C14 Dating

[semlogo]

Some who are following this thread might find this intresting...

http://www.specialty...t/carbon14.html

[110] CRSQ, 1972, 9:3, p. 157.

[120] CRSQ, 1969, p. 114.

[180] Ceram, 1971, p. 257-259.

Thats like our 2000 year old bone encased in clay thats 27000-47000 years old.

Preach it, brother! I'm sure that website is much more credible than those operated by scientists! I don't feel you can trust a website that doesn't have that "I made this in my basement" feel.

[Zakuska]

Preach it, brother! I'm sure that website is much more credible than those operated by scientists! I don't feel you can trust a website that doesn't have that "I made this in my basement" feel.

Silly semlogo... it was built in his garage while he was wearing his pajamahs.

Primary sources dude.

This from the Scientists themselves.

Velikovski on Radio Carbon Dating

"To check on the method before applying it on various historical and paleontological material, Libby chose material of Egyptian archaeology, under the assumption that no other historical material from over 2,000 years ago is so secure as to its absolute dating. When objects of the Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom of Egypt yielded carbon dates that appeared roughly comparable with the historical dates, Libby made his method known.

From some correspondence that originated at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I have concluded that when Libby first asked for specimens, he received not only those dating from the Old and Middle Kingdoms, but also from the New Kingdom-but nothing ever was published of those early tries on New Kingdom specimens. A similar situation concerns more recently tested short-living organic material from the tomb of Tutankhamen.

After many efforts (from 1952 to 1963) to have the New Kingdom of Egypt tested in a systematic way I succeeded in having three little pieces of wood from the tomb of Tutankhamen handed over by the Laboratory Director of the Cairo Museum to Mrs. Ilse Fuhr of Munich, who was directed by me to send them to Dr. Elizabeth Ralph of the University of Pennsylvania Laboratory. Two of the pieces were from the comparatively short-lived thorn plant, Spina Christi, and one from the long-living Cedar of Lebanon. The three small pieces were processed together, since a test requires ca. 30 grams (1 ounce) of material. The result was -1120

[semlogo]

Silly semlogo... it was built in his garage while he was wearing his pajamahs.

Primary sources dude.

A picture of the website author in his fight against godless science!

[cinepro]

If people really knew how much guessing, conjecture, out right fabrication occurred in "scientific" stuff they would be a lot more skeptical.

Sounds like science could use a good Correlation Committee.

[Zakuska]

Sounds like science could use a good Correlation Committee.

I think the scientific community would agree...

Now we see that not only were the warning signals that Libby offered with his method disregarded, but also an unearned reliance on the accepted version of ancient history has caused much stumbling in the dark, more and more tests of diminished value, and a maze of findings, with many undisclosed results of tests, wrong deductions and much exasperation that mark the first 20 years of application of Libby's most imaginative method."

-Velikovski

[ERayR]

I would not only deny it, I do deny it (We are not apes)

Just as apes are apes, dogs are dogs, and Ceeboo's are Ceeboo's (How is that for my belief/opinion being typed as fact)

Peace,

Ceeboo

Friend Ceeboo I am in agreement with what you post. It seems that Semlogo can't answer your questions so he resorts to ridicule and Tarski resorts to the authorities that are being questioned.

[ERayR]

You're SOOOOO right! It's no accident that science and Satan start with the same letter!

So does Semlogo.

[Zakuska]

So lets see what these Devil worshippers have to say:

name T K

status student

age 30s

Question - I've read that scientist's can tell how old the Earth or

fossil's are by

by carbon-dating or rate of radioactive decay. My question: is the rate of

decay a constant no matter what the current atmospheric conditions are,

in other words would the rate of decay be different on a different planet

due to differences in gravity, atmosphere,temperature or whatever differences

there are. Does the decay stop or slow down in the vacuum of space?

------------------------------------------------

Let me begin by clarifying one point. The rate of decay of a radioactive

element is not a constant.

(Hey: Isn't that exactly what I have been saying since the beginning of this thread? )

Instead, the decay process can be described by a first

order

(exponential) rate constant. This means that the rate of decay is

proportional to

the amount of material present.

rate = - k * [X]

where k is the rate constant and [X] is the concentration of the

material, X.

The negative sign indicates that the amount of material is decreasing with

time.

As a result, if we know the amount at any time and the rate constant we can

predict how much was present at any time in the past and how much will be

present

at any time in the future.

[X]' = [X] exp (- k * t)

where [X] is the initial amount present, [X]' is the amount that will

be left

after time, t.

Radiocarbon dating depends on the assumption that the relative abundance of the

radioactive carbon isotope in the atmosphere has been constant throughout

earth's

history. This concentration is used to estimate the initial concentration in

living material. Once something dies it no longer gets fresh radioactive

carbon

from its environment and the radioactive carbon it has continues to decay. We

measure the amount of radioactive carbon, [X]', and then can use the equation

above to calculate time, t, since the decay rate constant, k, is known.

Since radioactive carbon is constantly being produced in the upper

atmosphere by

interaction of non-radioactive gases with sunlight, and we have no reason to

believe that the rate of production has changed over earth's history, the

assumption that the relative abundance in the atmosphere has not changed is is

probably good. Radioactive carbon dating has been checked against other

methods,

such as comparing the spacings in the growth rings of trees, where

possible, and

found to be correct.

Greg Bradburn

==========================================================

There are many methods of radioactive dating, of which carbon dating is

only one. It turns out that carbon dating doesn't work very well on old

things, because carbon-14's half life is too short. It can be used

reliably only for artifacts younger than about 40,000 years.

There are several mechanisms of radioactive decay. The most common ones

are alpha and beta decay, in which a nucleus gives off a helium nucleus and

an electron, respectively. These mechanisms are completely insensitive to

the environment: the rate of decay is constant and invariant.

There is one type of radioactive decay that is a little bit sensitive to

the environment. This is electron capture, in which a nucleus absorbs an

electron. This is the reverse of beta decay. The process will go a bit

faster if the probability of the nucleus encountering an electron is

higher, as can happen if the chemical environment changes or the pressure

increases. The change in rate is small, however, and tremendous pressure

changes are required to alter the rate measureably. Anyhow, I don't think

that any nuclei used for radioactive dating decay by the electron capture

process (I could be wrong - I'm not a geologist). At any rate, the most

important and widely-used radioactive dating methods use nuclei that decay

by the alpha or beta process.

Richard Barrans Jr., Ph.D.

================================================================

Hello,

The rate of decay (i.e., half-life) is characteristic of a radioactive

element and "for all practical purposes" it is unaffected by temperature,

pressure, atmospheric conditions, vacuum, space, etc. I hope that someone

else would comment on this question for "non practical purposes", i.e.,

small influences that other forces in nature may have on radioactive decay.

In radioactive dating, one compares the ratio of carbon 14 to carbon

12. This ratio in the earth's atmosphere is known. When a living being

dies and ceases to take in air, the ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12 in its

body begins to fall because of carbon 14 decay.

While carbon 14 decay is independent of the environment it is in, if we are

going to use it for dating, we need to have a reference. On the Earth,

atmosphere is the reference because its ratio of C14/C12 is almost constant

over the time scales for which carbon dating is appropriate. Since C14's

half life is over 5000 years, we can probably estimate age in samples in

the 1000-100,000 year-old range using this technique. Older specimen would

probably have too few C14 left in them to give us accurate estimates. We

could then use other elements or techniques.

Hope this helps you.

AK

Dr. Ali Khounsary

Advanced Photon Source

Argonne National Laboratory

http://www.newton.de...99/phy99x43.htm

[Tarski]

This from the Scientists themselves.

Velikovsky on radiocarbon dating.

...

Immanuel Velikovsky?

Zak Zak Zak.

[Vance]

Radiocarbon dating depends on the assumption that the relative abundance of the radioactive carbon isotope in the atmosphere has been constant throughout

earth's history.

There is that "assume" thing again. I thought "science" was base on "facts" not "assumptions".

I guess to C14 worshipers "assumptions" are "facts".

[cinepro]

I think the scientific community would agree...

Immanuel Velikovsky (???????? ???????????) (Vitebsk, 10 June 1895 (NS)

[krose]

I would not only deny it, I do deny it (We are not apes)

Just as apes are apes, dogs are dogs, and Ceeboo's are Ceeboo's (How is that for my belief/opinion being typed as fact)

In the flurry of recent posts, perhaps you missed my response to your earlier "dogs are dogs" statement.

But regarding us primates, are you familiar with the discoveries regarding chromosome 2 in humans, and how it relates to the corresponding genetic material in chimpanzees?

[Zakuska]

Immanuel Velikovsky?

Zak Zak Zak.

Whats wrong with Immanuel? You don't like him to rock the boat huh?

"The Velikovsky Affair"

Such was the hostility directed against Velikovsky from some quarters (particularly the original campaign led by Harlow Shapley), that some commentators have made an analysis of the conflict itself. The most prominent of these was a study by American Behavioral Scientist magazine, eventually published in book form as The Velikovsky Affair.^[40] This framed the discussion in terms of how academic disciplines reacted to ideas from workers from outside their field, claiming that there was an academic aversion to permitting people to cross inter-disciplinary boundaries. More recently, James Gilbert, professor of history at University of Maryland, challenged this traditional version with a more nuanced account which focused on the intellectual rivalry between Velikovsky's ally Horace Kallen and Harlow Shapley.^[41] Earlier, Henry Bauer challenged the traditional view that the Velikovsky Affair illustrated the resistance of scientists to new ideas by pointing out "the nature and validity of Velikovsky's claims must be considered before one decides that the Affair can illuminate the reception of new ideas in science ..."^[42]

The scientific press generally denied Velikovsky a forum to rebut his critics. Velikovsky claimed that this made him a "suppressed genius", and he likened himself to Giordano Bruno, who was burnt at the stake.^[43][44][45]

The storm of controversy created by Velikovsky's publications may have helped revive the catastrophist movement in the second half of the 20th century; however it is also held by some working in the field that progress has actually been retarded by the negative aspects of the so-called Velikovsky Affair.^[46][47]

http://en.wikipedia....nuel_Velikovsky

[Zakuska]

Lets repost this snippet...

Let me begin by clarifying one point. The rate of decay of a radioactive

element is not a constant.

Instead, the decay process can be described by a first

order (exponential) rate constant. This means that the rate of decay is

proportional to the amount of material present.

So in other words... as less and less c14 is present in the sample the rate of decay "speeds up".

Think of a pond drying up, the speed at which it dries accelerates as less surface area of water is expossed to air for it to evaporate.

[Anijen]

Zakuska,

May I suggest when you go mining for scientist quotes, those that fit your belief system, try to find the ones that subscribe to your point of view and are not, well, a nut job. You are not scoring points for amateur apologetics and in fact to some extent weaken any reputation of legitimate scientist who are faithful Christians. Please use respected well credited scholars. I mean seriously (Velikovski ) I want to take your side but you are making it so easy for Tarski and others to really, well ahem make you look a little bit foolish. The science of carbon dating is pretty legit and many top notch LDS scientist agree. Dont worry bro our faith is strong and an old world or even some aspects of our faith do not contradict science.

Anijen, who hopes he didn't seem too blunt...

[semlogo]

So does Semlogo.

[Zakuska]

Zakuska,

May I suggest when you go mining for scientist quotes, those that fit your belief system, try to find the ones that subscribe to your point of view and are not, well, a nut job. You are not scoring points for amateur apologetics and in fact to some extent weaken any reputation of legitimate scientist who are faithful Christians. Please use respected well credited scholars. I mean seriously (Velikovski ) I want to take your side but you are making it so easy for Tarski and others to really, well ahem make you look a little bit foolish. The science of carbon dating is pretty legit and many top notch LDS scientist agree. Dont worry bro our faith is strong and an old world or even some aspects of our faith do not contradict science.

Anijen, who hopes he didn't seem too blunt...

Not in the least... but lets not let Velikoski's ecentricities taint our opinion of his Ideas as total quakery either. Especially when other experts admit that the over all gist of his thesis was infact correct and backed up by science. (Please pay careful attention to the final paragraph here from the wiki article)

Criticism

Velikovsky's ideas have been almost entirely rejected by mainstream academia (often vociferously so) and his work is generally regarded as erroneous in all its detailed conclusions. Moreover, scholars view his unorthodox methodology (for example, using comparative mythology to derive scenarios in celestial mechanics) as an unacceptable way to arrive at conclusions. Stephen Jay Gould^[34] offers a synopsis of the mainstream response to Velikovsky, writing, "Velikovsky is neither crank nor charlatan

[shalamabobbi]

What's that saying? "Close only counts in horse shoes and hand gernades."

The point is whether allowing you the full berth of errors that you are complaining about makes C14 acceptable to you. If you could skew the results across the board or as you see fit by 2370 yrs to the younger does that make the issues you have with C14 vanish? Do the resulting data suddenly work for you?

Theres an aweful lot of "assuming" going on in the process described in that link.

It also does not take into account that... say for example seals being migratory and thus eating mollusks from northern and southern hemispheres at different times of the year and thus would be effected differently by different co2 upwellings at different places and times.

The only thing that has been proven with an certianty is that there is a High percentage of uncertianty.

Understanding the problems due to the reservoir effect are not reserved for YECs and Kent Hovind. Although they like to mention the issue as though it had been overlooked by the scientific community.

[Zakuska]

The point is whether allowing you the full berth of errors that you are complaining about makes C14 acceptable to you. If you could skew the results across the board or as you see fit by 2370 yrs to the younger does that make the issues you have with C14 vanish? Do the resulting data suddenly work for you?

Understanding the problems due to the reservoir effect are not reserved for YECs and Kent Hovind. Although they like to mention the issue as though it had been overlooked by the scientific community.

I contented that the "problems due to the reservoir effect" are much more complex than the Scientific community is letting on.

(Please note the red parts)

Carbon exchange reservoir

Libby's original exchange reservoir hypothesis assumes that the exchange reservoir is constant all over the world. The calibration method also assumes that the temporal variation in ¹⁴C level is global, such that a small number of samples from a specific year are sufficient for calibration.^[19] However, since Libby's early work was published (1950 to 1958), latitudinal and continental variations in the carbon exchange reservoir have been observed by Hessel de Vries (1958;^[7] as reviewed by Lerman et al.^[20]). Subsequently, methods have been developed that allow the correction of these so-called reservoir effects, including:

• When CO₂ is transferred from the atmosphere to the oceans, it initially shares the ¹⁴C concentration of the atmosphere. However, turnaround times of CO₂ in the ocean are similar to the half-life of ¹⁴C (making ¹⁴C also a dating tool for ocean water).^[21] Marine organisms feed on this "old" carbon, and thus their radiocarbon age reflects the time of CO₂ uptake by the ocean rather than the time of death of the organism. This marine reservoir effect is partly handled by a special marine calibration curve,^[22] but local deviations of several hundred years exist.

• Erosion and immersion of carbonate rocks (which are generally older than 80,000 years and so shouldn't contain measurable ¹⁴C) causes an increase in ¹²C and ¹³C in the exchange reservoir, which depends on local weather conditions and can vary the ratio of carbon that living organisms incorporate. This is believed negligible for the atmosphere and atmosphere-derived carbon since most erosion will flow into the sea.^[23] The atmospheric ¹⁴C concentration may differ substantially from the concentration in local water reservoirs. Eroded from CaCO₃ or organic deposits, old carbon may be assimilated easily and provide diluted ¹⁴C carbon into trophic chains. So the method is less reliable for such materials as well as for samples derived from animals with such plants in their food chain.

• Volcanic eruptions eject large amount of carbon into the air, causing an increase in ¹²C and ¹³C in the exchange reservoir and can vary the exchange ratio locally. This explains the often irregular dating achieved in volcanic areas.^[23]

• [*]The earth is not affected evenly by cosmic radiation, the magnitude of the radiation depends on land altitude and earth's magnetic field strength at any given location, causing minor variation in the local ¹⁴C production. This is accounted for by having calibration curves for different locations of the globe. However this could not always be performed, as tree rings for calibration were only recoverable from certain locations in 1958.^[24] The rebuttals by M

[shalamabobbi]

I have to break this up into separate posts as I am getting an error about too many quotes within a single post..

I contended that the "problems due to the reservoir effect" are much more complex than the Scientific community is letting on.

I don't think that the issue has been hid from anybody willing to do the research. It may not be mentioned in an introduction to the method in school but certainly would be covered in higher level course work if it is pertinent to someone's degree.

Complexity does not equate with a greater degree of error, only in understanding whether the error should apply.

Response to the red highlighted material:

First highlight -

Libby's original exchange reservoir hypothesis assumes that the exchange reservoir is constant all over the world. The calibration method also assumes that the temporal variation in 14C level is global

Libby made simplifying assumptions as usually occurs in areas of applied science. Turns out they weren't all that bad considering that the sun spot cycle wasn't known at the time.

2nd highlight -

latitudinal and continental variations in the carbon exchange reservoir have been observed by Hessel de Vries (1958;[7] as reviewed by Lerman et al.[20]

these references cost money to view but note that the viewable abstract reads,

Comparable measurements indicate that the activity in Patagonian trees is about five per mil lower than in European trees.

googling de Vries with C14 brought up the following source - http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Radioc.htm from which

Making the job harder still, baffling anomalies turned up. The carbon-14 dates published by different researchers could not be reconciled, leading to confusion and prolonged controversy. It was an anxious time for scientists whose reputation for accurate work was on the line. But what looks like unwelcome noise to one specialist may contain information for another. In 1958, Hessel de Vries in the Netherlands showed there were systematic anomalies in the carbon-14 dates of tree rings. His explanation was that the concentration of carbon-14 in the atmosphere had varied over time (by up to one percent).

So you see we are discussing a small variation - 1% ..

A few paragraphs later we read

Suess and Stuiver finally pinned down the answer in 1965 by analyzing hundreds of wood samples dated from tree rings. The curve of carbon-14 production showed undeniable variations, "wiggles" of a few percent on a timescale of a century or so.(10) With this re-calibration in hand, boosted by steady improvements in instruments and techniques, carbon-14 became a precise tool for dating ancient organic materials.

3rd highlight -

Marine organisms feed on this "old" carbon, and thus their radiocarbon age reflects the time of CO2 uptake by the ocean rather than the time of death of the organism. This marine reservoir effect is partly handled by a special marine calibration curve,[22] but local deviations of several hundred years exist.

Note that since this statement is being made, it is understood and hence corrections can be made to account for it.

for a current treatment of the reservoir effect see http://www.radiocarbon.ldeo.columbia.edu/research/resage.htm

for regionally specific deviations and how they are treated and the magnitudes of uncertainty see http://pages.uoregon.edu/dkennett/pdf/Kennettetal2002_radiocarbon_differences.pdf

Regional differences in marine reservoir effect are generally determined through one or a combination of three methods:

1 direct radiocarbon dating pre - AD 1950 live collected marine specimens of known historical age (shell, coral, otoliths)

2 radiocarbon dating shell/charcoal paired samples from high integrity archaeological contexts that are assumed to be contemporaneous and

3 radiocarbon dating and/or paired radiocarbon and uranium-thorium dating of live corals or long-lived live shells with clear annual growth bands.

4rth highlight -

which depends on local weather conditions and can vary the ratio of carbon that living organisms incorporate.

continue reading..

This is believed negligible for the atmosphere and atmosphere-derived carbon since most erosion will flow into the sea.

So if this type of contamination is suspected and it shows up by comparison with dates derived from objects not susceptible to the same problem then that would explain the anomolous date. I don't see the problem unless you consider the mere existence of the variation a problem..

5th highlight -

Eroded from CaCO3 or organic deposits, old carbon may be assimilated easily and provide diluted 14C carbon into trophic chains. So the method is less reliable for such materials as well as for samples derived from animals with such plants in their food chain.

note from the previous sentence,

The atmospheric 14C concentration may differ substantially from the concentration in local water reservoirs.

that this problem does not exist in the atmospheric C14 reservoir. Many objects at sites/digs can be used to date the site that are not subject to this problem. This brings us full circle to your original objection about the unordered dates. Again where the dates are questionable they are generally reported as questionable, so what.

[shalamabobbi]

So we see that many of Libby's c14 "assumptions" were catagorically flawed.

So what. The current methodology doesn't follow Libby's original assumptions. And we are talking refinements here, not that the concept is incorrect and unusable.

If we measure the height of a child with a tape measure we may find that it is accurate to within a quarter of an inch from day to day. We discover that the fluctuations are due to the wearing of different shoes with varying thicknesses of souls. Our original simplifying assumptions that ignored such variations was flawed but not fundamentally so.

I also see many problems in the various calibration methods.

You will note that the tree ring calibration method originally had an error of margin of about 700yrs. Now it is more like 50yrs. They used hundreds of trees not just a few samples. these trees are from various locations around the globe.

The calibrations agree with lake varve deposits as well. They agree with ice core samples also. They agree with coral samples. They agree with stalagmite samples. How many independent confirmations do we require?

The reason? They don't and essencially cannot take many of the unkowns into consideration.

Some examples...

Here you conflate calibration methods with migratory animals. The animals are not used for calibration. They are dated after the fact of calibration and considerations of error due to the reasons you mention are taken into account.

This explains why one animal can be carbon dated 3 times and get a different reading by hundreds to thousands of years every single time.

Please provide a reference for this.

But see all the theories were flawed. They make too many "assumptions" that have been proven wrong. Nothing is a constant, except change. And since we have no idea what the carbon14 content of an ancient sample was prior to doing the experiment, there is absolutely no way to know if our calculations are correct. That's like trying to solve an equation with two unknowns.

But we do know because of the calibration used against samples of known age. We know because differing sample bases are used that would not agree with one another if the problem were as bad as you'd like to believe.

The only issue you have brought up is the reservoir effect which increase the uncertainty of error in certain cases to about 200yrs at most. But that does not mean that all the information should be tossed out.

I used GPS years back to locate my position in the wilderness. It wasn't as accurate as it is now, but I wouldn't imagine that it was off by hundreds of miles either simply because there were error margins associated with the readout..

[Doctrine 612]

Lets think on this one a little while

[FutureTwitBlog]

I'm going to ask Zakuska the same questions that I asked on a previous thread and don't recall him (or her) answering: where are you going with all of this? I mean, if your wildest dreams came true and C14 dating was found to be not as error free as previously though, what would you like to conclude as a result? Are you trying to prove that the earth is actually 6000 years (or 6 days or whatever) old, that "Noah's ark" really did have dinosaurs on it (or trilobites for that matter), that Pangaea actually split apart in something like 50 years instead of 50 million, that the Big Bang is a hoax?

Where is this discussion headed?

[WalkerW]

I'm going to ask Zakuska the same questions that I asked on a previous thread and don't recall him (or her) answering: where are you going with all of this? I mean, if your wildest dreams came true and C14 dating was found to be not as error free as previously though, what would you like to conclude as a result? Are you trying to prove that the earth is actually 6000 years (or 6 days or whatever) old, that "Noah's ark" really did have dinosaurs on it (or trilobites for that matter), that Pangaea actually split apart in something like 50 years instead of 50 million, that the Big Bang is a hoax?

Where is this discussion headed?

What are you trying to say? Noah's ark had dinosaur eggs! Kent Hovind said so!

[Stargazer]

Not in the least... but lets not let Velikoski's ecentricities taint our opinion of his Ideas as total quakery either. Especially when other experts admit that the over all gist of his thesis was infact correct and backed up by science. (Please pay careful attention to the final paragraph here from the wiki article)

My earlier post documents some carbon 14 tests that Velikosky was finally able to talk the British Museum of Natural history and the Museum in Cairo to perform on atrifacts found in King tuts tomb. Since these dates didn't fit the conventional established time line of Egypt of the 1960s 1970s the study was buried and never saw the light of day.

These things are verifiable.

I was rather intrigued by Velikovsky many many years ago, but have more-or-less given up on him. The idea that ancient literature would contain references to what was going on around them at the time, in nature and otherwise, however, is of course perfectly sound. Velikovsky's interpretations perhaps much less so.

One of the things that Velikovsky seems to have done was to go back in hindsight and "fix" his predictions to accord with the results of later scientific discovery, evidently to make sure he was seen as prescient.

That being said, I always found the notion of Venus having been ejected from Jupiter to be quite charming. This correlates with the mythical birth of Venus, which involved springing from the head of Jupiter fully formed. And further along, Venus whanging out into the solar system and displacing Mars, which was caromed into its present postion as Sol IV. This in fact is more accommodating to Bode's law, since the progression in plaentary size from Mercury to Jupiter more fully obeys it if Mars was originally Sol II, not IV.

One of Velikovsky's sins, as it were, was to make a total hash of Victorian Uniformitarianism. If Velikovsky had any validity at all, then the Heavens were not at all static and constant, but were in a state of flux. It turns out that uniformitarianism is true in the near term, at least grossly, but not the long term. But what is the "long term" anyway? A quick survey of the Solar System yields some rather surprising results. One major item is why Uranus's rotational axis is tilted to nearly 90 degrees with respect to the to the ecliptic?! This isn't just a minor curiosity. Anyone have any idea how such a thing could happen, and how much energy might be required to effect it? It is quite literally unimaginable. And why is Earth's rotational axis titled so far, as well? And check out Venus, people! It is worse than Uranus -- it is rotating nearly topsy-turvy, completely the other way round, 177 degrees to the ecliptic. In fact, check the whole list of axial tilts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_tilt

Mars is nearly as bad as Earth, and if Velikovsky's theory about the origin of Venus held any water at all, then we would probably regard the axial tilts of all three planets to be an expected result.

But it doesn't matter, really.