Re: Bias in Science, Part 2

This is a brilliant post and sums up what is wrong with standard YEC fare. I liked the way that you highlighted his shoddy arguments which surely any Ph D would know were wrong!

I think Talkorigins would like this!

Michael
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Randy Isaac
  To: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Monday, May 30, 2005 12:55 AM
  Subject: Bias in Science, Part 2

  In part 1 I spoke of prejudicial bias, in which there is a tendency for a prejudice, or an a priori desire or preference for a particular result, to influence the analysis and the outcome of a scientific investigation, and a scientific bias, in which there is a tendency for anomalous results, namely those not expected on the basis of established scientific knowledge, to be rejected, particularly if the results directly contradict previously well-documented results.

  In this post, I'd like to take a closer look at Baumgardner's paper http://www.icr.org/research/AGUC-14_Poster_Baumgardner.pdf which elicited the concern a few weeks ago that it might be rejected by peer-reviewers due to an inappropriate bias. Specifically, Vernon Jenkins wrote on April 4, 2005: "There can be little doubt that Baumgardner et al would be more than happy to publish these findings in peer-reviewed form if a relevant journal could be found to accept their work. However, the sad truth is that a paper challenging the accepted uniformitarian paradigm - irrespective of its intrinsic quality - invariably meets with editorial and reviewer hostility."

  Let us pretend that we are peer-reviewers of Baumgardner's paper. I'm not an expert in the field, haven't taken a lot of time to do the analysis, nor have I consulted with the author so this must be viewed as a high-level first-pass perspective rather than an in-depth, definitive assessment.

  Firstly, we note his conclusion that "A glaring (thousand-fold) inconsistency that can no longer be ignored in the scientific world exists between the AMS-determined 14C levels and the corresponding rock ages provided by 238U, 87Rb, and 40K techniques. We believe the most likely explanation for this inconsistency to be the invalidity of uniformitarian assumption of time-invariant decay rates. Other research undertaken by our group supports this conclusion [1, 2, 3, 4]. The fact that 14C is readily detected throughout the Phanerozoic part of the geological record argues the half billion years of time uniformitarians assign to this portion of earth history is likely incorrect.". His paper does not clarify his meaning of the word "uniformitarian" which is often misused. That in itself is bad form. But no matter how we interpret the word, the meaning appears to be that key foundational results and assumptions of the established scientific knowledge base are directly refuted. Such a claim is almost surely wrong and would justify rejection of the paper immediately, in accord with the prevailing scientific bias. Or at least raise the bar immensely.

  Secondly, keeping our initial concern in abeyance, we look at the experimental procedures cited in the paper. The C-14 dating technique is applied to samples where the C-14 composition is on the order of 0.1ppc whereas the generally accepted range of validity is only above 0.5ppc. Using a technique outside its accepted range of validity is not justified except under dire circumstances where no other method is possible and, even then, it must be considered as an unreliable, crude estimate. No such justification is provided. In fact, other methods are clearly available and are cited.

  Next, there is very little discussion of the key factor that limits the validity of C-14 dating, namely contamination and extraneous sources of C-14. The sample handling technique is described as "The original samples were collected from recently exposed areas of active mines, placed in 30-gallon steel drums with high-density gaskets, and purged with argon," but there is no allusion to why this method is adequate to remove any contamination. The only concession made to this problem is that a value of 0.077ppc is subtracted from the data "believed to be from sample process contamination." But there is no discussion of how this value is determined and why it can justifiably be considered to be constant for all measurements. This is a very large value, ranging from 14% to 44% of the measured values in Table 2. If the subtracted background is so large, it must be justified and the relevant error analysis must be applied. But no such discussion is present in the paper. This is not acceptable scientific methodology.

  The experimental data for diamond is assumed to have no background contamination at all. But there is no discussion of why this is a valid assumption. If .077ppc is due to sample process contamination for some samples, then why shouldn't that be the value for diamond? A value of zero for the background is surely not justified.

  Another key reason why C-14 dating is not considered valid for samples below 0.5ppc of C-14 is the tremendous non-linearity. That is, the slightest linear deviation of the measurement results in enormous changes in the estimated age. In light of this, an error analysis is mandatory. If we were to assume an error of just 0.1ppc in background assumption, which is not unreasonable, the resulting age of the samples would range from infinite to hundreds of thousands of years. No conclusion can be drawn unless these potential errors are discussed and resolved.

  Proper dating techniques require not only that dating methodologies be used in their accepted range of validity but that more than one independent method be used to reliably date a sample. If multiple techniques fail to show independent corroboration, then the sample must be declared inconclusive with respect to definitive dating. Yet, in this paper, no second independent method is used. In fact, only one anomalous measurement, and that outside of its range of validity, is used in contrast to other results which, presumably though not articulated in this paper, were derived from multiple independent measurements. This is not acceptable.

  From the information provided in the abstract, there is no reason to question the raw data. Detection limits of C-14 of current technology are well below the reported results. The question is the source of the C-14. The amounts reported are on the order of what would be expected from contamination and/or from various radioactive decay products. Before reaching a conclusion that the source of the measured C-14 is atmospheric equilibrium at the time of formation, all other possibilities must be exhaustively ruled out. This paper does not attempt to do so.

  In summary, a rather short and quick scan of this paper reveals several very serious deviations from accepted scientific methodology. The uncorroborated, anomalous result of a technique used outside of its range of validity, without any error analysis or details of avoidance of background contamination, is proclaimed to invalidate the basic assumptions of physics that have been independently verified by countless methods.

  I would suggest that acceptance of such a paper would reflect very poorly on the organization that sponsors it, the reviewer, the authors, and the employers of the authors. And we haven't even mentioned any religious implications. That will be addressed in part 3.

  Randy
Received on Mon May 30 15:59:52 2005