46 replies to this topic

[trilobyte]

Upon further reading on the subject, it appears that the helium argument is not new, see this LINK

The article just published is part of an ongoing debate between Humphries and Henke. 

The original work from Humphries is unchanged from 2003, (and if memory serves was discussed in this forum before).  One would expect that if such a rebutting attack on Humphries work was put forward, then two courses of action are deemed essential:

Review the original material for errors.
Redo the science to eliminate the original objections.

The original objections were, unrepresentative samples, sloppy methods, etc

Come on Chance

The research has been formally reviewed 4 times each time by 2 seperate people.
I believe some of the reviews were anonymous. Some of the reviews were also from non-creationist.
The math was checked 6 times.
There has been ten public critiques
There was also three co-authors who reviewed the research.
There's more reviews bu I trust you get the point and stand corrected.

[chance]

Here are to more sites for Chance...and others to read that cast more doubt on henkes critique.
Henke tried to find error but the model and experiments of Humphreys stood the test.

check this out

and then click here for another article.

Old news I’m afraid. To which I point you too http://www.talkorigi...c/CD/CD015.html


But I did find this quote somewhat provocative

The RATE helium research has been peer-reviewed and published in several different scientific venues

which tags on to your next post

Come on Chance

The research has been formally reviewed 4 times each time by 2 seperate people.
I believe some of the reviews were anonymous. Some of the reviews were also from non-creationist.
The math was checked 6 times.
There has been ten public critiques
There was also three co-authors who reviewed the research.
There's more reviews bu I trust you get the point and stand corrected.

Have they indeed, do you think you could find where and when and who carried this out?

Just a word to the wise, please read Freds warning on post #16. There is no love lost between Henke and Humphries, and the language is somewhat ‘personal’, so rather than post links of who said what to whom you should paraphrase the science content. I think at this point we all know who is making what claims.

[digitalartist]

Most YEC arguments center on problems with millions of years, such as salt in the sea, short-period comets, spiral galaxies, etc. These are all fine and good since a young world fits within the limits these clocks put on the earth. But there are a handful that actually point at or near 6000 years. Well, we now have another one, and it is powerful. Check out this graph:



Note that each data line represaents predicted levels given a 6000 year old model, and a 1.5 billion year old model. The RATE group has recieved their data from an independent lab, and look where the data lines up! If this isn't compelling evidence for a young world, I'm not sure if anything would convince Old Earthers.  This is how science should work - A prediction is made, the experiment is run, and the result is checked against the prediction.

From the article:
Link

Fred

That work was a reply to Kevin Henke's original essay and Henke's reply to Dr Humphrey is detailed here. Henke's Reply

[trilobyte]

And henke was shown to be wrong.

Do you have a problem with that?

[Adam Nagy]

I found this video and it fits perfectly in this thread:

[Arch]

Pinned:
Carbon 14 - A Serious Problem For Old Earthers

The thread is stickied at the top of the page.The helium diffusivity link works and Fred has a thread stickied for that too at the top of the page.

I've noticed that you've recently posted in both threads,but now you can't find either?

It's been a rough week for me too.LOL

Oh no, I could find the forum, just wasn't 100% sure which section I was meant to be looking at.
I enjoyed the Helium diffusion info on the creation wiki. That's the kind of info I was looking for. I was worried the only dating methods creationists were using was the Bible.

I'll look into the helium diffusion stuff. Sounds interesting

Cheers mate.

Regards,

Arch.

[Arch]

Hi Jas,

Okay I've started looking into the Helium diffusion and it's not looking promising. I'm currently reading this article:

http://www.talkorigi...um/zircons.html

It's pretty long, so I'll get back to you when I'm done. If you've got the time give it a read

Regards,

Arch.

[Adam Nagy]

Uh, oh TalkOrigins articles... now there's the creme of the crop.

I like the way it starts out:

Rather than dealing with most of his mistakes, it's obvious that Humphreys (2005) did not even read and comprehend the vast majority of my criticisms.

Accuse to opponent of being too stupid to understand the majority of what you're saying.

[Ron]

Uh, oh    TalkOrigins articles... now there's the creme of the crop. 

I like the way it starts out:
Accuse to opponent of being too stupid to understand the majority of what you're saying.

Not the dreaded TalkOrigins articles

[jason777]

Hi Jas,

Okay I've started looking into the Helium diffusion and it's not looking promising. I'm currently reading this article:

http://www.talkorigi...um/zircons.html

It's pretty long, so I'll get back to you when I'm done. If you've got the time give it a read

Regards,

Arch.

Hi Arch,


When your done reading that you may want to read Humphrey's response to Henke.

As far as i know,Henke still has not submitted his Talkorigins paper for peer review,experimentation,and publicaton.If he honestly knew what he was saying was correct,then i don't see why he's affraid of his paper being peer reviewed.

If Henke wishes to make a real contribution to science, instead of to polemics, he could commission an experiment to determine the effect of pressure on the diffusion rates of helium in zircon.  He could contact Ken Farley, a world expert on measuring helium diffusion in minerals (including zircons) at Cal Tech, and pay him to do such an experiment.  Farley might even do it for free, since I know from personal experience that he has been searching for an alternative interpretation to our helium data for years.  It is a bit suggestive that Farley, an expert, hasn’t resorted to the rather obvious “pressure” argument used by Henke, a non-expert.  But if experiments were to yield a significant pressure effect in zircons, Farley would be overjoyed to publish the results in the prestigious journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, of which he is editor-in-chief.

This is Henke’s chance for glory!  He could become famous and respected in real scientific circles, instead of merely preaching to his fellow skeptics in a dark corner of the Internet.  If he doesn’t seize this opportunity, you may suspect it is because he knows “pressure” is not a significant escape from his dilemma with helium.

D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D. -

[Arch]

Hi Arch,
When your done reading that you may want to read Humphrey's response to Henke.

As far as i know,Henke still has not submitted his Talkorigins paper for peer review,experimentation,and publicaton.If he honestly knew what he was saying was correct,then i don't see why he's affraid of his paper being peer reviewed.
D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D. -

Thanks for the link Jas. It'll probably take me a while to get through both.

By the way, you may want to read the Henke article I linked if you haven't already. I only assume you haven't because it covers why Henke hasn't submitted to journals in the first couple of paragraphs.

To Adam and Ron,

I feel the same way when you guys link creationwiki or even worse, answers in genesis. But I do take the time to read and comprehend them, rather than just rubbishing them because I don't like what they say.

Regards,

Arch.

[jason777]

Hi Arch,

It is'nt a matter of like or dislike,science deals in no such prejudisms or presupposions.

Is Henke willing to submit to scientific testing or not ? His excuses and rhetoric are irrelevent.Science as knowledge is obtained through scientific testing and producing repeatable results,not by writing a 25 page rant for an anti-creation website.



Thanks.

[Adam Nagy]

To Adam and Ron,

I feel the same way when you guys link creationwiki or even worse, answers in genesis. But I do take the time to read and comprehend them, rather than just rubbishing them because I don't like what they say.

I'm sorry Arch, but usually when someone offers a TalkOrigins article (which you didn't do what I'm about to say) it's always entirely short of what it promises to deliver but the sender demands that we go point by point through a 25 page dissertation of uncompelling rhetoric. It looks like Jason did the work for us to show the smokescreen.

Thanks, Jason.

I haven't found one article at TalkOrigins yet that doesn't completely falls short of it's title or is filled with anecdotal concepts and demands respect for them as sealed science.

Arch, do you agree that the vacuum/pressure diffusion issue is a good sticking point? If so, it may be a good thread starter. It's news to me, so I'd like to learn the arguments. In the process we could all learn about the science of helium diffusion. Actually, we should move this conversation to the appropriate thread. Consider it done.

[Arch]

I'm sorry Arch, but usually when someone offers a TalkOrigins article (which you didn't do what I'm about to say) it's always entirely short of what it promises to deliver but the sender demands that we go point by point through a 25 page dissertation of uncompelling rhetoric. It looks like Jason did the work for us to show the smokescreen.

Thanks, Jason.

He did? What part did I miss? It sounded to me more like Jason had dismissed Henke's work by calling it irrelevant. Never actually stated why it was.

From what I can gather Humphrey's did an experiment and got some results. Henke called those results into dispute (he didn't like Humphrey's methods) and Humphrey (to my knowledge) hasn't responded. I'm not sure what smokescreen you think has been blown away

I haven't found one article at TalkOrigins yet that doesn't completely falls short of it's title or is filled with anecdotal concepts and demands respect for them as sealed science.

I tend to try and avoid the larger articles there; they're just too long and complex for me to find the time for at present. But the smaller answers to creationists questions do (in my mind) debunk about 95% of all arguments I've heard.

By comparison I've read a couple of articles from AiG and felt sick afterward. The sheer number of outright lies that were present was disturbing. I've seen much better posts written here, with a vast amount more truth. Another article I've read didn't address the questions at all and just listed Biblical quotes.

On the other hand I've read one or two that weren't too bad. But I just can't trust anything from that site when I know at least some of their literature is completely false. To make matters worse it was

Arch, do you agree that the vacuum/pressure diffusion issue is a good sticking point? If so, it may be a good thread starter. It's news to me, so I'd like to learn the arguments. In the process we could all learn about the science of helium diffusion. Actually, we should move this conversation to the appropriate thread. Consider it done.

Apparently you are further in your reading of this subject than I am I've no idea what the vacuum/pressure diffusion is.

Still haven't got around to reading those articles, I'll post again when I have

Regards,

Arch.

[jason777]

He did? What part did I miss? It sounded to me more like Jason had dismissed Henke's work by calling it irrelevant. Never actually stated why it was.

From what I can gather Humphrey's did an experiment and got some results. Henke called those results into dispute (he didn't like Humphrey's methods) and Humphrey (to my knowledge) hasn't responded. I'm not sure what smokescreen you think has been blown away

Try reading the links,Arch.

Running around here neglecting sources without even reading them, isn't going to get you very far.

Bait and Switch
Let’s see how big Henke alleges the effect would be:

“Numerous researchers have shown that the diffusion of helium or argon in silicate minerals may vary by many orders of magnitude at a given temperature depending on whether the studies were conducted in a vacuum or under pressure.  For example, argon diffusion in phlogopite mica may be at least 3 to 6 orders of magnitude higher in a vacuum than under pressurized conditions (McDougall and Harrison, 1999, p. 154.)”[7]
Henke’s “at least 3 to 6 orders of magnitude” would be a factor ranging from 1,000 to 1,000,000.  That is enormously larger than the few percent effect the measurements on hard minerals I reported above.  What would make such a huge difference?

One factor is the mineral, “phlogopite mica”.  Micas are soft minerals.  Their true hardness is low (2-3), but they appear even softer than that.  The reason is that they consist of atom-thick sheets of silicates held together by very weak chemical bonds between the sheets. The gap between a pair of sheets is relatively big, several atom diameters wide.  Most the helium or argon diffuses along the gaps between the sheets.  The weak bonding between the sheets allows pressure to compress the gaps easily.  So diffusion in micas is much more susceptible to pressure than hard minerals.  Instead of a steel ball bearing, here we have a sponge!

A second factor is water.  Water molecules can work their way into the gaps between the sheets and (lightly) bond chemically to them, thus hindering the diffusion of helium or argon.  The book that Henke quotes (p. 154, Figure 5-13) compares two experiments on phlogopite mica, one in a vacuum with no water present, the other under high pressure with water in the mica.

So pressure was not the only variable, but wetness also.  Try blowing air through a dry sponge and then through a wet sponge!  The large difference between the two experiments is probably more due to the presence or absence of water than it was to pressure.  Our samples, by the way, came from hot dry rock.  Any water that may have been in the rock unit previously has probably been mostly cooked out of it.

The adjacent figure in the same book (p. 154, Figure 5-14) reviews an experiment on a similar mica, biotite, without having water as a variable.  In that experiment[8] the effect of a rather large change of pressure, 14 kilobars, was only two orders of magnitude.  For a change of only 1 kilobar pressure, the change in diffusivity would probably be about one order of magnitude.  This is far less than Henke's desired six orders of magnitude.

That one-order-of-magnitude number is useful to me because it suggests that in my analysis of the helium data, I was correct to use a diffusivity for the biotite surrounding the zircons about one order of magnitude less than the vacuum measurements.  Our results are not very sensitive to the value of the biotite diffusivity, but it is comforting to know that my assumption was closer to reality than I thought.

The only other experiment on pressure that Henke reports is very similar:

“Argon diffusion in glauconite at 1,000 to 10,000 psi of water vapor is up to three orders of magnitude slower than under a vacuum (Dalrymple and Lanphere, 1969, p. 155).”[9]
Glauconite is another soft mica, and again the experiments compare dry and low-pressure samples with wet and high-pressure samples.

Last, notice that the experiments were with argon, not helium.  As I mentioned above, helium diffusion is less susceptible to pressure effects on the crystal than argon, because helium atoms are significantly smaller than argon atoms.

The upshot is that here Henke is playing the ancient merchant’s trick of “bait and switch”.  Having lured the customer in with an implied promise about one item (helium, zircon, dry), he then tries to sell the customer an item (argon, mica, wet) which will cost him more and benefit him less.  I hope you won't buy Henke's merchandise!

[texasdave]

Most YEC arguments center on problems with millions of years, such as salt in the sea, short-period comets, spiral galaxies, etc. These are all fine and good since a young world fits within the limits these clocks put on the earth. But there are a handful that actually point at or near 6000 years. Well, we now have another one, and it is powerful. Check out this graph:



Note that each data line represaents predicted levels given a 6000 year old model, and a 1.5 billion year old model. The RATE group has recieved their data from an independent lab, and look where the data lines up! If this isn't compelling evidence for a young world, I'm not sure if anything would convince Old Earthers. This is how science should work - A prediction is made, the experiment is run, and the result is checked against the prediction.

From the article:


Link

Fred

Part 1

Part 2

Oops...

[Bonedigger]

Part 1
Part 2
Oops...

 
Texasdave, all you are doing is proving Gilbo's assertion that your knowledge of the debate only comes from propagandist web sites. If you had actually done your homework, you would know that Humphreys responded to Loechelt (whose article you linked to above) at creation.com, and in the ensuing exchange in the Journal of Creation between Loechelt and Humphreys, not only did Humphreys refute Loechelt's quibbling, but it lead to a new line of evidence for a young earth...Argon diffusion rates in feldspar.
OOPS...
 
And that reminds me...if you had further done your homework and actually read the forum rules, you would have noticed guideline #3:

Your post should not be simply a link or links to articles/websites, or a wholesale cut&paste of an article/web-page. Various snippets from articles are fine, provided it is in the context of the argument you are developing. This shows the reader you understand the topic you are debating and makes for more productive discussion.

OOPS AGAIN.

[texasdave]

 

Texasdave, all you are doing is proving Gilbo's assertion that your knowledge of the debate only comes from propagandist web sites. If you had actually done your homework, you would know that Humphreys responded to Loechelt (whose article you linked to above) at creation.com, and in the ensuing exchange in the Journal of Creation between Loechelt and Humphreys, not only did Humphreys refute Loechelt's quibbling, but it lead to a new line of evidence for a young earth...Argon diffusion rates in feldspar.
OOPS...

 

Propagandist websites? And you think creation.com is not one of those - oooookay, I think we're about done here.
 

And that reminds me...if you had further done your homework and actually read the forum rules, you would have noticed guideline #3:

OOPS AGAIN.

 

Sorry about the rule thing, haven't gotten around to reading all those yet.

[Calypsis4]

texasdave;

 

 

 

Texasdave, all you are doing is proving Gilbo's assertion that your knowledge of the debate only comes from propagandist web sites. If you had actually done your homework, you would know that Humphreys responded to Loechelt (whose article you linked to above) at creation.com, and in the ensuing exchange in the Journal of Creation between Loechelt and Humphreys, not only did Humphreys refute Loechelt's quibbling, but it lead to a new line of evidence for a young earth...Argon diffusion rates in feldspar.
OOPS...

 

Propagandist websites? And you think creation.com is not one of those - oooookay, I think we're about done here. 

 

 

Don't run away and hide from the facts.

 

Prove them wrong if you really think that are a progaganda website.

[texasdave]

texasdave;

 

 

Don't run away and hide from the facts.

 

Prove them wrong if you really think that are a progaganda website.

Sorry, are you talking to me or Bonedigger?