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The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 2)
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No posts actually linked to ... so I'll look at the article from the Smithsonian that you linked to (my comments in red):-Professor Moriarty wrote: »Lots of posts. But you knew that. Here's a link from the Smithsonian that explains dating methodology in simple and easy to understand language.
Quote:- "How do we know the ages of fossils and fossil-bearing rocks?
Scientists combine several well-tested techniques to find out the ages of fossils. The most important are Relative Dating, in which fossils and layers of rock are placed in order from older to younger, and Radiometric Dating, which allows the actual ages of certain types of rock to be calculated. Relative Dating is a circular kind of reasoning ... dating fossils from the supposed age of the layers of rock they are found in ... and dating the rock layers from the fossils found in them.
... and radiometric dating of rocks is no help either ... because we don't know the isotope ratio when the rock was formed or whether isotopes were leached from the rock or infiltrated into the rock since it was formed.
Relative Dating. Fossils are found in sedimentary rocks that formed when eroded sediments piled up in low-lying places such as river flood plains, lake bottoms or ocean floors. In general, it wasn't a gradual local process ... it was a rapid, catastrophic process operating on a continental scale, with most sedimentary deposits.
Sedimentary rock typically is layered, with the layers derived from different periods of sediment accumulation. Almost any place where the forces of erosion - or road crews - have carved through sedimentary rock is a good place to look for rock layers stacked up in the exposed rock face. The layers were rapidly laid down (in a matter of days) as evidenced by the remarkably perfect levels of preservation of fossils and the presence of polystrate fossils that stretch up through thousands of layers of rock, with the upper parts of the polystrate fossils just as well preserved as the bottom parts.
A man stands in front of a vertical rock face that is taller than he is. The rock is layered, and the layers can be seen as horizontal stripes of slightly different colored rock.
These rock layers formed from sediments deposited in a lake. Click to zoom. Photo courtesy of Rod Benson, www.formontana.net. Fair enough ... the Mount Saint Helens eruption formed multiple layered deposits since 1980 that is up to 600 feet deep. In a matter of hours on June 12th 1980 layers 25 feet deep were formed.
When you look at a layer cake, you know that the layer at the bottom was the first one the baker put on the plate, and the upper ones were added later. In the same way, geologists figure out the relative ages of fossils and sedimentary rock layers; rock layers, and the fossils they contain, toward the bottom of a stack of sediments are older than those found higher in the stack. No problem with this ... except that the bottom layers of this particular 'cake' were likely formed weeks/months earlier than the top layers ... and not millions of years earlier.
Radiometric Dating. Until the middle of the last century, "older" or "younger" was the best scientists could do when assigning ages to fossils. There was no way to calculate an "absolute" age (in years) for any fossil or rock layer.
But after scientists learned that the nuclear decay of radioactive elements takes place at a predictable rate, they realized that the traces of radioactive elements present in certain types of rock, such as hardened lava and tuff (formed from compacted volcanic ash), could be analyzed chemically to determine the ages, in years, of those rocks.
Only problem is that we don't know the isotope ratio when the rock was formed or whether isotopes were differentially leached from the rock or infiltrated into the rock since it was formed. So, we still can't know how old rocks are based on radimetrics.
Putting Relative and Radiometric Dating Together. Once it was possible to measure the ages of volcanic layers in a stack of sedimentary rock, the entire sequence could be pinned to the absolute time scale. Only problem is that it has never been possible to determine the ages of volcanic layers in a stack of sedimentary rock ... and such layers, being volcanic in origin, would have been laid down very rapidly ...
and thus the sedimentary stacks were also laid down equally rapidly.
In the Wyoming landscape shown below left, for example, the gray ash layer was found to be 73 million years old. This means that fossils in rock layers below the tuff are older than 73 million years, and those above the tuff are younger. Fossils found embedded within the ash, including the fossil leaves shown below right, are the same age as the ash: 73 million years old.
It is just as likely that they are 7,000 years old, with the rock layers below them a few weeks older and the ones above them a few weeks younger ... just like the situation a few miles up the road at Mount Saint Helens in Washington State !!!
... and I know their age definitively ... about 37 years old ... because I was around when they formed in the 1980s!!!
http://qccsa.org/the-end-of-long-age-radiometric-dating/0 -
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No posts actually linked to ... so I'll look at the article from the Smithsonian that you linked to (my comments in red):-
Quote:- "How do we know the ages of fossils and fossil-bearing rocks?
Scientists combine several well-tested techniques to find out the ages of fossils. The most important are Relative Dating, in which fossils and layers of rock are placed in order from older to younger, and Radiometric Dating, which allows the actual ages of certain types of rock to be calculated. Relative Dating is a circular kind of reasoning ... dating fossils from the supposed age of the layers of rock they are found in ... and dating the rock layers from the fossils found in them.
... and radiometric dating of rocks is no help either ... because we don't know the isotope ratio when the rock was formed or whether isotopes were leached from the rock or infiltrated into the rock since it was formed.
Relative Dating. Fossils are found in sedimentary rocks that formed when eroded sediments piled up in low-lying places such as river flood plains, lake bottoms or ocean floors. In general, it wasn't a gradual local process ... it was a rapid, catastrophic process operating on a continental scale, with most sedimentary deposits.
Sedimentary rock typically is layered, with the layers derived from different periods of sediment accumulation. Almost any place where the forces of erosion - or road crews - have carved through sedimentary rock is a good place to look for rock layers stacked up in the exposed rock face. The layers were rapidly laid down (in a matter of days) as evidenced by the remarkably perfect levels of preservation of fossils and the presence of polystrate fossils that stretch up through thousands of layers of rock, with the upper parts of the polystrate fossils just as well preserved as the bottom parts.
A man stands in front of a vertical rock face that is taller than he is. The rock is layered, and the layers can be seen as horizontal stripes of slightly different colored rock.
These rock layers formed from sediments deposited in a lake. Click to zoom. Photo courtesy of Rod Benson, www.formontana.net. Fair enough ... the Mount Saint Helens eruption formed multiple layered deposits since 1980 that is up to 600 feet deep. In a matter of hours on June 12th 1980 layers 25 feet deep were formed.
When you look at a layer cake, you know that the layer at the bottom was the first one the baker put on the plate, and the upper ones were added later. In the same way, geologists figure out the relative ages of fossils and sedimentary rock layers; rock layers, and the fossils they contain, toward the bottom of a stack of sediments are older than those found higher in the stack. No problem with this ... except that the bottom layers of this particular 'cake' were likely formed weeks/months earlier than the top layers ... and not millions of years earlier.
Radiometric Dating. Until the middle of the last century, "older" or "younger" was the best scientists could do when assigning ages to fossils. There was no way to calculate an "absolute" age (in years) for any fossil or rock layer.
But after scientists learned that the nuclear decay of radioactive elements takes place at a predictable rate, they realized that the traces of radioactive elements present in certain types of rock, such as hardened lava and tuff (formed from compacted volcanic ash), could be analyzed chemically to determine the ages, in years, of those rocks.
csOnly problem is that we don't know the isotope ratio when the rock was formed or whether isotopes were differentially leached from the rock or infiltrated into the rock since it was formed. So, we still can't know how old rocks are based on radimetrics.
Putting Relative and Radiometric Dating Together. Once it was possible to measure the ages of volcanic layers in a stack of sedimentary rock, the entire sequence could be pinned to the absolute time scale. Only problem is that it has never been possible to determine the ages of volcanic layers in a stack of sedimentary rock ... and such layers, being volcanic in origin, would have been laid down very rapidly ...
and thus the sedimentary stacks were also laid down equally rapidly.
In the Wyoming landscape shown below left, for example, the gray ash layer was found to be 73 million years old. This means that fossils in rock layers below the tuff are older than 73 million years, and those above the tuff are younger. Fossils found embedded within the ash, including the fossil leaves shown below right, are the same age as the ash: 73 million years old.
It is just as likely that they are 7,000 years old, with the rock layers below them a few weeks older and the ones above them a few weeks younger ... just like the situation a few miles up the road at Mount Saint Helens in Washington State !!!
... and I know their age definitively ... about 37 years old ... because I was around when they formed in the 1980s!!!
http://qccsa.org/the-end-of-long-age-radiometric-dating/
Yeah. None of that has any basis in science though. For instance, the idea that all sedimentary rock formed recently is laughable. Also, re your idea that isotopes may have 'leached' - different isotope systems (e.g. Uranium-Lead, Lutetium-Halfnium, Potassium-Argon) are tested in same rock and are always found to be the same age.
Tell me, when did Austin or any other creationist geologist last publish peer reviewed research?
Rather than my engaging with pseudoscience from creationist websites, let's return to reality. The Earth is billions of years old according to accepted science. How old do you think it is?0 -
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