“Everytime I think I’m out, you pull me back in.....”
It is so aggravating that you are so “thick” as to the points I’m trying to make......
****I can’t say, don’t know, if these results were typical or unusual. I’d first ask: was each lab given identical information about the rocks, or did they just arbitrarily assign different values to different variables?****
Did you read what I said? They each had the same rock. What information do they need? Should they have been told it was from the Grand Canyon so they could alter their assumptions or should the specimen stand on it’s own?
****I would also ask, aren’t such dates themselves usually expressed as a range of most likely ages — say for example, plus or minus 150,000 years? If so, then there’s more overlap in those results than your numbers suggest.****
Ok....you’re right....they had a range of +/- 250 million years...sheesh!
****First of all, all four radiometric techniques returned results in the one million year range — not ten million, a hundred million or a billion years. This would seem (assuming the test itself is legit) to at least gets us into the right ball park.****
Please recheck the number of zeros....they ranged from 840 million to 1.4 billion.
****Third point — from a scientific perspective, this example sort of blows completely out of the water any Young Earthers suggestions that our planet is only 10,000 years old, doesn’t it?****
No....because you always seem to miss my larger point I’ll try to spell it out for you one more time. THEY MAKE ASSUMPTIONS. With potassium/argon dating as an example, they don’t know the following:
1. How much potassium was there when the rock was formed.
2. How much argon was there when the rock was formed.
3. Whether the decay rate was constant.
4. Whether potassium or argon from another source leeched into the sample.
In light of the above and starting with an “old earth” view, what kind of assumptions do you think they’ll make....ones that will lead to a young age or an old one?
****Finally, we should note a rather notorious case, where Young Earthers misrepresented rocks they had taken from Mount Saint Helens, and were successful in getting an age of several million years. If this is that particular example, then the whole exercise is bogus!****
Please BroJoe.....you are making my larger point for me.
How do you misrepresent a rock? Should it make any difference what someone tells you? The idea is to test the rock and determine the age. If they got an age of several million years it’s because they ASSUMED things in the testing process that were wrong. If they would have been told the rock was from Mt. St. Helens they would have ASSUMED something different. Does that make the test more accurate or does that make my point.....that they can make the rock be any age they want it to be?
You are right, my mistake again. I misread the number of zeros -- I guess my eye-glasses need a tune-up? ;-)
Of course I am neither a geologist nor a chemist, and I doubt if you are either, so we are here arguing subjects that neither one of us knows very well.
What little I do know, I learned in school and have read about over the years since. The basic idea of radiometric decay is that certain elements decay over time at a known rate. So, if you know today's percentages of the original element and its decayed state, you can calculate back to the time when it's original "atomic clock" was set at zero. I understand this has something to do with a "blocking temperature."
Now, point is, what else goes into arriving at accurate dates I don't know, and neither do you. But I would be most surprised if there were not SOME other variables involved, and if, how you set these would not effect the test results.
Consider, in this example, a sample rock might not be "perfect," with no contaminates at any time during the last BILLION years. If a test lab knows to watch for contaminants, it can focus on the more "pure" looking areas. If the lab knows the age is likely around a billion years, but the test comes back at a million years, the lab would suspect someone made a mistake somewhere. It could then go back and repeat the process to see if the same results come back multiple times.
And contamination is just one issue in radiometric dating. I'm certain there are others.
I'm simply saying that the idea of radiometric decay is pretty simple, but just like anything else, the real world is more complicated, and sometimes very easy to make mistakes.
1. How much potassium was there when the rock was formed.
2. How much argon was there when the rock was formed.
3. Whether the decay rate was constant.
4. Whether potassium or argon from another source leeched into the sample.
In light of the above and starting with an “old earth” view, what kind of assumptions do you think they’ll make....ones that will lead to a young age or an old one?"
Obviously, your basic problem is, you don't much understand the processes you are criticizing. And neither do I, but clearly more than you do. And you would instantly understand more, if you weren't so dead-set opposed to it.
Radiometric dating starts with the moment a "blocking temperature" was reached, which sets the atomic clocks to zero. From there on, the time lapsed is measured according to the half-lives of the materials.
Of course, if there is any contamination, or mistakes made in processing, then tests will come back with wrong dates. That's why it helps to have a likely range of ages in mind. If the answer comes back drastically different, then you know you need to take a careful look at just exactly you did, then go back and see if you get the same results over and over.