There's an actual statistical term called "degree of confidence." It gets to where your results almost can't be a coincidence. Thus, there are things we pretty much know. This does not mean that there aren't things we don't know, and things we merely suspect, and things we strongly suspect but of which we are not certain, or even that these things blend almost imperceptibly into each other at the edges.
Creation science, with no evidence for its body of doctrine, seems built upon endless unremitting "healthy skepticism" of all contrary knowledge. It is constantly lawyering upon the existence of any confusion, any controvery, any uncertainty anywhere as evidence that all of modern science is a house of cards ready to collapse. This, oddly enough, is why it doesn't get equal time. It is the UN-science, furiously trying to tear down all we have learned since about ... 1859. As Rodney Dangerfield might say, "It don't desoive no respect!"
"There's an actual statistical term called "degree of confidence." It gets to where your results almost can't be a coincidence."
i am aware of the degree of confidence. as for the last bit "almost" doesn't = "is."
but if you would like to get into it, the degree of confidence would apply to things like... the Big Bang (and other theories now forthcoming) and the existance of life on earth? if the degree of confidence is so revered, how come these two dont exactly get sucked into the BS bin at labs?
the timing to me, is not a true issue. it's the methods.
"Creation science, with no evidence for its body of doctrine, seems built upon endless unremitting 'healthy skepticism' of all contrary knowledge. It is constantly lawyering upon the existence of any confusion, any controvery, any uncertainty anywhere as evidence that all of modern science is a house of cards ready to collapse."
Creation science has no basis? pray tell, why does life exist? how come we can't reproduce it, or even bring things back to life?
when was the last time you were posting that you yourself didnt try to tear down a Creationist's views? some secularists views like yours are why i remain skeptic. something that doesnt see its own faults can't be all right.
The statistical term "degree of confidence" is not quantifiable for extrapolation, and will get you flunked from most good statistics programs. Extrapolation is predicting results beyond the spread of the data, like trying to predict how much liquid water would be on earth if the average temperature was 120 degrees. We have no experience in or around those parameters, so we cannot make valid predictions there.
Carbon dating is extrapolation, because we do not have standards going back 50,000 years to calibrate from. While it is a useful theory, it is not proven over that interval. Use it if you want, but the idea that it is a provable, calibrated measuring system is simply not true.