R.I.P. Carbon dating

People who ask about carbon-14 (¹⁴C) dating usually want to know about the radiometric dating methods that are claimed to give millions and billions of years—carbon dating can only give thousands of years. People wonder how millions of years could be squeezed into the biblical account of history.

Clearly, such huge time periods cannot be fitted into the Bible without compromising what the Bible says about the goodness of God and the origin of sin, death and suffering—the very reason Jesus came into this world. Christians, by definition, take the statements of Jesus Christ seriously.

He said in Mark 10:6,

“But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female”

This only makes sense with a time-line beginning with the creation week supported by the genealogy of the Word of God to be thousands of years ago. It makes no sense at all if man appeared at the end of billions of years. Evolution and the Holy Bible cannot both be true.

One of the pillars that have been used to support the evolutionary theory is radiometric dating. The most common form of radiometric dating methods is carbon dating which we will deal with first and then with the other dating methods will be discussed later.

Carbon-14 is made when cosmic rays knock neutrons out of atomic nuclei in the upper atmosphere. These displaced neutrons, now moving fast, hit ordinary nitrogen (¹⁴N) at lower altitudes, converting it into ¹⁴C. Unlike common carbon (¹²C), ¹⁴C is unstable and slowly decays, changing it back to nitrogen and releasing energy. This instability makes it radioactive.

Ordinary carbon (¹²C) is found in the carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the air, which is taken up by plants, which in turn are eaten by animals. So a bone, or a leaf or a tree, or even a piece of wooden furniture, contains carbon. When the ¹⁴C has been formed, like ordinary carbon, it combines with oxygen to give carbon dioxide (¹⁴CO₂), and so it also gets cycled through the cells of plants and animals.

We can take a sample of air, count how many ¹²C atoms there are for every ¹⁴C atom, and calculate the ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio. Because ¹⁴C is so well mixed up with ¹²C, we expect to find that this ratio is the same if we sample a leaf from a tree, or a part of your body.In living things, although ¹⁴C atoms are constantly changing back to ¹⁴N, they are still exchanging carbon with their surroundings, so the mixture remains about the same as in the atmosphere. However, as soon as a plant or animal dies, the ¹⁴C atoms which decay are no longer replaced, so the amount of ¹⁴C in that once-living thing decreases as time goes on. In other words, the ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio gets smaller. So, we have a “clock” which starts ticking the moment something dies.

Obviously, this works only for things which were once living. It cannot be used to date volcanic rocks, for example.The rate of decay of ¹⁴C is such that half of an amount will convert back to ¹⁴N in 5,730 years (plus or minus 40 years). This is the “half-life.” So, in two half-lives, or 11,460 years, only one-quarter of that in living organisms at present, then it has a theoretical age of 11,460 years. Anything over about 50,000 years old should theoretically have no detectable ¹⁴C left because the instruments scientists use cannot detect past those dates. That is why radiocarbon dating cannot give millions of years. In fact, if a sample contains ¹⁴C, it is good evidence that it is not millions of years old.

However, things are not quite so simple. To further understand the carbon dating process, you must understand one very critical assumption made to base their dating methodology. If this assumption is not true, then the method will give incorrect dates. What could cause this ratio to change? If the production rate of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere is not equal to the removal rate (mostly through decay), this ratio will change. In other words, the amount of ¹⁴C being produced in the atmosphere must equal the amount being removed to be in a steady state (also called “equilibrium”). If this is not true, the ratio of ¹⁴C to ¹²C is not a constant, which would make knowing the starting amount of ¹⁴C in a specimen difficult or impossible to accurately determine.

Dr. Willard Libby, the founder of the carbon-14 dating method, assumed this ratio to be constant. His reasoning was based on a belief in evolution, which assumes the earth must be billions of years old. Assumptions in the scientific community are extremely important. If the starting assumption is false, all the calculations based on that assumption might be correct but still give a wrong conclusion.

In Dr. Libby’s original work, he noted that the atmosphere did not appear to be in equilibrium. This was a troubling idea for Dr. Libby since he believed the world was billions of years old and enough time had passed to achieve equilibrium. Dr. Libby’s calculations showed that if the earth started with no ¹⁴C in the atmosphere, it would take up to 30,000 years to build up to a steady state (equilibrium).

If the cosmic radiation has remained at its present intensity for 20,000 or 30,000 years, and if the carbon reservoir has not changed appreciably in this time, then there exists at the present time a complete balance between the rate of disintegration of radiocarbon atoms and the rate of assimilation of new radiocarbon atoms for all material in the life-cycle. Dr. Libby chose to ignore this discrepancy (non-equilibrium state), and he attributed it to experimental error. However, the discrepancy has turned out to be very real. The ratio of ¹⁴C /¹²C is not constant.

The Specific Production Rate (SPR) of C-14 is known to be 18.8 atoms per gram of total carbon per minute. The Specific Decay Rate (SDR) is known to be only 16.1 disintegrations per gram per minute.

What does this mean?

If it takes about 30,000 years to reach equilibrium and ¹⁴C is still out of equilibrium, then maybe the earth is not very old.

Another problem that exists is the discriminate action of plants against carbon dioxide containing ¹⁴C. That is, they take up less than would be expected and so they test older than they really are. Furthermore, different types of plants discriminate differently. This also has to be corrected for. Second, the ratio of ¹⁴C/¹²C in the atmosphere has not been constant—for example, it was higher before the industrial era when the massive burning of fossil fuels released a lot of carbon dioxide that was depleted in ¹⁴C. This would make things which died at that time appear older in terms of carbon dating. Then there was a rise in ¹⁴CO₂ with the advent of atmospheric testing of atomic bombs in the 1950s. This would make things carbon-dated from that time appear younger than their true age.

The amount of cosmic rays penetrating the earth's atmosphere affects the amount of ¹⁴C produced and therefore dating the system. The amount of cosmic rays reaching the earth varies with the sun's activity, and with the earth's passage through magnetic clouds as the solar system travels around the Milky Way galaxy.

The strength of the earth's magnetic field affects the amount of cosmic rays entering the atmosphere. A stronger magnetic field deflects more cosmic rays away from the earth. With the fact that the energy of the earth's magnetic field has been decreasing, the more ¹⁴C would therefore be produced now than in the past. This increase in ¹⁴C as time passes would produce a rubber-ruler effect thus making old things look older than they really are.

Also, the Genesis flood would have greatly upset the carbon balance. The flood buried a huge amount of carbon, which became coal, oil, etc., lowering the total ¹²C in the biosphere (including the atmosphere—plants re-growing after the flood absorb CO₂, which is not replaced by the decay of the buried vegetation). Total ¹⁴C is also proportionately lowered at this time, but whereas no terrestrial process generates any more ¹²C, ¹⁴C is continually being produced, and at a rate which does not depend on carbon levels (it comes from nitrogen). Therefore, the ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio in plants/animals/the atmosphere before the flood had to be lower than what it is now.

Unless this effect (which is additional to the magnetic field issue just discussed) was corrected for, carbon dating of fossils formed in the flood would give ages much older than the true ages.Creationist researchers have suggested that dates of 35,000 - 45,000 years should be re-calibrated to the biblical date of the flood. Such a re-calibration makes sense of anomalous data from carbon dating—for example, very discordant “dates” for different parts of a frozen musk ox carcass from Alaska and an inordinately slow rate of accumulation of ground sloth dung pellets in the older layers of a cave where the layers were carbon dated.

There are various other radiometric dating methods used today to give ages of millions or billions of years for rocks. These techniques, unlike carbon dating, mostly use the relative concentrations of parent and daughter products in radioactive decay chains.

For example, potassium-40 decays to argon-40; uranium-238 decays to lead-206 via other elements like radium; uranium-235 decays to lead-207; rubidium-87 decays to strontium-87; etc. These techniques are applied to igneous rocks, and are normally seen as giving the time since solidification.

The isotope concentrations can be measured very accurately, but isotope concentrations are not dates. To derive ages from such measurements, unprovable assumptions have to be made such as:

1.       The starting conditions are known (for example, that there was no daughter isotope present at the start, or that we know how much was there).
2.       Decay rates have always been constant.
3.       Systems were closed or isolated so that no parent or daughter isotopes were lost or added.When a “date” differs from that expected, researchers readily invent excuses for rejecting the result. The common application of such posterior reasoning shows that radiometric dating has serious problems. There are hundreds of examples cited as excuses to explain “bad” dates.
For example, researchers applied posterior reasoning to the dating of Australopithecus ramidus fossils. Most samples of basalt closest to the fossil-bearing strata give dates of about 23 million years by the argon-argon method. The authors decided that was “too old,” according to their beliefs about the place of the fossils in the evolutionary grand scheme of things. So they looked at some basalt further removed from the fossils and selected 17 of 26 samples to get an acceptable maximum age of 4.4 million years. The other nine samples again gave much older dates but the authors decided they must be contaminated and discarded them.

That is how radiometric dating works. It is very much driven by the existing long-age world view that pervades academia today.

A similar story surrounds the dating of the primate skull known as KNM-ER 1470. This started with an initial 212 to 230 million years, which, according to the fossils, was considered way off the mark (humans “weren't around then"). Various other attempts were made to date the volcanic rocks in the area. Over the years an age of 2.9 million years was settled upon because of the agreement between several different published studies (although the studies involved selection of “good” from “bad” results, just like Australopithecus ramidus, above).

However, preconceived notions about human evolution could not cope with a skull like 1470 being “that old.” A study of pig fossils in Africa readily convinced most anthropologists that the 1470 skull was much younger. After this was widely accepted, further studies of the rocks brought the radiometric age down to about 1.9 million years—again several studies “confirmed” this date. Such is the dating game.

Are we suggesting that evolutionists are conspiring to massage the data to get what they want? No, not generally. It is simply that all observations must fit the prevailing paradigm. The paradigm, or belief system, of molecules-to-man evolution over eons of time, is so strongly entrenched it is not questioned—it is a “fact.” So every observation must fit this paradigm. Unconsciously, the researchers, who are supposedly “objective scientists” in the eyes of the public, select the observations to fit the basic belief system.

We must remember that the past is not open to the normal processes of experimental science, that is, repeatable experiments in the present. A scientist cannot do experiments on events that happened in the past. Scientists do not measure the age of rocks, they measure isotope concentrations, and these can be measured extremely accurately. However, the “age” is calculated using assumptions about the past that cannot be proven.

We should remember God's admonition to Job in Job 38:4,

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”

Those involved with unrecorded history gather information in the present and construct stories about the past. The level of proof demanded for such stories seems to be much less than for studies in the empirical sciences, such as physics, chemistry, molecular biology, physiology, etc.

Williams, an expert in the environmental fate of radioactive elements, identified 17 flaws in the isotope dating reported in just three widely respected seminal papers that supposedly established the age of the earth at 4.6 billion years.

John Woodmorappe has produced an incisive critique of these dating methods. He exposes hundreds of myths that have grown up around the techniques. He shows that the few “good” dates left after the “bad” dates are filtered out could easily be explained as fortunate coincidences.

If the long-age dating techniques were really objective means of finding the ages of rocks, they should work in situations where we know the age. Furthermore, different techniques should consistently agree with one another.

There are many examples where the dating methods give “dates” that are wrong for rocks of known age. One example is K-Ar “dating” of five historical andesite lava flows from Mount Nguaruhoe in New Zealand. Although one lava flow occurred in 1949, three in 1954, and one in 1975, the “dates” range from less than 0.27 to 3.5 million years.

Again, using hindsight, it is argued that “excess” argon from the magma (molten rock) was retained in the rock when it solidified. The secular scientific literature lists many examples of excess argon causing dates of millions of years in rocks of known historical age. This excess appears to have come from the upper mantle, below the earth's crust. This is consistent with a young world—the argon has had too little time to escape. If excess argon can cause exaggerated dates for rocks of known age, then why should we trust the method for rocks of unknown age?

Other techniques, such as the use of isochrons, make different assumptions about starting conditions, but there is a growing recognition that such “foolproof” techniques can also give “bad” dates. So data are again selected according to what the researcher already believes about the age of the rock.

Geologist Dr. Steve Austin sampled basalt from the base of the Grand Canyon strata and from the lava that spilled over the edge of the canyon. By evolutionary reckoning, the latter should be a billion years younger than the basalt from the bottom. Standard laboratories analyzed the isotopes. The rubidium-strontium isochron technique suggested that the recent lava flow was 270 million years older than the basalts beneath the Grand Canyon—an impossibility.

If the dating methods are an objective and reliable means of determining ages, they should agree. If a chemist were measuring the sugar content of blood, all valid methods for the determination would give the same answer (within the limits of experimental error). However, with radiometric dating, the different techniques often give quite different results.

In the study of the Grand Canyon rocks by Austin, different techniques gave different results. Again, all sorts of reasons can be suggested for the “bad” dates, but this is again posterior reasoning. Techniques that give results that can be dismissed just because they don't agree with what we already believe cannot be considered objective.In Australia, some wood found the Tertiary basalt was clearly buried in the lava flow that formed the basalt, as can be seen from the charring. The wood was “dated” by radiocarbon (¹⁴C) analysis at about 45,000 years old, but the basalt was “dated” by potassium-argon method at 45 million years old! Carbon Dating in many cases seriously embarrasses evolutionists by giving ages that are much younger than those expected from their model of early history. A specimen older than 50,000 years should have too little ¹⁴C to measure.

Laboratories that measure ¹⁴C would like a source of organic material with zero ¹⁴C to use as a blank to check that their lab procedures do not add ¹⁴C. Coal is an obvious candidate because the youngest coal is supposed to be millions of years old, and most of it is supposed to be tens or hundreds of millions of years old. Such old coal should be devoid of ¹⁴C. It isn't. No source of coal has been found that completely lacks ¹⁴C.

Fossil wood found in “Upper Permian” rock that is supposedly 250 million years old still contained ¹⁴C. Recently, a sample of wood found in rock classified as “middle Triassic,” supposedly some 230 million years old, gave a ¹⁴C date of 33,720 years, plus or minus 430 years. The accompanying checks showed that the ¹⁴C date was not due to contamination and that the “date” was valid, within the standard (long ages) understanding of this dating system.

It is an unsolved mystery to evolutionists as to why coal has ¹⁴C in it, or wood supposedly millions of years old still has ¹⁴C present, but it makes perfect sense in a creationist world view.Of the methods that have been used to estimate the age of the earth, 90 percent point to an age far less than the billions of years asserted by evolutionists. A few of them follow.

·         Evidence for a rapid formation of geological strata, as in the biblical flood. Some of the evidences are:
1. Lack of erosion between rock layers supposedly separated in age by many millions of years;

2. Lack of disturbance of rock strata by biological activity (worms, roots, etc.);

3. Lack of soil layers; polystrate fossils (which traverse several rock layers vertically—these could not have stood vertically for eons of time while they slowly got buried);

4. Thick layers of “rock” bent without fracturing, indicating that the rock was all soft when bent; and more
·         Red blood cells and hemoglobin have been found in some (unfossilized!) dinosaur bone. But these could not last more than a few thousand years—certainly not the 65 million years since the last dinosaurs lived, according to evolutionists.

·         The earth's magnetic field has been decaying so fast that it looks like it is less than 10,000 years old. Rapid reversals during the flood year and fluctuations shortly after would have caused the field energy to drop even faster.

·         Radioactive decay releases helium into the atmosphere, but not much is escaping. The total amount in the atmosphere is 1/2000th of that expected if the universe is really billions of years old. This helium originally escaped from rocks. This happens quite fast, yet so much helium is still in some rocks that it has not had time to escape—certainly not billions of years.

·         A supernova is an explosion of a massive star—the explosion is so bright that it briefly outshines the rest of the galaxy. The supernova remnants (SNRs) should keep expanding for hundreds of thousands of years, according to physical equations. Yet there are no very old, widely expanded (Stage 3) SNRs, and few moderately old (Stage 1) ones in our galaxy, the Milky Way, or in its satellite galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds. This is just what we would expect for “young” galaxies that have not existed long enough for wide expansion.

·         The moon is slowly receding for the earth at about 4 centimeters (1.5 inches) per year, and this rate would have been greater in the past. But even if the moon had started receding from being in contact with the earth, it would have taken only 1.37 billion years to reach its present distance from the earth. This gives a maximum age of the moon, not the actual age. This is far too young for evolutionists who claim the moon is 4.6 billion years old. It is also much younger than the radiometric “dates” assigned to moon rocks; not to mention the physical effects of a closer moon upon the Earth which eliminates the possibility of an “old” moon all together!

·         Salt is entering the sea much faster than it is escaping. The sea is not nearly salty enough (only 3.6% salt content) for this to have been happening for billions of years. At the current rate of mineral depositing into the seas, the oceans would be fresh water in less than 5000 years!

·         Deserts are produced by a process called desertification. Logically speaking the oldest desert in the world would also be the largest. The Sahara Desert would therefore be the oldest desert in the world. The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in 1999 concluded its findings that seriously stubbed the toe of evolutionists all over the world. There findings stated that the age of the oldest desert on the Earth was under 4000 years of age! Interesting enough it supports the Biblical worldview of a young earth and a worldwide flood just over 4400 years ago.

The atheistic evolutionist W.B. Provine admitted;

"Most of what I learned of the field [evolutionary biology] in graduate (1964-68) school is either wrong or significantly changed."

By looking more closely at the radiometric dating methods concocted, you will find that they are based on assumptions about events that happened in the past. If the assumptions are accepted as true adding in the filtering of the data given as is typically done in the evolutionary dating processes, then results can be biased toward a desired age. There are many lines of evidence that the radiometric dates are not the objective evidence for an old earth that many claim. Do not be influenced or intimidated by a evolutionary paradigm and its supposed pillars that support it, because you will find that those pillars are actually paper thin and the whole house of evolution is just a house of cards!