Actually, it isn't circular at all. Dendrochronology is a well-
understood science, and does not depend on radiocarbon dating at all.
In fact, radiocarbon dating is, in part, confirmed and adjusted by
reference to tree ring dating.
> Considering how huge the
> margin of error is for radiometric dating,I would not consider it to
> be an exact science.
The error bars for radiocarbon dating can be as small as a decade or
less. Of course, radiocarbon dating isn't the only type of radiometric
dating. Other methods, which are used for dating more than the
50-60,000 years for which radiocarbon (14C) is effective, often do
have error bars in the thousands or tens of thousands of years. But
since they generally are used for things that are millions or billions
of years old, the error bars are relatively quite small.
You may be interested to know that all measurement has error bars, not
just radiometric measurements. It is simply a fact of nature. It says
nothing about the utility of measurement within the scope of the
technique used, except that real scientists acknowledge their level of
confidence in their experimental measurements. That's part of how
science works. And it does work very well.
> Furthemore it is very unlikely that the decay
> process continues on a straight line over long period of
> times.
And you know this, how? What mechanism would you propose that would
allow the observed decay processes to speed up or slow down? Remember,
in order to do this, you have to propose significant changes in the
speed of light over time, something that is not observed.
> Whenever you have a margin of error of thousands of years,it is
> reasonable to dismiss the dating results.
Why? If you are talking about error bars in the thousands of years for
radiocarbon dates (remember, radiocarbon dating isn't used for time
deeper than about 60,000 years), you might be right. But we don't see
that in modern radiocarbon dates.
We do see such error bars in some other techniques; but they are
measuring things in the hundreds of thousands, millions and billions
of years old. The absolute range may be in the thousands of years, but
the percentage of error is rather small at those ranges.
> Besides,one can showcase the many mistakes that have been made while
> trying to carbon dating the so called missing links.
The so-called 'missing links' are not dated by carbon decay methods,
since we are now talking about hundreds of thousands to millions of
years. Radiocarbon won't work at those time depths, and scientists
know that. You, apparently, don't.
I'd be fascinated to know what some of those many mistakes you mention
are. Be as specific as you can.
> Now,if you believe that eternity exists ,time cannot exist at the
> same time.If you consider for instance a huge amount of time ,let's
> say a trillion years;
> as you keep increasing time ,that trillion will eventually be
> equal to zero.
Wow. No. That trillion years would never be equal to zero. Look up
stochastic sometime.
> Eternity and time are mutually exclusive.Time is the
> measure of
> an internal process.If you stop that process,the perception of time
> is gone.
OK, if that's what you believe, I will accept that you believe it.
> History before writing is pure speculation.Anyone with a good
> imagination can create amazing historical events with those scanty
> clues that scientists are working with.
I've got several years of study of archaeology at the graduate level,
and know that you are not very well versed in how archaeology works.
Or science in general, for that matter.
It is true that archaeologists, in common with all scientists, develop
hypotheses based on what we know, and then develop means to test those
hypotheses. It's a very useful and productive process. In that
process, sometimes we find that we are wrong in our initial thinking.
When that happens, we discard that which doesn't work, and develop
better hypotheses based on our new knowledge.
Scientific knowledge is always partial, contingent, and open to new
data. But we know it works to become better aware of what actually
happened in the past (in the case of archaeology). What we know isn't
useful is to accept a story and never change that story no matter what
we learn. That's religion, not science.
> Anyway ,what atheists are unable or unwilling to grasp is that with
> have a transcendal nature capable of reaching beyond the range of our
> senses.
> We are more than mere matter.You will surely find out on the day of
> your death,then it will be too late.
Interesting. So you know the state of my salvation, or damnation, on
the basis of our short Usenet acquaintance? It might surprise you to
know that I'm a Christian.
> There are plenty of evidence for the supernatural,be it good or be it
> evil ,but you people are so dismissive that no one can breach that
> firewall that you have created.
I've looked at a great deal of that evidence, and found it in every
case to be either false or misinterpreted. My faith as a Christian
might agree with you; but when you make statements about matters which
can be known, and especially when you bash science with every evidence
of not having read or understood the relevant science, then you are
speaking from faith, not scientific knowledge. If you'd simply
acknowledge that, I'd have little trouble with your statements.
As it is, when you make such elementary errors as thinking that
radiocarbon dating is used for the remains of living things more than
ca. 60,000 years old, ISTM that your religious agenda has taken over,
and you are not thinking clearly (or perhaps honestly) about your
pronouncements about reality.