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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Earth-age estimates & some replies
Message-ID: <1219@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 21-Nov-84 18:24:02 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.1219
Posted: Wed Nov 21 18:24:02 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 21-Nov-84 19:44:58 EST
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Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
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From Q-Bick:
================
Apparently I wasn't clear - if the continents have been moving for such
long, and in such a manner that collisions have resulted, why are the
continents still so far apart?

Decay of Earth's Magnetic Field - Result of research by Thomas Barnes
during his tenure as Physics Professor at UTEP. Published in _Origin and
Destiny of Earth's Magnetic Field_, 1973. Barnes notes the measured
values over the last 150 years and models according to uniformitarian
principles.

Influx of Radiocarbon into earth system - research by Melvin Cook (PhD.
physical chemistry, Yale), formerly professor of Metallurgy at Utah.
Published in Creation Research Society Quarterly 10/68. Some figures
noted in _Scientific Creationism_ (p.165) include the 18.4 atoms/gram/
minute formation rate and 13.3 a/g/m decay rate.  Further evidence from
Libby (who founded the radiocarbon technique), also Lingenfelter, Suess,
and Switzer.

Efflux of He-4 into atmosphere - Cook, published in Nature (1/26/57
p213). SC gives some details (p.151) of 3E9 gm/yr generation and current
atmospheric content of 3.5E15 gm. It is only the time span forced by the
assumption of evolution that gives rise to the belief that He4 is
leaving the exosphere. In _Nuclear Geology_, Henry Faul calculated base
rates 100 times those that Cook used, which would indicate an earth
1/100th the age.

================
Are ice-floes of Larry Bickford all in one mass because they keep
moving?  Sure, continents have been all together several times in
the past.  The most recent PanGea is often known as Gondwanaland.
Continents break apart, just as much as they come together.  At present,
Africa is rifting apart through Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, but it
(like India) is mashing itself into Eurasia.  We are talking only
hundreds of millions of years for movements that cross large fractions
of the earth's surface, but 4.6 billion years for the whole pattern
to date.

The Earth's magnetic field has reversed many times, and the dates
are known to within a few thousand years for the most recent reversals.
The timing pattern fits a multiple-cell random walk with hysteresis.
Why should one be surprised if the intensity fluctuates on the same
kind of time scale?

Influx of radiocarbon into the earth system?? There may be some, but
by far the most is caused by cosmic rays right here.  We know well that
the kind and rate of cosmic ray flux at the earth's surface depends on
the solar (and probably the terrestrial) magnetic field, which changes
over both short and long time spans.  C-14 dates are routinely corrected
for this effect, whose magnitude is well calibrated over the time span
for which radiocarbon dating is useful.

"It is only the time span forced by evolution that gives rise to the
belief that He-4 is leaving the exosphere"!!  Jesus Christ, what kind
of physics do they teach you at school?  The problem is to explain
how there is any left, not why some has gone.  If there were an argument
here, it would be that the atmosphere should have NO measureable helium
after a purportedly long time, and we would have to find sources for
it to account for any that we find.

I conclude that Q-Bick (what an appropriate pseudonym) has neither
interest nor appreciation of elementary physics.  It is this kind
of argument that leads me to answer Paul Dubois that indeed, creationists
should NOT be allowed to determine how their children are schooled.
The children should not be punished by a denial of their potential
heritage, simply because their immediate family glories
in their ignorance.
-- 

Martin Taylor
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