I'm not familiar with the "Miller Tale" -- if it had been mentioned in this topic or elsewhere on this forum, please point it out.
Basically, this Miller had done what other creationists had done: grossly abuse dating methods in order to get "bad results". I remember one YouTube video with commentary of an "interview" with Kent Hovind where he discussed the "bad results" from a C14 test on a dinosaur fossil -- the commentator kept shouting over the video, "There's no f**king carbon!"
A common tactic in this form of creationist deception is as you point out: using the wrong dating method. A common refutation of this trick is to point out that we weigh ourselves with a bathroom scale, our letters with a postage scale, and our vehicles and 18-wheel trucks plus trailer with truck scales. Assuming indestructible scales, I could prove that my Honda hybrid (a bit over 3000 lb) weighs only 400 lb by weighing it on a bathroom scale, that I myself (180 lb) weigh less than a pound by weighing myself on a postage scale, and that a 10-lb package I want to mail doesn't weigh anything at all by weighing it on a truck scale. Creationists like to declare a "gotcha" when the lab asks what age range you think it is (plus other questions the creationists don't mention or even know about)
because that will tell them which test to perform first -- if the test pegs out at either extremely end of the scale then that tells them to use a test with another more appropriate scale (think about measuring a voltage with a multimeter where you start a too-high voltage so as to not damage its D'Arsonval movement by pegging it and then working down through progressive smaller voltage scales).
While most creationists have no clue what they are doing, there are also those who
do know. I don't know whether Miller knew about the shellac, but a creationist who did know about the need to prevent contamination of a radiocarbon dating sample with other organic material would knowingly use that to get the "bad results" that he wanted.
An example of that is Dr. Steve Austin, PhD Geology, (AKA "Stuart Nevins", his pseudonym writing "geology based" creationist articles while being paid by the ICR to earn his PhD Geology -- they wanted to have an actual PhD Geology on their staff). His schooling taught him about radiometric dating methods and the kinds of conditions that can lead to bad results -- those kinds of conditions were not discovered by creationists, but rather by practicing scientists testing their methods in order to discover anything to look out for. So actually trained creationists know what to look for to get the "bad results" that they want, as Dr. Austin did at the Grand Canyon.
A similar problem involves trying to apply radiocarbon dating to sea life. Radiocarbon dating depends on
atmospheric C14 being incorporated into plant life and from there into the food chain (NOTE: only plants "breathe in" carbon, but animals don't -- they exhale it as carbon dioxide -- so animals can only get their C14 by eating plants or plant-eaters). Very little atmospheric C14 makes it into the oceans, so most of the carbon in the oceans' food chains are "old carbon" with far lower C14 levels than terrestrial life of the same age would contain. Examples very often cited by creationists include:
- Living seals being dated at "thousands of years old":
Those seals feed on fish and other sea animals, all of whom had gotten their C14 from the aquatic food chain which is notorious full of "old carbon".
Yes, seals do breathe in air with its atmospheric C14, but, as anyone even remotely familiar with biology should know, animals extract oxygen from the air they breathe in and "excrete" their carbon dioxide, which is what contains the C14. Yet again (for the benefit of candle2 and his ilk), plants breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen, whereas animals breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide.
- Living freshwater mollusks being dated at "thousands of years old":
This was actually one of the two first creationist claims I heard c. 1970 (the second was the infamous "NASA computer finding Joshua's Lost Day" claim which is totally bogus just on its face), but decades had to pass before I was able to find a creationist who provided the scientific source.
It turns out that the stream they were taken from was fed by a spring in
limestone rock, which is rich in
old carbon -- therefore
low levels of C14.
This next one comes from a recent NOVA episode which described an archeological dig in England to find a massive Viking encampment for which we have historical evidence. They were able to find human remains from that time, but those remains radiocarbon dated to be about 200 years older. The solution to that was to remember that they depended on
fish for a lot of their protein. And fish are chock full of protein, essential Omega-3 oils, and ... (wait for it ... wait for it) ...
old carbon. A reminder for candle2 and his ilk: animals (which includes
us despite all your contrary theology) acquire their C14 through their
food, not from the air.
A day or so again in another topic, candle2 started railing again about "flaws in dating", mainly triggered by false claims he had previously made about radiocarbon dating. That is the main reason for this, my reply.
I hope that candle2 will read this and finally present what he thinks are the "flaws in radiocarbon dating".
Not only am I not going to hold my breathe, I'm not even going to go out and buy any microwave popcorn for
that show.
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