Age of mankind, dating, and the flood

There's been some good progress in another independent anchor, Ar-Ar dating of tephras (from volcanic eruptions) found in the varves. It's a little tricky because they can't collect enough material from the varves to do the dating. But they can do geochemical analysis of the tephras in the varves and correlate that to tephra deposits found nearby which are extensive enough to do the Ar-Ar dating. There's only one result so far but it fits. See Tephra.

Good news, a footnote to add to Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1 message 5, another correlation between dating methods.

Also note message 21 of that thread:

quote:

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A 40,000-YEAR VARVE CHRONOLOGY FROM LAKE SUIGETSU, JAPAN: EXTENSION OF THE 14C CALIBRATION CURVE

quote:

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RESULTS

Figure 1 shows the varve and ¹⁴C chronologies as a function of depth of the SG core. Until now, the varve numbers have been counted in the 10.42-30.45 m deep section. The Lake Suigetsu floating varve chronology consists of 29,100 varves. As shown in Figure 1 the sedimentation or annual varve thickness is relatively uniform (typically 1.2 mm yr-1 during the Holocene and 0.62 mm yr-1 during the Glacial). The age below 30.45 m depth is obtained by assuming a constant sedimentation in the Glacial (0.62 mm yr-1). The ¹⁴C ages at 10.42, 30.45 and 35 m depth are ca. 7800, 35,000 and 42,000 BP, respectively.

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Note the correlation between C-14 and depth with C-14 and varve count. See how at about 11,000 years ago ("BP" means "before present" with "present" defined as 1950 CE), both show a matching change in slope of the curves with depth.

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You can see the volcanic ash layers in the graph.

One of the interesting thing about volcanic ash is that it is not quite the same material in all volcanoes -- there is a "signature" of elements in the ash that differs from volcano to volcano, and this makes it easy to correlate layers in one place with those in another.

Enjoy

Regarding the white layer , I assume this is from the increased concentration of shells. This particular lake system is incredibly close to the sea, and freshwater diatoms are susceptible to saline water. Why are you so certain that the white layers were not caused by diatom die-offs from increased salt water in the water table during spring tides?

Curiously that doesn't matter, because there could be several die-offs (greater than normal rate of dying) in the course of the year and the varves would still count annual layers.

The reason is that the alternate layer is clay, which settles very slowly, so slowly that it only accumulates into a visible layer when there are NO diatoms dying. The diatom tests (shells) settle quickly, but the clay layer settles slowly enough that it takes a full winter to form a layer.

Enjoy.

The consilience is merely because of cherry picking. Some varves are formed from spring tides, some from daily tides, some from annual weather patterns. If a certain sequence is misinterpreted, such misinterpretation will be accepted if it fits in with other dating assumptions. Unintentional cherry picking causes the consilience.

In other words you are saying that scientist are conspiring to falsify data on a global scale?

Really?

Again, I suggest you read Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1 and then provide me with some rational for the correlations that isn't just wishful thinking -- on based on actual objective empirical evidence.

See the graph in Message 134 and tell me why the age vs depth slopes change at the same point for both varve layer and C-14 age ...

Enjoy.

Thanks for the discussion coyote, I have a lot more to say, especially about tree ring chronology but unfortunately this forum is not the place to do it because of admin's lack of moderation, even when I do complain. You are welcome to private message me if you would like to continue the discussion.

Perhaps you would like to attempt to discuss this on Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1, which starts with dendrochronology and the correlations between tree ring data and ages.

l have pointed you towards this thread several times, as you really need to address the correlations issue.

Enjoy

yeah, figured I was getting in a little late here (I been busy)

... in this case the problem is blamed on unfair moderation, rather than the poor quality of his arguments.

Otherwise known as cognitive dissonance resolution by externalizing it into a conspiracy.

Enjoy

There is "The Great Debate" forum, made for one on one debates, with no other participants allowed.

Enjoy

The issue of this thread is the accuracy of radiocarbon dating, but you have wandered into fantasies about sea water intrusion into one varve series while ignoring all the evidence that points to radiocarbon dating being sufficiently accurate to demolish both the young earth and global flood at 4,350 years ago claims.

One single tree older than that is sufficient to invalidate that claim.

Amusingly there are three such trees known so far:

From Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1

quote:

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Message 2: http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/...le/pi/pin/longaeva.htm (5)

The oldest known living specimen is the "Methuselah" tree, sampled by Schulman and Harlan in the White Mountains of CA, for which 4,789 years are verified by crossdating. An age of 4,844 years was determined post-mortem (after being cut down) for specimen WPM-114 from Wheeler Peak, NV. ...

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As of today those trees would be:

• 4,845 years (in 2013 for "Methusulah" ... and counting ...).
  
• 4,893 years (in 2013 for "Prometheus" ... and counting ...).

and:

quote:

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Message 269: http://www.rmtrr.org/oldlist.htm

... The tree was cored by Edmund Schulman in the late 1950s but he never had a chance to date it before he died. Tom worked up the core only recently, and knows which tree it is. The tree is still alive, and the age given below, 5062, is the tree's age as of the growing season of 2012.

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So Schulman's tree would be

• 5,063 years (in 2013 ... and counting ...).

AND the consilience of tree ring data, climate effect on ring thickness and 14C data of these 3 trees all show the validity of both dendrochronology and 14C age measurements for this period.

Other trees extend this data even further into the past:

quote:

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Message 269: http://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/...topics/the-ancient-trees
... The climate and the durability of their wood can preserve them long after death, with dead trees as old as 7,000 years persisting next to live ones.

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Which means that -- as a minimum there has been no world killing flood for 7,000 years ... since the tree germinated and grew to old age and died. Tying it in to the ages measured by the above three trees would make it even older, identifying when the tree died by matching rings with the living trees via the science of dendrochronology.

This is, of course, discussed in greater detail on Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1.

The correlation with 14C data is discussed on Message 4:

quote:

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These calibration curves have been extended now to the limits of Carbon-14 dating, but it is also of interest to look at just the Carbon-14 calibration curve for dendrochronology - the results of matching tree-rings to Carbon-14 levels and their implied "C-14 age":

http://www.ipp.phys.ethz.ch/...arbon/HajdasPhDthesis1993.pdf (9)

quote:

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This means we can look at the "C-14 age" as a measurement of the Carbon-14 actually remaining in the samples from what was absorbed from the atmosphere at the time that the tree-rings were formed and note the following:

• If there were numerous errors in the tree-ring data caused by false rings (as proposed by Dr. Don Batten), then this would show up as a steep rising "C-14 age" that would be much younger than the recorded tree-ring age. This is not the case.
• The false rings would also have to be perfectly matched for each of the species used for the overall dendrochronology ages or the "C-14 age" for each one would be different and the line of calibration would be extremely blurred. This is not the case.
• The age derived from Carbon-14 analysis is consistently younger than the actual age measured by the numerous tree-ring chronologies in pre-historical times, meaning that C-14 dating underestimates the ages of objects.

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Enjoy

Welcome to the fray Ed67,

Message 148: Just because someone believes MANKIND is only ~6k years old doesn't mean that he believes the EARTH is that young. The Bible gives the account of the creation of the "Heavens and the Earth" BefORE it begins talking about the creative days. The Earth's creation could have been BILLIONS of years before God turned his attention to the Earth.

So you're a "gap" creationist. Interesting.

Still doesn't help you with 14C dating methods that extend back to ~40,000 years and validated by annual layer counting methods, tree rings and lake varves. See Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1 for details and further discussion.

So, according to EVOLUTIONISTS, the dating techniques are perfectly good to prove EVOLUTION right.

Dating techniques come from a number of different disciplines and they corroborate each other with surprising accuracy.

Tree rings along go back 12,000 years. See Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1 for details and further discussion.

What we see in the fossil record is explained by the Theory of Evolution -- that is one of the things that theories do, explain objective evidence. Another is make predictions, such as where and what age rocks an intermediate form between fish and tetrapod would be found -- see Tiktaalik. An intermediate shows traits that are between ancestral populations (fish in this case) and descendant populations (tetrapods in this case).

Evolution predicts intermediate species, intermediate species have been found in many lineages.

The objective evidence tests and validates the Theory of Evolution as the best available explanation of all the evidence.

And furthermore, wherever did you get the idea that the FLOOD KILLED ALL VEGETATION? What do you think Noah saw when coming out of the ark, a MOONSCAPE?

Where did you get the idea that "the FLOOD" actually occurred? Do you have any evidence for it?

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You can do the experiment yourself: Build a dike around your lawn and keep it flooded with water for a year. You'll see what Noah saw when he stepped out of the ark.

Look at what happens to the vegetation everytime a reservoir is filled.

Trees die even when their branches aren't covered.

Can anyone with knowledge of the subject help me to refute the claims of this article? (i don't mean by questioning the validity of the source, i mean with science) http://www.maltanow.com.mt/?p=2927 It makes extraordinary claims about the age of mankind and about archaeological finds embedded in coal.

First go to TalkOrigins Pratt list: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

then search the topics, for instance

quote:

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CC100: Human fossils are out of place.

CC101. Human footprints have been found with dinosaur tracks at Paluxy.
CC102. Sandal footprints have been found associated with trilobites.
CC110. Moab man was found in Cretaceous sandstone.
CC111. Malachite man was found in Cretaceous sandstone.
CC112. Castenedolo, Olmo, and Calaveras skulls were found in Pliocene strata.
CC120. Baugh found a fossilized finger from the Cretaceous.
CC130. A petrified hammer was found in Cretaceous rocks.
CC131. An iron pot was found encased in Carboniferous coal.

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Seems there are lots of such "finds" in creation-world ...

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC130.html

quote:

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Claim CC130:
An iron hammer with wooden handle was found embedded in rock in Cretaceous sediments (or Ordovician, by some accounts) near London, Texas. The enclosing rock contains Lower Cretaceous fossils.
Source:
Patton, Don, n.d. Fossilized hammer. http://www.bible.ca/tracks/fossilized-hammer.htm
Response:

1. The hammer is encrusted with calcium carbonate, which can happen quickly. The fossils are in nearby rocks, not part of the material encrusting the hammer. There is no evidence that the hammer is more than a few decades old.

Links:
Kuban, Glen J. 1997. The London hammer: An alleged out-of-place artifact. http://paleo.cc/paluxy/hammer.htm

Matson, Dave E. 1994. How good are those young-earth arguments? http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-gc.html#G4d
Further Reading:
Cole, John R. 1985. If I had a hammer. Creation/Evolution 5(1): 46-47.

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It makes extraordinary claims about the age of mankind and about archaeological finds embedded in coal.

Other items in the article are of similar vein: hoaxes perpetuated on the gullible by shysters. See Scientific vs Creationist Frauds and Hoaxes for more.

Meanwhile we can also look at the evidence for age of the earth via annual counting systems (tree rings etc) in Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1. The evidence that the earth is old is very extensive, comes from a variety of scientific disciplines and the results are consilient with each other.

Enjoy.

At the heart of all of these kinds of claims is the assumption that coal or other deposits cannot form around an artifact in a short time. ...

Or is the handle partly charred ... it wouldn't be the first time creationists have mixed up charcoal with coal.

Enjoy

Hi djufo and welcome to the fray

- The flood did not cover all land, mostly the coastal areas were the first civilizations were created. ... historical data from previous civilizations put the flood around 10-13,000 years ago.

Do you have any other evidence that these coastal floods occurred at the same time rather than separate individual seasonal or periodic floods?

You realize that this is the time of the "agricultural revolution" when agriculture was developed and became widespread, with social groups moving to river deltas and floodplains because of the fertile soils? Land prone to flooding?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution

Can you document the historical texts from 10-13,000 years ago? Curiously my impression was that written documents are rather later in the timeline of civilizations, so any history from that time would be oral, yes?

Enjoy.

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It wouldn't recede either, if it was rising sea levels - at least not within the timescales the stories suggest.

That's why I went with floodplain inhabitation and periodic floods. The challenge then is to show that they occurred at the same time world-wide, and that there was only one flood rather than a number of them.

... I don't remember those tress in Ugg Wood standing in water last year ...

Were those 'gopherwood' trees?

Enjoy

... Around 10,000-13,000 ...

When you claimed there was a documented history ...

... Between 3 and 6, and some put it up to 8,000 years ago, we had the Sumerian civilization. They wrote ... a language called Sumerian cuneiform.

Curiously, I don't see 8,000 years being the same as 10,000 to 13,000 years. It's not even close enough to be a rounding error.

... but somebody mentioned that at some point in our past there was an "agricultural revolution" and any information about a flood is so old that would have been just oral, Information from mouth to mouth. ...

And what I said was:

Message 167(RAZD): (djufr) - The flood did not cover all land, mostly the coastal areas were the first civilizations were created. ... historical data from previous civilizations put the flood around 10-13,000 years ago. Do you have any other evidence that these coastal floods occurred at the same time rather than separate individual seasonal or periodic floods? You realize that this is the time of the "agricultural revolution" when agriculture was developed and became widespread, with social groups moving to river deltas and floodplains because of the fertile soils? Land prone to flooding?

Again I point out that you dated the flood to 10-13,000 years ago, but have only provided evidence of a written history at "Between 3 and 6, and some put it up to 8,000 years ago" by your (questionable) undocumented information.

Can you admit to being wrong?

Curiously I don't know of anyone living longer than a thousand years, so by simple observation I note that this means that the "history" of the flood must have been oral history and not written.

Instead of proving me wrong you have shown yourself to be providing misinformation.

... More in detail, they specifically explained how and why it happened. Around 10,000-13,000 the planet was still coming out of the last age. ...

And this is documented in the Sumarian cuniform tablets? Really? Can you provide a link with that specific information?

Anyways, going back to the flood, your modern common sense tells you "oh, to have a sudden rise of sea levels big enough to cause a flood. the global temperature has to have risen significantly" not necessarily, since we have the alleged big mass of ice coming up to the equator and melting at a fast pace.

Perhaps you can also enlighten us how fast the last ice age ended -- how fast the ice melted and flooded the low-lying plains ... and then how that water receded at the end of the flood (as reported in the "history" you refer to) ... people want to know.

The key mistake ALL of you do over and over again, is the use of words such as "believe" and "myth" keep in mind, you grew up brainwashed with those words. You grew up brainwashed with an image that we are monkeys, we evolved from monkeys, you are nothing more than a monkey, and anything exceptional you are able to do is just random occurrence of nature.

I've also asked you how you tell reality from fiction and fantasy, so far all I see is rather uniformed opinion parading as 'truth' when it is really just belief.

It is an interesting aspect of cognitive dissonance that one of the ways to deal with conflicting information is to accuse those that provide the information of being insane, brainwashed, or part of a conspiracy.

Do you want to learn or are you so hide-bound to your beliefs that you cannot permit even the ghost of an idea that you may be wrong ... about a lot of things.

Enjoy

btw -- the first agricultural developments and communities were in the hills, not the coastal areas. Just another tidbit of information that shows your information to be misinformed.

added:

... Different carbon dating, although not completely accurate due to the exposure of high radiation levels in the area at that time, suggest evidence of a general flood at multiple different times. Some studies suggest 2,000-3,000 BCE, others suggest 5,000 BCE.

Oh look -- you've changed the dates that you were so absolutely sure of previously. So one of those dates given with absolute assurance was incorrect.

If you want to discuss carbon dating we have several other threads for that. I'm sure you will fail to provide any real evidence of "high radiation levels" but I can also show you how accurate carbon dating is and how it is validated on Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1.

Edited by RAZD, : added

What makes you think that I am the one "discovering" these things? I did not write any of the information about our creation. I am repeating what was written thousands of years ago. ...

Curiously, what I said was that you had contradicted yourself and asked if you could admit to being wrong -- the basic requirement of honest debate. Apparently you can't.

... Who are you to disprove what our ancestors knew about our origins? ...

What I have posted is based on objective empirical evidence that has been tested and validated.

... all of a sudden we have a bunch of modern nerds coming up with science fiction movies of monkeys learning to write and speak. ...

It appears that what you think is evolution was learned from the Planet of the Apes movies ...

... How do you prove that an "agricultural revolution" started in the hills? ...

By looking at the objective empirical evidence. For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarmo

quote:

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Jarmo (Qal'at Jarmo) is an archeological site located in northern Iraq on the foothills of Zagros Mountains east of Kirkuk city. It was one of the oldest agricultural communities in the world, dating back to 7090 BCE. ...

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There is more. Jarmo predates the larger cities of Ur and Urek that grew on the fertile plains of the Euphrates River. It shows the transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer as they discover how to cultivate various plants that regrew at the locations they frequented, and which allowed them to settle down in one place. This technology was then used in the more fertile land of the river flood plains, allowing larger cities to be built as more people could be fed.

... LMAO what do you guys smoke to come up with such ridiculous ideas! There was never anything like an "agricultural revolution" lol revolution my **s!

This is a graph that I drew for my Master's Thesis in 1972 (before home computers were readily available).

You can clearly see the population explosions and then capping as population saturated the available ecology, first for hunting, then for agricultural, followed by the industrial revolution and the (current) global revolution. Population grows to fill the ecological niche, and then the next innovation occurs that allows more population.

If you would like to educate yourself about history, research and read about the information provided by ancient civilizations. All the answers are there, not in the fictional books dictated and forced by a federal agency (doe)

Curiously I have read and researched the history, not from sources dictated by your paranoid fictional conspiracy or any other purported "authority" ... except for the authority of what was available at the time.

You have failed to prove a single thing you said. ...

Actually that shoe fits you. Tightly. All you have provided are whisps of information shrouded in belief and opinion and devoid of actual objective empirical evidence. You keep saying you have information, but you don't provide it.

... So because I cannot find any remains of your great great great grandfather I should assume by your brilliant logical process that he never existed correct? Any mention of his, is pure myth

Try again. You might try forming a coherent sentence with some actual meaning based on the actual argument against you.

Enjoy