I submit that you are easily perplexed.
I was just flipping the pages and located this current one. I had the desire to leave a little graffiti on the landscape.
How nice for you . . .
How pathetic your copout . . .
You misapprehend the reality, RoadWalker (but welcome to A2K anyway); that one life form might have developed from another of lesser complexity or different configuration, and spawned speciated developments of its own, has little to nothing to do with the survival of the progenitor life form, nor the viability of its offshoots. Humankind did not "evolve from monkies"; contemporary homonids and simians share a distant, long-extinct ancestor and themselves have survived where other offshoots - some more humanoid, some more simian - of that common ancestor, and the common ancestor itself, have long since shuffled off this mortal coil. The comon homonid ancestor itself derived from the proto-mamalian which first emerged, long, long before there was anything like the common ancestor. Much the same is to be said of sea slime and fishes. Morphology and genetic study confirm this beyond doubt. The Tree of life is just that, a tree,with branches and limbs and twigs and shoots, and leaves and flowers, fruit, and seeds, some of which develop, grow, bear more branches, limbs, twigs and shoots, leaves, flowers, fruit and seeds, some which don't, and some which do for a while then die out, yet the tree continues to grow. The tree of life is a tree, not a rope.
You guys are taking roadwalker too seriously. I think I have found the Knossos artifact that algis wanted us to analyze:
hmmmm .... coincidence? I think not! Obviously, there's something at work here.
Too bad farmerman is leaving on a trip, timber. He could give us a definitive answer.
Can you give us any help, rosborne?
Quote:Thunder, in simple terms, radiometric dating more or less involves ucomparing the ratios of certain isotopes known to have a constant rate of decay against other stable isotopes within the same sample. Think of it this way; a rock starts out with a pound of a particular radioactive isotope, and a ton of other stuff. The radioactive material has a half-life of 750.000 years. In 1.5 million years, the rock would weigh the same, but there would be only 4 ounces of that particular isotope, 12 ounces of whatever isotope the radioactive isotope decays into, and the ton of other stuff. The precision of contemporary sampling and analysis techniques permits the very accurate detection and measurement of mind-bogglingly minute quantities of stuff, allowing for a very high degree of certainty in establishing the probable age of that rock; by the time the isotope in question has decayed to a point beyond measurement, you could be talking - depending on the particular isotope - into the billions of years. That's an oversimplification, but I think that should convey the general idea.
Thank you.
My next question though is-how do they know which elements are stable? And remain stable for long periods of time? I understand how accurately the isotopes are measured, I'm just wondering how constant the decay is?
wandeljw wrote:Too bad farmerman is leaving on a trip, timber. He could give us a definitive answer.
Can you give us any help, rosborne?
It appears that ancient manhole covers were far more ornate than our modern ones. Just further proof of the decline of the modern world.
O Tempora, O Mores . . .
(The foregoing is not a comment on Japanese cuisine . . .)
I googled the following regardingradioactive decay:
Radioactive Decay
Theory of Radioactive Decay
thunder:
These are the basics:
When the the electrons match the protons of an element it is stable as all the electromagnetic forces match i.e. the electrons having negative charges while the protons have positive charges produce zero net charge. Another factor is the outermost orbit (shell) of the electrons. When the outermost electrons are in 2, 8, etc. forming symmetrical coverage the elements are very stable and are called noble gases like Argon they are not reactive. Metals like gold and platinum also similar in structure as they are not reactive thus are "precious". I am just doing this from the top of my head as it has been quite some time since I took those courses. I don't have textbooks at hand. You can google "stable elements".
As mentioned oft before, not all Christians are ID-iots, and not all scientists are godless heathens.
An excellent "For the Masses" paper on radiometric dating was written some time ago by Dr. Roger C. Wiens, a devout Christian who happens to be a broadly accredited, heavily credentialed, well regarded scientist. In this paper, Dr. Wiens clearly and concisely explains the mechanisms of radiometric dating procedures and their foundations. Dr. Wiens also goes to some length to strip away and lay bare common ID-iot misperceptions, mischaracterizations, and outright lies concerning the matter.
Read
Radiometric Dating - A Christian Perspective
farmerman wrote:real life, basically the USGS geomag program just agreed with me. Youre initial post was that a "continuous" field intensity decrease was consistant with a "young earth" , lets not forget that. I stated that the field intensity isnt decaying, in fact, it varies and has been realtively flat since 1935.
Humphries is making a statement that "if this is what really happened , we would recognize a loss in total field strength by half every 1500 years. Even he is trying to obviate any reasonable discussion about a meaning of field strength. He does admit (through very vague language) that these "young earth douches" are guilty ofmaking long term projections from minimal synoptic data. Humphries is famous as the master of the bleedin obvious.
We see that the total field varies all over the map and he earth has had as many as 10 different "poles" at the same time. If Humphries was honest , he would record the fact that an incidental "tripole" has been recently asserting itself
Quote: don't exactly sound adamant that a continual decrease is not still taking place. It simply offers speculation that it may (or may not) reverse.
Obviously then your reading skills need some serious attention. The USGS wording is clear and unambiguous. Humphries, on the other hand demonstrates his "after work" hobby of obfuscating science to fit his religious beliefs.
Hi Farmerman,
I want to be very specific on your position on this, if you do not mind.
Are you saying outright that Dr Humphries statement
Dr Humphries wrote: Using ambiguous 1967 data, ..... energy gains in minor ("non-dipole") parts (seemed to) compensate for the energy loss from the main ("dipole") part. Using data from the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF)... from 1970 to 2000, the dipole part of the field steadily lost 235 ± 5 billion megajoules of energy, while the non-dipole part gained only 129 ± 8 billion megajoules. Over that 30-year period, the net loss of energy from all observable parts of the field was 1.41 ± 0.16 %. At that rate, the field would lose half its energy every 1465 ± 166 years.
is a misstatement of the evidence?
Can you specifically tell us why , if you believe it to be so?
Quoting the IGRF data, he states that
Quote:from 1970 to 2000, the dipole part of the field steadily lost 235 ± 5 billion megajoules of energy
Are you saying this is not an accurate number?
Again quoting the IGRF data he states that
Quote:from 1970 to 2000.....the non-dipole part gained only 129 ± 8 billion megajoules
Are you saying this is not an accurate number?
On the merits of offering voice lessons to the porcine
I submit, rl, that the "conclusions" drawn by the ID-iot crowd from Humphrey's "findings" are ludicrous, impossible-leap, whole-cloth constructs conceptually possible only in the minds of ID-iots. Even the core precept of ID-iocy, that there might be such a thing as a dichotomy between "Science" and "Religion", is absurd on its face, wholly circular, existing only in the minds of the ID-iot proponents of the absurdity.
While I strongly suspect it may exceed the capacity of your attention span, if not (despite its articulate, clearly enunciated delivery, generalist vocabulary structure and simple graphics) your intellectual capacity as well, I recommend Dennis Lamoureux's lecture
Beyond the 'Evolution vs. Creation' Debate (
Note: Both QuickTime and Adobe Acrobat Reader required; both free to download and use)
Pragmatic realist that I am, I harbor little expectation you'll gain much from the offering. An aphorism regarding futility and teaching pigs to sing comes immediately to mind.
