New scientific techniques refine carbon dating techniques

Scientific challenges to the beliefs promoted by the Brahma Kumaris so called "World Spiritual University"
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onvalianthorwatch

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New scientific techniques refine carbon dating techniques

Post10 Nov 2016

Pink Panther my post on Bayes was made with no prior knowledge of the man, his works or the relevance of his efforts to mankind. So i sincerely went looking so as to start to get myself an education.

If I am not mistaken Bayes was mentioned in the context of "New scientific techniques refine carbon dating techniques" and we all know that the science of dating has always and will always be controversial. ALWAYS. That was my main point.

BK Teachings also give rise to questions insofar as their ideas on 'ageing' and 'world history' is concerned, don't they?

The BKs would have us believe that scientists don't know what they are talking about on this topic because the world drama cycle is only 5000 years old. Or do I misunderstand how that idea fits into dinosaur's roaming the planet?
Maybe I do.

The other bits and pieces were simply 'personal' markers that i would use (if I had reason) to delve a bit further. In other words I used the mention of Bayes to start delving into history to see what we are told and who told it; to expose myself to as much as I could in a very short space of time to the context in which Bayes made his contribution to human knowledge.

We are all free to believe whatever we choose till the point in time when we believe something else.
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ex-l

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Re: New scientific techniques refine carbon dating technique

Post10 Nov 2016

Pink Panther wrote:In fact, there is a story they threw one of their own overboard because he insisted on their validity!

It was probably really because of his eating the beans. And their consequences.

onvalianthorwatch

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New scientific techniques refine carbon dating techniques

Post10 Nov 2016

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
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Pink Panther

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Re: New scientific techniques refine carbon dating technique

Post10 Nov 2016

thorwatch,

You still don’t get my point. Your potted history ignored the more valid developments of radio-carbon dating in the 20th century, how it developed and by whom (Libby), and how it was cross-checked against other known historical facts to show its validity and margins of error, and subsequent methods.

What you did was to raise a question about the validity of a newer dating method that uses a mathematical device from Bayes to make for more accurate dating, i.e. less margin of error, tigher range fo possible dates

I do not pretend to be a mathematician but I know a thing or two about logic and philosophy. You (admirably) decided to investigate Bayes who lived a couple of centuries earlier but made the mistake of throwing doubt on his maths based on what you learnt about his culture at the time. The only valid way to investigate any doubts about his maths is with maths, to show either it is wrong or that it is being misapplied.

The thing about maths is that it is a logic so abstract it is beyond culture. Mathematicians emerge right across the world at different times, and any valid mathematical developments have been assimilated and developed. Otherwise the next thing we’ll see from islamo-phobes is a rejection of the use of arabic numbers or even the use of 0 !

Anyway, check the wikipedia entry on dating as a whole, and maybe follow through on just a couple of links and see how involved and technically precise it all is.

BKs disputing it is like someone debating a structural engineer’s report because of their faith that their ideal home can be built on sand regardless as they saw it in a vision!

Pink Panther wrote: In fact, there is a story they threw one of their own overboard because he insisted on their validity!
ex-l wrote: It was probably really because of his eating the beans. And their consequences.

I serve ‘em up, you knock ‘em out of the park!
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ex-l

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Re: New scientific techniques refine carbon dating technique

Post10 Nov 2016

I was imaging a Mel Brooks movie about Ancient Greece and the Pythagoreans, complete with a farting scene in it.

But, remember, this is brahmakumaris.info and we don't just make statements like that to be provocative, it all has a metaphorical meaning on the psychic level, noxious emissions being symbolic of bad smelling thoughts.

I don't know about, and did not know, Bayes at all. I can hardly understand the simple definition of his theorem. But one thing I have learnt about science is that it's largely based on the mathematics and if one cannot do the mathematics, one is pretty much excluded from the discussion. Without the mathematics, it's just reading the tea leafs at the bottom of the cup.

That's what I say to the BKs ... show me the maths. (Addressing the BKs) "You claim every molecule, every photon even, goes right back to the same place and energy level it started 5,000 years ago ... OK, show us the maths that explains how it happens". We can pretty fairly calculate the energy and forces involved, we could estimate how much it would take to rewind it all all, were that possible.

"OK, explain where that energy comes from, and how it is transfered".

Of course they cannot. The BKs are still dealing in children book's magic wand fantasies. Their own particular fantasy having been concreted before any of them even knew what a photon was or that lights had travelled significantly more than 5,000 Years.

With reference to dating techniques, there are now many more than just carbon dating, all of which have their known strengths and weaknesses.

You write, "we all know that the science of dating has always and will always be controversial".

But do we really?

To whom ... Flat Earth Born Again Christians and uneducated Sindi crones whose logic is based on "Did Lekhraj Kirpalani say it (true/Shrimat) or someone else (must be Maya/false)"?

Do you have an equivalent opinion on potassium-argon dating, uranium-lead dating, thermo-luminescence, obsidian hydration or uranium trail dating ... just to name a few. There are others.

is not it just that certain other parties have a vested interest in discrediting radio-carbon dating because it challenges their beliefs, e.g. in Biblical Creation or 5,000 Year Cycles?

For me, it's just science. I am honest enough to say I have not got a clue how it works but that I accept it gets keeps better the more they question and work at it. But that it is science and not religion and so, consequently, it require reproducibility and proof rather than faith to work.

The problem is that with BKism, and the so called "University" the BKs run, scientific matters are taken and rejected as tokens of faith ... "if Baba said it it is true, if some body conscious Shudra said it, it must be false" and to question that is to question their Baba and their faith (or rather to expose their Baba as he is).

Factual issues become confused with the necessities of social conformity involved in being accepted by, say, the BK leaders and community. Of course, you could say the same about scientific community - sociology applies to them too - except that they do a heap lot more work to investigate and prove their claims.

How many excuses do the BKs have for why their Baba does not know or understand about such things, and how much they defend him and their leaders from having to respond to them ...!
Bayes' theorem

A theorem describing how the conditional probability of each of a set of possible causes for a given observed outcome can be computed from knowledge of the probability of each cause and the conditional probability of the outcome of each cause.

We need someone to ask Dadi Janki her opinion about that before we will be able to know what to think ... zzzz.
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Pink Panther

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Re: New scientific techniques refine carbon dating technique

Post11 Nov 2016

Bayes' theorem

A theorem describing how the conditional probability of each of a set of possible causes for a given observed outcome can be computed from knowledge of the probability of each cause and the conditional probability of the outcome of each cause.

It's a formula (something that gives form to) by which we can approach very complex questions in any attempt to understand them and home in on them.

When broken down, all it says (well, kind of how I understand it ) is that:
    Any observed outcome rarely has only one cause, it has a number of probable causes.
    How probable each of these causes is, and what its part is in the outcome, is conditional on any number of things.
    To be able to compute/ calculate the probability of any cause one has to have knowledge of how probable that cause is and how different conditions will affect that probability.
    The actual outcome is a cross check to see how accurate our knowledge of each cause is
It reminds me of the Buddhist notion of ”co-dependent arising” (praditya samutpada) and the Buddha’s four noble truths which are essentially a paraphrasing of a medical diagnostic approach.
    1. what is the ailment?
    2. What is the cause of the ailment?
    3. The cause identified can be affected, hence affecting the ailment it causes.
    4. Take this medicine.

onvalianthorwatch

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New scientific techniques refine carbon dating techniques

Post11 Nov 2016

onvalianthorwatch wrote:hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I haha'd (not mockingly) because the mention of beans seemed sort of random. This discussion has gone way over my head, such that I am floundering in my ignorance.

Thanks to you all for sharing your knowledge which far outstrips my fumbling around in history for context. I am certain that the memory, reputation and good works of Mr. Bayes has not suffered because of my current research methods.

To borrow a much hackneyed phrase, "I know nothing". So I will leave you all to go boldly forth where BK teachings do not go.

regards

onthor
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ex-l

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Re: New scientific techniques refine carbon dating technique

Post11 Nov 2016

onvalianthorwatch wrote:I haha'd (not mockingly) because the mention of beans seemed sort of random.

I understood.

Do you mind if I ask - approximately - how long ago you left the BKs?

Would you agree BKism encourages stupidity within adherents, and causes one's brain to stultify somewhat?

I hope you realise that we are not beating you up, but trying to encourage you on. But state clearly and specifically what your current beliefs and world views is and test it out.

We'll forensically examine it for any possible traces of BKism, or the ilk ... ;-).
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ex-l

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Re: New scientific techniques refine carbon dating technique

Post23 Nov 2016

Reminded of this thread by a recent headline, Egypt unearths 7,000-year-old lost city ... to which the Brahma Kumaris cry "FAIL, the world is only 5,000 years old so it must date back to 2,500 years ago" ... I took a chance to revision my understanding of radio carbon techniques and how they are confirmed.

From an older news story,
Radiocarbon dating verifies ancient Egypt's history

"The very first dating done with radiocarbon was dating Egyptian material of known dates, to check that [the method] worked," said Andrew Shortland from Cranfield University in the UK.

"Now, for the very first time, [we] managed to get radiocarbon techniques so good, that we can do it completely the opposite way around. We can say, from using radiocarbon, whether the Egyptian history is correct or not.

"Previously radiocarbon hasn't had a voice on this because the errors had been so great. Now radiocarbon is able to distinguish between different ideas of reconstructing the history."

In essence, because Egypt has such a well documented history, it was possible to check claimed dates with actual results and they were found to match. What they did was take some things of a known age, and test them.

The exceptionally long and well evidenced histories of Ancient Egyptian and ancient Chinese history are utterly ignored by the Brahma Kumaris and their god spirit who have no explanation of them. Indeed, one could argue that BKism could only have evolved in an evironment were the adherents were ignorant of them ... amongst women pretty much known for being cloistered to their Sindi homes for life at the time without books or access to museums etc.

How on earth then do averagely well educated Westerners get sucked by them and put up with such typical fob offs as "do more Yoga and it will be revealled within you" ... or dating technology is all wrong as there was a nuclear war/destruction of heaven 2,500 years ago which screwed up their results.

(The Brahma Kumaris believe that the nuclear power heaven on earth which is allegedly being prepared for them right now, existed for 2,500 years - until 2,500 years ago - before collapsing due to their founder having sex with another re-born BK deity* - FACT

* Presumably, his "spiritual" wife Om Radhe who died in the 1960s?).

There are useful updates of Archaeological news stories (here) or (here) and elsewhere.

Surely BK adherents really ought to demand substantive answers from their leaders about the vast weight of evidence that exists for events outside of their world view? Should the so called "University" at least subscribe to a few scientific journals?
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ex-l

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Re: New scientific techniques refine carbon dating technique

Post30 Nov 2016

An article about how two separate techniques are used to calculate dates ... When age matters: precise dating of ancient charcoal found near skull is helping reveal unique period in prehistory.

Aptly, it mentions uranium-thorium method that I had not heard of before. Real science site.
The precise dating of ancient charcoal found near a skull is helping reveal a unique period in prehistory. The Manot Cave, a natural limestone formation, had been sealed for some 15,000 years. It was discovered by a bulldozer clearing the land for development, and the first to find the partial skull, which was sitting on a ledge, were spelunkers exploring the newly-opened cave. Five excavation seasons uncovered a rich deposit, with stone tools and stratified occupation levels covering a period of time from at least 55,000 to 27,000 years ago.

Other interesting articles discuss the use of DNA sequencing to trace back human evolution, e.g. Oldest hominin DNA sequenced: Mitochondrial genome of a 400,000-year-old hominin from Spain decoded.
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