Actually, I’m not. I’m not saying that mathematical formulae reduce uncertainties, but that they quantify them. New data may allow us to refine our measurements, or may throw up surprises that warrant further investigation and research.
I’m not forgetting about that either. It is true that dating methods make assumptions and that these assumptions are not always met. Discordant dates such as the one you cited merely indicate that these assumptions were not met in this particular case.
What is not true, however, is the claim that these assumptions are unverifiable. Close agreement between dating methods allows scientists to identify cases where the assumptions were met, and the more dating methods that they use, the greater the confidence they can have that this was the case, especially if the underlying assumptions behind each of the methods are independent of each other.
That’s why I say that a small number of outliers isn’t sufficient to debunk conventional dating methods. If these methods really could not reliably distinguish between a few thousand and hundreds of millions of years, we would expect such discordances to be both very large (multiple orders of magnitude) and extremely common (95% or more). I’m not sure exactly how common discordant dates are (perhaps someone more knowledgeable on the subject than myself would care to provide some figures here, though I’d be very surprised if it’s anywhere near to 95%) but I do know that the largest discordances catalogued by the RATE project were in the 10-15% range – way too small to allow for the five or six orders of magnitude needed to support a young earth.
(1) I never saw an academic journal where “Nature” had a vote during the peer-review process which determined which papers were published.
(2) Not a single university lists “Nature” amongst the faculty of a science department.
(3) No academic paper or science textbook ever listed “Nature” as the author.
If I understand Giberson correctly, he was making a valid point. Yet, it is the kind of point which must be interpreted very very carefully in a clear and specific context. Personally, because of it potential for misinterpretation, I would be hesitant to make such a statement. Indeed, I’ve on multiple occasions seen it misused in ways that I doubt he intended. (Indeed, Giberson’s own opponents, including CMI, have seized upon it in criticizing him.)
Meanwhile, the original statement holds true: “their opinions simply do not matter to the science academy and university science curricula.” They simply don’t. That is how the academy works. Academics in a particular discipline get to “vote” in the process of peer review. The rest of us do not.
Whether we like it or not, that’s is how it works. There was a time when I was unhappy with that. But I changed my mind as I acquired more scientific knowledge and experience within the academy.
I don’t know if he is playing them down or if he simply doesn’t understand them. I confess that I often have difficulty following his arguments. He appears to have a very limited understanding of the science but he is determined to argue confidently despite that fact.
This is another instance where it seems like JohnZ is assuming that scientific terms with very specific meanings have the definitions which would be assigned to them by the average non-scientist in casual conversation. And that’s why his statements apparently make sense to him (and his peers) but don’t make any sense to the scientists here.
This reminds me of an illustration by a colleague who has often said that listening to a non-scientist’s arguments with scientists sounds much like a D student arguing with a professor for partial credit on an exam question. They fight for that one point as if all life depends upon it, even though they are making no sense.
He says he has taken “beginner” and “advanced” courses in statistics. I’ve no idea what he means by that. Part of a university degree, with marked assessments and mentored lab work? Or just watching Khan Academy videos and completing a web-based multiple-guess questionnaire at the end? There’s a world of difference, and it affects how much detail you have to put into your explanations, and at what kind of level.
Did you both mean for the above posts to be personal (non-public) messages to each other? You are referring to JohnZ in third person while he is presumably “still in the room”. No matter how much good warrant your disagreement with him may have, this still has the sting of condescension, which never advances anybody’s cause in a positive way. I don’t want to sound too preachy, but I do appreciate it when people hold me accountable for my words and tones and think it good to police ourselves on this.
Consider me rebuked If I came across as condescending, I apologise.
However, @johnZ, I do get the impression that we aren’t quite “on the same page” at times in terms of the terminology that we’re using. It would be good to know exactly what you know so that we don’t end up talking past each other.
(For my own part: I have a degree in physics from a leading UK university and I currently work as a software developer.)
You have been arguing throughout that @jammycakes in particular and geologists in general are handling the math incorrectly. In post 100 you stated that boundary conditions and other parameters are what makes the math useful or not.
Since you seem to think the math of @jammycakes and geologists is not useful, you would also seem to be asserting that they have not set the boundary conditions and parameters correctly (if at all).
If I have misunderstood you, and you think they have in fact been working out the math in a useful manner, then by all means please declare so.
If not, then I would simply ask once again which boundary conditions and parameters would you set/correct, and how?
If the science academy is truly as fraudulent, as sloppy, and as easily debunked by non-scientists as JohnZ claims—if entire academic disciplines are riddled with error and casual carelessness which renders peer-review essentially non-existent—then I’m amazed at what scientists nevertheless accomplish on a continuing basis. Frankly, it doesn’t make sense. Impressive discoveries and even practical inventions and breakthrough multiply exponentially over time. (Yet, to point them out only evokes, “No, that never happenned” and “The breakthroughs came about from other scientific discoveries unrelated to this.”)
This reminds me of debates with various kinds of conspiracy theorists. When people live in different “worlds”, making progress through dialogue is very difficult. At some point, you get to exchanges which are basically “Yes, this is true” versus “No it isn’t.”
I did not say they have not set boundary conditions. I said that the math depends on how the boundary conditions are set. While any set of data can determine a line, or a curve of some type, it is rare that the data is infinite… in other words there is a limit to the extent of the data, and any consequent line, and beyond that, the line is extrapolated, either into the future, or into the past, or at least into the unknown. The point of my comment is that boundary conditions for any process determine the usefulness of the data. Example: if you measure the acceleration of a car from 30km/hr to 60km/hr and say that a car accelerates at 2 km/minute, based on the data available, then the boundary condition is from 30 km/hr to 60 km/hr. Only for that period is the data available and valid. You might extrapolate it beyond the boundary conditions, and you might even be right. Your math would be accurate. Your line would make sense. But you don’t know if things were different before the 30km/hr, or after the 60km/hr. From practical experience, you know that it is likely that the acceleration rates would be different before the 30km/hr and after the 60km/hr.
Therefore merely to claim that the mathematics themselves are accurate, ignores the necessity for the boundary conditions of any claim, and really it is that which is the issue. Not the mathematics.
This reminds me of Jason Lisle’s self-contradiction-filled The Ultimate Proof of God. He claims that God is a god of order and gave us a logical, consistent universe which can be understood—and then the moment the evidence from that universe contradicts his favorite Young Earth Creationist traditions, he insists that that same universe is illogical, disorderly, inconsistent, and unpredictable. (So much for a “proof of God”. Of course, it never ever was any sort of proof of God. The silly idea never even got any traction among evangelical philosophers.)
It reminds me of one of many times when the Young Earth Creationist “creation science” movement jumped the shark. Because the starlight problem could be grasped even by non-scientists, their fears drove them to a desperate “multiply both sides of the equation by zero” type of solution: They insisted that the speed of light used to be billions and even trillions of times faster! Obviously, that created far more problems than it solved. (For example, there was that nagging problem of everything on earth being burned to a crisp. They didn’t consider how the constant “c” was central to a lot more physics than just bringing starlight to earth. Yet, even the RATE Project “solved” the problem in much the same way that Young Earth Creationists have always solved the problem of overwhelming evidence that destroys their claims: Insist that God performed a miracle. Hallelujah! The problem immediately goes away!)
I have three problems with @johnZ’s latest post. The first is that he is using the term “boundary conditions” incorrectly. Boundary conditions are not points on a graph beyond which no data is available, but a set of constraints on a system governed by differential equations at which certain values are fixed. For example, when calculating the vibrations of a guitar string or a drumskin, the boundary condition is that the ends of the string or the edge of the drum remain static. This is nothing to do with extrapolation.
The second problem is that this statement is a straw man:
As I’ve said, no scientist makes the unqualified statement that any measured quantity is “accurate”; accuracy is always quantified.
The third problem is that he is still overlooking the fact that scientists do not blindly make extrapolations unless there is rigorously tested empirical evidence for the validity of those extrapolations. And again, the validity of those extrapolations is expressed as a number; never as a glib binary “this is valid” or “this is invalid” statement.
The fact of the matter is that for dating methods, these extrapolations can be validated, simply by comparing the results from multiple methods whose assumptions are independent of each other. It should also be noted that as this validates the extrapolations on a case-by-case basis, a small number of outliers where they don’t line up does not invalidate the majority of cases where they do.
Hi @johnZ - I understand the abstraction, thanks. If you hope to show why YEC geology is better than what the overwhelming majority of geologists consider to be scientifically demonstrated, you need to talk about the different methodologies/assumptions, and show how one more closely fits the large body of evidence than the other.
I would also recommend responding to the incisive critiques by @jammycakes and @OldTimer.
The “polystrate” whale in the Monterey diatomite is a classic example of a creationist fable. The specimen in question was collected by my close friend and colleague Dr. Larry Barnes, now retired from the Los Angeles County Museum. It is a fable for the most obvious (to a geologist or paleontologist) way possible: the skeleton was laid down in the normal fashion, parallel to the diatomite strata, which have subsequently been upturned at a steep angle (like many other rock layers around the world). There is no need for a discussion about abnormal rates of diatomite sedimentation. There is always a need in these circumstances for the observer to closely note the orientation of the strata, along with the orientation of the fossil!
Ken Ham and most other Young Earth Creationists will heartily disagree with you on this statement.
The most basic issue they have with it is that sin is not the cause of death, leading eventually to why did Jesus have to die and what is the meaning of that death if death is really a such a good thing that it brought every life form as we know it into existence??? Then there are other issues such as Jesus is the last Adam, so what does it mean for there to have been a first Adam??
This is of course the crux of the whole matter. This is precisely why there’s such venom being thrown around on biologos.
The biologian point of view clearly differs from the YEC point of view in that biologians appear to view their “book of creation” as sacrosanct and trumping the book of scripture hence the book of scripture needs to be re-interpreted in that light.
This is contrast to the YECs who think that there isn’t a book of creation at all but rather only a book of scripture which trumps any other statements made on the origins issue.
It’s a question of authority. Biologians appear to accept the statements made by the atheistic religion as their authority whilst the YECs accept the word of God as their authority when it comes to the question of origins.
You can’t have it both ways.
JUst another twopence.
If I came across as condescending, I apologise.