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The astounding fact, as noted in another context a page or two earlier, is that we do have a direct observation pertaining to ancient, radioactive decay rates! The light of supernova SN1987A, in its trailing phases, was produced almost entirely by the radioactive decay of cobalt-56, at first, then cobalt-57 a few years later. Those two nuclides of cobalt were positively identified by their gamma rays as they decayed. In both cases the rate at which the light faded precisely matched the decay rates for cobalt-56 and cobalt-57!
All we need now is the distance to SN1987A, which turns out to be around 170,000 light-years (i.e. 52,700 parsecs).

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That is a very good point. The dating of the dead sea scrolls, for instance, depend on carbon dating. The same could be said for all ancient human records. The dating of ancient cultures depends uniform. (I hate spelling the whole word) principles, as does the helium argument.

After I show how inconsistent, and dependendent, jimi is regarding uniform I can then move one to bigger fish. The bigger fish being the experiments that support uniform mechanisms through history. Next, I will discuss how science could not even be taught if physical laws were varying to the degree required for the earth to be young. I will then finish with the assumption that everybody operates with on a daily basis, that physical laws are uniform over time. Sound good?

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Originally posted by Peptide

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Anyway, once you show jimi's argument to be wrong, then you can add in the real science behind uniformitarianism. Just doing the latter is not going to be convincing at all, and my prediction is still that jimi will do nothing but claim "that's more of that false uniformitarianism" in reply, and claim victory.

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That is a very good point.

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Originally posted by Ricky

Has anyone else been able to connect to the skeptictimes? I haven't been able to all day.

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Originally posted by mountain_hare

Oh, yeah, here is something interesting from internet infidels. It is an actual, OBSERVED account of the laws of physics being observed acting in a uniform nature.

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=102735&page=2
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Check out http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-add.html

Go and look at The Distance to Supernova SN1987A and the Speed of Light

This is a supernova observed in 1987, acted EXACTLY as our general knowledge of radiation would expect.

While 1987 isn't that long ago, 170,000 years ago, which is when this SN occurred (170,000 light years away).
http://www.geocities.com/kenthovind/matson/1proofs.htm

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The astounding fact, as noted in another context a page or two earlier, is that we do have a direct observation pertaining to ancient, radioactive decay rates! The light of supernova SN1987A, in its trailing phases, was produced almost entirely by the radioactive decay of cobalt-56, at first, then cobalt-57 a few years later. Those two nuclides of cobalt were positively identified by their gamma rays as they decayed. In both cases the rate at which the light faded precisely matched the decay rates for cobalt-56 and cobalt-57!
All we need now is the distance to SN1987A, which turns out to be around 170,000 light-years (i.e. 52,700 parsecs).

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HOPE THAT HELPS!

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Originally posted by Dave W.

Peptide wrote:

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That is a very good point. The dating of the dead sea scrolls, for instance, depend on carbon dating. The same could be said for all ancient human records. The dating of ancient cultures depends uniform. (I hate spelling the whole word) principles, as does the helium argument.

After I show how inconsistent, and dependendent, jimi is regarding uniform I can then move one to bigger fish. The bigger fish being the experiments that support uniform mechanisms through history. Next, I will discuss how science could not even be taught if physical laws were varying to the degree required for the earth to be young. I will then finish with the assumption that everybody operates with on a daily basis, that physical laws are uniform over time. Sound good?

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What Dude said. No, really: once jimi's bizarre version of uniformitarianism is shown to be required for his other two arguments, almost everything else is icing on the cake.

I say "almost," because I think it would be wise to include a pre-emptive rebuttal to jimi's predicted attempt to apply his anti-uniformitarianism argument to your introductory points. After doing so, any attempt he might make to do so will certainly be redundant, and won't have the triumphant "punch" he would want to make as a closer.

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I'd say a solid defense for uniformitarianism is definately in order to prevent Jimi from claiming something insane like "Well, both your and my arguments rely on the assumption of uniformatarianism so both have equal merits." and declaring a ty.

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Originally posted by ktesibios

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Originally posted by mountain_hare

Oh, yeah, here is something interesting from internet infidels. It is an actual, OBSERVED account of the laws of physics being observed acting in a uniform nature.

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=102735&page=2
--------------------------------------------------------------
Check out http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-add.html

Go and look at The Distance to Supernova SN1987A and the Speed of Light

This is a supernova observed in 1987, acted EXACTLY as our general knowledge of radiation would expect.

While 1987 isn't that long ago, 170,000 years ago, which is when this SN occurred (170,000 light years away).
http://www.geocities.com/kenthovind/matson/1proofs.htm

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Quote:
The astounding fact, as noted in another context a page or two earlier, is that we do have a direct observation pertaining to ancient, radioactive decay rates! The light of supernova SN1987A, in its trailing phases, was produced almost entirely by the radioactive decay of cobalt-56, at first, then cobalt-57 a few years later. Those two nuclides of cobalt were positively identified by their gamma rays as they decayed. In both cases the rate at which the light faded precisely matched the decay rates for cobalt-56 and cobalt-57!
All we need now is the distance to SN1987A, which turns out to be around 170,000 light-years (i.e. 52,700 parsecs).

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HOPE THAT HELPS!

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I brought up a similar point in another thread in this folder. Valiant Dancer kindly "debunked" it for me.

Basically, the idea that our observations of old light confirm that basic physical laws and constants have remained the same for long periods of time depends on the belief that the velocity of light has remained unchanged- and of course we can't PROVE that, at least not with the utter certainty of a proof in geometry class, which seems to be what the YECs demand of science.

In fact, they could claim that it's circular reasoning- the evidence for uniformity in physics depends on the assumption of uniformity in a physical constant.

The trouble is that the idea that we can draw very strong inferences from evidence and confidently use them as a working model even though we don't know them with absolute certainty, or that when evidence from different sources is congruent our inferences are strengthened is lost on the creationists. They demand the kind of absolute certainty that they draw from the Sacred Gobbledybook.

The only thing that would meet their demands is a step by step deductive proof with a "QED" at the end- and even then they'd most likely find a way to take refuge in a sort of scientific solipsism.

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I think the point there is that the speed of light hasn't changed, the distances have.

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