WHY does using indirect and extrapolated information automatically invalidate the conclusions of an experiment?
I don't know of anyone who says it does. With extrapolation, assumptions, and lack of direct observation come potential for error. It's no mystery - it's common sense.
Then why does the extrapolation in the case of radioactive decay invalidate the conclusion that the age of the Earth is more than 4 billion years.
Why pretend the "curve" is the only potential source of error? Anyone qualified to discuss the subject knows there are several others.
Suppose I observe a car coming to a stop. The initial speed I observe is 27 M.P.H. and the final speed is 0. Can I assume the vehicle used to be traveling 900 M.P.H. or 900 million? I can easily extrapolate such speeds. A safer extrapolation would be 29 or 30. The greater the amount extrapolated, the less certain the conclusion.
The only reason you would use the "safer" extrapolation is because you are not aware of many street safe cars that can travel faster than 120 miles per hour and there are few people that would travel much beyond the speed limit in most public roads.
In English, 'only' refers to a single thing. You list two reasons as the "only reason", and then continue on. Are you incompetent to communicate in English, or was 'only' thrown in for some ulterior reason, like propaganda (the only one that comes to mind).
Add to that the likelihood that the street probably isn't made to allow 900 mph speeds for vehicular traffic and a person in control of the vehicle speed who could have changed the speed at any time. All of these are part of your "common sense" determination of the likely speed of the vehicle in the past. Even so, you can make no real estimate of the vehicle speed in the past because the person at the controls could have changed the speed at any time.
You assume there is a person in control. The sillier the speed I choose to imagine the car was traveling in the past, the more likely I am to be wrong.
Radioactive decay does not have anything to change its rate of decay in any appreciable fashion. That is, unless you have knowledge of such a thing.
It changes all the time. Decay isn't regular tick-tock, tick-tock like a clock. It is never steady. It proceeds in bursts, halts, and everything in between. They count the
average rate over time, supposedly to the best of their ability.
Other factors regarding radioactive decay are well known by physicists and geologists.
What other factors? They still don't know the cause.
That knowledge allows the extrapolation to be more accurate. It is not a wild-a** guess (WAG).
As verified by? Not history, that's for sure.
You seem to be saying that if there is incomplete information that no reliable conclusions can be drawn.
I doubt any objective observer would share your opinion.
Yet you dismiss the conclusions of these scientists out of hand without any explanation other than they made some assumptions.
I can go into more detail when I choose. Most of the assumptions are known to be dubious, if not outright false.
Since you now say that reliable conclusions can be made using incomplete information, please explain why the conclusions about radioactive decay measurements as evidence of a 4-billion-year-old Earth are invalid.
I decline to do so at this time.
Let's see... we can take part of a sample, destroy & measure it, and assume the rest of the sample has the same ratio? The part which is actually measured is destroyed, right? When you pile up assumptions, you pile up potential for error.
I have to agree that more assumptions means more error. However, are those assumptions inaccurate to the point that 4 billion becomes 6000?
4 billion? What about 3.5 billion? What about 6 billion?
How far off are the assumptions regarding the homogeneity of the rock samples? Can the geologists/physicists do anything to improve the likelihood that their assumption about their sample is more accurate?
If they do, will your camp not attack their character and their livelihood? Pattern recognition is a key element in most sciences.
Is their extrapolation of the long lived isotope decay curves inaccurate enough to account for the 6 orders of magnitude (1 million times) difference that is claimed by Young Earth Creationists? What indications do you have that radioactive decay curves for long lived isotopes are so inaccurate?
Again, you pretend the decay "curve" is the only problem. Problems have a way of compounding, as most folks know.
What's untrue, is any claim that precision and certainty are involved when one is actually discussing the most tenuous and doubtful groups of conclusions readily available.
What evidence do you have that the conclusions are tenuous and doubtful?
See what I just got done explaining, and then see how it matches with the definitions of 'tenuous' and 'doubtful'. It only takes one single false assumption introduced anywhere in a chain of reasoning to produce a false result. Has practice taught you nothing?
Has there been a change in radioactive decay rates in the past? If so, what is your evidence that this occurred?
Yes. You have google. I have better ways to spend my time.
Are the decay curves inaccurate for short lived isotopes? How inaccurate would they have to be to make the assumptions and extrapolations for the long lived isotope curves so far off that they are 6 orders of magnitude different than the actual decay?
Not much at all. Do you not know how exponential equasions work? Two to the fourth power is 16. Ten to the fourth power is 10,000. Big difference. Two is only eight removed from ten, but raising them only to the fourth power results in a difference of 9,984!
If the assumptions and extrapolations for long-lived isotope decay curves are so inaccurate, why are they accurate in providing dates for things that we can verify through means other than radioactive decay?
If you mean events verified by history, your claim is absolutely false. Never have they been tested successfully against anything of a known date.
If by "other means" you mean the imagined "time it would take for x to evolve into y", big deal. That's exactly what these "techniques" were invented to do.
Of course the assumption that no flood happened is enough to categorized the whole business as rubbish. History, properly conducted, doesn't leave any room for such.
What effect did the Flood have on radioactive isotope decay? If it sped the decay up by 6 orders of magnitude what kept the water from boiling off and the land from melting due to the increased energy given off by that increase in radioactive decay? What kept Noah and the animals alive through that increase in gamma radiation?
Utter nonsense. Either get educated or quit playing stupid, whatever applies.
Lastly, if the stars weren't made until Day Four 6000 years ago, why can we see stars that are more than 6000 light-years away?
Why not? Until you disclose all your assumptions, you don't even have an objection.
The flip side to assumptions is this: those who don't make the same assumptions need not be concerned. Only if I employ an assumption myself, and then deny it's implications am I inconsistent. So long as I never employ a given assumption in any of my reasoning, you have no call to fault me.
If you think you do, we might as well not beat around the bush. Just assume my God doesn't exist, and then fault me for failing to make the same assumption.
The only obligation is for one to always apply the same group of assumptions uniformly in one's reasoning. I can do it; the evolutionist cannot.
