On Tue, 16 Jul 2002 00:33:27 GMT, "John Knight" <johnknight at usa.com>
wrote:
>"Angilion" <angilion at ypical.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:3d333c95.21227708 at news.freeserve.net...
[..]
>> As an aside, why do you believe that all known forms of dating
>> material are wildly incorrect? If humanity is only 3000 or 6000
>> years old (both figures are given on the above website), all the
>> dating of all human remains or human-created items older
>> than 3000?6000? years must be wrong. Or are you arguing that
>> there were people on Earth before humans?
>>The main problem with these long timeframes are the known population growth
>rates of humans, which are mostly linked to
>http://christianparty.net/population.htm>>To summarize, at the rate the US population grew (not counting immigration),
>with abortion and the pill, it would take only 1,200 years to grow from 2
>people to 6 billion. Even at the slow rate the UK has grown lately, it
>would take only 1,800 years.
>>Now without the pill and abortions, it would take only 900 years, and at the
>rate African populations grow, only 600 years.
All those timescales are based on extrapolating from *recent* trends
to the origin of humanity, which is an unreasonable extrapolation. Small,
relatively isolated populations with a short lifespan and a high infant
mortality rate are likely to grow very slowly. Your extrapolation
also relies on ignoring natural events such as ice ages, plagues, etc,
etc.
>But, yes, it really is impossible to measure time backwards with any degree
>of accuracy. Every method of doing it requires assumptions at the front end
>which would throw them all off. Even the carbon dating based on the
>Bristlecone Pine has one serious flaw, which is that 4 or 5 rings can be
>formed in one year, so that tree could be 1,000 years old rather than more
>than 4,000 years.
Carbon dating is not based on the Bristlecone Pine. Carbon dating
is based on the ratio of carbon-12 and carbon-14 isotopes in a sample.
The ratio of the carbon-13 isotope may also be included for further
accuracy.
You do not show yourself in a good light when you base your
argument against something on ignorance about how it works.
A couple of examples of articles explaining the principles
behind carbon dating:
http://www.dc.peachnet.edu/~pgore/geology/geo102/radio.htm
(scroll down)
http://www.howstuffworks.com/carbon-14.htm
Where you could challenge carbon dating is on the assumption
at the core of it - that carbon-14 production has been at a constant
rate for the last 40,000 years or so. There are other flaws in
it, too. For example, some living organisms do not maintain the
usual ration of carbon-14 to carbon-12 (1 to a trillion). Carbon-14
dating would therefore give incorrect figures on those organisms.
However, humans do maintain the usual ratio, so that flaw does
not apply.
In any case, carbon dating has been used to date things back
as far as 40,000 years. By your argument, the very least
that time could actually be is 8,000 years, even if your
argument had any relevance to carbon dating, which it does
not.
Then there are the other forms of dating, which can date back
much further. If humans only existed 3000 or maybe 6000 years
ago, who was making stone tools 600,000 years ago? Or are
those dating methods incorrect by a factor of 100? If so, why?
And what about the humanoid skeletons dated as old as
7 *million* years?
[..]
>>http://www.enidreed.com/serv01.htm>>>> They have tested approximately 60 people with the most
>> severe possible form of hydrocephalus, in which almost all
>> of the cerebral cortex is missing. More than half of them
>> have IQs above 100.
>>It's truly an amazing outlier, but still, it's an outlier. How it happened,
>who knows?
Which is pretty much the point - people do not know how intelligence
is formed, but it is very clear that it is not dependent on brain mass.
[..]
--
Always remember you're unique.
Just like everyone else. (Anon)
