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Author Topic:   For whatever - your insult, and radioisotope dating
JonF
Member (Idle past 168 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 1 of 121 (76552)
01-04-2004 10:00 PM


This thread is to address whatever's claims about radioisotope dating.
In this mesage, whatver indulted geochronologists everywhere by claiming:
"the argon potassium dating half life scale is rigged so all rocks will date millions of years old"
Despite repeated requests, he has neither discussed not attempted to support this claim, which is an incredibly rude slur.
In this message, whatever said:
"If you send in a 50 year old lava rock it will always come back dating millions of years old, because of argon/potassium has too great of a half life, 1.3 billion years, to date a 50 year old rock, I've heard it said, that its like dating a fly on a truck scale, no wonder the paleontologist like dating lava rocks by the argon potassium method, this makes all rocks date old, then to make matters worse, the paleontologists date not the fossils themselves, but the sediments that buried them and rely on your faith that the fossils are as old as the sediments that buried them, etc...
P.S. Then you have leaching of of argon, argon rising up from the earth (snellings diamonds found with excess argon) or if the lava melted other surrounding basement rocks contaminating the accuracy, contributing argon, making the lava rocks appear older, etc..."
So, here's my reply:
Your ignorance is incredible. You have a lot to learn before you can make any kind of meaningful comment on radioisotope dating. Start with Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective and continue with the links at Radioisotope dating links and information.
I notice that you have still not attempted to support or retract your false charge of "rigged" dates. Do you commonly claim that people are liars and conspirators with no evidence of it? Is that kind of insolence a Christian attitude?
If you send in a 50 year old lava rock it will always come back dating millions of years old, because of argon/potassium has too great of a half life, 1.3 billion years
First of all, it's potassium (K) that has the half-life, not argon (Ar). Second, a 50 year old rock may or may not measure as being millions of years old. Often the 50 year old rock contains much older pieces of rock, and the measured age is an average of ages the young and old parts of the rock (that's one of Snelling's favorite tricks). Often the error bars include zero age; if a a rock is 50 years old and the lab dates it as 10 +/- 10 million years old, the date is correct. Often residual argon from previous measurements can throw off the measurement, unless the lab is alerted first to the possibility that this sample may have very little argon and extraordinarily heroic pre-cleaning is required.
that its like dating a fly on a truck scale
Yes, dating 50 year old rocks with potassium-argon (K-Ar) is ridiculous. That does not mean that dating older rocks is invalid. Note that we have dated rocks as young as about 2,000 years by argon-argon dating (which uses the same potassium, with a half-life of 1.26 billion years): Precise dating of the destruction of Pompeii proves argon-argon method can reliably date rocks as young as 2,000 years. Note that potassium-argon dates agree with other independent methods: see the "consistency" links from my second link above.
I notice that you didn't mention the age of the Earth, circa 4.5 billion years, which is several times longer than the half-life of potassium-40. If you argue that measuring 50 year old rocks with K-Ar dating is like weight a fly on a truck scale, what do you think of measuring 4.5 billion year old rocks with K-Ar dating?
no wonder the paleontologist like dating lava rocks by the argon potassium method,
Actually, they don't much like K-Ar. K-Ar dating is somewhat attractive because it's low-cost, but there can be difficulties, and very few K-Ar dates are done nowadays unles they are confirmed by other methods. Most dating is done with isochron methods (such as argon-argon) or concordia-discordia methods. Both of these are what Dalrymple calls "age-diagnostic" methods; if there's a problem they are essentially certain to indicate that there's a problem, and discordia methods can yield valid ages even if there are problems. It's the creationists that love potassium-argon, because there can be problems (even though we have powerful evidence that problems are rare), and the dating methods that are really commonly used are more robust. They can't come up with criticisms of the mthods that are really used so, for the most part, they ignore them.
then to make matters worse, the paleontologists date not the fossils themselves, but the sediments that buried them and rely on your faith that the fossils are as old as the sediments that buried them, etc...
Do you think that a fossil inside a rock is younger than the rock?
Actually, dating sedimentary rocks is very difficult, but some progress is being made (see the links from my second link above). It's more common to date fossils by igneous layers above and below the fossil-bearing rock. When we do this, and find over and over and over and over again that the lower rocks are older and the upper rocks are younger, and when this is not so there are obvious indications of why, we are justified in concluding that the fossils are older than the rock on top of them and younger than the rock under them.
Then you have leaching of of argon
Which makes the rocks appear younger than they really are. Doesn't help your thesis.
argon rising up from the earth (snellings diamonds found with excess argon) or if the lava melted other surrounding basement rocks contaminating the accuracy, contributing argon, making the lava rocks appear older, etc...
Where's your evidence that such things happen?
There is such a thing as excess argon. It's known to be rare, because K-Ar dating so often agrees with other methods that are more robust. Nonetheless, the issue of excess argon is there, and that's why argon-argon dating is used much more often than potassium-argon dating, because argon-argon dating is essentially immune to the problem of excess argon.

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by Rei, posted 01-05-2004 12:35 PM JonF has replied
 Message 3 by Bill Birkeland, posted 01-05-2004 1:52 PM JonF has replied
 Message 4 by JonF, posted 01-05-2004 2:31 PM JonF has not replied

  
Rei
Member (Idle past 7013 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 2 of 121 (76624)
01-05-2004 12:35 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by JonF
01-04-2004 10:00 PM


Two things:
1. When the poster mentioned "lava" melting surrounding rocks (they really meant "magma"), this was a reference to false isochrons. What you need to get the poster to do is explain both why this isn't resolved with a mixing plot, and why negative slopes are so incredibly rare when they should be equally distributed.
2. You should ask the poster to evidence proper sample selection, which covers the following that *every* competent geologist (but, seemingly, few creationists) do: a homogenous sample, no obvious signs of weathering, and no obvious signs of metamorphism (especially heat). All of these things are fairly easy to detect.
3. Probably a better place to start these YECs off is to get them to address why all isotopes that aren't currently being created by natural processes on earth that have half-lives of a few tens of millions of years are absent on Earth, but ones with half lives of more than a hundred million years are still present. I.e., the "missing isotopes" problem. I've yet to see a YEC even give it a half-hearted shot.

"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by JonF, posted 01-04-2004 10:00 PM JonF has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 5 by JonF, posted 01-05-2004 2:40 PM Rei has replied

  
Bill Birkeland
Member (Idle past 2531 days)
Posts: 165
From: Louisiana
Joined: 01-30-2003


Message 3 of 121 (76643)
01-05-2004 1:52 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by JonF
01-04-2004 10:00 PM


K/Ar Dating
In the thread " Walt Brown's super-tectonics at
EvC Forum: Walt Brown's super-tectonics ,
and in December 2003, whatever wrote:
"JonF, Thats why I didn't explain the problems
with argon potassium dating, it was off topic,
but you all believe zero argon exists in melted
lavas, and this was proven bogus by Snelling's
50 year old rock where potassium had not the
time to be converted to argon in 50 years,"
The problem here is not the dating method, but Dr. Snelling, who for someone with a Ph.D. in geology shows a remarkable lack any understanding of radiometric dating. In his articles, the reason the radiometric dating techniques don't seem to work is because he simply doesn't understand the limitations of the various dating techniques and how to interpret the data.
Some pages to read:
1. Isochron Dating by Chris Stassen
Isochron Dating
2. Isochron Dating by Chris Stassen in Feedback
for January 1999
TalkOrigins Archive - Feedback for January 1999
3. Claim CD013: Potassium-Argon dating of rocks
from lava flows known to be modern gave ages
millions to billions of years older.
CD013: K-Ar dating of modern rocks.
4. Subject: Re: AiG: Flaws in dating the earth as ancient
Sign in - Google Accounts
For example, the statement conventional geologist "all believe zero argon exists" is simply not true. Conventional geologists have recognized for a long time that the presence of excess argon was a significant problem in K/Ar dating as demonstrated by the many published papers discussing this problem. The fact that the statement "all believe zero argon exists" is completely false is readily apparent if a person take the time to read and understand the published literature.
A good example is:
P. R. Renne, W. D. Sharp, A. L. Deino,
G. Orsi, and L. Civetta, 1997, 40Ar/39Ar
Dating into the Historical Realm:
Calibration Against Pliny the Younger.
Science. vol. 277,pp. 1279-1280.
"Laser incremental heating of sanidine from
the pumice deposited by the Plinian eruption
of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. yielded a 40Ar/39Ar
isochron age of 1925 6 94 years ago. Close
agreement with the Gregorian calendar-based
age of 1918 years ago demonstrates that
the 40Ar/39Ar method can be reliably extended
into the temporal range of recorded
history. Excess 40Ar is present in the
sanidine in concentrations that would cause
significant errors if ignored in dating
Holocene samples."
It is quite clear from this article, and the references that it cites, that geologists and geochemists have been long aware of the excess argon problem and have found ways of dealing with it.
Also, a person should read "Ar-Ar Dating Assumes There Is No Excess Argon?" at:
http://members.cox.net/ardipithecus/evol/lies/lie024.html
Mr.whatever complained:
"so your dating method is already in error
by millions of years, to a creationists that
believes the fossils are only thousands of
years old, to tell them the fossils are as
old as the basalt lava that entombed them,
is an insult, when newly formed basalt rock
dates millions of years old, etc..."
First, Mr. whatever greatly exaggerates the problem by falsely claiming that modern basalts typically give dates of "millions of years old". A survey of Dalrymple (1969), of the argon content of historic lava flows found that 25 of 26 samples gave "anomalous dates" of less than 250,000 years. Simple review of basic math shows that 250,000 years falls far short of being "millions of years" Also, 250,000 years represents an error of less than 0.0002 half-lives and, thus, lies within the known errors generated by standard dating K/Ar dating technique. This error would be indicated in the standard deviation, plus and minus, that is part of how any date is cited. Anyone acquainted with radiometric dating would understand this standard deviation as clearly showing that these dates might have a historic time of origin. Only someone who doesn't understand radiometric dating ignores the standard deviation in interpreting dates.
Second, creationists, who are insulted by people disagreeing with their beliefs, need to realize that in the real world, not everybody agrees upon how the Bible should be interpreted and what the "truth" is. Just because someone disagrees with them on a matter, like how old is the Earth is, a very shallow reason for being insulted. The "truth" is not as obvious as it seems to be.
Third, it is somewhat insulting to mindlessly spread falsehoods, i.e. "all believe zero argon exists" about people. In addition to being insulting, such falsehoods only serve to grossly undermine the credibility of the person repeating them.
Fourth, the main problem here is that Dr. Snelling, despite having a Ph.D. in geology, simply doesn't understand the methodology of radiometric dating and how to interpret the data. As a result, any resemblance between how he claims radiometric dating is practiced to how it should be done to get valid dates is purely coincidental. Someone who obviously doesn't know what he is talking about shouldn't be used as a serious citation in a serious scientific discussion.
Finally, go read "Claim CD013: Potassium-Argon dating of rocks from lava flows known to be modern gave ages millions to billions of years older" at:
CD013: K-Ar dating of modern rocks.
References Cited:
Dalrymple, G. Brent, 1969. 40Ar/36Ar Analyses
of Historic Lava Flows. Earth and Planetary
Science Letters. vol. 6, pp. 47-55.
"P.S. Then you have Snellings wood fossil
preserved in Basalt lava, the basalt that
dated millions of years old, however,
C-14 dated this preserved wood fossil to
be thousands, and not millions of years
old, etc...the truth is you have no
proof the fossils are old, etc..."
Again, the problem is not radiocarbon dating. Rather, Dr. Snelling, despite having a Ph.D. in geology, clearly doesn't understand the limitations of radiocarbon dating and how to interpret radiocarbon dates. Go read "Claim CD011.5:" at:
CD011.5: C14 date of Triassic wood
and "Meert, Joe, 2003. Andrew Snelling and the Iron Concretion?" at:
Frequently Asked
and "Carbon-14 in Coal Deposits" at:
Carbon-14 in Coal Deposits
Yours,
Bill Birkeland

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by JonF, posted 01-04-2004 10:00 PM JonF has replied

Replies to this message:
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JonF
Member (Idle past 168 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 4 of 121 (76651)
01-05-2004 2:31 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by JonF
01-04-2004 10:00 PM


whatever continues to post new and silly claims here in the wrong topic.
{Adminnemooseus insert - Although the "non-admin" mode might agree with the "silly", the nice thing to do, would be to refrain from such terminology in the future.}
whatever, where is your support of your claim that "the argon potassium dating half life scale is rigged so all rocks will date millions of years old"?
you shouldn't be upset when your own people admit that they can not age the fossils to be anything but older than 2 million years old
Nobody said any such thing. That particular lab using their particular equipment and that particular methodology could not date anything less than 2 million years old. It's distinctly possible that Snelling picked that particular lab because they didn't have state-of-the-art equipment. Other labs using different equipment and different methods have different limitations. In particular the Ar-Ar method (using the same potassium as the K-Ar method) has been proved capable of dating things less than 2,000 years old (reference already provided).
But so what? The vast majority of fossils are more than 2 million years old. If you think that an inability to date something less than 2 million years old invalidates the ability to accurately date things that are more than 2 million years old, you are sadly mistaken.
Snellings petrified wood sample still had enough C-14 to age 35,000 years old
Or, almost certainly, Snelling's iron concretion was contaminated with enough stray C-14 to indicate 353,00 years.
you have no basis to say the fossil record is as old as the dating by the argon potassium dating method
Whart about the other dating methods that indicate an old Earth and agree with the K-Ar dates, such as Rb-Sr isochrons, Nd-Sm isochrons, Ar-Ar isochrons, Re-Os isochrons, U-Pb concordia-discordia, Pb-Pb isochrons, U-Th_He dates, luminescence dating, fission track dating, electron spin resonance dating, thermoluminescence dating, optically stimulated dating, infra-red stimulated luminescence, radioluminescence dating, cosmogenic exposure dating, cation ratio dating, and probably others that I don't know about?
this doesn't mean the sun has been a star 4.6 billion years, though its interesting how you all justify the age the sun has been a star by this rock, even in this you have no basis to say the sun has been a star longer than 13,000 years
We have lots of evidence that that Sun is far, far older than 13,000 years. A Young Sun - A Response.
and you can not say I'm lying because the bible says this is true, kjv genesis 1:3-4
"And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness."
Nothing there about 13,000 years. Of course, many creationists would call you a heretic for suggesting that the Sun could be so old.
For whatever it's worth, I don't think you are lying about that; your're just ignorant and babbling about things of which you know nothing.
[This message has been edited by JonF, 01-05-2004]
[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 01-05-2004]

This message is a reply to:
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JonF
Member (Idle past 168 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 5 of 121 (76655)
01-05-2004 2:40 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by Rei
01-05-2004 12:35 PM


When the poster mentioned "lava" melting surrounding rocks (they really meant "magma"), this was a reference to false isochrons.
Perhaps so. If so, it's certainly a garbled one.
Since whatever seems to be unaware of any dating methods other than K-Ar, which cannot yield a false isochron, it's far from obvious to me that the reference is to a mixing isochron.
What you need to get the poster to do is explain both why this isn't resolved with a mixing plot, and why negative slopes are so incredibly rare when they should be equally distributed. ... You should ask the poster to evidence proper sample selection ... get them to address why all isotopes that aren't currently being created by natural processes on earth that have half-lives of a few tens of millions of years are absent on Earth, but ones with half lives of more than a hundred million years are still present. I.e., the "missing isotopes" problem. I've yet to see a YEC even give it a half-hearted shot.
You are, of course, indulging in some light-hearted frivolity when you suggest these courses of action in relation to whatever. ;-)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 2 by Rei, posted 01-05-2004 12:35 PM Rei has replied

Replies to this message:
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Rei
Member (Idle past 7013 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 6 of 121 (76657)
01-05-2004 2:46 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by JonF
01-05-2004 2:40 PM


quote:
Since whatever seems to be unaware of any dating methods other than K-Ar, which cannot yield a false isochron, it's far from obvious to me that the reference is to a mixing isochron.
Ah, I was confusing your discussion of Ar-Ar with whatever's discussion of K-Ar; almost every time I've run into creationists making the mixing argument, it's in reference to false isochrons.
quote:
You are, of course, indulging in some light-hearted frivolity when you suggest these courses of action in relation to whatever. ;-)
Well, it can't hurt to try and get them to actually learn about science before they argue against it

"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by JonF, posted 01-05-2004 2:40 PM JonF has not replied

  
JonF
Member (Idle past 168 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 7 of 121 (76659)
01-05-2004 2:56 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Bill Birkeland
01-05-2004 1:52 PM


Re: K/Ar Dating
Dr. Snelling, who for someone with a Ph.D. in geology shows a remarkable lack any understanding of radiometric dating ... Dr. Snelling, despite having a Ph.D. in geology, simply doesn't understand the methodology of radiometric dating and how to interpret the data ... Dr. Snelling, despite having a Ph.D. in geology, clearly doesn't understand the limitations of radiocarbon dating and how to interpret radiocarbon dates.
You are more charitable than I am. IMHO Dr. Snelling understands radiometric dating, interpretation of results, and especially how to manipulate results extremely well.
A good example is:
P. R. Renne, W. D. Sharp, A. L. Deino,
G. Orsi, and L. Civetta, 1997, 40Ar/39Ar
Dating into the Historical Realm:
Calibration Against Pliny the Younger.
Science. vol. 277,pp. 1279-1280.
Ideed it is a good example. FWIW the abstract is available at 40Ar/39Ar Dating into the Historical Realm: Calibration Against Pliny the Younger and the full text is avaiable from that page (free registration required, but no subscription to Science or anything like that is required).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by Bill Birkeland, posted 01-05-2004 1:52 PM Bill Birkeland has not replied

Replies to this message:
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johnfolton 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5591 days)
Posts: 2024
Joined: 12-04-2005


Message 8 of 121 (76671)
01-05-2004 3:54 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by JonF
01-05-2004 2:56 PM


Re: K/Ar Dating
JonF, If Snellings wood fossil was actually 230 million years old it would not have any C-14, as C-14 has only been proven to be formed in the atmosphere(proven), though, I'm sure you all believe its being formed within the earth(not proven), because you have no other way to explain Snellings dated wood fossil, etc...
P.S. Get over it, its a moot point, the fossils have been proven to be young, and the rocks old, etc...The paleontolgist are using you, they rely on your faith, to support their delusions, etc...

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by JonF, posted 01-05-2004 2:56 PM JonF has replied

Replies to this message:
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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 9 of 121 (76684)
01-05-2004 4:35 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by johnfolton
01-05-2004 3:54 PM


Re: K/Ar Dating
Get over it, its a moot point, the fossils have been proven to be young, and the rocks old, etc
Whatever - whatever you're smoking, I don't think I want any....

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by johnfolton, posted 01-05-2004 3:54 PM johnfolton has not replied

  
Rei
Member (Idle past 7013 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 10 of 121 (76685)
01-05-2004 4:38 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by johnfolton
01-05-2004 3:54 PM


Re: K/Ar Dating
quote:
JonF, If Snellings wood fossil was actually 230 million years old it would not have any C-14, as C-14 has only been proven to be formed in the atmosphere(proven), though, I'm sure you all believe its being formed within the earth(not proven), because you have no other way to explain Snellings dated wood fossil, etc...
Please state why you are so confident that it is "proven" that C-14 forms in the atmosphere, but not "proven" in the earth. Go on, impress us with your knowledge of what is proven, and why! I'll be waiting.
quote:
P.S. Get over it, its a moot point, the fossils have been proven to be young, and the rocks old, etc...
You haven't read a thing, have you? He won't even let people see that what he was looking at was even *wood*, let alone actually date it. How disingenuous can you get?
BTW.... do you have any answers to why multiple dating methods almost always match up, why isochron slopes are almost always positive, why mixing plots would be wrong regardless of this, or anything else? In short, can you *at all* show even a *weakness* in the methodology used to date samples? Likewise, can you explain the missing isotopes?

"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by johnfolton, posted 01-05-2004 3:54 PM johnfolton has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 12 by johnfolton, posted 01-05-2004 5:09 PM Rei has replied

  
JonF
Member (Idle past 168 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 11 of 121 (76695)
01-05-2004 5:01 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by johnfolton
01-05-2004 3:54 PM


Re: K/Ar Dating
whatever, where is your support of your claim that "the argon potassium dating half life scale is rigged so all rocks will date millions of years old"?
If Snellings wood fossil was actually 230 million years old it would not have any C-14
Wrong. Everything has some C-14.
I'm sure you all believe its being formed within the earth
We're pretty sure it is. However, the most likely explanation for Snelling's result is that the sample was contaminated with C-14 that physically moved into the sample from one source or another. We've psted the link to Andrew Snelling and the Iron Concretion three times. Read it, and let's see some response to it instead of unsupported assertions.
the fossils have been proven to be young
This is yet another unsupported assertion. Even Snelling doesn't claim to have done that and nothing that you have posted so far is support for any such claim. Stop babbling assertions and show us the evidence!
What about the other dating methods that indicate an old Earth and agree with the K-Ar dates, such as Rb-Sr isochrons, Nd-Sm isochrons, Ar-Ar isochrons, Re-Os isochrons, U-Pb concordia-discordia, Pb-Pb isochrons, U-Th-He dating, luminescence dating, fission track dating, electron spin resonance dating, thermoluminescence dating, optically stimulated dating, infra-red stimulated luminescence, radioluminescence dating, cosmogenic exposure dating, cation ratio dating, and probably others that I don't know about?

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johnfolton 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5591 days)
Posts: 2024
Joined: 12-04-2005


Message 12 of 121 (76697)
01-05-2004 5:09 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by Rei
01-05-2004 4:38 PM


Re: K/Ar Dating
Rei, Dr. Libby recieved a nobel prize, he proved C-14 is formed in the upper atmosphere, now its up to you to prove its been proven its formed within the sediments, etc...Libby had proof, it wasn't an hypothesis, or a theory, but proven, the fossils are young, etc...
P.S. Until you prove to the scientific community, how this unstable isotope can be formed within the sediments, you can not truthfully say the fossils are old, or that evolution had millions of years to evolve, this is the problem facing the paleontologists, likely why they have swept this issue under the rug, etc...
The method
The radiocarbon method was developed
by a team of scientists led by the late Professor
Willard F. Libby of the University of Chicago in immediate post-WW2 years.
Libby later received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960:
"for his method to use Carbon-14 for age determinations in archaeology, geology, geophysics, and other branches of science."
[This message has been edited by whatever, 01-05-2004]

This message is a reply to:
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Rei
Member (Idle past 7013 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 13 of 121 (76699)
01-05-2004 5:17 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by johnfolton
01-05-2004 5:09 PM


Re: K/Ar Dating
You ignored the second half of the request: 'but not "proven" in the earth.'
Why is the evidence that was posted somehow less compelling than Libby's?
Will you not address the latter half of my post as well, or the many unanswered questions that everyone else has been posting to you?

"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
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johnfolton 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5591 days)
Posts: 2024
Joined: 12-04-2005


Message 14 of 121 (76708)
01-05-2004 5:58 PM


JonF, This problem exists in the fossil coal graveyard's all over the world, and oil fossil fuels formed by the sediments of the biblical flood, etc...The fossil record has been proven to be young, it hasn't been proven otherwise, I'm sure your pretty sure, but the problem is you have to prove it, until then all your different isotope dating methods is a moot point, for they don't actually date the fossil, they are dating the sediments that buried the fossil, etc...

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 Message 15 by mark24, posted 01-05-2004 6:36 PM johnfolton has replied
 Message 16 by JonF, posted 01-05-2004 6:47 PM johnfolton has not replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 15 of 121 (76713)
01-05-2004 6:36 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by johnfolton
01-05-2004 5:58 PM


Whatever,
This problem exists in the fossil coal graveyard's all over the world, and oil fossil fuels formed by the sediments of the biblical flood, etc...The fossil record has been proven to be young, it hasn't been proven otherwise, I'm sure your pretty sure, but the problem is you have to prove it, until then all your different isotope dating methods is a moot point, for they don't actually date the fossil, they are dating the sediments that buried the fossil, etc...
Perhaps you could "prove" the fossil record to be young to the same standard you expect JonF to prove it to be old?
But since we both know "proof" doesn't exist in science, I'll try to demonstrate to a very low degree of tentativity that the GC is old by concentrating on one example, the K-T tektites.
Brent Dalrymple
The K-T Tektites
One of the most exciting and important scientific findings in decades was the 1980 discovery that a large asteroid, about 10 kilometers diameter, struck the earth at the end of the Cretaceous Period. The collision threw many tons of debris into the atmosphere and possibly led to the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other life forms. The fallout from this enormous impact, including shocked quartz and high concentrations of the element iridium, has been found in sedimentary rocks at more than 100 locations worldwide at the precise stratigraphic location of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary (Alvarez and Asaro 1990; Alvarez 1998). We now know that the impact site is located on the Yucatan Peninsula. Measuring the age of this impact event independently of the stratigraphic evidence is an obvious test for radiometric methods, and a number of scientists in laboratories around the world set to work.
In addition to shocked quartz grains and high concentrations of iridium, the K-T impact produced tektites, which are small glass spherules that form from rock that is instantaneously melted by a large impact. The K-T tektites were ejected into the atmosphere and deposited some distance away. Tektites are easily recognizable and form in no other way, so the discovery of a sedimentary bed (the Beloc Formation) in Haiti that contained tektites and that, from fossil evidence, coincided with the K-T boundary provided an obvious candidate for dating. Scientists from the US Geological Survey were the first to obtain radiometric ages for the tektites and laboratories in Berkeley, Stanford, Canada, and France soon followed suit. The results from all of the laboratories were remarkably consistent with the measured ages ranging only from 64.4 to 65.1 Ma (Table 2). Similar tektites were also found in Mexico, and the Berkeley lab found that they were the same age as the Haiti tektites. But the story doesn’t end there.
The K-T boundary is recorded in numerous sedimentary beds around the world. The Z-coal, the Ferris coal, and the Nevis coal in Montana and Saskatchewan all occur immediately above the K-T boundary. Numerous thin beds of volcanic ash occur within these coals just centimetres above the K-T boundary, and some of these ash beds contain minerals that can be dated radiometrically. Ash beds from each of these coals have been dated by 40Ar/39Ar, K-Ar, Rb-Sr, and U-Pb methods in several laboratories in the US and Canada. Since both the ash beds and the tektites occur either at or very near the K-T boundary, as determined by diagnostic fossils, the tektites and the ash beds should be very nearly the same age, and they are (Table 2).
There are several important things to note about these results. First, the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods were defined by geologists in the early 1800s. The boundary between these periods (the K-T boundary) is marked by an abrupt change in fossils found in sedimentary rocks worldwide. Its exact location in the stratigraphic column at any locality has nothing to do with radiometric dating it is located by careful study of the fossils and the rocks that contain them, and nothing more. Second, the radiometric age measurements, 187 of them, were made on 3 different minerals and on glass by 3 distinctly different dating methods (K-Ar and 40Ar/39Ar are technical variations that use the same parent-daughter decay scheme), each involving different elements with different half-lives. Furthermore, the dating was done in 6 different laboratories and the materials were collected from 5 different locations in the Western Hemisphere. And yet the results are the same within analytical error. If radiometric dating didn’t work then such beautifully consistent results would not be possible.
1/
So the K-T Tektites were dated by no less than four methods that corroborate. 40Ar/39Ar, K-Ar, Rb-Sr, and U-Pb . If that weren't evidence enough, lets take a look at how inaccurate they all must be, to fit a YEC worldview. The lower age given is 64.4 mya. Now, assuming a 6,000 year old YEC earth is what YECs perceive as 100% of available time, then 60 years is 1%. This means that all the above methods, were ALL (1,085,000-100 = ) 1,084,900% inaccurate. Let me reiterate, the YECs requires these FOUR different, corroborating methods to be over ONE MILLION PERCENT INACCURATE all at the same time!!
Now, given that the four methods are different, & are subject to DIFFERENT potential error sources & yet still corroborate closely means that the various potential bugbears of each method have been reasonably accounted for in the date calculations themselves. This can only leave a YEC one place to go, the underlying physics. Half-life constancy.
2/
The range of dates is from 64.4 mya to 65.1 mya giving a 0.7 my range.
64.4/0.7 = 92 (Not taking the 65.1 m.y. figure to be as favourable as possible to YEC's)
The range of error is 92 times smaller than the minimum given date, giving us usable increments of time. Probabilistically speaking, we basically have four 92 sided dice. What are the odds of all four dice rolling a 92? On the familiar 6 sided die, the chance of rolling two sixes (or any two numbers, for that matter) is 6^2 = 36:1 (Number of sides to the nth power where nth = number of die).
Therefore, the odds of four radiometric dating methods reaching the same date range by chance is..drum roll..
92^4 (92*92*92*92)= 71,639,296:1
Is there any YEC that is prepared to state that the four radiometric dating methods achieve their high level of corroboration by pure chance?
If not, how much of the 65 m.y. old figure do you attribute to chance, & how much to radiometric half lives contributing to the derived date, percentage wise?
Here is your dilemma. The error required by the radiometric methods are 1,084,900% to fit a YEC 6,000 year old view. If they accept that the methods are capable of not being in error by more than 1,084,000%, then they accept a 60,000 year old earth, minimum. So, saying that half lives contribute only 1% to any derived radiometric date, means in this case (1% of 65,000,000 is 650,000 years), so even this small contribution by half lives falsifies a YEC young earth.
3/
The chance of all four methods being off by (chance) 64,400,000 years when the result SHOULD have been 6,000 years is truly staggering.
64,400,000/6,000 = 10,733.33 recurring (following the previous example, we now have four 10,733.33 sided dice)
10,733.33 recurring ^4 = 13,272,064,019,753,086:1
My questions to creationists are;
A/ How do you account for four corroborating radiometric dating methods dating the tektites so closely at 65 m.y. old, given the odds of it occurring by pure chance?
B/ IF you don’t accept that radiometric dating is valid as a dating method, how do you account for the four methods being over one million percent inaccurate, relative to a YEC assumed 6,000 year old earth?
C/ If you DO accept that half lives affect the resultant date, even to a small degree, what percentage would you be prepared to accept that radiometric dating is influenced by half lives, the rest being just plain chance? And how do you come by this figure, evidentially?
D/ How do you rationalise the odds of all four radiometric methods being wrong by a factor of 10,733 each, when the odds of such an occurrence is 13,272,064,019,753,086:1 of them being wrong by the same factor?
Now, please demonstrate the K-T boundary to be sub 6,000 years old (or whatever your favourite figure is).
Mark

"Physical Reality of Matchette’s EVOLUTIONARY zero-atom-unit in a transcendental c/e illusion" - Brad McFall

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by johnfolton, posted 01-05-2004 5:58 PM johnfolton has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 20 by johnfolton, posted 01-05-2004 7:41 PM mark24 has replied

  
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