ericmurphy

Actually, I'm not so sure. I think Dave expects an "explanation" of calibration curves to be a detailed exposition on the methods used in each of the dating techniques. He's wrong about that. You don't need to know anything about the details of any of the various methods to see how calibration curves work, and why they are unassailable evidence for the accuracy of calibrated C14 dates.

Although just because he doesn't understand what calibration curves are all about doesn't mean you're wrong here. If Dave were to admit he understood what the hell I was talking about, he'd really be backed into a corner about how those curves could all be wrong.

Yes. The thing Dave likes least about me is that I'm even less educated than he is. It really, really irks him when I give him an unanswerable question.

I think the rest of your comment here can be correct without your first sentence also being correct. I used to believe that he did understand why calibration curves are a problem for his argument. I know longer believe that.

I agree that Dave will not be able to dodge dealing with calibration curves forever. I'm hoping he will have taken to heart the lessons he should have been learning by having all his threads locked. IIDB's mods seem to not like having all those unanswered questions out there.

Steviepinhead

Actually, the mods' claim is that dave doesn't have to answer questions--and that we shouldn't "pressure" him to do so--but that the mere fact of his ongoing failure to answer should make it clear to any lurkers, fence-sitters, or genuinely fact-seeking souls out there that he simply can't answer and that, therefore, creationism as a whole can't. (This last part is certainly a fair assertion since dave assiduously derives his "answers" only from creationism's most "prestigious" websites...).

All this may be true, but it does suggest that the mods' probs are not with dave's failures to answer (or at least so they assert).

If we take all this at face value, then we have to look elsewhere for the "problem" with the dave threads.

One distinct possibility: the mods don't like dave endless recycling his unsupported claims after he's failed to engage the objections that have been raised--that is, after he's "elected" not to answer the outstanding unanswered questions--as if no such objections had ever been presented.

The other thing we've been hearing repeatedly about the dave threads is what "train wrecks" they are. This is, at this point, a rather undefined phrase, but may tie in with the lack of "focus" that is asserted regarding the same threads.

It's not frankly clear to me how "focused" the responses to consilience-violating claims of the scope of dave's YEC, pro-Flood, anti-evolutionary, anti-radiometric, anti-archaeological, anti-paleotological, anti-physics, anti-geology, anti-genetics, ... well, you get the idea ... can be expected to be.

What initially appear to be single-focus claims soon turn out to violate the scientific consensus about just about everything in just about every way possible, which is why dave gets hit with (what I would term) perfectly-legitimate questions from dozens of different angles.

But maybe that's what the mods have in mind when they repeatedly use phrases like "focus" and "train wreck."

For myself, the scene in the movie when the train cars start to pile up and go sideways and airborne was always mesmerizing, but there's no accounting for taste.

rfmwinnie

I don't know if I'd come down on the conclusion that creationism can't answer these questions on the whole. I do know that as a usual lurker on these threads I wonder why he keeps saying things. I don't think he is convincing anyone. But hey he is giving me good info for my mom (who just told me last night that the water that fell from heaven during the flood fell at an angle and with such force that made it bounce off the earth and make our atmosphere). So I'm glad he's here because some wonderfully smart, well read people give me starting points for my own research for my mom.

So there is enormous benefit in what Dave is doing .... I just don't think that is the benefit he planned! But still, having not studied creationism I don't think I would say he represented all of them. (I'm not a creationist but maybe it is time to look at their claims myself).

mung bean

Did you ask your mum what people did for an atmosphere before the Flud?
Would seem to be a relevant question to me.

As for Dave, he's representative of the Young Earth Creationists.
There are also Old Earth Creationists with a variety of different views on some subjects.

Sven

I'd say that binding energies alone don't tell you much. You also need to know the coulomb energy barrier the "leaving particles" (alpha or beta) need to overcome or tunnel through. I did my PhD on a similar thing: Electrons leaving multiply negative charges molecules.
At least for beta(-) decay, the WKB-approximation has been used (I hope I'll find articles about this again).

Calilasseia

That textbook I linked to uses the liquid drop model of the nucleus, which includes a Coulomb energy term. Which is why I was hoping it would provide me with some clues.

Sven

Yes, I know about this formula (possibly Bethe-Weizäcker). But it only tells you about the total binding energy, that is, the energy you need to add to remove one part of the nucleus to an infinite distance.

It does not tell you anything about how the potential energy changes on this way, which is the barrier I mentioned.

In the group I worked in, we called this the "repulsive coulomb barrier". But for alpha-decay, one probably would have to look at the strong nuclear force, too.

This is somewhat related, though about the opposite process (fusion) Coulomb barrier.

I'll try a short explanation. Take an unstable nucleus. An alpha-particle starts to move away from it, meaning an increase in potential energy (it's attracted to the other nucleons by the strong force). The potential energy starts to rise until the attraction due to the strong nuclear force and the Coulomb repulsion (both are charged positively!) are equal, then begins to descend (roughly proportional to 1/r, like Coulomb potentials do). In sum, you get a barrier, which the alpha particle either has to overcome (then you need to excite the nucleus) or tunnel through. This barrier is actually the reason why radioactive atoms don't decay in an instant, there's only a finite probability for tunneling.

I hope I made clear that binding energy alone does not tell you much about stability.

ETA: Oh, I looked at the book you linked to, and the concepts are discussed in chapter 12.3! There's even a graph (12.2) which shows what I tried to describe above!

Steviepinhead

rfmwinnie, I appreciate the points you make. I'm not at all claiming that dave does not serve any number of purposes, including heuristic and entertainment ones.

I was just trying to parse my way through the mods' attitude toward the dave threads.

cajela

It seems to me, as a non-mod, that their prime directive is to make sure that we have real argument, without any shouting and name calling. I like it. Much as it's fun to mock someone, it's much more entertaining, and a few bazillion times more persuasive, to demolish their arguments. Reminding people of unaswered questions is pretty common, but you can't call them chicken while you do so.

I love the train wreck threads. They are often educational and always fun.

<flashback>VAAAARRRVES, me hearties!!!</flashback>

Amaleq13

:thumbs:

As far as I'm concerned.