ericmurphy

It probably is time to lock this thread. Dave has demonstrated an absolute refusal to address the issue CM raised in the formal debate, and he's similarly refusing to deal with it here. If that's the case, then what's the point of even discussing it?

Silent Dave

Well he has dealt with the issue, by suggesting the existence of a massive, worldwide scientific conspiracy. He just hasn't backed it up. Let's give him the opportunity to do so.

JonF

Still scared to death of examining the consilience ...

ericmurphy

Well, here's your cue, Dave. If you'd like this thread to stay open, I suggest you start amassing evidence that there is a massive, worldwide conspiracy involving hundreds of thousands if not millions of scientists, engineers, technicians, grad students, etc. to fradulently advance the notion that all the methods used to calibrate atmospheric radiocarbon agree with each other, when in fact they do not.

That means you have to prove the same thing I've been saying for months you need to prove: that those calibration curves do not, in fact, cross-correlate. Given the terabytes of data that say they do agree, I'd say you have a herculean task in front of you.

Silent Dave

In fairness, no more so than the websites he's c&ping from as source material, IRC, AIG, etc. Goodness knows they've been presented with the conscillience, and been asked to explain it away. Their response mirrors Dave's -- they either ignore it and focus on irrelevant "problems" with individual methodologies, or vaguely suggest the existence of a massive, worldwide scientific conspiracy.

For the past several weeks, Dave has undoubtedly been searching his precious YEC sites, looking for something, anything that sounds even remotely reasonable to respond to the conscillience problem. He hasn't found anything beyond the conspiracy theory, because the professional YECers (who thus far have been doing all the legwork for this would-be Galileo) haven't come up with anything else themselves.

Dave's resources have failed him, he's been backed into a corner, and any moment he'll be scurrying for the safety of the mousehole.

Unless, of course, he can do what decades of professional YECers haven't been able to: prove the existence of the "conscillience conspiracy." But I'm not holding my breath.

And Dave, don't waste any of your breath with pointing out problems with individual methodologies -- as ericmurphy said, we'll simply come back at you every single time with "then why does it agree with all the other dating systems?" And every time you suggest a conspiracy, we'll demand, in between incredulous laughs, that you demonstrate the existence of said conspiracy. So you basically have three options:

1) Prove the existence of the conspiracy, which will certainly land you a job in the top levels of the American intelligence commnity,

2) Find a real explanation for the conscillience, which will certainly land you a Nobel Prize, or

3) Admit the reality of the Earth's old age, and treat Genesis as a spiritual, rather than historical, document.


Dave

Constant Mews

Indeed. Lake Suigetsu and the consilience issue was chosen quite deliberately. As I pointed out to Dave, I have read a great deal of creationist material; certainly far more than he has. And chronology metric congruence has never been dealt with by the creationists.

And Dave cannot fall back on the idea that it's an atheist conspiracy, because much of the scientific community isn't atheist.

Christians proved that Dave's position is one of monumental stupidity. Christians continue every day to demonstrate that he's wrong.

Occam's Aftershave

So Dave, you're admitting that you have in fact NOT done any analysis of the methods, have NO CLUE as to the vast amount of work verifying the methods that has already been performed, and are basically just LYING ABOUT and LIBELING all the professional working scientists who have contributed to this vast body of scientific radiocarbon knowledge.

Dave, it's time for you to issue a retraction and an apology to the science professionals you have defamed.

Jayco

Question: Why do you guys keep arguing with AFDave? It's obvious that he's so far-gone and so immensely dense that he'll never be able to see the light of reason -- so why bother?

ericmurphy

Two reasons:

1) So that otherwise intelligent but uninformed lurkers do not get the impression that Dave's criticisms of real science are unanswered and unanswerable; and

2) it's fun!

Do we need more reasons?

deadman_932

You're not the first person to ask that, Jayco

1. It educates some of those that are participating, irrespective of whether it educates Dave.
2. It shows uninformed readers the vacuous nature of the creationist/ID claims Dave copy-pastes
3. I take pride in exposing a guy that advocates and provides materials for the brainwashing of children.
4. Given that Dave is in close contact with his AiG/ICR/Ken Ham/etc. buddies constantly, it gives the opportunity for those people to KNOW that their bullshit isn't working, and I have NO doubt many of those have at least glanced at or are actively following Dave's threads. Dawkins' stats were up when this "travelling circus" was there and now the average number of users seems to be considerably less.
5. It amuses me.

I can't speak for other people, but those are MY reasons. As I said, you're not the first person to mention this. You were relatively polite, and I appreciate that.

Other times this sort of question has taken a disparaging tone, as if the poster were somehow making some elevated, rarified point from immense oracular wisdom -- then it usually turns out they don't know shit for shingles about the topics at all or are merely stroking their ego like a sex-starved baboon whacking off.