Archaeologist's Find Could Shake Up Science (Topper Site)

SP Times ^ | 1-7-2007 | Heather Urquides

[Jonah Hex]

I wish I could claim credit for that little gem, but the real author is Harvey Rowe. :-)

[OldGuard1]

This is particularly laughable because no scientists claim millions of years for radiocarbon dating! The upper limit is generally given as about 50,000 years. This author apparently doesn't even know the difference between radiocarbon and other forms of radiometric dating!

A valid nitpick. However, you still hear about people dating objects with carbon dating that are in the level that really should be considered background. To make matters worse, before you date something, you need to know roughly how old you expect it to be. Hence, you rarely date "millions of years old" objects with carbon dating. Yet, when it does get done, we see things like Carbon 14 in coal, petroleum, etc. Lots of hemming and hawing ensues.

This has several errors, one of which is that the rate of decay for Carbon 14 has changed over the years. Not so. The experiments on uranium and iron were extremely specialized and had nothing to do with what occurs in nature, nor with Carbon 14.

And you went back in time and measured carbon 14 decay rates... when? Basing assumptions that the past was like what we see today is a fallacy, one that is continually disproven. Heck, it wasn't until the mid-20th century that the scientific community finally got around to accepting the fact that large meteors can hit Earth. This "things have always been like they are now" notion is silly.

In 1958, shortly after the invention of radiocarbon dating, de Vries published on the need for corrections based on atmospheric fluctuations in the production of Carbon 14. These corrections (based on tree-rings) are a standard part of radiocarbon dating today--everywhere but on creationist websites.

The very need for correction factors simply "passes the buck" off to different dating methods, staking the reliability of carbon dating on other dating methods that are already in question, such as jumbled dendrochronology records. To bring in a "correction factor" essentially makes the entire excercise useless as far as demonstrating that you're actually producing valid data.

While we're at it, how is carbon dating of data since the 1950s going for you? Amazing what a bit of fluctuation on input can do, isn't it?

What this author is doing is claiming that an "antediluvian water canopy" is altering the normal production of Carbon 14 isotopes in the upper atmosphere, without a single shred of scientific evidence for such a canopy. The presence of such a canopy is a religious belief, not a scientific fact.

While that's not *my* theory, your offhand dismissal without perusing the evidence is quite unscientific. Not something you should be proud of.

This is the quality of research you will find on the creationist websites. I could give more examples, but I think I have made my point by now.

I'll note that only the first nitpick of yours had any substance, and you dodged most of the serious criticisms in there. I find far more dodging in Darwinist circles about the problems with radiocarbon dating. What percent of links like the ones you posted mentioned the issue of C14 in coal and petroleum? Yes, I know the latest excuses that they've come up with for it. They're pretty weak. Evolution-pushing sites recognize this and almost never mention the issue up.

It's left to those creationist scientists that you dismiss so readily to bring up the thorny issues.

[Coyoteman]

What percent of links like the ones you posted mentioned the issue of C14 in coal and petroleum? Yes, I know the latest excuses that they've come up with for it. They're pretty weak. Evolution-pushing sites recognize this and almost never mention the issue up.

That's a easy one. Try Carbon-14 in Coal Deposits by Kathleen Hunt.

The very need for correction factors simply "passes the buck" off to different dating methods, staking the reliability of carbon dating on other dating methods that are already in question, such as jumbled dendrochronology records. To bring in a "correction factor" essentially makes the entire excercise useless as far as demonstrating that you're actually producing valid data.

The corrections are based on tree-rings and glacial varves, something that can be counted one by one. The dendrochronology (tree-ring) method actually works quite well, and the results of the corrected dates produce good results on items of known age (materials from Egyptian tombs, for example). And, rather than making "the entire excercise useles," these corrections make the method more accurate.

While we're at it, how is carbon dating of data since the 1950s going for you? Amazing what a bit of fluctuation on input can do, isn't it?

I wouldn't dream of radiocarbon dating anything that young. Even using AMS dating, the sigma is usually ±40 years, and dates are usually corrected and calibrated to a range of two sigma (or in this example, ±80 years).

While that's not *my* theory [an "antediluvian water canopy"], your offhand dismissal without perusing the evidence is quite unscientific. Not something you should be proud of.

I have examined the evidence pertaining to a global flood at ca. 4300 years ago. Archaeologists routinely deal with this time period, as well as before and after.

• At 4300 years ago (2300 BC) we are dealing with soils, not geological strata. It takes a lot longer to create geological strata than the last 10,000 years affords. That means we are dealing with archaeology, not geology; soils, not rocks. This is an important point!

• The last 10,000 years are quite well known. We have multiple methods of investigation and dating, including sedimentology, radiocarbon (my favorite), tree-rings, glacial varves, stylistic seriation, paleomagnetism, etc. We even have written records (for example, from Egypt) and pictographs. There is no evidence for complete disruption as would be required by a global flood at 2300 BC (the commonly agreed-upon date for the flood).

• Soils tell the story. We can examine soil layers in many parts of the world; in many areas we have an unbroken record of well over 10,000 years. Any significant flooding (such as the one that created the Channeled Scablands of central and eastern Washington) would have eroded that soil away. And that is just what we see in the Channeled Scablands.

• Native American cultures are continuous before and after 6,000 years ago. There is no evidence of sudden creation at 6,000 years ago, nor any break at 2300 BC for a global flood. mtDNA patterns allow tracking back to the Out-of-Africa event some 70,000 or so years ago.

• In the western US, there is a cave in southern Alaska dated to 10,300 years, with subsequent mtDNA succession throughout half the hemisphere and coming all the way down to modern times. No evidence of a break and replacement with eastern Mediterranean or Middle Eastern mtDNA at 2300 BC. Rather, mtDNA patterns in the New World link to only five or six founding haplogroups, all of which seem to have formed way before 2300 BC and which are distinctly different from those in the eastern Mediterranean (i.e., they don't match the mtDNA that Noah's family would have had.

• Another archaeological site (based on my own work) has a second founding Native American genetic type dated at about 5300 BP; living descendants in the western US have the exact same type. There is no break at the purported time of the global flood.

This evidence is from one narrow field of study-- archaeology, and one small area--the western US. There is a lot more evidence from archaeology in other areas, and there are a lot more fields of study.

They all fail to support a global flood at 2300 BC.

This is the reason behind my "offhand dismissal without perusing the evidence." I have perused the evidence put forth for a global flood through 35 years of research, and found it entirely lacking in the areas in which I have worked. My colleagues likewise have not reported any evidence of a global flood in other areas.

To bring the discussion back to the point, using a global flood for which there is no evidence to calibrate the radiocarbon method so that it produces dates consistent with a young earth belief is not science.

The creationist websites you cited in your links use pseudo-science and apologetics to disparage the radiocarbon method because it fails to agree with their religious beliefs. That too is not science.