Kevin Dorner

Bush hasn't said much since his election on this topic. Given that he's rather fundamentalist in other aspects, I would imagine many of the regulars in this forum were dreading his first statement on the subject, such as that he didn't "believe" in "evil-ution" or some other such drivel.

But Bush has come right out and disproven a long-standing young-earth creationist "nyah nyah": Sure, there might be fossils and things that appear to be over seven thousand years old, but where is a living thing that old? How come all the oldest living things (ie bristlecone pines) are younger than the supposed date of creation? Of course, this has nothing to do with the process of the diversification and development of life through descent with modification, but by severely limiting the earth's age, evolution cannot have produced the diversity that we now see.

Well, no longer, as <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/1551158p-1627551c.html" target="_blank">Bush has disproven this YEC assertion of the age of the Earth.</a> May the Invisible Pink Unicorn bless him.

bluefugue

[Ken Ham] Were you there when the bush was born? [/Ken Ham]

GunnerJ

So, um, are plants essentially immortal?

Someone7

Just for the record, George Bush is on record as saying both Creationism and evolution are valid (he's an equal timer).

Writer@Large

True, but if I had a penny for everytime Dubya said something that made him sound like an idiot, I'd be a wealthy man.

&lt;rimshot!&gt;

--W@L

Huginn

They should name it 'treebeard'.

Grumpy

Could our scientifical friends explain to me how you conduct radiocarbon tests on a living organism? (Granted, the article says the bush is "more dead than alive," but still...)

Kevin Dorner

I know for trees that only the outermost layers of the trunk and branches are alive; the core heartwood is dead. So a core sample could be taken with a special drill and the centre of the sample (the oldest part) radiocarbon dated.

Grumpy

Not knowing much about the technique, Kevin, I'd be concerned about contamination from the living tissue. However, I am aware that any such contamination would result in a younger age.

Basically, I'm trying to rule out whether the Sacramento Bee article improperly used the term "radiocarbon tests" if some other technique was in fact used.

[ February 02, 2002: Message edited by: Grumpy ]</p>

KeithHarwood

The radiocarbon dating people go to what looks to me extreme lengths to ensure that there is no contamination.

However, I have a vague suspicion that the trees were dated by dendrochronology, which is a far more accurate dating method (let's face it, it's just counting) and that the results were used to calibrate the radiocarbon dates.