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Author Topic:   The Light Time Problem
dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 254 of 278 (894617)
05-24-2022 10:50 AM
Reply to: Message 253 by jar
05-24-2022 10:38 AM


Re: See my signature below about having to lie
You want source and proof?
Here it is.
jar's link is to the Onyate Man "find", a complete human fossil (though significantly missing one foot) caught in the midst of being swallowed by a T. Rex (or some such similar dinosaur).
The moment that Kent Hovind heard about Onyate Man (follow ) he used it in one of his "seminar" presentations.
In Alcalde, NM, when they erected a statue of conquistador Juan de Oñate, somebody cut off his foot. His claim to infamy was ruthlessly putting down an Indian revolt and reportedly ordering that every man over the age of 25 have one foot cut off:
quote
Today, Oñate remains a controversial figure in New Mexican history: in 1998, the right foot was cut off a statue of the conquistador that stands in Alcalde, New Mexico, in protest of the massacre, and significant controversy arose when a large equestrian statue of Oñate was erected in El Paso, Texas, in 2006. On June 15, 2020, the statue of Oñate in Alcalde, New Mexico was temporarily removed by Rio Arriba County workers at the direction of officials. Civic institutions will make the final decision on the statue's future.
Never forget.

Edited by dwise1, : more on Oñate

Edited by dwise1, : fleshed out my quick response


This message is a reply to:
 Message 253 by jar, posted 05-24-2022 10:38 AM jar has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(3)
Message 260 of 278 (899238)
10-10-2022 10:45 PM
Reply to: Message 259 by ringo
10-10-2022 10:12 PM


You forget that he's hanging upside down in Australia.
He doesn't know up from down, let alone which way is up.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 259 by ringo, posted 10-10-2022 10:12 PM ringo has seen this message but not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(2)
Message 263 of 278 (899323)
10-11-2022 10:42 PM
Reply to: Message 261 by Dredge
10-11-2022 8:15 PM


As usual, you ignore the whole picture.
Of course your pathological willful stupidity will keep you from learning, so this is for others who will read this (eg, online right now are four members and 153 visitors):
  • Sedimentary layers can be dated relatively based on the Law of Superposition:
    quote:
    In its plainest form, it states that in undeformed stratigraphic sequences, the oldest strata will lie at the bottom of the sequence, while newer material stacks upon the surface to form new deposits over time. This is paramount to stratigraphic dating, which requires a set of assumptions, including that the law of superposition holds true and that an object cannot be older than the materials of which it is composed.
  • Radiometric dating determines how long ago the rock last solidified after having been completely molten.:
    • Igneous rock as is found in volcanic ash, lava flows, and igneous intrusions had been melted and so can be dated with radiometric dating methods.
    • Sedimentary rock is composed of ground-up rocks so radiometric dating methods will not work on them, but rather would yield older dates from the component older rocks.
    That means that you can get absolute ages for igneous rocks but not for sedimentary rocks.
  • We can bracket in a range of absolute values for sedimentary layers (ie, determine its age to be with a range between a younger and an older age). This is typically done through igneous layers and igneous intrusions:
    • If the sedimentary layer is above an igneous layer that had formed on the surface (important point; see below), then the sedimentary layer is younger than the underlying igneous layer. The age of the igneous layer would give us an upper bound on the sedimentary layer's age.
    • If the sedimentary layer is below an igneous layer that had formed on the surface (important point; see below), then the underlying sedimentary layer is older than the overlying igneous layer. The age of the igneous layer would give us an lower bound on the sedimentary layer's age.
    • If the sedimentary layer is between two igneous layers that had formed on the surface (important point; see below), then those two igneous layers bracket in the age of that sedimentary layer: it is younger than the older igneous layer and older than the younger igneous layer.
      Note that that bracketing between igneous layers can be constructed from findings at two different sites as long as the sedimentary layer can be determined to be the same layer. This is determined by comparing the characteristics of the layer at the two sites (eg, composition, index fossils) as well as its relative position between other layers.
    • If a vertical igneous intrusion is found through another layer, then that means that that layer had to already exist before the intrusion. Hence, that intrusion would be younger than the layer and, of course, the layer would be older than the intrusion. In addition, an intrusion could extend through multiple layers, thus providing a lower bound on those layers' ages (ie, they'd all be older than the intrusion).
    • It is possible for an intrusion to be horizontal, such that it forces itself between two pre-existing older layers. That would make the layers above and below a horizontal intrusion older than that intrusion.
      This is the important point I alerted you to above:
      This raises the question of how to tell whether an igneous layer had formed on the surface and then had more layers deposited on it, or had formed as a horizontal intrusion. Understand that the intense heat of that molten lava would have affected the pre-existing rock that came in contact with it. For example, in the Badlands of North Dakota, I found igneous intrusions into sandstone. Right along the contact between the sandstone and the intrusion the heat had changed the sandstone into a layer of sandy crust about a quarter-inch thick. It was very obvious and easy to see.
      In the case of the lower layer, both a surface lava flow and a horizontal intrusion would have the same effect due to intense heat along that contact. In the case of the upper layer, only a horizontal intrusion would have changed the upper layer along the contact due to intense heat. A surface lava flow would have solidified and cooled down before the overlying layer would have started to form, so the overlying layer would not be affected by the heat that is no longer present.
  • The bracketing of sedimentary layers between igneous layers could involve multiple sedimentary layers. In that case, relative dating between those layers as well as indicators of how rapidly they formed (eg, layers with large particles indicate rapid depositation and lack of large particles slow depositation) can be used to assign each layer its own time period within that range of ages.
  • Also, igneous bracketing at different sites can affect different sedimentary layers within that group of layers as well as provide comparison and verification of the igneous dates obtained.
But I guess general geological patterns emerge, which is where index fossils come into play.
Since you are a creationist, I can smell this typical stupid creationist "objection" coming: "Fossils are dated by their layers and layers are dated by their fossils, so it's nothing but circular reasoning."
No, that is most definitely not true. We see above how layers are dated.
Index fossils are just one means of identifying which layer we're looking at, plus those index fossils are very common ones and not the ones we're dating.
I explained that before to candle2 in this same topic, my Message 36 reply to his Message 30 (actually, your Message 258 that spawn your current fit of confusion was a "reply" to that same Message 36, excerpted here with a few typographical corrections):
DWise1 writes:
candle2 writes:
Also, fossils are dated by the strata that they
are found in, and the strata is dated by the
fossils they contain.
Yes, and? By the way you say that means that you are insinuating circular reasoning. Same dishonest creationist lie, hasn't changed a bit.
Radiometric dating on rock is how long ago it solidified from being molten.
Radiometric dating cannot be performed on sedimentary rock since it is ground down and recycled older rock, so radiometric dating would just get the age of bits of old rock tested. However, we can tell which layers are older than others by the order in which they are stacked. We can also establish dates for layers from igneous intrusions which bracket them in. Therefore we can determine the age of a particular layer.
Fossils cannot be dated directly (excluding organic specimens). For one thing, if you melt the fossil in order to "restart its clock", then you have destroyed that fossil -- if it's a fossil, it hasn't been melted, so no radiometrically dating a fossil. Fossils result from burial and so are most commonly found in sedimentary rock, but we can arrive at a date for the layer it's found in as described above (extremely important that you don't just pull a fossil out of the ground and carry it to a museum).
So how do we identify a layer here to be part of that other layer way over there?
In geology it's done with identifying characteristics which have been determined empirically, which includes index fossils. However, many of those index fossils are microscopic, eg diatom shells which evolve over time. Fossils such as the ones that we are interested in (eg, dinos) are not used as index fossils. Thus the fossils identifying the stratum (from which we know its age) are not the same as the fossils that get their age from which stratum they're in. There is no circular reasoning here.
Hope I was able to nip that one in the bud. But then you do never fail to disappoint.
 

This message is a reply to:
 Message 261 by Dredge, posted 10-11-2022 8:15 PM Dredge has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 264 by Dredge, posted 10-11-2022 11:05 PM dwise1 has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 265 of 278 (899327)
10-11-2022 11:42 PM
Reply to: Message 264 by Dredge
10-11-2022 11:05 PM


It's all common knowledge. Plus things that one can work out based on how things work. Or asking the right questions and then researching for the answer. Anybody who has given it any serious thought would have come up with the same.
For example, while driving up to Lake Arrowhead (going from an elevation of 100 ft to one mile) for a father-son event, I was regarding the exposed roadside geology on display when a question occurred to me:
Since sedimentary layers (of which I was seeing a lot) consists of older rock that had been ground up and recycled, exactly how are they dated?
I mean, if you date them directly, then you should get a much older age because they consist of much older rock, right?
Since at that time (1994) we were just beginning to get access to the Internet, we didn't have the online resources yet, so I hit the university library. That is when I learned about the use of igneous layers and intrusions as "tie points".
The purpose of questions is to point us to the direction for finding the answer. And in science the best thing you can find in that answer is more questions. That way, we find paths to keep learning.
Using questions in order to intimidate or prevent discussion or to otherwise weaponize them is a serious abuse. That is how creationists typically abuse questions.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 264 by Dredge, posted 10-11-2022 11:05 PM Dredge has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 266 by Dredge, posted 10-12-2022 10:09 PM dwise1 has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 270 of 278 (899395)
10-13-2022 2:01 AM
Reply to: Message 266 by Dredge
10-12-2022 10:09 PM


Furthermore, I imagine sedimentary rock could contain a mish-mash of particles of vastly varying ages - ...
Correct in general, but there's are a few things to keep in mind. BTW, the next thing you wrote alerted me to the need for the following:
  • The age of a layer is how long ago it had formed:
    • For an igneous layer, that would be when the molten rock (eg, lava) had solidified.
    • For a sedimentary layer, that would be when the material, usually a collection of rock particles, was deposited.
    • For metamorphic rock, I'm not sure since I haven't worked through this case. It would have an age for when it formed originally as a layer at which time it would have been either igneous or sedimentary. But then it was subjected to forces (eg, heat, pressure) which changed it, thus metamorphizing it into a different kind of rock. I do not know whether there are dating methods for determining when that metamorphic event happened.
      Therefore, we won't discuss dating a metamorphic layer. Nor should we here since the question is about sedimentary layers.
  • The material making up the sedimentary layer must be older than that layer. Here is why:
    • The material that makes up a sedimentary layer has to already exist. That means that all that material, every single particle of it, has to be older than the layer they form. Using the cake analogy, you can't bake a cake with flour that won't be milled for another month yet; the flour has to have been milled before going into the cake.
    • The layers that were the source of that material had to have formed before their material was available for forming the new sedimentary layer. Therefore, those layers had to have been older than the new sedimentary layer.
    • Parts of those older layers had to have broken up and ground up by forces such as erosion. That takes time, usually a lot of time.
      A typical scenario would be:
      1. The older layers form. Usually they will be buried under later layers, but occasionally some of them remain as the surface (in which case, skip Step 2).
        BTW, in order to lithify (ie, become rock -- Greek: λιθος = rock) the layer must be buried. If it is not buried, then it just remains dirt (or soil) which will get transported away with the rain or wind (unless trapped by vegetation's root systems) in the quickest form of erosion I can think of.
        You know, actually a layer that doesn't get buried and lithifies but rather remains the surface ... that doesn't qualify as a sedimentary layer. It's just unincorporated particles waiting around to be transported or buried to form a layer. We don't have to worry about it (though I had written a lot of the following before this realization and don't have time to edit it).
      2. Over time, those upper layers erode away, exposing those older layers. Or else (and much more commonly I would think) erosion creates a cliff (eg, the sides of a hill or of a river valley) which exposes part of those layers on the cliff face.
      3. Whether through being exposed by earlier erosion or having remained the surface, erosion breaks off pieces of those older layers and then breaks them down into smaller and smaller particles which then get transported away by flowing water or winds (eg, the beaches of Southern California where granite mountains get broken apart and ground up into smaller particles that are transported by streams and rivers out to the ocean where they form the quartz sand on our beaches; the coral reefs around Oahu getting eroded down by the ocean waves to form the coral sand of Waikiki).
        BTW, when geologists examine sandstone, they are able to tell whether that sand had been deposited by wind or by water.
      4. Well, finally the particles get transported to where they form the new sedimentary layer.
    • Each of those steps take time, a lot of time. So taking the example of just a single old layer: you have the old layer forming which takes time, then you have it being buried (or not, but it won't lithify unless it is buried) which takes time. Then you have to expose it again through erosion, which takes more time. Then erosion on those exposed parts of the layer needs to break it up into particles, which takes more time. Then those particles need to get broken down into smaller particles, hence even more time. And finally those particles need to be transported to where they can form a new layer -- you guessed it: more time.
    • What we end up with is the obvious fact that the particles that comprise a new sedimentary layer must be older than that layer. Most commonly much older by an order of millions of years older.
So then, yes, the ages of individual particles within a sedimentary layer would be a vastly varying mish-mash. But we do know that all those ages have to be greater than the age of the new layer composed of those particles. Often vastly older.
... - for example, some particles could be only thousands of years old while other particles could be billions of years old.
If not for your protestations that you are an OEC and not a YEC, I would say that it looks suspiciously like you are trying to set up a YEC claim.
No, "only thousands of years old" is very unlikely. The time it would have taken for each step of the process taken sequentially as I delineated it above would have to have been far greater than that.
I think you may be getting too close to veering off the road and into the weeds there. Keep your eyes on the road, your hand upon the wheel.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 266 by Dredge, posted 10-12-2022 10:09 PM Dredge has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 271 by Dredge, posted 10-13-2022 3:12 AM dwise1 has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 273 of 278 (899398)
10-13-2022 3:28 AM
Reply to: Message 271 by Dredge
10-13-2022 3:12 AM


No YEC claim will be forthcoming.
Always good to hear
Thanx for the information. Very interesting.
What? You're starting to learn?
Quick! What's weather report in Hell? Any frost warnings?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 271 by Dredge, posted 10-13-2022 3:12 AM Dredge has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 274 by Dredge, posted 10-13-2022 6:16 AM dwise1 has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(2)
Message 277 of 278 (899482)
10-14-2022 5:25 PM
Reply to: Message 276 by FLRW
10-14-2022 4:11 PM


I'm not familiar with the "Miller Tale" -- if it had been mentioned in this topic or elsewhere on this forum, please point it out.
Basically, this Miller had done what other creationists had done: grossly abuse dating methods in order to get "bad results". I remember one YouTube video with commentary of an "interview" with Kent Hovind where he discussed the "bad results" from a C14 test on a dinosaur fossil -- the commentator kept shouting over the video, "There's no f**king carbon!"
A common tactic in this form of creationist deception is as you point out: using the wrong dating method. A common refutation of this trick is to point out that we weigh ourselves with a bathroom scale, our letters with a postage scale, and our vehicles and 18-wheel trucks plus trailer with truck scales. Assuming indestructible scales, I could prove that my Honda hybrid (a bit over 3000 lb) weighs only 400 lb by weighing it on a bathroom scale, that I myself (180 lb) weigh less than a pound by weighing myself on a postage scale, and that a 10-lb package I want to mail doesn't weigh anything at all by weighing it on a truck scale. Creationists like to declare a "gotcha" when the lab asks what age range you think it is (plus other questions the creationists don't mention or even know about) because that will tell them which test to perform first -- if the test pegs out at either extremely end of the scale then that tells them to use a test with another more appropriate scale (think about measuring a voltage with a multimeter where you start a too-high voltage so as to not damage its D'Arsonval movement by pegging it and then working down through progressive smaller voltage scales).
While most creationists have no clue what they are doing, there are also those who do know. I don't know whether Miller knew about the shellac, but a creationist who did know about the need to prevent contamination of a radiocarbon dating sample with other organic material would knowingly use that to get the "bad results" that he wanted.
An example of that is Dr. Steve Austin, PhD Geology, (AKA "Stuart Nevins", his pseudonym writing "geology based" creationist articles while being paid by the ICR to earn his PhD Geology -- they wanted to have an actual PhD Geology on their staff). His schooling taught him about radiometric dating methods and the kinds of conditions that can lead to bad results -- those kinds of conditions were not discovered by creationists, but rather by practicing scientists testing their methods in order to discover anything to look out for. So actually trained creationists know what to look for to get the "bad results" that they want, as Dr. Austin did at the Grand Canyon.
A similar problem involves trying to apply radiocarbon dating to sea life. Radiocarbon dating depends on atmospheric C14 being incorporated into plant life and from there into the food chain (NOTE: only plants "breathe in" carbon, but animals don't -- they exhale it as carbon dioxide -- so animals can only get their C14 by eating plants or plant-eaters). Very little atmospheric C14 makes it into the oceans, so most of the carbon in the oceans' food chains are "old carbon" with far lower C14 levels than terrestrial life of the same age would contain. Examples very often cited by creationists include:
  • Living seals being dated at "thousands of years old":
    Those seals feed on fish and other sea animals, all of whom had gotten their C14 from the aquatic food chain which is notorious full of "old carbon".
    Yes, seals do breathe in air with its atmospheric C14, but, as anyone even remotely familiar with biology should know, animals extract oxygen from the air they breathe in and "excrete" their carbon dioxide, which is what contains the C14. Yet again (for the benefit of candle2 and his ilk), plants breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen, whereas animals breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide.
  • Living freshwater mollusks being dated at "thousands of years old":
    This was actually one of the two first creationist claims I heard c. 1970 (the second was the infamous "NASA computer finding Joshua's Lost Day" claim which is totally bogus just on its face), but decades had to pass before I was able to find a creationist who provided the scientific source.
    It turns out that the stream they were taken from was fed by a spring in limestone rock, which is rich in old carbon -- therefore low levels of C14.
This next one comes from a recent NOVA episode which described an archeological dig in England to find a massive Viking encampment for which we have historical evidence. They were able to find human remains from that time, but those remains radiocarbon dated to be about 200 years older. The solution to that was to remember that they depended on fish for a lot of their protein. And fish are chock full of protein, essential Omega-3 oils, and ... (wait for it ... wait for it) ... old carbon. A reminder for candle2 and his ilk: animals (which includes us despite all your contrary theology) acquire their C14 through their food, not from the air.
 
A day or so again in another topic, candle2 started railing again about "flaws in dating", mainly triggered by false claims he had previously made about radiocarbon dating. That is the main reason for this, my reply.
I hope that candle2 will read this and finally present what he thinks are the "flaws in radiocarbon dating".
Not only am I not going to hold my breathe, I'm not even going to go out and buy any microwave popcorn for that show.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 276 by FLRW, posted 10-14-2022 4:11 PM FLRW has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 278 by ringo, posted 10-15-2022 12:43 PM dwise1 has not replied

  
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