Calilasseia

Oh dear, not the "coal is too young" canard.

Oh, by the way, I've noticed a little something ...

Dave starts by talking about alleged anomalies in coal, viz:

which is then followed by this table:


He then goes on to say:

which is followed by this graphic:


That latter graphic does NOT deal with coal at all, but foraminifera collected from oceans, a totally different material, but which Dave then goes on to claim "should be C¹⁴ dead"!

So in his opening gambit in that post, he has gotten his wires crossed with respect to two different samples of material of widely divergent origins. In fact, the Nadeau document (read the original here) does not mention coal at all, yet Dave tries to use this to invalidate C¹⁴ dating without any hint in his post at all that the Nadeau paper does not reference coal at all.

Moreover, Dave continues with:

Wrong. Let's see what Nadeau et al say in context shall we? The part highlighted in blue is the part Dave homed in on, while the parts marked in boldface should be taken into account as they convey additional meaning relevant to the conclusion that (surprise surprise) Dave neglects to consider:

Furthermore, the samples used by Nadeau et al were dated (if one reads the paper in full) as follows:

Pyrgo murrhina : Sediment core GIK23068 at 338.5 cm depth, approx age 110,000 years
Assorted Mussel/Snail species : Sediment core GIK14350, approx age 120,000 years

These dates were confirmed independently by U/Th dating and ESR dating. So for Dave to introduce this paper, without announcing that there is a radical change of subject material involved, and to use this paper, which never references coal anywhere throughout its text body, as a means of casting doubt upon C¹⁴ dating by reference to coal, is in my view at best disingenous and at worst dishonest.

Note that immediately after Dave casts doubt upon C¹⁴ dating by referring to the Nadeau paper, he says this:

and this particular juxtaposition justifies my analysis above, because he is still talking about coal. Yet the Nadeau paper talks about calcareous mollusc shells and foraminiferans - fundamentally DIFFERENT materials to which fundamentally different criteria apply when dealing with contamination issues, which is the subject of their paper.

Moreover, Dave apparently does not realise that coal contains measureable amounts of Radium - a radioactive element - and indeed the pollution from the burning of coal produces measureable increases in the amount of environmentally measured Radium. This Radium derives from the U²³⁸ decay series, and a quick look at Kaye & Laby's Tables of Physical & Chemical Constants, which includes an extensive table of the nuclides AND full decay sequences for a whole range of actinide elements, yields the following data for the U²³⁸ decay series:

U²³⁸ -> Th²³⁴ : 4,500,000,000 years
Th²³⁴ -> Pa²³⁴ : 24.10 days
Pa²³⁴ -> U²³⁴ : 6.70 hours
U²³⁴ -> Th²³⁰ : 245,000 years
Th²³⁰ -> Ra²²⁶ : 75,400 years
Ra²²⁶ -> Rn²²² :1,600 years
Rn²²² -> Po²¹⁸ : 3.824 days
Po²¹⁸ -> Pb²¹⁴ : 3.10 minutes
Pb²¹⁴ -> Bi²¹⁴ : 26.8 minutes
Bi²¹⁴ -> Po²¹⁴ : 19.9 minutes
Po²¹⁴ -> Pb²¹⁰ : 1.64 x 10^-4 seconds
Pb²¹⁰ -> Bi²¹⁰ : 22.3 years
Bi²¹⁰ -> Po²¹⁰ : 5.013 days
Po²¹⁰ -> Pb²⁰⁶ : 138.4 days
Pb²⁰⁶ is stable.

Note the half-life of U²³⁸, the parent element of the series.

Now, the fact that these radioactive elements are present in coal tells us that one can expect certain interesting phenomena to take place. Such as the production of C¹⁴ in coal due to the neutron flux resulting from the presence of specific elements in the U²³⁸ decay series (and for that matter the Th²³² decay series, but that series is more complicated in the terminal stages which is why I haven't listed it here: however it is interesting to note that Th²³² has a half-life of 14,050,000,000 years - on the basis of this, one can determine (via suitably precise measurements of the presence of different daughter nuclide species in a given rock sample that also contains Th²³²) the ratio of Th²³² to daughter products present, and therefore how much of the Th²³² has decayed, thus yielding another independent dating metric for samples of sufficiently great age. But I digress on that issue - what matters is that these radioactive elements are known to be present in coal, and that they therefore open up the distinct possibility that in situ C¹⁴ formation is taking place that creates the anomalous results.

Meanwhile we have this:

The problem with this is that the calculations Baumgardner produced are hypothetical. Without knowing what prior assumptions led to the selection of specific values for the numbers involved, and without knowing what evidence was used to support those values, those calculations are worthless. Baumgardner's assertion that the quantity of nuclides present (and the associated neutron flux therefrom) is 13,000 times too small is, until evidence is produced supporting his calculations, precisely that - an assertion.

So, for Dave to make the assertion that "Deep Time is in trouble" as he does in his latest post is not only premature, but based in at least one case upon an elision that is, in my view certainly, frankly dishonest.

ericmurphy

I'm also wondering about Dave's claims about 14C in diamonds. I've never seen any actual evidence that 14C has been found in diamonds. But even if it were found there, how did it get there? As far as I know, the carbon in diamonds is not derived from organic sources. Hence, that carbon has never been in an equilibrium state with the atmosphere, which would be a requirement if such radiocarbon were to be used to date these diamonds.

So what, if any, is the point?

And besides, Dave still hasn't even begun to deal with the killing blow for all his claimed inaccuracies with radiocarbon: the consilience of calibration curves. Until he deals with that consilience, he has nothing intelligent or meaningful to say about radiocarbon dating.

Mike PSS

Cali,
Dave has generously scanned some of the RATE book in this post at RD.net.
Here are the linkeys to the scans.
http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l1...E_Coal_C14.jpg
http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l1..._insitu_p1.jpg
http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l1..._insitu_p2.jpg
http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l1..._insitu_p3.jpg

In the "-insitu_p2.jpg" document we see the rock references that RATE used {Kuhn et al. 1984} for establishing the background radiation. Apparently an average of granite deposits from deep mines.

I already countered this point because most diamonds are found in strata (Kimberlite pipes) that have a much higher concentration of radioisotopes. No response from Dave or RATE on this.

So once again we are left with a single statement from RATE that is based on nothing more than playing fast and loose with the DATA to come up with a pre-conceived conclusion.

ericmurphy

More consilience problems for Dave (and, incidentally, for RATE; they needed to invoke a miracle to explain the decay products in the uranium series). The fact of the matter is, there are other sources that can explain the existence of ¹⁴C in coal and diamonds. But it's impossible to explain all the various decay products in the uranium series, in the expected proportions, without resorting to miraculous intervention. Dave loudly trumpets these perceived difficulties with 14C in coal, for which there are at least conceivable explanations, while completely avoiding the problem uranium decay products present for his "hypothesis" of a young earth, which is a much, much, MUCH bigger problem for his argument. The half-life of U238 is comparable to the age of the earth. Therefore, there should be comparatively little decay products in any sample that contains U238. Also, the half-life of Pu239 is twenty-four thousand years. There should be plenty of Pu239 left on a planet that is 6,000 years old, barely a quarter of a half-life old. Instead, there is none at all.

This appears to be an insurmountable problem for Dave, but he's never even acknowledged it as a problem, let alone addressed it.

Mike PSS

In the papers I linked above the RATE group casually invokes a 500,000,000 times accellerated nuclear decay during the flood (NOT during creation week like Dave claimed in his earlier post). Cali has already crunched the numbers on this little gem.
God only wants safe nuclear power in His creation. It's those evil athiest scientists who quote the heretical texts ("I am death the destroyer of worlds" says Oppenhiemer) that invented Pu239.

Calilasseia

Actually, a number of accredited geologists disagree with this. For example, in Farley, K.A., 2002, (U-Th)/He Dating: Techniques, Calibrations, and Applications, Rev. Min. Geochem., v. 47, p. 819-844, we have:

Moreover, we have this immediately following on:

Dave has done nothing of the sort. He has signally failed to demonstrate that there are any flaws in the multiple dating techniques that cause them to be brought into question in the world of real science. They are only "questionable" in Dave's view because they make a complete mockery of his Genesis timescale, and Dave prefers to believe a 3,000 year old book written by supserstition-ridden tribespeople to the work of thousands of honest, hard working scientists whose integrity Dave has repeatedly impugned in various places simply because they refuse to genuflect before his "sacred" text.

Then we have this:

Ahem, CM has done that and more besides. But even if CM had not done this, Dave fails to realise that because his stance is one of inerrancy, namely that Genesis is an infallible account, falsifying even one tiny detail brings the whole inerrancy house of cards crashing down.

Moving on, we have:

Au contraire, CM is right on the money. There are MANY instances where the assorted proclamations of Genesis are in direct contravention of known physical law. The so-called "global flood" requires the sudden and miraculous appearance of a volume of water (and its subsequent disappearance) for which there is NO reasonable scientific explanation, and many compelling reasons to consider the notion absurd, not least the egregious violations of the laws of physics that some of Dave's beloved "flood models" require, and the rampantly inhospitable conditions on Earth that would result even from those models that stand a remote (as opposed to zero) chance of having ever been realised.

The assorted business of talking snakes etc., is quite frankly so ludicrous that it is hardly worth the bother of refuting, but sadly that work must continue, tedious though it is. But the mere fact that much more critical holes are present in the Genesis account - a timescale that is massively at variance with known scientific reality (rejected by Dave for no valid scienific reason), the existence within the account of phenomena that require egregious violations of known physical law, and the quite ludicrous state of affairs where a total of eight human beings supposedly repopulate the entire planet and somehow, from a limited collection of genotypes, reproduce ALL of the observed human diversity present today in less than 6,000 years, whilst at the same time Dave dismisses summarily the idea that 3.8 BILLION years is sufficient for natural processes to produce the diversity of life we see around us.

When the poll finally appears, I have a sneaking suspicion the results are going to be ... let's call them "interesting", shall we?

mung bean

Well, I just read Dave's latest and all I thought was "That's it?"
I mean WTF? That's all you could come up with, Dave?
That's fucking pathetic. In fact it's beyond pathetic. It's insignificant.

Davey boy, you're stuffed. Right royally screwed and buggered.
You are still desperately running away from Teh Consiliance, boyo.
You can't get away with this shit. Everybody knows what you're up to.

Stop stuffing around and grow some balls, will ya? This is getting embarrassing.

Occam's Aftershave

Wow...just wow. It's hard to decide which is more pathetic - Dave's whine to BWE over at their RD formal debate, or his C&P hack job on this one. I'll go out on a limb and say this one. It's SO tiring but SO AFDave to just C&P the same bunch of bullshit again from the ICR and AIG PRATT list that he has personally seen refuted half a dozen times, beat his chest and proclaim in BOLD ALLCAPS that Genesis must be true.

and to top it off, he still completely ignores the question about C14 cal curve synchronicity.

It's good that he's going away for a week so I won't be tempted to unload on his fucking dumbass ideas* Jesus Christ on a pogo stick but he deserves it.


* Notice I said his ideas, not him personally.

Faid

Since dave mentioned this debate in another forum here first, and implied that he is somehow winning, I believe it is proper to show readers in this forum how it is in reality (and not in dave's world of delusions and insincerity).

Link to the debate

The topic, as you can see, is whether dendro is based on a circular argument. Essentially, dave lost the debate before posting: BWE's opening post stands unrefuted.

Dave's first attempt to discredit dendro was to (apparently) do a ctrl-f search on the sources given for "c14". He found that C14 was used at some point, and started gloating about it... Until it was pointed out to him that C14, in that particular measurement, was used not to determine an absolute sample age, but to sort the samples according to relative age (something that would be valid even under Brown's flawed model).
After this was explained to him again and again, dave stopped arguing about it (but did not admit he was wrong, of course; he just remained silent). Instead, and after some search in his beloved indoctrination sites, he went down another disastrous path: He tried to question the validity of dendro, first by quoting papers that backfired on him (like Yamaguchi), and finally by implying that Ferguson and other scientists have fudged the data in forming the Master sequence.

I kid you not. He first quoted some creo wacko who whined about not being allowed to see the data. Then HE wanted to see the data in Ferguson's paper himself: When links were provided, he said they did not work (it seemed he was the only one in the forum for whom they didn't work, but whatever). Then he said he could not make much of the raw data anyway, and demanded to see a picture of a sample in the sequence. Not a picture of the sequence: An online closeup of a specific tree in the sequence.(*)
And this is where we are now. It's that pathetic: If that "formal" debate was actually formal, the mods would have pulled the plug after dave's latest two posts.

The only thing that's "wanting" is, not only dave's ability to discredit dendro, but to even construct a coherent argument against it that does not resort to conspiracy theories.



(*): Bear in mind that, if dave really wanted to see the rings with his own eyes, he could do what BWE suggested: Use the money he's saving for a trip to Ken Ham's "museum" to go on a REAL educational tour, and see them in person. He could take his kids, too.

BWE

Oh gosh. The unbelievable irony. If you want a serious dose of irony, read his last post in that debate.

Those are the three points I chose to use in my opening post to point out the error of his claim. Those were his replies in his last post. I have offered reasonable arguments for each. He has not addressed any of my claims.

Somehow, I suspect there might be a specific disconnect somewhere.

Wow.