Quotethis is a forum not a scientific report. The analogy is irrelevant.
Hey, you're the one trying to say science can disprove creationism. I'm simply asking you to "scientifically disprove" it...scientifically.
QuoteI'm done. I'm going to sleep now. you're just pushing this off so you don't have to explain shit.
It has been fun, though. I'm sure me and my atheist friends will have a good laugh about it.
...I created a whole other thread and this is what I get? I seriously hope you're still interested after you get my message, otherwise I'll have typed this up for nothing. I do enjoy a decent conversation on this subject.
QuoteThe study of climatic changes through tree rings (Dendrochronlogy) started in the 1920s. In simple terms, dendrochronolgists can determine past seasonal climates by looking at the rings of trees. In certain species of trees, a ring will appear wider if the weather has been wet. During a dry season, a ring will be much narrower. A ring is established by the change from spring to winter. During the spring, a tree adds new, large cells to the outer layer. As winter approaches, the cells are smaller in contrast; thus establishing each year that has passed.
Yeah, dendrochronology is awesome when taken in context.
QuoteThe science of dendochronology does not have an "agenda" to either prove evolution or disprove Young Earth creationism. They are simply studying the recent history of climatic changes. The neutral position of this science is good for both sides of our examined arguments. An interesting side point is that they are able to date volcanic explosions by examining its effects in affected rings.
Yes, no agenda. I agree completely.
QuoteThere are no known living trees over 5,000 years old, so how could anyone know about building a tree chronology back to pre-flood times? The answer lies in building a chronology from dead trees onto the live trees. The method for building tree chronology is very simple and extremely sound as well. The key is to find a standing dead tree that had an overlapping life with a living one. By using this method, rings can be compared or visually overlaid (think of two viewgraphs) to add the number of standing dead trees rings to the number of rings of live trees. Another verification is to find the ring damage in both sets of trees resulting from the volcanic activity along with matching rings. Once these dates have been established, more tree ring chronology can be added by comparing fallen dead tree rings to the standing dead tree rings
Now
this is an actual example. Thanks.
QuoteThis allows us to build a chronology of trees past 9,000 years, past the time of Noah's flood. This allows us to see if there is a dramatic difference in C-12 by examining trees that existed before Noah. Scientists can check how many C-14 per C-12 atoms there were in the atmosphere during every century all the way back through the tree ring chronology by checking the carbon-14 dating wood from these very old trees. Using this method in the Bristlecomb Pine trees, carbon-14 dating has been checked back to over 9000 years ago.
I'm not sure how you're planning to tie in carbon-14 dating, so I'll deal with both matters separately.
DENDROCHRONOLOGYFirst, the timeline for dendrochronology is based mostly off of bristlecone pines, so the same species can be used, and thus compared accurately. It is a well-known fact that bristlecone pines do not always produce one ring per year, though most dendrochronologists argue that they usually do. It is obvious just from comparing different ring patterns that some trees skip a year of growth at times. Of course, this would make the timeline appear shorter, not longer.
However, the pines can also grow multiple rings in one season. Harold Gladwin, one of the archaeologists who worked extensively with them, maintained that their growth is too erratic to be considered a hard-and-fast method of dating. Walter E. Lammerts, another scientist concerned with dendrochronology, studied bristlecone saplings and found that they did in fact, on occasion, produce multiple rings per season. Thus, dendrochronology is an erratic method of dating at best, far too unreliable for scientific purposes. If one were to find a piece of bristlecone wood with a known age, say a piece of furniture with the date of manufacture established, one could then date other pieces of wood by matching the rings. However, when you get far enough back in time that there are no concretely known dates, this method obviously cannot be used.
Dendrochronology is hardly reliable enough to be used as scientific proof of the earth's age.
CARBON-14 DATINGCarbon-14 has a half-life of approximately 5730 years. It decays into the stable isotope nitrogen-14.
During the life of an organism, the concentration of carbon-14 in its tissues usually remains relatively stable, around the same as the concentration of carbon-14 in the atmosphere. However, after the organism dies, it is no longer taking in carbon-14, so the amount of carbon-14 in its body begins to diminish as it decays into nitrogen-14.
In "carbon dating," the concentration of carbon-14 in an organism is measured, then compared to the concentration of carbon-12 [the stable form of carbon]. The amount of decay is then calculated, based off of the carbon-14 to carbon-12 ratio in the atmosphere, compared to the the carbon-14 to carbon-12 ratio in the fossilized organism. From the amount of decay, a date of fossilization is then calculated.
It seems quite straightforward. However, there is obviously no way to run back into the past and grab a sample of what the atmosphere was like in order to compare the results against it. Even now, it varies slightly by time and location. And given its minute concentration to begin with, and the length of its half-life, even a very slight variation could throw off a date by hundreds or possibly thousands of years. If one
does accept the idea that the atmosphere has always been exactly the same as it was today [which pretty much wrecks the current theory of evolution on its own], carbon-14 has been proven to be unreliable in many cases, when dating items with known age.
Even were carbon-14 completely accurate, it could not be used to date to millions of years as some people erroneously claim. Why?
Well, we start out with a specific amount of carbon-14. We'll call this point in time "zero time." Obviously, this is the point at which 100% of the carbon-14 remains carbon-14. So, let's make a table to present the data. Every time 5370 years pass, half of the carbon-14 is lost.
years after 0 time --- % carbon-14 remaining0 --- 100%
5370 --- 50%
10,740 --- 25%
16,110 --- 12.5%
21,480 --- 6.25%
26,850 --- 3.13%
32,220 --- 1.57%
37,590 --- 0.79%
42,960 --- 0.40%
48,830 --- 0.20%
53,700 --- 0.10%
By the time we reach only 53,700 years, the amount of carbon-14 is below even reasonably detectable, let alone measurable, levels. But, of course, this only proves carbon-14 cannot be used to date things a few tens of thousands of years old and older. What about more recent dates?
Even in the time since we've been measuring it, the amounts of carbon-14 in the atmosphere have not been the same, fluctuating even beyond the normal minor variations, for example, after the atmospheric testing of atomic bombs, which caused the levels to rise, and after the major burning of fossil fuels during the Industrial Era, which caused the levels to drop. Obviously, then, the dates returned from carbon-14 dating are not always entirely accurate.
If one knows the level of carbon-14 in the atmosphere at a specific point, say by testing flowers buried in someone's grave, then results can, of course, be compared to that. But since the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere varies with location as well as time, even these results are not entirely accurate. Once one reaches a point where no material is dated, of course, there is nothing to compare the results to.
Carbon-14 is produced when cosmic rays from the sun hit nitrogen atoms [sounds like a cheesy comic book, I know, but it's true nonetheless]. The rate of formation seems relatively stable and balanced compared to the rate of decay. What blocks much of the cosmic radiation, protecting Earth from the effects, is the magnetic field.
The strength of the Earth's magnetic field is decreasing over time. This means that the further back in time one looks [assuming that the strength was always decreasing, never increasing or remaining steady], the more likely it is that there would have been a lower ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12. Since this isn't taken into account, this would cause many of the results on older materials to appear much older than they actually are.
Okay, your turn. XDQuestions? Comments? Am I wrong? If I am, can you show me
where I'm wrong, because if I am, I'd hate to end up accidentally misleading someone later? I'm always ready to consider other people's views when they back them up.
