Originally posted by hotsnoj
1. & 2. These should be - "This is what we believe, now let's find some evidence to back it up."
The theory of evolution is just a theory. It is a belief/theory (though more belief), just like any other.
On carban-13 & other methods of dating old stuff-
Carban-13 and other dating meathods are not as fool-proof as you'd think they are. For one thing you don't know how much of the original parent element that was in the sample. Second you don't know if any more of the parent element has been added or subtracted since. Third you also don't know how much of the daughter element was in it or has been added or subtracted to/from it. Fourth Carban-13 is only reliable up to about 10,000 years! As for the others I don't know the dates, but I pretty sure it's much less not millions or billions of years.
in the theory thing. Evolution is not 'just' a theory. It has tons of evidence, more tons than the creationists will ever find because they don't have a case.
on Carban-13 dating.
You really are dense, aren't you? Carban-13 doesn't exist. It's CARBON-14 dating. And it is reliable up to ca 40.000 years ago (Chinese even say up to 80.000, but that's not verified). We do know the original relation between C-14/C-12. Ever heard about the ice-cores they get from the north and south poles???!!!
overview:
Carbon-dating: Developed by US scientist Willard Libby in 1949 buased on research used for the Manhattan-project. Based on proportion of C-14/C-12 in the atmosphere and the inherent instability of C-14 (8 neutrons instead of 6, as in C-12), he deduced that it might be possible to us the proportion between the two types of carbon as a dating mechanism.
This was possible because the proportion remains constant in any living thing as long as it is alive (plants too). Once dead the C-14 starts to decay at a steady rate of 5730 years (half-life). Originally, Libby assumed that the atmospheric concentration of both elements had been a constant forever. This is not correct but has sionce been rectified through calibration of the C-14 timescales. all objects dated before the calibration are therefor dated wrong however, because we now know what the real concetrations were at the time of death we have been able to calibrate these artefacts too.
Contamination, of course, ruins the sample and that's the reason why archaeologists take utmost care when taking monsters from the sites they investigate.
The most famous application of Cabon-dating was the dating of the Shroud of Turin, which has been dated to AD 1260-1390. Carbon-dating itself is used for every site encountered and is therefor part of the standard arsenal of dating mechanisms of Archaeologists, Anthopologists, Paleontologists, ...
Potassium-Argon (K-Ar) dating:Mainly used by geologists to date rocks hundreds or even millions of years old. Also appropriate for dating early human (hominid) sites in Africa, which can be up to 5 million years old. Restrected to volcanic rock no less than 100.000 years old.
Uranium-series dating:Based on the radiactive decay of uranium. Particularly useful for the period 500.000-50.000 years ago, which lies outside the range of C-14 dating. Used in areas where there is little volcanic rock available to use the K-Ar method on. Therefor very useful for dating early human sites in Europe.
These are but a few dating mechanisms available to scientists around the globe, but many more are used.
Like:
Calendars and Historical Chronologues, Varves and Tree-rings (dendrochronology), Fission-Track dating, Thermoluminescence dating, Optical dating, Electron Spin Resonance dating. And those are only some of the more famous absolute dating mechanisms we have, there's relative and caibrated relative methodes too.
Source: Renfrew, C. & Bahn, P., 1991,
Archaeology, Theories, Methods and Practice, Thames and Hudson, London (Second edition, 1996 annd reprinted 1998)
So instead of making a complete fool of yourself each and every time, you should do better to do some research, using real science.
