: Yes, I have been looking at some of those sites you mentioned. Sorry, I’m still not convinced. I’ll take the liberty of quoting directly from some of them – sorry, due to time constraints, I haven’t given individual references to each of these, but I’ve backed this up on a word processor so that I can be formal and correct when I have opportunity.: “If the solar system formed from a common pool of matter, which was uniformly distributed in terms of Pb isotope ratios, then the initial plots for all objects from that pool of matter would fall on a single point”
: It is interesting to note, first of all, the “if.”
Yeah. Certainty is for believers.
Scientists will never make a final statement on *anything*; witness the difference between the number of theorems (proved statements, of which there are a very few, like Pythagoras' Theorem) and theories (not finally proved statements but the best models that have yet been constructed to date; like the Theory of Gravity of the Theory of Special Relativity).
Until something better and more accurate comes alongs, scientists go with existing theories as a truth; not the Ultimate Truth. Science is open to debate, criticism and revision.
: Here we are making a broad, unproveable assumption.
Not so; it would be possible to disprove the opposite statement;
"The initial mixture that became the Solar System was inhomogenous and contained varying amounts of lead isotopes according to position".
If you took mineral samples of all Solar System planets and compared the ratios of all the isotopes of lead (Pb), then you would find that either a) the ratios *are* all the same or b) the ratios are *not* all the same. If the ratios aren't the same, the initial mixture did not contain a smooth distribution of lead isotopes; if they are, it is likely that they did.
This might be slightly too technical for you to grasp readily, so I'll explain by analogy.
Take a fruit cake. Split it into four equal slices. Now, give it to someone who didn't see you cut it and ask them to examine the slices and tell you if the currants were distributed evenly when you cooked it.
They look at the distribution and amount of currants in each part; if one slice contains a lot more than another, then they have reason to believe that the initial distribution of currants wasn't equal. If all the slices contain much the same number of currants, they can say that it is likely that the distribution was equal.
They cannot give you a final answer as to whether it was or not; they can only construct a model based on experimental evidence; what they saw themselves.
However, if the distribution in the cake is even, then either it was even when cooked or somehow rearranged the distribution of currants after cooking. Either the cake was evenly sprinkled with currants or the currants have some mysterious way of moving through a cooked cake.
In such a case, the best theory is the one that most simply explains the observed facts.
Either the laws of physics function as they've always been observed to behave and the distribution was even in the first place, or the distribution was uneven and the laws of space and time have suddenly changed for no readily apparent reason.
You can't prove that the currants were evenly distributed in the first place; but you can show experimental data that suggests that that they *weren't* unevenly distributed, barring freaks of nature. That's science.
: Also, the entire dating method is relegated to the assumed factuality of this assumption.
Quite true; but it's a reasonable assumption; and you could prove the assumption wrong by doing an experiment. It is falsifiable and therefore scientific, even if it isn't right.
:
: “If the source of the solar system was also uniformly distributed with respect to uranium isotope ratios, then the data points will always fall on a single line.”
: Another broad assumption. May or may not be true.
Follows on logically from the first principle.
If you take a cake with evenly distributed currants and cut it up into slices, then it is likely that the slices will also have an even distribution of currants.
It's more reasonable to assume that the currants in the slices will be evenly distributed than it is to assume that the laws of nature will reshape themselves around to change a cake.
: Certainly unsustainable and, since it contradicts Genesis, I assert that it is false.
Which is rather like saying that the currants in the cake *are* unevenly distributed, regardless of what you actually see in the cake, because the cookbook says that the currants are unevenly distributed.
(cut out superfluous bit)
: There is no "check" built into these methods. There is no way to tell if the calculated result is good or not. The best methods used by geologists to perform dating have a built-in check which identifies undatable samples. The only way a creatonist can "tell" which of these methods produce bad values is to throw out the results that he doesn't like. "
: But don’t the dating methods commonly use assert that these metals in rock (uranium-lead, for example) are consistent by the same methods that creationists use to prove that the low metal content of the oceans indicates a young earth?
No. Quite apart from all else, to do so would imply that every rock on the planet had exactly the same composition.
The amounts of U and Pb are *proportionally* the same on different planets; because they came from the same gas cloud; and because alpha-decay of any isotope operates according to strict mathematical laws. You can shove a lump of uranium in a box, seal the box, leave it for a hundred years and come back and it will *still* be following the decay curve.
The figures quoted for metal residency in the ocean were vastly simplified and ignored important factors; such as the processes that actually remove the metals from the ocean. You can't disprove the fiugres because not enough is known about the processes; thus they are rough estimates, not hard theory.
As such, there is a world of difference between the two methods. It's like saying that you know how old John Smith is because John Smith is your best friend (Urnaium --> Lead); and saying that you know how old John Smith is because you've taken several people called John Smith and looked at their ages.
: “Also, similarly to item (1) above, pleas to contamination do not address the fact that radiometric results are nearly always in agreement with old-Earth expectations. If the methods were producing completely "haywire" results essentially at random, such a pattern of concordant results would not be expected. “
: The key word in this paragraph is “expectations.” If your basic assumption is true, then you may have valid expectations. Creationists assert that since the basic assumption is false, the “expectations must also be false.
But you cannot provide any experiment that proves it to be false; which makes your counterclaim nothing more than an assertion.
As a Creationist, you have not yet provided anything which falsifies evolution; whereas evolutionists have provided any amount of experimental data which falsifies the story of Creation as told in Genesis.
(And Genesis as a book of the Bible only dates back to 700 B.C. at the earliest.)
: We don’t argue that the results ought to be random, simply that we would expect the same result IF the basic assumption were true. Since the assumption is false, the results are false.
Prove your initial assumption is true; or at least strengthen it by proving ours not to be the case. If you can falsify evolution, then you strengthen the theory of Creation; if you can't you weaken Creation as an idea.
Gideon.
