Buzsaw writes:
I see the following research project as doing science from a creationist hypothetical perspective. If not, why not?
I must agree, I see this as doing science from a creationist perspective. The cited article continues:
quote:
Criticism of ICR's claims
* This was not a "test" of Rb-Sr dating.
It is misleading for Austin to claim that he set out to "test" Rb/Sr isochron dating. The paper trail -- the 1988 Impact article -- documents that Austin knew he'd get a mantle age from whole-rock measurements of those lava flows, long before the ICR obtained a single rock sample of their own.
If isotopic dating methods are as unreliable as Austin would like us to believe, why did he have to rig his test -- by only selecting rock samples which were known in advance to fail it? If a mainstream scientist were to fix a test in this manner, their reputation would be demolished when that fact was uncovered.
* The wrong meaning is assigned to the dates.
Before the Grand Canyon Dating Project began, in his 1988 Impact article, Austin admitted in print that the selected lava flows fell into two different stratigraphic stages. That is, the very information which he used to select the flows, also clearly indicates that they did not all occur at the same time. In his subsequent book (1994, p. 125), Austin indicated that his five data points came from four different lava flows plus an extracted "phenocryst" (large mineral which likely formed in the magma chamber and was not molten in the lava flow). We had known from the Impact articles that Austin's samples were not all cogenetic; years later we found out by his own admission that no two of them are so.
In fact, as discussed above, the selection of non-cogenetic samples is sometimes used intentionally by isotope geologists. It is known to be a way to have an isochron dating method "look back" beyond a recent event to an earlier event -- the age of the common source of the samples. Thus, it is misleading for Austin to pretend that his resulting isochron plot should be expected to represent the age of the flows themselves.
A geologist in my acquaintance suggested that this FAQ should be very short:
It should merely state that Austin has confirmed what mainstream geologists have known all along: that the lithospheric mantle underlying the Grand Canyon must be older than the Cardenas Basalt.
The mantle is the source of much of the sampled flows' material, and Austin's sampling technique matches the technique one would use to obtain a minimum for the age of the flows' source.
* It's an insufficient case against isotope dating.
Austin (1992) suggests that he has "tested" the dating method. He claims that the false isochron, that he knew would result, is "unexpected." He goes as far as implying that all isotopic ages can be ignored when he suggests that nobody has ever "successfully dated a Grand Canyon rock." The first two claims are falsehoods, as shown above, and the third cannot be justified by ICR's Grand Canyon Dating Project.
Young-Earth creationists cannot escape the fact that a large majority of isotope dating results are well-aligned with mainstream predictions, and equally well-aligned with geological relationships which even young-earthers would accept. For example, intrusive formations consistently date as being younger than the formations that they cut across. A laundry-list of anomalous dates will not change that fact. That only shows that the methods sometimes fail, which is not in dispute.
If Austin wishes to make a case that all isotopic results are unreliable (which he desires to do, in order to prop up the timescale that he accepts for religious reasons), he is going to have to do better than he has done here. All the ICR's Grand Canyon Dating Project shows is that a sample selection geared to yield the age of the flows' source... apparently does yield the age of the flows' source.
Doing science wrong is the creationist perspective.
What are you up to Buzsaw? Surely you read the entire article.
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