Hey! There's Some Fuzzy Math Goin' On!

On the front page of the paper yesterday, there was a small article about a bridge that was to be built in a nearby town. Before the bridge was to be built, a dig was ordered. Ah, our tax dollars at work!

Anyway, they dug up several American Indian artifacts and had a showing of them this weekend. The article repeatedly stated that the artifacts are 13,500 years old. It also stated that Indians lived here about 700-1,500 years ago.

????

I'm confused.

Ok, first of all, how do they know the arrow heads in question are 13,500 years old? I'll refer to my high school biology teacher, Ms. Marsh on this one.

Ms. Marsh DID NOT believe in evolution. She believed that God created the earth and man and the stars. When we came to the section in our books about evolution, she stated firmly, that she did not believe, but that she had to teach it as part of the states curriculum or she might be fired from her job.

From this stemmed the all popular conversation of Carbon Dating. I'll tell it to you as she told my class.

A scientist pulls a dinosaur bone from the ground and dates it a being 13 trillion years old. How does he know it's that old? Because of the dirt he found it in. The dirt is also 13 trillion years old. How does he know how old the dirt is? Because of the bone that he found in it.

Brilliant! I love science!

So, if American Indians lived here 700-1,500 years ago, making arrow heads and clay pots...

How can the artifacts found be 13,500 years old?

Someone's going to get fired over this one.