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Research Finds Carbon Dating Flawed
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Sep 10, 2008 09:42 PM
from the kinda-old dept.
from the kinda-old dept.
eldavojohn writes "New research funded by the National Science Foundation at the University of Miami is showing that carbon dating (the 13C/12C ratio used to infer age) in the ocean can only be trusted up to 150 million years ago. From the primary researcher, 'This study is a major step in terms of rethinking how geologists interpret variations in the 13C/12C ratio throughout Earth's history. If the approach does not work over the past 10 million years, then why would it work during older time periods? As a consequence of our findings, changes in 13C/12C records need to be reevaluated, conclusions regarding changes in the reservoirs of carbon will have to be reassessed, and some of the widely-held ideas regarding the elevation of CO2 during specific periods of the Earth's geological history will have to be adjusted.' While this research doesn't necessarily throw carbon dating out the window, it should cause people to rethink so many theories about early life that revolved around ages of sediment in the oceans."
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Title (Score:5, Insightful)
Is frustrating, oh no its only accurate for 150million years. JUST WAIT for the ID people to jump all over this and start with the whole dinosaurs didnt exist, invisible man made everything 5000years ago. *sighs* these people live in my neighborhood and are going to harass me with their ignorance again.
Re:Title (Score:5, Insightful)
Is frustrating, oh no its only accurate for 150million years. JUST WAIT for the ID people to jump all over this and start with the whole dinosaurs didnt exist, invisible man made everything 5000years ago. *sighs* these people live in my neighborhood and are going to harass me with their ignorance again.
I realize that you're somewhat frustrated, but this does not prove science wrong. After all, that's what science is all about. You make a discovery and you prove it. Eventually, the discovery is disproved/adjusted/strenghtened due to new findings. And again, and again, and again.
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Re:Title (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the science he's upset about, it's the reporting.
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Re:Title (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't have a theory.
They don't have a hypothesis.
They don't even have a conjecture, since that is something that is unproven but deemed likely to be true
All the creationists have is a set of guesses.
Hmm... In the eyes of a creationists, their guesses probably are likely to be true, so they can say that creationism is a conjecture.
Parent
Re:Title (Score:5, Insightful)
Creationism is not a theory. Two properties of a theory are: must be possible to disprove; and must be able to predict results of a test. Creationism is capable of neither of these things.
It is impossible to test or disprove that an invisible man is living in the sky, therefore this is the realm of philosophy and spirituality. These things that have their place, but should not be interfering, aiming to replace, or masquerade as good science.
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Re:Title (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Title (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, that doesn't follow. Yes everything is moving apart, which means that the average density of the observable universe is decreasing, but that has nothing to do with the total mass. For example, I could give you a solid block of lead weighing say 1000lbs, that would be a small-ish object, maybe about 1 cubic foot (I'm just giving some example numbers). Then I could melt it and re-form it into a honeycomb structure that contained lots of gaps and was, say, 10 foot across. It has gotten bigger, but the mass hasn't increased!
While it is possible that some physical 'constants' are actually changing value in time, there are lots of experiments in this area and there are quite rigorous bounds that show that, if there is any variation, it is on time-scales of ~ billions of years, and of no consequence to carbon dating methods. For example, if there was some changing physical constant that caused nuclear decay rates to change over time, then this would change in the rate of nuclear fusion in the sun (which depends on the same physics as nuclear decay), and this would be observable in astronomical observations of distant stars. In fact, that no such effect is seen is one of the experiments that puts a bound on how fast the physical constants can be changing over time.
There may also be some biological reasons why the C12/C13 ratios in particular, could change in time. But this would be due to changes in biology as species have evolved, not changes in the underlying physical laws. The ratios of C12 and C13 retained by plants is determined by things like climate and moisture. Both of these isotopes are stable, it is just the slightly different sizes and masses cause them to act slightly differently in chemical reactions. This has nothing to do with radioactive decay (which is C14 radiocarbon dating, which is based on the notion that unstable radioactive C14 is made in the upper atmosphere by cosmic ray collisions, so while a plant is living it absorbs some fraction of C14 from the atmosphere, and this stops when the plant dies. So by seeing how much of the C14 has decayed into a stable atom [into nitrogen-14 in fact] and how much of it remains, you can determine how long ago the plant died.)
Parent
Re:Title (Score:5, Insightful)
Err, if you substitute divine being for alien being, then everything changes. It isn't creationism anymore, since that explicitly attributes everything to an omnipotent god, there is no room to substitute an alien being. If you made this suggestion to a creationist they would either laugh at you or smack you.
Besides, I would agree with you that the hypothesis "an alien race created life on earth" is something that could, in principle, be tested scientifically (eg, by searching for the aliens and trying to communicate with them, or trying to find some alien artifacts they left behind, or testing the rate of genetic change to see if it matches what biology/chemistry/physics would predict), but the same cannot be said for creationism. I've never heard of anyone (except perhaps for some fringe nutjob cults) trying to use the SETI project to communicate with god. Indeed, I think pretty much all creationists would be very clear that creationism isn't a science in this sense. To them, god exists, and simply isn't subject to what we call the laws of physics. Whereas of course an alien race WOULD be subject to the laws of physics!
What some creationists do claim is that there is scientific evidence that demonstrates that the biblical creation myth is correct, especially in details such as the great flood etc. The biblical creation myth is indeed testable by science, but the result isn't what the creationists like! So they ignore it and just pretend.
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Re:Title (Score:5, Interesting)
If we substitute divine being for alien being, nothing changes in principle.
Everything changes. The alien hypothesis would lead immediately to further questions: ...
- Was it a single visit, or several visits of the aliens?
- If several, does a pattern emerge?
- If several, were they the same aliens? Or did different types of alien visit us?
- If several of the same type, can we detect a development in technology and goals of the aliens?
- If a single visit, did they come and leave again, or are they still present?
- If a single visit, can we determine when and where they landed?
-
All those questions can be handled scientificially. With an omnipotent being, none of those questions makes any sense.
Parent
Re:Title (Score:5, Interesting)
i'll agree with what you say.
No believer in creation should be afraid of what science concludes. but many are. It's silly.
The fact that scientific discovery is ongoing is not proof that it's flawed, it's just proof that we continue to learn about the things around us.
That is important. In fact I think God would be pleased that his creation was using thier thinking abilities to the full. Because if a person believes in creation and an omnipotent being that started it. How better to learn about that creator than by examining the creation.
Where the ID and creationist loudmouths fall short is that they don't leave any room in thier interpretations for any new information that arises.
These people forget that the bible is not a text book on science but a message concerning God and his Soveriegnty.
"In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth" does not specify any time periods of methods. I won't get into the whole "days" issue and the parallel creation accounts in genesis, but there's a lot of room to examine scientific discovery and correlate it with what the Bible has to say and there not be any conflict on most matters.
Faith doesn't need proof, but when facts jive with faith it's faith strengthening.
And when scientific theory does not fall in line with my Faith I don't worry. This is because whats postulated in any theory is usually based on the best knowledge of the time. When that knowledge changes the theory will change or eventually it may be confirmed. And if some scientific matter is confirmed and it seems to disagree with the bible, the faithful person should re-examine thier understanding of the issue involved.
I'll point to the calculation of Pi in the bible. At face value it's wrong according to current understanding. To dogmatically insist that it is exactly 3 would make for all sorts of errors if needing the value for anything.
It doesn't mean that the bible is wrong, it just means that the understanding of the dimensions presented in 1 Kings 7:23 may be off. One would have to know that he measurements are given in round numbers (as the Hebrews tended to round off measurements to whole numbers), that cubits were not exact units, or that the basin may not have been exactly circular, or that the brim was wider than the bowl itself.
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Re:Title (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well duh! (Score:5, Funny)
I was going to switch to one of those plastic blow up dolls until I found out that they're loaded with carbon too!
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Best cure for fundamentalists: scripture. (Score:5, Informative)
You need to learn the bible for insight into much of western thought, but you should also learn it for the fun that can be had with it's biblically ignorant followers.
First, ask them what the ten commandments are. This will trip 95% of them up and they'll walk away without bothering you. If they say that the commandments are not important, tell them you think the same about the rest of the Bible.
Claim you don't believe in Yahweh because you don't believe in infanticide. They'll give you a strange look, and then ask them to read Psalm 137:9, which is in context, Jews daydreaming about smashing their enemies' infants to pieces.
Ask them if they eat lobster, or if there's a girl in the group, if they wear pants. If they say yes, ask them why they support the homosexual agenda, since all three are abominations according to the bible.
They will go to great lengths to explain away why what they do or don't is covered by some painful translation-based loopholes, and what everyone else does is what's really wrong. This is the basic definition of a hypocrite, which concerns my favorite scripture:
'As he taught, Jesus said, "Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.'
Don't get me wrong, the world would be a great place of everyone followed the advice of Jesus, but most of them have never read more than ten pages of their Holy Book.
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Re:Best cure for fundamentalists: scripture. (Score:5, Funny)
Don't get me wrong, the world would be a great place of everyone followed the advice of Jesus
That's for sure! If everyone learned to turn the other cheek it would be so much easier to overpower and enslave them all and run the place! MUWAHAHAHAHA!!!!
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LULZ with Fundamentalists! (Score:5, Funny)
Have you ever watched The Bible is Repulsive [youtube.com]? It's a great 15 minutes. Spare it. You won't regret it.
I used this video one time while talking to a fundamentalist. We were downtown, there was a gay rights parade (I'm a left-coaster) and the usual fundamentalist Christians on the other side of the street. Several blocks away, I struck up a conversation with a guy who was hanging around.
I guess it was because I'm obviously hetero, and fairly well-dressed, short hair, etc. because he assumed that I was on the Christian Fundamentalist side. I joshed with him for a while, talked about the wife, the kids, working, paying bills, blah blah blah. I mentioned something about strictly following the good book, and tisked about the guys down the street. He was very adamant that we should "follow the good book".
Having planted that seed, I got the kids into the conversation again a little while later. I started in with how I have lots of kids (I do) and how they sometimes misbehave. He agreed, and then I talked about what do you do about it? How do you keep your kids in line!?!? You have important values you want to teach! and he was with me all the way.
And then I said:
"It's a good thing that the good book thought of this, two. When my oldest son snuck out and smoked a joint with his buddies, I grabbed some bricks and killed him, right there on the spot". I played it perfectly, too! He was speechless. "Yeah, I believe that the good book should be taken literally, and it's pretty clear, right there in the Deuteronomy, when your children misbehave, you stone them to death".
As he cursed and walked away, I hollered out: "And the cops haven't even investigated! It's been 2 years now!"
I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in all my life...
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Re:LULZ with Fundamentalists! (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, let's see.
God is consistent. Except he isn't.
He's loving, unless he wants to kill you for whatever minor crime.
He holds you personally accountable for your sins, unless he wants to eliminate your race.
You can talk with him, unless he's not in the mood.
He can heal you, unless you've been amputated. He never heals an amputee, or any kind of serious scar.
He worries about a bunch of guys building a tower to the heavens so much that he creates all the races of mankind, but when we build a spaceship and actually GET to the heavens, nothing much happens.
It's no wonder that Christians fail basic tests of logic...
The truth is that if you canonize a work and believe it to be true, you should canonize your work and believe it to be true. The bible is truly a repulsive, insane, conflicted, and uncivilized work. People who worry about a few swear words or the latest movie should actually pay attention to 'the good book' that they pay homage to every Sunday. In fact, God's behavior in the bible I would expect from a 3 year old child with power. Yuck.
And my mark certainly wasn't praying, unless by "prayer" you mean words generally written as "fsck" or "f--k" in order to avoid bad word filters.
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Re:Title (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure you understand what the word "theory" means in science. I'll give you a hand. From (eeek) Wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]
"Theories" are built upon "Facts". "Intelligent Design" does not even reach the level of a "Theory" because it is not based upon facts, but mere conjecture.
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Re:Title (Score:5, Informative)
In spite of such evidence, evolution believing geologists build models based on today's observed rates of change and expect these to produce reliable results reaching back millions or billions of years.
Allow me to interrupt you there...
The geological observations that lead to the model of a multi-billion year old earth were made by creationist geologists. Many before the theory of evolution had been proposed.
This is one of the minor errors in your contribution. The accuracy and 'linearity' of radiometric dating has been demonstrated (both theoretically and experimentally) and confirmed beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt - your beliefs notwithstanding. Please learn something about the history of geology, evolution and the philosophy of science before commenting on them again.
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Re:Title (Score:5, Insightful)
Poppers rule of Demarcation is a better measure.
IF a theory can be disproved by an observation, then it is a theory.
If there is no disprovable facts in a theory, then it is not a theory. (it must also have significant supporting evidence for it to get to the theory stage, otherwise it is a hypothesis)
ID is not a theory because there is no way to disprove it. No can prove there is no God(s), therefore it is not a matter of science, it is a matter of belief.
Evolution does not state life began on earth by autogenesis. It states that species evolve and specialize, and that more complex lifeforms evolved from lesser life forms.
So there are several possibilities:
a. Autogenesis
b. Exo-genesis (life came from another planet)
c. Intelligent Design (genesis)
d. Exo-genesis by another life form. (Quite a few nutters fall into this category, but it is also possible)
Occums Razor cuts out c, marginalizes d, and splits a/b in half with a being the most simple explanation.
If we find identical lifeforms on Mars or in comet/astroid that matched Earth DNA exactly AND it predated any lifeform possibility on earth then b gets a boost as to how life formed on Earth.
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Re:Title (Score:5, Insightful)
Occums Razor cuts out c, marginalizes d, and splits a/b in half with a being the most simple explanation.
I am sick of people abusing Occam's Razor. It is by no means a scientific law, but rather a method of choosing which guess is the best guess. Even used as such, it's much more philosophical than scientific.
Read Wikipedia if you like.
Occam's razor is not an embargo against the positing of any kind of entity, or a recommendation of the simplest theory come what may[11] (Note that simplest theory is something like "only I exist" or "nothing exists"). Simpler theories are preferable other things being equal.
"Other things being equal." This is often applicable, but is a big stretch in this particular situation. Since we are making our guess about the existence or non-existence of God independent of any significant evidence (one side can say "autogenesis, things evolved, no God", the other can say "God made everything, everything is the way it is because God made it that way", both sides' explanations can fit the evidence equally well (regardless of whether or not one is actually a theory)), we must resort to philosophical arguments. This is where Occam's Razor is often abused as some sort of scientific law. It's not, it is purely philosophical and statistical. As said in wikipedia, it is only truly applicable "other things being equal." However, to say that all things are equal on both sides is ludicrous. There are massive philosophical ramifications for either guess, and any attempt to effectively weigh them all in a manner agreeable even with most people is surely doomed to failure.
My point here is that the existence or non-existence of creation is not a matter that can be settled scientifically, as much as we would all like. Attempts to use Occam's Razor in this way are the products of somebody who wants to fool themselves or others into thinking that creation is naturally excluded by some law.
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Re:Title (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmmm. Is slashdot going to have this debate again? If memory serves no one "won" the last time. How about we cut to the chase and simply say "we agree to disagree".
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Re:Title (Score:5, Insightful)
No one is going to admit they lost an argument. Some people who argued will later realize their position is weak. Other people were fence straddlers, and simply lurked and read while others debated. And some actually changed their opinion.
There are a lot of creationists who have changed their opinion, it just happens gradually, a concept many have difficulty with. You are about as unlikely to see a creationist suddenly say "wow, you're right!" as you are to see monkey give birth to a human.
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Re:Title (Score:5, Informative)
It's one thing to read some Dawkins
I've never read any Dawkins, but from the few clips I've seen of him on TV he seems like a bit of an ass.
People who claim to believe in evolution on the internet have quite clearly never read any science
Hmmm. Willful trolling, or incredibly misinformed?
Every national or international science organization with an an official position on evolution state that evolution in overwhelmingly confirmed by all evidence. Just a sampling of such scientific bodies that have made such statements on the subject:
Academy Of Science Of The Royal Society Of Canada
Alabama Academy Of Science
American Anthropological Association
American Association For The Advancement Of Science
American Association Of Physical Anthropologists
American Astronomical Society
American Geophysical Union
American Institute Of Biological Sciences
American Astronomical Society
American Society Of Biological Chemists
American Chemical Society
American Geological Institute
American Psychological Association
American Physical Society
American Society Of Parasitologists
Association for Women Geoscientists
Australian Academy of Science
Botanical Society of America
California Academy Of Sciences
Ecological Society of America
Genetics Society of America
Geological Society Of America
Geological Society of Australia
Georgia Academy Of Science
History of Science Society
Iowa Academy Of Science
Kentucky Academy Of Science
Kentucky Paleontological Society
Louisiana Academy Of Sciences
National Academy Of Sciences
North American Benthological Society
North Carolina Academy Of Science
New York Academy Of Sciences
Ohio Academy Of Science
Ohio Academy Of Science
Ohio Math and Science Coalition
Oklahoma Academy Of Sciences
The Paleontological Society
Society For Amateur Scientists
Society For Integrative and Comparative Biology
Society Of Systematic Biologists
Society Of Vertebrate Paleontology
Southern Anthropological Society
Virginia Academy Of Science
West Virginia Academy Of Science
You can read the statements from each of them collected here. [ncseweb.org]
Actually the "National Academy of Science" for almost every major nation on earth has made such a statement, but I don't have a handy link for all of them.
There are minor activist groups dedicated to both sides of the issue, but as far as National or International organizations dedicated to science or particular fields of science, non-biased organizations that incidentally issues position statements on the issue as an incidental action aside from their actual mission of preforming and promoting other science, every single one has come down on the side of confirming the scientific legitimacy of evolution and categorizing the anti-evolution side as invalid or pseudo science.
In fact I personally have dabbled in some evolution experiments and I have personally witnessed the fact that it's right and works.
On your side you have the crackpot answersingenesis website, and you have the Discovery Institute activists and a couple of other minor activist groups, and not one single legitimate scientific body, not one recognized International or National body dedicated to general science.
If you think the science is against evolution, you have been wildly misinformed. Except for a tiny fraction of a single percent, actual professional degreed scientists across all of the earth and life sciences come down on the side of evolution being valid and established by the evidence.
You can cite Michael Behe and a small handful of other actual degreed professional biologists who dispute evolution, but as I said they represent a minuscule faction of a percent. And not a single major body dedicated to general science acknowledges any credible scientific results from any of their attempts to refu
Parent
Re:Title (Score:5, Insightful)
Your quote:
Actually, the people who are critical of being lead like sheep into believing current estimates on the age of the earth (whether intelligent design proponents or simply intelligent critical thinkers) have been citing flaws in carbon dating for years.
Radiocarbon dating isn't used to determine the age of the Earth:
Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 (14C) to determine the age of carbonaceous materials up to about 60,000 years... One of the most frequent uses of radiocarbon dating is to estimate the age of organic remains from archaeological sites.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dating [wikipedia.org]
For dating the age of the Earth or anything in the billions of years one is not going to use carbon-14, but rather something like uranium because "Uranium and thorium have long half-lives, and so persist in Earth's crust..." (Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth#Modern_radiometric_dating [wikipedia.org]).
Your quote:
Presently there are too many circular arguments in so-called scientific theories on the age of the earth which cannot be independently or repeatably tested for me to throw any weight behind the random numbers I saw in my text books.
I've personally never seen any "circular arguments" or any "random numbers" in the text books that I was assigned to read.
You said:
...you don't want to be confronted with others' beliefs.
I don't think anybody likes confrontation. The debate is really about religious beliefs being passed off as science, and more importantly (to the gp at least) the potential FUD that almost always seems to arrive from ideologues when scientists improve their theories or observations.
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Oh no! (Score:4, Funny)
carbon dating can only be trusted up to 150 million years ago
Does that mean we'll never know for sure how old John McCain is?
Re:Oh no! (Score:4, Funny)
Big Bang is only a theory. Only McCain knows how the shit went down.
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Re:Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
Not at all!
We just have to wait until he dies (which will no doubt be on November 5, because God hates us) to cut him open and count his rings.
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Spore? (Score:5, Funny)
Will there be a patch?
Not news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not news (Score:4, Insightful)
OK, may I do want to be a pedant. :)
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Re:Not news (Score:5, Informative)
The title "Carbon Dating Flawed" was a poor choice as there are at least 2 different carbon dating methods, and the most common and well-known, radiocarbon-14 dating, isn't affected by the finding.
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29 dimensions of carbon compatibility (Score:5, Funny)
I hate science journalism (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I hate science journalism (Score:5, Insightful)
The article at least seemed to have a fairly good grasp of the subject. I guess they may have overstated the implications a bit to make the article seem less boring.
Although, no one even seems to read far enough into the article to come away with that naive misunderstanding. Instead people seem to think this related to carbon-14 dating and going into off-topic discussions about creationism when the off-topic discussion for this article should in-fact be global warming.
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Re:I hate science journalism (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. Long ago I noticed that journalists are often spectacularly wrong about stuff I happen to know a lot about.
How can I trust them to be right about things I don't know much about?
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it's not carbon dating (Score:5, Informative)
Carbon dating is based on the decay rate of Carbon 14, and has a pretty short limit geologically speaking - 70,000 years with enrichment methods, but closer to 50,000 years using traditional counting. It's possible accelerator 14C dating has pushed this slightly - I haven't worked in this field for about a decade.
The tie-in to "dating" in this context is that sediments are deposited over time, and if they're undisturbed you can drill a core that'll give you (theoretically) a record of the 13C/12C ratio over time - but that ratio is not being used for dating AT ALL. The only way you could use the ratio for ersatz dating is if the sediment shows an annual 13C/12C cycle due to annual temperature variations - then you can count the cycles the same way you can count tree rings (BTW 13C/12C in tree rings varies in this same sort of summer/winter - or spring/fall - pattern). In any case, the actual dating of the sediments is usually done using a different, longer-lived, radiometric isotope ration such as you find with rubidium-strontium (That particular isotope pair may not be the best fit for sea sediments; like I said, I've been out of this for a while. We mainly did 13C/12C in trees and 18O/16O in ice cores).
ID believers go nuts (not) (Score:5, Insightful)
It's sort of like saying my Science is better than your imaginary friend. If some lunatic fringe of the radical evangelical right wing Christians want to disbelieve obvious science fact does not mean that everyone who believes in ID is so naive. Even Christians believe in science, and a lot of them believe that god made physics! But it's not something you can, or should argue about, you end up looking like a bigger fool than the guy who believes in a geocentric universe or some such nonsense.
You shouldn't pigeonhole anyone who believes in something you can't possibly prove or disprove as someone who is inherently stupid and who rejects science. There are far too many scientists who believe in ID for that argument to be valid.
RTFA finds slashdot article seriously flawed (Score:5, Informative)
This is not about Carbon dating at all (that's about looking at the decay of Carbon 14, produced by cosmic ray radiation high in the atmosphere), this is about the Carbon 12/13 isotope ratio used as an indicator of biological activity in the distant past. Basically, what they say they found was that this is only trustworthy in deep ocean sediments, not on land or in island sediments, and you can only find deep ocean sediments for the last 150 million years or so, due to plate tectonics recycling the sea floor.
This will not affect geological dating at all. It may affect the interpretation of some work regarding, e.g., extinction events. It's hard to say without looking in detail at the other work (they may have several lines of evidence, etc.).
Re:Jesus is the answer (Score:5, Funny)
JESUS cares about those dirty rocks, you insensitive clod!
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Re:Jesus is the answer (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:This has been known for some time (Score:5, Informative)
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Not at all the news you're thinking of (Score:5, Informative)
The radiocarbon dating you're talking about, and most of the posters are thinking of, is with the radioactive isotope Carbon-14 against the stable Carbon-12. This is what's used to date more recent carbon-based life.
This is not what this article is talking about. The method in question is using two stable isotopes and apparently wrongly assuming a correlation between the 13/12 ratio in the plants and the atmosphere.
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At least someone got it right (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Damn... (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was 7 or 8, there was a kid up the road who was about my same age from a Pentecostal family. Being a kid and fascinated by anything that seemed bitey, I loved dinosaurs, and at some point during a neighborhood get-together I told him so. He promptly told me that I was going to hell for believing Satan over God. I, growing up in a family that could be charitably described as occasionally Catholic, asked him (in slightly different terms) what the fuck he was talking about, and how he could refuse to believe that dinosaurs walked the earth when there were so many fossils and such a well-constructed fossil record. The conversation ended when he, within hearing range of both his parents and mine, shouted "Shut up, Satan! I'm going home to get my Bible!", and left.
Now, don't get me wrong, kids can make up some damned creative things- but I would wager my bottom dollar that there isn't a kid alive that would come up with the idea that dinosaur bones were planted by the Devil all on his own. My guess is that we don't have to look too far from the ol' homestead to figure out where he found that particular line.
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Re:So much hate... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the creationists have been pushing an untenable decision for quite some time, using extremely dubious tactics. They've achieved a disturbing amount of political success by exploiting people's ignorance of science.
Imagine how much they can accomplish when they can point to scientists actually being wrong about something. Never mind that it does nothing to bolster their position. All they need is to sow doubt about science.
Scientifically, this is merely interesting. Politically, it's an immense hassle on a battle which wastes a huge amount of time with zero scientific merit.
So yeah, you're gonna get some bitching when this sort of thing happens.
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Re:So much hate... (Score:5, Interesting)
From a correspondence between Ensign Guy H. Raner and Albert Einstein in 1945 and 1949. Einstein responds to the accusation that he was converted by a Jesuit priest: "I have never talked to a Jesuit prest in my life. I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist." "I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one.You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from religious indoctrination received in youth." Freethought Today, November 2004
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." From a letter Einstein wrote in English, dated 24 March 1954. It is included in Albert Einstein: The
From a letter Einstein wrote in English, dated 24 March 1954. It is included in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, published by Princeton University Press. Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years (New York: Philosophical Library, 1950), p. 27.
"During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution, human fantasy created gods in man's own image who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate influence, the phenomenal world... The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old conception of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes... In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vase power in the hands of priests." Albert Einstein, reported in Science, Philosophy and Religion: A Symposium, edited by L. Bryson and
"Thus I came...to a deep religiosity, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of 12. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached a conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true....Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience...an attitude which has never left me." The Quotable Einstein
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
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Re:So much hate... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why are there so many people in this thread worried about what other people are going to think about this?
It matters because any FUD (apparent or real) about science will be exploited by those whose political ideologies diverge with scientific findings. For political ideologues, any apparent negative-sounding news means exploitable FUD. This can effect how education is funded and mandated, among other things. Science unfortunately is not an Ivory Tower sheltered from politicians.
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Re:So much fear... (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it much more insightful "who" is feeling threatened than anything else. I'll refrain from naming the parties but a moment's inspection will clear that up.
Easy answer: extremists on all sides of the debate. The rest of us are more willing to expand what we know....
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Re:Seems like a very long time to me (Score:5, Insightful)
That's for Carbon 14 dating. 14C has a half-life of 5,730 years, so after 80,000 years, it's essentially all gone.
This article isn't about dating at all, in that sense. Carbon 13 and Carbon 12 are stable. But plants preferentially incorporate Carbon 12, unless they're growing so fast that they take whatever carbon they get.
So when you see more 13C in some sediment you know that plants are growing faster. When you date the sediment (using other techniques, like uranium dating or argon/argon dating) you know a little bit about the plants growing at the time, and the atmosphere they were growing in.
The title of the Slashdot article is extremely misleading. The article it links to is rather clearer.
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Re:Now get this, creationists (Score:5, Informative)
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