Not to argue for creationism, but this argument sucks.
Lead can be produced by supernova, not just through decay of heavier elements. But even that's besides the point, since if you believe some entity created the universe, surely said entity could have created whatever ratio of lead to uranium they wanted. It's not a falsifiable claim, there's really no disproving it, unfortunately.
(Not so fun fact: the environmental impact of leaded gasoline was discovered by trying to estimate the age of the earth using the radio of lead to uranium in uranium deposits, but the pollution from leaded gasoline was throwing the measurements off.)
Pretty sure the point of creationism is that everything was put on the earth when it was created, including fossils etc. You can't argue this with logic. My favorite spin off of this is Last Thursdayism where the earth was created last Thursday (regardless of what day it's now) which basically uses the same argument.
Technically this could all be true even if the universe were created 4000 years ago. As somebody says in Robert Heinlein's novel Job: A Comedy of Justice, "Yes, the universe is billions of years old, but it was created 4000 years ago. It was created old." (approximate quote from memory)
I absolutely agree with science, but strictly speaking we can't know for sure the universe isn't the creation of some superbeing operating outside of it - or it could even be a simulation.
When I was being raised as a young earth creationist, the earth was supposedly 12,000-20,000 years old. Then it was 10,000 years old. Then only 6,000. After I outgrew that nonsense, I joked that in a few decades YECs would say that their god created the earth in 1980, and anyone older than 40 are agents of the devil sent to test your faith.
the answer completely disregards the fact that people who even remotely understand how these things work wouldn't believe stupid shit in the first place. there are so many ways for this guy to just dismiss this.
how would you even know, you can't have studied these for billions of years
who says lead only can exist in this manner
what if this is true but god also made lead along with the earth
etc etc... this is very weak if the goal is really try to convince this guy to look into some things rather than smell your own farts.
You can throw as much science at them as you want. God could have just created everything in whatever state he wanted to. Same thing with the virgin mary discussion. Who cares if it makes sense scientifically, god can just make a fertilized egg appear. How lame would god be if he could not do that? This is the basis christians start from, so why even bother trying to debate that?
I'm not even sure how you get to 4000 years old from biblical literalisim.
Edit: going strictly by the biblical account, Adam lived to 930 years, and Noah 950. IIRC, their lives did not overlap. Jesus lived 2000 years ago. A whole bunch of stuff happens in between Noah and Jesus. So even if you're working strictly from the bible, how the hell do you get 4000 years?
I typically use the fact that there are trees older than 4000 years old based on tree ring data. Or that there are stars in the sky further than 4000 light years away that we can see in the sky.
That usually makes them say something like how their God created an world that was already aged. So I usually counter with the fact that would make their God a lier and deceiver.
Some hold firm and say God did it to test faith. Others back pedal and try to blame it on Satan. That Satan scattered all this false evidence just to make us question the notion that Earth is 4000 years old to make people lose faith in God. And then I have to laugh at how stupid their argument is and how weak their God is. Naturally no amount of evidence or logic will make them change their belief.
Lead 204 is entirely primordial and the other isotopes found on earth would be found at roughly the same concentration were all of the lead on earth primordial. It's the excess ratios of the other isotopes of lead that can be attributed to radioactive decay. That is a substantial proportion of the lead on earth, but to say the "existence of lead" is proof of the age of the earth is entirely incorrect.
But the half life of polonium 210 is just 138 days. other is a few days. radium 226 is 1602 years. Why couldn't the earth have started with a lot of radium 226? Checkmate round earthers.
I had a dude come up to me at the reference desk and tell me that the earth can’t be billions (he said trillions, lol) of years old because erosion from the Mississippi River would make it wider and deeper than it is. I pulled up some info including the idea that the Mississippi was something that came about more recently because of plate shifting, etc and he just said, "Nah."
Yeah this doesn’t do squat to prove or disprove anything to these nutters.
I’ve done the same with a variety of other things and you will get told the same thing:
God put it here.
Thing is you cannot argue with the above statement because it falls into that sort of argument you used to have when you were a child when the other kid would say ‘Nyah! Last word!!’ or ‘I can’t hear you!!’
This would mean that there was more uranium around millions and billions of years in the past so why isn't there any evidence of prehistoric nukes in the fossil record
This is false, the Flying Spaghetti Monster in his infinite noodly wisdom and power created the world yesterday and made the Earth appear billions of years old and the universe appear even older.
Young earth creationists make up new element called "creationite" from which all elements came from, thereby filling in the radioactive decay plot hole in their narrative.