http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2008/04/19/news-to-note-04192008#two
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/411/1
Now they have a new dating method, showing what's been said all
along: any of their dating methods are based on faulty
assumptions.
First they claim the grand canyon is 5 million years old, now
they say every single one of them was wrong and instead it's 65
million? Why not just settle on a nice round 100 million years
old? Wouldn't that sound more convincing.
The fact is a canyon can be formed in mere days, as was done back
in 2002, where we *observe* from start to finish a canyon being
carved out of rock at 8m/day for three days.
(References:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/12/29/news-to-note-12292007
October: Texas Canyon Formed by Recent Flood
http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=220&pid=0&sid=1262281&page=1
(Originally re****ted on in News to Note, October 13, 2007 item
#2.)
Anyway, here's the latest assumptions on how old things are, and
how drastically "off" they supposedly all were before with their
old assumptions. Not to mention how much more off they could
easily be with their new set of assumptions.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2008/04/19/news-to-note-04192008#two
===============================================
Any article on old-age dating methods that begins, “How could
everyone have gotten it so wrong?” is obviously going to be of
interest to creationists.
Following that opening sentence, ScienceNOW’s Phil Berardelli
writes:
New research indicates that the Grand Canyon is perhaps 65
million years old, far older than previously thought—and old
enough that the last surviving dinosaurs may have stomped along
its rim.
Now, regular News to Note readers may remember that it was only
six weeks ago that old-earth-believing scientists re****ted the
Grand Canyon’s age at not 6 million years old (the previous
view), but rather 17 millions years old. And now, in the short
span of six weeks, the canyon has gained another 48 million
years!
So what’s behind this new re-dating? It seems researchers at the
California Institute of Technology (a.k.a. Caltech) have
developed a radiometric dating technique that is based on a
phosphate-containing material called apatite.
Re****ting in an upcoming issue of the Geological Society of
America’s Bulletin, the team re****ts that samples of apatite
taken from the deepest parts of the Grand Canyon were exposed by
erosion 55–65 million years ago, though not all of the canyon
formed at the same time.
Surprisingly, the University of New Mexico–Albuquerque’s Victor
Polyak, who was behind the recent dating of the canyon to 17
million years ago, didn’t dispute the new age. “There were more
processes shaping what is now the Grand Canyon than previously
thought,” he said.
What is tragic, really—we don’t think we’re exaggerating—is that
we so often hear radiometric dating cited as one of the top
reasons people reject the Bible’s account of history as
“unscientific,” “mythical,” and downright false. Yet radiometric
dating has resulted in wild inaccuracies and often contradicts
itself, and this changing canyon date is a prime example. Just
weeks ago, it was radiometric dating (uranium–lead testing, to be
precise) that dated the western end of the canyon to 17 million
years old. Of course, in this case old-agers can invent a
“rescuing device” to salvage their faith in radiometric dating:
different parts of the canyon formed at different times, which is
ultimately unfalsifiable. If scientists find a hundred different
dates from a hundred different parts of the canyon, will they
start to question radiometric dating? Not likely. Rather, they
will either blame “contamination” or invent more “just-so”
stories for how the canyon could have come together, bit by bit,
with dates ranging all over the last hundred million years of
alleged earth history.
In every scientific debate over the age of the earth and dating
methods, Christians must remember that there are facts—such as
the amount of different isotopes in rocks—that creationists and
evolutionists agree about. The disagreement is over the
interpretation of these facts: the assumptions that are used to
filter the facts and determine what they really mean. In this
case, a table may help explain:
Creationists Evolutionists
Observed fact amount of an isotope in a rock amount of an isotope
in a rock
Unchanging assumption age of the earth rate of decay, starting
isotope levels, etc.
Variable conclusion rate of decay, starting isotope levels, etc.
age of the earth (and Canyon)
As for us, our view on the Grand Canyon hasn’t changed one bit.
As we wrote in March,
What’s incredible is that even amid ample evidence that canyons
can be carved within an extremely short period of time, those who
believe in an ancient earth (a requirement of Darwinian
evolution, by the way) stick to the idea that water might only
erode an inch or two of rock in a thousand years! Yet in three
days in July 2002, a flood caused by the overflow of Canyon Lake
in Texas carved a mile-and-a-half-long canyon up to 80 ft (24m)
deep in places (see News to Note, October 13, 2007, item #2).
Imagine what a global Flood could cause—one caused by forty days
of rain and subterranean eruptions of water that transcended the
then-highest mountains and covered the earth for a year!
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