Lake Suigetsu: Flocculence Requires a Reevaluation

[Ved]

Do you see the fine laminae WITHIN each annual band? It is quite unmistakeable. It would sure be helpful to get those more pictures of the Suigetsu core.

If the banding in the Suigetsu core isn't annual as everyone thinks, and is actually episodic, then where is the annual banding in Suigetsu? Or, do you think there isn't any?

Not sure. That's why I'd like to see pictures.

... but Dave's not sure where the annual layers really are! Way to have a superior explanation, man...

Don't you think a flood of 'biblical' proportions that killed like fucking everything would leave a noticeable signature in soft lake sediments, if such a lake actually weathered the barrage of continents racing around?

[Dave Hawkins]

Ummm... So your taking the Global Flood as fact here. O.K., but don't you see Dave that your making assumptions about the data before you even look at the data?

I mean, regardless of your views on the external world shouldn't you study the core independent of what other conclusions you might have? Seems your tying your hands here.

I take the view that YOU are the one tying your hands because you ignore the overwhelming evidence for the Flood. So it is better to come into the Suigetsu investigation assuming a Flood.

Dave, you haven't even identified ONE years deposition event that meets your 8mm/yr criteria. NOT ONE.

True, but the fact is that we don't even have a reliable means yet of determining the true deposition rate over the last 5000 years. How does one do that? I mean you've got lots of episodicity (46 turbidite layers in just the top 11 meters), you've got normal annual deposition going on. You've got spotty to non-existent historical records. I mean really ... how does one even manage to reliably determine this? I don't have an answer and what I am showing is that you don't either. you've cited some sediment trap studies and played around with sediment influx, but I've not seen any resultant deposition rate in MM/YR come out of this. Plus, even if you DO come up with a number, this ignores the episodic events which skew your annual average much higher. Don't forget that IF there was a Flood, these episodes would be much more frequent and high intensity closer back in time to the Flood era.

IT'S NOT DATING. IT'S MESUREMENT OF 14C CONCENTRATION IN MACROFOSSILS FOUND AT DIFFERENT POINTS IN THE CORE. AND THE RESULTS ARE LINEAR WITH DEPTH!!!!!

No they are not. Let's be accurate. It is the INFERRED DATES that are linearly correlated (close anyway) with depth. Not the pMC values. The pMC values are quite non-linear.

[Lasting Damage]

I see dave isn't interested in defending his own position today and is back on the attack again.

[Dave Hawkins]

My theory for how Carbon 14 fits into this is either a) the dating is unreliable, or b) the dating is reliable and represents increasing C14 concentration in the biosphere over the past 5000 years. If (b) is the case, then I would take a critical look at C14 dating over the past 3500 years.

No, you need to look only at only around 1500BC as suspect, not since. We have Pompeiian bread, the Siloam Tunnel, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and bunches of historically attested Egyptian leavings that show that ¹⁴C works just fine for the last 3500 or so. And those "critical looks" started before you were born, Dave: Libby checked his new method on Egyptian artifacts by 1950 or so.

Yeah. But how do we know this was all independent testing. After all, I just confirmed that C14 testing is normally not blind and they have an "expected age" blank on the sample submission forms.

[Pappy Jack]

....Don't you think a flood of 'biblical' proportions that killed like fucking everything would leave a noticeable signature in soft lake sediments, if such a lake actually weathered the barrage of continents racing around?

I agree that this seems to be an insurmountable problem for Dave (actually just one of many).

On the one hand he is willing to argue that YOGF carved the Grand Canyon in the blink of an eye and deposited a global sedimentary rock layer 1-2 miles thick, and yet, on the other, was also responsible for laying a delicate pattern of laminae in a small lake in Japan (plus every other lake or feature anywhere in the world showing evidence of varves, presumably) without leaving any other identifiable trace whatsoever of its effects on that lake. It's akin to the mega-tsunami-surviving spider-tracks that have been addressed elsewhere and is equally straining of credulity.

[Lasting Damage]

My theory for how Carbon 14 fits into this is either a) the dating is unreliable, or b) the dating is reliable and represents increasing C14 concentration in the biosphere over the past 5000 years. If (b) is the case, then I would take a critical look at C14 dating over the past 3500 years.

No, you need to look only at only around 1500BC as suspect, not since. We have Pompeiian bread, the Siloam Tunnel, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and bunches of historically attested Egyptian leavings that show that ¹⁴C works just fine for the last 3500 or so. And those "critical looks" started before you were born, Dave: Libby checked his new method on Egyptian artifacts by 1950 or so.

Yeah. But how do we know this was all independent testing. After all, I just confirmed that C14 testing is normally not blind and they have an "expected age" blank on the sample submission forms.

what do you think they stick into the formula? See you complain about this, but for the suigetsu cores, that would require the manipulation of over 200 data points.

[Coragyps]

But how do we know this was all independent testing.

Because some of it confirms dates from the Bible, and Good Christian Carbon-Daters would never, ever fudge their numbers?

[Wallybert]

Yeah. But how do we know this was all independent testing. After all, I just confirmed that C14 testing is normally not blind and they have an "expected age" blank on the sample submission forms.

Because real scientists tend to be much more ethical than YECs?

[VoxRat]

Ummm... So your taking the Global Flood as fact here. O.K., but don't you see Dave that your making assumptions about the data before you even look at the data?

I mean, regardless of your views on the external world shouldn't you study the core independent of what other conclusions you might have? Seems your tying your hands here.

I take the view that YOU are the one tying your hands because you ignore the overwhelming evidence for the Flood. So it is better to come into the Suigetsu investigation assuming a Flood.

yes, yes, yes...
We KNOW you "take" that view. You've said so many times.
And that's fine for Sunday School. I guess.
But if you want to at least pretend to be talking about science, you have to justify that view.

You never have.

All you do is pump it up with transparently blustery adjectives like "overwhelming" - without ever producing any of this allegedly "overwhelming evidence".

[cue Dave's 3d Law, where he will tell us he has produced it - elsewhere. No, he won't tell us where.]

[ericmurphy]

I take the view that YOU are the one tying your hands because you ignore the overwhelming evidence for the Flood. So it is better to come into the Suigetsu investigation assuming a Flood.

Which evidence is that, Dave? Last I recall, you had extreme difficulty coming up with any evidence at all for a "flood," let alone "overwhelming evidence.

Oh, and Dave? Merely saying the radiocarbon data is "quite nonlinear" doesn't somehow make it nonlinear. This is the kind of statement that has people dismissing you as a liar.

[ericmurphy]

And Dave, I'm curious: numerous times you've referred to "bad assumptions" involved in using ¹⁴C to date organic material. But I'm pretty sure you've never listed even one "bad assumption" involved in that dating technique. Would you be so kind as to make a list of those "bad assumptions" you think render radiocarbon dating unreliable?

Or is it just that you think AMS labs are fraudulent and deceitful, and consistently lie to their customers?

[Dave Hawkins]

I see dave isn't interested in defending his own position today and is back on the attack again.

As I have explained before ... why build a new model if the old model isn't broken? But if it is (and it appears it is now), then I'll start building. This will take time though. Don't expect me to have a complete model by tomorrow. Or even by next year. And you know, you (or someone else in a relevant field) could always join me in building an alternative model--or better yet, take the ball and run with it yourself. There is no rule that says we have to butt heads. We could try cooperating and trying to solve the mystery together.

[ericmurphy]

We could try cooperating and trying to solve the mystery together.

What mystery, Dave? What's unexplained here? You haven't demonstrated that there are any problems with the standard models (although I'm sure you think you have). The lake has 40,000 varve layers that can be correlated with radiocarbon dates, which show those layers to be annual. Identical layers continue below the level that can be dated using radiocarbon, and you haven't given me a single reason to doubt that those 60,000 or so layers are not also annual layers.

You're trying to make a mystery where there isn't one.

[Dave Hawkins]

No, you need to look only at only around 1500BC as suspect, not since. We have Pompeiian bread, the Siloam Tunnel, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and bunches of historically attested Egyptian leavings that show that ¹⁴C works just fine for the last 3500 or so. And those "critical looks" started before you were born, Dave: Libby checked his new method on Egyptian artifacts by 1950 or so.

Yeah. But how do we know this was all independent testing. After all, I just confirmed that C14 testing is normally not blind and they have an "expected age" blank on the sample submission forms.

what do you think they stick into the formula? See you complain about this, but for the suigetsu cores, that would require the manipulation of over 200 data points.

Well ... I haven't ruled out "manipulation" of 200 data points, though I think it's unlikely. I do think it is possible the lab tekkies could have taken these 200 leaves (they were mostly leaves weighing roughly 1000 mg each), tested a 2 mg bit of leaf #1, seen that it was way too far from the "expected age" and scrapped it, got another 2mg bit of the same leaf, and so on until they got a date which was in the ballpark of the "expected age" and proceeded in this manner through all 200 samples. I mean really ... what safeguards are in place to prevent this from occurring? After all, the labs want to know what age they are shooting for. We've established that already. And we know they scrap results that are "off" and chalk it up to "contamination" ... so why is this scenario not a possibility?

[Coleslaw]

I see dave isn't interested in defending his own position today and is back on the attack again.

As I have explained before ... why build a new model if the old model isn't broken? But if it is (and it appears it is now), then I'll start building. This will take time though. Don't expect me to have a complete model by tomorrow. Or even by next year. And you know, you (or someone else in a relevant field) could always join me in building an alternative model--or better yet, take the ball and run with it yourself. There is no rule that says we have to butt heads. We could try cooperating and trying to solve the mystery together.

People are already working on cooperating and solving the mystery together. They're called scientists. They don't need any help from you, especially when that "help" comes in the form of accusing them of fraud, misunderstanding and misrepresenting their work, and trying to get them to confine themselves to the outmoded concepts developed by people who lived long ago and didn't have access to the information and instrumentation easily available today.

[Ved]

We could try cooperating and trying to solve the mystery together.

The answer is right in front of your face. You're wrong.

It's actually all around you. Do you have any woodwork in your daily surroundings? In your church or your home, or on the side of your station wagon? All those pretty whorled patterns of wood grain... each alternating set of lines represents a year in the life of the tree. Each piece of wood grain that you see is really whispering to you, Dave. It's all whispering a chorus:

"Why do the curves agree?"

[ericmurphy]

Yeah. But how do we know this was all independent testing. After all, I just confirmed that C14 testing is normally not blind and they have an "expected age" blank on the sample submission forms.

what do you think they stick into the formula? See you complain about this, but for the suigetsu cores, that would require the manipulation of over 200 data points.

Well ... I haven't ruled out "manipulation" of 200 data points, though I think it's unlikely. I do think it is possible the lab tekkies could have taken these 200 leaves (they were mostly leaves weighing roughly 1000 mg each), tested a 2 mg bit of leaf #1, seen that it was way too far from the "expected age" and scrapped it, got another 2mg bit of the same leaf, and so on until they got a date which was in the ballpark of the "expected age" and proceeded in this manner through all 200 samples. I mean really ... what safeguards are in place to prevent this from occurring? After all, the labs want to know what age they are shooting for. We've established that already. And we know they scrap results that are "off" and chalk it up to "contamination" ... so why is this scenario not a possibility?

Don't you read, Dave? When 85 AMS labs are given double-blinded samples to test, and they all come up with the same results, we can positively rule out the kind of thing you're talking about here. So now you're left with trying to explain how it can be that the labs are always correct when they don't know the ages they're supposed to find, and always wrong when they do. How does that happen?

It's really a mistake for you to have me on ignore, Dave. Your failure to answer my challenges does not make you look very honest.

[Lasting Damage]

As I have explained before ... why build a new model if the old model isn't broken? But if it is (and it appears it is now), then I'll start building. This will take time though. Don't expect me to have a complete model by tomorrow. Or even by next year. And you know, you (or someone else in a relevant field) could always join me in building an alternative model--or better yet, take the ball and run with it yourself. There is no rule that says we have to butt heads. We could try cooperating and trying to solve the mystery together.

This is a remarkable shift in position. one moment you are telling us that the diatoms and sediments in the suigetsu lake are arranged by floods and tsunami, and now you're talling us that you don't have a model again. Why don't you just answer my questions?

[Lasting Damage]

Yeah. But how do we know this was all independent testing. After all, I just confirmed that C14 testing is normally not blind and they have an "expected age" blank on the sample submission forms.

what do you think they stick into the formula? See you complain about this, but for the suigetsu cores, that would require the manipulation of over 200 data points.

Well ... I haven't ruled out "manipulation" of 200 data points, though I think it's unlikely. I do think it is possible the lab tekkies could have taken these 200 leaves (they were mostly leaves weighing roughly 1000 mg each), tested a 2 mg bit of leaf #1, seen that it was way too far from the "expected age" and scrapped it, got another 2mg bit of the same leaf, and so on until they got a date which was in the ballpark of the "expected age" and proceeded in this manner through all 200 samples. I mean really ... what safeguards are in place to prevent this from occurring? After all, the labs want to know what age they are shooting for. We've established that already. And we know they scrap results that are "off" and chalk it up to "contamination" ... so why is this scenario not a possibility?

Then that's data point manipulation.

I would be interested to hear though how you would have a single leaf with such a dispirate set of ages within it. Do you have evidence of this occurring?

[JonF]

Well ... I haven't ruled out "manipulation" of 200 data points, though I think it's unlikely. I do think it is possible the lab tekkies could have taken these 200 leaves (they were mostly leaves weighing roughly 1000 mg each), tested a 2 mg bit of leaf #1, seen that it was way too far from the "expected age" and scrapped it, got another 2mg bit of the same leaf, and so on until they got a date which was in the ballpark of the "expected age" and proceeded in this manner through all 200 samples. I mean really ... what safeguards are in place to prevent this from occurring? After all, the labs want to know what age they are shooting for. We've established that already. And we know they scrap results that are "off" and chalk it up to "contamination" ... so why is this scenario not a possibility?

For several reasons.

First, most people (unlike you) are honest and wouldn't commit such fraud. Fraud it would be. And the vast majority of people (unlike you) realize it would be fraud.

Second, science depends on cross-checking to detect the few frauds that do occur. And when the few such frauds are detected the result is disaster for the fraudster. The technicians know this; even if they were as dishonest as you, it's more than their career is worth to fake results which might be checked in the future.

Third, there's no evidence that the lab technicians did have any information about the expected dates in this case, and there's a lot of evidence (which Mike PSS has posted) that they did not have any information about the expected dates. E.g. the sample IDs do not correlate well with the depth of the varves.

{ABE}Fourth, as LD pointed out, the 14C in the leaves is the 14C in the leaves; there's no evidence that it's evan possible to re-test the leaves and get a noticeably diferent date. Good one, LD.{/ABE}

Finally, there's no reason to believe that anybody at the labs had sufficiently detailed information to carry out such fraud. Your claim that "the labs want to know what age they are shooting for" is a lie. They want to know what ballpark they are shooting for, and they don't always get even that. There's no reason to believe that even if such information was supplied it was any more specific than "probably less than 10,000 years old".

[Lasting Damage]

I would point out that if a lab were to manipulate data points in the manner that dave suggests, nobody would use that lab. I certainly wouldn't.

[JonF]

Oh, and Dave? Merely saying the radiocarbon data is "quite nonlinear" doesn't somehow make it nonlinear. This is the kind of statement that has people dismissing you as a liar.

Actually, the raw radiocarbon data is nonlinear. When it's passed through the oppositely nonlinear equation of decay to obtain radiocarbon years it becomes linear.

But Dave's intimation that this somehow gets him off the hook of explaining the relationship between varve count and 14C data is disingenuous. The many raw 14c data points are related to the varve count in a nonlinear fashion that is exactly linearized by passing it through the standard decay function; that ain't no coincidence and must be explained by any viable hypothesis. Which Davie-doodles ain't got.

[Coleslaw]

Perhaps the lab in question ought to be informed about Dave and what he is suggesting with regards to their work.

[ninewands]

I haven't ventured into many evolution/creationist type discussions before. Although for some reason this one caught my attention at IIDB with the debate with Constant Mews. I read bits of other afdave threads there, and finally, I've almost caught up on this one.

All I have to say is that from one BSEE - UT Austin to one BSEE - UT Arlington, you're a putz Dave. Thanks though for showing my teenage kid what all nonsense is behind this creationism crap he's been brainwashed with. Thanks for participating in this classic demonstration that the Bible is just flat out nonsense about the creation of the world. Now I'll just have to skip over a few pages to Adam and Eve, talking snakes, and the original sin. Same story, same crap, ain't true. No need for a savior over shit that didn't happen. Now, on to the NT. Thanks Dave, you've been a big help!

See, Dave, you really ARE the best sales tool we have!

[Mike PSS]

I see dave isn't interested in defending his own position today and is back on the attack again.

As I have explained before ... why build a new model if the old model isn't broken? But if it is (and it appears it is now), then I'll start building. This will take time though. Don't expect me to have a complete model by tomorrow. Or even by next year. And you know, you (or someone else in a relevant field) could always join me in building an alternative model--or better yet, take the ball and run with it yourself. There is no rule that says we have to butt heads. We could try cooperating and trying to solve the mystery together.

Dave, please copy me when you submit your model to AiG. Please, please, please.