So then here is the interview with Micheal Redfern...
www.abc.net.au...
Notice it says Oldest American footprints.
link
Now here is the best argument against...
First, if I am debating an archaeologist, how good an archaeologist? As good as me?
Can you tell the flawed science involved in this?...
Silvia Gonzalez : We know that the magma that produced the ash came in contact with the water, there was some mighty explosion, parts of the
terrain around were incorporated into the ash and that's the reason why the ash is very heterogeneous is you've got different particles coming off
different materials that is part of the lake sediments that are baked with the heat of the magma and then they are incorporated and they are a very
prominent feature of this ash; quite unique, you don't see this very often.
And on the wall here you can see several holes, cylindrical holes, where we have taken samples to do dating. And we have tried optically stimulated
luminescence dating on this wall and on the ash itself. What you measure with optically stimulated luminescence is the last time that these sediments
were lit by the sun's rays or the last time that the material was heated. My collaborator Jean-Luc Swenninger from the Oxford Luminescence lab
realised that there were these very interesting brick particles in the ash and luminescence has been normally used for pottery in the past. So he
treated these particles as bits of pottery and the results he got were quite staggering because he got ages of about 40,000 years for this
ash.
"we have tried optically stimulated luminescence dating on this wall"
Bad science.
Wiki
Ages can be determined typically from 300 to 100,000 years BP, and can be reliable when suitable methods are used and proper checks are done. Ages
can be obtained outside this range, but they should be regarded with caution. The accuracy obtainable under optimum circumstances is about 5%.
And in fact, the proper method of dating using optical luminescence takes over a year, with the equipment in place and undisturbed during that
time.
To take a core sample, send it to a lab, ask them to do luminescence testing on it, is again, just a way to get around the facts, and try to create
controversy.
Why on earth, if she is an archaeologist, would she not have the lava dated originally, by someone who knows how to date lava?
Wiki
The quickly cooled lavas that make nearly ideal samples for K–Ar dating also preserve a record of the direction and intensity of the local
magnetic field as the sample cooled past the Curie temperature of iron. The geomagnetic polarity time scale was calibrated largely using K–Ar
dating.[2]
So then the best argument against is here...
Martin Redfern: And what about the reversed magnetic polarity?
Silvia Gonzalez : Well that is a very interesting point as well because indeed the last time that the magnetic field was reversed was about 780,000
years ago. But however we know that there are very short-lived excursions of the earth magnetic field and one of those happened about 40,000 years
ago. About that time the earth magnetic field flipped to the reverse polarity but only for about 1,500 years so we are currently exploring the
possibility of having this event recorded in this lava, which would be quite astonishing.
Paul Renne: Ha, ha, ha - how did I know they were going to say that? I have not heard this coming from this group but it doesn't surprise me at all.
There is a finite possibility that that is correct, I cannot rule that out. For us to have captured one of those however, the probability is extremely
low.
So then there is a window of 1,500 years when there may have been a short reversal, and its possible that these prints occurred within that time
frame. Which would mean that the lava was only 40,000 years old.
So now then it should be possible to determine through other geological means or archaeological means, if in fact that lava is 40,000 years old.
Is there older lava sitting on it elsewhere? What is the geology of the area? Etc.
But even if for arguments sake we say the prints are 40,000 years old, that means modern man was in Mexico 40,000 years ago. Well? That alone says
something about ALL the archeology that has been done to date in the region since previously the earliest dates were 13,000 and even that has often
been criticized.
If you are out by 30,000 years and you have all the tools like carbon 14 dating?
We know how accurate carbon 14 dating is because we can carbon 14 date an object, and look at the historical record, historical texts, to verify the
creation date of an object.
And so there is a high degree of accuracy, since those dates obtained by carbon 14 dating techniques can be verified through other methods.
I should also point out that if that lava is only 40,000 years old, argon-argon dating is useless and all the data which has used argon-argon dating
is useless, and the very basis for archeological dating, of hominids, which is argon-argon dating is also useless, and invalid, and that would include
Olduvai Gorge.
So if you were Sherlock Holmes, you might look at Gozales et al, as nothing more than a damage control mob who originially knew the age of that lava,
and recognized that those were homo sapiens sapiens in that lava, and did some bad science in attempt to make them go away. And if it weren't for
Renne, they might have succeeded somewhat, by using a date of 40,000 years, and using the Royal Society and the British Museum, as the authority.
edit on 14-2-2012 by Rocketman7 because: (no reason given)
