ScienceWhopper:Natural History According to Jeffrey Holland

[_Hoops]

Every measurement comes with a margin of error or it isn't meaningful. By your lights, all measurements are wrong.

There not MY measurements. Buffalo made a categorical statement. He's wrong. But he's comfortable making any statement he wants, true of not, knowing that he will be defended. Words have meaning.

Confidence in measurements is based on mathematical error analysis. It is a serious subject.

I'm sure it is.

FYI, we are confident that the Earth is 4.1 and 4.8 billion years old.

We are extremely confident that it is between 3 and 6 billions years old.

And, AGAIN, there earth was thought to be 2.0 to 3.0 billion years old. My position is not that the calculations today are wrong, my position is that to state that this is the final say on the matter is ridiculous. History tells us as much.

Our confidence that the Earth is billions of years old rather than millions is like our confidence that the moon is farther from the surface of the earth than rain clouds.

Okay. good. And...?

But I am sure that if the Bible hinted that the moon could be lower than clouds and hence get rained on, you would be defending that notion ( a notion no more silly than the ones you do defend).

Apparently, you're sure of a lot of things don't turn out to be true.

[_Franktalk]

How old do you believe the world to be, FrankTalk?

Bottom line is I don't know. From scripture one could make a case for 7800 years. Or with gaps any age. Science now says 14.5 billion but that has changed over the years and I expect it to change again.

[Guest]

How old do you believe the world to be, FrankTalk?

Bottom line is I don't know. From scripture one could make a case for 7800 years. Or with gaps any age. Science now says 14.5 billion but that has changed over the years and I expect it to change again.

Again, Franktalk, you need to pay closer attention.

It is the age of the universe that is estimated at 13 - 14.5 billion years. The Earth is estimated to be about 4.5 billion years old.

[_Hoops]

Actually when you think about it, when compared to less than 10,000 years ... the scriptural age.

Please tell me where Biblical scripture makes this claim.

[_Chap]

"As a result of their research, Dr. Rudge and his colleagues believe that Earth is approximately 4.467 billion years old. Previously, scientists believed the planet was 4.537 billion years old."

The Bible is true after all!

Buffalo made the claim. He's wrong. His error has no relationship to the Bible.

Have you read the actual paper referred to in the piece of online journalism you quote - 'Broad bounds on Earth’s accretion and core formation constrained by geochemical models', Nature Geoscience 3, 439 - 443 (2010)? I just have. As a matter of fact it does not say anything about changing an estimate of the overall age of the earth, because it only treats a limited aspect of one of the elements that feeds into earth age estimates - the time for initial core formation.

If you feed the paper's proposed change in the time for earth core formation into a previous estimate of the Earth's age (which the published paper did not do), the result is a change of 1.5% . I think you can rely on my assurance, speaking as an anonymous coward of course, that if the authors had, on that basis, said that the previous estimate was 'wrong' in their paper, the editors of Nature would have insisted that they deleted any such silly statement.

[_Hoops]

Have you read the actual paper referred to in the piece of online journalism you quote - 'Broad bounds on Earth’s accretion and core formation constrained by geochemical models', Nature Geoscience 3, 439 - 443 (2010)? I just have. As a matter of fact it does not say anything about changing an estimate of the overall age of the earth, because it only treats a limited aspect of one of the elements that feeds into earth age estimates - the time for initial core formation.

If you feed the paper's proposed change in the time for earth core formation into a previous estimate of the Earth's age (which the published paper did not do), the result is a change of 1.5% . I think you can rely on my assurance, speaking as an anonymous coward of course, that if the authors had, on that basis, said that the previous estimate was 'wrong' in their paper, the editors of Nature would have insisted that they deleted any such silly statement.

Yes, I read it. And it disagrees with Buffalo's statement. He said somthing along the lines of: the earth could be older, but it can not be younger than its components.

Now, on to my request of you. Please cite the Biblical reference.

[_Chap]

Have you read the actual paper referred to in the piece of online journalism you quote - 'Broad bounds on Earth’s accretion and core formation constrained by geochemical models', Nature Geoscience 3, 439 - 443 (2010)? I just have. As a matter of fact it does not say anything about changing an estimate of the overall age of the earth, because it only treats a limited aspect of one of the elements that feeds into earth age estimates - the time for initial core formation.

If you feed the paper's proposed change in the time for earth core formation into a previous estimate of the Earth's age (which the published paper did not do), the result is a change of 1.5% . I think you can rely on my assurance, speaking as an anonymous coward of course, that if the authors had, on that basis, said that the previous estimate was 'wrong' in their paper, the editors of Nature would have insisted that they deleted any such silly statement.

Yes, I read it. And it disagrees with Buffalo's statement. He said somthing along the lines of: the earth could be older, but it can not be younger than its components.

I don't believe you have read the original Nature paper, which I am in fact looking at now, as I type. If you had, you could not have said 'it disagrees with Buffalo's statement' because it doesn't.

But prove me wrong: tell me the two values of the quantity in Myr given in the final sentence of the paper. If you can do that, I shall pay you the compliment of simply assuming you don't read scientific prose too well. If not, I am afraid you will look as if you are telling porkies.

[Guest]

Many times in history the entire weight of science has been overturned.

I have to say false. Mathematics is a science. In our universe if you take 2 integers and increase them by 2 more you will have four integers meaning 2+2 = 4. This is a scientific fact that can not be overturned.

There are fundamental verifiable truths in science that can not be changed without re-writing the rules of the universe. These are not overturned every now and then.

I don't know if we can characterize mathematics as a science because its not empirical in the way physics is. Unless one is a hardcore Platonist so that mathematics is something we discover rather than invent, and exists in some sense independently of the human mind.

[_Gadianton]

Well I have to hand it to you. I guess you found me out. I guess I have to admit I don't know every obscure thing in the universe.

Hi Frank. I don't think the problem is a failure on your part to command every topic, but rather any topic.

[_Franktalk]

DrW,

It is true that most of acquired knowledge in science over the last 100 years has been added to or modified slightly. But let us look at potential massive changes. If we consider multi-universes with each having it own set of laws then this universe would seem a subset of a larger reality. This idea came from science. Or if humans develop the ability to change matter at will by as yet unknown forces. Let us call it supernatural for lack of of a better word. That would cause a rethink of the source of forces in reality. And the list goes on and on. I find it odd and telling that you did not come up with these. I have found that those who are buried in science have a great deal of trust in science. That trust has been pushed on the general public. I will tell you that if the world ever really falls hard the masses will hang scientist from trees. History does have a way of repeating itself. And sometimes on larger scales.