Existence of God v Science ( Locked) (655)

New data closes loopholes

The experimenter also accurately measured the total amounts of Helium in both the zircons and in the surrounding flakes of biotite. This ties up some loose ends for our case: (1) The total amount of Helium in the zircons confirms Gentry's retention measurements very well. (2) Our measurements show that the Helium concentration was about 300 times higher in the zircons than in the surrounding biotite. This confirms that Helium was diffusing out of the zircons into the biotite, not the other way around. (3) The total amount of Helium in the biotite flakes (which are much larger than the zircons) is roughly equal to the amount the zircons lost.

Compare this situation to an hourglass whose sand represents the Helium atoms: We have data (from Uranium and Lead) for the original amount in the top (zircon), the present amount in the top, the present amount in the bottom (biotite), and the rate of trickling (diffusion) between them. That makes our case very strong that we are reading the Helium "hourglass" correctly.


- Institute for Creation Research.

To be continued.

The zircons are young

The new data allow us to calculate more exactly how long diffusion has been taking place. The result is 6000 (± 2000) years—about 250,000 times smaller than the alleged 1.5 billion year Uranium-Lead age. This and other exciting new developments in RATE projects are confirming our basic hypothesis: that God drastically speeded up decay rates of long half-life nuclei during the Genesis Flood and other brief periods in the earth's short history. Such accelerated nuclear decay collapses the uniformitarian "ages" down to the Scriptural timescale of thousands of years.

Endnotes and References

1.RATE stands for "Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth," a research initiative launched in 1997 jointly by the Institute for Creation Research, the Creation Research Society, and Answers in Genesis. See book in ref. 4, and numerous pages about the RATE project at .
2.D. R. Humphreys, "Nuclear Decay: Evidence for a Young World," ICR Impact No. 352, October 2002. Archived at /articles/imp/imp-352.htm.
3.D. R. Humphreys, S. A. Austin, J. R. Baumgardner, and A. A. Snelling, "Helium diffusion rates support accelerated nuclear decay," Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Creationism, (Pittsburgh, PA: Creation Science Fellowship, 2003) pp. 175-195. Archived at
4.D. R. Humphreys, "Accelerated nuclear decay: A viable hypothesis?" in Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: A Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative, L. Vardiman, A. Snelling, and E. Chaffin, editors (San Diego, CA: Institute for Creation Research and the Creation Research Society, 2000)
p. 348, fig. 7. Book information at: .
5.Uniformitarians assume that "all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation" (II Peter 3:4), without interventions by God which might drastically affect the rates of some physical processes.
6.R. E. Zartman, "Uranium, thorium, and lead isotopic composition of biotite granodiorite (Sample 9527-2b) from LASL Drill Hole GT-2," Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory Report LA-7923-MS, 1979.
7.The 1.5 billion year uranium-lead date was consistent with uniformitarian geological expectations for the age of the Precambrian "basement" rock from which the zircons came.
8.R. V. Gentry, G. J. Glish, and E. H. McBay, "Differential helium retention in zircons: implications for nuclear waste management," Geophysical Research Letters 9(10): 1129-1130, October 1982.
9.Sh. A. Magomedov, "Migration of radiogenic products in zircon," Geokhimiya, 1970, No. 2, pp. 263-267 (in Russian). English abstract in Geochemistry International 7(1): 203, 1970. English translation available from D. R. Humphreys.
10.See ref. 4 for the prediction.
11.Conference website at .
12.See ref. 3 for technical details.
13.We plan to report these new data in detail in future technical publications, particularly in a paper to be submitted to the Creation Research Society, and also in the final report of the RATE project two years from now.

*Dr. Humphreys is an Associate Professor of Physics at ICR.

- Institute for Creation Research.

The end.

People who're saying this are either forgetting that the second law applies only to the closed systems, or then they don't understand the law.

I know, it's like Rush Limbaugh's alter-ego!



Initiating man-crush neuro-peptide sequence

Now have another creationist view that will contradict Humphreys theory.

Helium Diffusion in Zircon: Flaws in a Young-Earth Argument, Part 1 (of 2)

by Gary H. Loechelt, Ph.D.

Radiometric dating methods have long been a target of young-earth creationists, and for good reason. Rock ages obtained by these dating methods, usually ranging from millions to billions of years, directly contradict belief in a 6,000 year old earth. For years, the young-earth community had attempted to discredit radiometric dating by essentially claiming that very little nuclear decay has occurred since the formation of the earth.

However, this strategy began to change in 1997, when Dr. Steve Austin, Dr. John Baumgardner, Dr. Eugene Chaffin, Dr. Don DeYoung, Dr. Russell Humphreys, and Dr. Andrew Snelling, all prominent young-earth scientists, met to discuss the “problem” with radiometric dating. The ensuing eight-year research program, called RATE for Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth, acknowledged that much larger quantities of nuclear decay have occurred in most geological processes than could be explained by an earth only a few thousand years old. In effect, young-earth creationists of the 21st century finally accepted what mainstream science had known since the early 20th century, namely that nuclear decay was the best and perhaps only viable explanation for the isotopic patterns observed in rocks and minerals today.

Conceding the occurrence of billions of years’ worth of nuclear decay created a major dilemma for people believing in a 6,000-year-old earth. The only possible solution, apart from abandoning a young-earth position altogether, was to postulate that nuclear decay rates were accelerated in the recent past. The goal of the RATE project was to find evidence to this end.

To test the hypothesis, researchers sought cases in which nuclear decay could be compared against some other natural phenomenon. Think of radioactive nuclei as a clock that ticks (i.e. decays) at a known rate. The only way to demonstrate that nuclear processes “ticked” faster in the past was to compare their decay rates to another, more accurate clock.

Most of the cases documented by the RATE team proved to be weak tests for their hypothesis. The notable exception was a helium diffusion experiment using zircon mineral samples from deep geothermal wells in Fenton Hill, New Mexico. The RATE team claimed that when they compared the nuclear decay clock with their helium diffusion clock, they found a large discrepancy. Apparently, the nuclear decay clock recorded an elapsed time of over a billion years, whereas their helium diffusion clock recorded an elapsed time of only a few thousand years. Taking the helium diffusion time as the more reliable measurement, the researchers claimed that they had found convincing evidence for accelerated nuclear decay.

However, this apparent result is not as simple as merely reading time from a stopwatch. The helium diffusion clock used by the RATE team was actually a complex mathematical model describing the process of helium diffusion from zircon crystals. One may legitimately ask, “How well did they read their diffusion clock?” After following their research for many years, I conclude that they read this clock poorly. The RATE study contained at least five specific flaws in the data analysis and modeling that were serious enough to invalidate their conclusions. Let’s focus on the two biggest errors.

- Reasons to Believe.

To be continued.