Arguement from Authority Re: Carbon-14 fallacy in dating

On 2006-02-02 17:21:13 -0800, "Sam" <sam@xxxxxxxxxx> said:


"Frank Sullivan" <gimbal.locked@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1138928800.141856.327110@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Craig A. Feinstein wrote:
jcon wrote:
Craig A. Feinstein wrote:
Here is a disproof of the carbon-14 dating methodology, given by
Rabbi
Avigdor Miller in his book, Sing You Righteous:

We all know that Carbon 14 is a product of cosmic ray bombardment of
Nitrogen 14 and Carbon 12 in the atmosphere. The C-14 combines with
oxygen to form carbon dioxide which is absorbed by living organisms.
A
constant ratio of C-14 and C-12 is established in the lifetime of
each
living organism. When the organism dies, it no longer absorbs carbon
dioxide and the C-14 decays by emitting beta particles to N-14. The
organic remains are dated by comparing the ratio of C-14 to C-12.
The
organisms with lower ratios of C-14 to C-12 are considered older
than
those with higher ratios, since they must have been around longer to
lose more C-14 isotopes.

Here is the problem according to Rabbi Miller: This methodology
assumes
that the earth is very old and that therefore the present proportion
of
C-14 in the earth's atmosphere was already in existence aeons ago,
i.e., has been at equilibrium proportion before life came about. But
the earth is not very old, only 5,766 years old as of today, so it
started out without C-14 isotopes (which everyone admits is the
result
of cosmic-ray action.) Therefore, it took time to build up enough
C-14
to establish the present ratio. The earth's supply of C-14 has
increased steadily in 5766 years; the further back in history, the
less
C-14 found. Therefore, the low proportion of C-14 in organic
materials
of ancient times is not due to the measured breakdown of this
isotope,
but is due to the simple fact that the proportion of C-14 was low in
the first place.

I would love to see someone try to refute this disproof of the
carbon
dating methodology. I doubt anyone in this newsgroup will be able to
do
so - why do I think so? Because the universe is only 5,766 years
old.

Craig

As creationist "logic" goes, this is actually pretty good. The
problem
is that the time dependence of such a scenario is very different.

Assuming a more or less equilibriated C14/C12 ratio, the amount of
C14 falls exponentially once the organism dies, so

Ratio(age) = Ratio(equil)*exp(-age/tau)

where Ratio(equil) is the equilibrium ratio (when production and decay
rates are equal), and tau is the decay time constant
(=half-life/ln(2)).

Based on what I have read, there seems to be no dispute about this.


In the Rabbi's scenario, the amount of C14 would start at
zero, and grow towards equilibrium as

Ratio(t) = Ratio(equil)*(1-exp(-t/tau))

How do you know this?


where "t" is the time since the begining of the earth. Once
something died, decay would start from this ratio (ie,
t=(5766-age)), so

Ratio(age) = Ratio(equil)*(1-exp(-(5766-age)/tau))*exp(-age/tau)

If you get Excel and plot this back to a few thousand years,
you'll see that the time dependence is very different, and
since C14 dating has been cross referenced back several
thousand years, this doesn't work at all.

And of course, this has nothing to do with the age
of the Earth, which is determined by different means.

Still, kudos to the Rabb!. This is much better than
"half lives all changed during the flood.". I look forward to
the next attempt.

-jc

I'm glad that you admit there is something to his logic, even if you do
not agree with the conclusion. While the other posts don't seem to be
bothered by this, I think it's pretty clear that the rabbi was onto
something.

For instance, as of yet, no posters have been able to demonstrate
conclusively and clearly that the world is more than 5766 years old.
Sure, they'll say there's mountains of evidence to the contrary. At
first I thought they had clear and conclusive evidence when they
started talking about tree rings, but then when I asked for pictures of
trees with a number of rings larger than 5766, I was told that the
scientists assembled lots of the rings of trees together from different
overlapping times like a jigsaw puzzle and were able to deduce the age
of the oldest tree from this information, sort of like how they do
genome sequencing. This seemed reasonable at first. However, there is a
problem with this approach:

Tree rings are not discrete quantities like DNA, so this methodology
cannot be as reliable as genome sequencing. The methodology of deciding
which rings overlapp is not clear-cut and can be subject to human
interpretation. Given that probably only a handful of people handle the
actual evidence, it is not unreasonable that the scientists could have
"forced" some of the links on the jigsaw puzzle or "denied" some of the
true links. Note that I am not saying that they did this, only that
they could have done this. So I am not so impressed so far.

Firstly, many other dating techniques have been provided to you other
than tree rings. I myself talked about Rb/Sr dating. At least one
person here mentioned Uranium-Lead. It has been pointed out to you that
some places have hundreds of thousands of seasonal varve layers and
that some places in the arctic regions have hundreds of thousands of
seasonal ice cores. That you persistently gloss over these facts has
left me less than impressed with /you/ so far.

Second of all, we've provided you with cites to peer-reviewed research
to support our claims. All you have to do is go down to a university
library and plunk a dime into a copy machine to get your own copy of
these dendrology papers. The fact that you are dismissing their methods
as unimpressive without having done the requesite research is
unimpressive.

I am not a scientist, but I suspect that you are exaggerating the
amount of interpretation involved in those techniques. If two trees
overlap by several hundred years, and they therefore each contain a set
of several hundred rings that possess identical properties, like size,
color, and C14 content, all in the same exact order, then you can
pretty much bet the farm that the overlap is real and not illusory. In
fact, you could probably do some statistical significance tests to
quantify the amount of certainty, if you wanted to.

But instead you reject these methods from a position of ignorance. Not
very impressive.

Since everyone posting here is convinced that the tree rings prove that
the world is more than 5766 years old, I would like to know how you all
were convinced of this? Did you just believe what the experts told you
or did you do the observations and counting yourselves? If you believed
what the experts told you, then you are doing exactly what you are
accusing me of doing - arguing from authority.

So at worst, we're just like you? ;-)

He's also confusing exactly what "argument from authority". "Authorities",
in this sense refers to someone of influence without scientific knowledge
making claims. It does not refer to professionals in their fields who's
work has undergone review and gained acceptance by their peers.

Nor does it refer to scientists' own work.

What Craig is forgetting is that the papers he's being referred to
contains DATA, not just what the scientists conclude from the data.
Peer reviewed papers conclude data and the conclusions from the data.

To dismiss the papers, he has to deal with the data and SHOW (don't
tell us) why the conclusions are wrong, or else he's just throwing
evidence without a good reason.


No one has the time to double check every claim, or reinvent every
wheel, that is made by other experts. You can't avoid relying on expert
testamony sometimes. With that said, some arguments from authority are
far worse than others. It's far more rational to rely on conclusions
drawn by experts and published in peer-reviewed journals where they are
exposed to scrutiny by other experts in the field, than it is to rely
on non-expert testamony from a rabbi, wouldn't you agree?

Well put. Areas of science often overlap. If for instance if a biologist
is working on a particular subject of research and encounters areas that
require him to emplore methods of physics, is he expecteded to re-invent all
of physics so he can trust the information he is given?

You're trying to make the two seem equally rational by tacking them
with the same label, but they're not.

Craig

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Carbon-14 fallacy in dating
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