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Originally posted by amannionFirst, 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.
Where are you getting your C14 facts DJ - Disneyland?
C14 is produced constantly and does not come from a fixed store - it doesn't run out.
You may be mistaking the half life of it - which is just under 6000 years (from memory). But all this means is that as a dating method it's reliable only back to maybe 50 or 60 thousand years ago. Beyond that other radioactive isotopes are required.
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. The industrial revolution greatly increased the amount of carbon-12 released into the atmosphere through the burning of coal. Also, the atomic bomb testing around 1950 caused a rise in neutrons, which increased carbon-14 concentrations. The great flood which Noah and family survived would have uprooted and/or buried entire forests. This would decrease the release of carbon-12 to the atmosphere through the decay of vegetation.
Third, for carbon-14 dating to be accurate, the concentrations of carbon-14 and carbon-12 must have remained constant in the atmosphere. In addition to the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph, the flood provides another evidence that this is a faulty assumption. During the flood, subterranean water chambers that were under great pressure would have been breached. This would have resulted in an enormous amount of carbon-12 being released into the oceans and atmosphere. The effect would be not unlike opening a can of soda and having the carbon dioxide fizzing out. The water in these subterranean chambers would not have contained carbon-14, as the water was shielded from cosmic radiation. This would have upset the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12.
To make carbon-14 dating work, Dr. Libby also assumed that the amount of carbon-14 being presently produced had equaled the amount of carbon-12 – he assumed that they had reached a balance. The formation of carbon-14 increases with time, and at the time of creation was probably at or near zero. Since carbon-14 is radioactive, it begins to decay immediately as it’s formed. If you start with no carbon-14 in the atmosphere, it would take over 50,000 years for the amount being produced to reach equilibrium with the amount decaying. One of the reasons we know that the earth is less than 50,000 years old is because of the biblical record. Another reason we can know this is because the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere is only 78% what it would be if the earth were old.
Finally, Dr. Libby and the evolutionist crowd have assumed that all plant and animal life utilize carbon-14 equally as they do carbon-12. To be grammatically crass, this ain’t necessarily so. Live mollusks off the Hawaiian coast have had their shells dated with the carbon-14 method. These test showed that the shells died 2000 years ago! This news came as quite a shock to the mollusks that had been using those shells until just recently.
We’ve listed five faulty assumptions here that have caused overestimates of age using the carbon-14 method. The list of non-compliant dates from this method is endless. Most evolutionists today would conclude that carbon-14 dating is – at best – reliable for only the last 3000 to 3500 years. There is another reason that carbon-14 dating has yielded questionable results – human bias.
If you’ve ever been part of a medical study, you’re probably familiar with the terms “blind study” and “double-blind study”. In a blind study, using carbon-14 dating for example, a person would send in a few quality control samples along with the actual sample to the laboratory. The laboratory analyst should not know which sample is the one of interest. In this way, the analyst could not introduce bias into the dating of the actual sample. In a double-blind study (using an experimental drug study as an example), some patients will be given the experimental drug, while others will be given a placebo (a harmless sugar pill). Neither the patients nor the doctors while know who gets what. This provides an added layer of protection against bias.
Radiocarbon dates that do not fit a desired theory are often excluded by alleging cross-contamination of the sample. In this manner, an evolutionist can present a sample for analysis, and tell the laboratory that he assumes the sample to be somewhere between 50,000 years old and 100,000 years old. Dates that do not conform to this estimate are thrown out. Repeated testing of the sample may show nine tests that indicate an age of 5000 to 10,000 years old, and one test that shows an age of 65,000 years old. The nine results showing ages that do not conform to the pre-supposed theory are excluded. This is bad science, and it is practiced all the time to fit with the evolutionary model.
The Shroud of Turin, claimed to be the burial cloth of Christ, was supposedly dated by a blind test. Actually, the control specimens were so dissimilar that the technicians at the three laboratories making the measurements could easily tell which specimen was from the Shroud. This would be like taking a piece of wood and two marbles and submitting them to the lab with the instructions that “one of these is from an ancient ponderosa pine, guess which.” The test would have been blind if the specimens had been reduced to carbon powder before they were given to the testing laboratories. Humans are naturally biased. We tend to see what we want to see, and explain away unwanted data.
Perhaps the best description of the problem in attempting to use the Carbon-14 dating method is to be found in the words of Dr. Robert Lee. In 1981, he wrote an article for the Anthropological Journal of Canada, in which stated:
"The troubles of the radiocarbon dating method are undeniably deep and serious. Despite 35 years of technological refinement and better understanding, the underlying assumptions have been strongly challenged, and warnings are out that radiocarbon may soon find itself in a crisis situation. Continuing use of the method depends on a fix-it-as-we-go approach, allowing for contamination here, fractionation there, and calibration whenever possible. It should be no surprise then, that fully half of the dates are rejected. The wonder is, surely, that the remaining half has come to be accepted…. No matter how useful it is, though, the radiocarbon method is still not capable of yielding accurate and reliable results. There are gross discrepancies, the chronology is uneven and relative, and the accepted dates are actually the selected dates.”
The accuracy of carbon-14 dating relies on faulty assumptions, and is subject to human bias. At best, radiocarbon dating is only accurate for the past few thousand years. As we’ve seen though, even relatively youthful samples are often dated incorrectly. The Biblical record gives us an indication of an earth that is relatively young. The most reliable use of radiocarbon dating supports that position. This method of dating, overall, tends to be as faulty and ill conceived as the evolutionary model that is was designed to support.
http://contenderministries.org/evolution/carbon14.php
2 edits
Originally posted by dj2beckerBro. Becker,
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 su del that is was designed to support.
http://contenderministries.org/evolution/carbon14.php
As Bible students I believe that we can offer to the inquisitor more than 10,000 years of earth history.
I think going down the road of insisting that the age of the earth can be known from the reading of the Bible is a mistake.
It is something like insisting that three kings came to visit the baby Jesus. The Bible says plural kings came bearing three gifts. People mentally insert three kings.
I don't think mentally inserting 6000 years as the age of the physical universe can be safely supported by the Bible. We may judge a relatively recent age of the creature man. But we cannot deduce that we know all of God's creative activity before the creation of man.
I won't be able to get into a real long knock down debate about Young Earth verses Old Earth at this time.
Where we can agree is that the creation had a beginning and a Beginner. We are shoulder to shoulder in that fight. How old the earth is?
I don't assume to insist that. And my reasons for not are mostly theological and not scientific ones.
Originally posted by scottishinnzWhere did God come from then Hal?
I will indulge this only one more post, if you want to continue thereafter start a new thread.
Where did God come from then Hal? You can't use the "He's always existed" line, that's using the same argument as I am, which you think is a false argument (it isn't though, provided that He exists outwith the universe (which is impossible, by definition) ...[text shortened]... ecause of the argument that I am able to use, backed up by theoretical physics, as it is.
I'm sorry, we were talking about the big bang; why bring up the g-word? Me: “Oh look, Scott -- some goalposts!” Scott: "My postman died of syphilis. Didn't you need penicillin shots last year?”
Just so we're clear, the tenability of your position is not contingent on what I have to say about God -- unless you are willing to concede that you have nothing but your own philosophical and naturalistic presuppositions driving your pursuit for “truth”.
I don't concoct a smoke and mirror show of mental gymnastics and then claim it as irrefutable science and the singular logical conclusion to a complex question.
...provided that He[God] exists outwith the universe (which is impossible, by definition)
Impossible? Really? Ever heard of parallel-universe theory?* I didn't notice too many astrophysicists up in arms over the "definition"... IIRC, most of the dissent came from the ID camp.
You need some force to create God.
Er... okay... if you say so. Alternatively, you need an entity that exists outside the bounds of time and causality, but this might be too hard for you to understand, so I'll leave it at that.
I don't need such an argument on my side, however, because of the argument that I am able to use, backed up by theoretical physics, as it is.
Again... I'm waiting – you made the claim, so you, and you alone bear the burden of proof. Could you please show me the “theoretical physics” (or direct me to a credible source) which proposes “something spontaneously generating from nothing”? Your views are stuck in 80s… they have spontaneously combusted under the hammer of contemporary astrophysics. It's really time for you to either step up or back “it” out...
* Tegmark, Max (May 2003). "Parallel Universes". Scientific American.
Originally posted by dj2beckerPlease provide citations for these experiments forthwith.
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.
Nemesio
Originally posted by dj2beckerGreat.
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 su ...[text shortened]... del that is was designed to support.
http://contenderministries.org/evolution/carbon14.php
You can cut and paste.
But can you present something that's not just religious diatribe?
Originally posted by HalitoseSteven W. Hawking, George F.R. Ellis, "The Cosmic Black-Body Radiation and the Existence of Singularities in our Universe," Astrophysical Journal, 152, (1968) pp. 25-36.
[b]Where did God come from then Hal?
I'm sorry, we were talking about the big bang; why bring up the g-word? Me: “Oh look, Scott -- some goalposts!” Scott: "My postman died of syphilis. Didn't you need penicillin shots last year?”
Just so we're clear, the tenability of your position is not contingent on what I have to say about God -- unless you ...[text shortened]... t” out...
* Tegmark, Max (May 2003). "Parallel Universes". Scientific American.[/b]
Steven W. Hawking, Roger Penrose, "The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, series A, 314 (1970) pp. 529-548.
That should just about cover it.
Oh, as for the parallel universe theory - let me know when you find any empirical evidence, won't you?
Originally posted by twhiteheadWell said.
Actually no. If you look inside a bag and see 5 marbles there is no guarantee that there are five marbles and only 5 marbles in the bag. Any magician can prove you wrong on that point. I can do a few neat card tricks myself.
However dj often claims that there is a fundamental difference between seeing the 5 marbles and seeing a photo of the 5 marbles. I ...[text shortened]... ow' that 1 million years ago happened. He however has never given any reason for this claim.
Originally posted by dj2beckerScience has neither the amount of time or the scale of the laboratory to duplicate biogenesis. And quantum mechanics , being what it is, doesn't guarantee an exact duplication anyway.
And we can all prove and demonstrate that life evolved from non-life by chance can't we?
