[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
Creationism/Evolution Title: A Crucial Archaeological Dating Tool Is Wrong, And It Could Change History as We Know It 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 A comparison of radiocarbon ages across the Northern Hemisphere suggests we might have been a little too hasty in assuming how the isotope - also known as radiocarbon - diffuses, potentially shaking up controversial conversations on the timing of events in history. By measuring the amount of carbon-14 in the annual growth rings of trees grown in southern Jordan, researchers have found some dating calculations on events in the Middle East – or, more accurately, the Levant – could be out by nearly 20 years. That may not seem like a huge deal, but in situations where a decade or two of discrepancy counts, radiocarbon dating could be misrepresenting important details. The science behind the dating method is fairly straightforward: nitrogen atoms in the atmosphere hit with cosmic radiation are converted into a type of carbon with eight neutrons. This carbon – which has an atomic mass of 14 – has a chance of losing that neutron to turn into a garden variety carbon isotope over a predictable amount of time. By comparing the two categories of carbon in organic remains, archaeologists can judge how recently the organism that left them last absorbed carbon-14 out of its environment.
Over millennia the level of carbon-14 in the atmosphere changes, meaning measurements need to be calibrated against a chart that takes the atmospheric concentration into account, such as INTCAL13. The current version of INTCAL13 is based on historical data from North America and Europe, and has a fairly broad resolution over thousands of years. Levels do happen to spike on a local and seasonal basis with changes in the carbon cycle, but carbon-14 is presumed to diffuse fast enough to ignore these tiny bumps. At least, that was the assumption until now. "We know from atmospheric measurements over the last 50 years that radiocarbon levels vary through the year, and we also know that plants typically grow at different times in different parts of the Northern Hemisphere," says archaeologist Sturt Manning from Cornell University. "So we wondered whether the radiocarbon levels relevant to dating organic material might also vary for different areas and whether this might affect archaeological dating." The tree rings were samples of Jordanian juniper that grew in the southern region of the Middle East between 1610 and 1940 CE. By counting the tree rings, the team were able to create a reasonably accurate timeline of annual changes in carbon-14 uptake for those centuries.
Alarmingly, going by INTCAL13 alone, those same radiocarbon measurements would have provided dates that were older by an average of 19 years. The difference most likely comes down to changes in regional climates, such as warming conditions. Extrapolating the findings back to earlier periods, archaeologists attempting to pinpoint Iron Age or Biblical events down to a few years would no doubt have a serious need to question their calibrations. One controversial example is the dating of a single layer of archaeology at the Bronze and Iron Age city buried at Tel Rehov. Just a few decades of difference could help resolve an ongoing debate over the extent of Solomon's biblical kingdom, making findings like these more than a minor quibble in a politically contested part of the world. "Our work indicates that it's arguable their fundamental basis is faulty – they are using a calibration curve that is not accurate for this region," says Manning. Collecting additional data from different geographical areas and taking a closer look at historical climate trends could help sharpen calibration techniques, especially in hotly debated regions. For the time being, archaeologists covering history in the Levant are being advised to take their dates with a pinch of salt. This research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.they use ancient organic remains to measure the passing of time. www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/05/23/1719420115 Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 60. The tree rings were samples of Jordanian juniper that grew in the southern region of the Middle East between 1610 and 1940 CE. By counting the tree rings, the team were able to create a reasonably accurate timeline of annual changes in carbon-14 uptake for those centuries. Hmmm...I see their assertions here but was unaware that anyone considered 19 years margin of error in carbon dating to be significant. No one ever considered it that accurate to begin with. Nor do they detail how they think a difference of 19 years would give us more meaningful info about the size and distribution of Solomon's kingdom. Or why that would have a modern geopolitical impact. Maybe there is something to this academic dispute but the article hasn't fleshed it out for the reader.
#15. To: Tooconservative (#7) Hmmm...I see their assertions here but was unaware that anyone considered 19 years margin of error in carbon dating to be significant. It's not even an eye blink when related to the age of the planet.
#20. To: sneakypete (#15) It's not even an eye blink when related to the age of the planet. Sure but science doesn't date the earth's age by carbon dating. They use other means of providing an estimate.
#21. To: Tooconservative (#20) Sure but science doesn't date the earth's age by carbon dating. They use other means of providing an estimate. The means used rely on radioactive decay, which is a function of "c". There are two things to note. First: radioactive decay rates are affected by the strength of solar output. We don't know why, but it has been observed in some experiments. Second:
#22. To: Vicomte13 (#21) Scientific American:
Carbon dating plays little if any role in current estimates of the earth's age. It's too flawed.
#34. To: Tooconservative (#22) Carbon dating plays little if any role in current estimates of the earth's age. It's too flawed. It's not just that. All of the Carbon 14 is gone after 50,000 years, so you can't use it to tell the difference between 51,000 and 500 million years old: zero is zero. Carbon dating no longer provides any information before 48,000 BC or so.
#36. To: Vicomte13 (#34) It's not just that. All of the Carbon 14 is gone after 50,000 years, so you can't use it to tell the difference between 51,000 and 500 million years old: zero is zero. I'm not sure why you keep repeating this since it is not true. It is not zero C14 after 50,000 years at all. We have methods of carbon dating that go back as far as 75,000 years and we could develop it further if we wanted to. We just don't have any real need to do so as we have other isotopes to measure and other dating methods we use.
#39. To: Tooconservative (#36) I'm not sure why you keep repeating this since it is not true. It is not zero C14 after 50,000 years at all. I keep repeating it because it is true. Carbon-14 has a half life of 5730 years, under presently observed conditions, and there isn't all that much of it to begin with. In living tissue, there is about 1 C-14 atom for every trillion Carbon atoms. One part per trillion, 1 C-14 atom for every 10 to the 12th Carbon atoms. That's a low concentration. Let's consider a human body. By weight, carbon makes up only 18.5% of the human body. So a 150 pound living man is composed of 27.75 pounds of carbon, 99% of that carbon is C-12, 1% is C-14. So, 2.775 times 10 to the negative 11th power pounds of C-14 atoms are in the living man, which is to say that there are 623,879,200,000,000,000 C-14 atoms in a living 150 pound man. Once he stops breathing and stops eating, there is no more C-14 being added. The half life is 5730. So, in 5730 years there will be 311,939,600,000,000,000 C-14 atoms left in his remains. Of course, if there are any remains, they will have been diluted by whatever is preserving them. In 11,460 years there will be 155,969,800,000,000,000 C-14 atoms left In 17,190 years there will be 77,984,900,000,000,000 C-14s left. In 22,920 years, there will be 38,992,450,000,000,000 C-14s left. In 28,650 years there will be 19,496,225,000,000,000 C-14s left. In 34,380 years there will be 9,748,112,500,000,000 C-14s left. In 40,110 years there will be 4,874,056,250,000,000 C-14s left. In 45,840 years there will be 2,437,028,125,000,000 C-14s left. In 51,610 years there will be 1,218,514,962,500,000 C-14s left. That isn't much left from the original same, less than two-tenths of one percent. And of course this assumes that one is carbon dating a whole, intact human corpse, a 150 pound sample. Radiocarbon dating is not done on 150 pound samples. The machines can't hold anything like that. The sample sizes used are 100 GRAM samples - THAT is what fits into the machines. So, let's take the remains of that 150 pound man and look at the actual sample size we can test. 150 pounds is 67200 grams. We're only going to be able to test .0014880952380952 of that sample. So, at the 51,610 year point, there are only 1,813,266,313,244 C-14 atoms left in the testable sample. That's small, but detectable. Go one cycle further, to 57,340 years, and the number of atoms in the total sample drops to the 902,633,156,622 range, which is quite a bit smaller than the US budget in dollars, and at the bare limits of our ability to detect. Using very long test times and super-sensitive equipment, that have been able to manage to extend Carbon-14 testing to 75,000 years. No farther. It is not hard to see why. At 63,070 years you've only got 453 billion C-14s left in your whole sample. At 68,800 years, you're down to 226.6 billion C-14s left. And at 74,530 years, you're down to 113.3 billion atoms, in a sample size of 5 septillion atoms, which is to say 1 part in 24 trillion. Our technology is not capable of reliably sorting that out. You can see, then, why C-14 cannot possibly be used to date dinosaurs. The last dinosaurs are said to have gone extinct 65 million years ago. Let's keep running our math. At 80,260 years, there are 56.65 billion C-14s left in our sample. At 85,990 years there are 28.325 billion C-14s left in our sample. We're already well below our threshold of detection, but they are there, at least theoretically. We cannot confirm this by direct observation, but we have to assume it is so. At 91,720 years where are 14.16 billion atoms left. At 97,450 years, 7.08 billion. At 103,180 years, 3.54 billion. Go back 57,300 more years, to 160,480 years, and you're down to 3.45 MILLION C-14s left. You're trying to find a single marked grain of sand on the California cost. Go back another 57,300 years, and you have 3376 Carbon 14 atoms left in your sample. Go back yet another 57,300 years, and there are 4 Carbon 14 atoms left. Four. How far back are we now? 275,080 years. Go back 5730 more years, and there are 2 C-14 Atoms left. Another 5730 years, and there is 1 left. By 291,570 years back, there are no C-14 atoms left in the sample. Zero. Null. Long before that point you passed any possibility of detection. That is why I "keep saying" that radio-carbon dating cannot be used to date the dinosaurs. There is NO Carbon 15 left from 65 million years ago. None. THEORETICALLY, in the whole world, there are a few atoms of it, maybe. To detect them would be like trying to find a aingle marked grain of sand randomly scattered on one of the world's beaches. Did I need to go through all of that? Yes, I think I did. There is a pugnacious attitude around here about many things. Sometimes you have to brute force down to zero to demonstrate the point. I will now reiterate it explicitly: ASSUMING that rates of radioactive decay are constant, and ASSUMING that the dinosaurs died out some 65 million years ago, it is categorically impossible to use C-14 to date dinosaur bones. 65 million year old Carbon 14 does not exist. At all. It has all decayed. Only theoretically is there some left. This is not provable, because it is impossible to design a machine that is so sensitive. In any case, Carbon-14 us COMPLETELY useless for dating dinosaurs. There is NO USE WHATSOEVER for C-14. It isn't simply "impracticable", it is impossible, full stop. At 60 iterations, 343,800 years, the last C-14 atom in that 150 pound man's remains broke down. There is none left. Coal is said to be ancient vegetation. Assuming that is true, there is a reason it is used as the inert background substrate for C-14 dating. There is no detectable Carbon-14 in it. This is not because our machines are not sensitive enough. It is because all of the C-14 has decayed. That's why it is completely useless for dating dinosaur bones. And that's why I keep saying so: because it IS so. And also because the resistance here has been a little too fierce given the subject matter.
#40. To: Vicomte13 (#39) Did I need to go through all of that? Yes, I think I did. Nope.
And that's why I keep saying so: because it IS so. But it is not true, no matter how many keystrokes you expend.
#41. To: Tooconservative (#40) (Edited) But it is not true, no matter how many keystrokes you expend. Yes, it is true. It is impossible to date anything a few million years old with Carbon-14, because there's no Carbon-14 left in it. It has all decayed away. It isn't there. Back past 50,000 years; 75,000 years with herculean efforts at the edge of detectability, we do not have the equipment to detect it. But no equipment in the world can detect Carbon-14 in a dinosaur, because the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, and there is no Carbon-14 left on earth from that long ago, it has entirely decayed.
#43. To: Vicomte13 (#41) ...dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago...
The agenda-driven Fake Science Cult/Communitah based on wishful thinking has been manipulating sandbagging and striking evidence to the contrary. It is impossible for blood cells to survive "millions" of years, never mind several thousands. THIS SHOULD have been front page news but wasn't:
#48. To: Liberator (#43) It is impossible for blood cells to survive "millions" of years, never mind several thousands. This is a really interesting point. It is a serious tremor that cracks the solidity of a theory. It's an aspect of the subject that creates its own logic tree.
#52. To: Vicomte13 (#48) It is a serious tremor that cracks the solidity of a theory. It does crack that theory...Maybe even smashes it to bits. A Game-Changer. That "aspect of the subject" and "logic" lead straight to only one conclusion: The Great Flood was likely way it all went down in Genesis...and...occurred only several *thousands* of years ago. It's noted that dinosaurs, historically referred to in several ancient civilization texts as "great lizards" and "dragons" (also depicted in ancient paintings in both the Old and New World) indeed existed *at the same time as man*. This notion of course presents a dilemma for the high priests of science and its True Believers, shattering the Theory/Religion of Evolution at its foundation. It also forces the intellectually honest to re-calibrate and re-assess both "History" and Science" as taught in the past century and a half.
#53. To: Liberator (#52) It does crack that theory...Maybe even smashes it to bits. A Game-Changer. It allows the possibility of those things, yes. On the other hand, it also opens the possibility that not all of the dinosaurs went extinct after the great meteor strike of 65 million years ago, that pockets of them remained alive, and continued to populate parts of the earth afterwards. Certainly other animals alive at the time still exist, and there is no particular reason to believe that EVERY dinosaur EVERYWHERE died off as the result of the meteor strike. Crocodiles and Alligators survived, why not some dinosaurs, here and there? Certainly some large mammals that survived the eons eventually perished as the conditions continued to change. Example: wooly mammoths and sabre- toothed tigers. They were not hunted to extinction by man. Hell, men today with planes, trucks and high-powered rifles haven't completely wiped out the elephants or the rhinos. Men with spears simply did not have the numbers or skill to wipe out a major elephant species. The mammoths died out because of climate change. The identical thing could well be true of the dinosaurs. Now, of course, this is heresy to those who have established that the dinosaurs "must" have ALL perished 65 million years ago. but there is no real imperative for that to be true. SOME may have lingered on here and there - turtles and crocks made it. There MIGHT still be something looking like armored fish of old deep down into the abysses of the sea. If we've got blood cells and connective tissue from inside dinosaur bones - and we do - that doesn't perforce mean that there was no evolution, or a worldwide flood. It could just mean that the meteor didn't get ALL the dinosaurs, that some soldiered on - indeed, that some of the dragon stories of legend are real encounters between humans and dinosaurs. Certainly the intact cells from within dinosaur bones would tend to indicate that. Of course, then again, the inside of bones that were encased in mud don't have much oxygen, and without the oxygen they may not have decayed. Certainly we have feathers and scales and other things that otherwise decay contained in amber, because of the hypoxic nature thereof. Who can say? All of these things are possible. For my part, they don't engage my emotions, because I'm not a sola scripturalist, so the truth or mere poetic nature of Genesis 1 doesn't bear on my religious beliefs pretty much at all. I would say that my basic ASSUMPTION is that God made the world, evolution is how he did it, and these dinosaur soft tissues we have means that all of the dinosaurs didn't die out 65 million years ago, that pockets of them survived, and that we have soft tissue because those particular dinosaurs died out more recently. This would fit the evidence as I see it. None of it has any bearing on what I think about God. It does mean that the Bible isn't a scientific text, but I never assumed it was. In a similar vein, not being a Sola Scripturalist, I think the only really authoritative parts of the Bible - the LAW as it were - are Jesus' commandments - what to do and what not to do. And I think that obedience or departure from those is what destermines the status during stages of the afterlife. I do think that what happens in the afterlife was revealed, by Jesus, and that there are elements of what he said that are corroborated by Near Death Experiences. Science and religion don't conflict in my mind. Of course Genesis 1 and Standard Theory conflict, but Genesis 1 is sacred poetry, not a science text. That's how I look at it. Your religious beliefs are differently configured, and anything that disturbs the absolute literal truth of any part of the Scriptures, as you read them, causes the whole thing to fall apart. The Scriptures are not the basis for my knowledge of God. They add some detail about what God wants, mainly through Jesus. Our religions are different. Yours does not bother me. I understand why you believe what you do. As long as you don't kill people I'm content to share the earth with you in peace, and we'll find out the details in the end, I reckon.
#57. To: Vicomte13 (#53) On the other hand, it also opens the possibility that not all of the dinosaurs went extinct after the great meteor strike of 65 million years ag How were dinosaurs running around before Adam and Eve? Was there death before sin? Why do you believe the Earth is millions of years old?
#60. To: A K A Stone (#57) Why do you believe the Earth is millions of years old? Why do you believe in "Holy Spooks" who created everything because everything BUT THEM has to have been created?
Replies to Comment # 60. Because it works. It contains only truth. Has never contradicted itself. Describes human nature. Explains why we wear clothes. Predicts a future cashless society that would have been impossible to implement when the words were written but in this day is entirely feasible with the technology we have. Talked about men going to space before it was possible. Said the world wasn't flat from the beginning. Says we reproduce after like kind which happens 100 percent of the time nothing in the history of the world has ever been observed to evolve, and there is zero evidence anything ever did. That is why so called scientists are still searching for a missing link. Because even if you wanted to you couldn't reproduce with an ape which you believe is your great great...........grandpa. Here have a 🍌.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 60. Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest |
|
|
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|