Feedback about reliability of dating

Hi Elcano,I'm going to make a administrative decision and rule that the evidence for an eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD is overwhelming and not open to discussion in this thread. If you'd like to propose a thread over at [forum=-25] about whether the 79 AD eruption really happened then that would be fine, but we won't be discussing it here.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

see Message 1

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

well

You didn't answer my direct question and this link doesn't answer it either. Mascolo sketched the area before and after the 1631 eruption but there's no evidence that there was a thriving anachronistic Roman city that was destroyed in 1631.Other posters have mentioned writings contemporary with the 79 eruption. To top that off you can now go walk the streets of Pompeii yourself. I've never had the pleasure but it's something I want to do very badly. The evidence I've seen and held (including quite a few artifacts excavated at Pompeii) indicate that it was a thriving first century city when it was destroyed.Perhaps you're making the mistake of believing that a volcano is only allowed to erupt once. Vesuvius has plenty of eruptions that appear in historical records. According to my search the 1631 eruption killed about 3,000. Significant but not as many as the 79 which probably killed more than 20,000.The city of Pompeii was not rediscovered until after the 1631 eruption (Pompeii was rediscovered in 1748). Any reference to Pompeii that is contemporary with the 1631 eruption can only refer to the Italian city of Pompei that shares a name, but not location with the original Roman city.

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When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.
- Henry Morris, Head of Institute for Creation Research

see Message 61

see Message 8have fun.

"There isn't enough information to tell what is happening. My bet is contamination of the samples."This is exactly what makes dating, carbon dating in particular, so unscientific; at least in the way it's being used by evolutionists. If the date doesn't make sense with what they believe, it gets thrown out. There are actually many quotes from scientists, evolutionary advocates, that state that dates that do not make sense, are simply discarded as irregularities. However, there have been some figures that state that as many as half of the dates found using the C14 method are thrown out. How do you know that the other half is correct? The reason that these dates are kept is because it backs what they already believe.Science has to back a theory for it to remain valid. It is certainly not the other way around.

Antioch's Fire writes:

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There are actually many quotes from scientists, evolutionary advocates, that state that dates that do not make sense, are simply discarded as irregularities.

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Names, dates, places.Otherwise, you're just pulling that claim out of your ass.To the contrary, C14 dating is highly calibrated.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

"It doesn't mention that oil and coal has no 14C, it just lets people think that the level could be consistent with being only 5000 years old."All it takes is a simple google session to find out that carbon 14 is found in coal.

Antioch's Fire writes:

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All it takes is a simple google session to find out that carbon 14 is found in coal.

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True, but misleading. In coal deposits that have detectable amounts of C14, we find that the surrounding rocks contain uranium and the uranium-thorium decay will result in C14 creation in the adjoining coal.And by the way: The amount of C14 detected is so small that it is at the limits of current detection. Currently, we can find it in ratios of 10^-15 and the amounts we find in coal are on the order of 10^-13 at best.The search for low C14 oil is important because the oil is used in neutrino detection and they don't want to get false positives from C14 decay.A nice discussion of C14 levels in coal can be found at:Carbon-14 in Coal Deposits

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Absolutely untrue. If a date doesn't fit with mainstream ideas, it's published and investigated until the reason for the discrepancy is understood. That's how people make reputations, money, and get loads of babes. Well, maybe not babes, but definitely reputation and money. An excellent example is the KBS Tuff, which was dated wildly differently by different methods. The discrepant results were pubplished in Nature, arguably the most prestigious journal in the world. Investigators all over the world ran tests, argued, and hacked away at the problem until the reasons for the different dates were understood, procedures for getting good samples were developed, and consistent dates were obtained by multiple methods at multiple labs.On the subject of 14C in coal and diamonds, Kirk Bertsche, accelerator physicist, formerly at a leading radiocarbon AMS laboratory, writes RATE and Radiocarbon:

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There have been a number of mentions in various threads of the ICR RATE project and its conclusions about radiocarbon. I have finally looked into this in detail (read their reports, read most of their references, and spoken with the expert who measured the radiocarbon samples for them.)

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Modern radiocarbon dating by AMS is a complex process with numerous opportunities for contamination ... (Baumgardner does not seem to understand this; he wants to treat the quoted background from one of the leading modern labs as a constant value applicable to all labs and to all historic measurements.)

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The expert who prepared and measured the RATE samples is convinced that the RATE coal samples were contaminated in situ. Coal is “notorious” for contamination, due to uranium which is often in or near the coal (especially a problem for N. Australian coals), from humic acids which are almost always present, and from microbial growth. The best coal dates reportedly come from anthracites with glassy surfaces, which have given dates as old as 70k years, or about 0.02 pMC.

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It is also possible that the coal samples were contaminated while in storage for an indeterminate time in a DOE geology lab refrigerator (1). Geology labs often have elevated levels of radiocarbon due to tracer studies, neutron activation studies, and dust from uranium-bearing rocks. Carbon is highly mobile and contamination can spread through an entire lab and persist for decades (4). (I have seen a badly contaminated sample which was traced to storage in a geology lab refrigerator.)

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The diamond samples were difficult to graphitize, and apparently required some modifications to the normal procedure (1). This likely increased the contamination. In addition, the samples themselves were reportedly pitted and appeared to have been subjected to previous analyses of some sort. Nevertheless, the 5 deep-mine diamond samples were only slightly above background levels (0.01 to 0.07 pMC after background subtraction), while the 7 alluvial samples ranged from 0.03 to 0.31 pMC after background subtraction. Subsequently, this lab has inserted diamond directly into an ion source, eliminating the graphitization process, and has measured much older dates (unpublished). Taylor and Southon have measured 0.005 to 0.03 pMC by the same technique, which they interpret as their instrument background (2). This gives strong evidence that the RATE diamond samples were contaminated, either by previous testing or by graphitization.

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Thus it is clear that the previous peer-reviewed radiocarbon AMS measurements can be explained by contamination, mostly in the graphitization process. The recent RATE coal samples were probably contaminated in situ, and the diamond samples were either contaminated in the graphitization process or by previous analyses. In any case, other coal and diamond samples have been measured at essentially the instrument background levels, giving no evidence for intrinsic radiocarbon. RATE’s claim that all carbonaceous material contains intrinsic radiocarbon is not supported by the data.
  —Kirk Bertsche

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In a slightly later post, Bertsche says that "contaminated in-situ" is not really correct; "contaminated before they arrived at his lab" is more accurate.

It should be noted as well that coal is a low Eh, reducing environment as is an oil and gas deposit.Naturally occuring uranium and thorium compounds are mobile, soluble in water, in high Eh oxidizing environments, but they precipitate out in a low eh reducing environment. This means that if present in the ground water they would preferentially precipitate out in coals and oil and gas deposits.It is hard to imagine an undergrad geology student who didn't know this since it is the reason for the occurence of uranium roll front deposits.Wma-minelife.comAlso well known in the petroleum industry by anyone using borehole geophysical logs since the presence of uranium or thorium in a reservoir can lead to the misinterpretation of that reservoir or even missing it completely. It's the reason the natural gamma ray spectroscopy tool and log were developed in the 1970s.http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/Display.cfm?Term=nat...BTW which do you think emits more radiation a coal fired power plant or a properly operating nuclear power plant? If you guessed coal you would be correct.Now the question really is are the people at ICR so stupid that they don't know coal is a "magnet" for uranium and thorium or did they decide not to tell people that so it looked like C14 being present would disprove science and an old earth?I let you decide.(BTW I know someone who knows John Morris personally and worked with him on the dinosaur/"human" prints in Texas. He knew it was bogus but published it anyway. So much for the character of the "scientists" at ICR)

No one is arguing that decay rates are constant (at least I hope no one is arguing that). The valid question has always been "have decay rates really been constant for millions of year?"First of all, to say yes is ONLY an assumption, it is not scientific. It can in no way be proven.Secondly, it is completely in line with the scientific spirit to question and test to find out if there is any evidence to suggest that they havent been constant.Third, to supress, reject, and criticize such research is against true scientific spirit.

So why should we believe that decay rates have changed? You do realize that the decay rates aren't random, but dictated by the laws of physics? Is it only because the decay rates prove that your dates and time lines are grossly erroneous? Is that the reason you are so desperate to convince yourself and us that these methods are unreliable?-x

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"Debate is an art form. It is about the winning of arguments. It is not about the discovery of truth. There are certain rules and procedures to debate that really have nothing to do with establishing fact ” which creationists have mastered. Some of those rules are: never say anything positive about your own position because it can be attacked, but chip away at what appear to be the weaknesses in your opponent's position. They are good at that. I don't think I could beat the creationists at debate. I can tie them. But in courtrooms they are terrible, because in courtrooms you cannot give speeches. In a courtroom you have to answer direct questions about the positive status of your belief. We destroyed them in Arkansas. On the second day of the two-week trial we had our victory party!"
-Stephen Jay Gould

Well, it certainly can be "proven", at least as "proven" as anything else can be in science. Namely, one can figure out what we should observe in the real world if the decay rates were not constant and then see whether we actually do observe those effects. If after constant investigation we never see these effects, and we cannot think of why we shouldn't see these effects, then we can say that the constancy of decay rates have been "proven", or, in more correct scientific lingo, the constancy of decay rates have been established to a high level of certainty.- Exactly, just like I said above. And you know what? Creationists never do this. I have never seen a creationist source make a prediction of as yet unobserved phenomena that would exist if her theory of non-constancy of decay rates were correct. That's because creationists don't do science -- they make up ad hoc excuses whenever reality contradicts their beliefs.But this question has been investigated -- by actual physical scientists. Like the idea of a non-constant speed of light, people have looked for definite signs that decay rates may not have been constant. They have never found such signs.So you are correct. Good scientists have questioned basic assumptions, and tested whether the basic assumptions are valid or invalid. Sometimes basic assumptions have been overturned. But in this case, it appears that the speed of light and the decay rates of radioactive elements have been constant over the life-time of the earth. If they have varied, they haven't varied enough to leave definite signs, and so not enough to give the creationists an out.- It is well within the spirit of "true science" to criticize research -- that is the point of peer review, to allow other people to examine your methodology, your data, and your conclusions. It is well within the spirit of "true science" to point out serious errors in a scientific project that casts doubt on the validity of its conclusions.Disregarding sloppy methods, inaccurate data, and fallaceous conclusions are not "suppression".Edited by Chiroptera, : typo

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Computers have cut-and-paste functions. So does right-wing historical memory. -- Rick Perlstein