the obvious. I'm guessing there's will be a source forthcoming for how this Patterson fellow's science was debunked. There's a scent of Haeckel in the air...

Haven't you been paying attention? Patterson's finding were not debunked. His paper was peer reviewed, his peers found that he didn't take into account certain properties of the meteors but it was found these properties didn't effect his findings to any real degree, and the second experiment only reinforced the date independently.

Remember when I said "You don't know what science is" and then you posted a word salas designed only to try and intimidate through verbosity? Well my original statement stands with an addition; you don't know what science is, or how it works.

Just out of interest, when you obfuscate and predict the response to your supposed forthcoming explanation in your question, haven't you just conceded that your supposed evidence won't necessarily be acceptable?

Nope, I've just acknowldeged the fact that creationists are biased, regardless of the evidence given to them. Given YYNJ has admitted he is ignorant on the subject then what finds acceptable or not has little impact of the evidences validity. Also, perhaps you'd like to explain how I was obfuscating. Let's have a look at my post:

Just out of interest; when all this is explained to you, and you're given evidence, what reason will you give as to why you're not going to accept it?

Now let's look at the definition of obfuscate:

ob,·fus,·cate/ˈ Verb:
Render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.
Bewilder (someone).

My post was clear and intelligible and it was not obscure. If you were bewildered by it it says more about you than it does about me.

 

[australopithecus]

Just out of curiosity, what do you think it would prove if the earth were not 4.5 billion years old? I mean, we know from a hundred other methods that the Earth is at least billions of years old.

Exactly what is the need for knowing the age of the earth?

So we don't remain ignorant; like the ignorance of people in the 21st century assuming goat herders in 500bc knew more about reality than we do now.