The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #153464   Message #3596515
Posted By: Stu
29-Jan-14 - 10:15 AM
Thread Name: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
"tell me, too, how they explain the methodology of finding radiocarbon in supposedly 65+ myo bone ? does that make sense?"

This is one of Pete's nonsensical sentences, but radio carbon dating is only one method of dating using isotopes, and these have been cross-calibrated to maximise accuracy.

As for finding iron in blood vessels, that's not exactly unexpected as without iron in your blood you would die. With regard to ancient organic materials, the use of metals as biomarkers is becoming increasingly common when analysing fossils using a synchrotron ( a big sod-off x-ray basically), where they are used to infer soft tissue preservation and can be indicators of integument shading.

Funnily enough, the very technologies Pete rallies against because they help us understand ancient life are used to decipher the sort of ancient scrolls he and his fellow extremists draw their world view from. Some scrolls were charred during a fire at an institution and it was presumed that the information on them was lost as although large pieces of scroll survived intact they were charred black and the writing could not be read. However, the ink used by the scrolls writers was organic in origin and contained trace metals that could be read in a synchrotron, meaning the information was saved.

Isn't science wonderful?