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Author Topic:   Potassium Argon Dating doesnt work at all
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1498 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 22 of 133 (39606)
05-10-2003 1:39 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by manwhonu2little
05-10-2003 1:33 PM


Re: K-Ar Dating
Christie quietly explains that radiometric dating techniques ought not be considered accurate unless measuring times within 0.5 to 3.5 half-lives of the decaying isotope.
I'm no physicist, but that seems like an arbitrary cutoff to me. I mean, how accurate radiodating will be would seem to rely on sensitivity of detecting equipment, as well as the original composition and amount of radioisotope (rocks that started with greater amounts of radioisotope will allow for more accurate dating over longer periods of time), not arbitrary cutoffs based on half-life multiples.
Maybe that's why it's a "quiet suggestion", cuz it's wrong?
When are geologists going to get their collective heads out of the sand, and start practicing true science?
That's a pretty bold claim - what "true science" have you been doing these days?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by manwhonu2little, posted 05-10-2003 1:33 PM manwhonu2little has replied

Replies to this message:
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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1498 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 56 of 133 (41263)
05-25-2003 5:24 AM
Reply to: Message 55 by Kyle Shockley
05-25-2003 4:35 AM


And, how is it any more reasonable that you use, as a foundation, a treatise that was written well over one hundred and fifty to two hundred years ago for your interpretational foundation (Darwin, Lyell)? If recency of the material in question is all the rage, then why not throw out the old interpretational ring you seem to prefer?
Because new data to support it rolls in every day. We're not just talking about one old paper, or one old experiment - we're talking about a current, constantly-developing theory. Why replace it with, say, a bible that hasn't changed in over a thousand years? Darwin's book may be old but the thought in evolutionary theory is very new indeed - just like any other science.
So, do you have an alternate mechanism to explain the findings of radiometric dating?
I would point out that, since different, unrelated methods of radiometric dating tend to converge on roughly the same date (in situations where they could be expected to overlap), it seems reasonable to assume then that they're converging on the same date. Also, non-radiometic dating methods (varves, ice cores, dendrochronology) converge on the same dates as well.
What mechanism do you propose that would cause the same amount of error in all these unrelated, differing dating methods? That's really the heart of the matter - not what assumptions underlie any particular dating method, but why independant dating mechanisms converge on the same dates.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 55 by Kyle Shockley, posted 05-25-2003 4:35 AM Kyle Shockley has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1498 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 119 of 133 (47123)
07-23-2003 4:22 PM
Reply to: Message 118 by Kyle Shockley
07-23-2003 4:16 PM


I think "believe" was the key word there in regards to uniformitarian interpretations.
Even if you assume uniformatarianism, the fact that there's such great concordance between different types of dating suggests that the uniformatarian assumption is correct, don't you think?
Unless you have specific evidence for one single factor that could skew all kinds of different dates in exactly the same way, why is it better to propose some unknown factor that makes uniformatarianism not work? It seems like uniformatarianism has the least assumptions.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 118 by Kyle Shockley, posted 07-23-2003 4:16 PM Kyle Shockley has not replied

  
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