Flaws in radiometric dating

[Mindspawn]

Even if there is an effect on nuclear decay rates from solar neutrinos or whatever, it is too small to call radiometric dating results into question. The variation is a fraction of a percentage point at most , and that is comparable to the error bars in most radiometric measurements anyway.

I have dealt with this point again and again. I see a strong relationship between background radiation and decay variation, rather than the neutrino hypothesis. Background radiation being affected by solar flares (forbush effect), time of day, and season (via average air pressure changes).

Background radiation would have been massively reduced during higher air pressures of ages past. So we are seeing a small influence (solar flares/time of day) and small effect (slight changes to decay of rapidly decaying isotopes). We need to measure the changes to decay under massive influence (much higher air pressures, major changes in magnetic field strength), and see how these affect slowly decaying isotopes.

Unless these studies are done, we just do not know if there were massive changes to decay rates of unstable isotopes of long half lives under past conditions. No matter how you dismiss this logic, the logic stands. The logic is undeniable.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

Do the hard work of eliminating noise to see if there’s signal. None of those you cite have.

[jammycakes (James McKay)]

@Mindspawn

Unless these studies are done, we just do not know if there were massive changes to decay rates of unstable isotopes of long half lives under past conditions. No matter how you dismiss this logic, the logic stands. The logic is undeniable.

But these studies have been done! @pevaquark gave a link in post 208 to an article summarising the studies concerned. Radioactive decay rates have been tested in conditions far more extreme than any you are proposing here.

@Mindspawn

I have dealt with this point again and again. I see a strong relationship between background radiation and decay variation, rather than the neutrino hypothesis. Background radiation being affected by solar flares (forbush effect), time of day, and season (via average air pressure changes).

You have dealt with nothing of the sort. It has repeatedly been pointed out to you over and over again that the relationship is tiny at most. A fraction of a percentage point under extremes of pressure and temperature only found in laboratory conditions is not “strong” by any stretch of the imagination.

Look, @Mindspawn, it’s as simple as this. You CANNOT present tiny discrepancies as evidence of effects much larger than the measured discrepancies themselves. If you still insist that you can, then you are rejecting the most basic and fundamental rules and principles of how measurement works, and further discussion is pointless.

[Chris_Falter]

@Mindspawn

Background radiation would have been massively reduced during higher air pressures of ages past.

Your hypothesis is completely ruled out by the very non-peer-reviewed, pre-publication experiment you have been citing.

Would you like to know why? I would be happy to explain and have a real discussion with you, if you are willing to hear me out.

Best,
Chris

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

Entirely nuclear events are affected by air pressure?

Source to the science.

[Chris_Falter]

@Mindspawn

The studies are continuing

Now I know that you are not reading anything except the abstracts of the material you are linking to.

That Researchgate link you posted is the same paper as the arxiv.org paper you cited earlier. Someone gave the non-peer-reviewed paper a different title and published it to a different site.

Best,
Chris

[Chris_Falter]

@Mindspawn

Further studies:

And one of the InspireHEP links you posted is once again to the very same non-peer-reviewed paper.

[Chris_Falter]

@Mindspawn

Here your refutations are themselves refuted in 2018, so sorry, even your refutations are… incorrect

Not in the least. In 2019 Pomme, et al. replied as follows:

• Reply to rebuttal and new papers by Sturrock et al. which repeat old claims. • The radon experiment at GSI is susceptible to sunshine and rainfall. • There is no evidence that solar or cosmic neutrinos induce radioactive decay. • There is no relationship between radioactive decay and solar rotation.

https://inspirehep.net/literature/1707765

What you seem not to realize is this: The subsequent unpublished papers by Walg, et al. (2019, 2020) seem to have been a tacit admission that Pomme’s critique (2016 - 2019) was correct. The Israeli team recognized that their experimental apparatus in 2010 was indeed susceptible to sunshine and rainfall. Therefore, in their new experiment they went underground and encased their apparatus in thick lead walls so that only neutrinos could pass through. This method excluded the effects of sunshine and rainfall.

However, their data analysis has not yet been rigorous enough to merit publication.

@Mindspawn

The studies are continuing

A review of the literature does not support your contention. The GSI gathered some data in 2010. A small team at Purdue led by Sturrock published a provocative paper suggesting neutrinos affect radioactive decay rates. The Sturrock team has never since published any new data or conducted any new research; they have simply defended their original paper.

In 2019, a new experiment at GSI attempted to eliminate the problems in the 2010 study. However, the papers based on this experiment (in 2019 and 2020) have to date fallen short of the standard needed to pass peer review.

And that is it. That is the sum total of the research on this whole speculative notion.

Perhaps the GSI team will improve their methods, and find something interesting and new to publish. Who knows?

Neither you nor I, that’s for sure. We don’t have the 2019 GSI data; no one has them except for the team. Until they release the data and publish a peer-reviewed paper, this whole notion is effectively a non-starter.

Have a blessed Holy Week.

Chris Falter

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

Let’s posit that you are right.

That all radioactive decay, even entirely nuclear, i.e. not just electron capture and internal conversion decay rates, is affected by environmental factors like solar flares (which entirely explain the Forbush decrease of cosmic rays incidentally) and neutrinos.

What effect does that have on the geological record?

[Chris_Falter]

@Mindspawn

the fluctuations in decay rate are detected again and again. These fluctuate according to time of day, in June, solar flares, these are all factors influencing the rate of decay of parent isotopes.

@Mindspawn

I see a strong relationship between background radiation and decay variation, rather than the neutrino hypothesis. Background radiation being affected by solar flares (forbush effect), time of day, and season (via average air pressure changes).

Let’s talk again about the Pomme, et al. research summary that you linked to and we have discussed.

According to that team’s analysis of multiple experiments, there are exactly zero fluctuations in radioactive decay rates. Radioactive decay rates are constant, period, according to the peer-reviewed and published data. Please see relevant excerpts from their 2017 paper in post #218 above.

You claim to see fluctuations, but the scientists who have carefully studied this issue disagree with you.

The one exception to constancy that is being explored anywhere among scientists is the hypothesized neutrino effect suggested in the Israeli’s team’s pre-pub, non-peer-reviewed papers. So far, that research has not yielded anything deemed suitable for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

Best,
Chris Falter

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@Chris_Falter

@Mindspawn

Background radiation would have been massively reduced during higher air pressures of ages past.

Your hypothesis is completely ruled out by the very non-peer-reviewed, pre-publication experiment you have been citing.

Would you like to know why? I would be happy to explain and have a real discussion with you, if you are willing to hear me out.

Best,
Chris

Please go ahead regardless Chris.

[T_aquaticus]

@Mindspawn

I’m relying on existing studies done by respected scientists.

That seems doubtful.

The hypothesis that proximity to the Sun causes variation of decay constants at permille level has been tested and disproved. Repeated activity measurements of mono-radionuclide sources were performed over periods from 200 days up to four decades at 14 laboratories across the globe. Residuals from the exponential nuclear decay curves were inspected for annual oscillations. Systematic deviations from a purely exponential decay curve differ from one data set to another and are attributable to instabilities in the instrumentation and measurement conditions. The most stable activity measurements of alpha, beta-minus, electron capture, and beta-plus decaying sources set an upper limit of 0.0006% to 0.008% to the amplitude of annual oscillations in the decay rate. Oscillations in phase with Earth’s orbital distance to the Sun could not be observed within a 10−6 to 10−5 range of precision. There are also no apparent modulations over periods of weeks or months. Consequently, there is no indication of a natural impediment against sub-permille accuracy in half-life determinations, renormalisation of activity to a distant reference date, application of nuclear dating for archaeology, geo- and cosmochronology, nor in establishing the SI unit becquerel and seeking international equivalence of activity standards.
Evidence against solar influence on nuclear decay constants - PMC

There are tons of respected scientists who wrote that paper.

[Mindspawn]

Tiny changes are evidence of uncertainty. An unknown factor affects decay. If we do not know what it is, then we cannot know if it was far stronger in the past.

They do not measure the effect on isotopes with long half lives, therefore we do not know how the unknown effect, affects isotopes with long half lives (eg billions of years).

But I’m not expecting you guys to accept this logic, it’s the neutrals that will see the common sense in what I say.

[Mindspawn]

Exactly, and I agree that earth-sun distance is NOT the unknown effect that is causing decay fluctuations. Therefore neutrinos are a doubtful factor, because they should decrease their effect with earth-sun distance.

I have said this many times in this thread, I AGREE that it’s not neutrinos that are causing the decay variations in what was thought to be a constant. The fact that you guys repeat this anti-neutrino argument again and again to me, when I too have been consistently against the neutrino hypothesis, shows that you don’t really understand my argument.

[jammycakes (James McKay)]

@Mindspawn

Tiny changes are evidence of uncertainty. An unknown factor affects decay. If we do not know what it is, then we cannot know if it was far stronger in the past.

In other words, as I said, you are rejecting the most basic, fundamental rules and principles of how measurement works.

That being the case, there’s no point in discussing this any further.

[Bill_II]

@Mindspawn

They do not measure the effect on isotopes with long half lives, therefore we do not know how the unknown effect, affects isotopes with long half lives (eg billions of years).

You are assuming that the physical cause of the half life varies from element to element. You have a rather large hurdle to clear, proving that different radioactive elements differ in the physics that applies to the generation of radioactivity. I am pretty sure there is nothing that would indicate that so what ever affects a short half life would also affect a long half life. Unless you have something that proves me wrong of course.

@Mindspawn

But I’m not expecting you guys to accept this logic, it’s the neutrals that will see the common sense in what I say.

I must be non-neutral then.

[Chris_Falter]

@Mindspawn

The fact that you guys repeat this anti-neutrino argument again and again to me, when I too have been consistently against the neutrino hypothesis, shows that you don’t really understand my argument.

I keep citing research that shows there are no fluctuations whatsoever that cannot be attributed to measurement error. The fact that you keep asserting the existence of unexplained fluctuations shows you have not understood the consensus among physicists.

But there are more important things. Have a blessed Holy Week.

Chris

[Mindspawn]

Being peer reviewed is overrated.

Please read the following article on peer review:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/

[jammycakes (James McKay)]

@Mindspawn

But I’m not expecting you guys to accept this logic, it’s the neutrals that will see the common sense in what I say.

It’s the basic rules and principles of mathematics and measurement that are neutral, @Mindspawn. Not vague, subjective, arbitrarily defined, culturally dependent, and often completely wrong-headed ideas of what constitutes “common sense.”

@Mindspawn

Being peer reviewed is overrated.

Please read the following article on peer review:
Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals - PMC

So what do you believe that it should be replaced with? Just because peer review isn’t perfect doesn’t mean to say that you can do away with quality control altogether.

Peer review may not be a sufficient condition for something to be scientifically acceptable, but it is a necessary condition.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@Mindspawn

Tiny changes are evidence of uncertainty. An unknown factor affects decay. If we do not know what it is, then we cannot know if it was far stronger in the past.

They do not measure the effect on isotopes with long half lives, therefore we do not know how the unknown effect, affects isotopes with long half lives (eg billions of years).

But I’m not expecting you guys to accept this logic, it’s the neutrals that will see the common sense in what I say.

Link to entirely nuclear events being influenced by environmental factors.

Science is perfectly neutral. Dispassionate. Disinterested. You have a different cognitive bias that arrogates a false neutrality between rationality and irrationality.