What's the creationists thought on this?

Jan Peczkis claims to have an MA in Geology from Northeastern Illinois University, and there are two citations on Jstor for someone of that name from the same university, both in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology:Implications of Body-Mass Estimates for Dinosaurs
Jan Peczkis
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Feb. 15, 1995), pp. 520-533Trends in the Description of Extinct Genera among Mammalian Orders
Jan Peczkis
Journal of Paleontology, Vol. 63, No. 6 (Nov., 1989), pp. 947-950He's also written well over a thousand book reviews on Amazon.com, assuming there are no shenanigans involved here.-----------Who he really is isn't so relevant here, though. The important point should be that "some person says radiometric dating is rubbish" is not a substantive argument. Let's hear some specific explanation of why it's so rubbish.

Answer's in Creation says that Peczkis has a master's degree in geology. Their website also contains a detailed rebuttal of Woodmorappe's claims related to Noah's Ark and radiometric dating.

quote:

---

John Woodmorappe is a young earth creation science author specializing in radiometric dating, and issues related to Noah's Ark and the Flood. John Woodmorappe is a pseudonym (a "pen name"). Many have criticized him for this, but I don't see a problem with it. He teaches high school science, and holds a Master's Degree in Geology.

​

Many of his arguments contain quotes out of context, scientific data out of context, and omissions of key points which would invalidate his arguments.

---

"John Woodmorappe" is a pen name for a high school teacher.He knows nothing about dating beyond what he reads in the creationist literature (i.e., lies).Here are some links that can help you -- if you actually read them:

ReligiousTolerance.org Carbon-14 Dating (C-14): Beliefs of New-Earth Creationists

​

Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective by Dr. Roger C. Wiens.

​

This site, BiblicalChronologist.org has a series of good articles on radiocarbon dating.

​

Are tree-ring chronologies reliable? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
​
How does the radiocarbon dating method work? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
​
How precise is radiocarbon dating?
​
Is radiocarbon dating based on assumptions?
​
Has radiocarbon dating been invalidated by unreasonable results?
​

Tree Ring and C14 Dating

​

Radiocarbon WEB-info Radiocarbon Laboratory, University of Waikato, New Zealand.

If you have any questions on radiocarbon dating let me know, as I do a lot of it in my work.

---

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

They don't use 14C to date dino bones for the same reason that you don't use a yard stick to measure the width of a human hair. Using the smallest increment on a yard stick you will find that every human hair is 1/8th of an inch across.

That's interesting. Somebody with a masters in geology teaching high school science? That can only mean that he is way too useless as a geologist for any geological consultant, mining company or geological research organization to employ him. Simply put, he knows too little to be employed as a geologist.

What creationists claim to be true is usually miles removed from reality. So, he claims to be a geologist, while he’s only published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology? Sounds very fishy to me. How does this qualify him to be a ‘specialist’ on dating methods? Well, I guess anyone can write book reviews on Amazon. I agree.

Im sorry purpledawn (again). I'll just take my lumps. Im not a clue really about dating techniques. I shouldn't have brought it up. All i know is you can;t use carbon dating to date in the millions. Im not sure what method they use to date dino bones honestly. I admit it's not a area im familiar with.As for the other question about how we would know the date of dino's other than the Bible I say let some Creationists date them and see what they come up with. I'll check to see if this has ever happened. Thanks for being patient with me. For now i believe the creation Scientists account of the age of the dino's. Particularly Laurence Tisdall. Btw Fossils don't come with dates on them. You cant date them. I suppose they date the rock? Can you date sedementary rock?

You might check the links on various dating techniques I posted upthread.You can't use C-14 to date into the millions of years, but that hasn't stopped creationists from dating dinosaur fossils. When they get readings they ignore contamination and other issues and claim proof of a young earth. Pretty silly, eh?They have also used studies on diamonds to claim that even diamonds have residual C-14, but that was a test of residual carbon and C-14 that builds up in the dating equipment. Diamonds were used because they truly contain no C-14, and this let them establish the "background" for the equipment.Please check the links I posted and let me know if you have any questions on radiocarbon dating.

---

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

And that is complete bullshit. I am more than a little more qualified in my discipline than Peczkis is in his, and I have taught at high-school level. Not all "teachers" teach simply because they can't do anything else. Not everyone is driven by pure bottom-line income.

Then how do you rationalize your questioning of the thousands of geochronologists who actually do know exactly what they are doing? No, your creationists sources indoctrinated you to reject science. That's why you brought it up. That's why real geochronologists don't ever use carbon dating to date dinosaur fossils. Chuck77, you should then start realizing that you can’t trust creationist ‘sources’. They lie. Rather use scientific sources. There's lots of other scientific techniques out there. Creationists have only one dating ‘technique’. They interperate their specific version of the holy books. Then they call it ‘science’. There is another thread on this website dealing with why creationists should get scientific dating techniques they don’t have at the moment. Before getting a scientific dating technique, they don't do geochronology. Why? They keep on lying to you. We pointed them at their lies. Don’t ever believe them without investigating their claims very thoroughly. Why do you do this at all? Even according to CreationWiki. Laurence Tisdall - CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science He’s got absolutely no education in scientific dating techniques. Don’t just believe his ‘claims’, as he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Rather listen what those thousands of Geochronologists, who are actually specialists in geological dating, from all over the world, conclude after their research. That ‘s called being rational. Yes you can. It doesn’t matter how many times you just ignore or deny facts, fossils can be dated. Yes, you can date sedimentary rock. Sometimes it is very easy, other times it is more difficult, but you can date sedimentary rocks.

Sorry, cavediver, if I offended you.I didn't mean to do it.The reality of the situation Jan Peczkis is involved in, is that no real geological organization, whether it is in consulting, mining or reseach, would ever emply a reality denier. That's why he works for creationist organizations and works under a different name.Institutions dealing with geological reality also have to survive in real life. They all have to survive reality.Jan Peczkis does 'geological' work for 'creation scientists', simply because he doesn't have the knowledge to work for real geological enterprizes. He suppliments his income by trying to indoctrinate children. And it looks good when he can refer to himself as a 'science teacher' or 'geologist' in his 'articles', depending on the audience.I also agree that a lot of teachers do their jobs for the love of teaching children. But they are real teachers and don't have to revert to lies to indoctrinate the faithful, too. They do really educate children. They do it all under their own names. Not some nom du plum to deceive the faithful.Edited by Pressie, : Added two words

It's not so much me, as the irritation I get at the typical "those that can, do; those that can't, teach" attitude and the damage it does to recruitment efforts aimed at employing serious professionals into teaching - I can give countless examples where this is perfectly applicable, but similar countless examples where it is not.Anyway, apology accepted. Thank you.

Thanks for accepting my apologies.I work as a full-time geologist at a geological research institute and I also teach part-time at what is called a previously disadvantaged school. I understand your frustration.In my country teachers are paid a pittance. Usually teachers are paid in peanuts, that's why they get a lot of monkeys doing it.Those teachers with a passion for teaching, however, who do it for the love of teaching and also for advancing humanity, do deserve all the respect we can give them. There's a lot of them.I don't think that Jan Peczkis is one of them.Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

I was actually looking forward to a discussion on John Woodmorappe's 'research' on dating. I could actually learn something, as we do have a few experts on radiometric dating available on this forum. Are you sure you can't give me one of the examples from Woodmorappe's 'research' that we can discuss? Your statement was Can’t we even discuss one example where ‘isotope dating was rife with circular reasoning’? I would love to discuss any example of radiometric dating where Woodmorappe thought the dating methods were circular.Chuck77, please, let’s discuss some examples of this. It seems like Woodmorappe would never publish his ‘findings’ in peer-reviewed papers, but only in religious tracts where the readers don’t have a clue what he is talking about. Also, he always does it where he knows that no Geochronologist can hear what he says and is able to criticize him. Please, let’s discuss it here. Just give us one example of 'circular reasoning' he writes about.This is the time to put your money where your mouth is.

Although it's been pretty beaten to death already, a few items:Woodmorappe did not look at 500 papers, he selected 350 dates from a lot fewer than 350 papers. He did not give any indication of how many dates he reviewed to select those 350, so a meaningful statistical analysis is impossible. His claim to have found "Over 300 serious discrepancies..." is laughable. I've read the original paper, and the majority of his "serious discrepancies" are not that at all, they're well-explained and well-understood. Steven H. Schimmrich wrote a critique at TalkOrigins, Geochronology kata John Woodmorappe, which is easily understood by the non-geologist and explains several of the "discrepancies". he concluded that Woodmarappe made many serious errors:

• Selective quotations from the scientific literature
• The presentation of data devoid of any geological context
• Ignoring well-known limitations of dating methods
• The use of a "shotgun" approach
• The inclusion of obsolete data
• The use of a small data set to reach sweeping conclusions
• The lack of an appropriate audience

Glenn Morton plotted Woodmorrappe's dataset at Young-Earth Arguments: A Second Look. measured age against expected age. There's a lot of scatter, as you'd expect when the criterion for data selection is the existence of scatter, but the trend is clear: Chuck77, it would do you good to reflect on the reliability of your sources.Woodmorappe's paper is not online, but I have a PDF of it if anyone wants to read it.