Age Correlations and an Old Earth: Part II.

I'm going to take this one step at a time. First I need to better understand each method of dating. I looked at all the sites you posted and couldn't find any info on how they determined that the wood on the ground was that old. I assume it had to do with matching tree rings to Methusalah, but if you don't mind I would like more information on exactly how they do this.

You'll have to excuse my ignorance on such things, but what is an interglacial, and how do you construct a 14C calibration from laminated sediments in a lake?

I might actually understand this to some degree. Let me take a shot at it. Is it saying that they took fossil samples from the lake and did c14 tests on them and that the tests agreed with the hypothesized age of the layer they were found in, based on the annual varve thing? Am I anywhere close?

Are you saying that since the dates obtained by the lake varves were older than the age estimated for the cave drawings, that confirms the time of the cave drawings?

I'm coming. I haven't read or posted anything since Thursday and now it's Tuesday so I'm just getting back into it.

OK, got that part. Is it that they can tell what the climate was like then, when these artifacts were supposedly made? This is very foggy for me.
Maybe because I don't know much about C14 or N14.

I tried to look at this but the page could not be displayed. It's hard for me to put a lot of stock in carbon dating when I've heard so many accounts of things that were known to be younger or even still alive that came out old when they dated them. Also I've heard of diamonds which should be billions of years old, but still have carbon in them.

Maybe I should've said C14, I obviously don't know a whole lot about this stuff.

It was just something I heard on the Christian radio station. I probably should've done more research before posting about it. They did say though, that since diamonds are so hard, they shouldn't be subject to contamination.

Oh man!! I've been avoiding this topic, not because I think you guys are right about the age of the Earth, but because it's so hard for me to understand this stuff. I have to read each sentence over and over before I have a foggy idea of what is being said. I think I'll just make a commitment to spending some time here. I'll take turns between this thread and the one I started about the evolutionary chain. Hopefully, my knowledge will build and it will get easier for me.I'm still failing to see what the relationship is between the lake varves and the C14. This paragraph makes absolutely no sense to me:

Can you tell, based on the varves, what the amount of solar radiation was?

Can you make that prediction based on what was found out by studying the varves?

This makes a LOT more sense than anything I've read so far on this thread. So there was stuff in the lake that they did C14 tests on and the C14 test came up with similar dates to what was estimated based on where they were found in the varves? That sounds like pretty good reasoning. Why didn't anybody say that before? Or did they say it and it just didn't connect for some reason?

I have to take issue with this because it seems like more of an insult than something you actually believe. I feel kind of redicules pointing this out because it's rather obvious, but you can tell the shape of something by looking at it. The age is another matter which always involves some sort of speculation. Of course people used to think the earth was flat because we're on it and we're much smaller than it is, but since we can now fly around it and go into outer space and photograph it, we can be certain that it is a sphere. As with the earth orbiting the sun, it's something which can be observed. Age can't be observed unless you were there at it's beginning.It's one thing to say that there is conculsive evidence for the age of the earth, that may be so, but remains to be seen as far as I am concerned. It's quite another to say it's as plain as the shape, that's just not true.Let me give you an example. Two people are looking at a child. There is no doubt that the child is 40 inches tall and weighs 35 pounds. She can be weighed and measured, that solves any arguement between the two people. Neither is there any doubt that the child plays with dolls, because the two people can observe her doing that. They could argue, however, over her age. One could insist that she must be a 4 year old while the other thinks she is only a large 2 year old. Both could argue their evidence but they can't know for sure unless they have been around since the child's birth or they know her parents.

ok, well at this point it's not so easy for me to see. Maybe there's a good book you can reccommend me because I have such a limited amount of computer time and I'd rather focus on the "evolutionary chain" thread. I think that even if you're right about the age of the earth (and I'm nowhere near convinced of that), it doesn't mean evolution is correct.I can read books while I do other things, so a book would really be helpful.