Seventh Post
Radioactive Dating Miscellany
Pax Christi, y'all!
A grace-filled Feast of Corpus Christi (Gregorian Calendar) and of the Apostle Jude (Thaddeus), cousin of Our Lord and brother of St. James the Less!!
— The first is a good reminder that Our Lord is REALLY and TRULY present under the appearance of bread and wine at every valid Mass and Divine Liturgy, often being reposed in the Tabernacle afterwards, where He continues being present. Whether we receive Him as Holy Communion or simply visit Him (or acknowledge Him from afar if distant residence or duties of life do not permit a visit), His graces pour forth upon us if we are simply open to them!
--The second is a good reminder that Our Incarnate Lord was/is like us in every way except sin, and that includes HAVING BLOOD RELATIVES: not just His Immaculate Mother, but cousins like Jude and James. (Fun homework: look up other blood relatives of Our Lord. Also, His legal ones through St. Joseph. 😇)
Now two final points about Radioactive Dating. (Homework with each one so that y'all know that it isn't old Rakowsky yelling and screeching his delusions. 😄)
FIRST, when a sample is dated, rock or organic, multiple trials are done. That's good science.
It's also common sense: when Mom or I are feeling sick, I measure her or my temperature three times with our old-fashioned electronic oral thermometer that goes “beep!…beep!…beep!” when done. If it reads 101.2, 97.6, & 97.9, I know there's no fever; if 101.2, 98.6, & 101.1, I know we got us an illness!
The same goes with the radioactive dating results. You look for a trend in the multiple results.
Now, if our home thermometer reads 67.2, 135.4, & 98.6, I pitch the thing in the trash: it's not reliable.
Radioactive dating results, sadly, tend to be scattered like readings from a broken thermometer (Look it up. Homework. Told ya! 😉) So what's done is that the results that are closest to what the researcher THINKS is the object’s age, are chosen! (Look it up, too. 🤯) Can you spell C I R C U L A R R E A S O N I N G? (E.g. the Anytown Herald is the awesomest paper in the state! Why? Because it's owned by the Smith family. What's so special about the Smith family? They own the Anytown Herald!)
True Natural Science looks for reliable data that is:
— consistent, and
— not filtered through preconceptions.
SECONDLY, if you find a dinosaur bone in your back yard and want to have it radiocarbon dated, you should be able to take it to a lab and have it done, right? They shouldn't refuse to date it because they don't think there's any C-14 left in the sample, right? There are multiple radiocarbon dating labs around, charging good money (justly) for the work they do (Very elaborate procedure. Homework time!! 🙃). Really, your wealthy Great Aunt Hortense should be able to go have her shawl radiocarbon dated every month if she wants, right? Right? (Homework yet again!! ☺️) They are providing a service and charging for it, right??
But, is that the case? Or do the labs filter out objects based on preconceptions? (It's OK to refuse to radiocarbon date a lump of lead or a sheet of aluminum foil, of course: they possess no carbon.) (So BIG Homework here!! 💪)
Speaking of Homework, has coal, conventionally believed to be hundreds of millions of years old, ever been radiocarbon dated? Or diamonds, assumed to be without any C-14 because formed deep in the Earth? (Also, look up kimberlite pipes. Would be nice to have one out back! 😃)
True Natural Science never fits reliable data to a paradigm if that data contradicts it: humility requires adjusting one's paradigm to account for that data.
Our Mother of Perpetual Help, aid us!
Ademar