Some good physical evidence against radiometric dating

[inflyt]

Perhaps the most convincing evidence to support an old earth is that gained through radiometric dating techniques. For decades this evidence has been used to squash a great spectrum of evidence used by creationists. Fairly recently, reliable evidence involving helium diffusion rates is being used to put in question radiometric dating. The following are links to articles I found useful in questioning the fundamental legitimacy of radiometric dating:

http://www.icr.org/index.php?module...on=print&ID=114

http://www.icr.org/pdf/research/RATE_ICC_Chaffin.pdf

http://www.icr.org/index.php?module...n=print&ID=1842

The jist of the first article is that too much helium is found in zircon crystals. Helium and other daughter elements of radioactive processes are found in these crystals. The original amount of Helium can be computed from other daughter elements which do not diffuse through the crystals. All the Helium should be diffused from these crystals if the earth is on the order of millions or billions of years. There is only about 6000 years worth of Helium which has escaped from the crystals through diffusion. This supports the theory that radioactive decay processes were accelerated during creation.

The second article is a rather complicated mathematical theory which might explain the accelerated decay. The jist of the article is that matter was in an expanded state during creation. At some point during creation, matter "shrank" and so radioactive decay slowed.

The third article has some entertaining examples which support a young earth.

[inflyt]

This article from ICR is also interesting: Evidence for a young earth from the ocean and atmosphere (http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=news&action=view&ID=33)

It discusses why the Flood provides a good explanation for warmer waters in our recent geological past, complex erosional features of the continents, ice-age like qualitites, etc.

Ocean floor sediments and typical cooling rates suggest that ocean temperatures may have been as high as 100 degrees F several thousand years ago. This may have produced mega storms known as hypercanes. Hypercanes have winds of 300mph and precipitation rates greater than 10 inches/hour. They would have created great erosional features on the western and eastern sides of the continents.

While burying large sections of the continents in ice and snow, the oceans could have been injected with large amounts of carbonate rich sediment. Large coral formations can be produced rapidly (on the order of hundreds not thousands of years) given sufficiently warm waters and adequate sources of carbonate (see Ariel A Roth Geoscience Research Institute. Coral Reef Growth (http://www.grisda.org/origins/06088.htm)) Such coral formations would then be subject to the great geologic upheavels which may have happened after the Flood (Genesis 10:25). This is just one example of the many kinds of environmental changes which may have resulted from the Flood and subsequent geologic activity.

[Omega Red]

Perhaps the most convincing evidence to support an old earth is that gained through radiometric dating techniques.

Hi infylt

I wanted to post some other bits of information that may prove useful to your studies. With the kind permission of Dee Dee Warren:

Glenn Morton gives as overview of radiometric dating here (http://home.entouch.net/dmd/age.htm) and here (http://home.entouch.net/dmd/suigetsu.htm). Roger Weins also provides insight here (http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html).

This (http://www.detectingdesign.com/radiometricdating.html) page provides a bit more background to the extent of radiometric testing limits:


Hualalai basalt, Hawaii (AD 1800-1801) 1.05 to 1.19 million years
Mt. Etna basalt, Sicily (122 BC) 100,000 years
Mt. Etna basalt, Sicily (AD 1972) 150,000 years
Mt. Lassen plagioclase, California (AD 1915) 130,000 years
Sunset Crater basalt, Arizona (AD 1064-1065) 210,000 to 220,000 years
Glass Mountain (BP 130-390) 130,000 years in the future
Mt. Mihara (AD 1951) 70,000 years in the future
Sakurajima (AD 1946) 200,000 years in the future


Dalrymple comments on such findings by saying, "With the exception of the Hualalai flow, the amounts of excess 40Ar and 36Ar found in the flows with anomalous 40Ar/36Ar ratios were too small to cause serious errors in potassium-argon dating of rocks a few million years or older. However, these anomalous 40Ar/36Ar ratios could be a problem in dating very young rocks. If the present data are representative, argon of slightly anomalous composition can be expected in approximately one out of three volcanic rocks."

Dalrymple may have a point. It seems like rocks dating within one or two million years cannot be accurately dated by K-Ar techniques just because of the relatively wide ranges of error.

Also from TalkOrigins (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html):

For the case of alpha decay, [...] the simple underlying mechanism is quantum mechanical tunneling through a potential barrier. You will find a simple explanation in any elementary quantum mechanics textbook; for example, Ohanion's Principles of Quantum Mechanics has a nice example of alpha decay on page 89. The fact that the process is probabilistic, and the exponential dependence on time, are straightforward consequences of quantum mechanics. (The time dependence is a case of "Fermi's golden rule" --- see, for example, page 292 of Ohanion.)

An exact computation of decay rates is, of course, much more complicated, since it requires a detailed understanding of the shape of the potential barrier. In principle, this is computable from quantum chromodynamics, but in practice the computation is much too complex to be done in the near future. There are, however, reliable approximations available, and in addition the shape of the potential can be measured experimentally.

For beta decay, the underlying fundamental theory is different; one begins with electroweak theory (for which Glashow, Weinberg and Salam won their Nobel prize) rather than quantum chromodynamics.


For a chat about this, will have to go to another area.

[NJon]

ICR just completed the RATE project not too long ago.

http://www.icr.org/article/988/

[NJon]

ICR just completed the RATE project not too long ago.

http://www.icr.org/article/988/

Though that article was a bit outdated, it correlates to the current completed status.


More recently:
http://www.icr.org/news/68/

[NJon]

ICR just completed the RATE project not too long ago.


Here's the main page for the RATE project:

http://www.icr.org/rate/


Also, here (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/tv/stories/DN-antievolution_01met.ART.North.Edition1.3dfe20b.html) is an October 1st news article regarding it.

[KBertsche]

Perhaps the most convincing evidence to support an old earth is that gained through radiometric dating techniques. For decades this evidence has been used to squash a great spectrum of evidence used by creationists. Fairly recently, reliable evidence involving helium diffusion rates is being used to put in question radiometric dating. The following are links to articles I found useful in questioning the fundamental legitimacy of radiometric dating:

http://www.icr.org/index.php?module...on=print&ID=114

http://www.icr.org/pdf/research/RATE_ICC_Chaffin.pdf

http://www.icr.org/index.php?module...n=print&ID=1842



I just came across this old thread, and tried to look at the articles. The first and third links are dead. The second link is highly speculative, on the level of string theory (which he uses as part of his argument). I see a number of problems with it:

1) It is purely speculative; there is no experimental evidence to support or suggest it.
2) It proposes changes of fundamental constants, without any mechanism to cause the change. For example, he shows that if the nuclear potential well changes, alpha decay rates can change greatly. But what would cause the nuclear potential well (i.e. nuclear structure) to change?
3) Alpha and beta decay are entirely different physical processes. He suggests no mechanism which would change both in synchrony, as would have had to happen.
4) Even if there were a mechanism to change nuclear structure, how would this propogate to other nuclei? What would tell a nucleus that it was time to "age" and begin to decay more slowly? If a fundamental constant were to change (e.g. fine structure constant), how would this information propogate across the universe? Would it happen instantaneously? At the speed of light?
5) Extremely high decay rates on earth probably would heat the earth too hot to support life.
6) As Glenn Morton has pointed out, SN1987a gives evidence of relatively constant radioactive decay rates for the past 170,000 years: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/age.htm

So not only is there no experimental data to suggest such a speculative change in decay rates, there is experimental data which suggests there has not been such a change.

Kirk

[burgy]

Perhaps the most convincing evidence to support an old earth is that gained through radiometric dating techniques. For decades this evidence has been used to squash a great spectrum of evidence used by creationists. Fairly recently, reliable evidence involving helium diffusion rates is being used to put in question radiometric dating. The following are links to articles I found useful in questioning the fundamental legitimacy of radiometric dating:

http://www.icr.org/index.php?module...on=print&ID=114

http://www.icr.org/pdf/research/RATE_ICC_Chaffin.pdf

http://www.icr.org/index.php?module...n=print&ID=1842

The jist of the first article is that too much helium is found in zircon crystals. Helium and other daughter elements of radioactive processes are found in these crystals. The original amount of Helium can be computed from other daughter elements which do not diffuse through the crystals. All the Helium should be diffused from these crystals if the earth is on the order of millions or billions of years. There is only about 6000 years worth of Helium which has escaped from the crystals through diffusion. This supports the theory that radioactive decay processes were accelerated during creation.

The second article is a rather complicated mathematical theory which might explain the accelerated decay. The jist of the article is that matter was in an expanded state during creation. At some point during creation, matter "shrank" and so radioactive decay slowed.

The third article has some entertaining examples which support a young earth.

ICR? Surely you jest. They have 0 credibility. Yes, they do impressive "science talk." But it all boils down to smoke.