In the thread "Isometric dating: Recipe for fudge", Nick Petreley made the following claim about the practice of radiometric dating:
You get the results you expect because you toss out the results you don't expect. Once again, that is NOT science.
He based that claim on the following out of context quote from the articel "Woodmorappe's Shell Game: Refuted with Literature from his Creationist Allies" from the website
http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/...rappe_henke.htm :
Austin and Snelling's (1998) samples were dated with K-Ar by Geochron Laboratories, a radiometric laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Although Austin and Snelling (1998) informed Geochron personnel that the samples have a general "basaltic" composition and that they should expect "a lot" of argon from the samples, they never gave individuals at Geochron expected ages or locations for the samples. Because Geochron personnel had no way of knowing the origins and ages of the anonymous samples, they could not have known which dates were reasonable and which were not. Furthermore, Austin and Snelling (1998) make no accusations that Geochron personnel wanted age estimates as a way of "cheating" or "culling" any possibly unreasonable results. Even if the dates were in excess of 4.5 billion years or had negative values, Geochron personnel could still view them as part of some sort of special laboratory isotope study. That is, such a study could involve spiking samples with pure isotopes so that they would produce unusual dates as part of some legitimate experiment. So, if Geochron personnel want to keep Austin and Snelling as valued customers, they have no choice but to truthfully report whatever results they get with Austin and Snelling's anonymous samples and not try to make any second-guesses. Therefore, with Austin and Snelling (1998), as well as their other articles that contain original radiometric dates, we are dealing with dates in the hands of analytical chemists and YECs that have no motive and/or ability for identifying and removing any ridiculous results. Indeed, Austin and Snelling (1998) clearly state that they submitted 13 samples for dating and they list all 13 corresponding dates for those samples.
The one sentence Nick used to support his point was:
Because Geochron personnel had no way of knowing the origins and ages of the anonymous samples, they could not have known which dates were reasonable and which were not.
As should be no surprise to anyone by now, given the proper context the sentence does not mean what Nick wants it to mean (or at least wants to pass it off to lurkers and others to mean) at all. Here is the full story:
From the website:
YEC Woodmorappe's (1999) approach to explain away radiometric dates is fairly unique, but is just as unrealistic as other creationist attempts. Woodmorappe (1999, Figure 20, p. 51; p. 52, 85, 87-92) claims that all radiometric dates may be nothing more than the products of "chance," that is, random numbers. According to Woodmorappe (1999, p. 16, 21-22, 51-54, 82, 85, 95, etc.), geologists submit samples for radiometric dating, unknowingly obtain random and meaningless results, and then usually publish only those results that can be rationally "explained away" or happen to correspond with their "preconceived expectations." Woodmorappe (1999, p. 16) further claims that geologists are so biased and effective in "picking and choosing" the dates that they want from among the "many" random or otherwise bad analyses that radiometric dating is not falsifiable. In other words, Woodmorappe (1999, p. 16) believes that we're so deceived by our biases in favor of radiometric dating that we're unable to detect our own mistakes.
Pretty clear isn't it, at least for anyone with a trace of intellectual honesty. The article is a direct reply to Woodmorappe's claim that Radiometric dates are essentially random, we just don't see it because the "wrong" results are tossed away before they are published. So, how do we test this claim?
More from the article:
If Woodmorappe's (1999, p. 87-92) Lucky Draw is right, YECs, as well as scientists, should get nothing but random results from their samples. With his YEC allies, Woodmorappe (1999, p. 87) doesn't have to worry about any biases in favor of radiometric dating. As long as the dates are older than 10,000 years, everyone can be certain that Snelling, Austin and other YECs would treat their dates with joyous contempt. That is, under Woodmorappe's Shell Game scenario, Austin, Snelling and other YECs would have no motive for discarding any ridiculously old, young or negative dates to support any supposed "anti-biblical conspiracy." If anything, Austin and Snelling would be the first people to loudly proclaim that they got wildly inconsistent and apparently random results from their samples.
Also pretty clear. Since the creationists don't trust the dates obtained by real scientists, why not look at the creationists results directly and see if they support Woodmorappe's hypothesis.
And then to Nick's quote:
Austin and Snelling's (1998) samples were dated with K-Ar by Geochron Laboratories, a radiometric laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Although Austin and Snelling (1998) informed Geochron personnel that the samples have a general "basaltic" composition and that they should expect "a lot" of argon from the samples, they never gave individuals at Geochron expected ages or locations for the samples. Because Geochron personnel had no way of knowing the origins and ages of the anonymous samples, they could not have known which dates were reasonable and which were not. Furthermore, Austin and Snelling (1998) make no accusations that Geochron personnel wanted age estimates as a way of "cheating" or "culling" any possibly unreasonable results. Even if the dates were in excess of 4.5 billion years or had negative values, Geochron personnel could still view them as part of some sort of special laboratory isotope study. That is, such a study could involve spiking samples with pure isotopes so that they would produce unusual dates as part of some legitimate experiment. So, if Geochron personnel want to keep Austin and Snelling as valued customers, they have no choice but to truthfully report whatever results they get with Austin and Snelling's anonymous samples and not try to make any second-guesses. Therefore, with Austin and Snelling (1998), as well as their other articles that contain original radiometric dates, we are dealing with dates in the hands of analytical chemists and YECs that have no motive and/or ability for identifying and removing any ridiculous results. Indeed, Austin and Snelling (1998) clearly state that they submitted 13 samples for dating and they list all 13 corresponding dates for those samples.
Given the proper context it is clear that all the above quote means is that the results could not have been altered in any way by any members of the evil evolutionist conspiracy. The results returned from the lab are the proper results, and more importantly, all the results. Nothing at all has been thrown out, or if anything has been left out, it must have been done by the creationists themselves. That's all the above quote means. It is in no way, shape or form a complaint about violating standard procedure so that the anomalous results couldn't be thrown out, as suggested by Nick, but the complete opposite. The whole point of the article rests on the fact that no anomalous results were thrown out.
And finally, the article's conclusion:
Woodmorappe's own allies consistently obtained radiometric dating results that are too improbable to be random. Woodmorappe (1999) has no rational choice but to admit that radiometric dates are something much more profound than the products of "chance" and selective publishing. Woodmorappe's carnival Shell Game is clearly bogus. Once Woodmorappe realizes that his crapshoot is not supported by the "research" of his YEC allies and that it is prohibitively expensive, we can expect that he will change the plastic rules of his crapshoot or come up with alternative excuses to avoid the reality of radiometric dating (e.g., Woodmorappe, 2001).
The whole point of the article was to falsify Woodmorappe's claim that radiometric dates are random, and the author did that by using the results the creationists themselves had ontained. He also went to great length to stress that no anamolous results were thrown out. The only conclusion one can draw from this is that Nick has deliberatley missrepresented the author's point with his out of context quoting and completely failed to support his claim that unexpected results are routinely thrown out. The intellectual dishonesty employed by creationists (at least of the YEC denomination) is simply staggering.
Choccy
