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hippy4christ
Skeptic Friend

193 Posts

Posted - 11/15/2004 :  17:52:48  Show Profile Send hippy4christ a Private Message
Hello Board,

I took a hiatus from posting to go do some studying and have decided to discuss the three main events which conflict with the secular world: the Creation, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel. Since the Tower of Babel is the most recent and has the least amount of divine intervention, I'll start with it. But first, I'd like everyone participating to be aware of the following:

I understand and agree that Creationism is not science.

The purpose of this thread is not to prove a literal interpretation of Scripture, but to see if such a view can be disproved.

I believe that the laws of physics do not change except for divine intervention. For the most part I will not claim divine intervention unless the Bible says that it occured.

This thread will not be discussing evolutionism, but rather the discussion will be centered around the dates of the origins of ancient civilizations.

I live outside of town and can only access the Internet in town, so my posts will be irregular.

Now then, the Tower of Babel, according to the Bible, probably occurred around 2200-2100 BC. So most civilizations shouldn't have originated until after that time. I would think it likely that there may be some evidence of prehistoric cultures that existed before the flood. The creationist literature that I read said that Egypt's first dynasty was first thought to be around 5000 BC but has dropped to around 2800 BC. Also, it said that much of the Egyptian dates were based on Manetho's king lists. Manetho was an Egyptian priest a few centuries BC. They also claim that radiocarbon dates support a younger age for Egyptian events and items.

What I'd like to know is:

What are the currently accepted dates for the origins of various civilizations? One source says that Egypt's first dynasty was about 3000 BC.

What evidences are these dates based on? Ancient chronologies, astronomical recordings, radiocarbon, contemporary texts, etc.

Specifically, is there a catalog of radiocarbon dates acquired from the Middle East?

I'd be interested in also examining the origins of other far-away cultures such as the Chinese and the Peruvians.

Hippy

Faith is believing what you are told, whether it's by a priest or a scientist. A person's scientific beliefs are ones based on personal observation and experimentation.

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Dude
SFN Die Hard

USA
6891 Posts

Posted - 11/15/2004 :  18:12:58   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Dude a Private Message
Vedic traditions in India have been dated around 5000BC....

And the Mesopotamian civilizations started off in the 4000BC range...

Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson

"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin

Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard

USA
4907 Posts

Posted - 11/15/2004 :  18:52:02   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Ricky an AOL message Send Ricky a Private Message
(pssst... sources)

Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist

USA
4955 Posts

Posted - 11/15/2004 :  18:56:40   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Cuneiformist a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by hippy4christ
Now then, the Tower of Babel, according to the Bible, probably occurred around 2200-2100 BC. So most civilizations shouldn't have originated until after that time. I would think it likely that there may be some evidence of prehistoric cultures that existed before the flood. The creationist literature that I read said that Egypt's first dynasty was first thought to be around 5000 BC but has dropped to around 2800 BC. Also, it said that much of the Egyptian dates were based on Manetho's king lists. Manetho was an Egyptian priest a few centuries BC. They also claim that radiocarbon dates support a younger age for Egyptian events and items.


Hi, Hippy. Your quest to put the early Genesis stories in their scientific "real world" context is a worthy one, and I'm sure all of us will be happy to help. I don't know if you'll be happy with the results, but I also am not convinced that destrying the Bible's literalness means that it-- and therefore Christianity-- should be abandoned.

Below I'll try and answer your questions. I apologize in advance if this ends up taking up a lot of space.

quote:
What I'd like to know is:

What are the currently accepted dates for the origins of various civilizations? One source says that Egypt's first dynasty was about 3000 BC.


I cannot speak for Egypt at present, though with some research I'm sure I could come up with solid, viable data for you. I should also step back and ask what you mean by "the origins" of a civilization? Is evidence of any human settlement in an area enough to be an origin? Or do we need cities? If so, how large? Etc.


Speaking with regards to Sumer, in ancient Mesopotamia (now Iraq), here's what we can say (and this may or may not answer your question). The earliest significant settlements in southern Mesopotamia are dated to the Ubaid (oo-BAY-id) period, ca. 5000 BCE. There is earlier evidence of human settlement in the north (where rainfall becomes abundant enough for agriculture without irrigation), but not in the south.

The dating of the Ubaid period, which lasted from ca. 5000 to 4000 BCE is based on C-14 dating from various sites, including Tell el-Oueili, Ur, and Ubaid itself. The short entry of the site can be found in the Oxford Encylcopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), with relevant bibliography for checking the radiocarbon dating, etc.

Anyhow, the next major "phase" in southern Mesopotamian (pre)history is called by archaeologists the Uruk period. Uruk itself is a rather large site. It was founded ca. 4000 BCE, and soon flourished. Radiocarbon dating allows an estimate of ca. 3500 BCE for Uruk level IV. This is important because it is at the end of Uruk IV when writing first appears.

I won't go on discussing Mesopotamian history because it's safe to say that southern Mesopotamia's origins can be found somewhere between 5000 BCE, when settlements first appear in the south, and 3500 BCE, when writing first appears (in the south, but also in the world).

quote:
What evidences are these dates based on? Ancient chronologies, astronomical recordings, radiocarbon, contemporary texts, etc.


Since writing doesn't start until 3500 (probably a little later), dating before then is based on radiocarbon dating and pottery analysis. That is, if you find a pot of a certain style in a secure context with an object datable with C-14 (e.g. wood, etc.), then when that same pot style is found at another site, you can place it in a similar chronological time frame.

For Mesopotamia, astronomical observations can give you a secure chronology starting around, I think, around 1200 or so. After this, there are still secure astronomical observations, but also historical gaps, meaning that you can't reconstruct the chronology completely.

quote:
Specifically, is there a catalog of radiocarbon dates acquired from the Middle East?


For this, I don't honestly know.

However, to sum up, there are some problems with the idea that significant civilization in the Middle East didn't arise until ca. 2100 BCE. Through king lists and C-14 dating, we can definitely say that the Akkadian king Sargon ruled in the middle of the third millennium, and that the kings of Ur ruled after that, ca. 2100-2000. Babylon did not have any significant role until the rise of Hammurapi ca. 1800 or so.

There's more to say about the problems in trying to match the Biblical account of Babel with what we know about the actual history and archaeology of Mesopotamia, but I'll address that in another post.
Edited by - Cuneiformist on 11/15/2004 19:50:42
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 11/15/2004 :  20:44:11   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
Hippy! Welcome back! Great to see that you're still questing. Hope everything else is going well for you, also.

While others have already begun answering your actual questions, I just wanted to comment on something. I'm not trying to hijack this thread, but just want to get a couple more of the "groundrules" discussed before things go much further.

You wrote:
quote:
The purpose of this thread is not to prove a literal interpretation of Scripture, but to see if such a view can be disproved.

I believe that the laws of physics do not change except for divine intervention. For the most part I will not claim divine intervention unless the Bible says that it occured.
I think it is probably important for the purposes of the thread for you to state what Divine intervention occured at Babel, from your understanding of Scripture, and then let the others here speak to that. After all, it'll be a waste of effort and time on everyone's part if people write up stuff that you agree with already.

Secondly, what is your position on radiocarbon dating and its verification through dendrochronology, ice cores and varves? Because it seems to me that we've got a good history of human presence in the Americas coincident to human presence in the near and far East, Europe and Africa going back well over ten thousand years, and if you find the dating to be accurate, it would disprove a literal (Bishop Ussher) Biblical timetable for all three of your main events, right off the bat.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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Plyss
Skeptic Friend

Netherlands
231 Posts

Posted - 11/16/2004 :  00:27:24   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Plyss a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
After all, it'll be a waste of effort and time on everyone's part if people write up stuff that you agree with already.



I disagree. I found Cuneiformist's post highly educational. Whether or not Hippy believes this or not, it has still expanded my knowledge on the subject.

Miss Tick sniffed. 'You could say this piece of advice is pricesless', she said. 'Are you listening?'
'Yes' said Tiffany.
'Good now...If you trust in yourself.."
'Yes..?'
'..and believe in your dreams...'
'yes?'
'...and follow your star..' Miss Tick went on.
'Yes?'
'You'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy. Goodbye.'
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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 11/16/2004 :  03:49:43   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message
Hippy, great to see ya back, bro! Still askin' them good ones, I see.

I'm afraid I can't help much as this is a little out of my field of endevor (such as that field is), but I will follow this discussion with interest.


"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


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furshur
SFN Regular

USA
1536 Posts

Posted - 11/16/2004 :  07:14:22   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send furshur a Private Message
This is another interesting method of dating that makes use of the 'wandering' magnetic poles.

The section is from this site:http://id-archserve.ucsb.edu/Anth3/Courseware/Chronology/11_Paleomag_Archaeomag.html
quote:
For example, in the process of making a fire pit, a person can use clay to create the desired shape of the firepit. In order to harden the clay permanently, one must heat it above a certain temperature (the Curie point) for a specified amount of time. This heating, or firing, process resets the iron particles in the clay. They now point to the location of magnetic north at the time the firepit is being heated. When the firepit cools the iron particles in the hardened clay keep this thermoremanent magnetization. However, each time the firepit is reheated above the Curie point while being used to cook something, or provide heat, the magnetization is reset. Therefore, you would use archaeomagnetic dating to date the last time the firepit was heated above the Curie point temperature.


Paleomagnetic and Archaeomagnetic Profile

Paleomagnetism and Archaeomagnetism rely on remnant magnetism,as was explained above. In general, when clay is heated, the microscopic iron particles within it acquire a remnant magnetism parallel to the earth's magnetic field. They also point toward the location around the geographic north pole where the magnetic north pole was at that moment in its wandering. Once the clay cools, the iron particles maintain that magnetism until the clay is reheated. By using another dating method (dendrochonology, radiocarbon dating) to obtain the absolute date of an archaeological feature (such as a hearth), and measuring the direction of magnetism and wander in the clay today, it is possible to determine the location of the magnetic north pole at the time this clay was last fired. This is called the virtual geomagnetic pole or VGP. Archaeologists assemble a large number of these ancient VGPs and construct a composite curve of polar wandering (a VGP curve). The VGP curve can then be used as a master record, against which the VGPs of samples of unknown age can be compared to and assigned a date.


Edited to say - Welcome back Hippy.


If I knew then what I know now then I would know more now than I know.
Edited by - furshur on 11/16/2004 07:15:22
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard

3192 Posts

Posted - 11/16/2004 :  07:25:27   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send BigPapaSmurf a Private Message
The japanese are by far the oldest on record with decorative pottery dating at least 8000 years old...

Jomon and Yayoi Art
The first settlers of Japan, the Jomon people (circa 11,000-circa 300 BC), named for the cord markings that decorated the surfaces of their clay vessels, were nomadic hunter-gatherers. They built simple houses of wood and thatch set into shallow earthen pits to provide warmth from the soil, and crafted pottery storage vessels and clay figurines called dogu. The next wave of immigrants was the Yayoi people, named for the district in Tokyo where remnants of their settlements first were found. These people, arriving in Japan about 350 BC, brought their knowledge of wetland rice cultivation, the manufacture of copper weapons and bronze bells (dotaku), and wheel-thrown, kiln-fired ceramics.

The maya are now believed to be older than 600BC, where they were shown to be highly advanced already.
Link


The nazca are a similarly old group from peru, highly advanced
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/latinamerica/south/cultures/nazca.html

Really it doesnt matter what we say if you come back and claim that our dating techniques are bad, so what do you believe on that? Note: we have many differnt types of dating methods which all work together to test the validity of the others, (Ice cores, tree cores, sediment cores, RCD, among others) It should be mentioned that RCD is very solid upto about 50000 years old and has been tested quite completely.

Id say at least 10 Major civilizations were around before any bible stories (which are really stories from other cultures) and you would have to assume that we do not know of them all... Atlantis anyone? Probably based on something, perhaps the minoans?

My favorite is the Minoans, they recently found the actual minitaurs labrynth...Although It is unclear whether a golden fleece was ever keep in the place or medusa for that matter.

"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History

"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini
Edited by - BigPapaSmurf on 11/18/2004 12:30:46
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Dude
SFN Die Hard

USA
6891 Posts

Posted - 11/16/2004 :  13:18:36   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Dude a Private Message
quote:
Because it seems to me that we've got a good history of human presence in the Americas coincident to human presence in the near and far East, Europe and Africa going back well over ten thousand years


There is a dig on the Zuni reservation in NM that has been dated to aprox 5000BC. Pottery and cermonial burial stuff.

(source: I lived there for a while, learned about the place from talking to the people excavating)

They also have a verbal history that goes back, according to the Zunis anyway, about 10,000 years.

Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson

"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin

Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie

USA
4826 Posts

Posted - 11/16/2004 :  14:24:21   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Valiant Dancer's Homepage Send Valiant Dancer a Private Message
Hippy, welcome back.
There are additional bits of evidence which indicate that writing is older than 3000 BCE.

Specifically, the tomb of King Scorpion the first (tomb discovered with primitive hieroglyphics dating back to 3400 BCE in Abydos, Egypt) and Harrapa, Pakistan (believed writing 3500 BCE)

It's also been suggested that writing cropped up independantly of one place as societies came into contact with one another and dealings with trade internally as the society became more complex.

http://www.chevroncars.com/wocc/lrn/artcl/artcl.jhtml?id=/content/History/Ancient/a1726.xml

Source listed in article: Harappa Archaeological Research Project





Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils

Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion
Edited by - Valiant Dancer on 11/16/2004 14:24:48
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist

USA
4955 Posts

Posted - 11/16/2004 :  14:51:32   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Cuneiformist a Private Message
Hey Hippy. I don't want to barrage your thread with data so much that you can't possibly respond to it all. However, since the Tower of Bably story is one that holds particular interest for me, I want to look at it in a different way, perhaps anticipating some future questions you might have.

Looking at the linguistic landscape of the Middle East in the earliest literate periods, we get an interesting picture. As I noted above, writing can be established with some security to ca. 3200 BCE at the latest. It is widely regarded that the language being written in the proto-cuneiform script was Sumerian. (There is a small minority of scholars-- some of them quite competent-- who disagree with this, but their evidence is not (yet) compelling.)

Shortly thereafter, there is attested writing in Egypt. Ostensibly this writing represents the Egyptian language, and I know of no arguments claiming that it represents anything else.

Thus, by 3000 we can say beyond any doubt that at least two languages were being spoken. However, this only scratches the surface. Evidence from a variety of different sources attest to numerous other languages being spoken that at this time, if not earlier. Some of this comes in the form of Kultur- or Wanderwörter. That is, words of unknown origin that are associated with a particular technology, animal, plant, etc. that spread beyond its homeland in prehistory. Words like the Sumerian tiruna, "oven" were obviously linked to a particular oven technology (c.f. the Indian "tannour"). Similarly, many place-names in Mesopotamia are not obviously Sumerian or Akkadian. Thus very old sites such as Ur, Uruk, or Eridu, had to have been named by non-Sumerian speakers.

To summarize-- what we can say is that by 3000, there is already evidence that at least two, and prerhaps as many as dozen or more languages were being spoken in the Middle East alone. In another 500 years, it's safe to add various Semitic languages like Akkadian and Eblaite into the mix, and indeed one it tempted to place them back even further. Furthermore, the evidence shows that even before the advent of writing, more than one language was being spoken in the Middle East.

Thus, the idea that the Babel incident happened ca. 2200 simply does not fit with the external evidence. Thus, anyone who wants to hold onto the literal Babel story is forced to place that event in a prehistoric setting-- a solution that introduces a host of problems regarding the literal interpretation of other parts of the Bible!

Edited by - Cuneiformist on 11/16/2004 14:52:50
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hippy4christ
Skeptic Friend

193 Posts

Posted - 11/16/2004 :  15:25:36   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send hippy4christ a Private Message
Hello all,

As to divine intervention: The only point in the story of the Tower of Babel that claims divine intervention is when Yahweh causes the people to speak different languages. I know of no other part in this event for which I could claim divine intervention. As for 'apparent age', the Bible does say that Yahweh made plants and trees, so I believe that there could be trees with apparent age. I do not believe that He created fossils with apparent age.

As to the dating methods: I agree that multiple methods yielding the same result is powerful evidence. Here are my concerns:

"It may come as a shock to some, but fewer than 50 percent of the radiocarbon dates from geological and archaeological samples in northeastern North America have been adopted as 'acceptable' by investigators. "—*J. Ogden III, "The Use and Abuse of Radiocarbon, " in Annals of the New York Academy of Science, Vol. 288, 1977, pp. 167-173.

"C-14 dating was being discussed at a symposium on the prehistory of the Nile Valley. A famous American colleague, Professor Brew, briefly summarized a common attitude among archaeologists toward it, as follows: ‘If a C-14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely ‘out-of-date,' we just drop it."—*T. Save-Soderbergh and *Ingrid U. Olsson, "C-14 Dating and Egyptian Chronology," Radiocarbon Variations and Absolute Chronology, ed. *Ingrid U. Olsson (1970), p. 35 [also in *Pensee, 3(1): 44].

"Although it was hailed as the answer to the prehistorian's prayer when it was first announced, there has been increasing disillusion with the [radiocarbon] method because of the chronological uncertainties—in some cases absurdities—that would follow a strict adherence to published C-14 dates . . What bids to become a classic example of 'C-14 irresponsibility' is the 6,000 year spread of 11 determinations for Jarmo, a prehistoric village in northeastern Iraq, which, on the basis of all archeological evidence, was not occupied for more than 500 consecutive years."— *C.A. Reed, "Animal Domestication in the Prehistoric Near East;" in Science, 130 (1959), p. 1630.

Research by Walter Lammerts, a plant scientist, has disclosed that the bristlecone pine routinely stops growth during the dry summer and when both spring and fall are rainy (which is common) it produces two rings a year.

"There has been criticism of this method (varve) of arriving at estimates of Pleistocene chronology. In the first place, it involves a great deal of interpolation and extrapolation, which introduce possible errors. Secondly, there is some question as to whether varves actually are annual deposits. Deane from his study of the varves in the Lake Simcoe region of Ontario was led to doubt seriously that varves represent yearly deposits, and was inclined to think that they represent deposits of shorter lengths of time.''—* W. D. Thornbury, Principles of Geomorphology (1954), p. 404

As for ice rings, I saw on one of the Hovind videos (don't throw stones at me yet!) that a plane had landed on a glacier and when people came back to look for it it was buried in ice, with several hundreds or thousands of ice rings.

I realize that all of my quotes are from sources that are not recent, the earliest one being 1977. I am curious as to why that is, and I invite any constructive criticism you may have for my sources.

Cuneiformist: You said: Through king lists and C-14 dating, we can definitely say that the Akkadian king Sargon ruled in the middle of the third millennium,

Where can I find a site or book or whatever that addresses the issue of this king list and the accompanying C-14 data?

Dude: Why do the excavationers give that date?

Hippy

Faith is believing what you are told, whether it's by a priest or a scientist. A person's scientific beliefs are ones based on personal observation and experimentation.

Lists of Logical Fallacies
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 11/16/2004 :  21:19:15   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
Hippy wrote:
quote:
I realize that all of my quotes are from sources that are not recent, the earliest one being 1977. I am curious as to why that is, and I invite any constructive criticism you may have for my sources.
Perhaps it's because we've learned a heck of a lot since then.

It's now 27 years since 1977, and 1977 was only 31 years after the invention of radiocarbon dating. The discipline is being used by more people now than ever, and so our collective knowledge of the correct methods to use for any particular sample are increasing at an ever-faster rate. This is not a "complete" science at all, and new research in the basics of the field continues.

Check out California Prehistory, which includes a bibliography which includes at least a couple of your sources, above. One of which, Ogden, is cited as being a "discussion of the sources and effects of error or contamination in the dating of radiocarbon samples." Certainly a single quote from such a work isn't enough to cast doubt on the entire field, especially when the piece is suggested reading.

I get the impression from a Google search that Walter Lammerts is a creationist himself. At least, Duane Gish loves the guy. Anyway, that doesn't, in itself, cast doubt upon his bristlecone work. What does cast doubt on the attempt to discount dendrochronology is that Gish (and other creationists who talk about Lammerts) portray dendrochronology as a simple "hack apart a tree and count the rings to get a date" process, when in fact it's yet another vastly complex science (as is radiocarbon dating). From this page (for example),
A number of tree samples must be examined and cross dated from any given site to avoid the possibility of all the collected data showing a missing or extra ring. Further checking is done until no inconsistency appears. Often several sample cores are taken from each tree examined. These must be compared not only with samples from other trees at the same location but also with those at other sites in the region. Additionally, the average of all data provides the best estimate of climate averages. A large portion of the effects of nonclimatic factors that occur in the various site data is minimized by this averaging scheme.
Plus, Lammerts studied bristlecone pines up to four or five years of age. Is there good reason to believe - as Gish would have us do - that older, well-established trees are subject to the same sorts of growth effects as seen in a seedling? If yes, it's sort of like saying that we can't reliably approximate the age of an adult human corpse since infants have such a wide variety of heights and weights.

Finally (for tonight), there's the overall problem of "quote mining," in which one or a few sentences are pulled out of context to "disprove" this or that. See, for example, The Quote Mine Project. If you have not examined these sources yourself, Hippy, you may very well be missing the answers. I can't tell, for example, if W.D. Thorbury's next sentence wasn't something like "But Deane's uncertainty is unique in the field, and other researchers have shown the weakness in his methodologies."

And we won't stone you for citing Hovind. Remember: he's the one who would see us crushed under a hail of rock for our blasphemy. Science doesn't require such extreme measures of defense.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
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Dude
SFN Die Hard

USA
6891 Posts

Posted - 11/17/2004 :  00:04:56   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Dude a Private Message
quote:
Dude: Why do the excavationers give that date?


The people I spoke with when I was there were some anthropology grad students from UNM, carbon dating was the method used.

Interestingly, the Zuni have a flood myth.....

But they also believe their ancestors came from under the ground in the grand canyon, and were originally giant spiders, and that their home in NM is the literal center of the world.

A very interesting people, they are pretty isolated (their reservation is 60+ miles south of the major highway in NM, access by a 2 lane road only) and a very spiritual people.

Living with them was a pretty refreshing experience. They are, as I describe them to my family and friends, a people remarkably unencumbered by time. Not to say primitive, because they are not, but they don't really recognize time in the same way we white-folks do. Also not to say unsophistocated, because that would be a gross misrepresentation. It's almost like a carefree attitude concerning time, as if their culture does not have the same understanding of time as everyone else. I once asked a friend out there to get me some firewood, I asked him when he could get it.... his reply, "Before you get cold."

Unhijack....

But yeah, anthropology grad students from UNM, and carbon dating.


Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson

"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin

Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth
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Starman
SFN Regular

Sweden
1613 Posts

Posted - 11/17/2004 :  03:32:07   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Starman a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by hippy4christ

As for ice rings, I saw on one of the Hovind videos (don't throw stones at me yet!) that a plane had landed on a glacier and when people came back to look for it it was buried in ice, with several hundreds or thousands of ice rings.
Hi Hippy!

I can help you with this one. The planes landed in an area wich receives much snow and are therefore buried deep.
While this snow might have compressed to ice, there are not "several hundreds or thousands of ice rings".

CD410::WWII airplanes are now beneath thousands of "annual" ice layers.

I highly recommend Mark Isaaks Index to Creationist Claims when you want to investigate any specific creationist claim.

"Any religion that makes a form of torture into an icon that they worship seems to me a pretty sick sort of religion quite honestly"
-- Terry Jones
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