Age

[Billy the Kid]

How do geologist know how old something is?

 

[brt28006]

Through relative strata dating or radiometric dating. Carbon-14 and Potassium/Argon also work.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

This is also a philosophy among Satanists. In addition, it goes against conforming your thoughts to something God would find acceptable.

As a result, you are on your way to actual personal enlightenment. Good job.

 

[Billy the Kid]

I have no clue what you were talking about with my sig, but any ways.

Shells from living snails were carbon dated as being 27,000 years old. Science vol. 224, 1984, pp. 58-61

Living mollusk shells were dated up to 2300 years old. Science vol. 141, 1963, pp.634-637

A freshly killed seal was carbon dated as having died 1300 years ago! Antarctic Journal vol. 6, Sept-Oct. 1971, p.211

"One part of the Vollosovitch mammoth carbon dated at 29,500 years and another part at 44,000.
--Troy L. Pewe, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Unglaciated Central Alaska, Geological Survey Professional Paper 862 (U.S. Gov. printing office, 1975) p. 30.

"One part of Dima [a baby frozen mammoth] was 40,000, another part was 26,000 and the "wood immediately around the carcass" was 9-10,000.
--Troy L. Pewe, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Unglaciated Central Alaska, Geological Survey Professional Paper 862 (U.S. Gov. printing office, 1975) p. 30

"The lower leg of the Fairbanks Creek mammoth had a radiocarbon age of 15,380 RCY, while its skin and flesh were 21,300 RCY.
--In the Beginning Walt Brown p. 124

The two Colorado Creek mammoths had radiocarbon ages of 22,850 670 and 16,150 230 years respectively."
--In the Beginning Walt Brown p. 124

"A geologist at the Berkeley Geochronology Center, [Carl] Swisher uses the most advanced techniques to date human fossils. Last spring he was re-evaluating Homo erectus skulls found in Java in the 1930s by testing the sediment found with them. A hominid species assumed to be an ancestor of Homo sapiens, erectus was thought to have vanished some 250,000 years ago. But even though he used two different dating methods, Swisher kept making the same startling find: the bones were 53,000 years old at most and possibly no more than 27,000 years— a stretch of time contemporaneous with modern humans."
--Kaufman, Leslie, "Did a Third Human Species Live Among Us?" Newsweek (December 23, 1996), p. 52.

"Structure, metamorphism, sedimentary reworking, and other complications have to be considered. Radiometric dating would not have been feasible if the geologic column had not been erected first."
--O’Rourke, J. E., "Pragmatism versus Materialism in Stratigraphy," American Journal of Science, vol. 276 (January 1976), p. 54

 

[ardipithecus]

Originally posted by 30a2
How do Evolutionists know how old something is?

"Evolutionists" is in error and should be replaced with a more relevant profession like geologist. But, lets answer the question...

There are two general ways to tell time: relative and absolute.

Relative dating is simply deducing that y came after x and before z in time. It has been done since the early 19th century. It includes ideas that if you have undistorted layers of horizontal strata, that the bottom one is the oldest. If something cuts across a layer, it is younger than the layer. Rocks that fell into lava before it cooled are older than that lava. And so on.

Absolute dating is determining just how old something is. The most common method of doing so is the many independent types of radiometric dating. There are many ways to test this. For example if radiometric dating works than it better be consistent with relative dating techniques. And it is. Since there are multiple independent methods of radiometric clocks, they should almost always agree with each other. And they do.

Here is a test of consistency. This is a scan from some research in the 1960s. As you might know, sometimes the Earth's magnetic field has reverse polarity (i.e. the compass pointed South). Certain types of lava preserve a record of their magnetic enviroment when the solidified. The table below charted K-Ar dates versus the polarity recorded by the rock.

If the K-Ar dates had nothing to do with the age of the rock, this short of pattern simply would not happen.

I earlier posted the fact that the Hawiian islands/seamounts get progressively older according to
radiometric dating as they get further away from the hotspot that is creating the volcanism that formed the islands. From this data one can estimate the velocity that the Pacific Plate is moving. It just so happens to agree with measured motion of the Pacific Plate. For that matter radiometric dating was used to determine the average plate velocities long before plate motions could be directly measured. Is it a coincidence that they are very much compatible with earch other? Keep in mind that the odds of this happening are pretty much nil if radiometric dating was full of beans.

 

[brt28006]

I phrased it badly.
I was saying that the verse in your sig goes against the parts of the Bible where you are commanded to think specific ways or be at risk of sinning.

Shells from living snails were carbon dated as being 27,000 years old. Science vol. 224, 1984, pp. 58-61

Living mollusk shells were dated up to 2300 years old. Science vol. 141, 1963, pp.634-637

Mollusks absorb carbon from their environment.

A freshly killed seal was carbon dated as having died 1300 years ago! Antarctic Journal vol. 6, Sept-Oct. 1971, p.211

Nobody said Carbon dating was always right. The issue is addressed in Ardipithecus' thread on age.

"One part of the Vollosovitch mammoth carbon dated at 29,500 years and another part at 44,000.
--Troy L. Pewe, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Unglaciated Central Alaska, Geological Survey Professional Paper 862 (U.S. Gov. printing office, 1975) p. 30.

"One part of Dima [a baby frozen mammoth] was 40,000, another part was 26,000 and the "wood immediately around the carcass" was 9-10,000.
--Troy L. Pewe, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Unglaciated Central Alaska, Geological Survey Professional Paper 862 (U.S. Gov. printing office, 1975) p. 30

"The lower leg of the Fairbanks Creek mammoth had a radiocarbon age of 15,380 RCY, while its skin and flesh were 21,300 RCY.
--In the Beginning Walt Brown p. 124

The two Colorado Creek mammoths had radiocarbon ages of 22,850 670 and 16,150 230 years respectively."
--In the Beginning Walt Brown p. 124

Many of these mammoth portions were actually from different individuals. The Villosovitch mammoth parts, for example, actually belonged to three different individuals who had died at different times.

Also, atomic decay rate changes with temperature. Something in a deep freeze somewhere in Alaska might have carbon decay at half the rate of somewhere else. If part of an animal was frozen in a colder area than another part of the same animal, then carbon dating will bring back different ages.
At absolute zero atomic decay stops entirely. Though this temperature has never been reached on Earth, a temperature three billionths of a degree above it were created in a lab. Atomic motion stops at absolute zero as well.

"A geologist at the Berkeley Geochronology Center, [Carl] Swisher uses the most advanced techniques to date human fossils. Last spring he was re-evaluating Homo erectus skulls found in Java in the 1930s by testing the sediment found with them. A hominid species assumed to be an ancestor of Homo sapiens, erectus was thought to have vanished some 250,000 years ago. But even though he used two different dating methods, Swisher kept making the same startling find: the bones were 53,000 years old at most and possibly no more than 27,000 years— a stretch of time contemporaneous with modern humans."
--Kaufman, Leslie, "Did a Third Human Species Live Among Us?" Newsweek (December 23, 1996), p. 52.

Unfortunately for Swisher, he was a moron (or a dishonest scientist like Kent Hovind.)
First, you can't date sediment with carbon dating.
Second, you can't date fossils with carbon dating, as fossils have no carbon content.
Third, carbon dating only works for organic material less than 50,000 to 55,000 years old.

"Structure, metamorphism, sedimentary reworking, and other complications have to be considered. Radiometric dating would not have been feasible if the geologic column had not been erected first."
--O’Rourke, J. E., "Pragmatism versus Materialism in Stratigraphy," American Journal of Science, vol. 276 (January 1976), p. 54

I don't quite get this statement. Are they saying the geologic column is manmade?

 

[Billy the Kid]

'Evolutionists'; is in error and should be replaced with a more relevant profession like geologist. But, lets answer the question...

Okay, I changed it.

It includes ideas that if you have undistorted layers of horizontal strata, that the bottom one is the oldest. If something cuts across a layer, it is younger than the layer.

So, if there was a tree that goes through these layers of sediment it would mean the bottom part (roots and what not) are older then the branches by lots of years, scince I heard that the layers get layed down every thousands of years or something like that? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, brt28006. I also have no clue what they mean by that. I'm only 14 years old and am no kind of scientist

 

[ardipithecus]

Originally posted by 30a2
"One part of the Vollosovitch mammoth carbon dated at 29,500 years and another part at 44,000.
--Troy L. Pewe, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Unglaciated Central Alaska, Geological Survey Professional Paper 862 (U.S. Gov. printing office, 1975) p. 30.

"One part of Dima [a baby frozen mammoth] was 40,000, another part was 26,000 and the "wood immediately around the carcass" was 9-10,000.
--Troy L. Pewe, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Unglaciated Central Alaska, Geological Survey Professional Paper 862 (U.S. Gov. printing office, 1975) p. 30

Hello 30a2. Have you heard about not bearing false witness against thy neighbor? It is a big no-no.
And whoever you quoted this from is guilty of it.

I have personally looked at Pewe's paper in the original. He does make any of these claims whatsoever. These quotes are NOT found in Pewe's paper. I suspect these are plagiarized (a moral wrong in and of itself) from the ever dishonest Kent Hovind or one of his followers.

For one thing Dima was discovered AFTER Pewe published and was found in Russia. Furthermore there is no mammoth in Pewe's paper with different parts dating differently. There is nothing that as much as implies or hits at it either. Your YEC sources have lied to you.

And please bear in mind, that if someone gives a citation to the scientific literature, he is claiming to have checked it out. If you are trusting some other source's citation than you MUST indicate this, i.e. "[Citation] cited by [your actual source]." Failure to do so is plagiarism in that you are implicately claiming to have done research that was actually done by someone else. Furthermore if your actual source is falsely citing something (as in this case) not indicating your actual source exposes you to charges of dishonesty (either via plagiarism or by lying about what cited work said). Most creationists seem unaware of this basic standard and it is a big reason why their works are so inaccurate.

[Edited to remove a misunderstanding on my part of the original post that I realized upon rereading.]

 

[ardipithecus]

Originally posted by 30a2


"Structure, metamorphism, sedimentary reworking, and other complications have to be considered. Radiometric dating would not have been feasible if the geologic column had not been erected first."
--O’Rourke, J. E., "Pragmatism versus Materialism in Stratigraphy," American Journal of Science, vol. 276 (January 1976), p. 54

This is an example of the creationists' favorite rhetorical trick: the out-of-context quotation.

For context look at this web site.

 

[ardipithecus]

Originally posted by 30a2

So, if there was a tree that goes through these layers of sediment it would mean the bottom part (roots and what not) are older then the branches by lots of years,

The roots of a tree are not part of the layers. This is an example of something that cuts across them. Something that cuts across a layer, as I indicated in a previous post, is younger than those layers. This sort of reasoning is usually applied to things like volcanic dikes.

scince I heard that the layers get layed down every thousands of years or something like that? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Consider yourself corrected since this is 100% wrong. It is a common misconception held by the public. The rate of which strata are laid is extremely variable. Sometimes it really is a tiny amount for great period of time. Sometimes it is very fast like in cave-in, avalanches, large scale volcanic eruptions, etc.

This sort of misconception is how people are fooled by claims of "polystrate" fossils. The creationist points to a fossil tree that has been burried. They note that it crosses multiple strata. They falsely claim that geologists would have these strata taking million of years to form. This is a straw man argument. To read more about this check out the "Polystrate" Fossils FAQs.

 

[ardipithecus]

Originally posted by 30a2

"The lower leg of the Fairbanks Creek mammoth had a radiocarbon age of 15,380 RCY, while its skin and flesh were 21,300 RCY.
--In the Beginning Walt Brown p. 124

This more misuse of Pewe's paper that I mentioned before. Notice that it contradicts the other ones in claim of the ages of the mammoth.

From Pewe's Professional Paper 862 that is cited in the material one can find the following. On page 30 which is a part of a multi-page table of radiocarbon dates from central Alaska there are two mammoth dates given.

Sample SI-453 is dtated 15,380+/-30 years. It was found in "Frozen silt 26 m below surface" is "Flesh from lower leg Mammuthus priigenius collected by someone named Osborne in 1940.

Sample L-601 was dated 21,300+/-1,300 years. The table notes that it was soaked in glycerine by the collector and thus the date might be invalid. Why would this be? That is because glycerine is a carbon source itself and would be expected to contaminate the sample. It was found "With beaver dam. Also in association with gravel 'stringers'" and is "Skin and flesh of Mammuthus primigenius (baby mammoth)." It was collected by someone named Geist in 1948.

The samples that Dr. Brown are claiming to be from the same mammoth are from two different mammoths. Pewe's table is very clear about this.

No one who follows the YEC movement is ever surprised to discover things like this. This is simply typical behavior of the "professional" YECs.

 

[Billy the Kid]

My brain is hurting... Now, I know why science scares me so much! I can't understand it!
Well, you can keep on talking about aging and stuff, but for now I'll just keep my head out of this Creation vs. Evolution.
I'm just going to believe the Bible.
For the Bible is no lie.

Thank you again on your helpful insight on the stuff you guys were talking about. Too bad I hardly understood it

 

[ardipithecus]

Originally posted by 30a2

"A geologist at the Berkeley Geochronology Center, [Carl] Swisher uses the most advanced techniques to date human fossils. Last spring he was re-evaluating Homo erectus skulls found in Java in the 1930s by testing the sediment found with them. A hominid species assumed to be an ancestor of Homo sapiens, erectus was thought to have vanished some 250,000 years ago. But even though he used two different dating methods, Swisher kept making the same startling find: the bones were 53,000 years old at most and possibly no more than 27,000 years— a stretch of time contemporaneous with modern humans."
--Kaufman, Leslie, "Did a Third Human Species Live Among Us?" Newsweek (December 23, 1996), p. 52.

This one is a big so-what. Dating in enviroments such as Java Man is found is difficult at best. It would be nice to have it between two layers of volcanic ash that could be reliably dated, but alas it is not so. The dating prior the the dating done in the 1990s were at best crude estimates or they were extrapolating the youngest Homo erectus sensu lato (sensu lato means in the broad sense) dates known to Java Man, a risky way to go.

This quote looses all its power when one realizes that there is nothing in evolutionary biology that does not allow Homo erectus to have been alive at the same time as some members of Homo sapiens. The public at large has the misconception of a single species of x always always being replaced by different species. This can't be so if evolution is true for the very fact that their are many species alive today. One of the fundamental patterns of evolution is one species becoming two or more species.

 

[ardipithecus]

Originally posted by 30a2

Shells from living snails were carbon dated as being 27,000 years old. Science vol. 224, 1984, pp. 58-61

Living mollusk shells were dated up to 2300 years old. Science vol. 141, 1963, pp.634-637

A freshly killed seal was carbon dated as having died 1300 years ago! Antarctic Journal vol. 6, Sept-Oct. 1971, p.211

Yawn. This and the other radiocarbon items for marine animals are not valid. One of the assumptions of radiocarbon is that the sample is not marine. The reason is that ratios of the various isotopes of carbon (carbon-12, carbon-13, carbon-14) are different in the oceans are different then they are in the atmosphere. Radiocarbon is valid for living things that obtain their carbon from the atmospheric sources. Marine organisms and organisms that feed off of marine organism should not be used.

 

[ardipithecus]

Originally posted by 30a2

The two Colorado Creek mammoths had radiocarbon ages of 22,850 670 and 16,150 230 years respectively."
--In the Beginning Walt Brown p. 124

This one is just plain silly. Why is it surprising tht two different mammoths got different radiocarbon dates? If they lived at different times this is what should be expected.

Also "22,850 670" should be 22,850+/-670.

 

[BioPooka]

Hmm, well Ardi seems to ripping those Scientific quotes to shreads quite well. But I'll just point out a few things that Creationists should watch for when posting things like that.

1. The age of the article. These are RELATIVELY recent articles, but still considered a bit old. Using 60's-early 80's works as your only reference is a bit of a no-no, particularly when there is more recent findings published.

2. Context is a biggy. Its all well and good to post one line from an article and take that one line at face value but many times that line on its own has a totally different meaning when viewed with the rest of the article. For instnace the following line:
Shells from living snails were carbon dated as being 27,000 years old

Could well be taken from:
Using an outdated dating technique that was found to be inaccurate Donald and Banks, 1935, found shells from living snails were carbon dated as being 27,000 years old. This shows the need for greater study into the fields of dating and also research into ways that snails develop their shells and from what materials.


See what I mean?

 

[AV1611VET]

How do geologist know how old something is?

I think it's by a process called Radiometric Assumption.

 

[Cabal]

I think it's by a process called Radiometric Assumption.

Did you not spot the age embedded in this thread?

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Rise necro-thread! Riiiiiiise!

 

[AV1611VET]

Did you not spot the age embedded in this thread?

--- oops

 

[Cabal]

--- oops

Necromancing a thread about dating, of things - the jokes for that just write themselves