Neil DeGrasse Tyson reveals age of Earth, creationists’ heads collectively explode

[deleted-05292014 331]

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/25/neil_degrasse_tyson_reveals_age_of_earth_creationists_heads_collectively_explode_partner/

It did not take long for the creationists to take issue with Neil DeGrasse Tyson and the latest episode of Cosmos on Fox. Why you ask? Well, because Tyson dared to declare the age of the earth to be 4.5 billion years old.

Answers in Genesis (AiG), the organization run by “young Earth” creationist Ken Ham, known for his recent debate against Bill Nye on the topic of evolution has now taken issue with episode 7 ofCosmosas the show taught us just how scientist Claire Patterson discovered the true age of this very planet.

AiG takes issue because early on Tyson declared that the true age of the earth couldn’t be found without a reliable historical record. The Bible was once believed to be this historical record, but as Tyson explains, it is no longer. Now we can look to the rocks themselves to find our answer.

Right away AiG on its website attacks science as unreliable because this particular episode discusses how scientific bias can be used for good and bad. The episode itself shows how good data always wins over bad and highlights just why science works, through peer-review.

AiG misses this point entirely and now believes, as it always has, that science is flawed and biased. Ironic from a site that states its mission is to prove its conclusion, almost the total definition of bias.

Now, AiG claims:

How ironic that the

Cosmos

writers shine light on how

scientists’ biases

affect how they interpret the

same data

! Bias doesn’t just come from a desire for money, prestige, or power. Bias also comes from a scientist’s worldview.

What worldview are they referencing? This makes the ultimate assumption that Claire Patterson and many other scientists are simply atheists out to prove creation wrong, when in fact science is not looking to prove creation wrong, it is looking to explain the world we know and if in doing so creationist claims are disproven, so be it, scientists move their views with the data at hand.

AiG often uses claims such as this in order to attack scientists like Patterson and Tyson. Tyson has become public enemy number one since the first episode of the Cosmos reboot aired just a month back.

First AiG demanded equal airtime on Fox to teach its view of human existence because of an episode that was devoted solely to evolution and completely debunked just about every single creationist claim.

Now AiG wants you to believe that Earth’s age cannot be known through radioactive dating because it conflicts with AiG’s faith-based beliefs. AiG goes on to attack Tyson for mocking the Bible as authoritative.

So what is that biblical authority that Tyson mockingly rejects? Tyson tells us that 17th-century scholar Archbishop Ussher “like almost everyone one else of his time and his world… accepted the biblical account of creation as authoritative.”

Yes, this is true, and then AiG goes on to use Isaac Newton, a highly respected scientist, to back up Ussher’s claim. However, Newton agreed with Ussher well before scientists knew about radioactive or carbon dating and before Darwin discovered natural selection. If we know anything about Newton it is that he cared for the scientific truth and one could easily assume he would move his views with the evidence.

AiG is grasping at straws when it has to look for scientists who predate all modern discoveries to back up its evidence-less claims.

Since Tyson showed the world the Grand Canyon as a source for understanding the age of the earth and using the many layers of rock and explained how old each layer is and how the canyon itself formed, AiG had to attempt, as always, to dispute that claim.

AiG believes the Grand Canyon was formed in a catastrophic event; not just any event, but the great flood in the book of Genesis, and shames Tyson for ignoring this “evidence.”

The only evidence AiG provides to back up its great flood hypothesis is referencing its “authoritative” Bible. No evidence backs up a single claim AiG uses against Tyson, just the feeling that its “scientists” are angry that once again millions of viewers are shown just how laughable the creationist beliefs are.

Each week’s episode drives creationists like Ken Ham and his band of pseudoscientific faith-heads to the brink of insanity. They rush every week to find what things they can find to dispute in each episode. They never actually offer up their own evidence to the contrary, but instead simply attack Tyson for not using the Bible as the source of all science.

AiG closes up its argument by saying:

Truth does not change according to who believes it. Our Creator God has provided us with truth about our temporal and physical origins in His Word. And that history is consistent with what we observe scientifically.

Just as Tyson shows us each week, what we observe scientifically is what drives our understanding of the earth and the life on it, not what you want to be true and most certainly not what you believe.

------------------------------

Not sure why it's so difficult for people who call themselves creationists not to accept science or evolution side by side.

[decocker 7,198]

AiG misses this point entirely and now believes, as it always has, that science is flawed and biased. Ironic from a site that states its mission is to prove its conclusion, almost the total definition of bias.

^^^^^^this^^^^^^^

[GandD 5,966]

I wondered how long this would take. They're hitting religion hard.

[decocker 7,198]

I wondered how long this would take. They're hitting religion hard.

creationists?

[JohnR! 5,495]

Sometimes it feels some people are living in the dark ages.

Ussher made his calculations and concluded the Earth to be 6,000 years old. At the time he did his calculations, he had only the book of Genesis and other to go by, so he used the only method available to him. At the time he lived, any other method would have cost him his life, probably.

As science evolved we were able to learn how radioactive material decomposes and at what rate different elements do so. Patterson was able to get better equipment and pristine material and re-calculated the age of our planet to be around 4.54 billion years, which coincides with the age of the solar system.

Who knows, one of these days another scientist may refine that number even more.

It would seem that the creationists should be happy that someone else was able to improve on the work of Ussher, rather than the opposite.

[decocker 7,198]

everything that scientists 'learn' is false information planted by satan.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

creationists?

All religion. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is on a mission to instill "correct thinking". Pity. Carl Sagan must be rolling over in his grave. There is nothing more antithetical to science.

Sometimes it feels some people are living in the dark ages.

Ussher made his calculations and concluded the Earth to be 6,000 years old. At the time he did his calculations, he had only the book of Genesis and other to go by, so he used the only method available to him. At the time he lived, any other method would have cost him his life, probably.

As science evolved we were able to learn how radioactive material decomposes and at what rate different elements do so. Patterson was able to get better equipment and pristine material and re-calculated the age of our planet to be around 4.54 billion years, which coincides with the age of the solar system.

Who knows, one of these days another scientist may refine that number even more.

Exactly.

[decocker 7,198]

All religion. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is on a mission to instill "correct thinking". Pity. Carl Sagan must be rolling over in his grave. There is nothing more antithetical to science.

religion is hitting religion hard?

tyson is quite awesome, if only because his enthusiasm for the progression of science and humanity feels completely genuine.

[GandD 5,966]

creationists?

No, the Cosmos folks. One episode was nearly dedicated to how much religion has done to limit the progress of science. While its true, its seems a little unnecessary for what they're trying to do. I watch lots of shows on the science channel that deal with the universe and they never touch on these things. Science is science, politics is something else. Just spend a little more time on what we know and what we think we know than how hard it was to get there. Trying to get more folks on board, not force them to choose.

All religion. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is on a mission to instill "correct thinking". Pity. Carl Sagan must be rolling over in his grave. There is nothing more antithetical to science.

This was my feeling too. The facts should speak for themselves. They do for me anyway.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

tyson is quite awesome, if only because his enthusiasm for the progression of science and humanity feels completely genuine.

I sense more of an agenda with every episode.

[GandD 5,966]

FTR, I doubt the agenda is Tyson so much as MacFarland.

[decocker 7,198]

No, the Cosmos folks. One episode was nearly dedicated to how much religion has done to limit the progress of science. While its true, its seems a little unnecessary for what they're trying to do. I watch lots of shows on the science channel that deal with the universe and they never touch on these things. Science is science, politics is something else. Just spend a little more time on what we know and what we think we know than how hard it was to get there. Trying to get more folks on board, not force them to choose.

considering it's the year 2014 and we can't teach our children science in public school without fighting off creationists is why it's completely necessary.

force them to choose? too many people refuse reality in its entirety, as we know it to be, for the sake of clinging to the religious beliefs that were instilled in them as children. in my book that's what it comes down too. people not wanting to step away from what's comfortable, what they're accustomed to. i don't buy that anyone is being forced to choose a damn thing. i mean that would be mighty high falutin of science, to demand folks pull their heads out of the sand and at least try to escape mass extinction..

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

This was my feeling too. The facts should speak for themselves. They do for me anyway.

Science is always incomplete. Each new observation reveals something that has not been seen before. Often, especially in the field of high energy physics, there is an expectation that something should be observed, to fill in a missing piece, to make the theoretical calculations work, and then once an experiment demonstrates the expected particle exists, more missing pieces to the puzzle are revealed. It is as if the very hunt to know the universe creates the universe, or perhaps it is that nasty Heisenberg principle of the observer unavoidably affecting the very thing he is trying to observe.

FTR, I doubt the agenda is Tyson so much as MacFarland.

Could be. That would make Tyson nothing more than a shill.

[GandD 5,966]

considering it's the year 2014 and we can't teach our children science in public school without fighting off creationists is why it's completely necessary.

force them to choose? too many people refuse reality in its entirety, as we know it to be, for the sake of clinging to the religious beliefs that were instilled in them as children. in my book that's what it comes down too. people not wanting to step away from what's comfortable, what they're accustomed to. i don't buy that anyone is being forced to choose a damn thing. i mean that would be mighty high falutin of science, to demand folks pull their heads out of the sand and at least try to escape mass extinction..

You Catch More Flies with Honey than Vinegar

[decocker 7,198]

You Catch More Flies with Honey than Vinegar

not when eternal damnation and salvation is on the line.