So our diamonds should be radioactive?
Real Science Friday with a University of Cal Prof. of Ophthalmology
- Thread starter Jefferson
- Start date
So our diamonds should be radioactive?
Junius Gallio
New member
Only if you irradiate them too much.
Well, technically, since we take in C14 when we eat, I guess you could say that we're radioactive, but don't worry--if you get superpowers, you can always dress up in yellow spandex and fight crime. :chuckle:
We should know how much they have been irradiated given the contamination you're all trying to account for.
Too late....
lain:
Frayed Knot
New member
The contamination I'm talking about isn't just for diamonds - it's for anything you measure. And you can't rule out the possibility, you can just minimize it. Our labs now are very very good at minimizing it. How do they know? Because they characterize the levels of contamination by measuring something known to have extremely low levels of C14. If you measure 1 part per trillion of C14, you know that your lab's contamination is that low, without having to understand whether that 1 ppt came from intrinsic C14 or contamination C14.
That's exactly what the adults were talking about.
Please try to pay attention this time. The in situ contamination measured with the diamonds was found to be extremely small. If you're measuring something less than 20,000 or 30,000 years old, the effect of that tiny contamination is hardly significant. If you're measuring something 50,000 or more years old, it is very significant. There's just not enough intrinsic C14 left after 50,000 years, so any tiny bit of contamination obscures what was really in the sample, so you can't get a good measurement.
No, when we measure the amount of C14, we're not measuring its radioactivity; we're measuring the difference between how much a C12 atom weighs, and how much a C14 atom weighs. That's what a mass spectrometer does. There are simply not enough C14 atoms, and the ones that are there are not radioactive enough, to be able to measure their concentration by measuring radioactivity.
My original point was that if a lab measures a tiny amount of C14 that's due to contamination, that doesn't mean that the diamond itself was somehow contaminated. It means that the process of measurement introduced contamination.
Barbarian posted the 1% figure as an "FYI" to me, that there is some nitrogen in diamonds, so it could be plausible that some of the tiny amount of C14 measured was really in the diamond.
I don't see that it matters whether they're 1% or 0.1% - there are lots of nitrogen atoms in a diamond. His point was that there is a possible source for C14 measured in diamonds even without contamination.
None of that actually matters regarding this topic, though. Those extremely low levels were used to characterize how good the process can do, and they showed that contamination isn't significant for samples for which the dating shows less than 30,000 years, which is really good. The uncertainty increases as you approach 50,000 years, and that's why labs don't use carbon dating for stuff older than that.
We were not talking about procedural contamination. :nono:
Irradiation of nitrogen is a procedural contaminant in the carbon dating method?
OK.
Uh, yeah. No kidding.
From irradiation of nitrogen?
We were not talking about procedural contamination.
Sounds like self-preservation.
Frayed Knot
New member
The first posting in this thread to mention C14, other than the opening first post, was my post #7 which was specifically about procedural contamination.
Maybe you weren't talking about it, but the adults have been talking about it since very early in this thread.
Frayed writes:
Stipe is stunned:
It's true of any analytical method.
Stipe is stunned:
It's true of any analytical method.
So, are you of the opinion that the irradiation of nitrogen is a procedural contaminant?
radd76
New member
Campbell's Soup + Campbell's Soup = Campbell's Soup
Campbell's Soup + Campbell's Soup = Campbell's Soup
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/04/nanoscale_desig058191.html
"The fairy penguin from Australia and New Zealand (Eudyptula minor) whose shimmering blue coat "harness[es] nanotech for cosmetic purposes" by bringing to bear "nanoscale design"
Last year, scientists at the University of Akron in Ohio used X-ray imaging and other techniques to discover that the penguins produce the blue color in an entirely new way: with bundles of parallel nanofibers, like handfuls of uncooked spaghetti, that scatter light so as to produce the rich blue. The 180-nanometer-wide fibers are made of beta-keratin, a protein similar to the one in human hair. Similar fibers had previously been found in some birds' blue skin, where they are made of collagen rather than keratin, but never before in blue feathers."
Indeed you do need your first organism, not just the missing links. It sounds like all you have is what you see today.
So with nothing to modify... What does the most inconceivably basic organism have to build on? to modify? Themselves. again and again. You said:
Therefore abiogenisis itself is insufficient for evolution. You really need to get up to biogenisis and that's pretty advanced from primordial soup.
Campbell's Soup + Campbell's Soup = Campbell's Soup
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/04/nanoscale_desig058191.html
"The fairy penguin from Australia and New Zealand (Eudyptula minor) whose shimmering blue coat "harness[es] nanotech for cosmetic purposes" by bringing to bear "nanoscale design"
Last year, scientists at the University of Akron in Ohio used X-ray imaging and other techniques to discover that the penguins produce the blue color in an entirely new way: with bundles of parallel nanofibers, like handfuls of uncooked spaghetti, that scatter light so as to produce the rich blue. The 180-nanometer-wide fibers are made of beta-keratin, a protein similar to the one in human hair. Similar fibers had previously been found in some birds' blue skin, where they are made of collagen rather than keratin, but never before in blue feathers."
Indeed you do need your first organism, not just the missing links. It sounds like all you have is what you see today.
So with nothing to modify... What does the most inconceivably basic organism have to build on? to modify? Themselves. again and again. You said:
Therefore abiogenisis itself is insufficient for evolution. You really need to get up to biogenisis and that's pretty advanced from primordial soup.
The point is, nitrogen atoms in diamonds can be converted to C-14 by radiation, which exists in diamond-bearing rock.
It's just another way that C-14 could show up in testing. Contamination is another way. The fact that it only shows up at the extreme range of detectability suggests contamination.
It's just another way that C-14 could show up in testing. Contamination is another way. The fact that it only shows up at the extreme range of detectability suggests contamination.
Bird feathers contain beta-keratin. So you're telling us that you can show the structure in these penguins was not formed naturally?
I'm sure everyone would be interested to see that. Show us.
Barbarian observes:
Evolutionary theory isn't about how life started. It just assumes it did, and describes how it changes over time. Darwin just assumed God created the first organisms.
Yep. But evolutionary theory is indifferent to how they came to be. If God poofed the first organisms into existence, instead of using natural means (as Genesis says), it wouldn't matter to evolutionary theory.
Barbarian observes:
Darwin supposed it was God, without saying how. But now, scientists are beginning to see evidence for abiogenesis. God was right when He said the earth brought forth living things.
Existing living things. Which the theory assumes to exist. Pretty good assumption. It just doesn't assume how they came to be. But God says the Earth formed them.
Which is all that's needed. Show me any necessary step from the simplest organism to the most complex, that can't happen by natural means.
Barbarian observes:
"Evolution always modifies something already in use.
"Abiogenesis" means the natural origin of living things. I thought you knew.
Frayed Knot
New member
Maybe you should actually read what I wrote. My post #7 was talking about contamination due to C14 getting into the measurement from other sources. Then Barbarian and I were discussing this, versus the possibility of C14 actually being present in the diamond sample due to a nitrogen atom absorbing a neutron (and ejecting a proton).
So we started off with contamination, then talked about nitrogen some. Then you come along and declare that no one was talking about contamination.
I swear, Stripe, it always seems to me that you see your role here to come along and defecate in the middle anytime anyone is having a real discussion, in order to drive away valid criticism from the very cherry-picked tidbits that Bob Enyart offers up.
Maybe you should read what I wrote. :idunno:
And perhaps you're on one of your wild rants.
radd76
New member
You claimed evolution always modifies from existing features and you asked me to give you one example to show that which I did. Why did you answer with a question?.
the penguins produce the blue color in an entirely new way: with bundles of parallel nanofibers, like handfuls of uncooked spaghetti, that scatter light so as to produce the rich blue
Just like my friend the penguin?
I didn't know we had met previously. What was in the toolbox for abiogenesis that evolution could modify from?
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Frayed Knot
New member
OK, let's go back and see what you wrote. This should be fun.
Post #7: I point out that the measurements of C14 in diamonds were affected by a small amount of contamination.
Post #14: Stripe said "If contamination is so easily introduced and so difficult to rule out, why should we accept the certainty with which radiocarbon dates are presented?"
Post #22: I said, after some calculations, "It's only when you get into a few tens of thousands of years old does the contamination become significant to the dates."
Post #23: Stripe said "And how do we rule out the possibility of contamination like the contamination you're proposing for diamonds?"
Post #24: Junius Gallio said "A good lab with proper procedures will already be aware of what level of contamination their procedures add to the process."
Post #29: Stripe said: "We're not talking about procedural contamination."
So after all this discussion about contamination in the measurement procedure, which you yourself were part of, you bizarrely state that we weren't talking about contamination.
Can you not figure out the subject of the conversation that you were having? Is your memory that short? Or are you just trying to be an obstruction to the conversation?
If you really can't figure out why a small amount of contamination is OK for some dates but not for others, here's a little table I just put together. If your error is 0.1% of the levels of original C14, here's its effect on a list of concentrations:
Code:
Age %C14 Cont Min Max Min age Max age
0 100.0% 0.10% 99.90% 100.10% -8 8
100 98.80% 0.10% 98.70% 98.90% 92 108
500 94.13% 0.10% 94.03% 94.23% 491 509
1000 88.61% 0.10% 88.51% 88.71% 991 1009
5000 54.62% 0.10% 54.52% 54.72% 4985 5015
10000 29.83% 0.10% 29.73% 29.93% 9972 10028
15000 16.29% 0.10% 16.19% 16.39% 14949 15051
20000 8.90% 0.10% 8.80% 9.00% 19908 20093
30000 2.65% 0.10% 2.55% 2.75% 29694 30317
40000 0.79% 0.10% 0.69% 0.89% 39017 41116
50000 0.24% 0.10% 0.14% 0.34% 47081 54552
60000 0.07% 0.10% -0.03% 0.17% 52696 #NUM!
100000 0.001% 0.10% -0.10% 0.10% 57058 #NUM!Can you see that if you measure a concentration of 16.39%, then the contamination contributes an uncertainty of only about 50 years out of 15,000, but if the level you measure is 0.1%, then you just know that it's at least 50,000 years old?
You forgot post 17:
"What Barbarian and I were discussing earlier is that diamonds are about 1% nitrogen, so that's a lot of nitrogen atoms that could absorb neutrons. The levels of C14 that our mass spectrometers find in diamond are extremely extremely low, and those low levels could be explained by nitrogen atoms in the diamond crystal or by contamination in the preparation and measurement. My gut feel is that it's dominated by contamination, but I can't find data to support that one way or the other."
I thought we were talking about the nitrogen. :idunno:
Oh, no. I figured that out.
Frayed Knot
New member
By the way, there's news about calibrating the C14 scale using items that are of a known age. We have layers from a lake in Japan that show 52,800 years' worth of deposits:
http://www.popsci.com/science/artic...anese-lakebed-will-help-scientists-study-past
Isn't it something, that annual layers that you can count give the same answers as dating with C14, and they all show that the Earth is much older than 6000 years!
http://www.popsci.com/science/artic...anese-lakebed-will-help-scientists-study-past
Isn't it something, that annual layers that you can count give the same answers as dating with C14, and they all show that the Earth is much older than 6000 years!
Barbarian chuckles:
Bird feathers contain beta-keratin. So you're telling us that you can show the structure in these penguins was not formed naturally?
I'm sure everyone would be interested to see that. Show us.
Let's take a look...
Barbarian asks:
So you're telling us that you can show the structure in these penguins was not formed naturally?
I'm sure everyone would be interested to see that. Show us.''
So you're now admitting that the structure did form naturally?
So, like all evolution, the feature was produced by modifying something already present. Thank you.
Barbarian suggests:
Which is all that's needed. Show me any necessary step from the simplest organism to the most complex, that can't happen by natural means.
Yep. As you just learned, beta-keratin already exists in bird feathers. So it was modified to form a new feature. So can you answer the question?
Barbarian observes:
"Abiogenesis" means the natural origin of living things. I thought you knew.
No toolbox needed. Just living things. If you want to believe that God poofed them into existence instead of the earth bringing them forth as Genesis says, it makes no difference to evolutionary theory.
Bird feathers contain beta-keratin. So you're telling us that you can show the structure in these penguins was not formed naturally?
I'm sure everyone would be interested to see that. Show us.
Let's take a look...
Barbarian asks:
So you're telling us that you can show the structure in these penguins was not formed naturally?
I'm sure everyone would be interested to see that. Show us.''
So you're now admitting that the structure did form naturally?
So, like all evolution, the feature was produced by modifying something already present. Thank you.
Barbarian suggests:
Which is all that's needed. Show me any necessary step from the simplest organism to the most complex, that can't happen by natural means.
Yep. As you just learned, beta-keratin already exists in bird feathers. So it was modified to form a new feature. So can you answer the question?
Barbarian observes:
"Abiogenesis" means the natural origin of living things. I thought you knew.
No toolbox needed. Just living things. If you want to believe that God poofed them into existence instead of the earth bringing them forth as Genesis says, it makes no difference to evolutionary theory.
Those layers are annual when you need them annual and tidal when you need them tidal.
Funny thing is, they are neither. :chuckle:
Lordkalvan
New member
So what are they? Evidence?
And what do you make of the varve studies of Scandinavian lakes, for example
Varved Lake Sediments in Southern and Central Finland: Long Varve Chronologies as a Basis for Holocene Palaeoenvironmental Reconstructions by Antti Ojala (http://arkisto.gtk.fi/ej/ej41.pdf)
and
Holocene sedimentary history of annual laminations of Lake Korttajärvi, central Finland by Mia Tiljander (http://ethesis.helsinki.fi/julkaisut/mat/geolo/vk/tiljander/)
Are these varves neither annual nor tidal, what then are they and what evidence supports your conclusion?