From: allenroy (allenroy@peoplepc.com)
Date: Wed Jan 22 2003 - 15:41:18 EST
**My comments. The responses are what I was expecting: arrogent,
condescending and full of logical
fallacies.
Michael Roberts wrote:
This posting must get the prize for one of the most inaccurate supposed bits
of science ever put on the list.
**Nice start. -- just make "unsupported, ad hominem accusations." and go
from there.
>Allen wrote;
>As most every one knows, radiometric dating is done primarily on
igneous rock.
Many many age-deteminations are done on metamorphic and sedimentary rocks
and always have been. I flipped through my copy of the 1967 Geol Soc of
London "Phanerozoic Timescale" Lots of samples were on metamorphic and
sedimentary rocks.
**There is indeed age-determinations on metamorphic and sedimentary
rocks, but it is not
wrong to state that radiometirc dating is primarily done on igneous rock.
(Incidentally this was one of the sources Woodmarappe
misquoted from in his 1970s list of 700 or so anomalous ages. I checked 100
of his anomalous ages and found he hadmisquoted everyone.)
**This is a completely irrelevant "change of subject" -- a red herring.
Stick to the subject
at hand.
So as Allen starts with such a howler I cant be bothered to refute him point
by point.
**Hmmm. Why not do more "Ad Hominim"! Actually, this statement of mine
is the least
offensive and most obviouse of the whole article. Michael was looking
REAL HARD to
find something simple to criticize so that he could make up an excuse to
not have to
actually stop and think about what I wrote.
However I find his insinuations of shoddy practice by geochronologists
offensive as they are basically charging them with dishonesty.
**Obviously you didn't read what I said at all. My article has nothing
to do with shoddy
practice, nor dishonesty. In fact, I claim that creationists accept the
great precision within
which geochronogy is done. But precision in collection and process is
not the problem.
Rather, it has to do with what is done with the data that results from
the precise
processes.
Four of my
teachers at university (Oxford) were leading geochronologists - including
Stephen Moorbath so I am speaking with personal knowledge. Moorbath's
research assistant (with aD.Phil form Oxford) who leftto be an evangelical
misssionary dismissed creationsit attacks on geochronology as downright
dishonest.
**Let's see. Now it's "appeal to authority."
However I am forced to one of three conclusions;
1) He is very careless and naive in his study
2) He is invincibly ignorant
3) He is aware he is misrepresenting radiometric age-dating.
**More "Ad Hominim."
I would like to know whether scientific honesty is part of the Biblically
based paradigm of Creationary Cataclysmism
**More "Ad Hominim."
None of these are honouring to God. I would suggest Allen does something
about it.
**I'd sure like to see if you can really think, or if all you can do is
blind-faith, knee-jerk
reaction full of logical fallacies.
>Michael Roberts also wrote:
>If you want to read up on the whole nonsense on mis-dating the Grand
Canyon
>look up http://www.talkorigins.org and look for Grand Canyon dating on
index. I
>If that doesn't persuade any of you then words fail me.
Ah yes, I read this years ago.
1. In this article, Stassin accuses Austin of "picking and choosing"
data from Leeman's
much larger set of data to manufacture an false isochron. Actually,
Austin did exactly
what Stassin says a geologist should do, only use data from cogenetic
sources. Leeman's
data consisted of samples from what is considered by some to be many
non-cogenetic sources.
Austin narrowed down the data set to two cogenetically related lava
flows -- "stages III
and IV" and was able to plot an isochron.
First, Leeman didn't have cogenetic sources yet the scatter was
attributed to "'inherited'
reflection of the mantle source age or has no significance at all"
[typical rationalization]. Then, Austin
derived an isochron from congentic data and he is accused of knowing
"he'd get a mantle
age from whole-rock measurements." So, it's "Heads I [or my
rationalizations] win, Tails
you [or your criticisms] loose".
2. Stassin accuses Austin of "'fixing' the test -- by only selecting
rock samples which were
known in advance to fail it?" But why are the rock sample data
considered to be failing?
Because they do not match what was expected -- i.e. Quatenary age. And
that is exactly
what Austin was trying to show.
Stassin then says:
"Before the Grand Canyon Dating Project began, in his 1988 Impact
article, Austin
admitted in print that the selected lava flows fell into two different
stratigraphic stages.
That is, the very information which he used to select the flows, also
clearly indicates that
they did not all occur at the same time. In his subsequent book ( Grand
Canyon:
Monument to Catastrophe ), Austin indicated that his five data points
came from four
different lava flows plus an extracted "phenocryst" (large mineral which
likely formed in
the magma chamber and was not molten in the lava flow). We had known
from the Impact
articles that Austin's samples were not all cogenetic; years later we
find out by his own
admission that no two of them are so."
I already showed that the points Austin chose from Leeman were from
flows considered
to be congenetic. But, most telling is that the five data points from
"Grand Canyon:
Monument to Catastrophe" were NOT from Leeman, but were samples which Austin
himself collected and had processed. Stassin either completely misread
the book or is
deliberatly misleading the readers.
What about the four different lava flows? 1. All the flows are
considered to be
Quaternary of a single age. 2. They have very good concordance -- 1.32;
1.39; 1.38; and
1.34 billion years; with an average of 1.36 b. yrs and an isochron of
1.34 b. yrs. Included
with this is the 1988 Impact article isochron date of 1.5 b. yrs.
Therefore: such
concordance and obvious bounding to a single era argues for a cogenetic
source for all of
the lava flows. Yet, Stassin claims that all the flows are
non-cogenetic. What does he base
it on? Not on the concording data, but because they are different lava
flows. I pointed out to Stassin some time ago that In
Hawaii it is not unusual for several lava flows to be flowing at once
and that they are
cogenetic.
Later Stassin says "whole-rock samples of multiple flows yields the time
since their
common source was isotopically homogeneous It could also be the age of
the flows, but it
does not have to be. (If it is not the flows' age, that is not a
"problem" with isochron
dating,...)" Here we have it: "heads I (or isochron dating) wins, or
tails I (or isochron
dating) wins." It all depends upon how good you are at hand waving and
story telling.
In his conclusion Stassin says:
"The attempt to abuse the meaning of a single contrived date -- which
was produced only
by a sample selection geared to dating a different event, and only for
samples whose
results were known by Austin in advance -- says a lot more about the
level of competence
or honesty in this creation "science" research program, than it says
about the validity of
isochron dating methods."
As I have pointed out the date was not contrived. It was not produced by
selection to get
a desired result. Austin collected his own data to check up on Leeman
and got the same
results. This says alot about Stassin and his evolutionary religious and
dishonest prejudices
against Creationists.
-------------------------------------
gordon brown wrote:
>ASA has an article on radioactive dating at
www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html.
Geochronologists know what causes some radioactive dating measurements
to give
incorrect results and can take them into account.
Ahh yes, I read Weins article years ago. Extremely elementry!
Geochronologists do NOT
KNOW what causes some radioactive dating measurement to give incorrect
results, but
they do have lots of RATIONALIZATIONS (read hand waving or
"glow-in-the-dark"
fairy tail stories).
This brings up another point that both Gordon and Michael did. They both
figure that the
major reason why I don't accept radiometric dating is because I don't
understand
radiometric dating because I am uneducated on the topic.
The reasoning goes like this: I am an intelligent, well educated person.
I have read and
learned about radiometric dating and I find it compelling. There are
hundreds of other
intelligent and well educated people who also find radiometric dating
compelling.
Allen does not accept radiometric dating. Allen may be an intelligent
person, so it may
only be he is uneducated about radiometric dating. So I'll provide him
with sources
where he can get educated on the topic.
Let me tell you, I do not reject radiometric dating because I am
uneducated about it. I
rejected it because I am educated about it, and the article I posted
explains, in part, why.
At least Gordon and Michael didn't express what Dawkings thinks about
Creationists.
Creationists are unintelligent, uneducated, insane or just plain evil.
And to him, this
applies to everyone on the ASAnet list as well.
Lets see some intelligent, logical discussion on the points I presented
in my posting.
Allen
-- "I have been shown that, without Bible history, geology can prove nothing. Relics found in the earth do give evidence of a state of things differing in many respects from the present. But the time of their existence, and how long a period these things have been in the earth, are only to be understood by Bible history. It may be innocent to conjecture beyond Bible history, if our suppositions do not contradict the facts found in the sacred Scriptures. But when men leave the word of God in regard to the history of creation, and seek to account for God's creative works upon natural principles, they are upon a boundless ocean of uncertainty. Just how God accomplished the work of creation in six literal days, he has never revealed to mortals. His creative works are just as incomprehensible as his existence." Ellen Gould Harmon White, 1864
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