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World's Oldest Rocks Found
Smivs writes "The BBC reports that Earth's most ancient rocks, with an age of 4.28 billion years, have been found on the shore of Hudson Bay, Canada. Writing in Science journal, a team reports finding that a sample of Nuvvuagittuq greenstone is 250 million years older than any rocks known. It may even hold evidence of activity by ancient life forms. If so, it would be the earliest evidence of life on Earth — but co-author Don Francis cautioned that this had not been established. 'The rocks contain a very special chemical signature — one that can only be found in rocks which are very, very old,' he said."
And you can see McCain's shadow stacking the layers...
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
They'll find proof I had first post!
No, but I did throw granola at a deaf person once
Isn't it inaccurate to say "World's oldest rocks found" ? I'm a fan of Schroedinger and all that, but just because their the oldest we've observed doesn't mean they are the oldest.
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
So, it smells like earth.
...I hear there are some rolling stones that are even older.
When asked for comment on what they intended to do with the rocks now that they had them, the lead researcher responded:
"Oh well, you know. Put them on a shelf. Maybe look at them from time to time. We might, when people come around to visit, take them down and let people not touch them! It's all terribly exciting... in fact, I think I need a lie-down."
We're geeks... We're the sorcerers of the modern-day world. --
Fucking kids. Graffito-tagging anything. Who tagged it? Jesus.. I'm looking at you.
I record my sleeptalking
Here's a picture of world's oldest stones
According to any religion-respecting Christian, the rocks are only 5,000 years old.
Your claim is Wrong. It is easy to find "religions-respecting(*) Christians" who accept old earth. It has been accepted (**) Catholic doctrine for at least fifty years.
(*) Beware of the no-true-Scotsman fallacy here.
(**) It is officially permitted but not required.
1. The age given is 3.8 to 4.28 billion years (why billion, not giga. Dunno.) The scientist favours the oldest possible date, at a guess because that increases funding,
2. The evidence for life was speculative at best.
As the earth is known to have had liquid water for some time before the 4.28 possible date, this is not startling news. But they are rocks, and there is the possibility of establishing a case that they needed bacteria to create their striations. That's where the interest lies. It seems a bit too soon for life to evolve by too haphazard a route in that time.
Which implies a catalytic life-shaping environment, or an extra-terrestrial source, or of course, intelligent design. I've no objection to the latter, provided it is taught in a scientific manner. I've also no objection to proposing pigs can fly provided the analysis is, if not scientific, then nicely based on engineering.
Well, I'm a Catholic (although not a practicing one) and it was never, ever taught in Church or any Church extra-curricular activities that the earth is only 5,000 years old. This is something that is only believed by the crazy Evangelical Christians that belong to "fringe" churches; not the larger more accepting churches. Unfortunately, their numbers are growing.. and fast. It's frightening.
I agree that the good thing about this country is that you can believe anything you want - but the Evangelicals always try to take it too far and push, push, PUSH their way into politics, policy, and law.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Now all we have to find is the world's oldest hard places.
Because that is where those stones came from! McCain had kidney stones!
Because McCain is older than dirt.
Not everyone agrees.
This was covered a few days ago on New Scientist...
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn14818-discovery-of-worlds-oldest-rocks-challenged-.html
Ppppphhhttt. I'm a religion-respecting Christian, and I have no problem believing the rocks are 4.28 billion years old, for the following reasons:
1. God could have created them at that age. For example, if I take my filesystem and slap it onto a CD, preserving the original timestamps... what's the true age (or timestamp) of the files on the CD?
2. If I'm going to try to explain something complex to someone who's incapable of understanding it, I generally break it down into chunks they can understand. So if God's going to explain how he built the universe, and he knows it's beyond our understanding, saying "it was a week's worth of work" might just give us a comparative idea of how much work was involved.
It's rather like the whole evolution versus creationism arguement. I fail to see why both can't be believed in... the Bible says God created man from dirt, if'n I remember correctly. He didn't go about laying all the details out, though. Take all the matter in my body, break it down to its basic molecular compounds, and you've got a pile of mud (dirt and water). Just because the Bible says God made us out of dirt doesn't mean he couldn't have used evolution to build us. Try explaining the concept of evolution to humans still banging rocks together to get fire, and see what you get. Seems to me it'd be simpler to just say "Yep, made you out of dirt."
Of course, I'm tired, it's late at night, and I might not have explained myself well enough. If that's the case, then simply take the above as evidence that some of us Christians are still relatively sane, if a little eccentric ;o)
I don't know about "50 years", or how deeply this counts as documentation, but there's a decent run-down here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretations_of_Genesis#Contemporary_Christian_considerations
The "money quotes" are from Pope John Paul II -
The full discourse from the pontiff is linked on Wikipedia, but it's here for your convenience: http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2COSM.HTM
HTH.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
That's impossible! The earth is only 6000 years old!
Actually, upon reading the full discourse, the following is an even-more-money-quote: (emphasis mine)
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
As is stated in the New Scientist article, the technique used might actually date the protolith (the material from which this rock formed) and not the actual rock itself. From a geochronologist's stand point, this rock is actually 3.8 billion years old, based on the U-Pb zircon age given in the Science article. The age determination for the reigning oldest rocks discovered was found through U-Pb zircon work. The authors are very clear to point out that this 4.28 Ga date is not a definitely age for the rock. Gotta love the media jumping head long in front of the science.
On how they "teach the controversy".
The way it was handled in my high school science class was simple: a discussion of what "science" meant. Science, after all, is more of a method of discovery by certain rules than a true monolith (such as "science says"). This was then distinguished from spiritual approaches by focusing on physical evidence, falsifiability, etc.
Essentially, the teacher better defined science and distinguished it from religion. She then stated that, as we were in science class, we would learn the scientific take. We were free to believe as we wished - as is the fundamental right of every man, enshrined in the First Amendment and various case law interpreting it - but, regardless of what we believed, we would learn the scientific take in a science class - it only meant sense.
That, to me, is the appropriate way to handle the situation. I particularly liked the way it reminded us more of the scientific method and of the epistemological differences between the hard sciences and other subjects. This planet and its people would benefit a great deal by learning the ability to approach matters in different ways and to even learn to hold two, conflicting ideas in their heads for a moment's time, if not but for the purpose of comparison. We need to trust people to think about things for themselves. Teaching epistemological approaches and focusing on process rather than product is vital to this.
For the world's scientists to calibrate their instruments for 6,000 years.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
Looks like ancient shamans used a DWORD in the Good book to represent the age of the earth. When it was downloaded, the figure of 4.3 billion years overflowed and wrapped around to around 6000 years.
Problem solved.
It's funny though, because, you know, as much as everyone deservedly knocks the 6000 year old figure, few actually probe the ancient conceit that drove it - that is, the universe could not exist without mankind, and so, it more or less exists to serve mankind, and therefor we can spread out across the world and conquer it.
Now, with all of our fancy science of course, we know much better. We know that the universe is billions of years old, and that, we've not actually found a shred of life within it that is not from our planet. Not a peep out of SETI, a hello from another world - not even a cell on Mars- nothing. So, it really looks like, that, we can spread across the world and conquer it.
So, the upshot is that ancient man and today's scientists drew exactly the same conclusion. If we can see it, we can take it. All of this mumbo jumbo about the age of the thing doesn't matter a bit. In the mind of the Pope and Goddard alike, its -ours-.
This is my sig.
An unfunny and played out one.
By what name do you wish to be mourned?
This is indicative of what really is exciting in Science--- the debate over methods, that reveal the real history of the world.
One of the methods these scientists used--- which has been potentially thought to be reliable--- disagrees with another method that is more commonly considered reliable.
Aging the oldest rocks on Earth is important because it helps us understand when extraterrestrial impact slowed to the point that would allow solidification of the Earth's surface. This places important bound on the age of life on earth--- which has been pushed back more rapidly then the oldest rocks over the past decades. Life, it seems, is more resilient then may have been thought previously.
The important part of this research is the questions it raises--- and the future research it will spur!!
'Cuz Sarah Palin told me the Earth is only 6,000 years old.
No, it's only the fundamentalist Christians who would think that, in the rest of the world you can be a Christian without believing every single word in the Bible is the absolute truth.
BTW, I'm not a Christian, I'm just saying you shouldn't judge a faith or set of beliefs by the crazy extremists, otherwise you end up with the "because most suicide bombers are Muslims, most Muslims are suicide bombers" type of argument.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
>I recall from some study claiming, that identifying age cannot
>be accurately estimated by carbon-dating beyond 40000 years or so.
Fortunately the rock was not made up of carbon and hence carbon-dating was not needed. The rock did contain neodymium and samarium though which could be used for dating it.
It's a hoax. My priest says the oldest rocks can't be older than 10000 years. :p
"Sum Ergo Cogito"
"If your Bible says that people were made from mud, then either: that Bible story is utterly and completely mistaken; or it is deliberately lying to you."
Spoken like someone who wishes this to be true and in his arrogance claims it must be true.
Why do you have a problem with someone having faith in a religion if they don't let it screw up how they view the world?
Behold! You have someone who believes in God AND thinks evolution is a right clever idea! But rather be grateful that not everyone is insane, instead of seeing hope for the future, you have to attack the person.
You sir, are a moron.
If you are *ever* going to begin convincing people that science has nothing to do with religion (which it doesn't) then STOP attacking them on theological grounds.
Embrace this guy's beliefs the next time some archo-conservative nut tells you the universe is 6000 years old and the world was made in 3 days and that there is no point planning for the future because the world is going to end anyways.
"Any story that tries to tell it otherwise is simply incorrect. Wrong. Utterly mistaken. There is nothing else to it."
You've never heard of allegory then have you? Take a literature class and learn something. There is a reason civilizations have myths and legends they tell stories about, and its NOT because we like to be entertained (though it helps).
Some atheists need to stop treating everything as a personal attack. The egotism sets my teeth on edge.
It may even hold evidence of activity by ancient life forms.
Thrintun? Tnuctipun?
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Anyone that's been there would find that very hard to believe.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
I'm as old as the universe (since all my subatomic particles are the same age) but I can only reliably remember back only a week or two.
I guess you've never heard of the Clergy Letter Project then. It's specific to evolution but a requirement for the theory of evolution is an ancient earth. The text also explicitly supports modern science in general, which would include geology anyway.
Theres evidence on the moon and Mars of massive meteor impacts up to 3.9 billion years ago, or a half billion years after planet formation. This means Earth and Mars may not have been habitable for life until then. Rocks as old 4.28 billion years could disprove or attenuate this meteor event.
Behold! You have someone who believes in God AND thinks evolution is a right clever idea! But rather be grateful that not everyone is insane, instead of seeing hope for the future, you have to attack the person.
I think atheists take this view because it's completely 100% contradictory. Both points are mutually exclusive. They can't overlap in the slightest, even though some people try to warp it to fit their brainwashed religious view.
The belief in a (christian) God and evolution don't mesh because if we were made in God's image then we couldn't have evolved from single-cell organisms. Unless God is a single-cell organism, in that case we've evolved to become something better - but now I've just moved into blasphemy, and used the subjective 'better'.
So if you're going to try to convince an atheist that you're 'one of them' yet you still cling to an ancient dogma that is racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-science, and tribal, don't be surprised when they rebuff you.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry