Re: I'd like a better understanding of the debate


tsquare21 wrote:
Robert Carnegie wrote:

<snip>

However, he called on /you/ to "discover any evidence of man roaming
this earth longer then 10000 years" in order to settle the question,
either to your satisfaction or to his - I'm choosing to interpret it as
his, since he lays down the rule about "no [radio]carbon dating". From
this I infer that he is dismissing any archaeological evidence that has
been obtained up to now. Justification for this is up to him; I
suspect he doesn't have any.

Excuse me but RADIO or any CHEMICAL dating is not archaeological
evidence and is not confirmable. As your Statement above so
elouquently proclamed only something that has been there is acceptable.

Exactly. The carbon in archaeological remains *was* there in the things
once living at a site at a particular time. The 14C carbon ceased being
taken up at the death of the living thing. 14C dating techniques now
can determine when that death occurred (for samples adequately
collected, recorded, handled and tested) with a very high level of
certainty to within a relatively narrow range of dates.

If you examine the 14C witness, most commonly using a number of
samples, along with the witnesses of stratigraphy, seriation of
artifacts, other non-radiometric dating techniques (e.g.:
thermoluminescence, obsidian hydration, in Germany and Ireland
dendrochronology, etc.), you will find a small range of dates which
will almost certainly capture the exact date that the site was occupied
(or the date when a particular element of a site was occupied). 14C can
now be used to date sites out to at least 50,000 years, especially with
the use of AMS.

These results are as much archaeological as any other results derived
using any other field of study that archaeologists use to derive
understanding of the physical remains their investigations dig up.

Acceptable method of arechology.

seek out oral, written or mythology and determine if it was a real
place.

Nope. You stumble and break a leg coming out of the gate. <looks up
remedy in 'Far Side's Guide to Equine Veteranry Care'; reads twice,
just to be sure>

"Blam."

Sorry. Couldn't be helped.

Now, it is perfectly true that human literature, oral or written, can
give clues to lost old stuff. It is also true that they can give clues
that lead you to the wrong place, or to no place whatsoever. Happens
all the time.

It is also true that most humans for most of human existence did not
have written languages. It is still true today for some societies;
although the charming National Geographic moments when a new bunch of
humans is first brought to light in stunningly beautiful photographs
has declined precipitously in the last century.

So those modern humans without written language do not exist, even if
one comes upon their homes, until someone writes about them? And the
folks that we know lived where archies dug up evidence of pre-literate
societies also did not exist?

This will greatly disappoint my Anishnabe friends. Not to mention my
Celtic ancestors.

On the other hand, there is a vast literature of completely true
stories that are lies. Try to follow the trail of Prester John. Or,
please, find the lands of the Monopeds, or the Cyclops. They are well
defined in historical writings. Should be a snap for a clever fellow
like you to find.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

find this unknown with confirming records (pottery, consrtuction etc)
from this ARECHOLICAL dig determine the date by confirmation records.

People existed before pottery. I've handled their bones, and butchered
a deer with one of their tools. (Note: not a replica. An actual
archaeological tool.) None of these people left written records.

Construction goes back a very long way. Until the last ca. 5,000 years,
none of it was written about. 'Confirmation records' (by which I take
it you mean written records) did not exist before then, while it is
clear that construction did.

Look for other references, seeking those out with confirmation
contiunue this process untill knowledge is obtained.

Knowledge is obtained all along the way, in real archaeology. In your
stick-drawing of archaeology, nothing is known until all the evidence
agrees with written records (I'm pretty sure you mean the Bible; if you
meant, for instance, the Upanishads or the Popul Vuh, you would have
picked a very different terminus post quem) that you find meaningful.

That my friends is proper method of confirmation or actualy being
there. No carbon dating or other questionable findings. Facts,
Evidence, and most of all a recorded witness of exactly what we need to
know. Now once we determine the age of something and THEN one may
bring the carbon method to confirm what we suspect.

Again just an simple evidence of man older then 10,000 years old.

Using your rule, we discover that evidence of man goes back some
billions of years, to long before the beginning of the present
universe. Hindu scholars have proven this, using your proceedure,
beyond a shadow of a doubt. Did you not know?

I suggest you try your proceedure on the Popul Vuh, as to my knowledge,
not a lot of archaeological work has been done using the timelines in
that work as a starting point. I don't mean by this that the Popul Vuh
hasn't been useful to Mesoamerican archaeology--it certainly has. But
no one so far has had the blinding insight to use it to prove the
claims of extreme age contained in it. You could make a real name for
yourself.

<snip>

In fact, I live just outside Glasgow, Scotland, and so the stars, which
seem to have been claimed as evidence that God created life on earth
many times over - that is an idea proposed by creationists before
Darwin, which has been carefully examined and thrown out, that
dinosaurs and other things came and went before the first day of the
bible - the stars are not very visible here, because of street lighting
in the city.

I believe that all of scotland may have that problem.

When you are right, you are right. You'll have to wait a bit for that
event, though. I've seen nights in Scotland at least as clear and void
of light pollution as, for instance, the Boundry Waters Wilderness
Area, or an island in Lake Superior.

Have family in
Iowa (midwest in America) very remote in many places. though I been
there many times It was only once did I see the great milky in the open
skies.

I see the Milky Way often, in western Wisconsin. Usually not without
some light pollution, but still very clearly. Sometimes, near my home
town, I see it so clearly that it takes my breath away.

WOW, A river of stars, beautifull, to think the milky way is
only ONE galaxie in a billion.

Billion*s*.


I am not sure how stars prove this theory of successive creations, as
claimed. Perhaps it's because some of them are 10 billion years old or
more, so the whole universe can't possibly have been created as
recently as the bible implies. Perhaps it's because God actually means
for the constellations to represent the shapes of extinct species which
we should recognise in fossils. Or perhaps it's a confused argument.

If you would truly look you would understand what I was tring to say.
The stars in the skies and life on this planet have very little in
common, except the AWWH factor.

Well, that, and the physical laws that govern them, and the matter and
energy they are made up of. But other than that, what have the stars
ever done for us?

This simple fact should be the only
proof anyone needs of G-D.

Those that require proof would not, for the most part, find your
suggestion anything but pathetic.

<snip>

.

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