Rocag said:
I think you're cherry picking quotes there in order to imply something that just isn't true.
For instance, let's look up your "prominent C14 scholar" Felix Hoflmayer. Here he is on Google Scholar. Isn't it interesting how much of his research depends on radiocarbon dating? If you browse through some of those articles you can see he clearly believes it is a valid measuring tool.
That article with Hoflmayer and Bietak doesn't agree with what you're saying either. Here's a quote regarding the accuracy of C14 they believe they can get with proper controls:
Quote:
The precision of the methods and reliability of results decreases from 1 to 4. We expect that these procedures will allow us to date a series of 14C samples to a precision of 15 years at the 68% confidence level after calibration.
The science itself is solid. The real issue is determining whether samples have been contaminated in some way which could throw off the measurement. Definitely an issue, but not one that invalidates C14 dating altogether.
I'm astounded that you claim I'm cherry-picking. You obviously didn't read carefully the articles I cited and are ignoring most of them. Every archaeologist who works on ancient Middle East stuff acknowledges the reality of the problem. It is common knowledge with dozens if not hundreds of scholarly articles having been written on the problem.
Further, I acknowledged in my post that Hoflmayer is a C14 scholar. I acknowledge that because he recognizes the discrepancy between the C14 dates and historical dates, and has even co-written articles with Bietak who does not accept C14 dates. The scholarly community is not nearly as hostile to each other as you are to folks who disagree with your materialistic, old age view of the universe and creation.
As I said, I can provide numerous additional references. For example, here's another quote from Hoflmayer:
"The radiocarbon evidence for Tell el-Dab'a is in gross conflict with the dates proposed by the "SCIEM school". On average, radiocarbon dates are about 120 years higher than the dates for the site's stratigraphy based on the assumed datum-lines with the Egyptian historical chronology." "Carbone-14 Compare: Middle Bronze Age I (IIA) Chronology, Tell El-Dab'a and Radiocarbon Data." In There and Back Again - the Crossroads II: Proceedings of an International Conference Held in Prague, September 15-18, 2014. Edited by Jana Mynov, Pavel Onderka and Peter Pavk. Vydn prvn, 26595. Prague: Charles University Faculty of Arts, 2015.
That's not cherry picking. That's the point of Hoflmayer's work - he's trying to reconcile the C14 and historical dates, but so far has not been able to do so.
Here's another quote from C14 scholars acknowledging the problems in C14 dating, but with regard to much more recent dates:
"Large deviations are not uncommon in radiometric measurements (SCOTT et al. 1998; SCOTT 2003). For example, the Radiocarbon Laboratory of the British Museum issued a detailed statement in 1990 that its radiocarbon dates measured in the period 19801984 were on average too young by 200300 years (BOW-MAN et al., 1990)."Bruins, Hendrik J., Amihai Mazar, and Johannes van der Plicht. "The End of the 2nd Millenium BCE and the Transition from Iron I to Iron IIA: Radiocarbon Dates of Tel Rehov, Israel." In The Synchronisation of Civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C. III: Proceedings of the SCIEM 2000 - 2nd EuroConference, Vienna 28th of May - 1st of June 2003. Edited by Manfred Bietak and Ernst Czerny, 79100. Denkschriften der Gesamtakademie / Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften 9. Wien: Verl. der Österr. Akad. der Wiss, 2007.
The issue is so bad that the dendrochronology folks, who prepare the data used to correct C14 dates, are undertaking a massive new dendrochronology database on the hopes that it can fix the problem.
Carbon dating, the archaeological workhorse, is getting a major reboot (nature.com) I trust that you will accept Nature as a credible source?
The issue is not contaminated samples - you're simply grasping at straws by claiming that, showing that you have little knowledge of the disciplines. It may be true in a few isolated instances, but few of the scholars in the community are claiming that's a significant reason.
International scholarly conferences have been held on this issue. Here's an entire book resulting from one such conference dedicated solely to the issue (note that the first editor, Sturt Manning, is perhaps the leading C14 scholar relating to archaeology and works at Cornell. He also recognizes the issue and has written multiple papers on it.):
TreeRings, Kings, and Old World Archaeology and Environment: Papers Presented in Honor of Peter Ian Kuniholm. Edited by Sturt W. Manning and Mary J. Bruce, 27792. Oakville: Oxbow Books, 2009.