Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 17/04/2006 18:30, Steve Miller wrote:
>   
> > ...
>
> [Steve Miller] None of these are _facts_ that mankind is > 6K years old. All
> the radioactive dating methods assume a constant rate of radiation into the
> earth's atmosphere, which is a false and unreasonable assumption. 
> I know enough to tell that such things are not scientific or logical. ...

It may be an assumption if extrapolated over thousands of years, but it 
is a reasonable assumption which has not been shown to be false. 
Radiocarbon dating has been applied to and calibrated from objects of 
known historical age, as well as through tree ring data. I doubt if many 
historical dates before about 500 BC are known well enough to be useful 
for calibration, but if something can be shown to have been true 
consistently for the last 2500 years, it is a reasonable if unproven 
assumption that it has been true for at least 6000 years.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/