Questions for creationists (pt. 2)...would you answer these questions?

Question

Why is there the remarkable coherence among many different dating methods -- for example: many kinds of radioactivity, tree rings, ice cores, corals, supernovas -- from astronomy, biology, physics, geology, chemistry and archeology?

(This is not answered by saying that there is no proof of uniformity of radioactive decay. The question is why all these different methods give the SAME answers.)

Radio-carbon dating is only ONE kind of clock, there are several others.

You must also deal with potassiun-argon dating, uranium-lead, rubidium-strontium.

These methods, unlike carbon dating, use the relative amount of parent/daughter products in radio-active chains.

Unless you want to assume that the fundemental laws of physics are changing in such an amazing way as to make these all somehow give the same results.

Joshua G: you have a point. But many of the test can be performed without baseline assumptions that overlap.

Naughty Pants, all your cut and pastes really say is that we have to be careful with the methods and know what we are doing.

Not do mention, you did not deal with the other issues.

Answer 1

Hey Skeptic,

I liked your last question better. :) This is a tough one.

The issue that I have with this question is that it is stating something as fact that may or may not be fact -- that the different methods give the same answers. Two problems I have with that:
1) The dating tests you list are applied to different subjects. You couldn't perform tree ring and coral tests on the same subject. Similarly, you couldn't apply tree ring and radioactive testing to the same subject. The former only works on living subjects, the latter wouldn't give sufficient accuracy on the same living subject.
2) The tests might have inter-dependencies. For example, ice core aging often depends on "known baselines" that had been established by radioactive dating. The accuracy of the former depends on the accuracy of the latter, which is a little problematic.

Answer 2

The answer is based on the universe and relativity of the situation. How you do you, relatavistically, we have always been the same.

The sun may be moving slower in the universe today than it was 50,000 years ago, hence things speed up. We don't feel it, but they do.

See, the big problem with science is PLUTO. One year it's a planet, one year it's not.

OK, One year Carbon Dating is cool, one year maybe it won't be cool.

This is something YOU have to live with.

SCIENCE reserves the RIGHT to change it's mind about EVERYTHING at some future date, without notice.

You're dating methods are 50 - 100 years old. What will happen in 1,000 years.

We might find flaws in these methods and other methods that are better.

Answer 3

Yes they do give the same results, they are all inaccurate. Besides that the premise they are based on is faulty. For them to be accurate all decay etc would have to be identical for millions of years. And science has no proof that the laws of nature are the same now as they were thousands of years ago, let alone millions. In fact it is pretty evident that there had to be different laws in effect to produce creation. Under the current laws of nature as we know them creation could not take place, because everything is breaking down. So if there were different laws in effect as the Bible says there were then your results of dating would mean absolutly nothing.

Answer 4

Err ... by "radioactivity", do you mean "radiocarbon dating"?

Answer 5

Errors in the Radiocarbon Clock

The radiocarbon clock looked very simple and straightforward when it was first demonstrated, but it is now known to be prone to many kinds of error. After some 20 years’ use of the method, a conference on radiocarbon chronology and other related methods of dating was held in Uppsala, Sweden, in 1969. The discussions there between chemists who practice the method and archaeologists and geologists who use the results brought to light a dozen flaws that might invalidate the dates. In the 17 years since then, little has been accomplished to remedy these shortcomings.

One nagging problem has always been to ensure that the sample tested has not been contaminated, either with modern (live) carbon or with ancient (dead) carbon. A bit of wood, for example, from the heart of an old tree might contain live sap. Or if that has been extracted with an organic solvent (made from dead petroleum), a trace of the solvent might be left in the portion analyzed. Old buried charcoal might be penetrated by rootlets from living plants. Or it might be contaminated with much older bitumen, difficult to remove. Live shellfish have been found with carbonate from minerals long buried or from seawater upwelling from the deep ocean where it had been for thousands of years. Such things can make a specimen appear either older or younger than it really is.

The most serious fault in radiocarbon-dating theory is in the assumption that the level of carbon 14 in the atmosphere has always been the same as it is now. That level depends, in the first instance, on the rate at which it is produced by cosmic rays. Cosmic rays vary greatly in intensity at times, being largely affected by changes in the earth’s magnetic field. Magnetic storms on the sun sometimes increase the cosmic rays a thousandfold for a few hours. The earth’s magnetic field has been both stronger and weaker in past millenniums. And since the explosion of nuclear bombs, the worldwide level of carbon 14 has increased substantially.

On the other hand, the proportion is affected by the quantity of stable carbon in the air. Great volcanic eruptions add measurably to the stable carbon-dioxide reservoir, thus diluting the radiocarbon. In the past century, man’s burning of fossil fuels, especially coal and oil, at an unprecedented rate has permanently increased the quantity of atmospheric carbon dioxide. (More details on these and other uncertainties in the carbon-14 clock were given in the April 8, 1972, issue of Awake!)

Dendrochronology—Dating by the Growth Rings of Trees

Faced with all these fundamental weaknesses, the radiocarbon people have turned to standardizing their dates with the help of wood samples dated by counting tree rings, notably those of bristlecone pines, which live hundreds and even thousands of years in the southwestern United States. This field of study is called dendrochronology.

So the radiocarbon clock is no longer regarded as yielding an absolute chronology but one which measures only relative dates. To get the true date, the radiocarbon date has to be corrected by the tree-ring chronology. Accordingly, the result of a measurement of radiocarbon is referred to as a “radiocarbon date.” By referring this to a calibration curve based on tree rings, the absolute date is inferred.

This is sound for as far back as the bristlecone ring count is reliable. The problem now comes up that the oldest living tree whose age is known goes back only to 800 C.E. In order to extend the scale, scientists try to match overlapping patterns of thin and thick rings in pieces of dead wood found lying nearby. By patching together 17 remnants of fallen trees, they claim to go back over 7,000 years.

But the tree-ring standard does not stand alone either. Sometimes they are not sure just where to put one of the dead pieces, so what do they do? They ask for a radiocarbon measurement on it and use that as a guide in fitting it in. It reminds one of two lame men with only one crutch between them, who take turns using it, one leaning for a while on his partner, then helping to hold him up.

One must wonder at the miraculous preservation of loose bits of wood lying so long in the open. It would seem they might have been washed away by heavy rainfall or picked up by passersby for firewood or some other use. What has prevented rot or insect attack? It is credible that a living tree might withstand the ravages of time and weather, an occasional one surviving for a thousand years or more. But dead wood? For six thousand years? It strains credibility. Yet this is what the older radiocarbon dates are based on.

Nevertheless, the radiocarbon experts and the dendrochronologists have managed to put aside such doubts and smooth over the gaps and inconsistencies, and both feel satisfied with their compromise. But how about their customers, the archaeologists? They are not always happy with the dates they get back on the samples they send in. One expressed himself this way at the Uppsala conference:

“If a carbon-14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely ‘out of date,’ we just drop it.”

Some of them still feel that way. One wrote recently concerning a radiocarbon date that was supposed to mark the earliest domestication of animals:

“Archeologists [are coming] to have second thoughts about the immediate usefulness of radiocarbon age determinations simply because they come out of ‘scientific’ laboratories. The more that confusion mounts in regard to which method, which laboratory, which half-life value, and which calibration is most reliable, the less we archeologists will feel slavishly bound to accept any ‘date’ offered to us without question.”

The radiochemist who had supplied the date retorted: “We prefer to deal with facts based on sound measurements—not with fashionable nor emotional archeology.”

If scientists disagree so sharply about the validity of these dates reaching back into man’s antiquity, is it not understandable that laymen might be skeptical about news reports based on scientific “authority,” such as those quoted at the head of this series of articles?