Dating Methods Controversy Discussion

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
I thought this would be a great topic of discussion, as I have seen through my readings on the creation/evolution debate this seems to be a point of weakness to the old earthers in many cases.
Give examples of an accurate Dating method that points to an old earth or a younge earth including radiometric dating techniques, or point out flaws in the known Dating methods.

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The Debate Rages on

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Without resorting to sources. Radiometric dating, dendrochronology, cation leeching, & varves.In any of the above examples, one is corroborated by another.------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

In no case has C14 dating been shown to have more than 10% error max. The variables are known. In fact, due to cyclic variables of magnetism & solar cycles, going back in time from today the method gets more unreliable, peaks, then returns to nearly 100% accuracy before diverging again, this repeats itself. The rate of C12 to C14 production can be shown at any one time, extrapolating from todays known levels of solar radiation & magnetic strength.Theoretically, given the magnetic strengths are known in the recent past via other methods, & the sun has an 11 year cycle. Applying the method to C14 radiometric dating improves the accuracy.The purpose of including dendrochronology is to glean information as regards its range of error. This error can be extrapolated further back in time. Carbon dating is considered reliable up to about 40,000 years bp. less than 8 times its half life.Neverthess, =/- 10% at something dating 20,000 years old still debunks the bible.

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[This message has been edited by mark24, 12-19-2001]

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
'cation leeching' I have never heard of this form of dating method, is there a spelling error? I did a search on some search engines for something on 'cation leeching' but didn't get any results. Fill me in on this dating method, I would like to discuss it.

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I'll get back to you on this....work ------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
Varves are very debunkable, because it has one huge massive problem with it. And that is that it even has fossils in its layers. These layers are supposedly annual rings. But a problem with that is that we find beautifuly preserved fossils in its layers which simply should not be there at all. The animal would have rotted long before a single year could take place, or eaten by a predator.

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'During the early to mid-1970s enormous concentrations of Presbyornis [an extinct shorebird] have been discovered in the Green River Formation.' A. Feduccia, 'Presbyornis and the evolution of ducks and flamingos', American Scientist 66:299, 1978.

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Experiments by scientists from the Chicago Natural History Museum have shown that fish carcasses lowered on to the muddy bottom of a marsh decay quite rapidly, even in oxygen-poor conditions. In these experiments, fish were placed in wire cages to protect them from scavengers, yet after only six-and-a-half days all the flesh had decayed and even the bones had become disconnected.

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The Presbyornis fossils are even more problematic. Birds have hollow bones that tend not to preserve well in the fossil record. How were these bird bones protected from scavenging and decay for thousands of years until a sufficient number of the fine annual layers had built up to bury them? 'Enormous concentrations' of bird bones are a clear indication that something is seriously wrong with the idea of slow accumulation. Instead, such fossils support the notion of rapid burial.

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Creationist suspicions about the validity of the varve interpretation were confirmed in a study by two geologists published in 1988. Near Kemmerer in Wyoming the Green River Formation contains two volcanic ash (tuff) layers, each about two to three centimetres thick.

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A volcanic ash layer is an example of what geologists call an 'event horizon', because it is laid down essentially instantaneously by a single event, in this case a volcanic eruption. The two ash layers are separated by between 8.3 and 22.6 centimetres of shale layers.

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If the standard interpretation is correct, then the number of shale layers between the ash layers should be the same throughout the Green River basin, since the number of years between the two eruptions would be the same.

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However, the geologists found that the number of shale layers between the ash beds varied from 1160 to 1568, with the number of layers increasing by up to 35% from the basin centre to the basin margin! The investigators concluded that this was inconsistent with the idea of seasonal 'varve' deposition in a stagnant lake.

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So how were the great thicknesses of finely laminated shale in the Green River Formation laid down? Creationist geologists need to investigate the issue more closely, but there seems to be great potential for developing a catastrophic model for the origin of these sediments. There is a large body of experimental and observational data that shows that varve-like sediments can build up very rapidly under catastrophic conditions. For instance, in 1960 Hurricane Donna struck the coast of southern Florida and deposited a blanket of thinly-laminated lime-mud six inches thick. Another example comes from a Swiss lake, in which up to five pairs of layers were found to build up in a single year, deposited by rapid underflows of turbid water.

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If you have a football that is in your back garden & it snows once a day for 14 days, then the ball straddles 14 layers.It's not about anaerobic decay. Its about what other conditions exist in the hypolimnion, such as high CO2, & H2S concs, alongside low free O2. In the experiments you quote, if cages were required, then H2S & CO2 levels weren't high to negate scavengers. Were gas levels measured?According to Whitcomb & Morris, the Green River formation aren't varves anyway.Going onto a topic that really belongs in your flood thread....Strahler points out of the (5-8 million layers consisting 2 couplets each)laminate deposits in the Green River formation....."If 2 turbidity currents are required for each couplet, the flood version calls for 10 to 16 million separate currents, one following the other within a small fraction of a year. Suppose we allow 100 days for the total deposition, consisting of 10 million turbidity currents. This comes out to roughly 1 event /sec. One second must see a turbidity current spread over an area of several thousand sq miles. The turbidity current would need to traverse a surface distance of not less than 100 km/s (360,000 km/h) (A.N. Strahler)RJ Schadewald calculates 1 event/ 1.5 secs."(Both in response to Whitcomb & Morris. When this was put to Morris during a live debate in Tampa, Florida, he declined to answer.)It is a fossiliferous deposit, so it MUST have been laid down in the flood.------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

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[This message has been edited by mark24, 12-20-2001]

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
One thing we know is that the water had to have sufficient oxygen when the Fish were burried, otherwize they wouldn't of been there in the first place. So it had to atleast have oxygen, we know that. Now the expermiment of lowering a fish to the bottom of sea floor is important, that signifies that you had to have rapid burrial of hundreds or thousands of these layers to burry the organism before it would decay. A football being snowed on for 14 days isn't a very good analogy. The football isn't going to decay like a living animal. The experiment was used in a cage so that they would measure how long it takes for the fish to decay without being attacked or eaten by predators. This ofcourse would not be controlable in a natural environment. So we know there were fish, we know there was bacteria anaerobic or not. This presents a problem for slow steady burrial.
If you file off a good amount of the varves and put it in a test tube with water and shake it up you automatically get it sorted into thousands of tiny layers. such a curent as he proposes is not needed in the Flood.

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I addressed this, anaerobic decay is NOT an issue. It is a well understood phenomenon. It may stop,limit & slow decay, as not all bacteria are anaerobic. Anaerobic bacteria can only cause decay where they are present. If theres no O2, & are no anaerobes, theres no decay.However, just because they're anaerobes doesn't mean they're super beasties, they may be affected by CO2, H2S, or anything else dissolved in the water.------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

ive posted on the wrong thread sorry, this is the only way I know how to delete, edit & delete....

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[This message has been edited by mark24, 12-21-2001]

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
I agree, but you are missing something, If there were fish in this water, then there had to be sufficient oxygen for this fish to even exist in the water, fish 'breath' persay threw their gills and they 'breath' oxygen, so we have to start out with 'sufficient' oxygen, so now we do have decay.
Would you be able to give an example of anything that could be in the water that would make there be no decay but have fish able to live in the water?

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http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wq/plants/management/joysmanual/dissolvedoxygen.htmlThis shows O2 levels can vary by up to 97% between upper & lower layers. Showing fish & other organisms can live in the upper levels but not necessarily the lower.A fish that dies will not decay at aerobic rates. Or, if oxygen is insufficient for aerobic bacteria, decay will cease if anaerobes are not present.See prev posts re. other dissolved gases.------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

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[This message has been edited by mark24, 12-21-2001]

Its 8.30 am & work beckons again (12 hour day as well) there are 5-8 million couplets, each involving 2 layers, for a total of 10-16 million layers. The main deposit is a Calcium Carbonate marlstone, with layers of sandstone containing laminates of kerogen, a hydrocarbon. Couplet thickness is 0.2mm. The entire formation is 600m thick.Any interpretation of the couplets needs to address the existence of this hydrocarbon as part of a cycle.The inference is, that the kerogen is the result of organic deposition. Its cyclic nature is the result of summer growth of (mainly) photosynthesising organisms in the upper layers that die in winter to be depostied, ad infinitum.------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

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[This message has been edited by mark24, 12-22-2001]

quote:

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
One thing we know is that the water had to have sufficient oxygen when the Fish were burried, otherwize they wouldn't of been there in the first place. So it had to atleast have oxygen, we know that. Now the expermiment of lowering a fish to the bottom of sea floor is important, that signifies that you had to have rapid burrial of hundreds or thousands of these layers to burry the organism before it would decay. A football being snowed on for 14 days isn't a very good analogy. The football isn't going to decay like a living animal. The experiment was used in a cage so that they would measure how long it takes for the fish to decay without being attacked or eaten by predators. This ofcourse would not be controlable in a natural environment. So we know there were fish, we know there was bacteria anaerobic or not. This presents a problem for slow steady burrial.
If you file off a good amount of the varves and put it in a test tube with water and shake it up you automatically get it sorted into thousands of tiny layers. such a curent as he proposes is not needed in the Flood.

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Do you have a link to this pls? I don't understand a mechanism that sorts particulates of the same size/density into many, alternating layers of calcium carbonate, sandstone, & kerogen. Just by shaking a test tube. How does the densest/ largest particle one not get sorted just at the bottom?------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

Thats not really what I mean. Those are different sands. Here there are only 3 variables. The kerogen, the sandstone, & calcium carbonate. All three sink at different rates, & providing you can really mix them up, the fastest sinker would be at the bottom, the medium in the middle, & slowest on top. There is no mechanism to have the fastest sinker banding at the bottom, then band again ABOVE the medium sinker, & YET AGAIN above the slowest sinker. the sand things you describe would do the same if you could really shake them up & separate the colours, ASSUMING they are different particles & not just coloured. Also, enough space for true separation is required, possibly a larger container would produce more definable results.So varves couldn't sediment like this out of one huge body of water. You obviously will refute this, which is why I'm after an article or something.------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

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[This message has been edited by mark24, 12-22-2001]