Can carbon dating disprove the creationist viewpoint that the earth is only 6000 years old? In 1952 W. F. Libby discovered a new method for calculating the age of organic material. Many people have been led to believe that carbon dating (and other radioactive dating methods) prove the Earth to be much older that 6000 years old (Biblical age). OWN IMAGE Carbon dating is the process of using the isotope carbon 14 and comparatively measuring the ratio of carbon 13 in the organic matter. Assuming that carbon 14 is constant and is being absorbed until the organism dies. This is why carbon FIG 1 dating can only be used on dead inanimate objects. Fig 1 (to the right) demonstrates the process of the development of carbon atoms. FIG 1.1 (SCIENTIFIC …show more content…
AMERICAN) A common misconception regarding Carbon dating is that it can not be used to date objects millions of years old. Carbon dating is one of the most used dating methods currently, nevertheless it’s also one of most misleading. It is mistakenly believed that carbon dating can be used to age organic matter millions of years old. Unfortunately this is untrue. Carbon dating can only FIG 2 be used to date matter up to approximately 60,000 years http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nuclear/imgnuc/cdate3.gif old. This is due to FIG 2 carbon dating’s rapid decay rate. see fig 1.1 for example of the decay rate. After one 1/2 life the organic matter will have 1/2 the Carbon 14 it started with and after 2 half lives the organism will have a 1/4 Carbon 14 left over. Obviously, if half the C-14 decays in 5,730 years, and half more decays in another 5,730 years, by ten half-lives (57,300 years) there would be essentially no C-14 left. See fig 2 for a physical diagram of half life decay. Another common misconception is that carbon dating can be used to date anything. Carbon dating can only be used to date organic matter that has died. Such things are , a bone, flesh, a leaf etc. It can not be used as a method of directly dating any objects found, such as stones or rocks Essentially carbon dating can only be used for matter containing carbon. Not to be confused with carbides. It appears that carbon 14 forms at a rate which seems to be constant, by measuring the radioactive content from once living matter and measuring the ratio between a currently living organic build up and deceased matter to detect a ratio between Carbon 13 and Carbon 14. A measurement of the time elapsed can extrapolated from the two Carbon types. However cosmic rays in the atmosphere today are forming more C14 faster then it is decaying. Inferring that the rate at which C14 is formed is not constant. This would impact the results, the uncertainty will vary as the years progress. In the bible we can infer that provided the dates are accurate the Earth is roughly 6000 years old due to matching certain religious dates to a known year. However we know that carbon dating can determine age of organic matter up to approximately 60,000 years old. This is 10 times more then the bible proposes. Provided carbon dating can be conclusively proven as a reliable method of dating then the age of the Earth would be indisputable. The Carbon dating method sounds like a simple and reliable system, however without these 2 assumptions the dating system would fall into disrepute. A constant decay rate of C14 “Closed systems, void of any contamination and without loss of the parent element C14 or daughter element.” Anomalous dates have occurred in the past regarding carbon dating.
No matter how accurate and reliable the theory is, the results come from experimentation and trials. A report from Answers in Genesis has states a situation where a piece of wood located in “Hawkesbury Sandstone” in Sydney, Australia was designated a geological age of 225-230 million years old based on it’s position and the amount of rings present in the tree’s trunk. It was doubtful if the wood would contain and remaining C14 . Nevertheless a test was conducted. A sample of the wood was sent to Geochron Laboratories in Cambridge, Boston, USA. The final report indicated detectable radiocarbon had been found in the fossilised wood, a supposed C14 “age” of 33,720 ± 430 years. If this wood fossil was truly 225–230 million years of age, it should’ve been difficult to acquire a limited radiocarbon age as the C14 would of decayed to a point where it was undetectable. This would suggest that carbon dating is not yet an accurate method for dating …show more content…
matter. Radiocarbon dates are certainly not accurate to within a year or two, but it’s conventional for the system to be accurate to within a few hundred years. This is why radiocarbon dating is not used for younger specimens, due to it’s uncertainty. However as specimen becomes older the uncertainty becomes less relevant. Thus radiocarbon can be used to aid in deciphering how old the Earth is compared to the biblical text, and also to help remove large-scale chronological errors present in the bible, and the debates that have arisen out of misinterpretations from the bible, primarily “how old is the Earth”. As the dated age of the Earth compared to the biblical age is so vast the uncertainty is negligible. This would infer that carbon dating is accurate enough for it’s use in today’s society. At this present time I believe that it does not seem safe to speculate that carbon dating is a method of dating that will end all controversy regarding the age of the Earth. More scrupulous testing must be undergone to conclusively prove one way or the other that carbon dating is a reliable dating method. Jordan Summers SACE ID: 243346X Stage 2 Physics 5 August 2015 References: Varchive.org, (n.d.). The Pitfalls of Radiocarbon Dating. [online] Available at: http://www.varchive.org/ce/c14.htm [Accessed 7 Aug. 2015]. Scientific American, (2012).
How Does Radiocarbon Dating Work?. [video] Available at: http://www.scientificamerican.com/video/how-does-radiocarbon-dating-work-i2012-11-30/ [Accessed 2 Aug. 2015]. Trueauthority.com, (n.d.). TrueAuthority.com - Creation vs Evolution - Carbon Dating: It Doesn't Prove An Old Earth. [online] Available at: http://www.trueauthority.com/cvse/carbon.htm [Accessed 5 Aug. 2015]. Hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu, (n.d.). Carbon Dating. [online] Available at: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nuclear/cardat.html [Accessed 5 Aug. 2015]. Ncse.com, (1982). Answers to Creationist Attacks on Carbon-14 Dating | NCSE. [online] Available at: http://ncse.com/cej/3/2/answers-to-creationist-attacks-carbon-14-dating [Accessed 7 Aug. 2015]. Long, J. (n.d.). TrueAuthority.com - Creation vs Evolution - Carbon Dating: It Doesn't Prove An Old Earth. [online] Trueauthority.com. Available at: http://www.trueauthority.com/cvse/carbon.htm [Accessed 6 Aug. 2015]. Snelling, D. (1999). Dating Dilemma: Fossil Wood in “Ancient” Sandstone. [online] Answers in Genesis. Available at: https://answersingenesis.org/fossils/dating-dilemma-fossil-wood-in-ancient-sandstone/ [Accessed 7 Aug.
2015].
DNA Timeline: DNA Science from Mendel to Today. (2014). Retrieved May 29, 2014, from http://www.dnai.org/timeline/
While the carbon 14 method provided approximate dates for the stone rings it was no use
The discourse focused on one question: Is creation a viable modern of origins? This directly links to the focus of this essay: that expert disagree despite the same evidence. Part of this comes from confirmation bias, a disregard for facts or ideas that go against one’s own ideation. Ken Ham was guilty of this; he took scientific ideas that only matched his creationist views and distorted them to be portrayed the only correct science. The methods he used, such as coral reef aging, are outdated and have been replaced by better methods, such as radioactive dating. Bill Nye used these more accurate measurements support his argument that the Earth is closer to 4.5 billion years old. Another argument from the creationist side is a distinction between observational and historical science. Essentially, historical science is scientific study in regards to the past, whereas observational science is the scientific research of the present and cannot be applied to the past. Beyond the implication of nigh complete uncertainty of past events and how they transpired, the claim is not even falsifiable. It is impossible to prove that science today is different than past science, thus the idea can be disregarded as any sort of theory. The more rational thought, that science is science whether in the past or present,
Dendrochronology is a technique that has been in use for most of the twentieth century. Essentially the process revolves around tree rings. In a moderate environment, trees grow by one ring each year and thus, to an extent, by examining these ring sequences, it is possible to understand the conditions in which the tree grew, year by year. The resultant pattern is then comparable with patterns from other trees found in similar areas, growing under similar circumstances; types of ring can then be assigned to specific years. As well as their importance for studying climatic and environmental development, these tree ring patterns, ( the culmination of which are called chronologies ), are particularly useful to archaeologists. By tracing the patterns from living trees back through time, it is possible to compare samples of wood that have been recovered from ancient structures with our established chronologies, and match the sequence of the rings, thus revealing the age of the sample. This is known as cross dating. In the 20's and 30's the archaeologist, Douglass used these techniques effectively, and was one of the first to do so. At Pueblo Bonito, in New Mexico he established, for the first time, absolute dates for forty-five different monuments. He also used the technique to study the effects of a significant drought that occurred from1276 -- 1299 ( as well as several others ). He was also able to look at the implications of the use of dead wood, and the re-using of other timbers.
...l between 40,000 and 80,000 years old Anthropologists date modern human fossils from the same area at between 92,000 and
The arguments that many Young Earth Creationists make for their belief and against evolution are that fossils were created through the great Flood, the literal belief in Genesis, and that radiocarbon dating used in Evolution is too imprecise to prove that the Earth is older than 10,000 years.
The average person usually does not question 2,000 years of beliefs, but that is what Buffon did: 100 years before Darwin. Buffon, in his encyclopedia called Historie Naturelle, he describes everything known in the natural world, strained the similarities between humans and apes and even talked about common ancestry. Although Buffon believed in organic change, he did not provide a reasonable mechanism for such changes. He thought the environment acted directly on organisms through what he called "organic particles". Buffon also published Les Epoques de la Nature(1788) where he suggests that the planet is much older than the 6,000 years the church had previously said (berkeley.edu./history/buffon).
years, and that it was created as it is now just six thousand years ago? Creationism should
It also provides a wealth of knowledge on the fossil record and changes in organisms over great periods of time. Though much research, timelines have been established to view this change and development of current biological groups from common ancestors. However in this theory there is the idea that it cannot be falsified as we cannot view this record in its entirety and view it in absolute over time. This falsifiability is true only if we cannot test it over time. It is the evidence though that time gives us which allows for further hypothesis and testing. When new fossils are discovered that make a claim against a certain part of the theory – it is revised. The reverse of what we see in ID. Revision of some part of the theory labels it as a good scientific
Tree-Ring dating is focused around the rule that the developed rings on specific types of trees reflect varieties in regular and yearly precipitation. Trees from the same species, developing in the same region or environment will be presented to the same conditions, and thus their development rings will match at the point where their life cycles overlap. Tree-ring dating is not used anymore because of the following limitations:
Thermoluminescence dating and microscopic biological analysis are two ways of determining how old some remains and artifacts are. Thermoluminescence dating is a way of finding how old something is by measuring how radiant something is, or how long it has been exposed to the sun. Microscopic biological analysis of organic remains is when a scientist can find how old someone is if they find an old body, and determine how old they are by finding what is on the bones. The ways of Thermoluminescence dating and microscopic biological analysis are two ways to date ancient artifacts and are used a lot to find things such as how old artifacts or remains
However the fossil record is one of the strongest lines of evidence for evolution. It provides Paleogeologist a unique view into the history of life by showing the features of life in the past. Paleogeologist usually discovered fossils near the earth’s surface, “if a preserved fossil escapes destruction by geological forces, it may become exposed by erosion” (text book 103). Forbes Quarry Neanderthal may be brought to the earth surface by the forces that uplift segments of th...
The first specimens of Australopithecus sediba, a fossilized jawbone and a collarbone was first discovered by Matthew Berger, son of paleoanthropologist Lee Berger at the site of, Malapa, South Africa on August 15, 2008. Since then Lee Berger and his team of researchers have found much more of the skeleton and analyzed it. The remains were too old to be dated directly therefore their ages were estimated from dating the uranium-rich flowstone that surrounded them. The ages of the fossil has been estimated approximately 1.97 million years ago.
Scientists have been researching for centuries to determine the Earth’s age, many naturalists debate on how old the Earth is yet it still remains a mystery. Geologist have research and analyze many theories but is still unsure, leaving a question of how long has the Earth been around? In 1860, John Phillips a geologist, used the idea of sedimentation to determine how old the Earth is. As rocks deteriorated throughout the years geologists measured the lower lying areas, like valleys, rivers, and oceans to determine the age of the Earth through the thickness of sedimentary deposit. Scientist calculated the forming of each layer and the rate of how quickly the sedimentary would thicken over a period of time, after researching Geologist came to
Radiocarbon dating is used to tell how old something is. When some normal carbon gets hit by the rays of the sun it turns into carbon 14. Plants absorb this radioactive carbon in the form of carbon dioxide. Animals receive this carbon from eating the plants. When the organism is dead it loses the carbon 14. Scientists can tell how old something is based on the amount of carbon 14 in a dead object. Carbon dating is accurate if the amount of carbon 14 in the atmosphere has remained the same throughout time. The second is if carbon 14 has always decayed at the same