Talk:Radiometric dating

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. --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.--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.

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 --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. Philip J. Rayment 04:49, 30 June 2007 (EDT)

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 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. 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 creationists claim...". This was fair enough, as the sentence did not logically flow from the previous sentence. However, this was because of a previous edit[1] 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. Philip J. Rayment 04:59, 31 January 2008 (EST)