Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ut-emx!bill@emx.utexas.edu (Bill Jefferys) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: The Shroud of Turin Message-ID: Date: 5 Apr 91 09:02:07 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: The University of Texas at Austin; Austin, Texas Lines: 27 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu [Rich Wales tells us that tests on the Shroud using C14 dating showed it to be 14th Cent. David Buxton responded #I personally would not put a whole lot of credence on a C-14 dating #analysis. There are too many examples, such as recent Hawaiian lava #dated to be millions of years of, to convince me that C-14 and other #dating schemes can really be trusted. --clh] Oh, dear. The example you cite was a deliberate experiment conducted by geologists to demonstrate what they expected on theoretical grounds, namely that a particular type of pillow basalt cannot be dated reliably by the K-Ar method. The reasons for this unreliablility have nothing whatsoever to do with C-14 dating, and do not in any way cast doubt on the reliablility of C-14 dating. They don't even cast doubt on the reliability of K-Ar dating when it is applied to suitable types of rocks. The fact that both methods utilize the decay of radioactive isotopes is irrelevant. This example is frequently used by unscrupulous Creationists to confuse the unwary and the naive. Beware. Bill Jefferys -- If you meet the Buddha on the net, put him in your kill file --Robert Firth