How do we determine the age of Fossils?

[Baruch]

How would anyone know that man did not exist before 6YK?  What device could measure his absence?

I definitely know I was here before Y2K ;-)

[Baruch]

And absence is evidence for absence, until proven otherwise. You know, like a god or gods.

Is that why we don't know anything?  Pretty much all evidence is fake news that is politically motivated.

As I pointed out in the other string ... rationality is BS.  Reality isn't rational.

[Hakurei Reimu]

Perhaps you dont understand what I am saying.
Your dating of these potteries and strata is exactly what I am referring to.
Lets go from this axis on your claim that there was life on Earth prior to 6 YK.
How did they date these sites?

By the same kind of ways we date rocks, really. There are many methods, both absolute and relative. You can date the pottery itself by how much moisture it has reabsorbed after firing. Careful investigation of the surrounding debris layer and the kind of depositions it acquired since the sample was buried.

Again, you seem to think that only one method was used to date a rock or pottery sherd, or any other object. No. As many different kinds of dating that are applicable are applied, not just one. For instance, if you find a grave with a body in it, you don't just carbon-date the corpse. You also look carefully at the grave goods and descern its composition and form, and therefore which period its likely to have come from (because grave burial practices and the form of the goods themselves change over time). If there's a piece of wood, dendrochronology will come into play. The type of sediment that has covered the grave will also be considered. Any other datable object will also be considered.

What you'll find is that all of this data will tend to point towards the same date. On the Anna Karenina principle, good measurements will tend to agree with each other, where bad measurements will tend to be all over the place.

Without continuation of these arguments, all I want you to tell me is how do they know this pottery is +35YK old?

No, just 8ky old. The skeleton found in Egypt was 35ky old. Again, by a variety of methods both direct and indirect, for both the skeleton and the pottery.

For goodness sake, those two figures were in completely separated parts of my response. I'm beginning to see how you could be so confused on science.

[Cavebear]

I definitely know I was here before Y2K ;-)

Another dumb joke...

[Cavebear]

Is that why we don't know anything?  Pretty much all evidence is fake news that is politically motivated.

As I pointed out in the other string ... rationality is BS.  Reality isn't rational.

When you assign factual scientific evidence to "fake news" there really isn't much hope for you. 

[Cavebear]

After concluding my thread on the Origins of the Universe, and When did Life begin, I think it is suitable to continue with the Radio Isotope dating techniques used by scientists to claim that Life can be as old as 3.5 billion years.

Now, I am not going to talk about Dendronology, Ice cores, or C14 tests.
C14 was discussed, and the mentioned treering and Ice layers will be discussed in future.

No, I want to know what the Atheist knows about how Fossils are tested to give a certain age of the once living creatures that died millions of years ago.

Is there a test that we can perform in a lab where we take a sample of this fossil, put it into a spectrometer, and get a printout, Coelacant=65 million years BP?

Lets see if there is an Atheist with the answer.

In the sense that laboratory tests can determine the age of some items, yes.  That is pretty much standard stuff.  That you do not accept that is very informative about your ignorance.

[Baruch]

Another dumb joke...

Your jokes are dumber ... so combined we are "dumb and dumber" ;-))

[Baruch]

When you assign factual scientific evidence to "fake news" there really isn't much hope for you.

I don't ... the result of an experiment, set up just so, that is reproducible, is a fact.  That isn't what science is here.  Science is the unfolding of the Platonic Forms (particularly Plato's Republic) and that isn't science ... it is rhetoric and dialectic.

[Cavebear]

I don't ... the result of an experiment, set up just so, that is reproducible, is a fact.  That isn't what science is here.  Science is the unfolding of the Platonic Forms (particularly Plato's Republic) and that isn't science ... it is rhetoric and dialectic.

Amazing.  You say in a single sentence that science is and isn't the same thing.  Only a theist could do that.

[Baruch]

Amazing.  You say in a single sentence that science is and isn't the same thing.  Only a theist could do that.

No, you demonstrate you are a science fan-boy ... who really doesn't understand what a controlled experiment (or repeated observation) is, and what it means to speculatively draw a curve thru the data (usually least-squares-method thru linearized data).  Though the medical (and psych) and social sciences have the same confusion you do (they have a reproducibility crisis).  Physics and chemistry have less of this, because they are dealing with deliberately selected, toy problems (falling apples and such).

[Cavebear]

By the same kind of ways we date rocks, really. There are many methods, both absolute and relative. You can date the pottery itself by how much moisture it has reabsorbed after firing. Careful investigation of the surrounding debris layer and the kind of depositions it acquired since the sample was buried.

Again, you seem to think that only one method was used to date a rock or pottery sherd, or any other object. No. As many different kinds of dating that are applicable are applied, not just one. For instance, if you find a grave with a body in it, you don't just carbon-date the corpse. You also look carefully at the grave goods and descern its composition and form, and therefore which period its likely to have come from (because grave burial practices and the form of the goods themselves change over time). If there's a piece of wood, dendrochronology will come into play. The type of sediment that has covered the grave will also be considered. Any other datable object will also be considered.

What you'll find is that all of this data will tend to point towards the same date. On the Anna Karenina principle, good measurements will tend to agree with each other, where bad measurements will tend to be all over the place.
No, just 8ky old. The skeleton found in Egypt was 35ky old. Again, by a variety of methods both direct and indirect, for both the skeleton and the pottery.

For goodness sake, those two figures were in completely separated parts of my response. I'm beginning to see how you could be so confused on science.

Well explained!  My elderly dad once complained "how could they know that"?  So I started to explain it to him and offerred computer sites that showed the age measurement charts.

It didn't make a bit of difference to him.  HE didn't know how the ages could be measured so to HIM, it COULDN'T be measured.And he was an ENGINEER when younger. 

You can't convince people to change their minds.  You can only teach them when they are young.

[Mousetrap]

Yes, because that's all that can be demonstrated.

Fortunately, what can be known is not limited to our immediate senses, because we can extend them by means of tools and machines.  Just because I can't see gamma rays doesn't mean they don't exist, but I know they do exist because their presence can be demonstrated reliably and repeatably.  They can be recorded and examined.

But the question is, did it exist before we were able to determine it's existence with our machines we made over the past 100 years?
Of corse it existed. But we did not know about it!
Do we know if there is such things as the afterlife, supernatural beings such as angels, God, Daemons?
No, does it exist?
We do not know!
Shall we dismiss it's existence?
We have the right to do so.
Shall we also dismiss a book that describes such an existence?
If it does not have any proof of validity, definitely yes.
How do we determine such a scripture's validity?
Does it undermine History, Archaeology, science?
If it does, dismiss it, if it does not, investigate it.

I can't see infrared light, but I can experience it as heat, and I can photograph it with the right filters, and I can demonstrate it with only a thermometer, a prism, and a sunny day.

Back in the day, there was a group of deaf Deadheads who would still go to concerts, and not just for the camaraderie of the Deadhead world -- they would gather near the stage with balloons, because the balloons acted like audio lenses.  They couldn't hear the concert, but they could feel it.  Could they hear the music?  No.  Were they experiencing it anyway?  Absolutely.

My doctor can't see inside me, but he can track my symptoms and family medical history, then order an ultrasound and identify the gallstone he expected to be there.  Oddly enough, when I finally had my cholecystectomy (they run in my family, it was all but inevitable), they checked on my appendix to see if it needed to be removed.  My doctor later told me that it was perfectly healthy, so they didn't compound the surgery by doing something unnecessary.

Four years later, I had an emergency appendectomy.

Was I misdiagnosed when my gall bladder was taken out?  No.  I was correctly diagnosed.  Surgeons work with data, not prophecy.  He couldn't possibly have known that it was going to go rogue in four years -- and I want my medical care based on reality, not magic.

Wonderful!
I also do not believe in magic.
This will be a huge mistake.
But why do you mix Prophecy in with Magic?
Do you know what a prophecy is, and do you know there is a nice logical and sound way to test if a prophecy is true, or just a concoction make believe? (Deut 18:18 to 22)

The reason for the scientific method is because it works.  And it works because it takes into account the fact that we are limited humans, and that our observations of the world around us change, so our understanding of the world around us must also change.

And no extension of our senses, even in to the most non-human realms like neutrino telescopy and gravitational waves, has ever revealed anything metaphysical.

To think that humans already discovered every machine, physical particles, energy fields, and everything knowable about the Universe, is arrogant to say the least.
But, if you are a person that demands that senses dictates the existence of all, what about stuff like your mind?
Do you have a mind?
How do one even prove you have one.
Remember the old story about the professor who said he could not believe in anything the 5 senses could not experience and the student who asked him to prove that he was mind-less.

The direction you look like you're going is "Well, just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there" and that's a logical fallacy, that's shifting the burden of proof.  If you assert something is there, you have to propose a way to detect and measure it.  If you can't do that, your claim can be dismissed without further consideration.  It's not our job to disprove your assertion, it's your job to provide evidence for it first so that it can be reviewed, analyzed, examined, and most importantly repeated to ensure the same results are available to anyone.
Proud to be all four, and really wish I could play the sax.

You're down to just Non Sequitur Theater now, I see.

Look, I loved what you are saying.
And you are 100% correct in your whole point of view.

But keep in mind what I am proposing is not that I am correct about the existence of God, but that your arguments against the Bible is not correct.
If, for instance, the Bible was not the source of the Nebular theory, or the Bible did claim the Universe was 6KY old (as so many creationists incorrectly claim), I would then be able to dismiss it for what it is.
However, If the Bible do not have such errors, why claim it does?

This is my whole argument.
Making a claim that God does not exist, because someone are incorrectly claiming the Bible is incorrect when compared with science, is not a logical, nor a scientific methodology at all!
To dismiss God on these grounds only allows me to play havoc with such arguments.
To dismiss God on the grounds of no evidence is a total different case than what Biblical attacks are.
And this is the arguments up until now. (errors of the Bible proves God does not exist).

[Hydra009]

Do we know if there is such things as the afterlife, supernatural beings such as angels, God, Daemons?
No, does it exist?
We do not know!

Reminds me of this scene from Dumb and Dumber:



Remember guys, unknown = maybe!

Guy walking on water?  Maybe!
Talking snake?  Maybe!
Invisible Pink Unicorn?  Maybe!

[Mike Cl]

Reminds me of this scene from Dumb and Dumber:



Remember guys, unknown = maybe!

Guy walking on water?  Maybe!
Talking snake?  Maybe!
Invisible Pink Unicorn?  Maybe!

Hey!  Just a minute!  The Invisible Pink Unicorn is NOT unreal.  I've seen her; and she has a web site!

[trdsf]

But the question is, did it exist before we were able to determine it's existence with our machines we made over the past 100 years?
Of corse it existed. But we did not know about it!
Do we know if there is such things as the afterlife, supernatural beings such as angels, God, Daemons?
No, does it exist?
We do not know!
Shall we dismiss it's existence?
We have the right to do so.
Shall we also dismiss a book that describes such an existence?
If it does not have any proof of validity, definitely yes.
How do we determine such a scripture's validity?
Does it undermine History, Archaeology, science?
If it does, dismiss it, if it does not, investigate it.

That's exactly the point.  It does fly in the face of history, archaeology, biology, mathematics, etc. -- there was no Egyptian slavery of the Israelites, there was no Moses, there was no Exodus, there's no historical evidence for Saul or David or Solomon (all historical evidence we have is that nothing even resembling a kingdom of Israel until two to three centuries after the alleged events in II Samuel and I Kings).  You have to twist science to the breaking point to come up with any sort of excuse to say it doesn't.

What you seem to not understand is "We do not know" does NOT mean "maybe it is".  "We do not know" means only and exactly we do not know.  Or do you believe me automatically if I tell you there's a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere between the orbits of the Earth and Mars?  "We do not know" there isn't, after all.

We do, on the other hand, know there's a red Tesla convertible out there.  And here's the important lesson in that: fifteen years ago, if I'd told you a red convertible was orbiting the Sun somewhere between the orbits of the Earth and Mars, you would be perfectly within your rights to look at me and say I was nuts.  If today I were to tell you there is a red convertible on a solar orbit and you said there's not, I'd be within my rights to look at you and say you're nuts.  Did I change?  No.  Did you change?  No.  What changed?  The demonstrable facts of the situation.  Asserting fifteen years ago that there's no red convertible in orbit doesn't mean it's impossible, only that there's no evidence to suggest there is.

The situation we're in now is that you're asserting there's still no convertible in space despite the evidence that there is.  Up to about 550 years ago, you could still assert your bible was scientifically accurate because there was no evidence it wasn't.  Since then, mountains of evidence have been observed demonstrating that the universe did not come about as described in Genesis... but you continue to stick with the old interpretation despite all the evidence that's been gathered since then.  Remember what I said about cometary water.  Facts matter.

Wonderful!
I also do not believe in magic.
This will be a huge mistake.
But why do you mix Prophecy in with Magic?
Do you know what a prophecy is, and do you know there is a nice logical and sound way to test if a prophecy is true, or just a concoction make believe? (Deut 18:18 to 22)

Yes, you do believe in magic.  You've made it clear that you believe that all of science is just flushed away in a magical event 6,000 years ago.

And I don't care what your bible says about prophecy.  You need to first demonstrate that the metaphysical exists and then we can worry about parameters.

To think that humans already discovered every machine, physical particles, energy fields, and everything knowable about the Universe, is arrogant to say the least.
But, if you are a person that demands that senses dictates the existence of all, what about stuff like your mind?
Do you have a mind?
How do one even prove you have one.
Remember the old story about the professor who said he could not believe in anything the 5 senses could not experience and the student who asked him to prove that he was mind-less.

I never claimed that we've discovered everything there is to be discovered.  THAT is a strawman.

What I said is that there is so far absolutely no evidence for anything metaphysical, that no observation ever done has revealed any proof of anything metaphysical.  That doesn't say that a future observation is impossible, only that until there is some, I have no responsibility or requirement to take the suggestion there is even remotely seriously.

I'm not interested in proving whether or not I have a mind, and it's of no relevance to the current situation.  You have assumed I have one, simply as a matter of how you've engaged.

The 'five senses' thing is childish at best.  One, we have more than five senses.  Two, the story is of no relevance.

Look, I loved what you are saying.
And you are 100% correct in your whole point of view.

But keep in mind what I am proposing is not that I am correct about the existence of God, but that your arguments against the Bible is not correct.
If, for instance, the Bible was not the source of the Nebular theory, or the Bible did claim the Universe was 6KY old (as so many creationists incorrectly claim), I would then be able to dismiss it for what it is.
However, If the Bible do not have such errors, why claim it does?

This is my whole argument.
Making a claim that God does not exist, because someone are incorrectly claiming the Bible is incorrect when compared with science, is not a logical, nor a scientific methodology at all!
To dismiss God on these grounds only allows me to play havoc with such arguments.
To dismiss God on the grounds of no evidence is a total different case than what Biblical attacks are.
And this is the arguments up until now. (errors of the Bible proves God does not exist).

Wrong.
You have no idea what my arguments against the bible are in general because you have been making up my side of the debate in one huge straw man.  As I've said before, and as you completely ignored, your bible doesn't even enter into it; it has exactly the same validity as every other religion's scripture.  All gods stand as unproven, and your invisible sky-daddy and your Big Book of Fairy Tales aren't a special case that gets special consideration.

I don't care one whit about your bible until you first prove that there's a reason to believe there's a divine entity of any sort.  Then and only then might it be worth trying to figure out which of the thousands of religious texts written might be relevant.  What you've done is assumed your god and assumed your book.  You can do that for yourself, but you can't assert that as self-evident proof.

You have handwaved away every piece of data that disagrees with your presupposition that your bible is correct by either simply ignoring them, or throwing out your favorite accusation, 'straw man'.  That's not winning the argument, that's just blindly ignoring everything that disagrees with you.

Your position requires that everything we know about physics, chemistry, geology and biology be wrong.  That is simply not plausible on the face of it, especially since your only "evidence" is that it needs to be that way for your bible is accurate.  That's both circular and disingenuous.  You need to prove your position, not assert it in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

If you want to prove creation over evolution, you need to have that debate with biologists and paleontologists.  If you want to prove ¹⁴C dating is inaccurate, you need to have that debate with physicists and nuclear chemists.  If you want to demonstrate that the Earth fell together out of a mudball 6,000 years ago, you need to have that debate with geologists.

Bringing it here is cowardice.  Bringing it here is your admission that you can not support yourself in the presence of the actual experts in the field.  You can't even support yourself in the presence of keen amateurs.  No, I'm not a chemist, a physicist, a cosmologist, a biologist, a paleontologist, an archaeologist, a geologist or a geneticist, just a keen and reasonably well-read amateur.  I am an astronomer, which field fortunately relies as much on amateurs as it does the PhDs.

And unlike you, I respect the truth even when it's not convenient for me.  I would have loved to use the cometary delivery theory of water against you, and I fully expected to be able to, but I looked up the current state of knowledge first because truth matters.  Because observations matter.  Because I don't get to just adhere to a theory because I like it.  Also, your reaction to that datum demonstrated that you yourself did not know about the current theories of where Earth's water came from, or you would have incorporated it from the start.

What that tells me is that no, you do not actually know or care about the actual scientific findings.  You've done no reading, no research, no anything.  You just believe what you believe, and prop it up with snippets you've picked up here and there that can be twisted to support your presumptions.

I'm going to make it as simple as possible for you.  If you want to prove that your god exists, you need to demonstrate first that at least a god exists, and you need to do that with concrete, repeatable, verifiable observations.  You cannot simply assert your bible -- as soon as you do that, then it's perfectly valid to assert Zeus, Hera, Apollo and Ares et al. on the basis of the Iliad, Allah on the basis of the Quran, Vishnu on the basis of the Rigveda, and Hogwarts on the basis of the Harry Potter series, and you're right back to square one, with nothing whatsoever demonstrated.