How Can We Gain Knowledge About the Past?

I think that underlying much of the disagreement in various threads are a few simmering fundamental questions. "How can we gain knowledge about the past" seems to be one of them. 

Obviously, we can't see into the past--we can't just look and see what's true about the past. For recorded human history, we can at least look at documents written by human beings--at least, the documents we've found. But once we get past recorded human history, how do we gain knowledge about the past?

I will point out that although carbon dating really doesn't work beyond a certain distance into the past--50,000-60,000 years old seems to be the limit--we can nevertheless confirm that carbon dating does work for the few thousand years of recorded human history--does carbon dating give an age of 1500 years for a document we know was written in 500 C.E. ("500 C.E." = "500 common era" = "A.D. 500" = "anno domini 500")? If we know a monument was built in 2000 B.C.,E., does carbon dating give an age of about 4020 years? We can test it against things whose ages we already know. Turns out, it works well within its range of applicability, which increases our confidence in radiometric dating generally. 

I will also note that that's a special case of dating objects in more than one way--ways neither of which depends on the other--and, when the two methods give comparable ages, it increases our confidence in each of them, because it can't be said that a flaw with one method is affecting the other (as they're independent). That's why I sometimes bring up the case of ancient coral. Trees grow rings, one ring for each year, so you can tell how old the tree is by counting the rings (and can also test carbon-dating against the tree-ring count, which works nicely). Coral grows bands (but daily), and in such a way that it's possible to tell how many days there were in a year when the coral grew. Now, the number of days in a year is not constant. Physicists know that the Earth's rotation is slowing due to tidal forces with the Moon; the Moon is growing more distant from the Earth, and the Earth's rotation is slowing (these conserves angular momentum). Coral having 420 bands grew, if physicists are doing their calculations correctly, in the range of 430 million years ago, because that's when the Earth's rotation was sufficiently much faster for there to have been 420 days in a year. And radiometric dating gives a comparable age. This reinforces our confidence in both methods of dating--and helps us learn about the past. (You can read about this here: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/02/fossilized-coral-calendar-changes-leap-day/471180/ )

It's not as simple as I'm making it sound--scientists are aware of various complications in radiometric dating that have to be taken into account if you're not to get wildly wrong answers--but that's the point: scientists are aware of them. Might there be other complications yet to be discovered? Sure. But that's why you try to use more than one method of dating wherever you can. (I seem to remember there being a third, having to do with mineral sedimentation, in the case of the coral). That way, you gain confidence in each of them.

Truthful knowledge about the past should be the goal. We can buy into something untrue and call it knowledge if we are not careful.

Apologies upfront for bringing politics here, but to give an example. The truth about the past is what matters, not always what we think it is; we can be wrong. If honest enough, we will change our minds when confronted with new information that forces us to. In the last American election, there is some dispute on votes if some were legally cast or not. If the votes stand as is, it will not matter if they were illegally cast or not; they will all be counted as legal, and the totals will give a result on who won, no matter the true legality of how they were cast.

Accepting what is true about the past is difficult, but our best way to see the past is to compare what is known true in the present. If something cannot occur in the here and now, why would we accept something beyond our reach in the past it would be true back then? For me, what our worldviews accept can alter how we look at things, what explanation fits the questions, what explanation have a hard stop because they cannot account for what we see today.

In post 4, Kjvav asked: How fast are we losing the moon, and how close must it have been 100,000 years ago? Does science have a theory on this?

If you want to see how complicated it gets, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_acceleration If, on the other hand, you just want the short answer, the current rate is about 3.8 cm per year (almost exactly one and a half inches per year). However, this is thought to be abnormally large, for reasons having to do with the shape of the North Atlantic Ocean and its effect on tides. The rate has varied over time, but we do not know the precise details. We simply know that the Moon has been getting farther away. NASA gives "about an inch" per year. See, for instance, here: https://theconversation.com/how-did-the-moon-end-up-where-it-is-114930 

Taking the correct value for the average rate to be somewhere in the 1.0-1.5 inch per year range, the Moon would have been 100,000-150,000 inches, or about 1.58-2.37 miles closer 100,000 years ago. Not much, considering that it is now about 238,900 miles away from the Earth, on average--a tiny fraction of one percent closer. Half a billion years ago, though, it would have been 7900-11,850 miles closer, or roughly 3.3-5.0 percent closer.

As for losing the Moon--there are different possibilities, but what it seems won't happen is that the Moon will just get farther and farther away forever. For a nice--and very readable--article on this, see here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2018/06/13/will-the-moon-ever-stop-drifting-away-from-earth/?sh=2d36052b38d5

To put it briefly, the Sun, when it becomes a red giant, might incinerate both Earth and Moon. Or, if they survive long enough, the transfer of angular momentum from Earth to Moon will end when their rotational periods match. 

Makes you wonder what tides would have been like half a billion years ago.

I don't know. But I do know, from what little I've read about it, that how high the tides are depends not only on how near the Moon is but also on other factors, including the tectonic plate distribution and the resulting shapes of the oceans. Oddly, that matters. 

I brought up the votes to suggest this if the votes are bogus and they are accepted the election is based on fraud and so integrity of the election is vital. It is no different with what we claim on true facts, they are not going to swing an election, but they will swing the consensus of those that follow the accepted views of truth no matter how they come to their conclusions.

That's true. And that's why it's important that those who hold the reins of power in any field of study not discourage people from doing research that might show accepted truths not to actually be true. Which, sadly, does sometimes happen, slowing down scientific progress.

Really looking forward to your review of the James Tour talk.

@MindWalk Thank you for starting this thread.  Yes, it's a very important question that needs to be addressed head on.  People frequently exhibit inconsistency in their epistemic requirements/standards (I think you know what I mean; you have stated this much more eloquently to people on multiple occasions).  It comes down to "sufficient reason," to believe or hold proposition X (as I recall you've stated it).  

By contrast, any time someone is faced with something they personally don't like I notice they tend to change from the sufficient reason principle (SRP?) to demanding absolute "proof" followed with the "How do you know?  You weren't there?" line.  When faced with something they don't like people suddenly become epistemological agnostics who claim we simply don't know and can't know, instead of dealing with the sufficient reasons we have for holding a particular view.  I see this with those who want to deny the old age of the earth and universe to those who deny that Jesus ever existed as a real person of history.  The standards of "proof" (a misnomer to begin with imho) suddenly become so high and unttainable.  Yet these same people do not consistently apply said unattainable standards, but only do so selectively.

The high and unattainable would be like what suggesting something that cannot be seen only accepted as the truth without being able to validate it by falsification? When I speak about seeing changes I code it could be either human or biological they have rules in place, information drives the systems, stop-starts, replication, error checking these types of things are NOT products of natural causes through chance they are well-thought-out. How we know anything about the past is to look at the present and see what is it we can find here that best explains the events in question, and a well-thought-out code requires an intelligence we know this from our current standing in the present. We don't have to formulate a guess on what might have happened millions or billions of years ago in the distant past that we cannot see occurring now to the degree that is floated about.

Your response doesn't actually address my points

Maybe not, but they addressed mine.

Why did you quote my post then if you weren't going to respond to it?

tbwp, you often use the words ' poetic' and 'poetical' in describing how some of the OT books are written.

For the less knowing here - namely myself - what exactly do you mean when using these words? I looked the word up recently and the only definition i found that could even remotely be considered was 'literature in verse form.' And how exactly is 'poetic prose ' to be interpreted and influence our understanding of what is being written?

Hebrew poetry is most objectively defined by parallelismus membrorum (i.e., parallel lines).  When lines exist in parallel form (of which there are numerous varieties) that is defining characteristic of Hebrew poetry.  If you compare one of the Psalms with Genesis 12 there is a clear difference with the former being Hebrew poetry and the latter being narrative prose.  Next, if you compare Genesis 12 with Genesis 1, you'll notice that Genesis 1 is distinctly different.  Genesis 1 isn't pure narrative prose like Genesis 12, nor is it pure poetry like the Psalms.  It's sort of in-between. It's 'poetic prose' or 'elevated narrative'. 

Repetition is a dead give away that you're dealing with parallelism.  The most obvious in Genesis 1 is the formulaic:

"And God said...and it was so...and God saw (it was good)...and there was evening and morning day X" which is continually repeated throughout the chapter.  

Those are examples of recurring parallel lines.

There are many other literary devices in Genesis 1 (chiasmus, bicola, tricola, inclusio, series of seven, multiples of seven, metric and syllabic elements, etc.).  In short, Genesis 1 is filled with patterns and parallelisms.

There is also parallel structure--that is correspondence--between the days.  Day 1 is parallel to Day 4, Day 2 to Day 5, and Day 3 to Day 6.  This correspondence suggests that a strict chronology is probably not foremost in importance.  See the following for more information:

The-structural-symmetry-in-the-six-days-of-creation