Interesting indeed, you take some very big bites in a debate. I'll see if I can oblige, and be aware that I integrate my links, but the color change doesn't pop very well.
Whoa. That's crazy. Who in the right mind would ask those questions? Probably someone in the Westborro church... (there aren't really Christians)
Was that a typo? And the answer is apparently you, I hate to say, since many of the arguments you've casually alluded to in this thread
are on that list. Your comment suggests to me that you haven't spent much time looking over it, and I encourage you to do so.
Yup. This stuff ain't pre-packaged. It's home grown.
That might assert I've never heard these arguments before,
which so far isn't the case. And I find that unfortunate. What you would appear to be referencing, at least in part, is called
flood geology.
Truthfully I made only 1 claim. The unreliable assumption that the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere is predictable further back in time.
Excellent! You've nobly taken on the burden of proof, and I'm excited to see your evidence. We can trade papers.
Only reliable dating is what we know to be true, backed by historical records.
And let's take a glance at those historical records, if I understand your implication, because we certainly don't want to be guilty of selective scrutiny.
By what method do you suggest we corroborate historical reports so as to reach a reasonable consensus on "what we
know to be true"?
Of course I read it and noticed that sentence. Only problem is it doesn't provide proof of dating reaching back that far.
This was the kind of referencing tit-for-tat I was hoping we could avoid. None the less, Wikipedia has this funny thing about citing references, and I suppose it may be easy to miss the little [1] link right after that sentence. While I can only help you along so far, within reason,
for now I'm happy to provide that link.
And even if you'd like to overlook that, not only is carbon dating not the only radiometric method (and it's not, at all, the method used to determine estimates of millions and billions of years), but geological dating isn't the only significant factor in supporting the age of celestial bodies. Via
light travel time (or lookback time), a beautiful starry night, or moreover the fact that there is one, demonstrates a universe much older than a mere few thousand years. The Andromeda galaxy is visible to the naked eye
at a distance of 2.5 million light years, and the
furthest galaxy visible from Earth (not to the naked eye) sits at about 13 billion. This is relevant because it begs the question that if the universe is that old, why would you resist measurements and evidence that suggest a very old Earth as well? It would seem arbitrary to suggest flaws in the method on the sole premise of ancient hearsay. Again, by what method would you suggest we corroborate any particular historical report so as to reach a reasonable consensus on, "what we know to be true"? Various radiometric dating methods (such as
rubidium-strontium and
K-Ar) are among the means to that end, and these methods continue to prove credible in the face of ongoing peer review and re-evaluation. Now if at every turn you have to overlook the science, then you're not engaging in scientific inquiry. You're simply choosing what to believe.
Given that, it wouldn't seem inaccurate to suggest that you may not be prepared to accept evidence when it's there. I won't leave that up to implication, so I'll give an example of what I mean. Let's say I claim that the Ninja Turtles really do live in the sewers of New York. When we don't find them, no problem. They're ninjas, after all, and they don't want to be found. What if you just bombed the sewers? That's an unlikely hypothetical, but you would probably kill the Ninja Turtles. What if you thoroughly dug through all the rubble and didn't find any bodies? That sounds like a tremendous undertaking, but they must have survived and/or escaped. What a relief! What if beforehand, you guarded all the exits with people and cameras and you could somehow prove that everyone was watching, and none of the cameras malfunctioned? I might not think that you could prove that entirely, but even if you could, again, they're ninjas, and that's what they do.
I have successfully defined them into existence, therefore they must exist. At this point, you can't refute my claim that something like the Ninja Turtles could exist in the sewers of New York. Notice also the modifier I added, "something like the Ninja Turtles," so that if you find something that isn't exactly the Ninja Turtles, but
mostly fits my definition of them,
I can still say I was right (or at least rational).
Now obviously that's just basic
intellectual dishonesty.
