" [quote=“T_aquaticus, post:95, topic:50581”]
There is no research to the contrary. There is no research demonstrating that the decay rate of 40K can change by orders of magnitude at pressures and temperatures conducive to the solidification of these rocks.
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yes there is research and scholarly reviews that discredit this idea."
No. The rate of radiometric decay is not altered by conditions found in rocks, with the exception of electron capture decay, which obviously is affected by the availability of electrons to capture and is not used in radiometric dating, and rocks with extremely high levels of radioactive elements that reach the point of becoming a nuclear reactor. You have not provided any evidence to the contrary. Young-earth claims such as the RATE project are based on the fact that radiometric decay data does not fit the young-earth model, but there is no evidence of any of the side effects that should be seen if radiometric decay was significantly different in the past. The young-earth model is basically “God miraculously changed all the radiometric decay rates so that the earth would look just like it should if it were old”, which makes no sense theologically.
You are not listening. Several of these points have already been addressed multiple times. If you are seriously interested in finding out answers, you need to pay attention to the answers. If you are trying to make your position look stupid by simply repeating the same bad arguments over and over, that’s not a good thing to try to do.
You also need to carefully check whether you are accurately representing the young-earth argument in question and whether your arguments contradict young-earth claims. For example,
" 1. please show me the evidence of a valid starting point and no contamination?" The claims that the radiohalos and 14C in diamonds are meaningful require that it is possible to determine if something is contamination, and in fact you make the claim that contamination can be eliminated in #5. Contamination is extremely unlikely to show a regular pattern. For example, in isochron dating or argon-argon dating, the date depends on getting a clear line in a graph of the data. If there has been contamination of some sort, the numbers get scattered and you don’t have a line to trace and find the date. Several replies have addressed examples of how to identify the starting amounts of daughter isotope already.
As another reply already explained, the age of the earth is based on radiometric dating, but of meteorites rather than earth rocks. (More indirect measurements on earth rocks, such as the overall patterns of lead isotopes and the lack of isotopes with half lives below several hundred thousand years that don’t have an ongoing source on earth, support that general age but are less precise.) The claim that Darwinian assumptions were involved is baloney. Darwin himself guessed ages way older than the evidence of radiometric dating.
Radiohalos form when a radioactive atom in a crystal decays, leaving a hole of some sort. Based on the laws of radioactive decay, we can calculate what size hole should be produced by what isotope decaying. However, they have various complexities in form that are not well-understood (by anyone, including young-earth claims). The young-earth claim is that some of the halos can be identified as from the decay of polonium, which only has short-lived isotopes. In turn, it is claimed that this proves that the granitic rocks containing these halos must have formed quickly enough to trap the polonium, rather than cooling very slowly from magma, as other evidence indicates. The details of the argument have changed over time. Gentry, who first investigated and promoted the phenomenon from a young-earth viewpoint, originally claimed that this proved that all granites were formed instantaneously during the creation of the earth. As many granites show evidence of interacting with previously existing rocks, this model contradicts flood geology - it forces practically all rocks to have been created with the appearance of age, fossils etc., rather than being formed by the flood. The RATE project claimed that the granites with the polonium halos were formed rapidly during the flood instead of at the creation of the earth. But the premise that a polonium halo in certain granites proves that all granites formed fast is wrong. For one thing, polonium is constantly being formed by the decay of longer-lived isotopes like 238U, 235U, and 232Th. An occasional atom of polonium would end up in a crystal as the granite cooled, no matter how slowly it happened. But the specific granites where polonium halos have been found also show evidence of chemical alteration by uranium-rich groundwater. The polonium is most likely to have been added long after the crystal solidified. Also, notice that the argument requires that you can identify a halo as from polonium. But that is only possible if the laws governing radiometric decay have not changed. The existence of recognizable polonium halos is proof that the laws have not changed and that many young-earth arguments are untrue.
It is possible for tiny amounts of 14C to be generated in diamonds, coal, and other buried materials by the effects of radiation from decay of radioactive atoms. But there is also noticeable amounts of 14C in air, in any traces of fingerprints on the diamond, etc. If you put something that doesn’t have 14C in the mass spec (say carefully made in the lab to exclude it, or something not made of carbon), how much 14C do you measure? That is the “background”, the minimum measure. It’s like claiming that an hourglass has not run out because there are a couple of grains stuck in a corner of the top part - there is an unavoidable level of “noise”, and measurements are only meaningful if you can show that they are not a part of that noise. The reported amounts of 14C for diamond are at background levels and do not constitute a valid detection of 14C from diamonds. (If you could make a diamond out of 14C, it would be harder than standard diamond, but you’d have the problem of the noticeable decay rate.) The half-life of 14C is a little under 6000 years, not hundreds of thousands, so a young earth ought to have plenty of 14C in all geologic sources of carbon, not just trace amounts.
Different diamonds from different places are different ages. Without information as to where the dates that you cite are coming from, it’s not possible to say more.
