Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Donald Rumsfeld

2009-06-15T15:30:53Z

Misterchrisian99: word change

[[Image:ASecDefRumsfeld01.jpg|right|thumb|Donald Rumsfeld]]
'''Donald Henry Rumsfeld''' (b. July 9, 1932) was the [[United States Secretary of Defense|Secretary of Defense]] under President [[Gerald Ford]] from 1975 to 1977 and later [[George W. Bush]] from 2001 to 2006. When he began his first term as defense secretary, he was the youngest person in U.S. history to hold that position; when he left office at the end of his second term, he was the oldest.

Born in Chicago on July 9, 1932, Donald Rumsfeld received his bachelor's degree in 1954 from Princeton University, where he captained the wrestling team. After serving three years (1954–57) in the [[United States Navy]] as an aviator and flight instructor, he worked as a congressional aide in Washington, D.C., and as an investment banker in Chicago. In 1962 he won election to the [[United States House of Representatives]] from the North Shore district of Illinois; he was reelected in 1964, 1966, and 1968.

Rumsfeld gave up his safe congressional seat the following year to serve at the Office of Economic Opportunity and at the White House in the administration of President [[Richard Nixon]]. From 1973 to 1974 Rumsfeld was in Brussels, Belgium, as U.S. ambassador to the [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization]] (NATO).

In August 1974, after Nixon resigned, Rumsfeld was summoned back to Washington to head President Ford's transition team. He then served as Ford's chief of staff until nominated and confirmed as Secretary of Defense. While at the Department of Defense he campaigned vigorously for increased defense spending, took an active role in Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) with the [[Soviet Union]], and made his own test flight in an early version of the B-1 bomber.

After Ford lost the 1976 presidential election, Rumsfeld returned to the private sector, applying his tough-minded management style as chief executive officer, president, and chairman of the G. D. Searle pharmaceutical firm and in subsequent corporate assignments. He continued to speak out on defense issues and was a voice on several prestigious national commissions. When George W. Bush was elected president in 2000, his transition manager, Vice-President-elect [[Dick Cheney]], who had been Rumsfeld's protégé in both the Nixon and Ford administrations, recruited Rumsfeld to serve a second term as defense secretary.

Quickly confirmed by the [[United States Senate]], Rumsfeld took office in January of 2001. During his first seven months on the job, he sought, amid opposition, to restructure the military to meet the needs of the post-[[Cold War]] era. After [[al-Qaeda]] terrorists attacked the U.S. on [[9/11|September 11]], using hijacked aircraft to strike Defense Department headquarters at the Pentagon and to destroy the World Trade Center, Rumsfeld was an outspoken champion of the Bush Administration's [[War on Terror]]. He oversaw the defeat of the [[Taliban]] regime in [[Afghanistan]], which had aided al-Qaeda, and he presided over the largest military buildup since the early 1980s, disarming some media skeptics with his confidence and candor.

Once the war with the regime of dictator [[Saddam Hussein]] began, the rapid success of U.S.-led forces in ousting Saddam appeared to vindicate Rumsfeld's insistence on sophisticated weaponry, strategic flexibility, and preemptive action. However, after major combat operations ended, and U.S. liberation forces began to face daily attacks from Saddam supporters and other terrorists, critics charged that Rumsfeld had underestimated the problems involved. The criticism intensified in April 2004, with the release of photographs providing evidence of abuses carried out on Iraqi terrorist prisoners by a handful of U.S. military personnel at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison during the fall of 2003. Rumsfeld acknowledged in early 2005 that he had twice offered to resign after the Abu Ghraib revelations, but that President Bush had rejected the offers.

For most of 2005 and 2006, President Bush continued to back Rumsfeld while a growing number of [[liberal]]s called for his departure. Finally, on November 8, 2006, the day after an election in which [[Democratic Party|Democrats]] had captured control of Congress, Bush announced that Rumsfeld would step down; named to replace him was [[Robert Gates]], who had headed the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] during the presidency of [[George H. W. Bush]].

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rumsfeld, Donald}}
[[Category:United States Appointed Officials]]

Talk:Donald Rumsfeld

2009-06-15T15:29:28Z

Misterchrisian99: word change

I've changed 'pranks' to 'abuses', which is the proper term for the acts. Any other word makes us look as bad as them. Thanks, TomB

Radiometric dating

2009-06-13T14:52:32Z

Misterchrisian99: clarification on radioactive decay

'''Radiometric dating''' is a method of determining the age of an artifact by measuring the amount of radioactive decay that has occurred.<ref>[http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/radiometric.html Radiometric Time Scale] USGS</ref> Radiometric dating is mostly used to determine the age of rocks, though a particular form of radiometric dating—called [[Radiocarbon dating]]—can date wood, cloth, skeletons, and other organic material.

== Principles ==

No method exists for ''measuring'' [[time]], except by measuring it as it is passing.
Therefore, the age of an artifact must be ''calculated''.

The basic principle in any dating method is to find a process that is occurring at a measurable rate and which is causing a change, measure the rate of that process, work out what state the artifact was in at the beginning of the process, observe what state it is in now, and to calculate how long the process at the measured rate would need to occur to effect that change.

For example, to work out how long a [[candle]] has been burning, the following steps would be needed:
# Measure how long it takes the candle to burn down a given amount.
# Find out how long the candle was when it started burning.
# Measure how long the candle is now.
# Calculate the difference between the two lengths.
# Calculate how long it would need to burn in order to burn that length.

Note: A candle decays (burns) at a linear rate. If one half is consumed in one hour, the remaining half will burn in one hour also. Radioactive elements decay exponentially. After one half decays, the remainder will still require the same time to decay to half that amount, and the same for the next half.

For most radiometric dating methods, one radioactive element changes by a process of nuclear decay into another element (often through a number of intermediate steps). For example, [[uranium]] will eventually decay into [[lead]]. So to measure how old a specimen containing some uranium and some lead is, the following steps are required:
# Measure the decay rate of uranium.
# Find out how much uranium was in the specimen to start with (this might be done by assuming that all the lead was originally uranium).
# Find out how much uranium is in the specimen now.
# Calculate how much uranium has turned into lead.
# Calculate how long it would take that much uranium to turn into lead, given the measured rate. Calculations involve the well-established function for exponential decay: <math>F</math><math>t</math><math>=e</math><math>-kt</math>.

== Key assumptions ==

There are a number of assumptions involved in radiometric dating.
They are assumptions because they are unable to be proved one way or the other.

=== Initial quantities ===

One key assumption is that the initial quantity of the parent element can be determined. With uranium-lead dating, for example, you must be able to determine how much uranium was in the sample to start with. One assumption that can be made is that all the lead in the sample was once uranium, but if there was lead there to start with, this assumption is not valid, and any date based on that assumption will be incorrect (too old).

In the case of carbon dating, it is not the initial quantity that is important, but the initial ratio of C14 to C12, but the same principle otherwise applies.

=== Rate of decay ===

Another assumption is that the rate of decay is constant.
There is no reason to expect that the rate of decay of a radioactive material is largely constant,<ref>At least one example of a change in the rate has been observed in laboratory experiments. See Walker, 2000.</ref> and it was almost certainly not constant near the creation or beginning of the universe.
The process of decay is as follows. Atoms consist of a heavy central core called the [[nucleus]] surrounded by clouds of lightweight particles (electrons), called [[electron shell]]s. The energy locked in the nucleus is enormous, but cannot be released easily. The phenomenon we know as heat is simply the jiggling around of atoms and their components, so in principle a high enough temperature could cause the components of the core to break out. However, the temperature required to do this is in in the millions of degrees, so this cannot be achieved by any natural process that we know about. The second way that a nucleus could be disrupted is by particles striking it. However, the nucleus has a strong positive charge and the electron shells have a strong negative charge. Any incoming negative charge would be deflected by the electron shell and any positive charge that penetrated the electron shells would be deflected by the positive charge of the nucleus itself.

=== Outside influences ===

It is important that the sample not have had any outside influences. One example of this can be found in metamorphic rocks.<ref>[http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/eens211/radiometric_dating.htm Radiometric Dating] Course notes for EENS 211 at Tulane University</ref> This does not mean that all rock samples are unreliable, but it is possible to account for a process which throws off the data for metamorphic rocks.

For example, with [[Uranium-lead dating]] with the crystallization of magma, this remains a closed system until the uranium decays. As it decays, it disrupts the crystal and allows the lead atom to move. Likewise, heating the rock such as [[granite]] forms [[gneiss]] or [[basalt]] forms [[schist]]. This can also disrupt the ratios of lead and uranium in the sample.

== Calibration ==
In order to calibrate radiometric dating methods, the methods need to be checked for accuracy against items with independently-known dates.

Carbon dating, with its much lower maximum theoretical range, is often used for dating items only hundreds and thousands of years old, so can be calibrated in its lower ranges by comparing results with artifacts who's ages are known from historical records.

Scientists have also attempted to extend the calibration range by comparing results to timber which has its age calculated by [[dendrochronology]], but this has also been questioned because carbon dating is used to assist with working out dendrochronological ages.

Otherwise, calibration consists of comparing results with ages determined by other radiometric dating methods.

However, tests of radiometric dating methods have often shown that they do ''not'' agree with known ages of rocks that have been seen to form from volcanic eruptions in recent and historic times, and there are also examples of radiometric dating methods not agreeing with each other.

[[Young earth creationists]] therefore claim that radiometric dating methods are not reliable and can therefore not be used to disprove Biblical chronology.

== Acceptance and reliability ==
Although radiometric dating methods are widely used and their results widely quoted, they are not necessarily reliable and scientists using them often do not accept their accuracy.For instance radioactive dating says the earth is 4.6 billion years old<ref>hypertextbook.com/facts/1997/MollyMoran.shtml></ref> while the bible(the infallible word of God<ref>www.believers.org/believe/bel191.htm</ref>) quotes the world to be around 6-10 thousand years old.<ref>www.independencebaptist.org/6,000%20year%20old%20earth/6,000_year_old_earth.htm</ref>
{{QuoteBox|C14 dating was being discussed at a symposium on the prehistory of the Nile Valley. A famous American colleague, Professor Brew, briefly summarized a common attitude among archaeologists towards it, as follows: "If a C14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely 'out of date', we just drop it." Few archaeologists who have concerned themselves with absolute chronology are innocent of having sometimes applied this method...<ref>T. Säve-Söderbergh and I. U. Olsson, ‘C14 dating and Egyptian chronology’, in ''Radiocarbon Variations and Absolute Chronology'', Proceedings of the Twelfth Nobel Symposium, Ingrid U. Olsson (editor), Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm, and John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, p. 35, 1970. Quoted in Lamb, 2007.</ref>}}

A geological guidebook published by the [[Queensland]] government acknowledges that the dates are not absolute, but must be interpreted:
{{QuoteBox|Also, the relative ages [of the radiometric dating results] must always be consistent with the geological evidence. ... if a contradiction occurs, then the cause of the error needs to be established or the radiometric results are unacceptable<ref>Walker, 2002</ref>}}

One example of scientists not accepting radiometric dates is that of [[Mungo Man]], a human fossil from [[New South Wales]].
When originally found, it was dated by [[radiocarbon dating]] at around 30,000 years old.
This was later revised to 40,000 years.
Another scientist later used other methods to derive a date of 62,000 years.
The original discoverer, unconvinced by this result, used a different method again, and again came up with a date of 40,000 years.

The fallibility of dating methods is also illustrated by the fact that dating laboratories are known to improve the likelihood of getting a "correct" date by asking for the expected date of the item. For example, the Sample Record Sheet for the University of Waikato Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory asks for the estimated age, the basis for the estimate, and the maximum and minimum acceptable ages.<ref>[http://www.radiocarbondating.com/submission%20form%202003.pdf University of Waikato Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory Sample Record Sheet]</ref>

==Some major methods of radiometric dating==

There are several major types of radiometric dating in use:<ref>Walker, 2005</ref><ref>Faure and Mensing, 2005</ref>
#[[Radiocarbon dating]], also called carbon dating
#[[Potassium-argon dating]]
#[[Uranium-lead dating]]
#[[Uranium-thorium]]
#[[Rubidium-strontium dating]]

== Bibliography ==
* Lamb, Andrew, [http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/5026 Carbon dating into the future] 24th March, 2007 (Creation Ministries International).
* Faure, G. and Mensing, T., Isotopes: Principles and Applications, Wiley & Sons, 2005.
* Walker, M., Quarternary Dating Methods, Wiley & Sons, 2005.
* Walker, Tas., [http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/1608/ Radioactive decay rate depends on chemical environment], ''Journal of Creation'' 14(1):4–5, April 2000.
* Walker, Tas., [http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/470 The way it really is: little-known facts about radiometric dating], ''Creation'' 24(4):20–23, September 2002.

==Notes and references==
{{reflist|2}}

[[Category:Earth Sciences]]

Talk:Radiometric dating

2009-06-13T14:09:13Z

Misterchrisian99: /* Principles */

== On my rewrite ==

Major diffs include
* change of ref to printed text "Wile, Dr. Jay L. ''Exploring Creation With General Science''. Anderson: Apologia Educational Ministries, Inc. 2000" to http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/radiometric.html
* removal of section on accelerated decay - pure conjecture without citation. Reference was link to another wiki.
* expanded assumptions
* Added C14 creation rate at flood and creation (probably still needs a reasonable citation that is more than conjecture)
* expanded outside influences, show where metamorphic rock is incorrect and RATE using this infomration to improperly date Grand Canyon. Included refutation of RATE data at answers in creation

If there are any questions, I spent some time back in college writing software for a radiocarbon laboratory and have more than passing knowledge of the material that is written about. Feel free to ask any questions here. --[[User:Mtur|Mtur]] 00:55, 10 April 2007 (EDT)

==Philip's edits==

Philip, I have to point this out to everyone. You are a rare person who has placed productive information in an article that you obviously disagree with and also removed information that would have supported you position on the topic, but you removed it anyway because you had identified it as a bigoted reference. I can not express the level of gratitude towards you for doing this. Thank you.--[[User:Tims|TimS]] 09:01, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

:Err, thanks. Maybe. The bit I removed claimed that the (YEC) RATE project got it wrong. There were two references, one to an ICR article about the RATE project, and the other to an anti-YEC site claiming that the RATE project got it wrong. It was this second reference that I was referring to as bigoted, because it's first criticism was that creationist peer-review is by other creationists. As evolutionist peer-review is by other evolutionists, the only rationale here must be that creationary ''scientists'' are invalidated as peer-reviewers simply because they are creationists.
:I've probably just destroyed your reason for thinking that I've done good, but like you presumed, I do want the truth, and the truth is not what I think you were thinking.
:[[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 09:27, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

== Principles ==

The whole bit about the candles and what not seems a bit pedestrian. I say remove it entirely. Readers understand how to measure time, they don't need to be spoon fed a quasi-example such as this one --[[User:Pastafarian|Pastafarian]]
:On the contrary, most people don't understand the basic principles of how radiometric dating works; this explains it with objects that are quite familiar. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 04:49, 30 June 2007 (EDT)

It's not a good analogy, because the decay (burning) of a candle is linear, and the decay of a radioactive element is exponential. It's as if half the candle would burn in an hour, the next one fourth would also take an hour, and the remaining eighth one hour, etc. As you said, most people don't understand how radiometric dating works.

== Removal of calibration section points ==

I've just removed the bits about methods by which radiometric methods can be "cross-verified". The first example, which seemed a bit convenient anyway, seems at the very least to be disputed and at worst to be simply wrong. See [http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/archaeology/middle/petraglia_toba_india_continuity_2007.html here]. The second is not a method of calibration with independently-''known'' dates, but with other dates that have also not been calibrated. And this is mentioned further down in the article. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 03:41, 24 November 2007 (EST)

== Reversion to earlier version ==

I just reverted two paragraphs to an earlier version. Feebasfactor had edited the two paragraphs, and in so doing incorrectly claimed that the problem that YECs have with radiometric dating is the size of the margin of error. This is not the issue. He also changed "Young-Earth creationists therefore claim ..." to "However, [[young earth creationist]]s claim...". This was fair enough, as the sentence did not logically flow from the previous sentence. However, this was because of a previous edit[http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Radiometric_dating&diff=next&oldid=213492] that changed the flow of the previous sentence, and which introduced a contrary thought which was unsupported by a valid reference. It had been there plenty long enough for a reference, but none was forthcoming, so I've reverted those paragraphs to prior to that edit, with the result that the "Young-Earth creationists therefore claim ..." is again valid, and the incorrect claim about the size of the margin of error is gone. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 04:59, 31 January 2008 (EST)

:Sorry about that, I was trying to resolve the flow - the previous version seemed a little conflicted. Modification to the sentence was perhaps overly drastic, though. [[User:Feebasfactor|Feebasfactor]] 19:38, 31 January 2008 (EST)

==Uranium-Lead Dating==
In your article, you do mention uranium-lead decay, and that lead in the sample originally would skew the resulting age. Zircon, which is often used in dating, has the the property that, when crystallizing, it will exclude all lead and will trap surrounding uranium. The lead that is found in zircon, then, can only have been the product of uranium decay.[http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast161/Unit5/deeptime.html] [http://www.geology.wisc.edu/zircon/zircon_home.html] Also, one can calculate the amount of contamination. Any process that allows one isotope of will let in the others found on Earth. By measuring the amount of lead 204 (which is non-radiogenic and therefore could not have been produced by the decay of the uranium), we would know the amounts of the other isotopes (through the relative amounts on Earth, which are nearly uniform) that contaminated the sample.[http://mightylib.mit.edu/Course%20Materials/22.01/Fall%202001/radiometric%20dating.pdf] (page 8 by the way). From this, the age could be calculated. --[[User:Phillipps|Phillipps]] 12:53, 8 March 2008 (EST)

: This uses the same faulty circular reasoning the decay-based approaches. You're assuming something about aging to prove aging. It's like using a political poll today to predict the outcome of an election in a few months. For obvious reasons, that approach is often wrong.--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 13:43, 8 March 2008 (EST)

:: Equating the decay of radioactive particles (which follow the laws of physics) to the behavior of voters is a false analogy. --[[User:DinsdaleP|DinsdaleP]] 21:10, 30 March 2008 (EDT)

I'm sorry, but the reasons aren't obvious. What am I assuming?--[[User:Phillipps|Phillipps]] 17:25, 10 March 2008 (EDT)
::For clarification, I know why political polls can't be used to predict election results, but you still haven't responded to my question.--[[User:Phillipps|Phillipps]] 11:28, 12 March 2008 (EDT)

Shall you be responding?--[[User:Phillipps|Phillipps]] 16:33, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

== Rate of decay ==

The reference to the beryllium experiment is misleading, in that the experiment referred to changes in rate in different conditions while it is used as a source for changes in rate over time. In other words, the experiment demonstrated changes from ''external'' (i.e. chemical) factors while this article claims heretofore unidentified ''internal'' factors over much longer periods of time- or at least it should identify what external factors may have caused this. Furthermore, the difference in decay rates was only 1.5%, which may be quite a lot from the perspective of a nuclear physicist, but dates are rarely if ever determined with that degree of accuracy due to such variation in external conditions. The citation is used to imply, for those who expect absolute precision certainty from dating techniques (which you won't get in ''any'' sort of measurement) and do not inspect it more closely, that the difference found was so massive as to render the entire methodology invalid. Is the reported 1.5% really significant in this context, then? Let's see- the oldest radiometric estimates for the age of the Earth are roughly 6 billion years, and if the Earth is only 6000 years old, that means that radiometric dating must have a margin of error of at ''least'' 6x109 / 6x103 = 1x106, or 1,000,000. If radiometric dating is really off by a factor of one million (or 100,000,000%), the variation in rate of decay as presented in the experiment accounts for only 0.015 / 1,000,000 = 0.000000015 = 0.0000015% of the error. By contrast, a 1.5% error on a date of six billion years gives the range of 5.91-6.09 billion years- not nearly the massive variation that is implied. [[User:Kallium|Kallium]] 19:30, 15 January 2009 (EST)
: "''...it is used as a source for changes in rate over time.''": It is used mainly as a source for showing that decay rates can vary. However, the placement of the reference could give the wrong impression, so I will move it.
: Nobody is claiming that the ''observed'' variation in decay rates would account for the difference in ages according to the different views. Rather, they are claiming that the observed variation shows that decay rates ''can'' vary, and that the derived dates are not the absolute measurements that they are usually claimed to be.
: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 21:14, 16 January 2009 (EST)

== Estimates and disagreements ==

As I explained briefly in the edit summary before it was reverted, the statement that "laboratories are known to improve the likelihood of of getting a "correct" date by asking for the expected date of the item" does not follow from the document that was cited to support it. The form had an area to "estimate date", which was preceded by detailed descriptions and records of where the sample was found. This is basic, scientifically responsible bookkeeping, with the estimate then based upon the context of where the sample was found as described. Note that the estimate box also has a space for explaining the basis of that estimate. This would be the hypothesis, if you like to think of it that way. Thus the estimate is the expected date where expected = anticipated/hypothesized. It is ''not'' the expected date where expected = desired/required. They aren't ''asking'' to get a result that matches the estimate. Same with the range- "age limits" is actually a commonly used term much like "confidence limits" in statistics. They are not the limits imposed by the submitter- again, they are ''estimates'' not, as the article says, the "maximum and minimum ''acceptable'' ages".

I removed those sentences because the second grossly misrepresents the cited document on a ''factual level'', and without it the first is unsupported assertion. (There are other instances like that elsewhere in the article, I might add.) Think: if scientists were that dishonest, why would they bother going through all the time and ''money'' to package samples, fill out paperwork, ship them off, process them, and pay people to run them through machines that require regular maintenance, just to throw out masses of expensive but "unacceptable" data in the end? Why not just make it all up?

I don't know why my other edit regarding scientific disagreements was reverted; it is misleading to suggest that the whole method is flawed because not everyone (or in the example, two people) agrees on a detail. There have been ''huge'' arguments in all areas of science, when seemingly contradictory results have been found by different people. Some historical examples include how brain cells connect (neuronists vs. reticularists), the identity of the genetic material (nucleic acids vs. proteins), and the phenomenon of plate tectonics, but this doesn't mean that their histology, biochemistry, or geological measurements (respectively), were poorly performed or fundamentally wrong- likewise with this subject. [[User:Kallium|Kallium]] 22:48, 15 January 2009 (EST)

: I reject the above analysis out-of-hand.

: Those sentences are going right smack back in there, and if you so much as touch them again, I ''will'' block you. Let that suffice.

: There is no reason ''at all'' for specifying an estimated date. That is an open invitation to the very sort of fudging that we allege.

: Radiometric dating is ''suppposed'' to be ''absolute''. '''''How can any determination be absolute and yet at the same time depend upon context?''''' This is classic bait-and-switch. It goes to the heart of the conclusion by the RATE Group that ''all'' radiometric dating should be re-examined.

: Detail, you say? We are talking about how the scientific establishment dares regard radiometric dating as a gold standard, capable of rendering an absolute date and thereby actually acting as a fact check on recorded history. Radiometric dating has been represented to the public at large as the next best thing to time travel for fixing the date of a volcanic eruption, or the deaths of large numbers of anything from [[trilobite]]s to [[dinosaur]]s. This is not a quibble here.

: Lastly, I no more consider myself obliged to explain than if I had reverted an edit that tried to allege that two plus two was equal to five.--[[User:TerryH|TerryH]][[User talk:TerryH|Talk]] 23:06, 15 January 2009 (EST)

: Kallium, you've been deleting factual information. It's poorly kept secret that radiometric yields often widely different estimates of age. The statements that you've repeated deleted are well supported. Let the reader decide.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 23:07, 15 January 2009 (EST)

::TerryH, one wonders why you felt the need to open your overtly aggressive reply with a threat. "Because I can block and you can't" (''argumentum ad baculum'') isn't a productive response.

::The estimate is the hypothesis- ''that's'' the reason. ''I said the estimate, not the measurement, "depends on context".'' In fact, my '''entire first paragraph''' was ''solely'' about the estimate. Don't change my meaning then accuse '''''me''''' of bait-and-switch.

::When balancing your checkbook, you have an idea what total you expect to get (your hypothesis) based upon what the statement says and what your income/spending habits for the month were (the context). If you find a discrepancy with the bank, and then redo your math and find a different total that is in agreement, is that "fudging"?

::I did say "detail", because the example was a disagreement over whether an item was 40,000 or 60,000 years old (''internal'' argument), not a disagreement over the validity of the technique (''external'' argument). Using the former to represent the latter is a misrepresentation. Besides, you ignored the actual point.

::A "fact check on recorded history"? Show me written documents describing trilobites dying.

::Radiometric dating ironically ''is'' the next best thing to time travel in terms of determining dates, only because there's isn't a better technique in between.

::Your Parthion shot lacks substance and merely revisits your opening attempt at intimidation.

::Andy, the cited document did not support the interpretation. Perhaps the information is factual, but it should either be adequately sourced or removed as per ''your own rules''. Perhaps the statements really are well supported- in which case it should be easy to find a plethora of better examples- but they weren't so here, making them simply unsupported accusations.

::By the way, isn't "poorly kept secret" an oxymoron? [[User:Kallium|Kallium]] 08:43, 16 January 2009 (EST)

::: Kallium, I was going to respond to your other post in the section above, but have been busy with other things. I don't have much time now, but to avoid this getting more out of hand, I'll make a quick response here and try and come back later to make a larger response.
::: I don't agree with reverting a good-faith edit without explanation.
::: I don't agree with threatening to block you so early in the discussion.
::: However, neither do I agree with your edits, and your now-elaborated rationale for them, and I support your edits being reverted.
::: More tomorrow...
::: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 09:56, 16 January 2009 (EST)

::: "''the statement that "laboratories are known to improve the likelihood of of getting a "correct" date by asking for the expected date of the item" does not follow from the document that was cited to support it.''": The document was cited to support that laboratories have been known to ask for the approximate date. You are reading more into it than was intended.
::: Your justification for laboratories requesting that information was unclear. On the one hand you seemed to be saying that they need that information to understand the context, but as TerryH has pointed out, the context ''should be'' irrelevant, and if TerryH misunderstood your point, I don't blame him. On the other hand, and your second post seems to favour this view, you seem to be likening this to a hypothesis-prediction-fulfilment situation, where the case for the hypothesis is strengthened by the hypothesis making successful predictions. Perhaps this is so, and perhaps the researcher really should make such predictions, but to his supervisor or other such body, not to the dating laboratory.
::: Do you understand the principle of double-blind tests? Double-blind tests are done because it is a known problem that the answer the researcher expects can influence the outcome. So giving the dating laboratory an expected/anticipated age could well affect the outcome, even if unintentionally. If you supplied a dating laboratory with a piece of wood and told them that it was from a building that was supposed to be an early settler's house, and the dating laboratory came up with a date of 30,000 years, do you think that they would simply report that date to you? I've heard a scientist say that he noticed that fairly often a dating laboratory he sent samples off to would ask for another sample, as the ones supplied were no good. He eventually asked them in what way they were no good, and was told, "wrong date"! The point is, if you tell the dating laboratory what age it ''should'' be, and it's widely different, they are likely to run the test again, ask for another sample, or whatever, until they get something that is about "right". This means that it is not a totally objective test, but one that is influenced by expectations.
::: Nobody is alleging deliberate dishonesty.
::: It's true that there are disagreements in other areas of science. But all such disagreements are over claims that cannot be readily tested and measured. You won't find disagreement over the boiling point of water, for example, because it can be readily measured. The point of highlighting the disagreement is to make clear that a date is ''not'' an easily-measured quantity, but something that is so subject to variables that different researchers readily reject others' dates when it suits them, and to point out that the claim that dating methods are shown to be reliable because different methods agree is a [[furphy]].
::: As for the disagreement over a "detail", they may not be ''specifically'' arguing over the validity of the techniques ''per se'', but they ''are'' arguing over the validity of the dates derived via those techniques, which implies that they are ''effectively'' arguing over the validity of the techniques. How can you have a valid technique giving an invalid date?
::: "''Show me written documents describing trilobites dying.''": Genesis 6-8 describes a world-destroying flood that would have buried alive a great many trilobites. And yes, that is the point. These dating techniques are used to discredit a written (recorded) history of the world.
::: "''Radiometric dating ironically is the next best thing to time travel in terms of determining dates, only because there's isn't a better technique in between.''": Other than eye-witness accounts, such as found in the Bible. The best method would be time travel. The second best would be eye-witness accounts. The third best would be radiometric dating techniques. But the third-best is used to discredit what is claimed to be the the second best. See the problem?
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