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Zhi -> RE: "Young Earth" doctrine????? (8/8/2008 1:58:03 PM)
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Even for isotopes with half lives in the millions of years you can still measure thousands of decays in a matter of minutes with a large enough sample. One must remember that there are 6.022 x 10^23 (short hand 6.022E23 for future reference) atoms per mole (Avogadro's number). Just for fun, let's do the math.
For 40K the halflife is 1.25E9, or 1.25 billion years. In that time half a mole will decay for 3.011E23 decay events. For one mole of 40K that calculates to 2.4088E14 events per year. Dividing by 365 days that is 6.6E11 events per day, 2.75E10 events per hour, and 4.58E8 events per minute. That's 458 million events per minute from one mole of 40K which is 40 grams. From 40 milligrams one would get 458,000 events per minute. This is just back of the envelope math, so please check it. Also, I am sure one needs to run a differential to get the actual count, but it is still possible to get quite a few events from a small amount.
As previously noted, I'm entirely aware of how radioactive decay works (including on the quantum level, as my college education required me to take a course in quantum physics, which is a hoot). I have never argued the ability to determine rate of radioactive decay. I have, however, questioned our ability to properly guess the original ratios of parent to daughter element, and our ability to determine the potential for contamination.
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Nature has already done those experiments. One example is the naturally occuring nuclear reactors at Oklo in Gabon, Africa. If the radioactive decay was the same in the past as it is now then these nuclear reactors should have specific ratios of byproducts of that decay. That is exactly what is found. Also, astronomers were able to measure the production and decay of cobolt isotopes in Supernova 1987a which is 168,000 miles away. The energy and half life of these isotopes are the same as they are here on Earth 168,000 years later.
For atmospheric fluctuations of 14C the tree ring, varve, coral doublet U/Th dating, ice layer data all give historical concentrations of 14C and cross correlate across many different continents and environments. The actual age and measured age can be matched up due to the annual characteristics of these data sets.
I've already addressed a few of those, but as I need to get ready to go work on our house in the mountains again this weekend, I will reiterate the short version: When you assume a divine creation event in which everything pops into being fully formed and functional, it could happen 5 seconds ago, 6,000 years ago, or several billion years ago and there wouldn't be any measureable difference. "Why's this like this?" is invariably answered by "Because God made it that way." Not exactly something one can argue given the base assumption of an all-powerful supernatural being.
Which frankly is one thing that kind of drives me nuts about some "creation scientists". You can't scientifically prove a supernatural creation event. It's simply not possible. You can point out little quirks in what "should have" happened and say they're cool or mess with prevailing theory or what have you, but scientifically proving divine intervention is like Star Trek geeks trying to prove that the transporter really works (It apparently uses a Heisenberg Compensator. How does it work? Very well, thank you.) Not to make light of our faith by comparing it to a television show (even if it WAS one of the best television shows EVER), but the point is... when you're talking about a creative being able to make stuff out of "nothing", all bets are off.
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The other problem with zircons being formed with lead already in them is that zircons can be found in sediment that overlay fossils. This means that these zircons were formed after life was already present on Earth. These can not be zircons that were formed at the time of creation, that is unless the Earth was created with fossils already in the ground which would cause some serious theological problems (one would think). So creationists must explain why there is a correlation between two independent and unrelated data sets: the ordering of fossils and the concentration of lead in zircons. For instance, how does a flood sort fossils so that they are only found in layers with zircons that have a specific ration of Uranium to Lead.
Mmm, zircon overlays can be formed like that, or they can simply be part of the sedimentation from upstream erosion of parent rock. Or the initial estimates of starting parent-daughter ratios could be off. Frankly, hard to tell. Since we haven't had a worldwide flood lately (good thing), also hard to model.
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We have known what the appendix does for quite some time now. The appendix is a part of the caecum which houses commensal plant digesting bacteria in herbivorous species. In humans the appendix serves a rudimentary and vestigial role.
Not according to Duke scientists. http://www.news-medical.net/?id=30907 While you can certainly live without one (especially if you know how to reflorinate your digestive tract), it's like your pinky... not critical to life, but not vestigial either (at least if you want to be able to press "enter"). ;)
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