Dating Methodology and its Associated Assumptions

OK, since no-ones called you on this, I will.It's totally false.The paper Milton alleges he refers to called:
Radiogenic Helium and Argon in Ultramafic Inclusions from Hawaii, J.G. Funkhouser and J.J. Naughton, Journal of Geophysical Research 73:14 pp. 4601-4607 (15 July 1968)My bold in the title.What it's about is this. Hawaiian lava is, relatively speaking, cool, and carries along with it lumps of solid rock which are left as inclusions when the lava cools down.What the paper was about was seeing if you could get a date of the underlying magma from these inclusions. Theory said no, there would be Argon outgassing but, like good scientists, the authors of the paper checked it to see.They first dataed the lava and duly returned a date of 0. They then dated the inclusions and got dates all over the place.Conclusion: inclusiomns cannot be accurately dated: just as theory had predicted.Now, look further at this. Milton quoted the paper's title accurately, if incompletely; and thus must have read it. Therefore he knows what the paper said. Therefore he's lying to you Willowtree.See here for more details. The story of recent Hawaiian lava dating old is wrong.

Willowtree But, as I showed in my earlier post, Milton lied about the study of Hawaiian lava by G.J. Funkhouser and J.J. Naughton, 1968.Please address this issue

Willowtre, you've got the wrong Mark - there are two of us posting here.Now, on the substantive issue: My judgement of Milton on this issue is independent of the actual merits of the argument: it depends soley on the contents of the paper and its iterpretation.Milton states that in the paper recent lava was dated as being old.I repeat the title of the paper (again with my emboldenment):Radiogenic Helium and Argon in Ultramafic Inclusions from Hawaii, J.G. Funkhouser and J.J. Naughton, Journal of Geophysical Research 73:14 pp. 4601-4607 (15 July 1968)Now there are three and only three ways in which Milton can haved used this paper:1:He has both seen and read the paper.In this case he has uttered a lie direct, since the paper clearly states that the lava was dated to 0, and that it was the inclusions that showed old, but, as predicted by theory, inconsistent dates.1:He has seen the paper (or at least it's title) but not read it.
In this case he has still uttered a lie direct, since the title alone indicates that the lava was not the subject of the paper, can gives no indication that it was even dated.2:He has not seen or read the paper, but simply did a cut and paste from another creationist source.
In this case it is the lie indirect about the actual facts of the case, since he can from his own knowledge state any conclusion. It is, however, a lie direct in that he claims without foundation that the source supports his position as to the unreliability of radio-dating.In each case Milton has lied.Over to you, Willowtree.

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For Whigs admit no force but argument.

The column implies time in two ways:1: It implies relative time - the order in which sediments were laid down.2: It takes time to lay down a sedimentary formation. In many cases this rate can be observed in formations being laid down today. In some cases estimates - and I stress estimates - of the time take to lay down a formation can be made. It was for those reasons that creationist geologists abandoned a young earth decades before Darwin.

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For Whigs admit no force but argument.

Prove it. All the quotes from Milton I have seen - including yours - only give the authors Yes, he said it was the lava that was dated. My point exactly. Because, when heated, rocks outgass Argon, thus distorting the results. No, his point was that the lava could not be dated. Every creationist source I have seen that quotes Milton makes this point. All concerned with radio dating expected this result: but it was worth checking - an unbiased check - something creationists avoid at all costs.The point is that in this particular instance radio dating: in particular Kr/Ar dating is unreliable and should not be used. However, even though it is acknowledeged that Kr/Ar dating is one of the least reliable methods, it is still valid. Dalyrmple's work on recent lavas showed that maximum errors were between +1,00,000 and -30,000 years: and then only on about a quarter of samples. Important, yes. But trivial for dating old rocks (say c200,000,000+ years). Incredible. You have just written off about 3,000 years of scientific thought. The whole point of science is to makes predictions based on theory, check them and then, if necessary, refine the theory.That the theory - radio-isotope dating - was able to make a correct prediction - that the method was invalid in this case - confirms the validity of the theory.

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For Whigs admit no force but argument.

Willowtree. You make a claim that there is an organised, systematic conspiracy going on to defraud the populace on the age of the earth by supressing discordant results.In that case, why do you (and other creationists) not expose it?It would be easy - trivially easy.Take samples of rocks conventionally dated at one age.Take them to a lab, and give as target date that of similar rocks of a different age.If you are right, that will be the age returned due to the geologists conspiracy.If we are right, they will return the predicted age.I obviously exclude from the "age check" scenario the creationists trick of sending young (1,000's of years old) rocks to labs that only check rocks that are millions of years old - it should be quite easy to find similar rock samples in the 20's and 200's of millions of years age brackets for example.If this was done it would blow the whole "conspiracy" out of the water.Why has it never been done?

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For Whigs admit no force but argument.

For from having gone unchallenged, I completely refuted it.Let me repeat the two main points. The study did not return datings of the lavas that were all over the place: the lava was dated and duly returned a zero age date (correct given the age of the sample and the accuracy of the test). What it did do was produce datings for the inclusions (unmelted rocks carried along with the lava) that were inconsistent with each other. Conclusion: as theory had predicted, inclusions cannot be used to date the underlying rock. Unfortunate, but no problem for radio-isotope dating.However, that was not my main point.This was that Milton misrepresented the study. In short, he lied about the results.This was that had Milton read the study - or even read the title of the study, he would have know this. He therefore could not make the claim that the study supported his conclusion that radio-isotope daing was unreliable, for the study came to almost the oppoiste conclusion - that it was reliable, except in certain easily recognisable circumstances. So, if he had read the study he lied about its conclusions.If he had not read the study, but merely did a typical creationists cut-and-paste, he lied by implication, because he would have had no way of knowing if the study supported or did not support his views.It is this latter point that you have totally failed to address by merely restating your initial position.

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For Whigs admit no force but argument.