On Expertise in Dating and in General

Hydrologic Sorting: The Flood & The Fossils - Creation Today Claims
Paulogia, added 6 oct. 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR8yVud_vak

Tim Hyatt

"go to the experts!!"....UNLESS it disagrees with the bible....then they're not to be trusted....

Hans-Georg Lundahl

How about my not going to "the" experts for other reasons too, like considering certain expertise as superstitious or as ill founded at least?

Tim Hyatt

if you think your untrained, uneducated experience in a given field is superior to someone who has spent years of training, and decades of professional work in that field, then you've got a completely skewed sense of the world, and don't understand the depth of knowledge most scientific specialities require......

for example....do you know the different between C-14 testing and potassium-argon testing? Do you know the protocols each must abide by? Do you understand out of the two dozen+ testing methodlogies encompassed by radiometric dating, only a handful will be suited to any given sample, and WHY only a few will yield consistent dependable results? Do you understand why lead contamination from fuel exhausts makes uranium-lead testing very difficult...Do you understand why shellfish and sea-floor fauna will consistently give a skewed result if C-14 is used on them? Do you understand what an error bar is, and why it exists in the first place? these are things that I , as a very amatuer geologist understand, one with formal training would probably be able to extend this list to several pages. If you don't understand these things and why they're important, then YOU don't understand the background knowledge required to even begin to criticize lab results

When it comes to science, your lay opinion, IS MEANINGLESS compared to that of trained experts in their fields.... if you tried to use the same logic when talking with a doctor about your "illnesses"....you'd be immediately labeled as an internet-hypochondriac...someone who thinks a WebMD questionaire, can provide any sort of truly accurate diagnosis, compared to that of a trained physician.....

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Before reading more of your answer, I'll tackle the first sentence first.

"if you think your untrained, uneducated experience in a given field is superior to someone who has spent years of training, and decades of professional work in that field, then you've got a completely skewed sense of the world,"

So, you accept the expertise of astrologers, because they have done years of training in astrology?

Or you reject astrology, because it is a pseudo-science, regardless of how much training astroologers have? In the latter case, how are YOU not having a completely skewed sense of the world?

I'm saving the rest of your comment for later, until you have answer this one!

Oh, I'll actually include the last sentence too:

"if you tried to use the same logic when talking with a doctor about your "illnesses"....you'd be immediately labeled as an internet-hypochondriac...someone who thinks a WebMD questionaire, can provide any sort of truly accurate diagnosis, compared to that of a trained physician....."

You know, I think pseudo-expertise among doctors is a somewhat rarer thing, except among shrinks. Most patients are in a social position to complain loudly enough to ruin a carreer, at least if many of them join hands, when it comes to a clear fraud.

An illness is actually a pragmatic situation, a somewhat different matter, where one does not always have the leisure to lean back and wait for evidence to confirm or infirm what a doctor says. And sometimes, the doctors will give you some treatment you are not in a position to apply, due to shower facilities etc, compared to what you should do, and in such a case, it happens you do lean back and look at evidence from your case too.

Either way, a very old thing to be carbon dated or sorted into a hypothetic geological column is a somewhat different thing. A whole corps of experts will get away with beig wrong and not being fired, as long as they are believed : they are under no obligation to show up verifiable results (in carbon dating of course beyond the limit where historical verification is not available).

So, how exactly do you consider that your reliance on geologists is as well placed as that on doctors, and not as ill placed as that on astrologers? Because they have shown you part of what they do, you are fascinated and interested? Well, astrology dupes share the characteristic.

Your turn BEFORE I post a detailed answer on the more technical things.

Tim Hyatt

if I'm asking them things about astrology, yes, their expertise will grant a broader depth and more accurate knowledge than my amatuer knowledge encompasses.......however, the fact that their knowledge beyond the directly observable apparent motion of the planets, does not otherwise conform to reality, is a separate issue.

Similarly, I WOULD ask a Tarot card expert about the historicity of the cards, the origins of the imagery, etc, as I would expect their expertise to include such things.....would I think they can perceive my future "in the cards"?? absolutely not...

However, I also do not hold such individuals to the same standard I would expect from a trained and published research in a field of recognized research, like Climatology for example... When the overwhelming consensus of those in the field, agree, that humans have, and continue, to affect the climate, and are the direct cause of increasing temperatures, I have the expectation they are accurate, and do indeed know more than I do about it, and recognize my depth of knowhow has little comparison to theirs...

The same with epidemiologists who have the overwhelming consensus that vaccinations do NOT cause autism, and skipping vaccinations not only puts the patient at risk, it risks potentially many, many more as well.....

my own training happens to be in Astrophysics & electrical engineering (with handful of courses in geology, because I was interested at the time....) - and while i'm not trained to the degree of a graduate student or phd, I do have enough to understand more than majority of people on the topic.. Do I consider myself an "expert"? no....there are plenty of folks who know a great deal more than I do....but I do have enough to recognize why Creationists arguments fall flat. Even someone with a decent high school level education in the topics should be able to recognize why their version is deeply, and fundamentally flawed.....

Geology has one key indicator you've missed, that keeps any presumed mass coverup from occurring; it must actually produce RESULTS...results that are directly used to mine for mineral and hydrological resources. Results that are used to construct buildings based on ground surveys (requirements for foundations, drainage, etc...) The results are confirmable by any other geologist out there

And as for carbon dating...it has conformational avenues....dendrochronology for example, has been used for calibration in many instances...Dendrochronology is one of the ways the reservoir effect was discovered and identified as a source of error in C-14 testing: environs that "recycle" c-14, will produce "older results" because the input source of carbon for that environ is limited by some natural mechanism....in such environs, c-14 results always considered suspect, and other methods are used.....

"hydrological sorting" does cause heavier particles to settle out at the bottom of a given layer, gradually sifting up to smaller particles which are the last to settle out.... what it does NOT do, is put a distinctly aeolian formation in between two distinctly hydrologic formations....neither does it place slow growth limestone, both under, and above basaltic formations.....formations that show distinctly aeolian characteristics, not submarine ones.....We have literally thousands of regional watershed deposits that occured due to floods in their own watershed...they all look like this, but do NOT produce the results the Hovinds and Creationists wished they did.....

Indeed it was geologists, first looking for evidence of the Noachian Flood, and NOT FINDING IT, that called the whole thing in to doubt in the first place...and that was back in the 19th century......

The geologic "column" is something of a thought construct, useful in that the rocks covering the earth. Consider the following, a certain careless paper truck looses a few issues every day during it's delivery routes....due to vagaries, some days more are lost than others..(there may even be days where none are lost!)

by picking up the papers and checking the dates, and some direct logic, we can compose "reconstruct" the timeline of their issue; in essence, a "newspaper column", a constructed stack showing how the layers interrelate date wise. If mondays paper is scattered across an area, as well as Wed and Thurs, but a street over we find Monday & tuesday, no wed, but fridays....on a different street we find wed & thursday and friday....and yet a another street we find monday and wednesday........we can reconstruct the timing of when the papers were scattered. if we find a street where nothing older then Wed appears, other than one small fragment of a Sat paper wedged behind a downspout.....why? some process. in this instance...a street cleaner was run on Wed morning..... Just because the layers are covering specific areas, and are not continuous to the entire zone, does not invalidate the utility of the reconstructed "column" showing how the layers inter-relate....

Essentially it's basic arithmetic, the transitive property, if A > B & B > C than C MUST > A

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"would I think they can perceive my future "in the cards"?? absolutely not..."

And obviously, the tarotologist would say "but we don't do that". They would add (I have had with one to do on a school I went to) "we believe in free will, you form your own future, we only tell you of potentialities which would be good to know".

Would you not feel that your lack of actual expertise handicapped you in denying such claims?

"if I'm asking them things about astrology, yes, their expertise will grant a broader depth and more accurate knowledge than my amatuer knowledge encompasses.......however, the fact that their knowledge beyond the directly observable apparent motion of the planets, does not otherwise conform to reality, is a separate issue."

But how do you deal with it, when (and if) they say you haven't studied what astrology is about?

How would you deal with them making a claim to be believed on their expertise?

For my own part, I think there is legitimate expertise and sham one. And I think on some dating issues the expertise is sham.

"However, I also do not hold such individuals to the same standard I would expect from a trained and published research in a field of recognized research, like Climatology for example..."

Oh, your only clue as to what is valid expertise is what currently goes for recognised research?

Recognised by whom? Flood geology (which Eric Hovind bungles or is not up to date in on the video commented on) is recognised by some, like me or Eric Hovind. You are obviously not agreeing.

Perhaps you mean recognised by the current majority? But you will of course realise that majorities have changed. Today's majority and yesterday's are two different cultures. In that case, why set your parameters to all of today's majority, and not take account of subcultures having other majorities?

Or, perhaps you are a bit queezy about subcultures. You know, the kind of person who could live with listening to Beach Boys, could live with very wide trousers, but could not get over that hippies were not the majority.

"When the overwhelming consensus of those in the field, agree,"

But the overwhelming consensus of those in the astrological and tarotological fields agree on things you don't accept?

"that humans have, and continue, to affect the climate, and are the direct cause of increasing temperatures,"

Even if it might be an exaggerated repetition of an initial much more cautious claim by Ichtiaque Rassool?

"The same with epidemiologists who have the overwhelming consensus that vaccinations do NOT cause autism, and skipping vaccinations not only puts the patient at risk, it risks potentially many, many more as well....."

That argument sounds like an argument for constraint, and accepting state constraint can obviously be abused. It seems diseases for which vaccinations become mandatory are on the increase.

"my own training happens to be in Astrophysics & electrical engineering (with handful of courses in geology, because I was interested at the time....)"

Noted, I am a Latinist, no actual university degree.

Now, to the rest of what I withheld previously.

"do you know the different between C-14 testing and potassium-argon testing?"

I know the difference very well, thank you.

"Do you know the protocols each must abide by?"

Not in detail.

I understand one part of it is that method x must only be used in time space y, method x1 only in time space y1. In other words, C14 is not useful on samples beyond 70 - 80 000 BP, and only limited and very imprecisely useful beyond 40 - 50 000 BP. This is of course the theoretical limit. It has as correlate that a scientist presuming that a certain sample is from millions of years ago, will not test it.

Now, if we go to WHY exactly C14 is supposed to be useless, I have seen the answer that a carbon content below 0.5 pmc (percent modern carbon) is not considered reliable. This is 43 800 BP, and error margin 50 years plus minus. I just checked with a carbon 14 dating calculator online from I think an University of Penssylvania.

The problem with dismissing Creationists who present carbon 14 dated dino bones and carbon from 20 million years ago carbon dated to more recent is, for instance, that the carbon 14 levels are often in excess of 0.5 percent and the "measured ages" are often younger than 43 800 BP.

"Do you understand out of the two dozen+ testing methodlogies encompassed by radiometric dating, only a handful will be suited to any given sample, and WHY only a few will yield consistent dependable results?"

In many cases, there is simply no application of some of them. U-Pb, Th-Pb require a radiactive lead source, and Potassium Argon requires lava.

In some cases, there might only be index fossils to go by.

And in some cases, you will have either old or ad hoc experience the method doesn't give the kind of results you expect.

"Do you understand why lead contamination from fuel exhausts makes uranium-lead testing very difficult..."

Was not aware of that one.

But U-Pb being by now very difficult is hardly in your favour.

Or was that a trick question?

"Do you understand why shellfish and sea-floor fauna will consistently give a skewed result if C-14 is used on them?"

Called réservoir effect : they have ingested lots of "old carbon", explaining it would as a parallel be if you were to live years on grain from archaeological Jericho and Çatal Höyük.

"Do you understand what an error bar is, and why it exists in the first place?"

I am not familiar with the term.

I am familiar with "error margin".

For each result, you give an error margin.

I am not exactly sure how it is calculated.

I am sure that it is calculated in ways other than those relevant for Creationist criticisms. In carbon 14, for instance, a result of 250 years BP (1667) can have an error margin of plus minus five or plus minus ten. It is about minor variations either in atmospheric concentration or its reflection in an organism or perhaps even the decay (I have seen half lives given with error margins). This error margin is NOT adapted to tackle questions like whether there was a recent steep carbon rise - a non-distant carbon rise being standard in Creationist argumentation, and it's being only recent, not ongoing (ended c. 500 BC or earlier) and steep is my own refinement on it.

Now, what exactly is an "error bar"? Is it a kind of table for error margins?

"these are things that I , as a very amatuer geologist understand, one with formal training would probably be able to extend this list to several pages. If you don't understand these things and why they're important, then YOU don't understand the background knowledge required to even begin to criticize lab results"

You know, you might want to take into account that this video was not about lab results, but about geological column. Paulogia was, rightly, dismissing the suggestion that geological column was mostly by hydrologic sorting.

You are, even as a very amateur geologist, aware that answers are usually meant to be about the video in question?

And, yes, I could have brought up lab results, you could have been answering that, but I did not here. I only brought up that some expertise is not to be trusted, since pseudo-expertise.

"Geology has one key indicator you've missed, that keeps any presumed mass coverup from occurring;"

When it comes to the dating of a single item, you don't need to make a "mass coverup". Very few people are in the know. Very few people know exactly what tests have been made.

An uncautious evolutionist will believe 20 methods were all used and all agreeing. An uncautious creationist will perhaps assume a dating was made up.

A more cautious person would know it is unlikely one single dating was just made up out of thin air, and extremely improbable 20 tests were made. Except on the few occasions it says so. But without a rather rarefied knowledge he would not know which ones where made.

This rarefied knowledge is sometimes provided by Creationist sites, of the Creation Science type. Like CMI or ICR or AiG.

It is also provided in articles for a very specialised type of reader, most of which are evolutionists. I admire CMI personnel when they dig up stories about geological column or evolutionary story of sth trumping all the actual tests, or nearly all except one.

The dense type of articles provided for these scares off most readers (including, mostly, except on carbon dates as of lately, me). Most readers are also very discouraged from getting the info from CMI.

"it must actually produce RESULTS...results that are directly used to mine for mineral and hydrological resources. Results that are used to construct buildings based on ground surveys (requirements for foundations, drainage, etc...) The results are confirmable by any other geologist out there"

The results of astrology are confirmable or infirmable by other astrologers. "Oh, no, you didn't take this ascendant into account as being in the first house, you just rushed off to its being in the zodiac sign!"

The more tangible type of results do not actually depend on the datings.

"And as for carbon dating...it has conformational avenues....dendrochronology for example, has been used for calibration in many instances...Dendrochronology is one of the ways the reservoir effect was discovered and identified as a source of error in C-14 testing: environs that "recycle" c-14, will produce "older results" because the input source of carbon for that environ is limited by some natural mechanism....in such environs, c-14 results always considered suspect, and other methods are used....."

You know, dendrochronology like narrative history is a fairly decent thing, able to stand on its own mostly without carbon dating during for instance Middle Ages. Dendrochronology like narrative history is also less useful when you go back too far.

""hydrological sorting" does cause heavier particles to settle out at the bottom of a given layer, gradually sifting up to smaller particles which are the last to settle out...."

Nice.

"what it does NOT do, is put a distinctly aeolian formation in between two distinctly hydrologic formations...."

Sure the aeolian formation is really by wind, in that case? Very large streams of water in very continuous flow could make similar traces in sediment.

As to the aspect of three distinct formations, well the Flood was, hydrologically and sedimentarily speaking NOT one single event.

"neither does it place slow growth limestone, both under, and above basaltic formations....."

What if the limstone grew quicker?

What if basaltic formations - i e lava, as I recall - come from repeated eruptions during the Flood?

"formations that show distinctly aeolian characteristics, not submarine ones....."

Like?

"We have literally thousands of regional watershed deposits that occured due to floods in their own watershed...they all look like this, but do NOT produce the results the Hovinds and Creationists wished they did....."

Do we wish so? A regional watershed deposit could be, usually, about 2 to 5 meter depth at river bed and much less deep where overflowing. I think recent hurricanes (hope the best for the guys now) show like houses with roofs above water, even at its worst.

Flood waters would have been 15 cubits above HIGHEST (pre-Flood) mountains, say at least 500 meters above a pre-Flood plain.

"Indeed it was geologists, first looking for evidence of the Noachian Flood, and NOT FINDING IT, that called the whole thing in to doubt in the first place...and that was back in the 19th century......"

Feel free to explicitate.

"The geologic "column" is something of a thought construct, useful in that the rocks covering the earth. Consider the following, a certain careless paper truck looses a few issues every day during it's delivery routes....due to vagaries, some days more are lost than others..(there may even be days where none are lost!) by picking up the papers and checking the dates, and some direct logic, we can compose "reconstruct" the timeline of their issue; in essence, a "newspaper column", a constructed stack showing how the layers interrelate date wise."

Your analogy seems to imply palaeontology is analogous to a certain route. Also, your implication of a certain date or weekday being there is a clear non-likeness.

Some "routes" have whales and some ichthyosaurs - in what is now the Alps, so it has to have been pre-Flood. But they are so distant, you cannot say one is over or under the other, except by stretching and projecting immensely and relying more on "abstract column" than on actual over and under in the terrain.

"Essentially it's basic arithmetic, the transitive property, if A > B & B> C than C MUST >A"

You have a whale in Linz, a whale in Nussdorf, next to a seal, a whale in Chisinau. You also have a common Ichthyosaur in Aargau. How does "transitive property" show one over the other?

Note, the whale(s) in Linz is not (are not) found above an ichthyosaur. The ichthyosaur(s) in Aargau is not (are not) found below a whale.

"Just because the layers are covering specific areas, and are not continuous to the entire zone, does not invalidate the utility of the reconstructed "column" showing how the layers inter-relate...."

The whale and the ichthyosaur are not layers. The lithological layers could often enough be from more than one period, when there is not any fossil in one of them. Limestone with a Ceratopsian? Cretaceous. Limestone without a fossil? There was a limestone with a Ceratopsian ten meters higher on the cleft wall, with sandstone between? "Ah, most be older than Cretaceous, then".

Do you begin to see a little problem?