Sunday, March 24, 2019

Carbon Dates, Armitage and a Volcano of Hawaii


Continuing a series of comments from back here:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Potholer defends Carbon dates
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2019/01/potholer-defends-carbon-dates.html


Hans-Georg Lundahl
5:36 The problem with your reasoning here is, you are presuming everything dino or sth like that is completely permineralised.

Not true if you saw up dino bones like Armitage did.

6:54 And Armitage has done this to freshly found dino bones, with no shellac on them.

7:24 And since back then, Armitage has found dino collagen in bones.

Leafsdude
@Hans-Georg Lundahl "And Armitage has done this to freshly found dino bones, with no shellac on them."

[Citation Needed]

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Leafsdude here (even if intro is a bit corny):

Dinosaur Soft Tissue Discovered by Mark Armitage Micro Specialist
Dave Flang | 11.XII.2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fjjeyRxP9Q


Leafsdude
@Hans-Georg Lundahl No video could be an adequate citation for your claim. Do you have anything else to provide?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Leafsdude "No video could be an adequate citation for your claim."

Why not? It shows the process of extraction, with the precautions to avoid contamination.

"Do you have anything else to provide?"

For the moment, no.

Leafsdude
@Hans-Georg Lundahl "Why not?"

Because it's far too complex a process to adequately perform in a video. He would need to perform numerous dating techniques, chemical analysis tests and so on before he could adequately demonstrate a) that there is material that is "premineralized" and/or b) that there is any C14 to perform accurate, useful carbon dating on.

"It shows the process of extraction, with the precautions to avoid contamination."

Well, that's not what I asked for, anyway. As per above, if your claim is that there is material in the bones that are "premineralized" and/or that there is C14 in the bones, showing the extraction process is not adequate to show that.

[I take it "premineralised" is the very opposite of permineralised. He brought the word up here, and that is what it means : not yet mineralised.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Leafsdude "He would need to perform numerous dating techniques, chemical analysis tests and so on before he could adequately demonstrate a) that there is material that is "premineralized" and/or b) that there is any C14 to perform accurate, useful carbon dating on."

Not really.

Material from inside the bone is if not mineralised then pre-mineralised.

And absence of C14 would not yield erratic carbon dates, but a result like "your specimen is beyond dating possibilities of at present 70.000 years BP" or similar.

Plus the "numerous dating techniques" are most of them less reliable than C14.

If your point were that he could have done sth fraudulent, showing a full paper would change nothing to your scepticism.

If your point is, he could have been bungling sth due to incompetence, he's an accredited scientist and got fired over this affair.

Leafsdude
@Hans-Georg Lundahl "Not really."

Yes, really.

"Material from inside the bone is if not mineralised then pre-mineralised. "

Sure. Simplistic, but sure. How do you think mineralization is shown, exactly?

"And absence of C14 would not yield erratic carbon dates, but a result like "your specimen is beyond dating possibilities of at present 70.000 years BP" or similar."

Agreed, because there would be no carbon dates to come to because the whole point of carbon dating is to measure C14 and compare it to C12 & C13 levels. If there's no C14, there's nothing to compare the C12 and C13 to, thereby completely defeating the purpose of carbon dating. If there is no C14, then the answer to "what carbon date will this sample return" would be "none".

And if he wants to show there is C14 in the sample, a youtube video will not do that. Again, C14 measurements are far too complex to ever be able to show in a youtube video, unless the video is literally days, weeks, or even months long. Like, literally, thousands of hours long. Because you're not measuring C14 in a couple hours, let alone 10 minutes.

"Plus the "numerous dating techniques" are most of them less reliable than C14."

[Citation Needed]

"If your point were that he could have done sth fraudulent, showing a full paper would change nothing to your scepticism."

Highly disagree, because if he publishes a peer-reviewed paper, with his full setup stated in detail, then his experiments can be replicated and the results can be compared. If it's fraudulent, then those results will practically all be different. If it's not, then they will practically all be the same. This is why peer-review works and youtube videos do not.

"If your point is, he could have been bungling sth due to a) incompetence, b) he's an accredited scientist and c) got fired over this affair."

And you point is? b) and c) do not preclude a) .

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Leafsdude "How do you think mineralization is shown, exactly?"

By what should be bone or soft tissue being instead some mineral, I suppose?

"Agreed, because there would be no carbon dates to come to because the whole point of carbon dating is to measure C14 and compare it to C12 & C13 levels."

Normally simply to Carbon 12 since it is the normal isotope.

"And if he wants to show there is C14 in the sample, a youtube video will not do that."

The point is, he showed extraction process was not risking contamination.

The other point is, he has showed documents from institutions that did carbon dating in the methods prescribed.

"Like, literally, thousands of hours long. Because you're not measuring C14 in a couple hours, let alone 10 minutes."
That sounds like BS to me, it takes:
  • extracting carbon from non-carbon (for instance like burning to charcoal and then burning that in pure oxygen to get all the carbon in gas form)
  • having a devise which can in gas detect the difference of carbon 14 from carbon 12.


I look up the apparatus used:

Accelerator Mass Spectrometer = seems to be the devise I was thinking of.

Gas proportional counting is a conventional radiometric dating technique that counts the beta particles emitted by a given sample. Beta particles are products of radiocarbon decay. In this method, the carbon sample is first converted to carbon dioxide gas before measurement in gas proportional counters takes place.

Liquid scintillation counting is another radiocarbon dating technique that was popular in the 1960s. In this method, the sample is in liquid form and a scintillator is added. This scintillator produces a flash of light when it interacts with a beta particle. A vial with a sample is passed between two photomultipliers, and only when both devices register the flash of light that a count is made.

Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) is a modern radiocarbon dating method that is considered to be the more efficient way to measure radiocarbon content of a sample. In this method, the carbon 14 content is directly measured relative to the carbon 12 and carbon 13 present. The method does not count beta particles but the number of carbon atoms present in the sample and the proportion of the isotopes.


Beta Analytic : How Does Carbon Dating Work
https://www.radiocarbon.com/about-carbon-dating.htm


"[Citation Needed]"

The volcanic eruption on Hawaii in 19th C, lava which solidified in the air has a ballpark where "recent" is an option, but lava that solidified in sea water, therefore faster, trapping more extra argon, has a definitely older measure. If you have a potassium argon date which says 400,000 years and another says 2,000,000 years, safest conclusion is waters of the Flood were cooler and cooling the lava quicker at the latter point, and lava solidified so quickly presumably is from the time of Noah.

Mungo man was carbon dated to c. 20,000 BP but the retained date of 40,000 is a non-carbon method.

"Highly disagree, because if he publishes a peer-reviewed paper, with his full setup stated in detail, then his experiments can be replicated and the results can be compared."

I'm sorry, but what needs to be replicated is simply sending dino non-permineralised materials for carbon dating. Simple as that. Since he didn't do the carbon dating himself, he sent to conventional labs, the point is that these are now blocking any replication by asking someone to fill in "expected date".

Being an accredited scientist does not preclude incompetence in evolution believing scientists either. Especially not if they confirm each other in that.

Leafsdude
@Hans-Georg Lundahl "By what should be bone or soft tissue being instead some mineral, I suppose?"

I was going more for the technical answer: how do you detect bone or soft tissue and differentiate it from minerals. I mean, you agree you can't just look at the samples and base it on that alone, correct?

"Normally simply to Carbon 12 since it is the normal isotope."

C12 is the more abundant isotope, but since C12 and C13 are both stable (as in, they don't decay), both are measured in carbon dating.

"The point is, he showed extraction process was not risking contamination."

Sure. That only proves there's no contamination. And, not being an expert, I can't even say that for sure based on a video.

My point is, even if that's proven, it doesn't prove his conclusions are based on any factual data. He hasn't done the carbon dating, he hasn't shown any C14 measurements, he hasn't shown that there's any premineralized soft tissues. Until he has, that video is entirely irrelevant.

"That sounds like BS to me"

Why?

"it takes:
extracting carbon from non-carbon (for instance like burning to charcoal and then burning that in pure oxygen to get all the carbon in gas form)

having a devise which can in gas detect the difference of carbon 14 from carbon 12. "

And how long do you think those processes, done correctly, take, keeping in mind a) the need for a significant amount of carbon extract, and b) the need to run multiple measurements to rule out statistical anomalies and errors?

"The volcanic eruption on Hawaii in 19th C, lava which solidified in the air has a ballpark where "recent" is an option"

[Citation Needed]

"If you have a potassium argon date which says 400,000 years and another says 2,000,000 years, safest conclusion is waters of the Flood were cooler and cooling the lava quicker at the latter point"

Wait, what? Why is that the safest conclusion?

"Mungo man was carbon dated to c. 20,000 BP but the retained date of 40,000 is a non-carbon method."

[Citation Needed]

"I'm sorry, but what needs to be replicated is simply sending dino non-permineralised materials for carbon dating. Simple as that."

Sure. Has he done that? Keep in mind that to do that he has to a) prove it's "non-permineralised [sic]" and b) actually carbon date it.

"Since he didn't do the carbon dating himself, he sent to conventional labs"

Did he? Do you have a source for this claim?

"he point is that these are now blocking any replication by asking someone to fill in "expected date"."

How's that? On both ends. How is being blocked, and how is anyone filling in "expected date", whatever that is.

"Being an accredited scientist does not preclude incompetence in evolution believing scientists either."

Sure. I've never argued otherwise. Science is about replication, the process of which is to remove "incompetence" because experiments can only be replicated if the process is sound.

"Especially not if they confirm each other in that."

Why not?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Leafsdude "I was going more for the technical answer: how do you detect bone or soft tissue and differentiate it from minerals. I mean, you agree you can't just look at the samples and base it on that alone, correct?"

No, I don't.

  • 1) Bone as such looks different from fossilised bone.
  • 2) Soft tissue (like marrow) looks very different from it. And I mean of course, not soft tissue formerly such which has permineralised, but soft tissue preserved as soft tissue.


"C12 is the more abundant isotope, but since C12 and C13 are both stable (as in, they don't decay), both are measured in carbon dating."

While that is so, the pmC value is the value of the ratio C14 to C12 expressed in percent of the ratio in the modern atmosphere.

C13 is, as far as I can see, used as a checkup.

"My point is, even if that's proven, it doesn't prove his conclusions are based on any factual data. He hasn't done the carbon dating, he hasn't shown any C14 measurements, he hasn't shown that there's any premineralized soft tissues. Until he has, that video is entirely irrelevant."

Look up other videos on his channel.

[My bad, the channel wasn't his]

He has that, unless some of them have been forced to be taken down.

It's 9:53 in the morning, I was awake between 4:30 and 5:30 about and woke again a bit after 7, so, I am not in a mood to search out each of these points in the separate videos.

"a) the need for a significant amount of carbon extract,"

Come on, historical objects are dated without doing too much damage and there is accelerater mass spectrometry to get precise values from small extracts.

And taking a sufficient amount is not done by taking one micrometer cubed at a time with significant time lapse between.

"b) the need to run multiple measurements to rule out statistical anomalies and errors?"

By now, on dinosaurs, the criterium has been fulfilled, we uniformly when carbon dating have not found a dino bone lacking carbon 14.

For Hawaii eruption, one of the four parts on this video series, probably 1 or 2:

Why i believe in a young earth by ex-evolutionist Dr.Grady McMurtry Part 1
Arne Karlsen | 15.V.2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJGairhrPGc


"Wait, what? Why is that the safest conclusion?"

Because the other explanation, that there was a different amount of time, is not only contrary to Scriptures, but based on a theorem never proven and even disproved at Mt St Helens, that excess argon is not captured when lava cools.

"The first major find, in 1969, was of crushed and burnt skeletal fragments, interpreted to be of a female called Lake Mungo 1, or more affectionately Mungo Woman.2,3 What made the find significant was the assigned date. Carbon-14 dating (see Dating methods) on bone apatite (the hard bone material) yielded an age of 19,000 years and on collagen (soft tissue) gave 24,700 years.3 This excited the archaeologists, because that date made their find the oldest human burial in Australia."

"But carbon-14 dating on nearby charcoal produced an ‘age’ up to 26,500 years."

In my view of a rising carbon level, the charcoal is older simply because it's from trees that are in average a few decades older than the human tissue.

Now, the source goes on:

"The situation became even more exciting when a different dating method (thermoluminescence, see Dating methods) was used. In 1998, Bowler reported that sand from the Mungo 3 site gave an age of some 42,000 years."

Now, the source I cited happens to be both a Geologist and an Australian. His name is Tas Walker, and here is his work:
The dating game
by Tas Walker | This article is from
Creation 26(1):36–39, December 2003
https://creation.com/the-dating-game


"Did he? Do you have a source for this claim?"

Look up the video where he is claiming conventional labs have made it impossible for him to repeat, since they now routinely ask "what is the expected age".

As he is a Young Earth Creationist, he cannot in good conscience claim he expects anything to be either millions or several ten thousands years old.

I proposed as a solution he check with the lab where they ask what carbon date he expects, and fill in 20 - 40 000 BP. That's a ball park fairly recurrent in carbon dated dinosaurs, and we can anyway consider "carbon date" as a short hand for the C14 ratio, and therefore as not in conflict with an actual date being considerably younger, due to a rising carbon 14 level.

"Science is about replication, the process of which is to remove "incompetence" because experiments can only be replicated if the process is sound."

No, they can also be replicated if the process is unsound on a level that will not show in the tests they chose to make or take into account (as you mentioned "anomaly" they have an alibi when not taking sth into account).

@Leafsdude Found the video, it's part 2, and at 7:15 he's discussing the volcano, check in at 7:00 and you'll see it.

Why i believe in a young earth by ex-evolutionist Dr.Grady McMurtry Part 2 [à 7:13]
Arne Karlsen | 15.V.2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1Qr9ZZ-Y30&t=433s

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