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Research Finds Carbon Dating Flawed
eldavojohn writes "New research funded by the National Science Foundation at the University of Miami is showing that carbon dating (the 13C/12C ratio used to infer age) in the ocean can only be trusted up to 150 million years ago. From the primary researcher, 'This study is a major step in terms of rethinking how geologists interpret variations in the 13C/12C ratio throughout Earth's history. If the approach does not work over the past 10 million years, then why would it work during older time periods? As a consequence of our findings, changes in 13C/12C records need to be reevaluated, conclusions regarding changes in the reservoirs of carbon will have to be reassessed, and some of the widely-held ideas regarding the elevation of CO2 during specific periods of the Earth's geological history will have to be adjusted.' While this research doesn't necessarily throw carbon dating out the window, it should cause people to rethink so many theories about early life that revolved around ages of sediment in the oceans."
I hear that all the time. And that the scientists who dig up dinosaur bones are agents of the Adversary, and that they know better but refuse to acknowledge God out of pride. This is out there. A quick anecdote:
When I was 7 or 8, there was a kid up the road who was about my same age from a Pentecostal family. Being a kid and fascinated by anything that seemed bitey, I loved dinosaurs, and at some point during a neighborhood get-together I told him so. He promptly told me that I was going to hell for believing Satan over God. I, growing up in a family that could be charitably described as occasionally Catholic, asked him (in slightly different terms) what the fuck he was talking about, and how he could refuse to believe that dinosaurs walked the earth when there were so many fossils and such a well-constructed fossil record. The conversation ended when he, within hearing range of both his parents and mine, shouted "Shut up, Satan! I'm going home to get my Bible!", and left.
Now, don't get me wrong, kids can make up some damned creative things- but I would wager my bottom dollar that there isn't a kid alive that would come up with the idea that dinosaur bones were planted by the Devil all on his own. My guess is that we don't have to look too far from the ol' homestead to figure out where he found that particular line.
Slashdot should have ran the more interesting story pertaining to nuclear decay rates that came up this week, which my nuclear physicist associate (Oliver Manuel) forwarded to me ...
Evidence for Correlations Between Nuclear Decay Rates and Earth-Sun Distance
Seach the Firehose for "decay rate" and you'll find my submission, which was rejected (not complaining actually, just a bit confused).
And it's not even that this result is the first time it's been noticed. Russian researcher Simon Schnoll has performed *thousands* of simple geiger counter isotope decay rate experiments and noticed the same exact thing -- that there is an astrophysical influence to decay rates ...
Russian Discovery Challenges Existence of 'Absolute Time'
The idea that nuclear decay rates might not be random is pretty paradigm-changing. We can doubt the results, but shouldn't we at least be talking about it? It seems to me like a very important finding.
Isn't this even more pertinent to the concept of anthropogenic warming than the absolute dating article Slashdot went with???
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
If we substitute divine being for alien being, nothing changes in principle.
Everything changes. The alien hypothesis would lead immediately to further questions: ...
- Was it a single visit, or several visits of the aliens?
- If several, does a pattern emerge?
- If several, were they the same aliens? Or did different types of alien visit us?
- If several of the same type, can we detect a development in technology and goals of the aliens?
- If a single visit, did they come and leave again, or are they still present?
- If a single visit, can we determine when and where they landed?
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All those questions can be handled scientificially. With an omnipotent being, none of those questions makes any sense.
i'll agree with what you say.
No believer in creation should be afraid of what science concludes. but many are. It's silly.
The fact that scientific discovery is ongoing is not proof that it's flawed, it's just proof that we continue to learn about the things around us.
That is important. In fact I think God would be pleased that his creation was using thier thinking abilities to the full. Because if a person believes in creation and an omnipotent being that started it. How better to learn about that creator than by examining the creation.
Where the ID and creationist loudmouths fall short is that they don't leave any room in thier interpretations for any new information that arises.
These people forget that the bible is not a text book on science but a message concerning God and his Soveriegnty.
"In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth" does not specify any time periods of methods. I won't get into the whole "days" issue and the parallel creation accounts in genesis, but there's a lot of room to examine scientific discovery and correlate it with what the Bible has to say and there not be any conflict on most matters.
Faith doesn't need proof, but when facts jive with faith it's faith strengthening.
And when scientific theory does not fall in line with my Faith I don't worry. This is because whats postulated in any theory is usually based on the best knowledge of the time. When that knowledge changes the theory will change or eventually it may be confirmed. And if some scientific matter is confirmed and it seems to disagree with the bible, the faithful person should re-examine thier understanding of the issue involved.
I'll point to the calculation of Pi in the bible. At face value it's wrong according to current understanding. To dogmatically insist that it is exactly 3 would make for all sorts of errors if needing the value for anything.
It doesn't mean that the bible is wrong, it just means that the understanding of the dimensions presented in 1 Kings 7:23 may be off. One would have to know that he measurements are given in round numbers (as the Hebrews tended to round off measurements to whole numbers), that cubits were not exact units, or that the basin may not have been exactly circular, or that the brim was wider than the bowl itself.
Who run Barter Town?
I'm not a Christian. I'll happily educate you.
The New Testament and "Jesus Christ" is the part you're looking for, the part where it specifically says the ways of the Old Testament are no longer applicable.
Everything read is "interpreted" by definition. There are no written "truths", biblical or otherwise. I don't know why you think that "interpreting" something must necessarily debase it's value. Even the best Science ever done is at best an interpretation of physical truth; despite this it's still extremely useful and valuable.
There is an explanation for the 'bad stuff' from the Old Testament, it's very clearly stated: Original Sin, also known as Man's Fall from Grace, or Satan's Seduction of Man.
It did go: God says stone people, people get stoned, God says stop stoning people, here's new laws, according to the faily commonly shared foundational tenets of Christianity.
All those people who were stoned to death, and a good deal of the people who weren't all were subjected to eternal damnation, the really bad stuff, well worse than a rock to the head.
We're "supposed" to recognize our lack of qualifications to 'judge' God. We're supposed to trust him and know that everything that happens is 'right'.
If you don't believe in the whole Christian God thing, feel free to do and think what you want, I know I do. But honestly, I don't think many people really care about people getting stoned to death. Far worse happens on huge scales everyday. Unless it's in my neighborhood (Darfur and 2,000BC both surely aren't), I don't really feel obliged to do anything about it.
Yeah, you're also supposed to feel the laws weren't arbitrary. See, according to the doctrine, Jesus came here and redeemed us. That's why the eternal damnation and stoning all stopped. Jesus then went and got all the stoned people and the damned people out of Hell and sent them to Heaven to make up for their torment and trouble.
God made the old law because Man 'deserved' it, being Satan-fodder. Man was unique, having free-will. Man was also special, being made in God's image. Man did bad things which God had granted license for Man to do under penalty. God enforced these penalties to improve Man. I imagine it's somewhat like the theory behind the Department of Corrections in the US.
You're asking for a rational response and hoping you don't get one? Jeez. Christianity doesn't need to be rationalized or accepted as truth. But before you start using your mouth to pass shit all over something, you might want to double check what windmills you're tilting at first, Mr Quixote.
From a correspondence between Ensign Guy H. Raner and Albert Einstein in 1945 and 1949. Einstein responds to the accusation that he was converted by a Jesuit priest: "I have never talked to a Jesuit prest in my life. I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist." "I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one.You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from religious indoctrination received in youth." Freethought Today, November 2004
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." From a letter Einstein wrote in English, dated 24 March 1954. It is included in Albert Einstein: The
From a letter Einstein wrote in English, dated 24 March 1954. It is included in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, published by Princeton University Press. Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years (New York: Philosophical Library, 1950), p. 27.
"During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution, human fantasy created gods in man's own image who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate influence, the phenomenal world... The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old conception of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes... In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vase power in the hands of priests." Albert Einstein, reported in Science, Philosophy and Religion: A Symposium, edited by L. Bryson and
"Thus I came...to a deep religiosity, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of 12. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached a conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true....Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience...an attitude which has never left me." The Quotable Einstein
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
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