Instigator / Pro
Dr.Franklin's avatar
7
Dr.Franklin
1616
rating
32
debates
62.5%
won
Topic
#1100

The Earth is older than 6-10k Years old

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
3
Better sources
2
2
Better legibility
1
1
Better conduct
1
1

After 1 vote and with the same amount of points on both sides...

It's a tie!
Tags
Science
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Type
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Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
Two weeks
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
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Contender / Con
MisterChris's avatar
7
MisterChris
1762
rating
45
debates
88.89%
won
Description

Full resolution:The Earth is older than 6-10k years old and most likely 4.5 Billion years old. I am Pro.

**This is a scientific debate,not Religious**

**Yes, I am a Christian but I believe in Creation and Evolution simultaneously.**

**BOP is shared**

R1-Argument
R2-Rebuttal
R3-Defense/closing thoughts and conclusions

Rules are simple
1.No Insults or Personal Attacks
2.No Forfeits
3.No Kritiks
4.No New arguments made in final round
5.No trolling
6.No getting off topic
7.No waiving
8.You must follow the Debate Structure
9.You can not agree with my stance
10.No swears
11.No offensive words
12.No Plagiarism

**ANY violation of these rules merits a loss**

Good luck and have fun

Round 1
Dr.Franklin's avatar
Dr.Franklin
Pro
#1
I would like to thank christopher_best for accepting. Hopefully we can have an intelligent discussion. 

The oldest rocks> found so far on Earth are Acasta Gneisses in northwestern Canada near Great Slave Lake (4.03 Ga) and the Isua Supracrustal rocks in West Greenland (3.7 to 3.8 Ga){1}

So how were these rocks found?

Radioactive dating.>The universe is made up of radioactive elements. As understanding evolution at Berkeley University explains{2}

When molten rock cools, forming what are called igneous rocks, radioactive atoms are trapped inside. Afterwards, they decay at a predictable rate. By measuring the quantity of unstable atoms left in a rock and comparing it to the quantity of stable daughter atoms in the rock, scientists can estimate the amount of time that has passed since that rock formed.
Pangea>. Since I claim that that the Earth is 4.5 Billion years old than Pangea must be a fact and it is. The evidence is overwhelming

A.Pangea is a fact
B.Pangea confirms the claim that the Earth is older.
C.The Earth is 4.5 Billion years old

A.Pangea is a fact

Theres a lot of evidence for Pangea>1.Plant species distribution. The tectonic plates that split apart match with the plant species. For example The cycads in Brazil matched the ones in West Africa because Tectonic Plates broke away. Is it a coincidence that these plant species match with tectonic plates?As demonstrated by this website,there are dozens of examples of plant species and continental drift and Pangea.{3}

2.Fossils-The Cynogathus fossil is found in Africa and South America which fits Pangea. The Lystrosaurus fossils are found in the same areas as Pangea connections. Same with the Glossopteris{4}

3.Rock Age-The Age of Rocks are identical in West Africa and South American as well as Indian and Madagascar.{4}

B. If the Earth is 6 to 10k years old,then Pangea wouldn't be a thing. But it is.
C.Pangea is 100% confirmation of an Older Earth

Non Radioactive Dating Methods>There are some more methods that don't include radioactivity. Some of these methods confirm the Earths age.

1.Dendrochronology, or tree-ring dating.These are 100% reliable and correct. As Davis A.Young explains

Ideally each ring can be precisely dated to the year of its growth. As a result, dendrochronology has served as the standard for the last 10,000 years by which other methods such as radiocarbon are calibrated. Most tree species typically produce annual growth rings characterized by a light-colored earlywood band that grades into a dark-colored latewood band. The following year’s growth ring is sharply demarcated from the preceding year’s growth ring. Although many trees generate rings of approximately constant thickness from year to year, trees sensitive to stressful changes in environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity will produce rings that vary in thickness from year to year. Growth is generally promoted by higher average temperature and high precipitation. It is the sensitive tree species that are the best suited to dendrochronological dating because, to determine when a tree lived and died, portions of its ring pattern are matched to ring sequences with similar relative thickness variations in a standard master chronology
So what are the oldest trees. Well European oak trees have been used to build a 12,000-year chronology. More than 6-10k years.{5}

Glacial Cycles>Marine records in the Antarctic suggest climate records older than 6-10k years old. The recovery of a deep ice core in Antartica provides a climate record for 740,000 years. As Nature.con reports

Ice cores provide the most direct and highly resolved records of (especially) atmospheric parameters over these timescales. They record climate signals, as well as forcing factors of global significance such as greenhouse gases and of more regional significance such as atmospheric aerosol content. Until now, ice-core data have been available only for the past 420 kyr, with the longest record coming from Vostok in East Antarcticahese data indicated the similarities of the last four glacial terminations. They showed that glacials and interglacials had similar bounds in the measured properties over the last four cycles. Most tellingly, they showed the very close association between greenhouse gases 
This Ice Depth confirms that The Earth can't be 6-10k years old.{6}

Detrical Zircons>Evidence of an old crust in Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia, where grains as old as ∼4,276 Myr have been found. the zircon is zoned with respect to rare earth elements and oxygen isotope ratios. These Zircons and grains using complex mathematical equations 100% confirms that the Earth is very old and is the earliest evidence for The Old Earth Theory.{7}

Oxidizable carbon ratio dating>This is a complex process,but to sum up-This method is used to measure the ratio of oxidizable carbon to organic carbon.When the sample is burned, there will be no more oxidizable carbon because it has been removed by lighting it on fire. Over time this will change, and the amount of organic carbon will decrease and then to be replaced by oxidizable carbon with linear rate. By measuring the ratio of these two allotropes, one can determine ages of over 20,000 years ago with a standard error under 3%.{8}{9}

Impact Craters>An impact Crater hits Earth about every 313,000 years.{10} So if the Earth was 6-10k years old, the number of Impact Craters would be 0 or 1. But actually hundreds have been discovered and they have databases.{11}

Recession of the Moon> The Recession of the Moon 100% confirms The Earth is older than 6 to 10k years old.. As RationalWiki explains{9}

South African rocks studied by geologist Ken Eriksson contain ancient tidal deposits indicating that at some point in the past, the Moon orbited "25-percent closer to Earth than it does today."The distance between the Earth and the Moon is 384,403 kilometers, so for Ken Eriksson's work to fit with a YEC timescale the Earth would have to have been receding at a speed greater than 15 kilometers per year. However, the Moon is currently receding from the Earth at a rate of 3.8 centimeters per year.
More recent work on Precambrian sediments gives more precise numbers. From Neoproterozoic (620 million years ago) "tidal rhythmites" in Elatina and Reynella, Australia, the Moon's major axis had a value 0.965 ± 0.005 times its present-day value. That implies an average recession rate of 2.17 ± 0.31 cm/yr, a little more than half the present-day rate of 3.82 ± 0.07 cm/yr. Going back further to banded iron formations in Western Australia in the Paleoproterozoic (2450 Mya), one finds a major-axis ratio of 0.906 ± 0.029, and an average recession rate of 1.24 ± 0.71 cm/yr over most of the Proterozoic So for whatever reason, the Moon is now outspiraling relatively rapidly.




MisterChris's avatar
MisterChris
Con
#2
Lovely constructive by Dr. Franklin.

Resolved: The Earth is older than 6-10k years old and is most likely 4.5 Billion years old.

This resolution has duel claims, making it a requirement that, for the Pro to win, they uphold both. That, firstly, the Earth is definitely older than 6-10k years old, and secondly, that Earth is (in most likelihood) 4.5 billion years old. If I prove either one of those statements false, the resolution is false and I win by logical extension.
Therefore, the thesis of my case will be that:
  1. Firstly, there is substantial evidence to suggest the Earth is, in fact, 6-10k years old.
  2. Secondly, there is substantial evidence to suggest that there is virtually no likelihood of a Big Bang/Evolutionary Universe. (As it is given in this debate that if the Earth were 4.5 billion years old the universe would follow the Big Bang Model and that if it were 6-10k years old the universe would have been birthed through Creation.)
Contention 1: A Young Earth

Subpoint A: Geology

Sediments:
Every year water and wind erode about 20 billion tons of dirt and rock debris from the continents and deposit them on the seafloor. Most of this material accumulates as loose sediments near the continents. Yet, the average thickness of all these sediments globally over the whole seafloor is not even 1,300 feet (400 m). Some sediments appear to be removed as tectonic plates slide slowly (an inch or two per year) beneath continents. An estimated 1 billion tons of sediments are removed this way each year. The net gain is thus 19 billion tons per year. At this rate, 1,300 feet of sediment would accumulate in less than 12 million years, not billions of years! This evidence makes sense within the context of the Genesis Flood cataclysm, not the idea of slow and gradual geologic evolution. In the latter stages of the year-long global Flood, water swiftly drained off the emerging land, dumping its sediment-choked loads offshore. Thus, most seafloor sediments accumulated rapidly about 4,300 years ago.

Rock layers: 
In many mountainous areas, rock layers thousands of feet thick have been bent and folded without fracturing. How can that happen if they were laid down separately over hundreds of millions of years and already hardened? Hardened rock layers are brittle. However, they can be bent and folded soon after the sediment is deposited, before the natural cements have a chance to bind the particles together into hard, brittle rocks.

The region around Grand Canyon is a great example.
There are whole sequences of these hardened sedimentary rock layers being bent and folded, but without fracturing. Tapeats Sandstone, which is 100–325 feet (30–100 meters) thick, is bent and folded 90° in some instances. The Muav Limestone above has similarly been bent. However, it supposedly took 270 million years to deposit these particular layers. Surely in that time the Tapeats Sandstone at the bottom would have dried out and the sand grains cemented together, especially with 4,000 feet (1,220 m) of rock layers piled on top of it and pressing down on it? The only viable scientific explanation is that the whole sequence was deposited very quickly—the creation model indicates that it took less than a year, during the global Flood cataclysm. So the 520 million years never happened, and the earth is young.

Heat and pressure can make hard rock layers pliable, so old-earth advocates claim this must be what happened in the eastern Grand Canyon. Just one problem. The heat and pressure would have transformed these layers into metamorphic rocks. Yet Tapeats Sandstone is still sandstone, a sedimentary rock!
But this quandary is even worse for those who deny the Flood. The Tapeats Sandstone and its equivalents can be traced right across North America, and beyond to across northern Africa to southern Israel. Indeed, the whole Grand Canyon sedimentary sequence is an integral part of six megasequences that cover North America. Only a global Flood cataclysm could carry the sediments to deposit thick layers across several continents one after the other in rapid succession in one event.

Subpoint B: Astronomy
Faint Sun Paradox:
Evidence now supports astronomers’ belief that the sun’s power comes from the fusion of hydrogen into helium deep in the sun’s core, but there is a huge problem. As the hydrogen fuses, it should change the composition of the sun’s core, gradually increasing the sun’s temperature. If true, this means that the earth was colder in the past. In fact, the earth would have been below freezing 3.5 billion years ago, when life supposedly evolved.
The rate of nuclear fusion depends upon the temperature. As the sun’s core temperatures increase, the sun’s energy output should also increase, causing the sun to brighten over time. Calculations show that the sun would brighten by 25% after 3.5 billion years. This means that an early sun would have been fainter, warming the earth 31°F (17°C) less than it does today. That’s below freezing.
But evolutionists acknowledge that there is no evidence of this in the geologic record. They even call this problem the faint young sun paradox. While this isn’t a problem over many thousands of years, it is a problem if the world is billions of years old.

Comets:
A comet spends most of its time far from the sun in the deep freeze of space. But once each orbit a comet comes very close to the sun, allowing the sun’s heat to evaporate much of the comet’s ice and dislodge dust to form a beautiful tail. Comets have little mass, so each close pass to the sun greatly reduces a comet’s size, and eventually comets fade away. They can’t survive billions of years.
Two other mechanisms can destroy comets—ejections from the solar system and collisions with planets.
Given the loss rates, it’s easy to compute a maximum age of comets. That maximum age is only a few million years. Obviously, their prevalence makes sense if the entire solar system was created just a few thousand years ago, but not if it arose billions of years ago.

Subpoint C: Paleontology

A recent discovery by Dr. Mary Schweitzer has given reason for all but committed evolutionists to question whether dinosaurs died off 65 million years ago.

Bone slices from the fossilized thigh bone of a T-rex found in Montana were studied under the microscope by Schweitzer. To her amazement, the bone showed what appeared to be blood vessels of the type seen in bone and marrow, and these contained what appeared to be red blood cells with nuclei, typical of reptiles and birds (but not mammals). The vessels even appeared to be lined with specialized endothelial cells found in all blood vessels. Amazingly, the bone marrow contained what appeared to be flexible tissue.

It is quite literally impossible for such detail to be preserved for 65 million years.
However, many studies of humans of old age show all the sorts of detail Schweitzer reported in her T. rex. The Tyrolean iceman, found in the Alps in 1991 and believed to be about 5,000 years old, shows such incredible preservation of DNA and other microscopic detail.
We conclude that the preservation of vessels, cells, and complex molecules in dinosaurs is entirely consistent with a young-earth creationist perspective but is highly implausible with the evolutionist’s perspective about dinosaurs that died off millions of years ago.


Contention 2: Unlikelihood of Big Bang/Old Earth

Occam’s Razor states that that which has the fewest adjustable parameters should be chosen. However, the Big Bang theory opposes Occam’s Razor, because it can only exist with innumerable adjustable parameters.

This is proven with unproven substances:

For example, Dark Matter and Dark Energy have never been proven, or observed in any way whatsoever, yet the Big Bang theory depends on the existence of such potentially mythological substances. Not only that, but in order for the Big Bang theory to even be valid, dark matter and dark energy would have to be the most abundant things in the universe.

Another example is the magnetic monopole.If the Big Bang theory were true, it should be one of the most prevalent (common) particles in the universe. However, instead it is the complete opposite - a magnetic monopole has never even been observed, not even once.

It is also proven with the improbability of the universe having been randomly birthed to the fine-tuning required for life:Even absolutely minuscule tweaks in the laws of nature would be devastating for life.
For example, If protons were 0.2 percent heavier, they would decay into neutrons, destabilizing atoms.
It becomes clear, that some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be less than 1 part in 10^40000. Imagine shooting a bullet from one side of the observable universe to a 1-inch target on the other. It would have a one out of 10^60th chance of hitting. That compared to 10^40000 is mind-blowing, and impossible to ignore.
Here's another quote to put it into perspective:
"Imagine 10^50 blind persons each with a scrambled Rubik's cube, and try to conceive of the chance of them all simultaneously arriving at the solved form. You then have a chance of arriving by random shuffling of just one of the many bio-polymers on which life depends. The notion that not only the bio-polymers but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order."

All of these flaws demonstrate that the Big Bang theory and evolution is the biggest revolt against science in human history. Because of the vast unlikelihood of an Old Earth, we must prefer a younger model.

Sources compiled:

Round 2
Dr.Franklin's avatar
Dr.Franklin
Pro
#3
Once again, Quite nice constructive by christopher best. Nice

I will now rebuttal since its R2

Sediments>This is a very common argument, First of all to say Sediment on the ocean is misleading. Much sediment never gets to the ocean floor, but is trapped instead on continental slopes and shelves, or in huge river deltas. The current sea floor is young because it has gone through so much transition. Volcanoes,Earthquakes,mantle disruptions,tectonic plates has moved on all parts of the Ocean having major affects. The two extinction periods,etc,etc.The oldest crust is radioactively dated to 200 million years old, also is it a coincidence that the areas where the crust is older,there is a lot more sediment,wouldn’t it be random if it was affected by the great Flood. Sediment also dissolve after being the ocean for a long time. Overall the sediment on the ocean floor is NOT a good way to estimate the age of the Earth.{1}

Rock Layers>This argument is made primarily by Andrew A Snelling. This argument he keeps saying is fundamentally flawed. They are 4 major flaws in this argument that shows Snelling is misleading,manipulative and wrong.As geochristian explains{2}

1. First, Snelling has oversimplified the processes of rock deformation by stating that it is either ductile deformation of soft rocks, or plastic deformation of soft rocks. It is one thing to simplify a scientific concept for the sake of writing for a general audience, but Snelling has completely mislead his readers on this one.
Snelling states that only soft sediments are capable of ductile deformation; that soft sediments will deform like clay, while solid rocks are brittle and only capable of fracture. In reality, most solid rocks are capable of either brittle or ductile deformation, depending on the conditions. Factors that determine which will happen include the type of rock, the amount and type of stress applied to the rock; lithostatic pressure (due to the weight of overlying rocks), temperature, strain rate (fast or slow deformation), type of cement holding the grains together, and fluid pressure.
At low temperatures and pressures, such as those encountered at Earth’s surface, almost all rocks deform in a brittle manner. If one applies sufficient stress to these rocks, they will break. As one goes deeper in the Earth’s crust, temperature and pressure increases, and rocks are more likely to behave in ductile rather than a brittle fashion.  Some rock types can deform by folding at depths of less than one kilometer if stress is applied slowly. With increasing depth and temperature, more rock types can deform by folding rather than faulting.
The Tapeats Sandstone is presently buried beneath up to two kilometers of sediment, and was likely buried more deeply than this at the time of deformation.
2. A second problem for Snelling’s argument is that there are a variety of mechanisms by which a solid rock can bend rather than break. Think of a layer of sandstone, such as the Tapeats Sandstone at the base of the Grand Canyon Paleozoic sedimentary pile. A layer such as this can be folded without significant fracturing by several means:
  1. Intergranular movement — individual sand grains slide past each other
  2. Intragranular deformation — internal distortions within individual grains, often at the atomic level
  3. Recrystallization — atoms are rearranged at the atomic level, often in the presence of fluids.
Snelling completely ignores these, even though any of them could have been in operation at the time of deformation.3. A third—and very serious—problem for Snelling’s argument is the nature of soft-sediment deformation. He tries to show that intense folding in the Tapeats Sandstone is the result of soft-sediment deformation. But if the Tapeats and overlying formations had been soft at the time of deformation, soft-sediment deformation and slumping would have occurred on a much larger scale than what is seen at this location in the Grand Canyon.
When layers of solid rock deform, they maintain their integrity as distinct layers. For example, whether folded or faulted, the Redwall Limestone of the Grand Canyon retains its identity as a distinct layer, without mixing with other rock units. Soft sediments, on the other hand, can respond to stress in a number of ways. In addition to folding, a results of deformation of soft sediments includes different types of soft sediment deformation and differential loading structures, such as intense localized folding, diapirs, sand pillows, and clastic dikes These structures are formed because of the inherent instability of a stack of unconsolidated sediments of varying densities and water contents.Soft sediment deformation structures are common within individual layers of the geologic column, having been formed when these layers were unlithified. For the young-Earth creationists to make their case, however, they need to be able to demonstrate that soft sediment deformation is present in the geologic record on a massive, inter-formational scale. It would not be enough to point out isolated instances of soft-sediment deformation within layers.
4. Related to the problem of soft-sediment deformation is the problem with slumping. If this stack of sediments—a few thousand meters thick—were faulted as in Figure 1, one would expect the upper layers to slide downhill under the influence of gravityAs a rule, this sort of thing is not observed in the geological record, and where it is (e.g. Heart Mountain, Wyoming) it clearly occurred in the solid state.
Faint Sun Paradox>I have to say,this argument stumped me for a while but this is an old paradox made in 1972 that has found 3 solutions:

1.Early comets hit the Earth and created water and the oceans as Nasa explains.{3}

A new study reveals that the water in many comets may share a common origin with Earth’s oceans, reinforcing the idea that comets played a key role in bringing water to our planet billions of years ago.

That combined with the fact that the Moon hit the Earth. The planet known as Theia collided with the Earth.It had an impact of 100 million more times than the dinosaur extinction.{4}.The dinosaur extinction event increased the Earth Temperature by 5 degrees Celsius WITH an ozone layer{5}. Imagine the metric SHIT TON of CO2 and greenhouse gases in an event where the collision was 100 MILLION times the event WITHOUT AN OZONE LAYER OR AN ATMOSPHERE. That can trap the heat and warm the planet. The comets also released gases that are essential for life.{6}

2.The sun releases ultra rays that disrupts the magnetic fields of earth and penetrates/disrupts the gasses in the Atmosphere. An early sun would have many more rays like these. Without an atmosphere, the rays can heat the Earth.{6}

3.coronal mass ejections in Earth’s past lead to fewer cosmic rays hitting Earth which lead to less cloud cover. Less cloud cover meant that less sunlight would have been reflected back into space which would have allowed the surface to heat up.{7}

Combining these three solutions make the 1972 old paradox irrelevant now. 

Comets>Comets can either have two orbits,short period or long period.Astronomers have concluded that reservoirs include the origin of comets.The Oort cloud and Kuiper belt are the reservoirs that were proposed to explain the observations of comet orbits. The Oort cloud reportedly consists of approximately 100 trillion comets occupying an immense space at the very edge of the solar system, somewhere between 1,000 and 100,000 A.U. An astronomical unit is the distance between the sun and the Earth. the inner solar system receives only a small fraction of the total number of comets in the solar system. To say that these comets lead to a young universe and Earth is misleading. The reservoirs are 100% fact and confirmed. Ground based equipment has been able to confirm the existence of the Kuiper belt in the last 15 years.{8}

Paleontology/Dinosaur Remains>Again, good argument but this was recently explained by scientists in new research. The answer is IRON. Iron is an essential part of the body and its elements. It carries proteins and nutrients through blood streams and the heart. After death, though, iron is let free from its cage. It forms minuscule iron nanoparticles and also generates free radicals, which are highly reactive molecules thought to be involved in aging.The process of reserving tissue over time in Formaldehyde. As Live science explains:

“dinosaur soft tissue is closely associated with iron nanoparticles in both the T. rex and another soft-tissue specimen from Brachylophosaurus canadensis, a type of duck-billed dinosaur. They then tested the iron-as-preservative idea using modern ostrich blood vessels. They soaked one group of blood vessels in iron-rich liquid made of red blood cells and another group in water. The blood vessels left in water turned into a disgusting mess within days. The blood vessels soaked in red blood cells remain recognizable after sitting at room temperature for two years.”
So Iron reserves and the process of Formaldehyde is the solution{9}

Big Bang Unlikelihood>1.Dark Matter and Dark Energy is 100% fact. First Dark matter contains 27% of the universe. Dark energy accounts for 68%. The universe is expanding. The matter in the universe was pulls everything together. Everyone thought that it was gravity that was leading the slowing down of the expanding universe. But it was accelerating. How?Dark energy. The empty space between planets isn’t empty. It’s actually full of particles that form and then disappear. This energy fluid fills space and As more space comes into existence, more of this energy-of-space would appear. As a result, this form of energy would cause the universe to expand faster and faster.Albert Einstein even concluded this theory is correct in his empty-space theory.{10}

Im out of character space, I will continue the argument here-https://www.writeurl.com/text/pg94sft87wzb1yvwi2n8/9d92w0wpohfwi13iler6

Sources in comments Post # 37

MisterChris's avatar
MisterChris
Con
#4

For clarification, as this is rebuttal section I will be directly addressing ONLY Dr.Franklin's case, I can NOT cover his rebuttal yet!
(although it is written quite well).

The arguments Dr.Franklin chose to articulate, although articulated impressively indeed, can be boiled down to one word: assumption.

Radiometric dating:
The very first point in this case is that of supposedly ancient rocks, identified through radiometric dating. This is presented as some sort of proof, although radiometric dating is indeed based in assumption.
It is founded on the unprovable assumptions: that there were daughter isotopes to begin with, that the decay rate has remained constant, and that there has been no contamination.

Assumption 1:
Regarding the first assumption, geologists have tried to predict the beginning number of daughter isotopes accurately, but this is via the so-called isochron technique, which is still based on the other assumptions I spoke of!
Take Argon-40 dating as an example of many. As Dr. Andrew A. Snelling writes, using both his own research and that of S. A. Austin:
“lava flows that have occurred in the present have been tested soon after they erupted, and they invariably contained much more argon-40 than expected. For example, lava flows on the sides of Mt. Ngauruhoe, New Zealand, known to be less than 50 years old, yielded “ages” of up to 3.5 million years.”
He goes on to conclude, “it is logical to conclude that if recent lava flows of known age yield incorrect old potassium-argon ages due to the extra argon-40 that they inherited from erupting volcanoes, then ancient lava flows of unknown ages could likewise have inherited extra argon-40 and yield excessively old ages.”

Assumption 2: 
There is evidence that suggests while rates may be relatively constant within 100 years or so, it is a much different story beyond that.
According to L. Vardiman, A. A. Snelling, and E. F. Chaffin:
“the radioactive decay of uranium in tiny crystals in a New Mexico granite yields a uranium-lead “age” of 1.5 billion years. Yet the same uranium decay also produced abundant helium, but only 6,000 years worth of that helium was found to have leaked out of the tiny crystals.
This means that the uranium must have decayed very rapidly over the same 6,000 years that the helium was leaking. The rate of uranium decay must have been at least 250,000 times faster than today’s measured rate.”

Assumption 3:
Contamination from wall-rocks as lava is spewed during eruption, the molten rocks beneath volcanoes, and even rainwater is completely unaccounted for in these calculations. Clearly, over spans of billions of years, that leads to huge miscalculation.
According to Snelling, “Because of such contamination, the less than 50-year-old lava flows at Mt. Ngauruhoe, New Zealand, yield a rubidium-strontium “age” of 133 million years, a samarium-neodymium “age” of 197 million years, and a uranium-lead “age” of 3.908 billion years!”

In essence, combinations of all these assumptions lead to massively over-bloated dates, therefore delinking any argument the Affirmative can make regarding radiometric dating.


Pangaea:
The second major assumption my opponent throws around is that Pangaea is “proven fact.”
And the assumption that Pangaea having existed, therefore proves an old Earth.

Assumption 1:
Pangaea is not proven, there is only substantial evidence for a Pangaea. I will therefore give my opponent the benefit of the doubt here and concede for debate purposes that Pangaea existed. In fact, the motion of the earth’s crust is accepted by secular and creationist scientists alike. The difference lies in the time frame over which the movement has happened. 

Assumption 2:
Pangaea having existed does NOT, however, prove that it existed 4.5 billion years ago as opposed to 6-10k years ago. There is significant evidence that Pangaea was/could have been broken as a result of the Flood!
As Roger Patterson writes,
“Dr. John Baumgardner, with the cooperation of others, has used world-class computer modeling to show how the subduction (sinking into the mantle) of the ocean floor could have happened at a quick pace. As the region of cold ocean crust near the continents began to sink into the mantle, it pulled the rest of the seafloor with it. New magma rose up replacing the old along what are the mid-ocean ridges today. In just a matter of weeks, the continental plates could have separated and settled near their present positions.”
He goes on to say,
“As the magma rose to replace the spreading seafloor, it would have produced massive jets of steam carrying large amounts of water high into the atmosphere. This matches the description in the Bible and provides a mechanism to explain where all of the water for the Flood came from.
Another effect would be flooding across the continents. As the hot, lower-density magma rose, the new ocean floor would have floated higher than the original ocean crust, displacing the water and forcing it onto the continents. This explains how marine creatures were deposited in thick and extensive layers across the continents and how fossils of marine organisms wound up on the tops of the mountains. The secular uniformitarian model has great difficulty explaining these features.”

Dendrochronology:
The third major assumption my opponent makes is that tree-ring dating is infallible. 
However, my opponent’s explanation of the process ignores several factors that determine the growth rate of trees and the width of their growth rings—the soils, altitude, water table, climate, seasons, and weather. Droughts, fires, and periods of abnormally high rainfall will impact the growth pattern of tree rings, so a tree will not always have one growth ring per year.

Furthermore, tree-ring dating has another fatal flaw aswell. 
As Snelling writes, 
“[In order to date visually,] Scientists must visually compare the appearance of growth rings, noting where some rings appear thicker or thinner. They then match the patterns in dead trees to other trees. In this way, scientists establish a hypothetical series of rings, some thin and some thick, going back thousands of years for each species.”

However, he goes on to say that 
“this involves massive layers of questionable interpretation. Matching growth rings between different wood samples is called “cross-dating” or “cross-matching.” Though it seems this matching would be easy, counting growth rings is tedious, and visually cross-matching similar ring patterns and specific growth rings from sample to sample is highly subjective. There can be major variations from tree to tree in a forest and, accordingly, in the wooden beams used to build houses. “

And so, he goes on to conclude:
“So scientists don’t rely on visual comparisons. They use radiocarbon (14C) dating of growth rings to obtain their approximate age. Then they match this information to the associated pattern of rings in the master tree-ring chronology. However, ironically, radiocarbon dating is calibrated and corrected using tree-ring chronologies. So conclusions about tree-ring ages depend on radiocarbon dating, which depends on tree rings, which depends on radiocarbon dating. Neither tree-ring counting nor radiocarbon dating is conclusive alone.”

This is fatal for tree-centric dating, as I have already illustrated the fatal flaws in radioactive dating! Anyone can see that this form of circular reasoning devolves into inaccurate dates!

Glacial Cycles:

Next, my opponent assumes that ice cores of the Arctic suggests of climate records older than 6-10k years. 
This assumption is based on the belief that the layers found are annual in nature. 
What if multiple ice layers have accumulated every year? Multiple evidences point to that very thing.

As Snelling writes,
“Consider the World War II fighter plane abandoned on a Greenland glacier in 1942. When history buffs tried to recover the plane 46 years later, they were astonished to find that more than 250 feet (75 m) of ice had already entombed it. That 250 feet held many more layers than the 50 it should have had if only one layer had accumulated every year.
And we don’t have to be scientists to know that snow usually leaves more than one layer a year. Snow layers are visible every time snow falls through the winter months. When you clear your driveway or sidewalk of snow, you can see snow layers in the banks of accumulated snow you just shoveled through.”
 
He goes on to cite Dr. Larry Vardiman, former atmospheric physicist for the Institute for Creation Research. 
“He and his graduate students tested alternative possibilities. They examined computer records of known storms to simulate their behavior if the surface of the ocean were hotter, as it was in the early decades after the Flood. (Remember those hot volcanic waters that were released from “the fountains of the great deep” at the start of the Flood? They would have raised the ocean water temperatures considerably.)
These researchers found that huge storms would have swept across polar regions, dumping many inches of snow every week. As the surface melted between these storms, 20 or more ice layers could easily have accumulated every year during the first century or two after the Flood. The same time period saw many dust-producing volcanic eruptions, as supervolcanoes rocked the earth and the planet settled into relative quiet after the cataclysmic upheavals of the Flood. So most of the ice core layers would probably have accumulated during the turbulent centuries of the post-Flood Ice Age.”

Round 3
Dr.Franklin's avatar
Dr.Franklin
Pro
#5
Very nice rebuttal by christopher_best. It is R3 so I will now defend my points

A= Assumption

Radiometric Dating>A1-This can be explained quite well. Rocks underneath Earth’s crust can come through volcanoes and exploded. Mixed with new rocks and lava the results may vary, however this argument has fundamental flaws, this argument first discovered and tested by G.B Darlymple, has two biases. First, he used 196.1 instead of 295.5,the accepted rate between 40aR to 26aR, Last, testing multiple times whenever a result was not statistically compatible with zero age, but testing only once whenever it was. This can not be justified. If one is trying to accurately ascertain the proportion of dates that are different from zero, one should test all samples using the same protocol. These results are biased because of these 2 flaws and should not be considered scientific findings.{1}

A2-This argument claims that radiometric dating and helium dating tell very different stories of the age of the uranium,discrediting radiometric dating. This argument comes from RATE. However they are concerns about this report notably that in an appendix to the final report, the lead scientist expressed some confusion as to the behavior of a rock sample which can only be explained as impurities in the sample.These samples were also used in vacuum. As Professor Timothy .Heaton observed

“another serious procedural error is that there is no distinction in the amount of Helium diffused that separates 3Helium from 4Helium. One may wonder why such a detail would matter; after all, Helium is Helium, right? Most of the 3Helium would not have been caused by decay while most-if not all-of the 4Helium would be the result of decay, so to simply state that a certain amount of Helium diffused from the rock would be inaccurately representing the facts.”

Another argument that is fundamentally flawed{2}

A3-This is incorrect. As proven above, this test was flawed. Using 2 biases and leaving out information. Extend my A1 response.

Pangea>

A1-Opponent concedes and claims that pangea went out by catastrophic Plate tectonics. 

A2-This argument is more commonly known as the Catastrophic plate tectonic(s) argument. Once again,this argument is fundamentally flawed. Now if these continents just flew across the Earth there would be consequences, One of them being the heat necessarily generated by friction between the crustal rock, and the upper mantle. The amount of heat generated could have sent the oceans into steam and melt the crust. we can calculate an estimate of the energy needed to push up mountains all over the world as continents crash together. If this were to have occurred rapidly, again the heat generated would have melted the mountains, and not force them into the air.There are more flaws as stonessblogs explains:

“In the scientific study of continental movement, we learned that there are submarine spreading zones marked by intermittent basalt eruptions that force the continents apart. We also know that the Earth's magnetic field occasionally reverses polarity. As the rock of submarine basalt ridges cools, it records the magnetic polarity of the planet. Basalt on continents does the same thing, but not quite so well. Below is a map of the magnetic reversals recorded from a submarine spreading zone, and the corresponding map of these polarity changes from a stacked series of continental basalts;”
Again,this argument is fundamentally flawed.{4}

Dendrochronology>So you claim that a great flood happened 4,300 years ago and wiped out life on Earth. All I have to prove NOW, instead of a tree older than 10k,now older than 4,300.Now yes, just measuring the rings can be inaccurate at times, but scientists use another process called skeleton plotting, where scientists determine the qualities of each ring and determine whether other local trees possess the same qualities. So that way, trees can be measured differently, we are also talking about certain trees, not special circumstances where some trees are dated inaccurately. Carbon dating and tree ring dating. The carbon-14 dating is just to make sure that the tree rings are correct, and they are most of the time and corrections can be made quite easily. These 2 trees prove The Global flood did not happen 4,300 years ago.And was proved by 5 DIFFERENT METHODS!, all proven to be aligned correctly. {5}.{6}

1.Methuselah is 4850 years old
2.Prometheus is 4899 years old (549 too many).

Glacial Cycles>Your greenland point is irrelevant,were talking about Antarctica who is inherently different.Your second point relies heavily on some Mini Ice Age after the Flood, which never happened.Simply because there is no way so many Ice layers never changed when 4,300 years ago. Ice cores are a very sensitive detection system for climate change; they detected the “little Ice Age” (1600-1760 AD) when the temperature dropped by only 1°C and also a short cold period at 8,200 years BP when temperature fell 3°C. That's it, there’s no way in 40 days the Ice Cores can change so much to add thousands of years of sheets same with the continents. Last, Records show that there was no change in Glacial sheets around 4,000 years ago.The second reason why The Mini Ice Age never happened was Lake Sediment layers as spectrum magazine explains:

““Layers in lake sediments contain pollen that reveals the identity of the plants growing near the lake at any particular time. Like annual layers of Greenland ice cores, those (termed varves) in lake sediment cores can often be counted visually and in both cases, chronology has been confirmed by ash (tephra) from dated eruptions. Change in climate markedly alters the species of pollen in the lake sediment layers reflecting changes in plant ecology. Very marked changes occurred at the termination of the last known glaciation (11,600 years BP) and even the minor cold period at 8,200 years BP was detected by changes in varve pollen species. However, no change was recorded in numerous lake sediment pollen profiles at or near 4,000 years BP.”

{7}  I never claimed that the layers were annual. The methods for finding the ice core go like this:

“The electrical conductivity measurement determines the d.c. conductance between electrodes on a fresh ice surface. Dielectric profiling determines the conductivity of the ice at higher frequencies. Both were measured in the field at a temperature of -20 ± 2 °C, corrected.to -15 °C. Data were collected at high resolution and averaged to 1 m. Vertical thin sections were prepared in the field at a periodicity of 10 m, then digitized and analysed using an image analysis procedureto determine the mean grain radius. A 3.4 cm × 3.4 cm strip of ice was melted on a hotplate in the field, and fed into various detectors. Aliquots (1.1-m averages) were also collected from this melting device into clean containers, frozen and shipped to Europe for ion chromatographic analysisf major ions (presented for Termination V). All other measurements were made in laboratories in Europe after the ice had been shipped frozen from Dome C. δD was determinedon meltwater from 55-cm-long sections. This record,still discontinuous for some parts, should be considered as preliminary. Also, we used a ‘quick’ mode (each sample is measured twice instead of four times), leading to a typical accuracy of 1.5‰ (1σ), whereas we aim for a final precision of 0.5‰ over the entire core, as currently obtained for EDC96 (the upper 780 m).

Digital Zircons>I have rebuttaled your Radiometric dating,extend.  Your claim is that the process is really unreliable. However your argument provided no evidence why it was unreliable,so I looked at your source-it claimed it was unreliable but is it?{9}. Simply, Uranium decay is the process where you find half-life. By observing how fast U-238 decays into lead-206, we can calculate the half-life of U-238. This is a calculation, and we can therefore determine that the half-life of U-238 is 4.5 billion years. Remember that the half-life is a statistical measure. A very common rock that contains U-238 is granite overall. If we look at some of the very small zircon crystals in granite, we can accurately measure how much U-238 and Pb-206 the crystal contains.The dating IS ACCURATE{10}

Carbon Ratio Dating>Your claims here are correct BUT in my argument I said-

“one can determine ages of over 20,000 years ago with a standard error under 3%.”

Not billions of years, that proves your rebuttals utterly worthless as it revolves a misconception about my argument. Remember I have to prove the Earth is older than 6-10k years not a strict 4.5 billion years. 

Impact Craters>

A1-Concession 

A2-Unfortunately in an ironic twist, my opponent has contradicted himself and has made assumptions. First, he ASSUMES that the craters were formed rapidly before hitting Earth with no evidence, next he ASSUMES that all the craters fell at the same time, but we have dated the craters to not be the case. Extend argument about dating methods here. For the flood my opponent ASSUMES that the flood happens with no evidence as well as ASSUMES that the impact crater was thought to have caused a flood . Above,I have proven that a Mini Ice Age which was supposedly came out of the flood happened. It never did.(I am also playing devil’s advocate here). Extend argument since none of my points were addressed just assumptions with no evidence. 

A3-I said hundreds of IMPACT craters, also, how does that fit your 6-10k years old thesis/argument. 

I am out of space,I will continue here-https://justpaste.it/6uy52


Sources in comments post # 47

Conclusion:That was a good debate christopher_best. I had fun, and look forward to your defense, Vote Pro! 

MisterChris's avatar
MisterChris
Con
#6
For clarification, I will now begin my defense of my case. I am not allowed, however, to rebut my opponent's defense. 

I urge judges to remember that the resolved is "The Earth is older than 6-10k years old and is most likely 4.5 Billion years old."

This resolution has duel claims, making it a requirement that, for the Pro to win, they uphold both. The Pro has not proven how the Earth is definitively older than 6-10k years old, and they have certainly not proven it to be likely that the Earth is billions of years old.

Sediments:

My opponent starts by pointing out that sediments can be removed by means of tectonic plates and river deltas. I explicitly account for plate movement in the calculations. An estimated 1 billion tons of sediments are removed this way each year. The net gain is thus 19 billion tons per year. Again, at this rate, 1,300 feet of sediment would accumulate in less than 12 million years, not billions of years. 
Let's even be generous and let 1 billion sediments be removed by means of river deltas. That's still a net gain of 18 billion tons a year! There is clearly way too little sediment for the Earth to be billions of years.
He says that the ocean floor is proven to be young because of all this activity plus volcanoes, earthquakes, etc. He cites that the oldest sediment found there was 200 million years old. However, the reliability of this date is once again in question because of the fallacy in radioactive dating, and even still it is not the AGE of sediments in question or the ACTIVITY, but the AMOUNT. There is clearly not enough sediments in the ocean. The activity of these sediments is irrelevant. 
He says that where the crust is older, there are more sediments. This is only logical, and it is not a point in of itself. The actual point, however, is that this is impossible given the Flood. However, the Flood easily would have randomly dispersed sediment, and then over the course of the time between now and then, more sediments would have been added at a net gain of 19 billion tons/year. Thus, the correlation my opponent speaks of does not refute anything. 
He says sediments dissolve over "a long period of time." This is to imply that the sediments could've disappeared over the course of billions of years. I would contend that dissolution of sediments does not happen when sediments are being packed on top of eachother over the course of thousands of years. In order for the sediments to be dissolving, they would have to be on the surface, exposed to the most water. However, with 19 billion tons of sediment packed on them each year, that is impossible.
My opponent closes by saying that sediments are "not a good way of measuring the age of the Earth." What we are seeing through sediments is not what the age of the Earth IS, but what it ISN'T. It is impossible for it to be billions of years.

Rock layers:

Let me put this in perspective: I do not have to defend this point. Let's say my opponent proves to you that rock layers are not a reliable argument for a young Earth. That still can't prove to you they are a reliable argument for an old Earth either, because I have proven the fallacy in radioactive and non-radioactive dating methods. As such, even if I lose this point, it does not help the Affirmative, and I still have my points about the ocean floor, Faint Sun Paradox, comets, dinosaur remains, etc. 

Now that that's said, let me begin my defense of the point. 
My opponent cites an author who criticizes Snelling's work. They say that solid rocks are capable of either brittle or ductile deformation, depending on the conditions.
This is true. They explicitly acknowledge Snelling's point: At low temperatures and pressures, such as those encountered at Earth’s surface, almost all rocks deform in a brittle manner. If one applies sufficient stress to these rocks, they will break.
They go on to say, however, that if one goes deeper into the Earth, the temperatures are hotter and there is more pressure, and thus it results in pliable solid rock. The big problem with this, however, is that the heat and pressure would have transformed these layers into metamorphic rocks. Yet Tapeats Sandstone is still sandstone, a sedimentary rock! If one quickly stacks the layers, however, the possibility for 2 km thick sedimentary rocks is very possible.
The author goes on to insist that there are too many ignored mechanisms for rock bending. However, even they acknowledge that the vast majority of rocks deform in a brittle manner at low temperatures or pressures. Under stress, they break. So, a flood is the only logical explanation of how this happened. We can see that the sandstone rocks were under little pressure and temperature as they were not metamorphic, but they are bent. So the only explanation is that they were bent when wet and pliable. 
The writer goes on to criticize how the bending happens on a small scale. The bending may happen on a small scale, but the layers are definitely not on a small scale. They span over continents, from North America to the Middle East. Have the secular scientist explain how such uniform layers over the globe could be formed by anything other than a global, uniform event. Then, we can debate the scale of bending. 
Next, they argue of slumping. However, I do not see it viable to insist on the influence of gravity when the layers are all quickly manifested and cemented before gravity can truly influence them. 

Faint Sun Paradox:

My opponent's first explanation is that collisions into the planet released gases that made the Earth warmer. First with the planet Theia, then comets, then the dinosaur extinction event. 
Next, he says that without an atmosphere, the sun's rays would have heated the Earth. 
Then, he says that"coronal mass ejections in Earth’s past lead to fewer cosmic rays hitting Earth which lead to less cloud cover. Less cloud cover meant that less sunlight would have been reflected back into space which would have allowed the surface to heat up."

Collisions:

Giant Impact Theory:
Let us discuss the concept of Giant Impact Theory, the idea that a mars-sized planet collided with the Earth to form the moon.
As Michael J. Oard points out,
Computer models have been constructed to simulate such a giant impact. The results have strained the hypothesis to the breaking point. One of the new dynamical results is that the debris from the collision would rain back down onto Earth instead of remaining in orbit and forming the moon. To hurl the debris far enough from the earth, the impactor would need to be three times the size of Mars. The results of such a collision are hard to understand, much less model. And if the moon did form after such a collision, the orbit would likely be unstable with a distance of only 14,000 miles above the earth and circling it every two hours. Lissauer also noted the unsolved problem of losing the excess angular momentum.
As such, we continue to see that the formation of the moon at Creation is the best available theory, negating one of the two impacts my opponent mentioned that could have warmed the Earth in its early days.

Comets:
The only other one would be comets. There are three problems with this theory.

Firstly, the probability of any strike on the Earth has always been low. There are a measly 128 confirmed impacts on the Earth, and all of them are not considered comet impacts. Between 90 and 95 percent of objects hurling towards the Earth completely burn in the atmosphere.
The only observed comet impact in history was a comet that struck Jupiter, which also illustrates how the various big players in the solar system protect the Earth from any substantial extraterrestrial impact. 
Secondly, comets would have no longer existed by the time scientists think they hit the Earth.
The end of the Hadean Eon, when most scientists think the Earth supposedly received bombardment from comets, was approximately 4 billion years ago. This means that about 500 million years of comet reduction would have taken place in the solar system, eliminating the possibility entirely for an old Earth that got hit by comets. Remember, that their maximum age is only a few million years. Compare that with 500 million. 
Thirdly, even if a comet came to the Earth, despite them no longer existing, survived the plummet after centuries of being worn down by orbit, and actually impacted the planet, it would be very unlikely to cause lasting, irreversible change in our planet's atmosphere. 

Dino Extinction Event:

In this theory, a meteor or comet caused a mass extinction event, killing of the dinosaurs. Again, there are three main problems with this theory.

Firstly, such a huge impact would have sent a large dust cloud into the atmosphere, blocking sunlight from the earth and causing species to die out. Problem is, some extremely light-sensitive species in the ocean DID survive.

Secondly, the cloud would cause a long period of extreme cold, somewhat like the so-called “nuclear winter” that might follow the dropping of nuclear weapons. Obviously, atheist scientists do not record this winter. 

Paul F. Taylor sums up the last point nicely:
A third problem is that there is too much iridium to fit with the theory. Although asteroids do have iridium in them, they do not normally spread out the iridium upon impact. (In other words, areas around impacts are not iridium-enriched.) In at least one case, the iridium would have taken half a million years to cover the earth, by evolutionary counting.
There is no evidence such an event took place. Even if it did, it would have made the planet COLDER, not WARMER!



I enjoyed this debate!!