I'll try one more time although there is little hope for one as
radicalised as you. Take a lesson from the high priests who would not
believe Jesus' message even when he rose from the dead but would rather
bribe the guards to stop others believing the truth. Don't try to
destroy evidence like them, but appreciate and love it - when enough of
it is collated and weighed, it must lead to the truth and maybe in an
unexpected direction.
What happened about a reference to the "piece of leather from a shoe
made in the 1800's dating to 600,000 years ago"? Did that turn out to be
a YEC legend with no foundation in truth? (Often when you actually chase
up something like this it turns out to be the case or has a very prosaic
explanation!)
On 16/08/2014 8:40 AM, Jojo Iznart wrote:
Radionucleotide dating, whatever radionucleotides are being used is
inherently based on assumptions. If any of the assumptions do not
hold up, the method is totally useless.
But the assumptions do hold up and extremely well as the evidence proves!
Assumption #1: That the ratio of the 2 isotopes is the same in the
past as it is in the present. In Carbon Dating for instance - the
ratio of C14 to C12 is assumed to be the same today as it was
thousands of years ago. ...
You obviously did not read what I wrote or take one look at the
reference
<https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/viewFile/16947/pdf>
I gave. The whole idea of the *calibration* is that you do *not assume*
that the ratio thousands of years ago was the same as today. If you
made that assumption there would be no wiggles in the line. The wiggles
in the line are the variations in this C14 to C12 ratio going back tens
of thousands of years. Take a look at these wiggles
<http://www.radiocarbon.com/PDF/Calibration-of-Radiocarbon-Age-Sample.pdf>
in the ratio in more recent data where the true age can be determined
pretty much to the exact year.
Characteristic "wiggles" with periods of order decades were first noted
about 1967 and since then have become a dating method in their own
right. When a set of measurements representing some decades can be made
on a sample such as coral, then the pattern of wiggles each side of a
perfect exponential decay can be matched with the wiggles in the
calibration curve to allow accurate dating of the sample even in the
presence of overall contamination or background. A bit like matching
tree ring variations - to anchor an otherwise floating chronology.
Well, we can not categorically say that for sure. New C14 is
constantly being created by various natural processes present in our
Earth. How can we be confident that we totally understand those
processes...
We don't have to understand those processes. The method is empirical and
is can be *calibrated* from other processes that we do understand or can
measure in the laboratory.
Assumption #2: That the rate of radionucleotide decay is constant. I
think is is safe to say at our present knowledge that this may not be
true. There is quite compelling evidence that this is not true.
Again for carbon dating it is irrelevant whether the decay rate is
constant or not because we can calibrate any variation out of it. The
variations that have been noted are also extremely small (~0.1%) and do
not seem to occur for the majority of elements. They are also of an AC
nature (ie wiggles) and do not make any difference to a long term
average measurement. All indications from ancient experimental data (eg
from distant astronomical sources that can be dated from their distance,
or natural events such as the Oklo natural fission reactor that occurred
a very long time ago) are that the decay rate has been constant within
measurement error.
Assumption #3: That there is no processes that may preferentially add
one isotope over another. Like I said, there are many natural
processes that add C14 preferentially over C12. This plays havoc on
our instruments and produces inherently unreliable results. How else
could one lab produce a date of 300,000+ years while another working
on the same sample produce a date of 100,000+ years. We say that we
should throw away the outliers and take the mean. But isn't it true
that an outlier with an error this big is already reason enough to
suspect the technique?
This may be true for some ancient artefacts that we would like to date
when you really don't know if a passing camel might have spat on it or a
bird shat on it. But when you can choose your sample from a protected
environment like deep in a stalactite or a coral bed, then there is
really nothing to "play havoc on our instruments and produce inherently
unreliable results". How else could many scientists working
independently in widely varying fields all get points that fall smack on
the same line, complete with the same wiggles that have become as
recognisable as tree rings!?
Look at the plotted points in figure 1 of that reference
<https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/viewFile/16947/pdf>
I gave you. How is it that all these scientists from different groups
in different countries and investigating different sources in different
parts of the world all find that their points fall on the same line!?
What is your explanation for that? Could it be a gigantic collusion of
all academia to undermine the authority of the Bible and destroy belief
in the flood, or could it be simply the *truth*?
Assumption #4: That the object being dated has not been contaminated
in the course of natural human activity. For instance, the leather in
the shoe has not be soaked in natural oils that would skew its C14/C12
ratio. This assumption is doubtful at best especially for the old
objects we are trying to date.
Assumption #5: That we understand the processes that we use as a
baseline to calibrate radionucleotide dating techniques. You
illustrate my point quite well below in your argument. You say the
Carbon dating has been calibrated from tree rings for instance. But
do we totally understand how tree rings are formed. For instance, it
has been documented that trees do not form rings under certain
conditions. Can we be assured that we totally understand the process
of tree ring formation?
I am sure that we really do understand tree rings. We can produce and
experiment with them in the laboratory. And we can also take samples
from trees some distance away or other species that would not as
affected by occasional extreme climate conditions. In that we we can
know when a ring failed to be produced or two were produced by
unseasonable weather.
According to wikipedia "Fully anchored chronologies which extend back
more than 11,000 years exist for river oak trees from South Germany
(from the Main and Rhinerivers) and pine from Northern
Ireland.Furthermore, the mutual consistency of these _two independent_
dendrochronological sequences has been confirmed by comparing their
radiocarbon and dendrochronological ages." I think you are grasping at
straws to hope that these guys might be out by a factor of two or ten,
or whatever it is you need to hold on to your world view!
Assumption #6: That the accuracy of the radionucleotide measurement
hold well over several halflifes of the radionucleotide in question.
To illustrate, Carbon dating is only reliable over 2 halflifes - that
means around 10,000 years. After 2 halflifes, the amounts of isotopes
become very unreliable to measure. Why is it then that carbon dating
is used to establish ages of 100,000 years or more?
This is obvious nonsense. 2 half-lives means that we are down to 1/4 of
the original percentage. If this is the noise level of instruments then
we could only measure modern C14 ratios with an error of 25%! Maybe
this was true 100 years ago, but a glance at the error bars on any
measurements in either of the references I have given prove that this is
far from true nowadays. (Scientists do know how to calculate error bars
correctly!).
These and the preponderance of widely varying actual results speak for
themselves. Radionucleotide dating is highly unreliable. To establish
a theory based on these techniques is building a house of cards
The preponderance of amazingly well fitting radiometric data from many
different sources and all over the world speaks for itself. When an
uncontaminated sample can be obtained, it is highly reliable. To base
ones world view on this mountain of evidence being erroneous or
fabricated is to build your house on sand!
