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Author Topic:   Age of the Earth in Stages, Great Debate, S1WC and RAZD only
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1395 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 1 of 15 (407426)
06-26-2007 8:46 AM


GREAT DEBATE - RAZD & S1WC

I want to move this out of the MurkeyWaters debate thread seeing as it is in danger of being swamped by other posts at this time.
This debate essentially started with Message 80:
Message 80
Of course you shouldn't be surprised, why would I waste my time reading evolutionist books to get some information if I can read Creationist books and get the information PLUS rebuttal to evolutionist "proofs"?
For the simple reason that you can't tell that the creationist book is representing the story correctly without reading the original source. The LUCY book is an easy read, not as dry as articles in journals (the ultimate source for facts on scientific studies).
I don't know... Are you sure you have any "proof" and not just useless babble about definitions and things??
We can take it in easy steps. With breaks for you to reply and rebut on any of this evidence. What we'll be looking at is methods of counting annual layers in different systems, building up the age as we go. First up is the "Methusula Tree"
Methuselah (tree) - Wikipedia
quote:
Methuselah (estimated germination 2832 BC) is a bristlecone pine in the White Mountains of California, which was 4,789 years old when sampled in 1957 (when the trees were originally being surveyed by Schulman and Harlan). It is the oldest living organism currently known and documented. It is named after Methuselah, a Biblical figure reputed to have lived 969 years. Located at approximately 11,000 feet above sea level, its exact location is currently undisclosed to the public as a protection against vandalism; the coordinates cited refer to the Methuselah Grove Visitor Center.
Thus by this one tree alone the minimum age of the earth is 4839 years and during that time there was no WW Flood.
This age is determined by counting the tree rings from bored core samples taken by Schulman in 1957.
Any Comment so far?
{ABE} The format we can use is like that of a trial: as "prosecutor" I present "witnessed" evidence, one by one, with time for you to "cross-examine" each one before going on to the next, then when I am done you can provide evidence in defense one by one, while I "cross-examine" followed by closing arguments. {/ABE}
Enjoy.
S1WC's response was
Message 81
Hmmm... Well if we take it step by step, this debate may be possible. I will see, but right now I have some time so I will start debating, and don't be surprised if it may take me weeks before I reply sometimes because I may be very busy. Here goes...
quote:
Thus by this one tree alone the minimum age of the earth is 4839 years and during that time there was no WW Flood.
This age is determined by counting the tree rings from bored core samples taken by Schulman in 1957.
I don't see how come this is supposed to disprove a young earth... I mean, accepted dates for a young earth by most Creationists can be anything from 6 to 10 thousand years, 6 being the best estimate. But if your point is that this age doesn't exactly fit with an estimate for when the Flood was, I still have a rebuttal: Tree ring dating can be misleading under certain conditions, such as when there are two or more wet seasons in a year, the tree will develop extra growth rings and thus appear older than it actually is.
Peace.
My response
Message 82
... and don't be surprised if it may take me weeks before I reply sometimes ...
That is not a problem. I too may be unable to reply at times.
Tree ring dating can be misleading under certain conditions, such as when there are two or more wet seasons in a year, the tree will develop extra growth rings and thus appear older than it actually is.
Do you have a source (link) and a particular piece of evidence for this or are you just going on generalities for now. Or do you want to hold that in reserve until after the next piece of evidence. We can deal with this issue now or later, your choice.
I don't see how come this is supposed to disprove a young earth...
It's about laying a foundation for a valid methodology of puting together a chronology based on annual phenomena.
Enjoy.
S1WC's response
Message 83
quote:
Do you have a source (link) and a particular piece of evidence for this or are you just going on generalities for now. Or do you want to hold that in reserve until after the next piece of evidence. We can deal with this issue now or later, your choice.
Yes, here is a good example: "Recent research on seasonal effects on tree rings in other trees in the same genus, the plantation pine Pinus radiata, has revealed that up to five rings per year can be produced" Biblical Chronology 8,000-Year Bristlecone Pine Ring Chronology | Answers in Genesis
quote:
It's about laying a foundation for a valid methodology of puting together a chronology based on annual phenomena.
You didn't get it, but I assume that you use this "proof" because it supposedly outdates the Flood.
My response
Message 84
You didn't get it, but I assume that you use this "proof" because it supposedly outdates the Flood.
No, I realize that this date is not that controversial for YEC position. All it is is a foundation for later evidence.
Yes, here is a good example: "Recent research on seasonal effects on tree rings in other trees in the same genus, the plantation pine Pinus radiata, has revealed that up to five rings per year can be produced" Biblical Chronology 8,000-Year Bristlecone Pine Ring Chronology | Answers in Genesis
Yes, a good example typical of creatortionista misrepresentations, misleading statements and false conclusions. I'll explain in a bit, but first I want to add the second piece, as it basically duplicates the first and is part of the refutation of Dr. Batten's article.
Prometheus (tree) - Wikipedia
quote:
Prometheus (aka WPN-114) is the nickname given to the oldest non-clonal organism ever known, a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) tree about 4900 years old growing at treeline on a mountain in eastern Nevada, USA. The tree was cut down on August 6, 1964 by a graduate student and U.S. Forest Service personnel for research purposes, though at the time they did not know of its world-record age. The cutting of the tree remains controversial.
Fachbereich Biologie : Universität Hamburg
quote:
The oldest known living specimen is the "Methuselah" tree, sampled by Schulman and Harlan in the White Mountains of CA, for which 4,789 years are verified by crossdating. An age of 4,844 years was determined post-mortem (after being cut down) for specimen WPM-114 from Wheeler Peak, NV. The age is largely crossdated (6). Naturally, these ages underestimate the true ages of the respective trees (see Tree Age Determination for details), perhaps by hundreds of years in view of the fact that pith dates were not recovered for these trees. It seems likely that trees at least 5000 years old exist.
With an age of 4,789 years in 1964 when the tree was cut down this means that "Prometheus" or WPM-114 has an estimatd germination date of 2,880 BCE, just a little bit older than "Methusula." This is substantiating evidence of this age, and we will get to this below in greater detail.
Now we come to Don Batten's article, which is also available at:
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/2441
This is a review I have written of that article (I have shortened it here to provide the highlights - the full article is available at Dendrochronology Fact and Creationist Fraud):
quote:
Dendrochronology is the study of time and climate through the evidence of tree-rings and related data. There are several thousand dendrochronologies currently being used and expanded in the world, some of these are "floating" chronologies (where the end dates are not know) and some are absolute. At first blush one would not think that young earth creationists (YEC) would have a problem with something that doesn't measure ages in the billions of years.
However the YEC problem is that the chronological age of several tree-ring dendrochronologies are older than their model for the age of the earth. Two continuous absolute dendrochronologies make the concept of a world wide flood invalid for any time in the last 8,000 years.
Don Batten wrote "Tree ring dating (dendrochronology)" attempting to discredit the whole field of dendrochronology in order to maintain a delusion in a young earth, and in that article he says:
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/2441 (9)
quote:
Tree ring dating (dendrochronology) has been used in an attempt to extend the calibration of carbon-14 dating earlier than historical records allow. The oldest living trees, such as the Bristlecone Pines (Pinus longaeva) of the White Mountains of Eastern California, were dated in 1957 by counting tree rings at 4,723 years old. This would mean they pre-dated the Flood which occurred around 4,350 years ago, taking a straightforward approach to Biblical chronology.
However, when the interpretation of scientific data contradicts the true history of the world as revealed in the Bible, then it's the interpretation of the data that is at fault.
Recent research on seasonal effects on tree rings in other trees in the same genus, the plantation pine Pinus radiata, has revealed that up to five rings per year can be produced and extra rings are often indistinguishable, even under the microscope, from annual rings. As a tree physiologist I would say that evidence of false rings in any woody tree species would cast doubt on claims that any particular species has never in the past produced false rings. Evidence from within the same genus surely counts much more strongly against such a notion.
The biggest problem with the process is that ring patterns are not unique. There are many points in a given sequence where a sequence from a new piece of wood match well (note that even two trees growing next to each other will not have identical growth ring patterns). Yamaguchi1 recognized that ring pattern matches are not unique. The best match (using statistical tests) is often rejected in favour of a less exact match because the best match is deemed to be "incorrect" (particularly if it is too far away from the carbon-14 "age"). So the carbon "date" is used to constrain just which match is acceptable.
The extended tree ring chronologies are far from absolute, in spite of the popular hype. To illustrate this we only have to consider the publication and subsequent withdrawal of two European tree-ring chronologies. ... Also, the construction of a detailed sequence from southern Germany was abandoned in deference to the Belfast chronology, even though the authors of the German study had been confident of its accuracy until the Belfast one was published. It is clear that dendrochronology is not a clear-cut, objective dating method despite the extravagant claims of some of its advocates.
He is talking here about the "Methuselah" tree[2], with an estimated germination date of 2,832 years BCE, while ignoring the slightly older "Prometheus" tree that was cut down in 1964. "Prometheus," also known as specimen WPM-114, was 4,844 years old at the time of cutting for an estimated germination date of 2,880 BCE)[8]; this not only duplicates the age shown by the "Methuselah" tree, but extends it a bit further. Nor does he address the issue of all the other trees used to build the Bristlecone Pine chronology, ones from other areas, that confirm the information from these two trees: dendrochronologies are built from many overlapping specimens, not from single trees.
Notice two things: first is the intentional mis-direction to a completely different species that grows in a different environment (with the implication that they are the same - the hallmark of a scam and a con), and second is that he knows that there were "up to five rings per year" (emphasis mine) of false rings produced in the specimens he sampled. We'll look at both these issues in greater detail:

Misdirection and Misinformation

The intentional mis-direction is to a completely different species - in a different subgenus and that grows in a different environment - with the stated implication that they are the same. This is the hallmark of a scam, a con and a fraud. The genus Pinus - which includes all pine trees - includes some 115 different species in three subgenus divisions: Strobus (white or soft pines), Ducampopinus (pinyon, lacebark and bristlecone pines) and Pinus (yellow or hard pines)[6]. The Monterey Pine is in the subgenus Pinus[4], while the Bristlecone Pines are in the subgenus Ducampopinus.
Now let's look into his claim of using a "similar" species. First the Monterey Pine:
http://www.fs.fed.us/...ase/feis/plants/tree/pinrad/all.html (10)
quote:
The currently accepted scientific name of Monterey pine is Pinus radiata D. Don [12,31,32,33,43]. There are three recognized varieties [10,38]:
Pinus radiata var. radiata
Pinus radiata var. binata Lemmon
Pinus radiata var. cedrosensis (Howell) Axelrod.
Monterey pine hybridizes with knobcone pine (Pinus attenuata) and bishop pine (Pinus muricata) [12,32,25].
The typical variety of Monterey pine occurs along the coast of California in three disjunct populations in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, Monterey County, and San Luis Obispo County. Pinus radiata var. binata occurs on Guadalupe Island, Mexico [12,32,33,35,42]. Pinus radiata var. cedrosensis is found on Cedros Island, Mexico [10,12,38].
Monterey pine is part of the coastal closed-cone coniferous woodland [23].
See an image of the Monterey Pine, Pinus radiata (3).
quote:
Leaf: Evergreen needles, 4 to 6 inches long, 3 per fascicle, slender; shiny green; persist 3 years
The Bristlecone Pine chronology does not rely on just one species, but uses two closely related species for a cross-reference:
Bristlecone Growth (14)
quote:
On dry windswept mountaintops of the Great Basin in the western United States grow earth's oldest living inhabitants, the bristlecones (Pinus longaeva, Pinus aristata). Many of the trees living today were seedlings when the pyramids were being constructed, mature in the time of Christ, and ancient patriarchs today. Bristlecones occur in only six western states, but of these the oldest are found at the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the White Mountains of California.
The bristlecone has adjusted to places on earth that no other tree wants to inhabit, and in these harsh environments, has flourished, free of competition.
Until 1970 bristlecones were regarded as a single species. D.K. Bailey, an amateur botanist, demonstrated that the western most trees differ enough in structure of their needles and cones from the bristlecones of the eastern region, to warrant a new species name, Pinus longaeva.
Bristlecones don't grow very tall, 60 ft. (18.3m) at the most, but usually much less. Girth of the largest one, the Patriarch is 36' 8" (11.2m), and this tree is relatively young at 1,500 years. The average age is about 1,000 years with only a few over 4,000 years. The oldest trees grow on outcrops of dolomitean alkaline calcareous substrate of low nutrient but of higher moisture content than the surrounding sandstone. The dolomite can reflect more sunlight than other rocks, co ntributing to cooler root zones, and saving moisture.
Spring comes to the bristlecone pines in early May with the melting of snow and higher temperatures. Each year the tree increases in girth only 1/100th of an inch, often less, and new cones andtwigs are formed. In this subalpine zone there are only three warm summer months, often only 6 weeks, to produce growth and reserves for overwintering. All of this must be accomplished on a mere 10" (25.4cm) precipitation.
Description of the Rocky Mountain Bristlecone Pine:
http://www.fs.fed.us/...ase/feis/plants/tree/pinari/all.html (11)
quote:
Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine, Great Basin bristlecone pine (P. longaeva), and foxtail pine (P. balfouriana) share a common ancestor [114,149]. Taxa within the bristlecone-foxtail pine complex (Pinus, subgenus Strobus, section Parrya Mayr, subsection Balfourianae Englm.) are distinguished by growth form, bark, and differences in chemical composition [8,31,90,97]. Bristlecone and foxtail pines readily produce fertile hybrids in the laboratory [128,149]. Disjunct distributions, and possibly other factors, prevent natural hybridization among the 3 species.
Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine occurs in upper montane and subalpine communities [146]. Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii) and limber pine (Pinus flexilis) associate with Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine throughout most of Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine's range. Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine tends to exclude Engelmann spruce and limber pine on upper subalpine and timberline sites. Even in lower subalpine sites, Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine is more common in mesic areas than limber pine [104]. Brunstein [22] noted limber pine was absent from Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine communities on the east slope of the Park Range of Colorado. Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) may co-occur throughout Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine's range on seral sites including burns. Rocky Mountain lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia) also occurs on new burns and other disturbed sites in Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine communities [70,104].
See an image of the Rocky Mountain Bristlecone pine, Pinus aristata (1).
quote:
Leaf: Evergreen needles, short (1 to 1 1/2 inches long), curved, fascicles of 5, dark green but usually covered with white dots of dried resin. Remain on tree for 10-17 years, giving a bushy appearance that resembles a fox's tail.
Description of the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine:
http://www.fs.fed.us/...ase/feis/plants/tree/pinlon/all.html (12)
quote:
Great Basin bristlecone pine occurs in a relatively narrow latitudinal range in California, Nevada, and Utah [86,94]. In California it occurs on the summits of the Panamint, Inyo, and White mountains of Mono and Inyo counties [53]. In Nevada it has scattered occurrences on high mountain ranges from the White Mountains in Esmeralda County; north to the southern Ruby Mountains of south-central Elko County; south to the Spring Mountains of west-central Clark County; and east to the Ruby Mountains and Snake Range of White Pine County [31,63,94]. In western Utah Great Basin bristlecone pine occurs on the western edge of the Colorado Plateau from the Confusion Range of Millard County; north to the Uinta Mountains of Summit, Wasatch, and Duchesne counties; south to the Pine Valley Mountains of Washington County and northern Kane County; and east to the Wasatch Plateau of Emery County [94,136]. The U.S. Geological Survey provides a distributional map of Great Basin bristlecone and Rocky Mountain pines.
The ranges of Great Basin bristlecone, Rocky Mountain bristlecone, and foxtail pines do not overlap. The Colorado-Green River drainage has separated the 2 bristlecone pine species for millennia.
See an image of the Great Basin Bristlecone pine, Pinus longaeva (14).
The two Bristlecone Pine species have been separated for thousands of years, the Monterey Pine has been separated for much longer, especially considering the differences between the needles. What is certain is that he is comparing a very distantly related, coastal species with two high altitude species and saying they are the same - species that grows in an entirely {different habitat\ecology}. Perhaps he intentionally chose a species cultivated for rapid growth (for the timber industry), living in an entirely different seasonal growth environment where he can intentionally take samples from trees that are known to frequently have false rings. Certainly Dr. Batten is not telling the truth when he says these species are comparable in the way they grow.
Dr. Batten is also not telling the full truth when he mentions the microscope, as that is not the only tool used, either by himself to identify the false rings, or by dendrochronologists that do honest work. He knows his maximum error found occurred in a single year, not just an average error based on the total life of the tree - which is the only information he would have if he were totally unable to distinguish false rings from real ones.

False Ring Identification

That Dr. Batten knows that there were "up to five rings per year" (emphasis mine) of false rings produced in the specimens he sampled shows that he could indeed find, measure, locate, distinguish and identify them in spite of any claims to the contrary. The only way anyone can count the number of false rings that occurred in one year is to have been able to distinguish the false rings from real ones. He does this in the same way that dendrochronologists employ to identify false rings in order to account for them in the data and make the necessary corrections. Nor does he tell you how many times false rings were found during normal growth, what the distribution of error was, or what the average error was, he just reports the maximum rate he was able to find with the implication that amount this is common in all trees all the time. Is this a 1% error or a 10% error in the life of the tree? Dr. Batten is mum on that issue.
Nobody has claimed that there are trees that produce no false rings, or no missing rings either - another common problem that makes the trees appear younger than they really are (and which Dr. Batten in all his "honesty" fails to mention). The difference is that dendrochronologists know how to find the evidence of false rings - as does Dr. Batten when he notes "up to five rings per year" of false rings - but they use this information to correct the chronology.
Both the species of Bristlecone Pine would not have the same numbers of false rings and missing rings, as they grow in different locations and environments, and yet the chronology that is built from their evidence is consistent from one to the other. Consistent because false rings and missing rings have been accounted for by the honest scientists.
So how do the scientists deal with these problems? Here is information from an on-line slide show on dendrochronology - pay particular attention to slide 6 on false rings and how they are distinguished from true annual rings, slide 7 on partial or locally absent rings, slide 8 on sampling techniques, slide 16 on bristlecone pine, and slide 17 on correlation of rings to days of precipitation:
Paleoclimatology | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) (5)
Pay particular attention to slide 6 on false rings and how they are distinguished from true annual rings, slide 7 on partial or locally absent rings, slide 8 on sampling techniques, slide 16 on bristlecone pine, and slide 17 on correlation of rings to days of precipitation.
quote:
(Slide 6)Under certain climatic conditions, some species will form intra-annual or false rings . If climatic conditions are unfavorable to growth during the growing season, the tree may mistakenly sense that the end of the season is near, and produce dark, thick-walled latewood cells. Improved conditions will cause the tree to produce lighter, thinner-walled cells once again, until the true end of the season. The resulting annual ring looks like two rings, but when this first ring is closely inspected it can be identified as false because the latewood boundary grades back into the earlywood. False rings occur in a number of species such as the Mexican cypress pictured here. Young ponderosa pines in southeastern Arizona commonly contain false rings as well. In this region, winter and early spring rains provide moisture to trees in the early part of the growing season. By May and June, the driest part of the year, trees have used up the available moisture and, if stressed enough, will begin to produce latewood cells. However, monsoon moisture usually begins to fall in July, and with this moisture, trees will again produce earlywood cells.
(Slide 7)Under other climate conditions, trees may produce only a partial ring or may fail to produce a ring at all. This may occur in a year in which conditions for growth are particularly harsh. These rings are called locally absent or missing rings and are commonly found in trees which are extremely sensitive to climate. ... This ring gets pinched between the rings to the left and right of it and is not visible at all in the lower portion of the slide. Very old and/or stressed trees may also produce very small, barely visible rings only a few cells wide which are called micro-rings. Because of the occurrence of false, locally absent, micro, and missing rings, it is especially important to prepare surfaces carefully and use the technique of crossdating to ensure exact calendar year dates for individual rings.
(Slide 8)The work of a dendrochronologist starts with the collection of samples in the field. The particular problem being addressed will dictate site and tree selection so that trees sampled are sensitive to the environmental variable of interest. ... Most commonly, tree-ring samples are collected using a hand-held increment borer to remove a small core of wood roughly 5mm in diameter from the trunk of the tree, ideally from bark to pith. ...Usually, two cores are taken from each tree to facilitate crossdating and to reduce the effects of ring-width variations related to differences in the two sides of the tree. The number of trees sampled from the site depends on how sensitive the trees are to the environment, but the average is about 20-30 trees.
Ponderosa Pines, for the record, are in the same subgenus - Pinus - as the Moneterey Pine(7).
Of particular note is the cause of false rings with specific reference to the type of environmental conditions that would prevail in certain locations with the Monterey Pine, Pinus radiata, used by Dr. Batten. By contrast the conditions that prevail for the Bristlecone pine, Pinus longaeva, are more likely to produce missing or micro rings, a condition that would make the trees appear younger than they really are.
.... (cut material) ....

Conclusions

  • The issue of false rings does not invalidate the existing dendrochronologies, as false rings - and other problems - can, and have been, identified by the scientists. They have been accounted for by cross-reference and by duplication of climate and chronological results in different species.
  • Even Dr. Batten was able to distinguish false rings in his samples and thus would be able to account for them in constructing a chronology from his choice of species if he were so inclined.
  • Dr. Batten is a fraud, a scam and a con, pretending to tell the truth to gullible people who want to believe a delusion, when in fact he is hiding the truth, misdirecting the issues and misrepresenting evidence.
    Enjoy.


    References
    1. Anonymous "Bristlecone pine Pinaceae Pinus aristata" Forest Biology and Dendrology Educational Sites at Virginia Tech. 16 Aug 2002. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from http://www.cnr.vt.edu/...o/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm"
    2. Anonymous "Methuselah (tree)" Wikipedia. Updated 9 Jan 2007. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from Methuselah (tree) - Wikipedia
    3. Anonymous "Monterey pine Pinaceae Pinus radiata" Forest Biology and Dendrology Educational Sites at Virginia Tech. 16 Aug 2002. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from http://www.cnr.vt.edu/...o/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm"
    4. Anonymous "Monterey Pine" Wikipedia. Updated 12 Jan 2007. accessed 14 Jan 2007 from Pinus radiata - Wikipedia
    5. Anonymous "Paleo Slide Set: Tree Rings: Ancient Chronicles of Environmental Change " NOAA Paleoclimatology. Updated 20 Jul 2004. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from Paleoclimatology | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)
    6. Anonymous "Pine" Wikipedia. Updated 14 Jan 2007. accessed 14 Jan 2007 from Pine - Wikipedia
    7. Anonymous "Ponderosa Pine" Wikipedia. Updated 9 Jan 2007. accessed 14 Jan 2007 from Pinus ponderosa - Wikipedia
    8. Anonymous "Prometheus (tree)" Wikipedia. updated 7 Jan 2007. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from Prometheus (tree) - Wikipedia
    9. Batten, Don, "Tree ring dating (dendrochronology)" Creation on the Web. undated. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/2441
    10. Cope, Amy B., "SPECIES: Pinus radiata - Introductory" USDA Forest Service. Undated. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from http://www.fs.fed.us/...ase/feis/plants/tree/pinrad/all.html
    11. Howard, Janet L., "SPECIES: Pinus aristata - Introductory" USDA Forest Service. 2004. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from http://www.fs.fed.us/...ase/feis/plants/tree/pinari/all.html
    12. Howard, Janet L., "SPECIES: Pinus longaeva - Introductory" USDA Forest Service. 2004. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from http://www.fs.fed.us/...ase/feis/plants/tree/pinlon/all.html
    13. Martinez, Lori, "Useful Tree Species for Tree-Ring Dating" Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona. updated Oct 2001. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from Useful Tree Species for Tree-Ring Dating
    14. Miller, Leonard, "Growth Characteristics" Sonic.net/bristlecone. Updated 2 Jan 2005. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from Bristlecone Growth
    15. Reimer, Paula J. et al, "INTCAL04 Terrestrial Radiocarbon Age Calibration, 0–26 CAL KYR BP" Radiocarbon, Volume 46, Issue 3, Pages v-1334 (March 2004), pp. 1029-1058(30). accessed 10 Jan 2007 Not Found

  • I have taken out parts that refer to later evidence, and we can go back to those when we come to that evidence.
    The net result of Don Batten's work is
    • he badly misrepresents the status of Pinus radiata as closely related when it is in a different subgenus, it has been cultivated by the timber industry for fast growth (ie selected for false ring growth) and grows in an entirely different ecology. For someone with his status as a plant biologist this is inexcusable unless his purpose is to deceive gullible and ignorant people and he is not worried about scientific truth in this article (which is not peer reviewed).
    • he claims that false rings cannot be found, then claims that he found 5 false rings in one specimen. These claims are mutually exclusive and one or the other must be totally false.
    • he provides false information about how false rings are found, neglecting to mention the method used in the science to account for this issue.
    • he neglects to mention at all a similar issue of missing rings that result in the ages appearing younger than they really are.
    • he neglects to provide his data and methodology as a true scientist would in a real scientific paper, and the only reason for not providing them is to hide the facts of how he determined the numbers of false rings.
    • he falsely implies that dendrochronologists don't take false rings and missing rings into account in building chronologies.
    In other words Don Batten on this one article has shown that when he is writing for creatortionista websites that he is a completely unreliable source that willingly provide false witness to deceive gullible and ignorant people.
    In other words two things:
    (1) false tree rings (and missing rings) are a known phenomenon in dendrochronology and a scientific methodology has been developed to eliminate their effect from the chronologies, and
    (2) Don Batten actually demonstrates how effective this methodology is when he uses it to determine the number of false rings in his samples
    The tree rings record not only age but climate variations (mild winters, long summers, etc) and that the dendrochronologies take this into account in matching samples. The two trees - "metusula" and "prometeus" - match for climate data as well as for age, even though they come from different groves on different mountains, thus validating the rings (along with samples from other trees in several groves). Dendrochronologies are not based on single samples but hundreds with a lot of duplication to completely rule out false and missing rings. Finally, the age for "prometheus" is a minimum age because the center of the tree is missing, the tree was so badly weathered that the core was gone. We will come back to the issue of correlations between data more as we go farther.
    Still, MIMIMUM CONFIRMED AGE OF THE EARTH = 2,880 + 2007 = 4887 years old, with no possible WW flood in that time
    Ready to move on or do you have more about the reliability of tree ring dating ... hopefully from a valid or reliable source?
    Enjoy.
    ps -- this seems longer than it really is. The important information is:
  • Don Batten's article is false and misleading and he actually confirms the validity of dendochronology.
  • There is another tree with the same age
  • Both Trees correlate for climate and age
  • S1WC's response
    Message 85
    quote:
    ps -- this seems longer than it really is
    Yes, you'll have to understand that I am a busy person and if posts continue to be this large, I may not be able to debate more with you than a few points before school starts up again... Notice my rebutals take only a couple sentences and possibly a quote, wheras your rebutal requires a whole essay to make it seem as if you really have a strong rebutal, when in reality, your argument is still weak and some MAIN points are purposely avoided. This I will attempt to show here, briefly:
    quote:
    He is talking here about the "Methuselah" tree[2], with an estimated germination date of 2,832 years BCE, while ignoring the slightly older "Prometheus" tree that was cut down in 1964. "Prometheus," also known as specimen WPM-114, was 4,844 years old at the time of cutting for an estimated germination date of 2,880 BCE)[8]; this not only duplicates the age shown by the "Methuselah" tree, but extends it a bit further. Nor does he address the issue of all the other trees used to build the Bristlecone Pine chronology, ones from other areas
    I think that this example of false rings in one species is decently enough to cast doubt on the dates of other tree species. Why? Well you're missing an important point, we as Creationists believe that the "kind" which is referenced in Genesis is much broader than the contemporary "species", which would mean that it is possible that an example from one "family" (possibly even broader) of trees would be enough to cast doubt on the dating of all those trees.
    Also, I imagine that as a dendrochronologist, if one were dealing with a very old tree, they would try to count up enough rings to get the oldest tree, because it would bring them fame, and this can bring error in counting false rings. Remember, humans are fallible, especially in science when funds and acceptance depend on the "common" mindset of evolution.
    quote:
    in a different environment
    Hmmm... I wonder if the Flood would be considered a different environment, and the directly post-Flood conditions-possible ice ages, etc. You must realize that the environment was not always the same, right after the Flood the conditions could be unstable for years...
    quote:
    The intentional mis-direction is to a completely different species - in a different subgenus and that grows in a different environment - with the stated implication that they are the same.
    Refer to above for first part, but he did not say they were the same exact species or subgenus, he said they were the same genus, and as I stated above, the Biblical kind can be as broad as family or beyond...
    quote:
    He knows his maximum error found occurred in a single year, not just an average error based on the total life of the tree - which is the only information he would have if he were totally unable to distinguish false rings from real ones.
    This may be, but if there is error in ANY number, in ANY species, I think it is well enough to cast doubt on the dates using this method. Of course, it only casts doubt on some of the dates, not totally debunk any usuage of the method with corrections for the false rings and hidden rings, etc. What we are debating here is a certain example, an example which is a bit old, not the whole method, so I think we could move on or else not get much anywhere.
    quote:
    That Dr. Batten knows that there were "up to five rings per year" (emphasis mine) of false rings produced in the specimens he sampled shows that he could indeed find, measure, locate, distinguish and identify them in spite of any claims to the contrary.
    Yes, perhaps it is easier to find false rings when the date goes against your belief, or in the case of the old examples-when the date could "debunk" your opponenets' beliefs if you measured a bit less carefully...
    quote:
    The issue of false rings does not invalidate the existing dendrochronologies, as false rings - and other problems - can, and have been, identified by the scientists. They have been accounted for by cross-reference and by duplication of climate and chronological results in different species.
    Cross-references may be a bit difficult when you are dealing with only a handful of specimens which are as old as they are said to be...
    quote:
    Even Dr. Batten was able to distinguish false rings in his samples and thus would be able to account for them in constructing a chronology from his choice of species if he were so inclined.
    I do not think that after such a find he would trust this as the best method to use...
    I must wonder, are you manipulating the data to fit your argument? You quoted http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/2441 but didn't include these quotes from the SAME article: * "Creationists have shown that the Biblical kind is usually larger than the ”species’ and in many cases even larger than the ’genus’ ” see my article Ligers and wholphins? What next?." and * "Considering that the immediate post-Flood world would have been wetter with less contrasting seasons until the Ice Age waned (see Q&A: Ice Age), many extra growth rings would have been produced in the Bristlecone pines (even though extra rings are not produced today because of the seasonal extremes). Taking this into account would bring the age of the oldest living Bristlecone Pine into the post-Flood era."
    I must seriously doubt your whole argument just from this cover up of replies to your attacks in the same article that you quoted...
    quote:
    he claims that false rings cannot be found
    Does he say they cannot possibly be found, or just difficult to find?...
    quote:
    he provides false information about how false rings are found, neglecting to mention the method used in the science to account for this issue.
    Perhaps these methods would be abandoned when dealing with the possibly oldest living tree which would bring you great fame? Humans are fallible, especially when it comes to fame...
    quote:
    he neglects to mention at all a similar issue of missing rings that result in the ages appearing younger than they really are.
    Of course, it would not support his argument, but that does not mean that it doesn't exist! When you write something, you do not want to confuse your readers... I'm sure that any one of us, as fallible humans, is fully capable of doing this as I have just demonstrated what you did with your quote...
    quote:
    he neglects to provide his data and methodology as a true scientist would in a real scientific paper, and the only reason for not providing them is to hide the facts of how he determined the numbers of false rings.
    Perhaps this is so, but consider the above post and your own hiding used in your quote...
    quote:
    he falsely implies that dendrochronologists don't take false rings and missing rings into account in building chronologies.
    This is merely a restatement of the point 3 points above
    quote:
    Still, MIMIMUM CONFIRMED AGE OF THE EARTH = 2,880 + 2007 = 4887 years old, with no possible WW flood in that time
    Still, tree ring dating is in doubt when such and similar situations occur.
    quote:
    Ready to move on or do you have more about the reliability of tree ring dating ... hopefully from a valid or reliable source?
    I'm always ready to move on, considering the limited time and will power I have... But it seems we could debate this one point the whole summer and not get anywhere. I suggest this, we do it here like I did with Anglagard, you post your Old Age Correlations one by one, and I make one rebutal to each, we do this until we reach the end of your list, then you go through and say anything that you have against my rebutal and I what I have against that, through the whole list, repeat. So that way we can get throught the whole list in the summer with at least one claim/rebutal each. What do you say?
    Peace.
    Off topic, but is that your picture?
    My response was previously given as Message 86, but I have deleted it from there and replaced it with the message to continue here. What follows is my response copied verbatim from message 86 before the last edit:

    Notice my rebutals take only a couple sentences and possibly a quote, wheras your rebutal requires a whole essay to make it seem as if you really have a strong rebutal, when in reality, your argument is still weak and some MAIN points are purposely avoided. This I will attempt to show here, briefly:
    Your "rebuttals" are just off the cuff remarks. In contrast mine are substantiated by facts, hence the difference in lengths.
    This is a science thread, and that means substantiating your argument. Off the cuff comments don't cut it.
    I think that this example of false rings in one species is decently enough to cast doubt on the dates of other tree species. Why? Well you're missing an important point, we as Creationists believe that the "kind" ...
    This may be, but if there is error in ANY number, in ANY species, I think it is well enough to cast doubt on the dates using this method. Of course, it only casts doubt on some of the dates, not totally debunk any usuage of the method with corrections for the false rings and hidden rings, etc. What we are debating here is a certain example, an example which is a bit old, not the whole method, so I think we could move on or else not get much anywhere.
    Yes, perhaps it is easier to find false rings when the date goes against your belief, or in the case of the old examples-when the date could "debunk" your opponenets' beliefs if you measured a bit less carefully...
    Still, tree ring dating is in doubt when such and similar situations occur.
    And you are completely ignoring the point that all the false rings were easily identified as such, therefor the dendrochronology can be corrected for them. It doesn't matter what shinola spin you put on kinds or whatnot: false rings do not invalidate the chronologies. The fact that Don Batten identified every one validates the process.
    You also ignore the fact that he is telling you falsehoods: that makes what he says unreliable. That you put trust in someone who has been demonstrated to be unreliable just show your gullibility and your carelessness. I've told you before that you rely too much on creatortionista sites that are out to fool the gullible. The more you rely on people like Don Batten without validating the information in the real world the more gullible that makes you.
    But didn't include these quotes from the SAME article: *
    Yes, I included enough to show that Don Batten misleads, misrepresents the truth and presents falsehoods. Why then should anyone interested in the truth read anything more from him? Falsehoods are falsehoods, and unreliable means that you can not trust what he says. You claim to be interested in the truth, yet here you are making excuses for someone who has hid the truth in favor of falsehoods. This is how you have come to perpetuate falsehoods on your own site: you are careless with the truth.
    Also, I imagine that as a dendrochronologist, if one were dealing with a very old tree, they would try to count up enough rings to get the oldest tree, because it would bring them fame, and this can bring error in counting false rings. Remember, humans are fallible, especially in science when funds and acceptance depend on the "common" mindset of evolution.
    This is known as an ad hominum argument and it is a logical fallacy. It alsoe does not deal with the evidence. We have yet to come to the dendrochronology based on Bristlecone Pines, but the age of the oldest tree has nothing to do with the validity of the chronology because it is built up from overlapping trees. Try to deal with the evidence. This is just another baseless off the cuff comment that shows denial of evidence rather than an effort to confront the reality of the facts.
    Hmmm... I wonder if the Flood would be considered a different environment, and the directly post-Flood conditions-possible ice ages, etc. You must realize that the environment was not always the same, right after the Flood the conditions could be unstable for years...
    This is known as an ad hoc argument -- like I said above, your "rebuttals" are just off the cuff remarks. In this case fantasy. First you need to provide evidence that there was a global flood, then you need to provide evidence for when it occurred, THEN you could talk about some possible different environment effects.
    Cross-references may be a bit difficult when you are dealing with only a handful of specimens which are as old as they are said to be...
    I do not think that after such a find he would trust this as the best method to use...
    I'm always ready to move on, considering the limited time and will power I have...
    What you think is irrelevant. You need to deal with the evidence and not create off the cuff comments to hide your denial. The problem is that the chronology is based on a continuous record of living trees overlapping in time. It is based on many trees from several different sites and multiple samples from trees to rule out errors. At no time is this record interrupted by any such flood. Lets look at what the full chronology reveals:
    [color=tan]Dendrochronology (7)
    quote:
    Simply put, dendrochronology is the dating of past events (climatic changes) through study of tree ring growth. Botanists, foresters and archaeologists began using this technique during the early part of the 20th century. Discovered by A.E. Douglass from the University of Arizona, who noted that the wide rings of certain species of trees were produced during wet years and, inversely, narrow rings during dry seasons.
    Each year a tree adds a layer of wood to its trunk and branches thus creating the pict of cells annual rings we see when viewing a cross section. New wood grows from the cambium layer between the old wood and the bark. In the spring, when moisture is plentiful, the tree devotes its energy to producing new growth cells. These first new cells are large, but as the summer progresses their size decreases until, in the fall, growth stops and cells die, with no new growth appearing until the next spring. The contrast between these smaller old cells and next year's larger new cells is enough to establish a ring, thus making counting possible.
    Lets say the sample was taken from a standing 4,000 year-old (but long dead) bristlecone. Its outer growth rings were compared with the inner rings of a living tree. If a pattern of individual ring widths in the two samples prove to be identical at some point, we can carry dating further into the past. With this method of matching overlapping patterns found in different wood samples, bristlecone chronologies have been established almost 9,000 years into the past.
    A number of tree samples must be examined and cross dated from any given site to avoid the possibility of all the collected data showing a missing or extra ring. Further checking is done until no inconsistency appears. Often several sample cores are taken from each tree examined. These must be compared not only with samples from other trees at the same location but also with those at other sites in the region. Additionally, the average of all data provides the best estimate of climate averages. A large portion of the effects of nonclimatic factors that occur in the various site data is minimized by this averaging scheme.
    The bristlecone pine chronology in the White Mountains currently extends back almost 9,000 years continuously. That's to 7,000 BC! Several pieces of wood have been collected that will extend this date back even further. The hope is to push the date back to at least 8,000 BC. This will be important as the last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago, and to have a record of this transition period would offer scientists a wealth of information.
    Note three things: the tree rings contain climate data, the chronology is not based on one sample but many overlapping and duplicate (from the same tree) samples, and there are other samples that have not been counted yet or that have a break in the climate data that means they are "floating" i

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     Message 3 by Someone who cares, posted 08-13-2007 12:44 AM RAZD has replied

      
    AdminPD
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    Message 2 of 15 (407433)
    06-26-2007 9:17 AM


    Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

      
    Someone who cares
    Member (Idle past 5741 days)
    Posts: 192
    Joined: 06-06-2006


    Message 3 of 15 (415942)
    08-13-2007 12:44 AM
    Reply to: Message 1 by RAZD
    06-26-2007 8:46 AM


    Back at it
    I'm finally done with most of the "ton of home improvement projects" that I told you about earlier, so I hope I can get here more often.
    quote:
    Your "rebuttals" are just off the cuff remarks. In contrast mine are substantiated by facts, hence the difference in lengths.
    This is a science thread, and that means substantiating your argument. Off the cuff comments don't cut it.
    Fact: Tree ring dating CAN be flawed because of false rings possibly going unnoticed. Don't try to tell me that tree ring dating and how it is used and the interpretations and counts are all absolutely perfect. Who invented tree ring dating?- man. Is man perfect?- no. What conclusion can we derive?- anything that man does CAN be flawed, including tree ring dating, esp. when there is the possibility of multiple rings in a season which can throw off the date. Period. What more do we need to debate here? Either you agree that man and his ways can be flawed, or we need to start debating the nature of man...
    (And just in case you're thinking that I should go first, I will: Man can be flawed, all humans can be flawed, I am a human. BUT God is not flawed, God is perfect, and HE knows everything. God inspired the writing of the BIBLE, Genesis is a Book in the Bible, Genesis says there was a Flood. I'll trust God's inspiration on this one, and believe that God knows better than us. God was there when it happened, we weren't. So if God inspired Moses(most likely) to write in Genesis that there was a literal Flood, we have reason to trust this account better than any other method of humans who never witnessed it. So if tree ring dating claims there was no Flood, I have very good reason to frown upon it, because it goes against what the Perfect One inspired Moses to write.)
    quote:
    And you are completely ignoring the point that all the false rings were easily identified as such, therefor the dendrochronology can be corrected for them. It doesn't matter what shinola spin you put on kinds or whatnot: false rings do not invalidate the chronologies. The fact that Don Batten identified every one validates the process.
    I am not ignoring the point, I am just trying to say that JUST BECAUSE FALSE RINGS -CAN- BE IDENTIFIED, IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT THEY ALWAYS WILL BE. If identifying false rings would not be in the best interest of the one (or many) who are counting, then what GUARANTEES that they would spend extra time and effort to identify all of them???
    In your quote here you make it sound simpler than it is. You said they were "easily identified", question, did you ask Don Batten how easy or not easy it was for him to identify them? Perhaps he had to put it more effort and time to find them, but had the motivation to do it because he knew that God's Word is the Truth, and anything that goes against the Truth is false. And you used the words, "every one", question, how can we be certain that those were all of them? If tree rings are very close together and require magnification to count them, how can one be certain he hasn't missed one or more? Answer- again this is relying on the fallible man and his ways, we cannot be absolutely certain.
    quote:
    You also ignore the fact that he is telling you falsehoods: that makes what he says unreliable. That you put trust in someone who has been demonstrated to be unreliable just show your gullibility and your carelessness. I've told you before that you rely too much on creatortionista sites that are out to fool the gullible. The more you rely on people like Don Batten without validating the information in the real world the more gullible that makes you.
    You have not yet demonstrated that he is telling us a falsehood. We are not yet finished debating. I still do not see it as a falsehood, the guy found a handful of false rings and said it could make the age younger, so we can't really completely rely on tree ring dating.
    quote:
    Yes, I included enough to show that Don Batten misleads, misrepresents the truth and presents falsehoods. Why then should anyone interested in the truth read anything more from him? Falsehoods are falsehoods, and unreliable means that you can not trust what he says. You claim to be interested in the truth, yet here you are making excuses for someone who has hid the truth in favor of falsehoods. This is how you have come to perpetuate falsehoods on your own site: you are careless with the truth.
    Why? Because you would of had the answer to your questions, what you did is sort the information and only give us that which would benefit you- not that which would give an answer to your own questions, so you demonstrated the fallability of man.
    quote:
    This is known as an ad hominum argument and it is a logical fallacy. It alsoe does not deal with the evidence. We have yet to come to the dendrochronology based on Bristlecone Pines, but the age of the oldest tree has nothing to do with the validity of the chronology because it is built up from overlapping trees. Try to deal with the evidence. This is just another baseless off the cuff comment that shows denial of evidence rather than an effort to confront the reality of the facts.
    No, this is a very important point. It demonstrates the fallability of man and questions how reliable fallible humans can be. I AM dealing with the evidence, the "evidence" relies on fallible man's counting of tiny rings, and this point questions the validity of saying this method is perfect when it relies on fallible man who is influenced by many factors. Let me repeat- THE "EVIDENCE" IS IN THE COUNTING, AND WHO DOES THE COUNTING? - FALLIBLE MAN! This is my whole point, to say that this method can be flawed because it is performed by fallible humans.
    quote:
    This is known as an ad hoc argument -- like I said above, your "rebuttals" are just off the cuff remarks. In this case fantasy. First you need to provide evidence that there was a global flood, then you need to provide evidence for when it occurred, THEN you could talk about some possible different environment effects.
    I've been trying to do this but it keeps getting ignored. How many times have I repeated the upright petrified trees and whales in the strata?? This is evidence for the Flood, and it should not be ignored.
    What does the time that it happened have to do with the possible environmental factors? I believe that for this particular point, evidence that it occurred is enough to discuss the environmental changes. But if you really want, here is a link to a site that shows the Biblical evidence of when the Flood occurred: Timeline for the Flood | Answers in Genesis
    quote:
    What you think is irrelevant. You need to deal with the evidence and not create off the cuff comments to hide your denial. The problem is that the chronology is based on a continuous record of living trees overlapping in time. It is based on many trees from several different sites and multiple samples from trees to rule out errors. At no time is this record interrupted by any such flood. Lets look at what the full chronology reveals:
    Again, as I read the article I found that there is room for fallacy. The article said that the 9,000 year old tree was dated going from one tree to another comparing sections of the rings. It said that they had to be EXACTLY duplicate parts to establish a connection. This begs the question- who is determining whether or not the sections are EXACT duplicates?- man, and is man fallible?- yes.
    Also, why only sections of the tree? Are these sections just taken randomly and their pair is searched for? Or does there have to be a certain pattern, such as, if tree A seems older than tree B, then the first part of tree B should match the last part of tree A, not just any part taken from the tree.
    quote:
    Note three things: the tree rings contain climate data, the chronology is not based on one sample but many overlapping and duplicate (from the same tree) samples, and there are other samples that have not been counted yet or that have a break in the climate data that means they are "floating" in the chronology somewhere beyond the end of the continuous record. Adding up all the time recorded by these tree rings would give us a minimum age of the earth for all those years to have passed that generated the rings. We'll be minimalist here and say:
    Notice three important thing about the whole method- FALLIBLE humans do the counting, FALLIBLE humans establish the "connections", FALLIBLE humans determine whether or not two samples contain parts that are "identical" and use that to try to connect the trees together and give an age of 9,000.
    -That the tree rings contain climate data- GREAT! But if fallible man is doing the counting, we cannot establish with certainty the dates of the trees.
    -That there can be taken overlapping samples from the same tree- GREAT! But that can only make the samples on a single tree have a little more credibility that there wasn't error in the process of removing the core, but who does the counting and who establishes the "links"?- FALLIBLE MAN.
    -That there is more data waiting for us to discover- GREAT! But that doesn't really help right now, does it?
    Thus that minimum age of 8,000 is still not guaranteed.
    quote:
    As noted previously this dendrochronology has been corrected for false rings (false older age) and missing rings (false younger age) based on cross referencing samples from two closely related species from several different locations. This is more than just a couple of trees, it is a forest.
    Sounds like a couple of trees to me. Pick and choose a tree here, a tree there, and wow!- a "correlation".
    quote:
    That is what we are doing, except that in the process I also show your off the cuff comments to be groundless and based on wishful thinking rather than fact and logic. Thus we don't need to return to them.
    Deal with reality: face the facts. There is a lot more coming.
    Well, we may as well stick to this one point this whole summer, because I'm not letting up...

    "If you’re living like there is no God you’d better be right!" - Unknown

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 1 by RAZD, posted 06-26-2007 8:46 AM RAZD has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 4 by RAZD, posted 08-13-2007 1:56 PM Someone who cares has replied

      
    RAZD
    Member (Idle past 1395 days)
    Posts: 20714
    From: the other end of the sidewalk
    Joined: 03-14-2004


    Message 4 of 15 (416043)
    08-13-2007 1:56 PM
    Reply to: Message 3 by Someone who cares
    08-13-2007 12:44 AM


    Re: Back at it

    GREAT DEBATE S1WC and RAZD only

    Welcome back, S1WC.
    You will forgive me if I only reply to the arguments that deal with the evidence and leave what I consider ad hoc self justifications for your opinions to be automatically taken care of in the course of dealing with the evidence. If you feel the need to come back to anything later we can do that.
    Fact: Tree ring dating CAN be flawed because of false rings possibly going unnoticed. Don't try to tell me that tree ring dating and how it is used and the interpretations and counts are all absolutely perfect. Who invented tree ring dating?- man.
    I am not ignoring the point, I am just trying to say that JUST BECAUSE FALSE RINGS -CAN- BE IDENTIFIED, IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT THEY ALWAYS WILL BE.
    Nobody said tree ring dating was infallible, the relevant questions are: what are the sources of error, can they all be identified, can the methodology be ground-truthed against known information, and how common are the different kinds of errors. That is the way scientists tackle the problem versus saying "oh look, it's imperfect, therefore we can't use it at all" (which is the way creatortionistas deal with the evidence -- willful ignorance).
    Both the species of Bristlecone Pine would not have the same numbers of false rings and missing rings, as they grow in different locations and environments, and yet the chronology that is built from their evidence is consistent from one to the other. Consistent because false rings and missing rings have been accounted for by the honest scientists.
    So how do the scientists deal with these problems? Here is information from an on-line slide show on dendrochronology - pay particular attention to slide 6 on false rings and how they are distinguished from true annual rings, slide 7 on partial or locally absent rings, slide 8 on sampling techniques, slide 16 on bristlecone pine, and slide 17 on correlation of rings to days of precipitation:
    Paleoclimatology | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) (1)
    Pay particular attention to slide 6 on false rings and how they are distinguished from true annual rings, slide 7 on partial or locally absent rings, slide 8 on sampling techniques, slide 16 on bristlecone pine, and slide 17 on correlation of rings to days of precipitation.
    quote:
    (Slide 6)Under certain climatic conditions, some species will form intra-annual or false rings . If climatic conditions are unfavorable to growth during the growing season, the tree may mistakenly sense that the end of the season is near, and produce dark, thick-walled latewood cells. Improved conditions will cause the tree to produce lighter, thinner-walled cells once again, until the true end of the season. The resulting annual ring looks like two rings, but when this first ring is closely inspected it can be identified as false because the latewood boundary grades back into the earlywood. False rings occur in a number of species such as the Mexican cypress pictured here. Young ponderosa pines in southeastern Arizona commonly contain false rings as well. In this region, winter and early spring rains provide moisture to trees in the early part of the growing season. By May and June, the driest part of the year, trees have used up the available moisture and, if stressed enough, will begin to produce latewood cells. However, monsoon moisture usually begins to fall in July, and with this moisture, trees will again produce earlywood cells.
    (Slide 7)Under other climate conditions, trees may produce only a partial ring or may fail to produce a ring at all. This may occur in a year in which conditions for growth are particularly harsh. These rings are called locally absent or missing rings and are commonly found in trees which are extremely sensitive to climate. ... This ring gets pinched between the rings to the left and right of it and is not visible at all in the lower portion of the slide. Very old and/or stressed trees may also produce very small, barely visible rings only a few cells wide which are called micro-rings. Because of the occurrence of false, locally absent, micro, and missing rings, it is especially important to prepare surfaces carefully and use the technique of crossdating to ensure exact calendar year dates for individual rings.
    (Slide 8)The work of a dendrochronologist starts with the collection of samples in the field. The particular problem being addressed will dictate site and tree selection so that trees sampled are sensitive to the environmental variable of interest. ... Most commonly, tree-ring samples are collected using a hand-held increment borer to remove a small core of wood roughly 5mm in diameter from the trunk of the tree, ideally from bark to pith. ...Usually, two cores are taken from each tree to facilitate crossdating and to reduce the effects of ring-width variations related to differences in the two sides of the tree. The number of trees sampled from the site depends on how sensitive the trees are to the environment, but the average is about 20-30 trees.
    Ponderosa Pines, for the record, are in the same subgenus - Pinus - as the Moneterey Pine (2,3), and the Ponderosa Pine dendrochronology correlates for climate with the Bristlecone Pine chronology in spite of being known to produce more false rings.
    Of particular note is the cause of false rings with specific reference to the type of environmental conditions that would prevail in certain locations with the Monterey Pine, Pinus radiata, used by Dr. Batten. By contrast the conditions that prevail for the Bristlecone pine, Pinus longaeva, are more likely to produce missing or micro rings, a condition that would make the trees appear younger than they really are.
    Notice the use of multiple samples from multiple sources to control for error caused by human fallibility.
    You have not yet demonstrated that he is telling us a falsehood. We are not yet finished debating. I still do not see it as a falsehood, the guy found a handful of false rings and said it could make the age younger, so we can't really completely rely on tree ring dating.
    But you are not paying attention. Dr. Batten makes this one claim of note regarding tree rings:
    " ... up to five rings per year can be produced and extra rings are often indistinguishable, even under the microscope, from annual rings. "
    You can't distinguish the extra rings but you can distinguish exactly 5 extra rings in one sample. Riiiiight. Face it -- he is not telling you the truth one way or the other. Notice he also does not say how often the false rings occur (1% of the time?) nor provide any data to back up his assertions or to allow others to review those results. What is he hiding? The truth?
    If identifying false rings would not be in the best interest of the one (or many) who are counting, then what GUARANTEES that they would spend extra time and effort to identify all of them???
    What guarantees that they spend the time and effort to do a complete job from start to finish is the scientific review process. The results are published along with the data and the methodology used and fellow scientists review the information. They put their professional names on the line, something Dr Batten hasn't done. You can see some of this in the IntCal04 article (6) quoted below, but suffice it to say that the review process is much more rigorous than any ground-truthing or validation of Dr. Batten's article on the part of AiG or any other creatortionista outfit.
    It is hilarious that - without having any evidence for it - you imply a massive on-going world-wide conspiracy (" would not be in the best interest of the one") on the part of scientists to provide false information when you absolve Dr Batten of this in spite of actually having evidence of his falsehoods. Hypocrisy anyone? And you claim to be in search of truth.
    But enough of the dubious value of Dr Batten, and ignoring (for now) all your other ad hoc arguments from incredulity etc (per paragraph 1 above), let's move on to the next bunch of evidence and add it to the mix:

    European Oaks

    My recollection is that dendrochronology started with oak trees in Europe, by setting up a database of oak tree sections from archaeological sites and matching different sections that overlapped in time to build a complete lineage of tree ring dates.
    The common name for this species is "Post Oak" due to its natural resistance to rot thus making a good material for posts in ancient constructions. This also means that there are a lot of samples that are referenced to and associated with archaeological finds, finds that can be dated by other means, including historical documents as far back as the history goes.
    Useful Tree Species for Tree-Ring Dating (5)
    quote:
    Oak is a highly preferred species to use in dendrochronology - in fact, the longest continuous tree-ring chronology anywhere in the world was developed in Europe and is currently about 10,000 year in length. This chronology is providing scientists new insights on climate over the past 10,000 years, especially at the end of the last Glacial Maximum.
    Because ring-porous species almost always begin annual growth with this initial flush, missing rings are rare in such species as oak and elm. In fact, the only recorded instance of a missing ring in oak trees occurred in the year 1816, also known as the Year Without a Summer. A volcanic eruption in the year 1815 caused much cooler temperatures globally, thus causing oak trees to remain dormant. Therefore, no clear annual ring was formed in 1816 for certain locations in Europe.
    Occasionally, offsets in oak tree rings can be problematic when trying to crossdate the rings. Dendrochronologists therefore must be careful when working with oak species, as these rays can cause a misdate of one year.
    Note that sources of error are identified and accounted for. Crossdating is one method to check for errors. Another is to build two independent chronologies from the same species in two different locations. For an idea of the accuracy of the data and the amount of error involved we have this:
    Not Found (6)
    quote:
    The Holocene part of the 14C calibration is based on several millennia-long tree-ring chronologies, providing an annual, absolute time frame within the possible error of the dendrochronology, which was rigorously tested by internal replication of many overlapping sections. Whenever possible, they were cross-checked with independently established chronologies of adjacent regions. The German and Irish oak chronologies were cross-dated until back into the 3rd millennium BC (Pilcher et al. 1984), and the German oak chronologies from the Main River, built independently in the Gttingen and Hohenheim tree-ring laboratories, cross-date back to 9147 cal BP (Spurk et al. 1998).
    Due to periodic narrow rings caused by cockchafer beetles, some German oak samples were excluded from IntCal98. Analysis of these tree rings, with an understanding of the response of trees to the cockchafer damage, allowed some of these measurements to be re-instated in the chronology (Friedrich et al., this issue).
    The relation between North American and European wood has been studied using bristlecone pine (BCP) and European oak (German oak and Irish oak), respectively. Discrepancies have become evident over the years, in particular when the German oak was corrected by a dendro-shift of 41 yr towards older ages (Kromer et al. 1996). Attempts were made to resolve the discrepancies by remeasuring BCP samples, measured earlier in Tucson (Linick et al. 1986). The University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research provided dendrochronologically dated bristlecone pine samples to Heidelberg (wood from around 4700 and 7600 cal BP), Groningen (around 7500 cal BP), Pretoria (around 4900 cal BP), and Seattle (around 7600 cal BP). The replicate measurements have a mean offset of 37 6 14C yr (n = 21) from the Tucson measurements.
    There was not a large difference in the calculated k values between early and recent measurements in the Belfast lab for the Irish oak samples when the previously applied laboratory error multiplier on the more recent data set is considered; however, the early measurements of German oak were more variable than those of Irish oak. The recent Heidelberg data sets had smaller k values than older measurements. The reason for the early variation is partly due to the fact that these samples were measured to help place a tree in the dendrochronology as it was being built instead of measured consecutively, and also because many of these samples contain only a few tree rings but are being compared to decadal samples.
    Uncertainty in single-ring cal ages for dendrochronologically-dated wood is on the order of 1 yr for highly replicated and cross-checked chronologies and is therefore ignored in the analysis.
    There are several things to note here. First, is that there are three (3) main chronologies: one of Bristlecone Pine and two of European Oak, one German and one Irish. Second, is that originally one oak chronology was "not good enough" to be included in the IntCal98 - because it was off by 41 years in (then) ~8,000 years, an error of 0.5%. Third, is that when one oak chronology was corrected, it was not the odd one out, but the one that previously agreed with the Bristlecone Pine chronology. Fourth, now the Bristlecone Pine chronology is now considered "not good enough" - because it is off by 37 years in ~7600 years, an error of 0.5%. Fifth, that where some German Oak samples had been placed by carbon-14 levels in the earlier chronology (used in IntCal98) these are now placed by additional tree samples that fill in the consecutive chronology (and these initial carbon-14 levels are not now used to place those samples). Finally, that the European Oak absolute chronology now extends back to 9,147 years BP with cross dating and including all three in one data set means that the error involved is on the order of 0.5% - over the whole period of time covered. The IntCal04 discussion doesn't give the breakdown on the actual ages of each chronology, but it refers to a paper that does.
    Content Not Found: Ingenta Connect (abstract) (4)
    The combined oak and pine tree-ring chronologies of Hohenheim University are the backbone of the Holocene radiocarbon calibration for central Europe. Here, we present the revised Holocene oak chronology (HOC) and the Preboreal pine chronology (PPC) with respect to revisions, critical links, and extensions. Since 1998, the HOC has been strengthened by new trees starting at 10,429 BP (8480 BC). Oaks affected by cockchafer have been identified and discarded from the chronology.
    These are just three examples of dendrochronologies, the three that happen to be the longest absolute chronologies. There are many species of trees used for dendrochronology, and many different chronologies. Several chronologies are "floating" - do not have a fixed begin date - and many of those are older than the dates discussed here. All the species show the same trends in world climate whenever they overlap. The climatological trends correlate the ages from one species to the others, thus any errors that would invalidate dendrochronology would need to apply to each (and all) species in each (and all) locations at the same time. Here we need only discuss the three long absolute chronologies and how they validate each other.
    Now we have a problem for YEC people, because not only do these different chronologies cover the same time, they also have the same pattern of climate shown in their tree rings even though they come from opposite sides of the earth and are in very different kinds of trees, one evergreen living at high altitudes and one deciduous living near sea levels, and anything that can cause errors in one system has to have a method that can cause exactly the same error in the other at exactly the same time. Positing false rings does not accomplish this. All three sets also show the "little ice age" and other marker events at the same ages. They all come to the same age for the matching climate data. We can be minimalist here, and say that the minimum age covered by the European Oak chronology is 10,429 years BP - 0.5% = 10,377 years BP. "BP" means "Before Present" and is defined as years before 1950, so this is really 10,434 years ago (in 2007).

    Minimum age of the earth > 10,434 years based on this data.

    This is now older than most if not all YEC models for the age of the earth.
    This also means that there was absolutely NO world wide flood (WWF) during those 10,434 years, as there would be no possible overlap of tree ring chronologies if there were some point at which ALL were dead.
    And this is still just the start: three different dendrochronologies that correlate age with climate and that match - wiggle for wiggle - within 0.5%.
    Well, we may as well stick to this one point this whole summer, because I'm not letting up...
    Feel free to stay in denial of the evidence at any time you wish, just remember that what you are dealing with is delusion not faith:
    de·lu·sion -noun1. an act or instance of deluding.
    2. the state of being deluded.
    3. a false belief or opinion: delusions of grandeur.
    4. Psychiatry. a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact: a paranoid delusion.
    But I'll also leave you this quote from "Creation Research" (another creatortionista outfit like AiG):
    The page you were looking for doesn't exist (404) (7) (it's the second abstract)
    quote:
    There presently exist several long dendrochronologies, each comprised of about 10,000 individual growth-rings. These are examined for the possibility of multiple ring growth per year in their earliest portions due to unusual climatic conditions following the Flood. It is found that the tree-ring/radiocarbon data are contrary to the suggestion of multiple ring growth. Since it seems that the Flood must have occurred before the oldest rings of these series grew, the implication is that the Flood must have occurred more than 10,000 years ago.
    Color yellow used for emPHAsis.
    Note they don't make this article freely available on line. But what we have is two articles from the creationist side of the debate that contradict each other. One of them must be wrong eh - which creationist do you choose?
    Enjoy.


    References
    1. Anonymous "Paleo Slide Set: Tree Rings: Ancient Chronicles of Environmental Change " NOAA Paleoclimatology. Updated 20 Jul 2004. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from Paleoclimatology | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)
    2. Anonymous "Ponderosa Pine" Wikipedia. Updated 9 Jan 2007. accessed 14 Jan 2007 from Pinus ponderosa - Wikipedia
    3. Anonymous "Monterey Pine" Wikipedia. Updated 12 Jan 2007. accessed 14 Jan 2007 from Pinus radiata - Wikipedia
    4. Friedrich, Michael et al, "The 12,460-Year Hohenheim Oak and Pine Tree-Ring Chronology from Central Europe”a Unique Annual Record for Radiocarbon Calibration and Paleoenvironment Reconstructions" Radiocarbon, Volume 46, Issue 3, Pages v-1334 (March 2004), pp. 1111-1122(12) accessed 17 Jan 2007 from Content Not Found: Ingenta Connect (abstract)
    5. Martinez, Lori, "Useful Tree Species for Tree-Ring Dating" Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona. Updated Oct 2001. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from Useful Tree Species for Tree-Ring Dating
    6. Reimer, Paula J. et al, "INTCAL04 Terrestrial Radiocarbon Age Calibration, 0-26 CAL KYR BP" Radiocarbon, Volume 46, Issue 3, Pages v-1334 (March 2004), pp. 1029-1058(30). accessed 10 Jan 2007 from Not Found
    7. Aardsma, Dr. Gerald E., "Tree-Rings Dating and Multiple Growth Ring Per Year." Creation Research Society Quarterly, volume 29, March 1993, pp. 184-189. Abstract accessed 13 Aug 2007 from
      The page you were looking for doesn't exist (404)
    Where possible, I have tried to follow the standard academic procedure for citing online publications. Here is a link to formal MLA style referencing.

    GREAT DEBATE S1WC and RAZD only

    Edited by RAZD, : typos
    Edited by RAZD, : .

    we are limited in our ability to understand
    by our ability to understand
    Rebel American Zen Deist
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    to share.


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    This message is a reply to:
     Message 3 by Someone who cares, posted 08-13-2007 12:44 AM Someone who cares has replied

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     Message 7 by Someone who cares, posted 08-27-2007 11:50 PM RAZD has replied

      
    Someone who cares
    Member (Idle past 5741 days)
    Posts: 192
    Joined: 06-06-2006


    Message 5 of 15 (417254)
    08-20-2007 1:06 AM


    Change of plans
    quote:
    I'm finally done with most of the "ton of home improvement projects" that I told you about earlier, so I hope I can get here more often.
    On second thought, I may not be able to get here more often... About a day after I wrote this message, I was asked to help out one of my relatives about 4 days a week at his job site till mid-September, so I will be busy...again. Sorry.

    "If you’re living like there is no God you’d better be right!" - Unknown

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    RAZD
    Member (Idle past 1395 days)
    Posts: 20714
    From: the other end of the sidewalk
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    Message 6 of 15 (417303)
    08-20-2007 7:01 AM
    Reply to: Message 5 by Someone who cares
    08-20-2007 1:06 AM


    Re: Change of plans
    No problem, reality will still be waiting when you return.
    Edited by RAZD, : .

    we are limited in our ability to understand
    by 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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    Someone who cares
    Member (Idle past 5741 days)
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    Message 7 of 15 (418405)
    08-27-2007 11:50 PM
    Reply to: Message 4 by RAZD
    08-13-2007 1:56 PM


    Re: Back at it
    Well, today's one of those few days that I don't have to work, and I'm fired up on debating, so here goes:
    quote:
    If you feel the need to come back to anything later we can do that.
    Yes, the upright trees and whales in the strata which prove the flood.
    quote:
    Nobody said tree ring dating was infallible
    Thank you. For a moment it seemed that this was just what you were implying. Now if it can be fallible, that means that the dates can be misleading too, right?
    quote:
    Pay particular attention to slide 6 on false rings and how they are distinguished from true annual rings, slide 7 on partial or locally absent rings, slide 8 on sampling techniques, slide 16 on bristlecone pine, and slide 17 on correlation of rings to days of precipitation.
    Yes, and did you compare the red and black lines in the graph on slide 17? That did not look like a good match to me, especially near the middle where one line is low and the other high... If this is how near the results are from the observed and the constructed chronologies, I have reason to doubt the validity of tree ring dating.
    quote:
    You can't distinguish the extra rings but you can distinguish exactly 5 extra rings in one sample. Riiiiight. Face it -- he is not telling you the truth one way or the other. Notice he also does not say how often the false rings occur (1% of the time?) nor provide any data to back up his assertions or to allow others to review those results. What is he hiding? The truth?
    He didn't say it is not possible, he said it is OFTEN INDISTINGUISHABLE, ie- HARD.
    He doesn't say how often false rings occur, but when I looked at your slide show, it seemed that false rings were quite a problem because it kept on saying that something has to be done to make up for the false rings. Probably 1/3 of your slides said something about this, so I figured the experts know that it is quite a problem indeed.
    Data? The data is his observation. What more do you need? Pictures?
    How do you know no one else can review those results? Have you asked?
    quote:
    What guarantees that they spend the time and effort to do a complete job from start to finish is the scientific review process.
    The "scientists" may review the method used and say they can trust the person's results, but do they go back to that same sample and recount themselves? I think not.
    quote:
    It is hilarious that - without having any evidence for it - you imply a massive on-going world-wide conspiracy (" would not be in the best interest of the one") on the part of scientists to provide false information when you absolve Dr Batten of this in spite of actually having evidence of his falsehoods.
    Evidence? The evidence for evolution is lacking! Without evidence, how else are evolutionists to brainwash all the little children in school?- lies, misrepresentations, cover-ups, partial information, etc.- sounds like a conspiracy to me...
    We have no evidence of his "falsehoods". Did he count up 5 false rings? Yes. What "falsehood" is there? If there is such a thing as false rings in trees, and any honest chronologist would admit to this, then that is all we need to verify that it is possible that someone found 5 in one tree. And if these false rings can make a tree appear older than it is, this is reason to believe that this piece of "evidence" is not suitable to use for your old age correlations. THE METHOD IS NOT TOTALLY RELIABLE!
    quote:
    let's move on to the next bunch of evidence and add it to the mix:
    What mix? Your bowl is empty!
    quote:
    My recollection is that dendrochronology started with oak trees in Europe, by setting up a database of oak tree sections from archaeological sites and matching different sections that overlapped in time to build a complete lineage of tree ring dates.
    Did you even look at your own slideshow? Slide 3 says "The father of dendrochronology is widely acknowledged to be A.E. Douglass, who came to Arizona at the turn of the 20th century as an astronomer interested in sunspots and climate." Hmmm....
    quote:
    missing rings are rare in such species as oak and elm. In fact
    Ahhh... But what about FALSE RINGS? ...silence?...
    quote:
    Oaks affected by cockchafer have been identified and discarded from the chronology.
    See how sensitive tree rings dating can be to such a thing as a beetle? What if there are OTHER, not yet identified, causes of error?
    quote:
    Minimum age of the earth > 10,434 years based on this data.
    Ahh... Shall we return to the same article I quoted earlier for more information about the fallacies of tree ring dating in general? (If you want, we can skip the false rings part since this has been discussed previously)
    "Considering that the immediate post-Flood world would have been wetter with less contrasting seasons until the Ice Age waned (see Q&A: Ice Age), many extra growth rings would have been produced in the Bristlecone pines (even though extra rings are not produced today because of the seasonal extremes)." Biblical Chronology 8,000-Year Bristlecone Pine Ring Chronology | Answers in Genesis
    I'm sure that we can extend this statement to other tree species because the Biblical 'kind' after which organisms reproduce is MUCH broader than 'species'. So the tree chronologies could all show older results, EVEN WITH YOUR MATCHING RING PATTERNS between chronologies, because until the ice age(s) passed by, more rings would be produced ALL AROUND than what is actually observed now and what is used to date them. Then with this information, you can easily see how it would be nearly impossible to find which rings happened during the ice age(s) because this would be a GLOBAL EVENT, affecting ALL THE CHRONOLOGIES! Thus any tree ring chronology could have these extra rings, and the chronologists would be unaware of this, so they would not be able to account for this.
    "Claimed older tree ring chronologies depend on the cross-matching of tree ring patterns of pieces of dead wood found near living trees. This procedure depends on temporal placement of fragments of wood using carbon-14 (14C) dating, assuming straight-line extrapolation backwards of the carbon dating. Having placed the fragment of wood approximately using the 14C data, a matching tree-ring pattern is sought with wood that has a part with overlapping 14C age and that also extends to a younger age. A tree ring pattern that matches is found close to where the carbon ”dates’ are the same. And so the tree-ring sequence is extended from the living trees backwards.
    Now superficially this sounds fairly reasonable. However, it is a circular process. It assumes that it is approximately correct to linearly extrapolate the carbon ”clock’ backwards. There are good reasons for doubting this. The closer one gets back to the Flood the more inaccurate the linear extrapolation of the carbon clock would become, perhaps radically so. Conventional carbon-14 dating assumes that the system has been in equilibrium for tens or hundreds of thousands of years, and that 14C is thoroughly mixed in the atmosphere. However, the Flood buried large quantities of organic matter containing the common carbon isotope, 12C, so the 14C/12C ratio would rise after the Flood, because 14C is produced from nitrogen, not carbon. These factors mean that early post-Flood wood would look older than it really is and the ”carbon clock’ is not linear in this period (see The Answers Book, chapter 4). The biggest problem with the process is that ring patterns are not unique. There are many points in a given sequence where a sequence from a new piece of wood match well (note that even two trees growing next to each other will not have identical growth ring patterns). Yamaguchi1 recognized that ring pattern matches are not unique. The best match (using statistical tests) is often rejected in favour of a less exact match because the best match is deemed to be ”incorrect’ (particularly if it is too far away from the carbon-14 ”age’). So the carbon ”date’ is used to constrain just which match is acceptable. Consequently, the calibration is a circular process and the tree ring chronology extension is also a circular process that is dependent on assumptions about the carbon dating system.2" Biblical Chronology 8,000-Year Bristlecone Pine Ring Chronology | Answers in Genesis
    Now here I learned something new, about the C-14 method used to place the old wood in a rough timeline, and then matches in pattern are sought after, and that CLOSER MATCHES IN PATTERN MAY BE REJECTED BASED ON THE C-14 DATE IN FAVOR OF LESS PRECISE MATCHES THAT FIT THE DATE! Here, if C-14 is involved in this method, we would have to turn the debate around to the validity of C-14, and C-14 is not a valid method!
    Plus that note that two trees growing next to each other would not have the SAME EXACT PATTERN!
    Also, that the pattern similarities ARE NOT A RARE THING! I could easily see how this is, seeing as how all that we see are the ring thicknesses, thier colors, scars and scratches, and maybe a few other observations, but on the whole- THEY ARE NOT THAT UNIQUE! Anyone can see how this would pose a problem to the whole method in general, if matches are not that difficult to make! I would imagine the evolutionists picking out the oldest matches that they can to form their chronologies, and thus they get the "old" date which is actually supposed to be MUCH YOUNGER!
    quote:
    This also means that there was absolutely NO world wide flood (WWF) during those 10,434 years, as there would be no possible overlap of tree ring chronologies if there were some point at which ALL were dead.
    Based on the above observations, we can see that this date could be MUCH younger and this would not pose a threat to the Flood.
    But I wanted to make note of one thing, it is possible that some trees, those that didn't get buried in the Flood, would float around until the Flood waters went down, and then they would reroot in the still soft sediments, and keep on growing, so it is possible that not all trees died during the flood!
    quote:
    Feel free to stay in denial of the evidence at any time you wish, just remember that what you are dealing with is delusion not faith:
    I am not denying the evidence, I am pointing out the flaws in the method, and these flaws are worth recognizing for they can knock down the age greatly.
    I'll tell you what the delusion is, delusion is waking up in the morning, looking at yourself in the mirror, seeing how symmetrical your face is and the rest of your body, and saying that a random chance process could do that!
    quote:
    But I'll also leave you this quote from "Creation Research" (another creatortionista outfit like AiG):
    The only reason they probably said this was because they didn't know the MANY FLAWS in tree ring dating and the like, so they went on compliance.
    Edited by Someone who cares, : No reason given.
    Edited by Someone who cares, : Db code
    Edited by Someone who cares, : No reason given.

    "If you’re living like there is no God you’d better be right!" - Unknown

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 4 by RAZD, posted 08-13-2007 1:56 PM RAZD has replied

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    RAZD
    Member (Idle past 1395 days)
    Posts: 20714
    From: the other end of the sidewalk
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    Message 8 of 15 (418637)
    08-29-2007 2:56 PM
    Reply to: Message 7 by Someone who cares
    08-27-2007 11:50 PM


    More Denial ... what a WASTE of bandwidth

    GREAT DEBATE S1WC and RAZD only

    Yes, the upright trees and whales in the strata which prove the flood.
    But which have nothing to do with this thread on the age of the earth. You can always start a thread any time you want to discuss something, and in that thread you can present what you think is evidence for your claim. I would love to see you do this in a regular debate thread.
    Thank you. For a moment it seemed that this was just what you were implying. Now if it can be fallible, that means that the dates can be misleading too, right?
    Not really. You are talking about two different concepts. It can be fallible by +/- 0.5% and not be misleading at all when it comes to setting a countable verifiable minimum for the real age of the earth. Likely error in the data is also part of the data and part of the result: even with the maximum error accounted for (ie - subtracted from the total) there is a minimum age provided by the data that is fact. That minimal fact is what you need to deal with.
    Yes, and did you compare the red and black lines in the graph on slide 17? That did not look like a good match to me, especially near the middle where one line is low and the other high... If this is how near the results are from the observed and the constructed chronologies, I have reason to doubt the validity of tree ring dating.
    You are grasping at straws here (and that is all you have). You are talking about the error between observed rainfall days and a reconstruction of rainfall days from tree ring climate data, not any errors in tree ring chronologies themselves.
    quote:
    A tree-ring chronology built from old, sensitive trees will reveal the common climate signal found in the trees throughout an area. The chronology, usually in the form of a time series of ring width or density indices, is calibrated with a climate record for the period of time common to both climate records and the chronology. The character of the relationship between climate and tree growth is assessed and a statistical model is derived to describe that relationship. In this figure, the total number of precipitation days in winter for a region in northern Arizona and New Mexico was reconstructed from a set of tree-ring chronologies in the southwestern United States.
    This has nothing to do with the accuracy of the tree ring data for the ages of the rings, rather it has to do with the accuracy of reconstructing climate patterns from the data. Again, the process is not infallible, there are some errors, but the overall pattern is correct.
    He didn't say it is not possible, he said it is OFTEN INDISTINGUISHABLE, ie- HARD.
    He doesn't say how often false rings occur, but when I looked at your slide show, it seemed that false rings were quite a problem because it kept on saying that something has to be done to make up for the false rings.
    It appears you have bought the lie hook line and stinker.
    What he said specifically was:
    quote:
    ...extra rings are often indistinguishable, even under the microscope, from annual rings.
    Now you know (from the slide show information) that a microscope is not what is used to identify false rings, so what he is saying is that they are often indistinguishable to the eye ... in the species Pinus radiata. Nothing more. He throws the microscope in for misdirection to imply that he is covering all the methods used to identify false rings.
    Consider that if any rings really were indistinguishable, then how did he identify each and every one of them? How then does he know they are false rings?
    He is definitely NOT saying that they cannot be identified with proper scientific techniques, such as cross-dating, techniques that he used but did not mention when finding the number of false rings in his chosen species (which does not behave similar to Bristlecone Pine -- or European Oak - another misdirection).
    He is NOT telling you how he identified the missing rings, he is NOT telling you the truth, and he doesn't provide the data to further hide the truth.
    We have no evidence of his "falsehoods". Did he count up 5 false rings? Yes. What "falsehood" is there?
    Are you really that obtuse? That gullible? You have plenty of evidence of his failure to tell the truth: when someone doesn't tell you the truth what are they telling you?
    Data? The data is his observation. What more do you need? Pictures?
    Absolutely unconditionally false: his "observation" is his conclusion, his interpretation. That is not data.
    It is (supposed to be) based on data: data that is missing, data that cannot be verified. The data would document the cores taken, the total number of trees sampled and their locations, and it would include the number of false rings to true rings for each sample, and yes pictures of the cores would be useful to allow others to reproduce his results and verify them (part of the scientific process eh?). The only thing his "observation" is data for, is his spreading of misleading and false information.
    This is material that is unreliable. It is full of erroneous and misleading information and it cannot be verified in any way.
    unreliable -adjective 1. liable to be erroneous or misleading; "an undependable generalization" [syn: undependable]
    2. not worthy of reliance or trust; "in the early 1950s computers were large and expensive and unreliable"; "an undependable assistant" [ant: dependable]
    3. dangerously unstable and unpredictable; "treacherous winding roads"; "an unreliable trestle" [syn: treacherous]
    4. lacking a sense of responsibility
    See definition #1 & #2 ...
    Probably 1/3 of your slides said something about this, so I figured the experts know that it is quite a problem indeed.
    The difference is that the scientists devise methods to determine and quantify it -- and they include this in the data.
    Slide 6 introduces false rings and the reasons for them occurring. Slide 7 states
    quote:
    Because of the occurrence of false, locally absent, micro, and missing rings, it is especially important to prepare surfaces carefully and use the technique of crossdating to ensure exact calendar year dates for individual rings. More about this later!
    This is discussing the need for careful preparation and using alternate checks on the data to ensure accuracy.
    Slide 11 states
    quote:
    Skeleton plot are used to develop a pattern of characteristic rings for each sample that can be matched from tree to tree. The pattern matching allows for the detection of missing and false rings and other dating errors and is used to ensure accurate dating.
    This is discussing skeleton plots and how they can be used to identify missing and false rings.
    So only 3 out of 20 slides (that's 1/7th not 1/3rd) mention false rings, two of which are talking about how the methods used correct for this and other sources of error. Hardly the "problem" you make it out to be eh?
    The "scientists" may review the method used and say they can trust the person's results, but do they go back to that same sample and recount themselves? I think not.
    You can "think not" all you want to, but you would be wrong. These particular chronologies have been intensely studied and reviewed from original data so that they can be used to calibrate carbon-14 dating. This is why, for example, we know that there are the minor discrepancies between the chronologies -- 37 years in 8,000 years (0.5%).
    Evidence? The evidence for evolution is lacking! Without evidence, how else are evolutionists to brainwash all the little children in school?- lies, misrepresentations, cover-ups, partial information, etc.- sounds like a conspiracy to me...
    Typical creationist non-sequitur conspiracy argument. It is amazing that such a conspiracy has been able to be carried out world wide ... ... discussion of this can be pursued at How can Biologists believe in the ToE?.
    This thread is about the age of the earth, not evolution and the evidence for it (there are other thread for discussing that, where you would be welcome to present your opinion).
    Slide 3 says "The father of dendrochronology is widely acknowledged to be A.E. Douglass, who came to Arizona at the turn of the 20th century as an astronomer interested in sunspots and climate." Hmmm....
    Likewise this is no argument at all, just a vacuous innuendo leading nowhere - wasted bandwidth (like most of your post). There is no point relating to the age of the earth or the accuracy of tree ring chronologies here. Please try to stay on topic.
    ... then that is all we need to verify that it is possible that someone found 5 in one tree. And if these false rings can make a tree appear older than it is, this is reason to believe that this piece of "evidence" is not suitable to use for your old age correlations. THE METHOD IS NOT TOTALLY RELIABLE!
    ... it's only off by 0.5% in over 8,000 years.
    Being able to find and control for errors from the data with proper methodology makes it reliable enough. That is the scientific approach.
    What you are ignoring is the correlations between the three different chronologies that match for age and climate data: these would not have such occasional errors as missing rings, false rings, etc, at the same times because they are each from different ecological systems -- how do you explain the error between 3 different dendrochronologies only being 0.5% over 8,000 years?
    What mix? Your bowl is empty!
    No the bowl is quite full -- your denial of the evidence does not make it go away, nor does your invoking "unreliable" to cover an 0.5% error over 8,000 years refute the evidence that the earth is at least 8,000 years old by each of these three independent dendrochronologies.
    You need to propose some mechanism to cause this correlation to refute it: you have not done that. You have not even begun to do that.
    Ahhh... But what about FALSE RINGS? ...silence?...
    See how sensitive tree rings dating can be to such a thing as a beetle? What if there are OTHER, not yet identified, causes of error?
    Still grasping at straws eh? False rings have already been discussed.
    The IntCal98 group omitted the oaks with the beetle damage from the calibration calculations they were working on due to the error involved: 41 years over 8,000 years (again = 0.5% error). Before IntCal04 they then went back to look over the data for those oaks and found other samples that did not have the beetle damage. The final result is that the IntCal04 group included these oaks and then omitted the Bristlecone Pine due to the error in it's chronology from the oaks (37 years in 8,000 years, once again = 0.5% error, was too much for their calibration).
    For the purposes of this comparison I have included all this data, accepting the 0.5% errors rather than the smaller error used by the IntCal98 and IntCal04 groups. I don't need greater accuracy for the purposes of this use.
    You need to explain the correlations, not just deny the evidence.
    Ahh... Shall we return to the same article I quoted earlier for more information about the fallacies of tree ring dating in general? (If you want, we can skip the false rings part since this has been discussed previously)
    "Considering that the immediate post-Flood world would have been wetter with less contrasting seasons until the Ice Age waned (see Q&A: Ice Age), many extra growth rings would have been produced in the Bristlecone pines (even though extra rings are not produced today because of the seasonal extremes)."
    Biblical Chronology 8,000-Year Bristlecone Pine Ring Chronology | Answers in Genesis
    I'm sure that we can extend this statement to other tree species because the Biblical 'kind' after which organisms reproduce is MUCH broader than 'species'. So the tree chronologies could all show older results, EVEN WITH YOUR MATCHING RING PATTERNS between chronologies, because until the ice age(s) passed by, more rings would be produced ALL AROUND than what is actually observed now and what is used to date them.
    You may think it a valid argument that can be extended to cover swamp grass for all I care: it's wrong. Wrong for one simple reason: the Bristlecone Pines grew on those mountains after the last ice age and there was no vastly wetter period of growth for all of the Bristlecone Pine chronology (which btw also records climate remember?). There is no evidence for the climate that Dr Batten proposes. Specifically there is no record in the tree rings that record climate changes for any such climate change.
    This is one of the differences between scientists and creationists: a real scientist would look for that evidence to back up his WAG ("wild ass guess") and document it, whereas creatortionistas just toss them off as if they were anything other than pure unadulterated fantasy. They aren't, and basing an argument on a false WAG assertion gives you a false WAG argument.
    Thus any tree ring chronology could have these extra rings, and the chronologists would be unaware of this, so they would not be able to account for this.
    They would be aware of the climate changes recorded in the tree rings, and oaks and pines behave differently when forming annual rings.
    But there are other reasons why this is still just false WAG assertions. We will come to those in the next set of data.
    Now here I learned something new, about the C-14 method used to place the old wood in a rough timeline, and then matches in pattern are sought after, and that CLOSER MATCHES IN PATTERN MAY BE REJECTED BASED ON THE C-14 DATE IN FAVOR OF LESS PRECISE MATCHES THAT FIT THE DATE! Here, if C-14 is involved in this method, we would have to turn the debate around to the validity of C-14, and C-14 is not a valid method!
    Another straw.
    This was done originally for the IntCal98 data for one oak chronology only -- it is not standard practice -- and it has been replaced in the IntCal04 data with additional samples that fill in the chronology. In other words this is no longer true for any of the dendrochronologies reviewed by IntCal04. The three current chronologies are independent of C-14 data.
    Also, that the pattern similarities ARE NOT A RARE THING! I could easily see how this is, seeing as how all that we see are the ring thicknesses, thier colors, scars and scratches, and maybe a few other observations, but on the whole- THEY ARE NOT THAT UNIQUE! Anyone can see how this would pose a problem to the whole method in general, if matches are not that difficult to make!
    And yet there is only 0.5% error when comparing the three different independently derived chronologies over the whole period of overlapped data - over 8,000 years of virtually identical results. You are not explaining how that happens.
    I would imagine the evolutionists picking out the oldest matches that they can to form their chronologies, and thus they get the "old" date which is actually supposed to be MUCH YOUNGER!
    Again with the conspiracy hypothesis. Now you even include creationists?
    The only reason they probably said this was because they didn't know the MANY FLAWS in tree ring dating and the like, so they went on compliance.
    Compliance with who? NOT with creationists, yet this is a creationist publication. You are failing to deal with the information -- denial is like that. Did you read the abstract at all?
    You cannot handle the fact that they concluded no false rings in the 10,000 years of the dendrochronology, so the only recourse you have is this rather pathetic denial.
    I am not denying the evidence, I am pointing out the flaws in the method, and these flaws are worth recognizing for they can knock down the age greatly.
    No, you are grasping at straws and not dealing with the evidence or the correlations between climate and age between the three independently developed dendrochronologies. Denial is like that.
    You haven't shown any flaws in the method at all. All you have done is waste a whole post to repeat your denial of the evidence.
    I'll tell you what the delusion is, delusion is waking up in the morning, looking at yourself in the mirror, seeing how symmetrical your face is and the rest of your body, and saying that a random chance process could do that!
    Again this is totally off topic here. It has nothing to do with the age of the earth and is a total waste of bandwidth. If you would like to propose a thread for discussing this aspect of evolution please do so. Please confine yourself to dealing with the information involved: it might help you to focus on it.
    But I wanted to make note of one thing, it is possible that some trees, those that didn't get buried in the Flood, would float around until the Flood waters went down, and then they would reroot in the still soft sediments, and keep on growing, so it is possible that not all trees died during the flood!
    And yet there is no evidence of a flood occurring after the last ice age at the top of the Sierra Nevadas (where the Bristlecone Pines are located). The pines grow on ice scrapped mountains.
    Another ad hoc assertion with no evidence to substantiate it, grasped desperately to allow you to deny the evidence instead of confront it for what it is: reality.
    Items to deal with:
    (1) three independent dendrochronologies that agree for climate and age for over 8,000 years.
    (2) that the Don Batten article is useless (unreliable) as a source of valid information, and it is unusable for refuting the tree ring data, rather he confirms that false rings can be properly identified.
    (3) there is a creationist article that concludes there are NO false rings in the data for tree ring ages to 10,000 years.
    (4) that the continuous tree ring combined dendrochronology means that the Minimum age of the earth > 10,434 years based on this data.
    Please concentrate on these items and stop wasting bandwidth on extraneous information and useless ad hoc thinking.
    If you have nothing to add to the debate at this point then we can move on to the next installment of data.

    GREAT DEBATE S1WC and RAZD only

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    This message is a reply to:
     Message 7 by Someone who cares, posted 08-27-2007 11:50 PM Someone who cares has not replied

      
    RAZD
    Member (Idle past 1395 days)
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    Message 9 of 15 (419364)
    09-02-2007 1:10 PM
    Reply to: Message 7 by Someone who cares
    08-27-2007 11:50 PM


    Moving on to the next batch of data - adding another correlation

    GREAT DEBATE S1WC and RAZD only

    It appears that the only position you have is that it might be theoretically possible that there were sufficient false rings generated simultaneously in three different dendrochronologies by some as yet unspecified purely hypothetical magical process related somehow to flood or pre-flood mythology to allow for a 6,000 year old date for the earth.
    I note that this is a typical creationist ad hoc argument that only deals superficially with the evidence and proposes (but does not investigate or attempt to validate) an option to make it "work" for creationism.
    The fact that such climate change necessary to enable this ad hoc proposition would show up in the tree rings (and doesn't) means that this fails at first blush to deal with all the evidence -- it doesn't take into consideration the climate data that is also locked in the tree rings by the passage of time.
    Ahh... Shall we return to the same article I quoted earlier for more information about the fallacies of tree ring dating in general? (If you want, we can skip the false rings part since this has been discussed previously)
    "Considering that the immediate post-Flood world would have been wetter with less contrasting seasons until the Ice Age waned (see Q&A: Ice Age), many extra growth rings would have been produced in the Bristlecone pines (even though extra rings are not produced today because of the seasonal extremes)." Biblical Chronology 8,000-Year Bristlecone Pine Ring Chronology | Answers in Genesis
    Now here I learned something new, about the C-14 method used to place the old wood in a rough timeline, and then matches in pattern are sought after, and that CLOSER MATCHES IN PATTERN MAY BE REJECTED BASED ON THE C-14 DATE IN FAVOR OF LESS PRECISE MATCHES THAT FIT THE DATE! Here, if C-14 is involved in this method, we would have to turn the debate around to the validity of C-14, and C-14 is not a valid method!
    I've already addressed the issue of "circular" reasoning in the previous post, but I note that you are raising the issue of carbon-14 dating.
    In order to put the issue of false rings to bed we do need to discuss carbon-14 data for the trees. In this discussion we will not be using carbon-14 dating, but the raw data that is independent of the dating methodology (and thus we avoid any issue of validity for carbon-14 dating at this time).

    Adding German Pines to the Mix

    Tree rings (and other systems of independent measurements of actual age of items) are used to calibrate the Carbon 14 dating method to make it more accurate than it is uncalibrated. The scientists doing this are very concerned with the accuracy of the data.
    NOTE: we are NOT discussing carbon 14 dating yet, just the evidence from tree-ring chronologies and the accuracy of the data. Some of this has already been discussed above, in regards to the two oak chronologies. Here we are concerned with the last of the tree-ring chronologies that we can fix to an absolute time frame.
    Not Found (10)
    quote:
    The 2 parts of the German Preboreal pine chronology (PPC), which were formerly floating, have been linked and cross-matched dendrochronologically to the absolutely-dated Holocene oak chronology. Including additional new finds, the south German part of the PPC is prolonged into the Younger Dryas and now starts at 11,993 cal BP. New pine chronologies from Switzerland and eastern Germany extend the PPC to 12,410 cal BP (Friedrich et al., this issue).
    Note that "floating" chronologies are ones where the end is not known. There are many other floating dendrochronologies that extend further into the past, but they are not discussed here as they can't be tied by climate correlations to the existing absolute dendrochronologies. Note further that the absolute European (German & Irish) Oak chronologies were discussed above, and that the accuracy of those with the Bristlecone Pine chronology was found to have an error of ~0.5% and that the Bristlecone Pine was excluded to bring the error down - there was less error between the German Oak, the Irish Oak and the German Pine chronologies. The IntCal04 discussion doesn't give the breakdown on the actual ages of each chronology.
    Content Not Found: Ingenta Connect (abstract) (6)
    The combined oak and pine tree-ring chronologies of Hohenheim University are the backbone of the Holocene radiocarbon calibration for central Europe. Here, we present the revised Holocene oak chronology (HOC) and the Preboreal pine chronology (PPC) with respect to revisions, critical links, and extensions. Since 1998, the HOC has been strengthened by new trees starting at 10,429 BP (8480 BC). Oaks affected by cockchafer have been identified and discarded from the chronology. The formerly floating PPC has been cross-matched dendrochronologically to the absolutely dated oak chronology, which revealed a difference of only 8 yr to the published 14C wiggle-match position used for IntCal98. The 2 parts of the PPC, which were linked tentatively at 11,250 BP, have been revised and strengthened by new trees, which enabled us to link both parts of the PPC dendrochronologically. Including the 8-yr shift of the oak-pine link, the older part of the PPC (pre-11,250 BP) needs to be shifted 70 yr to older ages with respect to the published data (Spurk 1998). The southern German part of the PPC now covers 2103 yr from 11,993–9891 BP (10,044–7942 BC). In addition, the PPC was extended significantly by new pine chronologies from other regions. A pine chronology from Avenches and Zürich, Switzerland, and another from the Younger Dryas forest of Cottbus, eastern Germany, could be crossdated and dendrochronologically matched to the PPC. The absolutely dated tree-ring chronology now extends back to 12,410 cal BP (10,461 BC). Therefore, the tree-ring-based 14C calibration now reaches back into the Central Younger Dryas. With respect to the Younger Dryas-Preboreal transition identified in the ring width of our pines at 11,590 BP, the absolute tree-ring chronology now covers the entire Holocene and 820 yr of the Younger Dryas.
    Note that the "Younger Dryas" - a period of significant climate change bigger than the "Little Ice Age" (and named for the pollen from the Dryas octopetala plant showing up in various sediments)(1) - now shows up in the tree-ring chronology, marked by the width of the rings.
    What they are essentially doing with all these dendrochronologies is building an overall dendrochronology independant of genus or species. The method for matching elements of some species dendrochronologies is the same as it is for matching sample elements within species dendrochronologies: they match up the patterns of climate with annual rings. So we have the German Oak running to10,429 BP and the German Pine running from 9891 BP to 12,410 BP and it overlaps the German Oak for 538 years. We can again be {minimalist\parsimonious\generous} and say that the error in this date is 0.5% (to include the Bristlecone Pine) and the minimum age then is 12,410 BP - 0.5% + (2007-1950) = 12,405 years.
    Creationists try to discredit the whole field of dendrochronology as a means to deny the massive evidence that it has compiled. Remember that this is not one tree or one species but thousands of dendrochronologies that all correlate to the same climate and annual data. A typical creationist attempt is one by Don Batten's article:
    http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/2441 (4)
    quote:
    Tree ring dating (dendrochronology) has been used in an attempt to extend the calibration of carbon-14 dating earlier than historical records allow. The oldest living trees, such as the Bristlecone Pines (Pinus longaeva) of the White Mountains of Eastern California, were dated in 1957 by counting tree rings at 4,723 years old. This would mean they pre-dated the Flood which occurred around 4,350 years ago, taking a straightforward approach to Biblical chronology.
    Recent research on seasonal effects on tree rings in other trees in the same genus, the plantation pine Pinus radiata, has revealed that up to five rings per year can be produced and extra rings are often indistinguishable, even under the microscope, from annual rings.
    This article is discussed in greater detail in another thread (Dendrochronology Fact and Creationist Fraud), however he is (a) talking about a tree selected and bred by the timber industry for fast growth, that is (b) in a different subgenus (all pines are in the genus Pinus, so this is like comparing a car with a bus as modes of transportation), (c) he doesn't discuss other sources of error that can mean the tree is older than the ring data, and finally (d) he can - and did - distinguish the false rings from the annual ones, just as dendrochronologists do ("up to five rings per year"). In fact Don Batten confirms that false rings can be readily distinguished from real annual tree rings, even when as many as 5 occur in one year. This of course means that they can be deducted from the chronology to arrive at the correct ages, and this is what the dendrochronologists do, and have done for the ones already discussed.
    Suffice it to say, the argument from Don Batten is false and misleading and does not answer the question of how all the different dendrochronologies end up with the same climate and annual ring patterns when the scientists have accounted for the known sources of errors in the different tree lines, errors that would occur at different times in different species in different locations, for different reasons, errors that add up to only 37 years in differences between the Bristlecone Pine and the European Oak chronologies after over 8,000 years of age, a difference likely due to missing tree rings in the bristlecone pines.

    Carbon-14 Levels

    Furthermore, the ages of the tree-ring data are validated by the carbon-14 levels in the samples. The "carbon-14 age" of a sample is really a measurement of the quantity of carbon-14 in the sample compared to the total carbon in the sample. This quantity measurement is then transformed by a mathematical formula based on radioactive decay into a theoretical "age," but this "age" is really just a mathematical scale for displaying the actual amount of carbon-14 in the sample. The point here is that it does not matter what creationists think about the validity of carbon-14 dating in particular, radiometric dating in general, or radioactive decay, because two samples of the same age - that lived in the same atmospheric environment and absorbed the then existing levels of atmospheric carbon-12, carbon-13 and carbon-14 (the three common isotopes) - will have the same levels of carbon-14 in the samples today. No fantastic scheme invented to change the way radioactivity works will change that simple fact, for whatever is changed in one sample is changed in all the others of the same time. Thus, when sample {A} is dated to {X} years by dendrochronology and it has level {Y} carbon-14 content, and when sample {B} is also dated to {X} years by dendrochronology and it has level {Y} carbon-14 content, the carbon-14 content validates the age - because, growing in the same environment, they could not be the same age and NOT have the same carbon-14 content.

    The Carbon-14 Environment and Tree Ring Data Correlations

    Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon.
    carbon | Infoplease (1)
    quote:
    Carbon has 13 known isotopes, which have from 2 to 14 neutrons in the nucleus and mass numbers from 8 to 20. Carbon-12 was chosen by IUPAC in 1961 as the basis for atomic weights; it is assigned an atomic mass of exactly 12 atomic mass units. Carbon-13 absorbs radio waves and is used in nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry to study organic compounds. Carbon-14, which has a half-life of 5,730 years, is a naturally occurring isotope that can also be produced in a nuclear reactor.
    The method (8)
    quote:
    Three principal isotopes of carbon occur naturally - C-12, C-13 (both stable) and C-14 (unstable or radioactive). These isotopes are present in the following amounts C12 - 98.89%, C13 - 1.11% and C14 - 0.00000000010%.
    How Carbon-14 Dating Works | HowStuffWorks (5)
    quote:
    Cosmic rays enter the earth's atmosphere in large numbers every day. For example, every person is hit by about half a million cosmic rays every hour. It is not uncommon for a cosmic ray to collide with an atom in the atmosphere, creating a secondary cosmic ray in the form of an energetic neutron, and for these energetic neutrons to collide with nitrogen atoms. When the neutron collides, a nitrogen-14 (seven protons, seven neutrons) atom turns into a carbon-14 atom (six protons, eight neutrons) and a hydrogen atom (one proton, zero neutrons). Carbon-14 is radioactive, with a half-life of about 5,700 years.
    This takes energy to accomplish, and the decay releases this energy: Carbon-14 decays back to Nitrogen-14 by beta- decay:
    Glossary Term - Beta Decay (7)
    quote:

    During beta-minus decay, a neutron in an atom's nucleus turns into a proton, an electron and an antineutrino. The electron and antineutrino fly away from the nucleus, which now has one more proton than it started with. Since an atom gains a proton during beta-minus decay, it changes from one element to another. For example, after undergoing beta-minus decay, an atom of carbon (with 6 protons) becomes an atom of nitrogen (with 7 protons).
    Thus cosmic ray activity produces a "Carbon-14 environment" in the atmosphere, where Carbon-14 is being produced or replenished while also being removed by radioactive decay due to a short half-life. This results is a variable but fairly stable proportion of atmospheric Carbon-14 for absorption from the atmosphere by plants during photosynthesis in the proportions of C-12 and C-14 existing in the atmosphere at the time.
    The level of Carbon-14 has not been constant in the past, as it is known to vary with the amount of cosmic ray bombardment and climate change. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5730 years and this can be used to calculate an apparent "C-14 age" from the proportion of C-14 to C-12 in an organic sample (that derives its carbon from the atmosphere) and this "date" can be checked against known dates to determine the amount of C-14 that was in the atmosphere:

    (Image based on calibration curvefrom Wikipedia(2) - Both images are in the public domain.)
    Note that the "C-14 age" is really a measurement of the actual ratio of C-14 to C-12 isotopes in the sample, and a comparison of that to modern day proportions.
    How Carbon-14 Dating Works | HowStuffWorks (5)
    quote:
    A formula to calculate how old a sample is by carbon-14 dating is:
    t = {ln (Nf/No)/ln (1/2)} x t1/2

    where t is the "C-14 age", ln is the natural logarithm, Nf/No is the percent of carbon-14 in the sample compared to the amount in living tissue, and t1/2 is the half-life of carbon-14.
    These calibration curves have been extended now to the limits of Carbon-14 dating, but it is also of interest to look at just the Carbon-14 calibration curve for dendrochronology - the results of matching tree-rings to Carbon-14 levels and their implied "C-14 age":
    http://www.ipp.phys.ethz.ch/.../radiocarbon/HajdasPhDthesis1993.pdf (9)
    quote:

    This means we can look at the "C-14 age" as a measurement of the Carbon-14 actually remaining in the samples from what was absorbed from the atmosphere at the time that the tree-rings were formed and note the following:
    • If there were numerous errors in the tree-ring data caused by false rings (as proposed by Dr. Don Batten), then this would show up as a steep rising "C-14 age" that would be much younger than the recorded tree-ring age. This is not the case.
    • The false rings would also have to be perfectly matched for each of the species used for the overall dendrochronology ages or the "C-14 age" for each one would be different and the line of calibration would be extremely blurred. This is not the case.

    Conclusions

    The actual amount of C-14 in the tree-ring samples match from species to species for the same ages as the tree-rings, regardless of the radioactive decay rate for carbon-14, and this validates that they formed in the same "carbon-14 environment" regardless of radioactive decay afterwards.
    Samples that get carbon-14 only from atmospheric sources while living cannot be the same age and NOT have the same carbon-14 content.
    While it is possible for samples of slightly different ages to have the same carbon-14 content (due to the variation of carbon-14 in the atmosphere over time), it is not possible for samples to be the same age and have different carbon-14 content.
    False tree-rings for each and every one of the different species that were used on the calibrations curve would have to have occurred at the same time in several different habitats, locations and environments around the world to produce simultaneous false results.
    Sufficient false rings to make a 6,000 year old earth possible would show up in the carbon-14 data as a significant rise and change in slope of the carbon-14 curve that is not supported in any way by the data: if anything the data shows a flatter curve in the past.
    False (and missing) tree-rings are readily identified by dendrochronologists due to their differences from real annual tree-rings, and this has already been done for the dendrochronologies presented: there are no massive numbers of false rings in any of the data.
    Anyone wanting to invalidate tree-rings as a viable age measurement method need to simultaneously explain the correlation of tree-rings to climate between each species and the correlation of tree-rings to carbon-14 levels absorbed in each of the tree-rings in each of the species at the same tree-ring age. This is three different systems having matching data on a year by year basis. This is highly unlikely to be done.
    The logical conclusion is that this confirms the dendrochronology age for the Bristlecone Pines, the German Oaks, the Irish Oaks and the German Pines.
    The correlation between tree ring age and the theoretical carbon-14 age also validates the carbon-14 dating method in general and improves it by calibrating it to actual carbon-14 environments in times past.

    Minimum age of the earth > 12,405 years based on this data.

    This is now older than ALL YEC models for the age of the earth that I am aware of, meaning that the YEC concept is invalidated based on tree-ring data alone.
    This also means that there was absolutely NO world wide flood (WWF) during those 12,405 years, as there would be no possible overlap of tree ring chronologies if there were some point at which ALL were dead.
    All the tree rings have to come from a time after any global flood that killed all the living trees, buried them in mud, churned the surfaces of the world into new continents and completely disrupted any links to previous growth of any similar trees.
    And we haven't even gotten to the tip of the iceberg.
    Enjoy.


    References
    1. Anonymous "Carbon: Properties and Isotopes" The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2006, Columbia University Press. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from carbon | Infoplease
    2. Anonymous "Radiocarbon Dating" Wikipedia. updated 10 Jan 2007. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from Radiocarbon dating - Wikipedia
    3. Anonymous "Younger Dryas" Wikipedia. updated 30 Dec 2006. accessed 18 Jan 2007 from Younger Dryas - Wikipedia
    4. Batten, Don, "Tree ring dating (dendrochronology)" Creation on the Web. Undated. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/2441
    5. Brain, Marshall, "How Carbon-14 Dating Works" HowStuffWorks.com. undated. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from How Carbon-14 Dating Works | HowStuffWorks
    6. Friedrich, Michael et al, "The 12,460-Year Hohenheim Oak and Pine Tree-Ring Chronology from Central Europe—a Unique Annual Record for Radiocarbon Calibration and Paleoenvironment Reconstructions" Radiocarbon, Volume 46, Issue 3, Pages v-1334 (March 2004), pp. 1111-1122(12) accessed 17 Jan 2007 from Content Not Found: Ingenta Connect (abstract)
    7. Gagnon, Steve, "Glossary: Beta Decay" Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility - Office of Science Education. undated. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from Glossary Term - Beta Decay
    8. Higham, Thomas, "The 14C Method" Info Radiocarbon Web. undated. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from The method
    9. Hajdas-Skowronek, Irka, "Extension of the radiocarbon calibration curve by AMS dating of laminated sediments of lake Soppensee and lake Holzmaar" PhD Thesis, 1993, Institute of Particle Physics, Zurich, Switzerland. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from http://www.ipp.phys.ethz.ch/.../radiocarbon/HajdasPhDthesis1993.pdf
    10. Reimer, Paula J. et al, "INTCAL04 Terrestrial Radiocarbon Age Calibration, 0–26 CAL KYR BP" Radiocarbon, Volume 46, Issue 3, Pages v-1334 (March 2004), pp. 1029-1058(30). accessed 10 Jan 2007 from Not Found
    11. Smith, Paul "Dendrochronolgy Fact and Creationist Fraud" razd., Version 1, dated 27 Jan 2007, accessed 27 Jan 2007 from http://< !--UB EvC Forum: Dendrochronology Fact and Creationist Fraud -->http://EvC Forum: Dendrochronology Fact and Creationist Fraud -->EvC Forum: Dendrochronology Fact and Creationist Fraud< !--UE-->

    GREAT DEBATE S1WC and RAZD only

    Edited by Admin, : Shorten long links.
    Edited by RAZD, : .

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    This message is a reply to:
     Message 7 by Someone who cares, posted 08-27-2007 11:50 PM Someone who cares has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 10 by Someone who cares, posted 06-27-2008 1:37 AM RAZD has replied

      
    Someone who cares
    Member (Idle past 5741 days)
    Posts: 192
    Joined: 06-06-2006


    Message 10 of 15 (473106)
    06-27-2008 1:37 AM
    Reply to: Message 9 by RAZD
    09-02-2007 1:10 PM


    Re: Moving on to the next batch of data - adding another correlation
    Hey, long time no see...unfortunately we may return to this condition again.
    I am currently working on a bigger, improved, more technical essay (or book, if you consider size), which requires a lot of research, digging through dozens of scientific journals, and sifting through many books. I have some 90 pages in Word (font 16, not 12) of my notes from one little notebook, and I have 2.8 notebooks still waiting for me to type up their notes. Then I will probably spend all of next year ordering books through interlibrary loans, so that I can dig up as many of the original quotes as I can. Then I will have to put it all in an essay/book format with comments and remarks, get a better web host (probably pay 4 it) and most likely design my own website with Dreamweaver or something, and then I'll post the link everywhere. (Yes, it will be FREE, I believe information like this should be easily accessible to the public, even though the size will be like that of a book)
    I will have to work all summer long if I want to get somewhere with this essay/book, so I will probably not be able to attend these forums this summer. And as I mentioned, I'll spend all of the next school year gathering original quotes from many books, so my project will most likely only be ready next summer/fall. But this essay/book will be nothing like the previous one. I'm putting in a lot more research into it, and getting some fabulous quotes, and all in all, this one will be THE BIG ONE.
    You can be preparing for this essay/book by attempting to debunk some sources like:
    *Bergman, J. and Howe, G. (1990) "Vestigial Organs" Are Fully Functional. Kansas City, MO. Creation Research Society Books.
    *Ape-Men- Fact or Fallacy? Malcolm Bowden. Sovereign Publications; 2Rev Ed edition (October 1981)
    *The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods by John Woodmorappe, 1999, Institute for Creation Research (Caution! Extremely technical, just get the quotes that stand out)
    *In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood. Center For Scientific Creation. Special Edition. 1996. Walter T. Brown, Jr. (A MUST! ESP. 1ST HALF)
    *Homology, An Unsolved Problem. Sir Gavin de Beer. Oxford University Press, 1971 (Short, sweet, and simple (approx. 12 pages))
    You can probably order most or all of these books through interlibrary loans (don't expect to find them in a secular University library). And if you can tackle the 100 or so points in the 1st half of Walt Brown's book, you will be ready to tackle a lot of my essay.
    Enjoy. Sorry I can't be here this summer, but next summer/fall you guys will be in for a treat!

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 9 by RAZD, posted 09-02-2007 1:10 PM RAZD has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 11 by RAZD, posted 06-27-2008 8:41 PM Someone who cares has replied

      
    RAZD
    Member (Idle past 1395 days)
    Posts: 20714
    From: the other end of the sidewalk
    Joined: 03-14-2004


    Message 11 of 15 (473232)
    06-27-2008 8:41 PM
    Reply to: Message 10 by Someone who cares
    06-27-2008 1:37 AM


    Re: Moving on to the next batch of data - adding another correlation
    Hey S1WC.
    Hey, long time no see...unfortunately we may return to this condition again.
    And this will still be here when you do get around (if you ever get around) to answering the issues.
    I am currently working on a bigger, improved, more technical essay (or book, if you consider size), which requires a lot of research, digging through dozens of scientific journals,...
    And if you still harbor the same mistaken concepts it will be wasted time. You need to start with the truth.
    You can be preparing for this essay/book by attempting to debunk some sources like:
    Why should I repeat work that has already been done?
    What do you do, S1WC, when one of your sources contradicts another?
    You don't test for truth (and we've already established that you are not really interested in truth), so how do you decide?
    Enjoy. Sorry I can't be here this summer, but next summer/fall you guys will be in for a treat!
    You mean you are actually going to deal with the evidence that shows several of your basic assertions to be falsehoods?
    Enjoy.
    ps you may want to read this:
    http://www.asa3.org/archive/asa/199801/0476.html
    they are talking about you after all:
    quote:
    As for the issue of deliberate lies... I don't care whether the authors of the Handy Dandy Evolution Refuter: (1) deliberately misrepresented the contents of the paper (i.e., are dishonest); (2) misunderstood the contents of the paper (i.e., are clueless); or (3) just "inherited" the blunder by copying it without checking it out themselves, from another YEC source that contained the same error.
    All that really matters is that the authors of HDER are making false statements which are causing sincere (but overly credulous) Christians to get hammered in debate. So far I have obtained three of the technical papers referenced by that web site and *all three* have blown up on the young-Earthers in similar ways (though in the other cases, the HDER's own claim isn't as heinous as a false charge of fudging data).
    If I were to guess, by the way, I would say that option #3 (credulously copied, "inherited" error) was the most likely reason. In my opinion the widespread use of this practice in the YEC community is why the "error rate" of most YEC literature remains unacceptably high. However, even so... (1) at the bottom of the reference chain there must be someone in one of the first two categories who originated the error; and (2) by referencing the scientific paper directly (instead of the source that the claim was copied from), the authors of HDER assumed responsibility for the falsehood.
    (reformated to be easy to read)
    Edited by RAZD, : ps
    Edited by RAZD, : .

    we are limited in our ability to understand
    by our ability to understand
    Rebel American Zen Deist
    ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
    to share.


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    This message is a reply to:
     Message 10 by Someone who cares, posted 06-27-2008 1:37 AM Someone who cares has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 12 by Someone who cares, posted 06-29-2008 4:47 PM RAZD has replied

      
    Someone who cares
    Member (Idle past 5741 days)
    Posts: 192
    Joined: 06-06-2006


    Message 12 of 15 (473465)
    06-29-2008 4:47 PM
    Reply to: Message 11 by RAZD
    06-27-2008 8:41 PM


    Re: Moving on to the next batch of data - adding another correlation
    "And this will still be here when you do get around (if you ever get around) to answering the issues."
    My essay will have a section on radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology, so hopefully I could answer many questions with one essay, instead of repeating myself to everyone I meet.
    "And if you still harbor the same mistaken concepts it will be wasted time. You need to start with the truth."
    Do not judge before you have seen the work. It will be much more thoroughly researched than the first one. But many of the lines of evidence will remain the same, because they have stood the test of time, ie.: ape-men falsehoods; geologic reinterpretations of fossils; vestigial organs actually being quite useful; homology reinterpreted; young Earth evidence from the stars, comets, Earth, plechroic haloes, ocean sediments, etc.; critical examination of the most popular 'mechanisms' of evolution and their incapability to produce macroevolutionary changes; radiometric dating assumptions and how they are not necessarily valid in realtion to a Flood; other dating methods and their assumptions, such as varve dating, dendrochronology, etc.; the speed of light and how it may actually have been decreasing, which would have a significant effect on radiometric dating and being able to see stars 'billions of light years away'(see Barry Setterfield's work- The Velocity of Light and the Age of the Universe); and the list goes on and on...
    "Why should I repeat work that has already been done?"
    Do you have a reference in mind? Has someone taken Walt Brown's work and attempted to debunk it point by point?
    "What do you do, S1WC, when one of your sources contradicts another?
    You don't test for truth (and we've already established that you are not really interested in truth), so how do you decide?"
    I must give you a fair warning, the many of the complete sources and opinions of the authors may be in support of the opposite position from what I am proposing, but they DO make excellent points and studies and observations which CAN be reinterpreted for other theories, such as the Creationist/Diluviologist position.
    As for the whole 'truth' thing, we will await my essay and take a look at some of the blunt rejections of evolutionists to take evidence at face value and how they master some delightfully imaginitive theories, but nonetheless avoid direct interpretations for which model would BEST be supported by the evidence (the Green River controversy is a vivid example).
    "You mean you are actually going to deal with the evidence that shows several of your basic assertions to be falsehoods?"
    I will deal with many 'assumed' contradictions to my assertions.
    "they are talking about you after all:"
    They are talking about my first work which I completed in about 4 months. They are NOT talking about my upcoming work, which is going to take 3 years. I am doing much of the original research this time around, real library journal-digging work, and so I will definitely improve in this aspect. And I also plan to improve by presenting a more comprehensive treatment of the subject, and I will attempt to make it more visually appealing and easier to navigate, since it will be huge.
    But for this, I must avoid finding myself on these forums, and get to the heavy-duty work. After I complete it, I will be more than grateful for you guys to examine it for 'errors' and I will be open for revisions if I am convinced beyond doubt, but to do that, I really suggest you pick up Walt Brown's book and start reading, because if you don't do it now, you'll have to do it later anyway to attempt to critique my work properly. If it's taking me 3 years to do the research for this work, it will take you just as long to go through it and provide proper treatments of the subjects, not just Talk Origins copy/paste things. But it's up to you, if you don't want to take on it, I will find someone else, no stress. We should wait till I finish to figure out who will attempt to tackle it.
    Peace. I don't expect to be around here much longer, but you'll know where I am- at the University library, behind my computer typing, or behind my desk reading other books and journals. See ya.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 11 by RAZD, posted 06-27-2008 8:41 PM RAZD has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 13 by RAZD, posted 06-29-2008 10:00 PM Someone who cares has not replied

      
    RAZD
    Member (Idle past 1395 days)
    Posts: 20714
    From: the other end of the sidewalk
    Joined: 03-14-2004


    Message 13 of 15 (473479)
    06-29-2008 10:00 PM
    Reply to: Message 12 by Someone who cares
    06-29-2008 4:47 PM


    Just a quick note
    Has someone taken Walt Brown's work and attempted to debunk it point by point?
    Yes, several people have shown Walt Brown to be an unreliable source.
    Google Joe Meert to find some of them. He has been a participant on this forum in the past, and has had several dealings with Walt. You can also find his email addy and ask him yourself.
    I hope that in your research you will keep an open mind, one that is equally skeptical of all claims from both sides.
    You may find that "truth" is much more difficult than you think.
    Enjoy.
    Edited by RAZD, : .

    we are limited in our ability to understand
    by 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) • • •

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 12 by Someone who cares, posted 06-29-2008 4:47 PM Someone who cares has not replied

      
    O$U
    Junior Member (Idle past 5185 days)
    Posts: 1
    Joined: 01-05-2010


    Message 14 of 15 (541805)
    01-06-2010 12:32 PM


    First off this is my first post in this forum, which looks like it's got some great debates going on and I am looking forward to debating with some of you on this issue.
    To the purpose of my post. There is a point of contention that I would like to raise with the possibility of the Great Flood. According to the Bible the Great Flood happened in 4001 BC. I would like to examine what seems to be a sheer mathematic possibility according to modern observations of the population growth rate that would have to occur to go from 2 to 6 billion people in a mere 6000 years.
    The math is this, the average rate of growth per year would have to be somewhere around 1,000,000 people per year. That would make a birth rate of 999 births per 1,000 people (births per 1,000 people is the modern measure of birth rate globally).
    Crude Birth Rate (CBR) is calculated the following way:
    births over time period/population*1000= CBR
    The highest modern birthrate is a modest 51.6 births per 1,000 people in Niger, with the world average being a staggering 20.3 births per 1,000 people. I think everyone on this forum can agree that with advances in medicine and technology our average birth rate is likely significantly higher than in the past and continues to increase.
    That being said, the sheer mathematics of human population growth since the documented time of the Great Flood simply do not make sense and are not even close to consistent with modern and historical observations. I would like to hear an explanation by a creationist or simply anyone that believes in the Great Flood as to why this is.

    Replies to this message:
     Message 15 by RAZD, posted 01-06-2010 9:33 PM O$U has not replied

      
    RAZD
    Member (Idle past 1395 days)
    Posts: 20714
    From: the other end of the sidewalk
    Joined: 03-14-2004


    Message 15 of 15 (541933)
    01-06-2010 9:33 PM
    Reply to: Message 14 by O$U
    01-06-2010 12:32 PM


    wrong forum, wrong topic
    Welcome to the fray, O$U,
    DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE
    I would like to examine what seems to be a sheer mathematic possibility according to modern observations of the population growth rate that would have to occur to go from 2 to 6 billion people in a mere 6000 years.
    ...
    The math is this, the average rate of growth per year would have to be somewhere around 1,000,000 people per year. That would make a birth rate of 999 births per 1,000 people (births per 1,000 people is the modern measure of birth rate globally).
    I'm afraid your math is faulty, as growth is exponential rather than linear.
    However this has also been done with the correct math with amusing results for intermediate times (ie, how many people would have existed in the world at intermediate times).
    The other problem is that observed growth rate is limited by available resources, and thus is highly variable.
    ... and I am looking forward to debating with some of you on this issue.
    Unfortunately this is off topic, as (1) this is a great debate thread limited to only S1WC and myself, and (2) it has nothing to do with the methods of dating the age of the earth.
    ... as you are new here, some posting tips:
    type [qs]quotes are easy[/qs] and it becomes:
    quotes are easy
    or type [quote]quotes are easy[/quote] and it becomes:
    quote:
    quotes are easy
    also check out (help) links on any formatting questions when in the reply window.
    For other formatting tips see Posting Tips
    If you use the message reply buttons (there's one at the bottom right of each message):

    ... your message is linked to the one you are replying to (adds clarity). You can also look at the way a post is formatted with the "peek" button next to it.
    Enjoy.
    DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 14 by O$U, posted 01-06-2010 12:32 PM O$U has not replied

      
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