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From: gordon@uw-june (Gordon Davisson)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: The Scientific Case for Creation: (Part 31)
Message-ID: <85@uw-june>
Date: Mon, 22-Jul-85 04:22:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: uw-june.85
Posted: Mon Jul 22 04:22:04 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Jul-85 04:48:32 EDT
References: <385@iham1.UUCP>
Organization: U of Washington Computer Science
Lines: 37

>[Ron Kukuk and THE SCIENTIFIC CASE FOR CREATION: 116 CATEGORIES OF EVIDENCE]
>
>       58.  A major assumption that underlies all  radioactive  dating
>            techniques  is  that  the  rates of decay, which have been
>            essentially constant over the past  70  years,  have  also
>            been  constant  over  the  past  4,600,000,000 years. This
>            bold, critical, and untestable  assumption  is  made  even
>            though   no  one  knows  what  causes  radioactive  decay.

Nope.  The behavior of nuclei isn't all that hard to understand, given
quantum mechanics.  (Of course, some creationists seem not to believe in
quantum mechanics...)

Furthermore, our understanding of nuclei tells us that if, for some
unknown reason, the laws (or 'constants') of physics are changing in
such a way as to change radioactive decay rates and leave everything
else alone, the decay rates of different isotopes would change at
different rates.  In other words, the fact that several (at least 4
that I know of) different decay chains all give the same age for the
earth (to within the margin of error, of course) indicates that the
decay rates have not changed, at least not significantly.

And speaking of bold, critical, and untestable assumptions, you seem to
be claiming that decay rates used to be high enough that what we now
think of as 4.5 billion years worth of decay could have occurred in only
10,000 years.  This means, of course, that the average decay rate over
those 10,000 years was 450,000 times what it is now.  Using a linear
extrapolation, this means that a year ago, they were 91 times what they
are now.  (Hmm, must not be linear :-)  Even without nuclear theory, this
seems a mite hard on the credulity.  Is this what you creationists
believe, or do you think God created the earth with rocks with funny
isotope compositions?

--
Human:    Gordon Davisson
ARPA:     gordon@uw-june.ARPA
UUCP:     {ihnp4,decvax,tektronix}!uw-beaver!uw-june!gordon