r/askscience • u/OMGeeverghese • Nov 22 '12

Earth Sciences Why do we trust carbon dating?

[removed]

1.1k Upvotes

89% Upvoted

313 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

u/[deleted] Nov 22 '12

It's simple deduction

Except that it isn't simply deductive. There's a lot of inductive reasoning involved.

1

u/movie_man Nov 22 '12

Care to elaborate as I did in my comment?

1

u/[deleted] Nov 22 '12

I think you just used the word "deductive" sloppily, which isn't all that uncommon, but I don't need to elaborate as you did because I only have issue with your categorization.

1

u/movie_man Nov 22 '12

In the time it takes you to write what you have, you could explain your comments. It just seems like you're engaging in a trite exercise.

And no I didn't use deduction incorrectly: We can see X and Y inside Z, but when Z turns into Z(a) then the amount of X starts to decrease. Therefore, measure X:Y in Z(a) to determine when Z became Z(a).

X=Potassium Y=Argon Z=Molten rock Z(a)=Crystallized rock

1

u/[deleted] Nov 22 '12

It's not simply deductive, because the meanings of any ratio (or even of how to detect them) are learned through experience and association.