{"data":[{"archived":true,"author":"MockDeath","author_flair_css_class":null,"author_flair_text":null,"body":"Knowing more would definitely help.  I guess all you can do is find out if they know the basics like you said then take it from there.  That CO\u00b2 has the carbon turned to the isotope carbon14 in the upper atmosphere by cosmic radiation.  This causes a specific percentage of carbon in the atmosphere to be carbon14.\n\nNow we are carbon based life forms and we have to get the carbon we are built out of from some where.  We get it from eating plants, and the plants get it from absorbing CO\u00b2 from the air.  So so long as we are alive, we uptake new carbon14.  So this gives you a pretty good base line for dating.\n\nNow to fight arguments against carbon dating you could use the example of how we can see proton collisions in the LHC for sensitivity of our equipment.  Nuclear decay is very accurate in how fast it happens, this is why atomic clocks work to a much higher degree of accuracy than other methods of time keeping.  Also, you might want to make a general appeal for science.  Science works, that is why we have TV's, robots, particle accelerators, satellites, computers, MRI and CAT scanners, nuclear power, etc etc.  Scientists are not just willy nilly making shit up, or these kinds of things wouldn't work.","controversiality":0,"created_utc":"1270637661","distinguished":null,"downs":0,"edited":false,"gilded":0,"id":"c0nn9iq","link_id":"t3_bne3u","name":"t1_c0nn9iq","parent_id":"t1_c0nn5ux","retrieved_on":1426266827,"score":2,"score_hidden":false,"subreddit":"askscience","subreddit_id":"t5_2qm4e","ups":2}],"metadata":{"query_str":"'science'","lang_id":"regex"},"error":null}