Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site utastro.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!bellcore!decvax!mcnc!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!ut-sally!utastro!bill
From: bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: The Scientific Case for Creation: (Part 31)
Message-ID: <322@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 9-Jul-85 09:29:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.322
Posted: Tue Jul  9 09:29:16 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Jul-85 04:22:41 EDT
References: <385@iham1.UUCP> <537@psivax.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 41

> >       58.  A major assumption that underlies all  radioactive  dating
> >            techniques  is  that  the  rates of decay, which have been
> >            essentially constant over the past  70  years,  have  also
> >            been  constant  over  the  past  4,600,000,000 years. This
> >            bold, critical, and untestable  assumption  is  made  even
> >            though   no  one  knows  what  causes  radioactive  decay.
> >            Furthermore, there is conflicting evidence  that  suggests
> >            that  radioactive  decay  has not always been constant but
> >            has varied by many orders of magnitude from that  observed
> >            today [a,b].

This reminds me of the advice they are said to give to new lawyers: When
the facts contradict you, argue the law.  When the law contradicts you,
argue the facts.  And when both the facts and the law contradict you,
argue as loudly as you can.  The plain fact is that if beta-decay
constants had varied even a small amount from the values we observe
today, the consistencies we observe between one radiochronometer and
another would not be possible.  Even if we accepted for the sake of
argument the hypothesis that radioactive decay rates have varied, the
variation would have to take place at a very small rate for Carbon-14
dating to agree as well as it does with historically validated dates
(of tree rings and Egyptian dynasties) over the past few thousand years.
If you admit the possibility of the *same* variation affecting dating 
methods that are valid for longer periods of time (such as U-Pb dating), 
you still cannot avoid the conclusion that the Earth is still hundreds
of millions of years old, if not older.

In any case, what are we to think of people who claim to be putting
forward a *scientific* case, yet when the scientific facts are plainly
against them, argue that one should ignore them on the grounds that
we have only been observing them for 70 years?


-- 
"Men never do evil so cheerfully and so completely as when they do so from
	religious conviction."  -- Blaise Pascal

	Bill Jefferys  8-%
	Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712   (USnail)
	{allegra,ihnp4}!{ut-sally,noao}!utastro!bill	(uucp)
	bill%utastro.UTEXAS@ut-sally.ARPA		(ARPANET)