Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
5 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,815 Year: 3,072/9,624 Month: 917/1,588 Week: 100/223 Day: 11/17 Hour: 0/7


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Discussing carbon 14 in fossils
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 9 of 25 (690510)
02-13-2013 10:15 PM


One rebuttal
The website you are linking to has a lot of errors. Here I analyze only one as an example. That site links to this abstract as "evidence" for the YEC belief:
MEASURABLE 14C IN FOSSILIZED ORGANIC MATERIALS:
CONFIRMING THE YOUNG EARTH CREATION-FLOOD MODEL
Presented: Fifth International Conference on Creationism
August 4-8, 2003
Copyright 2003 by Creation Science Fellowship, Inc.
Pittsburgh, PA USA - All Rights Reserved
JOHN BAUMGARDNER, PH.D. LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABRATORY*
D. RUSSELL HUMPHREYS, PH.D.INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH*
ANDREW A. SNELLING, PH.D.INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH*
STEVEN A. AUSTIN, PH.D.INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH*
ABSTRACT
Given the short 14C half-life of 5730 years, organic materials purportedly older than 250,000 years, corresponding to 43.6 half-lives, should contain absolutely no detectable 14C. (One gram of modern carbon contains about 6 x 1010 14C atoms, and 43.6 half-lives should reduce that number by a factor of 7.3 x 10-14.) An astonishing discovery made over the past twenty years is that, almost without exception, when tested by highly sensitive accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) methods, organic samples from every portion of the Phanerozoic record show detectable amounts of 14C! 14C/C ratios from all but the youngest Phanerozoic samples appear to be clustered in the range 0.1-0.5 pmc (percent modern carbon), regardless of geological ‘age.’ A straightforward conclusion that can be drawn from these observations is that all but the very youngest Phanerozoic organic material was buried contemporaneously much less than 250,000 years ago. This is consistent with the Biblical account of a global Flood that destroyed most of the air-breathing life on the planet in a single brief cataclysm only a few thousand years ago.
In support of their young earth religious belief, your website links to this abstract.
And it's finding is that "all but the youngest Phanerozoic samples appear to be clustered in the range 0.1-0.5 pmc (percent modern carbon)."
From that it concludes "all but the very youngest Phanerozoic organic material was buried contemporaneously much less than 250,000 years ago."
How about another conclusion?
How about the possibility that there is an inherent lower level of C14 that will show up just in the instruments alone, with no sample! That is what the Taylor and Southon's study of diamonds showed. Diamonds have no C14, in spite of what the lead paragraph of your website claims, so they are an ideal material to use to detect residual amounts of C14 that can be attributed to the instruments themselves. These are background signals that can subsequently be subtracted from readings on real samples.
This is just another way that scientists are trying to make the C14 method as accurate as possible. (The exact opposite of young earth creationists.)
But this tiny amount of residual C14 inherent in the instruments themselves has been enough to let creationists run wild with their young earth "evidence."
See why we don't trust anything creationist claim about C14 dating? They lie! They have to lie because the C14 method directly contradicts their beliefs.
I can provide more examples if you want (if you dare).

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers

Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by Dr Adequate, posted 02-13-2013 10:54 PM Coyote has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 13 of 25 (690539)
02-14-2013 2:21 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by Pressie
02-14-2013 12:50 AM


Re: One rebuttal
For the technical details I suggest you message another member here, kbertsche. He is more current on that aspect of C14 dating than I am.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by Pressie, posted 02-14-2013 12:50 AM Pressie has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 14 by CoolBeans, posted 02-14-2013 1:27 PM Coyote has not replied
 Message 21 by Pressie, posted 02-15-2013 12:52 AM Coyote has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(3)
Message 17 of 25 (690655)
02-15-2013 12:24 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by CoolBeans
02-14-2013 2:12 PM


Another rebuttal
Since you have linked to an article with a veritable Gish gallop of nonsense, here is another creationist talking point on C14 that is completely rebutted. (I have more if you want; if you dare.)
Claim:
Coal from Russia from the Pennsylvanian, supposedly 300 million years old, was dated at 1,680 years. (Radiocarbon, vol. 8, 1966) Source
Analysis:
False information due to sloppy research.
This is a difficult reference to track down because the actual page number is not provided. It appears that each creationist website just copies from the previous without checking the original citation. (The information in question is on page 319.)
The original source for the false information seems to be Ken Ham, Andrew Snelling, and Carl Weiland’s The Answers Book, published by Master Books, El Cajon, CA, in 1992 (page 73).
The original article in the journal Radiocarbon includes the following paragraph describing this sample:
Mo-334. River Naryn, Kirgizia 1680 170. A.D. 270
Coal from the cultural layer on the left side of the r. Naryn (Kirgizian SSR), 3 km E of the mourh of the r. Alabuga (41 25′ N Lat, 74 40′ E Long). The sample was found at a depth of 7.6 m in the form of scattered coals in a loamy rock in deposits of a 26-m terrace. According to the archaeological estimations the sample dates from the 5 to 7th centuries A.D. The sample was found by K. V. Kurdyumov (Moscow State Univ.) in 1962. Comment: the find serves as a verification of archaeological data on the peopling of the Tien Shan.
What we have here is no more than shorthand or sloppy translation from the Russian! The coal is nothing more than charcoal from an archaeological deposit. This sample is even included in the section of the report dealing with archaeological samples, and the paragraph discusses archaeological data.
The odd use of terms is shown clearly in another radiocarbon date, Mo-353, reported on page 315 of the same article. It reads Charcoal from cultural deposits of a fisher site. The coal was coll. from subturfic humified loam
But the term coal in place of charcoal was enough to fool Ken Ham, as well as dozens of subsequent creationists who apparently were salivating to find 300 million year old coal radiocarbon dated to recent times, and who repeated Ham’s false claim without bothering to check its accuracy.
The interesting question is where Ken Ham managed to find Pennsylvanian in that short paragraph, and where he dug up the date of 300 million years.
This is still another case where a creationist claim about science falls apart when examined more closely.
Reference
Vinogradov, A.P.; A.L. Devirts; E.I. Dobinka; and N.G. Markova. Radiocarbon dating in the Vernadsky Institute I-IV. Radiocarbon, Vol 8, 1966, pp. 292-323.
http://blog.darwincentral.org/...%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%94-part-iv
Want more?

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by CoolBeans, posted 02-14-2013 2:12 PM CoolBeans has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by CoolBeans, posted 02-15-2013 12:30 AM Coyote has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(3)
Message 19 of 25 (690657)
02-15-2013 12:31 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by CoolBeans
02-14-2013 2:12 PM


OK, one more rebuttal
Here is still another rebuttal to a claim by creationists, one which you can find all over the web. This is one of the main creationist "proofs" that C14 dating is inaccurate.
Claim:
Natural gas from Alabama and Mississippi (Cretaceous and Eocene, respectively) should have been 50 to 135 million years old. C14 gave dates of 30,000 and 34,000, respectively. Source
Analysis:
False information due to sloppy research and lack of familiarity with radiocarbon dating.
This was another difficult reference to track down because the original source is not provided. It appears that each creationist website just copies from the previous without checking the original citation. (The information in question originates in Radiocarbon, Vol. 8, page 200.)
The original source for the false information seems to be Ken Ham, Andrew Snelling, and Carl Weiland’s The Answers Book, published by Master Books, El Cajon, CA, in 1992 (page 73).
The original article in the journal Radiocarbon includes the following paragraphs describing these two samples:
I-1149. Sealy Springs well, Alabama >34,000
From Sealy Springs Well, Cottonwood, Houston County, Alabama. Well yielding salt water and natural gas, probably from Upper Cretaceous Eutaw sandstone. Comment (D.R.B.): sample submitted as control. Infinite age as expected.
I-1150. Maxie Gas Field, Mississippi >30,000
From Lower and Upper Cretaceous, and Eocene formations in Maxie Gas Field, Forrest County, Mississippi. Comment (D.R.B.): control sample yielding infinite age as expected.
Note the little > symbols in front of the dates? This means greater than and denotes that the measured ages reflect the limits of the instrumentation rather than an actual age. In other words, the creationists either goofed and missed the > symbols, or hoped that nobody would check up on their research.
Rather than serving as an example of the inaccuracy of radiocarbon dating, this refuted creationist claim serves as another example of the inaccuracy of creationist research.
Reference
Trautman, Milton A. and Eric H. Willis. Isotopes, Inc. Radiocarbon Measurements V. Radiocarbon, Vol. 8, 1966, pp. 161-203.

http://blog.darwincentral.org/...e%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%94-part-v
Want more?

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by CoolBeans, posted 02-14-2013 2:12 PM CoolBeans has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(4)
Message 20 of 25 (690658)
02-15-2013 12:38 AM
Reply to: Message 18 by CoolBeans
02-15-2013 12:30 AM


OK, just one more then it's bedtime
Another standard creationist claim, found all over the web, totally rebutted. (Want more?)
Claim:
Some time ago eleven human skeletons, remains of the earliest humans in the western hemisphere, were dated by this new `accelerator mass spectrometer’ technique to about 5000 radiocarbon years or less. [R.E.Taylor, `Major Revisions in the Pleistocene Age Assignments for the North American Human Skeletons by C-14 Accelerator Mass Spectrometry', American Antiquity, Vol. 50, No.1, 1985, pp. 136-140] Source
Analysis:
False information due to sloppy research and lack of familiarity with archaeology, amino acid racemization dating, and radiocarbon dating.
This claim seems to have originated with Walter T. Brown’s In the Beginning (1989), p. 95.
The major mistake made here is assuming that the original dates, all by amino acid racemization, were accurate, and the newer radiocarbon dates were wrong—probably out of a wish to show errors in the radiocarbon method. The opposite is true: the Taylor et al. article, by redating these specimens using the AMS method of radiocarbon dating, corrected the earlier, erroneous amino acid racemization age estimates.
But through lack of familiarity with science in general and these fields in particular, this correction of inaccurate amino acid racemization age estimates has been morphed by creationists into a condemnation of the radiocarbon dating method a result the exact opposite of what the research actually showed! It was radiocarbon dating that corrected the earlier errors!
Are creationists so desperate to discredit dating methods that they are deliberately misrepresenting the actual facts, or are they just doing sloppy research? Probably the latter, but this practice is so common that one wonders.
Reference
Taylor, R.E., et al., Major Revisions in the Pleistocene Age Assignments for North American Human Skeletons by C-14 Accelerator Mass Spectrometry: None Older Than 11,000 C-14 Years B.P. American Antiquity, Vol. 50, No. 1, 1983, pp. 136-140.
http://blog.darwincentral.org/...%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%94-part-vi

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by CoolBeans, posted 02-15-2013 12:30 AM CoolBeans has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(1)
Message 25 of 25 (692563)
03-05-2013 12:18 AM
Reply to: Message 23 by CoolBeans
03-04-2013 11:43 PM


C-14 dating is inaccurate, and other creationists myths
I would like that a person would argue better for there position. I dont think I will be able to represent them.
If, by "there (sic) position" you mean supporting that paper on C-14 dating that was linked above, I wouldn't worry about it.
It was junk start to finish, following in a long tradition of junk being posted by creationists regarding C-14 dating.
I did several posts discussing some creationist claims, and showing how wrong they were.
What more do you want? My posts demonstrated the level of research and accuracy of the creationists--and if you research the web you'll still find those refuted claims all over the place!
After that, do you still have any faith in those goofs?

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by CoolBeans, posted 03-04-2013 11:43 PM CoolBeans has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024