RE: [asa] Denver RATE Conference (Thousands...Not Billions)_Part 2

Kirk,

It sounds like what you are saying is that the measurement process
(instrument?) itself yields a "background" of C14 roughly equal to an age of
40,000 years. Thus a measurement of 40,000 years old for a diamond equals
the measurement of C14 from the AMS background, plus zero C14 from the
diamond itself. Is this about right?

If so, I suppose the process of calibrating the instrumentation is much more
involved and has much more history and "check and balance" than what
Baumgardner has represented. But still (and I'm not disputing the age of
the earth), the last paragraph below seems on the surface a little like the
scientific "circular reasoning" that YEC claims to expose. If the diamond
is used to calibrate the instrument because it is "known" to have no C14
(due to its great age), isn't this assuming the conclusion as part of the
proof? What if the diamond really isn't that old, and/or really does have
some C14 in it? How would we know, if that assumption is taken at the
first?

I can envision some answers to this, but don't have the technical expertise
to know for sure how certain they are.
1. There are (hopefully more than one) independent methods of determining
the great age of diamonds that doesn't depend on the C14 assumption or other
initial condition or uniformitarian assumptions.
2. When fossils from the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic ages all come out
with the same age, that is "red flag" evidence that something is wrong with
the measurement, because the evidence is abundant that those geologic layers
are from different ages based on type of fossil content, other dating
methods such as radioisotope, etc. This is of course disputed in YEC
literature, but there is much evidence for the geologic age of the earth.
3. Perhaps there are other semi-independent means of calibrating the
background AMS C14, which confirms the same quantity as obtained from
diamond sample measurements, etc.
4. The C-14 measurements is calibrated back at least to a certain age, by
measurements for instance of fossil trees or varves which clearly indicate
multiple 10's of thousands of years. This not only shows that the
measurement itself can in fact validate an age of the earth much greater
than 5000 years, but also validates some of the assumptions inherent in the
measurement.
5. Similar dates obtained from AMS and traditional C-14 measurement
independently corroborate each other's measurement validity, along with
being corroborated with other well-established dates from tree rings,
varves, etc.

On another subject, does anyone has any technical response to Baumgardner's
comment on the "excess carbon may have diluted the C14 in the pre-flood
world such that the initial C14/C12 ratio would be a lot smaller; erhaps by
a factor of 100 - 500 times" ? This sounds to me like pure hand-waving,
like "theory" in the common sense of "speculation" rather than the
scientific sense of the word, simply to make a rhetorical argument that
agrees with what the audience wants to hear, i.e., that a 5000 year old
earth might have some scientific plausibility. Does anyone know what he's
talking about, and what (if any) basis it has in fact or evidence?

Jon Tandy

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Kirk Bertsche
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 12:42 AM
To: Steven M Smith
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Denver RATE Conference (Thousands...Not Billions)_Part 2

It would be interesting to know where they sent these coal and diamond
samples, how they were prepared, and whether or not backgrounds were
subtracted. Based on what he said earlier, I suspect he is quoting raw
numbers without background subtraction; in this case his dates are just
the AMS background.

I found one reference to C14 and diamond in the literature (by former
colleagues):
http://llnl.confex.com/llnl/ams10/techprogram/P1246.HTM
But the authors were not trying to measure C14 IN diamond. They were
using diamond to eliminate all sources of C14 in the sample so they
could characterize the background of the instrument itself.

Kirk

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Received on Tue Sep 25 11:05:37 2007