About Dating Methods and Rudyard Kipling and J.R.R.Tolkien...

Hat tip to Karl for this comic

Recently (within the last year)  I have posted evidence of a young age for bedrock and lower-level rocks (zircons with grantitic rock and polonium radiohalo evidence) and also evidence that blood and flesh and DNA, remains and  not fossilized, have been found within the sedimentary rock layers in creatures such as dinosaurs and salamanders.  Various organisms trapped within amber are now yielding evidence of a young age.   The rapid subduction theory in association with the flood is reflected in non-uniformity within the magma layer of the Earth.   In other words, there have been many posts concerning dating methods this year.   But we will likely stir up something with the Bill Jahns article anyway.

I do not know what to say to people who understand that the Laws of Thermodynamics and Abiogenesis have been proven many times and yet they not only come back with a "but", they usually come back with remarkably simplistic and unconvincing dumb reasons...so can we call such behavior being a "Dumb But?"
One last time before we go into dating methods, allow me to list a few things Darwinists could not do:

  • Account for the existence of the Universe
  • Account for the existence of information
  • Provide any proof for a material or naturalistic source for information and/or design
  • Provide a naturalistic definition of the essence of life itself
  • Account for the beginning of life
  • Explain away the Laws of Thermodynamics
  • Provide even one example of objective evidence to support macroevolution
While commenters have occasionally gone so far as to call me a liar, the statements I have made above?  I stand behind them 100%.  When you know what you are talking about you can explain it simply.  If you can prove something it will not take you long to give the answer.  If Darwinists were confident in their proofs, they would go take Dr. JP's money!  Darwinists like to bury you in long, elaborate just-so stories based on assumptions and imagination rather than fact.   Darwinists have built an elaborate imaginary world in which evolution did magic things on a consistent basis for hundreds of millions of years.  Too bad they cannot give us any actual EVIDENCE because it has not happened within the last 150 years and it has just plain never happened at all.


 Let's give you one example: This is one of Kipling's series of "Just-So" stories.  It is a rambling explanation that reminds one of the kinds of stories Darwinists make up for how a cow decided to become a whale, etc.

HOW THE FIRST LETTER WAS WRITTEN

 Now I would be unkind to make you read the whole thing here, but it starts like this:

"ONCE upon a most early time was a Neolithic man. He was not a Jute or an Angle, or even a Dravidian, which he might well have been, Best Beloved, but never mind why. He was a Primitive, and he lived cavily in a Cave, and he wore very few clothes, and he couldn't read and he couldn't write and he didn't want to, and except when he was hungry he was quite happy. His name was Tegumai Bopsulai, and that means, 'Man-who-does-not-put-his-foot- forward-in-a-hurry'; but we, O Best Beloved, will call him Tegumai, for short. And his wife's name was Teshumai Tewindrow, and that means, 'Lady-who-asks-a-very-many-questions'; but we, O Best Beloved, will call her Teshumai, for short. And his little girl-daughter's name was Taffimai Metallumai, and that means, 'Small-person-without-any-manners-who-ought-to-be-spanked'; but I'm going to call her Taffy. And she was Tegumai Bopsulai's Best Beloved and her own Mummy's Best Beloved, and she was not spanked half as much as was good for her; and they were all three very happy. As soon as Taffy could run about she went everywhere with her Daddy Tegumai, and sometimes they would not come home to the Cave till they were hungry, and then Teshumai Tewindrow would say, 'Where in the world have you two been to, to get so shocking dirty? Really, my Tegumai, you're no better than my Taffy.'

Now attend and listen!

One day Tegumai Bopsulai went down through the beaver-swamp to the Wagai river to spear carp-fish for dinner, and Taffy went too. Tegumai's spear was made of wood with shark's teeth at the end, and before he had caught any fish at all he accidentally broke it clean across by jabbing it down too hard on the bottom of the river. They were miles and miles from home (of course they had their lunch with them in a little bag), and Tegumai had forgotten to bring any extra spears.

'Here's a pretty kettle of fish!' said Tegumai. 'It will take me half the day to mend this.'

'There's your big black spear at home,' said Taffy. 'Let me run back to the Cave and ask Mummy to give it me.'

'It's too far for your little fat legs,' said Tegumai. 'Besides, you might fall into the beaver-swamp and be drowned. We must make the best of a bad job.' He sat down and took out a little leather mendy-bag, full of reindeer-sinews and strips of leather, and lumps of bee's-wax and resin, and began to mend the spear.

Taffy sat down too, with her toes in the water and her chin in her hand, and thought very hard. Then she said--'I say, Daddy, it's an awful nuisance that you and I don't know how to write, isn't it? If we did we could send a message for the new spear.'

'Taffy,' said Tegumai, 'how often have I told you not to use slang? "Awful" isn't a pretty word, but it could be a convenience, now you mention it, if we could write home.'

Just then a Stranger-man came along the river, but he belonged to a far tribe, the Tewaras, and he did not understand one word of Tegumai's language. He stood on the bank and smiled at Taffy, because he had a little girl-daughter Of his own at home. Tegumai drew a hank of deer-sinews from his mendy-bag and began to mend his spear.

'Come here, said Taffy. 'Do you know where my Mummy lives?' And the Stranger-man said 'Um!' being, as you know, a Tewara.

'Silly!' said Taffy, and she stamped her foot, because she saw a shoal of very big carp going up the river just when her Daddy couldn't use his spear.

'Don't bother grown-ups,' said Tegumai, so busy with his spear-mending that he did not turn round.

'I aren't, said Taffy. 'I only want him to do what I want him to do, and he won't understand...'"

Yep, Rudyard Kipling must be the patron saint of Darwinists, since their explanations of how creatures supposedly evolved are precisely as fact-free and fanciful as those of the esteemed Kipling.

J. R. R. Tolkien is now also long-departed and well-beloved for his The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series.  He invented a world, the world of Middle Earth and eventually became so infatuated and obsessed with making it as real as possible that he built the back story and the further adventures of Middle Earth. His son, Christopher, later unveiled the Silmarillion (which Tolkien began with notes taken during WWI) and numerous other tomes concerning Middle Earth.   Tolkien is also famed as a member of the "Inklings" discussion group which also included C.S. Lewis and many other mostly Oxford professors and thinkers concerned with metaphysical musings and considerations.  Many have credited Tolkien with bringing Lewis to Christ or at least reigniting Lewis' faith.

Tolkien did spend many years of his life writing on the people and history of the imaginary world of Middle Earth.   However, there is no doubt that he knew it was all fantasy and was rather dismayed in later years to learn that some people had either believed that Middle Earth existed or enjoyed reading his writings on the subject in tandem with an LSD trip.

People like Richard Dawkins and Eugenie Scott remind me of such Tolkien fans.   Such folks spend their lives studying and expanding upon imaginary things.   Darwinism is made up entirely of speculation and imagination with not one provable fact to support it.

Serious Problems With Dating Methods
By Bill Jahns

Why do geologists so frequently fail to understand that the biblical Flood was the force that created some geologic formations? One important answer lies in the way they date these formations.

The theory of evolution has become so ubiquitous in the scientific world today that it even distorts the way geological formations are dated. However, these dating methods have significant problems that can lead to serious errors of interpretation.

One of the most popular dating methods, carbon-14 (14C), is used for dating plant or animal remains. The book The Dynamic Earth explains the basis for this method: "Radiocarbon is continuously created in the atmosphere through bombardment of nitrogen-14 (14N) by neutrons created by cosmic radiation. 14C, with a half-life of 5730 years, decays back to 14N . . . As long as the production rate remains constant, the radioactivity of natural carbon remains constant because [the] rate of production balances the rate of decay.

"While an organism is alive and is taking in carbon from the atmosphere, it contains this balanced proportion of 14C. However, at death the balance is upset, because replenishment by life processes such as feeding, breathing and photosynthesis ceases. The 14C in dead tissues continually decreases by radioactive decay" (Brian Skinner and Stephen Porter, 1989, pp. 138-139). By measuring the amount of carbon-14 and comparing that amount to the original, scientists can obtain a date for the death of the organism.

However, there are many problems with the dates obtained through this method. For example, dating living mollusks by the carbon-14 method often yields clearly errant results—for instance, finding the mollusks to be up to 2,300 years old ("Radiocarbon Dating: Fictitious Results With Mollusk Shells," Science, Vol. 141, p. 634). Carbon-14 dating methods are obviously affected by the environment.

Archaeologist John McRay notes: "Unfortunately, several recent discoveries combine to indicate that carbon 14 is not as valuable as was once hoped: (1) radioactive carbon atoms may not have existed in the earth's atmosphere before 2000 B.C.; (2) the natural concentration of carbon 14 in the atmosphere has varied in certain periods, and (3) there is a high probability of sample contamination" (Archaeology and the New Testament, 1991, p. 34).

Recently a new method—accelerator mass spectrometry—has been used to date ancient items. This method has given a different date than previously accepted for the earliest Mayan civilization.

"The oldest known Maya turns out to be younger than archaeologists originally believed. The remains of a woman found below a layered platform at a site called Cuello in northern Belize had been thought to be more than 4,000 years old . . . As a result of new dating methods, about a thousand years have been trimmed from the chronology. Norman Hammond of Boston University, who began digging at Cuello in the 1970s, says the remains now are believed to be from about 1200 B.C., still earlier than any other known Maya settlement.

"The accelerator mass spectrometer allows scientists to analyze the bones of the ancient Maya without severely damaging them. The new technique can date carbon samples weighing only a few milligrams; a specimen the size of a match head will do" ("Oldest Known Maya: Not Quite So Old," National Geographic, November 1990). Here a new dating method has changed by 1,000 years the earliest accepted date of Mayan civilization.

Consider then. Radiometric dating methods (those measuring geologic time by rate of radioactive decay) have been used to date formations that could be associated with Noah's Flood. These dates supposedly prove these formations are millions of years old rather than thousands. Yet we find that different methods can yield radically different results.

As The Science of Evolution explains: "Several methods have been devised for estimating the age of the earth and its layers of rocks. These methods rely heavily on the assumption of uniformitarianism, i.e., natural processes have proceeded at relatively constant rates throughout the earth's history . . . It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological 'clock'" (William Stansfield, 1977, pp. 80, 84).

The potassium-argon [K-Ar] dating method, used to date lava flows, also has problems—as shown by studies of Mount St. Helens. "The conventional K-Ar dating method was applied to the 1986 dacite flow from the new lava dome at Mount St. Helens, Washington. Porphyritic dacite which solidified on the surface of the lava dome in 1986 gives a whole rock K-Ar 'age' of 0.35 + OR - 0.05 million years (Ma). Mineral concentrates from this same dacite give K-Ar 'ages' from 0.35 + OR - .06 Ma to 2.8 + OR - 0.6 Ma. These 'ages' are, of course, preposterous [since we know the rock formed recently]. The fundamental dating assumption ('no radiogenic argon was present when the rock formed') is questioned by these data.

"Instead, data from this Mount St. Helens dacite argue that significant 'excess argon' was present when the lava solidified in 1986 . . . This study of Mount St. Helens dacite causes the more fundamental question to be asked—how accurate are K-Ar 'ages' from the many other phenocryst-containing lava flows worldwide?" (Stephen Austin, "Excess Argon within Mineral Concentrates from the New Dacite Lava Dome at Mount St. Helens Volcano," Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1996, pp. 335-344).

In layman's terms, these volcanic rocks that we know were formed in 1986—less than 20 years ago—were "scientifically" dated to between 290,000 and 3.4 million years old!

Such examples serve to illustrate the fallibility of the dating methods on which many modern scientists rely so heavily.