"Science Side Up" Defends Old Age on Carbon Dates and on Distant Starlight

Two videos, the longer one only skimmed up to and away from a discussion about Russell Humphreys.

Answers in Genesis Doesn't Understand Radiocarbon Dating
18th March 2021 | ScienceSideUp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cujGr1Du0M

I

10:56 Yes, you said so.

But the traditional reason is, after 10 halvings, the remainder becomes not reliably detectable. That reason still contradicts the result of detectable carbon in items over 100 000 years old (or reliably detectable beyond 50 000 years), and therefore still has the test implication of "millions of years -> no detectable carbon".

11:47 Yeah, there are people these days, after Creationists started, getting un-curious enough to be content to say "it's the wrong tool".

Well, first of all, if it's less than 60 000 years old, it actually isn't an absurd tool. When saying "it's the wrong tool" you are being arbitrarily dogmatic about the ages geologists assign to that coal as "set in stone".

II

12:22 No, you get it wrong here.

With NO detectable radiocarbon left, a lab would give limit of reliable carbon dating as limit age and this being misunderstand as actual age.

Snelling is not falling in the trap, Ma'am. He stated there was detectable carbon. This is very much not what you would expect. Not after millions of years.

12:31 No, you are not getting answers "in the range that it is ok to use the method for," you are getting answers that are not readily compatible with the actual age being outside the range. You are guilty of gobbledigook and technoblabla - a bit like how Marvel comics explain superpowers with mutations from radioactive exposure. It doesn't make sense if you understand what is being talked about.

III

13:03 some process had to happen to form new radiocarbon in those

Yes, this would be possible, now we are talking, but it is ad hoc and it's an answer that in and of itself tends to make radiocarbon dating unreliable.

Think of it. How do you rule out that things you consider reliably dated to 30 000 years old got new radiocarbon by such a process? What if Lascaux and Altamira are really 5 million years old?

You date Lascaux and Altamira by radiocarbon? Well, that is what Dr. Snelling's team did with things you consider as millions of years old.

14:03 "he's using the wrong tool and got a weird answer"

Again, how many different places were there where this process you mentioned was at work?

IV

14:22 "If we have a problem with the methodology"

I have one with yours : instead of proving the coal samples and shells really are millions of years old, so that he would have been using the wrong method, you presume that is the case and pretend you can't debate the results.

"... we can't even touch the results"

On the contrary. Even if a wrong result comes from a wrong method, you need to show why a wrong method yielded that wrong result and why this result is not reliable, not just make blanket statements of the method being wrong and the result being therefore irrelevant to even discuss.

That's the kind of dealing with the opponent that we engaged in creation science (Drs. Snelling and Humphreys as professional scientists, myself as amateur) have to do and actually do do.

V

15:15 Let's correct the statement he made.

Radiocarbon is used on the assumption that within the reliable time spectrum the amount of radiocarbon has been maintained by same decay rate of "atmospheric sample" and roughly same rate of production.

This qualification doesn't quite change what he stated.

You are making a 27 minute plus video, he was making a 3 minute one.

Possible reasons why C14 production could be faster now than pre-Flood:

• 1) Much of pre-Flood carbon cycle got buried. Same amount of C14 actually produced would count in units that register different rates depending on how much C12 there is. So, same absolute rate of C14 production would produce C14 half as fast if C12 was twice as common in the atmosphere. This is bc 100 pmC (present portion of C14 in atmosphere, corrected for pre-industrial values) is 100/100 of the proportion C14 has to C12, that being what the equipment can actually measure.
• 2) Much of pre-Flood oxygen is now buried in oceans, if the theory is correct that I proposed, that "waters above the firmament" mean "H2 above normal levels of atmosphere" and that H2 then combined with O2 of atmosphere in Brown's gas and then exploded to water at the Flood event - this would mean that O2 was richer and N2 less rich in the pre-Flood atmosphere. Cosmic radiation doesn't produce C14 automatically, but has to hit N atoms to do so. If the N atoms were less frequent per volume, less C14 was made.
• 3) Different levels of cosmic radiation and of force of magnetic field could also make differences.

None of these being what evolution believers or uniformitarians count on.

VI

17:34 Ah starting point for C14 .... it's called calibration.

If a raw carbon date states "11 000 years old" and you have tree rings you trust that instead say "12 000 years old" or "10 000 years old" you will perhaps trust the tree rings, and say the real age is 12 000 years old (meaning the sample started with more than 100 pmC, since it's dated too young) or 10 000 years old (meaning the sample started with less than 100 pmC, since it's dated too old).

The fact is, if one trusts the Bible more than tree rings, one can do exactly the same for Biblical chronology, once one figures out the equations between Biblical history and archaeology.

Now, the only problem is, whether tree rings or the Bible are in fact the more reliable calibrators.

For 1400 AD, we have no Biblical history, but we do have tree rings and C14 from Arizona confirming each other, and roughly also I suppose later confirmed with reference to European carbon dates from back then and historically dated objects.

For 1400 BC, by contrast, obviously the proportion of wood preserved, the number of samples, and also the thickness of samples, therefore amounts of tree rings compared between samples, is considerably lower - just as the other lignine based dating, namely narrative and cultural history is.

And the Japanese lake bottom recently used is a laughing stock among creationists.

VII

18:44 Yes, exactly, we take things that we know how old they are - how do you reliably get that for 50 000 years ago when carbon dating is precisely what you calibrate? The precise thing which isn't reliable enough?

The very brief and succinct answer is, you don't. For 600 years ago, perhaps even for the time when Rome started, no extra huge problem. Tree rings. But to chose between a date 2957 BC (during the Flood) and a date 30 000 years ago (the carbon date), the tree rings would be inadequate.

19:09 I do know of and am sure Dr. Snelling also knows of the variations of original carbon content varying 3 pmC points above and below 100 pmC. However, he was making a 3 minute video.

What we don't agree with you on is that scope of variation being all there is to changing carbon 14 levels.

The available calibration tables assume, not a constant, but very close on a constant.

20:00 I am fairly sure the standard calibration tables for 50 000 years ago do not take into account that the magnetic field has weakened. If that is what is the case.

21:17 "this is only a problem if we don't think of it"

How about checking whether the calibration curves were produced by scientists that did think about it?

VIII

21:34 you like data? from a 3 minute long video?

How about responding to an online text with footnotes that actually gives data?

"In any case, the mean of the 14C/C ratios in Dr Baumgardner’s diamonds was close to 0.12±0.01 pMC, well above that of the lab’s background of purified natural gas (0.08 pMC)."

Diamonds: a creationist’s best friend
by Jonathan Sarfati
Last updated 1 Apr 2020 | This article is from
Creation 28(4):26–27, September 2006
https://creation.com/diamonds-a-creationists-best-friend

IX

24:21 How high energy photons do you need to pierce through diamonds? And opaque materials surrounding them very thickly?

X

25:19 I have less in science than you do, Maddie.

And I can reason through how your view could be incorrect.

I don't use the argument "radiocarbon in diamonds/coal" whatever prove a young earth, because I know your answer.

But I do also know that this answer is a blanket licence for fidgeting with carbon dates.

Let's take my carbon date for the Flood : 40 000 BP - 38 000 BC. This would contradict lots of the findings making coal or dino bones younger than that and still being from the Flood (real date 2957 BC), but the thing you just said involves a possibility how this could be so.

XI

25:31 "/: /: really :/ :/ should know carbon dating is only good for things" ... under a certain age.

Nice, but the deception is on your side. That's a blanket licence for ignoring data that contradict your pov.

You don't measure kilometers with folding rules, fine, but if the folding rule measure is within the folding rule, you arguably have no kilometer to measure.

Young Earth Creationism and Distant Starlight
30th April 2021 | ScienceSideUp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miGR8raBK_w

I

My take on that question:

• 1) Geocentrism (with Tychonian cum elliptic orbits) is true;
• 2) heavenly bodies are moved by angels;
• 3) angels do not only perform the tychonian orbits, but also a complex proper movement erroneously analysed by astronomers into three components, proper movement, aberration and parallax;
• 4) therefore the astronomic distances beyond "solar system" are based on wrong assumptions;
• 5) and the whole visible universe is probably just one light day from earth to periphery.

How would starlight emitted 24 hours ago conflict with Young Earth Creationism? Or even better, emitted 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds ago?

For the moment, I cannot assess either the original video nor your answer, since this cyber has no head phones and neither video has subtitles.

Angry Doggy

Angels? Really? Got any proof for that? Do you know how they’re doing all that? On their bikes perhaps?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy Well, accepting Tychonian orbits is fairly good proof, since it's hard to imagine these as purely products of vectors (though Sungenis with friends have a try at that too).

As you also asked for explanation, that not being same thing as proof, angels being spirits have dominion over matter. Our souls have it to some degree, like I can move the keys on the key-board via my body, but an angel would not need a body and its powers over matter not itself (one object at a time) does not depend on muscle power.

This means, moving even the sun along the zodiac is no hard chore for the angel who does it.

Angry Doggy

@Hans-Georg Lundahl The Tychonian geocentric model has been disproven, it just doesn’t work, not even if it uses elliptical orbits. It just can’t explain our observations. If an idea doesn’t work, it should be dismissed or adapted until it fits reality. In the case of the Tychonian model, that adaptation involves placing the sun in the centre and have all the planets revolve around it. Having the earth at the centre and 2 planets orbiting the sun that’s orbiting earth just doesn’t work.

As for some supernatural being floating around, pushing stuff around. That’s just supernatural fantasy with nothing substantial to support the idea.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl That statement doesn’t make much sense. Tychonian orbits are hard to imagine as products of vectors? What’s that supposed to mean?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy "The Tychonian geocentric model has been disproven, it just doesn’t work, not even if it uses elliptical orbits."

Where does it contradict our senses?

"It just can’t explain our observations."

What observation can't it explain?

"If an idea doesn’t work, it should be dismissed or adapted until it fits reality."

Note well : observed reality. Presumed reality doesn't cut it, especially as Tychonian orbits with elliptic rather than perfectly circular movement is what we directly observe.

"In the case of the Tychonian model, that adaptation involves placing the sun in the centre and have all the planets revolve around it."

This is not an adaptation to any actual observation since Sun in centre is NOT observed.

"Having the earth at the centre and 2 planets orbiting the sun that’s orbiting earth just doesn’t work."

Actually, Tychonian means all planets except Sun and Moon. Or in more modern classifications, "all planets except Earth". Having just Mercury and Venus orbit the Sun is yet another model. I prefer the Tychonian one. I am not taking your word for it not working, you'll have to explain what is wrong with it.

"As for some supernatural being floating around, pushing stuff around. That’s just supernatural fantasy with nothing substantial to support the idea."

Except, it makes Tychonian orbits (with elliptic movement) work.

Except the supernatural seems fairly solidly anchored in the human experience (mind moving matter every time a man decides something).

Except it was the standard explanation for movement of celestial bodies back in Riccioli's time.

Except Newton and Einstein have not discussed it and therefore not disproven it.

"Tychonian orbits are hard to imagine as products of vectors?"

I said, hard to imagine as purely products of vectors. Namely with no will or intention directing them. Precisely as fingers moving on a keyboard and spell out intelligible language are not purely electrical twitches in soft electrodes.

Angry Doggy

@Hans-Georg Lundahl That’s an awful lot of words just to say that the Tychonian model doesn’t work without some magical fairy creatures involved. So no fairytale creatures, no working model, got it. All you have to do is find define proof for your magical sky creatures, once you found that, I’ll be happy to consider your ideas.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy "All you have to do is find define proof for your magical sky creatures, once you found that, I’ll be happy to consider your ideas."

One fact they explain is proof. Geocentrism is observed.

Angry Doggy

Hans-Georg Lundahl And that’s where your entire idea falls to pieces. Observations do not match any geocentric model ever created, it doesn’t have predictive capabilities. It’s correct sometimes, but a good model is correct all the time. A model that doesn’t work should be dismissed as being wrong and useless.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy "Observations do not match any geocentric model ever created, it doesn’t have predictive capabilities."

Apart from very minor corrfections since back then, observations match the model of Riccioli.

Geocentric.

Angry Doggy

@Hans-Georg Lundahl And that’s exactly why every geocentric model gets dismissed, it can’t explain or predict every observation. The heliocentric model can, ergo it is the better model and the inferior model can be dismissed. That’s how modelling works.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy If the Heliocentric model "can predict" every observation, why is it getting adjusted every once in a while when you observe sth which it hadn't predicted?

The Geocentric model can do so with equal accuracy, if you do the updates.

And giving Heliocentrics a social monopoly on doing the updates by how scientists are recruited is not refuting this point.

As for "explain" give me one phenomenon it can't explain, different thing from predict.

Angry Doggy

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Stars changing position over time for one.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy What change over what time?

It's very unspecific. As to changes supposed to take places over 10 000 years, we haven't observed them.

Also, since fix stars are moved by angels, no problem with actually explaining this.

II

43:33 And a few minutes back.

You said no object with mass could be at the speed of light, since mass would be infinite.

While I am not defending his theory - that of Dr. Humphreys - I think it would potentially be a problem for my own theory too. But first a detour.

According to Sabine Hossenfelder, this is not quite true of speed, but it is true of acceleration - anything accelerating up to the speed of light would acquire infinite mass while reaching it. But an object already in speed of light would not do so, it would keep the mass it had while starting to exist in a movement the speed of light.

I would perhaps need sth like that for my own theory, stars being one light day up, since a radius of one light day equals a diameter of two light days equals a perimeter of two pi lightdays (6.28 light days) all covered during the 6.28 times shorter time of one light day. In other words, through spatial coordinates, my stars are travelling 6.28 times the speed of light. Since circular movement means acceleration even with constant speed, I don't actually know what percentage of the speed of light the acceleration would be.

However, what if the "speed of light" and "acquire infinite mass" things apply, not in spatial coordinates, but in relation to the aether (luminiferous and vectorial) filling them? Bc on my view, aether has no mass at all, only nucleons have mass and aether is all the matter between nucleons, with ball shaped atoms seen in electronic microscopy being modifications of the aether, as well as the opposite qualities positive and negative, north and south being so. The aether moving at that high level 6.28 light days per day would not be affected, since zero mass times infinity is still zero mass, and the stars don't move in relation to the aether that much, only with it, on the level of each day. Annually, a fix star would typically move (with a proper movement, done by an angel) c. 20 arc seconds back and forth annually, so 20 arc seconds times circle 6.28 light days per 183 days would be a fairly moderate movement for the star within the aether.

I have watched the video, arguably citing Humphreys from another longer one, for a few minutes.

I am not convinced that Russell Humphreys is a better or worse physicist than Science Side Up, but I am sure he has made his task more difficult than mine by assuming there are real distances as far out as more than 50 000 light years away. Just in the Milky Way.

This is a conclusion depending on a series of assumptions going about like this:

• 1) Heliocentrism is locally true within the Solar System;
• 2) Sun has fairly fixed or rectilinearly moving distances to any other stars, so different star distances along the year would depend on earth moving;
• 3) Trigonometric triangulation over time (i e counting two positions of earth as two points, two angles of the triangle) gives distances in light years (units or decades) for some number of stars;
• 4) The main proportion of distances to apparent size is called "main series" and denotes roughly speaking solar diametered stars, so that apparent size for a star of same spectral type as sun can show it's distane;
• 5) Hence, the set constant proportion of stellar distance and apparent size gives stellar distances even further away, like 50 000 light years or more.

If we have instead the following set of assumptions, we get:

• A) Heliocentrism is not true for earth neither locally nor for distance to heavens;
• B) Sun is moving along the zodiac each year and stars are mirroring its movement on a level of c. 20 arc seconds, with the lesser variations being those mistaken for parallax;
• C) The phenomenon of parallax involves one known angle and no known distance, therefore gives no mai series clue, and no stars need be even one light year out.

Which makes my task somewhat easier.

Angry Doggy

Dude, let’s make one thing very clear. What you are describing is not a theory, it’s an idea. A theory is a proposition supported by observation and/or experimentation. I highly doubt you’ve got anything to support your idea.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy Geocentrism is the most directly observed theory of the universe.

A vectorial aether is demanded to make it work with rockets going up and being now above US, now again above USSR, if we don't accept "earth turns around itself" (as it isn't observed).

Angry Doggy

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Earth spinning isn’t directly observed, but it can and is measured. So Earth’s spin is a proven fact, there’s no way around that.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy If so, prove it.

Especially, prove it is not aether's spin around earth.

Angry Doggy

@Hans-Georg Lundahl That’s pretty easy. A gyroscope reacts to movement of the object its attached to. That’s it, earth spin proven.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy It would act on relative movement in relation to aether.

So, if aether is spinning around us, that explains it without earth spinning in the spatial coordinates.

Angry Doggy

Hans-Georg Lundahl Fix a gyro to a table, tilt the table, the gyro registers the movement of the table. That’s how a gyro works, it registers the movement from the object it’s fixed to. It does not react to some imaginary fairy dust floating around somewhere. But go ahead, get yourself some of that stuff move it around a gyro and see if it picks up that movement. Easy enough I would imagine. Don’t tell me you can’t get hold of some eather.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy I can't "get hold" of something that lacks mass.

God can. That's where capacities differ.*

Only aether I can move around is that trapped inside objects, between the baryons.

* Among very many other capacity differences between a creature and the omnipotent Creator.

Angry Doggy

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Once more you have to invoke a supernatural, unmeasurable thing to make your ideas work. Prove that magical being or prove that magical stuff floating around and I will consider your ideas.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy Unseen objects are proven by what observed phenomena they explain.

In other words, you are telling me, this specific unseen object, since classified as (correctly) supernatural, whatever vibes that may be giving you, "no, you don't prove it with this observation, and when you bring up the next one you won't prove it with that one, and when you bring up the third, I will ask you to bring up a fourth proof and so on" - this is not asking for proof, but showing bias against accepting proof.

Known things fall into two categories, observed and concluded, and the concluded ones are proven by what observed ones they explain. AND Geocentrism is directly observed (even if the latest model taking in the latest minor observations is lacking, since Heliocentrics do the models), AND since your take has been this several times over, you conclude, it would seem, Heliocentrism indirectly via Atheism / Naturalism / Denial of the Supernatural, since admission of it would make the directly observed Geocentrism acceptable.

Angry Doggy

@Hans-Georg Lundahl That doesn’t make sense. If you want to make a model, you take observation, you use known and proven physics and check if your model fits reality.

As for directly observing geocentrism. We don’t, that’s just it. Observations have shown us that model doesn’t work, that’s why it has been dismissed.

As for your supernatural forces. You seem to think that a flawed model is somehow proof for that. It most definitely isn’t. It used to be in the past when we didn’t know how to explain reality, but that time is long gone.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy "If you want to make a model,"

Within the paradigm you represent. I wasn't.

I am proposing a change, back, of philosophy.

"We don’t, that’s just it."

We just do, an observation "showing it doesn't work" is something other than an observation disproving it, until you reason why the observation is supposed to disprove it. It would still not be a direct observation of Heliocentrism, only one showing it through reinterpretation.

" It used to be in the past when we didn’t know how to explain reality,"

Well, you don't know how to explain reality. You don't know how to explain why mind in man rules matter, like body parts. You don't know how to explain why mind exists. You don't know how to explain why we descend, supposedly, from animals who can't speak and then developed speach. But thank you for admitting very candidly that you are not equipped with real proof for Heliocentrism, other than within your flawed philosophy of reality as a whole.

"but that time is long gone."

Someone just didn't give me the memo - or make it convincing.

III

45:27 Science Side Up, here you are not speaking from an understanding of physics, but from an Atheist "understanding" of the Bible. Including if you are a Liberal Christian.

To any traditionally Christian view, whatever Isaiah may have known himself, the words he received are from a God Who knows all the secrets of the universe.

45:36 Well, Einstein made a proposition about reality, and as long as it is not refuted, that's one option on what God could have meant when speaking through Isaiah.

IV

49:38 As said, I am not sure it is non-sense, but it seems a less economic explanation than mine.

[two fast forwards:]

1:07:54 Doesn't seem to be a similar discussion of actual physics ...

1:14:11 with some more physics, it seems still to be aside the distant starlight problem ...