Biblical Flood: Actual Event or Myth

No. Contaminated samples usually produce inconclusive results, not false positives. The shroud of Turin dating was some of the most scrutinized in history and all three samples agree on the age. Different cleaning procedures were employed by the three separate laboratories that dated the samples, and that even if some slight contamination remained, about two thirds of the sample would need to consist of modern material to swing the result away from a 1st Century date to a Medieval date.

You adding the shroud of Turin to your scientific disbelief?

Just curious, but are there any areas of science that interest you other than those that conflict with Hebrew mythology?

 

Which conclusion do you find to be absurd and why?

He can work anywhere he likes. If he still worked at Stanford or another university he would have the full credentials of his department and the university behind him and his research. When he works at a "non-profit think tank" with a socio-political agenda, he must carry its academic credentials or lack of them with him as well. He isn't the first professor to discover that he can make more money catering to wealthy donors in the private sector than competing openly for research grants. But better pay does not constitute institutional qualifications or academic prestige.

 

It should be understood that they are discussing fossilized dinosaur bones, which are now rocks. The amazing dinosaur known as Sue is a fossil as mentioned in the first paragraph of your link.

fos·sil noun

The remains or impression of a prehistoric organism preserved in petrified form or as a mold or cast in rock.​

The fossilization process works like this . . .

http://www.fossilmuseum.net/fossilrecord/fossilization/fossilization.htm

 

Institutional prestige is not the same as social standing. Yes the science is based on the evidence and the conclusions drawn from it, the lowliest lab assistant at a junior college can discover something astonishing. But it doesn't happen very often.

Not all universities and university professors are equal; they are not all peers. There is a top tier of research universities where the top dogs get paid well to deliver top research results. They have huge endowments, top facilities, and they pay research associates and graduate assistants well. Their top professors don't have to teach, can work on whatever they want, and get the biggest grants--Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Johns Hopkins, etc. They have an amazing record of distinguished research, nobel prizes, and important discoveries.

Then you drop down to the better private universities and state research universities. Then down to the ordinary state and private research universities, then down to small universities that mostly teach and only do research as a sideline.

Then there are the private research institutes which range from the best labs the world to totally fraudulent, garage-based on-line companies with very impressive sounding names and often with a social or political agenda rather than a scientific one. The nature of the institution, their record, and their reputation for good science is very important in gauging whose research has a proven track record rather than a long list of claims.

So institutional prestige and credentials carry a lot of academic weight because they do the best work and have done so for the longest time with a distinguished track record, and their researchers have the highest standards to achieve and to maintain. These guys talk the talk and walk the walk. Fast movers go up the pyramid by doing more and better research.

The deal with some private "think tanks" and such is that they often are funded by donors with a socio-political agenda and researchers are selected by some ideology rather than their scientific and academic achievements. Other are quite respectable, don't get me wrong. I'm explaining why the assessment of a researchers institution is important and is not "academic snobbery". Academic snobbery exist but it is something that is entirely different and is more of a social caste system unrelated to ones body of work but rather to his personal style, work ethic, perceptions of his esteem and worth, and of his rank and his parchment.

Probably not. He has found a way to make a good living selling his notions when they were not getting much traction from the mainstream scientific experts. But sometimes you sell your objectivity when you are working for donors with an clear and persistent agenda.

 

Can you not recognize sarcasm when you hear it? Both of these guys are kind of snarky and trying to get a reaction from the other for the camera.

I thought perhaps you thought one of his facts were wrong.