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Scientific Dating
#1
Scientific Dating
I did not get really deep into chemistry.  I have had more biology classes.  What are all the dating methods scientists use?  I know one is carbon dating which has something to do with the carbon isotopes which is probably the most popular one used in the scientific community. 

How accurate are the different dating methods? 

The reason I ask this is because of the ever changing atmosphere, then how do scientists know how much the isotopes have been affected by the atmosphere and if scientists compare those isotopes of dead things such as fossils or rocks to living things, then would this also allow room for human error. 

The other reason I ask that too is because science has humans involved just like religion does and look at the error that has caused.  No need to get into the religious deal.  I was just making a statement.  Please no comments on thoughts of religion to my questions asked above.  Thanks in advance.
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#2
RE: Scientific Dating
Honestly, I prefer online dating. Angel

But, in answer to your question... Google is your friend.
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#3
RE: Scientific Dating
(October 19, 2015 at 11:58 pm)SnakeOilWarrior Wrote: Honestly, I prefer online dating. Angel

But, in answer to your question... Google is your friend.

Who doesn't? Can't get busted being a player that way.  Big Grin
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#4
RE: Scientific Dating
Dendrochronology is accurate to 1 year back (IIRC) 7000 years for Europe.

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#5
RE: Scientific Dating
I don't know about carbon dating being popular so much as a dating tool for a specific set of circumstances. It has its limitations, which are known and understood by those in the field. As long as no-one's doing the radiometric equivalent of using a calendar to time an egg, everything works. The other point you raised, human error, can be cancelled out as much as possible by measuring a range of samples, in different labs, and seeing if they agree with each other. Science is rather more than just one bloke in a labcoat getting everyone to agree with his latest idea.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist.  This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair.  Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second.  That means there's a situation vacant.'
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#6
RE: Scientific Dating
Quote:http://www.sciencemeetsreligion.org/evol...dating.php

Of course, C14 dating is useful for only a mere 50,000 years. 

For the age of the earth you need Uranium-Thorium dating which has a far longer half-life.
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#7
RE: Scientific Dating
Carbon dating is not very accurate.
The earth is 6000 years old!
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If that's the case, then the wheel was invented about 7 seconds ago....
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#8
RE: Scientific Dating
For the biblical timeline to be true, though, Blondie, the error would literally have to be nominally 100%.

We are talking billions of years here. That's 4.7 thousand thousand thousand years. For them to be so wrong that it's off by 4.699994 billion, the multiple dating methods would have to, like, be colluding with each other to trick us or something.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great

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#9
RE: Scientific Dating
There are different decay pairings used for different timescales and different geological conditions.

A good overview can be found here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dating.html

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#10
RE: Scientific Dating
(October 20, 2015 at 12:38 am)SteelCurtain Wrote: For the biblical timeline to be true, though, Blondie, the error would literally have to be nominally 100%.

We are talking billions of years here. That's 4.7 thousand thousand thousand years. For them to be so wrong that it's off by 4.699994 billion, the multiple dating methods would have to, like, be colluding with each other to trick us or something.

... and not just ALL mistaken, but all mistaken at variable rates which just so happen to give the same numbers.

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