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Hello,
I thought I would like to take a look at some of AIGs claims and see how well they stand up. I limited the points to look at to make it easier, they all come from their Q&A section, and are all factual errors. Quite a few are PRATT (Points Refuted A Thousand Times) list items, this is for two reasons, one, it makes it easier on me :) and, two, it makes it easier to get my point across, as often PRATT list items are old or thoroughly refuted and should have been dropped along time ago. I chose Seven different points.
As normal, quotes from AIG articles are in blue.
1) Dating in conflict
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1141.asp
“I collected some sandstone samples with fossilized mussels in it. This rock is classified as belonging to the Upper Tertiary geological system. Evolutionary belief therefore maintains that this rock is around 20 million years old.
In the same rock, right alongside the fossil mussels, are fragments of coalified wood.
That means the wood must also be at least that old... ...The result: 36,440 years BP ± 330 years. This discovery, that the 14C in the wood has not yet had time to disintegrate totally, is in line with what one would expect, based on the true history of the world given in the Bible”
I have written about this before, You can find that here,
http://www.geocities.com/arikayx/datinginconflict.html
I concluded that they ignored how C14 dating was done, and thus they came to a false conclusion. For more information, see the link.
2) Magnetic Field
http://answersingenesis.org/docs2002/carbon_dating.asp
“The earth’s magnetic field has been decaying so fast that it looks like it is less than 10,000 years old. Rapid reversals during the flood year and fluctuations shortly after would have caused the field energy to drop even faster”
This has some Major Flaws:
First, The Measurements that were taken were only of the Dipole field and not of the non dipole fields, which were found to be Increasing at the time. AIG talks about this in another paper, and dismisses it because the non dipole fields are said to be only 10% of the total field. However, this still ignores the fact that our researcher chose to ignore data that shows that it is possible for a part of the magnetic field to increase in strength while other parts are decreasing.
Second, The measurements of a short period of time, are stretched out over a larger period of time, and are assumed to have always been that way without any evidence to back that idea up.
Third, and the big kicker,
“Studies of the magnetic field as recorded in dated rocks and pottery have shown that the dipole moment actually fluctuates over periods of a few thousand years and that decreases in field intensity are eventually followed by increases. For example, the archaeomagnetic data show that the dipole field was about 20% weaker than the present field 6,500 years ago and about 45% stronger than the present field about 3000 years ago (McElhinny and Senanayake, 1982).
(Dalrymple, 1992, p.16)”
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dave_matson/young-earth/specific_arguments/magnetic_field.html
So, as you can see the magnetic field is not in a constant decay, and does Not make the earth look 10,000 years or younger.
3) Receding moon
http://answersingenesis.org/docs2002/carbon_dating.asp
“The moon is slowly receding from the earth at about 4 centimeters (1.5 inches) per year, and this rate would have been greater in the past. But even if the moon had started receding from being in contact with the earth, it would have taken only 1.37 billion years to reach its present distance from the earth. This gives a maximum age of the moon, not the actual age. This is far too young for evolutionists who claim the moon is 4.6 billion years old. It is also much younger than the radiometric ‘dates’ assigned to moon rocks.”
This wouldn't be the case if the rate was slower in the past, matter of fact evidence suggests the moons rate was actually Less in the past than it is now,
This paleontological evidence comes in the form of tidal rhythmites, also known as tidally laminated sediments. Rhythmites have been subjected to intense scrutiny over the last decade or so, and have returned strong results. Williams (1990) reports that 650 million years ago, the lunar rate of retreat was 1.95±0.29 cm/year, and that over the period from 2.5 billion to 650 million years ago, the mean recession rate was 1.27 cm/year. Williams reanalyzed the same data set later (Williams, 1997), showing a mean recession rate of 2.16 cm/year in the period between now and 650 million years ago. That these kinds of data are reliable is demonstrated by Archer (1996). There is also a very good review of the earlier paleontological evidence by Lambeck (1980, chapter 11, paleorotation)
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moonrec.html
The recesion rate of the moon was much less in the past than it is now. However, even if it was receding at a constant rate of 4cm a year it would take 9.6 Billion years for it to go from the earth to where it is now. To get a figure of only 1.37 Billion years, the average recesion rate of the moon would have to be almost 30cm (1 Foot) a year. Thus this is another piece of evidence that holds no weight.
4) Salt in ocean
http://answersingenesis.org/docs2002/carbon_dating.asp
“Salt is entering the sea much faster than it is escaping. The sea is not nearly salty enough for this to have been happening for billions of years. Even granting generous assumptions to evolutionists, the sea could not be more than 62 Ma years old—far younger than the billions of years believed by the evolutionists. Again, this indicates a maximum age, not the actual age”
This is not true. If the sea’s are getting saltier its by such a small amount that its almost immeasurable. There are multiple ways that the salt can leave the ocean. They balance out the intake. One way is reaction with other rocks, another is,
“Plate tectonics explains the last mechanism for a balanced state of ocean saltiness. The outer hard crust of Earth consists actually of a dozen or so distinct, hard plates that drift individually on hot, deformable rock like floating islands on a sea. An unequal distribution of heat within Earth moves the plates much like marshmallows move on simmering cocoa.
When an ocean plate collides with a continental one, the less dense continental plate floats over the ocean one. The ocean floor gets pushed under, in the process, and at least half its mineral-rich, salty sediments end up lost deep within Earth.
So, that's why the seas are salty but don't get any saltier.”
http://www.wonderquest.com/salty-seas.htm
Since the salt is being removed at about the same speed as its being put in, this becomes a very bad way to try and judge the maximum date of the oceans.
5) K/Ar dating
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/cenv22n1_dating_failure.asp
”The radioactive potassium-argon dating method has been demonstrated to fail on 1949, 1954 and 1975 lava flows at Mt Ngauruhoe, New Zealand... ...We know the true ages of the rocks because they were observed to form less than 50 years ago. Yet they yield ‘ages’ up to 3.5 million years which are thus false. How can we trust the use of this same ‘dating’ method on rocks whose ages we don’t know?”
Unfortunately for AIG all this shows is their lack of understanding of how K/Ar dating works.
•K/Ar dating was never supposed to be used on young samples. To use K/Ar dating on a young sample is to misuse the dating method, and thus, bad results are expected because of incorrect use. There are basically two reasons why K/Ar dating is not supposed to be used on young samples. One, the half life of K is very long, and thus there is very little decay in a 50 year old sample, making it very hard to measure it accurately. Two, there is always a possibility of a small amount of contamination, this contamination doesn’t matter as decay goes on, it gets blurred out by the range that is returned by K/Ar dating. However, it can have a significant impact on young samples, that have not had enough time to age. Thus K/Ar was used incorrectly because it was used on samples outside of its known working range, It is best used on samples 100,000 years or older.
•Most scientists double check their results against other dating methods, especially when getting a wild range of dates, to make sure there isn’t something strange going on. AIG did not do that. If they had used multiple methods to test the rocks or area, they might have discovered their error and would not have reported these rocks as millions of years old.
”These people have only succeeded in correctly showing that one can fool a single radiometric dating method when one uses it improperly. The false radiometric ages of several million years are due to parentless argon, as described here, and first reported in the literature some fifty years ago. Note that it would be extremely unlikely for another dating method to agree on these bogus ages. Getting agreement between more than one dating method is a recommended practice."
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html#page%204
So, again, this is not evidence of anything but their own misunderstanding and/or attempts to mislead readers.
6)Helium
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/carbon_dating.asp
“Radioactive decay releases helium into the atmosphere, but not much is escaping. The total amount in the atmosphere is 1/2000th of that expected if the universe is really billions of years old. This helium originally escaped from rocks. This happens quite fast, yet so much helium is still in some rocks that it has not had time to escape—certainly not billions of years.”
Not if there is a way for the Helium 4 to escape our atmosphere. There is.
Heat can give the helium enough energy to escape the atmosphere. Then there are also polar winds,
“The most probable mechanism for helium loss is photoionization of helium by the polar wind and its escape along open lines of the Earth's magnetic field. Banks and Holzer [1969] have shown that the polar wind can account for an escape of 2 to 4 x 106 ions/cm2 sec of Helium 4, which is nearly identical to the estimated production flux of (2.5 ± 1.5) x 106 atoms/cm2 sec... ...Another possible escape mechanism is direct interaction of the solar wind with the upper atmosphere during the short periods of lower magnetic-field intensity while the fieldis reversing.”
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea.html
If Helium also enters those same rocks, we cant expect this to be an accurate way of dating the earth,
“The measurements cannot account for how much helium diffuses into the zircons. Helium concentrations within the earth can become very high (it is commercially mined). We expect helium concentrations in the crust to stay at a fairly high average equilibrium, because all helium generated deeper within the earth must pass through the crust to get out.
Concentrations of helium around the samples today are not a reliable indication of helium concentrations in the past, since a single earthquake can change them.”
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD015.html
So as you can see, Helium is not a problem for the old age of the earth.
7) Comets
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4005.asp
”According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system, about 5 billion years. Yet each time a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical ages of 10,000 years.”
Two things I wanted to address.
1) “According to evolutionary theory” I am curious what Evolutionary theory they are talking about, as the Theory of evolution says nothing about comets and makes no prediction on them. Their idea of Evolution appears to be wrong.
2) The Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud supply new comets to our solar system. Creationists often claim that these are just figments of scientists imaginations. Objects in the Kuiper Belt have been observed directly and observations of Long Period comets support the Oort Cloud. One interesting thing is that if all the comets we see have been around since the beginning, they should all be about the same age. However they are not, some are new with lots of gas and others are piles of ruble. This highly suggests a source for the new comets.
Conclusion
Some have said that the “Dating in Conflict” error was just a human error, however, here are 7 factual errors out of the many that you can find. Tell me, are all of these just “human error,” Is AIG just ignorant of the subject they speak on, or could there be other reasons why they are misleading their readers?
Should you really trust a group that has given out so much false information and never corrected themselves, even though these pieces of “evidence” have been known to be false for many years?
I don’t expect many responses to this, I wrote it for entertainment, and for a reference to a few of AIG’s errors, for myself, for future conversations.
-Ari
Last Update 3/02/04
©04 Ari
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