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Originally posted by Cerek the Barbaric:
Ar-Cunin - Just out of curiosity, why do Creation Scientists not qualify as scientists in your opinion? They are trying to prove a hypothesis based on the study of physical evidence rather than theological evidence. Is that not the definition of a scientist? Is it just because the field is in the minority in the science community? Or is it because they are trying to prove Creation rather than Evolution? IF they go about their studies and data collection using the same methodology and protocol as other scientists, why do they not qualify as scientists? I am sincerely curious about this.
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They are using a flawed hypothesis from the outset - the bible. They are trying to fit their finding into
that narrow mould - regardless of the data. If that is science, it is
bad science. Like when the Catholic church tried continuesly to modify the view of the universe, so the Earth was at the center, despite observations which showed that Earth circled around the Sun. And I don't doubt that there are 'bad apples' in the scientific comunity (cold fusion and the creation of heavy natural elements are two cases) - but I think that the majority of the scientist are honest - especially since their data will have to be repetable.
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Ar-Cunin gave a good explanation of why carbon dating is used and how it works. Scientists use carbon dating because all life forms contain carbon in their make-up and carbon breaks down at a very consistent rate. That's well and good, but this answer begs another question. MagiK and Yorick pointed out that the Earth is generally considered to be about 4.5 billion years old, but there were NO living organisms around for the first 3 billion years (give or take a millenium  ). If "carbon based life" has only been around for approx. 1/4 of the Earth's existence, why is it considered an accurate indicator of how old the planet really is? Surely there are other elements that are present in Earth's strata that have the same reliable half-life progression as Carbon, but that are found in objects that could conceivably pre-date life on Earth. Why do we not use one of those elements instead?
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No - you don't use Carbon-dating to determine the age of the Earth - you 'resort' to geology. Just follow the sedimentary layers downwards. For instance the top layer of rock in the Kola Peninsula (Finland/Russia) is around 2 - 2,5 billion years old (can't find my geology notes for the exact age.)
P.S. Great post Hierophant [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] - couldn't have written it better myself [img]smile.gif[/img]
[ 12-04-2002, 07:27 AM: Message edited by: Ar-Cunin ]