Posted on 03/29/2008 6:54:19 PM PDT by wastedpotential
Of all the factors that led to Mike Huckabee's demise in the 2008 presidential sweepstakes (insufficient funds, lack of foreign policy experience), there's one that has been largely overlooked: Huckabee's disbelief in the theory of evolution as it is generally understood – without the involvement of the Creator.
Perhaps you're thinking: What's evolution got to do with being president? Very little, as Huckabee was quick to remind reporters on the campaign trail. But from the moment the former Baptist minister revealed his beliefs on evolutionary biology, political commentators and scientists lambasted him. Some even suggested those beliefs should disqualify him from high office.
We believe most Americans
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
>>Look at the AIG statement of faith I posted above. Folks who accept such a priori conditions have no business telling scientists how to conduct science.<<
Nobody I respect is telling “scientists” how to conduct science. Meanwhile, some “scientists” are telling others how their discoveries MUST be interpreted, even though many, MANY of those anointed interpretations have been proven DEAD WRONG.
And a shingle doesn’t make a person a scientist in my book. I’ve known my share of “professional students”. There are people with little or no formal education that are smarter and can better come up with accurate interpretations of information than others with a wall full of shingles.
Of education, knowledge and wisdom, the least is education and the greatest is wisdom. -— Robroy
But wouldn't you agree that it's one of the simplist, and if a hobiest were to attempt any radiometric dating experiments, it would be the ideal one? I'm open to suggestions to a better one.
Counting beta decay in theory is very simple. In practice, getting accurate radiocarbon dates from archaeological materials is much more difficult.
As an archaeologist I send a lot of samples off for dating,
Cool! I always wanted to meet a real life scientist! Can you tell me more? What lab to you usually send them to, and what does it cost? Also, what particular type of archaeology do you work in, and where? Very cool!
I use Beta Analytic in Coral Gables, Florida. They charge $375 for a standard sample, and $595 for an AMS sample. Standard samples need to be quite large (for example 15 grams of clean shell) while AMS samples can be very small (a few milligrams of shell will work). I do prehistoric archaeology in the western US.
and most of the tricky parts are in sample selection and interpretation of the results.
Could you clarify selection and interpretation, here? As an archaeologist, do you do this selection and interpretation?
Yes. The lab does the sample processing, which includes decontamination and determination of C13 and C14. They will provide a calibration using the latest calibration curve.
But there is much more to it than that. The samples I send in need to be representative of something. If I send in a sample consisting of hundreds of pieces of shell or bulk soil, the resulting date may be of little use because it mixes multiple events. I prefer a single piece of bone, shell, or charcoal because that represents a single event. And a single piece of charcoal might represent a forest fire, so you need to use charcoal from a reliable provenience, such as a fire pit or hearth. A single piece of shell is almost always good as shellfish don't walk up and out of the ocean.
To further complicate matters, that piece of wood might have been from the center of a 500 year old oak. Whoops! Your date is off by 500 years and you don't know it. (A shellfish is usually much shorter-lived, so that won't be much of a problem.)
For this and other reasons it is extremely dangerous to rely on a single sample. If you have a dozen dates you can see trends and spot outliers. When working a major site, I usually send in a few samples and evaluate the results before sending in the next batch. It is not unusual to send the samples off in four or five batches, using subsequent batches to expand or clarify the results of earlier batches. Some sites I have worked have required over 30 samples to provide good estimates of the ages of the different cultural layers.
When the results come back from the lab you have to know what to make of them. If you sent off a sea mammal bone you need to make sure it is calibrated using a marine dataset, rather than a terrestrial dataset. Same for shell. The C13/C12 ratio can also provide useful information on the nature of the sample, and that figure is used in calculating the "conventional" age from the "measured" age. Human bone can provide erroneous answers if you calibrate using a terrestrial dataset while the people were eating a heavily marine diet. The (N15 and C13 readings can help determine the percent of marine organisms in the diet.)
Radiocarbon dates often come back calibrated with a range, calculated at one and two sigmas. Some labs also provide an intercept. It is much safer to use the range at two sigmas as your date (that might be expressed as Cal AD 250 to 420 (Cal BP 1700 to 1520). This represents a statistical reliability of about 95%.
It wouldn't hurt to clarify that since the suggestion has been made in this thread that scientists select just the evidence that supports their belief. Also, what do you mean by interpretation? I think radiocarbon dating is pretty well defined -- it should be a matter of science, I'm not sure why different people would interpret it in different ways.
The interpretation comes in when you are trying to figure out what your dates mean in terms of the people who lived at a site. If you have six dates between 500 and 1000 years ago and six more dates between 1500 and 2000 years ago, does that 500 year gap represent an abandonment of the site, or is it an artifact of the number of samples you submitted. Was there some bias in your sample selection that created the gap? Did you select six samples from the top of the site and six from the bottom, neglecting to date the middle of the site? That is what I mean by interpretation. (And it is often a lot more complex than this.)
I must tease you a little here for refering me to a religious website about a scientific matter and in response to a scientific question. Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective by Dr. Roger C. Wiens.
Many of the people I discuss C14 dating with are anti-science because of their religious beliefs, so I find that this source can help. Besides, it is the best summary article I have found.
Could you please be so kind as to point out where on this extensive site I would most likely find the information that would be most helpful in teaching me how to perform the excercise of carbon dating?
Beats me. Archaeologists don't tend to do the dating themselves. It is much easier to let a good lab do that. You could try the earliest issues of Radiocarbon and see what you can find. I tend to ignore those articles in favor of those dealing with calibration and interpretation.
Thanks very much for the information. Incidentally, most of it was geared towards proving that radiocarbon dating works and is accurate. But my question wasn't whether it was accurate, but "How do I do it."
But I think I did gleam some clues -- C14 comes at about 1part per trillion as compared to non-radioactive carbons. Now I just need to find out how many beta decays there are per million C14 per second, or however it's done.
You also need to separate the sample's beta decay from the background. The labs I have been in have used extensive shielding of their counters to reduce the background. One lab was in a second sub-basement, and had piles of lead bricks all around the counters. I believe they also recorded the ambient background as a control against which to compare the sample count.
Hope this helps.
>>I am also educated enough to understand the basic tenets of what you call “evolution” and shake my head in sadness at the irony of you declaring it “a form of dogmatic religion similar to global warming True Believers.”<<
Hehehe. The irony! Do you think you have enough information about me to use the words “you call” in the previous statement?
Scientists with “objective minds” should be careful to make blanket statements until there is a convincing body of evidence to support their statements.
For example, did you know I firmly believe in evolution?
And the information to PROVE man made global warming is there for any man who reads to see. However, far more information DISPROVING it is also available. If you ignore the disproofs, you could think you have a case. It is a subtle trap. For many of the TOE True Believers, this trap is a large pit.
Supporting facts isn’t the same as religion.
>>Well now, what is the deciding factor? Who is a scientist and who isn’t? Are you, Coyoteman, a scientist? Am I a scientist? How do you know that RobRoy isn’t a scientist? Can only a scientist define what science is?<<
You nailed my feelings about that whole “you’re not a scientist” argument. What many are forgetting is that it aint rocket science. Heck, even rocket science ain’t rocket science.
‘’Rocket science isn’t ‘rocket science, It’s just another set of skills that the creativity of the market can bring to practicality.’’ -—Dr. Charles Lurio, a space consultant in Boston
Too many here tend to deify science itself.
What an absolutely outstanding, insightful essay-post, r9etb! It's a keeper!
Thank you so very much for posting it!
Well and truly said, CottShop! Thank you so much!
DOH!... ouch!...
What if I’m wrong? I’ve lsot nothing- IF there is no God- I lose absolutely nothing- but when we find out there is a God- I’ve gaiend eternity with Him for obeying His word
My question is what if you're wrong in that the way you portray God defames and maligns Him? Which is what I think you are doing.
I said You deny God? Where? Yuo see? That’s your problem- you don’t follow conversations- I said IF you choose to deny God, then YOU are responsible for your decision, and that you can NOT place the blame on God.
You also wrote: "Lol- your whole argument against hte existence of God is based on your opinion that God must be and act in 1 0 parameters?" Which is inaccurate in two ways. In that I denied God existed. And that I believed God must act in 1/0 parameters -- which is what I said you believe.
Well now your story is changing- before you were suggestign that God must be psychotic because he laid down a path of salvation and will judge htose who refuse to beleive in Him, and you inferred that because God has such a demand, that He woudl be to blame for ‘sending us to hell to burn’, now you’re saying you will take responsibility? Which is it?
I said your portrayal your god as a psychotic. God is not psychotic. Therefore, I do not believe what you worship is god.
If I'm wrong, I prepared to take responsibility. If you are wrong, are you prepared? Mind explaining how I malign God? This aught to be ripe with twisted logics- can’t wait- on pins and needles.
I've already said how. The god you worship is a psychotic whose mode of thinking could not have produced that marvelous complexity that is this universe. If you really think that's God, then you malign God.
I suspect, however, that whether you realize it or not, you actually worship and serve God's adversary.
How can you simply ignore all the genetic evidence?
"If the Bible is Truth (how is that different than truth?) why are their so many different interpretations of what Truth is?"
Yes. (Ph.D.)
You know, come to think of it, my paster got his Ph.D. a couple years ago. Is he a scientist, then? [grin]
But what about Michael Faraday? Was he a scientist? Albert Einstein? Was he a scientist? Before or after he graduated with a degree in physics? Or maybe he pursued scientific study because he was a scientist. Was Nikola Tesla a scientist? How about Thomas Edison? Charles Darwin?
(These aren't rhetorical - I honestly want to know how you answer them. They are pretty simple :-)
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the mere fact that one has a Ph.D doesn't prove that they are a scientist. And it sure looks to me like there have been some great scientists without Ph.D.'s. (I grew up reading Tesla's own writings (which weren't as nearly as mystical and fruity as other people's writings about him)
Thus I would still like to know what determines whether one is a scientist. Could it be that a scientist is somebody who performs scientific experiments and follows the scientific method -- regardless of whether they have a Ph.D and regardless of their belief of the process which brought about our existence, as long as they don't falsely assert a faith to be a fact, or a belief to be knowledge?
Do you think, based on what I've told you about myself, that I am a scientist? I have no degrees whatsoever, but I have a fascination with science and have done many scientific experiments, and yearn to learn and study.
(Probably the most shocking experiment I ever did was the day I learned by experimentation that flames conduct high voltage, and not to play the propane blowtorch flame on the screens inside an operating buglight zapper. I was however delighted with the discovery, but of course later found that it was common knowledge.)
It's only fair that if one states that they are a scientist and another is not, that they also explain how they came to that conclusion. Words without definitions have no meaning. (And using meaningless words to dis someone isn't very nice.)
Who else is qualified? Are we going to let creationists, many of whom are avowed enemies of science, come up with the definitions? Many of them, including many on this website, would rather see most sciences gutted because science doesn't agree with, or confirm, their particular religious beliefs.
I don't think it's quite correct to say that many creationists are avowed enemies of science that would rather see most sciences gutted. Here's why:
There are a lot of other sciences then just those related to the origins of matter and life. Math, Chemistry, Computer Science, Biology, Geology (as in what rocks are made of, the empirical stuff), Electronics (Is that even a science?) Optics, physics -- all of these sciences work perfectly fine, can be studied, tested, and utilized regardless the past. I think creationists more tend to just disbelieve the conclusions that the earth is old, generally citing lack of sufficient evidence and evidence against. At least is that my view.
Look at the AIG statement of faith I posted above. Folks who accept such a priori conditions have no business telling scientists how to conduct science.
I don't know why you keep talking about faith when I want to talk about science :-)
But now that we're talking about faith, the AiG statement of faith mostly agrees with the Bible. And as I mentioned before, I believe the Bible to be true. And by the way, my observation has been that those who subscribe to the bigbang+goo to you by way of the zoo also have an unwritten set of prior ideas which they use in the same way as AiG's statement of faith -- to discard evidences on the mere fact that they don't agree with "established science." Everybody has a faith on the topic, one way or the other. Everybody starts someplace.
But once I get an idea of exactly how you determine who is a scientist and not a scientist, then I'll be better able to understand who should be allowed to determine what is science.
Thanks,
-Jesse
It is the fault of atheists that the Baptists and Catholics have different interpretation of the bible?
Please, please, it would be so helpful if you mentioned "All the evidence" that you provided at least one best evidence.
Anybody can say "How can you ignore all the evidence" about anything they like. What is your single best evidence?
Thanks, -Jesse
Try the first 10 or 20 links at the following URL
Genetic evidence — of what?
I can "see" the genetic evidence, yet still ask: of what is it the evidence? Do you assert it is evidence of a purely material process unfolding more or less randomly in space and time? That nothing else is involved?
If so, then how do you know that?
Then again, we might ask: What is DNA? Is it the "fount" of life? If so, then how come it's exactly the same whether the creature it describes is alive or dead?
Or could it be, rather, a master code that decrypts all the relevant information needed by the particular living organism being transmitted to it by a nonphemomenal, extra-spatial, extra-temporal source; i.e., a source existing outside the four-dimensional spacetime of normative human experience?
Oh, I forgot: This is the type of question that an atheist simply refuses to ask.
But there is hope for you, tokenatheist; because you claim to be only a "token" atheist. Maybe that means you really aren't a "real" atheist after all.
Thank you so much for writing!
That is neither what I said nor what I meant.
I said I would thank God for my personal good fortune after everyone else is served. Haven't you ever had a family meal?
" AIG may have information you find useful, but AIG is not doing science. It is committed, in fact, to doing the exact opposite: religious apologetics. Anyone who quotes them in regard to an issue of science should be aware of this."
"It is the fault of atheists that the Baptists and Catholics have different interpretation of the bible?"
That is a lot of words to simply say god did it.
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