carbon dating?

Question

Relieable or unreliable? Does it help explain creation? Full answer please

Answer 1

How Carbon-14 is Made
Cosmic rays enter the earth's atmosphere in large numbers every day. For example, every person is hit by about half a million cosmic rays every hour. It is not uncommon for a cosmic ray to collide with an atom in the atmosphere, creating a secondary cosmic ray in the form of an energetic neutron, and for these energetic neutrons to collide with nitrogen atoms. When the neutron collides, a nitrogen-14 (seven protons, seven neutrons) atom turns into a carbon-14 atom (six protons, eight neutrons) and a hydrogen atom (one proton, zero neutrons). Carbon-14 is radioactive, with a half-life of about 5,700 years.
The carbon-14 atoms that cosmic rays create combine with oxygen to form carbon dioxide, which plants absorb naturally and incorporate into plant fibers by photosynthesis. Animals and people eat plants and take in carbon-14 as well. The ratio of normal carbon (carbon-12) to carbon-14 in the air and in all living things at any given time is nearly constant. Maybe one in a trillion carbon atoms are carbon-14. The carbon-14 atoms are always decaying, but they are being replaced by new carbon-14 atoms at a constant rate. At this moment, your body has a certain percentage of carbon-14 atoms in it, and all living plants and animals have the same percentage.
it doesnt prove or disprove anything with creation or evelotion

Answer 2

It's reliable. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with Creationism or anything else religious. They are not even in the same room. It simply estimates the relative age of organic material, based on the ratio of different carbon isotopes in the sample. If someone who is determined to believe the literal interpretation of the Bible doesn't agree that something can be so old, then all they need to do is either assume that God put fake fossils in the ground to test us or that the devil did it. Scientists don't don't even think about Creation theory when they're working with carbon dating. They are simply learning about the world around them and how it works. None of them is trying to make any sort of political or anti-religious statement.

Some say it's unreliable because it is only an estimate. It can't pinpoint the exact year -- the margin of error is usually plus or minus 30 years around the estimated date.

If you want more info on how it works, look up carbon dating on wikipedia.

Answer 3

Carbon dating is reliable within limits. At extreme times in the past it's not because it doesn't have an extremely high half-life. The higher multiple of half-lifes the C14 has gone thru, the greater the accuracy drops. For higher distances in the past, using other forms of dating, like K/Argon, etc are good at getting better at dating how long ago something was formed.

Answer 4

Carbon dating is very reliable, it is just limited. Literally it is "applicable only to matter which was once living and presumed to be in equilibrium with the atmosphere, taking in carbon dioxide from the air for photosynthesis." ( http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nuclear/cardat.html )

The ultimate "how to and whys" can be found here:
http://www.c14dating.com/

Creationists are often very silly about radiocarbon dating. I once had one come to my door and say that (once I'd asked a few questions) the book of revelations was found underwater (it was made out of copper, he said) and carbon dated to exactly 33AD.

I don't know why he said it, but I slammed the door in his face, as you can't carbon date copper plates, carbon dating does not give you a time, but a time FRAME, and I don't hold truck with fibbers.

Answer 5

I don't date carbon. Carbon is fickle. Carbon will let you spend money on a nice dinner and a movie only to leave you to go bond with oxygen.

I prefer to date hydrogen instead, but then I've always preferred blondes.

Answer 6

It's completely unreliable, they have already proved that in tests. It doesn't explain anything because it doesn't work.