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Author Topic:   Uranium Dating
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 16 of 153 (560297)
05-14-2010 7:39 AM
Reply to: Message 15 by cavediver
05-14-2010 7:23 AM


cherry haymen?

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Son
Member (Idle past 3829 days)
Posts: 346
From: France,Paris
Joined: 03-11-2009


Message 17 of 153 (560310)
05-14-2010 10:10 AM
Reply to: Message 15 by cavediver
05-14-2010 7:23 AM


From what I understood, his post was about uranium and his signature about dating so it shouldn't be out of place here

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Fiver
Junior Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 26
From: Provo, UT
Joined: 04-17-2010


Message 18 of 153 (562835)
06-02-2010 4:26 AM
Reply to: Message 17 by Son
05-14-2010 10:10 AM


Radiometric dating is like any other form of dating: it's not perfect. No dating method is.
In fact, radiometric dating can be compared to the 'dating' method of keeping a watch. Now, anybody can tell you that a watch is not a reliable way of keeping time, because there are myriad stories of watches running too fast or too slow, or stopping altogether.
And yet we can use watches to be very certain of the time by comparing our watch with the watches of others, and with clocks in the area. Even though each of these 'dating' methods require assumptions, we can be very certain of the correct time by correlating them together.
Similarly, radiometric dates can be trusted when they are correlated with other dates. Thus, in the Creationist model, not only must every single pre-historic dating method known to man universally and constantly give false dates, often off by orders of magnitude, but they must all also coincide with each other in such a way as to make it appear that the earth is billions of years old.

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 19 of 153 (562857)
06-02-2010 8:01 AM
Reply to: Message 18 by Fiver
06-02-2010 4:26 AM


Fiver writes:
And yet we can use watches to be very certain of the time by comparing our watch with the watches of others, and with clocks in the area. Even though each of these 'dating' methods require assumptions, we can be very certain of the correct time by correlating them together.
I really like this analogy. Your digital watch might be wrong, your friend's analog watch might be wrong, your other friend's watch synchronized to the signal from the National Bureau of Standards time signal might be wrong, your computer clock might be wrong, your grandfather's wind-up watch might be wrong, everyone else's watch in town might be wrong, but what would be the odds that they all give the same wrong time?
Creationists require long odds like these to not only come through but to have a rational and natural explanation.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 20 of 153 (562988)
06-02-2010 7:44 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by Fiver
06-02-2010 4:26 AM


Hi Fiver, good post.
In fact, radiometric dating can be compared to the 'dating' method of keeping a watch. Now, anybody can tell you that a watch is not a reliable way of keeping time, because there are myriad stories of watches running too fast or too slow, or stopping altogether.
And yet we can use watches to be very certain of the time by comparing our watch with the watches of others, and with clocks in the area. Even though each of these 'dating' methods require assumptions, we can be very certain of the correct time by correlating them together.
To add to what Percy said, you could do a statistical analysis of all the clock and watch times in the city, and develop a high degree of confidence that the average value was close to the real time, certainly within the bounds of the standard deviation of all the times.
Similarly, radiometric dates can be trusted when they are correlated with other dates. Thus, in the Creationist model, not only must every single pre-historic dating method known to man universally and constantly give false dates, often off by orders of magnitude, but they must all also coincide with each other in such a way as to make it appear that the earth is billions of years old.
That is the point behind the Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1 thread. If you know of any additional correlations, feel free to add them.
There is also the kind of correlation presented by uranium halos. See Are Uranium Halos the best evidence of (a) an old earth AND (b) constant physics?, which shows that the physics had to remain constant during the time the halos formed, and that for the halos to form the earth must be several hundred million years old.
Enjoy.

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archaeologist
Inactive Member


Message 21 of 153 (573276)
08-10-2010 5:31 PM


this is my first post and i am trying to figure out how your system works so bear with me please... i am used to having a quote button as it makes things easier when quoting multiple people but i do not see one here so look for the "".
"I really like this analogy. Your digital watch might be wrong, your friend's analog watch might be wrong, your other friend's watch synchronized to the signal from the National Bureau of Standards time signal might be wrong, your computer clock might be wrong, your grandfather's wind-up watch might be wrong, everyone else's watch in town might be wrong, but what would be the odds that they all give the same wrong time?"
This position fails because it does not take into account the possibility that all people from the same towncould set their watch by one central time piece. let's say the town square clock, for sake of argument.
if everyone set their watches and clocks to the clock in the town square each day, but did not know that the town clock was wrong then yes everyone would have the same wrong time and not be aware of it.
"To add to what Percy said, you could do a statistical analysis of all the clock and watch times in the city, and develop a high degree of confidence that the average value was close to the real time, certainly within the bounds of the standard deviation of all the times."
statistical analysis means nothing for it does not exclude the possibility that everyone can have the wrong time
"And yet we can use watches to be very certain of the time by comparing our watch with the watches of others, and with clocks in the area. Even though each of these 'dating' methods require assumptions, we can be very certain of the correct time by correlating them together."
the problem with this idea is that this does not guarantee that the dating systems are still correct and provide the correct dates. i have been in rooms where 5 different people had 5 different times on their watches and the reasons for that vary, some purposefully set their clocks ahead or behind for personal reasons, others have bad mechanisms and so on.
to say one has the correct time because other dating systems say it is correct doesn't mean the dates given are correct. with time, we have an ultimate govenor who regulates time and against which we can verify if our watch pieces go off. it never changes BUT with dating systems there is no ultimate regulator and there is no way of knowing how far off each dating system is from the correct date.
in other words scientists ASSUME they have the correct date because all dating systems tell them what they want to hear and there is no objective, superior unfailing system to make corrections thus the scientists can place any date they want to an item to fit their theory and unbelief, then synchronize that date with similar dating systems because they are in control of the systems and no one can correct them.
basically the dating systems are manipulated to fit the bias of the scientist doing the dating. they are too subjective to be reliable.

Replies to this message:
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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 22 of 153 (573289)
08-10-2010 6:59 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by archaeologist
08-10-2010 5:31 PM


with dating systems there is no ultimate regulator and there is no way of knowing how far off each dating system is from the correct date.
But there is. Change the clock in the analogy to a sundial.
scientists ASSUME they have the correct date because all dating systems tell them what they want to hear
All of them? And they all want to hear the same thing?

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Replies to this message:
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archaeologist
Inactive Member


Message 23 of 153 (573292)
08-10-2010 7:06 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by Dogmafood
08-10-2010 6:59 PM


the sundial wouldn't make a difference with dating systems. it may with watches and clocks but not radioactive isotopes.

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 24 of 153 (573295)
08-10-2010 7:12 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by archaeologist
08-10-2010 7:06 PM


By using a sundial instead of a clock in the analogy you can presume that there is actually a correct time and that you can know what it is.
I am no scientist but I ASSUME that there is a rate of radioactive decay and that it can be known.

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 25 of 153 (573297)
08-10-2010 7:16 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by Dogmafood
08-10-2010 7:12 PM


Actually, there are several different measurement methods. The important point is that each method is independent of the others so it is not like everyone comparing watches, it is like watches and sundials and season of the year and the flowers that are blooming and the birds that are nesting all agreeing.
Radioactive dating is simply accurate.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 26 of 153 (573302)
08-10-2010 7:25 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by jar
08-10-2010 7:16 PM


Well said Jar

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 27 of 153 (573329)
08-10-2010 9:06 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by archaeologist
08-10-2010 5:31 PM


This position fails because it does not take into account the possibility that all people from the same towncould set their watch by one central time piece. let's say the town square clock, for sake of argument.
But unlike the original analogy, this has no analogue in the real world, does it?
statistical analysis means nothing for it does not exclude the possibility that everyone can have the wrong time
But the facts do exclude that possibility.
to say one has the correct time because other dating systems say it is correct doesn't mean the dates given are correct. with time, we have an ultimate govenor who regulates time and against which we can verify if our watch pieces go off.
Namely? And why can't we calibrate our dating systems against that?
in other words scientists ASSUME they have the correct date because all dating systems tell them what they want to hear and there is no objective, superior unfailing system to make corrections thus the scientists can place any date they want to an item to fit their theory and unbelief, then synchronize that date with similar dating systems because they are in control of the systems and no one can correct them.
basically the dating systems are manipulated to fit the bias of the scientist doing the dating. they are too subjective to be reliable.
Stuff you made up does not a basis for an argument make.

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


(1)
Message 28 of 153 (573333)
08-10-2010 9:46 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by archaeologist
08-10-2010 5:31 PM


if everyone set their watches and clocks to the clock in the town square each day, but did not know that the town clock was wrong then yes everyone would have the same wrong time and not be aware of it.
We don't do that, though. Sure, it's easy to suggest that there's some kind of vast conspiracy, and when the radiogeology departments get samples they identify them, call up Our Lord Darwin Jr, and ask "how old should we say this is?"
But consider for a moment how that's impossible for something like Tiktaalik. When Tiktaalik was discovered in 2004, nobody had ever seen one before. That was a completely new discovery of a lobe-finned fish nobody had ever seen before. How would they have known when to date it, if the various dating techniques don't actually work and agree with each other? Who could they have called to find out about what date to lie about? Nobody had ever seen a Tikaalik before.
Let me explain how dating works, roughly, and then you can plainly see it's not a matter of everybody setting their watches by the same clock. They find a fossil of a lobe-finned transitional form that nobody's ever seen before. Everybody gets very excited and they airlift the fossil back to their university.
Archaeologists carefully chip off samples from the surrounding stone, which they ship off to their local geology department and a few others. They don't tell each department about the others. They may tell the department where the stone is from, but they don't mention anything about the fossil except perhaps to say that there was a fossil. The technicians who perform the dating know even less - they're usually not told anything at all besides "run the GC/MS on this" - so, even though they're evolutionists, they couldn't possibly fudge the data to get the dates they want because they don't know what dates they would want. All the geology departments come back with a date, and the archeologists look them over and see that the dates match within a statistical degree of error.
They talk to the stratiographers next, and tell them that they found a fossil at a certain depth in the geologic column, but they don't tell them what kind of fossil it was. The stratiographers return with a date that strata was laid down in that region of the Earth, and that date is consistent with the radiodating. Then they talk to the molecular phylogeneticists and ask roughly when land-dwelling tetrapods would have evolved from lobe-finned fishes, since this fossil has the intermediate characteristics of both. The molecular guys give an estimation of how long ago those species diverged, and that estimation is consistent with the other dates (though the margin of error is a lot larger.)
So you can see that, simply because the people determining these dates share only the fossil, the dates they determine must be based on physical characteristics of the fossil and not their participation in the Great Evo Conspiracy. If not for the real age of the fossil, nobody would know how old to date it because nobody had ever seen a Tikaalik before.

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Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 29 of 153 (573338)
08-10-2010 10:37 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by archaeologist
08-10-2010 5:31 PM


to fit their theory and unbelief... ???
in other words scientists ASSUME they have the correct date because all dating systems tell them what they want to hear and there is no objective, superior unfailing system to make corrections thus the scientists can place any date they want to an item to fit their theory and unbelief, then synchronize that date with similar dating systems because they are in control of the systems and no one can correct them.
basically the dating systems are manipulated to fit the bias of the scientist doing the dating. they are too subjective to be reliable.
Sorry to have to disagree with another archaeologist, but that isn't the way I learned it in graduate school (archaeology Ph.D.).
Scientists don't have "beliefs." They have data and explanations for that data. If new data comes to light, the explanations may have to change.
If one is relying on "beliefs" one can't change to accommodate new data. This is where religions run into problems with science.
And dating is one of the primary areas where some religions have problems. When dogma requires belief in a particular age (young earth, for example), adherents to that dogma are forced to ignore, deny, or misrepresent any evidence that science might come up with that contradicts that belief. This seems to be where you are coming from.
But we can propose a test: what is your position on a global flood about 4,350 years ago?
If you support a global flood and a young earth, there is no way your positions can be coming from science, as the overwhelming mass of scientific evidence contradicts these beliefs.
And if this is the situation, no amount of evidence from science will change your mind, as your belief is not based on evidence.
And if this is the case, you are the exact opposite of a real archaeologist.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

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archaeologist
Inactive Member


Message 30 of 153 (573342)
08-10-2010 11:13 PM


I am no scientist but I ASSUME that there is a rate of radioactive decay and that it can be known.
there is butfor most dating systems the half-life is too long to know if they are correct or not.
The important point is that each method is independent of the others so it is not like everyone comparing watches
being independent doesn't mean they are all accurate or support the others' results and i disagree with your statement that they are accurate. recently there was an article out on the revision of egyptian dates and the bottom line was the +/- ratio was a hundred years effectively destroying the revised dates. they are not accurate at all.
But unlike the original analogy, this has no analogue in the real world, does it?
doesn't matter and is not germane to the point. the point is that to get the exact correct time there has to be one governing mechanism that states the correct time and if the users have problems with their time pieces then everyone will have the incorrect time.
But the facts do exclude that possibility.
no, the facts INCLUDE that possibility
And why can't we calibrate our dating systems against that
did you actually read what i wrote? there is no mechanism that governs the decline rates that could be the called upon to correct any errors. and i didn't make stuff up,
We don't do that, though. Sure, it's easy to suggest that there's some kind of vast conspiracy
but how doyou know? so people use different time pieces to synchronize their clocks and watches but if those sources get their time from one that is wrong then everyone will still have the wrong time. it is possible and facts do not exclude this possibility. even radio stations get it wrong and do not agree with each other and there are a multitude of reasons for that and conspiracy is but one.
But consider for a moment how that's impossible for something like Tiktaalik. When Tiktaalik was discovered in 2004, nobody had ever seen one before. That was a completely new discovery of a lobe-finned fish nobody had ever seen before. How would they have known when to date it, if the various dating techniques don't actually work and agree with each other? Who could they have called to find out about what date to lie about? Nobody had ever seen a Tikaalik before.
they can't date it even with the help of the dating systems as too many mitigating factors apply.
Let me explain how dating works
i already know how the dating systems work and you left out much information.
Sorry to have to disagree with another archaeologist, but that isn't the way I learned it in graduate school (archaeology Ph.D.).
disagree all you want
Scientists don't have "beliefs." They have data and explanations for that data. If new data comes to light, the explanations may have to change.
sure they do, even dever acknowledges that there is no such thing as objectivity and quotes others who feel the same way.
If one is relying on "beliefs" one can't change to accommodate new data. This is where religions run into problems with science
this is why secularists and atheists have so many problems, they think the truth changes but it doesn't. new data does not change the truth which is why so many scientists have problems with religion, they want to keep discoverying something that does not need discovering but lies in front of them all the time.
But we can propose a test
not germane to the discussion and destroys your scientists have no beliefs theory. you show your bias by proposing such a test as you think my intellectual capibilities diminish with certain beliefs. you just proved that you cannot be objective and will only listen to those who agree with you.
you lose. there is no 'overwhelming evidence' against those beliefs but keep on deceiving yourself it may prove interesting during the discussion
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Fix quote boxes -Close, but you need [/qs] at the end, not [qs].

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