Sun Aug 25 17:46:57 1996

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From: Mike Phillips 
Subject: Re: Carbon dating
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1996 16:45:49 -0700
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>  From: "Robert B. Waltz" , on 8/25/96 2:04 PM:
>  But if the effect is not constant, how does one decide how much to correct
--
>  particularly for early periods when we have no dated artifacts? Also,
>  doesn't this mean that there will be *geographic* variations in C-14
>  count?

	If you are reading me as defending -14 dating, you are misreading me.
It is a method that can tell us something, but as a method, it relies to
heavily on the assumptions (constant rate) that I've already dilineated which
is precisely why it fails in so far as it cannot be depended upon.  It's kind
of like lagging marbles.  It may or may not get you close.  Other factors have
to be employed.  If I were going to define C-14 dating I'd call it a SWAG
(Scientific Wild Ass Guess).  Sometimes SWAGs are a great motivator for finding
other means of verifying your (preliminary) conclusions -- unfortunately, more
weight was placed on the SWAGs involving C-14 before it occured to anybody to
check the assumptions, i.e., that any given sample may have been exposed to
variables that causes the rate of deposition to be a variable unaccounted for
by the method, i.e., a formula buster.

>  
>  I'm not saying you're wrong (though this strikes me as a theory supplied
>  to explain away a failed method); I'm just asking how one can possibly
>  apply the revised method?

	I think we agree more than you reckoned.  I don't know, maybe I just
sound like the kind of guy nobody would possibly want to agree with  and
provoke disagreement...

>  
>  I would also remind people that this isn't really important to the point;
>  the crucial matter is that radiocarbon dating can only date to the
>  nearest century or so, and so is not much use in precisely dating
>  manuscripts. This has nothing to do with theoretical problems; this
>  is based simply on our inability to measure the amount of C-14 with
>  absolute precision.
>  
>  Bob Waltz
>  waltzmn@skypoint.com

	I think that's an accurate assessment.  Do you have a flag I could
wave?
  
-------------
Mike Phillips
mphilli3@indy.tdsnet.com

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging;
it is the skin of living thought and changes from day
to day as does the air around us. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

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