take it from the beginning of this thread...
EvC Forum: Age Correlations and an Old Earth: Part II.

Hi RAZD,I have been dwelling on this one comment for weeks now. I wonder if I have been misunderstood or if I have misunderstood you. I said that the diatom blooms are possibly affected by several factors. For instance, water salinity levels. In the Florida Bay Report I linked to somewhere in this thread it was noted that the diatom levels drop as you leave the fresh water source (rivers and streams entering the bay). If I'm not mistaken, I think Lake Suigetsu experiences sea water intrusion (seasonally?). Since it appears that higher salinity hampers fresh-water diatom activity somehow, then I wonder whether some of the clay layers might be due to seasonal sea water intrusion.Diatom blooms are apparently dependant on several nutrients: nitrogen, ammonia, phosphorous and silica (I think those were it). A drop in any of those, silica in particular, could dramatically hamper diatom activity. I would think, then, that seasonal lows in any of these elements could also produce clay layers. I seem to recall that silica levels were apt to change in the Florida River system for some reason (the rivers entering the bay there are the source of the silica).So, I think the layers might represent winters and other seasonal events as well. Over time, the fluctuations in the other factors, not so much the winters, would likely vary quite a bit. Maybe some years go by and silica levels stay very high. Maybe silica levels stay very low for several years. Maybe sea water intrudes more and more frequently since the last ice age as the ice caps get smaller and smaller and the oceans get deeper and deeper (well, I believe in only one ice age, and it was right after the Flood).Just some further thoughts on Lake Suigetsu.--TL

Nice try, TL.If this was a standalone case and we were trying to determine if we could use it as a dating device then we would have to ask all these kind of questions. We'd have to be very, very careful to make sure that the counts were good.We'd have to do this because there would be no other way of cross checking them.Now, of course, care has to be taken in the analysis and counting in any case but since this is not standalone we can reduce the possibility of there being any such introduced error (especially and even ones we can't imagine ) because this correlates with other things.Remember the measured rate of C14 decay matches up to the lake layers rather well without any correction. In addition, if any historic events leave a mark (I know they do elsewhere but don't know if they do here) we have another independent cross check.If those kind of things check out,then you can go on trying to invent sources of error all you want. Your invention has to not only imagine how the error could occur but also how it could occur and maintain the cross checking.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 02-03-2005 02:46 AM

There was a web published article that had results of a study on the movement of water in and out of lake Suigetsu, and I will try and find the link for it this weekend (I was looking for a {topology\map\view} of the lake at the time). As I recall the conclusion was that the intrusion was insignificant to the behavior of the main part of the lake and did not affect the pattern of diatom\clay layers.This still does not (in my mind) offer a substantial enough question anyway: the salt water would have to cause a total die-off followed by a period sufficiently long enough for the clay to settle in sufficient quantity to make a layer, a pattern that takes the winter months to accomplish for the normal clay layer.It may be possible for a {large storm\tsunami} event to cause a single false layer, but the frequency of that would have to be so low that the effect on the overall counting of the layers would still be within the margin of error given.{{added by edit}}:
To be clear here: the absence of blooms would not mean an absence of diatoms of sufficient quantity to still form the diatom layers, they would just affect the thickness of the layer. The thickness is not the question, the alternation of clay and diatoms in the pattern is question.This message has been edited by RAZD, 02-03-2005 21:36 AM

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

On msg #54 of the {{evolution calculations}} thread (theoretical vs actual) subthread,
http://EvC Forum: evolution calculationsSaddleback said: He is invited to discuss the age of the earth issue here, starting with the original topic on the correlations of age dating methods:
http://EvC Forum: Age Correlations and an Old Earth: Part II.enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Getting way away from correlations. Please do not respond to this message

Hi Razd.I have no fixed view on whether the earth is young or old as I'm not in a position to understand the science involved. One question though which has sprung to mind as a possible problem with the accuracy of any dating method is the possible presumption of Uniformatism. At first glance, dating methods seem to suppose that the way things are occurring now, is more or less the way they have always occured, Radioative half-life for instance seems to be an essential, given that it represents the dating 'clock'. Tree rings happen once a season which is our current year. But what suggests our current year has always had the same duration. On what basis can we be sure uniformatism is true and not some other mechanism which may have accerated/decelerated these 'clocks', given that we weren't around to view how it was then?Thanks,IanThis message has been edited by AdminJar, 08-09-2005 11:21 AM

Getting way away from correlations. Please do not respond to this message

The burden of proof is on those who would suggest a change in radioactive decay rates or whatever clock we are talking about.
You might as well ask, "how do we know that gravity has always existed the way it does today?" Well, we know because no one has proposed a logical explanation with supporting data that would allow us to come to any other conclusion. My favorite way of phrasing this point is "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." Postulating a change in radioactive decay rates is an extraordinary claim. Where is the extraordinary proof?This message has been edited by AdminJar, 08-09-2005 11:22 AM

Thanks for the answer. I'll go away now

Actually science does not depend on uniformatism, but on things happening in predictable and measurable ways in the same manner that they have before.If you look at one of the last items in the list of correlations, at the "Talking Coral Heads" entry, you will see: and then and then a correlation between daily growth rings and the changing length of the year: A correlation between astronomical observations of change in the behavior of the planets with the geological age and the number of days in the year. That fits with all the other correlations on the age of the earth.Also note that there are other threads that have discussed the effects of changing the rate of radioactivity enough to make YEC possible (perhaps adminjar can direct you there), and they show this idea to be untenable. But uniformatism is not really true, as already noted.However there is no mechanism to accelerate or change the rates of decay, so any concept that relies on that as an explanation needs to develop a credable mechanism first, and then show how all the other mechanisms are also changed in just the right way to maintain all the correlations exactly as they are.The overwhelming evidence is that all the measures of the age of the earth are consistent in determining the ages of things where they overlap in their abilities.This holds whether the method is counting layers or counting atoms.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Note the correlations of tree rings, varve layers, ice layers, etc. with carbon 14 dating and other radiometric dating methods.Note further that these rely on different mechanism to result in annual layers and the measurement of ages.Thus any critique of one method must also explain why it falsly correlates to the other systems.Note further that this is a science thread and you are expected to provide evidence for your positions, and to reason from the evidence with logic and rational thought.FAILURE to provide substantiation and to show the causes of the multiple correlations and measurements of the ages of the earth, means that you will not honestly be able to state that these systems are in error.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

see previous message and then start at Message 1Enjoyps - hitting the escape button stops animations if they are distracting.it also stops pictures from loading, so make sure they are complete first.This message has been edited by RAZD, 10*16*2005 08:50 PM

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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I'm going to take this one step at a time. First I need to better understand each method of dating. I looked at all the sites you posted and couldn't find any info on how they determined that the wood on the ground was that old. I assume it had to do with matching tree rings to Methusalah, but if you don't mind I would like more information on exactly how they do this.

You'll have to excuse my ignorance on such things, but what is an interglacial, and how do you construct a 14C calibration from laminated sediments in a lake?

I might actually understand this to some degree. Let me take a shot at it. Is it saying that they took fossil samples from the lake and did c14 tests on them and that the tests agreed with the hypothesized age of the layer they were found in, based on the annual varve thing? Am I anywhere close?

Are you saying that since the dates obtained by the lake varves were older than the age estimated for the cave drawings, that confirms the time of the cave drawings?