Carbon-14 Dating Debate Assistance Thread

Hi Peg,I'm jumping in here (even though I'm not a practitioner of radiometric dating) because I felt that the other replies to your post didn't properly address what I think is the main problem with this question you posed: The problem is that the "others" you just quoted there were not expressing a "sentiment" that is at all similar to yours. If I am misunderstanding your actual sentiment, please forgive (and correct) me, but as I've read your various posts about your mistrust of radiometric dating techniques, you consider the resulting dates to be unacceptable when they turn out to be far older (up to 50,000 years for C14 dating) than a certain "maximum possible age for anything/everything," which has been inferred on the basis of a particular interpretation of the Book of Genesis (an interpretation that many Jewish and Christian believers do not accept).The person you quoted does not share that position. Surely you must have noticed that BeagleBob was recommending another RM dating method that can go much farther back in time with better reliability. But you didn't quote that part, because (I assume) it is even more incompatible with your sentiment.Some use the term "quote mining" for what you tried to do here -- it's a form of dishonesty in which you misrepresent what someone else has said by taking a short phrase out of context. It fails miserably (and backfires severely) when readers have access to the original text that was quote-mined (obviously true in this case).I hope you'll find the time to follow and understand the links and information that RAZD and Coyote have presented about how C14 dating actually works. (As a non-expert on this topic, I found it all to be very helpful.) And I hope this will lead you to reconsider the (de)merits of the particular interpretation of Genesis you've been trying to maintain so far (consider that there may be better ways of understanding what was written there).At the very least, I hope you'll give up on trying to use dishonesty to support your position.

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autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

I apologize for having misunderstood your position. I was confused by things you have posted recently in other EvC threads -- like this item in Message 26 (your reply to Mr Jack on Jan. 1): You didn't mention the actual dates you were referring to there (at least not yet), so I don't know what you consider these exact dates to be. But usually, when people have made assertions like that, the dates have tended to be "YEC-ish" in magnitude (less than 8000 years ago).If you don't have a problem with age estimates of rocks, fossils, artifacts, etc, that are much older than 8000 years, then what are these "exact years" that you are referring to for the various "historical events" in Genesis, and what is the basis for this claim about meticulous keeping of dates in ancient Hebrew texts?If you can accept the validity of various scientific dating methods (even leaving out C14 completely), how can you reconcile this with the Genesis account of the flood, considering that so much evidence (already cited by RAZD and Coyote in replies to your posts) contradicts the flood story, no matter what year it supposedly happened?You must think that folks here are persecuting you, but you have to understand that when you make statements like this in a science forum, you are bringing it upon yourself. Most other people are content to view the flood story and other parts of Genesis as allegorical or metaphorical -- as having a value that goes far beyond (and is quite distinct from) mere historical reportage.

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autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.