Carbon-14 dating Errors

a reply to: GetHyped

2 minutes on google and I found 32 published papers. How is it that someone that claims to know so much about this stuff, can't even do that? Think for yourself, and find things for yourself before making comments about things you don't know.

a reply to: OperationBlackRose

Post up the pertinent papers then if he's that prolific. You're the one making the claim, after all.

a reply to: GetHyped

www.halos.com...

originally posted by: OperationBlackRose
a reply to: GetHyped

www.halos.com...

You can find the relevant papers

a reply to: OperationBlackRose

The first paper is from 1968. That's over 45 years ago.

It's not my job to sift through a sea of papers (that for all i know, none are relevant) for you. You made a specific claim. Pick a modern paper that you feel is representative of his claims and post the relevant excerpts from said paper that support his specific claims of a young earth.

Edit: gonna beat you to the punch. To no-one's suprise, his work has been torn to shreds by those who actually work in the field:

www.talkorigins.org...
www.csun.edu...
paleo.cc...
ncse.com...

a reply to: GetHyped

I will do that for you, but later. And that is interesting, you saying "That's over 45 years ago." Yes it is, and that is when he started finding contradictory evidence. It just shows me how blind and ignorant evolutionists are.

One last thing to leave you with until I bring you that "paper that 'I' feel is representative of his claims".

This is some of what the 'greatest scientific minds' believed in the past.

The Earth Is the Center of the Universe
The Atom Is the Smallest Particle in Existence
Heavier Objects Fall Faster

a reply to: GetHyped

" Pick a modern paper that you feel is representative of his claims and post the relevant excerpts from said paper that support his specific claims of" an old "earth."

originally posted by: OperationBlackRose

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: OperationBlackRose

Well besides the fact that literally EVERY one of your sources are all old papers, published over 30 years ago, carbon-14 dating isn't even the only radiometric dating method being used.

Radiometric Dating - Modern Dating Methods

Also, carbon-14 dating only goes out to about 60,000 years. Other dating methods are much more reliable to detect ages much older. It would help if you actually READ and tried to understand science, instead of just latching onto whatever Creationist sound byte you can to try to discredit it.

How is it then that when you take one object, let say #0001, and date it using all of the 6 above stated methods of dating, that you will get 6 different dates? That does not make sense. If I use six different rulers, (inch, mm, cubit, span etc.), I will get one measurement when converting it all to one system. I can not get 6 different measurements in inch or feet. That will prove that something does not work.

Valid points, but don't expect to have people agree. Some refuse to admit that ALL of the dating methods are prone to error, and are not reliable. There are more recent cases of bad dating as well, but they tend to get scrubbed from the net in short order. S&F for the thread. Tough topic, but valid.

originally posted by: GetHyped
a reply to: OperationBlackRose



Edit: gonna beat you to the punch. To no-one's suprise, his work has been torn to shreds by those who actually work in the field:

www.talkorigins.org...
www.csun.edu...
paleo.cc...

Just scanning through that one I can see problems with the article. You can see that even the people that tried to 'discredit' his findings, didn't really study his work. This is truly embarrassing for you.

a reply to: OperationBlackRose

Just scanning through that one I can see problems with the article. You can see that even the people that tried to 'discredit' his findings, didn't really study his work. This is truly embarrassing for you.

On the contrary, the first article in the list (the only one I've looked at so far), the one from talkorigins.org, clearly indicates a very deep understanding of Gentry's work.

Please remember the motto of ATS: Deny Ignorance.

originally posted by: rnaa
a reply to: OperationBlackRose

Just scanning through that one I can see problems with the article. You can see that even the people that tried to 'discredit' his findings, didn't really study his work. This is truly embarrassing for you.

(the only one I've looked at so far),

Are you saying you are giving me articles to 'prove' you point, without even reading it first? (the first 3 articles are all the same!) If you did not actually read the research of BOTH SIDES, your view has no weight. How can you pick a side without, in this case, not even know what you are showing as proof, and not knowing what the opposite side has as proof.

a reply to: OperationBlackRose

I'm not giving you articles, the links were from GetHyped. I'm saying that I read through the first link and have not explored the other links.

That first link directly contradicted your assertion that the author did not understand Gentry's hypothesis - on the contrary he understood it thoroughly and profoundly.

The fact that you seemingly cannot read even a mildly academic article and recognize the ideas and arguments within it demonstrate quite clearly that you are not in an intellectual position to judge the veracity of either criticisms or support of Gendry's hypothesis.

Scientists recognize criticism as an opportunity to improve their ideas and the knowledge of mankind in general; psuedo-scientists recognize criticism as a personal attach on their ideas from entrenched institutionalism. Amateurs recognize criticism of their favorite alternate hypothesis as a conspiratorial cover-up of secret knowledge.

As Freud pointed out, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar - sometime an hypothesis is just wrong. There is nothing wrong with that. Finding out that an hypotheses is wrong is, in and of itself, an advancement of human knowledge.

originally posted by: OperationBlackRose
a reply to: GetHyped

" Pick a modern paper that you feel is representative of his claims and post the relevant excerpts from said paper that support his specific claims of" an old "earth."

The ENTIRE fields of geology, astronomy, and chemistry all support an old earth. If a young earth existed, all of those fields would be 100% wrong, and I'm sure I'm missing some (like genetics for evolutionary study).

The onus isn't on mainstream science to prove their position, they already have the evidence to support their assertions. Whether you agree with them or not is irrelevant. If you want to change their minds then you have to introduce the evidence that says they are wrong. THAT is how it works. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So produce the evidence. Your evidence is faulty. I and everyone else in the thread have entire fields of science that support our claim.

a reply to: OperationBlackRose

Those would be some mighty old papers you are citing. Equipment, calibrations, and such have changed a lot since then. As you've already been asked, did you read the papers? OR are these some via some anti-science creationist sources? Because there have been hundreds or thousands of papers using carbon dating, and you cite a very small select group. Thats statistically dishonest, and insignificant.

So if a study was done 45 years ago it's too old and not reliable? How's that work for Darwin's studies?

a reply to: jjkenobi

Techniques change and improve. Carbon 14 has nothing to do with Darwins theory, as he based that off of observations he made, not the amount of an isotope in a sample. That is a non sequitor argument on your part.

But lets deal with the comment on Darwin. He is one of the first to put the idea of evolution foward. The theory has evolved with new understanding from that point. For example, no one knew what the mechanism for genetic inheritance was back then (ie genetics are via DNA and evolution involves the mutation of said DNA). We know that now, and we can advance our understanding based on that. Sequencing DNA has allowed us even more tools, and we can line up genetic data with evidence we have from other sources.

Its a nice little strawman that you guys try to make, but its still a strawman argument.

a reply to: jjkenobi

People have built on Darwin's ideas with more and more evidence. No one has built on Gentry's ideas because they're wrong.

originally posted by: jjkenobi
So if a study was done 45 years ago it's too old and not reliable?

That depends on the field the study is in and what advances have been made in the last 45 years. We still use Newton's laws of gravitation frequently in cases where the error is too small to worry about, even though they are 300 years old and known to be slightly in error.

How's that work for Darwin's studies?

originally posted by: GetHyped
People have built on Darwin's ideas with more and more evidence. No one has built on Gentry's ideas because they're wrong.

They built on Darwin's good ideas, and Darwin is properly credited for coming up with some major advances based partly on his meticulous observations.

Some of Darwin's interpretations and hypotheses turned out to be wrong, so as scientists always do, they applied further evidence to support Darwin's good ideas and to also reject his wrong ideas. Here's a 18 page long paper listing errors in Darwin's work, so nobody should have any illusions that Darwin's ideas aren't subject to criticism because he is idolized, rather his ideas are subject to the same scrutiny as all ideas in science in that they must stand up to additional evidence as it is collected, or be rejected where evidence contradicts them:

Celebrating Darwin's Errors (pdf)

we can acknowledge that error is a part of science, even for so remarkable a scientist as Darwin. In Darwin's case, we can see that the sources that inspired him led to discovery in some cases and error in others. With appropriate perspectives and further evidence, however, errors can be remedied.

New evidence is still collected all the time, and this is used to resolve some of the debates about the details of evolution, some of which are still unresolved. However there is basically no debate in the scientific community about the existence of evolution, since the scientists debating the details all agree that some kind of evolution happened, so in spite of all of Darwin's errors, he turned out to be right about that.

Our understanding of evolution is continuously improving as time goes on, as is our understanding of C-14 dating. Old studies in either topic would not have the benefit of more modern research and are therefore less likely to be as accurate as more recent papers.

a reply to: Arbitrageur
I wonder, am I the only one in the thread who sees the irony in criticizing the age of some of these papers/evidence as to the legitimacy or lack thereof in carbon-14 as a dating method, to determine the age of the earth, overall? Perhaps I am.

One of the studies I cited began in 1968, that would have been the attempt to capture neutrinos and quantify them. The men who built that huge pipe structure won a Nobel Prize in 1971. Their work is still cited today. One of the reasons it is, interestingly, is because there just isn't that much that's gone on in trying to determine how the elusive and somewhat mysterious neutrino behaves or effects matter, in general. Until just a few short years ago, it was thought they had no matter, for instance.

What's really mind blowing to consider is that in order to explain the discrepany of the amount of neutrinos flowing through the earth and coming from the sun:

The discrepancy has since been resolved by new understanding of neutrino physics, requiring a modification of the Standard Model of particle physics

.

Modifying the Standard Model of particle physics just doesn't happen very often. The fact this was the only way to resolve the issue, and the fact that this was based on research which was never repeated anywhere suggests clearly that there still may be some doubts about the resolution.

I realize this is a narrow focus of mine in relationship to the thread topic, overall, but it could have profound effects on the efficacy of carbon-14 dating.

New evidence is still collected all the time, and this is used to resolve some of the debates about the details of evolution, some of which are still unresolved. However there is basically no debate in the scientific community about the existence of evolution, since the scientists debating the details all agree that some kind of evolution happened, so in spite of all of Darwin's errors, he turned out to be right about that.

Although I agree with you in principle, here, it does beg the question of a confirmation bias.

originally posted by: tetra50
a reply to: Arbitrageur
I wonder, am I the only one in the thread who sees the irony in criticizing the age of some of these papers/evidence as to the legitimacy or lack thereof in carbon-14 as a dating method, to determine the age of the earth, overall? Perhaps I am.

Maybe so because unless I missed so,ethimg, 14C has no bearing on dating the age of the earth in any way. As has been noted several times in this thread 14C has so e distinct limitations. It can only be used to date organic matter and because of the short half-life of 5730 years its effectiveness is pretty much nonexistent after the 60KYA mark. The 4.54 bn year age of the Earth is determined by a PBS/PBS isochron age. This is determined by measuring 3 different isotopes of lead, Pb-206,207 & either Pb 208 or 204. A plot is constructed of Pb 206/204 vs Pb 207/204. The initial plot points from the original pool of matter will fall on a single plot point. With that the next step is to compare ratios of U238 and U235 to the lead isotopes as U238 decays to Pb 206 and U235 decays to Pb 207. With the decay rates being a known constant and with vastly improved abilities to measure these isotopes over the last few decades the margin of error is pretty slim. Ome thing to keep in mind also is that due to the nature of early earth(its molten state) and billions of years of erosion, the 4.54 bn year date is based on the oldest rocks we have been able to find. This means that the date is the minimum age of the earth and it is likely older and we simply can't say with any degree of certainty without actual evidence to test for data.

One of the studies I cited began in 1968, that would have been the attempt to capture neutrinos and quantify them. The men who built that huge pipe structure won a Nobel Prize in 1971. Their work is still cited today. One of the reasons it is, interestingly, is because there just isn't that much that's gone on in trying to determine how the elusive and somewhat mysterious neutrino behaves or effects matter, in general. Until just a few short years ago, it was thought they had no matter, for instance.

What's really mind blowing to consider is that in order to explain the discrepany of the amount of neutrinos flowing through the earth and coming from the sun:

The discrepancy has since been resolved by new understanding of neutrino physics, requiring a modification of the Standard Model of particle physics

.

Modifying the Standard Model of particle physics just doesn't happen very often. The fact this was the only way to resolve the issue, and the fact that this was based on research which was never repeated anywhere suggests clearly that there still may be some doubts about the resolution.

Hence the need for additional scrutiny when citing older papers. New techniques and improved knowledge can amd does change and in many cases very quickly. Anthropology for example is a hotbed of activity the last few decades and sometimes a paper can be an anachronism shortly after being published. That to me is the beauty of science, those who work in and practice in various fields never stop looking for answers or settle. They want to have the best and most comprehensive understanding possible.

I realize this is a narrow focus of mine in relationship to the thread topic, overall, but it could have profound effects on the efficacy of carbon-14 dating.

Its certainly not a terrible approach, one should always be willing to question and verify as opposed to accepting blindly. However, with 14C dating, we have been able to ascertain the accuracy by comparing it with other dating methods. Dendrochronology is one excellent example of cross referencing. I can understand if you're still skeptical as demdrochronology(tree ring counting/dating ) also has some limitations and I'm going by memory but I believe the oldest cpoimt of comparison was from a European oak that was 12,000 years old. The date of the tree was determined via dendrochronology and several samples of wood from that same tree were sent to different labs for 14C dating. All of the labs came back with dates matching the dendrochronology with a rather minuscule margin of error. That's another thing most people don't seem to understand, that in very few cases are just one dating method used to determine the dating of something. There is almost always cross referencing being done and then its all published for peer review where other people in related fields will do their damnedest to shred the data and give it a great deal of scrutiny. It makes it difficult to get away with publishing and getting acceptance for BS data points.