The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution,
Chapter 3-6
First, we need to address the idea of tree rings and we can turn to a popular Christian apologetics website and a paper published there by John Woodrappe, M.A. Geology, B.A. Biology where he states that the science involved with ring width measurements currently show tree rings occur no more than once a year, and as a result, this is something that cannot be debated unless you look at the possibility of numerous disturbances occurring which could theoretically have changed the chronology. (Woodrappe 2)
Unfortunately, this is a hypothesis that others have disproved and that Dawkins himself finds interesting. Unfortunately, the science attempted by the apologetics site is such that it is not provable and is not currently peer-reviewed. Another interesting view of tree ring dating is taken by author Bryan Bannister in his paper published in American Antiquity where he states, “Once a date has been derived, however, its archeological significance may vary widely, since the date can only be applied with authority to the tree itself.” (Bannister 508) Dawkins goes to great lengths to explain that this dating approach is applicable but only when used with other approaches. He does, however; explain that by cross-referencing the rings themselves with other trees in the area you can in fact present a much clearer case for age as you will likely have overlaps in the rings creating a potentially unbreakable chain of evidence in dating for some things. (Dawkins, Ph.D. FRS, FRSL)
Further in the approaches sedimentary levels and dating using earth strata. It becomes apparent that the idea of using layers to “date” a fossil is important because even though geologists know what order the layers are presented in prior to the advent of radiological dating there was no reliable method of dating available. One approach used in dating is that of dating euhedral zircon crystals according to one peer-reviewed article in the publication titled Geology, this approach of dating microscopic pieces within sedimentary rocks allows more to be dated accurately, this approach however relies wholly on radiometric dating. (Rasmussen, Fletcher p 299-302) Radiometric dating is looked at by Dawkins as a positive approach however, is not an exact methodology in that it does not tell you the minutes or even months of what is being dated. It does however present a representation that allows for a much better picture of what the dates are with regards to fossils and the earth’s age.
As Dawkins says, when looking for dates in the billions and hundreds of millions of a year’s being off by a million years or so is not unscientific but instead are within normal ranges of error. In fact, the best example of this is the shroud of Turin test in which fragments of the Shroud were sent to independent leading laboratories in Oxford, Arizona, and Zurich. None of the laboratories knew what they were dating or why, however, the results showed that the testing was correct, with Oxford saying the date was AD 1200, Arizona AD 1304, and Zurich with 1274. These results were within the normal limits for scientific testing to be sufficiently correct. (Dawkins, Ph.D. FRS, FRSL) However, writers at the popular website Answersingenesis.org stated that the use of Carbon-14 dating is often misunderstood, and centered their argument against this dating being a factual way to approach understanding the age of the earth. They stated that this type of dating is not reliable for dating over a few thousand years. (Riddle 2) Unfortunately, this has been shown incorrectly as well. With the use of accelerator techniques they are able to date an extended period of time up through 100,000 years, however, they do clarify that this dating method is not exact though it does allow for an approximate age that is generally correct. (Georgia State University)
Throughout chapter six he explains the various genetic changes and approaches within evolution as a science. One of the more interesting approaches was his look at an experiment called the Lenski experiment in which the biologist Richard Lenski and his colleagues at the Michigan State University used E. coli bacterium and set up an experiment that went through over 30,000 individual life cycles to track changes. They introduced various stimuli and kept some without that stimulus the results were amazing and showed that over time there were definite evolutionary changes that could not be anything other than the natural selection at work.
