CARBON DATING UNDERCUTS EVOLUTION'S LONG AGES

Evolutionists generally feel secure even in the face of compelling creationist arguments today because of their utter confidence in the geological time scale. Even if they cannot provide a naturalistic mechanism, they appeal to the "fact of evolution," by which they mean an interpretation of earth history with a succession of different types of plants and animals in a drama spanning hundreds of millions of years.

The Bible, by contrast, paints a radically different picture of our planet's history. In particular, it describes a time when God catastrophically destroyed the earth and essentially all its life. The only consistent way to interpret the geological record in light of this event is to understand that fossil-bearing rocks are the result of a massive global Flood that occurred only a few thousand years ago and lasted but a year. This Biblical interpretation of the rock record implies that the animals and plants preserved as fossils were all contemporaries. This means trilobites, dinosaurs, and mammals all dwelled on the planet simultaneously, and they perished together in this world-destroying cataclysm.

Although creationists have long pointed out the rock formations themselves testify unmistakably to water catastrophism on a global scale, evolutionists generally have ignored this testimony. This is partly due to the legacy of the doctrine of uniformitarianism passed down from one generation of geologists to the next since the time of Charles Lyell in the early nineteenth century. Uniformitarianism assumes that the vast amount of geological change recorded in the rocks is the product of slow and uniform processes operating over an immense span of time, as opposed to a global cataclysm of the type described in the Bible and other ancient texts.

With the discovery of radioactivity about a hundred years ago, evolutionists deeply committed to the uniformitarian outlook believed they finally had proof of the immense antiquity of the earth. In particular, they discovered the very slow nuclear decay rates of elements like Uranium while observing considerable amounts of the daughter products from such decay. They interpreted these discoveries as vindicating both uniformitarianism and evolution, which led to the domination of these beliefs in academic circles around the world throughout the twentieth century.

However, modern technology has produced a major fly in that uniformitarian ointment. A key technical advance, which occurred about 25 years ago, involved the ability to measure the ratio of ¹⁴C atoms to ¹²C atoms with extreme precision in very small samples of carbon, using an ion beam accelerator and a mass spectrometer. Prior to the advent of this accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) method, the ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio was measured by counting the number of ¹⁴C decays. This earlier method was subject to considerable "noise" from cosmic rays.

The AMS method improved the sensitivity of the raw measurement of the ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio from approximately 1% of the modern value to about 0.001%, extending the theoretical range of sensitivity from about 40,000 years to about 90,000 years. The expectation was that this improvement in precision would make it possible to use this technique to date dramatically older fossil material.¹ The big surprise, however, was that no fossil material could be found anywhere that had as little as 0.001% of the modern value!² Since most of the scientists involved assumed the standard geological time scale was correct, the obvious explanation for the ¹⁴C they were detecting in their samples was contamination from some source of modern carbon with its high level of ¹⁴C. Therefore they mounted a major campaign to discover and eliminate the sources of such contamination. Although they identified and corrected a few relatively minor sources of ¹⁴C contamination, there still remained a significant level of ¹⁴C—typically about 100 times the ultimate sensitivity of the instrument—in samples that should have been utterly "¹⁴C-dead," including many from the deeper levels of the fossil-bearing part of the geological record.²

Let us consider what the AMS measurements imply from a quantitative standpoint. The ratio of ¹⁴C atoms to ¹²C atoms decreases by a factor of 2 every 5730 years. After 20 half-lives or 114,700 years (assuming hypothetically that earth history goes back that far), the ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio is decreased by a factor of 2²⁰, or about 1,000,000. After 1.5 million years, the ratio is diminished by a factor of 2^1500000/5730, or about 10⁷⁹. This means that if one started with an amount of pure ¹⁴C equal to the mass of the entire observable universe, after 1.5 million years there should not be a single atom of ¹⁴C remaining! Routinely finding ¹⁴C/¹²C ratios on the order of 0.1-0.5% of the modern value—a hundred times or more above the AMS detection threshold—in samples supposedly tens to hundreds of millions of years old is therefore a huge anomaly for the uniformitarian framework.

This earnest effort to understand this "contamination problem" therefore generated scores of peer-reviewed papers in the standard radiocarbon literature during the last 20 years.² Most of these papers acknowledge that most of the ¹⁴C in the samples studied appear to be intrinsic to the samples themselves, and they usually offer no explanation for its origin. The reality of significant levels of ¹⁴C in a wide variety of fossil sources from throughout the geological record has thus been established in the secular scientific literature by scientists who assume the standard geological time scale is valid and have no special desire for this result!

In view of the profound significance of these AMS ¹⁴C measurements, the ICR Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth (RATE) team has undertaken its own AMS ¹⁴C analyses of such fossil material.² The first set of samples consisted of ten coals obtained from the U. S. Department of Energy Coal Sample Bank maintained at the Pennsylvania State University. The ten samples include three coals from the Eocene part of the geological record, three from the Cretaceous, and four from the Pennsylvanian. These samples were analyzed by one of the foremost AMS laboratories in the world. Figure 1 below shows in histogram form the results of these analyses.

These values fall squarely within the range already established in the peer-reviewed radiocarbon literature. When we average our results over each geological interval, we obtain remarkably similar values of 0.26 percent modern carbon (pmc) for Eocene, 0.21 pmc for Cretaceous, and 0.27 pmc for Pennsylvanian. Although the number of samples is small, we observe little difference in ¹⁴C level as a function of position in the geological record. This is consistent with the young-earth view that the entire macrofossil record up to the upper Cenozoic is the product of the Genesis Flood and therefore such fossils should share a common ¹⁴C age.

Applying the uniformitarian approach of extrapolating ¹⁴C decay into the indefinite past translates the measured ¹⁴C/¹²C ratios into ages that are on the order of 50,000 years (2^-50000/5730 = 0.0024 = 0.24 pmc). However, uniformitarian assumptions are inappropriate when one considers that the Genesis Flood removed vast amounts of living biomass from exchange with the atmosphere—organic material that now forms the earth's vast coal, oil, and oil shale deposits. A conservative estimate for the pre-Flood biomass is 100 times that of today. If one takes as a rough estimate for the total ¹⁴C in the biosphere before the cataclysm as 40% of what exists today and assumes a relatively uniform ¹⁴C level throughout the pre-Flood atmosphere and biomass, then we might expect a ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio of about 0.4% of today's value in the plants and animals at the onset of the Flood. With this more realistic pre-Flood ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio, we find that a value of 0.24 pmc corresponds to an age of only 4200 years (0.004 x 2^-4200/5730 = 0.0024 = 0.24 pmc). Even though these estimates are rough, they illustrate the crucial importance of accounting for effects of the Flood cataclysm when translating a ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio into an actual age.

Percent Modern Carbon

Some readers at this point may be asking, how does one then account for the tens of millions and hundreds of millions of years that other radioisotope methods yield for the fossil record? Most of the other RATE projects address this important issue. Equally as persuasive as the ¹⁴C data is evidence from RATE measurements of the diffusion rate of Helium in zircon crystals that demonstrates the rate of nuclear decay of Uranium into Lead and Helium has been dramatically higher in the past and the uniformitarian assumption of a constant rate of decay is wrong.³ Another RATE project documents the existence of abundant Polonium radiohalos in granitic rocks that crystallized during the Flood and further demonstrates that the uniformitarian assumption of constant decay rates is incorrect.⁴ Another RATE project provides clues for why the ¹⁴C decay rate apparently was minimally affected during episodes of rapid decay of isotopes with long half-lives.⁵

The bottom line of this research is that the case is now extremely compelling that the fossil record was produced just a few thousand years ago by the global Flood cataclysm. The evidence that reveals that macroevolution as an explanation for the origin of life on earth can therefore no longer be rationally defended.

That guy simply heckles science. It's all anyone needs to know about creationism.

You need more content for your "real science" than a count of every "maybe," reference to error of measurement, phenomenon explained by competing theories, or caveat applied to a statement in mainstream science.

I would say you are his mirror image on the evolutionary side. I am sure your posts here would fluster him as well.

Despite this all and other doubts, there remains far more evidence supporting the theory of evolution than there is supporting the existence of a deity. Prove that God exists.

Can you present some of this evidence or do you expect us to just take your word on it?

You need more content for your "real science" than a count of every "maybe

Since evolution "science" is full of "could-of's", "probably's" and "perhaps", it probably would have been better for you to find another definition for your brand of science, Vade.

Yep, looks like they've lost the argument already, insults to the fore. I wonder how long these guys will take to get this thread pulled? In any case, no one seems to have a credible explanation for the excess carbon-14. It is a puzzler. Cosmic rays can't do it. They have already been eliminated because of the atmosphere. Neutrinos?

Grand Canyon. That is one of our favs. Have you ever heard of Dr. Steven Austin. He has some great takes on that. The canyon was formed during the flood. That little Colorado river could not have formed that canyon. Many reasons. When Mount Saint Helens blew in May 1980, a "little" grand canyon was formed in the area and it looked just like a smalll version of the big one. I thought that was very interesting.
I wonder how people felt when darwin and Lyell came out with their fake books?

One creationist I know does not copywrite any of his materials. You can copy his videos or anything he has and get you money back. He travels 3/4 of the year in his ministry for no pay. This you call greed? I call it dedication.

How much does he make when he passes the hat around?

Without the books, he wouldn't get invited to speak. If he makes his living from the subject of creationism, then the fact that he braggs that he doesn't copyright his books is meaningless.

In fact, it's a pretty good business plan. Get everyone who believes that stuff to make copies and distribute them FOR him. Then he makes a living from the speaking invitations.

Free advertising.

I wonder what the "half-life" of one of these threads is? ;)

The scientific arena has definitely become a hotbed for modern debate (approaching watershed proportions). These studies are coming out like gangbusters, and it seems the secular papers are beginning to agree more often with the other side.

Absence of evidence
is not
evidence of absence

Look around you. The world is DIRTY with his fingerprints. From physics, to chemistry, to biology...this is a finely-tuned universe designed to support fragile life.

We are standing in a room full of grandfather clocks, alarm clocks, cuckoo clocks, hourglasses, timepieces of all sorts...does it not imply the existence of a clockmaker?

Take it another way: You think O.J. killed 'em? Why? Where's the evidence? It's all circumstantial.

You think there was once water on Mars just because you see dry river beds? Merely circumstantial! Not proof!

There comes a time, in any criminal court, when circumstantial evidence becomes sufficient to convict OJ, or to prove that there was water on Mars.

The universe is DIRTY with God's fingerprints. He leaves the decision to us...if he compelled our wills, we'd be robots, and he clearly doesn't want that. He wants only the willing.

Sauron

I'm not talking about the hole in the ground. I'm talking about the sedementary rocks you walk through when you hike it.

It's absolutely astounding to see the differences between the levels, the thousands and thousands of layers. And the mangling of the layers of rock in the lower sections.

And if "the flood" carved the canyon, then what deposited the layers it carved the canyon from?

We could go on and on like this forever. Bottom line, there is no contradiction, and it really makes things much easier for your son to live with his faith if he doesn't have to make a choice between the evidence he can see, feel and smell, vs. his faith.

Last call or I declare myself the first winner in Free Republic history of the Creation vs Evolution debate (no opposition- win by default)- and that in less than 200 posts.

LOL, and that without even taking a side.

The creationist argument has done more damage to faith than any other theology. It is wrecking the church !

America the legend ... lost continent now !

You are in name only a ...

Catholic -- Christian ---

if you don't believe an Almighty God is the creator of heaven and earth and anything but the work of Jesus Christ can save you !

Evolution ... material and spiritual --- political too --- is madness !

The Bible says in God there is no shading or spin ... right or wrong ... vs ... rationalizations of everyman's perception and ego !

Science and likewise God --- never changes !

The constitution only ... ' evolves ' ... with a 2 / 3 rds majority--- it was written to prevent it !

I'm not going to live my life pretending to believe in something I don't because of the fear that if I don't I could spend eternity in a hell I don't believe exists.

You do this by pretending your belief in the non-existence of God is fact?

You believe there is no God.

Many believe there is a God.

Bottom line: both philosophies are based on faith.

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