The logical fallacy first, CTD:
We see the creation of rocks acknowledged, but yet credit is never given to anyone for the event.
This is the logical fallacy of equivocation, where "creation" is used to mean formation, and then it is taken to have meant specieal biblical creation.
No. I said nothing about biblical creation.
We see rocks made today with no need to acknowledge any special handling of material. You can actually do it in a lab. Ever made crystals? Ever seen a "commercial diamond"?
If I did make crystals, would I get credit?
We also see new rocks formed from lava at every volcano.
These are not bits of special creation, as far as I know.
If they were, it wouldn't be very biblical. Ongoing acts of creation just don't match what is written. These Concepts are an artifact of earlier atheism & earlier compromise.
It's common knowledge that when dates come out "wrong" (as if they know) this is often attributed to the rock having "older" contents. Now
all rocks, when they
form, are formed from matter that was already around. So saying a rock was "formed from older matter" would be self-evident and redundant. The excuse implies a creation event of some sort. It implies that some things are not formed from older matter.
The Devil's Hole and Radiometric Age
To discuss radioactive decay and dating systems that are based on this concept we need a system that can be correlated over substantial time to validate the system.
It may have escaped your notice, but 'substantial' is the opposite of 'imaginary'.
Correlation, far from
validating evodates, merely helps one maintain that they don't invalidate themselves. How much correlation should exist and how universal it should or shouldn't be are largely subjective matters - unless one wants to get strictly scientific about it. A single exception is all that's required to invalidate an hypothesis, under
strict science.
They measured the age with a radiometric decay system...
Misleading. They measure physical qualities, apply assumptions, and conclude age.
The correlations with actual age from the ice layers in Greenland and Antarctica can be covered later, for now we just note that the isotope ratios are "highly correlated" with those layers for the same ages derived by these radiometric methods.
'Highly correlated' isn't the same as 'perfectly correlated'. Are there discrepancies? How many discrepancies are required to disqualify an hypothesis?
Radioactive elements decay into other elements, and some of these are not soluble,
Oh I should like to challenge that statement. I've looked into similar claims in the past & found them false. Please name your best candidate for an element which isn't soluble. I don't intend to play spam games, so if you provide a list, I will choose one myself.
I see your source doesn't tell a straight story.
Two of the most frequently-used of these "uranium-series" systems are uranium-234 and thorium-230.
Like carbon-14, the shorter-lived uranium-series isotopes are constantly being replenished, in this case, by decaying uranium-238 supplied to the Earth during its original creation. Following the example of carbon-14, you may guess that one way to use these isotopes for dating is to remove them from their source of replenishment. This starts the dating clock. In carbon-14 this happens when a living thing (like a tree) dies and no longer takes in carbon-14 laden CO2. For the shorter-lived uranium-series radionuclides, there needs to be a physical removal from uranium. The chemistry of uranium and thorium are such that they are in fact easily removed from each other. Uranium tends to stay dissolved in water, but thorium is insoluble in water. So a number of applications of the thorium-230 method are based on this chemical partition between uranium and thorium.
On the other hand, calcium carbonates produced biologically (such as in corals, shells, teeth, and bones) take in small amounts of uranium, but essentially no thorium (because of its much lower concentrations in the water). This allows the dating of these materials by their lack of thorium. A brand-new coral reef will have essentially no thorium-230. As it ages, some of its uranium decays to thorium-230. While the thorium-230 itself is radioactive, this can be corrected for. The equations are more complex than for the simple systems described earlier, but the uranium-234 / thorium-230 method has been used to date corals now for several decades. Comparison of uranium-234 ages with ages obtained by counting annual growth bands of corals proves that the technique is highly accurate when properly used (Edwards et al., Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 90, 371, 1988). The method has also been used to date stalactites and stalagmites from caves, already mentioned in connection with long-term calibration of the radiocarbon method. In fact, tens of thousands of uranium-series dates have been performed on cave formations around the world.
As with all dating, the agreement of two or more methods is highly recommended for confirmation of a measurement.
I guess they could mean 'relatively insoluble' rather than 'absolutely insoluble'...
Radioactive Decay
The radiation decay curve is exponential, with different results for different decay constants - the half-lives of the radioactive isotopes.
Yes, the curve is exponential, and it's not hard to play tricks with the math. One could calculate 1/4 lives, 1/3 lives, or 1/277 lives for decaying elements. All will result in different exponential curves.
All are abstractions based upon the (calculated) chance of a given atom decaying in a given timeframe. One could directly calculate the number of atoms involved and directly apply probabilities to the result without ever employing the 1/2 life abstraction.
I haven't dug into the history of this convention, but I have little confidence in it.
The wikisource glosses over this, claiming the halflife method is "more intuitive". Just compare the formulas to see which is simple & intuitive and which adds complexity.
Based on this information alone we can conclude:
- The theoretical basis for radiometric dating is accurate and valid.
- The two different radiometric methods are equally valid - at least as far back as 567,700 yr BP.
- That there was no change in the behavior of radioactive materials in the last 567,700 years, and
- The world is older than 567,000 years and no global flood has occurred in that time.
Enjoy.
Come now, I think we all know the basis of your conclusions.
Post is long & time is short. I intend to get around to more. LindaLou's first in line, so I'll be taking that into consideration.
