Posted on 05/01/2006 8:29:14 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
(God is utterly, absolutely "beyond" both spacetime and all categories of human thought. The Greek nous (human reason, mind -- if the word had a capital "N," it would denote divine reason, mind) cannot penetrate the mystery of God. But we can know Him in Spirit. This is our faith, in search of its reason. Indeed, He invites us to take up this search, this quest.)
Well said!
what I find amusing is these folks seem to think that "soft tissue" surviving 60-odd million years is a significantly harder trick than it surviving a mere 6000 years - when practical experience indicates it is odd for any soft tissue to survive longer than a few days to a few years.
decomp is a hungry process, don't'cha know?
That EITHER timeline occured indicates a highly peculiar condition thoroughly inimical to fungi and bacteria - any such condition which could permit a 6000 year survival would, if it endured undisturbed, permit a 60-million year survival.
stasis is STASIS.
...and these YEC folks just gloss right over that, so hungry to bloviate that their brains shut right down.
(Good post in total.. How can a human get his head around infinity.?. If the the universe ends, how can it end?.. And if its infinite, how can that be?.. Infinity is a problem.. a serious problem.. Approaching infinity flippantly is how some approach the concept of God.. They can't get their minds around it.. On the other hand those that can conceive of God as a reality seem to have little problem with the infinity problem..)
My ten year old daughter asks me, "Mommy, if space doesn't end, does that mean it's still being created?"
Hmmm?
I found the Catholic statement to be very interesting. I had come to some ideas on my own, and was suprised to see the same thinking in that statement.
You do not date 68 million year old fossils with radiocarbon dating, as the upper limits of that method are in the 50,000 year range.
The method also is not inconsistent. It is well calibrated against historical documents and artifacts (from Egyptian tombs, for example) and by tree ring dating. The calibration curve for tree rings extends past 12,000 years in 10 year increments.
Given the fact of soft tissue preserved in this T. rex, there are two possibilities:
Satan's scales are thick and tight.
Haw haw haw!
see #1002
using nuclear physics:
Radiometric dating can be performed on samples as small as a billionth of a gram using a mass spectrometer. The mass spectrometer was invented in the 1940s and began to be used in radiometric dating in the 1950s. The mass spectrometer operates by generating a beam of ionized atoms from the sample under test. The ions then travel through a magnetic field, which diverts them into different sampling sensors, known as "Faraday cups", depending on their mass and level of ionization. On impact in the cups, the ions set up a very weak current that can be measured to determine the rate of impacts and the relative concentrations of different atoms in the beams.
The uranium-lead radiometric dating scheme is one of the oldest available, as well as one of the most highly respected. It has been refined to the point that the error in dates of rocks about three billion years old is no more than two million years.
Uranium-lead dating is usually performed on the mineral "zircon" (ZrSiO4), though it can be used on other materials. Zircon incorporates uranium atoms into its crystalline structure as substitutes for zirconium, but strongly rejects lead. It has a very high blocking temperature, is resistant to mechanical weathering and is very chemically inert. Zircon also forms multiple crystal layers during metamorphic events, which each may record an isotopic age of the event. These can be dated by a SHRIMP ion microprobe.
One of its great advantages is that any sample provides two clocks, one based on uranium-235's decay to lead-207 with a half-life of about 700 million years, and one based on uranium-238's decay to lead-206 with a half-life of about 4.5 billion years, providing a built-in crosscheck that allows accurate determination of the age of the sample even if some of the lead has been lost.
Two other radiometric techniques are used for long-term dating. Potassium-argon dating involves electron capture or positron decay of potassium-40 to argon-40. Potassium-40 has a half-life of 1.3 billion years, and so this method is applicable to the oldest rocks. Radioactive potassium-40 is common in micas, feldspars, and hornblendes, though the blocking temperature is fairly low in these materials, about 125°C (mica) to 450°C (hornblende).
Rubidium-strontium dating is based on the beta decay of rubidium-87 to strontium-87, with a half-life of 50 billion years. This scheme is used to date old igneous and metamorphic rocks, and has also been used to date lunar samples. Blocking temperatures are so high that they are not a concern. Rubidium-strontium dating is not as precise as the uranium-lead method, with errors of 30 to 50 million years for a 3-billion-year-old sample.
Thx, Wolf. ;-)
MM
Well, hopefully more specimens will be researched in the same manner so as to get an idea on whether this finding is unique or not.
I live in Arkansas now, but kept my Texan identity too.
see #1002 - it wasn't written as a direct response to your #994, but it could easily have been
Yes, that was a good point. It actually makes it seem more likely that at least a few more instances of dino tissue will be found eventually. I mean, they've found neanderthals who were so well preserved that they were able to extract some DNA sequences from them, and DNA is much less stable over time than the collagen they found in the T. rex.
I guess I'm just amused by this basic assumption on the part of the YEC's here that soft tissue not being able to be preserved is some sort of metaphysical certainty - even while they blissfully handwave away all the interlocking evidence - I'm thinking radiometric dating mostly - that says the T. rex is indeed 65 million years old.
When a scientist gets a result that is surprising, it means that one or more assumptions have to give way. Usually it's the assumptions that have less evidence going for them that has to yield to the ones that have more.
But for creationists it's the assumption that's more dangerous to the dogma that must give way, in favor of the one that's more compatible with it. In this case soft tissue is obviously evidence against radiometric dating, instead of being against the assumption that it's impossible for soft tissue to be preserved for a long time.
Excellent, we're resonating.. I thought of eternity.. For some reason I think I can concieve of eternity.. but cannot even concieve of infinity.. Eternity does not seem to be an untouchable thing to me.. Where time happens but its not as important as timing.. Infinity I can't get my mind around.. probably because I'm earth bound in that sense.. To me time is childs play, infinity is larger than my mind can hold..
True... eternity and infinity are not the same things.. not the same things at all.. Its like, to me, eternity is real and/but infinity is a mental construct, like spiritual rhetoric.. Could be a lack in me.. If thats true, then it is.. Eternity seems spiritual to me(real), infinity seems thingly like a dream thing..
the jolly for me is the way they seem to think that rot "just happens" and at some form of stable rate which would permit 6000 years but prohibit 68,000,000years.
silly ignoramuses - don't know the difference between systemic death/dysfunction (death), cellular death/dissolution (necrosis), and rot (caries)
the organism dies and its systems cease functioning. thereafter the cells of its tissues die as their internal metabolisms run short of fuel and oxygen, and smother under excess levels of carbondioxide and metabolic wastes. The lysosome organelles rupture and the internal membranes and other organelles are dissolved in the process called necrosis.
BUT...
decomposition beyond necrosis requires the activity of fungi and/or bacteria EATING the dead tissue. Any scenario which would prevent this activity for 6000years could do so just as effectively - if left undisturbed - for 68million. The equivalent of pickling and durable vacuum-sealing would produce conditions apt for either timeline, for example.
I'm just agog at the bloviation-in-ignorance paraded about by the YEC crowd on this thread.
*shaking head in mixed amusement and disgust*
a molecular biologist, a geneticist, and organic chemist...etc.
Elvis Costello placemark
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