Guest zoolook Posted December 22, 2005 Share Posted December 22, 2005 g'day, i've just joined the forum, this is my question: i've tried to debate with jehovah's witnesses on a number of occasions about the accuracy of dating fossils and stuff. they've always said that carbon dating is not accurate, and we cannot rely on it to find the ages of things. does anyone here know if this is true or not? are there other types of dating? cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taphophilia Posted December 22, 2005 Share Posted December 22, 2005 As a regular watcher of National Geographic channel and The Discovery Channel, I can tell you that there is more than carbon dating to determine specific age. They don't just carbon date something and say it's this old, artifacts have to pass pretty specific and intensive analysis to determine age. Usually, three or four different means until they can give a time frame. Scientists themselves are their biggest critics. They don't just come to conclusions, they have to prove it beyond any shadow of a doubt before they will say it's anything other than just a guess. Taph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Neil Posted December 22, 2005 Share Posted December 22, 2005 i've tried to debate with jehovah's witnesses on a number of occasions about the accuracy of dating fossils and stuff. they've always said that carbon dating is not accurate, and we cannot rely on it to find the ages of things.Theists sure like to generalize, don't they? I can assure that this guy you're debating is either a moron or a disingenuous prick. Once one actually understands how carbon dating is done, you realize how useless and misinformed these claims of inaccuracy are. I'm going to paraphrase what I read from an article and give you the link at the end. It's pretty simple. First of all, carbon dating is done by calculating the ratio of Carbon 14 atoms to Carbon 12, which remains a consistant 1 : 1.35x10-¹² in living organisms. Living organisms, like you and me, are constantly breathing in these Carbon 14 and Carbon 12 atoms from the atmosphere, which is what maintains this consistancy. The isotope Carbon 14 is created by cosmic rays bombarding ordinary Carbon 12 atoms in the atmosphere, which accounts for this consistant ratio. When an organism dies, it's no-longer replenishing its supply of Carbon 14 and Carbon 12, so what begins to happen is that the Carbon 14 atoms slowly decay, which alters the ratio of that and Carbon 12. Since Carbon 14 has a known halflife of 5730 years, (meaning that after a 5730 years, only half of the Carbon 14 will remain), that means that scientists can make fairly accurate estemations based on this half-life and it's deviation from the original ratio. http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae403.cfm Now the confusion (or dishonesty) that you normally get from apologists is that carbon dating can't be done in certain circumstances or or since dating stuff older than 1,000,000 yeilds no useful date, that the whole method must be thrown out. Baloney! There's a very simple reason why you can't date things beyond a million years, and that's because at that point, there's barely any Carbon 14 left, so trying to get any kind of date is just going to be fruitless. It's pretty hard to get dates when the ratio is virtually 1 : 0. Another tactic they'll use (READ: BEWARE OF THIS!) is they'll try to pull shit like saying that a mammoth yeilded two different dates or that living mollusk dated to thousands of years old. This is an old Hovind trick that he pulled from an article titled Radiocarbon dating: Fictitious results with mollusk shells. This is a disingenuous argument, because the article referenced for this argument is actually one which explains such phenomena, and the reason is actually quite understandable. The reason why some specimens produce such drastically inaccurate dates is because they happen to exist in areas of particularly high concentrations of Carbon 12 while virtually no Carbon 14. This would occur in areas where very old sediments, such as limestone, are sourcing out a very high concentration of Carbon 12. So of course! If a living mollusk is living off an environment in which he is in-taking an unusually high level of Carbon 12, he's going to get a low Carbon 14 ratio relative to the extremely high concentration of Carbon 12, and thus the dating method will calculate him as being very old! This is a very recognizable phenomenon! It's called the resevoir effect. All the scientist has to do is to check the level of Carbon 12 in the environment, and if it's significantly higher than the ratio I gave above, and if he can identify the source of the Carbon 12 which is contaminating the environment, then of course, his dating methods aren't going to work there. So you see, apologists cannot argue the inaccuracy of dating methods by appealing to dates registered in places where contamination of old carbon causes the ratio of Carbon 14 and Carbon 12 to not be 1 : 1.35x10-¹². It's circular argumentation by the apologist, which immediately awards you a free ticket to attack his position viciously! I used to have a PDF file of this article, but I can't seem to find it. It's actually very interesting, and it's embarrassing for the apologists that they have to pull their arguments from a source which actually refutes their arguments. You can find very quick refutations to these on Talk Origins that basically say the same thing. are there other types of dating?Oh, by golly there is! http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_con..._12_30_1899.asp In fact, one of the best ways to authenticate various dating methods is to compare results using different isotopes. More than regularly, the results are quite consistant. Only rarely is contamination a thorn in the side of dating methods, and apologists really have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find examples. Read the resources I gave you. If you can go over them and understand them, you will become an isotope-dating Jedi Warrior, and you will make mince meat out of this Jehova's Witness who is trying to bamboozle you with his ignorant claims. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest zoolook Posted December 22, 2005 Share Posted December 22, 2005 thanks everyone. oh, and mr neil, lemmy certainly IS a god! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ nivek ♦ Posted December 23, 2005 Share Posted December 23, 2005 <Emily Latella voice> "What is all of this about carbon dating?? Can't other molecules and those atom things go out in cars like carbon? Why can't hydrogen and other atoms have a good time too?" "Nevermind!" </Emily Latella> If yer old enuff to remember Emily, yer too fookin' OLD! kL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Neil Posted December 25, 2005 Share Posted December 25, 2005 thanks everyone. oh, and mr neil, lemmy certainly IS a god!The only card you need is the Ace of Spades. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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