[split] Radiometric Dating

[downbeatplumb]

I was led to believe people would debate civilly on this site.

By whom?

We can when we want to.

[Losty]

By whom?

We can when we want to.

Of course, but it's certainly not guaranteed. I was mostly asking so I could form a lynch mob for whoever sent us this schmuck.

[Surgenator]

By my name you probably know my position, but I have a little bit of a beef with radio metric dating because of its presuppositions. Basically there are three:
1) you have to assume the absence of the daughter isotope at the start of process.

Nope. We've seen these decays in the lab. So seeing the decay products as well the reactants is not an assumption but deduction.

2) you have to assume constant decay rates. We have only been able to observe their rates for the past 100-150 years. Before that we can reasonably guess the affects of the earth's magnetic field and other factors would have on decay, but that is all they will ever be: an educated guess.

Nucleur reactors depend on these decay rates to be constant. You need to know the state of your reactor if you want to run it.

The earth's magnetic field have no effect on decay rates. CERN has a magnetic field of 4 Tesla (8000 greater than the earth's) and sees the same decays.

You should show evidence of decay rates changing, because all the evidence is saying it doesn't.

3) no parent or daughter isotopes were lost or added during the process.
I'm going to leave it at that and see where the replies take it. Hope to here from you guys soon.

Again, we have seen these decays in the lab. We know the products and the likelihood the products would escape. A good example of this is the uranium-238 decay chain. Along the chain, Radon is produced and can escape from Rock through osmosis. If you only find rocks that have the latter half (post Radon) products, you have to compare products ratios instead of totals. But if you look at the early chain half (before Radon), your can go back to totals.

[Thumpalumpacus]

1) Again you are making an assumption that the composition of lava flows have always remained the same, and that atmospheric conditions would have the same effect as today.

Before you go any further, please address the point I made:

What processes do you think would speed up decay rates without leaving any other evidence at all? I mean, such an event ought to have left evidence outside of decay itself -- something powerful enough to suddenly push the worldwide quantities of potassium quickly into the argon column would presumably leave more evidence than just argon. Do we have die-offs correlated to spikes in daughter elements? Do we see differential decay rates at different levels of the lithosphere, which could be expected as a result of shielding from radioactive events?

Your hypothesis has implications which make predictions, two of which I've listed. What does observation tell us about those predictions?

Your refusal to answer this will be interpreted as the lack of a suitable answer, not only by me, but by other readers as well.

---

Hey guys, I'm getting swamped by all the replies. Before you say I should have expected that, I was trying to avoid it by commenting on a dead line. If you have the patience to PM me then I don't have a problem with that, but I can't keep track of everyone's arguments.

You'd better step up your skills, then. If you post something in the open forum, that is where it will be debated. "I can't keep up with fifteen people, please PM" is nonsense. If you cannot keep up with an open discussion, why should anyone believe that you could monitor your PMs any better?

There are but a few basic objections to your argument. If you haven't yet anticipated -- and already answered -- them, I'd argue that that fact points out your own bias. Time should be no issue; if you have command of the information, you ought to be able to pick out the key points and provide your answers.

If that's not convincing enough -- you haven't given me the courtesy of an answer where the public is reading; why should I expect you to behave better in private?

[LostLocke]

2) you have to assume constant decay rates. We have only been able to observe their rates for the past 100-150 years. Before that we can reasonably guess the affects of the earth's magnetic field and other factors would have on decay, but that is all they will ever be: an educated guess.

Nucleur reactors depend on these decay rates to be constant. You need to know the state of your reactor if you want to run it.

We have another problem if the decay rates were as different as he wants says they were:

We know when a particle decays it releases energy and heat.
For what occurs "normally" on Earth, and at the rates we expect from observation, this release is mostly slow enough to be dissipated and absorbed fairly easily.
If, however, the decay rates we expect to have happened over 10s of millions, 100s of millions, or even billions of years were compressed into only approximately 10,000 years, the amount of heat and radioactivity released would have been enormous and for all intents, instant.

[Esquilax]

Actually, I said there would be no difference between creator/no creator worldview in dating, because they would both come up with the same results.

Then this is a rather pointless conversation, isn't it?

With some instances in uniformitarianism (and this is just what evolutionists say, not what I agree with), daughter isotopes present at the initial stage would precipitate out of the sample allowing the isotope to decay as theorized. In flood geology, those isotopes would not be able to precipitate because of rapid burial, giving it an inaccurately high age according to radiometric dating.

So, do you always pay lipservice to science by cherry picking those instances of it you think you can spin to fit your beliefs, while rejecting everything that doesn't fit with those ("evolutionists")? Isn't it interesting that you toss around accusations of bias like candy, but you only respect the findings of science when it suits you?

Also, you did not consider that they found actual DNA within the fossil which cannot just be rehydrated.

No, they didn't. That was the third point in the link I gave you, that no DNA was ever found in these supposed soft tissues, but we've been able to extract DNA from sources upwards of ten thousand years old, putting the lie to this creationist nonsense that dinosaurs walked with man.

Attacks on character? I pointed out your articles presuppose materialist causes, and that was their bias.

Something that you cannot know, and have no evidence for, beyond that the articles didn't come up with conclusions that appeal to you. Don't bullshit me, newbie; you wouldn't have said one word if the same articles, written by the same people, came to conclusions that you actually liked. You have no possible way of knowing what presuppositions the writers, and us here too, do or do not have, and the fact that you immediately leaped to the accusation screams out loud that this was not a well founded observation of fact you're making, but a shrill defense mechanism thoughtlessly volleyed across the discourse because the actual real science doesn't agree with you on absolutely everything.

I pointed out that you won't even look at any articles I cite simply because they are written by creationists. If I did the same thing on this site, I would be considered even more ignorant.

Creationists have a long and storied history of dishonesty and misinformation. Citing them on their own isn't a trustworthy source, especially since the majority of creationist sources have a statement of faith on there indicating that they will reject out of hand any evidence that contradicts the bible. You might recognize that statement of faith as precisely the kind of presupposition you were accusing everyone else of having, but proudly stated up front. Interesting how you'll ignore it when it's right in front of your face, so long as the conclusions match what you want to be true. However, despite your hand wringing, unfounded moping about the materialistic biases of the mainstream scientific community, any sufficiently justified and demonstrated evidence would easily make it through the peer review process, so it could be published reputably. The fact that no creationist has ever managed this raises alarms to me, and your weeping about the conspiracy to keep creationism out of science rings false when you consider all the money, fame and awards a scientist would obtain for providing scientific evidence for the existence of god.

Your ad hoc rationalization, that the scientists are just all out to get you, relies on us believing that scientists aren't interested in research funding, Nobel Prizes, and world fame. I don't understand why you're asking us to believe that.

Anyways, last I checked evolution did not have a basis for fixing the water systems for those people.

Yeah it does: we're a cooperative species that evolved to form societies and work together. Better water systems for some of us allow them to better function as members of the group, which benefits us all. Do you actually know anything about evolution?

Im not saying atheists don't have morals, Im just saying that it did not come from evolution.

We have evolved to be cooperative, empathetic beings. Our morality comes out of that. If you want to claim it comes from elsewhere, then you need to be reminded that evolution is a demonstrated scientific fact, that morality has been shown to exist in our closest living relatives in roughly the same manner as in us, and that you have no indication at all that morality comes from some kind of god. You've got the burden of proof here; unjustified dismissals of verified facts don't count as much of an argument.

I would be careful using the word gullible. Half the doctors with the ministries I've seen were initially atheists who examined the evidence. See Dr. Emil Silvestru.

"I was once an atheist, but..." is one of the oldest tricks in the book.

The difference between you and him is he got past his bias and read literature from the opposition.

And we end on yet more bullshit.

How do you know any of us has a bias? Do you know us? Have you interacted with us before today?

And if not, then where exactly are you getting the idea that we're biased, since you have no good goddamn idea who we are as people?

[FatAndFaithless]

(not to mention a huge number of us were Christians)

[Mister Agenda]

Indeed we do.

I was led to believe people would debate civilly on this site. If you don't have anything to add to the argument, kindly get off. Its funny you guys insist we are the intolerant and narrow minded ones.

We didn't come to a Christian community to make blatant over-generalizations about Christians, now did we? If we're not as kind and patient as you would prefer, blame the thousands of creationist trolls that preceded you and left us permanently on guard. If you're not a troll and you embody the change you want to see, most of us will eventually warm up to you.

[Alex K]

(not to mention a huge number of us were Christians)

But then we all turned our back to God just so we could selfishly date 1. whomever we liked and 2. with whatever sophisticated method we liked...

[Jackalope]

Holy necropost.

These "problems" are very overblown and inaccurately characterized by creationists.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-...l#creadate

Can't say I'm surprised you used that site. It deals with problems 2 and 3, but you still need to answer for one.
It does not address the effects of earth's magnetic field

What effects of the earth's magnetic field?

Its contention with constant decay rates was met with isochrones, which assumes a known amount of sister isotopes. Isochrones were applied to the K-Ar dating during the tests for lava flows at Mt. Ngauruhoe, an initial failure because flows known to be 50 years old were given ages over 270,000 years old. When isochrones were applied, the difference was made even worse(Pb-Pb, also tested on site with isochrones, gave an estimate that multiplied the real age by a factor of 70,000,000.) From observable instances, not the computer generated ones, isochrones have not shown to increase reliability.

Did the sample in question contain xenoliths or xenocrysts? You are aware that rocks containing xenoliths cannot be accurately dated using this method - and that geologists are quite aware of this fact? Did Snelling (the creationist who made these measurements) disclose this, or his methodology?

Does Snelling know that K-Ar testing is inappropriate for use on young rocks, and that geologists are well aware of this limitation? (The same likely applies to Pb-Pb, depending on the half-lives of the isotopes in question.) In short, Snelling is (possibly intentionally) using a hammer to drive in a screw. That he obtained inconsistent readings should indicate to him (as it would to any geologist without an agenda) that the sample in question was either contaminated, or that his methodology was flawed.

Recall that I earlier said "inaccurately characterized by creationists". This is one such example.