The accuracy of carbon-dating

[kbs2244]

Back to the original question..................

C-14 dating has had it’s problems lately
Check my 2 posts at New World for an alternate creation of it.

Lighting making c 14
Note the last 3 paragraphs

https://www.nature.com/news/lightning-m ... es-1.23033

More on the above
Note the CYA in the last sentence!
Lightning can trigger nuclear reactions, creating rare atomic isotopes

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/ ... c-isotopes

[Skiessa]

@skiessa: You did indeed set the tone, which was far short of neutral. Your out of hand rejection of even a remote possibility of radio carbon dating being anywhere near accurate was duly noted. What it seems that you want is info that you can naysay & attempt to shoot down with 'logic' rather than hard fact. You want to have a discussion where you can state 'no way' without having to supply hard data for the discussion. In other words, you are setting up a discussion where you will lay out the facts as you believe them & demand that the participants in the discussion supply the proof that you demand. Been there, done that. That leaves us with sussing out what your agenda is...

For your information, a duplicate of the Great Pyramid COULD indeed be built today & in a similar time frame, if not an even shorter one. Please explain to us why it would be impossible for a pyramid to be built in these days & times. I'd be fascinated to hear your reasoning, such as it is. That is not to say that there is any entity, either corporate or governmental, who would want to bear such an expense. Anything can be built at any time & anywhere if someone is willing to bear the monetary, materials & manpower expenses. Please note that the great cathedrals of Europe were built over generations & centuries of time because of the great expense & vast amounts of materials & manpower needed for such an undertaking. Make no mistake though, if someone wanted something such as a pyramid or cathedral to be built, it would be built. Another thing you overlooked is the motivation of the person who wanted something on such a huge scale built. Legend says that Khufu was a cruel despot who actively sought out immortality. Granted that the legends are not contemporary & come from a much later date, but the legend was possibly passed down orally before being recorded. Khufu wanted immortality. His ticket to immortality was his tomb/pyramid, his house of immortality as it were. He was the absolute ruler of the wealthiest & most powerful nation in the world at that time. He commanded all that wealth & power, he had 27 years in which to achieve his goal. It is a known fact that every Pharaoh began construction of his tomb immediately upon ascending the throne. A few the pharaohs even had plenty of time to see their goal realized in their lifetime. Most of the time they died before their tomb was finished & their successor either finished the project or halted it & began their own tomb building project. There are several unfinished pyramids to attest to that fact, along with several unfinished tombs in Saqarra & in the Valley of the Kings.

Egypt is unusual in that the preservation of the vestiges of such endeavors is not at all uncommon. Most of the places where tombs were built were not suitable places for people to live, so much of the archaeological evidence remains. The arid desert climate assured that there was a lot for future generations to find.

Now, let's get back to the question at hand... What is your agenda? What is your pet belief/theory? It seems obvious that you wanted to start a discussion about your belief that there is no way the ancient Egyptians could have possibly built such structures, that they lacked the technology & infrastructure in order to do it... You also want to make a case for radio carbon dating being inaccurate & unreliable. Go ahead, lay it on us. We've heard most of the wacky theories out there. Maybe you can surprise us with a new & improved brand of idiocy?
Nah... "There's nothing new under the sun."

My vote goes for the Young Earth theory simply because you seem to be saying that all organic traces would be erased in a very short period of time, therefore invalidating any very old dates arrived at by radio carbon dating for the pyramids. [/quote]

"you out of hand reject" when have i done this? i asked questions, and presented the reason which makes me doubt the accuracy of the method - if that makes the carbon dating seem really inaccurate then it's flaw in the carbon dating, not in my tone. if such simple questions shouldn't be asked about the methods used then we cannot talk about science when we speak about archaeology.

"what it seems is that you want this info..." i'm attempting to form a more accurate picture about the methods of archaeology to understand better the arguments of which our history of civilization is built on - if one of the main methods used cannot be defended with logical arguments (no website that i've come across has been able to answer these very simple questions either), then i must assume that the scientific base of the archaeology is really much weaker than of what is usually thought.

"you are setting up a discussion where you will lay out the facts as you believe them & demand that the participants in the discussion supply the proof that you demand" i'd be waiting this kind of reaction if i'd march to church and start to ask for evidence for the biblical story. all i've done is that i've questioned the presumptions of the archaeology, presenting my thoughts of the flaws of the method - i've started the discussion only on the method in itself which gives anyone this forum the option just to present the arguments that counter my view - if such thing exists. what it seems to me is that certain things in the field of archaeology aren't supposed to be discussed, because it questions too much of the modern view without the possibility of being proven wrong. your attack on me only makes you sound that you lack the logical argument on the very scientific question with no obvious agenda implemented.

and even if i had an agenda, so what? the science should be built on experimentation and evidence, and therefore it should be able to defend itself from attack from fringe views and should feel no question unpleasant.

"a duplicate of the Great Pyramid COULD indeed be built today & in a similar time frame, if not an even shorter one" calculate the amount of minutes in 20 years and divide it with the amount of stones used - this gives us less than 5 minutes to work with with each stone, from quarry to the placement - less than 5 minutes if we work 24 hours in a day. we could not do this even with all the modern technology. if we assume the modern technology to be the best technology the man has ever invented and even with it we could not build the pyramids in the time given, then it's only logical to assume that the people who worked with a fraction of the technology we have now could not do it either.

" There are several unfinished pyramids to attest to that fact" the other pyramids are mudcakes compared to the khufu and kafre pyramids. even if the egyptians were able to build the mudcakes it doesn't suggest that they were able to build the pyramids we have named after khufu and kafre.

and finally, i really have no pet theory. i cannot imagine a civilization less advanced than us who could build the feats that we can not, with the perfection of detail and mathematics that wasn't even supposed to be present in the date. i rather admit that i don't know than go wild with the ancient aliens and travelers from the future theories.

[E.P. Grondine]

what kind of findings are used to estimate the time of which the ancient site was constructed, and is there a certain set of rules which the finding has to fulfill in order to be taken into account in the estimation?

As I mentioned to you earlier, archaeologists take great care in their dating, at least the ones working in Europe and the ancient near east do,
although not so for eastern North America, where dates that vary by as much as 300 years are commonly broadcast to the public.

The data is taken altogether. and it has to fit together, the data all has to agree.

For example, you may not be aware of the current excavations of the workmen's quarters next to the pyramids,
or the materials found there.

[Tiompan]

[quote="E.P. Grondine"

As I mentioned to you earlier, archaeologists take great care in their dating, at least the ones working in Europe and the ancient near east do,
[/quote]
It's the labs who do the dating and calibrating , and statisticians who do the Bayesian stats , if they are being used .

[Skiessa]

what kind of findings are used to estimate the time of which the ancient site was constructed, and is there a certain set of rules which the finding has to fulfill in order to be taken into account in the estimation?

As I mentioned to you earlier, archaeologists take great care in their dating, at least the ones working in Europe and the ancient near east do,
although not so for eastern North America, where dates that vary by as much as 300 years are commonly broadcast to the public.

The data is taken altogether. and it has to fit together, the data all has to agree.

For example, you may not be aware of the current excavations of the workmen's quarters next to the pyramids,
or the materials found there.

but neither this does answer the lost of the organic matter on the sites, which i guess we all acknowledge that happens to some extent.Have the archaeologists have made any official estimates of how much of the organic matter is lost in certain amount of time in certain type of weather, wildlife and bacteria environment?

[Minimalist]

If the data is "washed away" it cannot be "tested."

They can only test what is there.

[Tiompan]

If the data is "washed away" it cannot be "tested."

They can only test what is there.

As in "Obviously if the material is not there it can't be dated ."
However "Taphonomic logic does take into account material that has disappeared for any number of reasons and therefore can't be taken into account ."

[Minimalist]

That's why I am not following his question.

Is he referring to "associated material" next to a rock or something?

[Skiessa]

That's why I am not following his question.

Is he referring to "associated material" next to a rock or something?

To both of you, my intent is to underline the problem that the material will scatter away by various factors in ratio to the amount of time, meaning that the carbon dating should be less and less accurate in ratio to the time not only because the degradation of the material, but also to the lost of it by environmental factors. if there is no study about the lost of the material to these factors, then basically doesn't the reliability of the method base only to the wish that some of the matter related to human activity would be present from all ages that we have used the site?

even if they take it into account, without an study on the amount of material lost the whole procedure sounds only an archaeological roulette which is used to define our history.

[Tiompan]

"the material will scatter away by various factors in ratio to the amount of time" .
Degradation /loss of material is not necessarily a function of time it can happen over a period or suddenly .

"without an study on the amount of material lost"
As was mentioned previously there is a study of such losses it's called taphonomy coupled with taphonomic logic .

[Minimalist]

I don't think he understands the first thing about radiocarbon dating. Contamination is a bigger issue and they have ways to deal with that.

http://theconversation.com/explainer-wh ... -work-9690

Radioactive decay can be used as a “clock” because it is unaffected by physical (e.g. temperature) and chemical (e.g. water content) conditions. In 5,730 years half of the 14C in a sample will decay (see figure 1, below).

[Simon21]

I don't think he understands the first thing about radiocarbon dating. Contamination is a bigger issue and they have ways to deal with that.

http://theconversation.com/explainer-wh ... -work-9690

Radioactive decay can be used as a “clock” because it is unaffected by physical (e.g. temperature) and chemical (e.g. water content) conditions. In 5,730 years half of the 14C in a sample will decay (see figure 1, below).

That would be a fair assumption. Like asking how one gets DNA results if there is no DNA.

[Skiessa]

"the material will scatter away by various factors in ratio to the amount of time" .
Degradation /loss of material is not necessarily a function of time it can happen over a period or suddenly .

"without an study on the amount of material lost"
As was mentioned previously there is a study of such losses it's called taphonomy coupled with taphonomic logic .

from what i read the taphonomy researches the degradation of the organic matter, which is not equal to the amount of material lost to environmental factors.

the possibility for sudden losses for the material should only complicate the task of carbon-dating the archaeological sites. they indeed do not scatter in 1 to 1 relation to time, but for 100% do scatter over time - the longer the time period, the more dramatic loss. scavenging animals alone should make a great impact to the amount of organic material found. various environmental factors sink the bones to the soil over long periods of time, some weather factors also scatter them away from the original site and so on. all of this is unpredictable, but it will happen - meaning that even if you can find certain amount of organic material from 5,000 years ago the exact same material could be lost in 10 or 20,000 years even if the data still physically exists somewhere.

note that exactly the same (ignore the animal impact) applies on non-organic material such as pottery and stone tools.

i do realize that the implications of this are indeed dramatic to the dating of the archaeological sites that are dated only by the organic material found, but it definetely doesn't give us the right to ignore the problem just in order to preserve the widely accepted archaeological view.

[Skiessa]

I don't think he understands the first thing about radiocarbon dating. Contamination is a bigger issue and they have ways to deal with that.

http://theconversation.com/explainer-wh ... -work-9690

Radioactive decay can be used as a “clock” because it is unaffected by physical (e.g. temperature) and chemical (e.g. water content) conditions. In 5,730 years half of the 14C in a sample will decay (see figure 1, below).

such an argument - like if i had to understand the process of analyzing the material to understand that the material can be lost.

[Tiompan]

from what i read the taphonomy researches the degradation of the organic matter, which is not equal to the amount of material lost to environmental factors. [/quote]

From an earlier post on this , "The same approach can also also applied to non organic degradation , as in the case of rock art , but is less well known ."
and " "Taphonomic logic does take into account material that has disappeared for any number of reasons and therefore can't be taken into account ."