Where does the number 4.5 billion come from?

[Squawk]

It seems the apparently simple question of "defining biological evolution" is not understood by the people asking for it, as TOTTF has been asked for two different things.

First, he was asked for a definition of biological evolution. He was subsequently asked for a definition of the theory of evolution. It would be extremely useful to get answers to both of these, but they should not be confused.

As an aside, why is it that when people are asked to define a process that they do not agree with, they feel a need to preface it with "a belief held by some people that"? Do they feel a need to attempt to devalue it with such a statement, knowing that they can't actually devalue the idea itself?


As for what science was valid before peer review, anything that was done with rigourous methodology was good science, anything that allowed bias to enter the process was bad science. Peer review could be seen as a method of checking methodology rather than actual results, though of course that is far too simple.

Consider Newton. We all know his work, but what about the stuff he did with alchemy? Not everything Newton did was good, not everything was bad. The good stuff emerged when he worked solely with the facts at hand and did not let bias enter in.

 

[)O( Hytegia )O(]

Pulling something out of one's rectum would be ill advised and most assuredly painful.

You must be into BDSM - you're doing just that an awful lot in this thread.

So the need for knowing "why" the sky is blue, is so you can give your future children an evidenced-based explanation? And what will your answer be when the children ask if it was cold when you went up to examine the sky Daddy? Or, did you fly in a big plane when you went up to look at the sky?

You completely missed the point - yet again.
The point of answering questions like that is in hopes that our posterity don't end up living in the same obscure darkness of ignorance that we lived in, fumbling around blindly for an answer until we found out how to cut on the light of knowledge.

What answer will you give when your children ask if there is a Santa Claus?

There's a difference between humoring childhood fantasies and traditions than lying to them flat-out into their adulthood about flat-out truths.
Nobody blames a child who fears the dark. The true tragedy in life is when there are adults who are afraid of the light.

I completely agree with your statement, "I'd rather say "I don't know" ". Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that you believe the sky is the color blue because you read about it in a book about the sky, and the book tught me how the atmosphere bends light from the sun, and it looks blue?

That is incorrect. I can bring up the variables and do the tests myself if I wanted to!
There's your exact problem - nothing in Science asks for your faith. The Universe doesn't care what you believe, it only asks for your eyes. I can go out and run the same tests that led them to these conclusions... And, what's great about modern science courses in grade school is that they DO run these kinds of tests and the DO show them what is going on.

I also completely agree with your statement, "Knowledge, itself, is the core reason we execute the scientific method". Is the scientific method fluid, or rigid in your opinion?

The method is rigid. Our conclusions are fluid, since they are only based upon the available input of evidence and data at the time.
The fact that science will address itself fucking up, and move onwards to find the actual answer for something instead of chilling out in the bronze ages of global flood myths and the Flintstones where dinosaurs lived with men says countless more than people who will cling to such things and make special exceptions to basic principles and cover such problems with Magic, Pixie-Dust, and Miracles.

The difference between Science and Apologist nonsense is that if Science is found flat-out wrong legitimately, it will say so and keep on searching. When a Faith-based foundation is found wrong, Apologist nonsense sweeps in and makes excuses for why it's correct - even stretching into the realms of logical fallacy, half-truths, and flat-out lies.

 

[Squawk]

I also completely agree with your statement, "Knowledge, itself, is the core reason we execute the scientific method". Is the scientific method fluid, or rigid in your opinion?

The method is rigid. Our conclusions are fluid, since they are only based upon the available input of evidence and data at the time.

Have to disagree, the scientific method isn't rigid, it's goals are. The idea is to ensure best practice, eliminate bias, apply appropriate controls etc. The scientific method isn't a doctrine, but a set of principles that give us the greatest chance of assessing the available evidence accurately. No guarantee of accuracy, just giving us the best chance. Any improvements to the process would be welcome.

 

[Gnug215]

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.

Prior to peer review, what science was real, and what science was not real? This should be interesting...

Hi TheOnlyThing2Fear.

It has been a couple of days since I read this thread, but I was trying to read up on it today.

I am having an extremely hard time fully grasping what's going on, because your posts are rather confusing. Not what you are saying, but your posts themselves, since they're mixed with various quotes and your own words.

I'm not saying this to disparage you or take anything away from your arguments. I would just really like to make proper sense of your posts and your arguments.

So please, please get more used to the quote function. It will make everything better!

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Thank-You for the diagram of the Grand Canyon. I am looking at the detail and hope to formulate a reasonable response as to why this still does not explain to me how the geolgic column came to be, considering that in the late 1800's to early 1900's there probably was not sufficient technology available to expose, drill, or locate the 10 layers commonly viewed in the diagrams.

Of course, they did not have sufficient technology to drill for the layers in the geological column. You really do not understand how it came about do you?

First off, outcrops of different rocks were noticed in the 1800s and various explanations were given to explain why they were present. The one that stood the test of time is the formation of the geological column over several million years. They did not have to drill to find these layers. Just like I pointed out, you can see the different layers on mountains and in canyons; they would see them in mines as well. They also noticed that some layers were always found below other layers and never above them. This became the Law of Superposition.

I will admit that I look at this simplisticly, but all the visits to the museums ever did for me was to put doubt in my mind that the earth this geological onion that can be peeled back, layer by layer to reveal the past. I don't believe that the study of the present is proof of the past.

So you believe that the past was fundamentally different from the present based on what?

That to me is too dismissive, considering we have the ability today to monitor and observe earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis that do what the diagram claims took millions to billions of years.

In sections of the geological column, we can see where earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis have happened. The reason we can see them is studying them today. Furthermore, and earthquake, volcano, or tsunami could not explain the section we see at the Grand Canyon. For one reason, high in the layers we see lots of limestone and shell. Those can only be formed in marine environments.

Sorry, but I apparently missed, or overlooked your question about defining evolution in its biological context. Off the cuff, I would say that biological evolution is a theory, mostly held to by believers in evolution, that suggests that after the origin of life a process arose causing changes in that life over many generations, or long periods of time.

Thanks for the attempt. I do not want to say you are wrong, but your definition of evolution could be more refined. Moreover, as pointed out, I was asking for the definition of evolution, not evolutionary theory. Perhaps take a few hours to read up on evolution and you will be able to give me the correct answer.

 

[)O( Hytegia )O(]

Since we are on the subject of Scientific Processes:
Define "Theory" in a scientific context.

Then, tell us what makes Evolutionary Theory different from Atomic Theory and the Theory of Relativity.

This ought to be a hoot. :3

 

[Deleted member 619]

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

Hard to tell, and indeed it may even be that there is no need for knowing the age of the Earth, but that's not really the point. What there is a need for is the methodology by which the age was derived and the principles elucidated by this methodology, because the elucidation of those principles lies at the core of the technology you are employing to ask the question.

The age of the Earth is derived from the decay laws. The decay laws are derived from a probabilistic treatment of a random quantum process, namely isotopic decay. It doesn't even matter whether or not the derivations actually stemmed from those sources, as long as the correlation is robust. Indeed, if we can derive the age of the Earth without the decay laws, then the decay laws provide additional support for that age.

Ultimately, we may not have need for knowing the age of Earth, but we have need for the principles upon which that knowledge is based, because it has other implications. Knowing the age of the Earth is corollary knowledge to other knowledge that is useful.

 

[Laurens]

Thanks for taking the time to explain, although I'm still not sure what the "need" is for having a clock that you assume has been ticking since the formation of the earth. My question was actually simpler than you may have taken it. I can see the "need" for an expiration date on medicine, a born on date for a beverage, and even a use by this date label on processed food, but what is really at the root of this need to know the age of the earth?

To satisfy our curiosity.

Is your statement, "There is absolutely no reason to assume that the rates of decay were different in the past, in fact this would be incredibly improbable considering the number of different methods of radiometric dating we use" scientific, or just what you choose to believe? If the present is the true key to the past, then are the scientific methods for dating built upon testing only what is in the present and then assumed a valid representation of exactly what happened in the past?

Well yeah it is a scientific statement, if you have a large dataset all pointing towards the same conclusion it would be unscientific to say that those independent pieces of data all went wrong for some unspecified reason, and they just happened to go wrong in agreement with each other. Think about it like this, someone starts a dozen or so stopwatches at the same time, after an hour they stop them all simultaneously. All of the stop watches read 60.00.00 or at least within a small margin of that. It would not be reasonable to then conclude that each individual stop watch went wrong somehow, yet strangely managed to agree with all the others in their wrongness simply because you refuse to accept that an hour had gone past. The simplest and most scientific conclusion you could draw from it would be that an hour had in actual fact past despite what you believe.

 

[GeologyJack]

First off, I would like to thank all the reasonable people for doing their best to contribute knowledge of geology and geological dating to this thread.

Second off, if anybody needs geological information and stuff like that do not be afraid to PM me, etc.

So here we go.

The number 4.5 billion is likely wrong at this point in time, the more evidence we find the more we see that 4.5 GA is a conservative estimate for the age of the Earth.

There are numerous ways that us geologists have come to an age that old but instead of tossing around this study and that study that are filled with isochrons and elemental analysises of terraines, I am going to just put in some common sense work into showing that world is at least "very old."

When we look at a geological section of any particular slice of Earth, it goes without saying that certain layers will have a general position compared to others, just as page 15 in a book is always between 14 and 16, layers of rock will maintain a position. Now to add to this, sometimes layers will go away. Using our book analogy, it would be akin to ripping out pages 16-58, still 15 will always appear before a higher number. I do not see how this is up for arguement.

We will now work upon this as our base. I have seen enough creationist videos on the topic to recognize that one of the most common explainations behind this layering order is that the flood mixed everything up and laid it back down in the order we see today, somewhat akin to taking a bottle full of sand and clay, shaking it up, then letting it settle. While this is a clever trick, there is a fundamental difference between this, and what we see in the field. For one, within the bottle, you usually find that the densest material finds itself to the bottom, we do not always see this geologically, if this were to be the case, it would be easy to find gold, uranium, copper, and other heavy elements, all we would need to do is dig down deep, unfortunately for this claim, gold is not always deep, there are quite a few locations where gold is fresh in the stratigraphic column.

The leaves either divine intervention or geological processes to dictate how the layers are arranged. I know I am not going to be able to talk any firm believer out of the first much as I will not be convinced out of the second. Still though, it is entirely reasonable to constuct a layer by layer order of the geological units of the world, this is what we call relative dating in the field of geology. Where we may find a gap in the column in one area, we can find material that fills those gaps in others and before anybody states that every sandstone looks the same, under the microscope, each layer has its own unique properties and make up.

So thats my basic lesson there. For all of you 4.5 GAers out there I would like to point your attention to the Canadian shield, some of the oldest dated rocks have been found in that area and between that and the Australian continent, we thought we had an idea of how old rocks could be. When us geologists look at metamorphic rocks one of the first bits of information we try to figure out is whether it was originally igneous or sedimentary. Sometimes this can be incredibly hard and for the oldest metamorphic rocks we have found, it was presumed that due to their age, they could only ever be igneous in origin. It has been observed though that some of the material in the Canadian shield may not be metamorphosed igneous material, but instead is sedimentary. A team lead by Dr. Stephen Mojzsis of the University of Colorado is currently looking deeper into this after they first happened upon the discovery when they were working on this bit of research (http://tinyurl.com/83lj492). The implication of the find is that while those rocks have been dated back to a time of 3.8-4.3 GA, that is only the time of metamorphism and if they are sedimentary, then there had to be time before that for sedimentary processes to work. This would imply that there was material there to be eroded and there had to be time before that for material to be emplaced, very exciting.

 

[Inferno]

I can't access the full article, would you be so kind as to quote the relevant part? Sounds very interesting though.
Also note that I already said much earlier that this is a "lower limit" for the age of the earth.

 

[GeologyJack]

I have it on my home computer and I also had the distinct pleasure of attending one of his talks. Unfortunately I am at work and cannot access it. A cool part of the abstract is this part:

"These features suggest that the rocks preserved their seawater-like compositions despite metamorphic overprinting. The most significant trace elements in the sediments are Ni and Zn. Experimentally-derived partitioning coefficients show that Ni was enriched in Eoarchean seawater as compared to today (up to 300 nM), while Zn was fairly similar (up to 20 nM). Compositional resemblances between the Nuvvuagittuq sediments and those documented in the ca. 3.8 Ga Isua supracrustals (West Greenland) provide a plausible case that global ocean processes, in terms of trace metal abundances, had reached steady-state by the Eoarchean."

In layman speak it comes out to be that due to what is seen in the rock, it looks like they had interaction with seawater before it metamorphosed and given that they were dated to at least 3.8 Ga, this places the existence of an ocean further back than originally thought.

 

[GeologyJack]

Right, looking at my article, he hasn't yet published that full study yet, but the sedimentary nature had been infered by the oceanic elemental concentrations. There were also pictures that they had taken of crystalline lumps in the rock., when we see these lumps in the field in younger metamorphic rocks, the usual reason is that it was a metamorphosed conglomerate (sedimentary). I may email him to see how his progress is going.