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| Topic: Carbon Dating Fact or Fiction | |
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Our understanding of the shape and pattern of the history of life depends on the accuracy of fossils and dating methods. Some critics, particularly religious fundamentalists, argue that neither fossils nor dating can be trusted, and that their interpretations are better. Other critics, perhaps more familiar with the data, question certain aspects of the quality of the fossil record and of its dating. These skeptics do not provide scientific evidence for their views. Current understanding of the history of life is probably close to the truth because it is based on repeated and careful testing and consideration of data.
The rejection of the validity of fossils and of dating by religious fundamentalists creates a problem for them: Millions of fossils have been discovered.They cannot deny that hundreds of millions of fossils reside in display cases and drawers around the world. Perhaps some would argue that these specimens - huge skeletons of dinosaurs, blocks from ancient shell beds containing hundreds of specimens, delicately preserved fern fronds — have been manufactured by scientists to confuse the public. This is clearly ludicrous. Some skeptics believe that all fossils are the same age.Otherwise, religious fundamentalists are forced to claim that all the fossils are of the same age, somehow buried in the rocks by some extraordinary catastrophe, perhaps Noah’s flood. How exactly they believe that all the dinosaurs, mammoths, early humans, heavily-armored fishes, trilobites, ammonites, and the rest could all live together has never been explained. Nor indeed why the marine creatures were somehow ‘drowned’ by the flood. Rejecting fossil data cannot be supported by proof.The rejection of dating by religious fundamentalists is easier for them to make, but harder for them to demonstrate. The fossils occur in regular sequences time after time; radioactive decay happens, and repeated cross testing of radiometric dates confirms their validity. Fossils occur in sequences Fossil sequences were recognized and established in their broad outlines long before Charles Darwin had even thought of evolution. Early geologists, in the 1700s and 1800s, noticed how fossils seemed to occur in sequences: certain assemblages of fossils were always found below other assemblages. The first work was done in England and France. Fossil hunting began by accident in England around 1800.Around 1800, William Smith in England, who was a canal surveyor, noticed that he could map out great tracts of rocks on the basis of their contained fossils. The sequences he saw in one part of the country could be correlated (matched) precisely with the sequences in another. He, and others at the time, had discovered the first principles of stratigraphy — that older rocks lie below younger rocks and that fossils occur in a particular, predictable order. Stratigraphy, the study of rock layers, led to paleontology, the study of fossils.Then, geologists began to build up the stratigraphic column, the familiar listing of divisions of geological time — Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, and so on. Each time unit was characterized by particular fossils. The scheme worked all round the world, without fail. From the 1830s onwards, geologists noted how fossils became more complex through time. The oldest rocks contained no fossils, then came simple sea creatures, then more complex ones like fishes, then came life on land, then reptiles, then mammals, and finally humans. Clearly, there was some kind of ‘progress’ going on. All became clear, of course, in 1859 when Charles Darwin published his “On the origin of species”. The ‘progress’ shown by the fossils was a documentation of the grand pattern of evolution through long spans of time. Accuracy of the fossils Fossils prove that humans did not exist alongside dinosaurs.Since 1859, paleontologists, or fossil experts, have searched the world for fossils. In the past 150 years they have not found any fossils that Darwin would not have expected. New discoveries have filled in the gaps, and shown us in unimaginable detail the shape of the great ‘tree of life’. Darwin and his contemporaries could never have imagined the improvements in resolution of stratigraphy that have come since 1859, nor guessed what fossils were to be found in the southern continents, nor predicted the huge increase in the number of amateur and professional paleontologists worldwide. All these labors have not led to a single unexpected finding such as a human fossil from the time of the dinosaurs, or a Jurassic dinosaur in the same rocks as Silurian trilobites. Scientists now use phylogeny, mathematics, and other computations to date fossils.Paleontologists now apply sophisticated mathematical techniques to assess the relative quality of particular fossil successions, as well as the entire fossil record. These demonstrate that, of course, we do not know everything (and clearly never will), but we know enough. Today, innovative techniques provide further confirmation and understanding of the history of life. Biologists actually have at their disposal several independent ways of looking at the history of life - not only from the order of fossils in the rocks, but also through phylogenetic trees. Phylogenetic trees are the family trees of particular groups of plants or animals, showing how all the species relate to each other. Phylogenetic trees are drawn up mathematically, using lists of morphological (external form) or molecular (gene sequence) characters. Modern phylogenetic trees have no input from stratigraphy, so they can be used in a broad way to make comparisons between tree shape and stratigraphy. The majority of test cases show good agreement, so the fossil record tells the same story as the molecules enclosed in living organisms. Accuracy of dating Dating in geology may be relative or absolute. Relative dating is done by observing fossils, as described above, and recording which fossil is younger, which is older. The discovery of means for absolute dating in the early 1900s was a huge advance. The methods are all based on radioactive decay: Fossils may be dated by calculating the rate of decay of certain elements.Certain naturally occurring elements are radioactive, and they decay, or break down, at predictable rates. Chemists measure the half-life of such elements, i.e., the time it takes for half of the radioactive parent element to break down to the stable daughter element. Sometimes, one isotope, or naturally occurring form, of an element decays into another, more stable form of the same element. By comparing the proportions of parent to daughter element in a rock sample, and knowing the half-life, the age can be calculated. Older fossils cannot be dated by carbon-14 methods and require radiometric dating.Scientists can use different chemicals for absolute dating: The best-known absolute dating technique is carbon-14 dating, which archaeologists prefer to use. However, the half-life of carbon-14 is only 5730 years, so the method cannot be used for materials older than about 70,000 years. Radiometric dating involves the use of isotope series, such as rubidium/strontium, thorium/lead, potassium/argon, argon/argon, or uranium/lead, all of which have very long half-lives, ranging from 0.7 to 48.6 billion years. Subtle differences in the relative proportions of the two isotopes can give good dates for rocks of any age. Scientists can check their accuracy by using different isotopes.The first radiometric dates, generated about 1920, showed that the Earth was hundreds of millions, or billions, of years old. Since then, geologists have made many tens of thousands of radiometric age determinations, and they have refined the earlier estimates. A key point is that it is no longer necessary simply to accept one chemical determination of a rock’s age. Age estimates can be cross-tested by using different isotope pairs. Results from different techniques, often measured in rival labs, continually confirm each other. There is only a 1% chance of error with current dating technology.Every few years, new geologic time scales are published, providing the latest dates for major time lines. Older dates may change by a few million years up and down, but younger dates are stable. For example, it has been known since the 1960s that the famous Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, the line marking the end of the dinosaurs, was 65 million years old. Repeated recalibrations and retests, using ever more sophisticated techniques and equipment, cannot shift that date. It is accurate to within a few thousand years. With modern, extremely precise, methods, error bars are often only 1% or so. Conclusion: The strict rules of the scientific method ensure the accuracy of fossil dating.Conclusion The fossil record is fundamental to an understanding of evolution. Fossils document the order of appearance of groups and they tell us about some of the amazing plants and animals that died out long ago. Fossils can also show us how major crises, such as mass extinctions, happened, and how life recovered after them. If the fossils, or the dating of the fossils, could be shown to be inaccurate, all such information would have to be rejected as unsafe. Geologists and paleontologists are highly self-critical, and they have worried for decades about these issues. Repeated, and tough, regimes of testing have confirmed the broad accuracy of the fossils and their dating, so we can read the history of life from the rocks with confidence. © 2001, American Institute of Biological Sciences. Educators have permission to reprint articles for classroom use; other users, please contact editor@actionbioscience.org for reprint permission. See reprint policy. Michael Benton, Ph.D., is a vertebrate paleontologist with particular interests in dinosaur origins and fossil history. Currently, he is studying certain basal dinosaurs from the Late Triassic and the quality of different segments of the fossil record. He holds the Chair in Vertebrate Paleontology at the University of Bristol, UK, in addition to chairing the Masters program in paleobiology at the university. He has written some 30 books on dinosaurs and paleobiology, ranging from professional tomes to popular kids’ books. http://www.gly.bris.ac.uk/www/admin/personnel/MJB.html Here is a cut and paste to contradict the OP if anyone cares to read it. Cheers. |
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Carbon dating is not the only way for people to determine how old things are. Other circumstances are considered. Layering in the earth is also used for determining how old or what time frame something layed into the layer. Trying to prove that the earth is younger than it is is ludicrous. We know that the earth is old, very old in our time frame but probably very young in the universal time frame. There is no way to prove that the bible is accurate so people really need to stop trying. It is a story book, as with all stories, there may be a certain event of truth to build the story around but it is still just a book of old stories. Oh really dragoness....tell me how you know how old the earth is.....because you were taught this in school? And please stop preaching your theories of of story book bibles. There is proof of it all over the place....you just need to open your eyes and look....the last three threads I did....would be a good start.....Unless of course you want to give me the proof that so far no one has.....either in evolution or how old the planet really is..... Proof not saying there is.....show me. Believing the bible as fact, is your choice. You may want to read some other story books also as they some of them are more interesting and more informative than the bible is. As for proving how old the earth is, the proof is all around you all you have to do is open your eyes or mind whichever you are choosing to keep closed up in that fantasy book of yours and you will see it. The age of this planet is obvious to anyone with eyes. My opinion of course. one thing dragoness....thats all I am asking....put all the texts you studied to use.....cmon one thing that proves beyond a reasonable doubt the validity of your gazillion year old earth.....or one animal that shows evolution....or better yet one language or city that is older then 6,000 years old.....yea thats what I thought I now rest my case. |
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Carbon dating is not the only way for people to determine how old things are. Other circumstances are considered. Layering in the earth is also used for determining how old or what time frame something layed into the layer. Trying to prove that the earth is younger than it is is ludicrous. We know that the earth is old, very old in our time frame but probably very young in the universal time frame. There is no way to prove that the bible is accurate so people really need to stop trying. It is a story book, as with all stories, there may be a certain event of truth to build the story around but it is still just a book of old stories. Oh really dragoness....tell me how you know how old the earth is.....because you were taught this in school? And please stop preaching your theories of of story book bibles. There is proof of it all over the place....you just need to open your eyes and look....the last three threads I did....would be a good start.....Unless of course you want to give me the proof that so far no one has.....either in evolution or how old the planet really is..... Proof not saying there is.....show me. Believing the bible as fact, is your choice. You may want to read some other story books also as they some of them are more interesting and more informative than the bible is. As for proving how old the earth is, the proof is all around you all you have to do is open your eyes or mind whichever you are choosing to keep closed up in that fantasy book of yours and you will see it. The age of this planet is obvious to anyone with eyes. My opinion of course. one thing dragoness....thats all I am asking....put all the texts you studied to use.....cmon one thing that proves beyond a reasonable doubt the validity of your gazillion year old earth.....or one animal that shows evolution....or better yet one language or city that is older then 6,000 years old.....yea thats what I thought I now rest my case. You're stupid. |
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Some tourists in The American Museum of Natural History were marveling at the dinosaur bones on display. One of them asked the guard, "Can you tell me how old the dinosaur bones are?" The guard replied, "They are 65 million, four years, and six months old." "That's an awfully exact number," says the tourist. "How do you know their age so precisely?" The guard answered, "Well, the dinosaur bones were sixty five million years old when I started working here, and that was four and a half years ago." Funny    |
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Our understanding of the shape and pattern of the history of life depends on the accuracy of fossils and dating methods. Some critics, particularly religious fundamentalists, argue that neither fossils nor dating can be trusted, and that their interpretations are better. Other critics, perhaps more familiar with the data, question certain aspects of the quality of the fossil record and of its dating. These skeptics do not provide scientific evidence for their views. Current understanding of the history of life is probably close to the truth because it is based on repeated and careful testing and consideration of data. The rejection of the validity of fossils and of dating by religious fundamentalists creates a problem for them: Millions of fossils have been discovered.They cannot deny that hundreds of millions of fossils reside in display cases and drawers around the world. Perhaps some would argue that these specimens - huge skeletons of dinosaurs, blocks from ancient shell beds containing hundreds of specimens, delicately preserved fern fronds — have been manufactured by scientists to confuse the public. This is clearly ludicrous. Some skeptics believe that all fossils are the same age.Otherwise, religious fundamentalists are forced to claim that all the fossils are of the same age, somehow buried in the rocks by some extraordinary catastrophe, perhaps Noah’s flood. How exactly they believe that all the dinosaurs, mammoths, early humans, heavily-armored fishes, trilobites, ammonites, and the rest could all live together has never been explained. Nor indeed why the marine creatures were somehow ‘drowned’ by the flood. Rejecting fossil data cannot be supported by proof.The rejection of dating by religious fundamentalists is easier for them to make, but harder for them to demonstrate. The fossils occur in regular sequences time after time; radioactive decay happens, and repeated cross testing of radiometric dates confirms their validity. Fossils occur in sequences Fossil sequences were recognized and established in their broad outlines long before Charles Darwin had even thought of evolution. Early geologists, in the 1700s and 1800s, noticed how fossils seemed to occur in sequences: certain assemblages of fossils were always found below other assemblages. The first work was done in England and France. Fossil hunting began by accident in England around 1800.Around 1800, William Smith in England, who was a canal surveyor, noticed that he could map out great tracts of rocks on the basis of their contained fossils. The sequences he saw in one part of the country could be correlated (matched) precisely with the sequences in another. He, and others at the time, had discovered the first principles of stratigraphy — that older rocks lie below younger rocks and that fossils occur in a particular, predictable order. Stratigraphy, the study of rock layers, led to paleontology, the study of fossils.Then, geologists began to build up the stratigraphic column, the familiar listing of divisions of geological time — Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, and so on. Each time unit was characterized by particular fossils. The scheme worked all round the world, without fail. From the 1830s onwards, geologists noted how fossils became more complex through time. The oldest rocks contained no fossils, then came simple sea creatures, then more complex ones like fishes, then came life on land, then reptiles, then mammals, and finally humans. Clearly, there was some kind of ‘progress’ going on. All became clear, of course, in 1859 when Charles Darwin published his “On the origin of species”. The ‘progress’ shown by the fossils was a documentation of the grand pattern of evolution through long spans of time. Accuracy of the fossils Fossils prove that humans did not exist alongside dinosaurs.Since 1859, paleontologists, or fossil experts, have searched the world for fossils. In the past 150 years they have not found any fossils that Darwin would not have expected. New discoveries have filled in the gaps, and shown us in unimaginable detail the shape of the great ‘tree of life’. Darwin and his contemporaries could never have imagined the improvements in resolution of stratigraphy that have come since 1859, nor guessed what fossils were to be found in the southern continents, nor predicted the huge increase in the number of amateur and professional paleontologists worldwide. All these labors have not led to a single unexpected finding such as a human fossil from the time of the dinosaurs, or a Jurassic dinosaur in the same rocks as Silurian trilobites. Scientists now use phylogeny, mathematics, and other computations to date fossils.Paleontologists now apply sophisticated mathematical techniques to assess the relative quality of particular fossil successions, as well as the entire fossil record. These demonstrate that, of course, we do not know everything (and clearly never will), but we know enough. Today, innovative techniques provide further confirmation and understanding of the history of life. Biologists actually have at their disposal several independent ways of looking at the history of life - not only from the order of fossils in the rocks, but also through phylogenetic trees. Phylogenetic trees are the family trees of particular groups of plants or animals, showing how all the species relate to each other. Phylogenetic trees are drawn up mathematically, using lists of morphological (external form) or molecular (gene sequence) characters. Modern phylogenetic trees have no input from stratigraphy, so they can be used in a broad way to make comparisons between tree shape and stratigraphy. The majority of test cases show good agreement, so the fossil record tells the same story as the molecules enclosed in living organisms. Accuracy of dating Dating in geology may be relative or absolute. Relative dating is done by observing fossils, as described above, and recording which fossil is younger, which is older. The discovery of means for absolute dating in the early 1900s was a huge advance. The methods are all based on radioactive decay: Fossils may be dated by calculating the rate of decay of certain elements.Certain naturally occurring elements are radioactive, and they decay, or break down, at predictable rates. Chemists measure the half-life of such elements, i.e., the time it takes for half of the radioactive parent element to break down to the stable daughter element. Sometimes, one isotope, or naturally occurring form, of an element decays into another, more stable form of the same element. By comparing the proportions of parent to daughter element in a rock sample, and knowing the half-life, the age can be calculated. Older fossils cannot be dated by carbon-14 methods and require radiometric dating.Scientists can use different chemicals for absolute dating: The best-known absolute dating technique is carbon-14 dating, which archaeologists prefer to use. However, the half-life of carbon-14 is only 5730 years, so the method cannot be used for materials older than about 70,000 years. Radiometric dating involves the use of isotope series, such as rubidium/strontium, thorium/lead, potassium/argon, argon/argon, or uranium/lead, all of which have very long half-lives, ranging from 0.7 to 48.6 billion years. Subtle differences in the relative proportions of the two isotopes can give good dates for rocks of any age. Scientists can check their accuracy by using different isotopes.The first radiometric dates, generated about 1920, showed that the Earth was hundreds of millions, or billions, of years old. Since then, geologists have made many tens of thousands of radiometric age determinations, and they have refined the earlier estimates. A key point is that it is no longer necessary simply to accept one chemical determination of a rock’s age. Age estimates can be cross-tested by using different isotope pairs. Results from different techniques, often measured in rival labs, continually confirm each other. There is only a 1% chance of error with current dating technology.Every few years, new geologic time scales are published, providing the latest dates for major time lines. Older dates may change by a few million years up and down, but younger dates are stable. For example, it has been known since the 1960s that the famous Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, the line marking the end of the dinosaurs, was 65 million years old. Repeated recalibrations and retests, using ever more sophisticated techniques and equipment, cannot shift that date. It is accurate to within a few thousand years. With modern, extremely precise, methods, error bars are often only 1% or so. Conclusion: The strict rules of the scientific method ensure the accuracy of fossil dating.Conclusion The fossil record is fundamental to an understanding of evolution. Fossils document the order of appearance of groups and they tell us about some of the amazing plants and animals that died out long ago. Fossils can also show us how major crises, such as mass extinctions, happened, and how life recovered after them. If the fossils, or the dating of the fossils, could be shown to be inaccurate, all such information would have to be rejected as unsafe. Geologists and paleontologists are highly self-critical, and they have worried for decades about these issues. Repeated, and tough, regimes of testing have confirmed the broad accuracy of the fossils and their dating, so we can read the history of life from the rocks with confidence. © 2001, American Institute of Biological Sciences. Educators have permission to reprint articles for classroom use; other users, please contact editor@actionbioscience.org for reprint permission. See reprint policy. Michael Benton, Ph.D., is a vertebrate paleontologist with particular interests in dinosaur origins and fossil history. Currently, he is studying certain basal dinosaurs from the Late Triassic and the quality of different segments of the fossil record. He holds the Chair in Vertebrate Paleontology at the University of Bristol, UK, in addition to chairing the Masters program in paleobiology at the university. He has written some 30 books on dinosaurs and paleobiology, ranging from professional tomes to popular kids’ books. http://www.gly.bris.ac.uk/www/admin/personnel/MJB.html Here is a cut and paste to contradict the OP if anyone cares to read it. Cheers. a whole lot of rambling....but not one example.....please take notes dragoness....mine had samples of dead seals carbon dated saying they were much older then the 50 years old they were.....Mine full of exmaples....yours full of crap sorry try again |
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Carbon dating is not the only way for people to determine how old things are. Other circumstances are considered. Layering in the earth is also used for determining how old or what time frame something layed into the layer. Trying to prove that the earth is younger than it is is ludicrous. We know that the earth is old, very old in our time frame but probably very young in the universal time frame. There is no way to prove that the bible is accurate so people really need to stop trying. It is a story book, as with all stories, there may be a certain event of truth to build the story around but it is still just a book of old stories. Oh really dragoness....tell me how you know how old the earth is.....because you were taught this in school? And please stop preaching your theories of of story book bibles. There is proof of it all over the place....you just need to open your eyes and look....the last three threads I did....would be a good start.....Unless of course you want to give me the proof that so far no one has.....either in evolution or how old the planet really is..... Proof not saying there is.....show me. Believing the bible as fact, is your choice. You may want to read some other story books also as they some of them are more interesting and more informative than the bible is. As for proving how old the earth is, the proof is all around you all you have to do is open your eyes or mind whichever you are choosing to keep closed up in that fantasy book of yours and you will see it. The age of this planet is obvious to anyone with eyes. My opinion of course. one thing dragoness....thats all I am asking....put all the texts you studied to use.....cmon one thing that proves beyond a reasonable doubt the validity of your gazillion year old earth.....or one animal that shows evolution....or better yet one language or city that is older then 6,000 years old.....yea thats what I thought I now rest my case. You're stupid. well at least an honest answer. |
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Carbon dating is not the only way for people to determine how old things are. Other circumstances are considered. Layering in the earth is also used for determining how old or what time frame something layed into the layer. Trying to prove that the earth is younger than it is is ludicrous. We know that the earth is old, very old in our time frame but probably very young in the universal time frame. There is no way to prove that the bible is accurate so people really need to stop trying. It is a story book, as with all stories, there may be a certain event of truth to build the story around but it is still just a book of old stories. Oh really dragoness....tell me how you know how old the earth is.....because you were taught this in school? And please stop preaching your theories of of story book bibles. There is proof of it all over the place....you just need to open your eyes and look....the last three threads I did....would be a good start.....Unless of course you want to give me the proof that so far no one has.....either in evolution or how old the planet really is..... Proof not saying there is.....show me. Believing the bible as fact, is your choice. You may want to read some other story books also as they some of them are more interesting and more informative than the bible is. As for proving how old the earth is, the proof is all around you all you have to do is open your eyes or mind whichever you are choosing to keep closed up in that fantasy book of yours and you will see it. The age of this planet is obvious to anyone with eyes. My opinion of course. one thing dragoness....thats all I am asking....put all the texts you studied to use.....cmon one thing that proves beyond a reasonable doubt the validity of your gazillion year old earth.....or one animal that shows evolution....or better yet one language or city that is older then 6,000 years old.....yea thats what I thought I now rest my case. No offense intended but I am sorry for you. I am sorry that the scientific facts or theories, whichever, do not back up your fantasy book. I am sorry that someone told you that this was fact and now you must live your whole life trying to prove a fallacy. I am sorry. I cannot make the bible be true, it is false. It is a story book of old men who wrote their thoughts and fantasies and some people along the way thought it this book would be a good control over people and made it into a reverent text. I am sorry you fell for it. But I cannot help you prove the fallacy at all, everything I can show you will prove the falseness of the text. I am sorry I cannot help you here. |
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 Very cool thread Feral Deb Thanks Lee.....I heart you Mr... |
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Our understanding of the shape and pattern of the history of life depends on the accuracy of fossils and dating methods. Some critics, particularly religious fundamentalists, argue that neither fossils nor dating can be trusted, and that their interpretations are better. Other critics, perhaps more familiar with the data, question certain aspects of the quality of the fossil record and of its dating. These skeptics do not provide scientific evidence for their views. Current understanding of the history of life is probably close to the truth because it is based on repeated and careful testing and consideration of data. The rejection of the validity of fossils and of dating by religious fundamentalists creates a problem for them: Millions of fossils have been discovered.They cannot deny that hundreds of millions of fossils reside in display cases and drawers around the world. Perhaps some would argue that these specimens - huge skeletons of dinosaurs, blocks from ancient shell beds containing hundreds of specimens, delicately preserved fern fronds — have been manufactured by scientists to confuse the public. This is clearly ludicrous. Some skeptics believe that all fossils are the same age.Otherwise, religious fundamentalists are forced to claim that all the fossils are of the same age, somehow buried in the rocks by some extraordinary catastrophe, perhaps Noah’s flood. How exactly they believe that all the dinosaurs, mammoths, early humans, heavily-armored fishes, trilobites, ammonites, and the rest could all live together has never been explained. Nor indeed why the marine creatures were somehow ‘drowned’ by the flood. Rejecting fossil data cannot be supported by proof.The rejection of dating by religious fundamentalists is easier for them to make, but harder for them to demonstrate. The fossils occur in regular sequences time after time; radioactive decay happens, and repeated cross testing of radiometric dates confirms their validity. Fossils occur in sequences Fossil sequences were recognized and established in their broad outlines long before Charles Darwin had even thought of evolution. Early geologists, in the 1700s and 1800s, noticed how fossils seemed to occur in sequences: certain assemblages of fossils were always found below other assemblages. The first work was done in England and France. Fossil hunting began by accident in England around 1800.Around 1800, William Smith in England, who was a canal surveyor, noticed that he could map out great tracts of rocks on the basis of their contained fossils. The sequences he saw in one part of the country could be correlated (matched) precisely with the sequences in another. He, and others at the time, had discovered the first principles of stratigraphy — that older rocks lie below younger rocks and that fossils occur in a particular, predictable order. Stratigraphy, the study of rock layers, led to paleontology, the study of fossils.Then, geologists began to build up the stratigraphic column, the familiar listing of divisions of geological time — Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, and so on. Each time unit was characterized by particular fossils. The scheme worked all round the world, without fail. From the 1830s onwards, geologists noted how fossils became more complex through time. The oldest rocks contained no fossils, then came simple sea creatures, then more complex ones like fishes, then came life on land, then reptiles, then mammals, and finally humans. Clearly, there was some kind of ‘progress’ going on. All became clear, of course, in 1859 when Charles Darwin published his “On the origin of species”. The ‘progress’ shown by the fossils was a documentation of the grand pattern of evolution through long spans of time. Accuracy of the fossils Fossils prove that humans did not exist alongside dinosaurs.Since 1859, paleontologists, or fossil experts, have searched the world for fossils. In the past 150 years they have not found any fossils that Darwin would not have expected. New discoveries have filled in the gaps, and shown us in unimaginable detail the shape of the great ‘tree of life’. Darwin and his contemporaries could never have imagined the improvements in resolution of stratigraphy that have come since 1859, nor guessed what fossils were to be found in the southern continents, nor predicted the huge increase in the number of amateur and professional paleontologists worldwide. All these labors have not led to a single unexpected finding such as a human fossil from the time of the dinosaurs, or a Jurassic dinosaur in the same rocks as Silurian trilobites. Scientists now use phylogeny, mathematics, and other computations to date fossils.Paleontologists now apply sophisticated mathematical techniques to assess the relative quality of particular fossil successions, as well as the entire fossil record. These demonstrate that, of course, we do not know everything (and clearly never will), but we know enough. Today, innovative techniques provide further confirmation and understanding of the history of life. Biologists actually have at their disposal several independent ways of looking at the history of life - not only from the order of fossils in the rocks, but also through phylogenetic trees. Phylogenetic trees are the family trees of particular groups of plants or animals, showing how all the species relate to each other. Phylogenetic trees are drawn up mathematically, using lists of morphological (external form) or molecular (gene sequence) characters. Modern phylogenetic trees have no input from stratigraphy, so they can be used in a broad way to make comparisons between tree shape and stratigraphy. The majority of test cases show good agreement, so the fossil record tells the same story as the molecules enclosed in living organisms. Accuracy of dating Dating in geology may be relative or absolute. Relative dating is done by observing fossils, as described above, and recording which fossil is younger, which is older. The discovery of means for absolute dating in the early 1900s was a huge advance. The methods are all based on radioactive decay: Fossils may be dated by calculating the rate of decay of certain elements.Certain naturally occurring elements are radioactive, and they decay, or break down, at predictable rates. Chemists measure the half-life of such elements, i.e., the time it takes for half of the radioactive parent element to break down to the stable daughter element. Sometimes, one isotope, or naturally occurring form, of an element decays into another, more stable form of the same element. By comparing the proportions of parent to daughter element in a rock sample, and knowing the half-life, the age can be calculated. Older fossils cannot be dated by carbon-14 methods and require radiometric dating.Scientists can use different chemicals for absolute dating: The best-known absolute dating technique is carbon-14 dating, which archaeologists prefer to use. However, the half-life of carbon-14 is only 5730 years, so the method cannot be used for materials older than about 70,000 years. Radiometric dating involves the use of isotope series, such as rubidium/strontium, thorium/lead, potassium/argon, argon/argon, or uranium/lead, all of which have very long half-lives, ranging from 0.7 to 48.6 billion years. Subtle differences in the relative proportions of the two isotopes can give good dates for rocks of any age. Scientists can check their accuracy by using different isotopes.The first radiometric dates, generated about 1920, showed that the Earth was hundreds of millions, or billions, of years old. Since then, geologists have made many tens of thousands of radiometric age determinations, and they have refined the earlier estimates. A key point is that it is no longer necessary simply to accept one chemical determination of a rock’s age. Age estimates can be cross-tested by using different isotope pairs. Results from different techniques, often measured in rival labs, continually confirm each other. There is only a 1% chance of error with current dating technology.Every few years, new geologic time scales are published, providing the latest dates for major time lines. Older dates may change by a few million years up and down, but younger dates are stable. For example, it has been known since the 1960s that the famous Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, the line marking the end of the dinosaurs, was 65 million years old. Repeated recalibrations and retests, using ever more sophisticated techniques and equipment, cannot shift that date. It is accurate to within a few thousand years. With modern, extremely precise, methods, error bars are often only 1% or so. Conclusion: The strict rules of the scientific method ensure the accuracy of fossil dating.Conclusion The fossil record is fundamental to an understanding of evolution. Fossils document the order of appearance of groups and they tell us about some of the amazing plants and animals that died out long ago. Fossils can also show us how major crises, such as mass extinctions, happened, and how life recovered after them. If the fossils, or the dating of the fossils, could be shown to be inaccurate, all such information would have to be rejected as unsafe. Geologists and paleontologists are highly self-critical, and they have worried for decades about these issues. Repeated, and tough, regimes of testing have confirmed the broad accuracy of the fossils and their dating, so we can read the history of life from the rocks with confidence. © 2001, American Institute of Biological Sciences. Educators have permission to reprint articles for classroom use; other users, please contact editor@actionbioscience.org for reprint permission. See reprint policy. Michael Benton, Ph.D., is a vertebrate paleontologist with particular interests in dinosaur origins and fossil history. Currently, he is studying certain basal dinosaurs from the Late Triassic and the quality of different segments of the fossil record. He holds the Chair in Vertebrate Paleontology at the University of Bristol, UK, in addition to chairing the Masters program in paleobiology at the university. He has written some 30 books on dinosaurs and paleobiology, ranging from professional tomes to popular kids’ books. http://www.gly.bris.ac.uk/www/admin/personnel/MJB.html Here is a cut and paste to contradict the OP if anyone cares to read it. Cheers. a whole lot of rambling....but not one example.....please take notes dragoness....mine had samples of dead seals carbon dated saying they were much older then the 50 years old they were.....Mine full of exmaples....yours full of crap sorry try again No more "crappy" than yours...lol |
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Our understanding of the shape and pattern of the history of life depends on the accuracy of fossils and dating methods. Some critics, particularly religious fundamentalists, argue that neither fossils nor dating can be trusted, and that their interpretations are better. Other critics, perhaps more familiar with the data, question certain aspects of the quality of the fossil record and of its dating. These skeptics do not provide scientific evidence for their views. Current understanding of the history of life is probably close to the truth because it is based on repeated and careful testing and consideration of data. The rejection of the validity of fossils and of dating by religious fundamentalists creates a problem for them: Millions of fossils have been discovered.They cannot deny that hundreds of millions of fossils reside in display cases and drawers around the world. Perhaps some would argue that these specimens - huge skeletons of dinosaurs, blocks from ancient shell beds containing hundreds of specimens, delicately preserved fern fronds — have been manufactured by scientists to confuse the public. This is clearly ludicrous. Some skeptics believe that all fossils are the same age.Otherwise, religious fundamentalists are forced to claim that all the fossils are of the same age, somehow buried in the rocks by some extraordinary catastrophe, perhaps Noah’s flood. How exactly they believe that all the dinosaurs, mammoths, early humans, heavily-armored fishes, trilobites, ammonites, and the rest could all live together has never been explained. Nor indeed why the marine creatures were somehow ‘drowned’ by the flood. Rejecting fossil data cannot be supported by proof.The rejection of dating by religious fundamentalists is easier for them to make, but harder for them to demonstrate. The fossils occur in regular sequences time after time; radioactive decay happens, and repeated cross testing of radiometric dates confirms their validity. Fossils occur in sequences Fossil sequences were recognized and established in their broad outlines long before Charles Darwin had even thought of evolution. Early geologists, in the 1700s and 1800s, noticed how fossils seemed to occur in sequences: certain assemblages of fossils were always found below other assemblages. The first work was done in England and France. Fossil hunting began by accident in England around 1800.Around 1800, William Smith in England, who was a canal surveyor, noticed that he could map out great tracts of rocks on the basis of their contained fossils. The sequences he saw in one part of the country could be correlated (matched) precisely with the sequences in another. He, and others at the time, had discovered the first principles of stratigraphy — that older rocks lie below younger rocks and that fossils occur in a particular, predictable order. Stratigraphy, the study of rock layers, led to paleontology, the study of fossils.Then, geologists began to build up the stratigraphic column, the familiar listing of divisions of geological time — Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, and so on. Each time unit was characterized by particular fossils. The scheme worked all round the world, without fail. From the 1830s onwards, geologists noted how fossils became more complex through time. The oldest rocks contained no fossils, then came simple sea creatures, then more complex ones like fishes, then came life on land, then reptiles, then mammals, and finally humans. Clearly, there was some kind of ‘progress’ going on. All became clear, of course, in 1859 when Charles Darwin published his “On the origin of species”. The ‘progress’ shown by the fossils was a documentation of the grand pattern of evolution through long spans of time. Accuracy of the fossils Fossils prove that humans did not exist alongside dinosaurs.Since 1859, paleontologists, or fossil experts, have searched the world for fossils. In the past 150 years they have not found any fossils that Darwin would not have expected. New discoveries have filled in the gaps, and shown us in unimaginable detail the shape of the great ‘tree of life’. Darwin and his contemporaries could never have imagined the improvements in resolution of stratigraphy that have come since 1859, nor guessed what fossils were to be found in the southern continents, nor predicted the huge increase in the number of amateur and professional paleontologists worldwide. All these labors have not led to a single unexpected finding such as a human fossil from the time of the dinosaurs, or a Jurassic dinosaur in the same rocks as Silurian trilobites. Scientists now use phylogeny, mathematics, and other computations to date fossils.Paleontologists now apply sophisticated mathematical techniques to assess the relative quality of particular fossil successions, as well as the entire fossil record. These demonstrate that, of course, we do not know everything (and clearly never will), but we know enough. Today, innovative techniques provide further confirmation and understanding of the history of life. Biologists actually have at their disposal several independent ways of looking at the history of life - not only from the order of fossils in the rocks, but also through phylogenetic trees. Phylogenetic trees are the family trees of particular groups of plants or animals, showing how all the species relate to each other. Phylogenetic trees are drawn up mathematically, using lists of morphological (external form) or molecular (gene sequence) characters. Modern phylogenetic trees have no input from stratigraphy, so they can be used in a broad way to make comparisons between tree shape and stratigraphy. The majority of test cases show good agreement, so the fossil record tells the same story as the molecules enclosed in living organisms. Accuracy of dating Dating in geology may be relative or absolute. Relative dating is done by observing fossils, as described above, and recording which fossil is younger, which is older. The discovery of means for absolute dating in the early 1900s was a huge advance. The methods are all based on radioactive decay: Fossils may be dated by calculating the rate of decay of certain elements.Certain naturally occurring elements are radioactive, and they decay, or break down, at predictable rates. Chemists measure the half-life of such elements, i.e., the time it takes for half of the radioactive parent element to break down to the stable daughter element. Sometimes, one isotope, or naturally occurring form, of an element decays into another, more stable form of the same element. By comparing the proportions of parent to daughter element in a rock sample, and knowing the half-life, the age can be calculated. Older fossils cannot be dated by carbon-14 methods and require radiometric dating.Scientists can use different chemicals for absolute dating: The best-known absolute dating technique is carbon-14 dating, which archaeologists prefer to use. However, the half-life of carbon-14 is only 5730 years, so the method cannot be used for materials older than about 70,000 years. Radiometric dating involves the use of isotope series, such as rubidium/strontium, thorium/lead, potassium/argon, argon/argon, or uranium/lead, all of which have very long half-lives, ranging from 0.7 to 48.6 billion years. Subtle differences in the relative proportions of the two isotopes can give good dates for rocks of any age. Scientists can check their accuracy by using different isotopes.The first radiometric dates, generated about 1920, showed that the Earth was hundreds of millions, or billions, of years old. Since then, geologists have made many tens of thousands of radiometric age determinations, and they have refined the earlier estimates. A key point is that it is no longer necessary simply to accept one chemical determination of a rock’s age. Age estimates can be cross-tested by using different isotope pairs. Results from different techniques, often measured in rival labs, continually confirm each other. There is only a 1% chance of error with current dating technology.Every few years, new geologic time scales are published, providing the latest dates for major time lines. Older dates may change by a few million years up and down, but younger dates are stable. For example, it has been known since the 1960s that the famous Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, the line marking the end of the dinosaurs, was 65 million years old. Repeated recalibrations and retests, using ever more sophisticated techniques and equipment, cannot shift that date. It is accurate to within a few thousand years. With modern, extremely precise, methods, error bars are often only 1% or so. Conclusion: The strict rules of the scientific method ensure the accuracy of fossil dating.Conclusion The fossil record is fundamental to an understanding of evolution. Fossils document the order of appearance of groups and they tell us about some of the amazing plants and animals that died out long ago. Fossils can also show us how major crises, such as mass extinctions, happened, and how life recovered after them. If the fossils, or the dating of the fossils, could be shown to be inaccurate, all such information would have to be rejected as unsafe. Geologists and paleontologists are highly self-critical, and they have worried for decades about these issues. Repeated, and tough, regimes of testing have confirmed the broad accuracy of the fossils and their dating, so we can read the history of life from the rocks with confidence. © 2001, American Institute of Biological Sciences. Educators have permission to reprint articles for classroom use; other users, please contact editor@actionbioscience.org for reprint permission. See reprint policy. Michael Benton, Ph.D., is a vertebrate paleontologist with particular interests in dinosaur origins and fossil history. Currently, he is studying certain basal dinosaurs from the Late Triassic and the quality of different segments of the fossil record. He holds the Chair in Vertebrate Paleontology at the University of Bristol, UK, in addition to chairing the Masters program in paleobiology at the university. He has written some 30 books on dinosaurs and paleobiology, ranging from professional tomes to popular kids’ books. http://www.gly.bris.ac.uk/www/admin/personnel/MJB.html Here is a cut and paste to contradict the OP if anyone cares to read it. Cheers. a whole lot of rambling....but not one example.....please take notes dragoness....mine had samples of dead seals carbon dated saying they were much older then the 50 years old they were.....Mine full of exmaples....yours full of crap sorry try again It's people like you that make me not believe in god, because all "his" people are so damn pushy and ignorant. If you're going to heaven, I will gladly go to hell with Mark Twain, Darwin, Freud, Hunter S. Thompson and Jerry Fallwell. |
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Because of the earth’s declining magnetic field, more radiation (which forms C14) is allowed into the earth’s atmosphere. Declining magnetic field???? Damn, I wonder why it feels like it is an increasing magnetic field. Sometimes I feel like I weigh a ton. Are you sure the magnetic field is declining and not increasing?     |
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Believing the bible as fact, is your choice. You may want to read some other story books also as they some of them are more interesting and more informative than the bible is. As for proving how old the earth is, the proof is all around you all you have to do is open your eyes or mind whichever you are choosing to keep closed up in that fantasy book of yours and you will see it. The age of this planet is obvious to anyone with eyes. My opinion of course. Absolutely. To beleive the nonsense that Deb posts about science a person would need to believe that all of astrophysics is wrong, all of quantum phsyics is wrong. They'd also have to believe their the comptuers they are typing into don't really exist. They'd have to believe their cell phones don't work. They'd have to believe that there's no such thing as a nuclear power generator. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were myths. That's a nice thought I suppose. Unfortunely it's not a myth. But a lot of people fall for this kind of nonsense because it lends credence to their fairytales.  May everyone be blessed. I still think it's a disgrace to lie in the name of religion though. Just doesn't seem like a worthwhile thing to do. But that's just my point of view. To each their own. Well abra.... here we go again.....stick to the OP dude....and give me proof........I want proof....thats it........ astrophysics,quantum phsyics, we will get to that don't fret.......Right now I want answers to the OP if you don't know it....then just bow out graciously. |
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Because of the earth’s declining magnetic field, more radiation (which forms C14) is allowed into the earth’s atmosphere. Declining magnetic field???? Damn, I wonder why it feels like it is an increasing magnetic field. Sometimes I feel like I weigh a ton. Are you sure the magnetic field is declining and not increasing? It's definitely weakened over the past 150 years. There was a documentary on Discovery not too long ago about the subject. They believe that in 100 to 200 years, the magnetic field will be so weak that it will result a large increase of cancer deaths, but the "good news" is that the majority of the world will have aurora borealis. |
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It's a shame
 That the ones who have benefited the most from the Generations that Used The Bible as as Text-book, have to resort to name-calling, ridiculing and being down-right hateful to someone who trys to be helpful 
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Wouldee, no offense but have you gone off the deep end? Do you have a drinking problem? Your posts seem rather ... I cant' really find a word to describe them. Coo coo?
JB |
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I speak the truth.
I have studied. no one can debunk wjhat I am saying. any body can open the authoritative scientfic documentation and see all of the "ifs". so let's get to the real deal. the game is to remove morality from the public discourse. it is a fascist scheme to control the children and sequester their minds into accepting your abuse and child endangerment just because you wna t a license to exercise the privilege of depravity without any legal and moral compunction of any. Revisionist lies and blatant deceit. what a parade of excuses by whiners wanting to have their depravity back. miss being a sneaky littl snot nosed brat that hid your foolishnss from mommy? sure you do. I am done mincing words. That is what is at the heart of all of this push pull in these threads. it is not about brotherly love at all. it is about depravity and debauchery and exploring Sodom and Gomorrah for yourselves. openly and freely. It is about turning out newbies. Taboo? Taboo? good manners left behind the door to call it taboo? why is that? seeking after strange gods is not the delight. worshipping god as you see fit in your own eyes is not the delight. saving humanity from the cruel and unusual torment foisted upon you by hypocritical christians is not your delight. depravity is your delight. immorality is your delight. irresponsibly stepping over your neighbor lest he nmight just get a little bit more tan you is your delight. stealing is your delight. coveting that which is not your due portion in this life is your delight. deflectinmg your won laziness onto the diligent for not understanding your poor pitiful bondage to rules and behavior and duty and accountability for everything you do is your delight. running from the pain in your hearts for having defrauded your neighbor and having betrayed anyone secretly to advantage yourself is your delight. mince words indeed. science indeed. arguing aboiut truth, indeed. erguing about your inalienable rights, indeed. suck it up. You have a duty to mankind to be upright. Tell the truth. Just tell the truth. make it plain. tell the truth until it costs that which which you desire. tell the truth and watch that next opportunity be given to one more upright than yourself. mince words indeed. you are all so pathetic that you can parade around acting like no one knows what goes on in your clever little private hearts and swims around in your decietfully selfish minds all day long. please. get real. mince words indeed. tell the truth. People have been lying so long and so profusely it will take you years, if ever before your graves call you to get your lives in order and see the true blessings of God on the upright of heart. mince words indeed. You are so far from knowing what truth is that you don't even dare attempt it but for a sensitivwe minute when your crying hearts scream in their bereft and lonely cavernous emptiness for something, anything, just a morsel, just a little tiny piece of light that can be called anything other than the vast wasteland of depraVITY SO TWISTING AND TORMWENTING YOUR LIFE. mince words indeed. cloaking evolution in science. claiming the high ground to discredit the truth, using lies and deceit to captivsate the attention and imagination of the wicked with their hands on the levers of power and wealth to bring about universal depravity in the name of goods science and the pursuit of truth. \ that may well have benn part and [parcel to some that endeavored to prove or disprove the theory but it is not the course that the discipline acted itself on to discover in truth. It acted itself out to hide the truth and disguise the truth in innuendo and hypetheticals and estimates and probabilities and the mantrsa of denying the blood of Jesus and the mantra of removing all semblance of morality from the community of man became the lover. the adultery committed with lies, betrays truth. mince words indeed. there is no proof that anything But God saovereignly manifesting man in the eath into a prepared garden at nothing more than God's spoken word has accomplished to provide your liberties and insolence. Don't tell me about truth. I fought for it to be in me. I paid the price for it too many times to not recognize it when I see it. I have been plundered because the truth is far more valuable to me than self service. I am not fooled and none of you can stand up and face these words in good conscience that spout this adherence to these foolish conjectures parading as fact. there is no truth in this charade about evolution and myths and legends in the hearts and minds of ignorant and backwwards simpletons too dense to comprehend anything intelligent. I know genius. it is not in this conjecture. It is in creation. It is in living in truth. It is about what happens to the ones that will sacrifice all and sacrifice nothing because anything less than truth is a lie. so dance kiddies, but pay the fiddler you shall. but let's not mince words. dance..... go ahead and dance.....  |
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My suspicians have been confirmed. He's lost his freakin mind. 
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Okay back to the subject of carbon dating... lets get serious now. (clears throat)
I have a question about carbon dating. Is it anything like double dating? Is it a test to see who should date who? Can I be carbon dated? Will people find out how old I really am? Just sayin.... |
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Wouldee, no offense here but ALL religions have to say that the purpose of "disproving" their rhetoric is "evil", otherwise they could not continue to "convert". So that is not accurate for logical minds to absorb.
If a religion does not teach "they are the true and only way to the truth" then they cannot brainwash those who listen, right? |
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Can I be carbon dated? Will people find out how old I really am? JB I don't know there girlie. Judging by your photo if you want what Wouldee's drinking I'm afraid I'm going to need to ask you for some identification.
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