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Author Topic:   Peanut Gallery for Great debate: radiocarbon dating, Mindspawn and Coyote/RAZD
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2105 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 155 of 305 (712195)
11-28-2013 3:26 PM
Reply to: Message 154 by NoNukes
11-28-2013 2:48 PM


Re: Corroboration vs. calibration
I don't agree with your reasoning. Yes, it does turn out that uncalibrated C-14 dates are accurate enough to remove all doubt that the earth is > 50,000 years old. But there is indeed a well known issue with the variability of C-14 production, and in a debate like this one, calibration is the easiest way of showing that the variability in the actual C-12/C-14 ratio in the atmosphere is small despite fairly large variations in C-14 production rate.
It is just a matter of how we approach the debate.
Mindspawn stated in his opening post that his problem was with calibration, so in an effort to try and avoid what has amounted to over 150 posts, I tried to bypass calibration entirely.
I still think that if we ignore calibration Mindspawn will be forced to deal with the radiocarbon method, something he hasn't even gotten to yet.
Instead we have just been into one of the largest rabbit holes I've seen, in which RAZD has demonstrated the case for calibration many times over, to no avail. We're at the bottom of the rabbit hole and still digging.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle

This message is a reply to:
 Message 154 by NoNukes, posted 11-28-2013 2:48 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 157 by NoNukes, posted 11-28-2013 8:48 PM Coyote has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2105 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(1)
Message 160 of 305 (712209)
11-28-2013 11:56 PM
Reply to: Message 156 by RAZD
11-28-2013 8:19 PM


Re: small correction
If I read correctly, the ages they obtained were uncalibrated, and still agreed closely with the Egyptian chronology.
not quite ... they took 7 samples and dated them by 14C, uncalibrated dates, and then took the uncalibrated dates and compared them to a dendrochronology (Bristlecone pine was used in another Egyptian study) to arrive at a dendro calendar age, and that age corresponded with the historical dates. A two-step process.
OK, thanks.
I did not read the original article--they wanted me to register to see it, and I get far too much spam already.
It sounds like they did standard dates then, with calibration.
By the way, IntCal13 and Marine13 Radiocarbon Age Calibration Curves are now out:
Radiocarbon
I have been checking some of my dates against the new curve using Calib 7.0, and the changes from previous curves are quite small for the ranges my dates fall into (<10,000 BP).

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle

This message is a reply to:
 Message 156 by RAZD, posted 11-28-2013 8:19 PM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 162 by Pollux, posted 11-29-2013 6:20 AM Coyote has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2105 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 179 of 305 (712274)
12-01-2013 3:19 PM


I'm now sorry that I ever started that Great Debate thread.
I should have known it would be useless.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle

Replies to this message:
 Message 194 by ramoss, posted 12-02-2013 11:53 AM Coyote has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2105 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(4)
Message 201 of 305 (712331)
12-02-2013 9:36 PM


Reply to Adminnemooseus
Adminnemooseus has somewhat of a point that RAZD is outposting Mindspawn by a lot.
But it appears that this is a serious effort to get Mindspawn to deal with the evidence. And so far, it has failed.
There seems to be no evidence that Mindspawn can't ignore, misrepresent, obfuscate, dodge, or explain away with untenable "what-ifs." I think that's where the Gish gallop really lies, as the Gish gallop is designed to overwhelm the opponent with sheer volume and irrelevant side issues--just more and more rabbit holes. Rather than being overwhelmed, RAZD has been dealing with each of these points in turn, with ample, nay, massive supporting evidence, and trying not to leave the topic until each point is firmly nailed down.
On the other hand, Mindspawn has produced an endless stream of meaningless "what-ifs" that contain unsupported claims, focus on irrelevant details, or dispute already-document points, all while demanding more and more "proof" of RAZD's evidence, while at the same time ignoring the overwhelming consilience among the numerous different types of evidence that RAZD has produced.
It takes a huge stretch of the imagination (and the data) to try to explain away tree-rings from several parts of the world which agree with lake varves which in turn agree with corals and speleothems and several independent methods of dating. Why do all of those separate lines of evidence all agree if they are all wrong?
RAZD has been using the term consilience a lot, and rightly so. Science is characterized by a massive amount of internally-consistent theory which explains the evidence of the natural world. If you change one detail, such as the decay constant of a particular radioactive isotope, a lot of other things go to worms. The RATE boys ran into this problem when they tried to rationalize an accelerated decay constant; that effort had the unfortunate side effect that the resultant heat would have parbroiled the earth. Whoops!
Until Mindspawn can show 1) that his individual claims are correct, and 2) that the results form a cohesive whole throughout science, he's not going to convince anyone but true believers.
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Add link back to message at ''Great Debate" topic.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle

Replies to this message:
 Message 203 by Pollux, posted 12-02-2013 11:52 PM Coyote has replied
 Message 205 by Atheos canadensis, posted 12-03-2013 12:05 AM Coyote has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2105 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(1)
Message 206 of 305 (712341)
12-03-2013 12:17 AM
Reply to: Message 203 by Pollux
12-02-2013 11:52 PM


Re: Mindspawn's efforts
Do I understand IntCal 13 correctly in that it is a table to refer to in order to convert a raw C14 date to the currently best evidenced true date?
The various IntCal calibration curves are all designed to convert a raw C14 age (the conventional age) into a calibrated date.
As RAZD has detailed at length, these calibration curves are based on tree-rings and other annular data. The format is not so much a table as a program into which you enter data and get the calibrated results, along with a graph. Google "Calib. 7.0" for the most current program, which incorporates IntCal 13.
In looking up IntCal I saw a reference that the CIO curve previously used was off because they did not consider the effect of earthquakes on Suigetsu varves. Do you know by how much it was out?
Not specifically. However, whenever a new version of the calibration curve comes out I enter a few of the dates I have already received and check to see the magnitude of the changes. In the most recent version, IntCal 13, the dozen or so dates I checked changed by just a few years, maybe 5 or 10 at the most. For that it is not worth going back and recalibrating >650 dates to get a tiny improvement in accuracy.
In addition my further appreciation to RAZD for his diligence and patience.
For sure! He has done a magnificent job.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle

This message is a reply to:
 Message 203 by Pollux, posted 12-02-2013 11:52 PM Pollux has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 207 by Pollux, posted 12-03-2013 3:57 AM Coyote has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2105 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 209 of 305 (712352)
12-03-2013 8:29 AM
Reply to: Message 207 by Pollux
12-03-2013 3:57 AM


Dating
A YEC assures me that 98% of radiometric dates are rejected and only the 2% "right" dates are kept.
That's the creation "science" approach. We just take what we get and try to figure out what it all means.
That means you have spent about 650X50X500 - about $16,000,000 on C14 dating. Must be money in archaeology!
I wish!
The price for AMS dating has been $595, with a surcharge for bone. We just found a new lab that will do AMS for just over $200, so that's a real saving. Still adds up after a while though. They only do shell and charcoal so far, but are working on adding bone. That requires more pretreatment.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle

This message is a reply to:
 Message 207 by Pollux, posted 12-03-2013 3:57 AM Pollux has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2105 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(2)
Message 222 of 305 (712455)
12-03-2013 8:13 PM
Reply to: Message 221 by Atheos canadensis
12-03-2013 7:08 PM


Re: Accuracy of Tree Ring Dating of Bristlecone Pine for Calibration of the Radiocarbon T
Also, getting pretty tired of Mindspawn blithely throwing out error-causing scenarios generally without providing any evidence that they could happen and always without providing evidence that they have happened and then demanding citations for every refutation RAZD makes. No wonder RAZD is outposting him so much; he's actually doing his best to back up what he's saying. Not to mention that Mindspawn has offered only the vaguest wisp of an explanation for why all these independent lines of evidence display such consillience.
Could the difference be that RAZD is doing science while Mindspawn is doing creation "science?"
Science painfully gathers data piece by piece and goes to great length to understand it through testing and theory building, while creation "science" simply declares their answers to be "true" -- and in no case have I ever seen one of those answers contract the bible, scripture, dogma, etc.
That's so easy even a Neanderthal could do it! (Oh, wait... they don't believe in those either.)
Edited by Coyote, : grammar

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle
If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science--dwise1

This message is a reply to:
 Message 221 by Atheos canadensis, posted 12-03-2013 7:08 PM Atheos canadensis has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 223 by NoNukes, posted 12-03-2013 11:34 PM Coyote has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2105 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(1)
Message 226 of 305 (712466)
12-04-2013 5:49 AM
Reply to: Message 224 by Pressie
12-04-2013 12:46 AM


Re: Comic relief
Here's a significantly better article, by one of our very own posters:
RATE’s Radiocarbon: Intrinsic or Contamination? by Kirk Bertsche
RATE’s Radiocarbon: Intrinsic or Contamination?

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle
If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science...--dwise1

This message is a reply to:
 Message 224 by Pressie, posted 12-04-2013 12:46 AM Pressie has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 228 by Pressie, posted 12-04-2013 6:34 AM Coyote has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2105 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 264 of 305 (713129)
12-09-2013 11:52 PM


That sums it up nicely
In the Great Debate, RAZD notes in Message 93 that:
one of the problems with replying to posts with rabbit holes, misrepresentations and erroneous information is that it takes a lot of information to fill in and correct...
I think he has captured the essence of creation "science" in that one short phrase.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle
If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science...--dwise1

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2105 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(2)
Message 276 of 305 (713261)
12-11-2013 11:21 AM


Mindspawns recent set of posts have become too ridiculous to even bother with.
So many "what-ifs" and so little evidence...

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle
If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science...--dwise1

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2105 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(3)
Message 280 of 305 (713297)
12-11-2013 6:57 PM
Reply to: Message 279 by Pollux
12-11-2013 6:43 PM


Re: Lake Suigetsu and creation "science"
You two are getting headaches because you used to doing real science, not creation "science."
For the latter, belief replaces evidence.
If you believe something hard enough that contrary evidence will all go away.
How hard do you have to believe, you ask?
Why, that's simple. Just hard enough to make all that pesky evidence go away!
That's what we are seeing in the Great Debate thread.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle
If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science...--dwise1

This message is a reply to:
 Message 279 by Pollux, posted 12-11-2013 6:43 PM Pollux has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 282 by Tanypteryx, posted 12-11-2013 7:11 PM Coyote has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2105 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 297 of 305 (714334)
12-21-2013 3:31 PM


RAZD's summary from the Great Debate thread
RAZD's summary from the Great Debate thread:
RAZD: volumes of objective empirical evidence provided that demonstrates the validity of dendrochronology in general and the four chronologies discussed in particular.
mindspawn: no objective empirical evidence presented that actually invalidates them.
Score: RAZD = 1, Mindspawn = 0 (and missing in action)

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle
If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science...--dwise1

Replies to this message:
 Message 298 by Tanypteryx, posted 12-21-2013 3:50 PM Coyote has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2105 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(3)
Message 299 of 305 (714350)
12-21-2013 4:29 PM
Reply to: Message 298 by Tanypteryx
12-21-2013 3:50 PM


Re: RAZD's summary from the Great Debate thread
That's was just the first round.
RAZD is starting in on varves next.
But if Mindspawn fails to come out at the bell, it will be a TKO!

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle
If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science...--dwise1

This message is a reply to:
 Message 298 by Tanypteryx, posted 12-21-2013 3:50 PM Tanypteryx has not replied

  
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