Paul, Sadly, I could not include the URL in your reply, but the article you cited was interesting nonetheless. Olsson (Ed.), Radiocarbon Variations and Absolute Chronology, Proc. However, the "plateau" certainly does not equate to the Flood, for that would put the Flood in the middle of Egyptian history, the archaeological evidence of which is sitting on top of kilometers of Flood-deposited sediments. I read the scientific article on the carbon dating done on the Jericho site written by Bruins and Van Der Plicht.
There are two reasons uncalibrated dates must be mentioned: 1) this prevents people from making up any number they please, and 2) it is for the sake of posterity, where future scientists can check the results and apply new ideas of calibration. Radiocarbon dates are affected by many outside factors.
The accuracy of the machines is not in question (especially modern ones, which are astoundingly accurate when properly zeroed in). But, any source of old carbon in the ancient environment can affect the amount of C-14 in a sample.
This does not mean that recalibration is bad, indeed it is necessary, but it should make one more soberly assess any reported dates as being tentative.
The problem is that most people reporting on these issues fail to report the initial number along with the calibrated date. The Jericho controversy is soundly rooted in C-14 calibration.
C14 was originally calibrated using Egyptian artifacts of "known" age on the "standard" chronology. (1991) Radiocarbon Dating: Recent Applications and Future Potential, Quaternary Proceedings, Number 1, 1991, Wiley Even though this is not my field of study, I happen to have several of these in my files already.
If that chronology is wrong, as many think, the calibration is wrong. But don't forget to compare to what is already available on creation.com: They also brought up the question of "old wood" (the fact that any wood used in an archaeological context must have been growing prior to when it was harvested), which affects my point #3, and warned against using organic material from an aquatic context, corroborating my point #2. Carbon dates can be used to tell the age of organic materials up to around 50,000 years. And uncalibrated dates are usually only off by less than 20%. (1952) Radiocarbon dating, University of Chicago Press. If you read articles like [note: link deleted as per our fedback rules], it is clear that the Egyptian dates don't always follow the dig.Note the clear references to a "plateau in the calibration curve" from 2500 to 2900BC, which would be due to the flood.On this site alone there have been statements disputing the constancy of radioactive decay.