How reliable is science? (Assumption 2/7) (The limitations of science)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, April 15, 2012, 15:11 (4603 days ago) @ dhw

(2) Each system must initially have contained none of its daughter products. A piece of uranium 238 must originally have had no lead or other daughter products in it. If it did, this would give a false date reading.-But this assumption can in no way be confirmed. It is impossible to know what was initially in a given piece of radioactive mineral. Was it all of this particular radioactive substance or were some other indeterminate or final daughter products mixed in? We do not know; we cannot know. Men can guess; they can apply their assumptions, come up with some dates, announce the consistent ones, and hide the rest, which is exactly what evolutionary scientists do!-Generally we start with an assertion of a "pure" substance, because especially in the case of Uranium, it does have a final end-product in Lead. (Through I think, 3 decay pathways.) The author of the objection here though is making a tricky statement to apply for *all* dating however and this is fallacious reasoning. -Why is it fallacious? 
The author is attempting to argue that say, before you die, you pick up a lead rock that still contains uranium in it. So its pretty close to its end in terms of its lifecycle. Then say, you fall in a tar pit and are uncovered 10k years later. The author is saying that the date of the lead rock would "date you older" than it should. Therein lies the problem. We know what the rate of decay is for uranium. In fact, every piece of uranium ore has a very specific signature of composition, so much so that if there ever is a nuclear explosion, our scientists will be able to figure out *exactly* which mine provided the fuel. So if scientists ever found someone buried with uranium as in this example, the first thing they would do is go see what region the ore came from. They would also look at the surrounding rock (which would have different dates) and likely do a C14 dating test. (More on that in a second.) The C14 test would give credence to the idea that our poor sap just picked up a lead rock from somewhere. Not that he was as old as the lead rock.-They could also pick rocks in completely different locations but have the *same* age to determine a "normal" range for how much radioactive materials is typically found in those minerals. [There's many ways to skin this cat...]-The author's statement is also fallacious, because it attempts to mix Uranium dating, with C14 dating. C14 we *know* we start with a pure substance, because we ingest it daily. The only way for the author's objection to C14 dating to apply, is if the deceased organic matter we're studying, never absorbed any carbon during its life. That's a contradiction.-The only OTHER way for the objection to assumption #2 is invalid would be if radioactive materials did not decay at regular rates. -That said, it IS the idea of daughter products that forces a dating scientist to go through all the trouble I just mentioned in order to come up with a reliable date estimate. [And in scientific circles they ALL know they're dealing with estimates.] But most importantly, in the scientific literature, they *always* give what the +/- date range is, because the first check another scientist is going to do, is "how much error was in that measurement?"

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"