Carbon Dating & Evolution

[tmaromine]

this is true, and no historian was there to see gingus con.

 

everthing comes down to faith, where is yours?

 

The moral and godlike man we call Jesus, well, I say he well could have existed. He just wasn't 'God'. Why? Firstly, there were tens of 'Jesuses' before the actual Jesus story, and they all resemble. So, maybe there is a god, and it is like Jesus – it just isn't "Jesus".

 

I don't believe in reality, for reality merely is. Back when I was 14 or so, during my god-losing age, I created the philosophy that the only way one can be 'right' is to just accept whatever reality is, no matter how much it pleases or annoys me, because my emotions have no affect on what's real. Reality requires no faith.

 

It's also arguable that maybe 'reality' can't be known since what we call reality is only the human perception of the world, but in correlation with humans and our perceptions – technology-aided and not , it can't get more real even if our perception is off. Since we can't perceive the world in any other way, that reality is sufficient for it's our best, and I don't believe in it, because it simply *is*.

[tmaromine]

What about written, eyewitness accounts?

 

There are eyewitness accounts of many things. I'm sure you could search many current news events and you'd laugh at the things people have 'witnessed'. In some cases, the witnesser is intentionally lying. In some, the witnesser thought they saw what they did and can't tell that they didn't see it. In some, witnessers did witness what they say they did.

 

A completely *universe-defying-as-we-know-it* "witnessing" of things like floating-Heavenward Jesus, which firstly awoke after 3days of death, is much less acceptable than me saying that the electric went out, while I had just one light on in a room and no other electronics, when in reality the bulb only blew. At least it's recurringly possible for light bulbs to blow out in this universe. Wanna go test your hypothesis of humans naturally dying, but coming back to life three days later, *and* naturally floating into the sky ?

 

Then I'll believe, and I'd still have no "faith", because it would be reality, and reality doesn't need belief, just acknowledgement. But that day will come only when reality isn't.

[tmaromine]

Carbon Dating: Why you cant trust it or other radiometric dating methods. creation evolution young earth evidence old earth bible

 

At the end of that article, it says that bone was 9000-something to 16000 years old. That doesn't even fit with the Bible's 6000 years. (Or have creationists changed the 6000 number to fit with their 'scientific' findings ?) Doesn't that make it untrue, or do creationists run with it because it merely 'proves' that dinosaurs still lived out of the Bible's range, but not as long as science otherwise says ?

 

Also, the bones could have been non dinosauric, or tampered with (if that's even possible). Some form of deceivance from a procreationist is expected and usually unavoidable.

 

Since I'm not any form of scientist and can't make a science-grade analysation of the [rubbish] that your link's saying, I do know that light travels only so fast, and certain distant galaxies' light can't reach Earth in that 6000 years. You can see the Andromeda galaxy with merely your naked eye. There's a couple million years.

 

What? What's that ? God set light Earthward so that all that non-Bible-existent time wasn't needed ?

 

You creationists are masters at disproving scientists and science. Go do time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:hihi:

[tmaromine]

There are several ways to date the past other than radiocarbon dateing. The decay of uranium, thorium, potasium, geological dateing of rock layers based on these radioactive markers can date all the way back to the beginning, the formation of the Earth, and in even older object like meteorites. Radiocarbaon dateing isn't practical for thing that are millions or billions of years old but we do have other ways to measure this.

 

I've just realised that creationists run and yell with carbon dating because it can only date back 30-50,000 years. They just hope the common people don't know about methods which date further. Or they're ignorant and think carbon is the only dating method, because churchleaders hope those people are common and don't know of other methods. Carbon has the creationist-sweet 'thousands of years' in its definition, and they just love thousands. Just deny the millions, and all's well !

[Ahmabeliever]

I got a bit annoyed after coming to hypography and discovering just how competent and thorough science really is. I also asked about carbon dating, evolution, biology.,, The revelation that evolution is true (I got a good mind but hey, I was brainwashed from birth in the whole creation thing and had not learned to even scratch the surface of subjectivity till I came here only recently)...

 

At first I was really agitated (few days I think) at being told such nonsense for so long, the stories of subterfuge are many and varied bla bla bla. Now I feel relieved. I wondered that I might suddenly feel an urge to become some 'immoral and loose unit' but no, I'm exactly the same guy, but I finally have the peace that creationists promise but fail to deliver on so many levels. It is nice to finally 'believe', :hihi: I've questioned for decades.

 

I'm extremely grateful to this site and it's members for the enlightenment. I actually feel physically lighter. :)

[Thunderbird]

I got a bit annoyed after coming to hypography and discovering just how competent and thorough science really is. I also asked about carbon dating, evolution, biology.,, The revelation that evolution is true (I got a good mind but hey, I was brainwashed from birth in the whole creation thing and had not learned to even scratch the surface of subjectivity till I came here only recently)...

 

At first I was really agitated (few days I think) at being told such nonsense for so long, the stories of subterfuge are many and varied bla bla bla. Now I feel relieved. I wondered that I might suddenly feel an urge to become some 'immoral and loose unit' but no, I'm exactly the same guy, but I finally have the peace that creationists promise but fail to deliver on so many levels. It is nice to finally 'believe', ;) I've questioned for decades.

 

I'm extremely grateful to this site and it's members for the enlightenment. I actually feel physically lighter. :)

 

 

You are now free to explore.:) Great post!

 

[science is] an imaginative adventure of the mind seeking truth in a world of mystery.

Sir Cyril Herman Hinshelwood (1897-1967) English chemist. Nobel prize 1956.

[goku]

i was thinking about carbon dating as i ly in bed last night.

from what i've seen on links here one must first know how much of the element there was before it started decaying in order to calculate how long it has been decaying, right?

[Moontanman]

i was thinking about carbon dating as i ly in bed last night.

from what i've seen on links here one must first know how much of the element there was before it started decaying in order to calculate how long it has been decaying, right?

 

This would be true.

[goku]

This would be true.

 

then how do you know how much was there?

[Moontanman]

then how do you know how much was there?

 

Because Carbon 14 not only decays at a constant rate it is also created at a constant rate. Living things exchange carbon 14 with the environemnt at a constant rate until they die. Then the carbon 14 is no longer renewed fom the environment. The ratio between the two is how you get the age of what ever you are testing as long as it's less than 60,000 years old it is reletively acurate. For longer periods you would use potasium, uranium, rubinium or thorium to date objects and layers of the earths crust or even meteorites.

[goku]

For longer periods you would use potasium, uranium, rubinium or thorium to date objects and layers of the earths crust or even meteorites.

 

these are created :hihi: at a constant rate as well?

[Moontanman]

these are created :hihi: at a constant rate as well?

 

Actually yes they are, we measure time by measuring the amount of say uranium than remains to the amount of lead in a sample. The amount of uranium is set when the sample was last molten. So we can tell when the sample hardened into rock. This allows for a time stamp that is very accurate. Probably even more accurate than radio carbon testing but since it happens so slowly it can only be used for very long stretches of time. I.E. the decay rate of carbon 14 is a half life of 5,700 years, for uranium 238 it's 4 billion years, for thorium 232 it's 14.7 billion years and rubidium 87 is 49 billion years. Fortunately traces of these materials are present in virtually all rocks. If you are looking to challenge radionucleotide decay rates I would like to point out the decay rates are constant as well.

[goku]

we measure time by measuring the amount of say uranium than remains to the amount of lead in a sample. The amount of uranium is set when the sample was last molten.

 

so the uranium is created inside the rock as the rock is being created? :hihi:

[Moontanman]

so the uranium is created inside the rock as the rock is being created? :hihi:

 

No, the uranium to lead ratio was created by the decay of the uranium present in the rocks at the time of their deposition in the earth. Lead doesn't harden at the same temps as uranium. Lead wouldn't be deposited at the same place or time as uranium. So when the rock was formed the ratio of lead would increase while the uranium would decrease. The age is judged by the ratio of the two in the rocks. The radioactive decay also releases other elements that can be used to pinpoint the time as well.

[CraigD]

Carbon Dating: Why you cant trust it or other radiometric dating methods. creation evolution young earth evidence old earth bible

The first section of the anonymous* paper appear to make a serious error that invalidates the remaining: it assumes that “dinosaur bones” (or any animal fossil) are actually preserved animal tissue, and then goes on to assert that, being preserved animal tissue, they could be dated using radiocarbon dating techniques.

 

Assuming this is an honest error (that is, that the original author doesn’t know his statements to be false, yet make them anyway to advocate a religious view he values above factual truth), it is likely due to a collection of common misconceptions about the scientific consensus concerning fossils and their formation, which I’ll attempt to outline here.

 

Animal fossils typically form when the remains of an animal are covered with sediment which hardens in the shape of the covered tissue. The tissues – which contain the [ce]^{14}C[/ce] and [ce]^{12}C[/ce] important to radiocarbon dating – then decay, and are carried away by groundwater and replaced with water-born, precipitated material, such as silica and iron pyrites. As these materials were not once part of a [ce]CO2[/ce]-metabolizing organism, they can’t be radiocarbon dated.

 

The term fossil describes many very different kinds of specimens – taken literally, anything “dug up”. Many fossils are very different than the ones described in the previous paragraph, consisting almost entirely of the material from the original object. “Compression fossils” of plants are a major example of this kind of fossil. Some fossils aren’t of sediment encapsulated plants or animal parts at all, but merely of impression of such organisms, such as “fossil footprints”. Until fairly recently, it was believed that the “replacement fossils” of which most dinosaur relics consists contained practically no material from the original animal tissues. Now, however, as described in this 4/22/2006 National Geographic article, its believed that at least small amount of original tissue material exist in nearly all animal fossils.

 

However, even though recent discoveries indicate that one could, at least in principle, isolate the original tissue mater from an animal fossil, radiocarbon dating would still be inapplicable to it. As mentioned in the Contender Ministries webpage (which provides a accurate and readable description of the basic physics of radiocarbon dating), the half-life of C-14 is about 5,730 years. Since the fraction of C-14 in a typical sample is small, and detection of it by best currently available techniques of limited accuracy, carbon dating is limited to, in most situations, a maximum of about 10 half-lifes, or about 60,000 years, ago. For the very tiny carbon samples available from dinosaur fossils, there’s simply no way to use radiocarbon dating to determine their age.

 

The predominant technique for dating fossils is from “context” – essentially, how deeply they were buried. Via measurements of modern sediment deposition rates and compaction and microscopic analysis of the sediments and metamorphic rocks around, its possible to get reasonable approximations of the ages of various geological “layers” (strata), and from empirical and theoretical mechanics, assurance that objects don’t “sink” or “float” significantly in these formations. These techniques are the primary ones used to date dinosaurs.

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* Although the paper contains various references to “me” and “email me”, I was unable to find in it who “me” actually is. This is a common attribution problem, often due to advocates of particular beliefs reprinting or compositing original works without attributing them to their original authors and publications. Anyone knowing the actual source of the angelfire text, please inform us.

[HydrogenBond]

The creationist approach, taking Genesis literally, does not correspond with the data using carbon dating. Although the validity of this data may fall off after 60,000 years, below that, the time frame of many samples is larger than that claimed by the creationists. But the creationist still believe they are correct.

 

One way to resolve this, that makes both side correct, is to look at Genesis as not talking about physical creation, but something else. That something else appears to be the formation and stabilization of the modern human mind. The rise of civilization coordinates with the timing of Genesis. To go from migratory tribal, to all the advancements of civilization, required a boost in the human mind. This new human mind could farm, do math, astronomy, even understand a God concept. This does not preclude previous evolution, but reflects a new stage in the process where humans change. An analogy is a pack of wolves suddenly begin farming. It would be a fluke unless it begins to spread then it would be seen as major change in their minds and brains. Genesis sort of describes this transition using symbolic analogies. It was around during the time as witness.

 

If you go back to say Greek mythology, people at one time believed in all types of things that were not real. The early human mind had a vivid imagination. So even if God inspired Genesis, for the sake of argument, it was dealing with people thousands of years earlier than that. The odds are they were even less rational. To help teach an irrational person may require something irrational to get them started.

 

For example, if one had a small child and wanted to teach them about the atom, you can't get into orbital wave functions and the uncertainty principle even though this is rational. They will pick it up quicker if we compare it to the planets going around the sun even though this is irrational. Genesis planted some of the early seeds that continued to grow into today. The value of Genesis is in its documentation, in old language and concepts, of how the human mind went from infancy in paradise, into early childhood. It was full grown adults with the minds of children. The tree of knowledge of good and evil is law, or the childhood of humanity starting school. The paradise is lost in terms of the innocents of childhood as social training begins to change the child away from baby things. But it also led to behavior problems.

 

One aspect of Genesis that supports evolution is connected to the story of Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel and is banished for this. Before he is banished he complains whomever shall come upon me shall kill me. So he is given a sign for protection. If you look at this logically, according to the literal Genesis, there was only Adam, Eve and Cain at the time Cain kills Abel. Unless Adam and Eve were these whomever, he was talking about, others were around, since he had immediate concern for safety while being forced to going away from where Adam and Eve were camped out. I would guess they were the pre-humans who hadn't yet got the brain boost. They were the product of evolution, but had not yet got over the new hump. But they were close to this and smart enough to sense a stranger in their territory. Cain would have been the nerd going into the biker bar. If we gave him a sign, such as an FBI class ring, they will back off or be friendlier.

[Ahmabeliever]

Slightly off topic but animals farming was mentioned.

 

There are ant species that farm mycelium to eat. Others that build with it. The ants in my garden are into agriculture too. They carry aphids (I watch them do it and it's documented widely) to plants that aphids like and then return when the aphids have populated to harvest the aphids sugary wastes.

 

This is clearly defined evidence of non human species taking to horticulture and agriculture.

 

A Farming Ant and Its Fungus

 

University of Kentucky Department of Entomology -- Mystery Bug Answers