Radio Active Decay not constant

[Zakuska]

Let me get this straight. A century of highly trained PhDs, many of whom are geniuses, employ high level probability and statistics, error analysis, quantum physics and empirical experimentation. They hunt for effects that could throw off the results and, when they do find such, they analyze how likely they are and make adjustments. They cross check results with data from independent sources. The theorists show that the mathematics of the underlying physical theory leads to consistent results. They compete with each other to get the most accurate results and criticize each other's work subjecting most of it to piercing scrutiny. They amass decades of empirical evidence any single bit of which could have falsified their best theories. These actual scientists with posts at the best universities do all this and then.....

Tarski,

A fleet of monkeys with slide rules, left in a cage with a pile of garbage isn't going to spin gold. Their just going to end up with a very messy cage.

(drum role)

Zakuska -an non-scientist--religious apologist with fundamentalistic leanings tells us

"Im just tryin to show that our current understandings of how things work is too simplitic [sic]"

Really? But you're not "simplitic" unlike those egghead scientists. Isn't amazing how sophisticated and complex one's mind can become by reading creationist websites!!

I still see that you think scoring polemical pot shot points on a chat board by pointing out some one elses typing mistakes gets you a ahead of the game...

Lets see what your fellow "evolutionists" have to say about tha particular debate fallacy.

The "Ad-Hominem" Fallacy: this is also known as "attacking the messenger, not the message". One of the most common forms of the ad-hominem fallacy in online debates is to poke fun at someone's spelling errors and then conclude that the person's points are wrong. In religious debates, the most common form of ad-hominem fallacy by far is to attack the morality of an irreligious opponent.

Might I suggest you learn how to debate before you engage in it!

http://www.creationt...atingTips.xhtml

PS. How did you like that "closet-creationist" web site I showed you the other day where in an Evolutionist cooberated EVERYTHING I was saying?! Yes I will grant you that he also claimed that the Sliderule-Monkies had fixed everything with their creative math formulas, but still, He showed I know a lot more about the ins and outs of the method than you apparently do.

[Tarski]

Can anyone else spot the problems here...

See Page 1 slides 6,7, & 8?

http://ocw.mit.edu/c.../lecture_17.pdf

Again. Well??

Don't keep us in suspense. What are the problems? If not for me then for everyone else. What are the problems?

(I have sneaking suspicion this is going to be funny and telling.)

[Tarski]

Tarski,

A fleet of monkeys with slide rules, left in a cage with a pile of garbage isn't going to spin gold. Their just going to end up with a very messy cage.

I still see that you think scoring polemical pot shot points on a chat board by pointing out some one elses typing mistakes gets you a ahead of the game...

Lets see what your fellow "evolutionists" have to say about tha particular debate fallacy.

Might I suggest you learn how to debate before you engage in it!

http://www.creationt...atingTips.xhtml

PS. How did you like that "closet-creationist" web site I showed you the other day where in an Evolutionist cooberated EVERYTHING I was saying?! Yes I will grant you that he also claimed that the Sliderule-Monkies had fixed everything with their creative math formulas, but still, He showed I know a lot more about the ins and outs of the method than you apparently do.

And by linking me to this are you not appealing to authority concerning logical fallacies????

Actually, appeal to authority is only certain to be a fallacy if it is attempted as a step in a deductive argument. As an informal mode of reasoning it is not always a fallacy. Rational people appeal to authority all the time which is why we take our cars to certified mechanics and our brain tumors to neurosurgeons and not the other way around.

You don't understand the issues well enough to appreciate anything close to a deductive argument. My pointing out that actual experts say such and such is not a fallacy especially since I referred more to what they have done in terms of good science that I did to their position. Either way.

Two can play at this game.

Behold:

In an appeal to authority, something is claimed to be true based on the expertise of an authority rather than objective facts. In some ways this is the opposite of the ad hominem argument. Such an appeal is not always a fallacy, but there are certain things to look out for:

The person is not an expert in the field

The expert is not identified

If there is not sufficient agreement

If the person's opinion is biased

Appeals to authority are always deductively fallacious; even a legitimate authority speaking on his area of expertise may affirm a falsehood, so no testimony of any authority is guaranteed to be true.

However, the informal fallacy occurs only when the authority cited either (a) is not an authority, or (b) is not an authority on the subject on which he is being cited. If someone either isn

[Zakuska]

Again. Well??

Don't keep us in suspense. What are the problems? If not for me then for everyone else. What are the problems?

(I have sneaking suspicion this is going to be funny and telling.)

Slide 6

6. When the animal and plants die, the carbon-14 in them starts to decay, But the Carbon-12 does not.

How does an external event such as the spirit leaving the body of a cow effect an internal atomic event like radio active decay? Or is the MIT science course affirming that spirit has control over Matter on an atomic level?

The carbon-14 starts to decay the moment the Sun creates it, and we have no idea how long it takes that C14 to get photosythesised and eaten by a herbavour. Then factor into that meat eaters and the uncertianty gets even larger.

NOTE: #3 has a problem as well because it "assumes" that the carbon14 getting replaced has a older Radio Carbon age than the carbon ("New Carbon") replacing it. This is yet another unkown they need to factor in.

[Zakuska]

Scientist are not reluctant to use expressions of certainty when writing textbooks for children. The terms of uncertainty came from your post. I would like a little more honesty and have an admission that things may or may not be as imagined. It is all imbedded in a great deal of imagination you know.

Edited to add: I am not trying to assert a 6,000 year earth either.

Case in point...

An earlier post by Tarski...

The earth is billions of years old.

Evolution is a fact.

Dating methods are about as accurate or inaccurate as scientists claim and there is not sufficient doubt to provide hope to creationists.

The decay rate of carbon 14 is correctly taken to be constant for purposes of dating and also for every other purpose I am aware of and this has not been contradicted by a single thing Zak has come up with. Not one.

I say these things in the name of Charles Darwin. Aaa-Chew.

Then when one actually reads the studies of scientists working in the field on the matter:

Turkish dendrochronology is quite interesting and relevant to this discussion and the understanding of the science of dendrochronology as a whole. One especially interesting example has to do with the work of Kuniholm and his dating of wood from the city gateway at Tille Höyük - an ancient city. What happened was that the t-value wiggle-match produced by computer analysis came up with not one, but three matches of 1258, 1140, and 981 B.C. - each with a greater than 99.9% certainty.19 Notice the figure detailing false matches from Tille Höyük at right. Also notice the alignment of the Tille Höyük sequence with the Gordion master sequence (figure above) and with a completely random sequence. Which one has a closer match? It all seems rather subjective does it not? - and this is done with computer assistance.

http://www.detecting...m/carbon14.html

How can that be? The computers used to "calibrate" C14 dating with tree ring data gave this Turkish scientists 3 different dates all with a 99.9% chance of certianty!? (Monkies-with-slide-rules)

And speaking to the general stability and unpredictability of atmospheric Carbon concentrations:

Scientists detect huge carbon 'burp' that helped end last ice age

NOTE: And for the record, I'm not advocating a 6000 year old earth either.

[Tarski]

How does an external event such as the spirit leaving the body of a cow effect an internal atomic event like radio active decay? Or is the MIT science course affirming that spirit has control over Matter on an atomic level?

The carbon-14 starts to decay the moment the Sun creates it, and we have no idea how long it takes that C14 to get photosythesised and eaten by a herbavour. Then factor into that meat eaters and the uncertianty gets even larger.

OK. LOL Well, I am surprised you didn't complain about the sentence that said that the rate of decay was ever decreasing! (Is that wrong?)

Anyway, (and everyone should pay attention here) this a perfect example which shows you do not know how to think about radioactive decay even at the most basic level conceptually!

It is the same confusion you exhibited when you complained about all the time if took for a newly created C14 atom to descend through the atmosphere and all that.

So here is the explanation:

The probability that a given C14 nucleus will decay is independent of how long it has been since it was created!

The number X(t) of undecayed atoms in a sample at time t minutes from its creation at t0 is a temporally homogeneous birth-death Markov process. More specifically is is a binomial process which in the limit of large numbers of atoms becomes a Poisson process.

The key feature of a Markov process is this independence of prior history.

It is like flipping a coin--the probability of getting tales is independent of how many times it has been flipped in the past.

The atomic clock idea relates to a sample of a large number of atoms. The decay of a single atom says nothing about how long it has existed.

A little more detail:

The probability that a C14 atom will decay in an infinitesimal interval between t and t+dt is given by (1/Tau)dt where Tau is a constant independent of time t.

From this humble beginning (derivable from the foundations of QM) we arrive at the appropriate differential equations which allow us to conclude that X(t) is a binomial random variable (and in particular a Markov process).

The way Zak is thinking about radioactive decay is incorrect. The clock starts upon the death of the animal or plant only in the sense that there are no more metabolic processes to replenish the supply of undecayed C14 in the body. Then the usual formulas for number of undecayed atoms can be applied starting at that time. It has nothing to do with the history of the individual atoms.

Zak's sarcastic comments about the spirit leaving the body of a cow affecting the atoms and his previous pontifications about how long it takes the newly created C14 atoms to fall through the atmosphere and work their way through plants and into the bodies of animals shows only one thing: Zakuska has no idea what he is talking about. He shows fundamental conceptual confusion about the stochastic concepts underlying radioactive decay.

[Zakuska]

OK. LOL Well, I am surprised you didn't complain about the sentence that said that the rate of decay was ever decreasing! (Is that wrong?)

Anyway, (and everyone should pay attention here) this a perfect example which shows you do not know how to think about radioactive decay even at the most basic level conceptually!

It is the same confusion you exhibited when you complained about all the time if took for a newly created C14 atom to descend through the atmosphere and all that.

So here is the explanation:

The probability that a given C14 nucleus will decay is independent of how long it has been since it was created!

The number X(t) of undecayed atoms in a sample at time t minutes from its creation at t0 is a temporally homogeneous birth-death Markov process. More specifically is is a binomial process which in the limit of large numbers of atoms becomes a Poisson process.

The key feature of a Markov process is this independence of prior history.

It is like flipping a coin--the probability of getting tales is independent of how many times it has been flipped in the past.

The atomic clock idea relates to a sample of a large number of atoms. The decay of a single atom says nothing about how long it has existed.

A little more detail:

The probability that a C14 atom will decay in an infinitesimal interval between t and t+dt is given by (1/Tau)dt where Tau is a constant independent of time t.

From this humble beginning (derivable from the foundations of QM) we arrive at the appropriate differential equations which allow us to conclude that X(t) is a binomial random variable (and in particular a Markov process).

The way Zak is thinking about radioactive decay is incorrect. The clock starts upon the death of the animal or plant only in the sense that there are no more metabolic processes to replenish the supply of undecayed C14 in the body. Then the usual formulas for number of undecayed atoms can be applied starting at that time. It has nothing to do with the history of the individual atoms.

Zak's sarcastic comments about the spirit leaving the body of a cow affecting the atoms and his previous pontifications about how long it takes the newly created C14 atoms to fall through the atmosphere and work their way through plants and into the bodies of animals shows only one thing: Zakuska has no idea what he is talking about. He shows fundamental conceptual confusion about the stochastic concepts underlying radioactive decay.

But theres the problem Tarski. Plants are photosythesizing from a CO2 reservior made up many C14 Atoms with unkown histories and unkown amounts of prior radiocarbon decay ticks. At any given time... on any give breeze that blows past a tree carbon from a million years ago could be getting photosythesized into place, THUS the OLD carbon upwells from deep sea water effecting the apparent age of seals and sea life. You have to not only know that C14 was at a certian concentration at any given time, but what the ratios of the ages of the C14 Atoms where as well.

[Tarski]

But theres the problem Tarski. Plants are photosythesizing from a CO2 reservior made up many C14 Atoms with unkown histories and unkown amounts of prior radiocarbon decay ticks. At any given time... on any give breeze that blows past a tree carbon from a million years ago could be getting photosythesized into place, THUS the OLD carbon upwells from deep sea water effecting the apparent age of seals and sea life. You have to not only know that C14 was at a certian concentration at any given time, but what the ratios of the ages of the C14 Atoms where as well.

You didn't get it!!!!!!!!!!!

It doesn't matter how old a C14 atom is. Not at all. Every C14 atom in a sample could be replaced by ones created billions of years ago and it wouldn't affect a thing (as long as the ratio of C14 to C12 is left alone).

Markov process Zak!

[Zakuska]

You didn't get it!!!!!!!!!!!

It doesn't matter how old a C14 atom is. Not at all. Every C14 atom in a sample could be replaced by ones created billions of years ago and it wouldn't affect a thing (as long as the ratio of C14 to C12 is left alone).

Markov process Zak!

You didn't get it Tarski. Its a function of time.

If they take a sample of my bones and 1/3 of the atoms are Carbon14 that is 6000 years old. And 1/3 is 4000 years old and 1/3 is created the day before I die. You better bet thats going to effect how old the experiments are going to date me to.

Other wise the seals who died yesterday and where carbon dated to 2000 years ago couldn't be effected by "OLD Carbon" and RESERVIOR effect.

[semlogo]

You didn't get it Tarski. Its a function of time.

If they take a sample of my bones and 1/3 of the atoms are Carbon14 that is 6000 years old. And 1/3 is 4000 years old and 1/3 is created the day before I die. You better bet thats going to effect how old the experiments are going to date me to.

Other wise the seals who died yesterday and where carbon dated to 2000 years ago couldn't be effected by "OLD Carbon" and RESERVIOR effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect

[Zakuska]

Yep as predicted... Ad hominem... instead of dealing with the data.

[semlogo]

Yep as predicted... Ad hominem... instead of dealing with the data.

Tarski already dealt with your data numerous times. Your response is typically to ignore him, and then proceed to C&P even more text that you clearly don't understand.

[Tarski]

You didn't get it Tarski. Its a function of time.

If they take a sample of my bones and 1/3 of the atoms are Carbon14 that is 6000 years old. And 1/3 is 4000 years old and 1/3 is created the day before I die. You better bet thats going to effect how old the experiments are going to date me to.

Other wise the seals who died yesterday and where carbon dated to 2000 years ago couldn't be effected by "OLD Carbon" and RESERVIOR effect.

WRONG!!!!!!!!

The probability of decay of a C14 atom is independent of its age. Period

You are clueless.

[Zakuska]

WRONG!!!!!!!!

The probability of decay of a C14 atom is independent of its age. Period

Yet 6000 year old carbon (1/3 the sample) should have an overly low ratio of c14 carbon remaining (Remember ~5760 half life). Where as the younger carbon 2/3 would have higher ratios of them remaining. THUS considering the whole sample as being from roughtly the same age throughs off the accuracy of the calculation because the calculation assumes that all the carbon in any given sample is roughly the same age.

[ERayR]

WRONG!!!!!!!!

The probability of decay of a C14 atom is independent of its age. Period

You are clueless.

Are these people also clueless?

http://www.ndt-ed.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/Radiography/Physics/carbondating.htm

"Radio-carbon dating is a method of obtaining age estimates on organic materials. The word "estimates" is used because there is a significant amount of uncertainty in these measurements. Each sample type has specific problems associated with its use for dating purposes, including contamination and special environmental effects. More information on the sources of error in carbon dating are presented at the bottom of this page."

Uncertainty in Carbon Dating

As mentioned above, there is significant uncertainty in carbon dating. There are several variables that contribute to this uncertainty. First, as mentioned previously, the proportions of C-14 in the atmosphere in historic times is unknown. The C-14:C-12 atmospheric ratio is known to vary over time and it is not at all certain that the curve is

[Zakuska]

Tarski already dealt with your data numerous times. Your response is typically to ignore him, and then proceed to C&P even more text that you clearly don't understand.

Tarski said the tree ring data cooberates everything... yet when I look at the data for tree rings it gets even more muddy and convoluted. I mean... 3 different dates all of which have a 99.9+ % of Certainty! Scientists ignoring regional calibration and co2 concentration curves!

I thought only creationists did stuff like that!

[semlogo]

Tarski said the tree ring data cooberates everything... yet when I look at the data for tree rings it gets even more muddy and convoluted. I mean... 3 different dates all of which have a 99.9+ % of Certainty! Scientists ignoring regional calibration and co2 concentration curves!

I thought only creationists did stuff like that!

You didn't understand the tree ring data - or anything else you've posted. Again,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect

[Tarski]

Are these people also clueless?

No, not as far as I can tell, though it is a simplified version for the purposes of education. I think that if you think there is something there that contradicts what I said then you are clueless also.

Is there something specific you would like to point out?

[Tarski]

Tarski said the tree ring data cooberates everything... yet when I look at the data for tree rings it gets even more muddy and convoluted. I mean... 3 different dates all of which have a 99.9+ % of Certainty! Scientists ignoring regional calibration and co2 concentration curves!

I thought only creationists did stuff like that!

No creationist don't do science, good or bad.

They invent fake science and misunderstand real science.

In the real science literature we find many things. For example,

1) Good solid science which has passed the test of time.

2) Apparently good science which is tentative and new.

3) Bad science --poorly executed. Some of this is by qualified people who should know better.

We also find inaccurate statements embedded in even the best papers. Most of these are of the sort that educated readers immediately and generously forgive since they know what should have been said.

The problem is that people like Zakuska just can't tell one thing from another. His lack of discrimination is understandable since he simultaneously has two problems. First is his lack of training and the likely lack of scientific ability. The second is that his motivation is religious rather than scientific.

He has shown many conceptual confusions and two outstanding ones in particular concerning how the word constant is used in science (and how a constant could have tolerances). The second is his confusion about what kind of stochastic process is radioactive decay and why the history or age of a radioactive atom does not influence its probability of decay. The "old atom" fallacy we might call it.

[Zakuska]

Yep and the Ad Hominems continue.

See... "Scientists" like Semlogo and Tarski have super secret decoder rings and only they are omnipotent enough to know what it all means.

[FutureTwitBlog]

Yep and the Ad Hominems continue.

See... "Scientists" like Semlogo and Tarski have super secret decoder rings and only they are omnipotent enough to know what it all means.

I wouldn't characterize scientific knowledge this way. At it's very basis, science is a formal way of observing the universe over and over again, under different conditions, to see what different outputs the universe gives us back - a "parameter search", if you'd like. To the uninitiated, the barrier to understanding can seem large (especially since, for some strange reason, people seem to be scared of math), but it's really not as difficult as it seems.

Having said that, I would also guess, based on some of your earlier statements, that you don't understand the basic physics behind radioactive decay and using radioactive decay to date things. I am not saying this to belittle your position (or to criticize you personally, because you probably don't work in the field) -- because there are some assumptions that do go into the model of C14 dating that people, even people in the field, probably take for granted and they need to be addressed in some cases. However, again, just because science doesn't know EVERYTHING doesn't mean it doesn't know ANYTHING -- just like religion.

Having said that, I have a question for you. Assuming that you're right, that the radioactive decay constant does have some seasonal variations, how do you see that changing the the conclusions that have been drawn as a result of C14 dating? The variations in the decay constant that they were discussing in the articles was only a small percentage, and it would seem likely that any changes in the dates resulting from that method would probably be correspondingly small. Thus, if accurate, the age of an object dated by C14 might change from, say, 10,000-12,000 B.C. to 9,500-12,500 B.C. I find it doubtful that such small variations would change the objects age from 10,000-12,000 B.C. to 500-600 B.C. (or B.C.E. if you prefer). Do you see a change this large if your results are proven, or what point do you wish to emphasize with comments?

[TAO]

Having said that, I have a question for you. Assuming that you're right, that the radioactive decay constant does have some seasonal variations, how do you see that changing the the conclusions that have been drawn as a result of C14 dating?

Because on certain years, the seasonal fluctuations go very off normal.

For example, here in Cali, we had a summer which was during one point insanely hot, and during the other, raining with no end (in fact, the hot sun lasted about a week, surrounded by rainy days). The summer before, it was as warm as the insanely hot, all summer. The summer before that, rain storms even more intense rain than this year.

Weather and seasons aren't very standard... some years a season gets 'skipped'. In fact, I would say this is pretty common.

[FutureTwitBlog]

Because on certain years, the seasonal fluctuations go very off normal.

For example, here in Cali, we had a summer which was during one point insanely hot, and during the other, raining with no end (in fact, the hot sun lasted about a week, surrounded by rainy days). The summer before, it was as warm as the insanely hot, all summer. The summer before that, rain storms even more intense rain than this year.

Weather and seasons aren't very standard... some years a season gets 'skipped'. In fact, I would say this is pretty common.

Okay, then lets explore this. If we were to assume that C14 intake is seasonally variant (a valid assumption until proven otherwise), how would this numerically affect the results of C14 dating? Would this introduce more error into the measurements (i.e. expand the range of dates for an object), introduce error into the central measurement (i.e. the date around which the range is centered), or something else? Have there been any studies done up to this point examining this question? What were the results of these studies? Were the methods used in these previous studies correct or incorrect? If they were incorrect, how would you change the experiments done in these studies to fix the errors in their methodology? How would you mathematically change the existing models of C14 decay and dating to account for seasonal variations? What experiments could be performed to confirm your model? What conclusions could you draw from these experiments?

If there are indeed problems with the C14 model that have been missed by the scientific community, I want these errors corrected ASAP! Also, this would be an awesome area to publish on -- literally groundbreaking research. So, lets band together and prove the current model incorrect (if it is indeed incorrect).

[Zakuska]

Because on certain years, the seasonal fluctuations go very off normal.

For example, here in Cali, we had a summer which was during one point insanely hot, and during the other, raining with no end (in fact, the hot sun lasted about a week, surrounded by rainy days). The summer before, it was as warm as the insanely hot, all summer. The summer before that, rain storms even more intense rain than this year.

Weather and seasons aren't very standard... some years a season gets 'skipped'. In fact, I would say this is pretty common.

A well documented Phenominon in the very region the Master tree ring chronologies were taken from!

In Anatolia, junipers (the most important species used in Anatolian tree-ring work) will, in some years, not grow a ring: Newton [2004] gives examples. Such missing rings could cause statistical matching to mislead; as such, the problem is potentially serious.)

http://www.informath.org/ATSU04a.pdf

[TAO]

Okay, then lets explore this. If we were to assume that C14 intake is seasonally variant (a valid assumption until proven otherwise), how would this numerically affect the results of C14 dating? Would this introduce more error into the measurements (i.e. expand the range of dates for an object), introduce error into the central measurement (i.e. the date around which the range is centered), or something else? Have there been any studies done up to this point examining this question? What were the results of these studies? Were the methods used in these previous studies correct or incorrect? If they were incorrect, how would you change the experiments done in these studies to fix the errors in their methodology? How would you mathematically change the existing models of C14 decay and dating to account for seasonal variations? What experiments could be performed to confirm your model? What conclusions could you draw from these experiments?

If there are indeed problems with the C14 model that have been missed by the scientific community, I want these errors corrected ASAP! Also, this would be an awesome area to publish on -- literally groundbreaking research. So, lets band together and prove the current model incorrect (if it is indeed incorrect).

It would produce a much larger margin of error. Temperatures very greatly (50s to 120s) in certain areas, and, thus, we have a great margin of error because of such.

I can't answer whether there have been studies or results... probably better to ask Zak about that one. Same with the model... he'll be able to provide much better links than I can.