dear glenn:
I don't see how anyone could conclude that the fossil people that
you described could be thought of as anything other than just as
human as you and I.
I have questions about the dating processes. Based on my limited
knowledge of them I know there are two very critical pieces of
information that must be assumed (and here I assume you are
using radiometric dating). One is the amount of radioactive
tracer material that the item to be dated had in it at the time
it came into being. The other is that none of the tracer material
has been removed by groundwater leaching or any other known or as
yet unknown natural processes in the thousands or millions of
years between then and now. Just how credibly or accurately can
these assumptions be made? One other thing I know is that the
choice of tracer material makes a big difference. If you use
something with a relatively short half-life, the decay curve gets
flat pretty quickly and estimating where you are on it cannot be
done accurately. Perhaps you could give us all a little lecture
on this subject. Then we can judge what is true "science" which
we shouldn't have arguments over and what is assumption and
interpretation (where we'll have arguments aplenty).
thanks,
joe reimers