The Age of the Earth - Can it be trusted?

originally posted by: eriktheawful

The age of the Earth is 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years

Age of the Earth - Wikipedia

Take a look at that number. Specifically take a look where it says "± 0.05 billion years"

That's Plus or Minus 50,000,000 years. Plus or Minus 50 million years.

Not exactly a pinpoint figure.

As time goes buy, science learns things. One of the things it learns to do is: ask more questions. And when they find the answers to some of those questions, it can cause even more questions, and cause certain theories or knowledge before it to change.

A long time ago they thought everything surrounded the Earth and orbited it.

Quite a bit later, we figured out that no, everything orbit's the sun.

Still much later we discovered galaxies and found that our sun is in orbit around the center of our galaxy and that our galaxy is just one galaxy among a extremely large number of galaxies through out our universe.

So by your logic: we shouldn't believe science on that either, because they keep changing their minds.

Prior to the 1960s, they thought Venus might be a hot tropical type of world, and they just knew Mercury did not rotate anymore on it's axis.

Turns out Venus is a barren wasteland of temps close to 900 deg F and Mercury does indeed rotate on it's axis.

Prior to the 1970's, we were not 100% sure of the mass of Neptune. Voyager flies by it and allows us to refine what it's mass is with precision.

As we learn more things, we are able to revise things that we know. Science is great that way.

So scientists should learn not to place that much trust in their own work, and should be open to acknowledge the possibility of being wrong?

a reply to: IndependentAgent

Well with the statement that mythology takes on a young version of Earth is Flase.

So much mythology out there tells us the Earth is ancient and has been through a number of world-wide changing events.

Take the mayans for example, their calander extends thousands and thousands of years and each cycle is an age.

Within these ages is a cycle where these ages shift from one to another.

We are in the 5th age of the sun (At least from when they started counting which wasn't that long ago)
Implying that the Earth has had a longstanding history where humanity has had to establish itself from a global order collapse over and over again.

So mythology and legends has some answers for some of our questions. But the Age of the Earth? I'd say the age if the Earth is probably 13 billion years old. I don't hink 4 is long enough.
But all this stuff is just speculation, Even the science behind the age of the Earth.

We can't rely on simply Carbon dating because if elements are exposed to extreme heat, It leeches out energy.
When enegy is leeched out, the atoms become unstable. Therefore it is slightly impossible to know the date of an object through entropy because of these obvious facts.

We could be carbon dating something that is only a few hundred years old but because energy has been leached from the atoms, the carbon is decaying.

Which is why carbon dating is inaccurate no matter how you use it.

Does the ages in the Geological Column change?

originally posted by: IndependentAgent
In the year 1770, the official age of earth was 70,000 years old.
In the year 1905, the official age of earth was 2 billion years old.
In the year 1969, the official age of earth was 3.5 billion years old.
In the year 2014, the official age of earth is 4.45 billion years old.

Now looking at the historical dates, you will find an upward trend of about 38 years per minute...

So prior to -- say -- about 1765, was the Earth a "negative" age?

a reply to: IndependentAgent

depends when they were formed.

You could be looking at a layer that has lots of carbon-14 and a layer above or below that is seemingly absent of it.

An anomoly like that means something violent occured to spread that layer of decaying material.

So carbon dating rock dirt columns would be extremely hard unless of course you knew when those events occured. Then you can estimate how long ago it occured and the percentage of c-14 within that specific event. Compared to layers showing calming times. However, It is impossible to know the time of when such an event occured using c-14. Because you need a sample of the original untainted material (Before the event) and the material forged shortly after.
Which is impossible because you would need a time machine to do it.

Of course we can estimate C-14 from events that happen on Earth well we are still alive.

Take mount ST.Helans. When it erupted a couple years ago within hours of errupting it had dumped layers upon layers of sedimentary rock surrounding the volcano. One day the ridge was normal, the next. Layers upon layers of sediment from the eruption had settled.

When tested with carbon dating. The ammount of C-14 in the sediment suggested that the sediment was hundreds of thousands of years old.

Since we know the time of the event, We know that. The minerals may be 100 thousand said years old. But what we do know is even those its 100 thousand years old it can still layer itself in a day or 2. If we had missed this event, no one would of been the wiser....

its a totally different thing to say a rock is 100 thousand years and another to have it land in piles around you seemlingly having been there *forever* when it showed up in a day or less.

a reply to: AnuTyr

Which is why carbon dating is inaccurate no matter how you use it.

I wouldn't argue that all of our dating technologies have their pros and cons, but to say that carbon dating is wholly inaccurate is... well... inaccurate. Scientists have gone to great lengths to fine tune it, partly by dating things we already know the age of. So it is of at least some benefit in establishing age. Especially used in conjunction with other methods for determining age. Then, C-14 dating becomes a confirmation, rather than a mainstay.

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

originally posted by: IndependentAgent
In the year 1770, the official age of earth was 70,000 years old.
In the year 1905, the official age of earth was 2 billion years old.
In the year 1969, the official age of earth was 3.5 billion years old.
In the year 2014, the official age of earth is 4.45 billion years old.

Now looking at the historical dates, you will find an upward trend of about 38 years per minute...

So prior to -- say -- about 1765, was the Earth a "negative" age?

Perhaps lol.

As part of a training course at a previous employer, we had a trainer (a formerly bogus doctor, no less) who looked like a hobbit come in and he demonstrated in an interpretive dance stylie how he could philosophically give birth to himself, and then we were asked to do the same. Without wetting ourselves or abusing him.

Maybe this is the same?

a reply to: Klassified

You can't find tune a system that measures time on decay.

That's like counting using uranium. Lets mix it with plutonium and estimate the age?

I'm sure the age of the object will increase if you add plutonium. It would be decaying at twice the rate.

originally posted by: AnuTyr
a reply to: Klassified

You can't find tune a system that measures time on decay.

That's like counting using uranium.

But you can fine tune your analysis of the data it provides.

originally posted by: IndependentAgent
Why then does scientists say that they are "absolutely sure that the earth is that old"

Please show a scientific study where such a definitive statement is made.

a reply to: Klassified

No you can't because you don't know if the object in question had undergone any events that would leech it's energy out.

All mass has energy, and energy does not replenish itself other than thru black holes.

So when something undergoes extreme heat, Depending on the atomic structure and the reserve of energy left. Objects will decay slower or faster than other materials.

Carbon dating one mineral in a clump of dirt excludes other minerals. Carbon easily decays much like oxygen.
So at any point if any of this material we are observing has inconsistancies it is probably because of these reasons.

Soil is not just one element. However compound molecules with carbon in them could have their carbon's energy leeched just from existing without any turmoil.

How can you tell the differnence between drained matter (from a cataklysmic event) and regular drained matter caused by decaying slowely over time? You can't it's impossible unless you know the exact date of the event. And in such a case it's pointless because the whole point of C-14 is to know the age of an object.

a reply to: AnuTyr

some of those posts were insightful but i couldn't help thinking of "the movies" (yet again)

maya: (2012 stuff etc) We are in the 5th age of the sun

the architect: (from the matrix movies) "..and this will be the 5th time we have destroyed it.. and we are getting very good at it" (or whatever bull# number he said)

..i think there's a reason why the system keeps cranking this stuff out & making it readily accessible while fresh food, affordable housing, good jobs, health care etc are increasingly difficult to come by

..maybe it's been this way for billions of years, eh?

a reply to: IndependentAgent

So what's your position?

How old do you think the earth is?

If "science" is not to be trusted, what other data do we have to as accurately as possible estimate the age of the earth?

a reply to: AnuTyr

Your understanding of atomic structure is little misplaced. An atom will not decay any faster or slower depending on the energy applied to it. The atom will either undergo fission (splitting) or fusion (combining with other atoms) depending on the type and intensity of the energy applied.

For example, one type of energy is neutron bombardment. A neutron has the potential to split an atom. This works particularly well on unstable (radioactive) atoms.

Now, if supply enough energy to an atom, it can become hot enough and energetic enough to circumvent the strong and weak nuclear forces, and dissipate into it's component parts. Heat those particles more, and they separate into their respective sub-atomic particles like quarks and leptons. But once the atom breaks these forces, it's no longer an atom. It's only a soup of neutrons and protons.

Carbon is a highly stable atom, but a small percentage of carbon exists as an unstable particle, known as carbon-14. This is what they measure. (At least that is how they USED to person radiometic dating, the processes have changed now).

Saying carbon and oxygen are unstable as atoms is incorrect. Technically, ALL atoms are unstable to an extent, but the halflife of "stable" particles like carbon and oxygen are longer than the current age of the universe.

So, radioisotopes are good way to get a fairly accurate measure of the age of something extremely old. They decay at set rates depending on the atom, and that rate is measurable. No amount of energy can cause an atom to decay differently.

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
a reply to: IndependentAgent

Science is accurate in that it shows the earth is old, as opposed to mythology stating that it's young.

Could you show me where mythology states the earth is young? Just because some interpret it that way doesn't mean that is what it says.

Neutrons hold a lot of energy, If you pick a smaller sub-atomic particle and channel energy through it. it will become stable.

why? Because it is transfering energy to the other object and well this is occure entropy is being released.

Entropy is any form of action, Such as splitting, vibration, Emitting electrons-protons.

Non of that energy is replaced when it is consumed only displaced.

Entropy

originally posted by: AnuTyr
...We are in the 5th age of the sun (At least from when they started counting which wasn't that long ago)
Implying that the Earth has had a longstanding history where humanity has had to establish itself from a global order collapse over and over again.

Humans have only been around for an extremely short time. There is much, much, much more geological history before humans than since the coming of humans. Heck, there is much, much, much more geological history that came before dinosaurs than since the dinosaurs died.

Dinosaurs are relative newcomers to the Earth. Humans (even early "ape-men") are extreme newcomers.

So written accounts of earth history by humans alone cannot tell us what the earth was like prior to humans (although interpreting geological evidence can give us clues).

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

A lot can happen in a couple million years.

a reply to: stosh64

As compared to science, yes, mythology paints the earth as much younger.

Egyptian mythology places the earth near 60,000 years old. That's 0.02% of science's current best calculation.

originally posted by: AnuTyr
a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

A lot can happen in a couple million years.

So we have a fossil record of our non-human early ancestors that lived 1,000,000 years ago, yet we have no fossil record of any humans from back then, nor any archaeological record of their society?

Why can we find records of other 1 million year old (and older) early-human primates, and even other animals -- but not 1 million year old (or more) humans?