Evolution Cruncher

Originally posted by PawnCurry

I don't hold with the literal "world built in 6 days" malarkey either.

Do you think there may have been a few million years between each "day"?

Originally posted by PawnCurry
Well I ain't posting all of it. Would probably need a small library.

Here's one: Re Analysis of Antarctic core samples
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/1110_041110_antarctic_ice.html

Briefly - Antarctic ice-core samples contain a record of the earth's atmosphere going back up to 1 million years.

Do you require any more?

Well this gets back to the question of whether you have any clue how they date this stuff?

Carbon dating is only accurate up to 50 000 years.

Originally posted by dj2becker
Well this gets back to the question of whether you have any clue how they date this stuff?

Carbon dating is only accurate up to 50 000 years.

I told you how they date the stuff!!!

Originally posted by frogstomp
I told you how they date the stuff!!!

And I told you their dating methods are way out.

Originally posted by dj2becker
Well this gets back to the question of whether you have any clue how they date this stuff?

Carbon dating is only accurate up to 50 000 years.

I'm sure you can do a quick "Google" and find various different sources to get the answers you want. (I don't think they use carbon dating, they use various other techniques for dating the ice. e.g. Analysis of various isotopes in gas bubbles; measurement of ice thickness compared to precipitation levels etc)

As you state that carbon dating is accurate up to 50,000 years, do you then agree that the earth is at least 50,000 years old?

Originally posted by dj2becker
And I told you their dating methods are way out.

What you think is unimportant , what the people that use the Uranium-Thorium tests think is.

Originally posted by PawnCurry
I'm sure you can do a quick "Google" and find various different sources to get the answers you want. (I don't think they use carbon dating, they use various other techniques for dating the ice. e.g. Analysis of various isotopes in gas bubbles; measurement of ice thickness compared to precipitation levels etc)

As you state that carbon dating is accurate up to 50,000 years, do you then agree that the earth is at least 50,000 years old?

Yea, but they are based on some very illogical assumptions. But there is also ample evidence that the earth cannot be more than a few thousand years old.

In the atmosphere there is Carbon-14, which is produced by cosmic radiation from nitrogen. The rate at which this process is going on has been measured. The amount in the atmosphere has also been measured, and it appears there is enough to account for this process going on for only a few thousand years.

Originally posted by frogstomp
What you think is unimportant , what the people that use the Uranium-Thorium tests think is.

Oh really. Well listen to this:

Melvin Cook analysed some of the most important Uranium deposits in the world, in Katanga and in Alaska and his findings also throw doubt on the method. He pointed out that the observed ratios of isotopes do not agree with theoretical predictions, and suggested that a neutron capture mechanism could explain the discrepancy. Such a mechanism would invalidate all Uranium-Thorium dates.

Cook M., PREHISTORY AND EARTH MODELS, Max Parish, 1960.

Originally posted by PawnCurry
I'm sure you can do a quick "Google" and find various different sources to get the answers you want. (I don't think they use carbon dating, they use various other techniques for dating the ice. e.g. Analysis of various isotopes in gas bubbles; measurement of ice thickness compared to precipitation levels etc)

As you state that carbon dating is accurate up to 50,000 years, do you then agree that the earth is at least 50,000 years old?

Im going to post this for you , since it would be wasted on dj

Claim CD004:
Cosmic rays and free neutrinos, such as might be produced by nearby supernovas or the reversal of the earth's magnetic field, might affect the decay rates of radioactive elements, invalidating such radiometric dating methods as carbon-14, uranium-lead, and potassium-argon.
Source:
Morris, Henry M., 1974. Scientific Creationism, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, pp. 142-143,146.

Response:
Where is there the slightest bit of evidence that cosmic rays or neutrinos do affect decay rates? The following show the contrary:
Inside standard nuclear fission power generators, neutrino radiation is intense, but the uranium that is not fissioned decays at the usual rate.
Some spacecraft are powered by nuclear decays. Some of them fly in very intense cosmic ray fields (like near Jupiter). If cosmic rays affected decay rates, the power generated would be different from expectations.
To get unweathered rocks, rocks for radiometric dating are usually taken from some depth into an outcrop, where cosmic rays have insignificant effect.
Radiation high enough to affect nuclear decay rates by several orders of magnitude (a change great enough to allow young-earth timescales) would sterilize the planet.

Reversals of the earth's magnetic field do not produce cosmic rays or neutrinos. They may allow more cosmic rays to reach the earth's surface, but not much beyond that, and most rocks used for dating have been buried for most of their history.

Carbon-14 dating is calibrated by independent clocks.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD004.html

Originally posted by dj2becker
Oh really. Well listen to this:

Melvin Cook analysed some of the most important Uranium deposits in the world, in Katanga and in Alaska and his findings also throw doubt on the method. He pointed out that the observed ratios of isotopes do not agree with theoretical predictions, and suggested that a neutron capture mechanism could explain the discrepanc ...[text shortened]... validate all Uranium-Thorium dates.

Cook M., PREHISTORY AND EARTH MODELS, Max Parish, 1960.

1960? lol. You're a stitch.

Originally posted by dj2becker
Oh really. Well listen to this:

Melvin Cook analysed some of the most important Uranium deposits in the world, in Katanga and in Alaska and his findings also throw doubt on the method. He pointed out that the observed ratios of isotopes do not agree with theoretical predictions, and suggested that a neutron capture mechanism could explain the discrepanc ...[text shortened]... validate all Uranium-Thorium dates.

Cook M., PREHISTORY AND EARTH MODELS, Max Parish, 1960.

this Melvin Cook?

Cook, Melvin A. 1970. "William J. Meister Discovery of Human Footprints with Trilobites in a Cambrian Formation of Western Utah." In Why Not Creation? ed. by Walter E. Lammerts. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company. pp. 186-193.

best laugh I had at RHP

keep em coming I do so like to laugh .

Originally posted by telerion
[b]I have brought interesting delimmas with evidence being either inexplicable or contrary to evolutionary doctrine. Others and myself who seek a more strongly supported theory within science are ridiculed and thrown into the creationist category.

That's unfortunate. Do you really bring empirically evidence that hasn't been accounted for previou ...[text shortened]... er, and science would be nothing but a collection of millions of unsupported untestable stories.[/b]

I see you are familiiar with Behe and Dembski and the Intelligent Design movement. Perhaps they have theistic beliefs or perhaps they are troubled by some problems within evolutionary theory. Your lumping of them into the category "creationist" and subsequent disregard for their argument is precisely my complaint about biologists today.

Let me eloborate on Behe's "Darwin's Black Box." He sets out a list of structures within living things that he has found to be "irreducibly complex." His research showed that descent of such structures was not only devoid of any empiricle evidence and any attempt to even explain theoretically how such structures would come about. The book came out in 96-97, and correct me if I am wrong, the larger part, if not all, of his anomalies still have not been resolved.
Now allow me to quote Charles Darwin:
"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." (page 171 in the New York Penguin printing of "On the Origins of the Species"😉

If anyone has stumbled upon this glimpse of an opportunity for disproval, it is Behe.

My second major objection is the total lack of plausible theory for chemical abiogenesis. I am sure you are familiar with the territory, so i will not waste my time with the details. True, it can be considered separate from evolutionary theory. BUT, if we should uphold this naturalistic philosphy, life MUST have sprung from nothing, or perhaps we can go deeper to the origins of the universe which MUST have a natural cause. If we cannot explain all of this satisfactory with all-important empiricle evidence to elevate science above the "mysticism" of religion, then I cannot accept any of these notions as more true than any other postulated explanation

Originally posted by David C
1960? lol. You're a stitch.

So are the scientists that continue to believe in Uranium-Thorium dating after its accuracy has been put in doubt over 50 years ago.

Originally posted by dj2becker
...after its accuracy has been put in doubt over 50 years ago.

..by an individual with a vested agenda. Right, gotcha.

Originally posted by dj2becker
So are the scientists that continue to believe in Uranium-Thorium dating after its accuracy has been put in doubt over 50 years ago.

1. In one of his corrections for neutron capture, Cook (1966) calculated that an ore dated to 622 million years by conventional methods should be dated to 70 million years. This is still several orders of magnitude older than the Young-earth creationism time line. Creationists seldom (if ever) quote the reduced age derived by Cook; they call it "recent" (Ham et al. 1990) or "a few thousand years" (Slusher 1981, 54) or "essentially zero" (Morris 1985, 142).


2. The only evidence for neutron capture reactions on the necessary scale is Cook's analysis of a single secondary source. Cook made an unjustified assumption about the data he gathered from a secondary source (Dalrymple 1984). In table entries for lead-204 (Faul 1954), he read "----" as zero while the original source makes it clear that the dashes mean "not measured":

In a number of samples where the abundance of 204Pb was very low no attempt was made to measure the amount of it as the determination would be of no particular value. (Nier 1939, 156)


Cook deduced that the lead-208 could not be "common" lead (that is, lead present at solidification of the ore) because common lead always includes lead-204. The lead-208 is certainly not derived from decay of thorium-232, because there is no trace of thorium-232 left in the sample. However, since the amount of lead-208 in the samples is small and we have no reason to believe that lead-204 is not present, the lead-208 is almost certainly common lead.


3. Let us assume for the moment that the lead-208 is not common lead and was actually generated by neutron capture. Cook (1966) calculated his correction factor based on the (explicitly stated) assumption that the "cross-section" (a measurement of the probability of a nuclear reaction happening) for conversion of lead-206 to lead-207 by neutron capture is the same as the cross-section for conversion of lead-207 to lead-208 by neutron capture. This may have been a reasonable assumption in 1966, but it has not been a reasonable assumption since at least 1984. The two cross-sections differ by a factor of about 24 (e.g., Blackmon et al. 2002). When Cook's calculation is modified to account for the difference in cross-sections, the new calculated age is slightly older than the conventionally-calculated age; 644 million years versus 622 million years (Dalrymple 1984). If neutron capture is indeed a factor, our current best age for this ore is an underestimate.


4. Although it is not directly relevant to Cook's claims, it is worth noting that he was not nominated for a Nobel prize and did not (as is occasionally claimed) receive one. Melvin Cook (1911-2000) was an explosives expert who invented many important items (such as slurry explosives) and received a Nitro-Nobel medal for these contributions (Khodorovskiy n.d.) from the Nitro Nobel (now Dyno Nobel) company. He was also a prolific creationist who, among many other "contributions", originated the Not enough helium argument (Cook 1957) and first brought the Meister print to the attention of creationists (Cook 1970, 186-193).

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD016.html