To those that believe in evolution....How?

Question

do you determine the age of fossils found in rock? Then how do you determine the age of the rock?

Carbon dating does not work. How can you account for carbon dating bones and the skin attached to being a long way off in years.

Answer 1

Is this the one where the fossil dates the rock, and the rock dates the fossil? Circular reasoning anyone?

Good question by the way :)

Answer 2

I do not know if scientists know how to find the ages of rocks, but I do know how the ages of fossils works. All a scientist has to do is measure the fossil's concentration of carbon-14. Based on the amount remaining the approximate age can be determined. This works because the isotope's concentration is cut in half every 5700 years or so. Fossils that appear to have less than half of the original concentration are even older. Carbon dating does work and is probably more precise than some book that offers no proof of what it says.

This information is all basic stuff that a 9th or 10th grader should know.

Answer 3

I believe they use geology techniques, from what little I know Geologists have figured out that the various layers of rock in the ground must have appeared at different periods in the Earth's history, therefore if you know which layer of rock a fossil came from , you know very roughly when it ended up there. As far as I know there's no real way of determining the age of a piece of rock without using these techniques. Of course, so fossils aren't found in rock, but are found in things like Amber, in these cases more biological matter tends to have survived and the "fossils" (they aren't actually petrified, so I'm not sure if this is the right term) can be carbon dated, which is far more accurate.

Answer 4

I don't think they determine the age of rocks by carbon dating, because that's not accurate for periods very long times ago. I think they do it by checking things like the number of layers, assuming that each layer is like the rings of a tree and accounts for a year. I'm not sure though. Maybe it's carbon dating, but I'm not sure. Why don't you ask this in Geology? You will find people much more able to answer geology questions there.

And it's impossible to know with certainty exactly what happened in the past. It's an estimate based on the current ability to measure. Carbon dating is off by years because it's measuring centuries, it's like your ruler being off by mm because it only measures to cm.

Answer 5

carbon dating. The age of a fossil is determined by the age of the rock, it's not two separate things.

Answer 6

rfecent fossils are dated by carbon fourteen decay. Older fossils are dated useing different layers of rock which were formed in different climates of different times. Ice ages, oceanfloors, deserts and rainforests give very different inds of soils which can be recognised to see sorta how old the ground is. It is by no means a precise science though.
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I heard the argument talking about how someone rather dated a rock on a fossil and a fossil on the rock. That's just bullcr ap. It so obviously false and misquoted that I didn't even bother looking into it.
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EDIT -
Carbon dating DOES work, on a limited time scale. It is mainly used to study recent human ancestors, and it is very precise in this time scale. for dinosaur fossils etc, it does not work. Message me if you want more details on how and why it works, and what assumptions are made etc. or just look for it yourself in www.answers.com
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Also check out the potassium-Argon dating mechanism and the radio active Uranium, mentioned in some answers below mine. they are used for measuring rock age for older fossils. Though usually they only work for volcanic rock, you can indirectly measure other terrains, if you find two similar fossils in two different terrains, one being volcanic. So u base the age of the fossil on the volcanic rock which is measurable, and you base the sedimentary-layer's age, suppose, on the fossil which was dated through the volcanic rock. Got it?
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There are some somewhat valid arguments against evolution and fossil dating and so, but the GREAT MAJORITY of them are religious-fan-boys arguments and are just unresearched, biased and plain WRONG information. do a bit of research before forming your opinion, is my advice.
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Cheers,
Migrant

Answer 7

Short Answer: Radioactive dating.

Fossils: Archaeologists use a technique called Carbon-14 dating to find the age of fossils up to about 50 000 years ago.

Rock: Geologists use a technique called Uranium-238 dating to find the age of rocks that formed up to about 4.5 billion years ago.

Answer 8

They use carbon dating to figure out how old the fossils are and if the fossils are that old the rocks have to be close to the same age.

Answer 9

Radiocarbon dating. I guess you failed out of science class in middle school, huh?


Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring isotope carbon-14 to determine the age of carbonaceous materials up to ca 60,000 years. Within archaeology it is considered an absolute dating technique. The technique was discovered by Willard Frank Libby and his colleagues in 1949 during his tenure as a professor at the University of Chicago. Libby estimated that the steady state radioactivity concentration of exchangeable 14C would be about 14 disintegrations per minute (dpm) per gram carbon (ca. 230 mBq/g). In 1960, Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his method to use carbon-14 for age determination.

Answer 10

There are techniques like carbon-dating that can determine the age, based upon the breakdown of the chemicals/elements in the rock. Half-lifes and whatnot.

It's MUCH more scientific than just believing that "god" created everything, anyway.