known sources of errors is part of knowing how to use a method
Welcome to the fray Reserve,
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.
There are many reasons why specific dates can be unreliable. The scientists doing the dating know these factors and base their approach on them.
For instance Carbon 14 dating (C14) is based on the uptake of atmospheric formed C14 during the life of an organism and then its subsequent decay after death of the organism. IF the carbon taken up by the organism does not have any atmospheric carbon, it will not have the atmospheric formed C14 and the dates derived from the analysis will be in error.
A common and well known source of this kind of error is where shellfish or animals that eat shellfish get their carbon from the sea-bed instead of the atmosphere. This is known as a "reservoir" effect, and there are published documents detailing where and how much such effects occur around the world.
Creationist con-artists (what I call "creatortionistas") often go to these sites and make measurements, knowing full well that the results will be bogus, false, erroneous, etc, and they then cite this as evidence that C14 dating does not work. All they really show is that they can misuse science and con gullible people.
quote:The half-lives have all been measured directly either by using a radiation detector to count the number of atoms decaying in a given amount of time from a known amount of the parent material, or by measuring the ratio of daughter to parent atoms in a sample that originally consisted completely of parent atoms. Work on radiometric dating first started shortly after the turn of the 20th century, but progress was relatively slow before the late forties. However, by now we have had over fifty years to measure and re-measure the half-lives for many of the dating techniques. Very precise counting of the decay events or the daughter atoms can be done, so while the number of, say, rhenium-187 atoms decaying in 50 years is a very small fraction of the total, the resulting osmium-187 atoms can be very precisely counted. For example, recall that only one gram of material contains over 1021 (1 with 21 zeros behind) atoms. Even if only one trillionth of the atoms decay in one year, this is still millions of decays, each of which can be counted by a radiation detector!
The uncertainties on the half-lives given in the table are all very small. All of the half-lives are known to better than about two percent except for rhenium (5%), lutetium (3%), and beryllium (3%). There is no evidence of any of the half-lives changing over time. In fact, as discussed below, they have been observed to not change at all over hundreds of thousands of years.
quote:Not all of the atoms of a radioisotope decay at the same time, but they decay at a rate that is characteristic to the isotope. The rate of decay is a fixed rate called a half-life. The half-life of a radioisotope describes how long it takes for half of the atoms in a given mass to decay. Some isotopes decay very rapidly and, therefore, have a high specific activity. Others decay at a much slower rate.
How do you measure the decay of radioactive isotopes?
Now that we have an idea of how radioactive isotopes decay, let's look at how this is measured and apply the terms we just learned.
The basic unit of measure for describing the activity (radioactivity) of a quantity of radioactive material is the curie, named after Marie Curie. A quantity of radioactive material is considered to have an activity of 1 curie or 1 C, when 37 billion of its atoms decay (disintegrate) in one second. In scientific terms, this is expressed by the equation: 1C = 3.7 X 1010 disintegrations/sec. Remember that we said each isotope has its own decay pattern. If the rate of decay is greater than 37 billion atoms in one second, then the source would have an activity greater than one curie, and if that source had fewer than 37 billion atoms decaying in one second, its activity would be less than one curie.
* Take this link to learn how to determine radioactive sources in curies: o Comparing Radioactive Activity
* Take this link to learn how to assess how much radiation is emitted from a source: o Assessing the Amount of Radiation Coming From a Source
I couldn't find anything on calculating half-lives (too many responses about using them in decay calculations). We'll need one of the physics gurus ...
It may be otherwise but there's a pretty simple and obvious answer. Submit a paper with a "wrong" date and you don't get published. So even if one of the other dates is more strongly indicated, the safe bet is to publish the "correct" date, and then include the information on other dates for completeness.
So the dates for an old earth are incorrect and it is a world wide conspiracy of dedicated deceivers .... yeah THAT is a simple explanation.
You of course can tell this from your vast experience with doing science and dealing with professional scientists. This is also why you are able to refute the correlations on Age Correlations and an Old Earth: Version 1 No 3 (formerly Part III) ... except that I don't see you doing that.
But yeah, it is not any great mystery what appears to be going on in your world:
That's what happens when you start believing in world wide conspiracies eh?
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.
I'll stop when creationists stop making outrageous claims of conspiracies by scientists world wide to hide and falsify data.
It may be otherwise but there's a pretty simple and obvious answer. Submit a paper with a "wrong" date and you don't get published. So even if one of the other dates is more strongly indicated, the safe bet is to publish the "correct" date, and then include the information on other dates for completeness.
Too bad it's for pay. I'd be curious to see how much camoflague, if any, was applied to the other dates. Might be they smuggled some truth past the gatekeepers.
Sure. And the science can't be "checked out" if it isn't published.
Catch-22
But when it comes to evidence that he wants to believe?
CTD writes:
Message 54 It's my understanding that there is only one picture of this print, and it's from the 60's. If there were anything to it, there's a good chance someone would have followed up.
Photos are troublesome evidence. It can be difficult to get a genuine print to show up, while any element of contrast can create the appearance of features.
But suspect < think < believe. I'd be pleased if more info were available.
This AFTER substantial evidence showing falsification of footprints, including admissions of making fakes, and where a proponent (Carl Baugh) proffering the photo footprints as real was documented claiming that another known fake is real.
To be fair, CTD is not claiming to believe the footprints are real: in Message 55
It's even less work to fake a photo than it is to carve a fake print. The only value this picture could have would be to provide a clue where one might start to investigate. On its own, it's about as valuable as a National Enquirer alien baby pic.
The point is that he believes it may be possible for one of these footprints to be real in spite of all the evidence that there are only dino tracks and fake human tracks in the area.
(same message 54 as above) We may have different standards of evidence. I don't have a problem with that. It's hard to find people who agree 100% (especially in cases where double standards are likely to come into play).
And here he is the one applying double standards: Carl Baugh may possibly be telling the truth, but every one of thousands on thousands of scientists without a single dissenting voice are all in cahoots fabricating false data for an old earth?
The truth is that this is not a logical conclusion, based on evidence. It is one based solely on the need to maintain a belief in the face of contradictory evidence and the psychological mechanism that operates to do that: cognitive dissonance resolution - the evidence has to be a lie.
I think it would be false of me to say (and other creationists) that radiometric dating is known to be false.
Again, check out Age Correlations and an Old Earth: Version 1 No 3 (formerly Part III) to see how radiometric dates are confirmed by correlations with non-radiometric methods. There are times and places where the dating can be erroneous, but that still does not explain the results obtained for the rest of the data, the millions of dates that show the earth is old, billions of years old.
You can find evidence for a young earth on an old one subject to tectonic and volcanic processes that metamorphosize rock, renewing it's characteristics. The problem for YEC's is to explain how all the evidence for an old earth adds up to a consistent picture, time and again. You can't take a picture of a person older than the person.
Just as an additional question -- how do you think the scientists derive the probable error in each of the dating methods used?
I just brought up these "conflicts" with radioactive dating to see what evolutionists have to say specifically about such claims.
And what you find out, is that
physicist and geologists (not "evolutionists"(a)) know more about these "problems" that you were told about by the websites that said they were "conflicts"
that far from being "conflicts" that they are well known and that there are reasonable explanations for the discrepancies
that it is the physicist and geologists that originally note the possible sources of errors in different types of dating methods, and that
then the "creatortionistas" (those posters of your source sites) go and do exactly what the scientists say will produce errors (thus confirming the science),
that these "creatortionistas" are misrepresenting the truth on these sites, and
that for every instance of some supposed "conflict" in dating there are thousands of valid dates that demonstrate the earth is substantially older than any YEC concept can explain.
In like mind I presented to you a link to a thread that has, not just a couple of instances of possible "conflicts", but several actual lines of evidence that directly contradicts and invalidates the concept for a young earth: evidence compiled, documented, referenced and correlated into a cohesive whole.
I put together this thread to see what creationists have to say specifically about such evidence. The silence is deafening.
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.
So if you are really interested in learning (rather than an empty repeating of words from someone else), then I expect you to read, question and comment on Age Correlations and an Old Earth: Version 1 No 3 (formerly Part III). Call it expecting as much from yourself as you expect from others.
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.
Belief has nothing to do with the age of the earth. The age of the earth is a fact. What that age is can be determined from the evidence within certain parameters, and those parameters point to it being between 4.5 billion and 4.6 billion years old.
I agree that many people that call themselves creationists have a very rudimentary - infantile - knowledge of dating methods and the science that is involved and the evidence that validates the science. This leaves them innocent and gullible when it comes to information such as you have come across -- especially when they don't make any effort to find out the validity of those claims.
I also agree that "creatortionistas" are infantile in their intentional misuse of science to prove what science already knows ... that (a) there are some problems with any dating method and (b) "creatortionistas" are not doing valid science.
The life of christ does not depend on the age of the earth to be valid eh? It also does not depend on misrepresenting the truth.
Enjoy.
(a) - There is really no purpose for the use of the term "evolutionist" here other than to demonstrate an ignorance of the various sciences that ARE involved. Evolution has nothing to do with the various sciences involved in dating methods, it is not a "belief" system, and it is not any kind of umbrella term. Strictly speaking and "evolutionist" would be a biologist specializing in evolution or a person arguing for evolutionary biology. Dating is not biology.
Stegve Carlip is pretty guru-ish. From The Constancy of Constants, Part 2:
This could make a pretty good topic all on it's own: The Stability of Constants.
As I said on another post, it is not just the lack of evidence for changes in constants in the past that makes it illogical to consider in science, but the lack of a mechanism that could cause such a change that makes it unscientific to even consider.
You need a mechanism, then predictions of the effect of that on the constants and how that could be tested, then you need to test the hypothesis ...
I suggest you bookmark it read the opening sections down as far as your interest holds, and come back to it when you have a question on a specific method.
One thing to consider is how tested and validated the different methods are -- extensively -- and the possibilities for wild errors -- small, very very small.
. The fact that airplanes 50 years ago would date to millions of years is the question.
Except that they don't. The depth of the snow or ice layer has nothing to do with the annual layer formation -- those are marked by different phenomena, different chemisty, and what you have been reading is a typical creatortionista shell game misrepresentation of the truth. They mix storm layers with annual layers. Why? Because they need to have the dating method be false.
Response 2. I agree with the top half. Yes the planes were buried under snow. The fact they only take samples from "stable ice fields" is erroneous, explain to me how antartica isn't an active glacier. And in the last sentence its uniformitarianism all over again. How do they know that it's always been like that? Short answer: they don't Response 3. Couldn't be melt layers that would ruin the theory. wait...., they are melt layers! The assumption is that it's summer/winter etc., not hot/cold.
Nope, you missed again. The ice that falls\forms in the winter is different from what fall\forms in the summer -- see if you can find that detail. I suggest research from the scientific sources, not creatortionistas ...
So scientist observed species evolving for millions of years and can verify?
Scientists have observed species evolving all around us and can verify that the process of evolution is an empirical objective fact, so you can repeat these observations should you so desire.
Scientists have observed the effects of evolution on species, and can recognize and verify those effects in the fossil record, and this too is an empirical objective fact, so you can repeat these observations should you so desire.
The Theory of Evolution (ToE), stated in simple terms, is that the process of evolution over generations, and the process of divergent speciation, are sufficient to explain the diversity of life as we know it, from the fossil record, from the genetic record, from the historic record, and from everyday record of the life we observe in the world all around us.
These process explain the fossil record, and this has been verified by peer review by hundreds of independent scientists.
No other explanation provides as complete an explanation of the fossil record. Curiously, that is all that is required by science - explaining the evidence in the best known manner.
If not then it is assumption by viewing aging you see and then calculating the age by how it ages before you but this process is speculative at best.
Again, we can measure the age of rocks and other things by known verified means, and if you doubt this then you need to investigate it. Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1 is a good place for you to start, as I have suggested before.
Without doing so then you will just be repeating comments based on ignorance.
To claim anything other is absolute fairytales and bold faced lies.
So go to the Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1 thread and demonstrate that it is "fairytales and bold faced lies" -- unless you want to willfully stay ignorant of what can be known and verified.
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