South African fossils could be 'new human ancestor'

[Slimebeast]

highwaystar101 said:

Slimebeast said:

highwaystar101 said:

Come on Slimebeast, don't fall for the AIG myth of "All radiometric dating doesn't work, therefore all the data is useless". Of course the dating methods work to a more than adequate level; if they didn't then why would people use them?

Are dating methods 100% accurate? Of course not.

Are they accurate enough to be used? Yes, very much so.

Here's a video on the subject that explains it better than I can, start at around 2:20 and watch until the end.

Either way, I doubt this fossil was carbon dated, they would have used another method. Anyway, they can give the date of the bones to between 1.95m and 1.78m years, this prediction has accounted for the potential accuracy errors in dating and has not given a specific date, but a band of dates (source).

That kind of extreme accuracy is just stupid. I simply don't believe in it.

Why don't you believe it?

Do you understand the process of dating better than the countless scientists who use it on a day to day basis?

Do you know something the thousands of people who think the results of various dating techniques are accurate enough to base their research on it don't?

Because if you know something they don't, then I think you should tell them.

I work with uncertainty every day. I analyze symtoms and findings in patients including blood samples, x-rays and whatnot and it's usually very hard to put a correct diagnosis.

Look at other areas with uncertainty. We can't even measure the global warming today properly. Is it 0.5 degrees or 0.7 degrees global average temperature up in the post-WWII era? (uncertainty in measurement stations, tons of factors affecting etc).

In paleonthology they establish these timelines. They dont look at the monkey skeleton directly to determine it's age. They look at how old the cave was and the animal skeletons (species) in it. And since the cave is assumed to be ~2 million years old (not the rock, but the typical findings in the upper strata) they then play around with some numbers and arrive at a number for the monkey skeleton.

In criminology they find a human carcass, it's usually very hard to estimate the age. They say between 1-3 days, or 1-4 weeks, and if it's years they say maybe he died in the 30's, maybe in the 50's.

In archeology you have constantly these findings where they debate weather an object is from the bronze age or stone age, or bronze/iron even if there's other objects in the same area and strata.

For this particular monkey skeleton, if they claimed intervals like between 500,000 and 3 million years maybe I could believe in it more.

Paleonthologists have an agenda. I can't trust them.