the flood.

part of the problem is that it is compicated. as a degree leval physicist I have speant years studying math physics and chemistry and have barely scratched the surface. it is a bit much to expect every issue to be able to compressed down to a couple of paragraphs in a chess forum that are understandable to somebody who hasn't speant years studying the subject. If you really want to understand the science behind the assertions scientists make then do some seriouse reading on the subject. there are good books/websites/lectures out there which will take you through the basic physics/chemistry whatever. if you can't be bothered/don't have the time then I am sorry but some issues can't be explained fully in a couple of paragraphs. you will just have to trust that we do have good reasons and evidence for our assertions. asking questions of scientists is good but you can't always expect a short answer to be satisfying because the world isn't simple. we are pretty confident we know what the world is made of. based on the composition of the lava volcanos emmit. mass of the earth, sound wave propogation, asteroid composition, and our theories on solar system formation. it's very complicated. we might be able to give you a full answer between us. but only by writing a long essay on the subject.

Originally posted by 7ate9
surely it should cut both ways?

Originally posted by 7ate9
dating systems i definitely cannot buy, and how much of science is based on this. how far have they advanced on what isn't certain proof?

http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/frequent_questions/grp1/question722.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igneous_rock

http://www.es.lancs.ac.uk/vgrg/research.html :
Determination of pre-eruptive volatile contents of magmas (R. Macdonald)
An accurate knowledge of the pre-eruptive water content of magmas is required to understand their degassing behaviour and eruptive potential. We have made a large number of determinations of melt water content of Lesser Antilles volcanic rocks using ion microprobe techniques. The data indicate high (4-6 wt😵 water contents of more evolved magmas, which are, nevertheless, water-undersaturated. Degassing appears to be a high level phenomenon.

Originally posted by 7ate9
no, not in the case of volcanoes, but from what life is all about or evolution, without dating systems the whole lot is in ruins.

Originally posted by Churlant
How so? Evolution is about more than just time. If your scepticism of evolutionary theory is truly based on an unease concerning carbon dating and the like, I would suggest that is a pretty flimsy piece of ground to be standing on.

Is there any type of chronological marker you do trust? Redshift, perhaps?

Do you agree that trunk rings tell a tree's age, or is that hard to believe too?

-JC

radiocarbon dating (there are other meathods) works as follows.

there are variouse different types of carbon atom (called isotopes) which all have the same number of protons (positively charged nucleon [particle in nucleous]) but a different number of neutrons (neutraly charged nucleon). in the atmosphere there is a certain ammount of carbon (in CO2 and the like) and while the total amount of carbon changes the ratio betwwen the different isotopes stays constant (due to constant emmision of carbon from volcanos and the constant recycling of carbon by the oceans and so on). however when plants and animals die the carbon in them is locked up and stored as they get berried in the ground (eventually forming sedimentery rock if they get beried deep enough). once locked the ratio between the different isotopes changes. this is due to the fact that some of the isotopes are radio active and decay at different rates. the rate at which different isotopes decay can be very accurately measured in a lab. it is therefore possible to measure the ratio of isotopes in your sample and compare it with the known ratio in the air and thus determine how long the carbon has been locked away (note this would also work for something like steel which contains carbon). there are other meathods, involving different radioactive elements and other processes. and these can be checked against things like tree ring dateing (wich goes back a suprisingly long way). and they all give similar answers (go back 65 mln yrs and you expect errors of 10-100 thousand years or so). you can also make guestimates on how long it took rock formations to be formed by looking at sediment layers and by using knowledge of how long it takes silt to build up from current measurements, also you have thongs like fossilised coral formations and algal deposits which get a new layer every tide, which can indicate the rate at which rocks were layed down. you can easily get individual rocks which you can show must have taken way way longer than 6000yrs to form and they are under hundreds of meters of rock (on exposed cliffs and the like), ice layers in glaciers and polar ice caps get anual snow layers which can be counted and matched against other dating sets like carbon dating. each checking and confirming each other. we would have to get an awfull lot wrong for all our dating methods wrong (this is before we start talking about dating systems that are accurate throughout recorded history but go back mush further, do you beleive that as they go back past recorded history they suddenly stop working?).

The low activity of the carbon-14 limits age determinations to the order of 50,000 years by counting techniques. That can be extended to perhaps 100,000 years by accelerator techniques for counting the carbon-14 concentration. (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nuclear/cardat.html)

But back to original issue... God later instructed Nuh to build the ark:

Build the ship under Our eyes and by Our inspiration, and speak not unto Me on behalf of those who do wrong. Lo! they will be drowned. (Surah Hud: 37) (Surat al-Mumenoon: 23-26)(Straight out of the Koran!!!)

http://www.unknowntruths.com/new_page_4.htm

And I have noticed that many of you use probably and perhaps too often in your aguments. That leaves room for skepticism. And I wouldn't be surprised if none of you conducted any serious hands-on research into this issue at all. Like me, just looked for quotes on the internet that suit your needs. Or in the instances of those with the fancy degrees, just regurgitated the same rhetoric that was spewed upon you by your college professors.

At no point has any of my lecturers spewed anything on, or at me. one of the most important aspects of a degree is to learn to critically asses arguments and come to a conclusion based on evidence. also those people with 'fancy' degrees are the ones who run, build and designe the modern world, cure your diseases, turn on your lights, cook your food, clean your water, formulate your toothpast, design you dvd player and tv. what makes you think you know more about a given subject than someone who has speant years studying it in great detail?

Edit: nice to see you quoting sorces, 50~100 thousand years puts a flood 4500 yrs ago well within carbon datings range dont you think?

scientists contrary to poular perception often don't deal with certanties. it depends on your area of work (some disiplins are more certain than others) but ofentimes you deal with probabilities, and it is common to not be able to prove a hypothesis, and it becomes accepted after prelonged and strenuouse efforts to disprove it fail. however if it is ever disproved it will be dropped and new hypotheses put forward.

Originally posted by googlefudge
scientists contrary to poular perception often don't deal with certanties. it depends on your area of work (some disiplins are more certain than others) but ofentimes you deal with probabilities, and it is common to not be able to prove a hypothesis, and it becomes accepted after prelonged and strenuouse efforts to disprove it fail. however if it is ever disproved it will be dropped and new hypotheses put forward.

nice site. Don't know what it has to do with my last post however.