quote:
Sweet. I think I've gotten the issues down concisely as they're going to get over there:
Ryan R:
I've already told you why I'm skeptical of outliers and such, and you were trying to get me that data. If you do, I'll be able to show you how those outliers are treated and what that implies and, if you provide me with data from multiple tests used on the same sample and a description of how the instruments are calibrated, I'll be able to show you whether or not there are relationships in the data (correlations), or if they're coincidence (based on insufficiency of data to establish relationship or frequency of falling outside the appropriate standard deviations on either side within the accepted confidence interval), or if they are actually codependents (as in calibrated off of one another or according to similar assumptions).
I'm going to try and turn this into a sensible question to email off to Beta Analytic, are there any other suggestions anyone has on where to look for the above information? Thanks.
Lurker
Calibration is simple in principle, but gets somewhat tricky and detailed in practice. To really understand it requires some practical knowledge of analytical instrumentation and measurements (certainly more than your critics seem to have).
In principle, one frequently measures a "blank" with essentially no radiocarbon to correct for drift of the instrument's "zero" level, and a "standard" of known (roughly modern) activity to correct for instrument gain. With these two calibration standards, one can correct for both the zero offset and the gain of the instrument. But the instrument will drift over a time scale of hours, so these samples need to be measured on a similar time scale, and the instrument drift needs to be corrected with a linear or a more complex fit.
I wrote up a critique of ICR's RATE study a couple of years ago. This is concise and dense, but may have some useful information. You can find it at a number of places:
RATE's Radiocarbon - Intrinsic or Contamination?Page not found - Reasons to BelieveRATE’s Radiocarbon: Intrinsic or Contamination?