Dialogue under Same Video

Under a Creationist Video on Carbon Dating · Dialogue under Same Video

flakko4

You seem like a good guy, but I just need to say that literally every sentence you say in this video is incorrect.

I have a PhD in organic chemistry, and from that context I can say that, based on the first 15 minutes, you have no idea what you are talking about.

C14 is in ppt concentrations, yes. However, accelerated mass spectrometry can measure parts per quadrillion (at least) to parts per quintillion. The limit of detection for AMS is 1,000 to 1,000,000 times lower than C14 concentration in organic material.

And we aren’t just looking for one atom. In a 1 mg sample of carbon with 1 ppt C14 there are 50,000 C14 atoms. We have the technology to detect individual atoms, so to have 50,000 atoms/mg is extraordinarily easy to detect. Furthermore, instruments are calibrated and standardized to give exact and quantitative meaning to the data. Your arguments are completely unfounded.

And we can know the half life of C14 by simply using AMS to measure C14 content before and after suitable time. It is hard to exactly measure decay constants for beta emitters, but C14 is rock solid. That is not a problem at all. We can also know that the half life has remained unchanged because decay constants are not reliant upon any external variables. The decay rates for beta decay can be increased an insignificant amount y extreme pressure (increasing electron capture) but that type of pressure is irrelevant to terrestrial conditions. Decay rates are constants because they cannot be changed, and decades of testing has proved that.

You use the typical creationists talking point that the initial conditions must be assumed; in this case the C12/C14 ratio must be assumed to have been unchanged over time. You even say that scientists do not take into account changes in solar activity and magnetic field strength.

This is so wrong, I am convinced you didn’t look into that claim for a single second. It was known since Willard Libby invented radiocarbon dating that C14 levels fluctuate, and radiocarbon dating is calibrated to changing C12/C14 ratios over time. That is the entire purpose of the IntCal13 data.

IntCal13 used dendrochronology, lake varves, speleothems, and corals to determine the historical C12/C14 ratio over the past 50,000 years. If you look at the data you will see that the calibration curve follows the theoretical line closely. That proves there is an unbroken chain over the past 50,000 years, which eliminates any hope of a global flood interfering with the dating method. It also proves decay rate was unchanged (it can’t change anyway).

As I said, everything you said is wrong. I will discuss in another comment why carbon dating of dinosaur fossils, done by Hugh Miller, is just more creationist misinformation and lies

mutilatedjak

I appreciate your take on this! I am no radiometric dating expert... But I know a little. I assumed the PPT thing was covered by the number of atoms in a typical sample size... Like sure if you are looking for a single atom... There is a higher chance for error but if you have thousands of possible atoms to measure then it's just in the margin of error.

martifingers

Thanks for that informed take on this

Alexander Wallace

I wish I could post a slow clap GiF

Trinity Vandenacre

Mr flakko4. Thank you for your comment. I apologize for not getting back you sooner. Life just overwhelmed me for a while.

First of all, I believe you are correct that the amount of C14 can be accurately detected with modern equipment. You very well could be correct about the decay rate staying the same. Thank you for pointing that out.

I was not referring to Hugh Miller. I was referring to the work of Mary Schweitzer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Higby_Schweitzer

You state that the ratio of C12/C14 has been constant in our atmosphere for the past 50,000 years, if I am reading that right.

You also state that scientists acknowledge that the earth's magnetic field creates fluctuation in the amount of C14 in our atmosphere. After that you state that these fluctuations are accounted for in the calibration curve that is based on several other factors such as using tree rings and lake varves. How can you call this an "unbroken chain".

According to this article with referenced material, C14 has indeed fluctuated due to varying activity from the sun, nuclear bomb testing, carbon in the deep oceans being redistributed during glacial formation and ocean turnover.

I would ask if you truly believe that all of these variables can be easily "calibrated" by the gap filled guesswork associated with dendrochronology, and dating other items of unknown age.

What were the methods used to calculate the ages of the lake varves, corals, and tree ring data, which possibly only extends back 4,600 years ( farther only by playing "match the tree rings" ).

I am often told in these comments that scientists do not speak in absolutes, yet you are telling me these things as facts and using them as evidence to refute any other timescales.

I completely understand your concerns with some of what I said in my video, but I believe that your entire unbroken chain is based on a large number of assumptions that cannot be proven or disproven. This was my exact point in the video.

Also, the information for finding C14 in dinosaur bones is more regular than you seem to think. Here is a link from icr.org. If you wonder why secular scientists do not find C14 in dinosaur bones it is because they "know" they won't find it, therefore it is not tested. Seems like another assumption to me.

ICR : Carbon-14 Found in Dinosaur Fossils
BY BRIAN THOMAS, PH.D. * | MONDAY, JULY 06, 2015
https://www.icr.org/article/carbon-14-found-dinosaur-fossils

Here is a link to an article that states why scientists do attempt carbon dating on dinosaur bones. It is because they simply assume it is too old to have C14.

mutilatedjak

@Trinity Vandenacre yea.... It's well known to be regularly found... But the amount is soooooo small it's pretty must indestingueable from background c14 amounts.

Plus that source list is very lacking.

Trinity Vandenacre

mutilatedjak hey buddy. Good to hear you again.

If I am right and you are wrong, then most of the dinosaur fossils we find are from the flood. According to the Bible the atmosphere contained a great deal more water which would have made it almost impossible for C14 to be produced in our atmosphere at all. Starting from the Biblical account we should find very low amounts of C14 in any of the pre flood fossils.

We should also find evidence of lush vegetation on the polls, large amounts of volcanic ash in the ice layers from the huge amount of post flood volcanic activity.

We find all of that. Fits perfectly with the Bible. It all depends on what you start with as a belief.

mutilatedjak

@Trinity Vandenacre good to hear from ya too! Heh. I enjoy that we can keep it civil.

I don't start with a belief though. I lay alllllll the evidence out before me and without a preconceived answer. i figure out what model best fits the data, all the while having the best predictive powers.

While you start with the Bible is absolute truth and only are critical of science that doesn't fit it's limitations.

@Trinity Vandenacre say you disprove c14 dating... C14 has been crosschecked with numerous other radiometric methods, plus tree rings, ice cores, etc. They all match. So what has the higher chance of being true? They alllll coincidentally arrive at the same answer, yet are flawed, or they all in fact give us accurate dates.

@Trinity Vandenacre it's awfully convenient that the dinosaur fossils are layered by their age too. If a global flood occured, then they would all date to the same approximate age, no?

Trinity Vandenacre

mutilatedjak they only date to different ages if you use dating methods that are totally unprovable. If you look at the layers as having been laid down by the flood, then you would see different stages of one huge catastrophe. If those layers were laid down over millions of years, there would be nowhere near that many fossils, the layers would not lay down as they did. We would not find dinosaurs, crocodiles, and sea creatures all buried in the same mass graves. Some of them buried under 30 or 40 feet of mud. Just too many coincidences to believe the flood didn’t happen.

mutilatedjak

@Trinity Vandenacre because every tool has its limit. Take a meter stick and measure the width of a hair but only use meters. Or use a caliper and measure the length of montana. The tools have appropriate ranges of validity. The methods are provable...we can use documented history to test c14 dating, and then using basic physics we know what would be an acceptable limit on the method.

If the flood is true then we should find dinosaur fossils mixed with relativity modern mammals. We never find any sort of ape, horse, lion, erc with dinosaurs. If you find a single fossil like that, then you could refute modern evolutionary biology.

@Trinity Vandenacre you are skeptical of scientific assumptions. So let's try this. Does pluto orbit the sun?

Kiriel Branson

Trinity Vandenacre if you read flakko4’s original post again he doesn’t say that the ratios are constant. He says they have fluctuated and this has been known by scientists for many years. The fluctuations are caused by the very things you state in the video. Read those last few paragraphs of his again

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@mutilatedjak "But the amount is soooooo small it's pretty must indestingueable from background c14 amounts"

In fact not, since the carbon dates for dinosaurs are regularly less in age than 40 000 years which were previously supposed to be the limit.

@Trinity Vandenacre "According to the Bible the atmosphere contained a great deal more water which would have made it almost impossible for C14 to be produced in our atmosphere at all."

It doesn't actually say the pre-Flood atmosphere contained more water.

Also, it is not clear how water would have prevented N14 to become C14 in very high layers of the atmosphere, above atmospheric water.

I have another theory on what "waters above the firmament" are.

@mutilatedjak "C14 has been crosschecked with numerous other radiometric methods,"

Not really. They don't apply to same range of radiometric ages.

"plus tree rings,"

Like the other lignine based dating method, documents on paper, the material and therefore reliability decreases dramatically when you go back in time.

"ice cores,"

Presumed to be from annual fluctuations in ice layering, while the layers would probably often correspond to simple changes in weather.

"etc."

Sounds impressive, but is not specified.

Overall, while more than one method is used, this is less often the case with same sample.

@mutilatedjak "Plus that source list is very lacking."

Here you would find one - indirect - source:

Triceratops bone carbon-dated to just 30,000 years old?
Stated Casually | 26.III.2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNY8xC3raDY

Trinity Vandenacre

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Thank you for your comment. As there is really no way to prove exactly what the waters above the firmament were, I would gladly hear about your theory.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Trinity Vandenacre I consider that water in the Biblical sense has five states of aggregation:

• ice
• liquid water
• water vapour

but also

• hydrogen gas
• hydrogen as plasma in the sun

In other words, waters above the firmament were made by hydrolysis on day 2, part of them was used on day 4, part reunited with oxygen at Flood (via Brown's gas) and returned to first three states, and part is still there.

mutilatedjak

@Hans-Georg Lundahl

Argon,samarium-neodymium,rubidium-strontium,uranium-thorium ,fission track dating,chlorine -36. All have been used to corroborate c14.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@mutilatedjak - one by one.

"Argon"

Checking:

"Due to the long half-life of K-40, the technique is most applicable for dating minerals and rocks more than 100,000 years old. For shorter timescales, it is unlikely that enough Ar-40 will have had time to accumulate in order to be accurately measurable."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%E2%80%93Ar_dating

Conclusion : no sample can be dated with both potassium argon and carbon 14. NOT a cross check.

"samarium-neodymium"

"La constante de désintégration λ associée vaut 6,54 × 10^11 ans^-1, cette faible valeur fait que la méthode est adaptée à la mesure d'âges supérieurs à un milliard d'années"

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datation_par_le_samarium-n%C3%A9odyme

Conclusion : no sample can be dated with both samarium neodymium and carbon 14. NOT a cross check.

"rubidium-strontium"

Both English and French wiki were roundabout (to me) and technical, but a halflife of 49 billion years seems to make this another no no as to cross checking with carbon 14.

"uranium-thorium"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium%E2%80%93thorium_dating

Unlike my expectations, if English wiki wasn't meddled with, we do have possibilities of cross check, as time range for one application is 1–350 ka = 1000 to 350 000 years.

"fission track dating"

" fission-track dating is uniquely suited for determining low-temperature thermal events using common accessory minerals over a very wide geological range (typically 0.1 Ma to 2000 Ma)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_track_dating

0.1 Ma = 0.1 * Ma (for megaannum) – a unit of time equal to one million, or 106, years = 100 000 years.

With 100 000 years minimum, no cross check possible. Wonder how much low temperature thermal events over long periods are actually hight temperature thermal events over a short one, known as the Flood ...

"chlorine -36."

" the cosmogenic isotope Cl-36. Its half-life is 301,300 ± 1,500 years"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorine-36

5730 : 301,300 = 0.01901759044

If the half life is or were correctly gotten, we would have a lap over of the shortest chlorine ages with the longest carbon 14 ages.

1.9 % residue or alternatively 100 - 1.9 % residue is a significant residue and can be used for dating. However, it would rather be a question of carbon 14 dates (presumed, wrongly to come from an initial 100 pmC) backing up the Cl-36 half life.

In other words, if very old carbon 14 ages are inflated, the half life of chlorine 36 would need a revision.