Thank you Guthrie, some of these are good links... This seems to be the only intelligent response I have gotten.guthrie said:Actually, I can't seem to find any history books not written by archeologists or using archeological evidence. Your point is presumably that all their dates are wrong?
Since you want us to do all your digging for you, heres some links:
http://www.geocities.com/we_evolve/Origins/ori_main.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB035.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB035_2.html
I think they'll answer some of your questions. Needless to say, these are still under development, so if you can come up with any new evidence I'm sure the researchers will be glad to know.
That was in 1950. In 2004, they know better. look up Bristlecone pines. They have been used to calibrate C14 for over 5,000 years back.
I think this should answer your questions:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-c14.html
Or this quote:
"It has also been tested on items whose age is known through historical records, such as parts of the dead sea scrolls and some wood from an Egyptian tomb [Watson 2001; MNSU n.d.]."
From: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD011.html
They have done so, as pointed out above.
Sometimes it did wear away. Other times the layer of sediment has been compressed, like with coal. Oddly enough I think you'll find that its hard to find fossils in layers of sediment that have been highly compressed. Do you have any evidence to back up your claims, like photos of strata?
Yes, all archeological dates are wrong, if they used C14. Yes, all archeological dates are wrong if they used the bible (which all Egyptian, Babylonian, Hittite and indeed all of the entire Mediteranean dates are based upon - but that is another topic). Perhaps I should not be so bold as to say all, but I can still say highly suspect.
I have tried to keep up with these theories, and I have read most of these before. Of course, the different camps point out how the other's theories must be wrong - but that is how science is supposed to work. I have taken the time to read your links, would you do me the courtesy of reading mine? (Note, even though the first one is on a Creation site, there is no mention of creation or of God).
http://www.creationism.org/vonfange/vonFangeTimeUpDownChap04.htm
http://www.diveturkey.com/inaturkey/uluburun/dendrochron.htm
I was under the impression that the tree ring work was still in progress - the problem being the ability to find overlapping tree rings from common areas since trees obviously don't live longer than a maximum of 2000 years. I am astounded at the claim that they can go back over 8000 years, especially with the overlap problems as noted here. I will continue to investigate, thank you.
In the second link above note the following quote:
In the hope of obtaining an absolute date for the ship, seven wood samples taken from the keel-plank, planking, and cedar logs were submitted to Peter Kuniholm of Comell University for dendrochronological dating. While some samples did not have a sufficient number of tree rings to match the established master sequence, others with more rings appeared not to match at all. A large log-like piece of undetermined purpose, but with its outer layers trimmed, yielded a date of 1441 B.C. ±37 years, the uncertainty factor arising from the carbon dating of samples constituting the floating master conifer-ring sequence.
Please tell it isn’t so! Carbon 14 dating is used to place the pieces of the master sequence in the proper order at the proper date? If C14 is used to establish the master sequence then how can the master sequence be used to calibrate C14?You have to be careful with tree rings since the climate is important: Tree rings come in pairs, one light and the next dark:
Trees also add one ring for each rainy season within a year. If the climate of a particular region is wet year-round, as in the tropics, rings tend to be very thick and almost indistinguishable. If the climate of an area has two distinct rainy seasons separated by periods of no rain, trees will add two rings per year. Now, here's a problem to consider. How might one interpret tree rings if an area with bimodal rainfall experiences an anomalous year in which there is only one rainy season? Clearly, dendrochronology isn't as easy and clear-cut as it might seem at first glance. ref
So it turns out that counting rings does not give an age in years but an age in seasons – wet/dry cycles. In parts of the world where we live in bimodal conditions (most of the US, and at least part of Europe, where the rains come in the Spring and in the Fall) then there are actually two ring-pairs laid down per year – making an 8000 ring-pair sample actually cover only 4000 years or so. I was under the impression that dendrochronological calibration of C14 was still under way. To see someone claim the process is complete is astounding.Concerning C14 dating and calibration:
Carbon 14 dating is based upon a number of important assumptions, but only one will be discussed here. In order to compare C14 dates meaningfully, we must assume that all organisms contained the same amount of C14 when they died. Otherwise, organisms with less C14 will appear older because there will be less C14 than expected when the sample is tested. Unfortunately, that assumption is faulty.
As Mary Hudson explained in her Aucilla River Times article two years ago, C14 is created by cosmic radiation in the upper atmosphere. That radiation fluctuates year to year and therefore so does the creation of C14 . That means if our branch grew at a time when relatively lower levels of C14 were in the atmosphere, it would have less C14 when it died and would show an older apparent age than it should. Conversely, if it grew at a time of abundant C14 it would appear younger than it should. This differential C14 concentration may give our branch a younger C14 age than another branch that died hundreds of years after our branch, making comparison of the two samples misleading.
The only way to resolve this uncertainty is to calibrate the C14 dates with calendar dates. This calibration has been done by compiling a dendrochronological (tree-ring) record and painstakingly figuring the C14 age of these tree rings. This tree-ring record now extends back about 11,500 years, and by comparing the calendar age of the tree rings with their radiocarbon age, calibration curves have been created to produce a calendar date for a corresponding C14 date. The differential production of C14 produces “wiggles” in the calibration curves, and these wiggles can result in a single radiocarbon age corresponding to more than one calendar age. – ref
Notice in the figure in the reference that many dates can correspond to a single C14 level (found on the vertical axis). Note that at the 10500 year level the amount drops off! According to the theory, low levels should have been billions of years ago when C14 first started being produced in the atmosphere! (I doubt the level stays at this low range but I had fun saying the previous statement anyway). This calibration table was based upon dendrochronological dating, which itself has serious issues as I have already discussed.As Mary Hudson explained in her Aucilla River Times article two years ago, C14 is created by cosmic radiation in the upper atmosphere. That radiation fluctuates year to year and therefore so does the creation of C14 . That means if our branch grew at a time when relatively lower levels of C14 were in the atmosphere, it would have less C14 when it died and would show an older apparent age than it should. Conversely, if it grew at a time of abundant C14 it would appear younger than it should. This differential C14 concentration may give our branch a younger C14 age than another branch that died hundreds of years after our branch, making comparison of the two samples misleading.
The only way to resolve this uncertainty is to calibrate the C14 dates with calendar dates. This calibration has been done by compiling a dendrochronological (tree-ring) record and painstakingly figuring the C14 age of these tree rings. This tree-ring record now extends back about 11,500 years, and by comparing the calendar age of the tree rings with their radiocarbon age, calibration curves have been created to produce a calendar date for a corresponding C14 date. The differential production of C14 produces “wiggles” in the calibration curves, and these wiggles can result in a single radiocarbon age corresponding to more than one calendar age. – ref
Another problem for C14 is that the levels of C14 have been rising for the past few decades. The common excuse put forward by C14 advocates is that dating within the past 150 years is not possible since the levels of C14 in the atmosphere have been artificially raised due to nuclear testing. The average solar lumination all over the world is 164 Watts per square meter over a 24 hour day (as high as 300 Watts per square meter at high noon) and the surface area of the entire Earth is 509,600,000,000,000 square meters so the sun delivers about 7.22 E21 joules per day (5.096E14 * 24hours * 3600sec * 164watts = 7.22 billion-trillion joules per day). The average output from a nuclear bomb is about 1.5 E14 joules (150 trillion joules). If there were an average nuclear bomb exploded every single day, the effect on the Earth would be less than one billionth (0.000002%) of what the sun normally delivers. There has never been a time when nuclear bombs were exploded every day. Such a claim is absurd. The truth is that C14 levels are naturally rising, putting to sever question the assumption about original level of C14 in specimens which died in the past. Without knowing the original levels, no meaningful dating can be done.
I particularly liked the link about Green River and Fossil Lake. The data indicated that the layers put down annually accumulated at an average of 0.18mm per year. The fish fossils averaged about 18cm in length which I would think would mean about 2-3cm in thickness. The rebuttal article tried to say that organics would in fact be well preserved on the bottom of the lake and cited a story of a human body, which was preserved for 5 years and was still in somewhat recognizable state. However, the humans were inside a car, not on the lake bottom. Further, at the indicated rate, it would take, not 5 years to cover a 2-3cm thick fish but 150years - and this is just to get the fish covered over with the smallest layer of sediment. Fossilization requires a thick covering (some pressure from the sediment) so we are not talking about 150years to just get the fish covered by many times that to provide the correct conditions for fossilization. How is it this can be explained? How can a fish survive without decomposition for hundreds of years? Far from debunking the younger age of the region claimed by creationists, the debunk article has actually added good data to support such a claim.
Thank you again Guthrie for an intellegent response.
Last edited:
