Peanut Gallery for Great debate: radiocarbon dating, Mindspawn and Coyote/RAZD

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.

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 summaryEdited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

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:

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New determinations of the half-lives of 235U and 238U have been made. Improved techniques have allowed the half-life values to be measured with greater accuracy than has been heretofore achieved. Samples were prepared by molecular plating and counted in a intermediate-geometry α-proportional counter with an extremely flat pulse-height plateau. The small amount of residual nonplated uranium was counted in a 2π counter.

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Energy analysis with a silicon-junction detector was used to measure the presence of "foreign" activities. For 235U, the measured specific activity was (4798.13.3) (dis/min)/(mg 235U), corresponding to a half-life of (7.03810.0048) 10^8 yr. For 238U, the specific activity was measured as (746.190.41) (dis/min)/(mg 238U), corresponding to a half-life of (4.46830.0024) 10^9 yr. Errors quoted are statistical (standard error of the mean), based upon the observed scatter of the data. This scatter exceeds that expected from counting statistics alone. We believe that systematic errors, if present, will no more than double the quoted errors.

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Edited by NoNukes, : ABE added citation.

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.

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.

Nice addition to the pile.But it occurs to me that some of these references might stay in their dusty old file electronic file cabinets absent someone like mindspawn begging us to pull them out of their holes.That said, this is a perfect example of the kind of patience testing debate style that some posters use, and posters like me rail against. Mindspawn's absolutely refusal to vet his own supposition with even a second of googling. Just blurt out that magnetic fields affect decay rates without the least bit of poking around.Dr. Adequate included some relevant material on the variability of decay rates in his geology series. There are a few examples of species whose decay rates are slightly variable. I believe some electron capture rates can be exploited, but those rates are dependent on the absorption of inner orbital electrons and thus one might understand why those rates might be affected by physical processes.I'm sure mindspawn has those annual variations of decay rate detacting by a few scientists in mind, but the association of that effect with magnetic fields exists only in the fog that constitutes the interior of mindspawn's head. (Yeah, I know. This is the ridicule he is complaining about.) He manufactured that association when he wanted to argue that a neutron flux was slowing decay rates currently. A deadly neutron flux as it turned out.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I don't agree with your reasoning. Yes, it does turn out that uncalibrated C-14 dates are accurate enough to remove all doubt that the earth is > 50,000 years old. But there is indeed a well known issue with the variability of C-14 production, and in a debate like this one, calibration is the easiest way of showing that the variability in the actual C-12/C-14 ratio in the atmosphere is small despite fairly large variations in C-14 production rate.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I understand that. And what you did was a way to respond to mindspawn's initial question. Nothing at all wrong with what you did. I can understand why you feel that way. But RAZD has made substantial progress. Mindspawn will never explicitly admit losing, but his resorting to 9000 style arguments and statements of science that aren't even arguably true is losing the debate. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

It is a desperation born of need. C-14 dating cannot just be wrong. It must be wrong by at least a factor of 11 or 12 in order to produce real dates about 4000 - 5000 years in the past for things which are really 40,000 to 50000 years old.Most of us will never be in a debate in which the fate of our immortal souls hangs in the balance, so perhaps we will never know just how silly a position we are willing to take. It is only in that light that I can avoid finding fault with mindspawn.

And he must also be claiming that by sheer coincidence, the patterns produce the same result as the sped up decay rates.

I disagree. While mindspawn did not acknowledge his error concerning the measurement techniques of those long lived isotopes, he hasn't made new statements about them either. I would assume that those things aren't at issue anymore.His current argument about the solar based variability of decay rates is completely orthogonal to the his original argument that the rates were manufactured by "evolutionary assumptions".The strength of the current argument is that the effect, if it is real, is completely unexplained, which means that counter arguments and evidence that decay rates are not affected by magnetic fields, temperature, pressure, neutrinos etc. are irrelevant. Further, the difficulties in measuring long lived decay rates probably means that it is unlikely that anyone has probed the effect on U234 or Th230.The weakness of the argument is the coincidence required to produce agreement with dendrochronology, the miniscule amount of the effect as measured, and the link of the effect to the calendar.

Well of course I cannot be completely certain. But there was a bit of back and forth that led up to mindspawn's final post and RAZD's rebuttal. During that back and forth, mindspawn gave up considerable ground from not accepting any relevant decay rate measurement based on 'evolutionary assumptions' such as secular equilibrium, to recognizing that U234 rate was proportional to U238's decday rate in the references cited to that point. RAZD's final rebuttal provided evidence of independent determinations of the decay constant and decay rate for U238 and for Th230.In response, Mindspawn has not asked for further detail. And if necessary, independent determinations of the half life of U234 are available.So, no I am not certain. But I don't believe we've seen mindspawn behave quite as badly as would be needed to re-argue the determination of the half lives of Th230 and U234. What we have seen instead is a completely new argument. If I see a post challenging the competence of scientists to measure such things I'll change my opinion.Yes I would agree that the better part of the evidence suggests that his latest journey into mystery is off base. But in a previous discussion many of us expected that creationists would extrapolate Jenkins and Fischbach's work to postulate uncertainty with past decay rates. "See Solar flares affect radiometric decay rates?"Well now mindspawn has done so. I think the balance of the evidence is that mindspawn is grasping at straws. But I think his point is worthy of a serious response.

I think I can fairly point out that I have been, and continue to be as tough on mindspawn as anyone else here has been. I have on occasion acknowledged where mindspawn has played the game with some amount of fairness. He is, technically, in over his head. I do see some ridiculous statements from mindspawn Message 75 regarding statistical physics and the role of randomness. Those silly statements should be picked on. What I do not see in that message is any attribution of the effect found by Fishbach (and a very few others) to tiny changes in the earth's magnetic field.As I've noted before, the Fishbach effect, an effect which I am quite dubious is real, has no known cause. As best as I can tell, only a few scientist take the effect or Fishbach seriously. Neutrinos, which were Fisbach's guess, have been ruled out, as has a direct effect due to magnetism. Mindspawn has apparently withdrawn his past claim that the effect was due to neutrons.So despite the fact that the argument is bogus, I don't see a clean rebuttal to his argument in the thread so far. Maybe RAZD can provoke one by citing references showing that decay rates are not affected by magnetism. JonF cited one here. Maybe that's close enough to an agreement between the two of us. As I've suggested in the past, mindspawn does have some responsibility to vet his own arguments, and he absolutely will not do that.

That's right. Thanks for restating the claim so clearly. I don't see that others in the gallery have done so.Yes, mindspawn does claim that the earth's magnetic field, and by that I understand mindspawn to mean not just the magnetic field, but also, the resulting radiation belts, shield the earth from some mysterious effect. He hasn't said that, but it is the logical extension of what mindspawn has said.And of course there are ways to address this issue. In fact, the problem was partly addressed in another thread in which mindspawn participated in. But I haven't yet seen RAZD address the issue in the great debate. Admittedly I haven't revisited the Great Debate since this morning. What RAZD has pointed out is that the effect on C-14 dating is completely unrelated to decay rates. That should at least have given mindspring some pause. Yes. The use of magnetic fields as the explanation is problematic. I think the reason why mindspawn uses it is because of the need to explain the consilience with C-14 dating which is affected by the magnetic field.Mindspawn would be better served by arguing that the mysterious solar effect is 'itself' 1) unknown and 2) probably variable, and 3) related in some way to whatever produces the effect on the earth's magnetic field. But using the magnetic field causally for all things does not work.It's what I would try anyway.To respond to your point about fusion rates. Fusion rates are strongly affected by geometry and we should expect that changes in magnetic field confinement would affect fusion rates.Fusion has a cause, namely particles smacking together at high energy, while there is no rhyme or reason for an individual atom of radioactive material to decay at any given time. I don't think your analogy works.Edited by NoNukes, : Change 'affect' to 'effect'

You've completely lost me. I don't see the relevance of the rate of fission or fusion processes. Neither fission or fusion are involved with most decay chains used for dating purposes. Further, we know of plenty of things, temperature, pressure, geometry, presence of moderators, concentration of involved species among other things that affects fission rates. Fusion rates are also variable. For example, we know that without suitable containment, no fusion can be sustained. Fusion rates are affected by magnetic fields. We also know that fusion only occurs in the core of the sun despite plenty of hydrogen existing elsewhere.In contrast, we don't know of anything that when varied over parameters that were remotely likely to have existed on earth after its formation, or in most other places in the universe that aren't inside a sun, can affect decay rates .Decay rates and fusion/fission rates are simply not related in a relevant way.ABE: Not correct. At least not correct in a relevant way. We do use fission to for the purpose of producing the temp/pressure for fusion in a nuclear weapon, but fission is not part of the process that occurs in the sun, and we certainly don't use fission in our attempts to make a power generating fusion reactor.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.