Shattering the Myths of Darwinism
Douglas Weller
On 10 Jul 1997 11:48:06 -0400, in talk.origins, Andrew MacRae wrote:
>
> Now the final stage -- the revised edition is out. The question I
>have now is, was any of the information I provided incorporated? If it is
>not, it will not reflect favourably at all on my opinion of Richard's
>scientific investigation. Skepticism I admire. Willful dismissal or
>failure to examine and mention specifically relevant scientific literature
>I do not. I will try not to pre-judge Richard's revised edition, but I
>wanted to make a statement here about what the situation is before people
>go and look at it, including me. I want to check how he did with his
>revisions. I sincerely hope that Richard has done the right thing, and
>has addressed my and the published criticisms I cited above. But *if* he
>has not, then that fact needs to be exposed for what it is.
[SNIP]
>
>|Chapter 4. The Key to the Past?
>|
>|Radiocarbon assay has been found to be flawed and unreliable. In
>|one recent case, South African 'bushman paintings' dated as 1,200
>|years old by Oxford University's carbon accelerator were found to
>|have been painted at evening classes by a Johannesburg housewife.
>
> Good heavens. This example was raised and specifically refuted
>here. There were a variety of problems with it. The date is the age of
>the materials used for the paintings. It is a flaw of interpretation, not
>of the method. This is no different from dating the radiometric age of
>the granite used in a building, having it turn out to be millions of
>years, and then saying, "See, this building was only built 100 years ago!
>The method is unreliable."
So we should find something relating specifically, perhaps, to the
following post from my archives:
Newsgroups: talk.origins,alt.test
Xref: ramtops.demon.co.uk talk.origins:547
Path:
ramtops.demon.co.uk!news.demon.co.uk!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.sprintlink.net!news.tyrell.net!southdar
From: sout...@tyrell.net (southdar)
Subject: The Oxford C14 Accelerator Unit thingy (was: Re: A challenge to
talk-origins) Followup-To: talk.origins
X-Nntp-Posting-Host: tyrell.net
Message-ID: <DGKt...@tyrell.net>
Sender: ne...@tyrell.net (*)
Organization: Friends of Fossils
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 04:49:23 GMT
Lines: 107
WARNING, WARNING. This is also being posted
to alt.test in order to determine if it gets posted. Therefore,
in following up to this post, make sure that you are not also
posting to alt.test. Considered yourself warned.
To continue Tero Sand's new thread from message
<45oe8b$8...@kruuna.helsinki.fi>, in article <1...@milton.win-uk.net>,
Richard Milton <ric...@milton.win-uk.net> wrote:
> In message <44hd3l$r...@ds2.acs.ucalgary.ca> Andrew MacRae wrote:-
>> Since you have only a handful of anomalous dates "for which there
>>is independent evidence", and which has contributed to your skepticism
>>regarding the radiometric techniques on long time-scales, why not list
>>one?
>I listed one in my last post: the failure of Oxford's C14
>Accelerator Unit to correctly date the 'bush paintings' found in
>South Africa. Every time I provide the kind of concrete detail
>you demand, you deal with it by simply ignoring it or dismissing
>it because it does not fit your preconceptions.
>From another post in the Re: A challenge to talk-origins thread
>>Richard Milton <ric...@milton.win-uk.net> wrote:
>>> has granted some real outside verification. In a recent post I
>>> mentioned the case of rock paintings dated by Oxford University's
>>> C14 accelerator unit as being 1,200 years old which turned out to
>>> be recent paintings. (Obviously to be independently discovered
>>> as falsely dated, with complete certainty, a sample must really
>>> date from recorded human history -- hence the very small number
>>> of such cases).
While talking about using mass spectrometer to date rock art
with archaeologist friends in the Texas Archaeological Society
the radiocarbon dates quoted above by Mr. Milton came up as
an example of what not to date with radiocarbon dating. They
told me of several items concerning the above radiocarbon dates
that Mr. Milton very conveniently, for his case, failed to mention.
Mr. Milton failed to mention that;
1. The Oxford University people were very worried about the
sample even before they dated it because of indications that the
sample to be dated contained petroleum products. That the person
submiting the sample failed to provide any useful information
concerning from where the sample came frustrated any attempt
at pretreating the sample to remove contaminants.
2. This rock art was NOT DATED to 1,200 B.P. The dating report
is explicit in giving only a radiocarbon concentration equivalent to
1,200 B.P. The report is very carefully worded to warn that this
date did not necessarily indicate the age of the painting because of
contamination and other problems; and
3. There were a number of problems, e.g. the presence of petroleum
products as part of the pigment, with this sample. The pigment very
likely contained oil made from petroleum. In other cases, the pigment
itself can consist of carbon black made from natural gas. Because
it was actually part of the pigment to be dated and not a natural
contaminant, pretreatment could not be used to remove the oil. As
a result, the age of the pigment was not contemporary with the age
of the painting. This problem was realized and thus, in their report
on this dating, the Oxford people plainly stated that the the result
failed to be any sort of date, but rather a radiocarbon concentration.
In conclusion, Mr. Milton's statement about the above dates;
< turned out to be recent paintings. (Obviously to be
independently discovered as falsely dated> is completely and
utterly false because the Oxford people realized before hand
that the material dated would fail to give a valid date. Indeed,
a warning to this effect was included in the dating report.
Although vital information concerning the origin of the
dated sample of painting was withheld from them, they
recognized the material as being unsuitable for dating the
true age of painting contrary to the above incorrect claims.
It should not take a rocket scientist to realize that if a pigment
composed of mixture of modern material containing radioactive
carbon and ancient petroleum derived carbon (either as mineral
oil or carbon black) is dated that the mixture will not give a valid
date. Also, if a pigment derived entirely from petroleum
products entirely is used to paint something, this painting
would give an apparent age much greater than 50,000 B.P.
even if painted yesterday. Any date derived from the pigment
of a painting is a function of the age of the components of the
pigments and the proportions of these components in the mix.
Thus, they can have nothing to do with the age of the painting.
This is a basic fact that only someone who is completely clueless
about radiometric dating would fail to grasp.
Sincerely Yours;
Darby South
sout...@tyrell.net
--
Doug Weller Moderator, sci.archaeology.moderated
Submissions to:sci-archaeol...@medieval.org
Requests To: arch-mo...@ucl.ac.uk
Co-owner UK-Schools mailing list: email do...@ramtops.demon.co.uk for details
Jim Meritt
Don't you think that it might be more useful to perform criticism of
something not decades old? There have been quite a few scientific papers
that refute Darwin in a number of ways across the years and it only looks
more out-of-date than otherwise to go after a dead horse...
Of course, any reference to Darwin is centuries newer than the Cretonist
reference, but you would think they wouldn't want to make that obvious...
--
James W. Meritt
The opinions expressed above are my own. The facts simply
are and belong to none.