The dating game

Hello everyone,I am new here, however I have read quite a few posts so I am familiar with some of the material. I have a few question that attacks dating negatively.I have read else where but this link will suffice. It says that Potasium-argon does not work for recent dates. I wonder, why not? why only for ages older than 100kya? Radioactivity is a recently discovered tool from around the 19th century which is about 200 years ago.So the question is, why can we know the half life of this method in such a short period of time, and not able to use it on anything under the age of 100kya? If we can know the accuracy of the half life within 200 years, we should be able to use it on anything that is 200 years or older. quote by John at this link, message 4
EvC Forum: Feedback about reliability of datingA similar question for radiocarbon dating. If radiocarbon dating is only useful for a maximum date of 100,000 why is it that when dating anything older we would get "back nonsense numbers"? Since the method (Mass spectrometer) counts the atoms, then older objects should give back very low parent atoms. However if we date supposedly older objects and we can count the parent atoms within error, then this tells us that there is an extremely big amount of contamination, or the date of the object is below 100,000 years depending on the ratio. qouted by Nosy Ned at this link, message 3
EvC Forum: Does radio-carbon dating disprove evolution?Here NosyNed says "suspected great age", however that would be from an evolutionary perspective, from a creationist perspective, why not date objects subjected to the carbon cycle at some point in time and measure their age using radiocarbon?Edited by Reserve, : wrong word usedEdited by Adminnemooseus, : Made links message specific.

But isn't that the misconception, that these methods return dates? These methods return a ratio or a atom count. Then they are put into formulas using some assumptions, THEN you get the date. So you wouldn't get back 100 000 but a very low or zero atom count for carbon dating. This can be translated as around 100 000 years, or just much older. And this would be the interpretation of the low or zero count. We wouldn't get back dates or nonsense numbers. As for your link, it is not working for me. Ill try a different source.Edited by Reserve, : clarification

Responses like these, they dont help at all. I do see what you are getting at, except the analogy doesn't work for this. Read the material before the question, and try again.

One more thing I would like to add;
It is common for long age believers to say that all dating methods agree with one another. But this is not what I read from this website concerning the potassium argon method.http://www.creation-science-prophecy.com/K-Ar-dating.htmTo save you guys some extensive reading I'll quote a few lines.

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A very good example of this kind of filtering is a paper by Evernden JF, Savage DE, Curtis GH, James GT: Potassium-argon dating and the Cenozoic mammalian chronology of North America. Am J Sci 1964;22:145-98. This paper is now considered to be a classic paper.

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On pages 171-174 they discuss why all but one potassium/argon date for the Rusinga Island bioites was discarded. Yet they use biotite in an uncritical manor in other areas where the dates they obtained matched their expectations. On Page 174, we can also note: "Unfortunately many of the samples that passed field inspection for suitability and were laboriously collected, later proved unsuitable for dating. . . . Thus, of some 65 samples collected by M. Skinner, only 10 could be used." Other creationists such as Paul Giem (in his book, Scientific Theology see references below), have thought: "It might have been interesting to know why such samples proved unsuitable for dating, and what their potassium/argon dates were."

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It is amazing that a paper that only reports 1/6 of the data, is also considered to be a classic paper. Paul notes: "It is interesting to speculate what would happen if an article in chemistry or medicine were submitted with perhaps 1/6 of the data reported."

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From this I really do not agree with people saying that radiometric dating is carved in stone and only few minor problems ever prop up, according to this, only 1/6th of the data was used which translates to 5/6th of the data not working out...Is there something wrong with this person's view or are evolutionists and long agers trying to hard to make radiometric dating look like infallible proof of an old earth.

The website I got it from did not mention anything about conspiracy, that is something you guys have placed inside creationists mouths. Stop doing that.The author of the website believes that the paper submitted did not try to deceive, but says that the disregarded dates should have been published. The reason the paper doesn't is because the author of the paper truly believes in a long ages as established fact, that anything that disagrees is just an error, or something not worth wasting time and money to pursue. Therefore, I, or the author of the website do not claim a conspiracy, just that there is less published wrong dates, and therefore dating seems to corrolate so well.Remember that the 5/6th of samples that were disregarded passed the test for dating when they were in the field collecting them, it was after they got the dates that they threw them out because they were way off, so instead of saying "why" they throw them out because it does not agree with the "factual" dating paradigm. And to pursue this "why" question would just be a waste of time and money for them. And we understand that. But it would be interesting for a creationists (even evolutionists) to pursue the why question.Here is why radioactive dating could give wrong dates, (not talking about the decay being increased), again, it is from the website mentioned earlier.

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Below the surface of the earth, where would the Argon go? If there is no place for the Argon to go as the rock is cooling, the rock will probably retain its Argon. Also, if there is a partial pressure of Argon surrounding the rock, then, as experiments indicate, Argon might even enter the rock during its cooling to increase its content of Argon.

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Now, what happens when volcanic lava flows go underwater into the sea? Two different papers (Dalrymple GB, Moore JG: Science 1968;161:1132-5) (Noble CS, Naughton JJ: Science 1968;162:265-7) show that lava flows in the ocean, show excess ages. The deeper the lava goes in depth into the ocean, the older the K/Ar date.

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In the Creationary Flood Model, essentially all layers were deposited under water. So the idea that the Argon does not come out of the rocks very well, when water pressure is surrounding the rock, is extremely interesting!

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http://www.creation-science-prophecy.com/K-Ar-dating.htm
http://www.creation-science-prophecy.com/K-Ar-dating2.htmThis is a possible explanation of why dates are actually older than they appear using K-Ar method. As for other methods, maybe this explanation could work, maybe not.I think it would be false of me to say (and other creationists) that radiometric dating is known to be false. There is ongoing research, and only glimpses of errors and possible reasons of why it is wrong. I will accept that today most of the radiometric dating seems to support long ages, but I have reason to believe that future endeavours will shed more light on how young ages can fit in with these dating methods.

No, I believe they knew exactly what they were doing. The point is, their belief in millions of years says that submarine basalts are not suitable because they are not the norm. BUT in a creationists perspective where Noah's flood comes into play, THIS submarine basalts ARE the norm. And therefore these rocks are what give more accurate dates. However, evolutionists do not believe this so they discard them based on their belief in long ages.

Unlikely event? Based on what evidence? Whatever evidence you have chosen, you chose the wrong interpretation. I googled radiometric dating and came across this site (a while ago), I found it interesting and read it. (I even added it in my favourites for future reference).But this site does not talk about why some of the argon might still be present. Where as the source I am using currently, does. Ar-Ar is a deriviation of the K-Ar method. And subject to the same conditions as the K-Ar. Time will tell.

I have a firm believe in the Bible, as for the dating methods, if I seem to make myself look like an expert in that field, I have misled you. I am not an expert in that field, and will not be for a long time, if ever.I just brought up these "conflicts" with radioactive dating to see what evolutionists have to say specifically about such claims. I could set aside days worth of time and look at papers, different sources, books and learn that way. But I find this forum an easier tool to get a faster response to certain questions. I mean, there is tons of information out there, to syphen through all that to get at what I really want to know is not easy. So I just have to say I am glad with some of the responses that directly attack the questions I put forth. However, far from converting me to an evolutionists, you guys make me ask new questions concerning dating, but also, you make me question some of the claims that creationists have put forth.All in all, I have not lost confidence in my belief, but I do see how creationists are at their infant stages when it comes to knowledge about dating.