Posted on 06/18/2009 8:48:47 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Radiometric dating is often used to “prove” rocks are millions of years old. Once you understand the basic science, however, you can see how wrong assumptions lead to incorrect dates.
Most people think that radioactive dating has proven the earth is billions of years old. After all, textbooks, media, and museums glibly present ages of millions of years as fact.
Yet few people know how radiometric dating works or bother to ask what assumptions drive the conclusions. So let’s take a closer look and see how reliable this dating method really is...
(Excerpt) Read more at answersingenesis.org ...
Ping!
I do need a good laugh..
All of metrology uses certain assumptions. It is a field bound by limitations on methodolgy and accuracy. When used as a tool to “prove” something it will frequently be misused. Fact is the data are the data ——interpretation is everything
As soon as you show us **exactly**, with verified peer-reviewed physical evidence, where on planet earth is (or was).
Thanks for the daily laugh!
And I assume, of course, that you don’t have a smoke detector in your house. Who would trust their well being to the flaky, unpredictable nature of radioactive decay?
Superposition
Not a valid dating method- too manyvariables must be taken into account- too many suppositions
http://www.fbinstitute.com/powell/evolutionexposed.htm
Stratigraphy
http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/publications/bulletins/135/home.html
Dendrochronology
Up to 10000 years tops
Radiometric Dating Methods
problems with radiometic http://www.specialtyinterests.net/carbon14.html
Obsidian Hydration Dating
Many obsidians are crowded with microlites and crystallines (gobulites and trichites), and these form fission-track-like etch pits following etching with hydrofluoric acid. The etch pits of the microlites and crystallines are difficult to separate from real fission tracks formed from the spontaneous decay of 238U, and accordingly, calculated ages based on counts including the microlite and crystalline etch pits are not reliable.”
http://trueorigin.org/dating.asp
http://www.scientifictheology.com/STH/Pent3.html
Paleomagnetic/Archaeomagnetic
Very little info on this method
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/tecto.htm
Luminescence Dating Methods
http://karst.planetresources.net/Kimberley_Culture.htm
Amino Acid Racemization
http://www.creation-science-prophecy.com/amino/
Fission-track Dating
http://www.ao.jpn.org/kuroshio/86criticism.html
Ice Cores
Varves
At best- the two methods above are only accurate to about 11,000 years due to numerous conditions and environmental uncertainties
Pollens
Corals
Highly unreliable- you’d need constant temps to maintaIN reliable growth pattersn http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v14/i1/coral_reef.asp
Cation Ratio
Fluorine Dating
http://www.present-truth.org/Creation/creation-not-evolution-13.htm
Patination
Known times only throuhg analysis of the patina
Oxidizable Carbon Ratio
Electron Spin Resonance
Cosmic-ray Exposure Dating
Closely related to the buggiest dating methods of Carbon dating
why it’s wrong:
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/dating.html#Carbon
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3059
RaDio helio dating disproves:
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/369
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/
http://www.rae.org/
When discussing evolution, they argue that speciation cannot be assumed because no one has ever verified that change happened.
When discussing radiometrics they argue that decay rates cannot be assumed to be constant because no can verify that change has not happened.
Can’t wait—this will be amusing. Can you post the bibliography that the author has provided so we can do some advance reading?
The entire series has been peer reviewed, right?
I would like to see the what if held up to the same observation and testing standards.
Thanks for the additional links, CottShop!
But it’s such an awesome plot device!
“I would like to see the what if held up to the same observation and testing standards.”
It is—none.
My son is a Nuke on a US Navy submarine. If the decay rate of the uranium in it’s reactor core ever changes significantly he’s dead meat. If it slows down, they’re left without power. If it speeds up it will melt the containment. Should I tell him to get the hell off that boat?
Radiometric dating is geological Cachexia.
> The entire series has been peer reviewed, right?
Do you mean like Global Warming and Piltdown Man?
No, because radioactive decay can only change when it is required to bolster a theological argument.
To begin with, radiometric dating isn't as a method - rather, it's a whole slew of methods, which in many cases can be used to corroborate each other. (E.g. the obsidian hydration analysis of a stone tool might comport well with the Carbon-14 dating of the wooden heft the obsidian was attached to.
Secondly, some of the techniques referred to here (dendrochronology, etc.) are NOT radiometric in nature, but rather are based upon entirely different principles.
Regards,
The Earth is Billions of years old.
Here's a rebuttal Snelling wrote on TrueOrigin.org.
Others may be interested in the articles on the site.
“Most of the greatest achievements of science took place before what we call today peer review.”
Achievements, not publications.
Today, we subject scientific articles to peer review. Unreviewed articles are nothing more than musings designed to deceive.
Not if it's underwater...
There´s no link to support the assertion you make about ice cores and varves. I presume that´s an oversight, right?
“Do you mean like Global Warming and Piltdown Man?”
And creation “science”, yes. Apparently, you agree with the need for peer review.
Since we now use a radiometric time standard universally, should the rate change we would have no way of recording or proving such.
Read later
Oddly, they make them practice doing exaclty that.
Yes, unless the scientists who built it are young earth creationists. Only then will he be fine.
Hey! Don't confuse the issue by posting the facts!
We gotta paradigm to maintain...
Is counting all the begats in Genesis more accurate that radioactive decay dating????
In that method you are really making some BIG assumptions.....
How do new earthers explain the “pock” marks left in the crust by Yellowstone eruptions and the fact they are consistent with the timing of plate movements? (approx 600,000 years apart). Geological events occur over millions of years, not overnight.
.
OK, assume "Assumption 2" is correct. Decay is, and has been, constant. There is no way one can assume the "daughter atoms" were all produced by decay.
Since you can't assume they were all produced by decay, you cannot measure the original amount of the "parent atoms".
You do realise that those are not contradictory. And that, in fact, science is supposed to be about verification, not assumption, and that whenever something has not been verified, it cannot be assumed.
If someone were to take either of those arguments and say they proved the negative, your complaint would have merit.
But any claim of scientific fact can be dismissed if it can be shown there is no verification of the assumptions.
The problem with applying scientific evolution to the mythology of origins is that we cannot observe initial conditions, and we cannot observe or repeat the past.
We can guess what happened in the past, and pretend that Occam’s razor is actually a scientific principle rather than a handy way of guessing at what happened, but we’ll never be able to say with certainty that a particular belief of the process of origins is the correct one.
After all, an all-powerful God could have created the universe 6000 years ago in precisely the state it would have to be in if it had evolved over billions of years. Sure, from a scientific perspective that would be “uninteresting”, but there’s no way to prove it didn’t happen.
Looks like you’re getting flamed already. You have to realize that although this is a conservative, pro-military, pro-God website, most people on these boards do not agree with a true literal interpretation of the Bible, especially when it comes to this type of subject.
“If you object to Answers Magazine on this basis, then you must object to all popular science magazines.”
Scientific American and New Scientist are not intended to be peer reviewed journals. Their authors, though, generally have a solid history of peer review elsewhere. However, you are touting this series as a breakthrough, so the fact that it appears in a non peer reviewed publication must cause you some concern.
Now, back to the question: can you post the bibliography that the author cites, and can you post references to his other peer-reviewed works? (I’ll reserve comment on your statement “Creation science journals are all peer reviewed” until later so as to not clutter this post).
==Geological events occur over millions of years, not overnight.
Granite formation: catastrophic in its suddenness
http://creation.com/granite-formation-catastrophic-in-its-suddenness
One valid question you and I both know would never get answered...
However, I did hear once from a “devout creationist” that Adam and Eve were driven from Eden **to earth**
(I hope it was a nice car)
Thanks for the ping!
See post 15. On what basis do we trust those lives to the proposition that those decay rates are constant?
Doesn't that assume that radioactive decay energies are variable in dynamic time?
See editor-surveyor's post #27.
Decay rates are time based. If time varies the decay rate will still be constant with respect to time.
You again assumed radiometric and dynamic time are equivalent.
I referred you to post #27 so that you would think about the distinction, not repeat the fallacy.
What if we can't trust the vaunted "peers?"
Damn - I had forgotten they do that - probably put it out of my mind. That’s some serious manly-man work.
We actually do have one example (Venus) of a planet which is ballpark for some sort of 5K - 10K age. Venus LOOKS like a new planet, 900 F surface temperature, massive 90-bar CO2 atmosphere, major thermal imbalance, major upwards UV flux, total lack of regolith, statistically random cratering, etc. etc. Earth and Mars do not resemble that in any way, shape, or manner; you have to assume they are significantly older than that, but not hundreds of millions or billions of years old. Robert Bass once redid Lord Kelvin’s heat equations for the Earth WITH a maximum possible figure for radioactive elements included and came up with a max possible age of around 200M years. Attempts to publish that got him thrown out of BYU for heresy.
I'll stand by my original statement. If the decay slows down, the reaction doesn't produce enough power - power is also time based. If it speeds up it will melt the containment - the cooling systems that keep it from doing this are equally time based, being dependent on how much coolant they can move through the system and as a direct function how much heat they can remove in a given amount of time.
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