With respect where due to all concerned, this rehash of a trainwreck of a discussion is a complete waste of time.

There was NO global flood. No-one has ever presented any credible evidence that there was. Science has found enormous amounts of evidence, never refuted, that there was no global flood, ever. Claims to the contrary should be treated with the absolute contempt they deserve.

Ditto for the "100x biomass"

The mere act of attempting to discuss the matter after it has already been thoroughly dissected and disproven gives it a status it has never warranted, and serves only to massage the egos of its proponents

Oh, and a Happy New Year!

Yes, we've been round it before here too. This was 4.5 years ago, for instance...

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...3&postcount=52

But I still find it interesting to discuss from time to time.

And, please, no more "this is a pointless conversation" posts. No one is forced to read this thread and they are only likely to provoke unhelpful responses.

:)

Hmmm.
On mature reflection, I withdraw unreservedly any imputation of pointlessness., and agree there is often interesting stuff to be seen.

I am certainly glad that there is always somebody willing and well able to counteract YEC dishonesty, and if you still find interest in doing that, more power to your typing digits.

It is, however, a waste of time IF you have any hope of persuading any dyed-in-the-wool YEC to be intellectually honest when evaluating scientific evidence.

Originally posted by geochron

Yes, we've been round it before here too. This was 4.5 years ago, for instance...

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...3&postcount=52

But I still find it interesting to discuss from time to time.

And, please, no more "this is a pointless conversation" posts. No one is forced to read this thread and they are only likely to provoke unhelpful responses.

:)

Geochron,

I only wish Dave would take the effort to note what actually went on in the past instead of posting all his droll crap.

Geochron, Here's the thread in question at RD.net.
CARBON 14 AND THE BIBLICAL TIMESCALE FOR PLANET EARTH (thread at RD.net)

I fisked Dave's spreadsheet thoroughly on Page 16 of that thread.
Here's the linked post.
Seeing that Dave has ignored links before I feel it's necessary to copy the whole post here.

Originally posted by Mike PSS responding to AFDave at RD.net

Originally posted by afdave1

CORRECTED MASS BALANCE FORMULA FOR BROWN'S POST-FLOOD C14

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?k...rYlIuzLbz5NCew

This spreadsheet corrects Mike PSS's failure to account for the time delay and small amount of C14 migration from the Ocean Mixed Surface Layer (MSL) to the Deep Ocean (DO).

WRONG!
Your whole set-up is a mess Dave. Your almost making as many mistakes as Brown, but not quite (at least your trying to track mass flow quantities of which Brown doesn't even attempt. Which is why Brown is wrong.)

My spreadsheets DO account for the time delay because they INCLUDE the total mass of the environments we are studying. Those total mass quantities, along with the mass flux's, are what create the time delay.

I thought you knew that? I guess not. Well, here's your one take home item for today. To model a time delay, include both the mass flux AND the total mass of an environment in your model.

This spreadsheet is preliminary and further refinements could be made by showing the other "boxes" in the UB, instead of just the Atmosphere box.

So......
You have a spreadsheet that has the wrong flows AND doesn't represent ALL the environment.
And your going to continue this exercise to actually make cogent conclusions?
You have gall Dave. Enough to sour one of the Great Lakes.

The effect of including these would be that 40% of the Atmospheric C14 gets exchanged with the Terrestrial Biosphere (TB). Assuming that the C14 concentration of the TB is close to that of the Atmosphere, this effect on calculations should be minimal.

Why not just use my model. Either version 2 (the Schmitz CARBON balance) or version 3 (the modified Schmitz with Hesshaimer terrestrial biosphere additions). They already account for the Terrestrial Biosphere.

[EDIT: Mike's assumption that the DO C14 concentration of 80% of the UB is used. The MSL would also be at a lesser % than the UB (90% maybe), but this is not modeled in these equations for simplicity.]

Thank you Dave for FINALLY agreeing to one of my assumptions. From here on I can clearly state this starting condition without asking for your approval.

Only the first 1125 years post flood is included in this spreadsheet because of file size considerations with Google Docs.

Why not include 5 years of production and decay per line. That way we could get 5,625 years and REALLY see if Brown's theory holds up.

The equilibrium UB C14 ends up at about 4600 kg if you carry the SS all the way down to 0 Years BP, with equilibrium being achieved within the first 1700 years as Brown says. Changing the Delta % of the DO from 0.24% to 0.20% (a reasonable possibility, given the TB discussion above) gives you about 5600 kg at Year 0 BP, which is the present approximation for the UB.

So Dave, let me get this straight.
Your saying that to gauge movement of C14 from the atmosphere to surrounding environments ALL we have to do is multiply by the percentages formed by mass flow divided by total environment mass.
Every Year.
Year in and year out.
And keep adding production to the atmosphere.
And forget to include the terrestrial biosphere.
And forget to include the C14 transferred to the MO.
And forget to calculate C14 ratios every year.
And, and, and....... YOU WANT TO MAKE CONCLUSIONS?

CONCLUSIONS
What have we achieved with this little exercise? [s]Several things. First, I have shown elsewhere (Formal Debate Area) that there are many evidences that the Global Flood, recorded in hundreds of cultural histories of the world, actually occurred. If it did actually occur, we would expect, among other things, to find a huge amount of buried flora and fauna. And we do find this (See Brown's 1979 paper). We would also expect that many fossilized organic remains would have very low C14 compared to modern ratios. And we do find this. We would also expect to find detectable levels of C14 in coal and diamonds (RATE Group Experiments 2005). And we do find this. This finding alone throws out the entire conventional deep time scale. We would also expect to find discrepancies such as the musk ox example given earlier. (Someone tried to discredit this, but they were confusing this example with a different, questionable example.)

And finally, I have shown that given the data above, and if my calculations are sound, then physicist R.H. Brown's Carbon 14 model given in his 1994 paper is accurate, that is, as accurate it can be given the inherent inaccuracies of global C14 inventory and formation rate estimates. Brown's model accounts not only for the global non-equilibrium that Libby acknowledged in the 1950's, but also accounts for the present Upper Biosphere equilibrium of ~5600 kg C14, and the relatively rapid achievement of this equilibrium (~1700 years after the Flood).

Therefore, as Brown says, C14 dates for the past 3000 calibrated in various ways should be fairly trustworthy. However, for dates beyond these, Brown's correction table (given earlier on this thread).[/s]

There's your conclusion Dave. Do you want to know why?

Let's look at your little math contest in the spreadsheet. You say the following.

20% (150 GT) of the atmosphere is exchanged every year

O.K. So we have a percentage of the TOTAL CARBON in the atmosphere. Next?

60% (90 GT) of this gets exchanged with the Ocean Mixed Surface Layer (MSL)

O.K. So 60% of the 20% is 12%. So what? We ALREADY have this mass flow in place in my model.

10% of MSL carbon (~100 GT / 1000 GT) gets exchanged with the Deep Ocean (DO)

Ummmm.....
Dave.....
What about the C14 that moves into the MO?
IF you include the MO in your single atmosphere box, THEN you cannot discriminate between atmosphere to MO to DO mass flux. You will ONLY have one mass flux, between the atmosphere and the DO.

OR you can use the MO as a seperate environment, but you have to track the MO C14 quantities seperate from the atmosphere too.

You CAN'T have it both ways here. That's mathematically incorrect.

Remember that big, long post about the Schmitz model? Where I explained the fundamental reasons behind lumping models and environemts?

Well, you should reread that post to see why you can't do what your trying to do in your spreadsheet.

Delta C14do = C14atm X 20% X 60% X 10% X 20% = 0.24%

Dave?
Where did that last 20% term appear from?
Did you confuse things again?

And what about the C14 that moves into the MO, and TB. I think your spreadsheet is lacking some specificity. It's really confusing and not at all user freandly. And as Voxrat has said, lacks units.

ONE MORE THING

Groannnn....

If my latest calculations stand up to scrutiny (Mike's that is),

They do not, so no conclusions can be made about your results.

I think this exercise will serve as a lesson [s]to all anti-creationists who so often jump to conclusions[/s] that creationists don't know what they are doing.

That's funny Dave. Almost quote-mine sig worthy.

If Mike cannot refute this latest post of mine (and I don't think he can, but I would be foolish not to admit the outside chance), then I anticipate moving on to what everyone wants to hear about ... Calibration Curves.

Your tempting me to "give up" here aren't you?
Well, not quite yet. Your latest spreadsheet is worse than your first one.
Jumbled terms, forgotten environments, mixed and mashed numbers, simplifications that are meaningless.

This paper deserves an F.

While Dave was fumbling with his spreadsheet I created a working mass balance model which uses empirically determined carbon flows between the different environments. I tried three different models (based upon complexity) and they all resulted in a situation where the results did not match the observed data. R.H.Brown used a simple single-order growth equation incorrectly to model this stuff in the first place and that is where I objected to create a proper mass balance model.

Here's my spreadsheet which outlines the math and results starting at the flood. I made no conjectures about the pre-flood conditions as these were assumptions or starting points to be input into the model. I only wanted the model to respons to the post-flood environment. If we can't get the post-flood model to work then any discussion about the pre-flood conditions are premature.

***Warning; 7MB file size***
My mass balance spreadsheet linkey.

As can be seen in the spreadsheet graph the model results DON'T match the observed reality of even the last 3500 years of objective data where 14C levels are constant in time. It is THIS fact that Dave doesn't really get yet. And much discussion has occurred to try and poke him with it.

Hope this helps, please reply with any questions or comments to help you through the Dave quagmire.

Thanks for the spreadsheet - the models seem pretty comprehensive. It seems to me the Brown's model fails because his 375 year lifetime is a misinterpretation of Hesshaimer's Nature paper and, I tihnk, he has a weird idea about what is going on. In his 1994 article he treats it as a sink and neglects its role as a source iirc.

As expected, the broad trend ot 14C/C ratio in the atmosphere is not that sensitive to variations among reasonable models of mass flows among reservoirs. These exchange rates are measured using the old Earth interpretation of the 14C system, so the details of how the young Earth models vary as the parameters change aren't that significant I think. (ie if young-Earthers reinterpret the 14C system they would derive different exchange rates).

Cheers,

Geo

Originally posted by Augustine2004

Has anyone ever drawn a curve based on the assumption that Earth began 7000 years ago and the Flood dumped plenty of C14 on the land 5000 years ago? If the abscissa axis is radiological age and the ordinate axis is chronological age, my guess is that the calibration curve drawn in accord with these assumptions would rise with a positive slope that is distinctly less than the actual initial slope, go to a peak at around 1,000 years, then begin a declining trajectory to a dense dot at 5,000 years. There may be outliers after 5,000 years, but they’d be scattered all over.

I interpret you to mean that since the flood the carbon content of the biosphere has been constant. 14C was added at the flood but the ratio has since evolved under the same physical processes of production and decay operating today.

First of all, it depends whether post flood the ratio is higher or lower than the equilibrium value. From whatever ratio it starts at, it will approach the equilibrium value with the half life of 14C.

If it was higher, then conventionally derived dates assume that less 14C was present at the start than actually was. So the ages we infer would be too short. This is not much good for YEC - there would be no explanation for the samples that appear to be very old..

If it was exactly the same as the equilibrium value, then there would be no explanation for the seemingly ancient ages of some samples.

If it was less than the equilibrium value, a general class of models where the discussion in this thread focuses on a special case where there is almost no 14C post flood.

Mike-- This stuff you posted is old news. The really relevant info is my new model and your agreement with it. I did post these links. Why confuse things by bringing up old stuff that doesn't even matter anymore?

Geochron ...

OK, so this seems to clarify that the buried carbon is removed from the total inventory, which is the only thing that makes sense. But the removal of all this carbon is not shown in your blue global 14C inventory curve. When you remove 99% of the carbon at the flood, you are removing it from the system and need to remove 99% of the 14C along with it., the 14C curve will then start to evolve again from close to zero. ie there should be a step in "total 14C" at the same point as the step in UB biomass.

My other problem remains with the ratio curve, which goes to zero at the flood having been higher beforehand. There is no mechanism to change the biosphere 14C/12C ratio downwardes at this pont- you remove a lot of carbon with this ratio and leave behind a small amount of carbon with this ratio. You don't reduce the ratio. This suggests to me that there is a small flaw in your calculation at about that time,

The Global Inventory curve doesn't show the removal because it's not removed from the planet, just from the Upper Biosphere. You are correct. There is a small flaw in my Ratio calc. I missed that for some reason. Thanks.

I am interested to see what kind of curves you come up with based on my YEC assumptions.

Originally posted by afdave

Mike-- This stuff you posted is old news. The really relevant info is my new model and your agreement with it. I did post these links. Why confuse things by bringing up old stuff that doesn't even matter anymore?

It's the same f****g model Dave. With the same problems. You haven't changed a thing as far as I can tell.

GIGO for your model. Why not use mine? It has the benefit of being a correct representation of the mass flows post flood.

So now all we have to do is find the starting conditions such that the result shows a constant 14C concentration for the past 3500 years. Obviously (if you look at my graph) the starting conditions proposed by R.H.Brown, which you use for the post-flood case, DON'T result in a constant 14C concentration during the past 3500 years so we must change the starting conditions.

Which condition would you like to change?
STarting Year?
Starting 14C concentration in the seperate environments?
14C production rate?

Mind you there must be some justification for these numbers. So I'm waiting (and have been) for the past six months for you to change the starting conditions such that the model output will match the objective data we have (3500 years of constant 14C concentration which You, I and RHBrown agree).

Over to you Dave. Which condition do you want to change?

Originally posted by afdave

Geochron ... The Global Inventory curve doesn't show the removal because it's not removed from the planet, just from the Upper Biosphere. You are correct. There is a small flaw in my Ratio calc. I missed that for some reason. Thanks.

I am interested to see what kind of curves you come up with based on my YEC assumptions.

Glad you found the problem - it didn't look like the sort of thing that would affect the output much but it's nice to understand all the bits of the graph.

Let me explain where I see the problem with the reservoirs...

Today we have ~12% of the model's 14C in the upper biosphere in the model, and 1% of the model's carbon.

This implies that there is some other reservoir with 88% of the14C and 99% of the model's carbon.

This second reservoir has 14C/C that is (.88/.99)/(.12/.01) = 0.07 of the UB 14C/C ratio.

Actually, in the modfel the fate of carbon removed from the UB at the flood (and the 14C that went along with it) is different from the fate of the 14C generated since the flood and removed from the UB. The former is in fossil fuels, carbonates etc, whereas the latter is in the deep ocean. After the flood the carbon that is left is partitioned among the ocean and UB, and continues to equilibrate with 14C.

I guess what I'm saying is that you elide the dfference between removing carbon from the modelled reservoirs (what happens at the flood) and removing carbon from the UB (which accounts for the partitioning of 14C among UB and the other reservoirs in the model).

Your model doesn't show the difference. I'm not sure that it makes that much of a difference to the outcome, but it's an area where clarity could be improved.. Things like this tend to confuse people like me who are used to looking at geochemical models, so it is worth fixing.

-----------------------------------

Partly, I think the problem arises because the model is more complicated than it needs to be.

For this purpose there is no point modelling equilibration among reservoirs that are in contact with the upper biosphere - the timescales are all shorter than the half life of 14C, which is the characteristic time of the system (this is why the curves in Mike's various models are roughly the same). In essence, you can divide the planet into those reservoirs that equilibrate with the atmosphere on ~<1000 year timescales, and those that are isolated from the atmosphere on those timescales. The flood moves some carbon and 14C from the former to the latter, n'est-ce pas? Once it has gone we can forget about it as far as the model goes.

In addition, it is usually simpler to consider changes in ratios directly. 14C/C is changed by 14C production with a rate proportional to 1/C, and by radioactive decay with a rate proportional to 14C/C. After the flood 1/C is 100 times higher than it was before the flood, ie the production rate changes from k/C to 100k/C. Pick k to match the present day ratio and away we go. As far as I can see this includes all of the explicit assumptions of your model, though some assumption about where the C lost at the flood goes is implicit and (as I explain above) unclear to me.

It's not that difficult to describe what the output will be. Before the flood the 14C/C ratio will approach an equilibrium value with a half life of 14C, but it won't get anywhere near it in 2000 years. After the flood the 14C/C ratio will approach an equilibrium value 100x higher, again with the half life of 14C. Right now we will be about half way to equilibrium. Over the past few thousand years the ratio will have varied to the extent that would be apparent if present in the calibration curves based on historical objects.

When I get a chance I'll model it, posting the image here may take longer since I don't know how to do it!

Cheers,

Geo.

Originally posted by geochron

When I get a chance I'll model it, posting the image here may take longer since I don't know how to do it!

When replying, click the "Manage Attachments" button, in the second area under "Additional Option" under the message reply area. You may have to control-click it or turn off your popup blocker; it activates a popup window. I hope the elements in the popup window are self-explanatory.

Originally posted by JonF

When replying, click the "Manage Attachments" button, in the second area under "Additional Option" under the message reply area. You may have to control-click it or turn off your popup blocker; it activates a popup window. I hope the elements in the popup window are self-explanatory.

One quick question about this. Does the image need to be on your computer? Or can you upload directly from a web site.

So the procedure is:
1) Find image on web (scanner/camera/etc...).
2) Save image to desktop (or other file folder) on computer.
3) "Manage Attachments" and upload saved image from computer.

Originally posted by JonF

When replying, click the "Manage Attachments" button, in the second area under "Additional Option" under the message reply area. You may have to control-click it or turn off your popup blocker; it activates a popup window. I hope the elements in the popup window are self-explanatory.

Let's give it a go - here's my graph (long timescale inset) that I did over a sandwich this lunchtime. Of course it looks as one would expect, though I didn't check it v. carefully.

Cheers,

Geo

ETA So, posting images is that easy! Anyway, I hope the graph is self explanatory. By definition, "now" is at 7000 years where the 14C/C ratio is 100% the modern ratio. The pre-flood increase is so small you can't see it on this scale, but it is in fact increasing slightly.

Originally posted by geochron

Let's give it a go - here's my graph (long timescale inset) that I did over a sandwich this lunchtime. Of course it looks as one would expect, though I didn't check it v. carefully.

What's the inset graph?

Of course, Davie won't like that, 'cause it shows major changes in 14C/C over the last 3,500 years. Or even over the last 1,000 years.

It would be interesting to calculate what is the "true" age of the wheat in the Pompeiian bread according to this model. Or according to Dave's model. Too bad he hasn't made his spreadsheet publically available.

Originally posted by geochron

Let's give it a go - here's my graph (long timescale inset) that I did over a sandwich this lunchtime. Of course it looks as one would expect, though I didn't check it v. carefully.

Cheers,

Geo

ETA So, posting images is that easy! Anyway, I hope the graph is self explanatory. By definition, "now" is at 7000 years where the 14C/C ratio is 100% the modern ratio. The pre-flood increase is so small you can't see it on this scale, but it is in fact increasing slightly.

Wow. Amazing. This looks the same as my graph (from year 2000 "da fludde" to year 7000 "present on your graph).
mikesgraphb.jpg

Dave. Do you have anything to say to this? Anything at all?

Since there doesn't appear to be any constant 14C concnetration for the past 3500 years we now know that the starting conditions are at fault. Care to comment on which starting condition you want to change?

Haha, amazing.

Dave, guess what: Geo also did what you kept irrationally asking Mike to do back then... He extended the curve forward in time.

And, guess what: It doesn't matter.

Do you see it now?

(I predict morbid silence from our YEC friend... Or maybe a final post , the likes of "Mike, this subject has been beaten to death, no point in discussing it further, blah blah blah preach preach preach, bye now".)