Buz's refutation of all radiometric dating methods

Here you go, Buz, you're very own topic on radiocarbon dating.Please explain how each method is "bogus", according you you.To get you started, here are a few examples of the kinds of dating methods used for igneous rocks, although I'm sure you are familiar with them already:Potassium-Argon
Argon-Argon
Rubidium-Strontium
Samarium-Neodymium
Lutetium-Hafnium
Rhenium-Osmium
Uranium-LeadWhy not pick one at a time and explain how each are so seriously flawed that they should be considered completely unreliable.Looking forward to the lessons. I don't really know much about radiometric dating; only the basics, so I'm ready to learn.Teach away, Buz.

Schraf, I run a full time business besides a lot of other activities and would appreciate that you not try to dictate as to how much time I
devote to these threads. If I want to do a thread and feel I have time to add to the ones I'm currently involved in, I'll I'd like to make that decision myself.However, I know this's buggin you so before I hit the sack I'll post this from the acknowledged link for you to ponder and anyone to comment on. It is a very interesting subject and I'd like to be able to give it more time. I'll try and do the best I can but may be slow responding much of the time. Ok bud?

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Past, present and future together
Consider then. Radiometric dating methods (those measuring geologic time by rate of radioactive decay) have been used to date formations that could be associated with Noah’s Flood. These dates supposedly prove these formations are millions of years old rather than thousands. Yet we find that different methods can yield radically different results.

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As The Science of Evolution explains: “Several methods have been devised for estimating the age of the earth and its layers of rocks. These methods rely heavily on the assumption of uniformitarianism, i.e., natural processes have proceeded at relatively constant rates throughout the earth’s history . . . It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological ”clock’” (William Stansfield, 1977, pp. 80, 84).

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The potassium-argon [K-Ar] dating method, used to date lava flows, also has problems”as shown by studies of Mount St. Helens. “The conventional K-Ar dating method was applied to the 1986 dacite flow from the new lava dome at Mount St. Helens, Washington. Porphyritic dacite which solidified on the surface of the lava dome in 1986 gives a whole rock K-Ar ”age’ of 0.35 + OR - 0.05 million years (Ma). Mineral concentrates from this same dacite give K-Ar ”ages’ from 0.35 + OR - .06 Ma to 2.8 + OR - 0.6 Ma. These ”ages’ are, of course, preposterous [since we know the rock formed recently]. The fundamental dating assumption (”no radiogenic argon was present when the rock formed’) is questioned by these data.

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“Instead, data from this Mount St. Helens dacite argue that significant ”excess argon’ was present when the lava solidified in 1986 . . . This study of Mount St. Helens dacite causes the more fundamental question to be asked”how accurate are K-Ar ”ages’ from the many other phenocryst-containing lava flows worldwide?” (Stephen Austin, “Excess Argon within Mineral Concentrates from the New Dacite Lava Dome at Mount St. Helens Volcano,” Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1996, pp. 335-344).

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In layman’s terms, these volcanic rocks that we know were formed in 1986”less than 20 years ago”were “scientifically” dated to between 290,000 and 3.4 million years old!
Such examples serve to illustrate the fallibility of the dating methods on which many modern scientists rely so heavily.

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Problem is, buz, you shouldn't expect K-Ar ages from Mount Saint Helens, or Surtsey or other recent eruptions to be accurate. That was understood for many many years before the Mount Saint Helens samples were taken. Using K-Ar on such samples was like trying to measure the size of a shrew using a surveyors' chain.In other words, the samples were not scientifically dated at all, because the choice of method was not appropriate.

The article you point to only deals with carbon 14 and potassium-argon. These are known to be unreliable in certain cases due to environmental factors.

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Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years).

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This is true. There are a number of cases I know of where isotope data has proved to be misleading, most notably in the dating of the Mull pluton in Scotland. This used rubidium-strontium isotopes (which are also known to be faulty in certain circumstances).Geologists know to be wary of isotope data, especially when it does not fit with the field evidence. But there are other techniques - such as the neodynium one - that have proved to be far more reliable and as such I doubt you will find any cases on the Internet where it has proved to be incorrect.Take a look at the other topic on carbon14 reliability - my post details some of the factors that can distort isotope data.The Rock Hound------------------
"Science constantly poses questions, where religion can only shout about answers."

You seem to be forgetting that the company that Austin used to date the Mt. Saint Helens rock, Geochron Laboratories, specifically states that one should not use K-Ar dating on recent lava flows as it will not give accurate results (though they don't do K-Ar dating anymore).And yet Austin, knowing full well that the process he was using was invalid, did it anyway and claimed that the erroneous date was somehow damning evidence against radiometric dating.Think about it: If you use a meterstick to measure a grain of sand, you're going to get a value of one meter which we all know is wrong.Does that mean metersticks are worthless and the entire process of mensuration is inherently flawed?Of course not. It simply means that you shouldn't use a meterstick to measure a grain of sand. For that, you need small gauge calipers.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

why is it that if a scientific theory is wrong its always a "mistake" or thrown right out the door and new ways brought in?anyway, have other tests been undertaken on the lava and have they been made public?!thanks

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why is it that if a scientific theory is wrong its always a "mistake" or thrown right out the door and new ways brought in?

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This would be a problem if it actually happened that way. In the case under discussion, the people doing the testing KNEW that the dating method would not work. You can't misapply technology and then complain that it doesn't work. Like the guy said when I bought my cell phone, "It is guaranteed against breakage, but if you drop it into the lake we aren't going to replace it."The history of science is full of bad and abandonned theories, so your criticism is wrong on this point too.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

if your argument is correct please shwo me a source made BEFORE the tests were taken stating that they knew the dating method would not work- if they stated that afterwards then i would be very suspicious.thanks

As an isochron method, Rb/Sr should either converge to an answer or not. I've never heard of Rb/Sr converging to a wrong answer before. Is this what happened at Mull, and if so can you explain this?--Percy

There's nothing in the forum guidelines about how timely responses must be. Please take as much time as you need. Besides, I don't think Schraf is asking you to respond more quickly or spend more time, but merely to support your assertions. Naturally this will take you more time, and so it might be wise to avoid making assertions that you know you'll have insufficient time to support.As others in this thread have already informed you, it is well known that K/Ar dating can only be reliably used for material older than about a half million years. This is because of two things:

1. Most of the the original argon resident in rock escapes when the rock is heated, as is the case with magma from a volcano. But it does not completely escape. Even after the magma has cooled there will still be some original argon present.
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   Steven Austin measured the age of the Mount St. Helens eruption at .35 million years. This means that about .35 million years of original argon remained in the cooled magma. This argon is probably locked into the Mount St. Helens rock forever - only another episode of heating could free it. But K/Ar dating isn't usually used to date such young material. Millions of years to hundreds of millions of years is more the typical range. If you use K/Ar dating for material from the age of the dinosaurs, in other words older than 65 million years, and if the material had original argon in the amount of .35 million years, which is much more than commonly seen as measured by Dalrymple, then for something 100 million years old the error is about .35%, not enough to worry about. Naturally the error increases the younger the material.
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   Not only does Dalrymple's research indicate that the amount of original argon remaining is small (he never measured more than 1.6 million years, see http://www.epcc.edu/faculty/jesseh/imp-307.htm), but cross-confirmation using other dating techniques on the same material (where possible) such as Rb/Sr, U/Pb, Ar/Ar, and Sm/Nd confirms that it is usually small.
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2. The argon to which potassium decays takes a while to accumulate to any measurable degree, roughly a half million years. That's why K/Ar dating usually isn't used for anything younger than this, though if you're willing to pay the lab the extra money and provide large enough samples you can probably get down to 50,000 years. But measuring such young ages is probably a pointless exercise in most cases, since the presence of original argon might easily overwhelm it.

You've been provided enough examples, but here's another. How would you measure a teaspoon of water using a 10,000 gallon swimming pool? To make it equivalent to dating Mount St. Helens with K/Ar dating, you have to do this during a rainstorm. Good luck!--Percy

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if your argument is correct please shwo me a source made BEFORE the tests were taken stating that they knew the dating method would not work- if they stated that afterwards then i would be very suspicious.

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Actually, it doesn't happen that way. If a method will not work for some known reason, usually one does not utilize that method. Sometimes, however, we will analyze a questionable sample because that's all we've got.Often, we simply know that, based on the rock type, radiometric methods might be difficult. This was the case with the KB Tuff. As I understand it, they knew that dating this material was going to be very difficult and spent some time trying to find the proper method to date it. Several early analyses, though published, simply conflicted with the fossil evidence and were eventually discarded in favor of better methods. Now, the KB Tuff is shown by YECs as a prime example of how radiometric dating is undependable, even though the procedure was very carefully conducted and the explanations make perfect sense.Another way that incorrect methods might be intentionally used is when YECs use them in an attempt to refute radiometric methods. For instance, Steve Austin is known to have sampled and analyzed recent lava flows by the K-Ar method. Clearly this is a misapplication of radiometic analysis used to deceive laymen, but it sure gets a lot of mileage in creationist circles. He KNEW that the results would be bogus long before they became available.

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Problem is, buz, you shouldn't expect K-Ar ages from Mount Saint Helens, or Surtsey or other recent eruptions to be accurate. That was understood for many many years before the Mount Saint Helens samples were taken. Using K-Ar on such samples was like trying to measure the size of a shrew using a surveyors' chain.
In other words, the samples were not scientifically dated at all, because the choice of method was not appropriate.

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It would seem to me that when you're talkin hundreds of millions to billions of years, you're then still measuring the shrew with a surveyor's chain, for a month or 4500 years are both nothing stood up to these hyper huge figures.I guess that's why you're claiming it's only good for half a mil years. Then comes the problem of how do you know anything alegedly half a million years old has been read accurately. Nobody was there to verify.[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 06-22-2003]

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why is it that if a scientific theory is wrong its always a "mistake" or thrown right out the door and new ways brought in?

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Kinda like the doctors who bury their mistakes.

Huh? If you have an object that you have good, independant reason to assume is significantly shorter than a surveyor's chain, then you don't use the chain.But if you use the chain on something that you don't know how long it is, and you get a length of mutliple chains, isn't that enough to assume that the object is multiple chains long? Nothing shorter than a chain would give you multiple chains when you measured it; nothing younger than one half-life of carbon-14 (for instance) would give you a measurement of mutiple half-lives when you radiocarbon dated it. In a sufficient number of cases, there's independant, non-radiometric data that converges on the same date. Since there's no proposed mechanism that would distort so many different kinds of dating (relying on so many different physical principles) in exactly the same way, it's reasonable to assume they converge on a realistic date.

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But if you use the chain on something that you don't know how long it is, and you get a length of mutliple chains, isn't that enough to assume that the object is multiple chains long? Nothing shorter than a chain would give you multiple chains when you measured it; nothing younger than one half-life of carbon-14 (for instance) would give you a measurement of mutiple half-lives when you radiocarbon dated it.

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Apples and oranges. With the chain you can observe the length of what you're measuring and observe the chain to make the judgement. Not so with carbon 14 half life. You can't observe the ratio of your carbon chain to the thing you are measuring before you begin as you can with the chain and object.[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 06-22-2003]