The Ignorance of Creationists

Originally posted by MrXYZ
reply to post by Masterjaden

 

What circular arguments are you talking about?? We know how old the earth is because we have multiple radiometric dating methods that all confirm that the earth is 4.54bil years old.

oh Wiki !

radiometric dating method is quite questionable as we all know...

The geological time scale is based on less than 800 dates obtained by various methods on rocks from different geological layers. These dates tend to agree with each other, but there are hundreds of thousands of other dates that have been measured and were not listed. Many of these other dates disagree with one another, so it is not clear what the significance of these 800 dates is.

University of North Carolina

If a C14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely 'out of date' we just drop it.
(Pensee, Winter 1973)

Time Upside Down

Indeed, there are a number of conditions on the reliability of radiometric dating. For example, for K-Ar dating, we have the following requirements: For this system to work as a clock, the following 4 criteria must be fulfilled:

1. The decay constant and the abundance of K40 must be known accurately.
2. There must have been no incorporation of Ar40 into the mineral at the time of crystallization or a leak of Ar40 from the mineral following crystallization.
3. The system must have remained closed for both K40 and Ar40 since the time of crystallization.
4. The relationship between the data obtained and a specific event must be known.

the Radiometric Dating Game

Different methods of radiometric dating vary in the timescale over which they are accurate

reading Wiki's description of methods

A raw BP date cannot be used directly as a calendar date, because the level of atmospheric 14C has not been strictly constant during the span of time that can be radiocarbon dated.

further reading into one Method

For shorter timescales, it is likely that not enough Argon 40 will have had time to accumulate in order to be accurately measurable

and into another Method

one of my favorite being of course the quote from 1973

reply to post by Cosmic.Artifact

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact

Originally posted by MrXYZ
reply to post by Masterjaden

 

What circular arguments are you talking about?? We know how old the earth is because we have multiple radiometric dating methods that all confirm that the earth is 4.54bil years old.

oh Wiki !

Wiki? You mean how the Wiki entry has three separate citations for that date? One of those is from the US geologic survey.

radiometric dating method is quite questionable as we all know...

No, it isn't.

The geological time scale is based on less than 800 dates obtained by various methods on rocks from different geological layers. These dates tend to agree with each other, but there are hundreds of thousands of other dates that have been measured and were not listed. Many of these other dates disagree with one another, so it is not clear what the significance of these 800 dates is.

University of North Carolina

...Huh, that's from the department of computer sciences...and none of what you quote has any references...and the religious rant ends in "Amen".

If a C14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely 'out of date' we just drop it.
(Pensee, Winter 1973)

Time Upside Down

Quote mine!

The original quote:

C-14 dating was being discussed at a symposium on the
prehistory of the Nile Valley. A famous American
colleague, Professor Brew, briefly summarized a common
attitude among archaeologists towards it, as
follows: If a C-14 date supports our theories, we put
it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict
them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is
completely out of date we just drop it. Few
archaeologists who have concerned themselves with
absolute chronology are innocent of having
sometimes applied this method.

Source

If something is completely out of date (like getting a result that you shouldn't get with radiocarbon methods), it's obvious that they'll drop it. And C14 dating has a known timescale to test against and has been proven by testing items of known age in double blind tests.

Indeed, there are a number of conditions on the reliability of radiometric dating. For example, for K-Ar dating, we have the following requirements: For this system to work as a clock, the following 4 criteria must be fulfilled:

1. The decay constant and the abundance of K40 must be known accurately.
2. There must have been no incorporation of Ar40 into the mineral at the time of crystallization or a leak of Ar40 from the mineral following crystallization.
3. The system must have remained closed for both K40 and Ar40 since the time of crystallization.
4. The relationship between the data obtained and a specific event must be known.

the Radiometric Dating Game

Another things from U of North Carolina's computer sciences department? Someone there must really hate science.

Anyway, no scientific citation is made. The only citations made are to apologist sources on there.

Different methods of radiometric dating vary in the timescale over which they are accurate

reading Wiki's description of methods

Of course they do. We know the scales over which they are accurate. Air speed meters aren't accurate at supersonic speeds, which is why we don't use them to measure supersonic flight. It's the same thing here. The known rates of decay for various isotopes allow for only a limited range of results.

Oh, and there is another problem, some creationists like to misapply methods. One particular one they repeat is the attempt at carbon dating dinosaur fossils. Aside from fossils having no carbon in them, there's no evidence of dinosaurs being around less than tens of millions of years ago.

A raw BP date cannot be used directly as a calendar date, because the level of atmospheric 14C has not been strictly constant during the span of time that can be radiocarbon dated.

further reading into one Method

Why did you stop at the need for calibration? Why didn't you bother reading about the calibration methods?

The raw radiocarbon dates, in BP years, are calibrated to give calendar dates. Standard calibration curves are available, based on comparison of radiocarbon dates of samples that can be dated independently by other methods such as examination of tree growth rings (dendrochronology), deep ocean sediment cores, lake sediment varves, coral samples, and speleothems (cave deposits).
The calibration curves can vary significantly from a straight line, so comparison of uncalibrated radiocarbon dates (e.g., plotting them on a graph or subtracting dates to give elapsed time) is likely to give misleading results. There are also significant plateaus in the curves, such as the one from 11,000 to 10,000 radiocarbon years BP, which is believed to be associated with changing ocean circulation during the Younger Dryas period. Over the historical period from 0 to 10,000 years BP, the average width of the uncertainty of calibrated dates was found to be 335 years, although in well-behaved regions of the calibration curve the width decreased to about 113 years while in ill-behaved regions it increased to a maximum of 801 years. Significantly, in the ill-behaved regions of the calibration curve, increasing the precision of the measurements does not have a significant effect on increasing the accuracy of the dates.[14]
The 2004 version of the calibration curve extends back quite accurately to 26,000 years BP. Any errors in the calibration curve do not contribute more than ±16 years to the measurement error during the historic and late prehistoric periods (0–6,000 yrs BP) and no more than ±163 years over the entire 26,000 years of the curve, although its shape can reduce the accuracy as mentioned above.[15]
In late 2009, the journal Radiocarbon announced agreement on the INTCAL09 standard, which extends a more accurate calibration curve to 50,000 years.[16][17]

From the exact same damn source.

For shorter timescales, it is likely that not enough Argon 40 will have had time to accumulate in order to be accurately measurable

and into another Method

Which is why Argon 40 dating isn't used for shorter timescales.

one of my favorite being of course the quote from 1973

You mean the quote mine? The deliberate reshaping of a man's words for use in a dishonest manner?

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
You mean the quote mine? The deliberate reshaping of a man's words for use in a dishonest manner?

wow that's really desperate MIMS, quote-mine eh ? actually it's called a cut&paste of the best part of the comment... it doesn't change anything or the truth about the reliability of radiometric dating.

C14 dating happens to be the most accurate but it's accuracy only stretches a little beyond 5000 years, which is a little weird considering the young earth creationist beliefs.

reply to post by Cosmic.Artifact

The uranium-lead radiometric dating scheme has been refined to the point that the error margin in dates of rocks can be as low as less than two million years in two-and-a-half billion years.

Source

Even if radiometric dating isn't totally accurate, the margin of error is so small, it's pretty clear that young earth creationist theories are beyond hogwash

reply to post by Cosmic.Artifact

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
You mean the quote mine? The deliberate reshaping of a man's words for use in a dishonest manner?

wow that's really desperate MIMS, quote-mine eh ?

Yes, a quote mine. I showed the original and it was different.

actually it's called a cut&paste of the best part of the comment...

No, it was a removal of context. It was a guy talking about someone else. It also removed the part about footnoting odd results that aren't entirely off.

it doesn't change anything or the truth about the reliability of radiometric dating.

You're right, it's still true.

C14 dating happens to be the most accurate

I'm sorry, what? Most accurate by what definition? I see no evidence that other radiometric dating methods have much greater margins of error.

but it's accuracy only stretches a little beyond 5000 years,

60,000 years. You were off by 55,000 years.

Citation

which is a little weird considering the young earth creationist beliefs.

Yeah, I've never seen a young Earth creationist who thinks that the universe is 60,000 years old.

Originally posted by MrXYZ

Even if radiometric dating isn't totally accurate,

thank you for understanding and agreeing, I view this as a major step in our quest to deny ignorance.

do I need to post any more considering you posted this... (on page 14)

Originally posted by MrXYZ

The oldest fossil we have is 2.74bil years old by the way...so even that alone proves that the earth is billions of years old.

Now what I am curious about is how or why you believe an inaccurate dating method proves something is fact or true ?

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul

Yes, a quote mine. I showed the original and it was different.

actually I posted the link to the source of my cut&paste for all to read, it did not change any of the words quoted, therefore the rest of your post has no foundation and will not be read by me.

when you begin to open with logical and rational statements that are not misleading I will respond in the manner you request.

opening posture is very important, didn't you learn Chess ?


edit:
here is the quote again and the link to the words in question... (about halfway down the page.)

If a C14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely 'out of date,' we just drop it (Pensee , Winter 1973, p.44).

Time Upside Down


oh I forgot to mention it appears quite desperate to post a different Source than the actual one I used, in court of law that's called falsifying evidence...

reply to post by Cosmic.Artifact

yeah it is inaccurate, but the margin of error isn't billions of years lol

Originally posted by uva3021
reply to post by Cosmic.Artifact

 

yeah it is inaccurate, but the margin of error isn't billions of years lol

true that ! though it was not my point, my point simply is that it is inaccurate but was being used as fact and proof by some.

now we could always start another topic debating just how many years it could be inaccurate by...

Just a quick question to all the Creationists here.

Do you believe that all dogs were created the way they are now? Including dogs like Pugs, Chihuahuas or English Bulldogs who, I think we can all agree on that, would have no chance of surviving out in the wild for various reasons?

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact

Originally posted by MrXYZ

Even if radiometric dating isn't totally accurate,

thank you for understanding and agreeing, I view this as a major step in our quest to deny ignorance.

do I need to post any more considering you posted this... (on page 14)

Originally posted by MrXYZ

The oldest fossil we have is 2.74bil years old by the way...so even that alone proves that the earth is billions of years old.

Now what I am curious about is how or why you believe an inaccurate dating method proves something is fact or true ?

edit on 1/30/2011 by Cosmic.Artifact because: (no reason given)

Because the margin of error for that fossil is only around 2 million years!!! That's a 0.07% error margin!!! For crying out loud, you can hardly call that inaccurate

It's not as if the error margin is large enough to explain complete hogwash such as dinosaurs roaming the earth with humans, or the earth only being 10k years old.

You are arguing over 0.07%

manipulation of data and truth is one thing we ignorant Creationists are quite used to by now I might add...

Academic Palgiarism

reply to post by Cosmic.Artifact


And I provided the original quote. I'm not accusing you of quote mining, I'm accusing the source you cited of quote mining. The original quote:

C-14 dating was being discussed at a symposium on the prehistory of the Nile Valley. A famous American colleague, Professor Brew, briefly summarized a common attitude among archaeologists towards it, as follows: If a C-14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely out of date we just drop it. Few archaeologists who have concerned themselves with absolute chronology are innocent of having sometimes applied this method.

From a link that describes the evolution of this very quote mine with a link to the source you provided as well as a link to the original. It is an accusation of lack of scientific rigor rather than a confession. You have changed the meaning.

You also quote mined wikipedia by citing the reasons for calibration without bothering to provide the means by which calibration corrects for errors.

reply to post by Cosmic.Artifact


It is not inaccurate, there is just a margin of error. The margin of error is considerable negligible. An example would be the age of the Earth, where the margin of error is 1%. All scientific measurements have a margin of error.

Originally posted by MrXYZ
You are arguing over 0.07%

actually I am not arguing that here, I am simply stating that your comment to a poster on page 14 is not "fact" and proves nothing relating to your argument.

there are many sites dealing in what you now wish to argue, try a google search...

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact
manipulation of data and truth is one thing we ignorant Creationists are quite used to by now I might add...

Academic Palgiarism

You'd imagine so after years of Hovind seminars

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact

Originally posted by MrXYZ
You are arguing over 0.07%

actually I am not arguing that here, I am simply stating that your comment to a poster on page 14 is not "fact" and proves nothing relating to your argument.

there are many sites dealing in what you now wish to argue, try a google search...

I guess you never had quantitative method at school. If you had, you'd know that an 0.07% error margin is something a ton of scientists and economists would LOOOOOOOVE to get for their theories.

Either way, I still don't get what your point is. So it's not 100% accurate, it's on average 99.93% accurate, lol. It still doesn't mean that any of the creationist timelines are possible, not by a longshot

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
reply to post by Cosmic.Artifact

 

And I provided the original quote. I'm not accusing you of quote mining, I'm accusing the source you cited of quote mining. The original quote:

C-14 dating was being discussed at a symposium on the prehistory of the Nile Valley. A famous American colleague, Professor Brew, briefly summarized a common attitude among archaeologists towards it, as follows: If a C-14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely out of date we just drop it. Few archaeologists who have concerned themselves with absolute chronology are innocent of having sometimes applied this method.

From a link that describes the evolution of this very quote mine with a link to the source you provided as well as a link to the original. It is an accusation of lack of scientific rigor rather than a confession. You have changed the meaning.

You also quote mined wikipedia by citing the reasons for calibration without bothering to provide the means by which calibration corrects for errors.

sorry MIMS but why could you not use the actual link I posted ? (I would really like to know this)

and all I was doing with Wiki was reading further down and posting the facts that are often overlooked, that radiometric dating is inaccurate.

the links are there for those who actually wish to read, and the links were not posted by me originally, but I did read them unlike alot of posters.

Originally posted by MrXYZ

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact

Originally posted by MrXYZ
You are arguing over 0.07%

actually I am not arguing that here, I am simply stating that your comment to a poster on page 14 is not "fact" and proves nothing relating to your argument.

there are many sites dealing in what you now wish to argue, try a google search...

I guess you never had quantitative method at school. If you had, you'd know that an 0.07% error margin is something a ton of scientists and economists would LOOOOOOOVE to get for their theories.

Either way, I still don't get what your point is. So it's not 100% accurate, it's on average 99.93% accurate, lol. It still doesn't mean that any of the creationist timelines are possible, not by a longshot

I do not think you are ignorant

I was just stating the encompassing "facts" about radiometric dating from reading the very links you posted. I really appreciate all your help though because you bring alot of thing to light I would otherwise just take for granted as common knowledge.

Originally posted by MrXYZ

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact
manipulation of data and truth is one thing we ignorant Creationists are quite used to by now I might add...

Academic Palgiarism

You'd imagine so after years of Hovind seminars

he has some interesting points that he is quite adamant about, I somehow can understand why