O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge—by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith. Grace be with you. Amen.
(1 Timothy 6:20-21) NKJV
As simple and convenient the young Earth creation (YEC) variable rate of nuclear decay response to radiometric dating may be, it’s also an Achilles Heel.
Here’s why, quoted directly from an article which calculates all the heat generated by all nuclear decay ever, and speculates what would happen if it occurred during the life of a 6,000 year old Earth:
One of the issues in the creation/evolution debate is the claim that radioactive decay is not constant. In order for the Earth to appear old, creationists must assume that radioactive decay rates in the past were faster. This solves the problems of old ages in rocks, but unfortunately opens up a bigger problem. Radioactive decay gives off heat. The amount of heat generated is proportional to the rate of decay and the amount of radioactive material present at the time. In the following exercise, I show how much heat can be generated by radioactive decay IF decay rates were faster in the past.
At 6000 years ago, it is pretty obvious that the entire Earth would be molten and Adam and Eve’s goose was cooked.
– Joe Meert, Were Adam and Eve Toast?
This may seem like a solid defense but it requires an unwarranted assumption and it depends on the principles of 19th Century Uniformitarianism. The assumption is that radioactive isotopes are distributed evenly throughout the crust and mantle. That’s impossible given the fact that the Earth formed around a gravitational singularity and we have a Biblical core accretion model which puts all of the high atomic weights in the center of the Earth, not the crust and mantle.
If you’re interested we’re linking Joe Meert’s full text for further reading. It’s an example of how mathematics can be easily manipulated to tell any lie you like. It’s an excellent example of something which is falsely called knowledge.
The way that young Earth creation (YEC) folk try to get around this is to take the opposing view, that the decay constant isn’t constant, but it looks like the real problem, the nuance, has been the application of the half-life rate law to nuclear decay. In this scenario nuclear decay has been exponential (initially rapid but slowing down at an ever decreasing rate).
On one hand this matches observations and it’s being reflected in the SciPop press with articles like radioactive decay rates may not be constant after all. In the Biblical narrative nuclear decay began at the fall of man in Genesis 3 with a massive burst of radiation and it’s been cooling down ever since.
In SciPop the premise that the Earth is billions of years old has been used to induce a rationalization of evidence to fit this premise. It’s a giant pile of circular reasoning. The experimental measurement of isotope ratios in rocks gives us a scale of relative dates, so we can arrange samples from oldest to youngest, but not absolute dates so you can’t use it to rationalize a fictional timescale of billions of years. The experimental measurements are what they are, they just don’t prove anything. As such, radiometric dating is pseudoscience.
Up until now the SciPop folks thought that they had a silver bullet which would take out the YEC notion of exponential decay. This is when they like to roll out one of their big guns, math, and induce more rationale along the lines of: if all of the nuclear decay on Earth had taken place within the last 6,000 years, then the heat generated would have been enough to melt the surface of the Earth. You’ll find posts like were Adam and Eve toast?
Fortunately, the theory of Biblical gravitation, and the core accretion model gives us a way to shoot SciPop to pieces so it evens out. The Earth formed around a gravitational singularity which was created on the second day. It caused high atomic weight elements to be concentrated in the core. When nuclear decay began the core melted, not the surface, which is why hell is at the center of the Earth.
- Periods of geological time were established before radiometric dating was possible,
- most fossils are found in rocks that can’t be dated using radiometric techniques,
- it depends on assuming a constant rate of nuclear decay,
- it’s an inductive rationalization of the premise of an ancient Earth.
Salvation
- Call upon the name of Jesus Christ,
- believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
- confess your sin.
Salvation
- Call upon the name of Jesus Christ,
- believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
- confess your sin.
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