Peanut Gallery - What variety of creationist is Buzsaw? (Minnemooseus and Buzsaw)

In fact Buz is repeating an old creationist strawman which anybody familiar with the EvC debate will know of. It is a classic PRATT that survives only because some people naively trust ignorant or dishonest creationist sources.Index fossils are used for relative dating. However, contrary to the creationist falsehood it is first established that the fossil is suitable for use as an index fossil before it is used for dating. To put it simply, it is established that the fossil is common for a relatively short time period (in terms of geological dates !) and then not found at all. This can be shown by relative dating techniques, without need for radiometric dating. Once this has been reliably established the fossil may be used as a relative dating indicator. Contrary evidence, if discovered, may change that assessment.Index fossils are used because they are a cheap and simple method of dating rocks.This method is not circular, because the fossil is identified as a reliable date indicator before it is used.As to Buz's latest, it's even worse. Already a classic creationist strawman. Geologists accept catastrophic events when the evidence supports them. In fact there is no plausible mechanism for increasing radioactive decay rates by the amount required, let alone one that would work consistently for all the elements used in radiometric dating techniques. Nor is there any good evidence that radiometric decay rates have significantly varied. As usual Buz misrepresents the Bible. The "vapour canopy" is not "clearly depicted" in Genesis at all. It is an invention of modern Creationists. His science is even worse. Cosmic rays do not come from the sun at all. Even if the atmosphere was much thicker and intercepted more cosmic rays it would not drastically increase decay rates as Buz's argument requires - not for ANY of the isotopes used to date rocks, let alone all of them. Not to mention the fact that layers of rock are likely to prove rather effective shielding.In other words this is ignorant bullshitting, and nothing more.(Variations in cosmic ray influx DO affect carbon dating, but only because they affect the FORMATION of radiocarbon. However, a thicker atmosphere is not likely to affect that much, since it is in the atmosphere that Carbon 14 forms, when a cosmic ray hits a Nitrogen atom. Moreover, carbon dating is not used to date rocks and calibration with independent dating techniques allows scientists to compensate for that variation. So it's no help to Buz at all.)

You don't expect him to REMEMBER inconvenient facts, do you ? He couldn't even remember that his preferred "Exodus Crossing" site was DEEPER than the traditional site !

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We're not debating the Exodus perse presently. Nevertheless, NoNukes and PaulK are going at me in Message 10 about dishonesty, implying that I was ignoring the fact that the Exodus crossing is too deep presently for such a crossing.

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In fact we can see that I was defending Buz against charges of dishonesty by suggesting that he FORGOT that the area was one of the deeper parts of the Red Sea, as had been thoroughly established in previous discussion. For instance in Message 132 Nuweiba is referred to as "the most shallow part of the sea".In Message 175 he even cites the alleged shallowness as one of the significant items of "evidence" for the Exodus: And this is evidence that apparently can be seen today: Both of these posts were made BEFORE Buz made any claims of erosion or tsunamis deepening the channel.

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The fact is that if they would go back to the Exodus debate, they would be honest themselves and tell the folks that I explain why the site was deeper thousands of years ago than it is now, advising how the global flood which happened, according to the record, relatively shortly before the Exodus. Thus the tsunami like rush of the returning of the walls of water from North and South, would likely cut a chanel in the looser sandy Eastern section of what the flood washed down from the wadi canyon, etc.

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The FACT is that AFTER it was pointed out that the site was not especially shallow Buz made up a cock-and-bull story about there having been huge amounts of sediment at that particular site. But he provided no evidence that it had ever been there at all, let alone any evidence that it was there at the time of the Exodus. Nor is there any evidence that if it was there that it would reduce the depth by the amount required for Buz's original claim to have been true, even then. Even if the Flood is assumed (despite all the evidence that it did not happen) there is no reason to suppose that there was a massive deposition at this particular site - or that there was no deposition at other sites that should be taken into account. (Also, if such a massive deposition was swept away in a single, catastrophic event, we would have to conclude that heavier objects - such as any debris from an Egyptian army that happened to be crossing would also be swept away. There should be no chariot wheels at the actual site - if Buz is right).And let me add that an honest person would have to admit that such a massive, implausible speculation cannot possibly be considered evidence. So even if Buz claimed that he meant only that the area was especially shallow at the time of the Exodus (contrary to his claim that the evidence exists now, and despite his failure to add any such qualification until after it was pointed out how deep the Red Sea at Nuweiba really is) he would be admitting that he dishonestly tried to pass off his wild speculations as fact.So since Buz seems so determined to be seen as dishonest I will accede to his wishes, and cease to offer any defence of his honesty ever again.

Here's some stuff I wrote for a PNT on the subject.Let us start with the rock wall. I cannot see any scientific dating method that would be used to date the wall as pre-human. Unless it convincingly mimics a natural formation (which would be extremely unusual) archaeologists would clearly be looking for the date of construction, and certainly not even considering the age of the rock.Likewise when fossils are dated palaeontologists look to the date that the rock was laid down, not the age of the earlier rock that provided the sediment. Fossils are dated from the rocks, so we must see how rocks are dated.To give a simple overview, rocks are primarily dated by their geometric relationships - which relate, of course to the formation and history of these strata, not the earlier rock that contributed the sediment. The simplest criterion is the well-known "principle of superposition" which tells us that older rock is below, younger rock above - at least when it was deposited! Radiometric dating on igneous rocks is the other major input. This, gives us a date when the current igneous strata cooled down sufficiently to "close", locking the radioactive materials in place. These dates are used to give us ages for sedimentary rocks through the relationships between the rocks - a lava flow over rock must be older by the principle of superposition.While this description has been greatly simplified, and there are many other considerations it does capture the basic principles. Work out the order in which rocks formed by the relationships between the rocks, use radiometric dating to find when igneous rocks were formed, and plug those numbers into the relationships.It is easy to see that all these considerations relate to the formation of the current rocks, contrary to Buz's assertion. What is not easy to see is where Buz gets his idea that fossil dating is based on discovering the age of the original rock. (The more so since the idea is not even applicable to biogenic limestones, which are not formed from particles of older rock at all).

Think about this question Buz. If you want to disprove the dating of sedimentary rocks why do you refuse to talk about the methods actually used to date sedimentary rocks ? It was bad enough when you were simply ignorant of the facts - but now you know better it's outright dishonest.You might also reflect that a good analogy is one that accurately reflects the thing it is supposedly analogous to. Not one that misrepresents it in order to "prove" a point.(Note that the Peanut Gallery thread is deeply buried, probably the reason why nobody bothered to post here)