Re: Carbon-14 fallacy in dating

Craig A. Feinstein wrote:
jcon wrote:

I'm glad that you admit there is something to his logic, even if you do
not agree with the conclusion. While the other posts don't seem to be
bothered by this, I think it's pretty clear that the rabbi was onto
something.

For instance, as of yet, no posters have been able to demonstrate
conclusively and clearly that the world is more than 5766 years old.
Sure, they'll say there's mountains of evidence to the contrary. At
first I thought they had clear and conclusive evidence when they
started talking about tree rings, but then when I asked for pictures of
trees with a number of rings larger than 5766, I was told that the
scientists assembled lots of the rings of trees together from different
overlapping times like a jigsaw puzzle and were able to deduce the age
of the oldest tree from this information, sort of like how they do
genome sequencing. This seemed reasonable at first. However, there is a
problem with this approach:

Tree rings are not discrete quantities like DNA, so this methodology
cannot be as reliable as genome sequencing. The methodology of deciding
which rings overlapp is not clear-cut and can be subject to human
interpretation. Given that probably only a handful of people handle the
actual evidence, it is not unreasonable that the scientists could have
"forced" some of the links on the jigsaw puzzle or "denied" some of the
true links. Note that I am not saying that they did this, only that
they could have done this. So I am not so impressed so far.

Since everyone posting here is convinced that the tree rings prove that
the world is more than 5766 years old, I would like to know how you all
were convinced of this? Did you just believe what the experts told you
or did you do the observations and counting yourselves? If you believed
what the experts told you, then you are doing exactly what you are
accusing me of doing - arguing from authority.

I addressed the issue from a different angle that you seem to have
missed or ignored. Forget dendrochronology. Just find some organic
artefact from an archeological site where you can agree on the date from
whatever method you choose, even biblical reference if you will. Maybe
somewhere in Egypt or Babylon. I'm sure you'll agree that something can
be found from one of these places made from organics, papyrus for
example. Now measure the C14 content. If your Rabbi is correct the C14
date will be much further into the past than you think it should be. Now
to my knowledge this has never happened for any such object. The C14
date is always in agreement within the error margin with whatever other
method you choose. There are no artefacts in Egypt for example that C14
dates prior to the rise of the Egytian civilisation. Hence the
assumption that the atmospheric C14 ration is pretty much constant seems
to be correct. Or are you aware of examples that contradict this?

Incidentally, your objection to dendrochronology is really stretching
credibility. Agreed on a global scale your objection could be valid due
to variations in growth conditions, but the pattern maps are built up in
localised areas where all the trees would be subjected to the same
environmental conditions and upheavals. The evidence isn't *just* the
jigsaw as some have called it, it is also that this jigsaw has been
confirmed many times in archeology with wood whose age is also known
from independent records (such as plans and ship building records).
Records show when houses were built, when ships were built.
Dendrochronology dating matches these dates.

Nicholas

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