Physics and Archaeology

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Posted by michael on Friday October 19, 2001 @04:35AM from the captain-caveman dept.

Guinnessy writes: "In 1960 Willard Frank Libby won a Nobel Prize for his work on radiocarbon dating, a technique that truly revolutionize archaeology. Now Physics Today magazine has an article describing how new methods are yielding more accurate dates for our prehistoric ancestors, profoundly affecting our understanding of the past. Neat stuff."

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Will more accurate carbon dating... by BluePenguin · 2001-10-19 04:44 · Score: 2, Funny

be useful in determining exactly when "Quirky Engeneers" went the way of the dinasour? ;)

--
If I can't see it in Lynx I'm not interested.
more accurate... by M-G · 2001-10-19 04:46 · Score: 5, Funny

Boy, if we have more accurate techniques, the Scientific Creationism community is going to have to come up with new excuses to explain away why things test older than they claim the Earth to be...
1. Re:more accurate... by Beowulfto · 2001-10-19 05:01 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  You want to know why they test older? It is because the world was created mature. The trees already had fruit on them, the animals were full-grown, not babies. In the same manner, oil and coal were in the ground. Even dinosaur bones existed at the creation of the world. Since the world was already mature, the rocks and everything that exists already had a history. So while a skull tests as 25,000 years old, it had just been made. Try to wrap your mind around that concept. It amazes me how many people can't fathom this idea.
  This concept is an idea of my own concoction and doesn't represent anyone else.
  
  --
  There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes. -- Dr. Who
2. Re:more accurate... by Teancom · 2001-10-19 05:11 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  While another response to your post asks us to believe that God *wants* us to be confused, by "planting" bones in the earth, I think that is fairly, um, dumb :-) However, there are really two seperate issues.
  
  1) You have so-called "Creationists" who not only don't understand how the world was created, but don't *want* to understand. "That is one of God's Mysterys and not in the realm of man". BS. Pure and utter BS. As has been said before, if God gave us curiosity, then he meant for us to use it. These people won't be swayed by *any* proof you show them.
  
  2) Scientific Creationists, of which I am one, believe that God is bound be the same laws of physics that we are. However, his level of technology is much, much, much, greater than ours. That presents us with the same difficulty of your stereotypical caveman trying to understand how a microwave works. We can say "this happened, and we're trying really hard to understand how, but some of this is just going to be over our heads". That isn't willing ignorance, that's humility. In other words, just because scientists a 1000 years ago didn't understand basic principles of flight, doesn't mean birds were violating the Laws of Nature.
  
  Now, as to the subject at hand, accurate dating of rocks. Very few Scientific Creationists (intelligent ones, that is) claim that God waved his hand and the earth sprang in being. Matter (energy) can neither be created nor destroyed. So, when creating the Earth, God used existing materials. Whether they came from this solar system or outside of it, doesn't really matter. It does mean that the rocks can be older than the Earth is. The common example used is "if you use 100 year old bricks to make a new house, is the house new, or 100 years old?"
  
  Anyways, I gotta go to lunch, but I'll follow up later.
3. Re:more accurate... by foistboinder · 2001-10-19 05:25 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You want to know why they test older? It is because the world was created mature. The trees already had fruit on them, the animals were full-grown, not babies. In the same manner, oil and coal were in the ground
  
  It would be just as valid to claim the "world was created mature" five minutes ago, with our past memories already in place.
  
  --
  Yet Another Web Site
4. Re:more accurate... by Sebastopol · 2001-10-19 05:27 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  destroyed. So, when creating the Earth, God used existing materials.
  
  So who made god?
  
  And if you can accept the fact that he/she always existed, why can't you accept the fact that the universe always existed without him/her?
  
  --
  https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
5. Re:more accurate... by Heph_Smith · 2001-10-19 05:28 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  And I can say the world/universe was created the day I was conceived or born.
  
  More importantly, if you want to argue that the world was created with a perfect history, then it is exactly the same thing as if the world developed over time. If the point of what you said is to defend creationism, then don?t limit yourself to just thinking on such a limited scale of fruits and babies. Consider the fact that if you could know the state of every atom, with its rotation, and basically every piece of energy/non-energy then you can predict the future. Given that, if we assume our big bang theory is correct, if some omnipotent force was able create things as it wanted without limitations, then it could have set the ball in motion for the universe and ultimately us (that includes what we are thinking right now), to be exactly like it wanted from the point of initial expansion. In an isolated system, it would be impossible for the future to deviate, what so ever. This includes setting the constants of the universe so that it allows us the ability to investigate the world around us without limits. And since this omnipotent force was able to foresee the future from the point of initial expansion of the universe, then it falls in quite nicely with the thought that this force still interacts with us today, while it may be just an outcome of the initial conditions.
  
  IMHO, this is the best way for a religion to still claim that their god created the world and universe. While we may figure out that the earth is not the center of the universe like originally defended, I seriously doubt science will be able to disprove an event that occurred before the universe was created. But to explain the fact that our thoughts are just a product of the initial conditions of the universe, would annoy people to say the least, if they really understood it of course.
  
  You seem to hold the idea that something could create the earth (and I assume the universe) in detail, in an instant, yet has a linier existence. Why create something to look 25,000 years old when you can just let unfold in front of you exactly as you want it in the same instant.
6. Re:more accurate... by Dolly_Llama · 2001-10-19 05:29 · Score: 2
  
  God is bound be the same laws of physics that we are.
  Shall I bother introducing you to the contradiction of an omnipotent God being bound by anything? "What does God need with a starship?"
  I think you're just an agnostic who's still in the closet.
  
  --
  Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
7. Re:more accurate... by oddjob · 2001-10-19 05:35 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I sure hope you're a troll, but in case you're not, I feel compelled to point out that your arguments are absurd from a scientific and relegious standpoint.
  
  First the scientific...
  You suggest that the earth may be younger than the rocks that it is made of. Plate techtonics implies quite the opposite. Any rocks you find on the surface were probably part of the molten mess under the earth's crust at one point. It is possible, I suppose, that some of the earliest pieces of the earths crust may still be around. There could even be a few pieces of material from space that are older than the earth lying around, but most of the material in question has been melted in the earth's furnace before. So you're argument for a younger earth isn't very convincing.
  
  Now for the religious absurdity...
  You say you believe that God is bound by the same laws of physics that we are. I don't know of any religion that would agree. If God is bound by the laws of physics, there go all your miracles. Also, when religions claim that God created the universe, they usually claim that the laws of physics are part of that creation, not a set of rules that God had to follow.
8. Re:more accurate... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 05:35 · Score: 0
  
  Teancom, take a look at the idea in this post that expands on the idea of creationism without things just ploping down the way they are:
  
  http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=22789&cid=24 52 216
9. Re:more accurate... by M-G · 2001-10-19 05:36 · Score: 2
  
  Well, you're using a slightly different definition of Scientific Creationism. I'm speaking of those who come up with "scientific" evidence to "prove" that the literal creation stories are true. They sound convincing, but don't hold any water when held to the light of science.
  
  See the Talk Origins web site....
10. Re:more accurate... by GeekBoy · 2001-10-19 05:55 · Score: 1
  
  >You say you believe that God is bound by the same laws of physics that we are. I don't know of any religion that would agree.
  
  OK. Here's one: Mormonism. While many mormons may not agree, there are many that would. As for the official doctrines of the church they do not say one way or another, but do invite the possiblity in various ways.
11. Re:more accurate... by bpowell423 · 2001-10-19 06:10 · Score: 1
  
  If I understand Mormonism correctly, you are right. I think that they believe that they will each go on to become "gods" of their own worlds (universes?) some day.
12. Re:more accurate... by Teancom · 2001-10-19 06:26 · Score: 2
  
  A circular argument, how nice :-) If you can accept the fact that the universe always existed, does that somehow disprove that there was always a God as well? I could just as easily say that it *proves* the existence of God, as there would otherwise be no "regulating" force (see Chaos Theory). But until other proof is found, both statements are bunk :-)
13. Re:more accurate... by |_uke · 2001-10-19 06:31 · Score: 1
  
  So you're argument for a younger earth isn't very convincing.
  
  Although I think the original poster was a little off... the fact is, earth IS made up of material that is a lot older than earth it self. Matter does not just create it self... it comes from somewhere. Of course, I do not think there would be any way of actually dating say.. magma. (What a hot date that would be... hehehehehe)
  
  If God is bound by the laws of physics, there go all your miracles.
  
  Bzzzzt! Wrong. You must consider the fact that technology beond your time is indistinguishable from magic or in this case, miracles. Show a caveman a lighter, and you will be treated as god.
  
  --
  Luke
14. Re:more accurate... by GeekBoy · 2001-10-19 06:31 · Score: 1
  
  That's correct. More correctly should we say: "They believe that they will go on to become *like* god one day," being that his purpose for mankind is for them to become like him one day. It sounds very blasphemous from a modern western christian point of view. However, it makes perfect sense if you understand the mormon mindset and cosmology.
15. Re:more accurate... by Teancom · 2001-10-19 06:34 · Score: 2
  
  No closet here :-) One *glaring* inconsistency in "traditional" Christian belief is that Christ died for our sins, fulfilling the law of Justice (there must be reward for every action, whether good or bad (see: action/reaction on a spiritual level)). If God is omnipotent such that He can disregard all Laws, spiritual or physical, then why have His only begotten Son die? Why couldn't he wave his hand and make Justice disappear?
  
  One of the *major* problems with discussing religion and science with anybody, is that just saying "I'm a Christian" doesn't come nearly close to defining what I believe. Hence, quite a few responses to my post (including yours) are based on presumptions of beliefs that I don't hold. Unfortunetly, I don't have anyway of dumping my brain into yours so that you know where I'm coming from :-(
  
  Maybe we should both but our hands in a box of crytals and think really hard *grin*.
16. Re:more accurate... by NixterAg · 2001-10-19 06:39 · Score: 1
  
  Just because something was a "miracle" doesn't mean it was completely impossible. The archaeological and scientific community has made the false assumption for years that if an event can be proven in the context that it can possibly happen then it wasn't of God. This assumes somehow that an omnipotent God is limited by not being able to use physical means to accomplish his will, which therefore, renders him as not being omnipotent. This is the tenet upon which evolution is built. We know that the chances of life springing forth from nothing are, more or less, 0.
  However, we say that if there are billions and billions of stars and even more planets and an infinite number of universes, it becomes increasingly likely that somewhere the environment would be correct for life to exist, and, we must be that somewhere since life exists here on Earth.
  As a Christian and someone who is interested in science, I believe that God normally does use the physical laws (which are of his creation) to bring about many of the miracles that are documented in the Bible. For example, why couldn't God have used wind to part the waters, or why couldn't God have used a meteorite to destroy Sodom and Gamorrah? Those events occurring are highly unlikely but not completely unlikely. Does that mean God wasn't the utilizing nature as his instrument? Not at all. God does transcend physical law and can do whatever he pleases but that doesn't mean that he doesn't choose to abide by them.
17. Re:more accurate... by Teancom · 2001-10-19 06:40 · Score: 2
  
  *ding ding ding* You caught me, I'm mormon :-) I really, really, should have prefaced my previous post with "This is *not* doctrine as canonified by the LDS Church", but I didn't think enough people would know about us to make a difference. Obviously I'm wrong ;-)
  
  To expand a little bit on what GeekBoy said, yes, we believe the ultimate purpose of existence is to create (hence the large families ;-). And, as God is our Father in Heaven, just like fathers here on earth, He wants us to someday be *like* Him. Don't you want *your* kids to progress, grow up, and lead productive lives? That doesn't mean that your kids *replace* you. You'll always be their father. In a similar manner, He wants us to grow up.
  
  Btw, what I just said *is*, afaik, official LDS doctrine, however, if it isn't, then it's *my* fault, and not the church's.
  
  This is drifting off topic, oh well......
18. Re:more accurate... by GogglesPisano · 2001-10-19 06:42 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  "Insightful"??? Mod this DOWN!
  
  >Anyways, I gotta go to lunch, but I'll follow up later.
  
  I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of Creationism, which this margin is too small to contain.
19. Re:more accurate... by bpowell423 · 2001-10-19 06:52 · Score: 1
  
  God is just. God cannot be un-just, just like me, being white, cannot be un-white (unless I go play in the mud, but that's not the same, is it). God created mankind with a freewill, because he wants us to choose him, not to simply be hardwired so. Freewill gives the possibility that we will choose to not do the right thing, thus evil is a possibility. The penalty of breaking any law of God is death. Nothing quite so nice a black-and-white choices, is there? However, there can be a substitution for your death. Beginning in the garden of Eden, God killed a animal and brought the skin to Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness. The sacrificial system of ancient Israel was set up to cover the people's sins. The Judaic laws were to show that people could not on their own be "good enough", thus needing a sacrifice in place of their own death. This, of course, was all done to show that mankind needed something more. God came to earth in physical form, and offered himself as the very sacrifice required. Remember, this sacrifice isn't required just because God made some rule that says so. The sacrifice is required because God is who he is. In fact, that is the very first way that God describes himself to Moses when asking Moses to go talk to the Pharoh of Egypt. God says to tell the Israelites, "I am who I am". God is just, so justice is required. Christ dying for our sins isn't a glaring inconsistency, it is the ultimate of consistency. God can't just wave his hand and make justice disappear. Justice is part-and-parcel of who God is.
20. Re:more accurate... by Dolly_Llama · 2001-10-19 06:59 · Score: 2
  
  If God is omnipotent such that He can disregard all Laws, spiritual or physical, then why have His only begotten Son die? Why couldn't he wave his hand and make Justice disappear?
  If you're wondering why he did it, I'd encourage you to reread Job, or to vastly summarize: Who the fuck are you to question why god does anything. He's god.
  If you're saying why did he have to, then you're stuck in a contradiction. If he _HAD_ to do anything, he is no longer omnipotent, and thus you have to rethink your definition of god being omnipotent.
  One of the *major* problems with discussing religion and science with anybody, is that just saying "I'm a Christian" doesn't come nearly close to defining what I believe.
  Agreed. Just because you're catholic don't mean you think just like the pope, or just cause you're an asshole doesn't mean you think like Jerry Falwell. I'm not trying to attack what you believe. If it makes you happy, knock yourself out. I just found some interesting contradictions in your post and I thought I'd bring them to your attention. One of the interesting ones is the idea of a "Scientific Creationist." You may or may not be one, but the idea by itself is a contradiction. There is no science behind creationism. You could say that S.C.ism is an attempt to describe creationism scientifically, but if you've reached a conclusion (Creationism), then try to work backward with evidence supporting it, you're not working with the scientific method, and any "evidence" you may have is skewed by your bias.
  You are granted a _hypothesis_ to work from, but only open mindedly that your evidence may prove or disprove your hypothesis. But if you've concluded that you believe the Creation myth by faith, you've checked your intellectual honesty at the door of these creation related scientific discussions.
  
  --
  Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
21. Re:more accurate... by dR.fuZZo · 2001-10-19 06:59 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  We can say "this happened, and we're trying really hard to understand how, but some of this is just going to be over our heads". That isn't willing ignorance, that's humility.
  
  Well, if you're honestly trying to understand evidence (scientific evidence, that is) that's being presented to you, that's one thing, but I know a lot of people that are willingly ignorant.
  
  Anyway, it's well and good to say at times "I don't understand this." It's quite another to start bringing "God" into the debate because "there's no other possible explanation."
  
  What I really don't get is why so many religious folks can't see that their "holy scripture" has no more solid evidence for it being The Truth than the tales of Zeus and Thor that they just naturally assume are just silly old stories. If it's so easy to pass off Zeus turning into a bull as just a story, why is it so hard to accept Jesus walking on water as just a story? Could it be the social context of the believer....? Hmmmm?
  
  --
  -- dR.fuZZo
22. Re:more accurate... by sv0f · 2001-10-19 07:01 · Score: 2
  
  I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of Creationism, which this margin is too small to contain.
  
  Does this mean that in several hundred years, a descendenat of Andrew Wiles will prove Creationism true?
23. Re:more accurate... by Teancom · 2001-10-19 07:05 · Score: 2
  
  One of the beliefs that I hold is that All Truths are Consistent. In other words, I will not, nor have I ever, used the scriptures in an attempt to "disprove" evolution. It presupposes that the Bible, in the thousands of years it has been around, has never been mis-transcribed or mis-translated, whether on purpose or accident. Now *that* would be a miracle :-) No, evolution has enough holes on it's own, according to it's own science, that I can use *that* to discount evolution as a plausible model for creation. However, this is one point where honest people on both sides can disagree, so I don't see the point in rehashing old arguments :-)
24. Re:more accurate... by Teancom · 2001-10-19 07:10 · Score: 2
  
  Thank you for making my point :-) That's *exactly* what I was trying to say, but I think it got lost in the translation. I was attacking those that say "God is omnipotent and thus *nothing* is beyond Him, and Jesus died for our sins because the Law of Justice needs fulfillment". It's one or the other :-) Omnipotent is YAWTNC (Yet Another Word That Needs Clarification) before being used in conversation...
25. Re:more accurate... by efuseekay · 2001-10-19 07:20 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You sound like somebody who really wants rigority and logic in formulating your worldview, but would not take the final step of embracing the scientific method.
  
  Because, according to the scientific method, the jury is still out about the existence of a creator/first cause.
  
  I just learned recently that this form of philosophy makes you a "gnostic theist". Nothing wrong with that, of course.
  
  --
  Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
26. Re:more accurate... by Teancom · 2001-10-19 07:20 · Score: 2
  
  Dolly, what I was trying to tip-toe around saying for fear of offending the fundies, is that God isn't omnipotent in the traditional sense of the word. He *can't* just wave His hand and make justice disappear. He *can't* just say "Okay, I think I want a planet here, *poof*". See, this is what I was talking about wrt assuming what someone else believe :-)
  
  As for the "Scientific Creationist" part of your post, might I point something out? You are assuming there is no science behind creationism (in fact, you said so). What I believe, and what I really, truly *wish* the other "scientific creationists" believed, is that if we knew for a fact *how* the earth was created, it would not be a case of "God did it", but would instead be "He took material from here, shaped it using these techniques, placed it in orbit around Sol, then used this and...." Do you see what I mean? It's incredibly tough to get across to some people, but not everybody who believes in God believes the same way *grin* Now *that's* a shock.....
27. Re:more accurate... by Ween · 2001-10-19 07:22 · Score: 1
  
  One *glaring* inconsistency in "traditional" Christian belief is that Christ died for our sins, fulfilling the law of Justice (there must be reward for every action, whether good or bad (see: action/reaction on a spiritual level)). If God is omnipotent such that He can disregard all Laws, spiritual or physical, then why have His only begotten Son die? Why couldn't he wave his hand and make Justice disappear?
  
  God requires a blood sacrifice for our iniquities. He sent Jesus to pay that price for his chosen people. Since that price is paid, he can no longer extract it from us. This is the glory of Jesus.
  
  God is bound by no law, but he is faithful to his promises. This is often a confusion of people.
  
  --
  
  Tis better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt --Abraham Lincoln
28. Re:more accurate... by paul7e · 2001-10-19 07:35 · Score: 1
  
  Just for fun, replace the word "God" in the above post with "Odin", and "Jesus" with "Thor".
  
  Or perhaps a more apt substitution would be "Ra" and "Osiris"?
  
  Or maybe "Frank Sinatra" and "Elvis" - you make the call...
  
  --
  Silly Rabbit, sigs are for kids.
29. Re:more accurate... by Sebastopol · 2001-10-19 07:39 · Score: 2
  
  A circular argument, how nice ... If you can accept the fact that the universe always existed
  
  ...you only read half of my statement: i said "[existed forever without god]". i didn't make the connection conditional. and i didn't mention proof, in fact i wasn't even discussing proof. i was focusing on capacity to imagine different scenarios. it's that final leap that always interests me: the godless universe versus the godded universe. i try to get people to explain what it is that makes them choose one over the other.
  
  But until other proof is found, both statements are bunk :-)
  
  i may have misunderstood your first post, are scientific creationists agnostic?
  
  a friend of mine believes that Ra might actually exist, pulling the sun across the sky, but our current scientific methods don't allow us to "prove" his presence.
  
  And what does Chaos Theory have to do with this? There are plenty of arguments that can be made without invoking pop-physics.
  
  --
  https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
30. Re:more accurate... by tshak · 2001-10-19 07:40 · Score: 2
  
  Jesus didn't have to die for our sins. It was an example for us - God was showing that even though he could wave his hand (a very supernatural concept), he decided to communicate with us on a human level - with the greatest value in humanity being life.
  
  --
  
  There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
31. Re:more accurate... by Johnny5000 · 2001-10-19 07:43 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  "Even dinosaur bones existed at the creation of the world. "
  
  For a religion with salvation being based on faith in God, I'd be pissed off that God spends all this time and effort trying to fool us into thinking he doesn't exist by doing stuff like planting dinosaur bones in the ground to test our faith.
  
  I'm not too jazzed about burning in hell for all eternity because I was created with a predisposition for doubting what I dont have proof of to begin with, then this dinosaur bone stuff to confuse us even more.
  
  Maybe if God came down from heaven and said "Here I am, believe in Me now." and I *still* didnt believe, that I could understand He wouldnt be happy about. But all this crap about trying to make it look like he doesnt exist then we're punished for all eternity because we believe he doesnt, that's way out-of-line.
  
  -J5K
  
  p.s.- Here's a theological question that's been bothering me for a while, anyone with an answer feel free to chime in.
  
  If Jesus died for our sins and no one believed, would it have been in vain? Would no one be saved after that? Would everyone still be saved? Would it require a second blood-sacrifice, or a third, etc, until people believed?
  
  --
  The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
32. Re:more accurate... by Teancom · 2001-10-19 07:46 · Score: 2
  
  "but I know a lot of people that are willingly ignorant".
  
  Man, you have no idea how much that pisses me off. God gave you a brain, use it!! Don't tiptoe around ideas, just because they challenge your faith. Either it's true, or it's not. If it is true, then someone coming up with a different theory isn't going to somehow reverse it. People who refuse to learn or read strike me as being fundamentally unfaithful. I.e., their faith is so small, they cannot stand to have it challenged. Deliberate ignorance is maddening.
  
  Oh, look, that's a soapbox I'm standing on :-) I better get down before someone gets hurt....
  
  Please note this rant isn't aimed at you (dR.fuZZo), but at those supposedly "religous" fundies that... Ahh, I was just going to go off on another rant. I better end this post here :-)
33. Re:more accurate... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 07:46 · Score: 0
  
  Actually, we have no idea what the past was like.
  Science can neither prove nor disprove what any persom may believe about the past.
  Scientists assume that things that are currently "constant" have been that way forever... but that's rather an arrogant assumption. Excess cosmic ray bombardment, for example, can throw off C14 dating.
  We do not have concrete evidence that things have always been this way (speed of light, levels of radiation, etc.)
  
  Science's conclusions about the distant (>100-3000 years) past are as firm as our definitive scientific knowledge of the past - i.e., not very. There isn't a measurement of the Earth's average UV exposure during 1000 AD, for (a rather silly) example.
  The scientific method is only useful when results can be duplicated (scientifically verified).
  We cannot duplicate the conditions of the past - so we have no way to state that anything is absolutely, positively "x" years old.
  
  Of course, this is the only way science can try to discover things - moving forward with what scientific data is known - but it still seems to me that these assumptions need to be stated from time to time.
34. Re:more accurate... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 08:04 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  In the case of 14C, our understanding of production rates over time is actually remarkably good given the dendrochronologic record (tree-rings). Also, for other radiometric systems, such as 40Ar/39Ar and U-Pb, there is little discrepancy in ages from the same sample (taking into account technical details such as closure temperatures, etc.). At any rate, my point is that our geochronologic techniques are (a) ground in robust and simple theoretical physics and (b) much more often than not yield self-consistent results. But like you say, unless we get a time machine, we'll never know for sure. But that's kind of a moot point.
35. Re:more accurate... by mskfisher · 2001-10-19 08:14 · Score: 1
  
  It would have been in vain as far as the people that didn't believe - but when Jesus went to Hell to reclaim the keys to the grave, He told those in captivity there about His sacrifice (all those from before His time). Those people had the choice to believe or not, as well.
  His was the ultimate, perfect sacrifice - the last sacrifice. A guiltless man paid the price for guilty mankind (think division by zero :) ).
  No more blood sacrifice is ever required again, so no, a second or a third would not ever happen.
  Jesus' sacrifice was it. Finished.
  
  --
  0x0D 0x0A
36. Re:more accurate... by Teancom · 2001-10-19 08:20 · Score: 2
  
  Sorry, that was a poor attempt to reply, I will try and do better this time (I got sufficently chewed out off-line by "Croft na" that you don't have to :-)
  
  I can imagine both scenarios. As an avid reader/watcher of sci-fi, I can imagine *many* different scenarios ;-) I *believe* the "godded" universe is true. This belief is based on a mixture of "blind" faith, personal experience, and various interpretations of science.
  
  Re: both statements are bunk. I meant that without further proof, neither statement can have any meaning beyond interesting conjecture. "bunk" was the wrong word. So no, I'm not agnostic, it just came out that way.
  
  And Chaos Theory has nothing to do with it. My statement was based on an erroneous interpetation of the second law of thermodynamics, which, based on a link from someone else that responded, has been cleared up. If you're interested, check out: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo/probability .html.
  See, I have a very open mind about this, and am always willing to learn something new. And, as I'm only human, sometimes I say something wrong ;-) Feel free to correct me if it ever happens again.....
37. Re:more accurate... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 08:24 · Score: 0
  
  I often like thinking of the supernatural interacting with the natural in much the same way frequency-domain (s-domain) interacts with time-domain. A finite-space change in one causes effect ripples in the other out to infinity.
  God's miracles may have been building from the beginning of time...
  
  Just my fun way of trying to visualize it. :)
38. Re:more accurate... by 3am · 2001-10-19 08:26 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  why are you on slashdot?
  
  go handle rattlesnakes and speak in tongues you medieval throwback...
  
  try to wrap your mind around that.
  
  --
  
  A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
39. Re:more accurate... by 3am · 2001-10-19 08:40 · Score: 1
  
  or, if you are completely objective, god does not exist at all.
  
  your may not be as objective as you want to believe...
  
  --
  
  A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
40. Re:more accurate... by ek_adam · 2001-10-19 08:44 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I like the sentiments expressed in The Word of God by Cat Faber. Here's the first verse.
  
  Lyrics and melody © 1994 by Catherine Faber
  From desert cliff and mountaintop we trace the wide design,
  Strike-slip fault and overthrust and syn and anticline. . .
  We gaze upon creation where erosion makes it known,
  And count the countless aeons in the banding of the stone.
  Odd, long-vanished creatures and their tracks & shells are found;
  Where truth has left its sketches on the slate below the ground.
  The patient stone can speak, if we but listen when it talks.
  Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the rocks.
41. Re:more accurate... by 3am · 2001-10-19 09:01 · Score: 1
  
  god is a three letter word that represents a fantasy created by an advanced hominid culture that arose about 5 billion years after the 3rd planet from the sun coalesced from matter in this star's planetary disk.
  
  this is often a confusion of people, too.
  
  --
  
  A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
42. Re:more accurate... by dragons_flight · 2001-10-19 09:59 · Score: 2
  
  Teancom, you are an interesting creature. I've known some Mormons (good people, nice food), but perhaps I've never known them closely enough to encounter this belief scheme before. For my part, I am theist, non-Christian, for what it's worth.
  
  There are still large numbers of people that believe in an out of nothing creation. Likewise there are significant numbers that believe that God established the universe and physical laws so it would all evolve just how He wanted from the big bang forward. This is however the first time I've heard a westerner profess that there are physical things and physical laws outside of God that God is not responsible for and can not change. (For the record this belief has been a part of some Hindu philosophies for millenia. No, I'm not Hindu.)
  
  The real question then is what is God's place in the universe? If He is entirely bound by the known physical laws then you run into the problem of how does God interact with universe? If God has no physical presence, then he can not interact with physical objects while obeying physical laws. This is a form of the no causal break argument, if all events in the universe can be explained entirely on the basis of physical laws then there is no evidence for supposing the existence of a God existing outside the bounds of the universe. Of course, most people say God makes miracles by shoving physical laws aside and accomplishing what He wishes, but that would invalidate your position it would seem.
  
  On the other hand you might argue that God interacts with the physical world solely by possessing physical form. Perhaps by being born into a mortal body or some other means, and then using that physical form to accomplish his will in a way that strictly adheres to physical law. Of course, I think most people (though perhaps not Mormons) would be very uncomfortable with the idea that every act of God could be replicated by man possessing the right knowledge and technology. Besides this just transfers the no causal break problem unto the issue of establishing the nature and existence of God's or any other soul. If God does exist in physical form then I would challenge you to point Him out, unless of course you believe He is no longer active in this world.
  
  For my part I am much more comfortable acting on faith that God created physical laws for the benefit of the universe, but that He can push them asunder if need be. If I have misinterpreted your position, I apologize.
43. Re:more accurate... by Dan+D. · 2001-10-19 10:07 · Score: 1
  
  Its probable that any faithful Jews before he came would be saved on the fact that they obeyed all the rules believing in a future messiah. So if no one believed later, you'd at least get the predecesors.
  In any event, assuming God would know in advance who would believe in such an event before he decided to let it happen, then he'd know precisely who he was going to save and be able to decide whether to do it or not.
  But if he doesn't have perfect future knowledge, then the fact that its available ad infinitum means its not really in vain either. Just like a blank check doesn't lack value just because there isn't a number on it.
  Nathan.
  
  --
  People who quote themselves bug the crap out of me -- Me.
44. Re:more accurate... by Boronx · 2001-10-19 11:03 · Score: 0
  
  His was the ultimate, perfect sacrifice - the last sacrifice. A guiltless man paid the price for guilty mankind (think division by zero :) ).
  
  Up till now, Christianity had me confused. Now I'm totally baffled. I'd really love to see an explanation of this.
  
  --
  Play Command HQ online
45. Re:more accurate... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 13:52 · Score: 0
  
  this is the best way for a religion to still claim that their god created the world and universe
  Well, it would be if determinism hadn't been disproven 100 years ago.
46. Re:more accurate... by Boronx · 2001-10-19 13:54 · Score: 0
  
  Bzzzzt! Wrong. You must consider the fact that technology beond your time is indistinguishable from magic or in this case, miracles. Show a caveman a lighter, and you will be treated as god.
  Because some being fools us into thinking its a god, therefore its a god!?!
  If some technology is indistinguishable from magic, that doesn't mean that its magic. BZZT! Think!
  
  --
  Play Command HQ online
47. Re:more accurate... by Boronx · 2001-10-19 14:00 · Score: 0
  
  However, this is one point where honest people on both sides can disagree
  
  If they refuse to open their eyes.
  
  Evolution is a model for the observed variation in life. It is not a model for creation.
  
  --
  Play Command HQ online
48. Re:more accurate... by Boronx · 2001-10-19 14:16 · Score: 0
  
  If you're wondering why he did it, I'd encourage you to reread Job, or to vastly summarize: Who the fuck are you to question why god does anything. He's god.
  
  So says God, but the story itself makes clear at least one reason why God did something: he's a jealous prick.
  
  --
  Play Command HQ online
49. Re:more accurate... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 14:45 · Score: 0
  
  There is no God. Anyone who believes that there is on e is superstitious.
50. Re:more accurate... by Jayson · 2001-10-19 14:49 · Score: 1
  
  I think he means that Jesus lived a sinless, lawful life and was still condemned to die. He lived the perfect life according to God's high standards, even though he was tempted just as much as any of us. His faith so strong and without any doubt that he could perform miraculous actions.
  
  After having lived such a noble life, He was caught by the authorities, accused of crimes He did not commit, then crucified to the death. He accepted this, knowing that this was his role in God's plan. If you were asked to be tortured and killed to help people the same people that were killing you, would you concent?
  
  He gave his his sinless life so that we could be absolved of our sins. Why did he need to die for everybody else's sins; he didn't have any and eveybody else gets to continue living? Does this seem fair to you?
  
  "When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, no one is likely to die for a good person, though someone might be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God's judgment. For since we were restored to friendship with God by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be delivered from eternal punishment by his life. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God - all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God." -- Romans 5:6-11
  
  Oh, maybe you meant "division my zero"... hmmm I don't know about that one.
  
  -j
51. Re:more accurate... by Rubyflame · 2001-10-19 15:09 · Score: 1
  
  with the greatest value in humanity being life.
  
  I think you mean oil. ;)
  
  --
  
  All it takes is nukes and nerves.
52. Re:more accurate... by asincero · 2001-10-19 17:02 · Score: 1
  
  Hmm .. it seems to me that you are redefining what "scientific creationism" is. What's commonly referred to as "scientific creationism" is that pseudo-pseudo-scientific garbage spewed by people like Duane Gish and Henry Morris. Morris even wrote a textbook on "scientific" creationism meant to be used in public schools. And according to him, the basis of the whole "theory" can be found in the book of Genesis in the Bible.
  
  Whether you are a "scientific" creationist in the traditional sense or not, the whole "theory" rests on whether or not God exists. Because you can't prove whether or not he does exist, you can not base any *scientific* theory on him. The term "scientific creationism" is an oxymoron.
  
  - Arcadio
53. Re:more accurate... by asincero · 2001-10-19 17:11 · Score: 1
  
  > This is the tenet upon which evolution is built.
  
  Not biological evolution. Darwin's Natural Selection assumes that life already exists.
  
  - Arcadio
54. Re:more accurate... by Teancom · 2001-10-19 17:42 · Score: 2
  
  I apologize if I don't use the term "scientific creationism" in the traditional sense. However, I would argue for the redefinition of the word to include those who actually don't believe in hand-waving and magical "poofs" that spring the world into being, fossils and all :-)
  
  That out of the way, maybe I can help with the redefinition. Let's remove the word "God" from the picture for the moment. I believe that a being posessing greater technological power than we currently have (not hard to imagine) created this world using methods that we don't fully understand (simply due to lack of knowledge, not because it is some sort of miracle or magic). That this world did not form spontaneously out of asteroid belts and lightning stricks in chemicals. Let us call that assumption A. Based on A, I have several theories on how and when it happened. But to be perfectly honest, those details aren't important for this discussion. Now, is it possible for this theory to be scientific? Or is it doomed for pseudo-scientific just because I cannot *prove* A? And if it is, then how is that different from the scientist who has never seen a black hole, cannot prove that he has even seen the *effects* of black holes, yet continues to believe in black holes and creates models of how the universe works based on those models? In both cases, they are incredibly powerful forces that we cannot observe :-)
  
  Anyways, you probably won't read this (it's no longer the first or second article!) but it was great having this discussion. I am *so* bloody tired of this turning into "Stupid fundies!" "Atheist pig-dogs!" "Yo' Moma!" and so on.....
  
  Cheers.
55. Re:more accurate... by afree87 · 2001-10-20 00:34 · Score: 1
  
  Because some being fools us into thinking its a god, therefore its a god!?!
  
  Well, you've summed up the Bible very nicely! Good job!
56. Re:more accurate... by afree87 · 2001-10-20 00:37 · Score: 1
  
  Slightly off-topic, needs more evidence to support your point, etc...
57. Re:more accurate... by djmcmath · 2001-10-20 01:49 · Score: 1
  
  If it's so easy to pass off Zeus turning into a bull as just a story, why is it so hard to accept Jesus walking on water as just a story? Could it be the social context of the believer....? Hmmmm?
  
  Passing off the miracles of Jesus Christ as mere stories would be a lot easier if the only story we had was the eyewitness accounts of the gospel writers. If that was the only evidence, I'd have to laugh at those silly Christians too. However, the corroborative evidence is really astounding -- there are a vast number of well known secular historians (Josephus the Elder, for example) who mentioned Jesus in passing, and whose history agrees with that of the bible.
  
  There is an excellent book by Josh McDowell entitled "The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict," chock-full of real live facts that support the scriptures. Before you claim the bible as a myth, you really ought to have a look at the evidence.
  
  BTW, moderators, just because someone agrees with your opinion doesn't make them a (5, Insightful).
  
  Dan
58. Re:more accurate... by Dolly_Llama · 2001-10-20 13:52 · Score: 2
  
  Why call that assumption A? Let's just be honest and call Bob what he wants to be called.
  To answer your question though, for something to be "scientific" it needs to be proveable or disproveable based on empirical evidence. Black holes are a theory which explains the associated empirical evidence. Hate to break it to you, but your ideas of an alternate version of the creation of life (as opposed to creation of the universe itself), will probably remain pseudo-science for the predictable future. Don't let me tell you it can't be done though, if you think you're right, try to figure out a way to gather evidence and test your hypothesis!
  
  --
  Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
59. Re:more accurate... by NixterAg · 2001-10-21 15:50 · Score: 1
  
  That's true. I stand corrected (to a certain degree)
  
  ;)
60. Re:more accurate... by Heph_Smith · 2001-10-23 05:07 · Score: 1
  
  Evidence? we are talking theory on religion. what evidence can I quote for that? the bible? I don't think so.
61. Re:more accurate... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-23 13:04 · Score: 0
  
  Oh, maybe you meant "division my zero"... hmmm I don't know about that one.
  Thats what I was wondering about. But now that you explained the other part, I'm confused about that too. How is his death helpful to me, a sinner? I just can't comprehend that. (Truely, I don't understand sin either, so I'd probably have to start there.
Dating Technique by Dead+Penis+Bird · 2001-10-19 04:48 · Score: 1, Funny

From the article:

At 4.1 billion years, the halflife of 40Ar is ideal for dating ancient humans.

OK...if you're into that sort of thing.

I prefer 'em a little younger, though.

--
If I weren't nailed to the penis, I'd be pushing up the daisies!
1. Re:Dating Technique by motherfuckin_spork · 2001-10-19 05:00 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  well, if halflife is good for dating, what about quake and unreal?
  
  --
  Nope, not me, I must be someone else...
2. Re:Dating Technique by redcup · 2001-10-19 05:35 · Score: 2
  
  <40Ar test>
  Question 1:
  How old ARe you? 40? _______
  </40Ar test>
  
  I swear your honor, she said she was 18...
  
  --
  
  RC
3. Re:Dating Technique by Masem · 2001-10-19 05:48 · Score: 1
  
  "Unfrozen caveman lawyer not used to this thing called 'playing hard to get'. Me used club on potential mate, but your strange laws of today don't allow that. Me tried it once and took me 2 years to clear name."
  </joke>
  
  --
  "Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
  "I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Sometimes the oldest methods.... by Rackemup · 2001-10-19 04:54 · Score: 4, Interesting

.... still have modern uses.
Before the radio-carbon dating and the physics of glow curves and AMS testing and all the other modern techniques were available, archaeologists were digging in the dirt looking for "old-stuff" to examine. It's a natural human behaviour, a curiousity to know where we came from.
So what did people use in the old days? Their eyes and their brains. Observations and an understanding of basic anatomy, history and geology are tools that you can take anywhere, don't require an expensive lab, and never need new batteries.
Today's technology may be nailing down more accurate dating, but human experience out in the field is still you're best place to start in an archaeological dig. While the two should compliment each other, the people who rely on machines to do all the work for them don't really understand what it means to be an archaeologist.
1. Re:Sometimes the oldest methods.... by Wiggin · 2001-10-19 05:10 · Score: 1
  
  yeah, everything we ever needed to know about archaeology we learned from watching Indiana Jones :).
  
  --
  
  "I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines." - Mr. Furious, Mystery Men
2. Re:Sometimes the oldest methods.... by devonbowen · 2001-10-19 05:26 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Today's technology may be nailing down more accurate dating, but human experience out in the field is still you're best place to start in an archaeological dig. While the two should compliment each other, the people who rely on machines to do all the work for them don't really understand what it means to be an archaeologist.
  My field work has suggested to me that "what it means to be an archaeologist" is basically sitting around and spouting lots of complex scenerios from rather trivial amounts of data. Whoever pushes the grandest vision gets the biggest funding and that's what determines our view of reality. I thought about going into the field at one time but was quickly discouraged. While it's an interesting (and useful) mental exercise to sit around and think up these scenerios, I think the amount of real hard knowledge that we derive from them is essentially meaningless. Fact is, pretty much all of what we know comes from written records. The rest, we owe mostly to the harder sciences (carbon dating, genetic analysis, etc). And the speculation, well, that's not so easy to test...
  Devon
3. Re:Sometimes the oldest methods.... by markmoss · 2001-10-19 07:06 · Score: 2
  
  What the "eyes and brains" can sometimes show is how the age of one site compares to another one. E.g., on one site you find iron tools in the upper layers, bronze lower down, and stone tools in the lowest level, the sequence is pretty clear. The actual ages aren't, but the order is, and depth of the layers can give some hints as to the length of each era. They when you find the same style of bronze tools somewhere else with just a few iron tools you know they were the same people, and that it was contemporary with a particular era on your main site.
  
  But this does not give you real dates, so you cannot compare the ages of sites left by different, non-interacting cultures. The technological level alone does not limit the possibilities much -- stone axes are probably still in use today in New Guinea.
  
  The only way you get real dates is when they start leaving written records. E.g., Egyptian civilizations are datable because they etched-in-stone a nearly continuous record of the years from their first cities up through Roman times, and the Roman Catholic church has kept a reasonably accurate tally of the years since. Mesopotamian civilizations would keep records for a while, but then collapse leaving gaps of unknown length, but because they interacted with Egypt you can often associate the date. But if you want to figure out when some European hunter lived, without radio-dating your only chance is to find some definite link (same kind of clothes, pottery, or equipment) as was used by people that interacted with one of the record-keeping civilizations. (The illiterate barbarian tribes really are important to history even though they don't write any -- they keep overruning civilizations grown too soft or too complacent.)
Setup for another movie... by Winged+Cat · 2001-10-19 04:54 · Score: 2, Funny

Indiana Jones and the Lost Particle
Why this is important. by Bonker · 2001-10-19 05:00 · Score: 4, Informative

I didn't really see a lot of new information in the article, but it did mention some radio-dating techniques I had heard of.

What's left to consider are the reprocussions from this kind of discovery. It's important to remember that all of human social sciences... language, philosiphy, psychology... all of them will benifit dramatically from knowing not only the exact time of origin of the human species, but early human's movement patterns.

One of the problems about human history that this kind of dating will help solve is the origin of human language. When did humans learn to speak? What languages descended from which? Why do many 'fairy tales' appear in more than one culture? Was there a single human 'parent' language that was responsible for this?

This kind of 'early' human history dating will help us probe out these kind of conundrums.

--
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
1. Re:Why this is important. by JJ · 2001-10-19 05:56 · Score: 2
  
  The date of the origin of modern humans (aka humans with language) also has implications for academic linguistics. The current dominant school, Chomskyan, depends upon a long history. Even the 92 Ka mentioned in the article being on the short side for the innateness hypothesis.
  
  --
  So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
anthropology by perdida · 2001-10-19 05:01 · Score: 4, Interesting

We developed archaeology without any carbon dating. We had to use anthropological methods tofigure out what the meaning of a bunch of stuff in a dig was, and where it came from.

Carbon dating is a wonderful technology - it dates stuff within a range of a century or so. It enables us to confirm hypothesis made by other methods.

A more rigid and absolute dating technology would probably enable archaeologists to fill in many of the gaps in current knowledge.

I worry about too much reliance on an absolute technology, though. Even if you take a bore of soil and can tell the exact day when each item fell into it, you still learn nothing about trade routes, cultures, mythologies, ancient lifestyles, etc.

This is where anthropology, an inexact science, must take the lead.

--
Goat sex free since 2001
1. Re:anthropology by tewwetruggur · 2001-10-19 05:21 · Score: 2
  
  any good archaeological group consists of various people, of which a physical anthropologist is a required post. The science is only part of the puzzle to back-dating and understanding lost civilizations.
  Before I went into pharma, I seriously thought about going into archaeology, and taking some anthropology classes to boost my skills. (instead, I took geochemistry, and went into drugs... go figure).
  
  --
  Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
2. Re:anthropology by nomadic · 2001-10-19 05:25 · Score: 2
  
  Still, radiocarbon dating put the field on a much more rigorous footing, which anthropology seriously needed. And accurate readings can tell us about things such as trade routes; for example, lead isotope analysis can reveal where the copper in a copper tool came from, something which has revealed a startlingly complex trading system in ancient societies of both the old world and new. Stable isotope analysis of skeletal remains can tell us about diet and lifestyle.
3. Re:anthropology by frunch · 2001-10-19 06:41 · Score: 1
  
  Plus, the carbon-14 ratio is pretty much shot these days, thanks to decades of nuclear testing.
  
  You might be surprised, as well, by how exact a science anthropology can be. In many cases, written works up to 1500 years old have been more accurately dated, and with a smaller range of uncertainty, through handwriting analysis.
4. Re:anthropology by feorag · 2001-10-19 22:03 · Score: 1
  
  Carbon dating is a wonderful technology - it dates stuff within a range of a century or so.
  
  Just a small nitpick here. Carbon dates are given to within one standard deviation, so its accuracy (or rather, our confidence in how accurate it is) decreases the older the object being dated is.
Dating Accuracy by under_score · 2001-10-19 05:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

One thing this article fails to mention is that when these dating techniques are used, they often give wildly varying results for a single sample often with a spread of 2 orders of magnitude!!! Another interesting point is that all the radioactive dating methods are based on critical assumptions about our earth which in some cases (Carbon-14 in the atmosphere) have been proven wrong. I'm _not_ a creationist - I believe that if anything the creation story is meant to be an allegory of some sort. So I don't pay much attention to creationist rants. I have read several good books which address these issues, particularly as the related to evolution and archaeology. On is: Shattering the Myths of Darwinism (thats a review of it). It discusses in scientific detail what is wrong with the radioactive dating methods both theoretically and in their application. I highly recommend the book even though I am not truly qualified to assess its arguments (IANAS(cientist)).

--
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
1. Re:Dating Accuracy by Copid · 2001-10-19 05:34 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  You know, I hear vague references to the "critical assumptions that have been proven wrong" over and over again, and I've never heard them adequately explained. Most of the "critical assumptions" the young earthers point to are things like "the speed of light is a constant from any frame of reference". I followed your link to the review of that book and read this quote out of it:
  No one has ever bred a new species artificially--and both plant and animal breeders have been trying for hundreds of years, as have scientists.
  I've heard this one before too. And it's wrong. Way wrong. There are several observed instances of speciation (especially in the world of botany). A good easy read to start with can be found at the Talk.origins Speciation Faq if you're interested in the background and some references to real papers on the issue. I'm sorry, but any book published after 1915 or so that claims that scientists and plant breeders have never been able to come up with new species is blatantly ignoring established facts and probably not worth your time.
  
  --
  An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
2. Re:Dating Accuracy by Yunzil · 2001-10-19 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  It discusses in scientific detail what is wrong with the radioactive dating methods both theoretically and in their application.
  
  There are ways to get better answers.
3. Re:Dating Accuracy by under_score · 2001-10-19 05:51 · Score: 2
  
  Wow! Great reference - thanks. As for the assumptions part, they are described in detail in the book, but the one I glancingly mention is basically that C14 dating is based on the assumption that the amount of C14 in the atmosphere is in a steady state (consumed by living organisms at the same rate that it is being created in the upper atmosphere). This assumption is wrong. Here is a reference to a more complete description of this problem and others: The Pitfalls of Radiocarbon Dating. I don't have convenient references for the other radioactive dating methods (Potassium-Argon, Uranium-Lead, etc.), but the book I mentioned in my other post does have complete references. I don't have the book with me so unfortunately I can't provide those references here.
  
  --
  Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
4. Re:Dating Accuracy by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 05:52 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I'm a geologist and I use some of these techniques fairly regularly (40Ar/39Ar, U-Pb, 14C, ams cosmogenic dating). Most often, anomalies in the ages you get are most readily explained by geologic uncertainty rather than gross flaws in the techniques themselves. Sloppy field work and sample collection/documentation can get you in trouble when you try and interpret the geochronology. Also, non-idealities of the materials we use to date and other factors come into play. The dating techniques are sound, the "critical assumptions" you seem to question regarding the mechanics of calculating a radiometric age and the theory behind it really come down to radioactive decay and our technical ability to measure isotopic ratios very precisely, both of which are far from dispute. The diffuculty is in interpeting the resulting ages in a meaningful way. For instance, fluid infiltration and other processes often impart "extraneous argon" to a sample that results in an anomalously old 40Ar/39Ar age. We can analyze the
  isotopic data to see if the extraneous Ar is there and we can look at the minerals and the geologic context of the sample and assess the likelihood of it. But unless we do those things throughly, we can misinterpret the isotopic data and thus the age of the sample. The isotopes don't lie, but we can be fooled.
5. Re:Dating Accuracy by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 06:52 · Score: 0
  
  You're suggestion of the book was sufficient proof that YANAS. These guys ("Myths of Darwinism") don't have a clue how science works. "Scientists"!
6. Re:Dating Accuracy by kisak · 2001-10-19 06:56 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The problem with books like "Shattering the Myths of Darwinism", is that there exists no "Darwinism" as these books wants you to believe. There do exist a very valuable work by Darwin, and there exist many scientists who believe Darwin was mostly right. These scientist engaged and are still engaged in discussions with scientists who do not agree with their view -- both on details and on the more fundamental views (but no real scientist is going to tell you they can prove God's existence or other metaphysical /religious matters). This is what science is all about.
  
  But books like these want you to think there is some sort of conspiracy, or that science have been high-jacked by the (evil) "Darwinist". Creationists attack each evidence for Darwin's theories and end up by saying, "see, again there is reason for doubt -- the Darwinists views are built on an illusion." The problem is, all these methods were not developed to prove Darwin is right. The physics behind carbon dating was not developed with Darwin in mind, but then some smart guy finds out, "these methods can give us answers also in archeology!". Any new method will be compared with estimate from previous methods, and any new method (new radioactive isotopes for instant) will have the potential to invalid older methods (and conclusions built upon them) and make scientist re-evaluate what is the most thrust wordy theory.
  
  When two methods estimates don't compare -- one or both is wrong (or interpreted wrong) -- and scientist in the field will be all fired up to unravel the mystery and to win that Nobel prize. The greatest mistake is to believe scientist in general are disappointed to find out the accept theories are no good -- this only gives them the opportunity for making a new theory that will make them famous (yeah!) and also extend human knowledge (you are a researcher, and this is your goal). A "scientific theory" that God created the Universe in 7 days, is hard to "prove" but more importantly, not very interesting. (An all mighty God could have created the Universe one second ago with me and all my memories with it, but so what?) Metaphysics is best left to the philosophers.
  
  To discuss more details; yes, physicist and geologist do know about experimental errors or experimental limitations. Two orders of magnitude is large, but is sometimes acceptable, but only as long as one are aware of the accuracy of a measurement/method. One can not invalid the usefulness of radioactive dating in a field just because the method is uncertain. The interpretation of the result is also depended on other theories like the Carbon-14 in the atmosphere ages ago. But then, some smart guy drills a hole in the ice of Greenland, and one has a new method to test these theories. And when this method fits with older theories, we believe more in them. But who knows, maybe we will get another way to find out the C14 in the atmosphere millions of year ago, that will show the theories of today are wrong. But it will be a very strange scientist who thinks this is a bad thing.
  
  I do not mind books attacking leading scientific ideas; many of those books are science books. But be aware of books/authors that want to convince you of something, but do not want to tell the whole story. I have not read this book, but any book that builds on the myth of "Darwinism", should be approached at least as critical as those theories we at the moment accept as the most scientific reasonble....
  
  --
  
  --- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
7. Re:Dating Accuracy by blamanj · 2001-10-19 07:10 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It discusses in scientific detail what is wrong with the radioactive dating methods
  
  The Creationists like to point out so-called "flaws" in dating techniques that are based on "assumptions." While they can sometimes confuse the scientifically illiterate with this terminology, there is now a dating technique that doesn't rely on knowledge of radioisotopes that is very effective in showing the foolishness of their arguments.
  
  Dendrochronology is the science of dating by the use of annular tree rings. Nothing too confusing here, it's school kid stuff. However, by piecing together the "fingerprint" of a sequence of years, we can put overlapping material from live trees and trees used in construction or preserved in peat bogs, etc. to create a calendar of the past 9000 years, well beyond the Creationist "age of the earth."
8. Re:Dating Accuracy by tshak · 2001-10-19 07:47 · Score: 2
  
  There are still critical assumptions that have yet to be proven right. For example: do we have a scientist from 15,000 years ago confirm that the rock is in fact 15,000 and that our measurement is working? We are assuming that how a rock ages over the past ~200years will age the same way for the next million years.
  
  --
  
  There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
9. Re:Dating Accuracy by Copid · 2001-10-19 10:03 · Score: 1
  
  The assumption is not exactly that the rock "ages a certain way" over time. The assumptions are assumptions about the behavior of isotopes over long periods of time, and they're not assumptions that are made out of the blue or for the convenience of the resarcher. The reality is that basically everything we know about radioactive decay supports the predicatable decay behavior for these isotopes and there has been no siginficant evidence suggesting otherwise. Calling these things assupmtions is technically correct, but given that definition of the word assumption, we're only assuming that the sun won't suddenly blink out within the next week or so. Sure, there's no reason to think that it would and all of our long-term observations are to the contrary, but we have not solid *proof* that it won't.
  
  --
  An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
10. Re:Dating Accuracy by dgroskind · 2001-10-19 10:06 · Score: 2
  
  There are still critical assumptions that have yet to be proven right.
  Actually, these aren't assumptions, they're theories. Inevitably, all our knowledge of the distant past is going to depend on theories and conjectures. The radioisotope method of dating has been endorsed by a Nobel Prize, which certainly does not prove it but lends assurance to laymen that it has some plausibility.
  Until someone comes up with evidence from some more reliable technique that contradicts radioisotope dating, it makes sense to use it to enhance our picture of the past.
  Certainty is not one of the things that theories can guarantee. Ultimately, all you can say is that radioisotope dating is consistent with other things we know about the past. In the absence of direct observation, consistency may be as close as we can come to the truth.
11. Re:Dating Accuracy by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 14:00 · Score: 0
  
  I think we can fairly assume that isotopes decay at a constant rate [halflife] all through history. That's not the bad assumption. The point is that we assume that the C14 content of living tissue was the same through history as it is now. Given a different original C14 content, but a constant decay rate, you get different measured ages. That assumption is way more than just a technicality. It's based on nothing more than hope.
12. Re:Dating Accuracy by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 14:02 · Score: 0
  
  While this is all true, it puts a different complexion on things when people assume these theories are actually true, and then ridicule other's beliefs based on these assumptions.
  
  I don't see the anti-creationists admitting to any of this stuff ... e.g. Dawkins.
13. Re:Dating Accuracy by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 14:09 · Score: 0
  
  Radioactive dating per se depends not only on decay rate but also on assumed initial distribution of isotopes. It is the initial distribution that is truly in question, not the decay rate.
  
  I mean, all the C14 in the world is decaying gradually, while C12 does not decay [in a measurable way]. So there is less C14 in the world now than there was then, but more C12. Therefore, the ratio of C12:C14 is higher now. Don't the archaeologists assume that the ratio of C12:C14 in living tissue was the same as it is now? Seems like a contradiction to me, unless living tissue magically creates C14.
14. Re:Dating Accuracy by Boronx · 2001-10-19 14:26 · Score: 0
  
  C14 is created in the atmosphere and enters the biosphere through photosynthesis.
  
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  Play Command HQ online
15. Re:Dating Accuracy by dgroskind · 2001-10-19 15:12 · Score: 1
  
  I don't see the anti-creationists admitting to any of this stuff ... e.g. Dawkins.
  Dawkins' aggressive style is a common approach in scientific debate when the scientist feels the evidence is strong. His attacks are as forceful on his fellow Darwinists like Stephen Gould when he disagrees with them as on creationists.
  Generally, scientists who think their case is strong will welcome a forceful attack as a good test of the strength of their position. From such clashes of ideas and evidence truth will somehow emerge.
  Consistent with this approach, Dawkins has said: "I really have less trouble than some of my colleagues with so-called creation science being taught in the public schools as long as evolution is taught as well. By all means let creation science be taught in the schools. ...children can be allowed to make up their own minds in the face of evidence."
16. Re:Dating Accuracy by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 15:56 · Score: 0
  
  Not quite right. 14C is a cosmogenically produced radionuclide. It is being produced constantly in the upper atmosphere by interactions between 14N and cosmic rays. That production rate has varied over time, but we have good constraints on that variation from the study of tree rings (dendrochronology). 14C is quickly incorporated into atmospheric C02 which in turn makes its way into the biosphere through photosynthesis and the food chain. While alive, an organism is in radiometric equilibrium with the atmospheric 14C reservoir, so that the 14C/12C/13C ratio is constant (uptake of 14C = radioactive decay of 14C). When the organism dies, though, the 14C uptake ceases (the organism no longer metabolises). At that point the steady state condition ends and the 14C decay process dominates. The clock starts, if you will, and we can then determine the time elaspsed since the organsim was isolated from the 14C cycle by measuring the amount of 14C remaining and using the 14C decay constant.
17. Re:Dating Accuracy by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-20 03:55 · Score: 0
  
  While alive, an organism is assumed to be in isotopic equilibrium with the atmosphere via metabolism. The kinetics of metabolism are fast enough (by orders of magnitude) that the production of 14C in the upper atmosphere by cosmic rays (more on this later) is the rate limiting step, so that equilibrium at any one time is a sound assumption. Fractionation affects among 12C, 13C, and 14C are taken into account by (1) realizing that 12C and 13C are not cosmogenically produced, (2) realizing that 12C and 13C are not radioactive (don't decay away) and (3) that the fractionation effect of 12C vs 14C is twice as much as 12C vs 13C (since there is twice the mass difference among the isotopes).
  
  Ok, now for the atmospheric production of 14C. What we measure when we date a sample by 14C is the current activity of 14C in the sample. We also have the decay rate of 14C. What we need is the activity of 14C at the time the organism died. We have constraints on the variation on 14C activity over time from dendrochronologic studies (tree rings) and from the record of variations in earth's magnetic field. So we can iteratively "correct" the raw 14C dates to account for variations in production rate which in turn translate into variations in 14C activity.
  
  14C is a messy business compared to other radiometric techninques (40Ar/39Ar, U-Pb), no question. There are a lot of corrections applied to raw 14C dates to take into account things like production rates and other systematic effects. That, however, is a good thing because it demonstrates the level of sophistication we have and understanding of the potential pitfalls of the technique. I'd be far more worried if we took the dates at face value without considering some of these external factors.
  
  In quantitative terms, the overall range in age for a sample that is 5000 years old depending on whether you apply activity corrections, what decay rate you use,etc is +0/-500 years. This, varies, of course, since the variation in production rate (the primary effect) is no where near a linear or even periodic function (I could get into more details, but I won't).
  
  The point is that (a) our understanding of the variation in 14C activity over time is based on far more substantial grounds than just "hope"! and (b) 14C, while complicated (more complicated in some ways than other geochronometers), is robust and provides very good age control on Quaternary samples that may otherwise be undatable.
Dating Technique-error in original text by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 05:06 · Score: 0

"At 4.1 billion years, the halflife of 40Ar is ideal for dating ancient humans"

I'm pretty sure he meant to say 4.1 MILLION...not billion. I don't have my geochemisttry textbook nearby though..

Lead/Uranium halflife is 4.5 Billion if I remember correctly
You are incorrect, my friend. by Green+Aardvark+House · 2001-10-19 05:14 · Score: 2, Informative

From hypertextbook.com

potassium-argon dating
Potassium-argon dating is used to determine the age of igneous rocks based on the ratio of an unstable isotope of potassium to that of argon. Potassium is a comon element found in many minerals. The isotopic distribution of potassium on the earth is approximately 93% 39K and 7% 41K. Since these values are only approximate, the total percent abundance of these two isotopes is not 100%, but 99.9883%. The remaining 0.0117% is 40K -- an unstable isotope with a half life of 1.26 x 10^9 years. 40K has three decay modes: beta decay, positron emission, and electron capture.

1.26*10^9 = 1.26 BILLION. On a logarithmic basis, the article is much closer than you.
AMS facilities by psmith · 2001-10-19 05:16 · Score: 3, Interesting

AMS is nifty not only because of the physics involved, but as a great way to make use of accelerator labs that might otherwise be closed..
Our lab here at Purdue, PRIME Lab, is a great example of this, retooling an older tandem accelerator lab for a new use as funding for nuclear physics began to dry up, and other similar facilities around the country closed. We've even got one of the accelerators with the highest energies of any AMS facility in the US by reusing the facility in this way.
Perhaps by SLot · 2001-10-19 05:22 · Score: 1, Funny

they can explain why Quirky Engineers have gone the way of the dinosaur...
Um.... by KillerBob · 2001-10-19 05:25 · Score: 5, Interesting

First paragraph in the article... and already they've lost my (suspension of dis)belief....

==> Traditional archaeology has not been a field that suffers science easily. Only gradually have archaeologists accepted physics as a tool for archaeological research. Perhaps as a result, the physicists who work in archaeology, their methods, and their theories, are neither well known nor numerous. Archaeometry, as the wider field of scientific archaeology is known, has no Heisenbergs or Einsteins, uncertainty principles or relativity theories. The only physical discovery to truly revolutionize archaeology has been radiocarbon dating.

Physicists have developped ground-based RADAR technology and Echo-location technologies which are having a profound impact on the archaeological world.

Take a look at: http://www.exn.ca/inc/demo.asp?Video=exn20011009-a cadia.asx
(Windows media player format, sorry.)

These RADAR/SONAR devices have drastically reduced the time it takes to locate archaeological sites, and yet they don't even mention it until the end of the article. After having clearly stated that "The only physical discovery to truly revolutionize archaeology has been radiocarbon dating."

--
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
1. Re:Um.... by nomadic · 2001-10-19 05:39 · Score: 2
  
  These RADAR/SONAR devices have drastically reduced the time it takes to locate archaeological sites, and yet they don't even mention it until the end of the article. After having clearly stated that "The only physical discovery to truly revolutionize archaeology has been radiocarbon dating."
  
  They also leave out potassium-argon dating, fluorine dating, electron spin resonance dating, uranium-thorium dating, fission track dating and several more.
2. Re:Um.... by nomadic · 2001-10-19 06:14 · Score: 2
  
  Skimmed the article a little too fast, apparently they did mention some of these. Not sure why this is all presented as new, some of these dating methods have been around for a while.
Re:Invalid Form Key by ReidMaynard · 2001-10-19 05:32 · Score: 1

I'm getting it too

--
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Assumptions by coldmist · 2001-10-19 06:01 · Score: 1

One thing about carbon dating and other systems like it make on BIG assumption: the rate of decay has stayed constant through eons of time and massive climate changes.

What if it hasn't stayed constant? What if it's on an exponential rate itself? What if it decayed at a slower/faster rate 1 million years ago? What if an asteroid collision (or some other massive geological event) caused a limited duration decay acceleration?

The list can go on and on.

--
Don't steal. The government hates competition.
1. Re:Assumptions by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 06:12 · Score: 0
  
  A good point about variations in decay rates. People have looked at that issue, but no one has yet found any evidence for changes in decay rates over time. Another, related issue, is our knowledge of the values of these decay rates. Our technical ability to precisely measure isotopes has grown to the point where uncertainties in physical quantitites such as the decay rate are significant contributors to the overall 2-sigma uncertainties in the dates we calculate. Which brings me to the final point: decay rates are physical quantities and are the result of subatomic, nuclear processes, so they will not be affected by climate change or bolide impacts, etc. Any change over time in decay rates has to be due to a heretofore unknown particle physics effect or variations in things like the speed of light over time.
2. Re:Assumptions by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 06:50 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  > What if it's on an exponential rate itself?
  > What if it decayed at a slower/faster rate
  > 1 million years ago?
  
  I suspect that couldn't happen unless the balance between the strong and weak forces changed. And if that balance did change, the results would be far more catastrophic than a mere asteroid collision.
  
  Imagine entire galaxies unravelling into bundles of plasma - or switching off like a light switch.
  
  No, I don't see that assumption as a major problem.
3. Re:Assumptions by thrillbert · 2001-10-19 07:04 · Score: 2
  
  variations in things like the speed of light over time
  
  Well, I'd be willing to say that the lights turn on now-a-days much faster than they did 100 years ago.. does this affect isotope dating? ;)
  
  --
  Relax, it's a joke. Have a good friday!
4. Re:Assumptions by foistboinder · 2001-10-19 07:27 · Score: 1
  
  The "BIG assumption" that the rate of decay is constant is based on some pretty fundemental physics.
  
  If you're going to say that decay rates may have been different in the past, it is up to you to at least come up with data to show why anyone should accept this, and you need to devise a theory to explain why decay rates have change (and hence show where current theories are wrong).
  
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  Yet Another Web Site
Re:Fellow trolls, please help! by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 06:06 · Score: 0

Honestly, it's not really wasting of points, and the Trolls do serve a valueable purpose on /. A year ago, an article would have maybe 3 or 4 comments that scored a 5. Now I've seen articles that have soemthing like 20 rated at 5. It kind of defeats the purpose of such a system, and seems to point toward the ridiculous excess of karma being distributed. Sure there have been a phenominal increase in users over the past year, but there hasn't been a commesurate boost in Trolling. When I mod, I mostly spend my points modding things down as overrated, because well, you can't just let these whippersnappers trounce all over us. Yeah, I'm posting AC 'cause I like the Karma I earned.
Archaeology and Modern Technology by GogglesPisano · 2001-10-19 06:44 · Score: 3, Funny

I heard someone say that the biggest technological contribution to archaeology in the last 50 years was the zip-lok bag.
carbon 14 dating and tree rings by NaturePhotog · 2001-10-19 06:57 · Score: 3, Interesting

One thing the article didn't really go into that I found interesting is how carbon 14 dating was found to be inaccurate. It had been assumed that C-14 decayed at a constant rate. However, a guy named Schulman studying the Bristlecone Pine trees in the White Mountains of California discovered that C-14 dates didn't match the tree ring dates. Subsequently, tree rings between living and dead bristlecones have been used to construct accurate dating back 9000 years, and it has been determined that C-14 rates do change. Read more about it on the Inyo National Forest page.
1. Re:carbon 14 dating and tree rings by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 07:03 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  Actually, it isn't the decay rate that is changing over time. It's the exact opposite. The production rate of 14C in our atmosphere (due to interactions between N and cosmic rays) is changing over time. As with all cosmogenic nuclide techniques (e.g. 26Al, 10Be, 36Cl), our constraints on the production rate of the nuclide of interest is key. Dendrochronology (tree ring dating) has helped to put firm constraints on the 14C production rate going bakc 9kyr or so.
2. Re:carbon 14 dating and tree rings by NaturePhotog · 2001-10-19 08:18 · Score: 2
  
  The production rate of 14C in our atmosphere (due to interactions between N and cosmic rays) is changing over time.
  Thanks for the clarification. I knew it had something to do with some rate changing :-)
3. Re:carbon 14 dating and tree rings by feorag · 2001-10-19 22:23 · Score: 1
  
  I graduated in 1996 with a BSc (Hons.) in Archaeology from the University of Bradford and I remember the lectures we had on radiocarbon dating and the calibration thereof. The Bristlecone Pine calibration is the most famous, but the head of department had been involved in a much more interesting calibration project.
  
  To successfully produce a calibration chart, you need to date items you already know the age of. Ideally you need lots of identical things of known age. This particular project was using Scotch Whisky to get a calibration table for the last 100 years or so in the British Isles - the year the grain was harvested being a known factor. Of course, once you'd opened the bottle to get your sample, it would be a shame to waste the rest...
I think you misunderstand by brulman · 2001-10-19 07:04 · Score: 1

and that the author could have been more clear. Radio-carbon dating was a watershed change in the nature of the science. Stratigraphic relative dating has been around for a couple hundred years, but radio-carbon allowed the stratigraphic relative dates and non-stratified artifacts to be anchored by absolute dates. This caused a fundamental change in both the ability of the science to explain the past and the accuracy with which it does so. Ground penetrating radar and other remote sensing techniques streamline site-surveying, save time and labor, and vastly improve the technique of the science, but they have less impact on the scope by far than radio-carbon. Remote sensing has been around a long time in many forms, such as climbing a hill to observe vegetation patterns as indicators of subsurface artifact and feature ditribution.

--
"the best safety of the frontier...will be secured by total annihilation of the few remaining indians" L Frank Baum 1890
got it all wrong by AssFace · 2001-10-19 07:11 · Score: 2, Funny

the bible tells me that there is just no way that stuff could be that old.
hee hee.

silly bible.

--

There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
1. Re:got it all wrong by minister+of+funk · 2001-10-19 10:58 · Score: 1
  
  tee hee!
  
  What's the chronology of the bible? About 6000 years? Genesis imparts "In the beginning was God, and the Word was with God." The "Word" is mentioned in the New Testament (John, I believe) and is interpreted to mean "Jesus Christ". Off topic... anyway, The next few verses:
  
  "And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the earth."
  
  It does not say that "the earth did not exist." I could interpret this as "The earth had no example or direction."
  
  I believe a passage in Romans describes God as "light"... so, when God says, "Let there be light." Was he speaking himself into existance? Was He saying, "I am here," or "Let me be the example." It's always interpreted as literally.
  
  At any rate, when I walk into a room I say, "Let there be J.D."
Re:Scientific method by Tye_Informer · 2001-10-19 07:13 · Score: 1

The Creation theory (which you call myth) requires faith, because it has not been proven.
The Evolution theory (which I call myth) requires faith, because it has not been proven.
I have no problems with calling either a theory, since neither has been proven. If all scientists were to use the Scientific method (hypothesis, testing of hypothesis, document conclusion) we would actually be able to make progress toward proving/disproving the two conflicting hypothesis. The problem arrises when "Scientists" go about the "Evolution of the Scientific Method"
1) There is no God
2) Begin using original Scientific Method

How odd that using this method, they have not been able to form any real conclusions.
The problem with carbon dating... by Gaijin42 · 2001-10-19 07:21 · Score: 2, Informative

is that you can tell easily item one is just a s old as item two. But unless you have a way to date one of the items some other way, all you can tell is that the items are the same age, but not how old they are.

When you are talking about artifacts millions of years old, there is no "proof" of the age of any item.

Some scientists put together a theory of how carbon acts over millions of years (and obviously because of the timeframe involved have no empiracle evidence about the behavior of carbon over millions of years) Then they date things relative to the theory.

Note I am not saying carbon dating is wrong, but it certainly hasn't been proven.
1. Re:The problem with carbon dating... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 07:55 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  Although you do bring up a good point, you are otherwise incorrect on several levels. The good point you bring up is the need to corroborate geochronologic data with a variety of techniques. Fortunately, 14C is not the only geochronometer available and additional age constraints can be obtained using cosmogenic nuclides, electron spin resonance, themoluminescne, etc. However, to say that there is "no proof" of the age of a sample even from one geochronometer is disingenous at best. There is nothing magical about geochronology. Our theoretical knowledge of radioactive decay and our techniques for measuring isotopes are sound and robust. The trick, as you in a way imply, is our understanding of external processes that affect the systematics of the samples we seek to date and I will add our interpretation of the geologic context of what we date. As far as our understanding of those external factors as they relate to 14C, I'd say we have it nailed pretty well. First off, 14C is not used for dating
  anything over ca. 60kyr to 100kyr old. No million year stuff. You use 40Ar/39Ar and other techniques for that. As for the systematics of C over time, the things we need to know and assume are: a) production rates of 14C over time which we get a very detailed record from tree rings, etc. (b) we assume that living organisms are in radiometic equilibrium with the atmospheric reverviour of 14C, which is reasonable, and (c) we assume that after death the organismn no is no longer in equilibruim (i.e. uptake rate does not equal decay rate). After that, we just need to rely on decay and our abiltiy to measure small numbers of atoms precisely (hence ams techniques). But I must reiterate taht without good field work the best numbers you can get are pretty meaningless.
Re:anthropology [induction vs. deduction] by Puk · 2001-10-19 07:23 · Score: 2

What you're saying here is that historically, we have used a deductive approach, generating theories and the confirming them with our technology.

I worry about too much reliance on an absolute technology, though. Even if you take a bore of soil and can tell the exact day when each item fell into it, you still learn nothing about trade routes, cultures, mythologies, ancient lifestyles, etc.

This only becomes a worry if you are still working on the inductive approach. When you have accurate enough data in large enough quantities, you can use a deductive approach to generate your theories from the data itself. In the presences of such data, this can be very effective. You can take that soil, find when every item fell into it, and use that to guess at trade routes, rather than guessing at trade routes and then using the bore to see if you were right.

Just because we developed archaeology without carbon dating and then used carbon dating to verify the theories of previous archaeological work doesn't mean that's the best way to do it. Just because it's a different approach doesn't mean it's any worse then then "anthropological" approach. The best results will surely come of combining anthropology and technology (and, more than likely, deduction and induction), but the order in which they are applied may shift. Times change, technologies change, and sometimes we have to change our ways of thinking in order to keep on doing better.

Just a thought.

-Puk
discover old stuff good by compugeek007 · 2001-10-19 07:24 · Score: 1

In 1960 Willard Frank Libby won a Nobel Prize for his work on radiocarbon dating, a technique that truly revolutionize archaeology

doing nothing for the english language, which is still in caveman speak...

--
Jesse Wolfe Sr. Manager Systems Integration
Carbon dating is only accurate to 5000 years by Ted+V · 2001-10-19 07:24 · Score: 2

C-14 dating only has "reasonable" error ranges for items dated at 5000 years or less (around 1 century). If you use C-14 to date something older, say, 10000 years (or 10,000,000 years), the percentage of error margin gets significantly larger. The man who designed carbon dating (his name escapes me) explained this in his thesis which won him the Nobel Prize.

-Ted

PS: What cites? You know where to find them
Pyramids by Kraft · 2001-10-19 07:29 · Score: 3, Interesting

Yes, this is kinda silly and kinda offtopic, but I can't be bothered to do some proper searching on the subject.

When were the oldest pyramids in Egypt built - really?

I saw a special on Discovery a year ago, and they said that carbon dating was estimating the pyramids to be (IIRC) between 4 and 11 thousand years old. Not too accurate, is it? Can someone explain, why there is so much doubt when estimating the age of pyramids, when they could set the age of the Egyptian pharaoh's tomb to 5730 years? And have any of these new techniques set some more accurate dates?

--

-Kraft
Live and let live
Update: Willard Libby designed C-14 Dating by Ted+V · 2001-10-19 07:30 · Score: 2

Willard Libby designed C-14 Dating. Apparently the error range is not 5000 years but 60000 years as referenced here.

-Ted
1. Re:Update: Willard Libby designed C-14 Dating by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 07:38 · Score: 0
  
  The rule of thumb for any radiometric technique is that it is useful (i.e. it is practical to measure with any precision the parent to daughter isotopic ratios) for samples as old as 10 half lives. 14C has a half life of ca. 5735 years, so about 60kyr is the limit using conventional techniques. AMS dating can do a little better, but not much more than 100kyrs. Forget about using 14C on million year old samples, etc. as some might think.
OT: Pyramid Information by Ted+V · 2001-10-19 07:34 · Score: 2

This link should give you information on the pyramids. I believe they dated the pyramids because of how they were aligned to the night sky when they were created (since the sky slowly shifts over time).

-Ted
Java Man and the Lisp Gnu by hysterion · 2001-10-19 07:40 · Score: 2

One such fossil is the Homo erectus known as "Java Man." The famous relic was found in 1891 by the Dutch paleontologist Eugène Dubois on the Trinil terraces of the Solo River in Java.
Another is the RMS sapiens known as "Lisp Gnu". The famous relic was extracted in 1991 by Finnish programmer Linus Torvalds from a sleazy office along the Charles River in Cambridge.
From its discovery onward, Java Man has been controversial. Even up into the late 20th century, its precise placement in the human evolutionary tree was debated, largely because of the inability to obtain completely reliable dates for the archaeological and geological context of the Java fossils.
From its discovery onward, Lisp Gnu has been controversial. Even up into the late 20th century, its precise placement in the COBOL evolutionary tree was debated, largely because of his inability to cool his temper in the academic context of the Cambridge fossils.
In the case of TL and ESR, the clock resets to zero when the sample is heated and starts ticking once the sample cools.
Thus, the ESR clock resets to zero when the cathedral is heated, and starts ticking again once the bazaar cools. No more temper problems!

--
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
Re:Scientific method by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 07:44 · Score: 1, Insightful

I'm both a scientist and a practicing catholic. My philosophy is that the existence or non-existence of God is outside the realm of science. It is simply not a question that the scientific method can answer. It is a matter of faith. Theories such as evolution and the big bang are theories, in the scientist's sense. That's different than the common usage of the word that implies some sort of great uncertainty and speculatation. To scientists, theories are the next best thing to acts - they are ideas/models/intellectual constructs that have stood the test of time and explain all the available data (no faith here, just cold, hard data). Granted, theories probably aren't the be-all-end-all truth; no one says they are. But they are sciences best explanation for phenonmena and processes. I can't put forward a testable hypothesis about God or heaven or hell or anything in the realm of faith and hope to apply the scientific method to it. What independent data would be applicable, reproducible, and unambiguous?
As for the "theory of creationism"... My personal view of the Bible's creation story (and I think the view of the modern church) is that it is allegorical. Moreover, I don't think the point of Genesis is to instruct man in the blueprints of the creation of the Universe. To what end? I think the point is to (a) inform us that behind all the phenomena around us (no matter how we envdevour to explain them) lies God's work and (b) that because of that, all his creations (all of the universe, and us in particular as the Bible is addressed to humans) are special.
Theistic evolution... by Kymermosst · 2001-10-19 07:48 · Score: 1

You left out us theistic evolutionists. The basic premise being that the chance of this universe springing into existence via some random quantum fluctuations is infinitesimally small, and 99.9999% of mutations are fatal or disadvantageus to the organism. For this level of evolution to have happened in the given (scientific) age of the Earth, it must have had help.

The real bottom line is, the theory of evolution is sound, but unprovable. The theory of creation is also unprovable. Theistic evolution is also unprovable.

Some things will always remain theories.

--
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
1. Re:Theistic evolution... by 3am · 2001-10-19 08:30 · Score: 1
  
  a decent if unsatisfying answer to that is the anthropic principle (weak/strong varieties) which is that, yes, the universe could have evolved in many ways, but it evolved in the one we see today, and our existence is proof of that.
  
  --
  
  A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
2. Re:Theistic evolution... by Teancom · 2001-10-19 08:36 · Score: 2
  
  Sorry, I wasn't trying to list all of the possible variations on the "how did we get here" theme :-) I actually *was* a theistic evolutionist up until a fairly short time ago, and as such know exactly where you're coming from. One great thing about the Bible, is that it is almost infinetly malleable. If I am proven wrong, (and I very well might be) and someone has indisputable *proof* of evolution, then I will quite happily go back to being a theistic evolutionist. While trying to explain to some people why my faith is unshakeable, even though it is scientifically unprovable (which, btw, isn't strictly true), I generally bring up the following example. They have a theory of an all-powerful force that affects the universe, that you can't see/smell/touch. Scientists can't prove by direct observation that they exist. They call this force a "blackhole". :-) (And yes, I know it's not a direct correlation. that's why it's called an analogy, stupid!).
3. Re:Theistic evolution... by Yunzil · 2001-10-28 14:44 · Score: 1
  
  and 99.9999% of mutations are fatal or disadvantageus to the organism. For this level of evolution to have happened in the given (scientific) age of the Earth, it must have had help.
  
  Wrong. Read this.
  
  The real bottom line is, the theory of evolution is sound, but unprovable
  
  Sigh. NO scientific theory is "provable". Theories can only be disproven. This is why the "theory" of creation isn't even a theory, as it can never be disproved; because you can always just say that God made it look that way.
Resonant Nuclear Reaction Analysis by ShoeHead · 2001-10-19 09:00 · Score: 1

I don't have time to read the article, but wow, this is a story I've been waiting for. So many times I see other /.'ers talking about how they were individually involved with some type of research, and now it's my turn:

One up and coming way of dating fossils uses a technique called Nuclear Reaction Analysis (NRA). You bombard a substance (in this case flint) with ions, which penetrate the sample and react with fluoride when they're at a certain depth/energy. The theory is, fluoride has only been in water since a certain time in our past, so based on how deep the fluorine is inside the sample, you know how old it is.

Check out here
Other Beliefs by crisco · 2001-10-19 09:03 · Score: 2

Aren't there a few more classes of beliefs?
3) Agnostics that find the debate amusing and feed the trolls on both sides, happy to spout off whatever keeps the thread growing.
4) Proponents of the 'Intelligent Design' theory, who roughly propose that God (or someone) was the initial force or energy behind the 'Big-Bang' some 15 or so billion years ago and guided the outcome including the details of life on this planet.

--
Bleh!
bah! that's silly. by AssFace · 2001-10-19 09:17 · Score: 1

5 minutes?! you must be insane!
we ALL know it was 3 minutes.

5 minutes... sheesh.

--

There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Re:more accurate... GEOMETRY!! by fragermk · 2001-10-19 10:25 · Score: 1

Ya but before the "big bang" even happened the relationship between linear and rotational motion was still bound by the equation e^(i * pi) + 1 = 0. Also, God is NOT OTHER THAN a fastasy created in human minds. Tomorrow there's a universe creating contest between you and God, let's see who wins...

Lata,

Oh ya, peace be with you and all that shit!
Book to read (fuel for the fire) by sceptre1067 · 2001-10-19 14:09 · Score: 1

Don't know if this has been mentioned... but as some of the comments have turned to an old debate...
Tower of Babel
The Evidence against the New Creationism
Robert T. Pennock
ISBN 0-262-16180-X

Worth a read for those wishing to support the side of science.
1. Re:Book to read (fuel for the fire) by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-21 13:54 · Score: 0
  
  >Worth a read for those wishing to support the >side of science.
  
  Wow, what a bunch of prejudice in just one sentence...did you know that Intelligent Designers (aka 'New Creationists') are scientists, too?
  
  See this link for a critique of this supposedly 'good' book:
  
  http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_godofscience.htm
Re:Scientific method by Boronx · 2001-10-19 14:12 · Score: 0

BZZZT! wrong!

The Creation theory requires faith because you go to hell if you don't beleive it.

The Evolution theory requires, what? well, what every scientific theory requires: accuracy from itself, and nothing from its proponents.

--
Play Command HQ online
The problem with radiocarbon dating... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 14:43 · Score: 0

The problem with radiocarbon dating is that it assumes the rate of carbon decay has remained constant thoughout history. There's no way to tell if it's acturate because there's nothing really old (that we know the true age of) to test it against.
1. Re:The problem with radiocarbon dating... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-19 16:03 · Score: 0
  
  The notion that decay constants of radioactive elements changes with time is not an assertion to be made lightly. Our understanding of the physics of radioactive decay is mature and robust. Theoretical and experimental physics has yet to find significant evidence to support any variation in decay rates with time. You must remember that if they do vary, it would imply such things as variation in the speed of light over time, etc. Basically, the implications are more far reaching than just geochronology! I'm not up on the physics literature concerning this type of research, but from what I do know, even if there was a variation below our capability to resolve it, it would be a second order affect and not really change radiometric dates by much. It especially wouldn't change 14C dates by much seeing as 14C is only useful for samples up to 60-100 thousand years.
Re:Sometimes the oldest methods need calibration by Teun · 2001-10-20 01:25 · Score: 1

So who says the established and proven methodes are invalidated or forgotten because of new technology.
This type of technology is the much wished for calibrator of existing techniques!

--
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Just an observation. by Teun · 2001-10-20 01:51 · Score: 1

Reading the responses to the original post I wonder what makes/made this difference between the USofA and Europe on the subject of evolution vs creation/creationism.
As a regular visitor of the US I was aware of the existence of an active creationist lobby but to actually find them 'in the wild' on, of all places, /. is for a European somewhat baffling if not disturbing.
The notion of freedom of thought and expresion is surely no less in Europe than in the US but within the scientific/technology communities of Europe this (creationism) is a non-topic.

--
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Just an observation by Teun · 2001-10-20 01:53 · Score: 1

Reading the responses to the original post I wonder what makes/made this difference between the USofA and Europe on the subject of evolution vs. creation/creationism.
As a regular visitor to of the US I was aware of the existence of an active creationist lobby but to actually find them 'in the wild' on, of all places, /. is for a European somewhat baffling if not disturbing.
The notion of freedom of thought and expression is surely no less in Europe than in the US but within the scientific/technology communities of Europe this (creationism) is a non-topic.

--
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
A quick note on dating... by djmcmath · 2001-10-20 02:04 · Score: 1

Radioisotope dating has some serious weaknesses.

The first is that it assumes that the level of the isotope in the material is the same as you would find in the world today -- this gives you a starting point. In some cases, this is a valid assumption. In other cases, it's close enough. In many cases, however, it's totally wrong.

The second is the rate of decay. Granted, most people who study nuclear physics think that decay of isotopes is constant, there are other factors, including the introduction or loss of the isotope you're measuring, by artificial means. If you're judging the age of marbles in a bag knowing the rate of marble disappearance, but someone is sneaking marbles into your sack, you'll come up with wildly inaccurate ages.

To get really accurate ages on stuff, we have to rely on history as a whole, and our thinking knowledge of when other things happened. Documents, for example, are usually dated very accurately. While the carbon age gives us a range of hundreds of years, we can analyze the type of material it is written on, the location it was found in, the method of storage, the style of the script, etc., and conclude with excellent accuracy (in many cases) exactly how old a document is.

So anytime you see something dated to within 10 years or so, they almost certainly aren't using radioisotope dating, because no credible scholar would base his reputation on that kind of evidence.

Dan
1. Re:A quick note on dating... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-20 03:21 · Score: 0
  
  You are a bit misguided.
  
  1) Radiocarbon dating DOES NOT assume the activity of 14C has remained constant. There are calibrations that take into account variation in the 14C production rate over time.
  
  2) Decay rate. No evidence supports the notion that they vary. Regardless, this effect is not significant for 14C since the timescale the technique is applicable to is only 60-100 thousand years (and if decay rates were changing on that timescale, we'd - rather physisicsts who study these things - would be sure to notice).
  
  3) Loss and excess of daughter/parent. I assure you that scientists don't just pick up some random piece of stuff and plop it into their mass spectrometer and take the date it spits out at face value! Most of my experience is with 40Ar/39Ar thermochronology, and the systematics of Ar are crucial in the correct interpretation of the data. Point is: these thing s are thought about and taken into account! In the specific case of 14C, loss of C from the system is usually not a problem. Incorporation of environmentat C is a problem, but is mitigated by careful sample selection and sample preparation techniques.
  
  4) Credibility and utility of 14C. You may be right about this in terms of archeaology. Although I think you WAY overstate your case as far as scholars staking their reputation on 14C. I advise you to take a look through the archeaology/paleoanthropology/Quaternary geology literature (especially the latter) sometime! 14C is routinely used by credible scientists where there is no historical documentation to use as a time datum. And it is certainly not treated with the suspicion you seem to imply!
  
  Along these lines, I must emphasize that 14C is NOT the only radiometric dating technqiue. Nor its it the most robust. Nor do people claim it is. It is often said that when the biography of the earth is written, the final chapter (the Quaternary is what we call it now), will be the longest chapter and be the most detailed. That's sensible, since we lived a lot of that time and the rest is in the near past relicts of which (both in geological and archealogical terms) are still around us. Unfortunately, our constraints on chronology during this time (excepting what we can date historically) may not be so good. The radiometric and other techniques that are applicable to the Quaternary are amazing in their ingenuity but are beset by the fact that not much time has elapsed during which to accumulate daughter products, etc. So dates are harder to get because its harder to make the measurements because there's less to measure. And when there's less to measure, our measurements are affected more and more by the systematics of the sample (daughter and parent loss and excess, contamination, etc., etc.).
  
  Other techniques, such as 40Ar/39Ar and U-Pb which have useful timeframes between ca. 1 million and several billion years are less prone to these issues. Although they are taken into account , they just have less impact on the result, unless, of course you are trying to push the envelope on the time resolution you are trying to achieve and then every little correction counts. To give some perspective, I've dated 18 million year old micas with uncertainties of about 300 thousand years (or about 1.7%) at the 2-sigma (95%) confidence level. That's pretty damn good, and is routine. People push the envelope on the technique and do better; at Berkeley, they've managed to date the Plinian eruption at Vesiuvius (historically dated at 79AD with documents, etc). with 40Ar/39Ar to within 95 YEARS (at the 2-sigma level). That's fucking awesome!
  
  And geologists certainly use these techniques all the time without risking reputation or anything! I certainly am.
New Chronology? by Augur · 2001-10-21 02:16 · Score: 1

Anyone have read Fomenko's books about Chronology?

His books a bit costly, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, ISBN: 0792326040
LP! by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-21 13:05 · Score: 0

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-ac
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lp by Anonymous Coward · 2001-10-30 14:50 · Score: 0

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-ac