What do creationists say about carbon-dating?

Answer 1

the creationist claim is actually very true, here is a chapter from my SCIENTIFIC book:

Carbon Dating

Many evolutionists believe this to be the proverbial nail in the coffin to the creation of the world, believing that this is the most solid evidence against creationists. In this section I am going into a bit of science so hold on. If this is only going to bore you and make you put down this book, by all means skip to the end, don't worry it will be under a big title labeled conclusion, you can't miss it. For those of you that have taken a chemistry class or two and want to know the intimate details, by all means, read on.

The premise:

The premise is that, cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere create speeding neutrons that collide with nitrogen atoms producing carbon 14. Further, the decay of these atoms into carbon 12 is progressing at the same rate as the creation of these atoms.

All things should absorb these atoms of carbon 14 their entire life, maintaining the same ratio of Carbon 14 to carbon 12 as the atmosphere. Once the animal/thing dies, it's carbon 14. This ratio, (1 to 1 trillion) will begin to change, the number of carbon 14 atoms diminish while the number of carbon 12 atoms remain the same. This carbon should decay at a steady rate, thus scientists can track it back like a clock, determining the approximate age of the artifact. The smaller the ratio is, the longer the animal as been dead.

Percent 14C Remaining

Percent 12C Remaining

Ratio

Number of Half-Lives

Years Dead(Age of Fossil)

100

100

1 to 1T

0

0

50

100

1 to 2T

1

5,730

25

100

1 to 4T

2

11,460

12.5

100

1 to 8T

3

17,190

6.25

100

1 to 16T

4

22,920

3.125

100

1 to 32T

5

28,650

T = Trillion

The Problem

Dr. Willard Libby first experimented with carbon 14, assuming that the ratio of one carbon 14 to one trillion carbon 12 atoms has always been the same. This "assumption" was based on the fact that the earth has been billions of years old. As any REAL non-bias scientist will tell you, all the calculations can be right, but if they are based on a wrong assumption then the product will be wrong. And as my chem. 3a teacher always said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

In Dr. Libby's original work, he noted that the atmosphere did not appear to be in equilibrium. This was a troubling idea for Dr. Libby since he believed the world was billions of years old and enough time had passed to achieve equilibrium. Dr. Libby's calculations showed that if the earth started with no 14C in the atmosphere, it would take up to 30,000 years to build up to a steady state (equilibrium).

If the cosmic radiation has remained at its present intensity for 20,000 or 30,000 years, and if the carbon reservoir has not changed appreciably in this time, then there exists at the present time a complete balance between the rate of disintegration of radiocarbon atoms and the rate of assimilation of new radiocarbon atoms for all material in the life cycle.2

Dr. Libby chose to ignore this discrepancy (nonequilibrium state), and he attributed it to experimental error. However, the discrepancy has turned out to be very real indeed, as the ratio of carbon 14 and carbon 12 is not constant.

The first problem with this is that the magnetic field around the earth is weakening, (don't worry it always has been, recycling your water bottle won't help) allowing more cosmic rays into the atmosphere, and producing more c14 than in the past. Also, volcanoes, floods, decaying plants from floods,( and if The Bible is true, there was a big one), can all greatly increase the carbon 14 in the atmosphere, ruining any chance of getting an "accurate ratio".

In the 1990's a group known as the RATE group was put together to determine the age of the earth. This team included:

• Larry Vardiman, PhD Atmospheric Science
• Russell Humphreys, PhD Physics
• Eugene Chaffin, PhD Physics
• John Baumgardner, PhD Geophysics
• Donald DeYoung, PhD Physics
• Steven Austin, PhD Geology
• Andrew Snelling, PhD Geology
• Steven Boyd, PhD Hebraic and Cognate Studies

This team's purpose was to collect "censored evidence" that evolutionists had been hiding/covering up. These men took ten coal samples, each from a different strata that had been labeled to be millions of billions of years old. Since coal is made from compressed living plants etc. you would think it would be perfect for the job.

Careful not to contaminate the samples, the carbon dating found the coal to have a significant amount of carbon 14. This was a significant discovery, because half life of carbon 14 is relatively short, (5,730 yrs old). There should be no carbon 14 in these samples after about 100,000 years. The average age of these samples, according to evolutionist "science" only came to 50,000 years. However using a creationist pre-flood ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12 reduces the age to 5,000 years, just about dead on the the biblical age of the earth.

Conclusion: Yes you just saw the words "dead on to the biblical etc." don't panic, you should have read along, now look at what you've missed. For the scientists now asleep, we had a beautiful read without you. Please turn the page for the summary.

Okay, we just learned that since you need a starting ratio for carbon dating, and since nobody knows what the starting ratio was, probably because there weren't any scientists around 6 thousand to several billion years ago. And the best you can do with this technology of carbon dating, is operate it on an assumption, an assumption that if wrong, badly distorts the outcome, thus carbon dating is pointless, unless you want an inaccurate age of a recent item, like whether or not the 1980's magazine you got is original.

Answer 2

Because there is no evidence in support of creationism, many creationists attempt, instead, to disprove or undermine the science that explains the origins of the world and of species. So, a common creationist claim is that carbon dating could be inaccurate because the amount of radioactive carbon in the atmosphere could have changed dramatically.

Most creationists seem unaware that carbon dating is of most use in Archaeology, where artefacts are of quite recent origin, and is not used for establishing the age of rocks or ancient fossils. Nevertheless, they believe that by repeating the claims about the supposed inaccuracy of carbon dating, the majority of readers will begin to doubt the basis for evolution.

This is a contentious area, with many creationist views pitted against the claims of science. For more information, please visit: http://christianity.answers.com/theology/the-story-of-creation