Evolulutionists: If you have a fossil in your hand and you say that it is 5 million years old?

Why is it that so many Christians are so terribly uninformed about the nature of science?

Do you honestly believe that radio carbon dating is the only dating method used by scientists? Do you know nothing about stratigraphic layering?

Very well.... a basic science lesson...

If you know about the movement of the earth and the effect water and wind has on wearing away and moving soil to different areas, then you'll understand what such things as sediment are.

Then please take into consideration such things as volcanic eruptions, and the movement of the techtonic plates (which I'm going to assume you understand since it's what causes earthquakes).

With all of these it's safe to say that older rock is farther down on a rock wall.

Now, when you look at this rock, that means that the newer rock will be on top of the older rock. By looking at the rock, you can safely place the rock into different layers based on the prevaling earth conditions at that time.

So, animals that die at that time, will fall into that layer of rock. Such as, animals that die this year, will be found in the layer of rock that's laid down this year.

Animals that died 1000 years ago will be found in the layer of rock that was laid down during that time.

And yes, the layering tends to be very noticable. For example... if you had a volcanic eruption at that time, the fallout from the eruption will fall on the earth in that area, creating a discoloration (and obsidian which is created only by volcanos) rock in that time period.

What this is called is stratigraphic layering.

So, stratigraphic layering is one method of determining age.

However, it only shows that one fossil is older than another, it doesn't show the exact age of the fossil.

But there are other methods.

The one that the Christians seem to fixate on is radio carbon dating (which btw, is reliable to samples in under 60 000 years of age, and within a time period of a few thousand years on either side of the possibile age).

However, there are many other methods that are unknown or completely dismissed by Christians.

Uranium-thorium dating

Potassium-argon dating

argon-argon dating

Fission track dating

Cosmogenic isotope dating

Rubidium-strontium dating

Samarium-neodymium dating

Rhenium-osmium dating

Lutetium-hafnium dating

Paleomagnetic dating

Thermo-luminescence dating (quartz exposure to heat)

But then we add other methods of dating such as

Dendrochronology

Ice cores

Lichenometry

Varves

And that only begins to scratch the surface of dating methods used by scientists. All these methods are based on mathmatics and chemistry. Which methods are used depends on whats found in the area and where the sample is found. Such as, something found on the ocean floor will require different dating methods than something found in the mountains.

So.... we don't know the age and there's no possible way to find out because you're closed mind and uneducated guess says that the only dating method we use is radio carbon dating? I beg to differ.

There are many many ways to scientifically prove the age of a sample. But you have to be willing to use them instead of dismiss them because "the only thing accurate can be the bible".

You see, I intended on being a paleontologist for a living and, though I never did finish the degree, I have something of a clue about all this.

The long and short of it is, religion is wrong and education is the only way to solve that problem. But you have to be willing to become educated. Knowledge is power.

The fact that you also completely dismiss such things as DNA, x-rays, lasers, etc, shows just how uneducated you are.

Once again, in science, as opposed to the mythology of the uneducated, a theory is something observable and repeatable... a fact so to speak, like the theory of gravity. You're education in paleontology is showing some weakness as well, fossils that old can't be carbon dated as they no longer contain any biological mass, which would have been replaced by stone and sediment over a period of several thousand years. Fossils of this age are dated geographically.

Different compounds have different atomic masses, and this fact is used in a mass spectrometer to determine what chemicals are present in a sample. For example, table salt (NaCl), is vaporized (turned into gas) and ionized (broken down) into electrically charged particles, called ions, in the first phase of the mass spectrometry. The sodium ions and chloride ions have specific atomic weights. They also have a charge, which means that their path can be controlled with an electric or magnetic field. The ions are sent into an acceleration chamber and passed through a slit in a metal sheet. A magnetic field is applied to the chamber. The field pushes each ion perpendicular to the plane defined by the particles direction of travel and the magnetic field lines. They are then deflected (makes them curve instead of traveling straight) onto a detector. The lighter ions are deflected more than the heavier ions because according to Newton's second law of motion the acceleration of a particle is inversely proportional to its mass. Likewise, the magnetic field can push the lighter ions further, thereby giving them a larger deflection, than the heavier ions. The detector measures exactly how far each ion has been deflected, and from this measurement, the ion's 'mass-to-charge ratio' can be worked out. From this information it is possible to determine with a high level of certainty the chemical composition of the original sample.

This example was of a sector instrument, however there are many types of mass spectrometers that not only analyze the ions differently but produce different types of ions; however they all use electric and magnetic fields to change the path of ions in some way.

You can use other dating methods than Darwins and radio carbon.

Superposition, Obsidian Hydration Dating, Thermoluminescence, Luminescence Dating, Amino Acid Geochronology, Fission Track Dating, Florine dating, Electron Spin Resonance <- yes this can be used for samples up to 2 million years, Cosmic-ray Exposure Dating the list is endless.

However how do you prove that things in the bible are true without having to use the bible as a refenence.

So are you going to give "Moiraes Fate" the best answer or will you prove to have the integrity of the typical Creationist (I note you asked this in Religion and Spirituality, not Science).

The absolute dates on the geological time scale are determined by radiometric dating. The numerous different isotopes, with different half-lives and different logarithmic decay curves always converge on the same ages (when used as they are supposed to be used), a mathematical impossibility if there was a problem with the experimentally determined decay rates, or the method.

Anti-science propagandists like to pick out the few examples where the technique was misused in order to give the impression that the technique itself is flawed (their favorites are carbon-dating mistakes where the user didn't consider - or was actually testing - the 'reservoir effect'). The irony is that carbon-dating is largely irrelevant to geology, but propagandists know that the ignorant will have heard of it, and likely not the other methods, thru archaeology on tv.

Simply put, index fossils (fossil species observed to occur in strata of the same age), magnetostratigraphy and other methods are used to correlate to the radiometrically-determined tie-points. Hence if you have a fossil, it is dated by correlation to the tie-points.

You take advantage of this science every time you use petroleum products.

Carbon dating is unreliable in the small numbers, but not in large ones. Also, read up on the geologic record. Fossils don't appear magically in our hands. We dig them out of layers of rock which also can be dated fairly well in the large numbers.

And here's a question for you. You have a Bible in your hand. Since they are only made up stories, how do you prove God said any of it, particularly since oral transmission of events has proven extremely unreliable and histories are always subjective and even intentionally fraudulent?

<<Doesn't that make the bible slighty wrong?>> No. That makes your understanding of what the Bible is wrong. <<I mean that the bible states that all life was created 6 thousand years ago or something along those lines.>> On which page? Chapter and verse would be better, as it happens, as the pagination is variable. Update <<By determining where Abraham fits into history chronologically and adding up the ages provided in Genesis 5 and 11, it becomes apparent that the Bible teaches the earth to be about 6000 years old, give or take a few hundred years...>> That's your interpretation, not what's written. Furthermore, if you refer to versions of Genesis, written prior to the fifth century BC, you'll find there's no mention of any 6-day creation, however long a "day" is supposed to be. (That's also not specified.) <<Why is my understanding of the bible wrong?????>> Because you apparently believe it's meant to be some literal historical account. It isn't. Refer to the Song of Solomon and see if that's meant literally.

Radio carbon is quite reliable, just not precise.

Anyway, for fossils, you use dating by isotopes that have a longer half life than carbon 14, as that one really is of little use for datations in the million year order. It will give a likely age within a given span, though, of course it won't likely be precise to within 100.000 years, but do we need that much precision when dealing with things that old?

The background radiation emissions used to measure the age all kinds of artifacts and fossils from a variety of human and pre-human eras. Also, the rock, soil, sediment in which it is found can greatly help to accurately date a fossil.

It's not just charts, but every part of science that uses Darwin's theory. Darwin himself didn't even have the key, but we do--D.N.A. Things take time to evolve, and leave a lot of evidence laying around. How else would you explain how animals adapt, yet stay the same over time?