Lake Suigetsu: Flocculence Requires a Reevaluation

[Dogbreath]

still, it will be interesting to see how* he supports his claim that all the leaves in the Suigetsu study had multiple dates thousands of years apart and how the lab managed to fudge the dates so precisely that they correlated with numerous other features, many of which hadn't even been studied yet.

*if he does.

Wait, LD, my precise scientific friend ... Did I claim that? Or did I suggest it as a not-very-likely possibility?

Hi Tsig ... Glad for you to visit our church sometime. We are not a showcase of perfect people (you've probably figured that out by now) but rather more like a hospital for the spiritually sick ... Which happens to be a perfect description of you and I both!

Consilience Dave - deal with the real issue.

[Coleslaw]

still, it will be interesting to see how* he supports his claim that all the leaves in the Suigetsu study had multiple dates thousands of years apart and how the lab managed to fudge the dates so precisely that they correlated with numerous other features, many of which hadn't even been studied yet.

*if he does.

Wait, LD, my precise scientific friend ... Did I claim that? Or did I suggest it as a not-very-likely possibility?

Hi Tsig ... Glad for you to visit our church sometime. We are not a showcase of perfect people (you've probably figured that out by now) but rather more like a hospital for the spiritually sick ... Which happens to be a perfect description of you and I both!

What you said was

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?

The only way the scenario could work is if all the leaves in the Suigetsu study had multiple dates thousands of years apart, and the only person suggesting the lab scenario is you, so you must have as one of your premises that it is possible for all the leaves in the Suigetsu study to have had multiple dates thousands of years apart.

[RAFH]

still, it will be interesting to see how* he supports his claim that all the leaves in the Suigetsu study had multiple dates thousands of years apart and how the lab managed to fudge the dates so precisely that they correlated with numerous other features, many of which hadn't even been studied yet.

*if he does.

Wait, LD, my precise scientific friend ... Did I claim that? Or did I suggest it as a not-very-likely possibility?

Well TGBd, given this post on Friday, two days ago, I'd say that while you didn't specifically state what LD has posted, you certainly implied such, particularly given your general tenor, attitude and previous statements:

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?

Which is precisely the process LD has described. So, yeah, that's what you have implied, and not in very vague terms either.

Hi Tsig ... Glad for you to visit our church sometime. We are not a showcase of perfect people (you've probably figured that out by now) but rather more like a hospital for the spiritually sick ... Which happens to be a perfect description of you and I both!

I think most of us would agree you need help TGBd, that your are, in some way or another, in need of spiritual recovery, but it would appear where you are going for such is actually part of the problem. Sort of like someone with emphysema and lung cancer going to a Gauloise cigarette smoke-a-thon for a cure.

[RAFH]

OA wrote...
You won't tell us how Da Flood managed to create thousands of individual layers when all the particles are the same shape and size

Jon F wrote....
Bet Davie's reply will be as devastating as his "separating grains by size" post - the Nature article about how macroscopic grains shaken dry could produce separated layers that bear no resemblance to the Suigetsu layers.

Guys, guys, pay attention please. Don't you remember Dave's foolproof experiment at RD.net? No? Well, here it is...it explains absolutely everything.
http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/...st=0&sk=t&sd=a

AF Dave wrote...
AN EXPERIMENT IN SEDIMENTATION
Some have objected to the creationist assertion that "2 miles of sediment could not be laid down by 1 mile of water." Oh really? How about you try a little experiment as I did this morning. Take two glasses and put 1" of water in one and 2" of sand in the other. Now pour the water into the sand, cover the mixture with your hand and shake (simulating the violent conditions of floodwaters), then let the sediment settle. You will now have about 2" of sand and about 1/4" of clear water above the sand. I tried this experiment this morning and it works great.

Moral of the story: 1 mile of water can indeed deposit 2 miles of sediment ... and it most likely did just that in the Great Flood of Noah.

One more thing. There was more than 1 mile of water available. The average ocean depth today is 12,200 feet covering 3/4 of the earth's surface. If the available water was spread over the whole earth, this would equate to over 1.7 miles deep. So we don't just have 1 mile of water ... we've got more than a mile and a half of water to work with.

Now, what part of that don't you understand? And it's very scientific!!

Yes, absolutely, and I still say TGBd's avatar looks for all the world like some desperate man kicking up a dust storm with his feet and wildly spreading the dust even more with his hands. What a buffoon.

[ericmurphy]

still, it will be interesting to see how* he supports his claim that all the leaves in the Suigetsu study had multiple dates thousands of years apart and how the lab managed to fudge the dates so precisely that they correlated with numerous other features, many of which hadn't even been studied yet.

*if he does.

Wait, LD, my precise scientific friend ... Did I claim that? Or did I suggest it as a not-very-likely possibility?

That's it, then? That's the only substantive comment you have to your entire hypothesis of a young earth being flushed down the toilet, Dave?

Even by your standards, that's extraordinarily lame.

[Febble]

TGBd just doesn't/won't realize that attacking one component of the consilience one work. It's like a platform supported by numerous floats. You can depress one float, but it makes little, if any difference to the platform, the other floats take up the slack. If you then go to depress a different float the original float returns to its duty and the situation repeats. BFD.

It's worse than that for Dave. He's up against Bayesian inference.

What is the probability that the dating by volcanic events is wrong? Maybe 20%? Aha - there's a gap! And...what is the probability that the radiocarbon dates are wrong - another 20%? Another gap!

But Dave seems to think that these gaps add up, and if he keeps casting a little bit of doubt on each finding, then eventually he'll have a gap big enough to fit in YEC.

But they don't add up - they multiply. Each little gap he finds in each consilient finding has to be multiplied by the previous one. And 20% of 20% is only 4%. And 20% of 4% is only .08%. And 20% of .08% is only .02%. And so on.

Dave really needs to learn some stats.

The only thing wrong with your analysis, Febble, is the leeway you give to the gaps. I'd say 20% is about 200% too high. More like 6% to 7%, at least for most of the chronologies. If anything, 14C is the least accurate. Which is why there are the calibration curves that so plague dear davey.

Of course 20% is too high. I was just demonstrating that even with generous probabilities of error, the consilience shrinks it to nothing.

[RAFH]

still, it will be interesting to see how* he supports his claim that all the leaves in the Suigetsu study had multiple dates thousands of years apart and how the lab managed to fudge the dates so precisely that they correlated with numerous other features, many of which hadn't even been studied yet.

*if he does.

Wait, LD, my precise scientific friend ... Did I claim that? Or did I suggest it as a not-very-likely possibility?

That's it, then? That's the only substantive comment you have to your entire hypothesis of a young earth being flushed down the toilet, Dave?

Even by your standards, that's extraordinarily lame.

What else could TGBd say?

[RAFH]

It's worse than that for Dave. He's up against Bayesian inference.

What is the probability that the dating by volcanic events is wrong? Maybe 20%? Aha - there's a gap! And...what is the probability that the radiocarbon dates are wrong - another 20%? Another gap!

But Dave seems to think that these gaps add up, and if he keeps casting a little bit of doubt on each finding, then eventually he'll have a gap big enough to fit in YEC.

But they don't add up - they multiply. Each little gap he finds in each consilient finding has to be multiplied by the previous one. And 20% of 20% is only 4%. And 20% of 4% is only .08%. And 20% of .08% is only .02%. And so on.

Dave really needs to learn some stats.

The only thing wrong with your analysis, Febble, is the leeway you give to the gaps. I'd say 20% is about 200% too high. More like 6% to 7%, at least for most of the chronologies. If anything, 14C is the least accurate. Which is why there are the calibration curves that so plague dear davey.

Of course 20% is too high. I was just demonstrating that even with generous probabilities of error, the consilience shrinks it to nothing.

That's true. Even with a 50% margin for each, that gap is only 6.25% and that's just for the volcanics, the radiocarbon dating, the varve counts and climatics. Include just three more systems and it's well less than 1% uncertainty.

But TGBd is still convinced it's completely uncertain and rife with error. Because ... ... because he 'knows' there was a YOGF 4750 years ago and the world is less than 7000 years old. He 'knows' that with absolute certainty.

[ninewands]

OA wrote...
You won't tell us how Da Flood managed to create thousands of individual layers when all the particles are the same shape and size

Jon F wrote....
Bet Davie's reply will be as devastating as his "separating grains by size" post - the Nature article about how macroscopic grains shaken dry could produce separated layers that bear no resemblance to the Suigetsu layers.

Guys, guys, pay attention please. Don't you remember Dave's foolproof experiment at RD.net? No? Well, here it is...it explains absolutely everything.
http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/...st=0&sk=t&sd=a

AF Dave wrote...
AN EXPERIMENT IN SEDIMENTATION
Some have objected to the creationist assertion that "2 miles of sediment could not be laid down by 1 mile of water." Oh really? How about you try a little experiment as I did this morning. Take two glasses and put 1" of water in one and 2" of sand in the other. Now pour the water into the sand, cover the mixture with your hand and shake (simulating the violent conditions of floodwaters), then let the sediment settle. You will now have about 2" of sand and about 1/4" of clear water above the sand. I tried this experiment this morning and it works great.

Moral of the story: 1 mile of water can indeed deposit 2 miles of sediment ... and it most likely did just that in the Great Flood of Noah.

One more thing. There was more than 1 mile of water available. The average ocean depth today is 12,200 feet covering 3/4 of the earth's surface. If the available water was spread over the whole earth, this would equate to over 1.7 miles deep. So we don't just have 1 mile of water ... we've got more than a mile and a half of water to work with.

Now, what part of that don't you understand? And it's very scientific!!

Davey, I'd like you to explain something to me about your "discussion" of your "experiment." You say there is enough water on earth to cover the surface to a depth of 1.7 miles. I'd like to know where you came up with that figure ... especially since Ye Olde Globalle Fludde only allegedly covered the earth to a depth of fifteen cubits. Now, my "cubit" is about 17.5" long. I don't know how long yours is, but I doubt it's significantly longer than that.

Now, to simplify the calculations, let's assume the earth is a perfect sphere having a radius of 4,000 miles (6557.38 km). That would make the volume of the planet about 9448635882885939058041.56882 meters^3. Now the volume of water on earth, including the polar ice caps, is about 1,260,000,000,000,000,000,000 liters, or 1,260,000,000,000,000,000 meters^3. Add that to the volume of the planet and pull out the radius of the earth (a perfect sphere) covered with that water. This happens to be 13115337.03456, for a difference of 583 meters.

Now, Dave, I KNOW you are "challenged" by large numbers and find them difficult to understand, but 583 meters is nowhere NEAR 1.7 miles (2786.885 meters).

You may argue that my "simplifying assumption" renders my calculation invalid, and you would be correct to do so. The TRUE picture is MUCH worse when you talk about how much water would be needed to flood the entire planet to 15 cubits above the top of Mt. Everest.

So, Dave, where the hell did you come up with that 1.7 miles of water figure???

[Dogbreath]

Davey, I'd like you to explain something to me about your "discussion" of your "experiment." You say there is enough water on earth to cover the surface to a depth of 1.7 miles. I'd like to know where you came up with that figure ... especially since Ye Olde Globalle Fludde only allegedly covered the earth to a depth of fifteen cubits. Now, my "cubit" is about 17.5" long. I don't know how long yours is, but I doubt it's significantly longer than that.

Now, to simplify the calculations, let's assume the earth is a perfect sphere having a radius of 4,000 miles (6557.38 km). That would make the volume of the planet about 9448635882885939058041.56882 meters^3. Now the volume of water on earth, including the polar ice caps, is about 1,260,000,000,000,000,000,000 liters, or 1,260,000,000,000,000,000 meters^3. Add that to the volume of the planet and pull out the radius of the earth (a perfect sphere) covered with that water. This happens to be 13115337.03456, for a difference of 583 meters.

Now, Dave, I KNOW you are "challenged" by large numbers and find them difficult to understand, but 583 meters is nowhere NEAR 1.7 miles (2786.885 meters).

You may argue that my "simplifying assumption" renders my calculation invalid, and you would be correct to do so. The TRUE picture is MUCH worse when you talk about how much water would be needed to flood the entire planet to 15 cubits above the top of Mt. Everest.

So, Dave, where the hell did you come up with that 1.7 miles of water figure???

It gets better. You haven't yet heard Dave explain how 15 cubits is sufficient to cover Everest. It's as good as his "Portuguese" moment...it really is.

[Fathermithras]

Doesn't Davey-boy think he won the Portugese argument? I have a teacher who works in languages and worked in Brazil for half a decade who thought it was the most asinine thing he'd ever heard. Not that someone being ignorant of it is a big deal. Simple mistake. But to be corrected and to continue to make the error is so stupid it's incredible.

Its sad. I mean, its not even about religion. It's all about his ego and inability to admit he's wrong.

[Gagundathar Inexplicable]

Pappy Jack ...

My apologies for continuing to be stupid ...

Apology accepted.

Sorry, but that was just asking for a quote mine! :-)

No, seriously ... if you would spend more time reading my posts carefully and refraining from posting all kinds of goofy speculation about me and other creationists, you would know exactly what my position is.

Again, my theory is that the laminae in Lake Suigetsu were deposited some by the Flood and some by episodic and annual deposition in the ~5000 years since the Flood. My guess is that the layers up to about 40m were deposited in the Flood and that the top 40m were deposited in the last 5000 years or so. This top 40m would require an average deposition rate of about 8mm/year ... very close to what we are seeing in some of the sections here at Suigetsu using the researchers date speculations. 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. I think a critical look by creationists needs to be taken at the whole enterprise of C14 dating anyway.

Coming at this two days late, but isn't THIS a pretty good solid definition of what Hawkins thinks is true?

If so, I guess I will find out by digging through the next few pages.

ETA: <emily latella>Never mind...</emily latella>

[Gagundathar Inexplicable]

Maybe David can explain us how he would control quality in a lab?

Calling other people frauds is easy but how would the eminent sage Dave prevent a lab from cooking the data?

This seems to be the point that Dave doesn't get. No data is just discarded. In every research report I've ever read and in every lab course I've ever taken outliers were required to be reported and explained, even if the "explanation" was "I got clumsy and spilled some of the sample." While I've never published, I can state with some experience that failure to report and explain "inconvenient" data was treated as academic dishonesty by my professors. Does Dave think the standards change when scientists go out into the professional world?

Ninewands, the reality is that Hawkins has NEVER written a scientific paper for publications or peer-review. He seems to be utterly ignorant about the mechanics or underlying principles of the entire process of 'how scientific papers get published'. <hurrumph mode>It is my considered opinion is that he is resentful of the fact that he has been rejected as unworthy of publishing anything in any peer-reviewed scientific publication and is striking out against his perceived oppressors in a childish mode wherein whatever HE says is true and whetever anyone else say is false.</hurrumph mode>

[Gagundathar Inexplicable]

Maybe David can explain us how he would control quality in a lab?

Calling other people frauds is easy but how would the eminent sage Dave prevent a lab from cooking the data?

This seems to be the point that Dave doesn't get. No data is just discarded. In every research report I've ever read and in every lab course I've ever taken outliers were required to be reported and explained, even if the "explanation" was "I got clumsy and spilled some of the sample." While I've never published, I can state with some experience that failure to report and explain "inconvenient" data was treated as academic dishonesty by my professors. Does Dave think the standards change when scientists go out into the professional world?

They do change, they get substantially more rigorous and the participants get substantially more serious about it. As a student, yeah, you can fiddle about, have your fun, maybe you'll get chided by the prof, maybe get a grade lower. If you are good, probably won't matter.

But in the real world, mistakes matter for real. It's not just a poor mark on a test or an assignment, there's real lives and real money on the line. Bugger up a study and the next grant won't happen, the next project goes elsewhere. Reputation is a hard thing to come by, at least a good one is. Bad ones are easy to get, you don't even have to try.

Yeah, the standards change a lot.

And THIS is why Hawkins could never make it as a scientist.

[Occam's Aftershave]

You won't tell us why the pMC values decrease exponentially with the depth of the layers.

You won't tell us why the layers have pMC different values at all, since according to you they were all laid at the same time.

You won't tell us how Da Flood managed to create thousands of individual layers when all the particles are the same shape and size

You won't tell us how Da Flud only laid layers in a few lakes, and not in all lakes or on the surrounding countryside.

You won't provide a shred of evidence for your slimy assertions that the C14 labs all conspired to produce fraudulent data.

Feel free to begin answering these critical questions about your YEC 'model' anytime Dave. ANYTIME AT ALL Hawkins.

[Pappy Jack]

Wait, LD, my precise scientific friend ... Did I claim that? Or did I suggest it as a not-very-likely possibility?

Gee, Dave, my imprecise unscientfic friend, you're always happy to speculate freely without any evidence whatsoever about the consequences of unlikely possibilities such as this and fraud and/or incompetence by scientists like Mia Tiljander and colleagues.

Perhaps you would care to take ten or fifteen minutes to speculate on what the observational consequences at Suigetsu would be in the unlikely event that YOGF never happened?

Perhaps you would then care to share those speculations with us?

Or are you too feart to do this?

[Fathermithras]

For real though, how does he think science works? If you can just toss extraneous data, how is it that anything is ever done in science? I did a research project on Ritalin and alcohol in mice, and I was fucking pissed that my results approached significance, but were off by just enough as to be unhelpful. If I'd massaged the data I could have had something, but that VIRTUALLY NEVER FUCKING HAPPENS.

[Dutch_labrat]

It's been a while since Dave posted anything substantial in this thread. Is he just giving up?

[RAFH]

It's been a while since Dave posted anything substantial in this thread. Is he just giving up?

Hard to say. TGBd is a queer piker, unpredictable in his predictability. Just when you think he's given up, Boing!!! Up he pops with some ultra absurd new buffoonery. Or he'll regurgitate some same old shit from before.

I have to agree with you though, he's been really subdued the last couple of days, only two posts since Friday, none at all on Saturday. Versus 9 on Friday and 11 on Thursday. So, yeah, TGBd is slacking off. Hasn't been the good old fire and brimstone either. Maybe he's not feeling well.

[Faid]

still, it will be interesting to see how* he supports his claim that all the leaves in the Suigetsu study had multiple dates thousands of years apart and how the lab managed to fudge the dates so precisely that they correlated with numerous other features, many of which hadn't even been studied yet.

*if he does.

Wait, LD, my precise scientific friend ... Did I claim that? Or did I suggest it as a not-very-likely possibility?

Dave, my semantics-loving friend, if LD hadn't thoroughly demolished this ridiculous claim of yours (which you know to be false anyway, from Bertsche's post at TW), wouldn't you be tossing it around right now as a "plausible scenario", if not an almost established fact?

Of coooooourse you would. It wouldn't be the first time, or the last.

(I take it your "search for discarded dates" didn't work out that well, did it? )

So, now that you say you do NOT claim this scenario, dave, What DO you claim? HOW do you explain the linear correlation?




Waiting.

[Monkey Pants]

OA wrote...
You won't tell us how Da Flood managed to create thousands of individual layers when all the particles are the same shape and size

Guys, guys, pay attention please. Don't you remember Dave's foolproof experiment at RD.net? No? Well, here it is...it explains absolutely everything.
http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/...st=0&sk=t&sd=a

AF Dave wrote...
AN EXPERIMENT IN SEDIMENTATION
Some have objected to the creationist assertion that "2 miles of sediment could not be laid down by 1 mile of water." Oh really? How about you try a little experiment as I did this morning. Take two glasses and put 1" of water in one and 2" of sand in the other. Now pour the water into the sand, cover the mixture with your hand and shake (simulating the violent conditions of floodwaters), then let the sediment settle. You will now have about 2" of sand and about 1/4" of clear water above the sand. I tried this experiment this morning and it works great.

Moral of the story: 1 mile of water can indeed deposit 2 miles of sediment ... and it most likely did just that in the Great Flood of Noah.

One more thing. There was more than 1 mile of water available. The average ocean depth today is 12,200 feet covering 3/4 of the earth's surface. If the available water was spread over the whole earth, this would equate to over 1.7 miles deep. So we don't just have 1 mile of water ... we've got more than a mile and a half of water to work with.

Now, what part of that don't you understand? And it's very scientific!!

Davey, I'd like you to explain something to me about your "discussion" of your "experiment." You say there is enough water on earth to cover the surface to a depth of 1.7 miles. I'd like to know where you came up with that figure

I think I can reproduce his calculation with some accuracy:

3/4 of the earth's surface is covered by water with an average depth of 12,200 feet.

Therefore, if the water were spread out, 4/4 of the world would be covered by (12,200 / (4/4) ) * (3/4) = 9,150 feet.

9,150 feet = 3,030 yards = 1.733 miles.

Therefore if the Earth were flatter, the existing water would cover it to a depth of 1.733 miles.

Now that childishly simplistic methodology is obviously complete bollocks - but it accurately reproduces Dave's answer.

So I reckon that it (or something incredibly similar) is how he did his calculation.

Am I right, Dave?

[Lasting Damage]

still, it will be interesting to see how* he supports his claim that all the leaves in the Suigetsu study had multiple dates thousands of years apart and how the lab managed to fudge the dates so precisely that they correlated with numerous other features, many of which hadn't even been studied yet.

*if he does.

Wait, LD, my precise scientific friend ... Did I claim that? Or did I suggest it as a not-very-likely possibility?

This doesn't look very "not very likely" to me:

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?

it looks like it is a distinct possibility.

[Faid]

You won't tell us why the pMC values decrease exponentially with the depth of the layers.

You won't tell us why the layers have pMC different values at all, since according to you they were all laid at the same time.

You won't tell us how Da Flood managed to create thousands of individual layers when all the particles are the same shape and size

You won't tell us how Da Flud only laid layers in a few lakes, and not in all lakes or on the surrounding countryside.

You won't provide a shred of evidence for your slimy assertions that the C14 labs all conspired to produce fraudulent data.

Feel free to begin answering these critical questions about your YEC 'model' anytime Dave. ANYTIME AT ALL Hawkins.

Occam, I am probably a mean person and will burn in the Lake of Fire for eternity, but I laughed out loud seeing your avatar.

[Faid]

still, it will be interesting to see how* he supports his claim that all the leaves in the Suigetsu study had multiple dates thousands of years apart and how the lab managed to fudge the dates so precisely that they correlated with numerous other features, many of which hadn't even been studied yet.

*if he does.

Wait, LD, my precise scientific friend ... Did I claim that? Or did I suggest it as a not-very-likely possibility?

This doesn't look very "not very likely" to me:

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?

it looks like it is a distinct possibility.

Don't let dave fool you with semantics- that HAS been his claim for weeks now. See his previous posts here. See his discussion with Kirk Bertsche at Theology Web. This is the horse he's been betting on all along.

He just tossed that "unlikely" in there as a getaway, in case he got schooled- like he did.

What I REALLY want to know now is: Since he now claims this was NOT his "claim", what DOES he claim?

[Faid]

Guys, guys, pay attention please. Don't you remember Dave's foolproof experiment at RD.net? No? Well, here it is...it explains absolutely everything.
http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/...st=0&sk=t&sd=a


Now, what part of that don't you understand? And it's very scientific!!

Davey, I'd like you to explain something to me about your "discussion" of your "experiment." You say there is enough water on earth to cover the surface to a depth of 1.7 miles. I'd like to know where you came up with that figure

I think I can reproduce his calculation with some accuracy:

3/4 of the earth's surface is covered by water with an average depth of 12,200 feet.

Therefore, if the water were spread out, 4/4 of the world would be covered by (12,200 / (4/4) ) * (3/4) = 9,150 feet.

9,150 feet = 3,030 yards = 1.733 miles.

Therefore if the Earth were flatter, the existing water would cover it to a depth of 1.733 miles.

Now that childishly simplistic methodology is obviously complete bollocks - but it accurately reproduces Dave's answer.

So I reckon that it (or something incredibly similar) is how he did his calculation.

Am I right, Dave?

That guy actually believes he conducted an experiment in sedimentation, by mixing water and sand in a glass and shaking it up. What more is there to say?