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Author Topic:   PRATT Party and Free for All
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 1 of 126 (544677)
01-27-2010 8:35 PM


On another thread, hawkes nightmare wrote the following:
...if the continents moved at the current rate(about 1.5 cm a year) at the beginning of the world, america would have crashed into asia, britain would be where America is, Antatctica would be at the north pole, and Africa would be where antatctica is now. the distance between boston and London is over 3000 miles. the billions of years during the evolutionary period, would provide 28000 miles of drift. the world would look MUCH different than it already does.
now i know that pangaea broke up in the jurassic period, and i just did the math and it still comes out to less than half of where we are now. there is other evidence too though. the earth's rotation is slowing down. we are moving farther from the sun. the moon is moving farther from us due to lack in gravity. which all concludes that at the beginning of time, the earth rotated much, much faster, and that we were VERY close to the sun. those combined together make the earth uninhabitabe by ANYTHING up until 125 miles in space closer to the sun than our current position. now i'm too lazy to look anything more up so you'll have to do it yourself, and do the math. but i'm estimating that we were approximately where mercury currently is, and the days would be going as fast as you can snap your fingers. one hundred years from now, the day will be 2 milliseconds longer than it is now. i just did the math(on a calculator) and the days at the beginning of earth's history would be 252.2222..... hours faster. that's about ten minutes. so evolution CAN't be true and the flood obviously happened.
Since discussion of these points would be off topic in the original thread, I propose a thread wherein a full-blown free for all and food fight can ensue, during which these points can be beaten to death once again.
--------
(A PRATT is a Point Refuted a Thousand Times.)

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Replies to this message:
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Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 4 of 126 (544686)
01-27-2010 9:15 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Coyote
01-27-2010 8:35 PM


The flood (again)
...and the flood obviously happened
You concluded from that mish-mash of nonsense that the flood obviously happened?
Wow! The logical leaps there would do a gazelle proud!
Let's try just one bit of evidence against the claim of a worldwide flood.
Biblical scholars place the global flood somewhere close to 4,350 years ago (a few years one way or the other makes no difference here).
One of the first things I learned in archaeology class was "if you want to find 10,000 year old sites, look for 10,000 year old dirt."
So, all we have to do is find dirt that is about 4,350 years old and see what the evidence shows, simple, eh? Fortunately dirt that age is common, and probably exists in most back yards unless there has been a lot of grading during construction. Archaeologists deal with deposits of that approximate age on a daily basis, and have for over a hundred years.
And guess what? No evidence of a global flood has been found in those deposits.
What we see instead is continuity. Continuity of soil deposits and stratigraphy, continuity of human cultures, and continuity of fauna and flora. One of the most telling problems for flood proponents is the continuity of local human DNA types. If there was indeed a flood at the appointed time, those DNA types would have ceased, to be replaced by DNA from Noah and his kin. Instead, pretty much worldwide, we see continuity of DNA from before to after the appointed time for the flood.
So there is one bit of evidence that shows the global flood could not have happened at the time the biblical scholars claim it did.
If you want to dispute this you have to show that the flood happened at some other time (proving, for a start, that the biblical scholars are wrong)--but to do this you will also have to demonstrate, using empirical evidence, that various branches of science are wrong, starting with all sciences dealing with dating.
Feel up to it?

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Coyote, posted 01-27-2010 8:35 PM Coyote has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by Buzsaw, posted 02-07-2010 7:39 PM Coyote has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(1)
Message 29 of 126 (546061)
02-07-2010 11:19 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Buzsaw
02-07-2010 7:39 PM


Re: Dating dirt
Hi Coyote. This dirt dating thing intrigues me. Is there a website chart and other data where one can read up on this as to the continuity of it etc? Thanks.
I doubt if you can learn this from a website. It took me six years of graduate school and decades of practice to get a good feel for it.
Little things are important: stratigraphy (superposition); dating of individual layers by many different means; geomorphology, and a host of other -ologies.
Little things can help. Some layers can be dated by radiocarbon dating of faunal remains (rodent bones or pollen). Others can be dated by volcanic ash layers through various techniques. Cultural materials make it easy, as there are a lot of different ways to date those. Some layers may be hard to date directly, but maybe you can date the layers above and below them and get a good estimate.
One of the first things one might do is look up the Geological Survey soil maps. Those folks have spent decades identifying and categorizing soils. Their maps have a lot of good information and detail.
Check into this and let me know of any questions. But--check the web first.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 34 by Buzsaw, posted 02-08-2010 7:20 PM Coyote has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(1)
Message 36 of 126 (546151)
02-08-2010 9:07 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by Buzsaw
02-08-2010 7:20 PM


Re: Dating dirt
You ask for a stratigraphic profile covering "Perhaps 3,000 to 10,000 years would be a more feasable time frame since the last alleged Ice Age ended then."
Here is one. This is a site with which I am familiar, but there are lots of other examples.
Abstract here, and article available for purchase
Environmental change recorded in sediments from the Marmes rockshelter archaeological site, southeastern Washington state, USA, by Gary Huckleberry and Cynthia Fadem
Abstract: The Marmes Rockshelter archaeological site in southeastern Washington state contains a > 11 kyr stratigraphic record that was excavated in the 1960s but only recently analyzed in detail. We present the results of physical, chemical, and isotopic analyses of archived Marmes sediments from rockshelter, hillslope, and floodplain locations. Multiple lines of evidence including boulis production, soil chemistry, and δ13C and δ18O signatures in soil organic matter and calcium carbonate suggest that relatively cool, moist conditions 10,600 to 9700 14C yr BP were followed by relatively warm and dry conditions as early as 9000 14C yr BP. Warm and dry conditions extended to the late Holocene, followed by a return to cooler and moister climate. The limited range of δ13C and δ18O values in Marmes paleosols suggests that the magnitude of moisture and temperature shifts was locally buffered in the lower Snake River Canyon but adequate to generate significant changes in sedimentation and soil formation, possibly due to nonlinear geological and pedological processes. These buffered canyon environments were well suited for establishing residential bases associated with foraging and logistical collecting strategies and may have minimized the influence of climate changes in food resource abundance.
One of the interesting features of the Marmes site is that there were large post-glacial floods through that area at the end of the ice age. Those floods are pretty well documented and understood. A good summary article is here.
Note the detail in which these floods can be documented based on the evidence they left behind. Lots of evidence!
Now consider a global flood of "biblical proportions." What evidence should we expect from such a flood? We should expect LOTS of evidence, most impressive evidence, and we should expect it worldwide! That evidence just isn't there.
Another problem: these channeled scablands are 2-3 times older than the biblical flood. Something of the reported scale of Noah's flood, occurring so much more recently, should have 1) obliterated the earlier flood sediments, and 2) left much more obvious and widespread evidence. That evidence just isn't there.
Let me know how you feel about this and we can go on from there.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by Buzsaw, posted 02-08-2010 7:20 PM Buzsaw has replied

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Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 42 of 126 (546301)
02-09-2010 8:11 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by ZenMonkey
02-09-2010 7:58 PM


Re: Dating dirt
So radiocarbon dating, as well as all other forms of radiometric dating, is unreliable. And it's unreliable because of the incredible, planet-altering effects of a global flood. And this flood must have not only radicaly changed the geography and climate of the entire planet, but must have somehow changed the very nature of matter itself in order to skew things like atomic decay rates so drastically.
Some creationists claim that the C14 levels in the atmosphere were changed by the flood and related events, making radiocarbon dates earlier than 6,000 or so years ago in need of recalibration. Their recalibration brings those older dates down to the range of about 6,000 years, making them compatible with their religious beliefs.
Unfortunately, they have been unable to provide any evidence for 1) drastic changes in atmospheric levels of C14, 2) the need for recalibrations based on a global flood, or 3) the global flood itself.
Still other creationists claimed changes in the decay rates, but the RATE project, run by creationists, has pretty much done away with those claims.
The more you look at the data the more you realize how thoroughly science has disproved the idea of a purported global flood at ca. 4,350 years ago.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 41 by ZenMonkey, posted 02-09-2010 7:58 PM ZenMonkey has replied

Replies to this message:
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Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 52 of 126 (546388)
02-10-2010 2:06 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by Buzsaw
02-10-2010 12:25 PM


Decay rates
Hopefull Coyote will weigh in again here from a professional perspective.
My expertise is in radiocarbon dating, not the other forms of radiometric dating.
But radiocarbon is enough to show the purported flood did not occur at the appointed time.
And a previous poster is correct, it is the ratios of the isotopes that give the age.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 50 by Buzsaw, posted 02-10-2010 12:25 PM Buzsaw has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 56 of 126 (546597)
02-11-2010 11:28 PM
Reply to: Message 55 by Buzsaw
02-11-2010 9:43 PM


Re: Dating Dirt
It would seem that the layers would just stack up uniformly and continuous over the entire region back 10,000 year. What say you?
There should be areas where the stratigraphy is intact. I don't know why you would expect all areas to be uniform and intact.
Ever see a sand dune? A meandering stream channel? Wind and water can do a lot to soils.
There still is no evidence of a global flood during this time, all the "what ifs" you can muster notwithstanding.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 55 by Buzsaw, posted 02-11-2010 9:43 PM Buzsaw has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 58 by Buzsaw, posted 02-12-2010 9:04 AM Coyote has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 60 of 126 (546637)
02-12-2010 10:57 AM
Reply to: Message 58 by Buzsaw
02-12-2010 9:04 AM


Re: Dating Dirt
Are you apprised on specific areas where the stratigraphy is intact, the dating data on them and how large they are etc? This is more of what I'm interested in since it pertains more directly to your claim that dirt dating debunks the flood.
I don't know the archaeology of the midwest.
But an intact soil profile anywhere debunks the global flood at about 4,350 years.
I have provided you with one example. I have seen many more in my own work.
You can come up with all the "what ifs" you want, but they don't change the facts I have presented to you.
I realize what you are doing is trying to keep belief alive, but at some point you really will have to face the facts: the story of a global flood about 4,350 years ago is a myth that has been disproved based on many lines of evidence.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 58 by Buzsaw, posted 02-12-2010 9:04 AM Buzsaw has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 66 of 126 (546670)
02-12-2010 4:31 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Buzsaw
02-12-2010 4:14 PM


Re: Dating dirt
Relative to carbon, wouldn't the amount of carbon 14 in the Buz-alleged preflood atmosphere have a determination in pre flood carbon dating?
The amount of C14 in the atmosphere does have an effect on the dates. This was noted and published on by De Vries (1958).
Since then there has been a calibration curve worked out to correct the dates for atmospheric fluctuations. The largest correction needed is on the order of 10%.
Using bristlecone pines from the White Mountains of southern California, they have a calibration curve worked out for about 12,500 years.
Using other materials and materials from other areas they have recently extended the calibration curve to nearly 50,000 years.
This takes care of the problem of atmospheric fluctuations.
I don't have the recent calibration yet, as it is just being published, but the 2004 calibration can be found at:
http://www.radiocarbon.org/IntCal04.htm
This page provides some of the datasets that went into the calibration curve.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Buzsaw, posted 02-12-2010 4:14 PM Buzsaw has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 68 by Buzsaw, posted 02-12-2010 8:16 PM Coyote has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 69 of 126 (546684)
02-12-2010 8:55 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by Buzsaw
02-12-2010 8:16 PM


Re: Dating dirt
Hi Coyote. Does it really take care of it?
Logically, the amount of carbon 14 in an alleged Buz/Bible pre--flood atmosphere would affect pre-flood carbon dating whereas tree ring dating would would not be affected nearly as significantly by a changed atmosphere, being that there would be seasons in both atmospheres effecting tree rings, albeit less difference in global seasonal temperatures in a canopy atmosphere than we now have, post flood.
Am I making sense here to you?
Sorry, but you are grasping at straws.
Trees such as the bristlecone pine add a growth ring each year. That ring encompasses the various seasons of that year no matter what they are. (That there is just one ring per year in these trees has been cross-checked against historic volcanic eruptions, which change the width of growth rings. This allows an independent verification that there is but one ring per year.)
During each year the tree absorbs carbon from the atmosphere, which it stores in the growth ring. When we analyze that ring thousands of years later we can compare the radiocarbon date we get from that ring with the known age of that ring. That tells us the effects of atmospheric fluctuation.
And, that information, in turn, lets us correct unknown samples based on known atmospheric concentrations of C14.
What you are trying to argue is that trees absorbed carbon differently pre-flood vs. post-flood.
You have no evidence for that, nor are you justified in trying to correct the radiocarbon calibration curve based on a mythical event! There was no flood, and there was no canopy. You would have to document those events before you could use them in such a manner, and that's the problem--the global flood, and the canopy, have never been shown to be anything other than a myth.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by Buzsaw, posted 02-12-2010 8:16 PM Buzsaw has replied

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Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 85 of 126 (546796)
02-13-2010 9:58 PM
Reply to: Message 84 by Apothecus
02-13-2010 9:20 PM


Re: Dating dirt
And what's funny about that is that even if they did absorb C14 differently before the flud, after the flud they'd be dead, thus unable to absorb much at all.
Well, now, that is a problem isn't it?
But the thing is, we have all these trees which we can date by overlapping tree rings sequences. And we can carve out those individual rings and radiocarbon date those too. And the dates all agree within about 10%. Most are much closer.
And those tree ring sequences go back 12,500+ years! Way earlier than biblical scholars place the flood.
Yup, its a problem all right. But not for science.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

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 Message 84 by Apothecus, posted 02-13-2010 9:20 PM Apothecus has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 88 of 126 (546801)
02-13-2010 10:29 PM
Reply to: Message 86 by Buzsaw
02-13-2010 10:18 PM


Re: Dating dirt
Uh, no.
Just no!

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 86 by Buzsaw, posted 02-13-2010 10:18 PM Buzsaw has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 97 of 126 (546970)
02-15-2010 12:13 PM
Reply to: Message 94 by Buzsaw
02-15-2010 11:45 AM


Re: Dating dirt
Short response, as I'm short on time:
Tree rings can be counted, one by one, back into the past.
Those rings vary in width from year to year depending on climate and such things as volcanic eruptions. Those leave very distinctive ring patterns.
We can use a variety of trees, such as the standing deal bristlecone pines in the White Mountains of southern California, and overlap the individual branches or trunks. While one tree may only get you a few hundred or a couple of thousand rings, by overlapping many parts of trees you can establish a ring sequence back to about 12,500 years from these particular trees (you can go farther back with some European oaks, but I am not as familiar with those).
You can then establish the age, based on tree rings, of any particular ring.
You can scrape up some material from that ring and radiocarbon date it. The two dates vary by less than 10% back to 12,500 years. This also allows you to correct for atmospheric variation, as the tree ring will be the most accurate, while due to atmospheric variation the radiocarbon date will be a little off. But by comparing the two dates you can figure out how far off and thus calibrate all future dates.
This is just one method of verifying and calibrating radiocarbon dating. There are others.
I hope this helps.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
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Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 114 of 126 (547919)
02-23-2010 10:15 PM
Reply to: Message 113 by Apothecus
02-23-2010 9:35 PM


Rationalizing the flood myth
The problem is that flood never happened, it is a tribal myth, but some folks have to believe in it in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.
For any evidence against the flood they come up with hypothetical cases, what I call "what ifs," that let them go on believing in the flood myth. They are unwilling or unable to consider that the evidence really shows the flood didn't happen as described.
That these "what ifs" eventually stretch out to impossibility doesn't seem to matter. What seems to be important is that they can come up with something -- anything -- that will let them continue on in their belief cycle.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by Apothecus, posted 02-23-2010 9:35 PM Apothecus has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 118 of 126 (547931)
02-23-2010 11:13 PM
Reply to: Message 115 by Buzsaw
02-23-2010 10:47 PM


C14 data for Buzsaw
I'm not sure where you got these, but...
....... there is significant uncertainty in carbon dating. There are several variables that contribute to this uncertainty. First, as mentioned previously, the proportions of C-14 in the atmosphere in historic times is unknown. The C-14:C-12 atmospheric ratio is known to vary over time and it is not at all certain that the curve is well behaved.
The atmospheric variation problem was identified by de Vries in 1958, shortly after C14 dating was invented. A calibration curve has been worked out in 1 year increments back to AD 1650, and in 10 year increments back to about 12,500 years ago. That curve corrects for atmospheric variation from any source. Other calibration curves extend much farther back, but the one I am most familiar with is based on bristlecone pines, and it goes back only about 12,500 years. But that is enough to demonstrate the accuracy of the method.
I believe I've posted this to you in the past. That you keep bringing up the same issue, which I have refuted, means that either you don't believe me, that you don't believe the calibration curve is accurate, or you are just looking for any excuse to deny what science has found in favor of your a priori religious belief.
Complicating things further, various plants have differing abilities to exclude significant proportions of the C-14 in their intake. This varies with environmental conditions as well. The varying rates at which C-14 is excluded in plants also means that the apparent age of a living animal may be affected by an animals diet. An animal that ingested plants with relatively low C-14 proportions would be dated older than their true age.
We know that too. That is why we correct for what is called isotopic fractionation with a C13 reading. We want accurate dates, and work very hard to get them!
A recent project I ran encountered human bone with a C13 reading of about -13, when the expected is about -25. We also ran the stable isotope N15 and from a comparison of the C13 and N15 determined that this individual had a diet about 92% made up of marine organisms, primarily marine mammals. The percentage of marine organisms in the diet is an important variable in calibrating the age of a sample! Why would you assume we would ignore that variable? Or, why would you believe some lying creationist website that suggests that we would ignore that variable? Do you really think we don't want our dates to be as accurate as possible?
When you can understand all of these details of radiocarbon dating, Grasshopper, you will be able to discuss the radiocarbon method intelligently. As it is you are scavenging whatever you can--whatever agrees with your a priori beliefs--no matter how silly or how wrong it is, in an effort to shore up those beliefs.
Why don't you, for once, apply yourself to just one small area of science and try to learn as much as you can about it? I'll be glad to help you. You might be surprised by the results.
Or is that what you are afraid of?

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 115 by Buzsaw, posted 02-23-2010 10:47 PM Buzsaw has replied

Replies to this message:
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