Kenny Johnson writes:
I like C14 too! I like the fact that with advanced mass spectrometry we have detected C14 in 300 million year old Pennsylvanian coal. Of course, with the half life of C14, that would make the coal no older than 10s of thousands years old. Yeah, radioactive dating, responsible for the 300 million year date is obviously accurate, NOT!
First, it's not "advanced mass spectrometry," it's "ACCELERATOR mass spectrometry."
Second, if you are referring to the RATE project, look again at the actual table of measurements that RATE published (Table 2, p. 605 of the RATE report). Notice that the radiocarbon concentrations in coal vary greatly between samples, ranging from 0.1 to 0.46 pMC, nearly a factor of 5. Even among samples of the same geologic period (Pennsylvanian) there is a spread of 0.13 to 0.46, nearly a factor of 4.
If all coal were really the same age, shouldn't it all have the same concentration of radiocarbon? Even if it underwent a hypothetical "accelerated decay" shouldn't it all have the same concentration? Of course it should. Why the variation by a factor of 4 or 5?
This sort of large variation is quite consistent with sample contamination, but is inconsistent with the RATE claim that the radiocarbon is intrinsic to the samples.
For more information, please see my detailed critique, "RATE's Radiocarbon: Intrinsic or Contamination?", available at a number of sites:
RATE's Radiocarbon - Intrinsic or Contamination?RATE’s Radiocarbon: Intrinsic or Contamination?Page not found - Reasons to Believe
(And before you believe the erroneous claim that AIG has "effectively rebutted" my critique, notice the dates on my critique and their so-called rebuttal. What they responded to was an earlier, less complete version of my critique. Also look at my footnotes, and notice that I referenced and responded to AIG's so-called rebuttal in my critique.)
Edited by kbertsche, : No reason given.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." — Albert Einstein
I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives us a lot of factual information, puts all of our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously. — Erwin Schroedinger
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