Buz's refutation of all radiometric dating methods

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No, but if you do something to make the rock read "new" as in make it from fresh lava, create a new sedimentary layer in a flood, etc., then anything buried in it is the same age as the rock in which it is buried.

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Imo, that's nonsense. We all know that if, I say if, there was a flood 4500 years ago, that the inorganic material it is fossilized in is not a mere 4500 years old. And for sure, no modern dating method is going to register the material it is encased in at 4500 years. That just ainta gona happen. Maybe herein lies the lie. The young organic thing is pullingfor a youthful read and the inorganic old stuff is pulling for an aged read on the meter, bogasizing (bussism ) the whole dating process.

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What you're saying is that the stone was created in the flood and then somehow an organism that is much younger than it managed to get impregnated in it without disturbing any of the layers above it.

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Say what?? If you're talking the kinds of softer stones like limestone and shale, etc, or stuff like lava, these are created by things like sediment, heat and layers, are they not? The organisms become fossilized by sudden burial in these sediments or lava flows, etc which harden over the milleniums.

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Imo, that's nonsense. We all know that if, I say if, there was a flood 4500 years ago, that the inorganic material it is fossilized in is not a mere 4500 years old. And for sure, no modern dating method is going to register the material it is encased in at 4500 years. That just ainta gona happen. Maybe herein lies the lie. The young organic thing is pullingfor a youthful read and the inorganic old stuff is pulling for an aged read on the meter, bogasizing (bussism ) the whole dating process.

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Speechless. Me, that is. This is utterly astounding.If your faith is incapable of surviving even a minimal education in science, and if you need miracles to hold your ideas together, then why are you trying to argue materialistic explanations for events that have already been explained very well? By doing so, you are (unnecessarily, it seems) entering an area in which you CHOOSE to know very little, and trying to argue with the best of the best! (I speak not of myself here) How is that worth your while? How does debating make any difference in anybody's mind when 1)yours has been made up and your conclusion reached, before you possess even a small fraction of the available knowledge; and 2)ours are too "brainwashed" and "corrupted" by factual learning to accept these evidence-free opinions of yours?This is getting extremely frustrating, going round and round in discussions that always end in "Buzsaw, learn about geology" and a reply of "won't bother, it's all in the interpretation anyway." There is plenty of hard data to be had, if you really care about the TRUTH, and it's available without the interpretive aid of professional scientists, if you really want it that way. Some very basic learning would stop you from making statements like the one above, because it just doesn't make sense. Not just imo, but in the opinion of just about anyone who cares enough to educate themselves about the subject.

No, of course not - and your act of burying would leave telltale signs of digging.But we're not talking about dirt. We're talking about stones. You can't dig into stones and have them just seal up with no trace. And radiometric clocks only start counting from the time the stone became stone. So the age of the lime material has no bearing on the tested age of the limestone it forms. The clock is reset.So, when we find fossils totally imbedded in stone (aka, in matrix), isn't it reasonable to assume the fossil can't be younger than the stone? If not, how do you propose that a fossil was inserted into rock hard, uh, rock? Remember the radiometric dating dates the time since the hardening of the stone, not the age of the matter itself.

Buzsaw, you really need to address message #25. I think it will help you to crystalise your thinking on the geological processes and the use of radiometric dating in a real life example.It might also allow others to fully appreciate the depth of your understanding on the subject.

Buz, What large surface organisms bury themselves in consolidated rock before they die?The mighty sauropods managed to dig down through 150 my of rock in order to die, I guess dieing on the surface just wasn't fashionable back then.Do you realise how ridiculous your shoehorning of data makes you look?Early cetaceans, I'm thinking Basilosaurus here, managed to dig, DIG(!!!!) down tens of millions of years of sediment in order to croak. The mighty Tyranosaurs dug through 65 million years of sedimentary rock to die. The trilobites dug through 250 million years of sedimentary rock to die, right? If an igneous rock dates 70 mya, & another layer above dates 60 mya, what makes you think the T.Rex fossilised inbetween is ~4,500 years old?Isn't a more sensible explanation that the fossils are the age of the rocks, bioturbation aside? If you died atop 65 my old rocks & were lucky enough to become fossilised, you would be encased in Holocene sediments, not Cretaceous.I'm still waiting on a substantive response to this, please.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

Post-mortem teleportation! Yeah, that's the ticket!

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Again, I'm not claiming rocks and other inorganic matter are young.

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No, you are claiming that the dating methods are bogus.Please explain how they are bogus in such a way as to return similar dates for a single meteorite when several different methods are used.If you cannot do so, then I suggest that you retract your claim.

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Speechless. Me, that is. This is utterly astounding.
If your faith is incapable of surviving even a minimal education in science, and if you need miracles to hold your ideas together, then why are you trying to argue materialistic explanations for events that have already been explained very well? By doing so, you are (unnecessarily, it seems) entering an area in which you CHOOSE to know very little, and trying to argue with the best of the best! (I speak not of myself here) How is that worth your while? How does debating make any difference in anybody's mind when 1)yours has been made up and your conclusion reached, before you possess even a small fraction of the available knowledge; and 2)ours are too "brainwashed" and "corrupted" by factual learning to accept these evidence-free opinions of yours?

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This is getting extremely frustrating, going round and round in discussions that always end in "Buzsaw, learn about geology" and a reply of "won't bother, it's all in the interpretation anyway." There is plenty of hard data to be had, if you really care about the TRUTH, and it's available without the interpretive aid of professional scientists, if you really want it that way. Some very basic learning would stop you from making statements like the one above, because it just doesn't make sense. Not just imo, but in the opinion of just about anyone who cares enough to educate themselves about the subject.

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Zephyr, you begin by saying you're speechless and then proceed to go on and on about how stupid buzz is. What's the matter? Can't refute the specifics of my statements? Why don't you be nice and simply cut n paste the specific statements I make which you deem to be erroneous and refute those individual statements if you can. Isn't that the way these exchanges are suppose to work?

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No, of course not - and your act of burying would leave telltale signs of digging.

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So what's the digging got to do with scientific dating methods?

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And radiometric clocks only start counting from the time the stone became stone. So the age of the lime material has no bearing on the tested age of the limestone it forms. The clock is reset.

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So at time of burial the clock sets both the aged limestone and the then young organism at zero. That's what you're saying?

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So, when we find fossils totally imbedded in stone (aka, in matrix), isn't it reasonable to assume the fossil can't be younger than the stone? If not, how do you propose that a fossil was inserted into rock hard, uh, rock? Remember the radiometric dating dates the time since the hardening of the stone, not the age of the matter itself.

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Yes, of course it can be younger than the stone it's buried in. At the time it was buried the stone wasn't stone, but was much older than the organism which was buried in it. The fact that the inorganic material compacted and hardened doesn't make it any younger when the organism was buried in it. If you used your sophisticated dating methods on the inorganic material at the time of burial, it'd likely show much age. Right?[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 06-24-2003]

Buzsaw, address message #25.

My "that's not quite right" detector has tingled over some of Crashfrog's postings before, but this is the first time I've responded. I'm not even quite sure what to say, other than I feel that the Frog's sometimes operating at the fringes of his/her knowledge.

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And radiometric clocks only start counting from the time the stone became stone. So the age of the lime material has no bearing on the tested age of the limestone it forms. The clock is reset.

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This is a bit muddled. Limestones are not (directly) radiometricly age dated. So there is maybe some truth there - maybe call it a half-truth (quarter truth?).

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Remember the radiometric dating dates the time since the hardening of the stone, not the age of the matter itself.

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See above comments.Hypotheticly, one could have a quite recent sandstone, made up of very old zircons. That is, the zircons may have originally crystalized, say, 4 billion years ago. They would age date at 4 bya. But the sandstone might only be, say, 1000 years old.Well, another crappy posting from -
The Moose
(those who can't post quality messages, moderate those who can )

Mark, would you like to comment on this statement?

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A key issue for Mesozoic paleontologists, and one that has been bandied
about on this list innumerable times in the past, is the K/T boundary. The
Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary was, and is, as are almost all Phanerozoic
boundaries, based on the disappearance of some taxa and the appearance of
others. It _is_ not, and never _has_ been, based on the appearance of a
layer of soot, iridium-rich clay, coal, tektites, shocked quartz, or any
other geological marker. Nor it is based on any igneous material that can
be dated to 65 million years ago. In fact, that initial date of 65 million
years (which has fluctuated rather greatly over even the last 50 years) was
based on a radiometric assessment of rocks _previously_ pinpointed as
containing the K/T boundary _based_on_fossils_. The absolute dating
techniques were used to provide an absolute age for an _already_identified_
time boundary. Yes, the actual numbers have shifted over time, due in part
to refinement of various radiometric techniques and in part due to
refinement of the fossil-based boundary with new discoveries and better
correlations, but at no time has anything geologic (radiometric or
otherwise) overshadowed the fossil record as the definition of the K/T
boundary. Absolute techniques only aid in the _resolution_ of the
fossil-based time boundaries; they do not replace it.

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Source:
Jerry D. Harris
Dept of Earth & Environmental Science
University of Pennsylvania
240 S 33rd St
Philadelphia PA 19104-6316
Phone: (215) 573-8373
Fax: (215) 898-0964
E-mail: jdharris@sas.upenn.edu
and dinogami@hotmail.com
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jdharris

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Yes, of course it can be younger than the stone it's buried in. At the time it was buried the stone wasn't stone, but was much older than the organism which was buried in it.

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Then you need to show us how the fossil animal burrowed into the rock or sediment without leaving a trace of evidence for bioturbation. I am crushed that you have no faith in geologists being able to determine this in the field. I also would like for you to show us any fish, for instance, that burrows into the ground to die there. Just where do you get this stuff?

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The fact that the inorganic material compacted and hardened doesn't make it any younger when the organism was buried in it.

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Actually, they would be about the same age anyway. Burrowing animals don't usually dig thousands of feet into the sediments across major bedding discontinuities and into unusual chemical environments. There is absolutely no need to do so.

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If you used your sophisticated dating methods on the inorganic material at the time of burial, it'd likely show much age. Right?

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I have no idea what you are talking about. Usually, we don't date the actual sedimentary material. Often we date the diagenetic minerals that can form after deposition, but it would be meaningless to date the sediment itself since it is often derived from older rocks.

Buz, maybe you should tell us what you think it says.It is saying two things:1) The definition of the K/T boundary is based on the abrupt change in fossils from one side to the other. It was not based on the iridium layer etc. as that wasn't noticed till long after the boundary was established.2) The dating for it is based on radiometric dating but that isn't what defines the boundary it just sets absolute dates for it.

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Mark, would you like to comment on this statement?

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The K/T boundary is, by definition a time when life forms present on earth changed dramatically. Why do you think we call them Paleozoic and Mesozoic, etc.? Radiometric dating simply gives us an absolute date for this boundary. Harris' statement is not surprising or mysterious at all. It is a simple statement of fact.