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Author Topic:   Carbon-14: A Scientifically Proven Dating Method?
The General
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 25 (48274)
08-01-2003 2:25 AM


Carbon-14: A Scientifally Proven Dating Method?
A. Introduction
Recently someone claiming to be knowledgeable on the subject told me that the Carbon-14 dating method was a reliable scientific method. In the past, individuals have rejected my writings because I look upon the Carbon-14 dating method as nonsense. However, I feel the time is right to address the issue.
B. What is Carbon-14?
Carbon comes in several different forms. A less common form has atoms, which are fourteen times as heavy as the hydrogen atom. Therefore it is called Carbon-14. What makes Carbon-14 different from the common Carbon-12 is that Carbon-14 easily disintegrates. That it falls into pieces makes it instable, and in the present case, its instability makes it radioactive.
Carbon-14, which is also called radiocarbon, is formed in the upper atmosphere by cosmic rays, which convert N-14 into C-14 by their actions. (This happens when cosmic rays 'attack' the upper atmosphere and produce fast moving neutrons, which collide with the nitrogen atoms to produce C-14.) Ordinary carbon, C-12, is found in the carbon dioxide when we breathe in air. This is cycled by plants and animals throughout nature, so that one's body, a leaf on a tree, of even a piece of wooden furniture all contain carbon.
Once carbon-14 has been formed, it behaves just like ordinary carbon. Carbon-14 can and will combine with oxygen to make carbon dioxide (it becomes C-14 O-2), which gets cycled freely through the cells of plants and animals. What makes this different is that once C-14 has been formed, it begins to decay radioactively back into N-14, at a transformation rate that can be measured. By taking a sample of air and then measuring how many C-12 atoms there are to C-14 atoms, researchers can then determine what is called the C-12/C-14 ratio.
Now, because C-14 is so well mixed in with C-12, it is expected that if we sample a leaf from a tree, or a part from your body, the ratio will be the same. The fact that C-14 atoms are changing back into N-14 atoms is a moot point since the body is constantly exchanging carbon with its surroundings. And so the mixture will be the same in the atmosphere and in all living things.
C. The Carbon Clock
As soon as a plant or an animal dies, the Carbon-14 atoms inside decay, and are no longer replaced by new ones from the outside. Naturally, the amount of Carbon-14 inside gets smaller and smaller as time goes on. The C-12/C-14 ratio gets smaller and smaller in other words. The moment something dies, the amount of regular carbon stays in the body in the same amount for an infinite period of time. What changes is the amount of C-14, for it becomes less and less until there is none left. The carbon clock can only 'work' for object that once contained carbon. This means that it cannot be used to date rocks and minerals. What makes the carbon clock fascinating is this: If we know how quickly the C-14 decays then we can measure how long it has been since a plant or living creature has died.
D. From Theory to Practice
There are problems though. One, we do not know what the C-12/C-14 ratio was to start with. Obviously we need to know this in order to be able to determine at what point the clock began to tick. We know that the ratio would be the same as is in the atmosphere at the time that the organism died, but how do we know what that ratio was? Do scientists assume that the ratio was as it is now? Not exactly. Researchers have shown that the Industrial Revolution because of its huge burnings of masses of coal terribly upset the natural carbon balance, by releasing enormous amounts of C-12 into the air. So we know that the ratio was changed, at least once. Tree ring studies have determined what the C-12/C-14 ratio was before the Industrial Revolution. All radiocarbon dating is made with this in mind. But what was the ratio like, say, 1000 years ago. We do not know, but evolutionists assume that it has been constant for a long period of time before the Industrial Revolution. On this assumption hangs the whole validity of the dating system.
Why would W.F. Libby, the founder of this method, assume this? If it has changed once in the last 300 years, could it not also have changed in the preceding 6000 years (for the creationist) or 6,000,000 years (for the evolutionist). To say, "NO", its impossible would be foolish and closed-minded, abandoning scientific research and embracing an irrational faith. We all know that C-14 is continually entering the atmosphere (via the carbon cycle), and that it is continually leaving the system by its decay back into N-14. The more you have the more there is to decay, and as more enters the system the rate of leaving then increases.
Now, C-14 enters the system at a constant rate, but the rate of entry, will of course be greater than the rate of exit. This allows some C-14 to build up, and the more that accumulates, the more at the rate of exit, until the amount pouring in is the same as the amount pouring out. At this point, when the entry rate and exit rate are identical, the "steady state" has been reached. Libby and other scientific minds of his day, believed that this steady state had been reached a very long time ago. They believed that C-14 would be entering and leaving at the same rate. They stated calculations showing that it would take 30,000 years for the 'switch' to turn on (for cosmic rays to attack the atmosphere) until C-14 would reach the steady state. By that time geologists and others had been persuaded that the earth was much older than that. Most believed that C-14 had been in a steady state now for millions of years.
E. What do the Measurement Show
During Libby's day, measurements showed that C-14 was entering the system approximately 12 % faster than it was leaving. This indicates that the system was considerably less than 30,000 years old, since equilibrium had not yet been reached. Newer measurements show an obvious difference between rate of production and of disintegration. Nuclear chemists, A.W Fairhall and J.A Young, much to the disappointment of old earth theorists, suggest that the rate of production and the rate of disintegration may be about 50% out of balance.
"We note in passing that the total number of C-14 inventory of 2.16x10^30 atoms corresponds to a C-14 decay rate of 1.63x10^4 disintegrations of the earth which is considerably below the estimated production rate of C-14 atom averages over the last ten solar cycles (111 years) of 2.5x10^4 (+/- 0.5x10^4) atoms..." (Advances in Chemistry Volume 93, pg 402)
Now there are discrepancies and complexities in all measurements. Some researchers use a newer non-uniform model based on the average imbalance of 35% to establish a recalibration scale which would mean that the older dates have to be more generally reduced than other ones. This seems proper, as does the use of the average imbalance to establish a limit to the age of the earth's atmosphere which ranges from 7000 years to 10,000 years.
F. Take this Into Account
1.Many creationists believe that there was a vast water vapor canopy around the earth before the flood of Noah’s day. This would have shielded the atmosphere from some of the cosmic radiation. This would mean that the amount of C-14 in the pre-flood times would have been much smaller than it was today. What this shows is that a specimen from before the flood could appear to be very old, or even of an infinite age, because it has so little C-14 in it, making it look as if it had been decaying for tens of thousands of years.
Also, most coal is vegetation that grew before the flood and was buried by the flood, so, it would not be surprising that coal and oil have virtually no radiocarbon activity to be measured.
2. I find this interesting that the measured exponential decay of the earth’s magnetic field suggests that as you go back in history, the strength of the field increases rapidly. A stronger magnetic field would mean more protection against cosmic rays. Therefore much less C-14 is produced and we are stuck with artificially old ages the more we go back in time, unless radiocarbon researchers take the magnetic field into account, which unfortunately they don’t. (Much can be read about the magnetic field. I recomend the work of Dr. Thomas Barnes).
3. The third one here I only mention because it is an interesting theory. Many are starting to consider the suggestion that the speed of light has decreased through time. During the 1930's and 40's measurements seemed to be dropping consistently. This has caused a controversy for some time. But if they are right then radioactivity decay rates would automatically be affected and would show artificially high ages.
G. C-14 Dating Embarassments
1. Errors in Judgement
-coal from Russia from the Pennsylvanian era supposedly 300 million years old, was dated only 1680 years (Radiocarbon, Volume 8)
-natural gas from Mississippi and Alabama should have been 50 to 135 million years old yet C-14 dated it 30 000 and 34 000 years old respectively (also Volume 8)
-bones from a saber-tooth tiger, found in the LaBrea tar pits (near Los Angeles) were supposedly between 100 000 and 1 000 000 years old, were given a date of 28 000 years (Radiocarbon, Volume 10)
2. Oops
-a freshly killed seal dated by C-14 showed that it had died 1 300 years ago (American Journal, Volume 6)
-living mollusc shells were dated at up to 2300 years old (Science, Volume 14)
-living snail shells showed that they had died 27 000 years ago (Science, Volume 224)
These are just a few errors. They are not meant to end the debate. But once one has considered everything else, it certainly makes it harder to believe that the C-14 dating method is a proven, trustworthy scientific method.
Perhaps one can find reasons to excuse these sorts of errors that I have pointed out. One could say that C-14 dissolves in water or any other piece of information with the attempt of excusing certain blunders. But when one is testing the age of an unknown organism in an unknown enviroment at the time of its death, how can we exclude similar sorts of results.
A respected antropological journal highlighted the nature of the problem of carbon-dating:
"The troubles of the radiocarbon dating method are undeniably deep and serious. It should be no surprise then, that half of the dates are rejected. The wonder is; Why are the remaining half accepted?" (Radiocarbon, Ages in Error: Antropological Journal of Canada, Vol 19, No 3, Pg 9)
H. Conclusion
The C-14 has not reached the steady state yet but it is building up. Unfortunately predictions are based on the belief that the steady state has been reached.
Also, based on the present evidence, the olders radiocarbon dates have to be adjusted from the inaccurate uniform model. When this is done there is shrinking in the dates. Not coincidentally, the older the date the greater the age reduction.
Third, the protective water vapor canopy and the greater magnetic field before likely means that the C-14 levels in the past were significantly smaller than at present. This would cause enormous dating problems.
Finally, any systematic change in atomic contrasts, such as the speed of light, would affectively reduce the radioactive ages given.
The General
[Edited to render readable. --Admin]
[This message has been edited by Admin, 08-01-2003]

Replies to this message:
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 Message 10 by Dr Cresswell, posted 08-02-2003 6:57 AM The General has not replied
 Message 12 by Coragyps, posted 08-02-2003 8:06 PM The General has replied

  
Adminnemooseus
Administrator
Posts: 3974
Joined: 09-26-2002


Message 2 of 25 (48278)
08-01-2003 2:51 AM


Thread moved here from the Evolution forum.

  
Adminnemooseus
Administrator
Posts: 3974
Joined: 09-26-2002


Message 3 of 25 (48279)
08-01-2003 2:56 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by The General
08-01-2003 2:25 AM


Boy, is that hard reading. Work on breaking things into paragraphs, and put a blank line between paragraphs.
Also, I think you might be one of the people for whom I'm bumping the "Two types of reply buttons" topic.
Adminnemooseus

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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 4 of 25 (48283)
08-01-2003 5:18 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by The General
08-01-2003 2:25 AM


Well I did advise you to look into the facts, so we must include that either you have arrogantly refused to do so - assuming that the facts have to agree with your beliefs or that you know that much of what you have written is false.
For a start considerable work has gone into calibrating carbon dating. The scientists who use carbon dating KNOW that the ratio of C14 to C12 is NOT constant, because the cosmic ray bombardment that produces C14 is not constant. Changes in the production rate cause changes in the ratio. So the scientists have used objects of known date - most importantly wood samples dated by dendrochronology to determine the actual ratios in the past. This goes back around 10,000 years.
Other methods - while not as reliable (such as using material retrieved from varves) - have pushed the period for which we have got a good idea of he C14/C12 ratio even further back.
Your various speculatiosn are therefore already refuted.
As for the "embarassments"
1) Contamination frequently produces measurements arounfd the limits of the techniques in use. This accounts for those "errors'
2) The marine carbon reservoir has a lower C14/C12 ratio than the atmosphere. Any life that derives a significant amount of it's carbon from the marine reservoir will appear to be too old if it is dated wihtout taking that into account.
So none of your "embarassments" are a problem at all.
I note also that you do not supply dates with your references. Is it because they are old and you wish to conceal that fact ? Or because you obtained them from a secondary source which did not give the dates either ? If the latter it would be better to admit that you have not read the original and that you found the material somewhere else.

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MrHambre
Member (Idle past 1393 days)
Posts: 1495
From: Framingham, MA, USA
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 5 of 25 (48306)
08-01-2003 10:18 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by PaulK
08-01-2003 5:18 AM


Dating Radiocarbon
PaulK asks TheGeneral:
quote:
I note also that you do not supply dates with your references. Is it because they are old and you wish to conceal that fact ? Or because you obtained them from a secondary source which did not give the dates either ?
Point of information:
"Radiocarbon: The International Journal of Cosmogenic Isotope Research" was established in 1959. Thus, volumes 8 and 10 cited in post #1 would be from 1966 and 1968 respectively.
------------------
En la tierra de ciegos, el tuerco es el Rey.
[This message has been edited by MrHambre, 08-01-2003]

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 6 of 25 (48311)
08-01-2003 10:44 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by The General
08-01-2003 2:25 AM


Hi General,
Over time Creationists have created a rather large library of supposed problems with radiocarbon dating, and while I guess we could get into these at some point it seems better to address the most significant issue first, tree ring data:
The General writes:
Tree ring studies have determined what the C-12/C-14 ratio was before the Industrial Revolution. All radiocarbon dating is made with this in mind. But what was the ratio like, say, 1000 years ago. We do not know...
Ah, but we *do* know. As PaulK has already pointed out, the tree ring studies go back 11,000 years. See this section titled How tree rings are used as a radiocarbon record from the Waikato Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory.
Other dating confirmation comes from lake varves and glacial ice layers, variously going back 10,000-15,000 years.
Taken together this means we have broad confirmation of the reliability of radiocarbon dating going back at least 10,000 years.
Coincidentally, I was at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts yesterday and was able to look at some 6400 year-old pottery fragments from the Badarian era of Egypt. While this was the oldest pottery at MFA, which after all is an art museum and not an archeological museum, archeologists have discovered pottery as old as 15,000 years or so.
--Percy

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 7 of 25 (48323)
08-01-2003 11:43 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Percy
08-01-2003 10:44 AM


General - I quote myself from another thread on this subject a few weeks ago, addressing buzsaw, who never really answered:
Please, for yourself and all of us here:
1) Go to Science | AAAS
2) Register. It's free. They won't spam you.
3) Find the Archive
4) Use the "search" function to find volume 279, page 1187.
5) Print out the article - Acrobat has nicer graphics, but the plain text is intelligible
6) Please, please, READ THE ARTICLE! Kitigawa & van der Plicht, "Atmospheric Radiocarbon Calibration to 45,000 yr B.P.: Late Glacial Fluctuations and Cosmogenic Isotope Production."
7) Reread, and ask questions here or elsewhere if there is something you don't know how to interpret.
8) Once you have an appreciation for what K. & vdP did, reread your post above.
9) Then let's discuss......
things like, "why would 45,000 individually counted layers in a lake in Japan - layers that are even now forming once per year - correlate in such a pretty fashion with 250 14C dates, and with tree ring dates from Germany?"
Thanks.

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 8 of 25 (48337)
08-01-2003 2:48 PM


So then the answer to the question in the topic title would be "yes, it's a scientifically proven dating method."

Replies to this message:
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wj
Inactive Member


Message 9 of 25 (48377)
08-02-2003 4:07 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by crashfrog
08-01-2003 2:48 PM


I deeply suspect that the general will not be able to respond to the rebuttals made to his initial cut'n'paste.

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Dr Cresswell
Inactive Member


Message 10 of 25 (48381)
08-02-2003 6:57 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by The General
08-01-2003 2:25 AM


quote:
1. Errors in Judgement
-coal from Russia from the Pennsylvanian era supposedly 300 million years old, was dated only 1680 years (Radiocarbon, Volume 8)
-natural gas from Mississippi and Alabama should have been 50 to 135 million years old yet C-14 dated it 30 000 and 34 000 years old respectively (also Volume 8)
-bones from a saber-tooth tiger, found in the LaBrea tar pits (near Los Angeles) were supposedly between 100 000 and 1 000 000 years old, were given a date of 28 000 years (Radiocarbon, Volume 10)
This is a common claim that keeps popping up. Following a meeting organised by AiG I went to last year where such things were claimed I did a bit of looking into the subject (we've just opened an AMS lab at work for 14C studies and wanted to see what the Creationists were saying). This article by Andrew Snelling, TJ 14(2) (2000), 99-122 (link is to pdf file on AiG website) seems typical. Here there are reported ages determined by 14C dating of fossilised woods found in ancient basalt of approx 45000 years (p110). However, the article goes on to extensively discuss other samples that were dated to give similar (or slightly older) ages (cited from Radiocarbon 41 1999). Following up on this later point in correspondance with one of the speakers at the AiG event I was given a copy of the table of dates for old materials that had been presented there taken from a forthcoming paper by Snelling. Tracking down those papers I had ready access to in the limited amount of spare time I have, I found that the scientific papers Snelling was quoting (from Radiocarbon and Nuclear Instrumentation and Methods mainly) were reports on commissioning of new AMS equipment or techniques in which ancient carbon materials were being used as a measure of instrumental/procedural backgrounds. ie: the labs reporting ages for ancient material of 35-50000 years were not saying that these were actual ages - just that the instrumental background 14C measurements corresponded to these "ages". What Snelling does in the article linked to above, and would appear to be doing in the new work (I await publication of the paper to see if any of my comments were passed back to him and if he's considered them), is take the reporting of routine quality control data and spin them to indicate a complete lack of quality in the data.
Alan

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John
Inactive Member


Message 11 of 25 (48390)
08-02-2003 10:18 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by wj
08-02-2003 4:07 AM


I deeply suspect that the general has retreated.
------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 12 of 25 (48411)
08-02-2003 8:06 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by The General
08-01-2003 2:25 AM


General, should you return, you might want this for your files:
-living mollusc shells were dated at up to 2300 years old (Science, Volume 14)
Is apparently a reference to the paper "Radiocarbon Dating: Fictitious Results with Mollusk Shells", M L Keith and G M Anderson, Science, vol 141, pp 634-637 (1963). The entire article is in essence an explanation why river-dwelling snails give bad 14C dates - they get lots of their carbon from "old" groundwater and humus - and a warning to other scientists doing 14C dating to look out for these effects.
Whoever you got that list from, and my guess is that his initials are KH, is out to deceive, or at the very best never even read the title of the paper he referenced, though he did apparently find the time to find sample 62-48 in Table 1 and extract only that date.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by The General, posted 08-01-2003 2:25 AM The General has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by The General, posted 08-05-2003 2:47 AM Coragyps has replied

  
The General
Inactive Member


Message 13 of 25 (48718)
08-05-2003 2:47 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by Coragyps
08-02-2003 8:06 PM


Responding to Critics
Thank you to all who have commented, with the exception of the inidividual who accused me of 'cuttin-and-pasting' and the one who suggested I had retreated.
One very obvious reaction after reading the comments is that people did not like the 'embarassments' and 'oops' section. Please understand that I realize (as I stated in the article)
that one can find reasons to excuse these errors. However dispite this knowledge, the ages on these objects are not changed.
Also, perhaps conveniently, not one individual attempted to respond to Dr. Robert Lee qoutation which I quoted from the 1981 Anthropological Journal of Canada.
I would also like your feedback on the question I am about to pose.
Libby believed that it would take 30 000 years for steady state to be reached. One of my readers informed me that carbon daters take this into account (that the C-14/C-12 ratio is not even) however if they accept that steady state has not been reached that this world is under 30 000 years old. Any carbon dates in objects given an older date than that would then be false. Since many believe that the world is billions of years old, they certainly cannot appeal to Carbon dating. If steady state has been reached we must deal with the issues I raised in the article. If it has not been reached then there are very serious problems, big enough to invalidate the whole carbon dating system if it keeps coming up with objects supposedly millions of years old.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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 Message 18 by John, posted 08-05-2003 10:56 AM The General has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 14 of 25 (48720)
08-05-2003 3:00 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by The General
08-05-2003 2:47 AM


Re: Responding to Critics
Since many believe that the world is billions of years old, they certainly cannot appeal to Carbon dating.
Well, they usually don't, so that's kind of a straw man argument, isn't it?
The age of geological formations - such as the planet - is generally established with longer term dating methods like Ar/K dating.

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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 15 of 25 (48730)
08-05-2003 4:22 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by The General
08-05-2003 2:47 AM


Re: Responding to Critics
I note that you have not truly dealt with the rebuttals to your "embarrassments". True the "dates" do not change but they result from misapplications of the method and so do not reflect on the accuracy of the method when applied to more appropriate material.
Ever worse is your claim concerning equilbirium which ignores the points that have been raised. The fact is that we have measurements which are certainly more than 30,000 years old and older which disprove the idea that the Earth is too young to have reached equilibrium. It also ignores the fact that variations in the production rate will cause fluctuations, preventing the atmosphere from reaching a stable equilbirium. (It also ignores the effects of nuclear weapons tests in raising the level of C14 but this has not been raised in the thread).
The lack of response to the quote from Robert Lee is probably due to the lack of context. Which dates was he talking about ? And what was the level of error ? We can't tell from the quote. Without the full context there is nothing to discuss.

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