Isaac Brock
Active Member
- Sep 28, 2003
- 1,104
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Screws it up yes, but only to a certain point. It's a manner of statistics. Take the US presidential polls. Currently, I believe the CNN poll has Bush up on Kerry by 1 point. However, there is say a 6% error on a 95% confidence interval. I could say that there is a possibility that Kerry was up by 5 or Bush was up by 7, but I cannot say that Bush was up by 25% in the polls.
The same applies to carbon dating. In addition Carbon dating can be calibrated to prior atmospheric concentrations of C14. How can we do this? We can use tree rings of ancient trees and measure the amount of C14 trapped in each ring corresponding with the appropriate year. We calibrate from closer to present to further from present. This is explained in much more (and better) detail in the book I suggested you read.
Also, radiocarbon dating can now be (as of the mid 90's) verified by Uranium 235 and other isotopes to narror the range of error. It is by no means perfect, but it isn't "entirely screwed up".
