The Digg Crew wants to hear your thoughts!
Please take our short survey about Digg and potential feature ideas.
Scientists stumble upon footprint dating back 570 Mil years
telegraph.co.uk — Scientists believe they have found the oldest ever footprint - dating back 570 million years. The fossilised trails, thought to belong to a centipede or worm-type creature with legs, suggest animals walked at least 30 million years earlier than previously thought.
MrBabyMan- 162 diggs
- digg it
- IrishIWereDrunk, on 10/12/2008, -7/+1Dude, sweet.
- OfNumbers, on 10/12/2008, -3/+4http://digg.com/general_sciences/World_s_Oldest_Fo ...
- jcfisher3rd, on 10/12/2008, -6/+9God obviously put it there to test Sarah Palin's faith.
- mikbunn, on 10/13/2008, -0/+4It's 'gotcha' science.
I ain't no wurm-type creacher wit legs! I was made outta dirt like any other good God-fearin' Amurrican!
- mikbunn, on 10/13/2008, -0/+4It's 'gotcha' science.
- alaskanassassin, on 10/13/2008, -4/+1pics or it didn't happen.
- didgital, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1http://news.softpedia.com/newsImage/Oldest-Footpri ...
- dtmbcorp, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1That was me, I had to get a beer out of a volcano.
- gobbstopp, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1centipedes really freak me out. i think it's cause they have so many legs. squirmy legs.
- Iaianrocks, on 10/13/2008, -2/+1Damn who would have known scientists use stumble upon !! I wonder what other treasures are there to be found on stumble upon ....
- plaguepony, on 10/13/2008, -1/+2Damn it! After using stumble upon for months I have yet to discover anything excepts lolcats and flash games.
- kenrayd, on 10/13/2008, -14/+2This is another example of the swinging prehistoric dating standards farce, demonstrating again just how unreliable the modern dating techniques are, especially radiometric. The swinging never ends. It really takes the Bible to get reliable dates consistent with the geologic column.
- ApokalypseNow, on 10/13/2008, -1/+14Your inability to understand radiometric dating, and indeed, your willful ignorance of science in general, has no bearing on its veracity.
As usual, your mythological text has no bearing on reality - the geological column included.- kenrayd, on 10/15/2008, -4/+1I have a general idea of radiometrics, enough to know that it cannot estimate time more than a few thousand years (carbon-dating). One must assume a uniformity of all the influential factors acting on the key isotopes and those assumptions have a large degree of uncertainty.
What you don't understand or won't admit is that very often, measured rock samples with short age radiometric readings are thrown out because they do not meet the "long age" demands of evolutionists; that's why it's a farce.
With a science based bachelor degree, I know enough science to keep you pulling out your hair. - ApokalypseNow, on 10/15/2008, -0/+5"I have a general idea of radiometrics, enough to know that it cannot estimate time more than a few thousand years (carbon-dating)."
For carbon dating specifically, this is more or less correct - radiocarbon dating is accurate to about 60,000 years. However, there are many other radioisotopes that can be used for dating purposes, especially for dates that occur beyond the age range of carbon dating - we are not limited to Carbon-14 by any stretch. For example, uranium-lead dating has an age range of about 1 million years to over 4.5 billion years, and with routine precisions in the 0.1-1 percent range. Potassium-argon dating and rubidium-strontium dating are used to cross-check those dates, as each of the isotopes in those decay chains have similarly long half-lives (1.3 billion years and 50 billion years, respectively).
"One must assume a uniformity of all the influential factors acting on the key isotopes and those assumptions have a large degree of uncertainty."
I assume you're taking another talking point from AiG here? Perhaps their bits about the assumptions that happen in radiometric dating techniques? Lets start by addressing their bit about closed systems.
Absolutely closed systems do not exist even under ideal laboratory conditions. Nevertheless, many rocks approximate closed systems so closely that multiple radiometric dating methods produce consistent results, within 1 percent of each other. Some rocks may be open to outside contamination, but not all of them are. Most ages are determined from multiple mineral and rock samples, which give a consistent date within 1 and 3 percent. It is extremely unlikely that contamination would affect all samples by the same amount. Further, isochron methods can detect contamination and, to some extent, correct for it. Isochrons are determined from multiple samples, and contamination would have to affect all of the samples the same way in order to create an isochron that appeared okay but was wrong.
Now, their assertion that science assumes that decay rates are constant? Well that's bunk too. The constancy of radioactive decay is not an assumption, but is supported by evidence. The radioactive decay rates of nuclides used in radiometric dating have not been observed to vary since their rates were directly measurable, at least within limits of accuracy. This is despite experiments that attempt to change decay rates. Extreme pressure can cause electron-capture decay rates to increase slightly (less than 0.2 percent), but the change is small enough that it has no detectable effect on dates. Further, different radioisotopes decay in different ways. It is unlikely that a variable rate would affect all the different mechanisms in the same way and to the same extent. Yet different radiometric dating techniques give consistent dates. Furthermore, radiometric dating techniques are consistent with other dating techniques, such as dendrochronology, ice core dating, geological deposition rates, and historical records (where applicable).
Further still, radioactive decay at a rate fast enough to permit a young earth would have produced enough heat to melt the earth - I can back this up with the math if you like.
"...very often, measured rock samples with short age radiometric readings are thrown out because they do not meet the 'long age' demands of evolutionists"
If this was actually happening without good reason, then other scientists would have called them out on it. Can you give examples?
"With a science based bachelor degree..."
With as much actual knowledge that you demonstrate of science, I have to wonder if you didn't squeak by on group work. Your inability or unwillingness to actually perform research into your assertions is rather telling as well. Further, your complete disregard for even basic rigor shows that while you may have the sheepskin, you don't really understand anything behind it.
- kenrayd, on 10/15/2008, -4/+1I have a general idea of radiometrics, enough to know that it cannot estimate time more than a few thousand years (carbon-dating). One must assume a uniformity of all the influential factors acting on the key isotopes and those assumptions have a large degree of uncertainty.
- ApokalypseNow, on 10/13/2008, -1/+14Your inability to understand radiometric dating, and indeed, your willful ignorance of science in general, has no bearing on its veracity.
- alexkim804, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1i think it was this guy http://i38.tinypic.com/25aopzn.jpg
- Hetman, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1(obligatory anti-religions/anti McCain Palin remark.) I am the first one to believe religion is completely *****, however I would like to go to one science thread and not read one remark about religion or politics. Oh well this is the wrong site for that.
The Digg Toolbar for Firefox lets you Digg, submit content, and keep track of Digg even when you're not on the Digg site. Download the official 
© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is 
