What's the creationists thought on this?

As usual this is a creationist error that gets passed along from one creationist to another without anyone bothering to check the facts. The full details are here:

A Look at Creation Science Part IV The summary:

What we have here is no more than shorthand or sloppy translation from the Russian! The coal is nothing more than charcoal from an archaeological deposit. This sample is even included in the section of the report dealing with archaeological samples, and the paragraph discusses archaeological data.

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The odd use of terms is shown clearly in another radiocarbon date, Mo-353, reported on page 315 of the same article. It reads Charcoal from cultural deposits of a fisher site. The coal was coll. from subturfic humified loam

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But the term coal in place of charcoal was enough to fool Ken Ham, as well as dozens of subsequent creationists who apparently were salivating to find 300 million year old coal radiocarbon dated to recent times, and who repeated Ham’s false claim without bothering to check its accuracy.

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The interesting question is where Ken Ham managed to find Pennsylvanian in that short paragraph, and where he dug up the date of 300 million years.

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This is still another case where a creationist claim about science falls apart when examined more closely.

If you have any specific questions let me know. I do a lot of C14 dating.Minor addition: The article reporting these dates was 1966. AMS dating didn't come into common use until the 1990s.Edited by Coyote, : Addition

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

I believe it is the blunder I referred to above in Message 33.Check out the post and link and see if you agree.

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

The typical creationist claim is:

Coal from Russia from the Pennsylvanian, supposedly 300 million years old, was dated at 1,680 years. (Radiocarbon, vol. 8, 1966)

This false claim can be found all over the web.The blog I cited in my post notes that, "The original source for the false information seems to be Ken Ham, Andrew Snelling, and Carl Weiland’s The Answers Book, published by Master Books, El Cajon, CA, in 1992 (page 73)."I believe this is what our creationist, who seems to have disappeared, was referring to. It's a typical creation "science" type of mistake, repeated endlessly on the web.Add: I doubt whether our creationist knows the difference between AMS and older counting methods. I think that was just thrown in for effect.Edited by Coyote, : Addition

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

Sorry, that is not correct. The normal range of Carbon-14 dating is back to about 50,000 years, although some labs are experimenting with techniques to reach back perhaps 80,000 years.Carbon-14 is present in only small quantities in the atmosphere and living organisms, and in organisms that have died half of that amount decays every 5,730 years. After several half-lives the beta decay becomes indistinguishable from the background noise, and that forms the upper limit of the method. Research is being done to reduce background noise and that is where any extensions of the usable range are coming from.

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

The "Pennsylvanian coal" PRATT is completely refuted in post #33, above.Add: Message 33Edited by Coyote, : No reason given.

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

Dinosaur bones have been Carbon-14 dated, and returned measurable amounts of C-14.But the results are meaningless. When you are dealing with objects at or past the usable range of the method contamination and equipment error become the major factors.They have also dated diamonds and found trace amounts of C-14. That was an experiment to determine how much residual contamination resulted from the interior of the C-14 measuring equipment. Those results do not show there was C-14 in the diamond.But in their desperation for anything which will support their beliefs, creationists take these results out of context and claim they support a young earth.Pretty silly, eh?

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

"John Woodmorappe" is a pen name for a high school teacher.He knows nothing about dating beyond what he reads in the creationist literature (i.e., lies).Here are some links that can help you -- if you actually read them:

ReligiousTolerance.org Carbon-14 Dating (C-14): Beliefs of New-Earth Creationists

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Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective by Dr. Roger C. Wiens.

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This site, BiblicalChronologist.org has a series of good articles on radiocarbon dating.

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Are tree-ring chronologies reliable? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
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How does the radiocarbon dating method work? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
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How precise is radiocarbon dating?
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Is radiocarbon dating based on assumptions?
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Has radiocarbon dating been invalidated by unreasonable results?
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Tree Ring and C14 Dating

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Radiocarbon WEB-info Radiocarbon Laboratory, University of Waikato, New Zealand.

If you have any questions on radiocarbon dating let me know, as I do a lot of it in my work.

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

You might check the links on various dating techniques I posted upthread.You can't use C-14 to date into the millions of years, but that hasn't stopped creationists from dating dinosaur fossils. When they get readings they ignore contamination and other issues and claim proof of a young earth. Pretty silly, eh?They have also used studies on diamonds to claim that even diamonds have residual C-14, but that was a test of residual carbon and C-14 that builds up in the dating equipment. Diamonds were used because they truly contain no C-14, and this let them establish the "background" for the equipment.Please check the links I posted and let me know if you have any questions on radiocarbon dating.

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

One thing creationists love to be wrong about is "circular dating."We can date fossil layers via various radiometric techniques, such as was mentioned above, by dating adjacent volcanic layers.And if there are unique marker fossils in a particular layer we can then date that layer in other areas by means of those marker fossils. That is a lot easier and cheaper and much quicker.Thus the creationists' (false) claim that we date fossils by layers and layers by fossils or some such silliness.

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

Sorry, scientists don't date rocks with Carbon-14 dating. That technique goes back only about 50,000 years and must be applied to something what was once alive (bone, shell, plant material, etc.).Rocks are dated using other radiometric tests.If you want to comment on science, it is best to learn something about it first as you are bound to run into folks who have learned something.

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