[_ Old Earth _] Revised Carbon 14 testing

[jwu]

I would think those doing the sample collection, and the lab doing the analysis

were aware of this.

There have been cases of that not being done properly...especially if the people doing the tests have a personal agenda.

Furthermore, due to the long half life of potasium (1.3x10^9 years), that method is only good for old samples. Saying that it's useless because it doesn't come up with good results for young samples is like saying that a method which for known reason produces results of +-50 years is not good for dating things in the thousands of years range because it produces crappy results for things which are a week old.

Trying to use a case in which the dating method wasn't even expected to come up with a good result due to its normal error margin is outright deception. The one who first used that case (Andrew Snelling, if i recall correctly) is either incompetent or a liar.

Charcoal is the most common sample used to c14 date archeological sites.

How does burnt wood differ from charcoal?

Exactly my point - charcoal is made in absence of oxygen. No oxygen, no C14 loss to CO2.




"Charcoal is the blackish residue consisting of impure carbon obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents of animal and vegetable substances. It is usually produced by heating wood in the absence of oxygen (see char), but sugar charcoal, bone charcoal (which contains a great amount of calcium phosphate), and others can be produced as well. The soft, brittle, light, black, porous material is 85% to 98% carbon, the remainder consisting of volatile chemicals and ash, and resembles coal."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charcoal

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

Exactly my point - charcoal is made in absence of oxygen. No oxygen, no C14 loss to CO2.

And that differs from wood trapped in lava?

Charcoal found at archeological sites is from campfires...exposed to much

oxygen.

Trying to use a case in which the dating method wasn't even expected to come up with a good result due to its normal error margin is outright deception. The one who first used that case (Andrew Snelling, if i recall correctly) is either incompetent or a liar.

Deception? How? The whole idea is to test the validity of the dating

technique.

45 million years-normal margin of error? If we can't even rely on

these dating techniques to give accurate results for samples for which we

know the date, how can we expect accurate results from items we for which

we don't know the date. How do we know the samples aren't just a few

hundred or thousand years old? There are many, many examples of just

this...erroneous dates produced by radiometric dates for samples for which

the date is known.

So for sure, we should never rely on these techniques to give us accurate

older dates...the samples could just as easily be very young. That was the

whole idea of the experiment. The dates produced are meaningless.

Peace

 

[jwu]

And that differs from wood trapped in lava?
Charcoal found at archeological sites is from campfires...exposed to much
oxygen.

No, that's why it has become charcoal. The campfire did burn on oxygen, of course, just like the heat source of a charcoal pile. However, not every part inside the fire is exposed to oxygen, particularly the inside of the pieces of wood. If it was exposed to enough oxygen, it wouldn't become charcoal but burn up.

I read up on that particular case by the way, and it was fossilized wood which was found under an older lava flow which was dated to 45 million years (and it wasn't one of the recently observed new ones) ...and an age of 45.000 by C14 with one of the older measuring instruments means "not enough C14 left to measure", it's the background radiation which was detected there. In other words, the result was perfectly fine as well - 45.000.000 years old fssilized wood is expected to give exactly that reading in a C14 dating, as that means nothing but "sample too old, no measurable C14 left, just background radiation".

Snelling either knew this and is a liar because he misrepresented this result as an anomaly even though it isn't, or he is utterly incompetent.

Deception? How? The whole idea is to test the validity of the dating

technique.

Deliberate misuse is deception.

If i go around and tell someone that a dating method which i know has an error margin of +- 50 years doesn't work on 3000 years old stuff because it came up with an age of 45 years for something which is a week old, omitting the information about the error margin from my listeners, then i am a liar. I would have known that that result was perfectly fine, and that i am grossly misrepresenting the use of that dating technique.

Finding real problems with it is perfectly fine, but trying to convince people of the invalidity of a method by pointing out cases in which it isn't even expected to come up with good results for known reasons is not a valid critique but outright dishonesty.

45 million years-normal margin of error?

Actually the results of the samples in question was 270.000 - 3.500.000 years, not 45 million. The 45 million result came from another lava flow....not one from 1949 ;)
The method is perfectly fine for very old stuff.

If we can't even rely on
these dating techniques to give accurate results for samples for which we
know the date, how can we expect accurate results from items we for which
we don't know the date.

Now you're doing exactly what i mentioned above. The method has a margin of error which is very large in comparison to the known age of young samples, but that doesn't make it useless for older ones whose absolute age is way bigger than the margin of error.

How do we know the samples aren't just a few
hundred or thousand years old? There are many, many examples of just
this...erroneous dates produced by radiometric dates for samples for which
the date is known.

Because the mechanism of the dating method is well understood, and it can be cross checked with various other dating methods.

Of course, anomalies do exist, in case of contamination and so on. But an occasional anomaly doesn't make all the nicely correlating dates go away. Why does the majority of dates agree with each other? They shouldn't at all, if the dating methods are so massively flawed as you say. A while ago i've posted the lake suigetsu graph, as well as a tree ring graph - why do we get such a nice line there? Is is coincidence? And what precise mechanism do you propose is responsible for supposedly all radiometric dates being off by a large factor?

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

Deception? How? The whole idea is to test the validity of the dating

technique.

Deliberate misuse is deception.

Your saying testing equipment for the validity of it's results is deception?

I say it's science in it's purest form.

If big assumptions are based on the results of this testing method, then it's

validity for giving accurate results is crucial. If the method gives wildly

inaccurate results for young tests, then how do we know we're really dating

old rocks when relying on it for historical purposes. Evolutionists assume an

old earth, therefore when the method gives tests for old years of rock

formations, they accept it. But their accepting it is circular reasoning. The old

dating of young rocks is dismissed because they are to young to have been

in the tests "range". But the ID type replies that all rocks are too young for

this method to work...i.e.- 7000 years. All readings of rocks will have an old

age. The evolutionists old age theory is circular reasoning.

Peace

 

[jwu]

Your saying testing equipment for the validity of it's results is deception?

What do the cases in question have to do with testing the equipment?

If big assumptions are based on the results of this testing method, then it's validity for giving accurate results is crucial.

Yes, that's why its mechanism is critically examined and the cross checked with other methods.

If the method gives wildly
inaccurate results for young tests, then how do we know we're really dating
old rocks when relying on it for historical purposes.

They are only "wildly inaccurate" in relation to the absolute young age of the samples in question.
According to your own logic a yardstick cannot be relied on for measuring the length of your room because it comes up with "wildly inaccurate" results when you try to measure the width of a hair with it. How do you not see how this line of reasoning is faulty? A dating method doesn't have to be good for dating things of all ages, it just has to sufficiently indicate if something is outside of its good range.

Evolutionists assume an
old earth, therefore when the method gives tests for old years of rock
formations, they accept it.

The age of the earth was established independently of the theory of evolution. Geologists don't care at all about the consequences of their findings on a theory of biology. And if a geologist could falsify radiometric dating, he could be sure to become quite famous.

The old
dating of young rocks is dismissed because they are to young to have been
in the tests "range".

No, because they actually are in the range. The reason why that range is well understood, it's insufficient sensitivity of the measuring instruments.

But the ID type replies that all rocks are too young for
this method to work...i.e.- 7000 years. All readings of rocks will have an old
age. The evolutionists old age theory is circular reasoning.

You're not making any sense there. Yes, young rocks will give an older reading than they actually are when subjected to Pt/Ar dating, but there is an upper limit to that. Results beyond that limit quite safely indicate a higher minimum age than just 7000 years.

What exactly do you propose as the mechanism which causes dates to be so far off, up to a factor of 1.000.000? How come various (and often completely independent) dating methods correlate so nicely? Please answer this.

 

[jwu]

Things which indicate a minimum age of the earth:
8,000 years based on tree rings from the bristlecone pines in california
10,000 years based on European oak tree rings
45,000 years based on annual river varves of lake suigetsu, correlated by C14 dating
110,000 years by annual ice layers from greenland, a different location and process altogether
422,776 years based on ice layers in antarctica
567,700 years based on annual calcite layers of devil's hole, different location and process again, verified by Thorium-230 dates and Protactinium-231 dating
Even more based on daily layers of corals.

That's the absolute minimum age based on solid direct data.

The solid dots represent the ages calculated from the C14 dates in Lake Suigetsu (Japan) and the open circles represent data points from Lake Gosciaz (Poland). Two different lakes, agreeing results. Coincidence? I think not.

Here we have suigestu varve dates determined by C14 in the solid dots again, and uranium thorium dates of coral layers in the circles. Again, the methods correlate. Why, if they are as inaccurate as you say?

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

No, that's why it has become charcoal. The campfire did burn on oxygen, of course, just like the heat source of a charcoal pile. However, not every part inside the fire is exposed to oxygen, particularly the inside of the pieces of wood. If it was exposed to enough oxygen, it wouldn't become charcoal but burn up.

Charred bone, wood, and plants are used all the time to c14 date.

I like to know if I'm wrong, that's for sure. Where did you find (peer

reviewed paper) that burnt wood can't be used for c14 dating. It's news to

me. You can even get charcoal off burned wood...like the one under the

lava.

http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/villa ... ample.html

Peace

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

Things which indicate a minimum age of the earth:
8,000 years based on tree rings from the bristlecone pines in california
10,000 years based on European oak tree rings
45,000 years based on annual river varves of lake suigetsu, correlated by C14 dating
110,000 years by annual ice layers from greenland, a different location and process altogether
422,776 years based on ice layers in antarctica
567,700 years based on annual calcite layers of devil's hole, different location and process again, verified by Thorium-230 dates and Protactinium-231 dating
Even more based on daily layers of corals.

That's the absolute minimum age based on solid direct data.

All based on uniformitarianism assumptions...which is silly.

Again, you need to look at events in the past, taking catistrophicism into

account. Much of what we know about out past reveals much upheaval and

change. To assume uniform rates throughout history is a silly

assumption...but necessary to be inline with evolutionary thought.

Peace.

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

The solid dots represent the ages calculated from the C14 dates in Lake Suigetsu (Japan) and the open circles represent data points from Lake Gosciaz (Poland). Two different lakes, agreeing results. Coincidence? I think not.

Which strata did the researchers sample from each lake. Why do they think the

two strata should correolate. i guess I need a link to the research. What your

saying means little without context...that's everything in archeology.

Here we have suigestu varve dates determined by C14 in the solid dots again, and uranium thorium dates of coral layers in the circles. Again, the methods correlate. Why, if they are as inaccurate as you say?

Again, I need more of the story. Link please.

Peace

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

What do the cases in question have to do with testing the equipment?

Because they show the possibility of young rocks showing old ages...which

makes the method unreliable.

Peace

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

You're not making any sense there. Yes, young rocks will give an older reading than they actually are when subjected to Pt/Ar dating, but there is an upper limit to that. Results beyond that limit quite safely indicate a higher minimum age than just 7000 years.

If it's aging young rocks as old, then how do you know the dates your obtaining

from other formations aren't just a few thousand years old. There's no way to

know.

Peace

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

No, because they actually are in the range. The reason why that range is well understood, it's insufficient sensitivity of the measuring instruments.

I believe it's more from the invalidity of the method.


Peace

 

[jwu]

No, that's why it has become charcoal. The campfire did burn on oxygen, of course, just like the heat source of a charcoal pile. However, not every part inside the fire is exposed to oxygen, particularly the inside of the pieces of wood. If it was exposed to enough oxygen, it wouldn't become charcoal but burn up.

Charred bone, wood, and plants are used all the time to c14 date.
I like to know if I'm wrong, that's for sure. Where did you find (peer
reviewed paper) that burnt wood can't be used for c14 dating. It's news to
me. You can even get charcoal off burned wood...like the one under the
lava.

http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/villa ... ample.html

Peace

If you get charcoal of it, then you can date that. Burnt wood (not charcoal) however cannot be dated that way, and i have explained why.
Furthermore, i have explained the result in a different way as well, even if there was dateable charcoal found it is not an anomaly at all. 45.000 years means "no measurable C14 left, only background radiation" if one doesn't use the very latest measuring instruments, good for up to 55.000 to 60.000 years.

All based on uniformitarianism assumptions...which is silly.
Again, you need to look at events in the past, taking catistrophicism into
account. Much of what we know about out past reveals much upheaval and
change. To assume uniform rates throughout history is a silly
assumption...but necessary to be inline with evolutionary thought.

Actually potential catastrophes are taken into account. Flood varves look different than the river varves in these lakes, and i am not aware of any mechanism that could produce more than one layer of corals per day.

How could a global flood, a cataclysmic event, form fine undisturbed layers like these over hundreds of square kilometres? Flood layers look significantly different.

Some other links:
About various dating methods, including non-radiometric ones such as luminescence
http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/wgmt/common/geochronology.html

Devil's Hole:
http://water.usgs.gov/nrp/devilshole.html
http://water.usgs.gov/pubs/of/ofr97-792/
and http://water.usgs.gov/nrp/devils.html

Corals:
http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/not ... coral.html
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com ... rowth.html

 

[jwu]

Which strata did the researchers sample from each lake. Why do they think the two strata should correolate. i guess I need a link to the research. What your saying means little without context...that's everything in archeology.

They dated organic matter in lake varves, which today are seen to form annually. By counting the layers and checking them with the C14 results of stuff found in them they can see if the results correlate or not.

If C14 or the layers were unreliable, then there is no reason why these independent methods should correlate as nicely as they do.
In case of the other graph it's a correlation of suigetsu varve dates and coral layer dates which are shown, incorporating a full four independent dating methods (river varves, coral layers, C14 and uranium dating). If these don't work, why do they correlate?

Because they show the possibility of young rocks showing old ages...which
makes the method unreliable.

It shows the possibility of young rocks showing old ages within a limited bandwidth, which makes the method inaccurate for young ages. As i previously explained, a method which gives a result of +- 50 years won't be good for dating things which aren't older than a week, but it's fine for things which are thousands of years old - and it also indicates if something is too young to be dated properly.

If it's aging young rocks as old, then how do you know the dates your obtaining from other formations aren't just a few thousand years old. There's no way to know.

And how exactly can this happen? What exactly is the flaw which you suggest there is, and why do these independent methods correlate? That'd be one huge freak accident if they all were mistaken, wouldn't it?


Link about lake suigetsu:
http://www.cio.phys.rug.nl/HTML-docs/Ve ... /PE-04.htm

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

If you get charcoal of it, then you can date that. Burnt wood (not charcoal) however cannot be dated that way, and i have explained why.

A link to a peer reviewed study please. I've never heard you can't use

burnt wood...it's like treasure to an archeologist...it gives you chronometric

evidence(albeit relative, not absolute) necessary for getting overall sequential

context of a strata.

Peace.

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

How could a global flood, a cataclysmic event, form fine undisturbed layers like these over hundreds of square kilometres? Flood layers look significantly different.

Where are these in the "geologic column"?

Do you have a link. I have no context.

Thanks.

Peace

 

[jwu]

How are you going to date something that only has a tiny fraction of its original C14 left, as the rest was turned into CO2 and left to the atmosphere? Do you want a peer reviewed article on basic chemistry?
I'm not talking about half burned or charred wood, but properly burnt one. All carbon which could oxidize being oxidized.

In case of e.g. "campfire datings" charred or half burnt wood is dated.

However, for the sake of this argument i'll concede this point for now, as it is irrelevant due to the nature of the C14 result anyway - because using anything but the latest measuring instruments, a C14 reading of something that is millions of years old would give exactly the 45,000 of the sample in question. The latest measuring instruments would say something along the lines of 60,000 years about that sample, because that's where they stop when they cannot detect any more C14 in the sample other than the background radiation.

 

[jwu]

The link about the image:
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/castile.htm



Something about rive varves,buried river beds, and an especially nice comparison of annual river varves with storm varves.
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/age.htm
The particularly impressive comparison from that page:

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

Alright Bro.

I'm worn out for the day.

Shall we pick it up tomorrow?

Peace

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

They dated organic matter in lake varves, which today are seen to form annually. By counting the layers and checking them with the C14 results of stuff found in them they can see if the results correlate or not.

If C14 or the layers were unreliable, then there is no reason why these independent methods should correlate as nicely as they do.
In case of the other graph it's a correlation of suigetsu varve dates and coral layer dates which are shown, incorporating a full four independent dating methods (river varves, coral layers, C14 and uranium dating). If these don't work, why do they correlate?

Good Morning Bro.

O.K., first thing I noticed with the correlation between the varves is there are

many points where the C14 dated layers are off by 200 to 600 years (and

that's of the dates that were accepted as valid by the researchers).

Second, varve analysis is a rough guess at best:

Traditionally, when one "counted" varves, it proved to be a fairly monotonous and tiresome task resulting in much time lost and much subjectivity due to determining layers. One had to take microscopic evaluations of the material and form some sort of hypothesis or interpretation from the shape and thickness of the layers. This provided inaccurate data because different varve types can cause mistakes in the algorithm that is used and produce miscounts. For example, sub-annual laminations can be counted as extra years, and certain years may not deposit a carbonate layer, which often would not be counted. Thus, this technique is much criticized for providing insufficient data to determine such changes.

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology ... varve.html

Varves have been used to set up the first "absolute" chronology, which significantly exceeds the Scriptural time scale from Genesis. Observations of modern glaciers and recent climate simulations show that the ice sheets during the Ice Age melted rapidly, much faster than indicated by varves. A further investigation of varves demonstrates that other mechanisms deposit varve-like couplets in a short time. Therefore, "varves" are not necessarily annual. A method to distinguish between annual depositional sequences and other mechanisms is difficult to apply. (Oard, p. 72)

Fischer and Roberts (1991) state, "In some cases the observer counting varves is left in doubt as to which couplets are varves and which are subvarve units, a matter that was handled in our image analysis varve counts by arbitrarily counting only variations above the 30 micron level." In other words, they arbitrarily chose 30 microns as the minimum thickness to be used for computer analysis. However, many laminations are less than 30 microns thick. Also, many of the "varves" consist of organic layers squeezed together with very tiny carbonate laminae in between. There is no consistency in varve structure.

Uranium-Thorium dating is subject to the same assumptions as C14

dating...uniformitarian interpretation of the decay rates.

Another particularly troublesome aspect of the technique is the requirement

for the object to be dated- it must take up uranium-238 and no thorium,

then immediately be closed off so it would not be able to take in more.

To me, that's very unrealistic.

The assumptions that each of these radiometric dating methods make are:

1. Each system has to be a closed system; that is, nothing can contaminate

any of the parents or the daughter products while they are going through

their decay processâ€â€or the dating will be thrown off. As we've discussed in

previous posts, there's no such thing as a closed system...except the

universe itself.

2. Each system must initially have contained none of its daughter products.

But how do you confirm this?

3. The process rate must always have been the same. The decay rate must

never have changed. I think this is extremely unrealistic, which is why i only

use C14 as a relative dating tool...not absolute. The decay rate of any

radioactive mineral can be altered [1] if the mineral is bombarded by high

energy particles from space (such as neutrinos, cosmic rays, etc.); [2] if

there is, for a time, a nearby radioactive mineral emitting radiation; [3] if

physical pressure is brought to bear upon the radioactive mineral; or [4] if

certain chemicals are brought in contact with it.

4. If any change occurred in past ages in the blanket of atmosphere

surrounding our planet, this would greatly affect the clocks in radioactive

minerals.

5. The Van Allen radiation belt encircles the globe. It is about 450 miles

above us and is intensely radioactive. According to Van Allen, high-altitude

tests revealed that it emits 3000-4000 times as much radiation as the

cosmic rays that continually bombard the earth.

Any change in the Van Allen belt would powerfully affect the transformation

time of radioactive minerals.

6. A basic assumption of all radioactive dating methods is that the clock had

to start at the beginning; that is, no daughter products were present, only

those elements at the top of the radioactive chain were in existence.

7. This factor of initial apparent age would strongly affect our present

reading of the radioactive clocks in uranium, thorium, etc.

If these don't work, why do they correlate?

So in summary, you can have different radiometric dates correlating for

a particular sample or between samples, but their still giving you relative

results, not absolute.

To make all the assumptions given above for the dating to be correct is

not reasonable in my opinion.

Peace