Shattering The Myths of Darwinism Part 2
This is the second installment (and final, for now) of my critique of Richard Miltons' book Shattering the Myths of Darwinism. The topics covered mainly concern various radiometric dating methods.
Shattering The Myths of Darwinism Part 2
*Sorry it took so long to get the podcast out, father forgot to upload it so he had to wait until Monday to try again.
Shattering The Myths of Darwinism Part 2
*Sorry it took so long to get the podcast out, father forgot to upload it so he had to wait until Monday to try again.
posted by Lucretius at 2:54 PM
18 Comments:
Ugh. Most confusing thing I've ever heard. lol...
bah, I thought I had a few moments where I sounded like I was talking in circles. Was the WHOLE thing confusing or just some parts when I was talking about radiometric dating? I can try and clear up the confusion for you in here as I'm sure others were confused as well…
As always, thanks for your feedback.
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Do you think you could further explain to me the rocks from 1801 you mentioned later in your episode that were said to be "misdated" by use of the radio-metric dating method in Milton's book?
You created an analogy between pressing chocolate chips on a cookie, in comparison to how Milton miscontrued the calculations of the dating of the formation of the lava rocks.
What seemed to be the problem (please correct me if I'm wrong)was that the scientists were only able to calculate the "material" found within the rocks (the chocolate chips) but they were unfortunately unable to verify the date of the actual formation of the rocks (the cookies)of which of course would make the rocks seem such older than they actually were, because the materials within the rocks would have lasted much longer than the formation itself.
This brings up a very confusing problem for me, in trying to understand this particular dating method.
Let's say that I cremated myself (I don't plan on doing this) but what would radiometric dating "verify"? What it would verify is that it would probably make me look thousands of years older than I actually am, right? Would it say I was 17 years old? Because everything that made me (technically "star-dust" from your first episode, lol)has been around for probably millions (if not billions) of years. And of course, I'm part of the universe, so wouldn't this mean that I am also under this millions of years in age- under this analogy?
What I'm trying to say is..shouldn't everything not be so different in date if we are all comprised under this one common origin--which tends to recycle itself?
Of course, I don't think everything came together all at the same time, this would be ridiculous.
What I'm saying is that we are all composed of these past recycled materials and so it would seem like we should have matter all close to the same age because we have the same common origins of past depositions and compositions.
And also this idea of matter not being able to be created or really destroyed, so I don't understand how we would actually be able to date it without implying that it had some sort of beginning---which I don't really see why it has to. or why we would be able to readily assume that it does.
This is why I can slightly agree with this Steady State Universe concept, because it doesn't rely so heavily on these partial consistencies---like the deterioration of carbon atom being so generally consistent univerally.
Just because we can see stars expanding doesn't mean (at least to me) it doesn't mean the Universe has to have a beginning.
It like saying the ice in the freezer is cold, therefore it must have been hotter before. I say, who knows?!
Tell me how I'm confused
The rocks from the 1801 eruption could have been dated, but it was the xenoliths, older rocks stuck in those formed in the eruption, that had been dated. The scientists who did the dating knew that they had dated the xenoliths and not the actual rock, and there was no confusion of the dating in the original experiment. What Milton did was try and confuse people by making it sound as if the scientists DID think that the rocks were actually dated as billions of years old. The real fact is that we knew that the xenolith age did not apply to the rocks from 1801. They just weren't dated. Only the xenoliths were.
If you cremated yourself, radiometric dating would not be useful until a few decades after your death. However, given one hundred years, carbon dating would verify your age to it's normal degree of accuracy. Even though you and I and everyone else is made up of older materials, these are continually being recycled. It's not as if when a sample gets dated, that you are going to yield some excessively low date because we can eventually trace you to being composed of supernovae remnants.
As for the Big Bang, the most logical conclusion from observing expansion is that there was once a beginning. Of course it's not solid proof and you're free to think otherwise; but what logical reason does one have for deviating from this viewpoint? The problem with your ice in a freezer analogy is that it isn't an appropriate comparison to the Big Bang. There is no known mechanism by which space could have had periodic expansion followed by stasis, etc. Nothing leads to such a bizarre picture. Besides, there are other means of verifying the age of the universe, which I covered in the first podcast. If you've forgotten them, then it might be in your interest to go back and take a look at them.
Thanks for your input again kat.
So the rocks weren't billions of years old then. Just the xenoliths. Hmm....
"It's not as if when a sample gets dated, that you are going to yield some excessively low date because we can eventually trace you to being composed of supernovae remnants."
Can you explain this to me? Sorry.
...
Yeah, I definitely am going to have to try and take a better look in your earlier podcast concerning the rebutting of the Steady State Hypothesis.
I'm still not terribly decided on anything.
The one I remember, you only spoke very briefly about it. I'll try to see again though if I could find the one you are referencing here.
Thanks Rob. ^.^
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What I meant to ask was how scientists cancel out these older dates that objects are composed of, such as star dust—to provide us with the actual date of the formation of that object...
I almost forgot about the question lol, i'll respond soon
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The reason that, when objects are dated, they don't all yield ages of billions of years is because of the constant resetting of the atomic clock. As long as rocks are permeable to material they will continually be replenished with new elements, thus making the dating invalid. What good is taking a ratio of decaying element/stable element, when the decaying one is constantly being replenished. So, while the xenoliths were still intact CLOSED rocks from a while ago, and thus yielded the older age, the NEWER rocks were a new mix of elements, having only been created in the 1801 eruption. Once this new mixture began to decay, a dating method would only tell us about it's history since 1801, not earlier, because we don't know the original element ratios.
Okay, so basically we don't typically know the "original" element rate-of-decay by the older dates that compose these objects. Because they can vary.
But unsimiliarly, there are these "xenoliths" that are still technically "closed" but are also "intact"--meaning that they are also dateable.
And these newer objects can be verified because they are being replaced by these newer rates of decay...
Am I interpreting this correctly?
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the decay rates don't change, the ratios of elements changes. Other than that you interpreted what I said accurately.
All right, thanks Robert. It helps.
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Should be out tomorrow. I've got it completed, just need to get it uploaded.
Looking forward to it.
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