Kinda depends upon what we choose to call "religion." I'm
rather attracted to non-theistic religion, even though I
count myself as a theist.

At any rate, the carbon dating process can easily be corrupted
and I'm told that it is useful to occasionally cross-check
its dating results with other scientific methods as well.

I spent some years with South Asian Buddhists, and their
religion told me nothing about the age of the old bones
dug out of one of their stupas when it was undergoing
repairs. If I recall correctly, scientific dating placed
a small fragment of that bone set exactly within the
probable lifespan of Siddhartha Gautama -- possibly the
fragment really did come from the body of that ancient sage;
just like the Buddhists there were wont to tell me, from
their traditions (but not exactly from their religion).

UD

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2013 06:24PM by steve benson.

On another site I posted a reply to some "Shroud of Turin" silliness that "coincidentally" appeared over the Easter holiday; unfortunately, the software there is erratic and it disappeared. I'm up to speed on the history and the science--for a layman--and I plan on posting the story of this remarkable technique. The scientist who developed it won the Nobel Prize in 1960. In addition, there are plenty of first-rate scientists here who will fact me if I step over the line.

The religious sorts are mostly behind those "unreliable" claims, and it's de rigeur in science these days to check the calibration of radiocarbon dating. Generally samples are sent to separate laboratories for independent verification. Factors that can contaminate the findings such as crude oil deposits, coal seams, or "old carbon" (found in seawater, for example) are generally identifiable.

Claiming C-14 is inaccurate is a favorite lie of the fable flingers in the "Young Earth" crowd, and their agendas are always obvious. Too, the "hyperbole crowd" claiming rocks were "C-14 dated to a million years ago" don't help. The technique is accurate to around 60,000 years ago, and it was originally "calibrated" by testing the age of articles whose ages were known. These included comparisons with tree rings who annular rings could be counted. Yes, science is self-correcting (albeit sometimes slowly with a good deal of awkwardness), but revisions should not be taken as evidence of its unreliability.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2013 11:49PM by SL Cabbie.

SL Cabbie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
...

The part about the bones in the stupa? Or the part about
it being useful to occasionally cross-check
such dating results with other scientific methods?

???

UD

I realize you spent all those years on FAIR and the MA&D board, but we practice critical thinking here, and generalizing from obtuse claims has consequences.

Your worst use of a talking point was with that "easily corrupted" claim. That amounts to a pretty gross insult, and I know the subject well enough--and you don't--to realize you can't back up your claims. If the dates may be open to question, then peer review will generally discuss that possibility.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2013 11:57PM by SL Cabbie.

SL Cabbie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I realize you spent all those years on FAIR and
> the MA&D board, but we practice critical thinking
> here, and generalizing from obtuse claims has
> consequences.
>
> Your worst use of a talking point was with that
> "easily corrupted" claim. That amounts to a pretty
> gross insult, and I know the subject well
> enough--and you don't--to realize you can't back
> up your claims. If the dates may be open to
> question, then peer review will generally discuss
> that possibility.

No doubt you're correct about that.

The information I was citing came from a very unreliable
source -- the "Rising Nepal" paper of the late 1970s. The stupa
had just been recently declared a U.N. World Heritage site,
or some such thing, and there were lost of articles about
that honor written for the newspapers.

A bone sample the size of a snowflake was sent down to
India, for C-14 analysis and months later the dating came
back, as probably being withing the lifetime of the historical
Buddha (and not a much earlier holy man, as tradition said).
This caused quite a stir locally -- but the small size of the
sample, the unsanitary conditions of the bones excavation
and the unknown standards of the examining lab in New Delhi
all combined to make the dating less than 100% reliable.
Unfortunately, until the stupa is re-opened someday, there
will be no opportunity to cross-check that initial dating.

Maybe I made too much of the matter, but it is the only such
dating that I was "close" enough to, that it stuck in my
memory -- along with the possible problems involved.

UD

Was that the bone fragment probably dated to the time of when Buddha is believed to have lived.

Modern ASM techniques could've used a microscopic amount and would likely give an accurate date within very narrow parameters.

SL Cabbie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Was that the bone fragment probably dated to the
> time of when Buddha is believed to have lived.
>
> Modern ASM techniques could've used a microscopic
> amount and would likely give an accurate date
> within very narrow parameters.

Now and then I hear about some old archeological remains dating
being adjusted to some new figure. Is that generally because
the initial dating process was carried out long ago, and that
the update relies upon the ASM method you mention?

UD

I'm still tracking that one down; it used to be that Clovis was listed as around 10,000 years ago; now it's 13,000. Monte Verde, the first "approved pre-Clovis site" (I'm not wholly persuaded on that one, mostly because I don't see Native Americans as being "beachcombers," something the "coastal migration" hypothesis suggest) was claimed to be a thousand years earlier, nevertheless, and it's now given as 13,500-14,000 years ago.

That "Paisley Poop" (the coprolites in that Oregon cave) have been "getting a hard time of it," with the DNA being questioned (one scientist said he had hard proof it wasn't human), the age being questioned (contamination from above), and other factors. Some are sticking to their guns, others are just adopting a "wait-and-see" approach. For something that has been "discredited," the "Clovis Barrier" is still a "frequent target."

Big problem as I see it, is Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian "throwing his weight" around a lot; problem is, he's the one hyping the "Solutrean Solution," and very few are buying that one.

ASM dating (with the newer calibrations) does offer more precision, using much smaller amounts, and I promise, the next archaeologists get-together they have here will find me asking lots of questions of my fares. One aspect of radiocarbon dating that needs to be mentioned is that it is relatively expensive...

http://www.c14dating.com/k12.html

Apples and oranges. One is a scientific process, the other is not a science. I do believe that science cannot explain everything, though. For example, a basic tenet of science is chaos theory, yet evolution has us believe that simple organisms can evolve into more complex ones.

To the contrary, supernaturalistic religion has demonstrated, over the centuries, nothing but a constant, pre-determined reliance on myth, superstition and absurdity, offered up in the name of made-up gods.

Now, tell me, how is religion more reliable than radiocarbon dating?



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2013 10:17PM by steve benson.

You're right, Steve. And why doesn't anyone want to admit that, as far as explaining natural phenomena, science absolutely replaced religion during the enlightenment?

When it comes to understanding the universe, science and religion are not competitors. Science alone does it. When it comes to understanding a weepy fool blubbering a testimony, only religion can do that, as it is unnatural phenomena.

Science does not understand the universe. It pretends to understand the universe because that's where the money is. Which sounds a heck of a lot like religion.

As far as science goes, please quit trying to fake others out as to your supposed understanding of how science works.

You clearly don't get what science is all about.

Where did you go to school?

More precisely, did you go to school?



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2013 04:53AM by steve benson.

I didn't write that religion was more reliable than science, I wrote that science can't explain everything. Example: how come lizards can regenerate limbs and humans can't? It sounds like the purpose of your thread is to pick a fight.

Sheesh... And if you've ever seen a lizard whose tail has regrown, it's usually shorter, kinked, or otherwise deformed...

The cephalapods, squids, octopus, cuttlefish, etc. can regrow "limbs," but their ancestors were on this planet for hundreds of millions of years longer than those of vertebrates.

Something tells me that you have never actually seen apples and oranges.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2013 07:56PM by steve benson.

I am not a scientist but having read a bit on the subject, radiocarbon dating can be and is verified by many other methods. It is true, radiocarbon dating is somewhat inaccurate. For example, those dinosaur bones may actually be 5.9 million years old instead of 6...

You're right you aren't a scientist :) The dinosaurs were around about 200 million to 100 million years ago and radiocarbon dating only helps in relatively recent remains.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2013 01:43PM by jacob.

http://ncse.com/cej/3/2/answers-to-creationist-attacks-carbon-14-dating

I know some of the people who run this outfit and have gone rafting down the Grand Canyon with them and their colleagues on a scientific tour. They are far more credible, educated and seasoned than your average Sunday School lesson-manual parroter.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2013 02:22AM by steve benson.

I shoulda tried Carbon-14 dating with my first girlfriend.

Maybe she wouldn't have dumped me?

http://m.wikihow.com/Use-You're-and-Your

;)

Start with Wiki here; I got interested in the subject when I was reading--and fact checking--Charles Mann's "1491" about what the pre-Columbian Americas were like. He committed a pretty big error, claiming that C-14 reverts--via radioactive decay--to "ordinary carbon," when it fact it changes to Nitrogen 14...

I already knew that one, but I kept reading the C-14 stuff anyway. If you don't understand the chemistry/physics on how the C-14->N-14 change takes place, better stick with grammar. You might get a few ties--and even an occasional typo--with someone like me, but Susan will probably get on your case sooner or later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating

C14 dating doesn't work for dinosaurs. They use slower-decaying isotopes to cover longer time scales. You have to remember, this stuff was worked out when science was still science and not a shill for big business. So yeah, I'd trust it.

There's nothing wrong with the fossil record contradicting a tripped out ancient shaman.

Bradley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> C14 dating doesn't work for dinosaurs. They use
> slower-decaying isotopes to cover longer time
> scales. ...

How are fully fossilized organic remains scientifically
dated? I have a petrified wood paperweight -- looks like
a big hunk of agate. Could I really find out how old
the parent tree was when it died?

UD

It's true that science can't explain everything, but that's never an excuse for making things up. Absolutely everything can be studied by the scientific method, there are just varying results.
The main thing required is falsifiable evidence. Churches have carefully and methodically placed their stuff in a space where none of that is available, precisely so it can't be proven wrong by science. It's a trick, and we should be seeing right through this artifice. This trick can be studied, BTW. It's called the study of the evolution of religions. Refer to Daniel Dennett.

I'm a naturalist. I don't believe in anything supernatural and believe that the natural world is all there is. All of it can be studied by science.

Thats funny because some scientists believe in god. Then again, the pythagoreans suppressed mathematical knowledge that set mankind back about 2,000 years in scientific advancement. Does that make all mathematicians evil? I notice that many people on this site have an all or nothing mentality. A wise person has an open mind, and does not try to supress information that is of value to others. This is in no way an endorsement of anything in particular.

I don't know, religion seems to reliably pump out droves and droves of brainwashed zombies a lot more so than carbon dating.

...unless we're talking about "real" chocolate vs. "real" love...

Actually to make a blanket statement like that is a little weird. Carbon dating only works on things that were once alive.