"Relative Dating" or "Absolute Dating" or "Chronometric Dating"

Tristen · October 8, 2023

On 9/28/2023 at 2:06 AM, IgnatioDeLoyola said:

Dear Tristen,

Zircons tested for U-Pb dating formed in igneous rocks. That is, rocks formed from Magma. These rocks are typically formed at between 900 - 1200 degrees celsius.

While it is technically possible that God grew all zircons in a lab at 600 degrees celsius in a bath of radiogenic lead, and I wasn't around back then to see it, I submit that that's quite unlikely.

Moreover, there are four isotopes of lead found in nature - 204, 206, 207 and 208. 204 is primordial lead - the other three are formed from specific radioactive decay processes (from U238, U235 and Th232). Therefore scientists are not simply measuring the amount of lead in a sample, but specifically the amount of radiogenic lead.

Again, it is possible that God just so happened to artificially inject 600 degree Zircons with just the right amount of Pb206 to correspond to U238 and give a very old age, and this apparent age should just so happen to coincide with apparent isochron and Ar/Ar ages for said rock. But there is no known natural process to explain this other than the rock being really old.

They can indeed. And, given the paucity of Pb-206, 207 and 208 in nature and surrounding zircons in rocks, such a metamorphic event would leach more radiogenic lead than it would add, giving a lower age.

Moreover, using Ar-Ar plateaus and isochron methods we could likely detect metamorphic events in a rock, or part of a rock. An Ar-Ar partial plateau would indicate such a metamorphic event for example, and a partial isochron / disturbed isochron also.

Again, there are not other natural explanations for these results other than an old rock undergoing a partial metamorphosis, or God directly interfering in nature and making it look this way.

You are right, epistemologically. Direct observations are better than assumptions. The question therefore is: how well can we test these assumptions? Are there ways, from observation, of detecting whether our assumptions are wrong?

In radiometric dating, there most certainly are ways of testing our assumptions. For example:

- Directly observing the formation of igneous rocks in nature, and what "new" zircons and other grains look like / their chemical composition. Do many of them contain significant amounts of lead? Do they date as old when they are in fact young?

- Using self-checking methods like Ar-Ar or Rb-Sr -where the results obviously don't work / show signs if the assumptions are wrong.

- Dating using multiple methods on the same rock, and ensuring that the results are within a margin of error of each other (because it would be damned odd if all the different assumptions where wrong in exactly the same proportion in the same rock with totally different chemicals).

None of this raises our conclusions to the same epistemic level as literally travelling back billions of years and seeing all rocks actually form. But, when done over and over again (and such checking of assumptions has been done tens of thousands of times) it leads to a very high level of certainty.

But there is. Using several independent methods of radiometric dating does indeed check that they work.

The probability that all could be wrong, in exactly the same direction and magnitude, completely independently, is extremely low. Again, the epistemic point holds - using 3 or 4 methods doesn't raise radiometric dating to the level of "observation" of age. But it does hugely increase our level of confidence in it as fact.

Again, no. The very existence of the isochron shows that the assumptions were correct. If they were not, the chances of an isochron existing at random (with 4 or more points) would be essentially zero.

BTW, before you say it, yes, false isochrons can exist (in very specific circumstances). But they are of entirely random slope - 50% give negative ages for example. Therefore (a) we know the number of false isochrons is exceedingly low from observation, and (b) they will essentially never line up in age with other methods of dating since they are effectively fully random.

Also, K-Ar / Ar-Ar dating also deals with "assumptions" convincingly but in different ways to isochron dating. Ar doesn't exist in any quantity on earth, excluding the possibility of daughter element being present in the original sample. Metamorphic events are easily detectable through partial plateaus, therefore we are sure the system has been closed, or if it hasn't been we know. And if leaching has occured, it will disproportionately affect the daughter Argon (which is a noble gas) giving younger, not older, dates.

I am fully aware that your epistemic point still holds. It would be still be better, in any particular case, to go back a few billion years to actually see it happen.

But that doesn't mean we can't be very, very certain that the earth is very, very old. We can be, and are. We have literally thousands of corroborating measurements saying so, often from different methods where there is no explanation for overlap of the results.

BTW - there are two final assumption:

1. That the rate of radiometric decay hasn't, at one point, sped up exponentially to make new samples appear old. But even this is testable, to an extent. Or at least, enough to thoroughly disprove the young-earth narrative.

2. That God hasn't deliberately made the earth "look" old, to test our faith. I have biblical and personal reasons for not believing this (and I could also philosophically invoke Occam's Razor) - but there is no scientific way to check whether we are all being tricked.

Hello IgnatioDeLoyola.

You said, “Zircons tested for U-Pb dating formed in igneous rocks. That is, rocks formed from Magma. These rocks are typically formed at between 900 - 1200 degrees celsius.”

You have missed the point – which is, the experimental data demonstrates that there are temperatures at which lead is known to have the capacity to move in and out of zircons (~600-800^oC). If, as you say, zircons “typically formed at between 900 - 1200 degrees celsius”, and we find them in rocks that are less than 100 “degrees celsius”, then the zircons have definitely transversed that range – and we can therefore not automatically trust that the present lead found inside the zircon is a direct reflection of the Uranium that was present when the rock formed. Even if the other assumptions of the dating methods hold true, any gain of lead would make the rocks appear older, and any loss of lead would make the rocks appear younger.

And we haven’t even mentioned the potential of Uranium gain (or loss).

And you appear to have skipped over my other points about how the scientific literature reveals several ways in which the lead measurements of samples can be skewed.

“While it is technically possible that God grew all zircons in a lab at 600 degrees celsius in a bath of radiogenic lead, and I wasn't around back then to see it, I submit that that's quite unlikely.”

This is a Strawman argument – whereby you are trying to misrepresent my position to make it sound ridiculous. Logic fallacies such as this are technically irrational – and therefore have no bearing on truth.

It’s a bad sign that you would resort to dishonest rhetoricisms so early in our discussion.

“Moreover, there are four isotopes of lead found in nature - 204, 206, 207 and 208. 204 is primordial lead - the other three are formed from specific radioactive decay processes (from U238, U235 and Th232). Therefore scientists are not simply measuring the amount of lead in a sample, but specifically the amount of radiogenic lead”

None of which logically addresses the potential movement of lead out of (or in to) the zircon.

In fact, if any isotope in the decay chain between uranium and lead can move in or out of zircons, then the ratios can not, with objective confidence, be trusted to reflect the age of the rocks.

“Again, it is possible that God just so happened to artificially inject 600 degree Zircons with just the right amount of Pb206 to correspond to U238 and give a very old age”

And another Strawman argument.

“and this apparent age should just so happen to coincide with apparent isochron and Ar/Ar ages for said rock”

You haven’t presented evidence for this supposed agreement.

But if you like, I will happily discuss the broad history of scientific literature openly questioning the assumptions of the “Ar/Ar” dating method.

“But there is no known natural process to explain this other than the rock being really old”

This is a philosophical, rather than scientific, argument.

Firstly, I want to give credit for your use of properly hedged language. Most people arguing your position fail to recognize the logical limits of what they are proposing.

Secondly, I would point out that the Christian paradigm is not restricted to “natural” explanations. To quote my original post: “ultimately, you are assuming a naturalistic origin of these zircons. Who but God knows how much lead would be present in a newly created zircon?”.

Finally, the lack of another “known natural process” does not address the inherent logical weaknesses of the dating method being discussed.

“On 10/12/2022 at 9:01 AM, Tristen said:

Zircons can also undergo recrystallization – allowing for the removal and/or acquisition of lead.

They can indeed. And, given the paucity of Pb-206, 207 and 208 in nature and surrounding zircons in rocks, such a metamorphic event would leach more radiogenic lead than it would add, giving a lower age.”

You are therefore conceding that the movement of lead between the inside and outside of the zircon can undermine the accuracy of the supposed age assigned to the rock by this method.

I’m not arguing that the ‘ages’ are too high. I’m arguing that the dating methods are inherently, wholly untrustworthy – namely because that are founded on assumptions that are known (by observation) to be, at-least, non-universal.

“Moreover, using Ar-Ar plateaus and isochron methods we could likely detect metamorphic events in a rock, or part of a rock. An Ar-Ar partial plateau would indicate such a metamorphic event for example, and a partial isochron / disturbed isochron also”

Once again, I am happy to go through the scientific literature questioning the veracity of these methods.

Remembering, scientifically speaking, I only have to show limited data that the method is untrustworthy – i.e. examples where the supposed ‘ages’ derived from these methods were rejected in the absence of testable explanations.

“Again, there are not other natural explanations for these results other than an old rock undergoing a partial metamorphosis, or God directly interfering in nature and making it look this way.”

You mean “not other [known] natural explanations”? How quickly you drifted from properly hedged language into rhetorical absolutes.

On a matter of logic, the fact that there are no better “explanations” currently available does not entail that the currently preferred “explanation” is true.

Furthermore, there are plenty of “natural” reasons to distrust the popular interpretation of this data. If, as I propose, the methods are untrustworthy, then the data has no “natural” implication for the ‘age’ of the rocks.

“In radiometric dating, there most certainly are ways of testing our assumptions. For example:

- Directly observing the formation of igneous rocks in nature, and what "new" zircons and other grains look like / their chemical composition. Do many of them contain significant amounts of lead? Do they date as old when they are in fact young?”

I’ve seen many studies showing newly formed rocks to be ‘dated’ as much older than their observed age - due to the presence of daughter isotopes. I can’t remember if any specifically addressed the lead content of zircons. I am therefore happy to look at this data if you have it.

One would still have to assume that this result could be generalized from a few results to all rock formation over all of the length of history supposed by the interpreter – a massive magnitude of assumption.

Furthermore, this does not address the assumption that no lead has moved into, or out of, the tested zircon.

“- Using self-checking methods like Ar-Ar or Rb-Sr -where the results obviously don't work / show signs if the assumptions are wrong.”

I have definitely seen papers addressing excess argon in newly formed rocks.

“- Dating using multiple methods on the same rock, and ensuring that the results are within a margin of error of each other (because it would be damned odd if all the different assumptions where wrong in exactly the same proportion in the same rock with totally different chemicals).”

I’ve encountered papers where the same “methods” have been used on the “same rock” (even the “same” zircon) – giving statistically meaningless data. The authors simply choose the one data point that agrees with the presupposition (i.e. what they expected/wanted to find), and arbitrarily disregard the rest of the data that didn’t make sense to them.

Therefore, any bluster about them all being in agreement is spurious – since they are self-calibrated within the same philosophical framework. That is, of course they all agree, if the disagreeing data is routinely excluded from the data set.

“None of this raises our conclusions to the same epistemic level as literally travelling back billions of years and seeing all rocks actually form. But, when done over and over again (and such checking of assumptions has been done tens of thousands of times) it leads to a very high level of certainty.”

This, again, is empty, rhetorical bluster.

Or else, where can I find this overwhelming agreement reported in the scientific literature?

Furthermore, putative agreement doesn’t matter (has no logical implication) when the methods are internally calibrated against each other according to the expectations of the pre-existing paradigm.

And again, agreement doesn’t mean anything when disagreeing data is not considered (or even reported in many cases).

Furthermore, there are many cases in the scientific literature where different methods used on the same sample disagree with each other. As well as several instances where even the same method used on the same sample provides inconsistent results (and we apparently get to just pick the one we like). Even within the same measurements of some methods, the alpha decay element commonly disagrees with the beta decay element.

Broad, sweeping, unsupported statements about how they all agree with each other are meaningless to someone who has examined the literature and considered the logic behind the methods.

“On 10/12/2022 at 9:01 AM, Tristen said:

There is no independent way to verify that “they work”.

But there is. Using several independent methods of radiometric dating does indeed check that they work.”

Given that they have been historically calibrated against each other, they are not “independent methods”. And given that they all use the same set of general assumptions, there is no truly “independent” way of checking that they “work”. This would still be true even if they all always produced consistent results – which they don’t.

“The probability that all could be wrong, in exactly the same direction and magnitude, completely independently, is extremely low”

Your reasoning here is circular. Your conclusion only holds true if the initial assumptions are correct (and if the results all actually agreed all the time).

“Again, the epistemic point holds - using 3 or 4 methods doesn't raise radiometric dating to the level of "observation" of age. But it does hugely increase our level of confidence in it as fact.”

Since they are calibrated against each other, and since disagreeable data is routinely disregarded (and sometimes not even reported), and since we can still find many instances of disagreement commonly reported in scientific literature despite this bias (usually in older papers), and since these methods are all founded on the same set of unverifiable assumptions (all of which have been demonstrated to be non-universal) – any reported agreement between them only has meaning to those with a pre-existing confirmation bias.

“The very existence of the isochron shows that the assumptions were correct”

No it doesn’t.

To reach your conclusion, one first has to assume the graphed line is an “isochron” to begin with (when the users know full-well that mixing lines, and who knows what else, mimic putative isochrons – which is the most typical explanation for an “isochron” that doesn’t make sense to them). “Isochron” dating therefore entails that an additional set of assumptions be incorporated into the methodology. The additional complexity required to generate a supposed “isochron” therefore adds to the assumption set of dating methods. Several assumptions are utilized to justify the supposed accuracy of one primary assumption.

“If they were not, the chances of an isochron existing at random (with 4 or more points) would be essentially zero”

Except, even according to those using the isochron method, there is no way to differentiate a true isochron from a mixing line – which looks exactly like an isochron – and is only proposed when the putative isochron doesn’t make sense.

“BTW, before you say it, yes, false isochrons can exist (in very specific circumstances). But they are of entirely random slope - 50% give negative ages for example. Therefore (a) we know the number of false isochrons is exceedingly low from observation, and (b) they will essentially never line up in age with other methods of dating since they are effectively fully random”

So what you are telling me is that I should simply ignore all the times that a constructed isochron doesn’t agree with the expected values – because they are not “isochrons” (obviously), but rather “false isochrons”?

This flawed, internally-biased reasoning seems common to the proponents of these dating methods. That is, ‘If one would be kind enough to ignore all the data that disagrees with the expected results, then what we are left with clearly shows that the results all agree’.

Ummm. OK. It is indeed quite difficult to argue against tautological reasoning.

Ultimately, you don’t get to tell me that the existence of a “random” isochron is “essentially zero”, but then expect me to simply ignore the times when the method gives an evidently “false isochron”.

“I am fully aware that your epistemic point still holds. It would be still be better, in any particular case, to go back a few billion years to actually see it happen. But that doesn't mean we can't be very, very certain that the earth is very, very old. We can be, and are”

I am not “certain” about any scientific claim - let alone "very, very certain".

The fact that you think “certainty” is available to science exposes your confirmation bias – i.e. facilitating your exaggerated confidence in claims - beyond what is logically possible by any method of science.

“BTW - there are two final assumption:

1. That the rate of radiometric decay hasn't, at one point, sped up exponentially to make new samples appear old. But even this is testable, to an extent. Or at least, enough to thoroughly disprove the young-earth narrative.”

And how exactly does one “test” what happened in the past without travelling to the past to perform the experiments and make the requisite observations? Whay are the experimental controls?

Or are you simply testing the decay rates in the present, and preemptively applying the uniformitarian assumption that the past was the same?

“2. That God hasn't deliberately made the earth "look" old, to test our faith. I have biblical and personal reasons for not believing this (and I could also philosophically invoke Occam's Razor) - but there is no scientific way to check whether we are all being tricked”

This is another Strawman argument.

When God created two mature humans, was He tricking us about their childhood and adolescent history? Or were they simply created to purpose?

When God directly informs us how things happened, it’s not trickery on God’s part if you decide to interpret the data in a manner that disagrees with His provided information.

IgnatioDeLoyola · October 9, 2023

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

then the zircons have definitely transversed that range – and we can therefore not automatically trust that the present lead found inside the zircon is a direct reflection of the Uranium that was present when the rock formed.

So for a short amount of time (hours or days) magma is at a temperature where Lead could enter a Zircon. Wonderful. And where is your proposed source of *radiogenic* Lead isotopes close to all Zircons during that short time of formation, that just so happens to inject enough radiogenic lead to date the rock as very old, but also in agreement with other forms of radiometric dating?

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

And we haven’t even mentioned the potential of Uranium gain (or loss).

No, because Uranium loss once the rock is formed is almost impossible, save for a metamorphic event. Uranium is extremely heavy and immotile (all isotopes) - and therefore cannot move unless the rock melts. If the rock melts, the isochrons and K-Ar dates will reset, and the U-Pb dates will reset or partially reset depending on the scale and longevity of the melt.

That's why not even the most ardent creationist suggests Uranium leaching as a probable explanation for old age dates in rocks. If you wish to posit a hypothesis however about how and why this may happen, you may do so here.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

It’s a bad sign that you would resort to dishonest rhetoricisms so early in our discussion.

I can only presume in absence of any actual hypothesis from you. All I have is insinuation, not explanation or prediction.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

None of which logically addresses the potential movement of lead out of (or in to) the zircon

Radiogenic lead cannot move into a Zircon, even during a metamorphic event, unless it exists in higher concentration outside the Zircon than within. I have never heard of this being the case (although I challenge you to present a case study of this).

Lead moving out of a zircon will (a) give a younger date than the true date (hardly a boon for biblical literalists), (b) be a metamorphic event that can and will be detected using other methods of radiometric dating, (c) will put U-Pb dating at variance with other methods, with younger ages reported.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

In fact, if any isotope in the decay chain between uranium and lead can move in or out of zircons, then the ratios can not, with objective confidence, be trusted to reflect the age of the rocks.

I'm not sure about your understand of geology, but heavy metals don't tend to leak our of solid rocks. Nor do I understand where you think all the high-concentration rare heavy metal isotopes that are moving into these rocks to give artifically high dates are coming from? They are very, very rare in nature, and by their very definition are all radiogenic!

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

You haven’t presented evidence for this supposed agreement.

I would happily do so if you asked. There are literally thousands of cases where multiple independent dating methods have been in agreement. Would you like some links?

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

ultimately, you are assuming a naturalistic origin of these zircons. Who but God knows how much lead would be present in a newly created zircon?”.

Agreed, God could just have seeded a bunch of rocks with exactly the right amount of radiogenic lead, argon, strontium and other elements to look really old.

But again, this comes down the "God dunnit" argument. Impossible to disprove, but as I said I have theological reasons for disagreeing.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

You are therefore conceding that the movement of lead between the inside and outside of the zircon can undermine the accuracy of the supposed age assigned to the rock by this method.

I such sources of radiogenic lead existed (they don't), and such metamorphic events occured and were undetectable (they're not), then yes.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

I’m not arguing that the ‘ages’ are too high. I’m arguing that the dating methods are inherently, wholly untrustworthy – namely because that are founded on assumptions that are known (by observation) to be, at-least, non-universal.

I think if you want any assumption in somewhere as big as nature to be "universal", outside of fundamental constants, you'll have a hard time. That is why it's so useful to have multiple methods that check assumptions, detect metamorphic events, etc.

Demanding that assumptions are always correct everywhere, even when we can test if they are wrong, is entirely unreasonable.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

Remembering, scientifically speaking, I only have to show limited data that the method is untrustworthy – i.e. examples where the supposed ‘ages’ derived from these methods were rejected in the absence of testable explanations.

Depends on the type of evidence.

It is always possible to find an exception that proves the rule.

For example, if we do enough radiometric dating of enough rocks, we will find a rock one day where two methods both happen to yield the same incorrect date. This is not a theory, it is a statistical fact. But it wouldn't call into question the wider method.

So I will await your evidence I suppose!

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

On a matter of logic, the fact that there are no better “explanations” currently available does not entail that the currently preferred “explanation” is true.

Of course, but we should believe the explanation that is plain, obvious, well evidenced, and staring us in the face. When you come up with a testable alternative, I'll happily review your hypothesis and its testable predictions.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

If, as I propose, the methods are untrustworthy, then the data has no “natural” implication for the ‘age’ of the rocks.

Actually, even in this case, you would *still* have something to explain. That is, why so often faulty methods of dating which could yield any date at all happen to agree within a margin of error.

Hypotheses should account for the known observed facts after all. And, btw, this is why so many creationist organisations started to posit more systemic issues with dating, such as the possibility that decay rates had increased dramatically at some point in the past.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

I’ve seen many studies showing newly formed rocks to be ‘dated’ as much older than their observed age - due to the presence of daughter isotopes. I can’t remember if any specifically addressed the lead content of zircons. I am therefore happy to look at this data if you have it.

Please do. I would start at U-Pb if I were you - since Ar-40 doesn't exist in the atmosphere, and existing Sr-87 is actually a testable assumption of Rb-Sr dating (any the same holds for other isochron methods).

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

Furthermore, this does not address the assumption that no lead has moved into, or out of, the tested zircon.

Which is why it is very rare to see a rock dated with purely U-Pb, especially where a complex thermal history is suspected.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

I have definitely seen papers addressing excess argon in newly formed rocks.

I look forward to reading them!

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

Furthermore, putative agreement doesn’t matter (has no logical implication) when the methods are internally calibrated against each other according to the expectations of the pre-existing paradigm.

They aren't calibrated against each other. They are wholly independent, and only require known decay rates of each radioactive element to function.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

And again, agreement doesn’t mean anything when disagreeing data is not considered (or even reported in many cases).

Furthermore, there are many cases in the scientific literature where different methods used on the same sample disagree with each other

These are two competing statements. The second is right - different methods can disagree with each other, especially where a rock has a complex thermal history, and for example radiogenic lead has been leached and U-Pb gives an artificially low date.

However, this is the exception and not the norm, and is readily detectable using other methods which can detect metamorphic events. If you think you, I welcome your systematic review of the literature on radiometric dates using multiple methods.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

Given that they have been historically calibrated against each other, they are not “independent methods”.

They haven't. If you have evidence otherwise, pray tell.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

And given that they all use the same set of general assumptions,

They don't. That's why it's so powerful to use several in conjuction - because they make different and independent assumptions that are uncorrelated to each other. You can always present evidence that they do though. Again, a table comparing the assumptions of U-Pb, K-Ar / Ar-Ar and Rb-Sr would be helpful. In other words, evidence.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

Your reasoning here is circular. Your conclusion only holds true if the initial assumptions are correct

No, it doesn't. The question is, if the assumptions are false, why do dating methods so often agree? This does not rely on the accuracy of assumptions - in fact it rejects their accuracy as a premise for the question.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

Since they are calibrated against each other, and since disagreeable data is routinely disregarded (and sometimes not even reported), and since we can still find many instances of disagreement commonly reported in scientific literature despite this bias (usually in older papers), and since these methods are all founded on the same set of unverifiable assumptions (all of which have been demonstrated to be non-universal)

All false. I refer to my demands for evidence in all of these areas above.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

(when the users know full-well that mixing lines, and who knows what else, mimic putative isochrons – which is the most typical explanation for an “isochron” that doesn’t make sense to them)

I dealt with false isochrons in my answer originally. They are possible. But half of all of them are negative, and their results is completely random. I addressed this already.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

Except, even according to those using the isochron method, there is no way to differentiate a true isochron from a mixing line – which looks exactly like an isochron – and is only proposed when the putative isochron doesn’t make sense.

Which it almost never will, because it will bear no relation to the results of other dating methods, and is as likely to give a date in the future as the past.

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

So what you are telling me is that I should simply ignore all the times that a constructed isochron doesn’t agree with the expected values

No. I'm asking you to evaluate from the data how many false isochrons there are (easy to do as half are negative), and also look at whether they agree with other methods (they usually do, where a mixing isochron wouldn't).

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

The fact that you think “certainty” is available to science exposes your confirmation bias

Certainty has levels and limits, a nuance you seem to have missed my dear friend!

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

Or are you simply testing the decay rates in the present, and preemptively applying the uniformitarian assumption that the past was the same?

No, I am not. I can very easily test this, both hypothetically and actually. Do you wish to know why?

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, Tristen said:

When God created two mature humans, was He tricking us about their childhood and adolescent history? Or were they simply created to purpose?

If God created humans with BCG scars on their arms when they never had a childhood injection, or broken little toes when they'd never been stubbed, then I would call Him a liar.

But he doesn't, because God is not a liar.

IgnatioDeLoyola · October 9, 2023

Oh, I should also have said in the post above, around U-Pb dating:

Due to metamorphosis lead-leaching does happen, as you rightly said. I said above it was rare for U-Pb to be used alone as a result. That is true - although I should have mentioned that multiple U-Pb methods can be used together to account for lead leaching / loss.

Large rocks with complex thermal histories would be preferentially dated using U-Pb Concordia-Discordia method. This is where a discordia plot involving of both U-235 and U-238 results from several different zircons (which are divergent as a result of lead-loss) is drawn against the corcordia (ideal plot), and the intercept of the concordia and discordia gives the age.

This can then be compared with other independent dating methods also (such as K-Ar, Ar-Ar, Sm-Nd, etc.)

BTW - another wonderful advantage of zircons is that they layer during metamorphic events (showing the testing scientist that metamorphosis has happened). That means that multiple layers on a zircon implies multiple metamorphic events - meaning that scientists can then test several zircons with U-235 and U-238 because it is likely a discordia will be present.

Like an isochron, a discordia forms from a rock of old age that has had lead leached. Unlike an isochron, a false discordia cannot be formed by mixing (because zircon grains are independent of each other.)

farouk · October 12, 2023

On 10/8/2023 at 4:36 AM, Tristen said:

Hello IgnatioDeLoyola.

You said, “Zircons tested for U-Pb dating formed in igneous rocks. That is, rocks formed from Magma. These rocks are typically formed at between 900 - 1200 degrees celsius.”

You have missed the point – which is, the experimental data demonstrates that there are temperatures at which lead is known to have the capacity to move in and out of zircons (~600-800^oC). If, as you say, zircons “typically formed at between 900 - 1200 degrees celsius”, and we find them in rocks that are less than 100 “degrees celsius”, then the zircons have definitely transversed that range – and we can therefore not automatically trust that the present lead found inside the zircon is a direct reflection of the Uranium that was present when the rock formed. Even if the other assumptions of the dating methods hold true, any gain of lead would make the rocks appear older, and any loss of lead would make the rocks appear younger.

And we haven’t even mentioned the potential of Uranium gain (or loss).

And you appear to have skipped over my other points about how the scientific literature reveals several ways in which the lead measurements of samples can be skewed.

“While it is technically possible that God grew all zircons in a lab at 600 degrees celsius in a bath of radiogenic lead, and I wasn't around back then to see it, I submit that that's quite unlikely.”

This is a Strawman argument – whereby you are trying to misrepresent my position to make it sound ridiculous. Logic fallacies such as this are technically irrational – and therefore have no bearing on truth.

It’s a bad sign that you would resort to dishonest rhetoricisms so early in our discussion.

“Moreover, there are four isotopes of lead found in nature - 204, 206, 207 and 208. 204 is primordial lead - the other three are formed from specific radioactive decay processes (from U238, U235 and Th232). Therefore scientists are not simply measuring the amount of lead in a sample, but specifically the amount of radiogenic lead”

None of which logically addresses the potential movement of lead out of (or in to) the zircon.

In fact, if any isotope in the decay chain between uranium and lead can move in or out of zircons, then the ratios can not, with objective confidence, be trusted to reflect the age of the rocks.

“Again, it is possible that God just so happened to artificially inject 600 degree Zircons with just the right amount of Pb206 to correspond to U238 and give a very old age”

And another Strawman argument.

“and this apparent age should just so happen to coincide with apparent isochron and Ar/Ar ages for said rock”

You haven’t presented evidence for this supposed agreement.

But if you like, I will happily discuss the broad history of scientific literature openly questioning the assumptions of the “Ar/Ar” dating method.

“But there is no known natural process to explain this other than the rock being really old”

This is a philosophical, rather than scientific, argument.

Firstly, I want to give credit for your use of properly hedged language. Most people arguing your position fail to recognize the logical limits of what they are proposing.

Secondly, I would point out that the Christian paradigm is not restricted to “natural” explanations. To quote my original post: “ultimately, you are assuming a naturalistic origin of these zircons. Who but God knows how much lead would be present in a newly created zircon?”.

Finally, the lack of another “known natural process” does not address the inherent logical weaknesses of the dating method being discussed.

“On 10/12/2022 at 9:01 AM, Tristen said:

Zircons can also undergo recrystallization – allowing for the removal and/or acquisition of lead.

They can indeed. And, given the paucity of Pb-206, 207 and 208 in nature and surrounding zircons in rocks, such a metamorphic event would leach more radiogenic lead than it would add, giving a lower age.”

You are therefore conceding that the movement of lead between the inside and outside of the zircon can undermine the accuracy of the supposed age assigned to the rock by this method.

I’m not arguing that the ‘ages’ are too high. I’m arguing that the dating methods are inherently, wholly untrustworthy – namely because that are founded on assumptions that are known (by observation) to be, at-least, non-universal.

“Moreover, using Ar-Ar plateaus and isochron methods we could likely detect metamorphic events in a rock, or part of a rock. An Ar-Ar partial plateau would indicate such a metamorphic event for example, and a partial isochron / disturbed isochron also”

Once again, I am happy to go through the scientific literature questioning the veracity of these methods.

Remembering, scientifically speaking, I only have to show limited data that the method is untrustworthy – i.e. examples where the supposed ‘ages’ derived from these methods were rejected in the absence of testable explanations.

“Again, there are not other natural explanations for these results other than an old rock undergoing a partial metamorphosis, or God directly interfering in nature and making it look this way.”

You mean “not other [known] natural explanations”? How quickly you drifted from properly hedged language into rhetorical absolutes.

On a matter of logic, the fact that there are no better “explanations” currently available does not entail that the currently preferred “explanation” is true.

Furthermore, there are plenty of “natural” reasons to distrust the popular interpretation of this data. If, as I propose, the methods are untrustworthy, then the data has no “natural” implication for the ‘age’ of the rocks.

“In radiometric dating, there most certainly are ways of testing our assumptions. For example:

- Directly observing the formation of igneous rocks in nature, and what "new" zircons and other grains look like / their chemical composition. Do many of them contain significant amounts of lead? Do they date as old when they are in fact young?”

I’ve seen many studies showing newly formed rocks to be ‘dated’ as much older than their observed age - due to the presence of daughter isotopes. I can’t remember if any specifically addressed the lead content of zircons. I am therefore happy to look at this data if you have it.

One would still have to assume that this result could be generalized from a few results to all rock formation over all of the length of history supposed by the interpreter – a massive magnitude of assumption.

Furthermore, this does not address the assumption that no lead has moved into, or out of, the tested zircon.

“- Using self-checking methods like Ar-Ar or Rb-Sr -where the results obviously don't work / show signs if the assumptions are wrong.”

I have definitely seen papers addressing excess argon in newly formed rocks.

“- Dating using multiple methods on the same rock, and ensuring that the results are within a margin of error of each other (because it would be damned odd if all the different assumptions where wrong in exactly the same proportion in the same rock with totally different chemicals).”

I’ve encountered papers where the same “methods” have been used on the “same rock” (even the “same” zircon) – giving statistically meaningless data. The authors simply choose the one data point that agrees with the presupposition (i.e. what they expected/wanted to find), and arbitrarily disregard the rest of the data that didn’t make sense to them.

Therefore, any bluster about them all being in agreement is spurious – since they are self-calibrated within the same philosophical framework. That is, of course they all agree, if the disagreeing data is routinely excluded from the data set.

“None of this raises our conclusions to the same epistemic level as literally travelling back billions of years and seeing all rocks actually form. But, when done over and over again (and such checking of assumptions has been done tens of thousands of times) it leads to a very high level of certainty.”

This, again, is empty, rhetorical bluster.

Or else, where can I find this overwhelming agreement reported in the scientific literature?

Furthermore, putative agreement doesn’t matter (has no logical implication) when the methods are internally calibrated against each other according to the expectations of the pre-existing paradigm.

And again, agreement doesn’t mean anything when disagreeing data is not considered (or even reported in many cases).

Furthermore, there are many cases in the scientific literature where different methods used on the same sample disagree with each other. As well as several instances where even the same method used on the same sample provides inconsistent results (and we apparently get to just pick the one we like). Even within the same measurements of some methods, the alpha decay element commonly disagrees with the beta decay element.

Broad, sweeping, unsupported statements about how they all agree with each other are meaningless to someone who has examined the literature and considered the logic behind the methods.

“On 10/12/2022 at 9:01 AM, Tristen said:

There is no independent way to verify that “they work”.

But there is. Using several independent methods of radiometric dating does indeed check that they work.”

Given that they have been historically calibrated against each other, they are not “independent methods”. And given that they all use the same set of general assumptions, there is no truly “independent” way of checking that they “work”. This would still be true even if they all always produced consistent results – which they don’t.

“The probability that all could be wrong, in exactly the same direction and magnitude, completely independently, is extremely low”

Your reasoning here is circular. Your conclusion only holds true if the initial assumptions are correct (and if the results all actually agreed all the time).

“Again, the epistemic point holds - using 3 or 4 methods doesn't raise radiometric dating to the level of "observation" of age. But it does hugely increase our level of confidence in it as fact.”

Since they are calibrated against each other, and since disagreeable data is routinely disregarded (and sometimes not even reported), and since we can still find many instances of disagreement commonly reported in scientific literature despite this bias (usually in older papers), and since these methods are all founded on the same set of unverifiable assumptions (all of which have been demonstrated to be non-universal) – any reported agreement between them only has meaning to those with a pre-existing confirmation bias.

“The very existence of the isochron shows that the assumptions were correct”

No it doesn’t.

To reach your conclusion, one first has to assume the graphed line is an “isochron” to begin with (when the users know full-well that mixing lines, and who knows what else, mimic putative isochrons – which is the most typical explanation for an “isochron” that doesn’t make sense to them). “Isochron” dating therefore entails that an additional set of assumptions be incorporated into the methodology. The additional complexity required to generate a supposed “isochron” therefore adds to the assumption set of dating methods. Several assumptions are utilized to justify the supposed accuracy of one primary assumption.

“If they were not, the chances of an isochron existing at random (with 4 or more points) would be essentially zero”

Except, even according to those using the isochron method, there is no way to differentiate a true isochron from a mixing line – which looks exactly like an isochron – and is only proposed when the putative isochron doesn’t make sense.

“BTW, before you say it, yes, false isochrons can exist (in very specific circumstances). But they are of entirely random slope - 50% give negative ages for example. Therefore (a) we know the number of false isochrons is exceedingly low from observation, and (b) they will essentially never line up in age with other methods of dating since they are effectively fully random”

So what you are telling me is that I should simply ignore all the times that a constructed isochron doesn’t agree with the expected values – because they are not “isochrons” (obviously), but rather “false isochrons”?

This flawed, internally-biased reasoning seems common to the proponents of these dating methods. That is, ‘If one would be kind enough to ignore all the data that disagrees with the expected results, then what we are left with clearly shows that the results all agree’.

Ummm. OK. It is indeed quite difficult to argue against tautological reasoning.

Ultimately, you don’t get to tell me that the existence of a “random” isochron is “essentially zero”, but then expect me to simply ignore the times when the method gives an evidently “false isochron”.

“I am fully aware that your epistemic point still holds. It would be still be better, in any particular case, to go back a few billion years to actually see it happen. But that doesn't mean we can't be very, very certain that the earth is very, very old. We can be, and are”

I am not “certain” about any scientific claim - let alone "very, very certain".

The fact that you think “certainty” is available to science exposes your confirmation bias – i.e. facilitating your exaggerated confidence in claims - beyond what is logically possible by any method of science.

“BTW - there are two final assumption:

1. That the rate of radiometric decay hasn't, at one point, sped up exponentially to make new samples appear old. But even this is testable, to an extent. Or at least, enough to thoroughly disprove the young-earth narrative.”

And how exactly does one “test” what happened in the past without travelling to the past to perform the experiments and make the requisite observations? Whay are the experimental controls?

Or are you simply testing the decay rates in the present, and preemptively applying the uniformitarian assumption that the past was the same?

“2. That God hasn't deliberately made the earth "look" old, to test our faith. I have biblical and personal reasons for not believing this (and I could also philosophically invoke Occam's Razor) - but there is no scientific way to check whether we are all being tricked”

This is another Strawman argument.

When God created two mature humans, was He tricking us about their childhood and adolescent history? Or were they simply created to purpose?

When God directly informs us how things happened, it’s not trickery on God’s part if you decide to interpret the data in a manner that disagrees with His provided information.

Hi @Tristen When I saw the title of this thread, I thought it referred to possible pastoral issues surrounding young men and young women from local churches who may be dating..................

(I kind of smiled inwardly when I finally figured what the thread was really about.....)

IgnatioDeLoyola · October 13, 2023

@farouk I hope noone here is thinking of dating any of their relatives, that'd be well alarming!!!

teddyv · October 13, 2023

2 hours ago, IgnatioDeLoyola said:

@farouk I hope noone here is thinking of dating any of their relatives, that'd be well alarming!!!

Absolutely!

Tristen · October 15, 2023

On 10/12/2023 at 4:12 PM, farouk said:

Hi @Tristen When I saw the title of this thread, I thought it referred to possible pastoral issues surrounding young men and young women from local churches who may be dating..................

(I kind of smiled inwardly when I finally figured what the thread was really about.....)

Yes - Lol. The Bible tends to frown upon the other kind of "relative dating" (at least since Moses).

RV_Wizard · October 15, 2023

Indeed. I had to stop dating my wife once I discovered we were both married.

farouk · October 19, 2023

Hi @Tristen Over the years there have been a lot of really bold statements from ppl who say things about the age of things based on carbon dating, but which really seem to be a lot more subjective than the way they are sometimes presented.

Tristen · October 28, 2023

On 10/10/2023 at 12:37 AM, IgnatioDeLoyola said:

So for a short amount of time (hours or days) magma is at a temperature where Lead could enter a Zircon. Wonderful. And where is your proposed source of *radiogenic* Lead isotopes close to all Zircons during that short time of formation, that just so happens to inject enough radiogenic lead to date the rock as very old, but also in agreement with other forms of radiometric dating?

No, because Uranium loss once the rock is formed is almost impossible, save for a metamorphic event. Uranium is extremely heavy and immotile (all isotopes) - and therefore cannot move unless the rock melts. If the rock melts, the isochrons and K-Ar dates will reset, and the U-Pb dates will reset or partially reset depending on the scale and longevity of the melt.

That's why not even the most ardent creationist suggests Uranium leaching as a probable explanation for old age dates in rocks. If you wish to posit a hypothesis however about how and why this may happen, you may do so here.

I can only presume in absence of any actual hypothesis from you. All I have is insinuation, not explanation or prediction.

Radiogenic lead cannot move into a Zircon, even during a metamorphic event, unless it exists in higher concentration outside the Zircon than within. I have never heard of this being the case (although I challenge you to present a case study of this).

Lead moving out of a zircon will (a) give a younger date than the true date (hardly a boon for biblical literalists), (b) be a metamorphic event that can and will be detected using other methods of radiometric dating, (c) will put U-Pb dating at variance with other methods, with younger ages reported.

I'm not sure about your understand of geology, but heavy metals don't tend to leak our of solid rocks. Nor do I understand where you think all the high-concentration rare heavy metal isotopes that are moving into these rocks to give artifically high dates are coming from? They are very, very rare in nature, and by their very definition are all radiogenic!

I would happily do so if you asked. There are literally thousands of cases where multiple independent dating methods have been in agreement. Would you like some links?

Agreed, God could just have seeded a bunch of rocks with exactly the right amount of radiogenic lead, argon, strontium and other elements to look really old.

But again, this comes down the "God dunnit" argument. Impossible to disprove, but as I said I have theological reasons for disagreeing.

I such sources of radiogenic lead existed (they don't), and such metamorphic events occured and were undetectable (they're not), then yes.

I think if you want any assumption in somewhere as big as nature to be "universal", outside of fundamental constants, you'll have a hard time. That is why it's so useful to have multiple methods that check assumptions, detect metamorphic events, etc.

Demanding that assumptions are always correct everywhere, even when we can test if they are wrong, is entirely unreasonable.

Depends on the type of evidence.

It is always possible to find an exception that proves the rule.

For example, if we do enough radiometric dating of enough rocks, we will find a rock one day where two methods both happen to yield the same incorrect date. This is not a theory, it is a statistical fact. But it wouldn't call into question the wider method.

So I will await your evidence I suppose!

Of course, but we should believe the explanation that is plain, obvious, well evidenced, and staring us in the face. When you come up with a testable alternative, I'll happily review your hypothesis and its testable predictions.

Actually, even in this case, you would *still* have something to explain. That is, why so often faulty methods of dating which could yield any date at all happen to agree within a margin of error.

Hypotheses should account for the known observed facts after all. And, btw, this is why so many creationist organisations started to posit more systemic issues with dating, such as the possibility that decay rates had increased dramatically at some point in the past.

Please do. I would start at U-Pb if I were you - since Ar-40 doesn't exist in the atmosphere, and existing Sr-87 is actually a testable assumption of Rb-Sr dating (any the same holds for other isochron methods).

Which is why it is very rare to see a rock dated with purely U-Pb, especially where a complex thermal history is suspected.

I look forward to reading them!

They aren't calibrated against each other. They are wholly independent, and only require known decay rates of each radioactive element to function.

These are two competing statements. The second is right - different methods can disagree with each other, especially where a rock has a complex thermal history, and for example radiogenic lead has been leached and U-Pb gives an artificially low date.

However, this is the exception and not the norm, and is readily detectable using other methods which can detect metamorphic events. If you think you, I welcome your systematic review of the literature on radiometric dates using multiple methods.

They haven't. If you have evidence otherwise, pray tell.

They don't. That's why it's so powerful to use several in conjuction - because they make different and independent assumptions that are uncorrelated to each other. You can always present evidence that they do though. Again, a table comparing the assumptions of U-Pb, K-Ar / Ar-Ar and Rb-Sr would be helpful. In other words, evidence.

No, it doesn't. The question is, if the assumptions are false, why do dating methods so often agree? This does not rely on the accuracy of assumptions - in fact it rejects their accuracy as a premise for the question.

All false. I refer to my demands for evidence in all of these areas above.

I dealt with false isochrons in my answer originally. They are possible. But half of all of them are negative, and their results is completely random. I addressed this already.

Which it almost never will, because it will bear no relation to the results of other dating methods, and is as likely to give a date in the future as the past.

No. I'm asking you to evaluate from the data how many false isochrons there are (easy to do as half are negative), and also look at whether they agree with other methods (they usually do, where a mixing isochron wouldn't).

Certainty has levels and limits, a nuance you seem to have missed my dear friend!

No, I am not. I can very easily test this, both hypothetically and actually. Do you wish to know why?

If God created humans with BCG scars on their arms when they never had a childhood injection, or broken little toes when they'd never been stubbed, then I would call Him a liar.

But he doesn't, because God is not a liar.

“So for a short amount of time (hours or days) magma is at a temperature where Lead could enter a Zircon. Wonderful. And where is your proposed source of *radiogenic* Lead isotopes close to all Zircons during that short time of formation, that just so happens to inject enough radiogenic lead to date the rock as very old, but also in agreement with other forms of radiometric dating?”

Firstly, broad sweeping statements about the method being “in agreement with other forms of radiometric dating” have to be at-least evidenced before being presented as truisms.

I would, however, start to take note of how often you use this argument – i.e. that we should trust the methods because they agree with each other. You don’t like the idea that they a calibrated against each other – but that is the logic behind this argument. In an experimental sense, one would be required to test the experimental conditions against an independent “standard” designed to give a “known-accurate” result. However, your argument here proposes using unknowns as pseudo-standards to compare against each other. I will also provide evidence that the supposed “agreement” is artificially generated by only accepting results that are in “agreement” (and rejecting/dismissing those results that disagree) – that is, another pathway of self-calibration.

Secondly, how do you know how much time it took the “magma” to both cool and form?

- And even if the “time of formation” was “short”, it still means, as a matter of logic, that I have every right to distrust the assumption that all lead in the “zircon” is derived from Uranium trapped in the “zircon” at “formation” – which is the whole point of bringing this up.

Thirdly, does uranium only decay into “*radiogenic* Lead isotopes” after being trapped inside “zircons”? Why wouldn’t there be also be “*radiogenic* Lead isotopes” outside of the “zircons” (along with other isotopes in the U-Pb decay chain - that readily move into, and out of, “zircons” independently of temperature)?

“And we haven’t even mentioned the potential of Uranium gain (or loss).

No, because Uranium loss once the rock is formed is almost impossible, save for a metamorphic event”

And by “almost impossible”, you mean, at-least logically possible; and therefore, something that cannot be automatically, objectively ruled out; due to our inability to go back in time and make the requisite observations – a.k.a. an unverifiable assumption that directly impacts the veracity of the proposed conclusion.

“Uranium is extremely heavy and immotile (all isotopes) - and therefore cannot move unless the rock melts”

You of course must mean, Uranium has not been observed to be very motile in zircons.

What happened to the properly hedged language you were using in the first response?

Furthermore, are all the isotopes in the decay chain between uranium and lead equally “immotile” – such that they also can (supposedly) never be exchanged with the external environment of the zircon?

“That's why not even the most ardent creationist suggests Uranium leaching as a probable explanation for old age dates in rocks”

I am not proposing a “probable explanation”. I am proposing a possible “explanation” contributing to the supposed “old age dates in rocks”

More accurately, I am proposing that the method makes several unverifiable assumptions that directly impact the ability of the method to produce valid ‘ages’.

Some assumptions may have different probabilities of being true than others. That doesn’t affect my argument at all – which is that the method, and the veracity of its results, stands wholly, and entirely, on the truth of its associated assumptions – which we cannot verify. And since the truth of these assumptions is not established in observation, no one is rationally obligated to accept the conclusions based on the method.

“If you wish to posit a hypothesis however about how and why this may happen, you may do so here”

Is that really the game you want to play? Your statement here is empty posturing, and not how science (scientific reasoning) works.

Or - does your definition of science prohibit me from scrutinizing claims - pointing out legitimate logical weaknesses - until I have an alternate solution to propose?

The requirement for an alternate explanation is not a tenet of critical reasoning. I have every scientific right to point out logical weaknesses of any proposed method – regardless of whether or not I have a valid solution to the problem.

“On 10/8/2023 at 6:36 PM, Tristen said: It’s a bad sign that you would resort to dishonest rhetoricisms so early in our discussion.

I can only presume in absence of any actual hypothesis from you. All I have is insinuation, not explanation or prediction.”

This is dishonest posturing. You have taken my response to a particular comment, and are pretending it applies to something else. This ironically reinforces my original concern that you have already decided to play games (to ‘win’ whatever it is you think is at stake), rather than engage in sincere conversation.

“None of which logically addresses the potential movement of lead out of (or in to) the zircon

Radiogenic lead cannot move into a Zircon, even during a metamorphic event, unless it exists in higher concentration outside the Zircon than within.”

It doesn’t occur to you that, even in this statement, you are conceding that there are known circumstances that would facilitate the movement of “Radiogenic lead” into zircons.

Remembering that my argument is that we cannot trust these dating methods to generate valid ‘ages’ because they are too fundamentally, logically reliant upon too many assumptions. Therefore, when you provide a possible circumstance where the assumption could be wrong, it logically supports my argument - that unverifiable assumptions are required to trust the method. It doesn’t matter to my argument how unlikely you presume the proposed circumstance to be.

“I have never heard of this being the case (although I challenge you to present a case study of this)”

Your confirmation bias is fascinating. In the one statement, I am “challenged” to provide a “case study” for suggesting something remains a mere logical possibility. But you are happy to present absolutist scientific claims without any hint of a “case study”.

“Lead moving out of a zircon will (a) give a younger date than the true date (hardly a boon for biblical literalists)”

This is another example of confirmation bias. Your claim here presupposes that the method is otherwise credulous – i.e. that the other assumptions associated with the method are true.

You have also misunderstood the young earth creationist (YEC) position.

Firstly, “biblical literalist” is a mischaracterization. YEC simply read the scriptures for what they say – interpreted within their own context. Since Genesis is written as historical narrative (and would be understood as such by any objective reader), that is how YEC choose to interpret it.

Second, YEC do not consider the proposed dating methods to be trustworthy at all, and therefore do not consider the results of the method to be “dates” at all. Older or “younger” than expected; it makes no difference to the YEC position.

“(b) be a metamorphic event that can and will be detected using other methods of radiometric dating”

These “other methods” also have the logical weakness of utilizing interpretation based on unverifiable assumptions. The conclusions you propose here are not observations of what you are claiming.

“(c) will put U-Pb dating at variance with other methods, with younger ages reported”

Once again, your claim here exemplifies bias – that is, your claim is only correct when one presupposes that the method is otherwise perfectly credible.

The following quotes are taken from a paper that used potassium-argon and argon-argon dating to determine an age of diamonds to be ~6 billion years old. This age was arbitrarily rejected as being “unreasonable” based purely on the fact that “U-Pb dating” methods had previously determined the age of the earth to be ~4.6 billion years old.

“A group of 10 cubic diamonds from Zaire has been found^I to contain correlated concentrations of ⁴⁰Ar and K which, interpreted as a whole-rock K-Ar isochron with the usual assumptions, yield the unreasonable age of 6.0 Gyr. The same age has also been determined² by ⁴⁰Ar_³⁹Ar analysis of four additional diamonds from the same group.”

…

“If the ⁴⁰Ar was produced in situ, that is, the diamonds really are 6.0 Gyr old, it is difficult to advance an unspectacular hypothesis. Discounting overturn of the overwhelming evidence for a 4.6 Gyr age for the Solar System, these diamonds, or at least parts of them, would have to be presolar grains that were never mixed with the bulk of Earth materials.” (https://www.nature.com/articles/334607a0.pdf)

This one paper has several implications for our conversation:

- It demonstrates that “isochron” dating can be just as easily questioned and rejected, as any other dating method – i.e. when the generated “age” disagrees with what the author presupposes to be “reasonable” – and even when the results from differing methods are in agreement.

- It demonstrates that in a real scientific context, we are permitted to question the “assumptions” of dating methods.

- It demonstrates an example of “U-Pb dating at variance with other methods” – thereby dispelling the rhetorical myth that dating methods produce broad, consistent agreement with each other.

- It demonstrates how dating methods are calibrated against each other – with discrepant “ages” simply being rejected and discarded if they disagree with supposedly “known ages” (generated by “other methods”); keeping in-mind that the only reason given for rejecting the “ages” as “unreasonable”, is that the generated “ages” disagreed with pre-existing “evidence for a 4.6 Gyr age for the Solar System”.

- This paper also considers the possibility of “excess” or “inherited argon” as an explanation for the unexpected results.

“I'm not sure about your understand of geology”

It would be nice if we could just stick to rational arguments.

“but heavy metals don't tend to leak our of solid rocks”

It may, or may not, currently be an observed tendency of “heavy metals” to “leak out of solid rocks”, but the dating method relies fundamentally on this being an absolute truth over unimaginable magnitudes of unobserved time. It is one of several major assumptions that the method needs to be true in order to justify acceptance of the generated ‘dates’. That is, this a necessary assumption of stupendous magnitude – and a logical requirement for trusting in the method.

“Nor do I understand where you think all the high-concentration rare heavy metal isotopes that are moving into these rocks to give artifically high dates are coming from?”

And I don’t “understand” why you think these can only magically appear inside a formed zircon – i.e. if they didn’t already exist in the preformed environment.

And, you haven’t yet evidenced that such an exchange can only happen in some supposedly pseudo-osmotic process.

And, they are only “dates” at all if the method (and all its foundational assumptions) are otherwise true. My side of the argument doesn’t claim the “dates” to be “artificially high”, but fundamentally untrustworthy (not “dates” at all). Characterizing them as “artificially high dates” is a biased misrepresentation of my position.

And, we have thus far ignored the known propensities for other isotopes in the U-Pb decay chain to freely move about zircons.

[AND – we have yet to discuss the known propensity for lead to redistribute and concentrate in areas of crystals; AS WELL AS the known tendency of older crystals to release lead through wear over time]

“They are very, very rare in nature, and by their very definition are all radiogenic!”

Did the uranium not exist before it appeared inside the newly formed zircon?

Or if uranium did exist before being trapped inside a zircon, was it not decaying into “radiogenic” materials until it entered the zircon?

“On 10/8/2023 at 6:36 PM, Tristen said: You haven’t presented evidence for this supposed agreement.

I would happily do so if you asked. There are literally thousands of cases where multiple independent dating methods have been in agreement. Would you like some links?”

Apart from the posturing, your response here demonstrates the purely rhetorical nature of your claim. That is, you are trying to bluster your way through the conversation by making broad, sweeping statements about the supposed copious evidence supporting your position.

I am not claiming that the methods rarely agree. However, you are claiming that the methods generate “overwhelming” agreement. And that is what needs to be evidenced.

Trudging through the papers individually would not only NOT support your claim, but would expose your argument to falsification by any single example of disagreement for each method. To address the general nature of your claim, (i.e. of “overwhelming” agreement), you would have to provide a meta-analysis demonstrating this pooled data of ubiquitous “agreement”.

“On 10/8/2023 at 6:36 PM, Tristen said: ultimately, you are assuming a naturalistic origin of these zircons. Who but God knows how much lead would be present in a newly created zircon?”.

Agreed, God could just have seeded a bunch of rocks with exactly the right amount of radiogenic lead, argon, strontium and other elements to look really old.”

Suggesting that the “rocks” were individually “seeded” to make them “look really old” is another Strawman.

Furthermore, it is only your bias towards the long-age narrative that causes you to think the “rocks” “look really old”. You only think they “look really old” because you feel an obligation to accept the ‘dating’ methods as reliable. When I examine a rock, all I see is a rock. Each rock can be examined further to reveal certain ratios of isotopes within. OK – those are the facts.

But then you feed that data into a highly-presumptive algorithm that proports to be able to generate ‘ages’ for the “rocks” in the absence of direct observations, standards or objective controls (i.e. experimentation). Well – that’s where I start to question the process (as would traditionally be my scientific right). And then you try to imply that I am somehow intellectually obligated to accept these methods over the straight-forward reading of Genesis. And you’ve lost me.

The “rocks” only “look really old” to you, because that is the paradigm governing your interpretation of the data.

“But again, this comes down the "God dunnit" argument. Impossible to disprove, but as I said I have theological reasons for disagreeing.”

Assuming you are Christian, and respect scripture, this actually “comes down to” how and when “God dunnit”. Because if one is Christian, and respects scripture, “God dunnit” is incorporated into the paradigm; regardless of the long-age/young-age conclusion. The Christian paradigm explicitly permits consideration of supernatural causes.

The Scientific Method is only designed to test claims about the current, natural universe (since that is all we can experiment upon). Therefore, all supernatural claims, and all claims about the unobserved past (including rock ‘ages’), are logically “impossible” to falsify – being beyond the scope of the Scientific Method.

“On 10/8/2023 at 6:36 PM, Tristen said: You are therefore conceding that the movement of lead between the inside and outside of the zircon can undermine the accuracy of the supposed age assigned to the rock by this method.

I such sources of radiogenic lead existed (they don't)”

Therefore, you are now making the absolutist claim that it is impossible for “radiogenic lead” to have ever existed outside of a zircon? That doesn’t seem like a sensible claim. But, at the same time, you are “conceding” (without any provocation from me) that under certain circumstances, this is actually a possibility. But then you tell me that you are certain it has never happened.

It is not my argument to tell you what happened to any particular rock, but to point out that the method you think is infallible actually relies fundamentally on a range of assumptions – i.e. conditions that cannot be verified – any one of which completely invalidates the method if untrue. And yet you are asking me to roll-over on the plain reading of scripture because of some perceived obligation to this method.

“and such metamorphic events occured and were undetectable (they're not)”

Another absolutist claim without any evidence.

You were the one who raised the hypothetical circumstance that permitted lead exchange with zircons. That mere possibility demonstrates my point – that the method necessarily assumes no such lead exchange occurred over stupendous amount of time. You therefore trapped yourself into making absolutist (and therefore unscientific) claims about non-observations.

“I think if you want any assumption in somewhere as big as nature to be "universal", outside of fundamental constants, you'll have a hard time. That is why it's so useful to have multiple methods that check assumptions, detect metamorphic events, etc. Demanding that assumptions are always correct everywhere, even when we can test if they are wrong, is entirely unreasonable.”

Statements like this demonstrate a lack of objectivity. You are in a conversation with someone who disagrees with you. It is therefore not good enough for you to simply state, “Everything agrees with me, and if you don’t agree with me, you are being unreasonable”.

Do you think I should concede the debate, just because you say so? Should I ignore the conventional requirement for pesky arguments and evidence – since you have made broad, sweeping, unevidenced claims about the correctness of your position?

“On 10/8/2023 at 6:36 PM, Tristen said: Remembering, scientifically speaking, I only have to show limited data that the method is untrustworthy – i.e. examples where the supposed ‘ages’ derived from these methods were rejected in the absence of testable explanations.

Depends on the type of evidence. It is always possible to find an exception that proves the rule.”

This feels like you are trying to pre-invalidate any evidence I might provide as an “exception”. However, in a scientific context, anomalous, repeated results require testable explanations. Otherwise, how can we differentiate between the “exception” and the “rule” – i.e. how can we differentiate false positives from true positives? And if we can’t make that determination experimentally, then all we are doing is choosing to accept what we already agree with (which is both biased and unscientific).

Which is to say - if you claim I should accept the method as accurate based on the standard of “agreement”, then I only need one example of disagreement to falsify your argument (i.e. to breach your proposed standard). Any attempt on your part to wave my example away as an “exception” contributes nothing of rational substance to the debate. Such an argument would simply be another rhetorical attempt to dodge the implication of such evidence.

“For example, if we do enough radiometric dating of enough rocks, we will find a rock one day where two methods both happen to yield the same incorrect date. This is not a theory, it is a statistical fact. But it wouldn't call into question the wider method.”

Ummm – examples of the method not working as expected would 100% justify questioning “the wider method” – especially if there are multiple examples of the method producing unexpected results.

In no other discipline of science would we get to wave away unexpected results as a ‘whoopsy’ – and then carry on as if the results had no implication for the “wider method”.

“So I will await your evidence I suppose!”

My next “evidence” is one of the landmark papers determining the age of the earth to be ~4.5 billion years old (https://www.nature.com/articles/321766a0.pdf ).

In this paper, 140 zircons from the same conglomerate were tested using U-Pb and Th-Pb dating methods. Initially, only 17 were considered to give old enough ‘ages’ to be worthy of further consideration. 16 of these were considered to not be reliable (i.e. either too young, or had undergone lead-loss). The remaining single grain was tested 7 times. Only one of those 7 measurements was considered significant – the single measurement that generated an ‘age’ for the zircon of ~4.3billion years old. That is, using the same method, different parts of the same zircon generated different ‘ages’ for that zircon.

Therefore, 139 of 140 zircons from the same conglomerate were disregarded as meaningless. And of the seven measurements on the single remaining zircon, 6 were disregarded as meaningless. And what was the explanation for considering all this data unreliable?:

“The ²⁰⁷Pb^2o6Pb ages that exceed 3,900 Myr belong to a much older population which may have had a single original age close to 4,300 Myr and have undergone early as well as recent Pb loss, or it may be a mixed-age population that formed during discrete events over an extended time period from 4,100 to 4,300 Myr ago.”

“The five analysed areas within grain 86, which shows the highest minimum ages, exhibit small but real differences in radiogenic ²⁰⁷Pb²⁰⁶Pb that can only have been generated by internal redistribution or loss of radiogenic Pb relative to U at some early time”

“another conceivable explanation involves an early gain of Pb (or loss of U) followed by recent Pb loss, which would have the effect of increasing the ²⁰⁷ Pb ²⁰⁶ Pb age of the zircons”

These are the most obvious implications for our conversation:

- Of at-least 162 measurements, only 1 was reported as a true ‘age’ minimum. That means 161 measurements were rejected from consideration as either irrelevant, or compromised, because they did not fulfill expectations (including 6 measurements using the same method on the very same zircon).

Therefore, 1) Based on these results alone, any assertions about widespread agreement between methods is absurd. The method doesn’t even agree with itself much of the time – even when the identical method is used multiple times of the very same sample (producing non-overlapping ‘ages’ for the same zircon), and 2) The narrowing of so much data to a single supposedly-true result further demonstrates how the methods are calibrated against each other – given how the results were explicitly narrowed to be in the ballpark of previously reported data.

- The primary explanation considered for the overwhelmingly anomalous results is movement of uranium and lead isotopes within and out of the zircon. When I make such a suggestion, it warrants an insinuation about how much I “understand geology”. But these are the guys who literally invented the machine that takes the measurements. Did they also not “understand” that “heavy metals don't tend to leak our of solid rocks” or that “Uranium loss once the rock is formed is almost impossible” or that “Uranium is extremely heavy and immotile (all isotopes)”. Again, your rhetorical bluster is reduced to naught. It is, self-evidently, perfectly acceptable speculate about the possibility of “internal redistribution or loss” of uranium and lead in zircons.

- Another potential explanation offered for the anomalous results is that the samples were from “mixed-age” rocks. But if we accept the possibility that the samples were from a “mixed-age” population – producing a result approaching concordance, then we must accept that any supposed isochron can also result from “mixed-age” samples – which the paper inadvertently demonstrates.

“but we should believe the explanation that is plain, obvious, well evidenced, and staring us in the face”

You are still trying to bluster your way through the conversation with broad sweeping statements, but without having to present anything by way of argument or evidence.

Firstly, scientific reasoning (or critical reasoning) does not make allowances for simply believing anything. Scientific confidence can only be applied to the degree that something has been observed.

Secondly, these are all completely subjective criteria. Who exactly determines what is “plain, obvious, well evidenced, and staring us in the face”? Or is that simply your bias speaking out again – telling you that the “explanation” you have deemed to be correct is also the one that is “plain, obvious, well evidenced, and staring us in the face”?

“When you come up with a testable alternative, I'll happily review your hypothesis and its testable predictions.”

And still more empty posturing.

Scientific reasoning does not prohibit me from questioning your methods until I have an “alternative”. That is simply an attempt to dodge the implication of my arguments.

“On 10/8/2023 at 6:36 PM, Tristen said: If, as I propose, the methods are untrustworthy, then the data has no “natural” implication for the ‘age’ of the rocks.

Actually, even in this case, you would *still* have something to explain. That is, why so often faulty methods of dating which could yield any date at all happen to agree within a margin of error.”

My evidence has demonstrated that the methods can disagree with each other – and even themselves.

My evidence has demonstrated internal, indirect calibration between the methods – with only results that agree with conventionally accepted ‘ages’ being accepted as “reasonable”, and anomalous results being rejected and discarded from consideration. Claims about agreement don’t mean much when only agreeable data is accepted, and disagreeable data is ignored.

By contrast, you have not evidenced your general claim that agreement between the methods occurs uncannily, or statistically significantly, “often”. You just keep writing it – like if you write it enough times, I’ll start to believe it - like some kind of Jedi mind-trick.

“On 10/8/2023 at 6:36 PM, Tristen said: I’ve seen many studies showing newly formed rocks to be ‘dated’ as much older than their observed age - due to the presence of daughter isotopes. I can’t remember if any specifically addressed the lead content of zircons. I am therefore happy to look at this data if you have it.

Please do. I would start at U-Pb if I were you - since Ar-40 doesn't exist in the atmosphere, and existing Sr-87 is actually a testable assumption of Rb-Sr dating (any the same holds for other isochron methods).”

You missed the “if you have it” condition of my response.

On the topic of “isochrons”, I recently found a paper showing that supposed “isochrons” can generate artificially high ‘ages’ due to diffusion from the rock of the stable isotope in the equation (published here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.13182/NT16-98 , full text here: https://www.osti.gov/pages/servlets/purl/1438205 ).

So there is yet another avenue of logic showing the potential of the “isochron” method to violate the closed system assumption (one which I hadn’t previously considered).

“On 10/8/2023 at 6:36 PM, Tristen said: I have definitely seen papers addressing excess argon in newly formed rocks.

I look forward to reading them!”

Sure – here are a few starters.

- http://www.minsocam.org/ammin/AM43/AM43_433.pdf

- https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ichiro-Kaneoka/publication/248410634_Investigation_of_excess_argon_in_ultramafic_rocks_from_the_Kola_Peninsula_by_the_40Ar39Ar_method/links/5a0a91500f7e9bb949f98a29/Investigation-of-excess-argon-in-ultramafic-rocks-from-the-Kola-Peninsula-by-the-40Ar-39Ar-method.pdf

- https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/JZ069i022p04895

“On 10/8/2023 at 6:36 PM, Tristen said: Furthermore, putative agreement doesn’t matter (has no logical implication) when the methods are internally calibrated against each other according to the expectations of the pre-existing paradigm.

They aren't calibrated against each other.”

Firstly, disagreeable results are much easier to find in the literature than your position implies.

Secondly, I’ve shown several examples of where the ‘ages’ are either accepted, or reject, depending on whether they agree with the expectations derived from other dating methods. This is routine practice. Otherwise, how would one presume to distinguish a true ‘age’ from a false ‘age’?

Your position here is logically self-defeating; since you yourself have argued that trust in the method is based on agreement between the methods – but then somehow deny the same rationale is being utilized to generate trust between the methods.

Thirdly, there is no independent standard to test any of the methods against – i.e. nothing of known age.

And fourthly, if disagreeable data is excluded from consideration (as I have demonstrated to be routine practice), that also renders claims of agreement meaningless.

Finally, in my response to the next comment (below) I have started to provide evidence that decay rates are directly calibrated against other methods.

“They are wholly independent, and only require known decay rates of each radioactive element to function.”

How are those “decay rates” ascertained? And how accurate are they?

- In this 1956 paper (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1956PhRv..103.1045A/abstract ), rubidium decay rates are directly calibrated to U-Pb decay rates – to give a rubidium half-life of 50 billion years.

- This same logic was applied in 1982 to calibrate the decay rate of rubidium to the U-Pb method – giving a radium half-life of 49.4 billion years (https://www.nature.com/articles/300414a0 ).

- In 2011, the decay rate of rubidium was again calibrated to the U-Pb method, and the half-life of rubidium again adjusted to 49.76 billion years (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X10006990 ).

The Implications of this evidence:

- “Decay rates” have, over time, been routinely, directly calibrated against the results from other methods. This is not even controversial in the literature. This practice directly undermines the logical impact of claims about method-independence and broad agreement between the methods.

- Whilst the supposed half-lives (“decay rates”) are generally agreed upon, they are by-no-means as settled as your argument suggests. They are ever subject to update and revision – regardless of whether or not the decay rates have moved over time.

All this extra information adds to the inherent uncertainty of the method. Your impression of settled, wholly, independently-calibrated, consistent methods in overwhelming agreement, is a myth that is not reflected in the literature.

“On 10/8/2023 at 6:36 PM, Tristen said: And again, agreement doesn’t mean anything when disagreeing data is not considered (or even reported in many cases). Furthermore, there are many cases in the scientific literature where different methods used on the same sample disagree with each other

These are two competing statements”

They are not “competing statements”. I’ll rephrase.

Even though the routine practice of ignoring (and often not reporting) disagreeable data biases the overall impression towards “agreement” between the methods, it is still very easy to find examples in the literature of disagreement.

“different methods can disagree with each other, especially where a rock has a complex thermal history”

This is a story (interpretation), not an observation.

It is perfectly fine to try and explain disagreeable data. But here you are stating the proposed explanation as though it was fact – despite you knowing full-well that the proposed explanation was not observed.

“and for example radiogenic lead has been leached and U-Pb gives an artificially low date”

What??? Seriously???

When I mention the possibility of lead loss, you get to insinuate my lack of knowledge regarding “geology”. But when you need a way to explain away anomalous data, you are happy to jump right in on that same explanation.

You are being neither fair-minded, nor consistent in your reasoning.

“However, this is the exception and not the norm, and is readily detectable using other methods which can detect metamorphic events”

This is a rhetorical exaggeration of how the method is applied. No method can directly “detect metamorphic events”. What happens in reality, is that data, which is anomalous in a certain direction from expectation, can be (and often is) interpreted as “metamorphic events”.

There is no observation (or detection) of these putative “events”. You are again touting one possible explanation as a truism.

“If you think you, I welcome your systematic review of the literature on radiometric dates using multiple methods.”

And yet more empty posturing.

I don’t need a “systematic review of the literature” to refute your argument of overwhelming agreement. I really just need one example of disagreement between the methods (though there are many, many such examples). Remembering that, for all your rhetoric and posturing, you have provided absolutely nothing by way of “evidence” supporting your extraordinary claims. Yet you have the audacity to suggest that I need a “systematic review of the literature on radiometric dates using multiple methods” to support my position.

Again – if you are being sincere, this is confirmation bias on steroids.

“On 10/8/2023 at 6:36 PM, Tristen said: Given that they have been historically calibrated against each other, they are not “independent methods”.

They haven't. If you have evidence otherwise, pray tell.”

Perhaps next time you ask for “evidence”, I could be given an opportunity to provide such – before you start posturing. That would seem considerate.

Anyways, I have provided three examples for rubidium being directly “calibrated” to the U-Pb method (above). I have about 5 more for rubidium in-pocket, but figured three should be enough for now - to demonstrate the point.

“On 10/8/2023 at 6:36 PM, Tristen said: And given that they all use the same set of general assumptions,

They don't.”

All radiometric dating methods make the assumption that, 1) measured decay rates are accurate and have remained constant since the formation of the rock, 2) that the rock element being measured has been a closed system such that all of the isotopes represent what was present in the rock at formation, and 3) that we know the quantities of isotopes when the rock was formed.

Isochron dating complicates this last assumption somewhat – but the assumption is still in the process.

“That's why it's so powerful to use several in conjuction - because they make different and independent assumptions that are uncorrelated to each other. You can always present evidence that they do though. Again, a table comparing the assumptions of U-Pb, K-Ar / Ar-Ar and Rb-Sr would be helpful. In other words, evidence.”

Lol. “evidence”. You mean that thing that you have provided exactly none of – despite the extraordinary nature of your claims – but which you expect me to generate and provide “tables” and “systematic reviews” and “case studies” supporting my modest claims.

“The question is, if the assumptions are false, why do dating methods so often agree?”

My first response to this “question” would be for you to define more precisely how much you think these methods “agree”. You have stated in a previous post that you consider the agreement to be “overwhelming”. I disagree with that impression. And you certainly have not “evidenced” such. Whereas I have shown it is easy to find “evidence” of disagreeable data.

But let’s assume (in the absence of “evidence”) some form of broad, general agreement. I would propose an equally valid counter “question”: ‘If the assumptions are correct, “why do dating methods so often” disagree?’

Some of the agreement can be explained by demonstrable self-calibration (both indirect and direct) between the methods; skewing the data towards agreement. Some of the disagreeable data can be explained by assumed compromised samples and/or process errors.

The existence of all this uncertainty further demonstrates why no-one is intellectually obligated to trust the methods.

“I dealt with false isochrons in my answer originally. They are possible. But half of all of them are negative, and their results is completely random. I addressed this already.”

You have not “addressed” “false isochrons” whatsoever yet – at-least not in any logically meaningful manner. You have thus far agreed that sometimes the isochron method doesn’t work to expectations – and you therefore concluded that I should dismiss these disagreeable examples from further consideration.

Ummm – No? (respectfully).

The fact that the isochron method can produce “negative” ‘ages’, or otherwise non-compliant (or unreasonable) ‘ages’ is my point.

It is strange to me that you could fail to recognize such an overt and obvious bias – as accepting the arbitrary dismissal of disagreeable evidence from consideration. But then to turn around and cry, ‘But look, they all agree’. What??? How can you not see the compromise in your own reasoning?

“On 10/8/2023 at 6:36 PM, Tristen said: The fact that you think “certainty” is available to science exposes your confirmation bias

Certainty has levels and limits, a nuance you seem to have missed my dear friend!”

Actually, “certainty” is absolutist. The scientific word is ‘confidence’.

“I can very easily test this, both hypothetically and actually. Do you wish to know why?”

If you have an argument, I “wish” you could simply make your argument without having to posture first.

“On 10/8/2023 at 6:36 PM, Tristen said: When God created two mature humans, was He tricking us about their childhood and adolescent history? Or were they simply created to purpose?

If God created humans with BCG scars on their arms when they never had a childhood injection, or broken little toes when they'd never been stubbed, then I would call Him a liar.”

Rather than answer the perfectly apt analogy, you choose to muddy the conversation with extra, unnecessary detail.

The fundamental question is: ‘If God creates something in a matured form, then tells you when He created it, is God then a liar – given that the mature form might otherwise indicate a history of maturing?’. That is the nature of what you originally suggested.

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