In goes another nail: Pierolapithecus catalaunicus

[Andre]

David,

There are NO DATING METHODS which have passed anything like a rigorous scientific evaluation showing that correct results emerge. In fact, Radiocarbon dating has totally failed many times - so many that professional historians reject all C14 test data.

I have no idea by what standards you state this. But then again there are two worlds. This may be true in your world, but perhaps I may tell you something from my world. Of course, that's definitely not valid in yours, I know, it's just for your information.

Carbon dating is an invention of the 1950's in the evolved world, although ingenious it was very unreliable due to a number of sound physical reasons. (psysical laws in my world that is.) It the last few decades numerous people in the evolved world made numerous improvements including layer counting. I see that you do not accept tree rings (dendrochronology) but here in the evolved world that method have been validated like looking at wooden articfacts with written dates on them. But that is in this world of course. Now besides that numerous lake sediments have been investigated and it appeared that the sediment showed distinct annual layering, that could also be counted back until roughly the unexisting 30.000 years ago. Then it was easy to compare that to the already greatly improved carbon dating method (13C calibration, Accelerometer Mass spectormetry, etc. So now there are tables that convert apparent erroneous carbon dates to true -albeit- impossible real dates.

In my world all the scientists accept this methodology but I'm sure that in your world other laws are prevailing.

Respectfully,

Andre

 

[Red Devil]

Bloody 'ell David, all the worlds experts are wrong and your right. I was right, its the second coming!!!!!

 

[Andre]

Would that explain the two worlds M*W?

 

[David F.]

David,

I have no idea by what standards you state this. But then again there are two worlds. This may be true in your world, but perhaps I may tell you something from my world. Of course, that's definitely not valid in yours, I know, it's just for your information.

Carbon dating is an invention of the 1950's in the evolved world, although ingenious it was very unreliable due to a number of sound physical reasons. (psysical laws in my world that is.) It the last few decades numerous people in the evolved world made numerous improvements including layer counting. I see that you do not accept tree rings (dendrochronology) but here in the evolved world that method have been validated like looking at wooden articfacts with written dates on them. But that is in this world of course. Now besides that numerous lake sediments have been investigated and it appeared that the sediment showed distinct annual layering, that could also be counted back until roughly the unexisting 30.000 years ago. Then it was easy to compare that to the already greatly improved carbon dating method (13C calibration, Accelerometer Mass spectormetry, etc. So now there are tables that convert apparent erroneous carbon dates to true -albeit- impossible real dates.

In my world all the scientists accept this methodology but I'm sure that in your world other laws are prevailing.

Respectfully,

Andre

What world would that be? No, all scientists do not accept these dates, even with the correction factor (thank you for validating the effort at correction). I suppose you are calling my world "religious" although I have not invoked religion in any way in my arguments. However, I am familiar with a recent (1993) set of C14 tests which gave some surprising results. Four mummy wrapping samples (three with known dates and one with an unknown date) were sent to three different laboratories (12 samples in all). The known samples were specifically sent as an attempt to create a blind test before accepting the test results on the sample with an unknown date. The three known samples all failed to give correct results, and even varied from lab to lab. The unknown sample was from the Shroud of Turin, but that is not the interesting part of this little story. The interesting part is that the dating techniques totally failed on known samples and were not even consistent in their failure! Carbon dating is well known to give erratic results (e.g. the dating of a live animal to 4000BC ). Most real researchers don't use it and even those who do, do it with skepticism. As you mentioned, those in the radiocarbon dating field are trying to find correction factors to fix their problems, but I am not assured yet that those factors have been found. Perhaps you have more information on those efforts?

Perhaps it is your world that outlawed the thoughts of Galileo and Copernicus? The scientific "establishment" has always been in the business of supporting their own false ideas and suppressing truth. As it was in the past, so it is today.

 

[spidergoat]

As I have asked on other threads, how does the shape of bones determine evolution status? (I'm sure you are right and this is exactly how the age of the bones was determined).

I could line up a set of dog breeds, from smallest to largest (Chihuahua to Great Dane) and claim that there are similar characteristics between the breeds thus tying them together as a species and showing that the size differences indicate an evolution change. The fact that all the dogs are still alive at the same time is incidental in the same way that you don’t care how old the bones are. My evolution chain is just as good as yours (even though everyone would know I was making a joke).

In truth, the age of the bones is of supreme importance since a younger bone can not possibly represent an ancestor. Unfortunately, there are NO DATING METHODS which have in any way been tested successfully on specimens of known age. Thus, for scientific purposes, there are no valid dating methods.

The shape of the bones can indicate how the animal walked, for instance. A hip or leg bone can show that they had some characteristics of an ape, yet spent much more time walking upright than modern apes do. Even if you showed dog bones of differing sizes, they would all function in a similar way. Yes, it is still speculation until they have the supporting evidence of age, since this ape could have been just a freakish and isolated case that went extinct recently.

 

[David F.]

The shape of the bones can indicate how the animal walked, for instance. A hip or leg bone can show that they had some characteristics of an ape, yet spent much more time walking upright than modern apes do. Even if you showed dog bones of differing sizes, they would all function in a similar way. Yes, it is still speculation until they have the supporting evidence of age, since this ape could have been just a freakish and isolated case that went extinct recently.

I absolutely agree. All that you said concerning how the animal walked (or sat or climbed or distributed its weight) can be determined by looking at things like the the shape of the bone. My question was how this puts it in the evolution path of man (it doesn't - even if it turns out to be very very old).

This could be "just a freakish and isolated case that went extinct recently." It doesn't really even have to be freekish or isolated... just extinct as so many other species have already become.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Andre: Why does a discussion about a possible homo sapiens ancestor has to evolve into a creation versus evolution debate?

Don't you guys know that there are two worlds here, a created one and an evolved one and never the twain shall meet.

But somehow they got intermingled.
*************
M*W: Please explain what you mean by this statement.

"Don't you guys know that there are two worlds here, a created one and an evolved one and never the twain shall meet. But somehow they got intermingled."

 

[Andre]

What world would that be? No, all scientists do not accept these dates, even with the correction factor (thank you for validating the effort at correction).

Well there is one world that is 4,6 billion years old and one world that is 6000 years old (perhaps a little more). And both inhabitants are sure about that. Obviously, that can't be same worlds, can it, M*S?

Dating of paleontologic artifacts follows several independant methods. Strata are investigated on magnetic property and compared to the assumed orientation sequence of the Earth magnetic field. Then fossils in those strata are assume to be of the same age. However, this is validated using one or more of the several dozen radiogenic methods. Carbon dating is one of them. Sometimes artifacs are not dated the same age. Well things happen and the results are rejected.

Next there are more exotic and ingenious dating methods like thermo-opto illuminicence ( I hope I spelled that right) looking at the elapsed time of exposure to light or to heat (like pottery). You can all compare those - avoiding circular reasoning- and when two or more match each other. Now look at my mammoth thread.

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=42448

Carbon dating:
Three samples of bone, skin and hair (June 2003):
Bone 18,510 +/- 80 BP
Skin 18,510 +/- 100 BP
Hair 18,680 +/- 100 BP
Average: 18,560 +/- 50 BP
Cross-check (AMS) Tucson, Arizona, USA, :
Bone (rib) 18,160 +/- 110 BP

You see four carbon dating using different methods in(optical spectrometry and Accelerated mass spectrometry) the latter is the most accurate. Also in two different labs. Now look at the results. They do not match exactly but it would not be far fetched to say that this animal is a wee bit older than 6000 years. In my, 4,6 billion years old world, of course. If you have enough money you would date the strata, for this dating in this time frame the "10be-26al" method would probably be suitable.

The other year ,we (not me but a friend) dated a jaw of a scimitar cat (European Sabre tooth tiger) that was thought to be extinct for more than 50,000 years. The result was 28-thousend something. Consequently the dating was repeated five times in different labs. The result: 28-thousend something. The ultimate consequence: this scimitar cat (Homotherium latidens) went not extinct more than 50,000 years ago and quite some upheaval in paleaonthological land.

Anyway, notice the indication BP (before present). This means that the calibration to layer counting calibration tables yet has to be done and the result would be close to 21,000 years "Cal BP" and that would be more consequent since the area where this animal was found is thought to have been too cold 18,000 years ago.

Perhaps it is your world that outlawed the thoughts of Galileo and Copernicus?

Yes that's common practice in my world, However I believe that outlawing is also very common practice in yours as in the case of those two. But I'm afraid and we are not that proud of rejecting Wegener (plate tectonics) for instance. The big problem is that there are a zillion crackpots with crazy ideas that are really crazy and one or two in a century with crazy ideas but which are very true.

There may be one of them very close by but he realizes that it will take a hundred or more years before others can accept that.

 

[Andre]

Oh and M*S I had an impuls of a little bit of creative imagination. Evolution is evolving, isn't it.

And I have not heard of any occurance that somebody in the 6000 years old world convinced somebody of the 4,6 billion years old world and vice versa.

So it must be two worlds that got intertwined somehow.

 

[Cris]

So do we agree that this new discovery does indeed add one more nail to the coffin of the Christian creation hogwash?

 

[David F.]

Well there is one world that is 4,6 billion years old and one world that is 6000 years old (perhaps a little more). And both inhabitants are sure about that. Obviously, that can't be same worlds, can it, M*S?

Dating of paleontologic artifacts follows several independant methods. Strata are investigated on magnetic property and compared to the assumed orientation sequence of the Earth magnetic field. Then fossils in those strata are assume to be of the same age. However, this is validated using one or more of the several dozen radiogenic methods. Carbon dating is one of them. Sometimes artifacs are not dated the same age. Well things happen and the results are rejected.

Next there are more exotic and ingenious dating methods like thermo-opto illuminicence ( I hope I spelled that right) looking at the elapsed time of exposure to light or to heat (like pottery). You can all compare those - avoiding circular reasoning- and when two or more match each other. Now look at my mammoth thread.

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=42448

You see four carbon dating using different methods in(optical spectrometry and Accelerated mass spectrometry) the latter is the most accurate. Also in two different labs. Now look at the results. They do not match exactly but it would not be far fetched to say that this animal is a wee bit older than 6000 years. In my, 4,6 billion years old world, of course. If you have enough money you would date the strata, for this dating in this time frame the "10be-26al" method would probably be suitable.

The other year ,we (not me but a friend) dated a jaw of a scimitar cat (European Sabre tooth tiger) that was thought to be extinct for more than 50,000 years. The result was 28-thousend something. Consequently the dating was repeated five times in different labs. The result: 28-thousend something. The ultimate consequence: this scimitar cat (Homotherium latidens) went not extinct more than 50,000 years ago and quite some upheaval in paleaonthological land.

Anyway, notice the indication BP (before present). This means that the calibration to layer counting calibration tables yet has to be done and the result would be close to 21,000 years "Cal BP" and that would be more consequent since the area where this animal was found is thought to have been too cold 18,000 years ago.

Why do you use an age of 6000 years for the Earth? I claim no such date. Actually, I claim that neither Evolutionists, Geologist nor Creationists have any idea of the true date - nor do I claim to know. I never try to argue religion with non-believers - religion is by definition, unprovable. I'll stick with science if you will.

Please explain to me why I should believe your date of 18,000 years for the extinct cat? Before I will believe any date you give, you must first use your method on relics with known dates (not once or twice but many times) and you must get the correct dates. After you have done this, then I will believe (withing a margin of error) that you can date things from approximately the same time frame as those successes. Next, you need to repeat the above process for a range of time frames so that a curve can be established. The curve can be extended into the past (along with the curves of the range of errors - which will grow the further back you extend your curve).

As you say, the radiocarbon dating method was developed over 50 years ago. Surely such tests and the curve have been established in the over half a century since this method was developed - but I can't find it. Can you please point me to these validation tests and the resulting data?

Magnetic orientation dating is known to be flawed. Tests with thin-flow lava have shown orientation changes within hours or days. There have apperantly been many such changes in the magnetic field orientation of the Earth throughout its history. With such observable variations in the magnetic field of the Earth, this makes Magnetic Orietation dating an almost random activity. Potasium-Argon dating uses absolutely microscopic amounts of radioactive Potasium, 0.0117%, and is thus extremely prone to errors. Uranium-Lead is not much better. All the dating methods require absolutly untestable assumptions about the initial conditions of the specimen. Since the test samples are very small in all methods, any contamination of the sample leads to wild variations in the results. Because of this, they are all just guesswork. For example, C14 testing assumes that the stead-state level of C14 50,000 years ago was the same as it is today. Unfortunately, the level of C14 today IS NOT STABLE. The rate has been fluctuating each decade, with a basic upward trend. If the level is getting higher, then it should be assumed that the level in the past was lower, or to say it another way, the ratio of C14 to C12 would be smaller in the past than it is today (although other factors may actually cause the levels to fluctuation in both directions - unknown). Since the date of the specimen is based upon the levels or ratio of C14 to C12 today vs the ratio when the specimen died, a lower natural environmental level in the past would automatically cause the measured date to be further into the past - perhaps far older than the actual date. This is not meant to impinge on the accuracy of the lab, only the validity of the theory itself. No matter how accurate the lab, if the theory is wrong or the initial conditions are not fully understood, then the results will be far from correct.

 

[David F.]

So do we agree that this new discovery does indeed add one more nail to the coffin of the Christian creation hogwash?

Explain to me again, how does this fit into the evolution of man and how do you know this monkey is your g'g'g'g'g'g'g'g'g'g'g'g'g'...great Grandfather? What evidence is there that the monkey is even old?

 

[Andre]

Oh but please David, You don't have to believe me. That's the problems with the two worlds, they are different. So it would be useless to convince each other, that would make things very complicated. Please, do continue with the truths of your world.

 

[Andre]

And for those in the 4,6 billion years world the scimitar cat story is published here:

Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology ( edition 23, nr 1, pp. 260-262)
“Late Pleistocene Survival of the Saber-Toothed Cat Homotherium in Northwestern Europe”
W.F. Reumer, Lorenzo Rook, Klaas van der Borg, Klaas Post, Dick Mol and John de Vos

Errata when I said 50,000 I missed a zero. The extinction time was thought to be 500,000 years. However this particular specimen had not mineralized (petrified) yet which happens to other bones in the same conditions after some 50,000 years.

Here is a picture and the story in Dutch. You may recognise "28,000" in the text somewhere.

http://members.lycos.nl/wpz/nieuwsitems/homotherium/homotherium.htm

 

[David F.]

Oh but please David, You don't have to believe me. That's the problems with the two worlds, they are different. So it would be useless to convince each other, that would make things very complicated. Please, do continue with the truths of your world.

Come now Andre, I don't live in some fantasy world that you imagine. I live in the scientific world. I just don't believe what many scientists claim, that the earth is 4.6billion years old. Surely you don't mind proving your claim? Isn't that what science is all about? You make an assertion and I question it until there are no more questions. Then we decide whether your theory is correct.

If you won't submit it basic scientific inquiry, then perhaps it is you who is living in a fantasy world.

Come on Andre - show me some basic validation testing on your much vaunted dating methods - or can it be that you can't? If you can't then maybe you should reexamine your science and try to come up with a theory which actually fits some hard data?

 

[Andre]

Again that's useless. and I don't see the point of even starting to consider attempting to convince you. 4,6 billion years is not my theory. A lot of people have made reasoning that way in an open transparant reproduceable way. That's called science here.

If those can't convince you, you must be living in another world.

 

[David F.]

Ah, democratic science, is that it? The majority rules? Is that the way science works? This sounds like religion not science. I don't believe the religious leaders either. Science is NEVER ABOUT MAJORITY OPINION. Science is supposed to be about facts.

Come now. All I'm asking for is basic calibration data. I'm not asking for you to convince me of something hard. I'm just asking if anyone has used your method(s) to date known samples? What's unreasonable about that. No convincing, no arm twisting. I would expect the same of any scientific theory or piece of equipment. If you can't calibrate the theory to known data then it is useless.

Every single scientist in the world should ask for these basic data points. They should be published where everyone can see them. What is there to hide? If you just believe a theory without proof, that's called Religion, not Science.

I'm not asking for anything hard. I just want you to show me your stuff works. Is that too much to ask?

 

[David F.]

Leaving religion completely out of the discussion… Can no one make Biological Evolution stand up to more than cursory questioning? All I hear is the Party Line and it seems like I’m supposed to just believe as if some all-knowing science-guru had spoken. It doesn’t seem to mean anything that no one can give even a hint of why anyone should believe the garbage they spew.

Come on now, can’t anyone back up even the basic tenants of the religion, opps err I mean science, of Biological Evolution?

 

[guthrie]

The truth is that we don't know how life got here and we don't know how old the Earth is.

We dont know for certain about life, and we cant date the earth to the precise day. But the 4.6 billion year thing hangs together. Tell us about your alternative hypothesis.

There a re NO DATING METHODS which have passed anything like a rigorous scientific evaluation showing that correct results emerge. In fact, Radiocarbon dating has totally failed many times - so many that professional historians reject all C14 test data.

Really? You mean all the history books written by professional historians that I have sitting on my shelves right now are completely wrong?

Somehow we still use these incredibly long dates, 4-5 billion years, as the accepted age of the Earth, without any scientific data to back them up at all. Why? Because any date less than this would certainly doom the whole science of Biological Evolution - thus the need in science for these dates to be true (actually even this age is ridiculously small when faced with the needs of evolution, but other sciences have to struggle to just maintain this incredible age). The idea that there are scientists out there fixing the problems and validating the data, is simply wrong wishful thinking – kind of like faith in one’s religion. (Lightning in gloop jars does not produce the correct amino acids nor explain how they might survive even if they were produced since amino acids decay quickly in the presence of oxygen).

But the gloop isnt oxygen, and the hypothesis is based about a reducing atmosphere that was low in oxygen. Free oxygen came along later when life was properly started.

I presume you will completely dispute the simple observed fact of the decay of radioactivity? I believe Andre has already answered you about carbon 14.

You cannot have fossils in layers or strata which is only inches thick but represents millions of years. Fossils absolutely will not form this way (they must be deeply buried with water). The whole thing is a sham, a house of cards that is slowly coming down despite the efforts of the scientific community to prop it up - which is one reason why 44% of the people don't believe.

Probably you cannot? What of it? we have many fossils from hundreds of feet thick layers of strata that represent thousands of years. And fossils do not form when they are buried in water, its being buried at all that counts. Water is one of teh ways they are turned into fossils, but being buried and affected by the small amount of water that percolates past is not quite the same as being "buried in water."

So what is your alternative hypothesis?

 

[spidergoat]

Leaving religion completely out of the discussion… Can no one make Biological Evolution stand up to more than cursory questioning? All I hear is the Party Line and it seems like I’m supposed to just believe as if some all-knowing science-guru had spoken. It doesn’t seem to mean anything that no one can give even a hint of why anyone should believe the garbage they spew.

Come on now, can’t anyone back up even the basic tenants of the religion, opps err I mean science, of Biological Evolution?

Just read this month's National Geographic. Some of Darwin's assertions have proven untrue, but not the basic theory. What is your objection to evolution, precisely? Our genetic code is not fixed, but varies from person to person, and through time. It is reasonable to assume that some genetic variations are more suited to a particular environment that others, and that natural selection would favor the survival of animals with certain traits, and that these animals would be more likely to reproduce, passing their successful traits to their offspring.