Age Correlations and an Old Earth: Part II.

Printing isn't as important as just being able to save a whole thread to disk.Is that a copyright problem?

I think you have the right attitude. There is a lot of material and it doesn't help to go jumping in too quickly before you understand just what is being said.That is particularly true for this one. It isn't any one of the points that counts so much (though they are pretty powerful when you understand the details) it is the correlation between all of them that is so very convincing. It is that correlation that I have yet to see any creationist argument with at all.I have started, btw, on digesting both of the fossil sorting threads into a summarized restart. In the 700 something posts there are probably less than 30 that count for much so I will attempt to open a cleaned up thread later in the week.Because, , baring any surprises I'm off to whistler for two days!! Of course, this is scary since it the first time that the kids have been left alone for more than 24 hours before.

I have a suggestion on how to start to dig into this.Many of the listed methods are simple (?) counting. The question you have to ask is how do we decide that the counts are accurate.I've noticed some creationist critisms that simply don't get how that is done. They make speculative (and wrong) suggestions about 2 (or more ) things to count in a year for example. What this speculation misses is that there are specific seasonal markers.You need to dig into this enough to understand that the counts are, on their own, pretty darn sure. That is they are not nearly as simple as some critics try to make out.Once you have the understanding that the individual counts are pretty darn sure then you can add the correlations on to that. By the time that is done these dates start to look rather solid. No other explanation seems to be forthcoming.

Yes is the answer.http://web.utk.edu/~grissino/databases.htmdown here
http://web.utk.edu/~grissino/principles.htm#1
near the bottom where it says The Principle of Crossdating is where it talks about this in a theoretical sense.

I have knowledge (how much is the question since I'm not a dendochronogist)Let's do this is steps:
The facts:
1) Tree rings are not uniform. They have patterns in them.
2) In recent, measurable, times the we see that the growing conditions have a clear effect on the tree ring patterns. This makes sense when we know how trees grow the rings.
3) There are some historical events (eruptions ) that can have rather drastic effect on the global climate.
4) Some of these events can be matched up with tree rings.If we have two sets of tree rings that, it happens, did not live at exactly the same time but did both live and grow for awhile at the same time (that is, they overlap) we can match up the overlapping part of the pattern.If we start with a living tree we can overlap that trees rings with other, perhaps older living trees and with ring patterns from trees that are no longer living. This can be done in steps and take ring counting back beyond the life of any one tree.
(incidently, sometimes the rings are taken from timbers that we can get a rough idea of when they were cut to build a building and this offers a check on the counting).This process can be performed on different species of trees in the same area that are affected by the same local climate changes. It can be done with different trees from widely separated parts of the world by using the global markers to line them up.It can be done not with just a a tree here and an over lapping tree there but with many, many trees. The ring counting and pattern matching can be done with rigorous methods.In the case of the bristle cone pines there are, apparently some material preserved from trees that died a long time ago but overlap with living trees. Bristle cones are, I understand, useful because of their great age but hard because their slow, tortured growth makes ring counting harder. Other species don't live as long but their rings are easier to deal with and then you just use lots of short lived overlapping trees.If you use both you get more confidence in the end result. If you tie it to independent events you get still more confidence.

I'm starting to reach outside my expertise. However, just think about it and read the sites that have been referenced already.These effects are local and species dependent (even individual tree dependent, I think). That is why you don't use one tree, one species or one location. The correlations between entire different series of tree rings are used to cross check.Additionally, the counting and dating is not perfect. They do have error bars on the results. The external checking is used to be sure that this is not a very wide reaching affect and to be sure that the dates are not very far off.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 12-09-2004 10:40 PM

No the links supported the word "yes"
Which was the only answer needed to the question.

Is it a good idea to raz someone with a close friend in the admin ranks?

It's way beyond what I know. I think only some species are inclinded toward false rings. I think (only think again) that most are somewhat susceptable to the missing rings though. If the conditions are bad enough.

RAZD covered your questions pretty well I think but there does seem to be some rather fundamental misunderstandings in your questions so I'll try to word some answers differently to see if it helps.

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and the accumulated error at 40,000 cal yr B.P. would be less than 2000 years, assuming no break in the sediment

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You misread this by missing the word "accumulated". If you count 10 varves (or anything) you probably have no error at all. If you count 100 you may have an error or two, if you count 1,000 there will be more errors. They are saying that by the time they've counted all 40,000 the error is less than 2000 years. Just a note that you need to clearly separate the calibration with the correlation as noted at the end of RASD's post.This paper is almost completely concerned with calibration for those who accept that C14 dating is generally a sensible to do. The other message that you might need to look at is that the C14 dates without calibration match up to the varve counts reasonably well.(I'm assuming that your 4000 year range ( +/- 2000 is meant to be 40,000 btw)You missed in reading the paper that the larger error (2000 years at the 40,000 year mark) is for those measurements over 20,000 years because they only used one core for over 20,000 years.You missed the comment about C14 dates being 5,000 years too young for dates over 31,000 years BP. It is not suggested that the 5,000 years applies before that. They point out that they have good correlation with other measurements before that. They suggest more work is needed after that. This is, again, all part of the calibration issue.

Please see Message 15 from loudmouth for answers.You do ask good, careful questions.His answers are:

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The solid dots represent the ages calculated from the C14 dates in Lake Suigetsu (Japan) and the open circles represent data points from Lake Gosciaz (Poland). This graph shows that seasonal/weather pattern differences do not affect the dating of lake varves by C14 dating, being that the two sites are on opposite sides of the world.

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The first graph shows too different sets of C14 dates matched up to actual counts of years from two different places. They are in considerable agreement with each other.and for the second he says:

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This graph shows the correlation between lake varves (Japan, closed circles) and coral dating through uranium/thorium dating (open circles). This is especially important because the two dating methods differ in method (varves/coral, C14/uranium) and are also in different places. Again, it is the corroboration between dating methods that solidifies the reliability of these different methods.

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That is this is another comparison of two different methods showing considerable agreement between them. It is part of checking that the calibration work they are doing is meaningful.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 12-13-2004 11:03 AM

Another small note:It is only the primary literature that we can use as the "real" information. However, you are experiencing some of the problems with using it.This is intended for an audience that is very familiar with the field. It is focussed on the specifics of the study undertaken. My guess is that they would be in phone, chat and email contact with almost all of those that they would expect to read the paper and answer any number of detailed questions form them.There is a mountain of understanding and training lying just under this little pebble. It isn't surprising that it can be hard to follow if you're not used to it.The two graphs you asked about are a very small example of the kind of thing one would look for in a well written paper on a well done study. They are separate things done to check that the results are reasonable. They are part of what an expert might look for before they would pass this kind of paper in review. It is part of the process of science to do that kind of thing again and again. To come at the results over and over to see what might be wrong.As an example I attended a talk by the team leader who produced the first Bose Einstein condensate and got a Nobel for it. It seems they worked for some years to reach a successful experiment. Then, with others working on beating them too it (and the prize), they waited most of a year before publishing. It is like getting to the finish line of a marathon half and hour ahead of the rest of the racers then stopping before stepping over it. They spent that time trying to figure out what might be wrong with their results and to check as much as they could think of. Then they published.That is science. That is not what is so-called "creation science".

Nice attempt. But, you see, all sorts of things are considered before conclusions are drawn.You don't actually think that you're going to spend a few mintues and find a major problem with this do you?As RAZD notes you have to think the whole thing ALL the way through before you put forward a hypothosis. Yours falls over almost immediately.

But, Craig, I don't see how you've explained the odering of diatom rich and clay rich layers. Which can be seen forming with the seasons now.It also does NOT explain the correlation between those layers and C14 age.It also fails to explain the correlation with this lake and others 1,000's of kms away.In other words the evidence wipes out this idea of waves.btw, your first links don't work.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 12-14-2004 01:33 AM

Your hypothosis is kinda dented by the comparison to the other lake. It is also unable to explain the correlation between the varves and C14. It also is unable to explain the correlation between this and other methods.It doesn't much matter which way the wind blew. Or can you give some clue as to how it world with respect to these points?