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/sci/ - Science & Math

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5712923 No.5712923 [Reply] [Original]

Why do archaeologists use circular reason to date fossils?

>> No.5712927
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5712927

>>5712923
>Somethings there
>Something can be dated
>Something has a date of origin
>Something was there then

Not really.... no...

>> No.5712932

>>5712927
I was meaning they use fossils to date the layer it is in, then they use the layer to date the fossil.

>> No.5712940

>>5712932
They use carbon dating to get a rough scale, then similar compilements of data to get more accurate findings

>> No.5712942

>>5712923
They don't.

>> No.5712946

C-14 is too wildly inaccurate to even be considered a reasonable way to date something.

>> No.5712949
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5712949

>>5712927
>troll
>the past exists and we arnt always existing in perfect creationism

>> No.5712952

>>5712923
Because the math deity wants us to take power so we can send agnostics, Christians, and finitists to death camps. To do this we need to brainwash schoolchildren into believing in a materialist fantasy.

>> No.5712955
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5712955

>>5712946
> >>5712940
No, but seriously, bugger off

>> No.5712961

>>5712946
Care to elaborate?

>> No.5712959

>>5712927
This.

The past doesn't even exist. Your memories and history is fake, all of it was created one moment ago. See Boltzmann's brain argument.

>> No.5712971

>>5712961
One example, sample 10017 from the moon was split into six different pieces, the ages ranged from 2.6 billion years to 4.6 billion years. I have others as well.

>> No.5712979

>>5712971
Isn't C-14 dating meant to date organic matter, i.e. things that used to be alive?

>> No.5712983

>>5712971
sauce?

>> No.5712987

>>5712979
He might be confusing radiocarbon dating with the more general radiometric dating.

>> No.5712988

>>5712979
OK then, One part of the Vollosovitch mammoth was dated to be 29,500, and another part at 44,00 years old.

>> No.5712997
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5712997

>>5712971
>Older than 6k
>You still giving a shit
>fuckingwhy.jpg

seriously though, the further back on the timescale it is the more wild the answers gunna be, try sniping someone through a tornado

>> No.5713001

>>5712997
So why use it?

>> No.5713005

>>5712983
I can't remember off the top of my head, it was one example I had on the top of my head.

>> No.5713011

>>5712946
Uranium-Strontium is used for longer term things like some fossils. Other isotopes are also used. C-14 is good for human stuff because it's half life is only a few tens of thousands of years.

>> No.5713014

>>5712988
>Vollosovitch
lol

http://books.google.com/books?id=XTV9bss58ocC&pg=PA116&lpg=PA116&dq=Vollosovitch+mammoth&source=bl&ots=FSM0PvwuTc&sig=fTW4yKXYEXMPfZO65mQ0Cpqu5N0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xC97UbW6J6OKjAKe64HoAw&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=Vollosovitch%20mammoth&f=false

>> No.5713018

>>5712946
>whats the law of big numbers guys?
half life dont change bitch.

>> No.5713035

Dude I don't even...

So, when dating, people are aware there is MORE THAN ONE means of dating something?

People often rail about c14 dating, without any understanding of what it is or how it works. In fact, it is not 'wildly inaccurate' - it is simply accurate within a certain context.

Other forms of radiometric dating have different accuracies, applied to different time frames. e.g. K-Ar dating can date to within a few thousand years. C14 dating dates to within 50-60000 years, but when you're dating fossils tens of millions of years old, that accuracy is excellent and the margin of error is simply meaningless i.e. t-rex lived 165 million years ago - well, give or take 50,000 years.

There are numerous other isotopes available for dating. There are plenty of other methods too - geochronology, dendochronology, archeomagnetic dating, paleomagnetism - the list goes on.

>> No.5713039

>>5713001
You got something better?