• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Ancient Civilizations

sayak83

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Earthling said:
Okay . . . lets just kick it around a little bit and see what happens. How do you know that any form of dating now is accurate? How do you test the accuracy of it?

Edited To Add: Keeping in mind that we have wandered a wee bit off topic to say the least.
Click to expand...
Confidence in accuracy of any dating method is primarily based on well established physics associated with that technique. So, for example in thermoluminescence dating, the wavelength of light emitted provides the data needed to determine the age of manufacture of an ancient tool or pottery.
https://www3.nd.edu/~nsl/Lectures/phys10262/art-chap3-9.pdf
 
Earthling

Earthling

David Henson
sayak83 said:
Confidence in accuracy of any dating method is primarily based on well established physics associated with that technique. So, for example in thermoluminescence dating, the wavelength of light emitted provides the data needed to determine the age of manufacture of an ancient tool or pottery.
https://www3.nd.edu/~nsl/Lectures/phys10262/art-chap3-9.pdf
Click to expand...

The New Encyclopædia Britannica (1976, Macropædia, Vol. 5, p. 509): “Hope rather than accomplishment mainly characterizes the status of thermoluminescence dating at the present time.”

Science (August 28, 1981, p. 1003) reports that a skeleton showing an age of 70,000 years by amino acid racemization gave only 8,300 or 9,000 years by radioactive dating.

How much do you think these techniques have changed in 40 or so years? The important thing to me is, how do you test the accuracy? I keep getting the answer "more of the same."

If I read in a few verses of the Bible I can get roughly 1,600 years of chronology and from that deduce the date of pretty much anything within a 6,000 old written history. This person was born when this person was this age and that was this many years before this happened . . . now I can sometimes compare that to astronomical data, i.e. this full eclipse was marked as visible from this place at this time, historical data, this happened when this guy was ruler, but if someone tells me they chopped down a tree and this ring on it represents roughly the period of this or that, I'm skeptical as hell. If they say they measure by radioactivity I immediately think well, how stable might have that been over any great period of time?

If the Bible is considered by some vague Utopian term like "science" to be mythological and you can't say why this measuring is accurate because you can't, in later periods when it starts to become really problematic, see any historical, astronomical confirmation then the world has gone to hell in a hand basket, as Opus would have us think.
 
sayak83

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Earthling said:
The New Encyclopædia Britannica (1976, Macropædia, Vol. 5, p. 509): “Hope rather than accomplishment mainly characterizes the status of thermoluminescence dating at the present time.”

Science (August 28, 1981, p. 1003) reports that a skeleton showing an age of 70,000 years by amino acid racemization gave only 8,300 or 9,000 years by radioactive dating.

How much do you think these techniques have changed in 40 or so years? The important thing to me is, how do you test the accuracy? I keep getting the answer "more of the same."

If I read in a few verses of the Bible I can get roughly 1,600 years of chronology and from that deduce the date of pretty much anything within a 6,000 old written history. This person was born when this person was this age and that was this many years before this happened . . . now I can sometimes compare that to astronomical data, i.e. this full eclipse was marked as visible from this place at this time, historical data, this happened when this guy was ruler, but if someone tells me they chopped down a tree and this ring on it represents roughly the period of this or that, I'm skeptical as hell. If they say they measure by radioactivity I immediately think well, how stable might have that been over any great period of time?

If the Bible is considered by some vague Utopian term like "science" to be mythological and you can't say why this measuring is accurate because you can't, in later periods when it starts to become really problematic, see any historical, astronomical confirmation then the world has gone to hell in a hand basket, as Opus would have us think.
Click to expand...
yes, these techniques are hundreds of times more precise today than 40 years ago. bit like comparing 1970 computer to that of today. Neither Radio-Carbon, nor thermoluminescence was much good before 1990. Since then they have improved their precision exponentially.
The fact that to you what I posted looked "more of the same" tells me that you do not understand the content in the link. Would I be right?
Regarding stability, the laws of physics ensure that they have the same rate of conversion or decay since the beginning of the universe 13 billion years ago.
 
SomeRandom

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
Ellen Brown said:
For me, no insult intended, the knowledge of a Creator is "written in my genes". Admittedly most of the religions are disrupted by dark forces, and in casual investigation, I often wonder if they have been the most murderous force in the world? It has been tremendously disillusioning to find that my beloved KJV of the Bible was authorized by one of the most murderous kings that England ever had.

The more I study, it becomes clear to me that the Creator's wishes for humanity are simple. We humans create our own hell.
Click to expand...
Intellectual inquiry should not be forbidden by any legitimate religion, imo. Any which does so elicits instant suspicion from me. Surely any religion should be robust enough to withstand intellectual prodding. Should not run from knowledge. That's weak.
Faith is faith. That's all well and good. But when it comes to scholarly pursuits, then surely it should be well scholarly.
 
SomeRandom

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
Earthling said:
Well, archaeology is extremely interpretive. Two quotes come to mind. History is written by the victors and history is a set of lies agreed upon.

Carbon dating . . . yeah . . . not very reliable. Sometimes the best we have isn't very good.
Click to expand...
Carbon dating is reliable, though. Like that's not the only method used, but who the hell takes issue with carbon dating these days?
And there are many documentaries that abolish the written propaganda of said victors. I could recommend a few if you like?
Hell even Horrible Histories sought to reassess and even debunk long held myths of history based on new evidence. And that was literally a children's series. Highly recommend the live action TV show adaption, by the way. Cheesy, but solidly entertaining entertaining and informative nonetheless.
 
Last edited:
Earthling

Earthling

David Henson
SomeRandom said:
Carbon dating is reliable, though. Like that's not the only method used, but who the hell takes issue with carbon dating these days?
And there are many documentaries that abolish the written propaganda of said victors. I could recommend a few if you like?
Hell even Horrible Histories debunked long held myths of history based on new evidence. And that was explicitly written for children!
Click to expand...

Uranium-lead? Thermoluminescence? Potassium-argon? Dendrochronology? Direct counting of atoms? Amino-acid racemization? Archaeology? Paleohraphic? Preexilic silver Scrolls . . . take your pick.
 
SomeRandom

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
Earthling said:
Uranium-lead? Thermoluminescence? Potassium-argon? Dendrochronology? Direct counting of atoms? Amino-acid racemization? Archaeology? Paleohraphic? Preexilic silver Scrolls . . . take your pick.
Click to expand...
So.......... you take issue with them all??
What are your qualifications, if you don't mind me asking?
 
sooda

sooda

Veteran Member
Earthling said:
The New Encyclopædia Britannica (1976, Macropædia, Vol. 5, p. 509): “Hope rather than accomplishment mainly characterizes the status of thermoluminescence dating at the present time.”

Science (August 28, 1981, p. 1003) reports that a skeleton showing an age of 70,000 years by amino acid racemization gave only 8,300 or 9,000 years by radioactive dating.

How much do you think these techniques have changed in 40 or so years? The important thing to me is, how do you test the accuracy? I keep getting the answer "more of the same."

If I read in a few verses of the Bible I can get roughly 1,600 years of chronology and from that deduce the date of pretty much anything within a 6,000 old written history. This person was born when this person was this age and that was this many years before this happened . . . now I can sometimes compare that to astronomical data, i.e. this full eclipse was marked as visible from this place at this time, historical data, this happened when this guy was ruler, but if someone tells me they chopped down a tree and this ring on it represents roughly the period of this or that, I'm skeptical as hell. If they say they measure by radioactivity I immediately think well, how stable might have that been over any great period of time?

If the Bible is considered by some vague Utopian term like "science" to be mythological and you can't say why this measuring is accurate because you can't, in later periods when it starts to become really problematic, see any historical, astronomical confirmation then the world has gone to hell in a hand basket, as Opus would have us think.
Click to expand...

The Bible is mythical. Have you heard of Ras Shamra?
 
Subduction Zone

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Earthling said:
Uranium-lead? Thermoluminescence? Potassium-argon? Dendrochronology? Direct counting of atoms? Amino-acid racemization? Archaeology? Paleohraphic? Preexilic silver Scrolls . . . take your pick.
Click to expand...
The various methods of radiometric dating are very accurate, assuming the person doing the dating knows what he is doing. Any tool can be misused, which is why one needs reliable sources when trying to refute an idea. If a person uses a screwdriver as a hammer and it does not work do you blame the screwdriver or the person that misused it?
 
Earthling

Earthling

David Henson
SomeRandom said:
Oh I'm an uneducated moron. Which is why I tend to defer to the experts. I mean I like Science, History, Archaeology etc, but I'm more artsy and literature inclined. :shrug:
Click to expand...

Well we have so much in common! Except that I don't seem to be enthralled with the imperfect human endeavors of Science, History and Archaeology etc. Now, me . . . I'm not enthralled with theology and religion so how come that is?

The topic, ladies and gentlemen, is ancient civilizations. From my perspective, in this modern day civilization, hindsight is twenty twenty, as they say. I'm not overconfident in my modern day thinking. That's all, oh . . . and I ask again . . . reminiscent of another thread on these forums, what is the difference between knowing and believing, the accuracy of modern day dating of any kind. If I can ask that without getting an honest answer from anyone, I'm going to have to assume that I'm more than qualified to do so.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top