Netfriend 1 wrote: You are probably not aware, that research on radiometric dating has been going on for over 80 years now, and is still continuing. There are plenty of journals which contain articles about it. You could try going to your nearest university library and having a look at the catalogue - almost certainly an online one - and try the subject "Isoto9pe Geology". I have just looked at the University of Queensland library catalogue and it has 31 entries under this subject. After you have read and absorbed some of these, come back with some more specific questions about the research you would like to see done on the area of radiometric dating.

N2 I am aware that there has been reserach into radiometris dating. My information comes from the Internet & Creation literature. I am unable to go to my nearest University. However, as with local libraries, the information there is only from Evolutionary sources.

Chris responds

Have you even looked? Most libraries I have seen have seen stock some creationist material. I include public and university libraries.

You'll never get the same *volume*, because creationism is fringe pseudoscience. There are almost no people involved in writing creationist books, and very little of that even *tries* to look like a credible text analogous to a good reference text which would fit at a university library. There are a number of popular pamphlets and "handbooks" intended for people who don't know any science; and then a handful of books which parody a more advanced style.

If you compare with books at a uni library, the difference in quality and depth of the material is stark. It is like night and day. The creationist books are shallow and trite, and do not even attempt to give the kind of comprehensive consideration to the available data which is covered in the row upon row upon row of real science books. Creationist books are frequently just a compendium of misquotes and distortions of work by others, spread over a range of scientific fields. By comparison, a science text gets right into the nitty gritty of a specific limited area. There are many different radiometric methods, and for the major methods I can pick up a selection of texts which focus upon that method alone!

The difference is detail shows up *dramatically* even before you consider whether or not the information is accurate.

Or journals... there are just under general science there are multiple bookshelves filled with major scientific journals. The best the creationists could manage would probably be TJ by Answers in Genesis; and you could fit all the issues into one box. There are a couple of other magazines as well; but nothing even comes close to the technical depth and quality of the science journals.

And, by the way, the writers of the science books are in many cases Christians; you just can't tell. Anymore than you tell if the author of a maths book is a Christian.

We keep coming back to this, time and time and time again. Creationism is unmitigated rubbish. Not because it has the wrong conclusions, but because the actual arguments, on their merits, are ridiculous.

You can't accept that. So be it.

But I have shown this all the same. Do you remember the email discussions we have with Andrew Lamb of Answers in Genesis? With respect to radiometric dating, he had two major references at the Answers in Genesis site claiming errors problems in mainstream radiometric dating, by Tas Walker and by John Woodmorappe. Both are of a standard that should fail even at high school level. Both misuse their references to the point of outright dishonesty. Both mislead as to the supposed "problems" they highlight, which have no impact in the slightest on geological dating.

The material is crap. It is a gross disservice and insult to Christians like yourself, who are inclined to trust their fellow Christians to at least raise the questions with a bit of integrity, that Answers in Genesis puts such claptrap out in the name of defending the faith.

N2

As a Christian you have one of two positions - either Creationist or Theistic Evolutionist - as far as I have studied there are some difference of opinion withing those two broad categories. However, if God created a fully-functioning universe with living organisms it is possible that calculations by atheistic-secular evolutionists could be incorrect. Creationists have a right and a responsibility to research and to go over the research of other scientists and to come to their conclusions.

Chris again

Creationists have a responsibility to conduct that examination with integrity. Far too often they fail miserably in that responsibility. They richly deserve their status as a laughing stock in the scientific community.

But the real problem as far as I am concerned is the victims of their shallow fraud. It is Christians like yourself; who don't understand the science and reply on others to explain it for them.

But you also have responsibilities.

If you portray this as a scientific dispute, you need to stop with the dishonest characterisation of "atheistic-secular evolutionists". This ==>DELIBERATE AND DISHONEST LIE<== seems to be part of a campaign to make Christians afraid to look at the material on its own merits.

The fact is that it is NOT atheistic-secular evolutionists.

Radiometric dating is GEOLOGY, not evolution. And it is not remotely atheistic -- though it is secular in the sense of having no position with respect to religion.

I have cited this reference before. If you are interested in radiometric dating, this is written for people like yourself, by an evangelical Christian who is also a geologist.

"Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective" by Dr. Roger C. Wiens <http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html>

N2:

In this morning's Sydney Morning Herald an article was published on the work of Raymond Damadian, the creationist inventor who built the first MRI scanning machine. Others who added to his work have been awarded the Noble prize for medicine. Perhaps he should be given the title of 'The Father of the MRI scanner' as Charles Baggage has been given the title of 'The Father of the Computer'for his work in 1833.

Chris:

Damadian is indeed a creationist, and he has a very significant role in development of the MRI scanner; for which he has received due recognition (Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001).

The medical Nobel this year was awarded to two other scientists for work relating to MRI, and Damadian has kicked up the most enormous stink about it. Frankly, I think the Nobel prize people got it right. Damadian deserves -- and has received -- full recognition for his significant and pioneering work. But Damadian's work built on prior work by others, and his work was also extended. In fact, MRI has been the basis of a couple of other Nobel prizes in the past as well.

The one thing Damadian will not tell you is that his original technique was based on some hypotheses that turned out to be mistaken, and that Damadian's own machines later adopted a different method -- the one invented by Lauterbur, who got the Nobel this year. Damadian insists that he deserves priority for thinking of the idea of imaging at all. But the prize went to the scientists who actually developed the technique which allowed images to be formed; using a method different to that originally pioneered by Damadian.

I don't say this to put down Damadian. He is a creationist, and a scientist, and an inventor. But I am not at all impressed with his response to the Nobel announcement; and I think the decision of the Nobel committee is perfectly reasonable. It should not be taken as a slight to Damadian.

But that is getting a bit off topic...

Cheers -- Chris