The Faith Basis for Radiometric Data

James___ wrote: You guys missed the point about tree ring data. Radiocarbon data is accurate to within about 50 years when you go back a 1,000 years.

dehammer wrote:
So there is no science? Its all religion? Nothing exist outside of your mind?

dehammer wrote:So there is no science? Its all religion? Nothing exist outside of your mind?

IBdaMann wrote:

James___ wrote: You guys missed the point about tree ring data. Radiocarbon data is accurate to within about 50 years when you go back a 1,000 years.

We know that science cannot speculate about the past. Sure, humans subjectively speculate about the past but science itself does not.

But we have radiometric dating, right? That's science, right?

Unfortunately no. Radiometric dating is a theory and a model, but not one whose speculations about the past can ever be verified. The scientific method has never been applied to any radiometric dating because we simply don't have time machines.

How does radiometric "work"? Radioactive substances decay into other stable substances. The rate of decay, usually denoted by the amount of time required for half of the material to decay, is called the "half-life" ... the shorter the half-life the more radioactive the substance.

Therefore, to perform a radiometric dating of an object, you find out what radioactive substance is/was most predominant in that object, you look up the half-life of that substance, you measure as accurately as possible the amount of that radioactive substance *and* the amount of the decay material ... and then you simply presume that there was absolutely none of the decay material present in the object when the object formed and then you do whatever you need to do to convince yourself that you are correct in doing so.

Humans need certainty; that's why so many people are willing to believe that the average global temperature of the earth is somehow known, that the average ocean temperature is somehow known, that the rate of sea level rise is somehow known (or even that the sea level is somehow known to be rising), or that the ocean's average pH level is somehow known, that the atmosphere's CO2 level is somehow known, etc... The result of a radiometric dating is simply the upper limit as to how old something possibly could be. The result of any radiometric dating should not be that the dated object is X years (plus or minus margin) but rather should be that the dated object is no more than X years (plus or minus margin). But we humans want certainty more than we want disappointing truth so we jump on the faith assumption that there was zero decay material at the object's formation and we simply declare that the maximum possible age is, in fact, the true age.

Any reasonable person is well within his/her rights to doubt that critical unfalsifiable assumption. No one can go back in time and ever check. Young earth creationists are well within scientific consistency to believe that the earth is much younger than the maximum upper limit of some radiometric dating result. They are well within their rights to believe that there was some non-zero amount of decay material in the object when formed, perhaps even a lot.

Then there is the question of the assumed constant rate of decay of radioactive substances. All observations to date show that radioactive substances decay at a random rate that, over a long period of time, is a statistically constant rate, regardless of temperature, pressure, humidity, amount of greenhouse gas, etc... We have no understanding of radioactive decay beyond statistical probability, i.e. we just don't know when or how a particle will be randomly emitted. In fact, the rate of radioactive decay is constantly changing but we simply speak in terms of a very long-term statistical average. Any reasonable person is well within scientific consistency to believe that the "rate of decay" over one period of time differed from that over another period of time, constituting a distinct change in the rate of decay over time.

So when it comes to radiometric dating, there are two elements of faith that form the basis of a radiometric dating result:

1. The belief that there was absolutely zero decay material at the formation of the object

2. The belief that the rate of radioactive decay is constant

These are beliefs, not science. They can never be verified.

Into the Night wrote:
There is a third one:
3. The belief that no additional decay material contaminated the object during all those years.

IBdaMann wrote:

Into the Night wrote:
There is a third one:
3. The belief that no additional decay material contaminated the object during all those years.

There's something about the polyexclusion principle that indicates additional decay matter can't somehow get into a rock once the rock forms, for example.

However, you are correct that biological matter/fossils can be contaminated by just about anything, which includes additional decay matter. After all, there's a reason that forensic evidence left out in the elements soon ceases to stand up in court.

Thank you for pointing that out; my oversight.