-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Scientific Evidence for Universal Common Descent
- Thread starter usfan
- Start date
- Status
Well, for the age of the universe, we observe other galaxies moving away from us and 'play the movie backwards'. This in itself has a lot of potential errors, but when we include information from the cosmic background radiation, there are only a few parameters to adjust and we can fit the observed data to the theoretical to get the age. This is something that has become *much* more accurate over the past 20 years or so as we have more detail on the CMBR.
The age of the Earth is obtained in a two-pronged way. One is we get ages of rocks. The oldest ones we have found are about 4.3 billion years old. Then we compare this to ages we get from moon rocks, which date the formation of the Earth-Moon system. The moon rocks are about 4.5 billion years old. Then we bring in information about how stars develop and compare to what we see in the sun, which also gives an age of 4.5 billion years.
Finally, 13.7 divided by 4.5 is about 3.
Well, the Earth, like all planets, formed from a process of merging of smaller bodies through collision. These collisions produced heat, which meant the very early Earth was hot enough to be molten. You don't get liquid water at that temperature: it turns to steam immediately. The *chemical* water probably came from comets colliding in the mix.
Now, as the Earth cooled, it got to the place where liquid water could form from the steam and we got the early oceans.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
And for this request to have any validity you need to own up to last examples of evidence provided for you and to apologize for false claims of ad hom.I repeat the call for evidence:
1. Pick one point
2. Defend it with quotes, references, or argument.
3. Leave it to skeptical scrutiny from others.
4. Ditch ad hom and other fallacies.
Use layman terms, if possible, but some here can follow more industry specific terminology. Make it as simple or complex as you need, to support your point.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
The Earth's water probably did not come from comets, at least not most of it. Isotope analysis excludes that possibility.:
Where Did Earth's Water Come From?
Interesting read. We are still learning on that one.
usfan
Well-Known Member
That is all based on assumptions and speculation. There is no accurate, testable way to arrive at dating methods beyond a few thousand years. C-14 is haphazard, and cannot go 'millions!'. Isotope dating is fraught with assumptions. Strata dating is circular reasoning.
1. The starting 'strength' of the original is unknown.
2. It is unprovable to assume a constant rate under cosmic forces that contain myriads of unknown variables.
3. There is no verifiable way to measure dating methods without unproved assumptions.
4. Extrapolations of light speed, or expanding universe theories are still based on unverifiable assumptions.
5. Uniformitarianism of strata layers is speculation, with nothing to corroborate it. There are myriads of aberrations that conflict with the contrived dating assumptions in strata dating.
Other problems with the 'millions of years!' beliefs and assumptions:
1. Geothermal and cosmic forces mix rocks and formations at unknown times, and by unknown forces. Speculations and theories are the basis for all ancient dsting guesses.
2. Conflicts with measured rates of other dates do not support the 'millions and billions of years!' belief. Helium isotopes in the atmosphere and the earth's magnetic half life are examples.
usfan
Well-Known Member
From the link:
That question is the subject of lively scientific debate, it turns out.
There are two prevailing theories:
1. This is all theoretical. We don't know, and cannot assume atheistic naturalism for all the mysteries of the universe.
2. Because we can deduce SOME things, regarding the natural world, does not exclude a Creative First Cause.
3. God created the universe, the galaxies, water, and life is an equally valid 'theory' for the unknown mysteries in the universe.
4. 'How' God arranged the universe, natural law, and ordered things has been the quest of scientific thinkers for millennia. Atheists have no monopoly on scientific inquiry.
5. Dogmatically declaring a religious opinion about cosmic origins, pretending it as 'science!', is the domain of religious indoctrinees.
6. Speculations about the source of water do not support a belief in common descent.
Why do creationists not realize there are other radioactive chemicals than C-14?
Well, you are correct, we don't measure the age of the Earth with C-14. We tend to use U-238, K-40, or Rb-87. These have long enough half lives to do the job. Furthermore, Rb/Sr dating has a 'self-correction' mechanism whereby you *can* know the amount of Sr-87 originally in the rock by comparison with other Sr isotopes. The decay of K-40 produces a gas, so if anything the dates will be artificially *low* if the rock is too porous (which can be independently checked). And we can know for U-238 how much Pb was in the original because original Pb will disrupt the crystal structure on formation.
False. This can be determined in a number of ways, depending on the dating method used as explained above.
Unless you are getting temperatures of millions of degrees (which would cause other problems) or neutron fluxes that would be make *other* chemicals radioactive (which would leave its own signal in th rocks), this doesn't happen. Radioactive decay happens int he nuclei of atoms and the nuclei are protects by a cloud of electrons. Unless you have something that can get through that cloud (like neutrons) or that can strip it away (like heat), the decay rate doesn't change. And, even if you *can* do these things, it doesn't change by more than a percent or so.
In other words, this doesn't happen.
Right. Like the assumption that the laws of physics were the same over the last 13 billion years.
Really? Care to mention a few? We *know* the universe is expanding. We *know* the general relativity is a good description of gravity for the densities we are talking about.
Care to give a few?
oooo...spooky 'cosmic forces'! Care to give some details? We can test to see if they can actually affect the results.
Helium is a light gas that evaporates off the top of the atmosphere and is replenished from radioactive decays (alpha decay produces helium nuclei) in an equilibrium at this point. No age can be determined from this.
The Earth's magnetic field doesn't have a half-life. It *does* flip irregularly and it looks like we are in the middle of a flip. This is irrelevant to the age of the Earth.
Wow. You just repeated some old creationist talking points I hadn't seen in years. Congrats!
usfan
Well-Known Member
Accusing me falsely, and deflecting with ad hom fallacies, does not provide evidence for the belief in common descent. I will not constantly point this out, but will remind everyone from time to time.
You can choose the role of spoiler and heckler, or you can choose a path of knowledge and scientific inquiry.
And yet, that assumption seems to work quite well in practice.
Who said it did?
Not really. It gives no specific predictions and has no way to test it compared to alternative theories.
For example, from your assumption that some intelligence created the universe, what can you say about the properties of dark matter? The mass of the Higg's boson? The expansion rate of the universe? The isotopic composition of the water on the Earth?
Nothing? If your 'theory' can't make some sort of prediction like this, then it is useless.
Nobody said that they do.
If you present a *scientific* theory that makes specific predictions and is testable, it will be considered.
Nobody said it did. It has to do with the conditions leading up to the formation of life.
usfan
Well-Known Member
Ad hom deflection, and straw man.
So you believe and assert, without evidence.
You believe and assume, but have nothing definitive or testable to prove your dating assumptions.
Straw man.
We 'know' no such thing. That is believed, by some, as a speculation., based on myriads of unprovable assumptions.
1. We cannot assume a constant, uniform expansion.
2. Measuring methods are unreliable, in a scope of this magnitude.
3. Theories of relativity and other factors show the variability to be beyond our assumptions.
1. Of course the earth's magnetic field has a half life, and has been measured. You claim it does not?
2. 'Flipping!' is speculation, and a dodge, to mask the problem of ancient dates. There is no mechanism for 'flipping!' magnetic poles, nor has it been observed. It is a wild, speculative belief, to keep the ancient times dogma intact.
We Never Know
No Slack
We aren't even sure what life is as in some think a virus is life, some think it doesn't qualify as life.
usfan
Well-Known Member
Mocking my one sentence point about the wide range of unknown variables possible in a 'big bang', 'First Cause', or other cosmic origins event does not provide evidence for your beliefs, and casts you as an anti-science heckler. Is this your preferred role?
Projecting your tactics on others is a fallacy, as well.
You could present arguments and facts for your beliefs, instead of constructing straw men for your perceived enemies..
usfan
Well-Known Member
? Which assumption? Which 'theory' about the origin of water has any practical use?
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
Naturally. In order for forms of life that use water as a principle element, the development of water would be essential. The question is whether the idea that "water exists to facilitate life" is more reasonable than "life developed because water was present" or even "water existed and life developed to utilize it". When you stop thinking of life from a view of intentionality and instead view the process from the other way around (i.e: life arising as a result of the conditions, rather than the conditions existing to result in life), it all makes a lot more sense.
Uh, you do realize that vegetation are forms of life, right?
This is wrong. Life started in the oceans around a billion years ago, and the first vegetation appeared around 470-520 million years ago.
SOURCES
Complex Life Emerged from Sea Earlier Than Thought
Land plants arose earlier than thought—and may have had a bigger impact on the evolution of animals
No, it was a question about why creationists always like to bring up C14 when the age of the Earth is being discussed. It shows they don't understand something.
Do you want me to go into detail about those methods? Or can I just provide a link to show how, for example, Rb-Sr dating is self-correcting? Or how Pb in the original zircon crystals would disrupt the structure and be obvious?
No, there are those who argue against that. It is an assumption and a reasonable one at that.
And general relativity doesn't assume such. In fact, the rate of expansion changes in predictable ways depending on the density of mass and energy.
Care to give more details? Those measuring methods have gotten much more accurate in the last couple of decades. Any source older than that will be unreliable and unrepresentative of modern abilities.
The whole thing is based upon general relativity. Care to give details here?
it has a current rate of decay because it is in the middle of a flip.
What do you mean it hasn't been measured? While it is true we don't understand the process for how the poles flip, we do know that they have flipped many times because we have the geological data for such flips. We also know that the sun's magnetic field flips on a regular basis even though we don't really understand how that happens. not knowing the mechanism doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And in the case of magnetic flips, we *do* know they happen.
What 'cosmic forces' could change the rate of decay of radioactive materials? Please give examples.
Projecting your tactics on others is a fallacy, as well.
You could present arguments and facts for your beliefs, instead of constructing straw men for your perceived enemies..
Cosmic origins is not relevant for the origin of the Earth. The Big Bang was 13.7 billion years ago and the Earth is only 4.5 billion years old. The radioactive decay methods are used for the age of the Earth, not the age of the universe. So any 'big bang or first cause cosmic forces' would be irrelevant for what we are discussing.
- Status