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Author Topic:   Creationist problems with radiocarbon dating
Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
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Message 19 of 194 (556519)
04-20-2010 9:14 AM
Reply to: Message 18 by JonF
04-20-2010 8:10 AM


Re: RATE
Yeah, and he ran like a rabbit, never to return, from Dr. Bertsche already.
I remember reading that debate. If I remember correctly Baumgardner tried to explain lake varves (e.g. Lake Suigetsu) as the result of earthquakes. He never once tried to explain why 14C decreased with depth, or how an earthquake could sort insect and leaf debris by minute changes in 14C.

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Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 20 of 194 (556521)
04-20-2010 9:18 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by Flyer75
04-19-2010 11:49 PM


Re: RATE
And two, how is the average joe blow out here who never works in this field supposed to know the truth?
Science is a very competitive field. You get money for being right, not for toeing the line. If radiocarbon dating didn't work then you can rest assured that someone would have made a scientific career by demonstrating just that.
To use an analogy, how can Joe Blow be assured that NASCAR drivers don't vote ahead of time on who will win a race and then fake the entire race? It's possible, isn't it? Of course, it isn't in any driver's best interest to have this type of system, and this is just for 40 or so drivers. Imagine if there were millions of drivers world wide. Do you really think that such a system would work? Do you really think they could keep a 200 year old secret going among millions and millions of scientists?

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Replies to this message:
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Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 22 of 194 (556537)
04-20-2010 9:44 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by Huntard
04-20-2010 9:23 AM


Re: RATE
One word: Wrestling.
And how long did they keep that secret? A couple of years?

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Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


(1)
Message 42 of 194 (556664)
04-20-2010 5:09 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by kbertsche
04-20-2010 4:55 PM


4) What does it mean that this wood was "fossilized"? Presumably it was hardened by mineral deposits. Do these minerals contain any carbon or carbonates? Could this undergo subsequent carbon exchange with their environment, similar to shells or bone? How confident are they that ALL carbon-containing minerals were removed by chemical pretreatment? . . .
6) "The laboratory (Beukens 2007 a, b) reported that the dried residues of the petrified wood sub-samples (RNCW-1, 2, 3, 4A) at this point in the procedure did not have any wood structure and resembled detrital material. ... their carbon contents were low (typically 10%)" This is a red flag; it means that none of the wood cellulose remained after pretreatment! (And I suspect that IsoTrace suggested at this point that the sample was not worth dating.) What was the "wood" material that they actually dated?
This is perhaps the most disturbing part of the whole fiasco. 14C dating is for organic material. So what do they do? Test a sample where the organic material has been replaced by surrounding minerals. WTF?
I'm not an expert on 14C dating by any means, but I have spent my fair share of time troubleshooting methods and assays in my own lab setting. If you are looking for a signal that is just barely above background you have to be extra careful with sample selection and prep. It would seem to me that rocks buried in anaerobic conditions will quickly take up atmospheric carbon dioxide, just as one example. Do you really think the RATE group was interested in quality control?

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Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 49 of 194 (556829)
04-21-2010 9:34 AM
Reply to: Message 48 by kbertsche
04-21-2010 3:18 AM


Yes, and the best way to do this is to find a "radiocarbon-dead" sample of the same type of material and to prepare it in parallel with the unknown samples, using the same chemical reagents, the same batch of glassware, the same combustion and graphitization procedures, the same analysis run in the AMS system, etc. Then treat this "radiocarbon-dead" sample as a total process background to be subtracted. This way any surprises due to contaminated chemicals, dirty ion source, etc. are captured and subtracted out.
This is something our summer interns always miss. I always let them design their first experiments and then ask "What are your negative and positive controls?". The look on their faces is priceless.
Also, it would seem to me that even with a bouncy background you could at least use known concentrations of 14C to create a linear regression and extrapolate the background and measure the std. error. Anything within the std. error compared to background could be considered zero. Perhaps the problem here is that radiocarbon age is not represented by the amount of carbon 14 but by the calculated age which does not relate the data to the actual background in the experiment.
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

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Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 53 of 194 (556882)
04-21-2010 2:15 PM
Reply to: Message 51 by IchiBan
04-21-2010 1:58 PM


Re: RATE
The evolutionists such as coyote spend a lot of their time calling creationists works bad science and/or lying, but it is the evolutionists here who operate from anonymity making their charges while the creationists put their name on their works and when you read the articles you find them well sourced etc.
It seems all the evolutionist can do is throw his stones from the cloak of anonymity. That alone should be telling to an outsider observing the debate.
The evolutionists such as coyote spend a lot of their time calling creationists works bad science and/or lying, but it is the evolutionists here who operate from anonymity making their charges while the creationists put their name on their works and when you read the articles you find them well sourced etc.
It seems all the evolutionist can do is throw his stones from the cloak of anonymity. That alone should be telling to an outsider observing the debate.
So shoot the messenger and ignore the message. How . . . creationist. It really is style above substance for the creationist crowd, isn't it.
Oh, and has anyone mentioned that John Woodmorappe is a pen name?
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

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Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 56 of 194 (556902)
04-21-2010 3:45 PM
Reply to: Message 55 by misha
04-21-2010 3:17 PM


Re: RATE
Morris, on the other hand, made outrageous claims and then never bothered to test to see if they were actually viable.
Morris also borrowed heavily from George McCready Price (The New Geology, 1923), the original modern-day creationist. They were already PRATT's before Morris published his first book in the 1950's.

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 62 of 194 (556978)
04-22-2010 1:11 AM
Reply to: Message 59 by Flyer75
04-21-2010 10:19 PM


Re: RATE
I went over there and that's a ton to read from a laymen's perspective but I fail to see where anyone, kbertsche, Baumbgardner, or anyone over there is getting "their ass handed to them."
The most humorous portion of that discussion was where Baumgardner tried to claim that lake varves, with insect and leaf debris sorted by minute differences in carbon 14, were created by earthquakes. If you can't sense how pathetic this argument is then you should not be allowed to use the verb "see" in this forum any longer.

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Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 68 of 194 (557181)
04-23-2010 12:40 PM
Reply to: Message 66 by IchiBan
04-23-2010 11:17 AM


The end result is an estimate or guess of what the age of the article is, and it should be given no more weight than that.
The end result is a method that can accurately date organic material for articles of known age. That is what RAZD's post above demonstrates. The correlation between Carbon-14 age and age determined by varve count, dendrochronology, and ice layer count all match. Calling this a "guess" is absurd. Only someone with an anti-science agenda would claim Carbon-14 dates are a "guess".

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Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


(1)
Message 182 of 194 (684655)
12-18-2012 11:11 AM
Reply to: Message 181 by morningstar2008
12-18-2012 4:08 AM


Re: Radiocarbon Dating and basics of radioactive decay
It is my understanding that during the approach to the measurement of the curve of infinity is absurd.
Well, that just proves that only a ruler to measure the radiocarbon dating does not make sense.
I understand you correctly?
I think Mr. Kayot it will be interesting.
There are many sources of contamination in the 14C methodology. There is extraneous 14C introduced during sample preparation, there is small amounts of 14C in the equipment itself, and any measuring device will have an inherent background. On top of that, nitrogen in the sample can be turned into 14C by high energy particles just as it occurs in the upper atmosphere. These small but significant sources of background mean that we can not measure very old ages where very little 14C is left. What you need is 14C levels that are well above background in order to get accurate dates.

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