That is a tough one to answer. The truth is that there are a lot of variances in the dating of things. For each thing that scientists try to date they use as many techniques as they possibly can. But the different tests confirm different things. For instance in South Africa we have something called Adam's calender. Various tests have shown it to be dated anything between 30,000 and 150,000 years old.
But when you get into things that are millions of years old, what's a few thousand this way or that way?
But the reason I believe that we are in generally predicting ages accurately is the volume of tests that show more or less the same thing. For instance with DNA testing it can often be determined how long ago the split came between species of animals. These dates coincide with other tests, such as carbon dating of fossils from that time. It might further correlate with continental shifts or ice ages.
Which human fossil?
The age of a skeleton as in "how old were they when they died" can usually be derived from certain features like which bones are still cartilage and which ones have become hard. Wher the fontanelle is closed and from the proportions of bones (head size, arm length compared to body height).
The age of a skeleton as in "how long ago did they die" is usually determined by the radio-carbon method. The base of this is, that every living matter has got a certain proportion of slightly radioactive carbon isotopes. And if something dies and does not ingest any new carbon the radioactive atoms decay. After 57.300 Years, the radiocarbon method is not usable anymore, because you can't measure the remaining radioactive isotopes in such a concentration. Then people use decaying isotopes of other substances to determine age.
When dating a fossil you have to take a couple assumptions first. One you assume that the key to the past is in the future and 2nd uniformitarianism. So it all boils down to worldviews. With a secular worldview you can assume uniformitariansm and therefore assume that the rate of decay of carbon(or any other element) has not changed. So it all boils down to who's presupposition is the right one not science. Therefore no, science can't give a reliable date for a giving fossil.
One of the reasons they come up with new answers about the age of the universe is that they are working on it all the time. (Unlike the christians) We now have the Hubble telescope, and it's not many weeks ago they could see further into the universe than they ever did before, due to the last upgrade with the new mirrors.
There's no end to the universe so even if we did get to keep living as we are now, we would never learn where the end of the universe is. In the same way, an atom will never be understood by science because they don't know where light energy came from. Only God knows what's going on.
Absolutely not.
I remember when they were saying the universe was 300 million years old. Now they say it's 12 billion years old. Stephen Hawking says everything came from nothing. Science has just as many liars as religion does.
No, but they do take a fault factor into consideration and if they are wrong it usually ends up as older than their prediction. It all has to do with what they are testing and how they are testing it.
This comparison of the results obtained by multiple techniques is called methodological triangulation, and is an important way to establish reliability when singular methods are uncertain.
but humans have been here for over 3 million years. we have other evidence to prove that.....carbon dating is getting better..........but canot acuatly account that far back.
I don't know of which substances but they need to take stuff with longer half-life time. so it becomes inaccurate then.
No man understands what happened in the past or what will happen in the future. Only God knows these things.
i agree< infact carbon dating is falable and not acuate there is much information on this subject.
That is a gross generalisation of Christians, many christians follow secular science.
God knows all things but no one knows who he is except the one typing this message.
When you rely on science and religion for answers, you will get nothing but lies.
Ah okay, thanks, I'm useless with remembering the correct terms for things
If it is neither religion nor answer, what then?
