Misc Derails from "Varve" Terminology is Unfortunate

[JonF]

Febble ... Dave, please contrast this post of yours with what Dr Bertsche says above.I will do so happily, Febble.

My statement ...

Which was a conclusion I drew from ... Bertsche who said ...


This flags contamination somewhere in the process. What a researcher typically does is to throw out these dates and to try to identify and eliminate the contamination.I substituted the word 'routinely' for 'typically.' Seems reasonable. My entire statement seems to be a very fair representation of what he said.

Now I understand everyone's collective pain here in coming to grips with the reality of what Dr. Bertsche said, but whining about what a meany I am because I supposedly spun his statement wrong really makes you appear uninterested in the real issues at hand. I would suggest getting over it and moving ahead.

I'm interested in hearing the details of JonF's experiment proposal ... not committing to anything lest I be called a welcher by Glenn, but I'm interested at least.

Moddly bit: OK, guys. From this post it seems to me there is evidence that Dave truly doesn't get it. If he was intentionally misrepresenting, he wouldn't have posted verbatim, in support of his own interpretation, the words that clearly (to me, and to the rest of you, apparently) say they opposite of that interpretation.

So let's cool it with the accusations of dishonesty, and focus on where he's gone wrong.[/moddly bit]
I agree that he just doesn't get it and IMHO he never will. It's incredible that he can't see that the phrase "not close to the expected age" or any synonym do not appear in any of Dr. Bertsche's descriptions of why data is discarded, except in the one or two cases where he explicitly denied that being "not close to the expected age" was considered. Davie really thinks that "results are routinely rejected if they are not close to the expected age" is identical to "[if a single piece of material is split into pieces and dated, and the dates are inconsistent with one another] this flags contamination somewhere in the process. What a researcher typically does is to throw out these dates and to try to identify and eliminate the contamination", even though there's no mention of expected age in the latter. It's near-inconceivable, but our Davie is of the few who is capable of stupendous feats of tard such as this.

[RAFH]

Febble ... Dave, please contrast this post of yours with what Dr Bertsche says above.I will do so happily, Febble.

My statement ...

Which was a conclusion I drew from ... Bertsche who said ...


This flags contamination somewhere in the process. What a researcher typically does is to throw out these dates and to try to identify and eliminate the contamination.I substituted the word 'routinely' for 'typically.' Seems reasonable. My entire statement seems to be a very fair representation of what he said.

Now I understand everyone's collective pain here in coming to grips with the reality of what Dr. Bertsche said, but whining about what a meany I am because I supposedly spun his statement wrong really makes you appear uninterested in the real issues at hand. I would suggest getting over it and moving ahead.

I'm interested in hearing the details of JonF's experiment proposal ... not committing to anything lest I be called a welcher by Glenn, but I'm interested at least.



Moddly bit: OK, guys. From this post it seems to me there is evidence that Dave truly doesn't get it. If he was intentionally misrepresenting, he wouldn't have posted verbatim, in support of his own interpretation, the words that clearly (to me, and to the rest of you, apparently) say they opposite of that interpretation.

So let's cool it with the accusations of dishonesty, and focus on where he's gone wrong.[/moddly bit]

Right, Dave.

I think the confusion here is over what constitutes a "sample" and what constitutes a piece of a sample, and in a way there is some reason to be confused because some of the samples we have talked about (e.g. tree rings, varve cores, etc) are postulated to yield an array of dates, not a single date, whereas some (a "thumb-sized" piece of wood) are.

Now, clearly, if "sample" is taken to mean a core of some kind - a plug taken cross-sectionally from a tree, or a core of sediment, or ice - then what will be "expected" is a range of dates. But to get that range of dates, the sample itself will have to be sub-sampled, and each sample dated separately.

So, if I have a core of sediment from Lake Suigetsu, it is perfectly reasonable for me to say to the lab: "I expect this core to contain material dating from between 200 years old and 10,000 years old, and to contain organic material". That way, the lab knows that radiocarbon dating is a reasonable technique, unless I've got it wildly wrong.

However, it would NOT be reasonable, or ethical, of me to divide up my core into samples, and say: "I think sample 1 will be about 200 years old, and sample 2 will be about 250 years old, and sample 3 will be about 300 years old etc". And I know of no evidence that anyone has done that. Indeed all the evidence suggests that the lab subsamples were randomly numbered, and tested blind. That would be good methodology. In the lab in which I work, we anonymize all the EEG samples before inspecting for eye movement artefacts, which is a partially manual process, so that the people doing the artefact rejection process are not influenced by knowing who the subject is or anything about them (diagnosis, for instance). In fact, one of my jobs in the lab is to write the program that does the anonymizing, and I'm the only one with the password to the key.

However, if one has a single small "thumb-sized" (sorry, I said "thumbnail sized", earlier) piece of wood to date, I assume that only a single date is "expected" from the sample - a sample of wood that small is going to be fairly homogeneous in date (maybe only 5 years of growth from one side to the other). While it might be useful to have some indication of the rough age of the sample, what is much more important is to know whether it has been contaminated (with such a large surface-to-volume ratio, any contamination caused by contact between the sample and modern carbon is going to seriously affect the dating).

So the first thing to do will be to take pieces of the sample and test them separately. And if they give wildly different dates from each other, regardless of the "expected age" of the sample as a whole - you will know that the sample has been contaminated. Because there is no way that a small piece of wood can have different parts grown at widely different times.

And if, in addition, you find that pieces of the sample taken from near the surface yield YOUNGER ages than pieces taken further from the centre, then you will rapidly infer that the whole thing has suffered from surface contamination by modern carbon. Perhaps someone brought it home in their sandwich box. You may still hope, nonetheless, that the contamination doesn't go far in - that the gradient of date with depth into the sample will "level off", because this will imply that the contaminant hasn't soaked far into the wood. But in the case Dr Bertsche cites there was no levelling off, implying that the contaminant must have soaked its way right into the heart of the sample, making it useless for dating. And so they, quite rightly, rejected it.

NOT because the date it yielded departed from the "expected date" but because a small piece of wood, would be "expected" to yield a SINGLE date - any date - and, if it didn't, would indicated that it had been contaminated. This would be the case whether the "expected" date was present day or 10,000 years of age.

Now do you see?

And if I've got this wrong, perhaps someone would put me right. But that's my understanding.

Cheers

Lizzie

You've got it right Lizzie.

But I seriously doubt that davey will agree. It has been and always will be davey's contention that Bertsche admitted that samples that don't confirm to desired dates will be thrown out, specifically because of non-conformance with that desired date. He's been corrected on this a number of times by a number of persons in a number of forums, including Bertsche himself. It's clear in his own posts that's what he believes and that's what he claims. It's also clear in the posts by various persons, including Bertsche that is not what Bertsche wrote.

[Autodidact]

Yes, well sorry, but I'm not going spent many thousands of my own dollars to go redo the tests. I see my job as shining a spotlight on the issues and planting ideas in the minds of real scientists who will thus be motivated to get grants or what have you and then go out and challenge the existing dogmas.

Why can't AIG or ICR or DI spend some of their money on these tests? A few of those tests would cost a fraction of what AIG spent ($27million) for that creation "museum".AiG is doing on a large scale what I am doing on a very small scale ... But they also do original research ... I'm not sure if an experiment like we are discussing is on the agenda ... Maybe it is.

JonF, if I could match your $500 and find out something meaningful, I'd be interested.

AIG does research? Please, share some.

[VoxRat]

I can think of only two possibilities:

1. Dave is really, really, stupid. He actually cannot read these two passages and understand that they are not at all the same, not talking about the same thing, are in fact quite different.

2. Dave is a liar and doesn't have the integrity to admit it, even when confronted by his lies.

I really can't think of any other explanations, can you?

1. Dave is not stupid.

2. Dave bends reality to conform to his Bible-based interpretation of reality. There is some kind of fundie-fog obscuring his thinking processes. A type of Morton's demon that rejects much of the evidence accepted by science. Also, Dave "knows" that if he convinces himself that something is correct, then it is not a lie to repeat it.My bolding: that's fundementia.

I can see why this point is so baffling. If I hadn't followed this stuff pretty closely for years, I'm sure I would conclude from a cursory glance that someone spouting this nonsense was either very dim, very dishonest, or - most likely - playing an extended prank to see if how many people he could get to believe he was serious.

I've been really bowled over by this up close and personal look at the workings of fundementia. I'm not sure where exactly, if anywhere, I draw the line between dishonesty and self-delusion; I've always said the most successful used car salesman was the one who could actually get himself to believe his pitch.

But it's scary. It really is.

[JonF]

One more thing about this libel thing ... I find it fascinating, Febble, that you are worried about libel in this instance ... Where were the IIDB mods when JonF was libeling Snelling up and down over there?
But, since you bring it up, where's that review of Snelling's Ngauruhoe paper by the head of a major dating lab, which you promised last October? Last time I tickled you about it you referred me to a nonexistent previous response. So where is it, Davie?
Well, Davie?

Looks like that expert shredded that paper so exhaustively that you can't even acknowledge that you submitted it to him.

[Worldtraveller]

One more thing about this libel thing ... I find it fascinating, Febble, that you are worried about libel in this instance ... Where were the IIDB mods when JonF was libeling Snelling up and down over there? They didn't give a hoot and you didn't either I dare say. But now you're worried when it's a creationist "libeling" a non creationist? Come on. Who do you think you're fooling?

Don't like this discussion in thread? Then don't post public denigrations of my character in thread.

Thanks.
For it to be libel, it has to be shown to be both intentional and untrue, as far as I know. This is why anytime you, dave hawkins, liar for jeebus, quote anything from a real scientist, you run the risk of upsetting them enough to actually go to court and come after you. The only hard part to prove would be whether you are being intentionally malicious, as opposed to just stupid. But the overwhelming evidence is that you are doing it intentionally, since even after (repeatedly) beingshown how wrong you are, you continue to lie. Thus, you make yourself quite open to libel suits of anyone cared to bother.

And as for the [former] mods of IIDB, there were a few isolated cases where we thought libel might be an issue, one of which was directed at a scientist who also happened to be a poster there. When the one who posted the libel refused to retract or apologize, we banned that individual.

Unless your cretionist hero had decided to publicly register, though, it was unlikely such a case would be repeated, and even then, as noted earlier, you would have to show that the criticism was incorrect for it to be libel.

For instance, posters here are pretty safe from a libel suit if they call you 1) stupid, or 2) a liar, as a case could be made for either or both.

Cheers.

[lao tzu]

As far as I'm aware a libel suit is moot if it cannot prove damages, which seems to take anything Dave Hawkins writes off the hook. Sure, he's libelous, but he's also harmless. It's not as if an academic is going to be denied tenure or a scientist is going to be denied a grant because Dave can't speak the truth.

[ninewands]

As far as I'm aware a libel suit is moot if it cannot prove damages, which seems to take anything Dave Hawkins writes off the hook. Sure, he's libelous, but he's also harmless. It's not as if an academic is going to be denied tenure or a scientist is going to be denied a grant because Dave can't speak the truth.
No it isn't. Libel, being an intentional tort, carries the potential for an award of punitive damages because damage to one's professional reputation is presumed to be caused by publication of false allegations against it. My opinion is that the ONLY defense Dave would have if, say, Bertsche or Van der Plicht were to sue him for libel is that his reputation for truthfulness is SO bad that no reasonable person could possibly believe anything he wrote.

Now the folks here, at RnR, IIDB, RD.net and possibly TWeb might make it seem like Dave could make that argument stick. However, we are just a subset of internet users and I am sure he would have a hard time supporting the argument, "I'm such a notorious liar that NO reasonable person can believe me."

[deadman_932]

I mentioned to AFDave once that other jurisdictions are open to bringing such suits -- given the international nature of teh interwebz -- jurisdictions where the conditions are very different. In Singapore, for instance, the penalties are pretty severe and the thresholds of demonstrating injury to reputation are remarkably low. http://www.law.buffalo.edu/Academics/courses/629/computer_law_policy_articles/CompLawPapers/holland.htm

Of course, one would have to want to plunk down the cash to do so, but the consequences would be interesting.

[ericmurphy]

Why is it that the only threads where libel ever becomes an issue are threads Dave started and/or posts regularly to?

Why is that, Dave?

[deadman_932]

Hey, eric :) We both know the answer to that rhetorical question, eh?

[Febble]

Why is it that the only threads where libel ever becomes an issue are threads Dave started and/or posts regularly to?

Why is that, Dave?

Well, it has been an issue in the past elsewhere too. Obviously there is potential for defamation where the only counter-argument to irrefutable evidence against a given position is the suggestion that the evidence had been faked in some way, either through dishonesty or incompetence.

The fact remains that the data as they stand overwhelmingly support an old earth. Only if someone has suppressed, or mismeasured or faked the data could YEC possibly be supported.

[Dr. Nelson C. Armadingo]

I was interested to see, in my research of the various afdave trainwrecks that litter the web, that the only action on libel issues consist of:
dave's church being accurately described, despite his petulance at having that noted, and the subsequent threats he freely distributed
and
dave having been forced to apologize and recant his own libel of specific scientists.

Odd how fascinated by the topic he is -- one thinks of peanut-allergy sufferers clutching a jar of Jif or Skippy to their chest.

regards,
Dr. Nelson C. Armadingo
and Nurse Durkin

[supersport]

I was interested to see, in my research of the various afdave trainwrecks that litter the web, that the only action on libel issues consist of:
dave's church being accurately described, despite his petulance at having that noted, and the subsequent threats he freely distributed
and
dave having been forced to apologize and recant his own libel of specific scientists.

Odd how fascinated by the topic he is -- one thinks of peanut-allergy sufferers clutching a jar of Jif or Skippy to their chest.

regards,
Dr. Nelson C. Armadingo
and Nurse Durkin

If you don't mind me asking, what kind of doctor are you?

[Dr. Nelson C. Armadingo]

I was interested to see, in my research of the various afdave trainwrecks that litter the web, that the only action on libel issues consist of:
dave's church being accurately described, despite his petulance at having that noted, and the subsequent threats he freely distributed
and
dave having been forced to apologize and recant his own libel of specific scientists.

Odd how fascinated by the topic he is -- one thinks of peanut-allergy sufferers clutching a jar of Jif or Skippy to their chest.

regards,
Dr. Nelson C. Armadingo
and Nurse Durkin

If you don't mind me asking, what kind of doctor are you?

Licensed.

IIRC, you are a sock-puppet for the entity known as guzman, in which case these shall be the last polite words that pass between us.

What are your qualifications?

Dr. Nelson C. Armadingo
and Nurse Durking, also licensed

[Obd]

I was interested to see, in my research of the various afdave trainwrecks that litter the web, that the only action on libel issues consist of:
dave's church being accurately described, despite his petulance at having that noted, and the subsequent threats he freely distributed
and
dave having been forced to apologize and recant his own libel of specific scientists.

Odd how fascinated by the topic he is -- one thinks of peanut-allergy sufferers clutching a jar of Jif or Skippy to their chest.

regards,
Dr. Nelson C. Armadingo
and Nurse Durkin

If you don't mind me asking, what kind of doctor are you?

Licensed.

IIRC, you are a sock-puppet for the entity known as guzman, in which case these shall be the last polite words that pass between us.

What are your qualifications?

Dr. Nelson C. Armadingo
and Nurse Durking, also licensed

He already answered that question a while ago:

My qualification is I'm a God-fearing college dropout redneck hick landlord who goes after darwinism with freaking vengeance....and I just happen to have the truth on my side.

[Constant Mews]

I believe that Guzman/Supersport has admitted that he has no qualifications whatsoever in the fields of evolutionary biology, geology, or history. And he has also admitted that he is a troll.

But I am curious about his response to your very reasonable question.

[Dr. Nelson C. Armadingo]

OBD, Constant Mews,
Thank you for filling in the gaps in my knowlege of this entity.
It will spare me wasting any further time or attention on it.

warmest regards,
Dr. Nelson C. Armadingo
and Nurse Durkin, who may not be so self-controlled...

[Constant Mews]

You are entirely welcome, Doctor (and Nurse). Guzman is best ignored - the occasional moments of learning and interest in threads he participates in always come from the other posters.

[RAFH]

As far as I'm aware a libel suit is moot if it cannot prove damages, which seems to take anything Dave Hawkins writes off the hook. Sure, he's libelous, but he's also harmless. It's not as if an academic is going to be denied tenure or a scientist is going to be denied a grant because Dave can't speak the truth.
No it isn't. Libel, being an intentional tort, carries the potential for an award of punitive damages because damage to one's professional reputation is presumed to be caused by publication of false allegations against it. My opinion is that the ONLY defense Dave would have if, say, Bertsche or Van der Plicht were to sue him for libel is that his reputation for truthfulness is SO bad that no reasonable person could possibly believe anything he wrote.

Now the folks here, at RnR, IIDB, RD.net and possibly TWeb might make it seem like Dave could make that argument stick. However, we are just a subset of internet users and I am sure he would have a hard time supporting the argument, "I'm such a notorious liar that NO reasonable person can believe me."

Of course, davey would have to make that argument in court, under penalty of perjury, which if he later recanted his sworn statement that he was such a notorious liar no reasonable person would likely believe him, he would be subject to potential prosecution for perjury. So for the rest of his life he would be stuck with the self-proclaimed title of 'NOTORIOUS LIAR'. In an ironic way, then his silly website, Truth Matters, would be accurately named, because for once davey would be facing the consequences of his behavior.

Wouldn't that be a crack up? I'd just love to see it. It would be the clowning glory for the clown of 'glory'. Har-de-har-har-har! What a bluffoon!

[RAFH]

I mentioned to AFDave once that other jurisdictions are open to bringing such suits -- given the international nature of teh interwebz -- jurisdictions where the conditions are very different. In Singapore, for instance, the penalties are pretty severe and the thresholds of demonstrating injury to reputation are remarkably low. http://www.law.buffalo.edu/Academics/courses/629/computer_law_policy_articles/CompLawPapers/holland.htm

Of course, one would have to want to plunk down the cash to do so, but the consequences would be interesting.

Uh yeah! Don't they cane liars down there? Drop your shorts Kansas easy chair boy! You best hope that easy chair has some serious padding after this paddling. Har-de-har-har-har. Wouldn't I just love to see it. Love to have a video of such, purely for educational purposes, of course, to show the kids4truth the terrible consequences of FUNDAMENTIA.

Har-de-har-har-har! Go get'em davey! Go get'em!

[RAFH]

OBD, Constant Mews,
Thank you for filling in the gaps in my knowlege of this entity.
It will spare me wasting any further time or attention on it.

warmest regards,
Dr. Nelson C. Armadingo
and Nurse Durkin, who may not be so self-controlled...

Two questions Dr.

Is Nurse Durkin female?

If so, is Nurse Durkin hot?

No disrespect intended mind you. I have the greatest respect for anyone who cares for another.

[RAFH]

Dr. Bertsche's comment, posted with his permission:

What I claimed obviously relates to internal consistency (self-consistent measurements of the same sample), not to conformity to any a priori assumption of the date. Dave's original claim of what I said is obviously a complete misrepresentation (measurements are "routinely rejected if they are not close to the expected age"). Dave is now morphing this to the more general "because they did not conform to their expectations," with no reference to "expected age". I wouldn't be surprised if Dave eventually morphs this to what I actually said and claims that this is what he was saying all along. His postings on TWeb suggest that he has a very selective and inexact memory both of what he has written and of what others have written.Dr. Bertsche's backpedalling notwithstanding, the record is quite clear. They dated some Jericho wood and expected it to be in a certain age range. It wasn't ... so they threw out the dates. Make of that what you will.

What I make of it is either your mind is so twisted by your amazing case of FUNDAMENTIA or you are just such a liar that whatever you say is meaningless. Bertsche never said what you state. You know that because 1. The actual quotes of what he posted are clear as a bell, that the cause for disregarding the sample and the dates obtained from it was entirely the obvious case of contamination by modern carbon. This was clearly inferred from the fact that the dates increased in age the deeper in they were taken and never leveled off, so the entire sample was contaminated. Nowhere in his posting did Bertsche ever use the words "expected age or age range" nor did any of his posts imply that in any way that there was ever a consideration of an expected age or age range. The only person to mention that was yourself, which is highly curious as you are not in any way trained or educated as an archaeologist, geologist, radiometric technician, or other other category related to the subject and you have zero experience in any field related to the subject, you have never even seen an actual dating laboratory nor a sample for dating nor been to Jericho or done or been anything close to the subject other than mouth off on it on the internet and perhaps to your fellow churchgoers, which hardly qualifies you to make any statement about any aspect of the entire subject. You, davey of kids4truth and truthmatters, are a nobody with no effect other than to annoy and mislead.

and, 2. you have been told enough times now, by just about everyone involved, including the person you have misquoted, that you have misquoted him and your interpretation is utterly made up from the lies in your head that stem from your FUNDAMENTIA.

You are just a 'believer' so lacking in faith in your supposed beliefs that you need to try and get some sort of support for them via science and/or convince others so that you can convince yourself. You are naught but a sad, sad case of FUNDAMENTIA who will grasp at any straw, even ones of your own making, to bolster your flagging faith.

[Jet Black]

I split these out, they are a bit random and unrelated to varves. please try to limit the side insults and remarks in the main discussion threads, as they detract from the thread. Feel free to keep any conversations going in here though.

JB

[Dr. Nelson C. Armadingo]

OBD, Constant Mews,
Thank you for filling in the gaps in my knowlege of this entity.
It will spare me wasting any further time or attention on it.

warmest regards,
Dr. Nelson C. Armadingo
and Nurse Durkin, who may not be so self-controlled...

Two questions Dr.

Is Nurse Durkin female?

If so, is Nurse Durkin hot?

No disrespect intended mind you. I have the greatest respect for anyone who cares for another.


Nurse Durkin joined my practice with no specific inquiry made as to gender -- we tend to be unconcerned about gender in our hiring practices. To all appearances, she is female, and self-identifies as such. What kind of person would I be to doubt her? Or to challenge her choice of gender identity?

Is she hot? Well, she controls the HVAC in the office, so I would hope she is comfortable. We try to provide a work environment that is comfortable for all of our staff ;-)
(It does sometimes require bribing her with donuts to get the a/c adjusted in the summer, but she is delightfully sensitive to the needs of our patients, so I have not complaints.)

regards,
Dr. Nelson C. Armadingo
and Nurse Durkin