Dendrochronology: Getting at the root of the problem with a young earth

[Xru]

Seems to me your material is a bit dated, referring to a report about an article by Jenkins that hadn't yet been published, and making no references to the responses that followed. You'd know this if you were following the science rather than merely cutting and pasting articles recommended to you by questionable young earth sources. Or if you had taken the elementary precaution of investigating the material presented by your questionable young earth sources yourself. This is a consistent problem with ideological partisans.

Well . . . I'm finding more sources which seem more current than yours. Maybe you aren't so current in your readings as you should.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/21...ctive-elements

Who is the ideological partisan now?

[lao tzu]

Well . . . I'm finding more sources which seem more current than yours. Maybe you aren't so current in your readings as you should.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/21...ctive-elements

That's a news article, not a research article. The research article it references has not yet been published, though it's available on arXiv. On the other hand, the opposition article I posted earlier has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and cited 15 times since then.

As ever, Jesse

[rogero]

Well . . . I'm finding more sources which seem more current than yours. Maybe you aren't so current in your readings as you should.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/21...ctive-elements

Who is the ideological partisan now?

Could you explain how this article supports YEC?

[Augustine2004]

What if not all the unrevealed gaps (if any) in the Biblical chronologies are small? Maybe at least one gap is in reality millions of years? Any reason why that cannot be so?

[phaedrus]

What if not all the unrevealed gaps (if any) in the Biblical chronologies are small? Maybe at least one gap is in reality millions of years? Any reason why that cannot be so?

Absolutely none. Personally I don't think the Biblical record is meant to taken literally, but if that is your position, then inserting large gaps is a way to reconcile the obvious age of the earth with the Biblical narrative.

[JonF]

T
Now back to the quote just above . . . I can with equal conviction of logic say that since the decay rate has been shown to be variable, there is no reason to believe that under certain condition the variation could be of greater magnitude and therefor good reason to believe they'll be invalidated..

You can only say that b y ignoring all the evidence we have that decay rates are and have been constant within a percent or less.

Not just experiments trying to alter the decay rate by pressure, temperature, atmosphere, etc ... but if decay rates had varied that would leave traces. We've looked hard for those traces. They aren't there.

What research have you done into this question? Bet you have no clue what evidence we have.

[KBertsche]

Well . . . I'm finding more sources which seem more current than yours. Maybe you aren't so current in your readings as you should.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/21...ctive-elements

Who is the ideological partisan now?

Instead of grasping for straws and accepting these reports blindly, you should try to understand both the claims and who is making them. Fischbach has claimed crazy things in the past (e.g. The "fifth force" mentioned in your first linked article). Sturrock has a reputation as a kook.

The annual variation that Fischbach and Jenkins claim to see is probably only a variation in detection sensitivity of the measurement equipment due to environmental factors such as temperature or humidity, not a true variation in decay rate.

[franktalk]

Well . . . I'm finding more sources which seem more current than yours. Maybe you aren't so current in your readings as you should.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/21...ctive-elements

Who is the ideological partisan now?

Using science and the rules of science to fight against science is a fools game. I don't understand why so many people do it. I did it as well and there are times that I will hold science to the fire. But science is of the world and represents the world. So from my perspective science is an island of knowledge but bracketed by its rules and observations. But what if the past is ruled by supernatural events? Then the rules are broken and the conclusions based on those rules are not valid. So if we believe in a God who changed the world with powers outside of nature then why do we keep trying to prove God exist by the rules of science.

We have few books that provide a witness of the ancient past. We have still fewer that describe the supernatural events of the ancient past. So we are left with few options. We can believe that the Bible is actually a witness of the past and we can believe it. But by its very nature it is sure to disagree with the findings of science due to their rules of interpretation. So in today's world or in the recent past I have no problems with the conclusions of science. But on matters that go back in time beyond large scale supernatural events I tend to say that the trace evidence is not reliable so no matter what great story may come along it may or may not be correct.

Now are there gaps in scripture? Maybe, I sure don't know.

[phaedrus]

Using science and the rules of science to fight against science is a fools game. I don't understand why so many people do it. I did it as well and there are times that I will hold science to the fire. But science is of the world and represents the world. So from my perspective science is an island of knowledge but bracketed by its rules and observations. But what if the past is ruled by supernatural events? Then the rules are broken and the conclusions based on those rules are not valid. So if we believe in a God who changed the world with powers outside of nature then why do we keep trying to prove God exist by the rules of science.

We have few books that provide a witness of the ancient past. We have still fewer that describe the supernatural events of the ancient past. So we are left with few options. We can believe that the Bible is actually a witness of the past and we can believe it. But by its very nature it is sure to disagree with the findings of science due to their rules of interpretation. So in today's world or in the recent past I have no problems with the conclusions of science. But on matters that go back in time beyond large scale supernatural events I tend to say that the trace evidence is not reliable so no matter what great story may come along it may or may not be correct.

Now are there gaps in scripture? Maybe, I sure don't know.

I'm not sure why you are philosophically distinguishing between the near and ancient past. If your critique of science is correct, then science can tell us nothing substantive or likely about the near past either. If a man is shot in a closed room by another man and the murderer lies what are we left with? Fingerprints, gunshot residue, lack of alibi, hair and fibre, DNA . If all this distinct and different non-eyewitness evidence points to the same conclusion that person A is guilty then there is a very high likelihood that he is indeed guilty. Except ... person A can claim supernatural intervention. Should he be released? On what basis can we dismiss or validate his claims?

I think we're in the same boat with the ancient past. Now if you pre-suppose supernatural intervention, then everything is up for grabs and nothing is reliable. But how do you choose between competing and contradictory supernatural claims? No, for me if multiple lines of evidence all point to a particular conclusion then I will always say that conclusion is much more likely to be true than any imagined or claimed supernatural or magical intervention.

[Tiggy]

Hi FT, hope all is well with you and yours.

Questions though: you say this

But on matters that go back in time beyond large scale supernatural events I tend to say that the trace evidence is not reliable so no matter what great story may come along it may or may not be correct.

How far back is "time beyond large scale", and how did you determine the cut-off?

How far back is trace evidence reliable, and what makes it suddenly start being non reliable as it ages? It is quite true that the deeper in time you go the less trace evidence you may find, but why is a 600 MYO fossil any less reliable than a 60 MYO one, or a 6 MYO one?

- T

[franktalk]

Hi FT, hope all is well with you and yours.

Questions though: you say this

How far back is "time beyond large scale", and how did you determine the cut-off?
- T

Everything is fine with me, I hope the same applies to you.

You must realize that this belief is not logical and is not reasonable so I can't answer those questions in any meaningful way. Once we start to get into details we leave the arena of belief and return to logic. This does not mean I have abandoned science as a study. I enjoy reading about all of the new discoveries that are being made. Like that new bright light found in the sky recently. Someone said it might be a sun being ripped apart by a large black hole. These kinds of things happen on a scale that is just hard to imagine. Or that new layer of energy they think they found at Fermi. It is way to early but it may shake things up. I hope it leads to new energy sources besides uranium. I like thorium but who knows maybe something new will come along and make oil obsolete. I wrote a sci-fi book about someone who discovered a way to transfer energy from one form to another with zero loss or effort. Imagine being about to transfer mass to gravity. Makes for a wide range of possible devices. Anyway, you asked about where I would place boundaries on the past. The problem is I would not know where to start. The only area that seems solid is recent history in the age of equipment and numerical output. But before that the earth could have gone through massive changes but if done slowly with respect to a lifetime no one would have noticed. I mean just look at all of the changes that take place today and how each generation has no idea what the last one experienced when they grew up. I suspect that changes in the environment or even natural laws would be the same. I don't know how but I won't rule the possibility out.

I am not stuck with a YEC model or an OEC model or OE model. I suspect they are all wrong. But I could not tell you if any are closer to the truth than another. Let us take the flood for example. In 2 Peter 3 it says that the earth before the flood perished. That obviously means things changed a bunch. But what does that mean? I don't have a clue. But just for conversation let us say that the universe represents a digital simulation. And we could say that a supernatural event is a rewrite of the code. So the things before cease to exist and only the new code is available for the beings stuck in the simulation to examine. Or some combination of before and after parts. Again I sure don't know. A supernatural event to me would appear as something impossible in nature. But since I am of the world I would have no clue about the mechanics of a supernatural event. So once I accept supernatural events it leads to all kinds of possible past realities. This is not tied to a study of reality but tied to belief.

I am not sure if I explained that well. Like I said it is not logical or reasonable.

[franktalk]

.....I think we're in the same boat with the ancient past. Now if you pre-suppose supernatural intervention, then everything is up for grabs and nothing is reliable. But how do you choose between competing and contradictory supernatural claims? No, for me if multiple lines of evidence all point to a particular conclusion then I will always say that conclusion is much more likely to be true than any imagined or claimed supernatural or magical intervention.

You are right that everything is up for grabs. But coupled with my belief in God and supernatural events I also believe the prophetic word of the Bible. In this regard in 2 Peter 3 it says that the earth is being held in stasis waiting to be destroyed by fire. So I accept that since Peter wrote this that we can trust day to day reactions and cause and effect. So your example of a murder investigation would be valid. Actually the stasis goes back to the flood. But we sure don't know the details because they are not given. So if I was on a jury I would have no problem with trace evidence or likely events. I could come to a decision based on the evidence. But if I was on a panel and had to decide between two possible theories of dinosaur extinction I could not do it unless I restricted my decision making process to the rules of science.

You must realize that science itself on one hand says each day is the same yet in some cases that does not apply. In the big bang the rules change. Around a black hole the rules change. Before the big bang the rules changed. In large scale mechanics Newton applies. In small scale or very high speed or energy then QM applies. And I am sure that time dilation occurs. When I was in school I am sure the clock slowed down Friday afternoon.

[phaedrus]

... And I am sure that time dilation occurs. When I was in school I am sure the clock slowed down Friday afternoon.

Thanks Frank, that made me laugh. Good on you. (Generic Australian atheist blessing)

[Augustine2004]

How to reconcile the YE hypothesis with the observation of plants that are or were at least 12,000 years old? One way, as already suggested before, is to accpet that the Biblical chronologies may have very large gaps. So far I have not seen any objection. The gap between the time of Noah's family after the flood (Terah [Genesis 11:32]) and that of Abraham (actually Abram at first) could be thousands or even millions of years. Did anyone notice there is no transition between Terah and Abram? We are not told what relationship Abram has to Terah, for one thing.

[franktalk]

Augustine2004,

The gap theory is fine. I have no problems with it. But I see it as a way to reconcile with science and the opinions of man. On face value the Bible does not lean towards man's knowledge but away from it. So I have my doubts. But it is all an unknown.

In my belief system I have assumed that supernatural events have happened and they somehow effect what we see around us today. The modern scientist assumes that the past is like today and no supernatural events have taken place. To them all things can be explained by natural processes. We each have our assumptions which can not be proved without a time machine. So from my perspective I stand on equal ground with scientist. Oh, there may be more of them and they may have large institutions to support them but their assumptions are the foundation of their beliefs just like my assumptions are my foundation.

Many times in scripture we are told to cast off the world. This is so we can start a spiritual path. If I spend my time trying to reconcile science and the Bible then I have wrapped myself with the world. I still enjoy a good conversation about science. I love to discover new things in nature. But I tend to push back when I see overreach on theories and try and point out the underlying assumptions.