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This whole thread is painful to read ... The level of ignorance of some primates ... Alleviate your pain.
Dinosaur bones Carbon-14 dated to less than 40,000 years
- Thread starter kedge
- Start date
This whole thread is painful to read ... The level of ignorance of some primates ... Alleviate your pain.
Nice selective quoting there...
You missed out the bit where she said she hated creationists (and I'm guessing she would feel that conspiracy theorists using the data wrongly was just as bad) using her data out of context.
Basically we don't know enough about fossilisation and the guy that did the "study" had his paper removed because it was proven to be inaccurate/using wrong techniques.
Because spirituality isn't static. It is something that is aquired, passed on and developed.
Which conflicts with what Lysander was saying...
This whole thread is painful to read ... The level of ignorance of some primates ... Alleviate your pain.
No comment, just needs reposting!
Nice selective quoting there...
You missed out the bit where she said she hated creationists (and I'm guessing she would feel that conspiracy theorists using the data wrongly was just as bad) using her data out of context.
Basically we don't know enough about fossilisation and the guy that did the "study" had his paper removed because it was proven to be inaccurate/using wrong techniques.
Indeed, like this interview for Smithsonian Magazine.
Radio carbon dating is essentially a forensic technique. The (really big) problem with all forensic techniques is that people get so set on the science that they totally forget that it is really about provenance!
Radio carbon only tells you (And that is with some assumptions too) the minimum age of an object. It cannot tell you the actual age!
Radio carbon only tells you (And that is with some assumptions too) the minimum age of an object. It cannot tell you the actual age!
I'm was assuming he was referring to a much broader base of mystical and esoteric traditions, including the shamanistic: religions aimed at personal well-being and personal development.
Probably so but I was more interested in the fact that somebody else had tried to show there was a perceived problem of "soft tissue" and dating, lasting as it did who wasn't a Creationist:
and:
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In that write up it said "Labs do NOT get "absolute dates" as claimed by some. There is always some degree of uncertainty and often dates are given as + or - so many years from a number". That's why i'm somewhat skeptical of scientific dating methods, i mean, you have one group of scientists/paleontologists telling us that dinasaur died out millions of years ago and another group of scientists/paleontologists using the Accelorator Mass Spectrometer carbon dating method showed results of Carbon-14 (C-14) in samples of dinasaur bone under forty thousand years.
Fairly long list this is just some of them.
Definitions (a) Acro, hadrosaur etc,
(b) Lab ID: All specimens from USA unless otherwise noted.
GX is Geochron Labs Cambrdge MA, USA; AA is University of Arizona Tuscon AZ, USA; UG is University of Georgia, Athens GA, USA; KIA is Christian Albrechts Universität, Kiel Germany; AMS is Accelerated Mass Spectrometer; Beta is the conventional method of counting Beta decay particles; Bio is carbonate fraction of bioapatite. Bow is bulk organic fraction of whole bone; Col is collagen fraction; w or ext is charred, exterior or whole bone fragments; Hum is humic acids.
(c) Weight of samples, Sample size sent to RC lab etc
(d) Contam is Contaminant in collagen fraction; it could be humic acids or an unknown but it was removed by acid - base - acid pretreatment and was only 1.3% of collagen sample in UGAMS-01918. In GX-31950 the contaminant overwhelmed the collagen as the sample was too small which is a good reason for extracting and dating other fractions and submitting large samples. This femur bone was found along a dry wash.
Dinasaur (a): Acro
Lab/Method/Fraction (b,c,d)
GX-15155-A/Beta/bio
Carbon-14 (C-14) Years before present (B.P.) >32,400 years
Date 11/10/1989 USA State Texas (TX)
Dinasaur: Acro
Lab/Method/Fraction (b,c,d)
UGAMS-7509b/AMS/bow
C-14 Years B.P. 30,640 +/- 90 years
Date 10/27/2010 USA State TX
Dinasaur: Hadrosaur #3
Lab/Method/fraction (b,c,d)
UGAMS-9893/AMS/bio
C-14 Years B.P. 37,660 +/- 160
Date 11/29/2011 USA State CO
Dinasaur: Apatosaur
Lab/Method/Fraction (b,c,d)
UGAMS-9891/AMS/bio
C-14 Years B.P. 38,250 +/- 160
Date 11/29/2011 USA State CO
Many dinosaur bones are not fossilized. Dr. Mary Schweitzer, associate professor of marine, earth, and atmospheric sciences at North Carolina State University, surprised scientists in 2005 when she reported finding soft tissue in dinosaur bones. She started a firestorm of controversy in 2007 and 2008 when she reported that she had sequenced proteins in the dinosaur bone. Critics charged that the findings were mistaken or that what she called soft tissue was really biofilm produced by bacteria that had entered from outside the bone. Schweitzer answered the challenge by testing with antibodies. Her report in 2009 confirmed the presence of collagen and other proteins that bacteria do not make. Also in 2009, the team of Dr. Phil Wilby discovered a fossilized squid that contained a sac of ink so well-preserved that it could be used in a pen for writing, found in rock that is considered to be 150 million years old. In 2011, a Swedish team found soft tissue and biomolecules in the bones of another creature from the time of the dinosaurs, a Mosasaur, which was a giant lizard that swam in shallow ocean waters. Schweitzer herself wonders why these materials are preserved when all the models say they should be degraded. That is, if they are over 65 million years old as the conventional wisdom says.
Interesting i think, but which is correct, millions of years or just thousands of years?. Regardless i suppose becuase the dating techniques vary greatly. They can teach that dinasaurs are millions of years old but there is no reall reason why anyone should believe they are millions of years old based on the data.
Fairly long list this is just some of them.
Definitions (a) Acro, hadrosaur etc,
(b) Lab ID: All specimens from USA unless otherwise noted.
GX is Geochron Labs Cambrdge MA, USA; AA is University of Arizona Tuscon AZ, USA; UG is University of Georgia, Athens GA, USA; KIA is Christian Albrechts Universität, Kiel Germany; AMS is Accelerated Mass Spectrometer; Beta is the conventional method of counting Beta decay particles; Bio is carbonate fraction of bioapatite. Bow is bulk organic fraction of whole bone; Col is collagen fraction; w or ext is charred, exterior or whole bone fragments; Hum is humic acids.
(c) Weight of samples, Sample size sent to RC lab etc
(d) Contam is Contaminant in collagen fraction; it could be humic acids or an unknown but it was removed by acid - base - acid pretreatment and was only 1.3% of collagen sample in UGAMS-01918. In GX-31950 the contaminant overwhelmed the collagen as the sample was too small which is a good reason for extracting and dating other fractions and submitting large samples. This femur bone was found along a dry wash.
Dinasaur (a): Acro
Lab/Method/Fraction (b,c,d)
GX-15155-A/Beta/bio
Carbon-14 (C-14) Years before present (B.P.) >32,400 years
Date 11/10/1989 USA State Texas (TX)
Dinasaur: Acro
Lab/Method/Fraction (b,c,d)
UGAMS-7509b/AMS/bow
C-14 Years B.P. 30,640 +/- 90 years
Date 10/27/2010 USA State TX
Dinasaur: Hadrosaur #3
Lab/Method/fraction (b,c,d)
UGAMS-9893/AMS/bio
C-14 Years B.P. 37,660 +/- 160
Date 11/29/2011 USA State CO
Dinasaur: Apatosaur
Lab/Method/Fraction (b,c,d)
UGAMS-9891/AMS/bio
C-14 Years B.P. 38,250 +/- 160
Date 11/29/2011 USA State CO
Many dinosaur bones are not fossilized. Dr. Mary Schweitzer, associate professor of marine, earth, and atmospheric sciences at North Carolina State University, surprised scientists in 2005 when she reported finding soft tissue in dinosaur bones. She started a firestorm of controversy in 2007 and 2008 when she reported that she had sequenced proteins in the dinosaur bone. Critics charged that the findings were mistaken or that what she called soft tissue was really biofilm produced by bacteria that had entered from outside the bone. Schweitzer answered the challenge by testing with antibodies. Her report in 2009 confirmed the presence of collagen and other proteins that bacteria do not make. Also in 2009, the team of Dr. Phil Wilby discovered a fossilized squid that contained a sac of ink so well-preserved that it could be used in a pen for writing, found in rock that is considered to be 150 million years old. In 2011, a Swedish team found soft tissue and biomolecules in the bones of another creature from the time of the dinosaurs, a Mosasaur, which was a giant lizard that swam in shallow ocean waters. Schweitzer herself wonders why these materials are preserved when all the models say they should be degraded. That is, if they are over 65 million years old as the conventional wisdom says.
Interesting i think, but which is correct, millions of years or just thousands of years?. Regardless i suppose becuase the dating techniques vary greatly. They can teach that dinasaurs are millions of years old but there is no reall reason why anyone should believe they are millions of years old based on the data.
It seems unlikely in the context of the conversation.
It is pretty clear that what is seen as an interesting scientific point is being hijacked by creationists that actually do not understand the science. Her discoveries in no way cast doubt upon the age of fossils, what they do is give an insight in to how fossilisation can occur which was previously unknown.
Well that was quite rude! Admittedly I'm only a first grade Research Associate at the moment, but that's where you start in this game.
Let me re-phrase yesterdays posts as I think I was being too gung-ho.
To subscribe to a religion shows a deep emotional attachment to a prescribed set of beliefs. To be deeply emotional about a subject inherently compromises you and makes you biased. I strongly believe that being religious to the point of professing that you are (everyone is "spiritual" on some level in that we all contemplate our inner selves) compromises your scientific bias.
Just to respond to a previous post saying that universities actually encourage negativity towards religious scientists. While what you say is true, scientists are encouraged to challenge their peers and as a system it does mostly work, in fact it has worked in this case as the organisers have (eventually) pulled the guys work, unfortunately HR departments in universities take a very different approach, to question somebodies work based on their professed belief is really quite a touchy subject for them (and therefore for us...) and it absolutely shouldn't be.
Out if interest where did you get that quote from, seems a little odd. And as already mentioned soft tissue doesn't prove something is youngest, perhaps that we don't know enough about fosdilisation.
All from the same guy?
Just a quick comment if you don't know already, carbon 14 dating uses the ratio of C14 atoms to C12 atoms to date things. The smaller proportion of C14 atoms the older it is as they degrade to C12. That is why you have the 40ka cutoff, where the proportion is so small it's difficult to get a reasonable age range (or you just can't measure the number of atoms...). That's why as the age gets older the margin of error increases. Note all those ages, they are right at the end spectrum of the C14 range, should ell you something.
The other thing to think about is what geological process would allow potentially a km (or more) of material to be deposited on top of the strata that contains the fossil. And how does that sediment then lithify and be uplifted potentially kms into the air. Fairly simple in tens of millions of years, very difficult in 30ka, unless you believe something like the end of the earth film a couple of years ago (can't remember the name right now) could happen.
It's not just some random dating of a specific interval (dating using multiple methods, from relative dating like biostratigraphy to many other chemical dating techniques, robidium:strontium, uranium:lead are two possibles, can't remembe the dating ranges for those off hand) but also where that stratigraphy is in context to the rest of the geology around it. If they are 30ka old then most geology that is taken as fairly accurate would have to be completely rethought. Not to mention all the Oil and gas and coal companies would have massive uphevals as these same theories are used to (generally accurately) predict and extract hydrocarbons...
@ kedgeThere should be no Carbon-14 in million year old fossils, not one atom of it according to some.
Cosmic rays enter the earths atmosphere and collide with an atom, creating an energetic neutron. When the neutron collides with a nitrogen atom, a nitrogen-14 (seven protons, seven neutrons) atom turns into a carbon-14 atom. Plants absorb carbon dioxide and incorporate carbon-14 through photosynthesis. Animals and people eat plants and take in carbon-14. Following death and burial, wood and bones lose Carbon-14 (C-14) as it changes to Nitrogen-14 (N-14) by beta decay.
The ratio of normal carbon (carbon-12) to carbon-14 in the air and in all living things at any given time is nearly constant. Maybe one in a trillion carbon atoms are carbon-14. The carbon-14 atoms are always decaying, but they are being replaced by new carbon-14 atoms at a constant rate. At this moment, your body has a certain percentage of carbon-14 atoms in it, and all living plants and animals have the same percentage.
Because the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,700 years, it is only reliable for dating objects up to about 60,000 years old. However, the principle of carbon-14 dating applies to other isotopes as well. Potassium-40 is another radioactive element naturally found in your body and has a half-life of 1.3 billion years. Other useful radioisotopes for radioactive dating include Uranium -235 (half-life = 704 million years), Uranium -238 (half-life = 4.5 billion years), Thorium-232 (half-life = 14 billion years) and Rubidium-87 (half-life = 49 billion years).
The use of various radioisotopes allows the dating of biological and geological samples with a high degree of accuracy. However, radioisotope dating may not work so well in the future. Anything that dies after the 1940s, when nuclear bombs, nuclear reactors and open-air nuclear tests started changing things, will be harder to date precisely.
HowStuffWorks "Carbon-14 Atoms"
One thing that is agreed upon is that if a material is claimed to be 30 million years old there should be no carbon 14 atoms left. No matter how old the carbon material is science labs almost always find some carbon 14. This problem has been studied at great length and the radiocarbon journal is filled with articles on the subject. Old carbon containing materials such as coal and marble (calcium carbonate) and diamonds have been studied: These materials were from alleged multi-million year old formations and are supposed to be that old. When one carbon dates these materials they always find some carbon 14 present. How can this be? There are several possibilities as outlined below. They are the following.
CARBON DATING OF FOSSILS
The following should be noted. Our group has radiocarbon dated mammoth and mastodon bones in the range of 23,560 to 36,000 years BP, and none of them contained any collagen. Yet some dinosaur bones contain collagen. We believe the absence of collagen depends on burial environment. Bones buried in sand with water generally have only bio-apatite remaining which is still datable. Dry or cold environments and or regions of individual bones free of cracks and bones buried in clay stand a better chance of containing collagen.
Dr. Libby the discoverer of Radiocarbon dating and Nobel Prize winner showed that purified collagen could not give erroneous ages. Dr Stafford's research demonstrated in 1990 that conventional methods of purifying collagen were within 5% of the most excruciatingly exact extraction techniques. It is not possible to claim that the laboratories made mistakes in their analysis and that there really was no collagen. General scientific thought says dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. We have evidence to the contrary from several sources. Radiocarbon dating of dinosaur bones, accounts from ancient histories, depictions on rocks, mozaics, and temple walls; and human footprints with dinosaurs strongly show that dinosaurs were around in historical times. More on these subjects are included in our other web pages. Dinosaur bones from Texas to Alaska have been tested by our group for the presence of Carbon 14 and the following table shows some of the results of our findings over the years.
Interseting, and very expensive.
