Carbon dating is flawed.

No it isn't. It has been tested literally millions of times, including against countless materials of known age, and found to be extremely reliable. The creationists will "forget" to mention that though, and will only keep bringing up the special cases where it produces results which seem unusual (but are actually well understood -- although the creationists won't tell you that).

Wood freshly cut out of living trees has been carbon dated at 10,000 years,

BECAUSE, Race, that tree grew in a busy airport, and got a significant amount of its CO2 from the nearly constant exhaust of jets which were burning ANCIENT hydrocarbons.

Now, please explain how many actual paleontological specimens grew near a constant source of burning fossil fuels all th eir lives?

Your source sort of "forgot" to mention this so that it could try to cast doubt on ALL radiocarbon dating, didn't it? Lying by omission in order to leave a misleading impression is still lying.

and living mollusks (such as snails) dated at 2,300 years.

...for reasons which are perfectly well understood -- except to creationists. Those snails incorporated ancient limestone minerals into their shells, so of course the radiocarbon dating CORRECTLY indicated that they were a mix of "new" and "old" carbon. This is why molluscs and several kinds of marine animals are known not to be appropriate for carbon-dating, except in specific cases. The vast majority of creatures don't actually ingest limestone, however, and thus this is not a problem in most cases.

Carbon dating falsely assumes a constant rate of decay.

No, it CORRECTLY assumes a constant rate of decay, because the decay rate of 14C has been verified as constant, countless times over. If you know of any exception, Race, now would be the time to post it and win your Nobel Prize, especially since the dynamics of nuclear decay (and thus the actual decay rates) are derivable from first principles using quantum calculations).

excerpted: THE PROBLEMS WITH CARBON-14 DATING

Yawn -- more of the same dishonest twaddle.

If the creationists have such a good case, why do they have to keep lying about it?

First, for carbon-14 dating to be accurate, one must assume the rate of decay of carbon-14 has remained constant over the years. However, evidence indicates that the opposite is true. Experiments have been performed using the radioactive isotopes of uranium-238 and iron-57, and have shown that rates can and do vary. In fact, changing the environments surrounding the samples can alter decay rates.

ANOTHER NICE CREATIONIST LIE!

Uranium-238 and Iron-57, you'll note, are NOT CARBON-14.

The FUNNIEST thing here is that Iron-57 is a STABLE isotope. IT DOES NOT DECAY, and contrary to the twaddle above, IS NOT RADIOACTIVE. This creationist garbage is talking NONSENSE. The source of this ridiculous claim has been traced to creationist "scientist" Harold Slusher (member of ICR) who has misunderstood a report of variable rates of GAMMA decay in I-57 (having to do with chemical excitation) for variable NUCLEAR decay. Quite simply, the man's an idiot. He's also a "creation scientist". But then I repeat myself.

As for U-238, I haven't tracked down that specific claim to see if it's at all true or not (knowing the creationists, probably "not"), but you can read this page to learn about how a few select (i.e. special case) isotopes *can* have their nuclear decay rates affected slightly by conditions, but the largest amount of change is a whopping 0.8%... And Carbon-14 is NOT one of those isotopes subject to such minor variations. And even if it were, a 0.8% variation in decay rate would introduce no more than a +/- 1% uncertainty into radiometric dates -- note how the creationists try to imply that this would somehow completely undermine carbon-14 dating, which it certainly would not.

A lie is a lie is a lie...

The second faulty assumption is that the rate of carbon-14 formation has remained constant over the years. There are a few reasons to believe this assumption is erroneous.

...and gosh, real scientists (unlike the ones the creationists use) have been well aware of this for over half a century, and have spent a lot of time DETERMINING what the carbon-14 production rate has ACTUALLY BEEN over the past 50,000 years. The creationists sort of "forget" to mention that, don't they?

There are many, many samples of known age (e.g. tree rings, arctic ice layers, lake bottom layers, etc.) which can be used to multiply and independently determine how much carbon-14 was in the atmosphere in any given year, and thus be used to calibrate Carbon-14 dating methods.

For a quick article on one such study, see http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/dailynews/carbon0220.html

A much more technical treatment: Atmospheric Radiocarbon Calibration to 45,000 yr B.P.: Late Glacial Fluctuations and Cosmogenic Isotope Production

Such studies produce calibration results such as the following:

If the amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere had been exactly constant throughout time (and no one expects that it has been), then the results would fall on the straight diagonal line. Instead, the wiggly line indicates how much the actual amount of C-14 in the atmosphere deviated from the "base" amount, and from this we can know how much C-14 was actually present in any given year in the past 50,000 years.

Note that the above graph includes C-14 data from *two* completely independent sources (Lake Suigetsu varves, and ocean corals), and yet the results overlap beautifully, confirming each other. There is similar match from C-14 studies based on tree-ring data and other sources.

From this, we can build a Carbon-14 dating calibration or "correction" curve which can be used to confidently produce an accurate date from a given Carbon-14 measurement. These calibration curves look like this:

There are many databases available which are used to compile massive amounts of data to ensure the proper calibration of carbon-dating. For just one example, Marine Reservoir Correction Database.

Other methods are used to cross-check and calibrate other dating methods to ensure accuracy.

But again, the creationists sort of "forget" to mention that.

Race, are you ever surprised by how often your creationist sources lie to you? And are you ever embarassed at having been gullible enough to believe them, and for repeating their falsehoods, when the obvious flaws in their horse manure are obvious to anyone with a decent knowledge of science?

And can we encourage you to stop posting so much of this manure, so that we can all spend our time doing something more productive than correcting these floods of falsehoods?

Carbon dating is flawed. No it isn't. It has been tested literally millions of times, including against countless materials of known age, and found to be extremely reliable.

Yes, it is, because once again, there is no way to confirm the introduction of Carbon at constant rates, nor is there any way to confirm how much decay has happened.

All you can PROVE is that the sample you tested has a certain percentage of material in regards to another.

THAT is where the theory comes from, that a material has so much left, and when possible, the observed time span between the ingestion of Carbon material occurs compared tot he time of the testing after death.

It is also where the theory fails to be absolute, for there have been too many different samples taken where the same identical object has shown different dates.

It also shows the failure of the absolute testing of this material when you can date a living object and get different dates, including dates that call a living creature tens of thousands of years old as had happen multiple times as I have shown you.

It is also proven unreliable when you state the following:

Wood freshly cut out of living trees has been carbon dated at 10,000 years, BECAUSE, Race, that tree grew in a busy airport, and got a significant amount of its CO2 from the nearly constant exhaust of jets which were burning ANCIENT hydrocarbons.

You honestly try to claim that a material will remain in constant state of decay for tens of thousands of years, under natural conditions that you have no evidence of remaining constant, then actually try to tell someone that the NEW carbons formed under combustion of highly complex hydrocarbons created under extreme heat conditions will make effect on new tress and plants or whatever is dug up??

. Did you really say that with a straight face?? You tried to tell me that something that laid dead being eaten by bugs, and other life forms remained in constant state of decay, but try to use as a disqualifier the ingestion of fossil fuels?

What about the ingestion of methane from the decay processes of decay itself? What about the presence of other dying animals and plants spreading off their own decay gasses and such? Yet you say NONE of that had an effect but we need to consider the effect of a MINISCULE amount of jet exhaust that blew by, was watered on, was exposed over time to decay itself as a reason the time dates are off??

Those snails incorporated ancient limestone minerals into their shells, so of course the radiocarbon dating CORRECTLY indicated that they were a mix of "new" and "old" carbon. This is why molluscs and several kinds of marine animals are known not to be appropriate for carbon-dating, except in specific cases. The vast majority of creatures don't actually ingest limestone, however, and thus this is not a problem in most cases.

Prove they did. Prove those limestone deposits were there the whole time.

I must also admit that I haven't been following the issue too closely for the last 4 years and was unfamiliar with the differences and problems of aquatic creatures and C-14 dating. One CREATIONIST site, (The honest ones, unlike the evolutionist ones) says this:

Creation Science Briefs

< Subject: Carbon Dating

< A less-common form of the carbon atom, carbon-14, is used today by scientists as a method to date once-living organisms. Many people believe that carbon dating disproves the Biblical time scale of history. However, because of the difficulties with current C14 dating techniques, the dates produced have been shown to be faulty.

< Cabon-14 is produced in the upper atmosphere by action of cosmic rays. One the C 14 has been formed, by converting nitrogen-14 into carbon-14, it behaves like ordinary carbon-12, combining with oxygen to give carbon dioxide, and freely cycling through the cells of all plants and animals. Carbon-14 is used for a dating material because once it has been formed, C14 begins to decay radioactively back to nitrogen-14, at a rate of change that can be measured. As soon as an organism dies, the C14 atoms which decay are no longer replaced by new ones through respiration.

The problem with the carbon dating method is—scientists can not be sure of what the C14/C12 ratio was when the organism died. Carbon dating assumes that the ratio has remained constant; however, events, such as the industrial revolution, are known to have raised C12 levels. Other possible factors, such as the presence of a water canopy, would have lowered the amount of C14 in the pre-Flood world. Because pre-Flood specimens had so little carbon-14 in them, some might appear to have been decaying for tens of thousands of years. Also, the decay of the earth’s magnetic field would have direct effects on C14 level, again, giving artificially old ages the farther you go back in time. Finally, carbon dating has been shown untrustworthy with some present day aquatic specimens that were concluded to be thousands of years old. For example, the shells of living snails’ were carbon dated and showed that the snails had died 27,000 years ago. Other specimens have been carbon dated more than once, each time producing a different date varying by thousands of years. In overview, we see that the radiocarbon dating method is certainly no embarrassment to the Biblical creationist who believes in a young earth. In fact, when all data, such as the decay of the magnetic field and the canopy, is taken into accord, carbon dating seems to support a young earth.

CEM Staff

And for that matter, prove that the surrounding material of every other carbon based life form ever tested DIDNT have some material that caused leeching of Carbon or added an infusion of Carbon into it.

You guys keep making up excuses to defend your arguments instead of address the actual facts:

Some carbon based life form was found, and it had a varying ratio of C-14 to C-12, and in some cases we found consistency in decay rates, while in some cases, we found those decay rates were proven absolutely false.

Carbon dating falsely assumes a constant rate of decay.
No, it CORRECTLY assumes a constant rate of decay, because the decay rate of 14C has been verified as constant, countless times over. If you know of any exception, Race, now would be the time to post it and win your Nobel Prize, especially since the dynamics of nuclear decay (and thus the actual decay rates) are derivable from first principles using quantum calculations).

Constant rate of Decay? from the evolutionists themselves, once agin, here is what evolutionists, who believe in the Old Age falsehood::

How do we know Carbon-14 dating is accurate?

Scientists check the accuracy of carbon dating by comparing carbon dating data to data from other dating methods. Other methods scientists use include counting rock layers and tree rings.

When scientists first began to compare carbon dating data to data from tree rings, they found carbon dating provided "too-young" estimates of artifact age. Scientists now realize that production of carbon-14 has not been constant over the last 10,000 years, but has changed as the radiation from the sun has changed. Carbon dates reported in the 1950s and 1960s should be questioned, because those studies were conducted before carbon dating was calibrated by comparision with other dating methods.

Nuclear tests, nuclear reactors and the use of nuclear weapons have also changed the composition of radioisotopes in the air over the last few decades. This human nuclear activity will make precise dating of fossils from our lifetime very difficult due to contamination of the normal radioisotope composition of the earth with addition artificially produced radioactive atoms.

Right from the evolutionists mouth, the decay rates have been proven to be changable, and most specifically known from modern science events. Well, then, what do we know about the past?

What has been the constant influx of solar radiation? Can you VERIFY how much solar radiation has been coming in?

Of course not. That means you cannot verify how much carbon is created in the atmosphere, you cannot confirm how much carbon an animal or plant had ingested in it's life, nor can you confirm how much C-14 to C-12 that creature had at the time of it's death.

You are now forced to confront the facts.

Limitations of the Historical Sciences

In any kind of a historical science, assumptions have to be made in the assessing of historical dates. Because it is assumed that man, for example, has ascended over a long period of time, researchers would automatically want to lengthen the amount of time indicated by the artifacts uncovered in archeological digs. They are looking for answers that would fit their present model. I am not trying to say that they are falsifying their data. On the contrary they wouldn't need to falsify anything. Historical data can be so inconclusive that a host of positions is possible from almost any set of data that is collected.

Man is thought to have progressed through a long period of prehistory (cave man's experience) before some sort of civilization is started. Only after civilization begins can we begin to gather some sort of data from the discovery of the artifacts that are found (Pieces of pottery, etc.). The artifacts according to today's traditional thinking should be slowly progressing in complexity as it is thought that man is progressing in his abilities and ideas that he uses.

If man is thought to have progressed over long periods of time, even within the later civilization phase of his existence, than surely as the artifacts are recovered from archaeological sites, the theories and ideas developed will reflect the scientist's own original thinking. This is how science normally works. They normally work within fairly well defined set of theories that have become a paradigm. A paradigm is a theory that is so well accepted that no one seriously questions it. This way of doing science is most prominent when the evidence is fragmentary at best.

Assumptions throughout the scientific process are extremely important because they must hold the facts together. Only when specific data comes that either substantiates or falsifies the previously held assumption, can it be known if the thinking was originally correct. Unfortunately, with fragmentary data, the artifact that might falsify a theory is extremely hard in coming or it could easily be overlooked. So the problem must be solved by a host of assumptions that will probably never be tested.

There is also the danger that good data could be thrown out because it doesn't fit with established thinking. For instance, I am told that there are sometimes found in the same level both "early" forms and "modern" forms of man. Because of what is considered to be an impossibility, the modern forms are assumed to have been examples of intrusions. The modern form is considered to have been buried much later in spite of the fact that the specimens are found in the same level.

The areas of science, which are the most successful, which the public notices, are the amazing discoveries in medicine, biology, space exploration, and the like. These are the areas that deal with the here and now. If an experiment is conducted and the information needed to answer the problem is not forthcoming, then another experiment can be designed to answer the problem. The process can continue until some answer to the problem is understood. The problem is only limited by money, ingenuity, and the technical difficulties that have to be surmounted.

In addition to the above limitations of science, historical science is limited by the fragmentary nature of the artifacts it is able to find. In effect, the accuracy of ideas is limited by the assumptions chosen by the researchers.

Carbon 14 Dating is based on Assumptions

Carbon 14 dating is not based on irrefutable data alone. It has as its basis of understanding various assumptions which concern the conditions of the Earth tens of thousands of years ago. These assumptions were originated within an atmosphere of long age preexisting ideas. Scientists almost never look for indicators in nature that might speak of a very young age for the world's history. Why would they? Most scientists do not believe that the short chronology of the Bible has any validity at all and most would consider it counterproductive to pursue such a course of investigation. If in fact such an answer were found, it would be quickly dismissed. It would be assumed that there was something wrong with the idea or the data, and a new scenario would be sought.

On this web page I want to discuss a possible scenario that would allow Carbon 14 dates to indicate a short age chronology. Such a discussion might never be allowed in normal scientific circles because of the assumptions they choose to believe as being true. There is such a strong consensus of opinion on Carbon 14 dating and other similar topics that deal with the history of the Earth that alternative viewpoints are probably viewed as being counterproductive.

The Assumptions used in Carbon 14 Dating

Before we start, lets look at the specific Carbon 14 dating assumptions.

The rate of C-14 decay (half-life) has always been the same.
The C-14/C-12 ratio in the Biosphere (equilibrium) has remained constant.
The specimen was in equilibrium with the Biosphere when buried.
The specimen had not gained any carbon since it was buried.
Today, we can measure the correct C-14/C-12 ratio in the specimen.

Some have suggested that the rate of decay of C-14 has changed in the past, however the evidence is very strong that as far as we know, the half-live has never changed. So the first assumption is fairly strong.

The third assumption is also reasonable. If an animal or plant is living on the surface of the Earth, it will be taking in food or CO₂, thus there should be a full exchange of carbon with the environment.

The fifth assumption is one that scientists are doing their best to fulfill. We should also be able to make this assumption. However, machine background has become a very important factor to consider. It will be explored later on this web page.

The fourth assumption will be discussed at the very end of this page since it becomes a very real possibility when the second assumption is questioned.

The second assumption; however, is a different situation. It is entirely possible that the C-14/C-12 ratio in the Biosphere (the equilibrium) has not always remained constant. Most of the remainder of this web page is dedicated to exploring the possibility that the ratio could have been much less in the past.

Has the C-14/C-12 ratio (equilibrium) always been constant?

What most hold to be true is a uniformitarian view, which specifies long ages with relatively little change. It is true that many now think that the evidence screams for catastrophe after catastrophe in the past, but most believe that the factors which would effect Carbon 14 dating has not been radically affected.

The chart on the left shows two scenarios depicting how the C14 equilibrium could have changed in the past. Scenario A represents the long age position which assumes that little or no change to the C14 equilibrium has occurred over time. The line does have a trend showing a slightly higher Carbon 14 concentration in the past. The Bristlecone Pine dendrachronology by Ferguson is what suggests the trend shown in scenario A.

Scenario B represents what would have to have occurred to the C14 equilibrium to allow specimens only four or five thousand years old to give Carbon dates of 40,000 to 60,000 years.

There is presently no way to determine what the C14 level was before the flood. At the time of the flood we have the evidence recorded in the fossils that were buried in the flood. Before the flood, all we have is conjecture. The dotted line is an anemic endeavor to illustrate what could have happened before the flood.

There are two basic ways that could have caused such a drastic change in the C14 equilibrium. Both involve the global flood and they describe how the world might have been different before the flood.

One; The production of Carbon 14 in the upper atmosphere could have been much lower before the flood than today. We will look at the various possibilities that could have contributed to a lowered production of C14 a little later.

Two; There could have been a much larger reserve of normally nonradioactive Carbon in the Biosphere. Remember, Carbon 14 measurements are always made in reference to the presence of Carbon 12. It is the ratio of Carbon 14 to Carbon 12 that we want to find for dating purposes. So we can either decrease the original ratio of Carbon 14 to Carbon 12 by decreasing the production of Carbon 14 (which was the first option) or by increasing the Carbon 12 concentration. Both actions would lower the original equilibrium ratio of Carbon 14 / Carbon 12.

A good analogy might be the making of Christmas cookies. If red cookies are made, red dye is added to the cookie dough to make the cookies red. If the first batch of cookies is too red, the next cookie batch can be made less red by either reducing the amount of dye used or by using more cookie dough.

We will first start by looking at the possibility that there was originally more dough. Having more dough in the red cookie analogy would mean having more nonradioactive Carbon in the world before the flood. Greater amounts of normal Carbon (Carbon 12 and Carbon 13) would effectively dilute the radioactive Carbon 14 thus giving much older ages for fossils when assuming an essentially nonchanging C14/N14 equilibrium in the biosphere over time. The fossils buried in the flood only 4300 years ago contained much less Carbon 14 than would be expected today (In the analogy, the redness in the cookie dough would be diluted by excess dough).

I honestly admit, I didnt see any previous post of you making any detailed response, I only scanned responses, not the thread, I get tired of repeating the same truths to people who reuse to listen, but I took the time to write this response.

You need to hear it.