http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=307
Evolution and Carbon-14 Dating
According
to evolutionary scientists, radiocarbon dating (also known as carbon-14
dating) is totally ineffective in measuring time when dealing with
millions of years. In his 2000 book,
Genes, People, and Languages,
renowned Stanford University geneticist Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, in a
discussion on the theory of human evolution, commented on radiocarbon
dating, stating: “The most crucial dates in modern human evolution are
unfortunately beyond the range of the radiocarbon method,
which has a limit of about 40,000 years”
(p. 61, emp. added). Staunch evolutionist Richard Dawkins also dealt
with the limitations of radiocarbon dating a few years ago in his highly
touted book,
The Blind Watchmaker. He was even more critical of this dating method than was Cavalli-Sforza, saying:
Different kinds of radioactive decay-based geological stopwatches run
at different rates. The radiocarbon stopwatch buzzes round at a great
rate, so fast that, after some thousands of years, its spring is almost
wound down and the watch is no longer reliable. It is useful for
dating organic material on the archaeological/historical timescale
where we are dealing in hundreds or a few thousands of years, but it is
no good for the evolutionary timescale where we are dealing in millions
of years (1986, p. 226 emp. added).
Both evolutionists and creationists stand in agreement that radiocarbon
dating, which can be used only to date organic samples, is totally
ineffective in measuring the alleged millions or billions of years of
the evolutionary timetable. [In truth, even when dating things that are
relatively young, carbon-14 dating is imperfect and based upon certain
unprovable assumptions (see
Major,
1993).] If radiocarbon dating can measure only items that are thousands
of years old, why should evolutionists even consider using this dating
method on anything that they already believe to be millions of years
old? Creationists would like to see evolutionists apply this method to
items believed to be millions of years old, because it might help
convince evolutionists that coal, diamonds, fossils, etc. are not
millions of years old, but only thousands of years old.
Consider that in recent years “readily detectable amounts of carbon-14”
in materials evolutionists suppose are millions of years old “have been
the rule rather than the exception” (DeYoung, 2005, p. 49). When
geophysicist John Baumgardner and colleagues obtained 10 coal samples
from the U.S. Department of Energy Coal Sample Bank, one of the leading
radiocarbon laboratories in the world tested the samples for traces of
carbon. The coal samples were analyzed using the modern accelerator mass
spectrometry (AMS) method. If the coal were really many millions of
years old (as evolutionists suggest), no traces of carbon-14 should have
been found. “[A]ny carbon-containing materials that are truly older
than 100,000 years should be ‘carbon-14 dead’ with C-14 levels below
detection limits” (DeYoung, p. 49). But, in fact, traces of carbon-14
were
found. “[A] residue of carbon-14 atoms was found in all ten samples....
The amounts of C-14 in coal are found to average 0.25 percent of that
in the atmosphere today” (DeYoung, p. 53). Diamonds assumed to be
hundreds of millions of years old were also tested—12 in all. Once
again, traces of C-14 were found in every sample (see DeYoung, pp.
45-62).
In June of 1990, Hugh Miller submitted two dinosaur bone fragments to
the Department of Geosciences at the University in Tucson, Arizona for
carbon-14 analysis. One fragment was from an unidentified dinosaur. The
other was from an
Allosaurus excavated by James Hall near Grand
Junction, Colorado in 1989. Miller submitted the samples without
disclosing the identity of the bones. (Had the scientists known the
samples actually were from dinosaurs, they would not have bothered
dating them, since it is assumed dinosaurs lived
millions
of years ago—outside the limits of radiocarbon dating.) Interestingly,
the C-14 analysis indicated that the bones were from 10,000-16,000 years
old—a far cry from their alleged 60-million-year-old age (see Dahmer,
et al., 1990, pp. 371-374).
What is C-14 doing in coal, diamonds, and dinosaur fossils, if these
objects are really many millions of years old? Richard Dawkins declared
that C-14 dating “is useful for dating organic material on the
archaeological/historical timescale where we are dealing in
hundreds or a
few thousands
of years,” not millions of years (1986, p. 226, emp. added). Yet,
“readily detectable amounts of carbon-14,” even in coal, diamonds, and
various fossils, “have been the rule rather than the exception” in
recent years (DeYoung, 2005, p. 49). Why? Evolutionists assert that the
specimens in every case must have been contaminated by outside carbon.
After all, everyone “knows” coal is millions of years old, right? Using
C-14 dating on specimens already believed to be only hundreds or a few
thousands of years old is considered acceptable. Scientists expect to
find carbon in samples they perceive as young. But, if specimens
believed to be millions of years old are tested (e.g., coal), and found
to have carbon traces, then they “must” have been contaminated. Or so we
are told.
Informed creation scientists, like members of the RATE (Radioisotopes
and the Age of the Earth) team, contend that the modern “AMS
measurements carefully eliminate all possible sources of carbon
contamination. These include any trace of C-14 which has possibly
entered the samples in recent history, or C-14 introduction during
sample preparation and analysis” (DeYoung, 2005, p. 50). Whereas
“unexpected carbon-14 was initially assumed to be a result of
contamination..., as this problem was aggressively explored, it was
realized that most of the carbon-14 was inherent to the samples being
measured” (p. 49).
The fact is, significant traces of carbon have been detected in samples
that “should not” contain carbon. Since evolutionists are unwilling to
adjust their million/billion-year timetable, they are forced to conclude
that radiocarbon dating is always faulty when it comes up with young
dates (measured in hundreds or thousands of years) for assumed old
specimens (supposedly millions of years old). Do you see anything wrong
with this picture? The fact is, coal, diamonds, and dinosaur fossils
containing traces of carbon is no surprise. One would expect to find
such if the biblical accounts of Creation and the Flood are true.
REFERENCES
Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi (2000),
Genes, Peoples, and Languages (New York: North Point Press).
Dahmer, Lionel, D. Kouznetsov, et al. (1990), “Report on Chemical
Analysis and Further Dating of Dinosaur Bones and Dinosaur Petroglyphs,”
Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism, ed. Robert E. Walsh and Christopher L. Brooks (Pittsburgh, PA: Creation Science Fellowship).
Dawkins, Richard (1986),
The Blind Watchmaker (New York: W.W. Norton).
DeYoung, Don (2005),
Thousands...Not Billions (Green Forest, AR: Master Books).
Major, Trevor (1993), “Dating in Archaeology: Radiocarbon & Tree-Ring Dating,” Apologetics Press, [On-line], URL:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2019.
