Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum more bad news for radiometric dating?

too early to say from this particular line of study, but it will be interesting to see how it ultimately shakes out...along with other conflicting evidence

hmm

radiometric dating is already in serious trouble...this may just be another piece of evidence that will lead to its eventual demise :-)

how so. what this talks about is putting something into the metal that would put out the radiation to accelerate the radioactive material in radioactive waste. others have tried and failed to do this, so why should it happen to other materials without the accelerator. If they were testing something they would know if there was an accelerator material there. since the accelerator material would not be found normally in living material or in the decaying matterial, there is seldom a chance that the dating is in any danger even if by some stoke the guy finds a way to do it that no one else has tried. so far all he has is a theory with no evidence to back it up, and others have evidence to destroy the theory, which he does not want to hear.

Radiometric dating is only in "serious trouble" in the minds of a few young earth creationists who cull quotes out of context and make mountains out of molehills.

Nor does this particular item - even if it pans out - offer any reason to be skeptical of radiometric techniques.

Radiometric techniques correlate very well with other data we have and with each other. Dinosaurs lived long before humans. YEC's postulation of "hydrographic sorting" doesn't explain this - or anything else.

Real scientists - the ones who actually try to understand theories before they attempt to discredit them - are still using radiometric dating techniques and have no immediate or even distant plans to stop doing so.

Already in serious trouble? It's in no trouble at all. Maybe you should learn something about it:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html

Even if this line of research worked, are you suggesting that Earth was subject to temperatures of a few degrees K, embedded in a metal with an alpha emitter?

BTW, there is an entire forum for this sort of thread. It's called "Origins."

Got to hand it to you anyman: You've got faith.

The way to see by Faith is to shut the eyes of Reason.
~ Benjamkin Franklin: Poor Richard (1758)

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
~ HL Mencken: Prejudices (1922)

Religion and science are orthogonal - they have
nothing in common and do not overlap in any way.
Religion is based upon faith and is destroyed by
empirical proof. Science is based upon empirical proof and is rendered inoperative by faith.
~ Our very own Uncle Al

Faith is believing something you know ain't true.
~ Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain

Faith is an absolutely marvelous tool. With faith there is no question too big for even the smallest mind.
~ Rev. Donald Morgan (not a relative)

That is horrible crap. Alpha-decay is MeV - look it up. Chemical bonding is 3 eV at most. The alpha-decay "observation" that gets your panties into a bunch is not reproducible or even possible.

The only external alteration of radioactive half-life is electron-capture decay and oxidation state. That is well known and obvious. By altering s-electron antinode density at the nucleus it is possible to alter capture half-life by a percent or two in the most exreme cases, e.g.,

Google
c60 "electron capture" "half-life" 411 hits

Radiochemical dating is on the money. Fundie Christians can pray for support of their dogma elsewhere.

What else is advertised on that page?

Act now to bury nuclear waste, gov told
Amazing terror weapons: the imaginary suitcase nuke
Nuclear War launcher (and USB hub) heads West
Earth's writhing magnetic field could aid fusion research
Ukrainians punt free energy generator on eBay

Ha ha ha.

It is truly amazing what some people find invisible. Good work Al.

Yikes! Looks like I'm done here. I'm a scientist and a Christian (not a Christian Scientist!), and quite frankly am content with the hand I've been dealt. God gave me the gift of skepticism and I find it remarkable that more don't appreciate the utter impossibility of nearly everything fundamental about our universe. I've had fun here and don't hold a grudge with any of you (even you, dehammer). Good chatting to all.

Tschuss

Phil 1:20-21

(physical reality) - (empirical reality) = faith
faith + dogma = theology
theology + money = religion
faith + politics = religion

Cut a Moebius band in half lengthwise. Hold a sealed soft drink or beer can with its long axis parallel to light's path in sunshine. Poisson's bright spot is at the center of the round shadow a few feet away. The universe doesn't care about your opinions.

Your inerrant word of god doesn't have pi accurate to even two significant figures. A grade school kid with string and a peg could do better - a circle 1 foot in radius has 3.4 inches in excess circumference vs. the bible, 28% of the radius. Didn't anybody suspect? Test of faith! Do Vatican raw sewage lines use biblical pi or engineering pi?

If the Bible was supposed to be a technical manual designed to help us build sewerage pipelines then maybe it would be concerned with getting pi right. But as it isn't, it isn't.

Blacknad.

Come now Blacknad the hyperbole is most unbecoming. Uncle Al merely pointed out one of many discrepancies between the so-called "word of god" in the Christian bible and objective physical reality.

Maybe it was 28% of the radius because it was just one of those inexplicable miracles. ;-)

What Al pointed out, quite correctly, is that you wouldn't want that inaccuracy used in the design of an airplane or bridge. Neither, if you had a gram-positive infection, would you want to wait for the hand of god to cure you if you could find some Penicillin-G.

Ahhh! What can I say? I started posting back at SAGG with a firm resolution not to mount any religious apologetics, and I have already let myself down more than once. Must try harder not to get involved.

Blacknad.

Must try harder to stick to science methinks.

For those of you that base your skepticism of the bible on circumference, you may be interested in reading this:

http://www.khouse.org/articles/1998/158/

Peace,

Samh

If that was even remotely interesting to you, then so might this be:
http://www.khouse.org/articles/2003/482/

Samh

SaMH wrote:
"For those of you that base your skepticism of the bible on circumference"

I can't think of a single person, or a single argument in the last 20 years, in which anyone based anything on circumference unless circumnavigating the globe.

But thank you for posting an off-topic religious site's URL.

Do I have this correct that you believe the following?
From nothing came something. That something expanded and became more organzed without an outside energy source or control and that
over billions of years, the universe, the solar system, the earth, and finally life developed from that disordered matter through natural processes that still apply.
That random mutations and natural selection brought about present living kinds from primordial single-celled life and that all life has a common ancestor.

If that does not accurately reflect your position please let me know how it differs. I anticipate an ad hominem attack or misdirection based upon your previous posts or an attack not directly responding to the question. Please surprise me with a response other than a referral to origins. Your faith in the illogical and improbable is admirable and likely exceeds the faith required by various religions.

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
~ HL Mencken: Prejudices (1922)

I believe in cause and effect, conservation of energy etc. The various forms of radiometric dating can and do provide an incredibly diverse range of numbers. Please do a little reading in this regard. Perhaps a review of the dating of skull 1470 might serve to enlighten you. When you have become a little more well read and educated you may lose some of that religous fervor and surety that you now project in your posts and be a little more respective of different perspectives.

There is no theory that says that something came from "nothing." I believe in abiogenesis. Although I do not think it is extremely well-supported by science, I do think that it has some support AND that it violates no known physical laws.

I also believe that evolution accounts for the diversity of life that we see. The evidence for this as a fact and as a very strong theory is overwhelming to the person who has actually done their homework.

I'm aware of skull 1470. Apparently you don't know as much about it as you think you do. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_habilis.html

"So two of the foremost creationist experts on paleoanthropology are both certain that 1470 is not intermediate between human and ape, yet one of them thinks it an ape, and the other thinks it is a human! There could be no more convincing demonstration of its transitional status."

Creationist pseudo-scientists often make bogus claims and they depend on the fact that uninformed and intellectually lazy people will perpetuate their urban legends.

There was controversy around the dating of 1470. This kind of thing happens in all sciences - one scientist distrusting the testing that others have done. We don't throw out all the data - we work our way through the problem. You're the one who needs to inform himself.

EnvSci wrote:
"Do I have this correct that you believe the following? From nothing came something."

No you do not nor is that accepted theory in physics.

What is the source of this misinformation?

EnvSci wrote:
"If that does not accurately reflect your position please let me know how it differs. I anticipate an ad hominem attack"

I hope the anticipation doesn't cause you any discomfort but quite simply your original premise is non-science so you put up a straw-horse.

This is not about my position or my belif. This is a science forum and some of us are here to discuss science rather than waste our time kicking at non-issues.

Current theory is well defined. Read this and then ask questions about any part you don't understand.
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmo_01.htm

If you don't understand it I would be happy to refer you to a college or university near you.