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Fossil Fuels Are Messing With Carbon Dating
Taco Cowboy writes: The carbon dating method used in determining the age of an artifact is based on the amount of radioactive carbon-14 isotopes it contains. The C-14 within an organism is continually decaying into stable carbon isotopes, but since the organism is absorbing more C-14 during its life, the ratio of C-14 to C-12 remains about the same as the ratio in the atmosphere. When the organism dies, the ratio of C-14 within its carcass begins to gradually decrease. The amount of C-14 drops by half every 5,730 years after death.
The fossil fuels we're burning are old — so old they don't contain any C-14. The more we burn these fossil fuels, the more non-C-14 carbon we pump into the atmosphere. If emissions continue as they have for the past few decades, then by year 2050 a shirt made in that year (2050) will have the same C-14 signature as a shirt worn by William the Conqueror a thousand years earlier.
The fossil fuels we're burning are old — so old they don't contain any C-14. The more we burn these fossil fuels, the more non-C-14 carbon we pump into the atmosphere. If emissions continue as they have for the past few decades, then by year 2050 a shirt made in that year (2050) will have the same C-14 signature as a shirt worn by William the Conqueror a thousand years earlier.
humans would have invented a new "dating" method
It's already having a tremendous effect. Twinkies made 10 years ago have the same C14 signature of Twinkies made right before Vesuvius buried Pompeii.
Wait, what? When were those Twinkies made?
Nevermind.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
From http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nuclear/cardat.html:
"Krane points out that future carbon dating will not be so reliable because of changes in the carbon isotopic mix. Fossil fuels have no carbon-14 content, and the burning of those fuels over the past 100 years has diluted the carbon-14 content. On the other hand, atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the 1950s and 1960s increased the carbon-14 content of the atmosphere. Krane suggests that this might have doubled the concentration compared to the carbon-14 from cosmic ray production."
Just look up radiocarbon dating calibration, this has been known since the discovery of said process.
"Aha! These C-14 signatures are the same, so if we have a signature of X, it can be either year A or year B. Which is more likely given the other evidence available?"
Yep. This amazing piece_of_art/relic/whatever_document is definitely genuine, right?
5, 4, 3...
Huh? No, that this is only due to us burning fuel created millions of years ago and that it offsets results by a few 1000 years tops doesn't mean anything to them.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
We need to release more radioactive C14 carbon into the air.
Thus solving the problem, once and for all.
Recycle PCs and build a wireless community network www.hillsborough.org.nz
Atmospheric nuclear testing in the 1950's and 60's added so much C14 to the atmosphere that Carbon dating is useless already
... or already broken, depending on your viewpoint.
While fossil fuels reduce atmospheric C14, atmospheric nuclear detonations increase it dramatically.
In 1963, C14 levels reached double the earlier level.
But even before any of that, radiocarbon dating needed to be calibrated according the varying level of atmospheric CO2 over the aeons.
And it is already easy to make fake ancient parchment or paper using greenhouses and fossil fuel.
Combining carbon dating with other techniques should be enough to remove ambiguity in dating.
Carbon dating is already unreliable as it depends on a number of unprovable assumptions
Half every 5,730 years? What kind of scale is that? The whole universe is barely over 6000 years old, dating scales should cover years or dozens of years, like tree-ring dating or biblical character dating, otherwise they don't make any sense. Carbon dating seems like a scam anyway, they are probably trying to find excuses for why it is not working out.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Or alternatively: if it is not being "made" or acquired (from the Sun, nuclear tests or emissions etc) then, either way, it can be calibrated for. We know, pretty much, how much coal is being dug out of the ground and, indeed, pretty much which and volume of nucleotides that have been released. If we know this all then we can calibrate for this in the future. So what's the problem exactly?
"Other techniques" not only have different ranges of time for which they're accurate, they also have different levels of accuracy. (And not all are applicable to all materials.) They may or may not be sufficient to resolve ambiguity.
You could have googled that in 5 seconds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
. . .you insensitive clod!
As I am the one who submitted this article I need to point out an error
The radioactive C-14 isotopes do not decay into "stable carbon isotopes" but rather, into stable N-14 isotopes via beta decay !
Please accept my sincere apology for the error - it was the fault of no other but me alone, for not noticing that glaring error when I was copy-pasta-ing from articles of three different sites
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Yeah... I bet that the "New Earth" creationists will be touting this headline for years, even though they don't really understand most of the words in it.
They've been spouting doubt about carbon dating methods for years, and fall back to the "God CREATED it with age!" excuse if you're crazy enough to refute their claims with actual scientific information.
We're ruining this planet burning fossil fuels and the "victim" here is carbon dating? If we keep ruining this planet, carbon dating won't be a problem since we'll all be dead and not giving a rat's ass about the carbon date of anything.
I suppose though, we are ruining it for whatever comes after us and wants to carbon date our stupid-ass carcasses.
Oh, wait, we already did.
Carbon 14 dating hasn't been reliable (usable) for wood or other biological material formed since 1950, as open air nuclear testing put a lot of C14 into the atmosphere. This C14 has been slowly leaving the atmosphere, but it's not gone yet.
I think that the writers of the original article were just eager to get some attention, as they surely must have known this.
Interestingly this isn't the first time this happened.. When they first started Isotopic dating there seemed to be no lab pure enough to get the lead out. Even water taken from the widdle of the ocean had the wrong lead isotope ratios. Eventually, years, they realized it was in the air from all the lead in gasoline. The gasoline companies had the guy's funding cut off to suppress this, and trotted out a bunch of "tobacco scientists" to ridicule the guy who discovered it. But eventually this too became fact. Now it's used in reverse, the isotopic ratio of lead is used to track gasoline spill origins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10...
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
historians whose great, great, great grandparents have yet to be born. And a really easy one to solve. Let's face it, you don't need carbon dating to tell the difference between shirts from the 12th and 21st century. William the Conqueror didn't cross the Channel in a poly-cotton blend.
I'd rather have that than have the Democrats and liberals selling dead baby parts to the highest bidder.
Hand up for all those that have no idea what it refers to.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Carbon Dating unreliable from day one and still unreliable. Nothing new.
Yet another "reason" why using fossil fuels will be painted with an evil brush. OMFG, we won't be able to date anything!! EVERYBODY PANIC!!!
Oh, 'scuse me, I forgot that they conveniently rebranded it as "climate change" to cover their asses...I mean bases.
Please don't use the word "theory" in combination with that bull. Not even in quotes. The scientist in me dies a little every time someone does that.
And, frankly, don't dis kids and their ability to tell harebrained shit from reality. They're far better at it than many adults. If anything, that pushy legislative should ensure that we'll end up with a generation that despises being fed crap.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What's the problem with selling dead baby parts? I could see there being a problem with killing the baby after it's born to get those parts, but otherwise, what exactly is your problem?
Would you rather have them go to waste? What are you, a commie? It's not very capitalist to not sell your trash if you can!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You're really out of touch.
Why? Because I think it's wrong to sell body parts of dead people? It's not like they need them anymore.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Wow. Did you achieve liftoff with all that handwaving?
My understanding is that the current atmospheric carbon isotope ratio is not used for carbon dating but that from tree rings. Knowing the ratio from tree rings and the decay rate of C-14 should give the atmospheric ratio when the tree ring grew. One problem is that the oldest trees are something like 4,000 to 5,000 years old but then 5,000 years ago was well before the industrial revolution when the huge quantities of fossil fuels began to be used. Assuming the isotope ratio wasn't much different before ~2,000 BCE doesn't seem much of a stretch. I guess some have a problem with that, though. There are other dating methods for radioactive dating for much earlier times particularly for geology. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Any appearance that we might have of a vastly older age may be as I said, nothing but an artifact of assumptions that we are making today based on our experiences.
so like me you are a member of The Church of Last Thursday?
snake
It comes from cosmic rays, which are roughly constant over time. They're not completely constant, and so we already have to calibrate our C14 tests. (There's a whole bit of weirdness in the way we report dates as the calibration itself has been refined over time, and when you read an old document you need to know exactly how it was calibrated.)
But the variations in intensities happen over centuries, rather than years. And instead of covering the whole world, it's going to be localized by the varying factors of how much CO2 was emitted (as well as nuclear bomb testing, which has been making dating confusing for quite some time).
It may not be all that important, since it applies mainly to new objects, and we don't really need to date them if we actually know how old they are. And very recent objects are always problematic with respect to carbon dating; it's usually precise to decades, rather than years. But archaeologists from a thousand years from now may find this era very confusing.
What's the problem with selling dead baby parts? I could see there being a problem with killing the baby after it's born to get those parts, but otherwise, what exactly is your problem?
I believe women have the right to choose, however this issue has several problems. History and economics prove that you often get what is rewarded, and what is being reward here is parts. So Planned Parenthood has an incentive to produce parts. Back to the idea of women having a choice, abortion is one of several choices. Now if the people presenting the options to a woman have a financial interest in one of those options then that one option will be presented as the preferred option. In other words there will be a persuasive element by Planned Parenthood for the financially advantageous choice. Planned Parenthood is supposed to be a neutral party fully informing a woman of all her choices.
Plus there is the treatment. There are many ways to perform an abortion. The problem with selling parts is that Planned Parenthood has been choosing methods based on what will best produce sellable parts, to avoid damaging parts. The only considerations in choosing a method should be the woman's safety (avoiding damage that could impair reproduction in the future) and recovery (faster recovery time, fewer side effects). As a matter of fact federal regulations mandate this, selling parts can not be a consideration in choosing a method. Planned Parenthood seems guilty of violating these regulations.
Furthermore the negotiating of prices for parts, maximizing payment, is evidence that there was a profit motive not simply a recovery of harvesting costs. Harvesting costs would be a known cost to state to parts buyers.
Planned Parenthood needs some serious reforms and likely new leadership. To defend them in a case where there is absolutely wrongdoing is political zealotry. Wrong is wrong. Fix the problem, no financial gains for one particular choice.
The problem with that supposition is that it in no way invalidates scientific research or teaching, which is usually the goal of people making these arguments.
If you want to assume that, six thousand years ago, God created a 14 billion year old universe, that's fine. That doesn't invalidate, for instance, evolution - it just means God created a universe where evolution had occurred, and where the teaching of evolution is still appropriate.
And, of course, it doesn't explain a lot of other things, like how the entire world could flood and leave no evidence behind, or how the distribution of people throughout the world dates much further back than six thousand years (the date where Adam and Eve would have lived).
I've never seen any argument that could reasonably combine literal biblical interpretation and reality. In my opinion (as someone raised as a creationist and now hovering somewhere along the line between agnosticism and atheism), fundamentalism hurts Christianity more than anything else - if I had been told the stories in the Bible were myths to take moral lessons from, I might still be a believer.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
OK, I'm no expert, but I'm not stupid either, and I do read.
Scientists have been using various methods to track how much carbon (among other things) is in the atmosphere by various methods. We've got a record of this going back quite some time. That's how we know, for example, how much carbon was in the atmosphere 300 years ago compared to now.
So if we know how much carbon is in the atmosphere, and we know how much of that is carbon 14 (we are keeping records, right?), then can't we correct for this? Other people have posted about how nuclear tests have increased the carbon 14 in the atmosphere. I'm sure at least these guys are keeping track of it.
It'll take some tweaking to get right, but I'm sure we can account for the difference. Maybe some grad student will use it for their PhD. When there are cases of overlap (the t-shirt dating as 1000 years older), there might be some issues, but for anything truly old it shouldn't be an issue.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Funny how all "science" now seems to support a very particular liberal/environmentalist ideological agenda. Maybe that has something to do with the new scientific method:
1) Embrace a dogmatic ideological agenda.
2) Form a hypothesis that supports this agenda.
3) Carefully exclude or modify all data that contradicts this hypothesis.
4) Hypothesis confirmed!
5) Call anyone who challenges your conclusion an ignorant denier.
SCIENCE!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Breathing is not the way humans (and other animals) take up carbon. It comes from the food we eat. So burning coal to heat your home doesn't have any direct effect on your personal C14 level.
That's close to but not exactly true. Biological processes such as photosynthesis tend to prefer the lighter C12 isotope over the heavier C13 and C14 isotopes so the ratio of C12 to C13 & C14 is higher in plants than it is in the atmosphere.
So, you're saying that the universe looked new to people then, and looks old to us because we weren't created?
Not sure how that would work. I mean, the Genesis account has humans created last before God took a break. It's not like Adam ever got to see anything else created, except for Eve, of course (assuming the standard "we-all-came-from-incest" theory where God wasn't creating more humans for A&E's children) - and he was asleep for that. It seems more likely that they didn't think of the universe as being old simply because they had no knowledge. After all, scientists didn't realise what stars actually were until the last couple centuries.
I don't understand what you mean when you say the universe would have looked "new" - I mean, in astronomical terms six thousand years is nothing. A "new" universe doesn't have matter, for instance.
Anyway, I'm not here to dash your beliefs - that's not my style - but I certainly don't share them. You won't get a convert out of me - been there, got the T-shirt, got out. From my point of view, you're ignoring an awful lot of science trying to shoehorn young earth creationism into reality - which like I said in my previous posts, is one of the things that drives off young believers. It's up to you to decide if insisting on literal interpretation is worth losing more of the flock - there are an awful lot of Christians who don't believe the old stories in Genesis are historical fact, and they seem to get by just fine.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Funny how all "science" now seems to support a very particular liberal/environmentalist ideological agenda. Maybe that has something to do with the new scientific method:
Or it is because reality has a well-known liberal bias.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Or it is because reality has a well-known liberal bias.
If it did, maybe all those honeybees that were being killed by global warming would still be dying. Yet, once again, reality failed to conform to the environmentalist agenda.
Time to backtrack on yet another failed prediction for you "reality" types, huh?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
The Globe and Mail has no Reality bias. Neither have you.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.