Let's see ... we don't like telling kids the truth? Is RSR for censoring the truth from kids?
In the 'did you know' segment, why didn't Holt include information about the method of isochrons? No, it just said that it's 'difficult,' not the more truthful 'difficult, but can be done and here's how.'
Looks like Holt ain't telling the whole truth.
A creationist arguing for the "truth" passes beyond the reach of any possible definition of the word "irony" and into the realm of conscious, and conscienceless, lying.
People like you, "M," who are clearly not merely innoently ignorant in their sly hypocrite's crusade, don't deserve the respect of being spat upon, even metaphorically.
Dear Tired,
A good isochron doesn't mean that conventional geologists accept the date. They would say that a good isochron doesn't necessarily mean that there hasn't been leaching into or out of the rock. You should really learn something about it before you speak about it. I know this will come as a shock to you but Talk Origins doesn't tell you the whole truth about everything ... and reading one of their articles doesn't make you an expert on the subject.
Just a little advice from your frienly creationist.
TOHYT, why don't *you* explain the method of isochrons? How is it, exactly, that elements that are chemically identical are supposed to leach out of rocks differentially, as the creationists claim?
BTW, tohyt, here's a place to start: http://sciencecourseware.com/Vir.../VirtualDating/
Before you get your hopes up, it's a science place, not a place to meet a special someone.
Dear tired people,
You should really get some sleep ...
It's not dreaded creationists saying it tired, it's conventional geologists saying it. Get yourself a text book on isotope geology and read up on it.
Dear tired people,
You should really get some sleep ...
It's not dreaded creationists saying it tired, it's conventional geologists saying it. Get yourself a text book on isotope geology and read up on it.
Speaking as a geologist, you are all wet. Come back when you really understand this stuff, and not quote mine.
So gwanggung, you are of the opinion that if a nice straight isochron is produced, then geologists will always accept the date?
Look people, I know how you love to quibble about inconsequential little rabbit trails ... let try to refocus your attention on the pertinent issue ...
The quoted passage from the Holt textbook starts off with, "Radioactive dating is not always accurate." That statement is 100% accurate, period. Would anybody here care to deny that? It then goes on to give a "for instance". You guys would love to quibble for geologic ages because it doesn't give every possible solution for every possible dating method problem.
DON'T MISS THE POINT! The point is that EVERYONE knows that radiometric dating isn't always accurate. And there is no "fix" for each and every problem with radiometric dating. If you think there is, you are ignorant.
Now, the real point of this discussion is that you guys don't want kids to know that there are problems with radiometric dating. That is because you don't want them to have the slightest doubts about the story you want them fed (evolution). Face it, you are evolutionist-cool-aide-drinkers.
Isn't the larger point that the only reason to highlight any potential problems with radiometric dating is to throw doubt on the reality of an ancient earth? There are many ways to date rocks and all of them point to an ancient earth. Highlighting the flaws of one method (and I have no idea if these are legitimate flaws or not) is really just a blatant attempt to trick students into doubting all dating methods.
M's uses "inaccurate" is in a apologetic, and scientifically misleading, sense . He implies that radiometric dating is unreliable. With adequate controls radiometric dating is indeed reliable.
Apologetics don't belong in public school textbooks.
Did you know?
Baking food can produce bad, even dangerous results. A loaf a bread may be burned, and, if left burning, might even cause a fire. It does not matter that millions of loaves are properly cooked every single day; that does not matter to us. All that counts is the fact that some distracted cook may not do the job properly, and we are convinced that the baking of bread is one means used by Satan to victimize us.
Robert,
There are many ways to date how old the earth is. The vast majority of those ways indicate that the earth is YOUNG. Yet we are not allowed to tell the kids about any of this physical evidence because the evolutionary-kool-aide-drinkers don't want the kids to see physical evidence that goes against what they want the students told. (The kool-adie-drinkers will now want to quibble incessantly about this or that method which indicates a young earth, to try to obscure the fact that the vast majority of methods indicate a young earth.)
The only method that I'm aware of which dates the earth to billions of years of old is radiometric dating ... but only if you pick and choose which methods you trust. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the earth is just thousands of years old, but they don't want the kids told that because it might bring their story into question.
"With adequate controls radiometric dating is indeed reliable."
Which boils down to ... "If the date we get is something we can live with, then we're OK with it. If not, then there are a whole list of reasons for why we might have gotten a bad date."
Nothing like some ambiguity to bring the creationists crawling back out. 
I thought M. got enough humiliation and embarrassment already but apparently I was wrong. Here ya go M. here's your next morning dose. Here's a link to a really good site that expalins how various dating methods work plus a couple of snips from there. The article does an excellent job of totally destroying the young earth nonsense. Oh, and before you start whining, it's a christian website.
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resource...rces/
Wiens.html
**snip**
* There are well over forty different radiometric dating methods, and scores of other methods such as tree rings and ice cores.
* All of the different dating methods agree--they agree a great majority of the time over millions of years of time. Some Christians make it sound like there is a lot of disagreement, but this is not the case. The disagreement in values needed to support the position of young-Earth proponents would require differences in age measured by orders of magnitude (e.g., factors of 10,000, 100,000, a million, or more). The differences actually found in the scientific literature are usually close to the margin of error, usually a few percent, not orders of magnitude!
* Vast amounts of data overwhelmingly favor an old Earth. Several hundred laboratories around the world are active in radiometric dating. Their results consistently agree with an old Earth. Over a thousand papers on radiometric dating were published in scientifically recognized journals in the last year, and hundreds of thousands of dates have been published in the last 50 years. Essentially all of these strongly favor an old Earth.
* Radioactive decay rates have been measured for over sixty years now for many of the decay clocks without any observed changes. And it has been close to a hundred years since the uranium-238 decay rate was first determined.
* Both long-range and short-range dating methods have been successfully verified by dating lavas of historically known ages over a range of several thousand years.
* The mathematics for determining the ages from the observations is relatively simple.
**snip**
M says-
"If the date we get is something we can live with, then we're OK with it."
Get real. Learn how scientific controls work. Science dosn't work the same way as apologetics!
Les,
The controling "scientific control" for radiometric dating is the evolutionary/geologic time-scale. If your date presents a serious conflict with the time-scale ... too bad for your date -- it must be wrong because the time-scale is right!
Kevin Nyberg of Garden city kansas everybody knows why thats the only place you could get a job.
Ask the kids.
"There are many ways to date how old the earth is. The vast majority of those ways indicate that the earth is YOUNG."
1) Define young.
2) Name two methods that agree with your defined age of the earth within some margin of error.
Cheers.
Boosterz, In the spirit of Pat's latest post, I'm not going to respond in kind but give you chance not to act like an unthinking militant, but rather a seeker of truth.
Radiocarbon dating indicates that the earth is just thousands of years old
M's statement shows a remarkable level of ignorance. There is a reason you don't see radiocarbon dates reported in the millions of years--the half-life of C-14 is too short. Even so, radiocarbon has been used to date Quaternary events tens of thousands of years old. Radiocarbon dating is good for ages as old as about 50,000 years.
Yes, the Earth is just thousands of years old--about 4,550,000 thousand. To pretend that these great ages are the product of some vast conspiracy is to invite ridicule.
M-
You continue to rely on apologetics. The controls in radiometric dating are most definitely NOT the geological timescale. They are other isotope ratios and the distribution of isotope ratios within the substrate.
A "young Earth" has not been accepted in science since 1831. Incidentally this is almost the same date (1835) that the Catholic Church removed "De Revolutionibus" from the Index.
L. Taylor,
1)"Young" is thousands of years old, not billions of years old.
2)Radiocarbon dating methods date all terrestrial carbon at just thousands of years old. Helium diffusion dating methods date rocks that are supposedly over a billion years old (using certain radiometric dating methods) to only several thousands of years.
mark,
It is you that is ignorant. There are detectable levels of radiocarbon in rocks and other materials that are supposed to be millions and billions of years old. Yes, the radiocarbon shouldn't be there if these rocks are as old as they say they are. But apparently these rocks are not as old as they say they are because LOOK! -- there is carbon-14 in them! This C-14 can't be accounted for by "contamination".
Les,
"You continue to rely on apologetics."
You must have a funny definition of apologetics...
"The controls in radiometric dating are most definitely NOT the geological timescale. They are other isotope ratios ...
So you are saying that if a rock has 2 radiometric dates on it from 2 different radioisotope decay series, and that date is in serious conflict with the timescale, they won't throw the date out?
"... and the distribution of isotope ratios within the substrate."
What substrate are you talking about?
***
Boosterz, In the spirit of Pat's latest post, I'm not going to respond in kind but give you chance not to act like an unthinking militant, but rather a seeker of truth.
M. | 02.27.06 - 2:17 pm | #
***
Loosely translated that means: "Since the material in that link you posted totally savaged my silly and absurd claims, I'm going to try and avoid answering it by hiding behind Pat's civility post".
How about this, in the spirit of honesty why don't you actually read the link I gave you before you humiliate yourself further. It does an excellent job of totally destroying most of the common creationist lies about the age of the earth. And as I said, it's a Christian site so tough luck on the contrived atheist/theist dichotomies.
ps, did you ever find any creationist material explaining away C14 creation from radioactive deposits? No? Hmm, wonder why...
LOL
Looks as if creationists are getting a teensy bit more up to speed on radiometric dating, actually acknowledging that isochron methods exist ... but still ignoring U-Pb concordia-discordia (which are the majority of all geological dating studies in the last decade or so). Concordia-discordia (and Ar-Ar) often can give a good date when relevant material has entered or left the system, and essentially always indicates when a good date can be derived.
"It's not dreaded creationists saying it tired, it's conventional geologists saying it."
The canonical textbook on isotope geology, Dickin's 'Radiogenic Isotope Geology', is on-line at http://www.onafarawayday.com/Radiogenic/ . Why don't you post some quotes from it in support of your position?
"The point is that EVERYONE knows that radiometric dating isn't always accurate"
Yup. And everyone who has any comprehension of radiometric dating knows it's almost always accurate.
"Helium diffusion dating methods date rocks that are supposedly over a billion years old (using certain radiometric dating methods) to only several thousands of years."
Yup. And U-Pb isochron methods date those very minerals (not rocks) to over a billion years. The helium diffusion dating is at best controversial (onloy partly becasue it was carried out by creationists known for their deceptions), but even if the results are 100% accurate it only means that there's soemthing we don't know or haven't taken into account in those particular zircons.
"This C-14 can't be accounted for by "contamination"."
Prove it.
"So you are saying that if a rock has 2 radiometric dates on it from 2 different radioisotope decay series, and that date is in serious conflict with the timescale, they won't throw the date out?"
Absolutely they won't throw the date out ... they'll probably publish it and they definitely will try to figure out why. The KBS Tuff is a good example; see http://www.talkorigins.org/index...c/CD/
CD031.html . Of course, then creationists criticize teh mainstream scientists for digging up more evidence and changing their minds based on it.
Apologetics - starting with a conclusion and collecting evidence to support it.
The "substrate" will normally be a rock.
This is great! A genuine, old fashioned scientific creationism debate over the age of the earth using radiometric dating. I tried radiometric dating once but it didn't work out. Over time, our relationship decayed.
Actually, M is correct about the conspiracy. I realize I put myself at risk but the Truth must come out. Shortly before I left grad school I was taken into the deepest basement of the Chemistry Building where behind a secret panel was The Room. Led inside by torch-bearing acolytes I was administered the secret oath, given the secret sign and told the secret Secret. I then added my name to the scroll along with all the geologists, physisists, chemists, biologists and astronomers who went before me.
Yes, M, we have distracted you with this "old earth" nonsense to hide our real crime: the kidnapping of Santa Claus.
Now, I'm in trouble.
There are...
Where, M? Can you cite any examples of samples collected and treated properly such that contamination wasn't an issue, that produced such inconsistent dates? Where is this information published?
You ask us to believe that all radiometric dating methods are erroneous. That's a bit of a stretch, don't you think? How do you explain calibration of carbon-14 using tree rings, ice layers, and varved sediments? One grand conspiracy? Is fission-track dating in on the conspiracy as well? How do you explain the opening of the Atlantic Ocean and the structure and lithology of the continents on either side of it? Were the continents racing across the sea as if they were competing in the America's Cup? Perhaps the glaciers came and went as quickly as a few waves onto the shore.
Kevin Nyberg of Garden city kansas everybody knows why thats the only place you could get a job.
Ask the kids.
tiama | 02.27.06 - 2:15 pm | #
Poor challenged Tiama. Still butchering the language, I see.
M,
I was going to reply but in the meantime several people replied more fully than I could possibly have. What is now clear is that you are willfully ignoring the scientific evidence of the age of the Earth in favor of your religious bias. To state that a majority of dating methods point to a young Earth is just plain wrong.
Just admit it. The ONLY "evidence" you can cite in favor of a young Earth is one book, the Bible. And it doesn't matter one whit to you what other evidence contradicts that.
It's clear that some people are sufficiently dumbed down so that the Holt text is a step up.
Jon,
"And everyone who has any comprehension of radiometric dating knows it's almost always accurate."
Now here is a claim I would really like to see backed up! Where is the study Jon? I've been looking for it for years ... you can now satisfy my search! Please don't let me down by giving me some lame quote from some letter that someone wrote to someone else ... I want a peer reviewed study. I'm sure you understand that in the world of science, we can't just take someone's word for it, we have to be shown the data. Sorry, that's how science works. Data please.
"The helium diffusion dating is at best controversial ..."
Yes it is controversial because it shows that the zircons can't be billions of years old.
"...(onloy partly becasue it was carried out by creationists known for their deceptions)"
The critical helium diffusion measurements weren't made by creationists. Now who's deceiving?
" ... but even if the results are 100% accurate it only means that there's soemthing we don't know or haven't taken into account in those particular zircons."
Yeah, its the fact that they aren't billions of years old.
"Prove it."
You think contamination can account for all that c-14 we find in terrrestrial carbon? Well, pray tell Jon, why don't you whip out some back of the envelop calculations on just, say, the Powder basin coals and show how all that C-14 contaminated all that coal. I'd be real interested in seeing that.
"Absolutely they won't throw the date out ... they'll probably publish it and they definitely will try to figure out why. The KBS Tuff is a good example; see http://www.talkorigins.org/index...c/CD/ CD031.html . Of course, then creationists criticize teh mainstream scientists for digging up more evidence and changing their minds based on it."
Good one. You probably know why they redated the KBS tuff don't you Jon (you little booger). They had to find a new date for the KBS because of the modern skull they found in it. Which proves my point perfectly, you can get all kinds of dates by running different methods.
Doc Bill,
I won't tell anyone. 
mark,
"Where, M? Can you cite any examples of samples collected and treated properly such that contamination wasn't an issue, that produced such inconsistent dates? Where is this information published?"
I'm a little short on time right now, why don't you do a little searching for it, it will do you good. Google "John Baumgardner C-14" for a good start he lists a lot of the literature where the data was published.
Robert,
"What is now clear is that you are willfully ignoring the scientific evidence of the age of the Earth in favor of your religious bias. To state that a majority of dating methods point to a young Earth is just plain wrong."
Pretty poor form Robert ... a bunch of people spam me and you decide based on the fact that I got spammed that I'm "willfully ignoring the scientif
It cut me off...
Oh well, I didn't get the feeling Robert was a truth seeker anyway ...
I'm a little short on time right now, why don't you do a little searching for it, it will do you good. Google "John Baumgardner C-14" for a good start he lists a lot of the literature where the data was published.
Is this the best you can do? Easily taken care of:
Sulfur bacteria (which live and grow in coal)
Secondary carbonates (forming on fracture services)
Coal can weather, forming carbon-containing minearls, which draws carbon from surrounding material.
And....as an excercise for the student....do you recall what FORMS Carbon 14? Could there be similar processes in the earth's crust...like, from radioactive isotopes?
Feh.
"Now here is a claim I would really like to see backed up"
Well, 'The Age of the Earth', G. Brent Dalrymple, Stanford University Press, 1991 is a great place to start, and has lots of citations. And, of course, the on-line verion of Dickin's book to which I already posted the link. Lots of citations there too. And there's http://www.ncseweb.org/
resources..._12_30_1899.asp .
"The critical helium diffusion measurements weren't made by creationists. Now who's deceiving?"
In all likelihood, Baumgardner, Austin, Snelling, and Humphreys are deceiving. They're the ones who carried out the study. There are lots of ways of deceiving other than by fudging the measurements.
"You think contamination can account for all that c-14 we find in terrrestrial carbon?"
I don't know. It certainly can account for some of it. And in-situ conversion of 14N to 14C can account for some of it. It's up to you to establish that those two "some of its" plus currently unaccounted-for mechanisms don't add up to "all of it".
"You probably know why they redated the KBS tuff don't you Jon (you little booger). They had to find a new date for the KBS because of the modern skull they found in it"
Obviously you don't know the story; the hominid skull 1470 was found _below_ the tuff. While it was one of the reasons people suspected the older dates, the pig fossils were the biggest problem and the disagreement in dates between different labs was the second biggest problem. And it's definitely an example of what you claimed doesn't happen; discordant dates being published, and multiple labs working on the problem until they can get _both_ concordant dates _and_ an understanding of why the original dates were discordant.
I note you haven't listed any of the evidence that "points to a young age". Please include the error estimates ...
"Sulfur bacteria (which live and grow in coal)"
Bzzt. The bacteria get their carbon from their surroundings which shouldn't have any C-14 in it.
"Secondary carbonates (forming on fracture services)"
Bzzzt. What is the source for the C-14 in the newly formed carbonates?
"Coal can weather, forming carbon-containing minearls, which draws carbon from surrounding material."
Bzzzt. Again surrounding material shouldn't have any C-14 in it.
"And....as an excercise for the student....do you recall what FORMS Carbon 14? "
Yes, cosmic radiation forms it in the atmosphere. But they don't penetrate deep enough to contaminate all that coal.
"Could there be similar processes in the earth's crust...like, from radioactive isotopes?"
Bzzzt. VERY MINOR amounts (nothing detectable) will be formed by natural nuclear decay in the crust. Not enough will be formed by this method to account for all that C-14.
Face it, the earth is young.
Uhhh, no, no, no, Jon...
You said the vast majority of the radiometric dates are good. Now back it up. I have Dalrymple's book, Dickin's book (which I paid good money for ... I can't believe he's putting it on the web free!) and Faure's book ... and what you claim ain't in any of them (unless it's in the second version of Dickin's book, which I doubt, but you can prove me wrong). Now back up your claim like a real scientist.
So all you got is arm waving and "creationists are liars" and "I don't know ... maybe contamination". Sorry, but Bzzzt.
"Bzzzt. VERY MINOR amounts (nothing detectable) will be formed by natural nuclear decay in the crust. Not enough will be formed by this method to account for all that C-14."
Let's see your calculations. And your calculations of how much is due to contamination. You made the claim, you suppport it.
"what you claim ain't in any of them"
What I claim _is_ in http://www.ncseweb.org/
resources..._12_30_1899.asp and is implicit in Dalrymple's and Dickin's books, and explicit in the references you can look up from those three resources.
Still waiting for your evidence for a young Earth. Talk about arm-waving, you haven't even done that!
No comment on the disproof of your contention that discordant dates aren't published and worked out?
Still waiting for your comments on U-Pb concordia-discordia dating. BTW, did you read what your helium heros wrote in http://www.ncseweb.org/resources...12_30_1899.asp:
"Samples 1 through 3 had helium retentions of 58, 27, and 17 percent. The fact that these percentages are high confirms that a large amount of nuclear decay did indeed occur in the zircons. Other evidence strongly supports much nuclear decay having occurred in the past [14, pp. 335-337]. We emphasize this point because many creationists have assumed that "old" radioisotopic ages are merely an artifact of analysis, not really indicating the occurrence of large amounts of nuclear decay. But according to the measured amount of lead physically present in the zircons, approximately 1.5 billion years worth — at today’s rates — of nuclear decay occurred. Supporting that, sample 1 still retains 58% of all the alpha particles (the helium) that would have been emitted during this decay of uranium and thorium to lead."
(Shortly after this is where they propose the ad-hoc miracle of accelerated radioactive decay. They didn't mention the implicit ad-hoc miracle of removing the heat. And, yes, they propose an ad-hoc miracle as exactly such in a supposedly scientific paper.)
The only way to get lead into zircons is in-situ radioactive decay. The only way to get a young earth and all that lead into zircons is a trickster God or accelerated radioactive decay. Quantum mechanics, the Oklo reactor, SN 1987A, and lots of other experiments and observations rule accelerated radioactive decay ... unless God is a trickster.
Oops, wrong link to RATE'ws admission of lots of radioactive decay:
http://www.icr.org/pdf/research/...ICC_7-22-
03.pdf
M,
I didn't decide you were willfully ignoring scientific facts from other's posts, but from yours. Your own posts damn you more than anyone else's ever can.
Here's the difference between you and me: I look at the evidence and decide what is true. You decide what is true and then ignore the evidence that contradicts you.
You've been asked several times to post your evidence of a Young Earth. So far all you've done is try to pick apart actual science and failed. Where's your evidence?
You see Jon, we this phenomenon ... VERY FEW evolutionists are able to back up what they say. If it ain't in a Talk Origins article somewhere then it doesn't exist to them. If you get outside the bounds of the Talk Origins archieve, they haven't a clue how to debate you. They can't think for themselves, or they just don't have what it takes work through the problems themselves. They just hold on to their faith in evolution and hope that someday TO will post an article that will save them.
Now concerning the C-14 contamination, you have the little TO peice where someone tells about their email from someone else ... and this gives great comfort to the evolutionary masses? A bunch of arm waving is all it takes?
If I put down some back of the envelope calcs to show you that these proposed explanations for the C-14 don't work, you will nit-pick them to death and quibble endlessly about a percent here and a percent there. I've got better things to do. The solution here is for YOU to do the calcs yourself. That way, as you are working through the problem you will see that the problem is insurmountable for you. Then all you have to grapple with is your own intellectual honesty.
Robert,
"Here's the difference between you and me: I look at the evidence and decide what is true."
I really doubt that Robert. But you can prove me wrong.
What are the conclusions you reach Robert from the C-14 content of the terrestrial carbon?
M should write an science journal article about alleged problems with radioactive dating techniques. Wait, perhaps M has already done so and will share a reference. Then, perhaps M hasn't and, even if M tried, it wouldn't get published, because the reviewers wouldn't waste precious print media on tripe.
M is "pressed for time" and so cannot find any support for his contentions in the literature; he suggests that we do the work. Where have we heard this before? (hint: sounds like "tee-hee")
M evades the point that there are numerous methods that consistently indicate great age for the Earth.
M also avoided being a little more quantitative about how "young" Earth is. We suspect he's thinking in terms of 6,000 years (all he said was "thousands"), although some of us may think he favors a range of 6,000 to 10,000 years.
M has some bizarre notions about radiocarbon dating. We know that C-14 production has not been exactly constant, owing to variations in cosmic-ray flux and variations in C-14/C-12 stemming from variations in the carbon cycle. So some calibration is in order. For the past approximately 11,000 years, tree rings provide excellent calibration. Dendrochronology pushes the age of the Earth back beyond 10,000 years, and that's just the latest moment, geologically speaking. Now seriously, does anyone think that tree rings have conspired to fool us?
Varved sediments (which show annual layering) have also been used for calibrating radiocarbon dating. Certain corals can be cross-checked, dating by both C-14 and by uranium-thorium, extending the calibration back to about 24,000 years.
Beck and others report in Science 292(5526):2453-2458 (2001) on a long (11,000 years BP to 45,000 years BP) record of atmospheric carbon-14 (thereby allowing further calibration). This work made use of high-precision uranium-thorium age determinations of a stalagmite coupled with C-14 measurements. The U-Th dates were verified using Pa-231 dating.
The upshot is, radiocarbon dating, when properly done, is now reliable for ages back to about 24,000 years and will, before long, provide reliable dates to about 45,000 years. Unless all the laws of physics conspire against humanity, it is foolish to deny the evidence that points to an Earth very much older than a few thousand years.
"What are the conclusions you reach Robert from the C-14 content of the terrestrial carbon?"
M,
I'm not a scientist so I couldn't begin to tell you. And, unlike you, I won't try. I'll just rely on the experts, the overwhelming scientific concensus that carbon dating (and myriad other types of dating) is accurate. Because science is open to being corrected and is, in fact, self-correcting. No faith is required because it's all testable.
Your "faith" on the other hand knows no evidence; it just makes conclusions. The fact that there are thousands of religions and hundreds (thousands?) of denominations of Christianity demonstrates quite clearly that religious conclusions are neither testable nor proven.
M is for Moon.
How old are moon rocks, M?
Robert,
Have you ever considered that your belief that you know the age of the earth is based on faith? Your faith in others?
Robert, you've already made many faith-based claims in this one thread.
mark,
Apparently the whole C-14-in-terrestrial-carbon-that-shouldn't-be-
there-if-the-carbon-is-old thing has gone completely over your head.
I do not doubt that you see evidence which supports your beliefs ... the question is, what are you going to do with the evidence that doesn't support your belief? Ignore it? Wish it away? Rail at others because of it? Or deal with it in an intellectualy honest way?
Doc,
M is for Microscope. I have you under mine right now and am watching you very closely ... very interesting ...
M. is a complete loon. I've already been over his coal fixiation in a couple of other threads. In typical creationist style he ignores EVERYTHING that contradicts his fantasy.
Speaking of which, have you found some creationist "research" that explains away C14 being created in coal by nearby radioactive elements? Have you found some specific coal deposits whose contamination can't be explained by any of the means already mentioned? What about the fact that there are about 40 different dating methods and they ALL point to the earth being ancient? C'mon M, dazzle me with some "creation science".
M. is the poster child of the creationist. He's so dumb he doesn't even realize he's dumb.
Oh, and if you get sarcastic with him, you might want to point it out to him. He's kind of slow with sarcasm to.
"Oh, and if you get sarcastic with him, you might want to point it out to him. He's kind of slow with sarcasm to."
Nice cover for your lack of reading comprehension Boosterz.
Ummm, Boosterz, you never presented any viable mechanism for getting all that C-14 in there ... sorry, but that's not my fault ... But look on the bright side, you can redeem yourself now! Just show us how the coal in the Powder basin got all that C-14 in it withour being young. Surely you are up to that!
"If I put down some back of the envelope calcs to show you that these proposed explanations for the C-14 don't work, you will nit-pick them to death and quibble endlessly about a percent here and a percent there. I've got better things to do. The solution here is for YOU to do the calcs yourself."
Nope, it's your claim, you back it up ... or abandon it. And if you do decide to post some calculations yes, they will be critiqued. It's called "science".
Still waiting for your evidence for a young Earth. Talk about arm-waving, you haven't even done that!
No comment on the disproof of your contention that discordant dates aren't published and worked out?
Still waiting for your comments on U-Pb concordia-discordia dating. The only way to get lead into zircons is in-situ radioactive decay. The only way to get a young earth and all that lead into zircons is a trickster God or accelerated radioactive decay. Quantum mechanics, the Oklo reactor, SN 1987A, and lots of other experiments and observations rule accelerated radioactive decay ... unless God is a trickster.
Jon,
You disappoint me ... You said there was a study that will show me that the vast majority of radiometric dates are good. I've been searching for such a study for a long time ... here you have the very study I've been looking for and won't share it with me ... Why?
Re: C-14 Look, the C-14 is there, you don't deny it. You claim it is there because of contamination/in-situ creation. It is up to you to show that your proposed mechanisms works.
It's like this, if I claim that eminations from the planet Pluto have caused baldness in men, then it would be up to me show how -- It wouldn't be up to you to prove me wrong.
We have a phenomenon. You claim you know what causes that phenomenon. It is up to you to prove it. Go to it.
"Look, the C-14 is there, you don't deny it. You claim it is there because of contamination/in-situ creation."
No, I claim that I don't know why it is there, and I offered a few _possible_ mechanisms that _might_ explain it. You are the one with the claim:
"Bzzzt. VERY MINOR amounts (nothing detectable) will be formed by natural nuclear decay in the crust. Not enough will be formed by this method to account for all that C-14."
Let's see your calculations.
Still waiting for your evidence for a young Earth. Talk about arm-waving, you haven't even done that!
No comment on the disproof of your contention that discordant dates aren't published and worked out?
Still waiting for your comments on U-Pb concordia-discordia dating. The only way to get lead into zircons is in-situ radioactive decay. The only way to get a young earth and all that lead into zircons is a trickster God or accelerated radioactive decay. Quantum mechanics, the Oklo reactor, SN 1987A, and lots of other experiments and observations rule accelerated radioactive decay ... unless God is a trickster.
M,
Scientists have given us modern medicine, television, computers, faster than sound travel, telephones, men on the moon, mapping the human genome, satellites, safer foods, advanced production techniques, automobiles, fiber optics, planetary probes . . .
Yes, I have "faith" in the vast body of scientists. But it's evidenced-based faith, not blind faith. Evidence-based faith is the kind of faith you have that the sun will rise tomorrow. You can't say it's a 100% certainty, but it's happened enough times that you can trust it to. Blind faith is religious faith where someone believes without any evidence.
To believe that 99%+ of the world's scientists are perpetrating some vast conspiracy to attack your religious beliefs is so paranoid and silly that I just can't take you seriously.
Apparently the whole C-14-in-terrestrial-carbon-that-shouldn't-be- there-if-the-carbon-is-old thing has gone completely over your head.
Yes, apparently it has. Here is your opportunity to explain it. Please include references so I may do homework. Or will you once again claim you don't have the time, and someone from the other side should do the work?
And while you're at it, please explain (with references, please) why the numerous other dating methodologies are faulty. And give us a number for the age of the Earth--is it 6,000 years? 6,010 years? --and kindly explain the evidence for this figure (again, with citations from the scientific literature, please).
Oh, and another thing that needs explaining if the Earth is only a few thousand years old: How do you explain paleosols that are found throughout the geologic column?
mark,
If you are really interested you can spend a couple of minutes googling up some stuff. It's in the creationist literature availible on-line, not hidden in a scecret cave somewhere. If you really want to know, you'll look for it. But you don't really want to know do you?
Jon,
So, you have no idea whether contamination/in-situ creation will account for the C-14 or not? Hmmm, I would have thought a guy like you would be more curious than that. Here we have a physical phenomenon that challenges your whole world view and all you can do is shrug your sholders and hope that some creationist expains it for you?
It's in the creationist literature
Exactly--it's not in the scientific, peer-reviewed literature.
But, m, you still refuse to provide any explanations or scientific references for your claims, or reasons why so much other evidence argues against your young-Earth presumption. One can only interpret that as meaning you have none. Perhaps you think that a search of the Internet will provide better results than bibliographic searches of scientific publications--sure, if it's on the Web it must be right.
I'd offer you another puzzler, but you haven't answered any of the earlier ones yet.
There's a reason why C14 in coal is called "contamination" genius.
You've been told repeatedly how C14 can get into the coal. Every time you stick your fingers in your ears and pretend not to hear. Or you try and rationalize it away(radiation would produce trivial amounts of C14 for one) without providing any kind of support for your silly statements. You understand so very little about what you are talking about that you don't even understand how dumb you sound.
First off, unusual C14 amounts in coal are due to contamination. It's that simple. No conspiracy, no creation magic, it's just contamination. It's either ground water contamination or radiological or some other perfectly mundane method. I happen to have a well next to the house. It goes down about 175 feet and it also happens to go through a coal seam. That coal seam is completely submerged. I can tell you that the coal in that seam is basically just black mud(replaced the jet pump a few years ago). It's completely soaked. Whatever get's down into the water table from rain(like atmospheric C14) IS going to be in that coal. The same is going to hold true for any other coal seam that either is or has been near the water table at any time. You can go "Bzzzt!" all you damn well please but you can't change that fact. Neither can you make it true by saying that radiation produces trivial amounts of C14. The C14 produced will vary depending on the proximity and amount of radioactive elements. Don't like that? Tough shit. Show me some data that proves it wrong. Can't? Well, that's too damn bad ain't it.
Not to mention that fact that if your little "theory" is true, if C14 in coal is because it's only a few thousand years old, how then do you explain the OTHER methods of geologic dating that all point to an ancient earth? Hmmm? Got an explanation for why the 40 or so different types of radiometric dating all give the same results and all indicate an ancient earth? Even if radiometric dating was 90% inaccurate, it would STILL indicate the earth is older then what you creationist claim(most forms are accurate to 2%-5% btw).
Hell, ice cores and tree rings can go back nearly 8k years(hmm, now why didn't that global flood disturb that). Or for that matter the King Clone creosote bush in the Mojave desert dates to 11,700 years old. I guess it survived the flood too. And if you creationists are right, it must have been floating in the nothingness before god magicked everything into existence around it.
You see bud, what science has is a matrix of different and testable methods that all agree, the earth is old. It's not one or two methods, it's dozens. And they all give the same outcome. If you pick any 3 of them and use them, they are going to give you the same results AND they will corroborate each other. So if you think one of them is simply wrong and not trust worthy, what about the other 3 dozen? Are they ALL wrong?
Cre
-continued-
Creationism on the other hand does not have anything even close to comparable. All creationists have is blind faith that they are somehow right and all the facts are wrong. Since they have no actual facts/data/science on their side they spend ALL their time making excuses. That's why they seize on any little crumb that comes their way, no matter how small(or incorrect). Instead of doing research to try and determine if they are right, they spend their time futilely trying to undermine the tons of data that damns their position. Barring that, they simply ignore it and lie. That's why you never see any creationists getting published in peer reviewed journals. It's not because of some conspiracy to suppress them, it's because they have absolutely NO scientific evidence for their position. None. Nada.
BTW M, did you read that link I gave you? No? I didn't think so.
Don't forget the moon rocks, Boosterz.
M ducked the question there. Perhaps M could ask Jonathan Wells for an answer on the age of moon rocks. After all, Wells is a Moonie.
See mark? I knew you could do it. All you had to do was stick your head in the sand and say "la lala lala ... creation isn't science ... la lala lala."
Now wasn't that easy? I knew you'd find a way to avoid having to look at a challenge to world-view. I sensed that it would come easy for you, and you didn't let me down.
So, just for the record mark ... You are denying that there is lots of C-14 in terrestrial carbon where it shouldn't be?
M said: "Have you ever considered that your belief that you know the age of the earth is based on faith? Your faith in others?"
You're confusing the word "faith" with the word "trust".
This is very simple: Faith, religious faith, is belief without the need for evidence. Right? By definition most people define their religious faith as a knowledge or a belief in something that can not and should not require one bit of scientific corroboration or evidence. (Your problem is trying to scientifically prove your position of faith). Believing in something not of this physical world requires faith such as this, and most religious people rightly know and accept this. In fact they are proud of their undying faith in the unseen and unproveable. Evidence is not required.
This is not to be confused with trust. Scientists and laymen alike have a trust in the veracity of the work of science because it requires evidence. It is repeatedly tested and refined and tested again. We "trust" the results and conclusions and the theories developed through actual real scientific study and discourse. We don't have "faith" in the religious sense, we have "faith" in the sense of "trust", trust that is earned by evidence and proof and peer-review and a cumulative process of discovery and model-building and comparison and more testing.
When someone says they have faith in you, or faith in the democratic process, or faith in mankind, in every sense they are using the word to mean "trust". They are not referring to the religious Faith necessary to believe something for which there is no evidence. You are conflating the two meanings.
Every person who attempts to say that "faith" is required to believe in an ancient universe or to believe in evolution, is a person who just doesn't understand the difference between faith-with-no-evidence and trust-in-scientific-knowledge.
So I can say I have Faith in the existence of God. And I say I have trust in the continuing efforts of countless scientists and their continually-refined methods and their ever-evolving working models of the physical universe. You can say I have "faith" in those things but you really mean trust.
Don't confuse the two positions. It insults the intelligence of, well, everybody.
Doc,
M is for Mystery. And as you well know, the mystery of the "moon rocks" shall never be revealed to the Masses ...
Mums the word ...
Way to refute everything M. Nothing says "my position is hollow as hell" like completely ignoring everything that proves you are wrong.
If anybody reading was wondering why creationists aren't taken seriously, you just showed them the reason.
M is for Moron.
"Nothing says "my position is hollow as hell" like completely ignoring everything that proves you are wrong."
Must of picked up that techique from you Boosterz.
M is for Mimic.
Mind serving a few calcs with your coal stories Boosterz? Or shall I expect a hollow reply?
***
Must of picked up that techique from you Boosterz.
M is for Mimic.
Mind serving a few calcs with your coal stories Boosterz? Or shall I expect a hollow reply?
***
That technique is the result of creationists being faced with mountains of scientific data that says they are wrong while having zero evidence on their side supporting their bizarre assertions. The only option they have left is to close their eyes, ignore it and pray for it to all go away. Just like you keep doing. Tough luck bud, reality doesn't work that way.
You are the one saying that the C14 contamination can't be accounted for. You've been told how the contamination get's there. Several times actually. A few of them were intentionally explained with small words. Yet you keep putting your fingers in your ears and claiming that it's not true, that it can't account for the contamination. You've been given the answer several times. You're refusal to acknowledge it is your problem not anyone else’s. As I've already said, if there was an actual coal seam somewhere that had C14 that couldn't be accounted for, don't you think your "creation scientists" would be all over it? And if you think it IS true, how do you explain the other 40+ methods used for geologic dating that all say the same thing, that the earth is ancient. Hmmm? No answer? Can't say I was expecting one.
How's it feel being a hollow little creationist fraud? Do you find that warm flush to your face caused by continuing embarrassment pleasing?
Boosterz,
The only embarrassment I feel is for you when you post. I wish you would quit embarrassing me like that.
Oh gosh ... I've sunk to Boosterz level ... Oh well, the only way from here is up!
That's odd M, you failed to respond to anything...again.
"So, you have no idea whether contamination/in-situ creation will account for the C-14 or not? Hmmm, I would have thought a guy like you would be more curious than that. Here we have a physical phenomenon that challenges your whole world view and all you can do is shrug your sholders and hope that some creationist expains it for you?"
Oh, I'm curious .. and I know that real scientists are investigating the issues. And the phenomenon is so far an interesting and unsolved anomaly. It's got a long way to go before it is any challenge to the mainstream age of the Earth.
You could start it on its way by posting your calculations of how much of the problem is caused by in-sityu conversion of 14N. After all, you did say "VERY MINOR amounts (nothing detectable) will be formed by natural nuclear decay in the crust. Not enough will be formed by this method to account for all that C-14."
Of course, we all know that you just made that statement up without any evidential or calculational support. As we know that you've given up on your other claims that you've made int htis thread .. 'cause you ain't got no support for them.
BTW, how did all that lead get into the RATE group's zircons?
In paper G. Alimonti et al. "Measurement of the 14C abundance in a low-background
liquid scintillator" (199
Phys.Lett. B 422:349-358 is this list of nuclear reactions:
This has a section on the formation of 14C in petroleum, ranking the
causes (with references):
1. 17O n, a 14C
2. 14N n, p 14C
3. 13C n, g 14C
4. 11B a, n 14C
5. direct 14C emission from tripartition of 226Ra"
They specifically indicate that cause 4 (alpha transition of 11B to
14C) is dependent on the level of boron in the material.
There is a lot of nitrogen (14N) in coal and even some diamonds include quite amount boron(B) and nitrogen(N). Above a=alpha, n=neutron radiation which is always present in rocks as there is uranium and thorium, radium, radon, etc.
So even without C14-contamination there will be always some C14 present deep in old rocks.. forming continuously.
Baumgartner/RATE-YECs SHOULD have considered these possibilities. They didn't. They don't want to have old earth due to THEIRS interpretation of Bible..
"(199 " should be " (1998 ) ".
Why then textbooks should not keep in same line and add this:
"Scientific studies have shown that
abstinence-only is not reliable method at all.."
?
Why pupils should doubt good reliable method and not allowed to doubt unreliable method ?
M,
OK, I give up. Here's the answer: analysis of decay products from tungsten-182 from the interior of moon rocks (outcrop) yield an age of 4.527 billion years.
You can Behe* the issue all you want, but in the end we got the rocks here in Houston and boy, howdy, are they old.
*duck
Doc,
Well I reckon I can one better your story ...
I had an astronaught who actually went to the moon (a YEC by the way) tell me that one of the rocks they brought back ... well the fellers that do analysis on them thar' rocks told him that one end of the rock was 2 billion years old and the other end of the rock was 4 billion years old. He weren't impressed.
Behe that Doc!
Numbers Mr.KAT, numbers ... we NEED numbers. Winky the cat mighta peed on a coal seam adding some c-14 to it too ... does that explain all the C-14? Why even mention it?
By the way, I owe Robert, DJ, and Jon a serious reply ... can't do it right now.
eMsie-weMsie,
You must be referring to the SaU 169 Lunar meteorite that indeed has a 2 billion year old end and a 4 billion year old other end, resulting from different impact events. Edwin Gnos and colleagues did some fascinating work piecing together the history of this rock which witnessed some rather violent events, not to mention a long space ride to earth all by it's lonesome.
So, there you are, M, hovering on a column of your own hot air like a wingless angel waving your arms frantically to stay aloft as each of your "arguments" comes crashing to Earth like so many of Newton's apples.
C-14 in coal? Actually, cat pee is the most reasonable thing you're offered and I'll vote with you on that one. Uranium decay a close second.
Radiometric dating? Solid analytical chemistry.
And, da Moon! Oh, da Moon is a killer for you because it's rock-solid old, so to speak by billions and billions of years.
As for YEC's in space, be sure to sign up for the B-Ark. I hear it's planning to depart before the Space Goat devours the Sun.
Do stop by again, M. Perhaps you could entertain us with some Flood Geology.
Robert,
"To believe that 99%+ of the world's scientists are perpetrating some vast conspiracy to attack your religious beliefs is so paranoid and silly that I just can't take you seriously."
Let's think through this Robert ...
If you are a scientist, and you believe it is your job to find a natural explanation for everything ... Are you seriously going to consider any evidence that the earth is young? No, you're not going to consider that because it seems incompatible with a natural cause for the earth and all the life in it.
So you don't have to meet in Doc's deep dark secret cave to conspire against young earth creationists ... a young earth is simply a non-starter because it breaks the rules in your mind.
So Robert, you have put your faith in people who have a prior commitment to an old earth. Does it surprise you then to find that these people support an old earth?
DJ,
"By definition most people define their religious faith as a knowledge or a belief in something that can not and should not require one bit of scientific corroboration or evidence."
Well I haven't taken or seen a poll on this so I don't know if your assertion is correct, but I do know that's not how I would define belief. It's not consistant with my reading of the Bible either ... Jesus said (paraphrasing), "Unless you see these miricles I'm performing, you will never believe." Also, read 1 Kings 18.
But DJ consider what I said to Robert above. These people you are putting your trust in have a prior commitment to naturalism, of course they are going to support evolution and an old earth. Now it's one thing to trust someone who says I can build you a cellphone, and then sets one right in your hot little hand -- and it quite another to trust someone who says the "universe is made of tiny little eleven deminsional strings, trust me." See the difference?
When we are dealing with stories about what happened in the distant past, it begins to take a different kind of trust than the trust that we can put in what's done in the here and now in a lab.
Not well articulated, but I hope you get the drift ...
M,
That's not thinking, that's paranoia.
Many scientists are religious. Many would undoubtedly love to find evidence that their religion is true. But the evidence speaks for itself. The tests can be run over and over and over and the results will be the same: old earth.
Until relatively recently, scientists had no way to date rocks and couldn't conclusively demonstrate the age of the earth. Most, likely the overwhelming majority, were religious. These people didn't suddenly become atheists and decide to attack religion by inventing an old earth. They followed the evidence where it lead, despite any religious contradictions. That's called intellectual honesty.
Your theory of a conspiracy, organized or not, among scientists is paranoid and ridiculous. You are letting your agenda blind you to reality.
Robert,
"Many scientists are religious. Many would undoubtedly love to find evidence that their religion is true."
If a scientist is religious and they believe in an old earth, then undoubtibly they have somehow reconciled their religious beliefs with their age of the earth beliefs. They would then have no more reason than a secular scientist to question a great age for the earth.
If a religious scientist believes in a young earth and comes accross some evidence that supports that position, his/her evidence is dismissed by colleages for the same reasons given above. His/her colleagues will likewise likely charge him/her with letting his/her religion get in the way of his/her science.
"If you are a scientist, and you believe it is your job to find a natural explanation for everything ... Are you seriously going to consider any evidence that the earth is young?"
I think so. Come up with some such evidence that stands up to cursory scrutiny, and we'l see what happens.
(e.g. the RATE group helium stuff has some issues that they haven't addressed, and needs lots more replication at other sites and, preferably, by other investigators before it's credible.
***
Numbers Mr.KAT, numbers ... we NEED numbers. Winky the cat mighta peed on a coal seam adding some c-14 to it too ... does that explain all the C-14? Why even mention it?
M. | 03.01.06 - 12:42 am | #
***
If I needed any further proof that you aren't serious and are nothing more then a troll, that was it.
If this were usenet, that would be the point at which you would be killfiled.
Either you are trolling or you are so deranged as to be indistinguishable from a troll. Whichever is the case, you are barely more then a waste of space. However I have always thought that the worst thing you can do to a fool is let them talk. So by all means, continue ranting in support of YEC. I firmly believe you can actually get the hole deeper.
For starters you could explain to everybody reading how cat pee somehow gets you out of addressing the failures of your "theory".
M,
I think we've hit an impasse.
Scientists around the world are CONSTANTLY dating rocks. It happens every day. If a scientist dated a rock, expecting an answer of 100 million years, and the result came to 6000 years, he would scratch his head and test it again, perhaps using a different method. If he again came up with 6000 years, he might test yet again but eventually he would have to conclude that the rock was 6000 years old. That's how science works.
If all scientists were finding that all rocks were only 6000 years old (which would happen if the earth wasn't ancient), they couldn't possibly supress that information or all deceive themselves into ignoring the evidence. The evidence would speak for itself.
Even assuming some vast conspiracy, enough scientists are religious, without any reason to hide the "truth", that the evidence would be revealed by them, your "no true Christian" argument, aside. If even 25% of scientists were proclaiming that the evidence was for a young earth, that would be enough. Guess what? It isn't happening because the evidence is for an old earth.
"And the phenomenon is so far an interesting and unsolved anomaly. It's got a long way to go before it is any challenge to the mainstream age of the Earth."
Jon you are the man! I can't tell you how gratifing (and unfortunately rare)it is to find an avid evolutionist exhibiting some intellectual honesty. I applaud you!
break --- Are you watching Boosterz? Jon has gained respect in the eyes of even his opponent. How did he do it? Was it by throwing insults and sterotypes and projections at every possible opportunity? No, it came from his intellectual honesty in exploring a subject and not being affraid to say the truth even when he didn't much like it. --- break
Now Jon, you could really step up your intellectual honesty quotiant by insisting to the folks over there at Talk Origins that they quit putting out stuff that pretends that the problem has been solved.
You would stand out as unique (and admired -- but not by evolutionists) among the whole of the evolutionary community if you tried to get an article posted on TO which examined the magnitude of the problem faced by evolutionists in this area, and when they refuse to publish your article you went ahead and published it in some other forum.
If you do write such an article -- and I hope you choose to -- don't hold back anything. Include all the C-14 present in not only in coal, but oil, natural gas, limestone, the upper mantle etc. Don't try to dampen the magnitude of the problem at all.
If you do that, you will stand alone on top the evolutionary heap with regard to intellectual honesty. My best hopes are with you.
Robert,
Apparently you are missing a key point in the discussion going on here...
Scientist can get thousands of radiometric dates each and every day which support a young earth if they so desired. All they have to do is sample coal from any geologic system, or oil from any geologice system, or limestone from any geologic system, etc. and run AMS radiocarbon dating on it. If they do they will get a date in the thousands of years. If these materials really are old they should get a non-detect for radiocarbon because it should all be gone in, say, a million years. But they won't get a non-detect because the materials are all younger than ONE million years. So, radiocarbon dating (a form of radiometric dating) seems to be indicating that the earth is young. But scientists discount this evidence. Ask youself why.
Before I go any further let me stop and ask if you've understood what I've written so far.
M,
Others, more knowledgable than I, have already refuted your coal analysis many times. I know enough to understand that much.
"I can't tell you how gratifing (and unfortunately rare)it is to find an avid evolutionist exhibiting some intellectual honesty."
Thanks. Are you going to exhibit some intellectual honesty and support or retract your claims? Still looking for your support for "VERY MINOR amounts (nothing detectable) will be formed by natural nuclear decay in the crust. Not enough will be formed by this method to account for all that C-14.". I've long ago given up hoping for any support for your other claims.
"Scientist can get thousands of radiometric dates each and every day which support a young earth if they so desired."
Yeah, but they con't stand up to casual scrutiny. There's lots of _possible_ explanations for those results other than a young Earth, and the mountains of evidence for an old Earth still exist.
"Now Jon, you could really step up your intellectual honesty quotiant by insisting to the folks over there at Talk Origins that they quit putting out stuff that pretends that the problem has been solved."
Funny, the T.O. article on this says:
"Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), a sensitive radiometric dating technique, is in some cases finding trace amounts of radioactive carbon-14 in coal deposits, amounts that seem to indicate an age of around 40,000 years. Though this result is still too old to fit into any young-earth creationist chronology, it would also seem to represent a problem for the established geologic timescale, as conventional thought holds that coal deposits were largely if not entirely formed during the Carboniferous period approximately 300 million years ago. Since the halflife of carbon-14 is 5,730 years, any that was present in the coal at the time of formation should have long since decayed to stable daughter products. The presence of 14C in coal therefore is an anomaly that requires explanation. ... So, it looks like in-situ production of new 14C is the best-supported hypothesis; but research is ongoing, and I look forward to seeing the results of the Old Carbon Project and new research on the deep subterranean bacteria."
I don't see any claims that the problem has been solved; I see an acknowledgement of an an anomaly and some hypotheses presented that could explain it.
I'll try to write an article if you wish .. but not without your calculations of the amount of the 14C that is produced by contamination, and the amount of the 14C that is produced in-situ.
Aww, it ain't rocket science Jon (if it were, we could get Doc to do it), I'm sure you can do it. Do you want me to get all the credit?
"Others, more knowledgable than I, have already refuted your coal analysis many times. I know enough to understand that much."
Uhh, no ... you don't. Keep watching Robert.
"Aww, it ain't rocket science Jon (if it were, we could get Doc to do it), I'm sure you can do it. Do you want me to get all the credit?"
Yes, I'd be glad to give you all the credit. Let's see the calculations. Your lack of intellectual honesty is showing ... you made the claim, support it or retract it.
Well Jon, I've been kinda wanting to do a paper on it for some time. If I do it tho I'm going to publish it in YEC journal.
"Uhh, no ... you don't. Keep watching Robert."
M,
Oh, please. I've watched this debate for over 90 posts and you haven't posted any evidence whatsoever. You've simply made the same claims over and over, ignoring the VAST AMOUNTS of evidence that contradict your position. Like IDers, you simply pick at one small point you believe (incorrectly) is problematic and ignore all the rest.
Robert here's a paper you can start with, it explains the basic issue and has citations of the relevant literature.
http://www.icr.org/pdf/research/
...Baumgardner.pdf
Note to everyone:
Yes I am sticking to this one issue for the time being. I like to take one issue at a time.
"Well Jon, I've been kinda wanting to do a paper on it for some time. If I do it tho I'm going to publish it in YEC journal."
Yeah, I can understand why you need to do it in a forum where you don't need to justify your assumptions, don't need to consider all the data, don't have to acknowledge and understand and discuss prior work, and don't have to support your conclusions.
"I like to take one issue at a time."
Cute. Bring up ten issues, then ignore the responses to nine because you "like to take one issue at a time." A new twist on the Gish Gallop!
M,
You're wasting your time. I'm not interested in wading through creationist literature. You can do your creationist nit-pick all you want but you cannot overcome the basic fact that the scientific establishment, oh, say 99%+ of all scientists, have rejected these ideas; not because of a world-wide conspiracy, but because the science is not well done. The facts do not support what the creationists are selling.
I'll cast my lot with the experts, not the fringe who have a clear agenda to push their religion into all aspects of life.
The scientific evidence demonstrates an old earth, evolution, no global flood, no stopping of the sun in the sky for 24 hours, no parting of the red sea -- in short, none of the mythology you believe. I freed myself of that superstition some time ago and would much rather live in reality than delude myself for some false comfort.
A nice rule of thumb, if you have to quote the ICR, your position must be pretty damn hopeless.
Apparently M. is unaware of the ICRs history. They are so crazy and lie so often that most other creationists outfits won't even touch them. Duane Gish himself has been caught outright lying so often that he's practically radioactive in creationist circles. During one debate Gish claimed that humans and bullfrogs had more common DNA then humans and chimps. He of course never produced anything to back that up and everytime somebody challenged him on it, he ignored them completely. Hmmm, perhaps M. should write to Gish and see if he can get himself an internship at the ICR. They'd go great together.
BTW M, has the ICR published any more "research" on any coal seams that CAN'T be easily explained by contamination? No? oh well, keep up the good work. LOL
One last posting, M, the final nail so to speak. I read the Baumgardner paper and I understood it because I am an analytical chemist. Surprise!
The paper has two main problems. First, Baumgardner is detecting C14 right at the edge of the resolution of the instrument and his error is +/- 10% with is a very high range for an analysis. Certainly, it is not quantitative (+/- 0.1%) So, he's right there at the noise level. About the most one could say about this part of the paper is that some C14 is present at trace levels.
Second, and this is where the paper becomes a disaster, is the interpretation. The normal way a chemist would approach this would be to note the C14 and postulate on a source of generation, since the sample is millions of years old and the detection limit of C14 is on the order of 50,000 years.
However, Baumgardner doesn't do this. Instead he launches into flights of fancy about "variable decay rates" which have never been observed, and he offers no supporting evidence or theory for this magical effect that would explain the c14 in the coal samples.
Then, he launches into an explanation how Flood Geology (Hey, well done, M, you brought FG to the thread!) could explain things but, again, with no evidence, support or theory.
He could just as well have said His Noodly Appendage put the C14 in the coal.
And, Baumgardner assumes that atmospheric C14 is the sole source of C14 in coal which is false and the generation of C14 in coal from other sources is well documented. Baumgardner chooses to ignore this counter-evidence.
Furthermore, any analytical chemist worth his NaCl would describe the matrix from which the sample was obtained, and in the case of coal seams that would be the surrounding rock, overburden, fossil pollen, etc all of which would show that the coal is on the order of 300 million years old.
In conclusion, from a scientific point of view the paper has no merit. It basically says "we found C14 in coal" which could be done in any Junior-level college chemistry lab. The paper would have had more merit if they had pioneered a novel technique for identifying C14 in coal, but they didn't. In fact, they didn't even do the analysis themselves. They sent the samples to a commercial lab for analysis.
The leap of faith from finding trace levels of C14 in coal to "variable nuclear decay" and "Flood Geology" moves this paper definitely into the realm of Science Fiction.
Well said, Bill.
M, maybe this will help you understand our reaction to this stuff. Do you believe that human beings, specifically NASA astronauts, have landed on the moon?
Assuming you do, and that's a big assumption I will admit, then check out some of the Moon Hoax sites. These guys go on and on about alleged evidence that the moon landings were faked - letters on rocks, no stars in pictures, deadly radiation belts. They pick at nits, all of which are easily explainable and understood by NASA and the scientific community.
That is precisely how creationists come across. You guys are the moon hoaxers of religion.
Since there seems to be a lot of revisionist history going on here, I thought I would recap the thread.
I wondered why Pat wants to censor scientific evidence from students ... does he just want to brainwash them with his view? Pat never answered - as I expected.
The discussion then turned to radiometric dating. I pointed out that researchers only accept the radiometric dates IF they conform to the beliefs already held by the researchers and they ignore the mountains of evidence that the earth is young, including the radiometric evidence that the earth is young -- case in point, the radiocarbon evidence that points to a young earth. Someone asked me to name two methods which point to a young earth. The two evidences I gave were radiocarbon dating indicates the earth is young, and helium diffusion dating indicates the earth is young. The response to the helium diffusion method was on the order of "well the creationists are lying." The rest of the conversation has focused on the C-14 dating that indicates the earth is young.
People have proposed three explanations for the young radiocarbon ages for earth... 1) They suppose that the carbon is old but that it has been contaminated with modern carbon. 2) They suppose that the carbon is old by that the C-14 in it has been produced in-situ (in place) by neutron capture and other nuclear reactions due to natural radioactivity. 3) A combination of explanations 1 and 2 above.
I have pointed out that if you have any grasp of the magnitude of the problem, the first suggestion should strike you as ludicrous. I would point out that noone who puts their faith in this "fix" has provided the slightest bit of substantiation that this "fix" can overcome the magnitude of the problem (you might as well claim Winky the cat contaminated the whole earth, after all I saw him peeing on some coal the other day). Now others apparently think that they have no obligation to substantiate their proposals, that I, apparently, should just accept every ridiculous thing that falls out of their mouth until I can PROVE it wrong. Then of course they will dream up some other half-baked idea that I have to prove is wrong -- then another, then another, etc.
Concerning fix number 2 ... Again no substantiation that this proposed method can overcome the magnitude of the probelm, but lots of whining that I haven't proved it wrong...
It's up to you all to substantiate that your "fixes" will solve the magnitude of the problem.
Oh and I almost forgot, there has never been any substantiation of the claim that almost all radiometric dates are "good", I've just been told to go look up a thousand or so references and I'll find it.
Now a non-cool-aid-drinking-evolutionist might wonder at this point, "why have the evolutionists here avoided like the plague their responsibility to substantiate their fixes?" It is because they can't.
Either they are not competent to carry out the calculations .
or they know they can't substantiate their "fix."
* I'll address Doc's latest "fix" in another post.
Repeating lies doesn't make 'em true. And posting such a biased "summary'. leaving out so many relevant and important facts, doesn't make you look any better.
"I pointed out that researchers only accept the radiometric dates IF they conform to the beliefs already held by the researchers and they ignore the mountains of evidence that the earth is young, including the radiometric evidence that the earth is young -- case in point, the radiocarbon evidence that points to a young earth."
You _claimed_ that "researchers only accept the radiometric dates IF they conform to the beliefs already held by the researchers", but didn't substantiate it. OTOH I proved that at least some researchers _do_ _not_ accept radiometric dates that conform the their prior beliefs. You left that part out of your "summary"
Researchers are not ignoring the apparently anomolous 14C; they just haven't jumped to the copnclusion that the Earth is young, because there are so many more likely possibilities to investigate first. Oh, and anomolous 14C and the RATE claims are not a mountain of evidence.
"The response to the helium diffusion method was on the order of "well the creationists are lying."
Why do creationists almost always think that they can get away with such gross misrepresentatons when the truth is on the same page? The possibility of the creationists lying was raised; the particular creationists involved have lied in the past (e.g. see http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/...cr-
science.html, http://www.island.net/~rjbw/
Crea...ionScience.html, http://home.austarnet.com.au/ste..._dacite_kh.htm)
. The possiblity of analysis error and the possibility of not accounting for all relevant factors was also raised. And the need for replication was mentioned.
{continued on next rock ...}
And, finally, I see you've totally ignored Bill Farell's excellent post .. but, alas, ignoring the evidence is what your worldview is based on.
Doc,
Doesn't like Baumgardner's conclusions ... to which I respond, who cares -- if you don't like them provide an expanation that you can substantiate.
Doc, makes the claim ...
"First, Baumgardner is detecting C14 right at the edge of the resolution of the instrument ... "
Bzzzt. Try again Doc. The instruments are capable dating to around 100,000 years (look it up Mr. Analytical Chemist), the problem is that they can't find any carbon that old (with that small amount of C-14) to clalibrate their machines with.
"... and his error is +/- 10% with is a very high range for an analysis. Certainly, it is not quantitative (+/- 0.1%) "
You seem to be claim this error is sub-par? First of all, it's not "his" error, it the lab's. It's not "his" lab, it's one of the best in the world for AMS C-14 measurement. You don't like that error rate? Can you find a lab with a lower one at that PMC? Go for it Mr. Analytical Chemistry!
Your "fix" is boogus.
'Your "fix" is boogus."
I note you didn't address the major substance of Bill's post ... that Baumgardner ignored possible other explanations, and introduced his exxplanation with no evidence in ssupport.
The question of where the 14C comes from is open. If you want to argue that it indicates a young Earth, you're going to need lots more evidence and discussion. Plus an explanation of the mountains of evidence that _do_ indicate an old Earth. Your molehill of evidence isn't enough to show up on the radar scren compared to the Himalayas of evidence that mainstream science has.
Hum, one of my comments didn't appear. I must have messed up somehow.
"Concerning fix number 2 ... Again no substantiation that this proposed method can overcome the magnitude of the probelm"
Yup. We don't know the answer yet. It's being investigated. Real researchers haven't jumped to the conclusion that the Earth is young, because there are so many more promising avenues of research (in light of the mountains of evidence that we have that the Earth is old).
", but lots of whining that I haven't proved it wrong..."
Not whining, polite requests for you to support the claims that _you_ made. Remember, you claim that you _know_ how much of the 14C is due to in-situ creation and/or contamination:
"This C-14 can't be accounted for by "contamination"."
""Bzzzt. VERY MINOR amounts (nothing detectable) will be formed by natural nuclear decay in the crust. Not enough will be formed by this method to account for all that C-14.""
You made the claims .. but you've got no support for them.
"Oh and I almost forgot, there has never been any substantiation of the claim that almost all radiometric dates are "good", I've just been told to go look up a thousand or so references and I'll find it."
Gosharoootie, life sure is tough, ain't it? There's literally millions of radiometric dates, most not available on the Web, so any assessement of their validity is going to have to involve a lot of data ... not the few problems that fools like Woodmorappe have come up with. But I pointed you to at least one good summary, http://www.ncseweb.org/
resources..._12_30_1899.asp, which you ignored. There are some other good on-line resources: http://www.don-lindsay-archive.o...on/
confirm.html showes correlations with stratigraphy, and http://gondwanaresearch.com/radiomet.htm discusses correlations between methods and paleomagnetic data. (Oh, don't bother to off-handedly dismiss correlations between methods unless you are prepared to discuss _in_ _detail_ why the different radiometric methods are not independent.) determinations).
And I'd like to post a quote from one of my favorite discussion forum posts ever, at http://www.theologyweb.com/campu...1&postcount=85:
"You rather weaken your stand, though, when you begin whining and trying to cast those who make the charge of "He's got nuthin'" as prejudiced, as unfair, as "making the assumption that those that disagree with them are blithering idiots."
Stick with admitting that you have no intention of defending your opinion, and accepting that the heat for that is justified, and then at least you can be credited with integrity. ... But don't try to get out of debating and get credit for "I could if I wanted to." If you really didn't want to defend your statement, the ethical thing would have been to not make it in the first place. If you refuse to make a case, other people are quite justified in concluding that you have no case to make, and stating that opinion."
(emphasis added)
"Oh, and anomolous 14C and the RATE claims are not a mountain of evidence."
No they're not, those are but two of many many evidences that point to a young earth. Thus far they are the only two we have looked at in this thread. Thus far they have with-stood scrutiny and so the young earth evidence is two for two.
Yes Jon, you were right, you did mention more than just the-creationists-are-probably-lying when it comes to helium diffusion. I apologize for my short-cutting you. And yes I didn't try to include each and every point made by each and every person in my summary.
Regarding your other objections to the helium diffusion method which points to a young earth ... "The possiblity of analysis error and the possibility of not accounting for all relevant factors was also raised. And the need for replication was mentioned."
Analysis error -- Why is it that the best in the world is no longer good enough when it happens to produce evidence that supports a young earth? Look it up Jon, the guy that did the helium diffusion measurements is the probably the best in the world. He doesn't like the implications either, but he doesn't deny the facts.
"... the possibility of not accounting for all relevant factors ..." Look ANYONE can say this for ANY study that ANYONE EVER does. You can always say, "well, there might be something significant they haven't considered." When "they" say, "look we considered this and this and this and this and this ... what more can we consider!!??" You can come back and say "I don't know, but there MIGHT be something you haven't considered." It's a bogus arguement Jon unless you can come up with a specific thing that they haven't considered AND show that it has the possibility of having a significant effect on their conclusions.
"And the need for replication ... " That's up to you guys. Yes, please do replicate the experiments and see what you get. Maybe it's already been done Jon? How would you know? Have you ever seen an article in a science journal that said "We replicated x's experient and got the same results he did"? Is that what you are waiting for?
Is it wrong for me to enjoy watching creationists twist in the wind as they try in ever more ludicrous ways to justify their silly beliefs? There is just something satisfying about watching a creationist go down in flames ...
***
No they're not, those are but two of many many evidences that point to a young earth. Thus far they are the only two we have looked at in this thread. Thus far they have with-stood scrutiny and so the young earth evidence is two for two.
***
Um, two things. What evidence. And no they haven't.
I know it's what your entire world view is based on, but you can't alter reality simply by wishing it was the way you'd like.
You have been exposed as: scientifically illiterate, dishonest, deluded, and generally not too terribly bright. You have repeated claims you found on creationist web sites without understanding anything involved AND without actually checking any of the claims yourself. Then you've watched as people who DO understand the issues involved have easily pointed out how everything you quoted was wrong. In detail. With references and citations. You're answer to that? Pretend it never happened, ignore everything then say "see you couldn't answer me, I win, yippee".
You. Live. In. A. Fantasy.
Accept it. Deal with it. Get help.
Booferz, You make me laugh. Keep it up son.
Yo, M,
How's the thread you're clinging to?
Hopefully, this thread is about to break so here is my final posting on the subject.
First, it's Dr. Analytical Chemist. I suggest you spend 6 years in grad school and then we can have a delightful discussion.
Second, I didn't say the AMS measurements were wrong, I said they were qualitative. They are as good a result as one can get with that technique.
Third, the detection limit of C14 converted to years is about 100,000 years, roughly; to be generous, plus or minus 10,000 years at that level of detection. (for a 1,000 year-old sample the limits might be +/- 50 years, say)
Fourth, Baumgardner's conclusions are not supported by the evidence he presents (variable decay rates and flood). My opinion is that Baumgardner's conclusions are wrong as in not correct, right or rational. However, that's my opinion. The fact is that Baumgardner's conclusions are not supported by the evidence he presents.
Fifth, nobody is accusing Baumgardner of lying because that would presuppose that he knows his conclusions are wrong and is deliberately misleading the reader. There is no evidence of this.
Finally, trace amounts of C14 in coal as reported by the researchers whos work Baumgardner discusses in this review paper does not present a "problem" for dating the age of coal because:
1. It can be explained by "de novo" generation from uranium decay in surrounding rock.
2. C14 amounts are inconsistant or absent across coal seams and, therefore, cannot be relied upon as a standard.
3. The estimated age inferred by trace amounts of C14 are inconsistant with all other measurements on the coal and surrounding matrix, both chemically and geologically which point to ages in the order of 300 million years. Therefore, C14 in this kind of matrix cannot be used as an indicator of age.
To select an outlying data point representing a trace quantity which has other explanations and to hold it up in subjective defiance of all of the other data contrary to it is not Science. That requires a miracle and faith. Science cannot prove your faith for you; you either have it or you don't.
Adios, M, see you on the next Flood thread!
Doc Bill
" those are but two of many many evidences that point to a young earth"
Those are the only two that perhaps might stand up to scrutiny. I'm familair with pretty much all of them.
"Analysis error -- Why is it that the best in the world is no longer good enough when it happens to produce evidence that supports a young earth? Look it up Jon, the guy that did the helium diffusion measurements is the probably the best in the world. He doesn't like the implications either, but he doesn't deny the facts."
Perhaps, but he didn't do all the analysis. The number crunching was done by the YECs. And I pointed this out to you already.
When and if they release the original data, as is common in science and as they have been requested to do, we'll see. So far they have refused. That in itself is suspicious.
""And the need for replication ... " That's up to you guys"
Nope, it's up to the claimants. Just like the support for your claims is up to you. You haven't supported anything.
""... the possibility of not accounting for all relevant factors ..." Look ANYONE can say this for ANY study that ANYONE EVER does."
Yup, and people say it of many studies, and real scientists respond to that. When you come up with results that contradict other extremely well-established results, it's your responsibility to establish that you have accounted for all relevant factors that you possibly can. And Humphreys et al haven't even tried. E.g. they've pooh-poohed the possibility of back-diffusion or high concentrations of helium outside the zircons reducing the diffusion rate, but haven't addressed the issues.
------------------
I note you still haven't attempted to support your claims of knowing how much 14C in coal can be acounted for by in-situ generation and/or contamination, nor have you responded to my references on the reliability of radiemtric dating, nor have you acknowledged my proof that scientists do publish anomolous and unexpected dates.
You won't be taken seriously untill you stop blathering and address the serious problems with your point of view.
"Those are the only two that perhaps might stand up to scrutiny. I'm familair with pretty much all of them."
Once again Jon has shown some intellectual integrity and acknowledged that as far as we know these two creation evidences hold up under challege. Again Jon, you could raise your credibility considerably if when you see your ignorant fellow evolutionists saying ignorant things like, "creationists have zero evidence for their position" you pipe up and tell them that's not true. (By the way, you are wrong about those being the only ones that can stand up to scrutiny, but we can get to that later.)
Now, other than Jon, it is blindingly apparent that noone here is willing (or able) to make the slightest effort to find out whether or not C-14 is a problem for an old earth or not. Take note you non-cool-aid-drinking-evolutionists, all the people on your side can do is stick their heads in the sand and hurl insults at creationists. Do you think they would act that way if they had any leg to stand on? No, they wouldn't -- they would calmly and cooly lay out the data that proves C-14 isn't a problem.
They insist that C-14 isn't a problem but refuse to substantiate that claim. Instead they say it is up to me to refute every hare-brained idea that stumbles out of their mouth. I have already explained that it isn't my burden of proof to bear, and why I'm not interested in doing their work for them ... and I could insist that they produce this study which supposedly shows that the majority of radiometric dates are good before I reciprocate with any effort on my part showing that their proposed solutions don't work ... But, in the spirit of truth seeking that RSR exhorts us to (but apparently doesn't practice), I have come up with a solution ... (see next post)
If you are willing, we can collaborate TOGETHER to do some back-of-the-envelope (as it were) type calculations to show why the proposed mechanisms don't save an old earth.
I suggest we start with Jon's proposal (since he's the only intellectually honest evolutionist here) that Uranium decay may account for (or at least contribute significantly to) all the C-14 we find in "old carbon"
So here is my proposal for some quick and dirty calculations -- feel free to offer refinements to them UP FRONT.
In order to know whether U decay will account for all the C-14, we need to know, for starters, how much C-14 we need to account for and how much Uranium we have to potentially produce C-14.
So I propose that we each voluteer to bring to the table some reasonable estimates of the quatities of certain materials that we will need to do our calcs... Each volunteer should provide the data and the data source (preferrably an on-line source that we can all easily verify).
For example, I will start out by volunteering to find an estimate of the total world tonnage of coal along with an average carbon content of that coal. I'll post the numbers and the internet sources.
Someone else will volunteer to find the total amount of oil world-wide.
Somelse will find the total amount of natural gas. Someone else methane hydrates. Someone else limestone. Someone Chaulk. (Feel free to add significant "old" carbon resevoirs to the list). I suggest we stick with the Earth's crust at this point (even tho it's been estimated that there is more carbon in the mantle than in the crust) is the numbers are more reliable. Then of couse we need an estimate of the amount of Uranium available.
There, that ought to give us some data to work with, (Again feel free to add something to the list if you feel we are missing something significant.)
Alright then I've volunteered. Who else is in, and what will you voluteer to bring to the party?
"Once again Jon has shown some intellectual integrity and acknowledged that as far as we know these two creation evidences hold up under challege. Again Jon, you could raise your credibility considerably if when you see your ignorant fellow evolutionists saying ignorant things like, "creationists have zero evidence for their position" you pipe up and tell them that's not true."
Sorry, it's true. The two we've mentioned might stand up to scrutiny, but haven't yet. So, at the moment, they are not evidence for a young Earth ... and you've got nothing.
"Now, other than Jon, it is blindingly apparent that noone here is willing (or able) to make the slightest effort to find out whether or not C-14 is a problem for an old earth or not."
Bill has done so. It just might possibly be a problem for an old Earth, only in the sense that we haven't fully explained the issue and therefore all sorts of lunatic ideas are possible. But, in reality, it won't be a problem for an old Earth. It's more likely that advanced aliens injected the 14C into the coal to mess with our minds.
"They insist that C-14 isn't a problem but refuse to substantiate that claim."
I haven't insisted that 14C isn't a problem; I have no such claim to substantiate. You, however, have insisted that it is not possible to explain the 14C by in-situ generation or contamination. You have not produced any evidence or even argument for those claims. You are the only one refusing to substantiate claims.
"Instead they say it is up to me to refute every hare-brained idea that stumbles out of their mouth."
Nobody has said that. We've just pointed out that it's your responsibility to substantiate the hare-brained ideas that you have written.
"and I could insist that they produce this study which supposedly shows that the majority of radiometric dates are good before I reciprocate with any effort on my part showing that their proposed solutions don't work"
There is no such individual study. The fact that the majority of radiometric dates are good is demonstrated by the totality of the evidence, radiometric and non-radiometric, for the age of the Earth and the pattern of ages oin the geologic column. But the links I posted are a good start. Until you've addressed their content you're just sticking your fingers in your ears and crying "LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!".
You have made no effort whatsoever; it's prewtty clear you are incapable of doing so.
Your libel of RSR is noted.
"So here is my proposal for some quick and dirty calculations -- feel free to offer refinements to them UP FRONT."
It's your claim.. You gather the data and do the calculations.
Don't forget to consider the distribution of uranium and the otehr materialsd within the crust.
Oh I forgot, we'll need someone to periodically bring some levity to the proceedings, some vacuous buffon who can play the court jester ... Booferz, I guess you're it.
Using advanced "creation science hacking techniques" I was able to take a picture of M. through his monitor(don't ask me to prove it, I'll just ignore you like a good creationist).
http://i23.photobucket.com/
album...head_up_ass.jpg
I nearly forgot how slow M. was. So I guess I should point out to him, yet again, that I was being sarcastic. No actual "creation science hacking" occured...
So then, Booferz is carrying his weight. Who else is going to belly up to the bar?
"The two we've mentioned might stand up to scrutiny, but haven't yet. So, at the moment, they are not evidence for a young Earth"
So the don't count as evidence because we have to wait around until the opponents find something wrong with them? How long do we have to wait?
"There is no such individual study."
Thank you Jon for admitting that your assertion that radiometric dating is almost always accurate, has never been substantiated. We simply don't know what percentage of radiometric dates are considered "good" because the study has never been done.
Jon,
Why are you affraid of working together on the numbers? Are you a truth seeker or just another cool-aid-drinker? What are you affraid of? Don't you have enough intellectual honesty to abandon you prior beliefs if they don't fit the evidence? If so, what ARE you affraid of?
Are you perhaps affraid that your religious beliefs may be wrong?
"Thank you Jon for admitting that your assertion that radiometric dating is almost always accurate, has never been substantiated."
Nope, no such admission. I admitted that no single study of the majority of radiometric dates has been performed. Lack of a single study is not lack of substantiation. Of course you have ignored the information that has been presented. Can't handle any questions of your preconceptions, can you?
"Why are you affraid of working together on the numbers?"
Not afraid of anything.
First, I don't see any need to duplicate the effort you said you have performed already. After all, you have claimed to know that in-situ formation and contamination cannot account for the observed 14C, and the only way you could know that is if you or someone has made those calculations. So just present the results. Remember, you did write "it's not rocket science". So why do you need help?
Second, I doubt that anyone has the data to make such calculations, and I doubt that such calculations will contribute to the debate. I can't see any way in which such calculations could prove your thesis; it's always possible that the samples looked at thus far are not the same as a simplistic average over the entire Earth. Such calculations could provide strong evidence for the 14C being the result of contamination and in-situ-production, but IMHO it's far more likely that they would be inconclusive. So why bother?
Third, the question is being studied by real scientists with resources that I don't have. IMHO the only way to resolve the issue in the minds of real scientists is to study a lot of individual instances and either find conventional explanations of all of them or fail to find conventional explanations. If the former occurs, it's essentially proved that all instances are acounted for by conventional explanations. If the later occurs, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Fourth, it's painfully obvious that you've made up your mind already, and the issue will never be resolved to your satisfaction.
Fifth, you have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are an obnoxious, arrogant, smarmy, and ignorant twit. If you had started by admitting that you don't have any idea how much of the 14C can be accounted for by in-situ production and contamination, and that you don't have a clue of how to estimate those quantities, and asked for help ... well, maybe I would have done so in spite of the fact that I think it's fruitless. But after your performance in this thread, no way.
"Are you perhaps affraid that your religious beliefs may be wrong?"
No. They may be wrong, but I'm not afraid of that. My religious beliefs are not really relevant here, but I will say that I believe that God wrote the rocks and Man wrote the Bible. I choose to beleieve what God wrote.
You're wasting your time Jon. Creationists like M are hopeless. There is no way to reason with him on the subject since his beliefs aren't based on reason. He didn't deduce that creationism is true, he has made a conscious decision that it's true and has dutifully ignored anything to the contrary since then. He's problem isn't a flaw in the way he examined it, it's in him being willfully ignorant. You can't reason that out of him anymore then you could go to an asylum and talk the crazy out of the patients. He's going to live and die in a fantasy world of his own making and there isn't anything anyone can do about it. The only good thing about him posting to sites like this is that any rational person who reads it will learn EVERYTHING they need to know about YEC to see how bankrupt it is.
"Creationists like M are hopeless."
Oh, I know and agree. It's mildly amusing to watch the contortions and misrepresentations he resorts to, in order to avoid admitting his ignorance and the bankruptcy of his claims.
Hello Jon and boosterz,
I've seen it all before, time and time again. Same MO. Little argument, ton o' facts to the contrary, cut and run, insults, accusations and perhaps a subject change or two. Note now M backed away from the Moon rock thing.
Now, imagine Teacher M delivering this pap to a high school science class and you have the American Taliban at work. What is ironic is that the most fervent creationists are those with the weakest faith.
I had a friend who was a devout Mormon and a very good scientist. I once asked him how he reconciled Mormonism, which is fringe at best, with Science and he told me that one was faith and the other was his job. He went out the "job" door and through the "faith" door and did not need one to support the other.
Poor M. At the threshold but afraid to step through.
Finally, to end this discussion about C14 in coal, scientifically it's uninteresting. Lots of things have trace amounts of this or that and frankly, Scarlett, nobody gives a damn.
And, so, on that note I'm gone with the wind, too, and let's all congratulate RSR for a 130 entry comment thread! A World's record.
Jon,
"So why do you need help?"
Don't need the help ... just trying to get you to open your eyes. I already understand the magnitude of the problem for evolutionists, I'm trying to get you to see it. It is very apparent that you are stuck in the cool-aid mode. As such, nothing I write will ever cause you to rethink your position. Only if you decide that you want to know the truth more than you want to hold on to your world-view, will you have a chance of see the truth.
Yes Jon, I have done some back-of the-envelope calcs. I have no clue where they are now, but they would be trivial to reproduce. An in fact there is a creationist paper that I remember which addresses one of the "fixes" ... Insitu cosimic ray contribution if I remember correctly. All I remember is that I didn't care much for the way he handled the whole issue. Not that he was incorrect, I just remember thinking it could have been laid out more clearly (I'm going to have to look that one up again ...).
"I can't see any way in which such calculations could prove your thesis; it's always possible that the samples looked at thus far are not the same as a simplistic average over the entire Earth."
This makes me think we aren't viewing the issue the same way ... more later
"Don't need the help ... just trying to get you to open your eyes. I already understand the magnitude of the problem for evolutionists, I'm trying to get you to see it."
The only possible way to get us to see it is to post and defend your calculations. Arm-waving won't cut the mustard.
"As such, nothing I write will ever cause you to rethink your position."
A standard and feeble excuse. I know that nothing I post will cause you to re-think your position, but because I'm intellectually honest I've posted links and evidence and arguments for my position. You have not. Remember what I posted earlier:
"If you really didn't want to defend your statement, the ethical thing would have been to not make it in the first place. If you refuse to make a case, other people are quite justified in concluding that you have no case to make, and stating that opinion."
"I can't see any way in which such calculations could prove your thesis; it's always possible that the samples looked at thus far are not the same as a simplistic average over the entire Earth."
Jon,
Earlier on you wrote something to the effect that some coals have c-14 in them and others don't. The fact of the matter is that all coals analyzed with sensitive enough equipment (AMS) have been found to have significant levels of C-14 in them. Can you show me a coal sample that has been analyzed by AMS that doesn't have C-14 in it? We aren't just talking about one or two anomalous coal deposits. The phenomenon is world-wide. Apparently, all the coal in the whole world is this way. You have to account for the C-14 that is found in all of the world's coal. That is why I was looking at global numbers.
Are we on the same page here?
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