What do we really know about radioisotopes?

2015-05-12T10:33:49-04:00

https://answersingenesis.org/geology/radiometric-dating/radiometric-dating-problems-with-the-assumptions/. I came across this article about radiometric dating. It's on a Creationist website so there may or may not be some bias. I wanted to make this an unbiased research project so I am inviting people from a variety of different schools of thought. Atheists agnostics, deists and Creationists are invited to do a research paper on the following questions:

Radiometric Dating: Problems with the Assumptions

Once you understand the basic science of radiometric dating, you can see how wrong assumptions lead to incorrect dates.

Response by SPC Nathan Freeman made May 12 at 2015 10:47 AM

2015-05-12T10:47:24-04:00

What effect does extreme heat (such as being melted into magma) have on radioisotopes?
What effect does a nuclear explosion (such as the Big Bang) have on the decay rate of radioisotopes?

My hypothesis is that extreme heat and or nuclear combustion could significantly accelerate the decay of radioisotopes. Also it may be possible that the parent element and the base element could appear side by side in a creation event. Surely, I'm not the only one to think that this should be a valid question and worth experimenting on.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, (I've always wanted to say that) is to find five research papers on this subject and write an essay on the findings of the research. Please use APA format when citing the papers. Open source websites such as wikipedia will not count. Put it in a Word document and post it on this forum.

Response by SPC Jan Allbright, M.Sc., R.S. made May 12 at 2015 10:47 AM

2015-05-12T10:47:18-04:00

This guy?
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Andrew_Snelling

Andrew Snelling - RationalWiki

Andrew A. Snelling is an Australian geologist and young-Earth creationist. He is also the first, only, and hopefully last, editor of the Answers Research Journal.[1] He is the founder of the Journal of Creation and author of the two-volume Earth's Catastrophic Past — 1100 pages of creationist twaddle.

Response by SSgt Private RallyPoint Member made May 12 at 2015 11:01 AM

2015-05-12T11:01:51-04:00

When you change the molecular composition of a cell you cause death and any kind of radiation does that.

Response by SPC Private RallyPoint Member made May 12 at 2015 11:33 AM

2015-05-12T11:33:53-04:00

Here's my first impression of the webpage. This will likely be a fun forum and I look forward to the results. Hopefully, my jobs won't be too time-consuming.

Anyway, all of the observations seem to be accurate, and come from reputable scientific journals, which presumably means someone will, or already has, confirmed the results of the observations. We can't really tell, because the website lists none of these sources, only the analyses of these observations by admittedly creationist authors. Does this mean they are necessarily incorrect? No. But I doubt any material that doesn't properly list its sources. I have access to a couple of the journals collected works, and for the ones I don't, I have friends attending nearby universities that likely would help me out.

I won't be an authority on the subject without years of study, and can contribute very little on a discussion on the efficacy of radiometric dating (You've seen how many dating methods there are, right?). I will say that scientists aren't ignoring these results, like 'contamination' in samples from seabeds, radiometric dating does require an understanding of the environmental forces at work. But it seems you wish to discuss the "Constant Decay Rate" problem specifically.

Sure, let me run out and take a few classes on advance calculus and quantum physics. Be right back.

Side note: possible biases by the author ARE relevant.

Response by SGT James Elphick made May 12 at 2015 11:56 AM

2015-05-12T11:56:55-04:00

I'm no geologist but I know a little bit about a few things so I will address his contentions:

1. Conditions at time zero: His argument here is weak. Of course no one knows how much was there to see how much material was in the rock but that is how the dating process works - taking known quantities of each substance and solving for x=time by using a known decay rate (I'll address this further). Second, he says that young lava flows show unexpectedly high ages but lava is melted rock being redeposited on the surface so all we are really seeing is "old" rock in melted form coming to the surface. So if the sample shows that it is 350,000 years old then that is likely when the rock was first melted. He also claims that the method is unreliable because of vast differences in the age determined from basalts at the Grand Canyon yet both yield ages much older than the 6000 years he would have us believe.

2. No contamination: Scientists will readily agree that contamination happens as soils shift, volcanoes erupt, and the earth moves. However, based on the equation above (2 known substances/amounts with a known decay rate; solve for x=time) it is still determined that there are sufficient isotopes to date the earth itself to millions or billions of years old, not 6000 years. So therefore, although it might not be possible to accurately date the age at which that rock formed, it is possible to determine the age of the earth.

3. Constant decay rate: The rate of decay is constant, it's a law of nature. One example showing unusual circumstances is not sufficient to throw out the entire body of work. Also, his wording there is troublesome. The site produced abundant helium but only 6000 years worth leaked out. Does that mean that the rest is still trapped in the rock? Or was lost because it had leaked out? Also, he says in the first paragraph that research has shown that decay rates are constant and are not changed by heat, pressure, or the like. So again, one example is not sufficient to change the basic premise.

The thing about scientific research is that one can not go in with an assumed answer or they will invariably skew the data in favor of what they hope to find (this happens more frequently than it should). He is taking a body of research and attempting to bend it to his own perceptions thus his logic has holes and weaknesses that cannot stand up to scrutiny.

Response by SSgt Christopher Brose made May 12 at 2015 2:31 PM

2015-05-12T14:31:45-04:00

SPC Nathan Freeman -- Did you really say "there may or may not be some bias" on a Creationist website? I don't think it's possible to be any more biased!

That doesn't mean I disagree with your linked source.

Assumptions are actually what got me to question evolution in the first place. I grew up believing in evolution. I grew up in utter fascination with a Time/Life book on the earth's origins my grandmother had at her house. But the assumptions...

The beginning of the end for me was the question, "How do they know that?" I became a creationist long before I ever became a practicing Christian. Ultimately, I believe that is why evolutionists are so invested in the idea of evolution -- they don't want to deal with the implication that there might be a creator, because then they might have to be accountable to someone greater than themselves, so they glom onto the theory which makes it not necessary.

The problem with that approach is it leads to crappy science. People accept absurd ideas and use inane reasoning, even if the science points in the other direction. Evolutionists make fun of the church in the middle ages (and rightly so IMO) for being the self-appointed arbiters of all knowledge & truth and suppressors of contrary viewpoints, yet this is exactly the role they have placed themselves in over the last couple of centuries.

The conflicting data regarding dating is exactly the kind of thing that is not addressed in schools, even though it is a perfectly legitimate science topic. Why? Because questioning the legitimacy of data impedes the indoctrination process. Evolutionists don't want people asking those types of questions until long after the people asking them have completely sold out to evolution. (They'd prefer people not asking such questions ever, but some people just don't follow the script. I submit myself as an example.)

Regarding the dates of rocks, I think it is pretty self evident that the layers of rock on top of a stack of strata should be younger than the layers of rock on the bottom. When the radiometric dating shows otherwise, it is either disregarded and hidden, or explained away by "overthrust" (regardless of whether there is any other supporting evidence for such overthrust).

Response by SPC Nathan Freeman made May 12 at 2015 2:54 PM

2015-05-12T14:54:06-04:00

Let me clarify the kind of experiment I'm looking for:

Let's take two samples 1) purified uranium 2) uranium ore with decay attached (decay should be measured and verified before the experiment).

Melt the samples in a controlled setting and maintain the melted state for one day, one week and one month (measuring results between tests) Perhaps a second test where electromagnetic fields are in play (probably won't make a difference but then again it might)

In another test, take the two samples (again measuring before the experiment) and subject the sample to a nuclear blast. This can be done underground.

Is there a significant change in decay rate under these extreme conditions? Does prolonged exposure accelerate the process? and if so at what rate? If the acceleration does happen, will it continue for some time after the samples are brought back to normal conditions? How long does it take to digress to the normal rate of decay?

I think this experiment would satisfy any questions concerning the accuracy of radiometric dating. Does anyone disagree on the design of the experiment?

Response by SGT Jeremiah B. made May 12 at 2015 5:41 PM

2015-05-12T17:41:03-04:00

I don't know much about radioisotopes, but I know AIG. AIG is enormously biased and rejects or completely misunderstands most of what they talk about. I've interacted personally with one of their writers and...yeah, not one whit is given about truth. It's all about what they can shoe-horn into their predetermined and rigid Modernist interpretation of Genesis.

If you're looking for a Christian perspective coming from the other direction, I'd go with BioLogos. http://biologos.org/

A much fairer approach to carbon dating that isn't trying to dismantle evidence before it even starts study -
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/wiens.html

BioLogos: Science and faith in harmony

BioLogos invites the church and the world to see the harmony between science and biblical faith as we present an evolutionary understanding of God’s creation.

Response by PVT Private RallyPoint Member made May 13 at 2015 9:50 AM

2015-05-13T09:50:00-04:00

Decay rate has been proven to be totally constant thousands of times. That is a simple law of nature, and anyone who knows the slightest thing about chemistry could tell you exactly why that is. I won't go into detail, as I'm sure it has already been said. Furthermore, scientists test many samples in one area for a date. If several experiments lead to the same result, then it is no longer subject to opinion. I feel as though the author of that article doesn't understand too much basic chemistry.

Response by PO1 Matthew Maxon made May 13 at 2015 10:02 AM

2015-05-13T10:02:00-04:00

ANYTHING from Answers in Genesis is NOT science. Plain and simple. Its religion, and religion with an agenda only wrapped in pseudoscience babble. Dismissed out of hand.

Response by Maj Private RallyPoint Member made May 13 at 2015 1:44 PM

2015-05-13T13:44:41-04:00

We know and understand a great deal about radiometric dating, and even this criminal justice major can refute all three of Dr Snelling's claims, courtesy of the internet:

1. Conditions at time zero need not be known, courtesy of isochron dating and fission track dating. Also, with U-Pb dating utilizing zircon crystals, the conditions at time zero ARE known, as zircon crystals do not form with lead as part of the crystalline structure, but they do incorporate uranium. Thus, lead content at the time of formation can be assumed to be zero.

2. Contamination is not an issue when using zircon as the vessel of uranium. Aside from being very durable and being able to survive while its parent rock melts, zircon crystals do not form with lead as part of their crystalline structure. Thus, any damage to the crystal will only result in a younger age, due to lead loss.

3. I think that we can reasonably agree that one experiment which Dr Snelling and other creationists executed, very likely suffers from confirmation bias. But the real nail in the coffin for the assertion that we only have a century of observations for radioactive decay rates, is that we can - and do - observe past radioactive decay rates via decay in the luminosity (on various wavelengths) of supernovae. SN1987A is a commonly studied supernova, which has produced significant data to support constant decay rates. SN1987A is also nearly 170,000 light-years away, and by that alone we know the universe is older than 6,000 years, because otherwise we couldn't even see it.

Response by SSG John Erny made May 22 at 2015 3:26 PM

2015-05-22T15:26:44-04:00

Carbon 14 dating has been used for a long time to measure the age of things in our world. Look beyond our world and solar system you are looking back in time. Hubble has seen back to about 14 Billion years ago. In this grand scheme of things we are less than a speck of dust.

Faith and science are often at odds with each other but that is OK, you can choose one or the other, or even both. It is a personal choice and leave it at that.

Response by SFC Joseph James made May 22 at 2015 4:38 PM

2015-05-22T16:38:21-04:00

Sounds like Witchcraft! Burn Her!

Response by SGT Hector Rojas, AIGA, SHA made May 22 at 2015 8:52 PM

2015-05-22T20:52:31-04:00

Whats the point?

You're inviting opinions not based on of scientific training, just weekend research, and for what?

Veiled religious undertones that frankly are getting out of hand in RP.