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To: Alter Kaker

>>Saying that radiocarbon dating is an "opinion" is as asinine as telling the police officer who pulled you over that the "80 mph" on his radar gun is an "opinion." Actually, more asinine, because radar guns are less accurate than radiocarbon dating and are not operated in controlled, laboratory conditions.<<

I disagree:

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c007.html
http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/06dat5.htm

Also, even those who believe it is accurate only trust it back, say, 50,000 years. And that is assuming none of the issues discussed in my second link above don't hold water. Since nobody was there (unlike the cop with a radar gun), it is all deduction and opinion.


50 posted on 11/17/2006 8:38:38 AM PST by RobRoy
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To: RobRoy
Also, even those who believe it is accurate only trust it back, say, 50,000 years.

60,000 years, for radiocarbon dating, after which other radiometric dating methods are useful. Those include Argon-Argon, fission-track dating, Potassium-Argon, Uranium-Thorium, and many other techniques.

Since nobody was there (unlike the cop with a radar gun), it is all deduction and opinion.

Just because the cop is there doesn't mean he knows what speed it's going. He still needs to measure it. Likewise, we need to measure the age of organic substances. Both police officers and scientists use solid tools for making their measurements although, again, 14-carbon dating is inherently more reliable than a typical radar gun.

As for the links you posted, they indicate that the authors lack even a basic grasp of science.

Also, the Genesis flood would have greatly upset the carbon balance. The flood buried a huge amount of carbon, which became coal, oil, etc., lowering the total 12C in the biosphere (including the atmosphere -- plants regrowing after the flood absorb CO2, which is not replaced by the decay of the buried vegetation). Total 14C is also proportionately lowered at this time, but whereas no terrestrial process generates any more 12C, 14C is continually being produced, and at a rate which does not depend on carbon levels (it comes from nitrogen). Therefore, the 14C/12C ratio in plants/animals/the atmosphere before the flood had to be lower than what it is now.
This is unimaginably idiotic. If that were the case, we should see huge discrepancies between independently known dates and radiocarbon dates for preindustrial historical remains. We don't. There goes that theory!
53 posted on 11/17/2006 9:30:17 AM PST by Alter Kaker ("Whatever tears one sheds, in the end one always blows one's nose." - Heine)
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