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ORIGINAL: flyboy2610

The difference is that Christians believe in a Creator who is able to create something out of nothing.
Atheists are left with two choices: the eternality of matter, or spontaneous creation of matter from nothing without a creator.

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Belief in the Big Bang doesn't solve the problem. One is still faced with the question of where the tiny ball of matter came from. It was either there eternally, or it created itself from nothing.

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Some physicists have estimated that the initial ball of matter, perhaps smaller than a period on this page, weighed no more than 25 pounds. Even granting the eternality of THAT ball of mass, one is still faced with the question of where the rest of the mass in the universe came from.

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ORIGINAL: mikejonesoftn

How do we actually know that Carbon Dating is accurate??

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ORIGINAL: catfighter

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ORIGINAL: mikejonesoftn

How do we actually know that Carbon Dating is accurate??

Radiographic dating is used in conjunction with other dating methods:

http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/benton.html

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ORIGINAL: mikejonesoftn

How do we actually know that Carbon Dating is accurate??

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The 2004 version of the calibration curve extends back quite accurately to 26,000 years BP. Any errors in the calibration curve do not contribute more than ±16 years to the measurement error during the historic and late prehistoric periods (0 - 6,000 yrs BP) and no more than ±163 years over the entire 26,000 years of the curve, although its shape can reduce the accuracy as mentioned above.

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ORIGINAL: flyboy2610

The problem with carbon-14 dating is that you must input an assumption into the formula.
Carbon-14 dating is a comparison of the amount of carbon in a specimen as compared to the amount of carbon in a sample of the same living tissue. This assumes that one knows how much carbon was originally in the specimen when it died.
You input an assumption. Hardly scientific.

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ORIGINAL: robto

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ORIGINAL: flyboy2610

The problem with carbon-14 dating is that you must input an assumption into the formula.
Carbon-14 dating is a comparison of the amount of carbon in a specimen as compared to the amount of carbon in a sample of the same living tissue. This assumes that one knows how much carbon was originally in the specimen when it died.
You input an assumption. Hardly scientific.

Calibration of the c14 curve removes any need to assume the amount of c14 present when the specimen died. (See the Wiki article I linked.) That is, we use objects of KNOWN age to DETERMINE the amount of c14 in the environment at that time. Then, since the amount of c14 is known for essentially any age within the range of applicability of the method, there is no need to ASSUME the initial amount.

In general, though, there is nothing unscientific about assumptions. Scientists make assumptions all the time, and then test them. When the test show discrepancies, you need to re-examine your assumptions.

In this, science is no different than everyday life. You can't prove that gravity will work the same way tomorrow that it does today. Yet no sane person ties themselves into bed at night in case of a reversal of gravity during the night. We all assume that the world will continue to work the same way it has in the past - that's just common sense.

Science is just organized common sense. To use radiometric dating, for example, we need to assume that radioactive decay happened at the same rate in the past that it does today. But is that assumption valid, when we are talking about a time frame of 4 billion years for the oldest rocks? Well, we can test the assumption in several ways. One way is to look out into space, which we know is also looking back in time. Another way is to directly compare the values of physical parameters obtained 10 or 20 years ago with the values obtained today. There are now very stringent limits on the amount of variation possible in the basic constants of nature, and therefore on any change in the decay rates of isotopes.

(Note that physicists are looking very hard for any such changes in fundamental constants, because some versions of unified theories predict that the constants SHOULD change over time. Finding a measurable change would be a great coup, and almost certainly a Nobel prize, for the discoverer.)

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That's a nice story, robto, but it's time to move on from Mother Goose. In application, carbon dating is notoriously unreliable for producing results that correspond with "known" dates. There is a food fight between archaeologists who say they have the right dates, and the radiocarbon crowd, the dates from whom produce a history that looks nothing like archaeological data. Radiocarbon dating is a broken science that works only in the minds of those who are wanting it to work. It doesn't work, and no amount of dendrochronology seems to be fixing it.

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ORIGINAL: EcclesFruitcake
Could you please state more precisely your objections to the technique of radiocarbon dating and what data led you to your conclusion.

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ORIGINAL: robto
And so it goes.... No matter how many of these "evidences" are shown to be frauds, forgeries or misinterpretations, YECs will still cling to their beliefs: "But this OTHER case is genuine!" All the while ignoring the massive amounts of evidence on the other side.

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ORIGINAL: EcclesFruitcake

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That's a nice story, robto, but it's time to move on from Mother Goose. In application, carbon dating is notoriously unreliable for producing results that correspond with "known" dates. There is a food fight between archaeologists who say they have the right dates, and the radiocarbon crowd, the dates from whom produce a history that looks nothing like archaeological data. Radiocarbon dating is a broken science that works only in the minds of those who are wanting it to work. It doesn't work, and no amount of dendrochronology seems to be fixing it.

Could you please state more precisely your objections to the technique of radiocarbon dating and what data led you to your conclusion.

As you infer that the errors arise in the application of the procedure, is it fair to say you are in accord with the science, the findings notwithstanding?

It has been my understanding that carbon dating revolutionized archaeology in that it provided a technique to date sites absolutely and not have to rely on relative dating (via depth, style e.t.c) when there is an absence of dated artefacts. Moreover, many archaeological finds with known ages have been significant in the testing of the method such as those used in the initial paper

Age determinations by radiocarbon content: checks with samples of known age

Is the concordance between tested and expected dates presented in the paper a coincidence in your view?

W. F. Libby later received the Nobel prize for the paper.

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The fact that you were led to believe that carbon dating "revolutionized archaeology" simply shows that there is a strong preference to "name it and claim it" among those who have the voices in media and education.

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Ask an Egyptologist whether or not they would use carbon dating to determine the age of, say, a piece of papyrus of ambiguous age. The answer would be a chuckle and a no. #1 it's expensive, and #2 it'll give an age that will just about never be correct.

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Manfred Bietak authored "Introduction: High and low chronology", in Proceedings of the SCIEM 2000 - 2nd Euroconference in which we find that there are no carbon dates that confirm the history of Egypt. In fact, the high and low dates of every single period of Egyptian history fall outside of the historical dates, and many of them overlap, indicating that periods of Egyptian history happened at the same time.

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...and they are certainly NOT revolutionizing one another.

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ORIGINAL: robto

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ORIGINAL: CCCdnt

And yet naturalistic scientists start with the belief/presupposition that there is no God.

Excuse me? In what science textbook did you ever read the presupposition that there is no God?

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As far as the “age of the realm of dinosaurs” being a scientific question, it is one that requires some presuppositions/assumptions. The age of the realm of dinosaurs is not something that can be directly observed, tested, and repeated in the present. When studying about the distant past, some assumptions have to be made. Those that accept “millions of years” accept different assumptions than those that believe in a “young earth”.

Well, you have to assume that physics, chemistry, and biology are basically correct. Actually, you don't - you can test all those theories for yourself by repeating the experiments that have been done to establish those disciplines.

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Well, you could start by at least citing something specific that you believe contradicts what one or more of these articles says.

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From AIG:

Dinosaurs first existed around 6,000 years ago.

Not a shred of physical evidence that (non-bird) dinosaurs existed 6000 years ago.

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God made the dinosaurs, along with the other land animals, on Day 6 of the Creation Week (Genesis 1:20–25, 31). Adam and Eve were also made on Day 6—so dinosaurs lived at the same time as people, not separated by eons of time. Dinosaurs could not have died out before people appeared because dinosaurs had not previously existed; and death, bloodshed, disease, and suffering are a resultof Adam’s sin.

Not a shred of evidence that dinosaurs existed at the same time as humans. In fact, all the evidence points otherwise. No human bones have been found in the same geological context as dinosaur bones. No modern mammals of ANY description have ever been found in the same geological context as dinosaur bones. No modern plants have ever been found in the same geological context as dinosaur bones.

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Representatives of all the kinds of air-breathing land animals, including the dinosaur kinds, went aboard Noah’s Ark. All those left outside the Ark died in the cataclysmic circumstances of the Flood, and many of their remains became fossils.

OK, so how could the Flood have sorted out the dinosaur bones from the other land animals? Why do we find certain assemblages of plants and animals in certain geologic contexts, but not in others? So, for example, Permian reptiles aren't ever found associated with Jurassic reptiles, or Cretaceous reptiles? Evolution provides an explanation: they lived at vastly different times, and so got buried in different sedimentary layers. How does the Flood accomplish this sorting.

What about pollen? Pollen gets everywhere. Pollen is found in arctic and antarctic ice. But no pollen from modern plants has ever been found in association with dinosaur bones. How did the Flood manage that one? How did the Flood manage to re-set the radiometric clocks, so that geological layers correlate with radiometric dates? By what process did dinosaur bones become fossilized in a mere 6000 years?

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ORIGINAL: yzf-r1

C14 is reliable for dating artifacts a few thousand years old, beyond that there is no calibration to a standard or benchmark

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ORIGINAL: shakezula

it's interesting that no tried to answer the original question.

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ORIGINAL: DanJames

I think that the answer to the original question has been made several times by several people. The Bible says that all land animals were made on day 6. Dinosaurs are land animals. Two animals described in Job are dinosaur-like animals. Everything alive was killed on the flood except for two of every kind. Speculation: dinosaurs died out soon after the Flood.

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ORIGINAL: CCCdnt

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ORIGINAL: robto

Excuse me? In what science textbook did you ever read the presupposition that there is no God?

I did not say it was read in a textbook. Since naturalism includes the belief that nothing non-natural (spiritual/supernatural) exists, why would naturalists have this belief? What test could they do that would confirm that they are correct in that belief?

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As far as the “age of the realm of dinosaurs” being a scientific question, it is one that requires some presuppositions/assumptions. The age of the realm of dinosaurs is not something that can be directly observed, tested, and repeated in the present. When studying about the distant past, some assumptions have to be made. Those that accept “millions of years” accept different assumptions than those that believe in a “young earth”.

Well, you have to assume that physics, chemistry, and biology are basically correct. Actually, you don't - you can test all those theories for yourself by repeating the experiments that have been done to establish those disciplines.

The "disciplines" of physics, chemistry, etc. are not what is in question but the unprovable assumptions that are accepted by those that believe in an "age of the realm of dinosaurs".

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From AIG:

Dinosaurs first existed around 6,000 years ago.

Not a shred of physical evidence that (non-bird) dinosaurs existed 6000 years ago.

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God made the dinosaurs, along with the other land animals, on Day 6 of the Creation Week (Genesis 1:20–25, 31). Adam and Eve were also made on Day 6—so dinosaurs lived at the same time as people, not separated by eons of time. Dinosaurs could not have died out before people appeared because dinosaurs had not previously existed; and death, bloodshed, disease, and suffering are a resultof Adam’s sin.

Not a shred of evidence that dinosaurs existed at the same time as humans. In fact, all the evidence points otherwise. No human bones have been found in the same geological context as dinosaur bones. No modern mammals of ANY description have ever been found in the same geological context as dinosaur bones. No modern plants have ever been found in the same geological context as dinosaur bones.

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Representatives of all the kinds of air-breathing land animals, including the dinosaur kinds, went aboard Noah’s Ark. All those left outside the Ark died in the cataclysmic circumstances of the Flood, and many of their remains became fossils.

OK, so how could the Flood have sorted out the dinosaur bones from the other land animals? Why do we find certain assemblages of plants and animals in certain geologic contexts, but not in others? So, for example, Permian reptiles aren't ever found associated with Jurassic reptiles, or Cretaceous reptiles? Evolution provides an explanation: they lived at vastly different times, and so got buried in different sedimentary layers. How does the Flood accomplish this sorting.

What about pollen? Pollen gets everywhere. Pollen is found in arctic and antarctic ice. But no pollen from modern plants has ever been found in association with dinosaur bones. How did the Flood manage that one? How did the Flood manage to re-set the radiometric clocks, so that geological layers correlate with radiometric dates? By what process did dinosaur bones become fossilized in a mere 6000 years?

Most if not all of this has already been debated and discussed in this forum in other threads. I see little point in restating what has probably already been said by others that are YEC.

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ORIGINAL: robto

In other words, you have no answer for my points and nothing to add to the discussion. So why bother even replying?

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ORIGINAL: robto

Excuse me? In what science textbook did you ever read the presupposition that there is no God?

I did not say it was read in a textbook. Since naturalism includes the belief that nothing non-natural (spiritual/supernatural) exists, why would naturalists have this belief? What test could they do that would confirm that they are correct in that belief?

All you are doing is repeating the same assertion. So I'll repeat mine: natural science does NOT assume the non-existence of God.

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ORIGINAL: jadegrrl

In public school we were taught the 'big bang theory' dinosaurs and homosapiens. I believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And God created Adam and Eve. But Dinosaurs were believed to be on earth before man 230 million years ago. There is fossil evidence of dinosaurs so why does the bible not talk about this? Where does this fit in?