How reliable is science? (Assumption 3/7) (The limitations of science)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, April 15, 2012, 15:30 (4603 days ago) @ dhw
edited by unknown, Sunday, April 15, 2012, 15:41

(3) The process rate must always have been the same. The decay rate must never have changed.-Yet we have no way of going back into past ages and ascertaining whether that assumption is correct.-Every process in nature operates at a rate that is determined by a number of factors. These factors can change or vary with a change in certain conditions. Rates are really statistical averages, not deterministic constants.-The most fundamental of the initial assumptions is that all radioactive clocks, including carbon 14, have always had a constant decay rate that is unaffected by external influences—now and forever in the past. But it is a known fact among scientists that such changes in decay rates can and do occur. Laboratory testing has established that such resetting of specimen clocks does happen. Field evidence reveals that decay rates have indeed varied in the past.-There's so much bullshit in this objection that I almost feel insulted reading it. -The first one is pure fallacy, its seductive to a skeptic's mind, but as dhw always points out, at some point, common sense must enter the discussion. -I'm going to save the big gun for last on this one. First, generally the assumption that decay rates hold is based on the same logic as the inference "the sun will rise tomorrow." Now. I did some research (since the author was a jackass) and found this:-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay#Changing_decay_rates-Now, the atoms that they discuss in this section are telling. Do you notice which ones aren't in the list? -Carbon. Uranium. (Interesting)-Also notice that for these few elements that *can* be influenced by environmental factors, the amount of shift involved is 1%. So it would decay 1% faster for these elements than for others. If something was dated to be made 1500 years ago, that means that the range would be between 362, and 662. Which on the grand scheme of accuracy is extremely good. To put that in perspective, if we dated something using one of these minerals to be 65,000,000 years old, we would incorrectly date it to be 64,350,000 old. Not statistically significant. -I found this in my search: 
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0305/Cook-0305.html-Note the table here, partway down, that looks at carbon used in dating iron objects. Notice how some of the results weren't "easily explainable" by the people requesting the dating. That kind of thing exists everywhere.-[edit]-And by "exists everywhere" I mean the authors of papers based on these artifacts are *forced* to try and explain why the dates don't match. In nearly all cases... the arguments are dropped, because you can't argue with radiation.-In conclusion on this objection, the author wants us to discard radio-dating because somewhere, inexplicably, the laws of physics suspended themselves, and all the Uranium and Carbon in the universe magically increased their decay rates at a rate higher than anything we've ever observed. Make your own decisions, but I'm going to call BS.

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