I just did a search using the keywords “radiometric dating inaccurate”…

This is one of many things that comes up… [inaccurate tosh deleted]”

Irrelevant, Mike. There is no indication that the author has the slightest idea of what (s)he is talking about.

Never mind other people’s opinions, Mike. Share some data!

You are the one who seeks to gainsay the scientific consensus (i.e. a consensus of experts). It is up to you to provide some evidence. Not second-hand anecdotes, but actual verifiable data that supports your assertions.

For example, you claimed that a live snail had been dated as 15,000 years old. Where is the reference for this? Who did the work, when, where, and where was it published? Was the work a valid example of radiometric dating, or was it intended only to make the point that one needs to understand the limitations of the technique to apply it with any rigour?

Mike J again:
“We must remember that the past is not open to the normal processes of experimental science, that is, repeatable experiments in the present.”

You have no understanding of the “normal processes of science”. Many forms of science use data available in the present to inform us about events in the past.

Taking it to an extreme, every single experiment uses data in the present to provide information about the past (i.e. data are always analysed after the experiment was carried out). Unless you are suggesting that scientists routinely time travel?

Mike J:
” A scientist cannot do experiments on events that happened in the past.”

One does not need to do experiments to make observations. Or do you not believe that the Earth orbits the Sun?

Mike J:
” Scientists do not measure the age of rocks, they measure isotope concentrations, and these can be measured extremely accurately. However, the “age” is calculated using assumptions about the past that cannot be proven.”

This is a lie. Those ages are not calculated using assumptions, they are calculated using proven methods, and purely logical inferences from what has been demonstrated. Radiometric dates have been independently confirmed (for instance, by comparison of carbon-14 dating with results from dendrochronology). Furthermore, different radiometric dating methods (i.e. entirely different techniques with no more in common than the use of radioactive decay series) have been used and corroborate each other’s dates. If different methods disagree, the geologist will be very sceptical of the result.

Finally, the isochron dating technique (which, IIUC, is the preferred method in modern geology) contains an internal measure of the quality of the data. Did you follow that link I provided earlier?

Again interesting stuff, could you please quote your source. Still not the article I was looking for though is it? I agree with Buzz on this one and I will leave it at that.

Since you have not given any links to the original material that you are quoting from I can’t really comment. Looks like you are pulling material from a YEC website. I guess reality is conspiring against your world view.

[[Mike, you are an idiot. There is no other way to describe it.]]

Buzz, although I can understand your frustration, be careful about this stuff — the BA nearly threw me off the blog because I used a nearly identical phrase.

I definitely have the tendency to get nasty with posters who annoy me, but the return posts I make are almost always better when I wait a minute before clicking Send, read through them again, and eliminate the nasty stuff. Just this morning some global warming denier was telling me that John Daly was right that his cherry-picked stations showing cooling proved global warming was a farce. I wrote “I’m beginning to think you’re not only flat-out wrong, but stupid as well.” Then I thought about it and took that out, just writing something about how Daly’s methods would have gotten him an F in any introductory data analysis class. It was a better post after I did that.

I like your posts a lot and don’t want to see you in trouble with the BA. Forgive me if this went on too long. Like Mike J., I have a tendency to run off at the mouth.

Unless the australopithicus fossil was actually embedded in the basalt (and how could that physically happen, since the melting point of basalt is much higher than the ignition point of bone?) the fossil was found in a mix of basaltic gravel and sand, probably mixed with many other rock fragments of a wide variety of ages. The ages of those rocks and fragments have nothing to do with the age of the fossil nor necessarily with each other. The atomic clocks don’t get reset just because the original magma deposit has eroded into sand or gravel. It has to *MELT* to reset the clock. Sheesh!

I just did a search using the keywords “radiometric dating inaccurate”…

This is one of many things that comes up…

————
When a “date” differs from that expected, researchers readily invent excuses for rejecting the result. The common application of such posterior reasoning shows that radiometric dating has serious problems. Woodmorappe cites hundreds of examples of excuses used to explain “bad” dates.[9]

For example, researchers applied posterior reasoning to the dating of Australopithecus ramidus fossils.[10] Most samples of basalt closest to the fossil-bearing strata give dates of about 23 Ma (Mega annum, million years) by the argon-argon method. The authors decided that was “too old,” according to their beliefs about the place of the fossils in the evolutionary grand scheme of things. So they looked at some basalt further removed from the fossils and selected 17 of 26 samples to get an acceptable maximum age of 4.4 Ma. The other nine samples again gave much older dates but the authors decided they must be contaminated and discarded them. That is how radiometric dating works. It is very much driven by the existing long-age world view that pervades academia today.

A similar story surrounds the dating of the primate skull known as KNM-ER 1470.[11] This started with an initial 212 to 230 Ma, which, according to the fossils, was considered way off the mark (humans “weren’t around then”). Various other attempts were made to date the volcanic rocks in the area. Over the years an age of 2.9 Ma was settled upon because of the agreement between several different published studies (although the studies involved selection of “good” from “bad” results, just like Australopithecus ramidus, above).

However, preconceived notions about human evolution could not cope with a skull like 1470 being “that old.” A study of pig fossils in Africa readily convinced most anthropologists that the 1470 skull was much younger. After this was widely accepted, further studies of the rocks brought the radiometric age down to about 1.9 Ma—again several studies “confirmed” this date. Such is the dating game.

Are we suggesting that evolutionists are conspiring to massage the data to get what they want? No, not generally. It is simply that all observations must fit the prevailing paradigm. The paradigm, or belief system, of molecules-to-man evolution over eons of time, is so strongly entrenched it is not questioned—it is a “fact.” So every observation must fit this paradigm. Unconsciously, the researchers, who are supposedly “objective scientists” in the eyes of the public, select the observations to fit the basic belief system.

We must remember that the past is not open to the normal processes of experimental science, that is, repeatable experiments in the present. A scientist cannot do experiments on events that happened in the past. Scientists do not measure the age of rocks, they measure isotope concentrations, and these can be measured extremely accurately. However, the “age” is calculated using assumptions about the past that cannot be proven.

I was curious as to some of the claims that you have made regarding the inaccuracies in radiometric dating. I have indeed done a Google search on the “15000 year old live sail” as you suggested and have turned up not a single article. Also please explain how the geologic column has anything to do with dating astronomical objects? Do you also dispense with the Theory of Relativity as well? From what I have read of your diatribe you seem to be a deluded individual of the highest magnitude, I would like for you to list your credentials in your next post so that we may all benefit by not sending any of our progeny anywhere within cooee of the place that obviously handed them to you on a platter.
It’s a simple case of put up or shut up.