| 
Posted May 27, 2009 by  Clive the flying ostrich: Thingite Warlord Emeritus.
A common objection is: why isn't Carbon Dating used on diamonds or coal? They are after all lattice arrangements of carbon atoms.
Recall Carbon 12 atoms are neutral, stable and common, Carbon-14 arises when a neutron (typically radiated by the sun and encountered in the upper atmosphere) strikes a Nitrogen atom and was absorbed via organisms metabolising the carbon.
Coal and Diamond are organic creature capable of metabolising Carbon 14 in this way.
That is not to say you can't find Carbon-14 underground, you can.
This occurs in places where Uranium is decaying and giving of neutrons.
When this happens this creates a pattern, any coal or diamonds that are close to a source of Uranium contain more Carbon-14 the closer they are to the source, with a decreasing trend the further away they are.
But there is little point using Carbon-14 to date these minerals since there is no point of removal, unlike organisms that die, until the coal or diamond is dug up it's position relative to the radioactive source doesn't change over much. Since it is impossible therefore for the source of carbon 14 in the object to differ from it's surroundings there is no clock.
Carbon dating is therefore only used in the upper sedimentary layers and only for organic samples. (Not coal and diamonds)
-----------------------
Other methods.
*****************
I could spend the rest of this night listing the different dating methods and describing how and why they work. But I'm not going to.
Magnets
*********
Every 250,000 years or so, the Earth Magnetic field reverses, South becomes North, North South Magnetised dipoles in minerals of rocks show the polarity of the earth by lining up with it. This is especially common in recently erupted rock. Therefore within the geological column there is a record of past magnetic reversals, a regular banding of magnetic polarity.
This incidentally is one of the primary evidences for sea-floor spreading as a mechanism of continental drift. If you take a magnetometer and drag it behind a ship and criss-cross The Atlantic a few times, you get a magnetic map of the ocean floor.
What this shows is that as rock is erupted at the mid-atlantic ridge it is magnetised, as rock moves away from the ridge towards the subduction zones along the continental shelf the pattern of magnetic banding is apparent stretch back over a record where each reversal represents a period of at least 250,000 per reversal.
If you use a monochromatic key of black one pole, white for the other, the images looks like a roughly symmetrical barcode, crossed with a Rorsharch ink blot test.
http://hays.outcrop.org/images/keller3e/02_13.jpg
Other Isotopes
***************
There's Potassium - Argon Dating whihc has the advantage of having a half life of 1.3 billion years, this used to be used for dating rocks as fossils that came from much farther down in the geologic column.
There's also the (more reliable) Argon-Argon dating, as well as other unstable isotope decay process used with different half lives.
For example: Uranium - Thorium (more on that one later!) and Rubidium-Strontium.
Thermoluminescence
********************
I don't know much about this one but what it does is to measures trapped electrons on the surface of volcanic rock.
Continental Drift
*****************
The speed of continental drift has been measured (annually, it's about the same rate as the growth of a human finger nail) - that means the progress of continental drift can be wound backwards and allow the original position of the continents to be worked out.
Until this was done, bizare evidence that counfounded geologists like the depposition of glacial moraine terminus in sedimentary rock, in the south and west of South Africa, made little or no sense. It wasn't until it as realised that at a certain point in Earths long history, South Africa was positioned over the (probably South) Pole.
With this revelation, the ordering (and appearance of glacial rock) within the geologic column made sense.
Climatic Banding.
******************
Climatic Banding in sedimentary rocks can be measured and is believed to be caused by a 'wobble' in the Earth orbit that appears every 12,000 years.
-------------------------------------------
There are more dating techniques than these, I've mentioned a few and I've declined to go into detail on them, I am no expert. I've stuck to my remit of trying to tease together a coherent story for why radiometric dating is a comprehensibly valid scientific method of dating and corresponds to annual and seasonal data to such a degree that we can have a high confidence that they match.
I've still got some work ahead of me before I get to directly challenging Warner's assertion and showing that to be so. The thing I have to demonstrate is how once again it is the overlap and correlation between the different techniques that supports the hypothesis and lends weight to the theory.
The key thing to stress is that for all of the measures of time - the process is devised first, and tested second.
The fact is that the results of these tests consistently fit the established chronology.
It is also notable that no creationist like Ken Ham or the Discovery Institute or any of the Creation Ministries *ever* comes up with a test that would validate their claim. You'd think if the evidence was so strong for their position, they'd have found some by now.
It should be very easy to falsify this data. That's the real test: Can this be falsified? Because if it can be I'll have to revise my position.
I expect to see the same intellectual commitment from my intellectual opponent.
|
 
|  | |
| |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by winternights
<I expect to see the same intellectual commitment from my intellectual opponent.>
Play tune on fiddle in hope someone listens
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by Clive the flying ostrich: Thingite Warlord Emeritus.
EDIT:
Coal and Diamond are NOT organic and capable of metabolising Carbon 14 in this way; Coal is a rock, derived from organic matter, whereas diamond is a mineral.
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by YourMessyplay
Bring it on! And if you listen carefully, He will confirm it to you Himself!
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by Clive the flying ostrich: Thingite Warlord Emeritus.
Yourmessyplay seems to have arrived from the first post.
Warm welcome to our discussion YMP,
Having a Christian battle it out with our Warner should prove entertaining.
Meanwhile on with this exegesis on dating methods.
Yesterday was really about establishing the reality of isotopes as a valid scientific research tool. I used Carbon-dating as an example of how Carbon-14 (the unstable radioactive isotope of carbon can be measured) because it's relatively easy to understand. I also wanted to establish that it can provide chronologies from organic samples that correlate with the stratifying of the geological (i.e non-organic) column.
So my task for today is to definitively link the radiometric age taken by (for example carbon dating but also other forms of radiometric ratio measurements) with the established chronologies.
To accomplish that, before we go forwards to stalactites, we need to go backwards, to tree rings....
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by Clive the flying ostrich: Thingite Warlord Emeritus.
In my post 901, I referred to 'floating chronologies' - and it's time to come back to those and explain how they fit into this picture.
Tree rings (and other systems of independent measurements of the actual age of items) are used to calibrate the Carbon 14 dating method to make it more accurate than it is uncalibrated. (This is what Gandalfstwin meant in post 921 - if you need to, go back and check). The scientists doing this are very concerned with the accuracy of the data.
The ages of the tree-ring data are validated by the carbon-14 levels in the samples (including the 'floating' samples.) The "carbon-14 age" of a sample is as I showed yesterday just a measurement of the quantity of carbon-14 in the sample compared to the total carbon in the sample. This quantity measurement is then transformed by a mathematical formula based on radioactive decay into a theoretical "age," but this "age" is really just a mathematical scale for displaying the actual amount of carbon-14 in the sample.
If you wanted to try this for yourself the formula for Carbon-14 dating is:
t = {ln (Nf/No)/ln (1/2)} x t1/2
where "t" is the "C-14 age",
"ln" - is the natural logarithm,
"Nf/No"- is the percent of carbon-14 in the sample compared to the amount in living tissue, and
"t1/2" is the half-life of carbon-14.
This can be used to calculate the calibration curve and this has been extended (see the paper linked to below) to the limits of Carbon-14 dating, but it is also of interest to look at just the Carbon-14 calibration curve for dendrochronology - the results of matching tree-rings to Carbon-14 levels and their implied "C-14 age":
However, this is I suspect at the root (no pun intended) of where Warner's doubts about radiometric dating and something like seasonal tree rings may lie because it's just a 'theoretical age'
But to be explained in that case is the consistency and the correlation.
The point here is that it does not matter about the validity of carbon-14 dating in particular (though I have established it's soundness in principle.)
Take two trees of the same age, that lived in the same atmospheric environment and absorbed the then existing levels of atmospheric carbon-12, and carbon-14 (the common isotopes.) They will each have the same levels of carbon-14 in the samples today. No fantastic scheme invented to change the way radioactivity works will change that simple fact, for whatever is changed in one sample is changed in all the others of the same period.
Thus, when sample {A} is dated to {X} years by dendrochronology and it has level {Y} carbon-14 content, and when sample {B} is also dated to {X} years by dendrochronology and it has level {Y} carbon-14 content, the carbon-14 content validates the age - because, growing in the same environment, they could not be the same age and NOT have the same carbon-14 content.
If there were numerous errors in the tree-ring data (perhaps caused by the duplicate counting of identified rings, then this would show up as a steep rise as the "Carbon-14 age" that would be much younger than the recorded tree-ring age. This is not the case.
Such 'false rings' would also have to be perfectly matched for each of the species used for the overall dendrochronology ages or the "C-14 age" for each one would be different and the line of calibration would be extremely blurred. This also is not the case.
From those calibration curves:
http://razd.evcforum.net/Pictures/CvE/dendrochronology-to-C14.jpg
It is clear, the age derived from Carbon-14 analysis is consistently younger than the actual age measured by the numerous tree-ring chronologies in pre-historical times, meaning that Carbon-14 dating actually underestimates the ages of objects!
(the graph is taken from this paper:  )
http://www.ipp.phys.ethz.ch/researc...radiocarbon/HajdasPhDthesis1993.pdf
-------------------------
In sum then, working with different trees (notably: Bristlecone Pines German and Irish Oaks, and German Pines), from different locations covering different periods of time:
Not only do these different chronologies overlap to cover the same periods of time, they also record the same pattern of climate shown in their tree rings even though they come from opposite sides of the earth and are in very different kinds of trees. One is an evergreen living at high altitudes and one deciduous living near sea levels (which rules out The Noahchian flood.) Anything that can cause errors in one system has to have a method that can cause exactly the same error in the other systems at exactly the same time period. Positing false rings does not accomplish this.
All three sets also show the "little ice age" and other marker events such as the 'Younger Dryas' - a period of significant climate change bigger than the "Little Ice Age" (and named for the pollen from the Dryas octopetala plant showing up in various sediments in the Geological column and notable in the dendrachronolgies for the unusually wide widths of the rings during the period) Different samples from different trees all come to the same age for the matching climate data like this.
We can therefore conclude that the actual amount of Carbon-14 in tree-ring samples matches from species to species for the same ages as the tree-rings, this validates that they formed in the same "carbon-14 environment" regardless of radioactive decay afterwards.
Samples that get carbon-14 *only* from atmospheric sources while living cannot be the same age and NOT have the same carbon-14 content.
While it is possible for samples of slightly different ages to have the same carbon-14 content (due to the variation of carbon-14 in the atmosphere over time), it is not possible for samples to be the same age and have different carbon-14 content.
False tree-rings for each and every one of the different species that were used on the calibration curve would have to have occurred at the same time in several different habitats, locations and environments around the world to produce simultaneous false results.
False (and missing) tree-rings are readily identified by dendrochronologists due to their differences from real annual tree-rings, and this has already been done for the dendrochronologies presented: there are no massive numbers of false rings in any of the data.
Anyone wanting to invalidate tree-rings as a viable age measurement method need to simultaneously explain the correlation of tree-rings to climate between each species *and* the correlation of tree-rings to absorbed carbon-14 levels in each of the tree-rings in each of the species at the age. That is three different systems having matching data on a year by year basis.
The logical conclusion is that this confirms the dendrochronology age for tree species such as Bristlecone Pines, German Oaks and Irish Oaks and German Pines.
Taking all of that into account with the accuracy afforded by the Carbon-14 dating of multiples lines of evidence, I can now revise *upwards* the minimum date available through Dendrochronology so that the minimum age of the earth based on this data is *at least* 12,405 years from the 8000 agreed originally.
The next step is to resolve one more outstanding problem that is particular to carbon-dating, and we do that by (finally) examining stalactites and nail down this idea of varying decay rates.
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by warner - ID_123456789123456789
Clive,
 So far so good ... We're talking about orders of magnitude of 10**6.
Some YEC's might have problem with that, but as I said, I don't know when the earth was created, or even if it has any relevance, as time is
  
Peace
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by Clive the flying ostrich: Thingite Warlord Emeritus.
Well I'm gratified to hear that Warner.
I'll even willing to accept that you don't have a definite figure in your head (though then I wonder how you conclude that 8000 is 'okay', 400,000 'unhappy' and X-billion 'too much'
What criteria is informing that opinion?
Really, it's not any specific date or magnitude I am interested in establishing. I look upon these as interesting and informative half-way houses between now and the age of the Earth.
Rather I am interested in whether you accept the principles based on this evidence that these dating methods are correct, reliable, valid and sound?
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by Clive the flying ostrich: Thingite Warlord Emeritus.
Addendum:
I ask because you've in the past demonstrated high scepticism (not based in reason in my view) for statements made about historical dating. So are you - *gasp* - coming around to accept with an open mind scientific evidence?
If so, I never thought I'd see the day.... 
 on standby.....
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by warner - ID_123456789123456789
Clive 
Yes, I understand what you're setting out to do, and I find it very informative and interesting.
I DO think that many (or most/all) of the modern dating principles are valid. Why shouldn't they be? It's the assumptions brought about by large projections into the past I struggle with, whatever the method ...
Peace
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by Clive the flying ostrich: Thingite Warlord Emeritus.
Well grant me a few moments to type out this next segment which will I think settle the for whether radioactive decay rates are constant. Once it up and you've read it please answer me these questions:
1) Do you still think objective efforts to find out what happened in the past are influenced by whether we think the cosmos is an accident with no controller, or it has an owner? (900)
Because it seems to the that at the moment that the only thing we appear to disagree on is the 'linear nature of time' - there doesn't seem to be any religious element left in the argument, it's purely about physics. Am I wrong?
2) >>If by historical timescale, you mean a few thousand years, I can accept that, but a billion years, no!<< (912)
Given that you say you think "that modern dating principles are valid. (and why shouldn't they be?) so if a dating method could be found the reliably dated to billions of years with a strong evidence base - you would accept it then?
3)>>You think that the measurements of time are valid, whereas I do NOT!
I accept 'calendar time', as the rotation of the around the sun, but not radiometric as being equivalent. I agree that radiometric dating is a valid method of estimating the age of material, but I don't think that it is equivalent to 'calendar time'. And yes, I have what I consider to be valid scientific reasons.<< (836)
Will you be prepared to state what those scientific reasons are?
Will you accept that radioactive measures of age and seasonal data DO in fact correlate?
Will you now accept that measurements of time (as in the date of say a 47 million yeah old fossil or the 4.3 billion year old age of a rock sample are valid?)
Segment of Stalactites being typed out next, so hold fire till it's done. Thanks.
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by Clive the flying ostrich: Thingite Warlord Emeritus.
In the last segment on Carbon dating, I acknowledged that >>it is possible for samples of slightly different ages to have the same carbon-14 content (due to the variation of carbon-14 in the atmosphere over time.<<
This complicates things; if Carbon-14 content can be variable in the atmosphere, then the initial amount in samples is variable. The purpose of calibration curves is to reduce the error due to the variations in initial carbon-14 content of the atmosphere.
To discuss radioactive decay therefore and dating systems that are based on this concept we need a system not subject to this kind of variation. We also need one that can be correlated over substantial time to validate the system.
What seems like too many posts ago, I asked you to consider the process of secondary mineral deposition inside caves.
The cave I wish to take you to now, is a tectonically-formed subaqueous cavern in south-central Nevada with the unfortunate name, present company excepted, of The Devil's Hole. We are going to be Coring the Devil's Hole.
The walls of this subaqueous cavern are coated with dense vein calcite which provides an ideal material for precise uranium-series dating via thermal ionisation mass spectrometry (TIMS). The Devils Hole Core is a 36cm long core of vein calcite with a continuous record of paleotemperature and other climatic proxies.
Here's a picture of it: http://water.usgs.gov/nrp/images/winograd.gif
Data from this core was recently used by Winograd and others (1997) to discuss the length and stability of the last four interglaciations. so this stuff has scientific credibility.
You'll recall when I first broached the subject of radiometric dating (988) I said : >>Elements are composed of one or more naturally occurring isotopes, which are normally stable. Some elements have unstable (radioactive) isotopes, either because their decay is so slow that a fraction still remains since they were formed (examples: uranium, potassium), or because they are continually created through cosmic radiation (tritium, carbon-14) or by decay from an isotope in the first category (so called 'daughter' elements).
We've examined the middle category of continual generation by discussing carbon dating, I want to know talk about the other two categories: elements with extremely long half-lives and their capacity to generate 'daughter' elements as they decay.
So what exactly do find in the Devil's Hole?
Water dripping down a cave wall, depositing calcite and various other minerals and impurities, elements that are soluble in water, including trace levels of radioactive isotopes of uranium. Material that gets deposited as the water evaporates, forms layer after layer of similar deposits, each one trapping the material in their respective layers. The calcite forms a matrix that holds the impurities, minerals and trace elements in a position related to the time the calcite was deposited.
Radioactive elements decay into other elements, and some of these are not soluble, and thus the presence of these insoluble daughter elements is evidence of decay of the soluble parent elements. These daughter elements are still trapped in the layers of calcite that the parent elements were depositied in, so their position also relates to the age of the daughter elements in the calcite layers. We are interested in four isotopes of these matrix constrained elements, two radoactive: thorium-230 and protactinium-231 and two not radioactive: oxygen-18 and carbon-13 and what they can tell us about climate and age.
Let's discuss the radioactive series first:
This uses the isotopes of nuclides, uranium-234 and thorium-230.
Like carbon-14, the shorter-lived uranium-series isotopes are constantly being replenished, in this case, by decaying uranium-238 supplied to the Earth during its original formation.
Following the example of carbon-14, you may guess that one way to use these isotopes for dating is to remove them from their source of replenishment. This starts the dating clock. In carbon-14 this happens when a living thing (like a tree) dies and no longer takes in carbon-14 laden CO2. For the shorter-lived uranium-series there needs to be a physical removal from uranium.
Happily, the chemistry of uranium and thorium are such that they are in fact easily removed from each other. Uranium tends to stay dissolved in water, but thorium is insoluble in water. Thus a number of applications of the thorium-230 method are based on this chemical partition between uranium and thorium.
On the other hand, calcium carbonates produced biologically (such as in corals, shells, teeth, and bones) take in small amounts of uranium, but essentially no thorium (because of its much lower concentrations in water). This allows the dating of these materials by their lack of thorium. A brand-new coral reef for example, will have essentially no thorium-230. As it ages, some of its uranium decays to thorium-230. While the thorium-230 itself is radioactive, this can be corrected for. The equations are more complex (but as noted with ice cores complexity is no bar to accurate results) however, the uranium-234 / thorium-230 method has been used to date corals now for several decades.
Comparison of uranium-234 ages with ages obtained by counting annual growth bands of corals proves that the technique is highly accurate when properly used (Edwards et al., Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 90, 371, 1988). The method has also been used to date stalactites and stalagmites from caves, already mentioned in connection with long-term calibration of the radiocarbon method. In fact, tens of thousands of uranium-series dates have been performed on cave formations around the world.
At the Devil's Hole we are essentially dealing with one very large stalactite. The calcite was deposited after being dissolved in water, the Thorium-230 in the calcite could only come from the decay of the parent Uranium-234, giving an accurate measurement of the age of the layers of calcite.
The second relevant radioactive isotope is Protactinium-231.
Protactinium is a malleable, shiny, silver-gray radioactive metal that does not tarnish rapidly in air. It has a density greater than that of lead and occurs in nature in very low concentrations as a decay product of Uranium. There are three naturally occurring isotopes, with protactinium-231 being the most abundant the other two have very short half-lives (6.7 hours and 1.2 minutes, respectively) and occur in extremely low concentrations.
Protactinium is widely distributed in very small amounts in the earth's crust, and it is one of the rarest and most expensive naturally occurring elements. It is present in Uranium ores at a concentration of about 1 part Protactinium to 3 million parts Uranium. Protactinium-231 is a decay product of uranium-231. Protactinium-231 has a half-life of 32,760 years.
The Uranium-235 to Protactinium-231 decay is from a different series than the Uranium-234 to Thorium-230 decay. This means the two are independent of each other. Again, as the Devil's Hole calcite was deposited after being dissolved in water, the Protactinium-231 in the calcite could only come from the decay of the parent Uranium-235, giving an accurate measurement of the age of the layers of calcite.
-----------------------------
If you need a primer on Radioactive Decay, here goes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_decay
The radiation decay curve is exponential, with different results for different decay constants - the half-lives of the radioactive isotopes.
(This from Wikipedia)
A quantity is said to be subject to exponential decay if it decreases at a rate proportional to its value. Symbolically, this can be expressed as the following differential equation, where N is the quantity and λ is a positive number called the decay constant:
N(t) = N0e-λt
Here N(t) is the quantity at time t, and N0 = N(0) is the (initial) quantity, at time t=0.
If the decaying quantity is the number of discrete elements of a set, it is possible to compute the average length of time for which an element remains in the set. This is called the mean lifetime, and it can be shown that it relates to the decay rate,
T = 1/λ
The mean lifetime (also called the exponential time constant) is thus seen to be a simple "scaling time" A more intuitive characteristic of exponential decay for many people is the time required for the decaying quantity to fall to one half of its initial value. This time is called the half-life, and often denoted by the symbol t1/2. The half-life can be written in terms of the decay constant, or the mean lifetime, as:
t1/2 = ln2/λ = Tln2
When this expression is inserted for T in the exponential equation above, and ln2 is absorbed into the base, this equation becomes:
N(t) = N02-t/t1/2
-----------------------------
Using the half-lives of thorium-230 (75,380 years) and protactinium-231 (32,760 years), we can now draw the exponential curves for these isotopes (with % on the y-axis and time in k-yrs on the x axis, thorium in blue and protactinium in red):
http://razd.evcforum.net/Pictures/decay-curves.jpg
This means we have a series of data with three different pieces of information: calcite layer age, Thorium-230 content and Protactinium-231 content. We also note that Thorium-230 has a half-life of 75,380 years, while Protactinium-231 has a half-life of 32,760 years - less than half the half-life of Thorium-230. This means that layer by layer the ratio of Thorium-230 to Protactinium-231 is different.
So for these dates to be invalid there would have to be a mechanism that can layer by layer preferentially change the ratio of these two independent isotopes within the solid calcite vein.
----------------------------------
Carbon and Oxygen.
Buried in the calcite layers are also the elements of oxygen and carbon, and the ratios of oxygen-18 to oxygen-16 and of carbon-13 to carbon-12. These are markers of climate. These ratios are like the tree-rings climate data used to match different samples and different dendrochronologies, except that we have two sets of data instead of just one, and these do not decay or change over time once they are buried in the calcite. The climate data from Oxygen-18 is validated by the Carbon-13 values.
I've copied this bit from the United states Geological Survey website FAQ on The Devil's Hole:
>>The Devils Hole Oxygen-18 record is an indicator of paleotemperature and corresponds in timing and magnitude to Paleo Sea Surface Temperature recorded in Pacific Ocean sediments off the California and Oregon coasts.
The record is also highly correlated with major variations in temperature in the Vostok ice core, from the East Antarctic plateau.
The Carbon-13 record is thought to reflect changes in global variations in the ratio of stable carbon isotopes of atmospheric CO2 and/or changes in the density of vegetation in the groundwater recharge areas tributary to Devils Hole.
(See Winograd et al., 1996; Herbert et al., 2001; Winograd, 2002; Winograd, et al., 1997; Landwehr and Winograd, 2001; Landwehr, 2002; and Coplen, et al., 1994.)
The eminent geochemist as Wallace. Broecker has stated that "...the Devils Hole chronology is the best we have..."
Based on the ages determined from the radioactive decay of thorium and protactinium the values for Oxygen-18 and Carbon-13 were tabulated and these climate patterns were compared to those of ice cores. The result was that they were "highly correlated" with climatological data from Vostok ice core data, which "matches almost perfectly" the climatological data from Greenland ice cores. Thus the climate correlation shows that the ages determined by the radioactive decay, match the ages determined from counting the layers of ice in these cores - highly correlated between two climate measures, two radioactive age measures, and two ice cores.
I wish to draw your attention to the phrases "Highly correlated with the Vostock ice cores." and "matches almost perfectly" in this abundance of evidence.
It has been my stated goal to demonstrate to you Warner that Radiometric Dating on exponential decay models DOES correlate with seasonal layering records. The ice cores gives us our most substantial record of annual 'calendar time' layers that I can think of - and they match the radioactive decay ages almost perfectly.
The Date of The Devil's Hole Calcite isn't actually an advance of what we have already established. Since 1992, all core material has been uranium-series dated using the (TIMS) methodology. In 1997, the Devils Hole Thorium-230 dates were independently confirmed by non-USGS investigators using Protactinium-231.(See Broecker, 1992; Ludwig, et al., 1992; Winograd, et al., 1997; and Edwards, et al., 1997.)
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1997/ofr97-792/ (Raw data from the Devil's Hole Core with estimates for the age.)
However what is remarkable, and it bears repeating, is that the soluble radioactive isotopes date the structure and the non-radioactive elements found in a sub-aquatic cave in Nevada can correlate with records of climate events over hundreds of thousands of years with Dendrochronology climate data from Europe and Ice core data from Greenland, Antarctica and Russia.
One could say that this data validates the age of the Devil's Hole calcite, but that is not really what is being validated here - The Calcite can already be validated with the Vostok Ice Core data and others - instead this validates the theoretical basis for radiometric dating as being accurate and valid.
Any alternative model suggesting different rates of radioactivity for this period of time is invalid, as this would not explain the change in ratio of these independent elemental isotopes layer by layer by layer by layer for 567,700 years.
Based on this information alone we can conclude:
 The theoretical basis for radiometric dating is accurate and valid.
The two different radiometric methods are equally valid - at least as far back as 567,700 years before the present.
That has been NO change in the behavior of radioactive materials in the last 567,700 years,
and
The world is older than 567,000 years and no global flood has occurred in that time.
This last conclusion is deducible as a global influx of water would have changed the ratios of the soluble isotopes from what is seen.
Unless Noah is a fraction older than 567, 700 years, then it never happened.
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by Clive the flying ostrich: Thingite Warlord Emeritus.
There's a lot there, (I should know it's taken me most of the afternoon to type it out!  ) so take some time to digest it and then I'd love to know your answers to my questions (1012) in light of that what the scientific evidence I've provided in (1013) demonstrates.
Clive.
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by warner - ID_123456789123456789
Clive
>>if a dating method could be found the reliably dated to billions of years with a strong evidence base - you would accept it then?<<
Yes, I would accept it, but I see that as purely hypothetical because over that timescale we would be making assumptions about the unchanging 'laws of the universe' and therefore NOT be reliable, and I don't see the point in even doing it.
How will it help mankind to estimate that the world has been here a 'billion years'?
>>Will you accept that radioactive measures of age and seasonal data DO in fact correlate?<<
Yes, over a certain timescale, but not one projected back millions of years ...
>>Will you accept that radioactive measures of age and seasonal data DO in fact correlate?<<
Same again, yes over a moderate timescale. That's my whole argument; it's not about whether a particular scientific method is valid, it's about moderation in extrapolation and realistic confidence intervals.
And that brings me to the first point about whether we believe this universe has 'a controller'; I do think that motivation to 'see how it all works' is natural and healthy, but making conclusions with statistical significance about the probability of God's existence is a curse, IMHO.
As I said before, it seems only wealthy nations and individuals can attempt this extreme research of vast particle accelerators or deep space exploration or trying to make accurate estimations about the universe in the order of millions of years ...
To a believer, it looks rather unnecessary and extravagant, but I do admire and respect the scientists involved overall.
Peace
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by caesar
Well, Clive, it's been an interesting effort, but the trump card has been played:
'The laws of the universe might not be constant and you can't prove that they are.'
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by Clive the flying ostrich: Thingite Warlord Emeritus.
Thank you Caesar, always nice to be appreciated.
I would say the weight of evidence going back is that we no reason to assume they are not constant.
And there is plenty of evidence (that I've not yet covered - I'm kicking down round the 100,000's still; there's millions and billions to go yet) that is, shall we say, 'highly suggestive' that physical properties and processes that we see going on today haven't changed since they were going on aeons ago.
I've done my best to make the scientific case for the conclusions that I attest are true, I see no such effort from his side; his 'might' is not very mighty.
but I'd like to be proved wrong.
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by Clive the flying ostrich: Thingite Warlord Emeritus.
If a dating method could be found the reliably dated to billions of years with a strong evidence base - you would accept it then?
>>Yes, I would accept it.<<
I'll take that bet.
>>purely hypothetical <<
So none of my efforts to show of dating of isotopes of recent record makes you think that there isn't lurking in my hitherto and as yet unused box of tricks; an element or isotope that has a decay rate of sufficient slowness to make a case for, say, a few million years?
>>I don't see the point <<
I believe you.
>>That's my whole argument; it's not about whether a particular scientific method is valid, it's about moderation in extrapolation and realistic confidence intervals.<<
Hmm can you explain more on what you mean by extrapolation and confidence intervals. Obviously I am familiar with the terms, but an example of what you mean would help set the next stage of our discourse. How do you define 'moderate' by the way?
Got to go - going out for a meal.... 
Laters
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by warner - ID_123456789123456789
Clive
According to modern thinking about time from physicists, the future and the past are of identical nature.
Surely you wouldn't feel confident to extrapolate a billion years into the future ... so why would you be so confident extrapolating into the past???
Peace
|
| | |
| |
Posted May 27, 2009 by Clive the flying ostrich: Thingite Warlord Emeritus.
Hmph.
Well, my first reaction is a rye smile. I'm just thinking that the guy with the scuba gear on clutching the block of excavated calcite isn't somehow part of this 'modern thought' amuses me but anyway....
Onto serious matters... 
I think, frankly it's a bit of a stretch, what you are suggesting, that Einstein's theory of Special Relativity is being seriously discussed in university laboratories as being a stumbling block for radiometric analysis. But I suppose it's a possibility.
So , how's about you go fetch me say...hmm half a dozen peer reviewed articles in the scientific literature that back that up. Then we'll have something to talk about.
(Remember I said not to worry about all that stuff in parenthesis with the names and dates in them? Well I changed my mind. Start worrying.)
I've been fairly generous and shared my sources with you, so come now, fairs fair.
--------------
It is of course in special relativity where Einstein's conceives of time as essentially another axis along side position in space so to move in space is to move to a new point in time, in this mixed up stuff called spacetime. A consequence of that view being the the present moment is something like a point of view where the past behind it and the future ahead of it are just as 'real' (or to take up your language 'identical in nature')
Einstein gave the example of two observes witnessing the same event, for example two sequential flashes of light some distance and time. For observer A stood on the Earth those flashes appear perhaps a mile apart and with maybe a seconds interval between them. The Second observer is gazing out of a porthole window on a rocket flying past the Earth. From his unique perspective his estimate of both the distance between the flashes and the time interval of their brilliance, will not agree with the earth bound observer. Neither is in error. Rather both estimations of Observer B are affected the relativistic effects of by time and distance being related through spacetime because time and space are relative. The faster the second observer was moving the more important and evident that effect becomes (as we seem to never tire of pointing out to you) It is nevertheless though a real effect as tests with atomic clocks have shown but the relativistic effect at these by comparison slow speeds.
But Einstein went further of course.
He was trying to describe the the curve a particle would take through a spacetime diagram (this 4th axial ballet) - the curve he called it's 'world line', I believe.
Imagine making a normal graph where the horizontal axis is space and the vertical axis is time, Einstein thought as you move directionin one you change position in the other. So imagine putting a pencil to the axis at 0; then move the pencil up the page and wiggle the tip to and fro. You will trace a curve.
A 'modern thinking physicist' could no doubt come up with a mathematical description of that curve, and that unique curved line is mathematically equivalent to my description of moving the pencil up and around the page.
But there's a problem with this analogy, and I think it cuts to the heart of your rebuttal to me, and if I'm right you'll not find nay serious scientists taking up your notion for this reason.
The difference lies in the fact that the mathematical curve is a finished object, the mathematics that describes it traces it's whirls from start to finish, if you like it contains the whole span of the time axis; all that history in one go.
The problems start to arise when you think what that means and how best to interpret it.
And it's a real issue: how do you interpret a mathematical descriptino of a physical system?
For example while you were drawing that curve you may have been a 3rd of the way up the time axis, of a fifth, so at that moment in time, the rest of the curve did not exist.
Because the laws of motion in relativity can predict the future uniquely in terms of the present (plug in the value for time time and crank the handle...) then there is only one way that the path you were tracing could have gone; only one possibly curve that could be drawn under those particular physical conditions that controlled how the pencil moved.
There are alternative ways of looking at it. Is it that as the tip of the pencil is moving, that it's creating it future as it moves, it's record trailign behidn it,, the future un planned.
Or the future of that curve is already there waiting for it, we just can't see it from out 'point of view'
And the problem is this: These are two VERY DIFFERENT alternatives of the SAME mathematics.
It all flows from Einstein's idea, which you've paraphrased, that all possible futures and pasts are equally real and coexist on the time axis of 4 dimensional spacetime. Now that's a useful and nifty little idea when it comes to solving certain problems in physics
However it's a PHILOSOPHICAL ASSUMPTION which alternative you preference
It is simply not possible to divide on this over the mathematics alone.
And I supposes that in turn answers my question 1a That the only thing we appeared to disagree on didn't seem to include any religious element. I may yet have to concede I was wrong about that.
The point is we can see the past. Go outside on a starry night and the light from that star is 60 light years away (the light year another example of a measure of time and distance as melded), the l light from that one's only 10 lights years old. If it wasn't at night but daytime, you could just as equally say, the light just arrive is eight light-minutes old.
So there are many different pasts that are visible to us (I've just mentioned a new one: light) but radiometric dating is amongst that number
I think you are assuming a philosophical position where the mathematics is neutral.
I also think that's why you'll not find many papers seriously questioning radiometric dating on that basis.
For while there are doubtless many theoretical mathematicians and physicists who are aware of this as an abstract problem with mathematical models, it's not about to sink the enterprise of working out how old a 36 centimetre block of vein calcite is.
I can't help but picture you trying to swat my wrecking ball with a down feather.
Perhaps I just watched too many Road Runner Cartoons in my youth....  (Beep! Beep!)
Now that we've established that radiometric dating is sound and valid method for establishing accurate dating records consistent and congruent with multiple data streams, if you want to start counting off the millions, I'll just dredge up some dating of the sedimentary rock beds in the geological column and well be off.
So your point about extrapolating really is a dud, I think. What exactly are the extra data points that radiometric analysis is assuming from the known data?
|
| | |
| |
| |
Key |  |  |
A: An older reply to the parent Posting
B: The parent Posting, to which this is a reply
C: A newer reply to the parent posting
D: The first reply to this Posting
| | |
Click on this icon to make a complaint about a specific Posting | |
|
Home
Reply
