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[Springer]

There is a big problem with the rebuttal of the Austin sample.

If the lab knew it couldn't determine the age of a sample if it were less than 2 million years old, why did the report read 340,000 to 2.8 million years? The conclusion that the test was invalid was retrospective and based not on any logical explanation, but on the observation that it didn't fit evolution. If the lab truely couldn't measure young samples, as stated in the talkorgins link, then the result would have stated "0 to 2.8 million years."

Another point: Given that radiometric dating cannot be relied upon for younger samples, it is therefore impossible to prove that the earth is billions of years old if the contention is that it is in reality only thousands of years old. This is because a "young sample" cannot be dated and would give an older-than-expected date.

Finally, if radiometric dating doesn't work on samples less than 2 million years, how are they dating fossils of supposed pre-human ancestors, i.e. australopithicus?

K-Ar isn't the only type of testing that can be done. If other isotopes such as Ar39 and Ar40 had been done, the results would not have coherered, and suggested something was wrong. In this case only one type of testing was done.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD013.html

quote:
Argon may be incorporated with potassium at time of formation. This is a real problem, but it is easily overcome either by careful selection of the material being dated or by using 40Ar/39Ar dating instead of K-Ar dating.

Of course, there's also the careless selection of heterogeneous samples.

Happy? I thought I was quite specific.

My first contention remains unanswered. If the lab couldn't evaluate a young sample, why did the report read "0.3 to 2.8 million years"?

Second, if the sample is contaminated, as you contend was the case in the Mt. St. Helen's sample, then how can you determine if a sample of unknown age is or isn't contaminated?

Finally, how does radiometric dating disprove a 6,000 year old earth?

[alextemplet]

Springer:

My first contention remains unanswered. If the lab couldn't evaluate a young sample, why did the report read "0.3 to 2.8 million years"?

I admit you're right on this one, Springer. Obviously the report was flawed.

Second, if the sample is contaminated, as you contend was the case in the Mt. St. Helen's sample, then how can you determine if a sample of unknown age is or isn't contaminated?

Finally, how does radiometric dating disprove a 6,000 year old earth?

I have two points:
1) I think there are ways to tell if a sample's contaminated, so a true age of the earth would simply depending on exercising care when selecting samples.
2) Contamination can only make a sample appear younger, not older. So if we get a date of 4.6b years for the earth, then we can only conclude that the earth is either that age or older. It is therefor impossible for earth to be only 6000 years old.

Kenneth Miller does a fine job of explaining radiometric dating, among other things, in his book Finding Darwin's God. It's one of my favorite books. I think you'd enjoy it.

[Springer]

quote="alextemplet"

My first contention remains unanswered. If the lab couldn't evaluate a young sample, why did the report read "0.3 to 2.8 million years"?

I admit you're right on this one, Springer. Obviously the report was flawed.

There is a significant problem here. The laboratory decided that it radiometric dating could not be relied upon for young dates only after it realized that the sample was ~20 years old.

I have two points:
1) I think there are ways to tell if a sample's contaminated, so a true age of the earth would simply depending on exercising care when selecting samples.
2) Contamination can only make a sample appear younger, not older. So if we get a date of 4.6b years for the earth, then we can only conclude that the earth is either that age or older. It is therefor impossible for earth to be only 6000 years old.

In the Mount Saint Helen's case referred to above, evolutionists contend that the reason it was dated from 300,000 to 2.8 million years is because the sample was contaminated.

[mith]

My first contention remains unanswered. If the lab couldn't evaluate a young sample, why did the report read "0.3 to 2.8 million years"?

I don't know enough about it to answer that. Should it?

Second, if the sample is contaminated, as you contend was the case in the Mt. St. Helen's sample, then how can you determine if a sample of unknown age is or isn't contaminated?

Finally, how does radiometric dating disprove a 6,000 year old earth?

Well, when you see a stick underwater and it appears bent, how do you know it isn't? Well you try using your other sense, such as by touching it. In our specific case, we'd use the other types of dating(already described). Hopefully there will be some coherence. If they're very different, that means that our methods(and physics from where it's derived) is wrong. Almost all claims of young earth are answered here.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood.html

[Springer]

quote="mithrilhack"

quote]My first contention remains unanswered. If the lab couldn't evaluate a young sample, why did the report read "0.3 to 2.8 million years"?

I don't know enough about it to answer that. Should it?

[alextemplet]

Springer:

There is a significant problem here. The laboratory decided that it radiometric dating could not be relied upon for young dates only after it realized that the sample was ~20 years old.

Hm . . . sounds like the lab in question was careless, and then made an easy excuse to cover up their carelessness. Interesting, to say the least.

In the Mount Saint Helen's case referred to above, evolutionists contend that the reason it was dated from 300,000 to 2.8 million years is because the sample was contaminated.

Who claimed this? Can you provide sources?

The talk origins website that you referred me to claims that the lab couldn't measure dates of less than 2 million years. That doesn't make sense in view of the fact that it reported an age of at least 300,000 years.

Agreed.

Radiometric dating is completely unreliable. You apparently believe everything you're told about a billions-of-years old earth, but I'm getting the feeling that you don't know why. Responding to a question be referencing a website is not an argument... it's a concession that you don't know what you're talking about.

I don't claim to be a geology expert, but I do know a little bit about it. Dating methods that are most used involve isotopes that are only produced as part of a decay series. As an example I'll use the Rubidium-Strontium technique. Rb87 decays to Sr87 over a half-life of 48.8 billion years. Sr87 is produced only through Rb87 decay; Sr86 occurs naturally. In a newly formed rock, there might be both Rb87 and Sr86 in abundance. Over time, the Rb87 decays to Sr87. When a geologist looks at the rock to date it, he simply compares the ratio of the three isotopes to determine their age. If there's not much Rb87, a lot of Sr87, and some Sr86, he knows the rock is old, because all the Sr87 had to have come from decaying Rb87. If there's a lot more Sr86 than Sr87, the rock is probably pretty young. If the rock was contaminated, such as by melting to lava and then recrystalizing, at some point in history, then it would reform with more Sr86 than it had previously, the excess coming from the atmosphere. So contamination can only produce an underestimate, not an overestimate. Also I greatly simplified my explanation here; if you want more details, read Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller, pages 69-76.

[Springer]

quote="alextemplet"

I don't claim to be a geology expert, but I do know a little bit about it. Dating methods that are most used involve isotopes that are only produced as part of a decay series. As an example I'll use the Rubidium-Strontium technique. Rb87 decays to Sr87 over a half-life of 48.8 billion years. Sr87 is produced only through Rb87 decay; Sr86 occurs naturally. In a newly formed rock, there might be both Rb87 and Sr86 in abundance. Over time, the Rb87 decays to Sr87. When a geologist looks at the rock to date it, he simply compares the ratio of the three isotopes to determine their age. If there's not much Rb87, a lot of Sr87, and some Sr86, he knows the rock is old, because all the Sr87 had to have come from decaying Rb87. If there's a lot more Sr86 than Sr87, the rock is probably pretty young. If the rock was contaminated, such as by melting to lava and then recrystalizing, at some point in history, then it would reform with more Sr86 than it had previously, the excess coming from the atmosphere. So contamination can only produce an underestimate, not an overestimate. Also I greatly simplified my explanation here; if you want more details, read Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller, pages 69-76.

As with all evolutionary arguments, radiometric dating relies on multiple unverifiable assumptions. It is assumed that no daughter substance was present in the sample at the time of volcanic eruption, and that all daughter substance present is a result of radioactive decay. It is assumed that the decay rates have been linear for millions of years, and during that entire time no influx or efflux or parent or daughter substances occurred. Furthermore, it assumes that the sample is not contaminated, which is a grand assumption of something supposedly having an age of millions of years.

In the case of the Mt. St. Helen's eruption, the sample submitted was "contaminated" with phenocrysts of orthopyroxene, hornblende and plagioclase. When the erroneous result was realized, it was concluded that these crystals occluded argon within their mineral structures deep in the magma chamber and retained this argon after emplacement and solidification of the dacite. Thus, the "contamination" resulted in increased daughter substance (Argon), resulting in an erroneously long age.

Obviously, no one can verify a millions of year old date. Radiometric dating has had chances to verify its accuracy with lava flows of known dates, and has proven itself to be a worthless endeavor. In the case of the Mt. St. Helen's eruptions, the dates were erroneous by a factor of at least 15,000.

[AstusAleator]

In the case of the Mt. St. Helen's eruption, the sample submitted was "contaminated" with phenocrysts of orthopyroxene, hornblende and plagioclase. When the erroneous result was realized, it was concluded that these crystals occluded argon within their mineral structures deep in the magma chamber and retained this argon after emplacement and solidification of the dacite. Thus, the "contamination" resulted in increased daughter substance (Argon), resulting in an erroneously long age.

I have a feeling I know how you're going to answer this. Nevertheless:
The fact that the "contaminating" substances contained proportions of isotopes that indicated an age of hundreds of thousands to millions of years seems to work against your argument. These "contaminants" are clearly pre-formed phenocrysts that weren't broken down and re-formed in the most recent lava formation. This indicates that they date from an earlier time, and the radiometric data supports that.

[alextemplet]

Interesting conclusion, Astus, sounds good to me. And Springer, there's no assumption going on here. We're not "assuming", for example, that Sr87 occurs only through Rb decay; that's exactly how it works! That's the only way that Sr87 can come into existence. And again, if contamination does occur, it would produce an underestimate, not an overestimate. Just claiming that contamination might have occured doesn't prove your point; instead, it proves mine.

And I've already admitted that the Mt. St. Helens example was a flawed test; that still doesn't make radiometric dating as a whole inaccurate. For example, if Argon was added, what isotope was it? That's important because the really good test methods involve isotopes that only occur through decay.

You still haven't answered this question so I'll ask it again: Are you trying to claim that the entire universe is 6000 years old, or just the earth?

[biotchr]

No dating method gives an accurate age of earth unless you assume that a supernatural power did not create the earth and its inhabitants in much the same way they look now. I tend to believe in a supernatural power that do ANYTHING including speak everything we see around us into existence. That means radiometric dating is very fallible. Of course with this in mind, a tree with 1000 rings, a specimen dated 1 million years old, and starlight from 1 million years away, would be created as is. By the way if some think this hard to believe why would some believe in material compiling itself into everything we see around us over a 20 billion year period, and put thier faith in a counter that spits out a number?

[mith]

I brought up the stick underwater, because I'm reminding you that by coherence we can get closer to the truth because any particular method's weakness can be lessened. For our example, the contamination and heterogeneous mixture changed the results of the Ar-k tests but if you did another test Ar39-Ar40, then you'd see that there would be a discrepancy. If you further do other tests, you'll find that some of them will have similar results.

[AstusAleator]

Ok, biotchr, the earth was created 6000 years ago. You're right. Congratulations, you've made everything in the evolution/darwinism thread irrelevant. I guess we might as well all move on and stop posting here.

*wink to everyone else*