Circular reasoning???

nacker
Posts: 117
Joined: 2006-06-06
User is offlineOffline
Circular reasoning???

Is the Geological Column really based on circular reasoning???

i.e. The rocks are dated by the fossils, but the fossils are dated by the rocks???

Is there a real observable geological column in the correct order just like the text books say anywhere??

Call it God. Or come up with another theory extrapolating the logical defintions of nothing and the infinite.


LeftofLarry
RRS local affiliateScientist
LeftofLarry's picture
Posts: 1199
Joined: 2006-02-12
User is offlineOffline
Re: Circular reasoning???

nacker wrote:
Is the Geological Column really based on circular reasoning???

i.e. The rocks are dated by the fossils, but the fossils are dated by the rocks???

Is there a real observable geological column in the correct order just like the text books say anywhere??

The rocks are dated by radiolabeling. There is no circular logic, only the confusing rhetoric theists like to use to confuse ignorant people who know nothing of sciecne with comments such as these.

Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server which houses Celebrity Atheists.


nacker
Posts: 117
Joined: 2006-06-06
User is offlineOffline
Circular reasoning???

wow that was kind of harsh for an honest question...

could you elaborate on the earth dating process??

Call it God. Or come up with another theory extrapolating the logical defintions of nothing and the infinite.


nacker
Posts: 117
Joined: 2006-06-06
User is offlineOffline
Circular reasoning???

also if someone could respond to the question:
"Is there a real observable geological column in the correct order just like the text books say anywhere??"

Thanks

Call it God. Or come up with another theory extrapolating the logical defintions of nothing and the infinite.


shorty
Posts: 120
Joined: 2006-05-18
User is offlineOffline
Re: Circular reasoning???

nacker wrote:
Is the Geological Column really based on circular reasoning???

i.e. The rocks are dated by the fossils, but the fossils are dated by the rocks???

Is there a real observable geological column in the correct order just like the text books say anywhere??

there is a geologic column. what you are reffering to is called relative dating which is dating based on and theres absolute dating which is usually carbon-14 and uranium-280 (or 288 i know its 280-something) so you find that the lower rock layers are always older, and always follow certain rules as for whats older (igneous intrusions, and deformations). relative dating is a process of simple logic. while with absolute dating we rely entirely on half-lives. after a certain amount of time the material from will decrease by exactly half. based on this you can find how old stuff is

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


OpiateCopulation
OpiateCopulation's picture
Posts: 36
Joined: 2006-06-27
User is offlineOffline
Circular reasoning???

nacker wrote:
also if someone could respond to the question:
"Is there a real observable geological column in the correct order just like the text books say anywhere??"

Thanks

Not one that a theist would understand. Sorry... it's science - there's no arguing it. Especially when you aren't asking for information but asking a rhetorical question (aren't all of your questions rhetorical...? I mean being a theist they must be because god already answered them for you!), so why should we provide an answer that is in plain sight?

'We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.' - Richard Dawkins
MySpace


Anonymous
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
Circular reasoning???

burden of proof is on the theist ALWAYS

Faith has no argumentative value

Class dismissed!


nacker
Posts: 117
Joined: 2006-06-06
User is offlineOffline
Circular reasoning???

AddisAbaba wrote:
burden of proof is on the theist ALWAYS

Faith has no argumentative value

Class dismissed!

Not actually... no. check out this thread...

http://www.rationalresponders.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=528&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=54

Call it God. Or come up with another theory extrapolating the logical defintions of nothing and the infinite.


OpiateCopulation
OpiateCopulation's picture
Posts: 36
Joined: 2006-06-27
User is offlineOffline
Circular reasoning???

nacker wrote:
AddisAbaba wrote:
burden of proof is on the theist ALWAYS

Faith has no argumentative value

Class dismissed!

Not actually... no. check out this thread...

http://www.rationalresponders.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=528&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=54

You might want to check it out yourself...

'We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.' - Richard Dawkins
MySpace


the_avenging_bucket
the_avenging_bucket's picture
Posts: 184
Joined: 2006-06-17
User is offlineOffline
Circular reasoning???

nacker wrote:
AddisAbaba wrote:
burden of proof is on the theist ALWAYS

Faith has no argumentative value

Class dismissed!

Not actually... no. check out this thread...

http://www.rationalresponders.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=528&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=54

WTF?
Please ban the retard...
He is not contributing to rational discussion in any way.


nacker
Posts: 117
Joined: 2006-06-06
User is offlineOffline
Circular reasoning???

None of your responses to the argument from that thread have been anything but irrational.

You say things like, "That is a stupid argument."
Or, "That is irrational." Or "you are retarded."

But you have yet to show where the argument fails. Nothing is irrational. So is the infinite past. This demands a beginning. Since nothing comes from nothing, this demands a beginner who just is... outside of time and above all things so that he can be the beginner of all things. this is the logical definition of what God should be. it makes sense.

don't just react to the concept of God. Give me a rational reason why this does not make sense.

Call it God. Or come up with another theory extrapolating the logical defintions of nothing and the infinite.


Yellow_Number_Five
atheistRRS Core MemberScientist
Yellow_Number_Five's picture
Posts: 1389
Joined: 2006-02-12
User is offlineOffline
Circular reasoning???

Again, nacker, please keep your ranting about First Causes and infinite time and what not confined to the thread we are discussing it in, please.

As a matter of common courtesy if nothing else.

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins

Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server.


Darl
Posts: 31
Joined: 2006-07-12
User is offlineOffline
Circular reasoning???

We're willing to admit we don't know what existed before the singularity. You are not. You are equating the creation of the universe with the supernatural because you do not know how it ocurred. That is a cop-out of the worst kind. That's like seeing lightning and saying 'there must be a god of lightning to create such a thing'. That method of reasoning has been proven wrong over and over and over and over and over again. No, we don't know what caused the singularity, or the creation of the universe(for an absolute fact, yet), that's true. But, a hundred years ago, we didn't know what cancer was or what caused it. If humankind had decided to follow your argument we would have to assume it was supernatural and leave it at that. Just because there's something YOU or I don't know, doesn't mean it has to be a result of the supernatural. All it means is, we havn't studied it enough, or in the correct way for it to divulge its secrets to us. That's all I have to say on that matter.


LeftofLarry
RRS local affiliateScientist
LeftofLarry's picture
Posts: 1199
Joined: 2006-02-12
User is offlineOffline
Circular reasoning???

Darl wrote:
We're willing to admit we don't know what existed before the singularity. You are not. You are equating the creation of the universe with the supernatural because you do not know how it ocurred. That is a cop-out of the worst kind. That's like seeing lightning and saying 'there must be a god of lightning to create such a thing'. That method of reasoning has been proven wrong over and over and over and over and over again. No, we don't know what caused the singularity, or the creation of the universe(for an absolute fact, yet), that's true. But, a hundred years ago, we didn't know what cancer was or what caused it. If humankind had decided to follow your argument we would have to assume it was supernatural and leave it at that. Just because there's something YOU or I don't know, doesn't mean it has to be a result of the supernatural. All it means is, we havn't studied it enough, or in the correct way for it to divulge its secrets to us. That's all I have to say on that matter.

I think this pretty much sums up this argument. Case closed.

To resort to the supernatural to explain something we haven't discovered yet is wrong. As I said before. If you think there is a creator and science is wrong. Stop using medicine, and rely on your faith to heal you. Plain and simple. End of argument. I'm very tempted to lock this thread.

Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server which houses Celebrity Atheists.


Keith Perna (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
reasoning

You want to talk reasoning.  Let's talk the first and second laws of thermal dynamics.  Because we can all agree that either it was a creator or it wasn't.  If it wasn't a creator your left two other options either everything came into existence on their own or they always existed in some form.  The first law of thermal dynamics states that matter and energy can't be created or destroyed.  This law eliminates the possibility that things came into existence from nothing.  Since how would all matter and energy come into existence and then a law somehow comes into existence that prevents any more matter from being created or any of the matter that was created can no longer be destroyed or cease to exist.  The second law of Thermal Dynamics is also known as the law of incresed entropy or that things move from order to chaos or from complex to less complex.  This law eliminates the possibilty that things have always existed since we still can see extremes out in space.  We see stars which are extremely hot balls of gas, and we see comets which are dirty balls of ice.  The universe does not appear to always have existed.  Here's an example: If you walk into a room and you see a cup of ice water and a hot cup of coffee what would you conclude.  Would you conclude that those drinks were placed there farely recently or that they've been in that room forever.  Logically you would conclude they were placed there recently correct.  Because if they had been there forever the ice in the ice water would have melted and the coffee would have cooled and both drinks would assume room temperature.  We don't see the universe in a room temperature kind of state therefore it couldn't have always existed according to the second law.  The best answer logically is that a creator created everything including these laws of therodynamics. 


Vastet
atheistBloggerSuperfan
Vastet's picture
Posts: 13254
Joined: 2006-12-25
User is offlineOffline
Leaving aside the fact that

Leaving aside the fact that you've resurrected a three year old topic when posting a new one would have been sufficient....

Keith Perna wrote:

You want to talk reasoning.  Let's talk the first and second laws of thermal dynamics.  Because we can all agree that either it was a creator or it wasn't.  If it wasn't a creator your left two other options either everything came into existence on their own or they always existed in some form.  The first law of thermal dynamics states that matter and energy can't be created or destroyed.  This law eliminates the possibility that things came into existence from nothing.

Actually, it doesn't. It's heavy physics, and I'm not the best person to explain it to you, but the law does not mean that the universe could not have come into existence from nothingness.

Keith Perna wrote:

  Since how would all matter and energy come into existence and then a law somehow comes into existence that prevents any more matter from being created or any of the matter that was created can no longer be destroyed or cease to exist.

But if nothing is split into positive and negative something, with a mass that when combined equals nothing, then the law is as solid as ever. Similarly, if such mass comes into contact with its polar opposite, then its destruction isn't really destruction.

Keith Perna wrote:
  The second law of Thermal Dynamics is also known as the law of incresed entropy or that things move from order to chaos or from complex to less complex.  This law eliminates the possibilty that things have always existed since we still can see extremes out in space.

This isn't necessarily true. It assumes certain properties about the universe of which we have yet to solidify into fact. For example, if the universe is under a constant state of expansion followed by a constant state of contraction, and the universe is in fact a closed system, then matter, energy, space, and time are eternal. Constantly renewed, constantly stretched, constantly renewed once more.

Keith Perna wrote:

  We see stars which are extremely hot balls of gas, and we see comets which are dirty balls of ice.  The universe does not appear to always have existed.

Appearences can be deceiving.

Keith Perna wrote:
  Here's an example: If you walk into a room and you see a cup of ice water and a hot cup of coffee what would you conclude.  Would you conclude that those drinks were placed there farely recently or that they've been in that room forever.

We're not talking about the coffee and the ice water, we're talking about the room.

Keith Perna wrote:
  Logically you would conclude they were placed there recently correct.  Because if they had been there forever the ice in the ice water would have melted and the coffee would have cooled and both drinks would assume room temperature.

As long as the room stayed in a constant state of shape and size and everything else. We do not think the universe is in a constant state, therefore your analogy cannot apply.

Keith Perna wrote:
  We don't see the universe in a room temperature kind of state therefore it couldn't have always existed according to the second law.  The best answer logically is that a creator created everything including these laws of therodynamics. 

Due to expansion, the second law will never see total fruition. It's like the speed of light. You can get infinately closer to the goal, but you will never attain it.

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


Keith Perna (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
late reply

To sum things up your throwing out the established LAWS of thermodynamics in order to invalidate my arguments.


lpetrich
lpetrich's picture
Posts: 148
Joined: 2007-05-14
User is offlineOffline
nacker wrote:Is the

nacker wrote:
Is the Geological Column really based on circular reasoning??? i.e. The rocks are dated by the fossils, but the fossils are dated by the rocks??? Is there a real observable geological column in the correct order just like the text books say anywhere??
A common creationist talking point, but a baseless one. Geologists have ways of avoiding circularity, which they used long before radiometric dating became practical. They use principles called stratigraphic laws:

  1. Original Horizontality - tilted strata got tilted after they formed
  2. Lateral Continuity - strata can be continuous over large distances
  3. Superposition - younger on top of older
  4. Cross-cutting - whatever cuts through some strata must be younger than them
  5. Inclusions - must be older than the surrounding rock
  6. Faunal Succession - one can use fossils as markers

None of these have any connection with biological evolution, and faunal succession requires no hypotheses about what evolved from what. Thus, brachiopods were common in the Paleozoic, and bivalves common afterwards, but bivalves had not evolved from brachiopods -- the two had coexisted over geological time, and their latest common ancestor was some late-Precambrian primtive lophotrochozoan.

 

 

 


Atheistextremist
atheist
Atheistextremist's picture
Posts: 5134
Joined: 2009-09-17
User is offlineOffline
Potassium-Argon dating of Samarium-147

 

allows us to back-track rocks that contain it to its isotopic half life of 100 billion years. I think that's more than enough for our purposes, OP.

 

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


Answers in Gene...
High Level Donor
Answers in Gene Simmons's picture
Posts: 4214
Joined: 2008-11-11
User is offlineOffline
Just because two sets of

Just because two sets of data compliment each other does not automatically make them into circular logic. In this case, there are several sets of data that create an unbroken line of reasoning and thus are really linear.

 

For example, I don't think that anyone has a large problem with setting up a chronology by non-controversial methods which are easily confirmed. Tree rings come to mind here. They can be carbon dated and analyzed for clues as to the sequence of weather from one year to the next. Many different trees from one area can then be lined up to establish a chronology going back as far as decent sections of trees can be found. Fence posts are an especially important piece of data as they can take us back as far as people have been building fences. Pretty much to the beginning of agriculture.

 

Past that, there are varves. Every stream and lake has them as they are the source for sedimentary rock. Since organic matter gets layered in as they form, again, carbon dating is possible and that takes us back as far as carbon dating goes. Generally a bit over 50,000 years is reasonable. Given a large enough sample, dates ca be obtained out past 100,000 years.

 

From this point, we take layers of sedimentary rock and compare them from one sample to another. This leads us to stratigraphic dating as Ieptrich described so well. Then we have at least 15 different radiometric decay series, each usable of some range of years.

 

So we don't simply use two reinforcing data sets. We use about 20 data sets that each valid over some range of dates and each overlaps at least one other data set for enough of the past that we have a fairly continuous chain of chronology.

NoMoreCrazyPeople wrote:
Never ever did I say enything about free, I said "free."

=


Kapkao
atheistSuperfan
Kapkao's picture
Posts: 4121
Joined: 2010-01-12
User is offlineOffline
pet frog wrote:None of these

pet frog wrote:
None of these have any connection with biological evolution, and faunal succession requires no hypotheses about what evolved from what.

Half-correct: the geological study of natural history requires no comprehension of biological change over time. However "Faunal Succession" (as you call it) is almost certainly critical to understanding the fossil record - to say nothing about major extinction events!

“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)