[Charles Henrickson]

What I'm saying is that dating methods that may possibly work for up to 2,000-3,000 years ago may not necessarily work for going back further than that. It assumes you can extrapolate. It does not allow for other factors that may have intervened and skewed the data.

I am not saying that the earth is only 6,000 years old. No one knows--or can know--how old the earth is. That is beyond the realm of science.

[Docbarleypop]

Took flint napping in college, if I remember right there is a way to determine the age of the fracture based on the exposed cortex of the stone. I will have to look in my books to see what i can find. If the stone was heat treated, you can use thermo-luminecense(sp?) to date the heating event. North American indians often heated flint and other stone in order to make them easier to work with.

[null and void]

What I'm saying is that dating methods that may possibly work for up to 2,000-3,000 years ago may not necessarily work for going back further than that.

True that.

Which is precisely why they don't Carbon-14 date anything older than ~50,000 years. There simply isn't enough ¹⁴C left to provide an accurate date.

Let me correct that, no honest scientist will do that.

I've seem museum displays where "creation scientists" have carbon "dated" artifacts far, far older, then blandly said they must be much younger than those evil atheist scientists claim.