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Bill Nye "The Science Guy" Hates Creationism

I don't see how anyone can put a realistic number on how old the earth is and that goes for both sides. 6,000 or 600,000,000,000.
 
You really don't think we can say the earth is older than 6,000 years old, at what point do you draw the line. 10,000, 50,000, 100,000, a million, a billion?
 
Screamindemon3 said:
I don't see how anyone can put a realistic number on how old the earth is and that goes for both sides. 6,000 or 600,000,000,000.
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Why? Radiometric dating gives us an amazingly accurate prediction of the age of the Earth(and age of the solar system.) We can use both primitive meteorites from the early solar system and samples from our own planet to give us an estimate.

Every single test done of these multitude of examples has come back at right around 4.55 billion years with around 1% margin for error.
 
TWDeac said:
Why? Radiometric dating gives us an amazingly accurate prediction of the age of the Earth(and age of the solar system.) We can use both primitive meteorites from the early solar system and samples from our own planet to give us an estimate.

Every single test done of these multitude of examples has come back at right around 4.55 billion years with around 1% margin for error.
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That a margin of error of 45.5 million years.
 
Screamindemon3 said:
I don't see how anyone can put a realistic number on how old the earth is and that goes for both sides. 6,000 or 600,000,000,000.
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I don't see how historians or sociologists or theologians or a great number of people could reliably or empirically put a realistic number on how old the earth is, no, but I feel quite comfortable leaving that judgment to geologists, geophysicists, etc. Then I expect biologists and eventually anthropologists can quite convincingly/realistically start putting a timeline on life on earth. I don't really feel comfortable letting others in to make judgments til we start asking why, rather than how or when.
 
TWDeac said:
Why? Radiometric dating gives us an amazingly accurate prediction of the age of the Earth(and age of the solar system.) We can use both primitive meteorites from the early solar system and samples from our own planet to give us an estimate.

Every single test done of these multitude of examples has come back at right around 4.55 billion years with around 1% margin for error.
Click to expand...

How is it amazingly accurate? It's all based on an assumption of the past. How can you measure the distance between the beganning and end (or current) stage of something if you don't know when it began.
 
TWDeac said:
Why? Radiometric dating gives us an amazingly accurate prediction of the age of the Earth(and age of the solar system.) We can use both primitive meteorites from the early solar system and samples from our own planet to give us an estimate.

Every single test done of these multitude of examples has come back at right around 4.55 billion years with around 1% margin for error.
Click to expand...

But don't most universe expansion measurements come estimate an age of around 13.7 billion years?
 
Screamindemon3 said:
How is it amazingly accurate? It's all based on an assumption of the past. How can you measure the distance between the beganning and end (or current) stage of something if you don't know when it began.
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You srs dude?

I wasn't wearing a watch when I woke up this morning, no idea when my day began, but then later, I timed out :30 when I put some shit in the microwave. Feel solid about the accuracy, it was a digital microwave and everything.
 
Screamindemon3 said:
How is it amazingly accurate? It's all based on an assumption of the past. How can you measure the distance between the beganning and end (or current) stage of something if you don't know when it began.
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We have a very solid understanding of the life-cycle of stars and the process of solar system formation. Those models, combined with radiometric dating of many different samples have given us our current estimate.

Radioactive decay is a pretty well understood and documented process.

Wikipedia said:
Rock minerals naturally contain certain elements and not others. By the process of radioactive decay of radioactive isotopes occurring in a rock, exotic elements can be introduced over time. By measuring the concentration of the stable end product of the decay, coupled with knowledge of the half life and initial concentration of the decaying element, the age of the rock can be calculated. Typical radioactive end products are argon from potassium-40 and lead from uranium and thorium decay. If the rock becomes molten, as happens in Earth's mantle, such nonradioactive end products typically escape or are redistributed. Thus the age of the oldest terrestrial rock gives a minimum for the age of Earth assuming that a rock cannot have been in existence for longer than Earth itself.
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TownieDeac said:
You srs dude?

I wasn't wearing a watch when I woke up this morning, no idea when my day began, but then later, I timed out :30 when I put some shit in the microwave. Feel solid about the accuracy, it was a digital microwave and everything.
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Ahh so it's as easy as counting 30 seconds on the microwave. Maybe I've just been overthinking things.
 
To add on to townie, you use radioactive decay, half-life, and such. If you can observe something decay in real time in present day, you can extrapolate that backwards to determine how long something has been decaying from the point that you discovered it in its present decay state. In simple terms you have something and it goes from 20lbs to 10lbs in a day. You discover something that is the same thing and it is already at 5lbs. You can determine that it is 2 days old.
 
All you guys are talking about time way too linearly.
 
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Figure this is a good place to put this.

I just started reading C.S. Lewis' "Miracles" last week and it is a pretty interesting book. I've already read his "Screwtape Letters" and "Mere Christianity" and would recommend anybody (atheist or believer) to check him out.

A lot of great insight to the philosophy of religion and why he believes what he does. He was an atheist until age 30 (I believe) and then converted to a Christian.

There is a good bit in "Miracles" about naturalist and supernaturalists the somewhat focuses on what is being discussed here.
 
Screamindemon3 said:
Ahh so it's as easy as counting 30 seconds on the microwave. Maybe I've just been overthinking things.
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You were acting like time itself was an unreliable measuring stick, so I doubt you were overthinking things.

What do you mean by "assumption of the past"? It's still the working "assumption" of today.

I feel like this is why Bill Nye hates creationism. You can't even engage in discussion on the same terms if you're unwilling to accept certain scientifically tested pretenses. In this case, if you're undermining radiometric testing metrics, I don't know what to tell you about how we understand a lot of the physical universe.
 
I've heard the "God put carbon dating here as a way to test us" defense before in an actual conversation.

Mrs. Marks(x?) at the Flava for Townie and Numbers.
 
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