Real Science Friday: Now Soft Tissue from a Mosasaur!

[Jukia]

Why should we shut off our brains? Are you afraid the word of God can't withstand scrutiny?

Isn't that the whole point of science? Isn't that the threat to fundamentalism? Leaving your brain on while evaluating the evidence?

 

[Alate_One]

Why should we shut off our brains? Are you afraid the word of God can't withstand scrutiny?

I believe it can. I know the YEC interpretation of it cannot. Science started with a YEC assumption, it was given up by honest scientists because of evidence. If you think YEC is compatible with science, you're not being honest with the evidence.You've been a case in point in "evidence blindness" where a fossil whale can't be a whale just because it has legs.

 

[Frayed Knot]

Bottom line as it applies to this program of Enyart’s, here is nonsense captured for us all (from above):

Nice lead-up Davis, but it leaves me wanting the rest of the story. What was the source of the C14 that Baumgardner supposedly found? It sounds like the discussion between him and Kirk Bertsche pretty much came to a conclusion - what was the conclusion?

 

[Dr.Watson]

Wow - you're dedicated to every single little technicality being properly scrutinised aren't you. :chuckle:

All scientists are. We all know you hate specifics, Stripe. We know you love ambiguity. It gives you wiggle room.

 

[One Eyed Jack]

Isn't that the whole point of science? Isn't that the threat to fundamentalism? Leaving your brain on while evaluating the evidence?

I've never felt threatened.

 

[One Eyed Jack]

I believe it can. I know the YEC interpretation of it cannot. Science started with a YEC assumption, it was given up by honest scientists because of evidence. If you think YEC is compatible with science, you're not being honest with the evidence.You've been a case in point in "evidence blindness" where a fossil whale can't be a whale just because it has legs.

It doesn't have a blowhole either. It's no more a whale than a manatee is. I'm examining the evidence -- you're going by what a book says. Who's using their brain here?

 

[Stripe]

There are multiple issues here, but for now I call attention to the way they try to dance through the C-14 minefield. This is a dance I am seeing Bob and Fred do repeatedly lately. They know that C-14 dating is widely used, including in support of Old Testament archaeology. It would be foolish to dismiss it, but it so often comes up with these dates of tens of thousands of years. Dates of only a few thousand years are fine, but they can’t tolerate any date that would pre-date the creation described in a literal reading of Genesis.

:rotfl:

They bring evidence that slashes 99 million years off a hundred million year assumption and you think they're worried that it doesn't get down to 6,000 years?

Dave Willis:

One point, maybe you’ve made this point before to your listeners today is this doesn’t necessarily mean that any of us think that the mosasaur is 24,600 years old. There are reasons why it might still only be 10,000 or maybe 6,000 years old.​

A carbon- 14 half-live curve is like the bottom half of the slope coming off a smoothly rounded hill. It is steepest at the top, but flattens out until it becomes level. The height is represented by the amount of C-14 measured, and the distance along the ground is the date it corresponds to. A YEC C-14 curve starts with the smooth curve going down, but then needs to precipitously drop to ground level at just past the point that you are half-way down the hill (corresponding to about 6000 years) – almost a cliff. Such an adjustment in C-14 decay at a point in time would require a restructuring of the laws of physics at a fundamental level, which would have consequences that cascade into other physical processes.

Or it might just mean there's something else that went on a few thousand years ago. :idunno:

So we go down the YEC path and ask for a fundamental restructuring of physical law 7000 years ago, or we say that C-14 dating that works fine at 6000 years also works once we are past 8000 years, and there was probably a small (yes, small, Bob and Dave) amount of contamination.

You're insisting that YEC explain a ten fold discrepancy when you have a million-fold discrepancy. There were hints given that there are explanations for this, but they would suit a different thread. So why not stick with the content of the show?

By far the most definitive YEC effort to show radiometric dating favors the YEC view was the “RATE” (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) study commissioned by ICR starting in the 1990s. it turned out to be about an 8-year effort by a team of YEC PhDs who examined radiometric dating, and documented what they felt was incorrect about it. The only part of it I have looked into much is the C-14 part of the study, headed up by John Baumgardner. The study is technical enough that an outsider (on C-14 dating, that includes me) is not likely to find many flaws in it. But several years ago a Christian by the name of Kirk Bertsche came along, with some technical background in C-14 dating. He read the chapter in the RATE report dealing with why C-14 proves that diamonds and coal and oil and so on are all much younger than science says. Here again the C-14 dates are way too old for YEC comfort – like 40,000 and 50,000 years.

That's nice. And they're by several orders of magnitude too young for an evolutionist.

Bob and Fred – the Abbott and Costello of science.

Are you going to regret this ad hominem later, or do you consider yourself a martini drinker? :think:

All scientists are. We all know you hate specifics, Stripe. We know you love ambiguity. It gives you wiggle room.

Hi, Watties. :wave:

Figured out how to make an aquifer yet?

 

[Alate_One]

It doesn't have a blowhole either. It's no more a whale than a manatee is. I'm examining the evidence -- you're going by what a book says. Who's using their brain here?

A blowhole is just nostrils, which in some whales are a single hole, but others still have two nostrils. They're a little farther forward on the nose in the fossils than a modern whale's.

A manatee has an entirely different skeletal structure compared to a whale's. Dorudon and Basilosaurus share a huge number of characteristics with whales and no other organisms.

 

[Squishes]

I've never quite understood this argument; is there a well-known biological law that states "soft tissues" cannot exist longer than 10k years or something?

 

[Stripe]

I've never quite understood this argument; is there a well-known biological law that states "soft tissues" cannot exist longer than 10k years or something?

Who knows how long they might survive. :idunno:

I think the point is that the evidence is worth investigating without assuming evolutionary timescales.

The most fundamental area of study is once again being ignored, however. The first question asked when finding a fossil should always be - how did this organism become buried?

 

[The Barbarian]

I think the point is that the evidence is worth investigating without assuming evolutionary timescales.

Hmm... that would be kinda like investigating the entry of meteors into the Earth's atmosphere without "assuming" gravity. :chuckle:

The vast age of the Earth was discovered by physicists, who made no evolutionary assumptions at all.

 

[Dr.Watson]

Hi, Watties. :wave:

Figured out how to make an aquifer yet?

I would say that I'm shocked at how you go so far out of your way to humiliate yourself....But I'm not. You're oblivious to how incredibly insane (stupid?) you are. It was only a couple months ago or so that you didn't even know what an aquifer was. And, I'm sure you still don't, but you've picked up usage of the word.

If you're so keen on making a fool of yourself, why don't you link the readers to the conversation on hydrogeology that we had concerning the formation and mechanics of coarse grained/porous-fully saturated soil layers and the subsidence of the confining layer? It's all there. Remember, you thought aquifers were empty water filled underground caves that collapsed when the water (that otherwise couldn't escape) was withdrawn (cue the muted trumpet cartoon sound effects). And you alluded that collapse of these "groundwater sources" were happening all over the world in alarming numbers. Remember? It was the thread that you started and kept closing because of how embarrassed you were. I remember that someone else had to open another one to continue the discussion you were too embarrassed to keep having in the original. Remember?

 

[Squishes]

Who knows how long they might survive. :idunno:

Then why is this supposed to be a problem for evolution?

I think the point is that the evidence is worth investigating without assuming evolutionary timescales.

Ok, and when you investigate it without assuming evolutionary timescales, what do you come up with?

The most fundamental area of study is once again being ignored, however. The first question asked when finding a fossil should always be - how did this organism become buried?

I'm not a paleontologist, so I don't know if that is the first question that should be asked.

 

[Alate_One]

I'm not a paleontologist, so I don't know if that is the first question that should be asked.

Paleontology is the study of prehistoric life, including organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments (their paleoecology).

Of course how something fossilized is often an important part of how something lived. Of course according to Stripe every fossil must be the result of a single worldwide flood, even when there are multiple layers of tracks interspersed between layers of coral and fossils that show evidence of scavengers.

 

[DavisBJ]

They bring evidence that slashes 99 million years off a hundred million year assumption and you think they're worried that it doesn't get down to 6,000 years?

You're insisting that YEC explain a ten fold discrepancy when you have a million-fold discrepancy.

The million-fold discrepancy is easily explained (and has frequently been observed) as due to small amounts of sample contamination. But your ten-fold discrepancy would require a revision of the laws of physics 7000 years ago.

Or it might just mean there's something else that went on a few thousand years ago.

Postulating pie-in-the sky “just might mean” explanations is a pretty sad excuse for science, especially when we have an understood and rational explanation already in place supporting an old earth.

 

[Stripe]

It's all there.

Where? :idunno:

Then why is this supposed to be a problem for evolution?

:doh:

Ok, and when you investigate it without assuming evolutionary timescales, what do you come up with?

I'm not a paleontologist, so I don't know if that is the first question that should be asked.

OK.

Paleontology is the study of prehistoric life, including organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments (their paleoecology).

Of course, creatures never evolve.

Of course how something fossilized is often an important part of how something lived.

No, it's not. Why would a 'collapsed sand dune' or a 'warm shallow sea' be important to how something lived?

Of course according to Stripe every fossil must be the result of a single worldwide flood

Liar.

even when there are multiple layers of tracks interspersed between layers of coral and fossils that show evidence of scavengers.

:idea: Perhaps we could finish this discussion in this thread.

How the big beastie in the OP became fossilised is a much more interesting question than how its soft tissue was preserved from then till now.

The million-fold discrepancy is easily explained (and has frequently been observed) as due to small amounts of sample contamination. But your ten-fold discrepancy would require a revision of the laws of physics 7000 years ago.

No. It would require an understanding of the physics. And we are not talking about a small amount of contamination. That possibility was explicitly ruled out. I thought you'd remember that part of the show given the extreme lengths you've gone to in this thread. :idunno:

Postulating pie-in-the sky “just might mean” explanations is a pretty sad excuse for science

:rotfl:

especially when we have an understood and rational explanation already in place supporting an old earth.

It is commonly the role of science to overthrow that which is accepted without question.

 

[DavisBJ]

No. It would require an understanding of the physics.

It would require a fundamental adjustment in physical constants for only selective decays several thousand years ago.

And we are not talking about a small amount of contamination. That possibility was explicitly ruled out. I thought you'd remember that part of the show given the extreme lengths you've gone to in this thread.

The show participants tried to make the point that it would require a large amount of contamination. But the paper itself says nothing about how carefully sample prep was done, and specifically mentions the possibility of what could be major contamination.

 

[Stripe]

It would require a fundamental adjustment in physical constants for only selective decays several thousand years ago.

Not necessarily.

The show participants tried to make the point that it would require a large amount of contamination. But the paper itself says nothing about how carefully sample prep was done, and specifically mentions the possibility of what could be major contamination.

Of course they did.

 

[DavisBJ]

Nice lead-up Davis, but it leaves me wanting the rest of the story. What was the source of the C14 that Baumgardner supposedly found? It sounds like the discussion between him and Kirk Bertsche pretty much came to a conclusion - what was the conclusion?

Ok, I’ll try to put some of the interesting details in place. The story is too long for a single post, so I will piece-meal it.

RATE​

More of the deep background on this RATE project – Radiometric dating has long been one of the more consistent, and scientifically defensible, ways to show the earth is old. For that reason, the YEC community has an intense interest in showing any deficiency they can in such dating. For years there were threads floating in the YEC community that seemed to contradict old-earth radiometric dates, such as Gentry’s radiohaloes. The ICR decided that a concerted organized effort by technically qualified people on the YEC side might be able to document important flaws in radiometric dating. Thus RATE was conceived.

The carbon-14 study is just one aspect of the overall RATE effort. Other areas include radiohaloes, anomalous dates (such as old Grand Canyon strata overlying recent strata), etc. The RATE study was intensive enough that donations were solicited from the supporting community, to the tune of several million dollars. The RATE project involved a 3-year study to document the current state of radiometric dating issues, followed by a 5 year focused effort trying to see if significant problems in dating were being whitewashed by the scientific community.

Dr. John Baumgardner, a YEC with respectable academic and professional credentials headed up the C-14 work. An interesting side note is that Baumgardner’s regular job was at Los Alamos National Labs during the early RATE work. In about this period he co-authored several papers that were based on the premise that the earth was very old. (For example, this is in the abstract to one of his papers: “Thermally driven convection within the earth's mantle determines one of the longest time scales of our planet.” http://www.munich-geocenter.org/Members/bunge/publicationdetails/1) John has been approached several times about his duplicity in being funded by ICR to show the earth is young at the same time he was authoring old-earth papers in the broader scientific community. As demanded by his situation, the best answer he can give is to waffle, and try to avoid pointedly offending whichever side he is currently answering to. When asked if he would contact the scientific journals that published his old-earth papers and clarify to them that he was a YEC, he declined.

Carbon-14 Dating​

Most of the carbon we commonly see (as graphite, ashes, diamond, etc.) has atoms composed of 6 protons and 6 neutrons, for an atomic weight of 12. About 1% of carbon atoms have an extra neutron, giving an atomic weight of 13. These two forms of carbon are not radioactive. A miniscule amount of atmospheric carbon is carbon-14, with 2 more neutrons than most carbon atoms. On average, half of the carbon-14 atoms will spontaneously emit an electron from their nuclei within 5700 years, changing the atoms to a stable form of nitrogen. Of the half that did not emit the electron, one-half will emit the electron in the following 5700 years (leaving ¼ of the carbon-14 atoms). Every 5700 years half of the remaining carbon-14 atoms “decay” into nitrogen. This is called the half-life. Ten half-lives would take 57,000 years, and if we divide the original sample in half 10 times, one for each half-life, we find that about one of every thousand original carbon-14 atoms has not yet decayed.

I specifically specified “atmospheric carbon” in the paragraph above, because the vast majority of carbon-14 is formed in the high atmosphere, on the edges of space. There high-energy cosmic rays cause nuclear changes which (details omitted) result in some nitrogen atoms losing a proton and gaining a neutron – yielding carbon-14 atoms. These carbon-14 atoms mix into the atmosphere and act almost identical to normal carbon as far as bonding to other atoms. Most importantly, they end up as the carbon atom in carbon dioxide molecules, which are then taken in by plants as part of photosynthesis, and from there pass on into the food chain.

The ratio of normal carbon atoms to carbon-14 atoms in the atmosphere is (roughly) constant, with the rate at which new carbon-14 is generated being offset by the rate at which it decays. As long as plants are alive and taking using atmospheric carbon dioxide in photosynthesis, and as long as animals eat plants (or other animals which eat plants) they are continuously replenishing their supply of carbon, including the smidgeon of c-14. But once the intake of carbon ceases (at the death of the plant or animal), there is effectively no replenishment of the carbon-14 atoms in that organism. Coal and oil, being really just biological material that has been long dead, once had about the same ratio of carbon-14 to regular carbon that was present in that ancient atmosphere. By measuring how much of that carbon-14 is left, we can determine how long (how many half-lives) it has been since the coal or oil was “alive”.

The Missing Cliff​

I am going to point out what I see as weaknesses in the YEC RATE work. For reference I will be referring to the C-14 half-life figure at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/outreach/isotopes/images/half_life_graph.jpg

The YEC position is that creation occurred probably less than 10,000 years ago. That is about 1.5 carbon-14 half-lives, which is pretty recent for c-14 dating. There are myriads of C-14 dates that have been confirmed by other dating methods up to about 6000 years ago. Any form of biological material from 6000 years ago should still have almost 50% of its c-14 intact. There should be no c-14 dates that reach back beyond creation week. Plotting all the c-14 dates on a c-14 half-life chart, when we get back to creation week, the detectable c-14 on the chart should precipitously drop to zero.

According to mainstream science, that doesn’t happen. There are lots of c-14 dates reaching back 10,000, 20,000, and up to almost 50,000 years, all sitting comfortably in place where expected on the chart.

RATE’s C-14 View​

Initially, the C-14 RATE study group looked at a number of already existing scientific papers that told how much C-14 had been found in coal and oil and such. Then the C-14 ground within RATE actually obtained some samples themselves and had them C-14 dated. Based on what they saw in extant literature, plus what they saw in the C-14 tests they had done, they concluded that indeed science had been sweeping a serious problem under the rug.

Specifically, RATE concluded that there was an unaccounted for level of C-14 in almost every sample tested, both by them, and as reported in the literature. They concluded that this C-14 could only be due to the fact that the creation was recent, and no matter whether it was coal, or oil, or diamonds, that part of the C-14 mixed in with the normal carbon had not had time to all decay.

Christian scientist vs “Christian” scientist​

The thread at TheologyWeb I alluded to is available here http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?103916-RATE-and-Radiocarbon. It opens with a modest post by Kirk Bertsche in which he critiques the major shortcomings he sees in the RATE C-14 work. It is followed by a few mostly old-earthers patting Kirk on the back.

Ad-hom John​

Surprisingly John Baumgardner joins with post #10. This is a long post, and it appears John is taking the tact that he is going to decisively stomp on this upstart Bertsche who questions his work. Note the tone that John elects to employ in this opening salvo. He levies the charge that the C-14 dating community has long known of the excess C-14 issue, and asks, “how does the radiocarbon community deal with this state of affairs?” He says this “cries out for explanation “, but the scientists “have avoided publicizing the problem to outsiders”, they have chosen to “keep this state of affair to themselves”, they “act as if the issue does not exist”, and they have “adopted some special terminology that prevents most outsiders from realizing the problem exists”. He says they “keep this dilemma under largely wraps” by procedural subterfuges, which alleviates them from “the awkward difficulty of explaining to a customer why a coal sample, for instance, has a non-zero level of 14C.”

When speaking specifically of this upstart Bertsche, I will let John’s own words carry the message:

Although Bertsche styles himself as an “accelerator physicist, formerly at a leading radiocarbon AMS laboratory, as far as radiocarbon measurement procedures and issues are concerned, he is a novice.

If he were truly an insider, he would be fully aware

If Bertsche could understand the very papers to which he refers

his first claim … is unsustainable

the issues he is failing to grasp

The AMS insiders understand the lingo. Bertsche apparently does not.

Because of his shallow grasp of the issues

Bertsche throws out a number of ‘red-herrings’.

Bertsche fails to point out the very basic reality

Bertsche also makes a ‘red-herring’ of

he displays a serious lack of familiarity with the terms used

Bertsche further reveals the shallowness of his understanding of AMS procedures and terminology

Just why he uses the term ‘graphitization’ in the peculiar manner he does is a mystery.

Bertsche is simply in fantasy land when…

This is absurd

Bertsche’s statement that … is flatly unsupportable

Bertsche produces still more ‘red-herrings’ to create confusion about the RATE 14C measurements

incredibly, Bertsche proposes microbial growth

Just what does Bertsche imagine

Talk about grasping for straws.

Bertsche resorts to speculating

To me that smacks of a deliberate distortion

Just why does Bertsche choose … to engage in this sort of distortion?

Bertsche is undermining his earlier arguments

So which is it? Bertsche cannot have it both ways

Bertsche seeks to dismiss

It is therefore understandable why Bertsche comes away with an incorrect conclusion

he is not the expert in 14C dating that he makes himself out to be

Bertsche fails to make his case​

This is how Dr. John Baumgardner responds to critiques. In later posts, when he realizes his opponent is not the patsy he had hoped, he lessens the rhetoric, but still gets in a slap or two.

In contrast, in his posts Kirk consistently exemplified personal courtesy, and stuck pretty strictly to the facts. What is the measure of a Christian?

If I find time, I will turn more to the details of the technical issues they were disputing in a later post. Got other things to do now.

 

[DavisBJ]

Not necessarily.

Well, this coming from someone who has demonstrated a serious deficiency in understanding fundamental physics causes me to not see much value in arguing this with you. Sorry.

Of course they did.

WHO did WHAT?