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Member (Idle past 4120 days) Posts: 400 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Discussion of the CMI-AS debate (Meldinoor, NosyNed, Slevesque, Arphy only) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arphy Member (Idle past 3744 days) Posts: 185 From: New Zealand Joined: |
btw, won't be here this weekend, I'll be back next week
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NosyNed Member Posts: 8971 From: Canada Joined: |
We don't actually have or have to have a correct clock as we usually think of it since in no case are we really measuring the time of day. What we are measuring is a duration. We use one clock with a more invariant duration to determine errors in the duration of another. It seems we can also determine the variation in duration of our most accurate clocks but I don't know the details and I'm not sure they are relevant here. At the extremes I think it isn't the variation in durations that produced errors but in how we read out the results and that is understood well enough to put error bars on the readings.
It sounds like you won't trust any time measurement at all then. So you might as well step out of this debate since it is about a time measurement in the end. (and at the moment about helium diffusion as a measurement method which is known to have a lot of variables that throw it off so you don't trust it at all and can tell slevesque that now). Since at no time has any one carefully counted time duration for more than years or maybe a few decades you suggest that there are no methods for measuring durations that you will accept. Please be more clear about that. Personally I wouldn't trust a person ticking off days (or any other interval ) over many of the other methods since I know for a fact that individuals are enormously unreliable at that kind of thing.
Of course it is true that they are not necessarily in sync. At no time can we have 100 % confidence in any method (including your very weak counting by a person present). However, we are attempting to arrive at what can be considered to be the best conclusion we can some to with the facts at hand. The conclusion may be arrived at with a high degree of confidence or a lower one but it is often still possible to come to a interim conclusion that is somewhat better than "I have no clue." In the case of the clocks I would give a rather high degree of confidence if all the types of clocks agreed, very high in fact. Why wouldn't you?
You haven't read far enough. If you do you'll find that the method you like -- counting intervals is used to determine absolute dates and the counting methods agree with radiometric dating methods which also agree with calendar dates given by people who "were there". It is [b]not/b just the minimum dates that are given. It is actual matches between widely varying methods that are the "correlations" being discussed. If you wish to disagree with this you're going to have to actually read the information supplied. We have months so it isn't a rush. I have reading of my own to do on the helium diffusion method too.
The analogy here will carry over to the geological examples we will actually be discussing. Arm waving that there might be something affecting them all to produce the same error doesn't cut it here or there. You don't need to know the details of any of the workings of the clocks to realize there is very, very, very, very unlikely to be something to affect all of them to produce a wrong duration that all agree. That is enough for me to assign a high level of confidence in the conclusion until further facts come in. If it isn't for you; if you require 100 % confidence before you stop saying "We have no clue." then you will never have a clue.
Enjoy the weekend. There is no deadline to all of this (other than I am getting a bit older :S).
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NosyNed Member Posts: 8971 From: Canada Joined: |
The entire experiment depends on using helium diffusion as a good time measuring method. It can be used as such but is know to be loaded with difficulties of getting it right. Humphrey's made errors in his calculations which he dismisses as not answering the huge difference between the diffusion time he gets and the times form radiometric measurements. This misses the point. The errors mean that his predicitions are not matched with the observations.
The location he choose is an area of extra non radiogenic helium that may or may not be a coincidence but it is not handled in his paper. Other YEC writers (Gentry) note that there could be excess non radiogenic helium involved.
This result should certainly be viewed within the entirety of dating work where it sticks out as a very, very unlikely outlier. The RATE research concluded that radiometric methods do in fact yield an old earth. They simply decided that this can not be right and somehow, someday an explanation will be found. They have no such explanation.
We know that helium diffusion dating is an uncertain proposition for a number of perfectly clear reasons. We also know that if decay was much faster in the past then the heat produced is prohibitive to life on earth. The RATE group agrees with this but decides that there must be a way for it to be handled but don't know what it is. From that point on they are not doing science. They need a miracle.
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slevesque Member (Idle past 3952 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
It would help if you identified which errors you are referring to (Henke as 15pages of''errors'') I do think that overall, the errors that are legitimate are very minor ones, and that they don't fall out of the two sigma error bars, meaning that the experimental results still fall into the prediction.
The location was chosen because the content % of helium in these zircons were known, thus predicting the diffusivity possible. About extraneous helium contaminating the zircons, I think it should be put into perspective. It is two steps: first you need to get the helium into the zircon. Henke makes a pretty vague scenario of how maybe it could have contaminated it. Because he needs to bring into it 60% of 1,5Billion years worth of uranium decay. That is a lot. Not only that, but there is no evidence about any of what he is alluding to ever took place, it is only speculation. Second, the contamination must stay there. This is where it ultimately fails, because even though his scenario is plausible (but unlikely), his method to keep the helium in the zircon fails. He suggests that the current pressure (and possibly even higher pressure in the past) would keep it there. But as humphreys explained, the pressure has little to no effect on the diffusion rate in zircons. I think the experimenter doesn't propose this as an explanation because he knows that pressure is a non-factor. (Which is why he simply measured the diffusivity in a vacuum.) This result should certainly be viewed within the entirety of dating work where it sticks out as a very, very unlikely outlier.
You oppose these results with the results of radiometric dating, but this is probably a misrepresentation of the data. The RATE results show that nuclear decay rates were not constant in the past, and so you need to oppose them to the evidence we have that the decay rates were constant.
Uncertain for someone like Henke, who magnifies details to enormous proportions. Besides, since when do such ''uncertain'' methods get predicted so accurately ?
This is pretty dichotomic. You point out that their hypothesis poses another problem, and then you point out that the RATE group acknowledges the problem and says that this is still an unanwered question. But astonishingly, you claim right after this that they aren't doing science! May I ask if this is because there is an unanswered question ? (Because I did think that those type of questions were the primary building blocks of science)
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Arphy Member (Idle past 3744 days) Posts: 185 From: New Zealand Joined: |
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Arphy Member (Idle past 3744 days) Posts: 185 From: New Zealand Joined: |
Hi Guys.
I've been a bit busy of late. To save me going through endless pages of debates ![]() See ya all round, Arphy
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