Yes, that’s because the amount of argon is so low that it is below the level of reliable detection. All measurements have a range where they can make accurate measurements. Your bathroom scales can’t measure the weight of a feather, so would you conclude that feathers don’t exist. Would you conclude that nothing is heavier than a feather?
No. If the planet were young then ALL rocks would be below the detection range for K/Ar dating. That isn’t the case. There are rocks that do have enough argon to measure accurately, and this shouldn’t be the case if those rocks are young.
“Doesn’t exist” is not a result in radiometric dating. Radiometric dating produces numbers, by plugging in the ratio of parent to daughter isotopes in an equation. The equation cannot logically output “doesn’t exist” or “too young”.
Doing the math might help @r_speir get a handle on what we are talking about.
The half life of 40K is 1.25 billion years. This means half of the 40K in a rock will decay to 40Ar and 40Ca in 1.25 billion years. In addition, only about 10% of 40K decays result in 40Ar:
The equations are as follows:
N0 is the initial quantity Nt is the remaining quantity after time, t t1/2 is the half-life τ is the mean lifetime λ is the decay constant
You can also cheat and use an online half life calculator:
After 6,000 years we will have 99.9996% of the 40K left which would decay into 90% 40Ca and 10% 40Ar. As you can see, this isn’t much 40Ar and would be difficult to measure such small quantities.
After 20 million years we will have 98.89% of the 40K left while the 40K that decayed produced 90% 40Ca and 10% 40Ar. That’s more than a 2,000x increase in 40Ar compared to just 6,000 years.
Let’s use our bathroom scales as an analogy again. Let’s say the scales can accurately measure 5 kg. Would you be surprised if those same bathroom scales could not weigh 2.5 grams? Would we be justified in rejecting a measurement of 5kg simply because the scales could not weigh 2.5 grams?
And with that statement you only show you do not understand the issue at hand. What we actually have is argon in excess giving unreliably old dates. And please, no more Wikipedia articles and long mathematical calculations. You are subtracting from the discussion.
That excess argon is a tiny percentage of the total argon in rocks that are 20 million years old. It only affects accuracy when there has been a short amount of time for 40K to decay and produce more argon. You will also notice that no young rocks date to 20 million years old.
If you claim that tiny amounts of excess argon present in freshly formed rocks is a problem for the K/Ar method then we need to go over those equations and calculations.
Aiyaiyaiyaiyi but this is tricky to moderate. Please be very cautious about statements that might be interpreted as sniping or personal attacks. That means everybody.
That’s pretty obvious since you once again ducked the radiocarbon calibration by over a dozen non-radiometric proxy data sets going back over 50,000 years.
These are scientific facts which directly refute the 6000 year old earth claim.
That misses the point. The real point is that no young rocks radio-date to 6000 years, nor can they. To appeal to the new Ar-Ar approach is to appeal to an ad hoc addition purely in response to complaints over the last few decades by creationists questioning old potassium-argon dates placed on eruptions already known to be young. It is simply a device tactic in the radiometric bag of tricks that appears to give them license to roll back old dates sometimes millions of years if necessary in an effort to give the appearance that they have their disorderly science under control.
Again, no radio dating methods on rock could possibly date a truly young planet. Ar-Ar is a mathematical adjustment on paper to save face.
Thus, I have no trouble emphatically disagreeing with your statement here. Yes, freshly formed rock is definitely a problem for any and all radiogenic techniques on rock . Mt St Helens more than makes that point.
Absolutely no one proposed or researched isochron dating as a response to creationists. Real geologists simply do not give a damn what creationists think. Isochron dating was developed to handle edge cases where other dating methods were not as precise as we would like. Literally no part of radiometric dating methods were in any way developed as a result of creationist objections.
I, too, once thought that radiometric dating was an invention to prop up uniformitarianism and evolutionary biology. It is not. No one cares. When geologists do radiometric testing, they are doing it to actually learn about the rocks.
That is patently false.
Radiocarbon dating is a form of radiometric dating, and radiocarbon dates below 6000 years…in fact, as low as 100 years…are entirely possible. If you believe that radiocarbon dating is qualitatively different from other methods of radiometric dating, then you will need to show some maths.
But we sure have plenty of dating methods which can and do date a planet much older than 6000 years.
The trucking company down the street has a scale used to weigh trucks. It goes from 100 lbs to 20,000 lbs in 100 lb. increments. According to you nothing can be accurately weighed more than 100 lbs since anything less than 100 lbs won’t register on the scale.
This has all the earmarks of deception. Do you use deception and bait and switch tactics regularly? Notice everyone how he changed my radio dating to “radiocarbon dating”. Really? This entire crew should come down on you for that one! This is foul in the most grievous sense.
Be careful or I will reverse that statement back on you. Since you believe in it so much you should have no trouble using it to re-date rock from the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic – or surely Dalrymple will be glad to do it for you!
He won’t? Well no surprise there. Which actually brings up another reason Ar-Ar is nothing more than a rescuing device >> It enjoys preferred status! << Use it or avoid it depending entirely on the point trying to be proven at the moment.
Which further cements the fact that radiometric dating is nothing more than an elaborate (but shoddy) fabrication to underscore the evolutionary paradigm.
I think everyone assumes that by “radio dating” you do not mean AM Radio shows about advice for the lovelorn, but instead mean radiometric dating. Since radiocarbon dating is one of the various forms of radiometric dating, his response to you is directly on point.
And what you’ve done here is just silly. It’s like the following:
Dave: No mammal eats fish!
Fred: Bears eat fish, though. Isn’t that a problem for your claim?
Dave: Notice everyone how he changed my mammals to “bears.” Really? This entire crew should come down on you for that one! This is foul in the most grievous sense.
Do you really not understand radiocarbon dating IS radiometric dating of the decay of the C14 isotope of carbon??? This is coming from a guy who claimed no one here could discuss radiometric dating with him if they weren’t an acknowledged expert in the field.
But there isn’t any deception there. Radiocarbon dating is a specific example of radiometric dating. And that example shows that your earlier assertion (“no young rocks radio-date to 6000 years, nor can they”) was wrong.
I’ll give you the benefit of the date and assume that you just made a mistake, instead of accusing you of deception.
IF the Earth was only 6000 years old, much of radiometric data would be in trouble, that I can agree with.
What is overlooked, though, is that radiometric dating of young rocks will result in very noisy data with no clear patterns to it. How could there be, when the amount of daughter isotope is going to be effectively below the resolution of the methods? However, that is not what we find when we look at the results of thousands of different datings: there is great systematic consilience between different methods applied to the same rocks, and again to the same methods applied to suites of associated rocks. I am not making this up - anyone with access to the literature can easily find many examples of this. The Hawaii sea mounts were already mentioned as one example. Why would there be a systematic indication of increasing age away from the hotspot, if the datings are simply measuring noise?
Bottom line: if radiometric data is just noise there shouldn’t be any systematic trends, nor consilience. There are many such trends and there is a lot of consilience, therefore the data are signal, not just noise.
Exactly. The whole purpose of the RATE project was to try to explain away this consilience with a accelerated decay scheme. They know it’s real. If there was no consilience, they would have no need to invent RATE.
I really do not mean to pile on here but you have demonstrated you have no idea what you are talking about.
Ar-Ar is not a rescuing device. Isochron methods are an extremely powerful and highly accurate tool, but they are only applicable under certain specific conditions. They are particularly useful because if the conditions are not suitable, the result you get actually tells you so. But you don’t know any of this because you imagine that radioactive decay equations are an atheist conspiracy.
When isochrons can be used, they are used, because they are so accurate. If they cannot be used, they are not used. That is all.
@r_speir, if you cannot even solve a basic, undergraduate-level radiometric dating problem, why would you expect us to take you seriously in ANY of your other claims?
“If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”
