l-bow

Remember I mentioned a creationist, Sean Pitman? He's the one that claimed, based on Michael Arct's dissertation, that trees from different layers at the Yellowstone petrified forests match.
Well, he finally posted some actual photos from Arct's work. Do you think they match?


<a href="http://naturalselection.0catch.com/Pictures%203/fossil3.jpg" target="_blank">tree rings from different trees</a>

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Kosh

I guess that depends on your definition of match

I think that top sample has some nice figuring in it, and would look great on the front of a small cabinet....

Skydancer

Well, these things aren't labeled at all. Is each picture supposed to be several trees lined up side by side, or is each picture a different tree? The rings are inconsistent across each picture, and the different pictures don't match at all. If the different pictures are supposed to match, the guy needs his glasses checked.

l-bow

I believe each picture is a different tree. Also, the marks below each picture is the places where the intra-annual tree rings/tree rings(not sure which one it is) match. He claims that the exact thickness of the rings doesn't matter. It's the unique pattern that they make that does. One more thing: he claimed that the ratios of the thickness of the tree rings can vary, frim tree to tree, so measuring the relative thickness of the rings, compared with one another doesn't count.

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Dr.GH

Thanks for the link, I added it to my ever growing list of creationist lunatics. The claims that Pitman makes about dendrochronology are matched by the false arguments throughout his web pages.

A couple of links on dendrochronology for you to check:

<a href="http://www.sonic.net/bristlecone/dendro.html" target="_blank">http://www.sonic.net/bristlecone/dendro.html</a>

<a href="http://web.utk.edu/~grissino/" target="_blank">http://web.utk.edu/~grissino/</a>

RufusAtticus

Looks like there are only five rings shown per tree. Furthermore, I see no attempt to allign them.

It's amazing how kooks can convince anyone that such things disprove modern science.

l-bow

This post by Sean Pitman explains the method that Michael Arct uses to match tree rings, better than I can describe.

Rufus: The rings compared were over a 5-year period. Also the intra-ring bands were also compared.


<a href="http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2299379399d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=fd67d42a.0210150659.1f8f5abf%40posting.goog le.com" target="_blank">t.o post by Sean Pitman </a>

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Kosh

So, if you remove the ring thickness, the pattern is a growth season, followed by a dormant season? Damn, that is a pattern that's the same in all trees!

Yggdrasill

Well, he is not entirely wrong on this, because the thickness of the rings will vary by how much rain the tree has recieved. So if a tree has stood exposed to the rain to a greater extent than another tree, the thickness of their rings are different. Although I'm not sure if the size of the rings would be proportionally the same, it would probably depend on the local weather conditions and the exact positioning of the tree.

And, of course, it could be difficult to compare a American red wood with a Siberian pine tree, it might have to be the same type of tree and they have to be close to each other.

And the trees' absorbtion rate of water probably does vary slightly.

And there are possibly other varying genetic traits within the trees we have to consider.

It's better to just use dendrochronology as a general guide, there are just to many unknown factors. But I definitely agree with there being too large inconsistencies in those examples.

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ps418

From my admittedly amateur perspective, the 'match' looks exceedingly tenuous. The two in the middle seem to be the most similar, but even they seem very weakly correlated. Maybe Arct's 'correlations' never passed peer review, and that is why they have never been published?

Patrick