[Cerek the Barbaric]

Hey Lady Blue.

It was I who mentioned that you had to have "faith" to accept carbon dating this time around, but that argument has been presented by Yorick many times before.

One of the primary arguments against Christianity (or any religion) is that the existence of God cannot be proven...it has to be accepted on faith. Most atheists I've talked with say they only believe that which can be proven by hard, scientific evidence. But Yorick is pointing out that - unless you have the knowledge and skill to conduct the experiments yourself - you have to trust that the scientists who do conduct the experiments don't allow any personal bias or outside factor to "taint" the results. In essence, the integrity of their work has to be "accepted on faith" by you.

And antryg has given first-hand testimony that the integrity of scientific research often is not purely objective and is influenced by outside factors (such as continued funding).

I'm not discounting the validity of carbon dating....I'm just challenging the assumption that it is always done accurately and objectively.

I'm just playing the devil's advocate. [img]smile.gif[/img]