Historians for ages have puzzled over the ages of artifacts they find, but had no scientific method to back it up. In the 1800s, when fossils, pottery, or any type of artifact was found, they had no real way to measure if it were two years old or two thousand years old or more. The only way they could measure it is by somehow finding it referenced by a known historical record. This century, discoveries in radioactive dating have given non-empirical scientists such as paleontologist, archaeologists, and anthropologists a means to reference to justify their several different claims. (Examples of empirical science are physics and chemistry which are more evidence based; non-empirical are known to be more subjective and less evidence based allowing for more creativity than discovery). When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the mid 1900s, radioactive dating discovered them to be in the realm of being a little over 1,950 years old which is reasonable. But, what about when the dating of other artifacts and fossils give us figures such as 20,000 years old or millions of years old? These ages are unreasonably out of the Biblical model for Creation. Questions and confusion begin to emerge. What is radiocarbon dating? What are the problems with it? Is radiocarbon dating inconsistent or is the Bible?
What is Radiocarbon Dating
Mostly when people discuss radioactive dating, they immediately refer to radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon dating was discovered by Professor Willard Libby of the
In atoms, you have three elements. Orbiting around the nucleus are negatively charged electrons. In the center or nucleus, there are positively charged protons and neutrally charged neutrons. Neutrons are the heaviest since they are a result of a fusion between the positively charged protons and the negatively charged electrons, hence their neutral charge. The number of protons that exist in the atom determines what kind of element it is. One proton is hydrogen, two is helium, six is carbon, seven is nitrogen, and so on. The number of neutrons just contributes to how stable the atom is. Too many neutrons means your atom is radioactive and will in time start to emit some of its excess. The number of electrons just has to do with the charge of the atom, positive or negative. The most important thing to remember is the number of protons which determine what element the atom actually is.
Our sun and the entire universe as a whole emit several different types of radiation into our atmosphere. In our upper atmosphere, these cosmic rays can knock off neutrons from a nucleus of one atom and cause the neutrons to strike the nucleus of other atoms at a very high energy. Our atmosphere is comprised mostly of Nitrogen (14N or Nitrogen- 14) which has 7 protons and 7 neutrons in its nucleus. When one of these high energy neutrons collide with a Nitrogen-14 nucleus, the neutron knocks one of the protons out and takes its place in the nucleus. This missing proton causes the Nitrogen-14 atom to change into what is known as Carbon-14. Carbon-14 has six protons (which make it a carbon atom) and eight neutrons (which make it heavy, unstable, and radioactive). Carbon is a very common substance on the earth and normally comes in the Carbon-12 (six protons and six neutrons, very stable) variety. The newly formed Carbon-14 immediately oxidizes in our atmosphere and combines with a couple of oxygen atoms to form a Carbon-14 version of carbon dioxide gas. It then falls to the earth or into the ocean where it then gets breathed in and even ingested by plants and animals alike. So during your entire lifetime, you ingest this substance, and once you die, you ingest no more and the process of radioactive decay begins to start.
In radioactive decay, something begins to happen inside the nucleus of this unstable Carbon-14 atom. One of the neutrons inside the nucleus splits into a proton which stays in the nucleus and it emits a Beta particle. Beta particles are a form of radiation which is nothing more than an electron which got shot out of the nucleus from a decaying neutron. Again, the number of protons inside the atom has changed, thus changing its identity from Carbon-14 back to its original form of Nitrogen-14. Scientists have measured this process and have established what they believe to be a half-life. A half-life is the amount of time it takes for a radioactive substance to decay into a different form. For Carbon-14, its half-life is roughly 5,600 years which means that if you had a sample of pure Carbon-14, you would only have ½ of that sample left at the end of 5,600 years of radioactive decay. Then, in an additional 5,600 years (we’re up to 11,000 years now) you would have a ¼ of the sample left. At the 50,000 year mark, you would be left at about 1/512 left and the levels would just not be detectable any more. Upon this measurement, the scientists compare the amount of Carbon-14 with the amount of Carbon-12 that is present, and then they make their assumption upon what the age is. This comparison is the C-14/C-12 ratio. The smaller the amount of C-14 is in comparison with C-12, the older the item appears to be. A majority of the “age determination” process involves the C-14/C-12 ratio. Even though this may sound like a pretty reliable process, problems exist that completely throw it off.
Problems with Carbon Dating
For those of you who took high school physics, you may remember the experiment which illustrates this concept. Your lab group started with 100 pennies with all of them having their heads up, and the teacher exclaims, “half-life!” Then, your lab group frantically flips over all of the pennies, and in theory, you should have 50 with their heads up remaining. But, in reality, you may have 63 while the group behind you has 42. The group next to you is to busy flicking the pennies at each other. The “teachers pet” group keeps flipping the same pennies over and over until they get exactly 50, while another group declares that they have no pennies while their pockets are bulging out. Results may vary in the same way in radioactive decay. Just because a math equation is tracking the general trend of how things should work, reality proves that sometimes a lot of other factors can change your results. Let’s face it; reality does not exist in a lab.
First, when objects such as fossils and rocks from several layers beneath the earth have detectable levels of Carbon-14 that is more than likely proof that the object is not millions of years old. Remember, after 50,000 years of decay and almost ten half-lives, only about 1/512 of the original amount is left.
Second, some types of plants are able to filter out and discriminate between the carbon dioxide which has Carbon-14 and that which does not. So, these plants would appear to be a lot older having less Carbon-14 in them.
Thirdly, the magnetic field of the earth has always been in a state of decay. It is the magnetic field of the earth which shields it from cosmic radiation which yields the production of C-14. This means that there is more C-14 is being made today than there was in the past. This would greatly throw off many of the measurements. Scientists are looking at present day rates and models to make conclusions on what happened in the past. If less C-14 was being produced, then there would be less around to be measured resulting in the earth looking a lot older.
Fourthly, volcanoes completely obliterate any attempts to make carbon dating measurements. They do this by spewing out a thick layer of C-12 everywhere which makes everything appear to be a lot older than it really is when you compare it to the amount of C-14 that one can find. So, when you add in the global cataclysm known as the Great Flood where there was serious volcanism on a world-wide scale, the end result is that heavy amounts of C-12 were spread as sediment all over the earth resulting in a very old appearance. But, we know that the earth is not old, it has just been flooded. Fifth, in contrast to my “Serway: Physics for Scientists and Engineers with Modern Physics, Third Edition” college textbook, the C-14/C-12 ratio has not been constant in the atmosphere. Without even taking the Great Flood and your typical volcano into consideration, many variables impact the reliability of this measuring system. The industrial age and the burning of fossil fuels greatly increase the amount of C-12 which makes the earth appear older. On the flip side, nuclear test detonations in 1950s, which are driven by fast moving neutrons, create a large amount C-14 in our atmosphere being one of the smaller reasons why nuclear testing was moved to be conducted underground. This large production of C-14 begins to give the people, plants, and animals of this era a much younger radiocarbon age rather than their true age.
Sixth, the amount of cosmic rays approaching the earth varies with the sun’s activity and our solar system’s passage through the Milky Way Galaxy’s various magnetic clouds. These hiccups would yield less C-14 giving a much older appearance.
In Conclusion
Due to the large amount of volcanic activity during the Great Flood, Creationists have suggested that scientists should recalibrate their readings between 5,000 and 50,000 years old to the date of the Flood. When keeping this in mind and being aware that several anomalies can significantly impact your measurements, radiocarbon dating can be a useful tool to consider when applied carefully.
Next time, we will look at other forms of radioactive dating and how they compare. We will also examine some of the problems with radioactive dating in general. Radioactive dating is not an absolute, but a tool which can have many hidden fallacies. Even agnostic members of the physics community do not support the objectivity of this form of dating. One must keep in mind that the study of radiation in general is less than 200 years old, and radioactive decay is radically less.
“First of all, you must understand that in the last days, scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.”
Apostle Peter, 2 Peter 3:3-7
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