A Crucial Archaeological Dating Tool Is Wrong, And It Could Change History as We Know It

Science Alert ^ | 06/06/2018 | MIKE MCRAE

[aimhigh]

One of the most important dating tools used in archaeology may sometimes give misleading data, new study shows - and it could change whole historical timelines as a result.

The discrepancy is due to significant fluctuations in the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere, and it could force scientists to rethink how they use ancient organic remains to measure the passing of time.

[COBOL2Java]

ASA, you beat me to it!

[dubyagee]

Funny thing is that the fact that laws exist is supernatural in itself. A law must be written/ordained, they don’t just ‘happen’.

[dubyagee]

LOL!

[RedStateRocker]

Science is how

Religion is why

[dubyagee]

Then there are those of us who are fascinated by the shroud and the fact that it seems to have been created by means that did not exist in ancient times:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2076443/Turin-Shroud-created-flash-supernatural-light.html

I’m not pig headed at all, but is is quite intriguing that if one were going to be brought back to life by Creator God, the possibility of such an image being left behind on the cloth one was wrapped in at the time would not seem unusual or unlikely, but rather expected.

[Jamestown1630]

Yes; see post 64

[richardtavor]

Great Point. We can’t fit God into our consciousness. It is impossible. He is both infinite and finite at the same time, as time is. For anyone to try to fit God into our reckoning of time is foolish. How old in the earth? 5 Billions years or 6000 years, or in the last second of your own awareness. Who cares? Why is it important for people to force their idea of time (which God gave us) over any other possibility? To prove that God exists? He does. To prove that the Bible was His inspired word? It is. As a Geologist, I have been asked so many times how I can reconcile the Bible teaching of 6000 years witht the Geological Concept of 5 Billion years. It is irrelevant because His time is not our time. If you say that he has no beginning or end, then to try to fit a “fixed timeline” on Creation is ludricous. In fact, it is a waste of time. People should go back and read how the Bible was written in Hebrew, with Jewish concepts, and We might have a better understanding of time. These words are not meant for you personally because you said it best: “Everything is happening at once from God’s perspective. The 6000 year theory was proposed by Bishop Ulster of Ireland to try to prove the truth of the Bible with contemporary concepts of time. He later recanted his “theory” once he learned more, but it became a useful “proof” since the 17th Century for many who need proof.

[Jamestown1630]

I suspect that there are many, many more scientists who recognize the necessity of a Creator than we ever hear about. It must be so, because they have such a unique viewpoint as to the complexity, artistry and majesty of everything in Nature.

[richardtavor]

If you really understand how nature works and have a faith that accepts that perhaps we will never be able to understand what God understands (not on this earth, anyway), then in my 45 years as a Scientist, I have never seen a contradiction between what the Tanach (Bible) teaches us and what Science shows us. However, many feel that it is their mission to disprove science as a way of proving their own concept of God. I believe that this is a mistake. Likewise, anyone who seeks to use Science to disprove God are really on a fool’s errand.

[dsc]

“In fact, I believe that He invented the concept of time, for our benefit-not His.”

My opinion is that time is just something we invented to help us deal with the fact that everything moves.

“Trying to fit our microscopic understanding into His is a fool’s errand, in my opinion.”

Yup.

[Jamestown1630]

I agree with you.

[RedStateRocker]

Anyone who believes in ‘Intelligent Design’ has never thrown out their back or hit themselves in the nuts :-)

[SunkenCiv]

I've pretty much had it with this back of mine, I'm definitely gonna throw it out. And sometimes, hitting myself in the nuts really breaks up my day. :^)

Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
by Matt Ridley

"For thirty years, nobody disputed this 'fact'. One group of scientists abandoned their experiments on human liver cells because they could only find twenty-three pairs of chromosomes in each cell. Another researcher invented a method of separating the chromosomes, but still he thought he saw twenty-four pairs. It was not until 1955, when an Indonesian named Joe-Hin Tjio travelled from Spain to Sweden to work with Albert Levan, that the truth dawned. Tjio and Levan, using better techniques, plainly saw twenty-three pairs. They even went back and counted twenty-three pairs in photographs in books where the caption stated that there were twenty-four pairs. There are none so blind as do not wish to see." (pp 23-24)

[The correct number of chromosomes could have been discerned, one would think, during the almost 35 years involved in the events above. The most daunting realization is that the double heliacal form of DNA was discerned in 1953, two years before this chromosome count was corrected.]

The Scars of Evolution:
What Our Bodies Tell Us
About Human Origins
by Elaine Morgan

"The most remarkable aspect of Todaro's discovery emerged when he examined Homo Sapiens for the 'baboon marker'. It was not there... Todaro drew one firm conclusion. 'The ancestors of man did not develop in a geographical area where they would have been in contact with the baboon. I would argue that the data we are presenting imply a non-African origin of man millions of years ago.'"

from the FRchives:

• Human Ancestors Went Out Of Africa And Then Came Back... [1998] [2007]
• Human Ancestor Preserved in Stone [2007]
• Most Ancient Case Of Tuberculosis Found [2007]
• Humans Migrated Out Of Africa, Then Some Went Back, Study Says [2006]
• Did Early Humans First Arise in Asia, Not Africa? [2005]
• Evidence for the Orangutan Relationship [2005]
• Infectious Evolution: Ancient Virus Hit Apes, Not Our Ancestors, In The Genes [2005]

And thanks Fred Nerks for this link:

• Noah Claim Annoys Scientists [2004]

I've often recommended this book here on FR. :^)

Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution by Michael J. Behe hardcover Molecular Machines webpage (thanks Val)

Now, back to our irregularly scheduled fisticuffs! :^)

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks for appreciating that one, it's another old favorite, usually results in a bunch of more sourpuss snarking. Odd that many don't notice that heads and tails are on the same coin, unless the game is crooked.

[Jamestown1630]

Sometimes there’s a whole ‘world’ in a cartoon ;-)

‘Civ, I was looking at some of your links in post 73, and I became interested in the ones pointing to Elaine Morgan.

What do you think about the Hardy/Morgan ‘aquatic ape’ idea?

I’m not schooled in this stuff; but for some reason I’ve lately become interested in Early Man - (sometimes I’ll wake up on a Saturday, and decide that I need to know about something that I never really thought about before; last weekend it was the Lascaux and Chauvet caves) - and. consequently, various theories about evolution.

The ‘water’ origin idea appeals to me - maybe it’s just because of my lifelong (atavistic?) proclivity toward Water ;-)

I found this Ted Talk by Morgan; and an old BBC documentary:

https://www.ted.com/talks/elaine_morgan_says_we_evolved_from_aquatic_apes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WIxdKLTX7E

-JT, Naked Water Lover

[SunkenCiv]

Her aquatic ape model grew out of her radical feminism, was published for a general audience in the book "The Descent of Woman". She cherry-picks info that fits her feminist outlook, but Todaro's idea wouldn't have come to my attention had it not come to hers. :^) So, I'm grateful. During the last 2 million years the part of the Earth we know as the submerged continental shelf was mostly dry land most of the time, while higher, interior areas were covered with ice and had little or no food supplies. Our ancestors (and perhaps competing and/or similar species) spent much of their time developing, breeding, changing, in the words of Donovan, way down below the ocean. :^)

[SunkenCiv]

Oh, and I wholeheartedly agree, I love the water. Something like 90 percent of humans live within 500 feet of sealevel, largely due to the availability of fresh water for physical use and agriculture. Humans' ancestors were -- at least 800,000 years ago -- using watercraft to cover distances best measured in miles. We're a maritime species. Of course, these are not the same thing as, the female of the species stood around in the ocean waves evolving lower body fat for warmth and long hair for their kids to cling to.

[Jamestown1630]

Thanks. I will have to look up Todaro.

[SunkenCiv]

Found this one (finally) on the hard drive, didn't check the link.

Primary Literature by Jonathan Marks
Benveniste, Raoul E. and Todaro, George J. (1976) Evolution of type C viral genes: Evidence for an Asian origin of man. Nature, 261:101-107. This study also applied DNA hybridization to the apes. They found a 3-way split.
socrates.berkeley.edu/~jonmarks/biblio.html

[Jamestown1630]

Link seems to be outdated, and Nature still has the full text embargoed. The only thing I found related:

http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/71/11/4513.full.pdf