> Insignificant wrote:

> I guess I should have been slightly more specific. Can anyone actually pinpoint the relative point in time that basics organisms began to evolve on the large hunk of rock in which we currently reside.

i dont think theres a specific date, theres still several theories as how life started. theres the formation in the sea, formation in the sky, and then theres the beginning of life comming from a meteor theory. i think they have fossils that date back 3-3.5 billion years though, so a long time ago.

> avogadro wrote:

i dont think theres a specific date, theres still several theories as how life started. theres the formation in the sea, formation in the sky, and then theres the beginning of life comming from a meteor theory. i think they have fossils that date back 3-3.5 billion years though, so a long time ago.

Some of those theories however are quite flawed for determining the age of earth. Carbon dating is probably their most useful tool for this. However, carbon dating itself isn't accurate, you can use this particular method to determine the date of; for example, a clay pot that was dated from the Egyptian period of 50bce, but because of the material itself would date the clay content to be about 900bce. Same can be said for many material, because of this, it's impossible to apply this to any earthly material. As they all give varying dates.

Because of the incontinence in Carbon dating, scientists have used the matter from the moon to try and approximate the date of the earth. Using the same method, Carbon dating, which again is flawed for the same reason. However, there is a greater problem with this, this doesn't accurately measure the date of the earth, because of the fact that it's not from the Earth.

Leading to a greater controversy of the true date of the Earth. Which, many Creationists may use to their advantage in their argument. There's a flaw in this though, though the findings might be inconsistent, they still date the earth to approximately 6-4.5 billion years, disproving the 'Young Earth Theory'

I have more to say, on this subject, haven't gone into the evolutionary theorists perspective on the age of earth, just lazy

"There are plenty of theist or otherwise spiritual scientists whom have no difficulty reconciling their beliefs with science. "

its not even a situation of reconciling their beliefs with science. the Catholic Church actually invented the idea of the big bang.

> V.Kemp wrote:

> Catholicism: 1  Creationism: 0

lol, thats what the thread should be called

@Insignificant

I'm sorry, you'll have to go back to the drawing board. Radiocarbon dating is useful, but only if you consider your material to be less than about 60,000 years old. You can not use Carbon-14 to date the Earth, its half-life is much too short. Would you be pissed at a twelve foot tape measure, because it could not measure the full sixteen that you need it to go? No, of course not, you'd merely use a longer tape measure. Scientists in the case of radiometric dating, would use a molecule with a longer half-life, such as uranium, to estimate the age of something very old.

The age of the Earth is a plot of many different isotopes of lead, and use of a method called isochron dating. Isochron dating is a more complex dating method that does not rely on certain assumptions when using simpler radiometric dating methods. As you might have guessed from the name, isochron dating involves a set of data points which you place on a plot, and draw a line through these data points. The line which has the best fit to the data points is the one used for dating. Isochron dating is useful when determining the age of extremely old samples. Some of the oldest rock samples found date back around 4 billion years ago, but this doesn't necessarily equate to the age of the Earth. It does, however, give us an idea in the sense that the Earth /must/ be older than its oldest geological formations. Sedimentary rocks will contain minerals that date older than the rock itself, and this too provides clues into the age of the Earth.

The idea that the Earth is around some 4.5 billion years old comes from multiple samplings and tests on rock and sediment samples, including meteorites that impacted the Earth a very long time ago. The room for error is very small in these samples, since so many tests have been done and the math has been checked, double checked, and cross-checked many, many times.

Again, TalkOrigins has a very lovely essay written on radiometric and isochron dating, with an article dealing specifically with the age of the Earth: http://talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html

@hummy

The only people arguing with science are the creationists. Otherwise, the scientific community itself is pretty well soldified in their beliefs regarding the origin of the universe, of Earth, and are 99% certain of the validity of evolution theory. Nobody doubts this, except for those who treat the Bible as a science and history textbook.

Lol

Sorry. I am totally for science, and against creationism. I prefer to believe in what I can see and touch. Or at least, rationally extrapolate, or deduce. Leaping to a position, on faith, is beyond me.

science does require faith. but i agree with hummy, don't believe one bit that suddenly everything was created by one being. but that things evolved seems a lot more rational. i bet who ever wrote the bible is laughing at us all now! (no offense meant to anyone who believes in the bible).

Science does not require faith. Anyone who claims it does doesn't understand science. Finish high school and come back.

My father is Catholic. He has been all of his life. Even he laughed when I told him that some creationists claim that God put fossils in their earth just to fool evolutionists as to the age of the earth. I had to explain. He just couldn't believe it--it was too ridiculous a claim.