[RetroTechie]

> But those are unreliable as well...

Can you tell me how many research papers on this specific subject you have read, before coming to that conclusion?

Hint: chances are you're correct (!). Size of the error bars, timeframe(s) talked about, how data was gathered, how results were processed etc, that is what such papers are about. Educate yourself! (Wikipedia is usually a good start)

[qsera]

None. It goes against my common sense. That is why I am asking what accuracy can this method give. I am asking that to people who are already seemingly convinced that the methods listed (fossil records, ice-cores) can be accurate..

[RetroTechie]

Common sense?!? That applies to things you're experiencing on a daily basis. That you're intimately familiar with.

Not to things occurring when your great-great-great-great... (repeat a couple 1000x) ...great-great-great-grandparents were around.

Maybe you'd be so kind & at least check part of a Wikipedia article?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology#Reconstructin...

10min to go from clueless to "I've read something about how this knowledge came about".

[qsera]

> That applies to things you're experiencing on a daily basis.

That we cannot accurately look into the past unless we explicitly record it, is something that I experience on a daily basis.

Seriously, if you are so convinced, then why don't you just give me an accuracy measure and reasons to support it? I am not interested in anymore articles that does not contain an explicit accuracy claims and reasons to support the same.

So please understand this. It is not that I am questioning the existence of such techniques. I am questioning their accuracy/reliability..

[RetroTechie]

> So please understand this. It is not that I am questioning the existence of such techniques. I am questioning their accuracy/reliability..

That is fine. Scientists do the same, all the time.

> we cannot accurately look into the past unless we explicitly record it

Please allow me an opportunity to enlighten you:

We cannot look into the past unless it is recorded somehow.

Note the absence of "we" in the recording part. Also note "somehow" may happen in many different ways.

Sensor data, satellite measurements, ice cores, fossilized creatures captured in stone, slices of tree trunks, samples of minerals whose radioactivity decayed over millenia, history books or landscape features, are just different types of records. Each with their own set of properties (accuracy being 1 of them).

[qsera]

>Please allow me an opportunity to enlighten you:

So I am aware. The "we" is important because I said "accurately". When "we" set up the recording, we can make it to record with the required precision. Inferring measurements from incidental things can give the required precision, but it should be justified.