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Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Peanut Gallery for Great debate: radiocarbon dating, Mindspawn and Coyote/RAZD | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Atheos canadensis Member (Idle past 3026 days) Posts: 141 Joined: |
Don't get me wrong; I joined this site because it seems to be at least sparsely populated by creationists who were more than usually willing/able to have a real, evidence-based debate. I applaud Mindspawn and all others who are able to carry on this sort of debate. But it is nevertheless frustrating when someone expends a great deal of effort building a strong, evidence-based argument only to have to the interlocutor eventually disappear without providing a rebuttal or a concession.
Perhaps my post did not clearly convey what I intended i.e. that despite my suspicion, having been informed of his posting schedule by NoNukes, I am currently giving him the benefit of the doubt. This is what I meant to convey (perhaps too laconically) by "fair enough".
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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two things:
(1) I concur with NoNukes that this is within his typical posting periods, it's too early to consider it an effect of cognitive dissonance, and I am willing to wait a few more days, and (2) Posts are as much for the lurkers as they are for the participants, and there often are lurkers who benefit even when the participants don't. Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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JonF Member (Idle past 196 days) Posts: 6174 Joined: |
MIndie still hasn't read his own reference or the paragraph that RAZD posted.
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
MIndie still hasn't read his own reference or the paragraph that RAZD posted. Actually, RAZD left him the opening he is using. Sorta. Many of the methods for determining the half life of U234 do rely on assumptions of secular equilibrium which means that enough time has passed to reach that condition. That period is longer than 6000 years. Of course there are multiple methods of determining the half life of U234 and Th230 give similar results. And at least one of the methods does not have the issue he relies on. Easily closed with the references you and I provided. Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.Richard P. Feynman If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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JonF Member (Idle past 196 days) Posts: 6174 Joined: |
Can't secular equilibrium be measured in the lab?
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NoNukes Inactive Member
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Can't secular equilibrium be measured in the lab? Perhaps it can, but doing so would require independently measuring the activity of U234 and U238 which is difficult. It is simpler to assume secular equilibrium based on other considerations. But I would not try to convince mindspring that those assumptions were correct. Way to hard. As the references you and I located show, isolating the isotope and making the difficult activity measurement is not impossible. And in fact those measurements were made decades ago. Not only do the measurement confirm the half lives as measured using the easier methods with way more accuracy than needed to end this sorry spectacle, the direct measurements also confirm that the assumptions of secular equilibrium for U238/U234 samples and U234/Th230 samples were completely warranted. And of course the half life of U238 has been measured directly as well. So not only does U234/Th230 dating confirm some points on the upper end of the C-14/dendrochronology curve, the measurements of half life themselves require the earth to be at least millions of years old, and that the solar system is at least billions of years old. ABE: Mindspawn is left with another coincidence to explain; a coincidence that I doubt even he would use identical monthly rainfall patterns to explain. Edited by NoNukes, : Grammar plus additional summary Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.Richard P. Feynman If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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JonF Member (Idle past 196 days) Posts: 6174 Joined: |
Yeah, you're probably right.
It's also obvious that Mindie doesn't understand the U-Th dating is a disequilibrium method which depends on the half-lives of both isotopes.
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NoNukes Inactive Member
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It's also obvious that Mindie doesn't understand the U-Th dating is a disequilibrium method which depends on the half-lives of both isotopes. Yeah, but give the man his due. He did have a point. ABE: Mindspawn is asking for an independent determination of the half life of U238. That should not be needed given the independent determinations of U234 and TH230 already available, but here is a link anyway: http://prc.aps.org/abstract/PRC/v4/i5/p1889_1
quote: Edited by NoNukes, : ABE added citation.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.Richard P. Feynman If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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Percy Member Posts: 22503 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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From RAZD's Message 51, I don't think this diagram from Archaeological Tree Ring Dating at the Millennium is very easy to interpret:
Does Mindspawn understand that this is a super-closeup of about 2½ tree rings? That the little squares represent the tiny growth cells that make up a tree ring? That there's a difference between early growth cells (thin walled) and late growth cells (thick walled)? If he doesn't understand this then he won't understand how it is that double-rings can be so easily identified. --Percy
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Coyote Member (Idle past 2134 days) Posts: 6117 Joined: |
Mindspawn doesn't need to know all that stuff. He knows it is all wrong, so what's the point?
And no matter what evidence RAZD presents, it's all wrong too. This really demonstrates Heinlein's comment, "Belief gets in the way of learning."Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge. Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle
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NoNukes Inactive Member
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And no matter what evidence RAZD presents, it's all wrong too. Apparently only untrained novices like mindspawn or marc9000 are sufficiently distanced from science to be able to identify obvious issues. It could not possibly be that scientists have anticipated and ruled out such things. It could not possibly be that independent indications of age and historical events has already eliminated any significant error. Mindspawn claims that he doesn't believe in a conspiracy, but for scientist to ignore the stuff he claims causes the errors, there'd simply have to be a conspiracy. Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.Richard P. Feynman If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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Percy Member Posts: 22503 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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Evidently this, from Mindspawn's Message 57, is what he considers a pleasant exchange of ideas:
Mindspawn writes: If dendrochronologists overlook an obvious fact that trees completely starved of moisture during their growth season do actually stop growing , then this is incompetent. In their defense though they wouldn't want their findings to contradict evolutionary timeframes and bring down the ridicule of the establishment, so its the establishment's fault that open-mindedness has been replaced by an almost religious fervour to support evolution and mock those who question it. This mocking attitude of the establishment is suppressing true science in much the same manner as some members of this board resort to swearing and ridicule instead of a pleasant exchange of ideas. Oh well..... Dendrochronologists are incompetent and purposefully draw conclusions that support evolutionary timeframes because they fear ridicule. The scientific establishment has a religious fervour in support of evolution that mocks objections and suppresses true science. All just a pleasant exchange of ideas, certainly nothing anyone should take offense at. I wonder what will give out first, Mindspawn's increasingly detailed questioning of evidence, or RAZD's willingness to produce patient and well-researched essays. I also wonder if Mindspawn has any idea where he is going. He plods mindlessly on challenging one thing after another without seeming to consider that what he has conceded we know already rules out a young Earth and even a merely old Earth. If everything he questioned did turn out to be wrong to the maximum degree possible it would still point to an ancient Earth. It's like he doesn't understand the magnitude of the errors he needs. Does anyone know of any dendrochronological evidence from Biblical sites of known age? It would be interesting to get Mindspawn's reaction. --Percy
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
I wonder what will give out first, Mindspawn's increasingly detailed questioning of evidence, or RAZD's willingness to produce patient and well-researched essays. I think this Great Debate is an opportunity for RAZD to expound with enthusiasm. I don't see any evidence that he's even losing patience. In the end, we'll get a nice compilation of a couple of branches dating science. Meanwhile, I see that mindspawn is trying to claim that the magnetic field has the same affect on U-Th dating that it has on C-14. That, along with relying conspiracy theories, denigration of science, and whining looks like a last gasp, straw clutch. Mindspawn will never explicitly concede that he's lost the debate. These tactics of peeing on the evidence are the concession. Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.Richard P. Feynman If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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JonF Member (Idle past 196 days) Posts: 6174 Joined:
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Mindie's trying to claim that magnetic field variation (on the order of +/- 50% could affect decay rates. The classic paper on constancy of decay rates is Emery, Perturbation of Nuclear Decay Rates.
quote: 83,000 Gauss is 270,000 times stronger than the Earth's current magnetic field at the surface on the equator, on the order of magnitude of a high resolution research MRI, and 3-6 times the strength of a clinical MRI (Wikipedia). References 1-3 are all to German books. The interested reader can look them up.
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JonF Member (Idle past 196 days) Posts: 6174 Joined:
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Does anyone know of any dendrochronological evidence from Biblical sites of known age? It would be interesting to get Mindspawn's reaction. Not off the top of my head. maybe I'll Google around a little. There is King Hezekiah's tunnel. Hezzie ruled circa 715 to 686 BCE by conventional chronology. He had a tunnel dug to supply water to Jerusalem. Recently a team dated it using a leaf embedded in the plaster (obviously older than the tunnel or the same age) with 14C (700-800 BCE) and stalactites (obviously younger than the tunnel) with U-Th (400 BCE). (There are a few who still think the tunnel was dug much earlier). It would be interesting to recalculate those dates based on Mindie's fantasies. He hasn't really been explicit enough, but if one takes is stated period of about 4500 BCE to 300 CE for decay speedup (which would of course kell everything) and assume a constant speedup factor ...
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