Nuclear testing in the middle of the twentieth century threw up lots of carbon-14 in the atmosphere. It has been slowly washing out since then. Because we have measured the amount of carbon-14 every year, we can use the amount of carbon-14 in it to simply look up (approximately) what year some plant material grew up in. This version of carbon-14 dating has nothing to do with the nuclear-decay-based carbon-14 dating that most people are familiar with, which acts over thousands of years.
I also found that part weird. I can't find in Wikipedia a clear date. Gemini says that the minimum is "100-300 years" but I followed all the citations but couldn't find the source of that range.
My guess it that they used another isotope with a shorter half life (or is another case of forensic snake oil, that would be a interesting second twist in this case).
Yup. Among other reasons, in this case due to the very much nonfictional consequences you’d expect in a “real world” story like this:
Had Graw been convicted and stripped of his titles, basically anyone found guilty using evidence from one of his investigations/autopsies, even decades later, could attempt to appeal their case and very likely, this would have completely flooded the courts.
For this reason, this was a huge case here in Munich, and the prosecutors’ office, from what the public could read in newspapers, was very anxious about the outcome all throughout like 2024 to 2026, IIRC.
It would have created an absolutely unholy mess with plenty of collateral damage. This guy really deserved everything he got at the same time I wonder about his mental state. You have to be more than just a little bit disconnected from reality to do this sort of thing without a thought for the consequences. Now you almost have to wonder what other skeletons there are in that cupboard waiting to be uncovered.
This was before AI and certainly must have been quite an effort to pull off plausibly. Imagine what is possible now.
Invent an alternative history in an afternoon or two and gaslight the gullible into your version of reality. I wait for the day where a company is ordered to hand out their communication to a court and instead of doing so hands out an AI invented but plausible one.
Conspiracy theorists, unlike normal people, find it easy to believe that people will expend enormous effort to create an illusion. I'd like to take this opportunity to say we told you so.
The question isn't "does it happen", the question is "how common is it?". If a normal person is dealing someone who seems to have an "everything is always a conspiracy" worldview - then "that stuff doesn't happen" can be both an assertion that the non-normal is nuts, and that the very frustrated normal just wants them to shut up and go away.
As a prior, I'd assume that the conspiracist is probably more willing to "make that stuff happen". Sometimes, the accusation is the confession.
I'd argue that it's the anti-conspiracy theories, that are just as common and almost as insidious. For example, the idea that the intelligence agencies aren't aware of what their government representatives are doing in the background, and can't/don't influence it. There are literally thousands of individuals who work in the same town with the same people with, their very jobs are to discover and keep secrets, and they are almost all presumably capable. Means, motive, and opportunity. And yet, supposedly of the many thousands, none of them has ever done it without express permission from a judge. It would take a massive conspiracy of group think for it not to happen.
I was not aware that carbon dating could be this accurate.
My guess it that they used another isotope with a shorter half life (or is another case of forensic snake oil, that would be a interesting second twist in this case).
Yup. Among other reasons, in this case due to the very much nonfictional consequences you’d expect in a “real world” story like this: Had Graw been convicted and stripped of his titles, basically anyone found guilty using evidence from one of his investigations/autopsies, even decades later, could attempt to appeal their case and very likely, this would have completely flooded the courts.
For this reason, this was a huge case here in Munich, and the prosecutors’ office, from what the public could read in newspapers, was very anxious about the outcome all throughout like 2024 to 2026, IIRC.
Invent an alternative history in an afternoon or two and gaslight the gullible into your version of reality. I wait for the day where a company is ordered to hand out their communication to a court and instead of doing so hands out an AI invented but plausible one.
https://www.cityam.com/lawyer-struck-off-for-using-fake-ai-e...
The Guardian is English, I am surprised they tolerate it
Nobody will deny the existence of individual liars and charlatans.
I'd argue that it's the anti-conspiracy theories, that are just as common and almost as insidious. For example, the idea that the intelligence agencies aren't aware of what their government representatives are doing in the background, and can't/don't influence it. There are literally thousands of individuals who work in the same town with the same people with, their very jobs are to discover and keep secrets, and they are almost all presumably capable. Means, motive, and opportunity. And yet, supposedly of the many thousands, none of them has ever done it without express permission from a judge. It would take a massive conspiracy of group think for it not to happen.