Posts by Etude
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Etude
Miles3: I appreciate your observation. It gives me an opportunity to be clear and appear less naive than I might seem. That permineralization can preserve the cell structure of an organism IS the same thing as replacing (to a good degree) the original molecules that made the cell. That's what petrifaction means. The preservation of cell structure is merely visual in appearance and not in matter, otherwise, the organism would be twice as big, containing its original matter in addition to the deposited minerals. And, a little more effort in reasoning would tell you that even if the original matter of the cell was preserved along with other mineral deposits contaminants, a reading would prove difficult (at least ambiguous) if 14 C was detected both from the cell and from the contamination.
If I'm understanding you correctly, I think you have leapt to the assumption that because I talk about "flooding" that I must subscribe to the idea of a literal 6-day creation theory. No. Not even the Wittlesses believe that since they say a "day" was 1000 years long. I was referring to scientific evidence in the geological strata that supports vast flooding (although not global). That evidence supports that lore and tales that many cultures have exaggerated and still retain. So even though the topic is challenging, it's not anything that can surpass my understanding if the correct information and argument is presented. Perhaps you can come up with some that might prevent you from jump to the conclusion that for a specimen to transpire through petrifaction millions of years need to occur. The conditions for it and how that process happens depends on many factors that are not uniform throughout times and locations.
Etude.
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Ringing in the ears (Tinnitus)
by ballistic ini have had this constantly for 3 - 4 months now and am finally on some strong antibiotics at my request in case it's infected inner passage ways and sinuses because i do suffer allergies and blocked ear passageways.. anyway, if you are a closet hypochondriac in the making like me, you occasionally google things to see what's wrong with you and find references to horrendous things, which make you worry you're going to die, or start dissolving from inside out.. one such site about ringing in the ears is telling me i have some connection to the spirit realm which i can hear as a ringing in the ears.
if you don't believe me, google ringing in the ears metaphysics, and you will find it is spiritual data downloading, my heightened spiritual awareness, a choir of angels singing or the noise of the spirit realm which i haven't been able to hear until now.. i'm not sure just why there are so many theories, but when i followed some advice, and sat back in my chair and focused on the noise, it is as they tell me, a kind of vibrational thing, and a kind of relaxation can befall you.. .
i'm not saying i believe any of this, just saying, i can see where the theories stem from.
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Etude
I have severe tinnitus, probably from one too many rock concerts. Some antibiotics can cause it and even make you lose your hearing altogether. But if were to even consider that the noise I hear was supernatural, I'd have my head examined by a psychiatrist first before I have my hearing checked by an otorhinolaryngologist .
Etude.
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Etude
King Solomon: " I thought that was referred to as 'the exile' vs 'exodus'." Yes, you could say that. It's "tomeyto" or "tomahto". If you are banished en mass to a place, then it's an exile from whence you came. If you leave a place en mass, then it's an exodus from whence you left. I suppose I chose "exodus" because one consensus is that it was after or at the time of "leaving" (exiting) Babylon that the Hebrews decided to evaluate their condition -- that their gods had abandoned them and led them to captivity -- and then decide that they were going to observe or follow a new idea, a monotheistic idea, one that would triumph over the multitude of gods of their captors, one that was even more powerful.
Etude.
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Etude
kepler: If I understand you correctly, I don't think that a debate about the accuracy or controversy of 14 C dating automatically means a score for the other side (the Bible). I'm quite happy to concluded nothing. The absence of evidence of God does not automatically make science right. There's still the burden of proof to fulfill in any case.
Just by deduction alone, it stands to reason that if the Earth once enjoyed a fairly tropical climate (evidenced by the vegetation found near the Arctic Circle), when it got cold and areas started to freeze, it was because prior to that some protective canopy kept the heat in. One of the possibilities may be somewhat like the conditions we have today; a condition of global warming existed because of excess CO 2 .
Perhaps instead, a global vapor cloud-cover created the warm conditions that existed. Some scientists suggest that the sudden change of polarity in the Earth (The North Pole became negative and the South Pole became positive) may play a role in sudden atmospheric changes. They've documented those magnetic reversals happening several times throughout geologic time. I'm not asserting which of the conditions actually existed, but in either case we could have had sufficient cause for major flooding in certain parts of the world, which is what the geological evidence shows and what might have cause the freezing of the high Northern & low Southern latitudes.
Flooding is also a fear today should a certain percentage of the Arctic ice melt due to global warming, even without a vapor cloud-cover. We would have major flooding from Manhattan to Southern Florida to a good portion of India. Is that global? I don't know. But it would be significant. There's no need or justification for any of us to use that information to support any other ancient story. All I'm considering is that such an event can be the cause for moving around material, including 14 C, that would contaminate and skew or measurements.
Etude.
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Etude
ex·o·dus
[ ek -s uh -d uh s ] Show IPA noun 1. a going out; a departure or emigration, usually of a large number of people: the summer exodus to the country and shore.
2. the Exodus, the departure of the Israelites from Egypt under Moses. 3. ( initial capital letter ) thesecond book of the Bible, containing an account of the Exodus. Abbreviation: Ex. Yes, I "Do realize that the Exodus story, as depicted in Exodus, is likely just a Hebrew tall tale", and I've thought so for quite a while. Some of the citations I used also explain that convincingly. So, you must realize that we're not referring the same thing. That's why I said "exodus" and not "The Exodus". I was speaking about the return of the Israelites after having been carted off to Babylon, after the first destruction of the temple. Some of the archeological findings suggest that prior to that, Israelites had multiple gods as evidence of artifact findings in Jerusalem. After that (after the captivity in Babylon), there is a noticeable decrease of polytheistic worship and a definite swing to monotheism. Etude. -
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Etude
Leolaia, thank you for your thorough response. I realize and had always assumed that a particular archaeologist would not necessarily do the science on 14 C dating or even date the samples in order for others to determine the age after some calibration. My impression has always been that they (archeologists) usually send the sample to a lab or to an expert for testing. I've also understood and agree with your description of how 14 C becomes part of an organism and was aware that the absorption of 14 C occurs fairly consistently and thoroughly throughout the organism. But the fact that contamination does occur is precisely what has made me question (not reject) the idea that readings can be accurate. I suppose I have to take your word for it that the margin of error is not significant. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the very idea of petrifaction, especially via permineralization, can substantially alter a specimen (ironically preserving its cellular structure) to include all kinds of components that were never part of the specimen (which contradicts Miles3's last assertion). Therefore, the accuracy of the dating can greatly depend on the state of the specimen. In the case of some of the Egyptian items you mention, the error would probably be negligible to none.
In other cases, I think about the idea that if we determined there was a global increase in the production of 14 C somewhere in the middle of a specimens life span (let's say a tree that lived 2000 years), even with a constant absorption rate, for a good deal of time, the "sudden" jump in newer 14 C may skew the dating. I do grant you that the difference may not be temporally significant, but it could be. I said:"The only thing that is for sure about 14 C is that it has a specific rate of decay or half life." To which you replied: " This is not true at all. " I'm not sure what you mean. If you mean that 14 C does not have a specific half-life, then I'm dumbfounded as to why it would be used for dating at all. My understanding is that it is invariably 5,730 years (give or take a few decades). As far as I know, that is a physical and accurately deducible scientific conclusion. I have to admit that I cheated a bit and did not read the entire article you refer to ( http://www.arch.unipi.it/Arias/Materiali_Web/Radiocarbonio/Kromer_2009_14C%20and%20dendrochron.pdf ) What I did was to search for "half life" or "half-life" and found no entries. Did you mean a different link?
Of course, I didn't mean to imply that 14 C dating should be 100% accurate. What I implied is that the possibility is there for the dating to be sufficiently inaccurate. Even if that seldom happens, it casts doubt on the dating, such as those conducted on the Shroud of Turin (1988), which place it in the 12th to 13th century but which is contradicted by Raymond Rogers (2005) for the inaccuracy (inconsistency?) of the sample used. Therefore, what the sample is and what happened to it seems to be critical in determining its age. Even though that sample was not subject to petrefaction, the reasons given by Rogers allude to "contamination" and exterior influences in the sample. That experts disagree on that makes a lay person like me more concerned and confused.
While I realize that dating methods have improved, the actual measuring of 14 C has barely budged since its conception, unless you count that the tools used today are much more expensive, sophisticated and easier to use than ever, even though they yield more or less the same results as before. The only thing I have found that is a significant improvement is a new method of 14 C testing on the entire object while submerged in a combination of gasses in a chamber in order to get a "greater" or more homogenous reading. For me that only leaves advancements in calibration and the interpretation and adjustment of things like dendrochronology as the greater explanation for "advancement". If you have a few more examples that fall outside either category, I would appreciate it if you let me know about them. I'm not trying to dump the research on you. It's just that I wouldn't know where to begin.
As for "diluvial" mentions, I can see how you could rightly interpret Ninja's reference as being biblically supportive. I gave Ninja the benefit of the doubt because I have read about evidence of ancient "green house" effects throughout geological time as well as the suggestion that significant flooding in certain areas (even after Pangaea) have been detected in rock sediments. I suppose only Ninja can say how it was meant. But the evidence I'm referring to is subject for a different consideration. The "amulet" scrolls you mention are precisely what I was referring to, those found outside the walls of Jerusalem. They contain copies of prayers that are indeed also contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The difference is that they pre-date the Dead Sea Scrolls by about 400 years. What caught my attention was not their content but the idea that the conception of the Bible (not so much the Pentateuch) is the manifestation of a change, particularly after the exodus from captivity in Babylon, of the Hebrews from polytheistic to monotheistic, thereby reinforcing the idea that they weren't setting down their past as much as that they were inventing it.
Etude.
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Etude
Miles3, what definitive study clearly demonstrates that C14 does not contaminate previously living organisms? I realize that's the conclusion you're reaching and one that appears to be accepted by experts. But, I for the most part am sincerily curious to know how that's arrived at and the little bit that isn't so curious casts doubt for me by the fact that there is contamination in the first place. I'm not sure exactly what "contamination" means, but whatever it is seems to indicate that C14 dating can be prone to error, at times significant error. Also, the idea that because calibration was done in some part of the world at some time, does not automatically makes us assume that conditions are the same in another part of the world where the speciment being dated is found. For dating with C14 to really work to the exclusion of variants, calibration to test an item would have to be done each and every time (or at least often and close enough) to determine that the specimen really belongs to its environment (hence its local period of time).
Etude.
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Why reincarnation doesn,t make sense.
by jam inthis accomplish?
the situation which surround the soul.
change with each life, therefore how does this allow.
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Etude
I knew a guy who had a personal ethic that prevented him from killing anything. He was once innudated by ants crawling all over his desk in our IT data center after all the spilt soda, candy and food remnants from lunch and snacks. I asked why he wouldn't squash them and that's when he told me he couldn't hurt living things because practiced some sort of Buddhism. So, he called in the company exterminators to take care of the problem.
Etude.
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Etude
I consider this a very interesting discussion. Leolaia and ninja_matty69, you present a lot of compelling arguments on which I had to think about. ninja_matty69, your post of about 3 hours ago is epic. It also reiterates for me a plaguing question. I once asked an archaeologist I served on jury duty with how accurate C14 dating was. I mentioned my concern about how the carbon got into the specimen in the first place, especially in formerly living organisms (not just layers of rock). I asked how we were able to determine if the C14 being measured was the C14 absorbed while the tree was alive or if the C14 seeped into the tree years later after it fell and was inundated with water and C14-laden air or was deposited along with other minerals in some dinosaur bone before either was petrified. That concerned me because we know that C14 is produced in the air in different concentrations throughout the years, depending on solar activity and weather conditions. Her answer was: "I'm sure they calibrate that somehow."
Well needless to say, that was not a very satisfying answer. The only thing that is for sure about C14 is that it has a specific rate of decay or half life. What I've gathered from the discussion so far is that, while C14 dating is not meant to be completely accurate (given the percentage variances in the way it's calibrated) and serves only as a ballpark marker, we do make assumptions about how it's calibrated (that the C14 absorbed must have been constant or at least the same as in other sites tested; that the sample tested is uniform compared to the rest of the object being tested; that the percentage variance in different objects tested or the average of different readings is preferable than a single reading that can be accurately established. (http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/31/us/errors-are-feared-in-carbon-dating.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm) I'm not saying that we (especially scientists) don't have the leniency to make those assumptions. However, if we do, we need to be willing to concede that the reading is less than 100% accurate (even if it's just close enough) or that it may be sufficiently wrong to not count.
Leolaia, I think your citation of ninja_matty69's reference to the global flood might be a bit misplaced. The key word is "IF". I hope ninja_matty69 is not asserting to the Biblical flood as an actual occurrence, even though it serves as a good scenario for what is believed is a representation of major historical floods (though not global) throughout history. The point is that if there was a significant "cloud cover" in our atmosphere (something that is also scientifically suggested at different times in our geological history), the C14 rate would have been different and would have affected samples greatly and the flooding might well have contaminated a lot of specimens.
Please carry on. I know next to nothing about this subject and would like more information. Yet, to refer to one of the original arguments and assertions regarding biblical history, I'm surprised no one has mentioned (unless I missed it) the newest references regarding the likely history of the Hebrews and why they forged (created and faked) an account (the old testament) to obscure their humble beginnings and add to their own legitimacy. One recent investigation depicts Israel as an "intellectual construct". It also points to other "cigarette-sized" scrolls found (beside the Dead Sea scrolls), which indicate sufficient differences in "old testament" accounts to signal the lore and poetic origins of the Old Testament. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/bibles-buried-secrets.html)
In addition, there are other indications that the ancient Hebrews did and continued to worship multiple gods after a time when the Biblical account suggests otherwise. The evidence presented in the Nova show "Quest for Salomon's Mines" suggest the beginnings of the Hebrews in the desert cauldron of the Dead Sea Rift Valley. I like that a more accurate picture is emerging from these discoveries that put the legitimacy of unconfirmed writings in the proper light.