Otherwise (by looking at only one, even tho' it lines up the best with *your* specialization), you open yourself up to the cheap shot counterargument of "Who's nitpicking NOW?!"
As it is, I'd rather post snarky comments than do any work. It's the holiday season, and I'm distracted...
Cheers!
Otherwise (by looking at only one, even tho' it lines up the best with *your* specialization), you open yourself up to the cheap shot counterargument of "Who's nitpicking NOW?!"
With many creationists you can't do that. You have to select one item and try to get to the bottom of it. When they see that the facts are going against them they dredge up hundreds of semi-related and totally unrelated points, and try to argue them all at once. Can't be done. Its such a common creationist technique that its even been named after its master proponent, as the Gish Gallup.
No, we are going to get to the bottom of this one creationist claim, then we can move on to another.
At present the claim is that radiocarbon dating is inaccurate because a series of "ancient" skeletons was analyzed by AMS radiocarbon dating and found to be young (under 11,000 years in age). That is supposed to be proof that the radiocarbon dating technique is flawed. This claim is rampant in creationist literature, and was in one of the links that Cottshop posted to me earlier today.
Now the facts of the matter are that those skeletons were claimed to be old (as old as 70,000 years) on the basis of amino acid racemization. That technique has proven not to be very accurate. So, as is usually the case in science, someone else challenged the claim and dated the skeletons with a newer and much more accurate dating method -- AMS radiocarbon dating. The skeletons were all found to be under 11,000 years old. That age fits with what we know of the areas from which those skeletons were excavated.
But when creationists saw the article clearing up the antiquity of these skeletons they jumped right in -- and got the facts exactly backwards! They claimed that the skeletons really were ancient, and that the AMS dating method was wrong. They did this in an effort to discredit radiocarbon dating, and because they didn't have a clue as to the actual science. Creation "science" as usual.
Now, when I post the information straightening out the creationist claim I get nothing but gibberish in return. Post after post making additional wild claims, both about the science of the matter and what the Taylor article says. This is particularly funny as early this afternoon I had the original article in my lap, while the rebuttals were being cut and pasted from creationist websites whose authors had most likely never seen the article--they just copied from other websites who in turn had copied from Walter T. Brown’s In the Beginning (1989), p. 95. He's the one who started this nonsense. (This is a good example of how creation "science" works.)
You suggest that I rebut multiple points contained in the link Cottshop provided earlier today. I would really like him or some other creationist to admit that this standard creationist talking point is in error before I move on to the next point. Otherwise why bother.
But that will never happen. I have yet to see a creationist criticize another creationist on issues of this nature. Rather, many will jump in and support him, although most will remain silent.
To summarize:
[[Otherwise (by looking at only one, even tho’ it lines up the best with *your* specialization), you open yourself up to the cheap shot counterargument of “Who’s nitpicking NOW?!”]]
What? Since hwne is hte truth ‘nitpicking’ or claiming the other side is ‘nitpicking’?
[[Your point would be stronger if you were able to demonstrate similar errors/misunderstandings in his other examples.]]
‘other misunderstandings’? please do enlighten me where either I or the fella that wrote the article are ‘mistaken’ or in ‘error’? So far, all we’re been handed is some cock-n-bull story that blatantly misrepresents the actual FACTS abotu what was wrote.