Current Biblical Archaeology

[Leona Conner]

Arch, again I will say Catholics ARE Christians, just as much as you think you are. What has to happend for you to accept truth as it is, not as you want it to be. Try reading some real history for a change.

As I stated in an earlier post, I will put Mother Theresa up against Pat Robertson and any other so-called Christian leader, or all of them. She didn't take money from poor people in order to live in a big house and wear $600 suits.

[Minimalist]

Televangelists doing what God wants them to do....I guess?


http://www.trinityfi.org/trinity/investi.html

What television has exposed at the root of our society, and especially in the American church, is paganism-- personified in the televangelists.

[Guest]

Sounds good Arch

so does this link honestly represent coral dating?

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/artic ... ln27p.html

Few archaeologists have experience with the technique, but they are hopeful about it

this would explain why i hadn't heard about this method

[Guest]

tj--then also this one??

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology ... ating.html

One problem with the technique is the requirements for the object to be dated- it must take up uranium-238 and no thorium, then immediately be closed off so it would not be able to take in more

i have some questions that need to be asked if i haven't done so already

[tj]

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology ... ating.html

One problem with the technique is the requirements for the object to be dated- it must take up uranium-238 and no thorium, then immediately be closed off so it would not be able to take in more

This link is better than the first. The first is a bit elementary but I certainly wouldn't classify it as dishonest. Note that to the vast majority of archaeologists, dating methods are tools like trowels or brushes and the first link demonstrates that nicely. It is certain that trowel-makers and the brush-makers were perfecting their craft long before an archaeologist said "boy, I sure could use a brush and a trowel!" We are a specialized society. Would you want the doctor that will one day perform surgery on you to have to make his own scalpels, his own anesthetics, and his own scrubs? Of course not.

This one is even better.

Most radiometric dating techniques rely on the assumption of a closed system, meaning that once the ‘clock’ starts there is no gain or loss of the isotopes used for dating. The parent isotopes are put into a box, and the box is closed. At some later time, if you count the number of parent and daughter isotopes, you can determine the length of time the box has been closed very precisely.

“In the case of corals, it’s been clear for a long time that most samples have not behaved this way,” Thompson said. “We’ve discovered that corals behave as a two-box system. There is a very small leakage, usually an addition, of daughter isotopes to the coral from the surrounding material. The key is that this transfer also depends on radioactive decay. You can simply rewrite the decay equations to account for the transfer of daughters between boxes, allowing you to calculate ages for corals that have behaved as ‘leaky boxes’. We refer to this new dating approach as ‘open-system’ dating.”

You've got to get up pretty early in the morning Arch. If you want to stay on top of the technology and science that archaeologists use, archaeology probably isn't the discipline that you should be watching.

i have some questions that need to be asked if i haven't done so already

Only you can know if you have asked them already or not. Before you do, read and comprehend this and this.

[Guest]

i found this interesting as it fits into the theory i was planning on writing about:

At first, scientists could only date materials to about 5,600 years ago, the half-life of carbon-14. After a while, newer technology expanded the reliability, but only so far because tree rings don't go back more than 12,400 years ago,

this quote reinforces my staying at a 12,000 year limit and reminds me that the question i asked about the decline rate has not been answered.

[tj]

I'm done.

You have proven to me that you simply don't have the ability to grasp the science, let alone refute it or improve upon it.

I suggest you start with this and work your way up.

[Guest]

You have proven to me that you simply don't have the ability to grasp the science, let alone refute it or improve upon it.

i like your leap to a conclusion but if you want to improve science then start looking for the truth and not your mind games. i am not looking to meet your standards, i could care less, nor am i going to deal with this topic on your time frame. i will get to the refutation when i have enough data or information,, there is a lot to take in and i am not going to make hasty decisions when your whole purpose or intent was not to have a real discussion but to try and categorize me

i would challenge the uranium dating just on the time frame alone for its half life but that is for another time.

i did find your refusal to address topics i raised as a typical avoidance from those who cannot provide any answerws for the anomalies found in their thinking. that also tells me you were not entering this discussion honestly. instead of playing a game, you should have let the discussion 'evolve' naturally.

i am glad you are done as i can go on vacation now.

[Minimalist]

This is the kind of stuff that arch believes is true, tj.

It could also be titled The Best (Worst) of Junk Science.


http://www.stcynic.com/blog/archives/20 ... sm_for.php

One of the pages it links to is AmericanProtest.net, which contains this breathtakingly bad essay by Wayne Boettcher that attempts to debunk evolution. Even by creationist standards, this is really, really bad stuff. He can't even repeat creationist canards accurately. It begins with this amusing statement:

Casting doubt on evolution theory inevitably leads to...accountability. For if Darwin was wrong, we may indeed be held responsible for our actions while on earth, and possibly face judgment for them at the end of it! And that is a scary thought which causes evolution theory proponents to run and hide from this frightful inquiry.

[tj]

This is the kind of stuff that arch believes is true, tj.

And, at the same time, he is going to challenge nuclear physicists on decay rates? Sheer idiocy.

[Guest]

And, at the same time, he is going to challenge nuclear physicists on decay rates

nuclear physicists do not have a monopoly on intelligence and since i asked a question about it and you continual to refuse to address it, i can see that it is a very weak point based upon assumption not fact.

the same goes for the other points i have raised, your avoidance only tells me that you don't have an answer and that alone undermines your position and credibility.

you see i know when i need to ask questions, you certainly don't have any answers so you are not smart at all.

case in point:

Anthropologists are intrigued by carbon dating too, he said. "It would help show whether or not modern man was around at the same time as the last of the Neanderthals," he said. "That's a huge question."

[tj]

You have proven to me that you simply don't have the ability to grasp the science, let alone refute it or improve upon it.

i am not looking to meet your standards, i could care less, nor am i going to deal with this topic on your time frame.

You whine and cry when I go slow, you whine and cry when I go fast. Bottom line: you whine and cry.

i will get to the refutation when i have enough data or information,, there is a lot to take in and i am not going to make hasty decisions when your whole purpose or intent was not to have a real discussion but to try and categorize me

I attempted this discussion so I wouldn't have to categorize you. You moan about it being hard, about it being a lot to take in, but that doesn't stop you from valiantly proclaiming a stance for which you have no scientific backing. You're trying to refute something that you don't even understand in the first place.

It was my sincerest hope that this wouldn't end like this. I know some really really smart creationists that I respect intellectually. Guys that know the hard science better than I do. You had a shot to demonstrate that you might be one of them in the rough. You aren't one of them. You are the worst of the worst. If I were the god that created you, I'd slit my wrists.

Have a nice vacation.

As for this last drivel you've posted, you might find that you'll get more intelligent answers if you ask more intelligent questions.

[Minimalist]

You're trying to refute something that you don't even understand in the first place.

Well......he is a christian. What did you expect?

[Guest]

As for this last drivel you've posted, you might find that you'll get more intelligent answers if you ask more intelligent questions.

just as i thought, you have no answers you prefer to attack but i only got to one of your links, so you are very impatient, the second link already exposes a weakness which undermines its role of being a clock tuner.

researchers jump on the bandwagon too quickly and look to prove their theory long before they can so that they can be the first to trumpet a new discovery.

my question on the decline rate was intelligent as in all the research i have done, they all ignored talking about it. i also find it fascinating that all such fine tuning, and proclamations are done to the evolutionist side of the scale which tells me that bias is in play here and not honesty.

just because i do not take a scientist's expected viewpoint or talk like one, does it mean i do not understand what is going on. and for your information, your second link has again supported my contention of staying at a 12,000 year level.

i have not read anything that would validate anything earlier than that despite what you say about alternative dating methods. their half-lifes alone make it impossible to verify.

[Minimalist]

contention of staying at a 12,000 year level.

So, in your interpretation this means that you are half as silly as your 6,000 year old earth buddies?