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To: count-your-change
How difficult can it be to understand that if the dating method is inaccurate then all that is drawn from the method is questionable

All conclusions from all data, however accurate they are believed to be, are "questionable." It is not science that deals in religious certainties, but rather religious fundamentalists.

The epistemilogical conclusions from the fact that the dating method is alleged to be inaccurate, and that the dating method is illegitimate are wrong.

Let me try a simple reasoning by analysis. Suppose a village and surrounding farm area were surveyed in medieval times by a surveyor whose measuring device was ten percent short, but otherwise the surveys were flawlessly executed, with boundaries around the surveyed region clearly established, etc. Do we conclude that all property titles are invalid and the property now belongs to God, or do we simply realise the error; rescale the dimmensions on the landholdings to reflect the difference between the physical boundaries and the measured boundaries, and allow the farmers and homeowners to go about their lives in peace.

As a second example, it took many years to refine the measurements of the charge of an electron to its presently accepted value (within established error bars). That the charge was constantly adjusted through better and better measurement techniques did not disprove the underlying theory that the charge of an electron was unique, well defined, and indivisible.

77 posted on 11/11/2009 9:09:46 AM PST by AndyJackson
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To: AndyJackson
“Let me try a simple reasoning by analysis.”

I think you mean by analogy but if a measuring device were just ten percent off the more measures made the greater the cumulative error.
So a survey of my property with a ten percent at each measure would be wrong, the boundaries with my neighbors would be wrong, my tax bill would be wrong, a measure of my net worth be wrong. And I wouldn't know by how much.

But if it were a simple matter of correcting the error it could be done. However it must be known that was error and how much and how to rescale it.

In selling some property I discovered I owned five acres of land that does not exist. Why? No one knows and no one knows how to go back and correct it.

If an “out of Africa 200'000 years ago” story is based upon genetic dating and the genetic dating method is unreliable what happens to the story?

Consider what the conclusions about the electron would be if the measurement of its charge were 200 or 400 percent in error. Or if the means of measuring charge were incapable of really measuring charge at all.

82 posted on 11/11/2009 10:20:37 AM PST by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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