[general_re]

Carbon dating is not reliable. It depends on as assumption about the original ration of radio isotopes and them makes a simple math equation about the current ratio.

Except that carbon dating can be and has been verified by comparing its results to the dates of known historical events. For example, if you know that a particular battle took place in the year 1000, and you find artifacts from that battle, you can compare the carbon-dating results to what you already know from the historical record. And in virtually every case where such comparisons have been done, the carbon dating results match up with the historical record very nicely - such comparisons give you a sanity check so that you're not totally reliant on unfounded assumptions.

[biblewonk]

If carbon dating couldn't atleast do that then we wouldn't even know the term.

[Hegemony Cricket]

"Except that carbon dating can be and has been verified by comparing its results to the dates of known historical events. For example, if you know that a particular battle took place in the year 1000..."

Would you agree that there are several orders of magnitude (and therefore much larger margin for error) between events a few thousand years ago, and events a few million years ago? By way of example, I coud glance at a cart full of groceries and guess the total bill within $100, but, if I glanced at the annual budget of, say New York City, I likely could not guess it closer than to the nearest $100 million.

On an interesting side note: Did you ever notice that our frame of reference of "known historical events" only extends back in history about 6,000 to 8,000 years?