Creationist problems with radiocarbon dating

Unfortunately, and no disrespect intended, I think that is because of your lack of experience in reading scientific debate. Baumgardner lost just about all credibility in his first reply, sounding like an undergrad on a usenet sci group. This is followed by his extensive back peddling, selective replies, obsfuscation, and continued ass-hattery. Yes, there is some actual back-and-forth content hidden within the noise, but it is limited. If Baumgardner had conveyed himself in the manner of Bertsche and Morton, he may not have suffered the resulting complete loss of scientific credibility. As it stands, I wouldn't hire him as the liquid nitrogen loader...The (sad?) fact is that just about every creationist I meet on the internet makes me think - idiot - from presentation if not content. This applies to our own EvC Kaichos Man, Ichiban, etc, all the way up to Baumgardner and Humphreys (Humphreys is in my field and his bullshit makes Baumgardner look a complete amateur) That is why I hope (and expect) that neither you nor Slevesque will remain creationists for much longer, as you are ruining my extrapolation of the above observation into a general rule...

The most humorous portion of that discussion was where Baumgardner tried to claim that lake varves, with insect and leaf debris sorted by minute differences in carbon 14, were created by earthquakes. If you can't sense how pathetic this argument is then you should not be allowed to use the verb "see" in this forum any longer.

Hi Taq, There are actually three co-correlations in the Lake Suigetsu data: I've not seen a single creationist explanation of this relationship.Anyone want to correlate 11,000 years ago with major climate change that would alter the rate of deposition of sediment?Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : 11k

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I also recommend the collection of critiques on various aspects of RATE on the ASA website:
RATE and Age of the Earth - Radiometric DatingThe conclusion of ASA Executive Director, Randy Isaac is strongly worded, but accurate:

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Also, it would seem to me that even with a bouncy background you could at least use known concentrations of 14C to create a linear regression and extrapolate the background and measure the std. error. Anything within the std. error compared to background could be considered zero. Perhaps the problem here is that radiocarbon age is not represented by the amount of carbon 14 but by the calculated age which does not relate the data to the actual background in the experiment.

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It's done pretty much the way you are thinking. Radiocarbon measurements are generally done by measuring radiocarbon ratios or concentrations (or a proxy for them), and this is where the backgrounds and normalizations are done. We would typically have at least one background radiocarbon-dead sample and at least one modern calibration standard for a set of unknowns. We would tune up the machine on a calibration standard and come back to it periodically during the run, and would also measure the dead samples a few times during the run. Then, as you imply, we could see how the backgrounds and calibrations varied throughout the run and could do linear fits between these known points. Only after all corrections are done is the result turned into a date BP, then this is converted to a calibrated BC/AD date.

The end result is an estimate or guess of what the age of the article is, and it should be given no more weight than that.

Sorry, this is wrong. Radiocarbon dating provides a pretty accurate assessment of the age of an article when it is done correctly. And scientists have an incentive to do their dating correctly, as there is no respect in science for mistakes and even less for fraud.But your problem seems to be that you don't like the results of radiocarbon dating.You don't know the science behind radiocarbon or other forms of radiometric dating, but you come on here and tell scientists who do know -- and who have studied the field for decades -- how to go about their business.Creation "science" as usual, eh?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

The end result is a method that can accurately date organic material for articles of known age. That is what RAZD's post above demonstrates. The correlation between Carbon-14 age and age determined by varve count, dendrochronology, and ice layer count all match. Calling this a "guess" is absurd. Only someone with an anti-science agenda would claim Carbon-14 dates are a "guess".

Anything concerning creation theory (or whatever you want to call it) does not enter into it, its just one of your red herrings presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. You rely on red herrings a lot dont you.The truth is there are so many assumptions and variables these dating methods are based on the only scientifically honest answer is that they are an estimate/guess.Here is a source from the NDT Resource Center so you cant reject it right off as 'creationist lies' Edited by Admin, : Fix quotes. Ichiban, close quotes need a "/", as in [/qs].

see post #69

See the specific comments which follow. That the levels of C14 in the atmosphere vary through time has been known for decades. De Vries published on that in 1958. That is why scientists have used a variety of methods to establish a calibration curve to account for that variation. That curve is based on tree rings, varves, corals and other annular data; and you know what? Those different methods are all in pretty close agreement! We know that! That is why radiocarbon dates are adjusted using the C13 level. Shellfish in my area often have a C13 of about 1.0 to -1.0, while plant material (and humans who feed on that plant material) are about -25.0. But recently I dated an individual who had a C13 of about -13.0 because he had a diet rich in marine organisms. So of course when I calibrated the date I used that information to correct the age; it reduced the age by some 400 years. Again, C13 does correct for local plant species!I haven't bothered to examine your source for these comments, but I'm not impressed.(Scientists are not as dumb as some people would like to think.)

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Bullshit, and of poor quality, besides.Go here:
EvC Forum: Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1Read, and then tell me about "guesses"Edited by Coragyps, : it ate my first post

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"The wretched world lies now under the tyranny of foolishness; things are believed by Christians of such absurdity as no one ever could aforetime induce the heathen to believe." - Agobard of Lyons, ca. 830 AD

Hi Ichiban,I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but creationists not only argue against the accuracy of ¹⁴C dating, they also argue for it. For example, the RATE group (a creationist dating group) argues that ¹⁴C dating is so accurate that they can date coal accurately to 50,000 years. Let me give you a little information that your source left out and you can decide for yourself whether they're lying. If by "significant amount of uncertainty" they mean 5-10% for cases where there are no sample problems, then they are correct. But if they mean hundreds of percent of error as in something dated to 50,000 years old is actually 5,000 years old then they're incorrect. This is true. It is common for samples to present challenges, and the radiocarbon dating industry has developed a wide variety of approaches for dealing with this problem. For example, post-discovery contamination can be handled by placing a newly discovered sample in a sample container along with something known to have no carbon contamination. The sample and the carbon-sterile item are both dated, and any non-zero date for carbon-sterile item must be due to contamination and can be subtracted out. Rather than telling you about the techniques science has developed to address problems like contamination and then going on to question how this was done, they just chose not to tell you about it. This was true at one time back when Libby first developed the process, but what your source doesn't tell you is that science has worked hard to rectify this, and we now have ¹⁴C profiles for the atmosphere going back the necessary 50,000 years. Rather than telling you that science has addressed this problem and then going on to question how this was done, they just chose not to tell you about it. It is true that this was once a problem, but your article doesn't mention that scientists have developed correction approaches that require measuring the ¹³C concentration. Rather than telling you about ¹³C-based corrections and then going on to question the effectiveness, they just chose not to tell you about it.Were they lying? You decide.--Percy

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The truth is there are so many assumptions and variables these dating methods are based on the only scientifically honest answer is that they are an estimate/guess.

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It is true that a number of approximations and corrections are used when doing radiocarbon dating. However, exactly the same approximations and corrections were used to derive the calibration curves. These approximations and corrections cancel out when dating an old piece of wood. In effect, what we are doing when we date an old piece of wood is to measure its radiocarbon concentration and to match this to a tree ring which has the same concentration.The only remaining assumption is that we can count tree rings.(Note: I can think of only one minor correction which does not exactly cancel for wood dating: the time difference between when the unknown sample is dated and when the tree rings were dated. The radiocarbon decay during this time difference must be corrected for. In practice, this is done by converting all radiocarbon concentrations to what they would have been in 1950.)

I do have a question for Coyote and kbertsche since you guys have actually done work in the field:Are or are there not some assumptions that come with this process? For example, nobody was around billions or millions of years ago to observe what the earth was going through at the time or what these samples went through as far as how they were affected by any sort of catastrophic event, and in discussing millions or billions of years, there's a good chance they went through quite a few catastrophic events, not just one.One example, how do we know for certain what the initial amounts were to begin with? Isn't that an assumption? Has the rate of decay changed at all during time? How can anyone know that for certain?One last question that I have that doesn't pertain to assumptions is, is C14 dating only good for geological samples or also for biological samples, or in an idiot laymen's terms, for dead animals, plants, leaves, ect??? Thanks in advance for the responses.