From: John W Burgeson (jwburgeson@juno.com)
Date: Tue Oct 07 2003 - 15:17:21 EDT
Craig posted part of ICR's IMPACT #364, which says:
" In Impact #364, John Baumgardner says, re: correlations between
geological context and isotopic ratios:
>In view of the profound significance of these AMS 14C measurements, the
ICR
>Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth (RATE) team has undertaken its
own
>AMS 14C analyses of such fossil material. 2 The first set of samples
>consisted of ten coals obtained from the U. S. Department of Energy Coal
>Sample Bank maintained at the Pennsylvania State University. The ten
samples
>include three coals from the Eocene part of the geological record, three
>from the Cretaceous, and four from the Pennsylvanian. These samples were
>analyzed by one of the foremost AMS laboratories in the world. Figure 1
>below shows in histogram form the results of these analyses.
>These values fall squarely within the range already established in the
>peer-reviewed radiocarbon literature. When we average our results over
each
>geological interval, we obtain remarkably similar values of 0.26 percent
>modern carbon (pmc) for Eocene, 0.21 pmc for Cretaceous, and 0.27 pmc
for
>Pennsylvanian. Although the number of samples is small, we observe
little
>difference in 14C level as a function of position in the geological
record.
>This is consistent with the young-earth view that the entire macrofossil
>record up to the upper Cenozoic is the product of the Genesis Flood and
>therefore such fossils should share a common 14C age.
Craig asked: "Is this data accurate? Is there an old-earth
explanation for it?
Are there web-pages with good old-earth analyses of this?"
FWIW, this is my assessment of the paper. The assessment is made as if it
were a paper turned in for college credit. I assume the experiments were
performed essentially as stated in the paper. I dashed this off in 15
minutes; don't take it too seriously.
First of all, if the editorializing were to be removed (the paper begins
with the words "Evolutionists generally feel secure ... ." ) then, if the
paper were submitted by, say, a 3rd year physics student, then I would
probably give it a passing grade. If it were submitted, however, as a
Master's level thesis, in support of the requirements for that degree, I
might have a real problem passing it. As a paper submitted for a Ph.D. or
as one submitted to a professional journal, I could not approve it.
Let me comment upon it as if it were a preliminary draft of a paper
submitted at the Master's level. My comments will be, necessarily,
briefer than they would be if John Baumgardner were an actual student
striving for a Master's Degree at my university. I refer to the full
text, of which Craig has posted only part above. It is available on the
ICR web site.
To John Baumgardner:
John, here is what you must do to make this paper suitable for
consideration for your degree:
1. Removal of all editorializing. For instance, this means all of
paragraph 1 and the first two sentences and last two in paragraph 2. And
the first two sentences of paragraph 3. And much more, but I leave the
identification of such up to you.
2. You list five references, four of which are from creation-science
publications. You need a great many more citations from literature
outside the Creation - Science community.
3. You make a strong argument which speaks of "scores of peer-reviewed
papers" in the past 20 years. But the only citation for this claim is a
creation-science paper, published this year (2003) by yourself and
others. I would expect that in a thesis of this sort you would give
citations to the original papers, as well as an analysis of their
findings, and, in particular, cite and analyze those papers which may
disagree with your thesis.
4. You conducted experiments on ten samples, all obtained from one
source. I would expect that in a paper of this sort you would include the
data and your reasoning which would lead you to make a claim that none of
them were contaminated. Note that this being a Master's level thesis, I
would not expect you to conduct such verification experiments yourself.
But if you expect to provide a version of this paper in fulfillment of
the Ph.D. degree, the requirements would be more stringent. In
particular, you could have extracted your coal samples from a site,
rather than from a third party where the handling of the samples was
outside your control.
5. You said the samples were analyzed by "one of the foremost AMS
laboratories in the world." Claims like this are legitimate, but only if
backed up with reasonable grounds. You need to provide these grounds, as
well as identifying the laboratory, the date(s) of the analyses and the
persons attesting to their accuracy.
6. The word "macrofossil" is not a standard term. If you insist on using
it, I insist on a tight definition.
7. The graph you have provided is uninformative; I cannot "see" sample
differences. The data is better presented in a table, with each of the
ten samples identified with all measured data on each. Again, I insist
you read and take to heart the graphical techniques found in Tufte's
book.
8. You identify C14 with "Modern Carbon." "Modern Carbon" needs to be
defined if you do this. However, what was measured was C14, and to call
it something else is potentially misleading.
9. I remind you once again of the requirements for scientific papers at
this institution. They MUST reflect the three rules of science:
1. Tight and unambiguous definitions
2. Examine ALL the evidence
3. Ascribe nothing to the gods
Your experiments, assuming they are accurate, do have the merit of
suggesting that current coal dating may have to be looked at more
closely. To assert that they suggest a great change in our thinking about
radiometrics is, to say the least, highly premature.
10. You write "when one considers that he Genesis Flood removed vast
amounts of living biomass ... ." That statement is made as "factual;" it
enjoys, of course, only limited support from a small group of
researchers. It cannot be used, therefore, as a factor in the argument
for a specific claim.
11. You write that "the case is now extremely compelling that the fossil
record was produced just a few thousand years ago... ." You base this
claim on the specific RATE experiments, but ignore the vast amount of
evidences to the contrary. Your claim is far too broad. A simple claim
that C14 levels in coal seem to be too high (still of the order of 50K
years) is defendable from the data you have provided.
12. Any Master's level thesis at this institution that does not conclude
with suggestions for further study will be rejected. Several suggestions
come to mind. The experiment of collecting samples at coal sites,
preferably quite a distance beneath the ground surface at undisturbed
sites, needs to be considered. I am sure you can think of other
possibilities.
13. Any master's level thesis that concludes that a miracle must be
invoked is, ipso facto, rejected.
John, you are a smart kid. But I really don't think physics is the field
you will do well in. Have you considered being a rock star? Or maybe the
governor of California?
Sincerely,
Prof Burgy
www.burgy.50megs.com
________________________________________________________________
The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand!
Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER!
Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Tue Oct 07 2003 - 15:21:28 EDT