LOL yes there where some huge erros and poorly made arguments that could not be ignored. i was sorry to have offended anyone but I could not stay silent.
That's pretty much the case for most of Sarfati's bizarre creationist essays. Here's a critique I wrote about another one of his knee-slappers at AiG:
Also see: Does Dr Jonathan Sarfati Have Any Integrity?[link] Response to Chris Stassen taking him to task for making unsupportable and vague claims
This one is just... Weird. Its first claim about Stassen is:
Stassen's argument is just special pleading.Nooo.... It quite clearly lays out a case for Austin/ICR's incompetence and/or dishonest, and provides evidence for it. This hand-waving attempt to dismiss it is itself "special pleading", and a particularly lame example of it.
Notice that Stassen simply makes assertions without any backing. For example he uses the term ‘false isochron’ without saying why it is false.ROFL!!!! Sarfati, you *IDIOT*, Stassen calls it a "false isochron" because THAT'S WHAT AUSTIN HIMSELF CALLED IT IN HIS 1988 PAPER WHICH STASSEN WAS DISCUSSING. I see that DannyTN is not the only creationist who has problems with reading comprehension or an inability to remember context...Here's Stassen's comment:
In his 1988 paper, Austin noted that this sort of "false isochron" is well known, and explained in the mainstream literature. He cited a discussion of it in Faure (1986, pp. 145-147), a popular textbook/handbook on isotope dating methods.Here's the line from Austin's 1988 paper:According to Faure, the incomplete mixing of two magmas having different strontium isotope ratios produces a mixing diagram where all mixtures lie on a straight line [...] Another geologic cause for these straight line plots is offered by Brooks, James, and Hart. They document twenty-two examples of false rubidium-strontium isochrons and propose that such characteristics are inherited from the molten material's source at great depth in the earth.Here again is Sarfati being a complete idiot:Notice that Stassen simply makes assertions without any backing. For example he uses the term ‘false isochron’ without saying why it is false.And here is DannyTN compound the foolishness:Response to Chris Stassen taking him to task for making unsupportable and vague claims.Sigh... How many more days of my life must I waste explaining the obvious to hopelessly confused creationists?Sarfati goes on and continues to be an idiot:
He [Stassen] mentions the issue as being ‘fairly well understood’ and ‘easy to avoid’ without explaining what the understanding is and how specifically it could be avoided.Um, gosh, Stassen doesn't explain it? Then what in the hell is *this* from the same page:...and that link goes on to do *more* explaining on this particular issue and explains how to avoid it...It is possible for the data points to fall on an isochron line if this requirement is violated. The result will still have the same meaning: the time since all of the samples were isotopically homogenized with respect to each other. However, that result does not have to be the time since each sample formed. Often it will be the isotopic age of the common source of the samples. That result could also be the age of the samples themselves, but only in the case where their common source was isotopically homogeneous -- i.e., zero-age -- when the samples formed from it. [example snipped] This is a well-known and expected behavior of isochrons. No competent geologist would be fooled by this sort of "inherited" isochron age, because it is quite obvious, as the samples are collected, whether the date must reflect the individual samples' time of formation. This is discussed in more detail in the "Violation of cogenetic requirement" section of the Isochron Dating FAQ.
So just how stupid does Sarfati has to be to say:
He [Stassen] mentions the issue as being ‘fairly well understood’ and ‘easy to avoid’ without explaining what the understanding is and how specifically it could be avoided...? And just how careless does DannyTN have to be to not notice how stupid Sarfati's being here?But wait, there's more... Sarfati continues to put his foot in his mouth up to the knee joint:
He [Stassen] talks about ‘proper sample selection’ without explaining what was wrong with Austin’s sampling method and why.Gee, really? Here's Stassen again:Gee willikers, Mr. Wizard, that sure sounds like "explaining what was wrong with Austin’s sampling method and why" to *me*. But then hey, I'm not a creationist, so I guess my opinion doesn't count...Before the Grand Canyon Dating Project began, in his 1988 Impact article, Austin admitted in print that the selected lava flows fell into two different stratigraphic stages. That is, the very information which he used to select the flows, also clearly indicates that they did not all occur at the same time. In his subsequent book (1994, p. 125), Austin indicated that his five data points came from four different lava flows plus an extracted "phenocryst" (large mineral which likely formed in the magma chamber and was not molten in the lava flow). We had known from the Impact articles that Austin's samples were not all cogenetic; years later we found out by his own admission that no two of them are so.
In fact, as discussed above, the selection of non-cogenetic samples is sometimes used intentionally by isotope geologists. It is known to be a way to have an isochron dating method "look back" beyond a recent event to an earlier event -- the age of the common source of the samples. Thus, it is misleading for Austin to pretend that his resulting isochron plot should be expected to represent the age of the flows themselves.
Now for the real knee-slapper from creationist Sarfati:
His entire claim is in this vein—without logic, without reason and without substance.The mind just boggles... Well, I suppose it *could* look "without reason" if you're a creationist who seems unable to master basic reading comprehension... And finally:But Stassen cannot not set out any specifics of why Austin’s methods or results are wrong, because they are not wrong. Stassen is bluffing.Oooookay... You just keep telling yourself that, Sarfati. Never bother your pretty little head with that bit about how non-cogenetic samples -- like the ones Austin used -- produce ages of the *common source* material, and *not* the age of either sample...