Popular Dating Methods.
There are several different dating methods used to date rocks and fossils. These are commonly used by scientists to try to determine the age of things be they rock or reptile. The most popular method of dating is Carbon 14 Dating, also known as C-14. All of these methods are founded in science but they are also founded heavily on assumptions, these assumptions are what skews their reliability sadly. Scientists have long searched for a full proof way to determine the age of things to which the age is not known such as rocks and minerals, fossils and artifacts. However they have still yet to discover such a profoundly truthful and reliable method.
Unfortuantely, many scientists in the fileds of Paleantology, Geology and Biology have stuck with several forms of dating things. Most of the methods are discussed below in detail in order to give a better understanding of the methods and their workings. It is not that the methods discussed are not founded in science, they certainly are. It is the fact that they are based on some eroneous assumptions that invariably lead the resulting data astray and skew the results of tests.
Inconsistancy and unreliability of some popular dating methods.
Carbon-14 Dating (C-14)
Carbon-14 dating is a special method that many scientists use to date organic materials from the past. William F. Libby (1908-1980), discovered the carbon-14 dating method in 1949. It was considered to be an amazing breakthrough in dating animal and plant remains from earlier ages in the Earths' history. Libby, believing the Earth to be millions of years old, knew that atmospheric carbon would reach equilibrium within 30,000 years. Since he believed the planet was already millions of years old, he believed that the carbon was already at equilibrium so the tests should give dates that accurately reflected his beliefs on the age of the Earth. Yet each time the level of atmospheric carbon was tested, it was found to be higher. He soon realized that the Earth was only 1/3 of its way to the equilibrium. 1/3 of 30,000 is 10,000, which means that the Earth would have to be no more than 10,000 years old. Also, the level of carbon in the atmosphere today is higher than it was a few thousand years ago, which would give a slight increased age to test results. This means that taking the 10,000 age and figuring for the extra carbon, the Earth is most likely about 6,000 years old give or take a few. Carbon 14 dating works by measuring the amount of carbon in the atmosphere today and comparing it to the amount in the specimen being tested and it is determined when it stopped taking in more carbon (when it died).
Cosmic rays strike the Earth, therefore transforming regular (carbon 12) into radioactive (carbon 14) carbon. Carbon 14 has a half-life of 5,730 years. The half-life of something is the time that it takes something undergoing decay to decrease by half.
However, for Carbon 14 dating to work accurately, several assumptions should be made and must also hold true.
1) ATMOSPHERIC CARBON: The carbon in the atmosphere must have been the same for the last tens of millions of years in order to be comparable to today's'.
2) OCEANIC CARBON: The amount of oceanic carbon must have stayed constant and at the same rate as the atmospheric carbon for tens of millions of years.
3) COSMIC RAYS: The amount of cosmic radiation that reaches the Earth must have stayed at a constant over the entirety of the planets' history.
4) BALANCE OF RATES: The rate of formation and decay of carbon 14 have stayed the same throughout all of history.
5) DECAY RATES: The rate of decay of carbon 14 has never changed in the Earths' history. (This one is especially important and obvious)
6) NO SEEPAGE: No water has ever brought more carbon 14 into the sample being tested.
7) NO CONTAMINANTS: Nothing has ever contaminated the specimen. (another very obvious and important point)
8) AMOUNT OF C-14 AT DEATH: The amount of carbon 14 that the living thing possessed at death is known.
9) CARBON 14 HALF-LIFE: The half-life of carbon has been accurately determined.
10) ATMOSPHERIC NITROGEN: Since Nitrogen is the precursor to carbon 14, the amount of Nitrogen in the atmosphere must have always been constant as well.
11) EQUIPMENT AND ANALYSIS: The equipment being used is working properly and the people doing the testing know how to perform the tests and use the equipment properly.
12) UNIFORM RESULTS: The tests always yield the same or similar results on the sample and on smaller parts of a larger sample. (does not occur in reality)
13) EARTHS' MAGNETIC FIELD: The magnetic field of the planet has never changed at all.
Basically, this means that the whole application of C14 dating is based on a lot of IF'S..There are more problems for this and other dating methods. It should be noted that of the dating methods listed here, only C-14 dating is normally used for fossil dating. Indeed, Carbon 14 dating in actuality cannot be used to date fossil remains because C-14 dating can only date something that is less than 50,000 years old, 100,000 MAXIMUM, if something were several million years old it would not give any date or at least one that is useable. This means that if something is dated with C-14 and it gives a date of millions of years, the date is certainly wrong and cannot be used.
Uranium/Thorium Dating
This dating method is based on the disintegration of Uranium and Helium into their daughter products and eventually into Lead.
1) URANIUM 238 DECAYS TO LEAD 206 WITH A HALF-LIFE OF 4.5 BILLION YEARS.
2) URANIUM 235 DECAYS TO LEAD 207 WITH A HALF-LIFE OF 0.7 BILLION YEARS.
3) THORIUM 232 DECAYS TO LEAD 208 WITH A HALF-LIFE OF 14.1 BILLION YEARS.
These 3 elements are usually found mixed together and each one decays into several daughter products before becoming Lead.
4) LEAD: Lead could have been originally mixed in with the Uranium and Thorium.
5) LEECHING: Part of the Uranium and its daughter products could have leeched out. This would affect any test results.
6) DIFFERENT LEADS: Different kinds of Lead can be found in a sample and throw off testing results.
Rubidium Strontium Dating
Rubidium 87 decays into Strontium 87.
1) Scientists have yet to agree on the half-life of Rubidium 87. (this renders this method useless)
2)LEECHING: Strontium 87 easily leeches out from one mineral to another causing high contamination.
Potassium Argon Dating
Potassium Argon dating works under the knowledge that Potassium decays into Calcium and Argon gas.
Potassium occurs widely the fossil-bearing strata.
1) Due to dating variations, scientists cannot agree on Potassium's half-life.
2) Argon gas quickly leaves minerals and escapes into rocks and the atmosphere, thereby throwing off accuracy of test results.
3) Rainwater moves Potassium around to different locations naturally.
4) Potassium Argon dating must be calculated by Uranium dating which has already been shown to be useless.
Potassium Calcium Dating
Potassium decays into both Argon and Calcium.
1) Again, Argon gas naturally leeches out
2)Researchers can hardly tell the difference between calcium 40 and other forms of Calcium because they are so often and so thoroughly intermixed.
Closed system?
It is quite notable that any of the previously mentioned dating methods could only be considered accurate enough to be trustworthy in a closed system, and even then the results would most likely still be unreliable based upon the criteria of the dating methods. If there is even the slightest contamination of any kind (and there usually is in the test subjects of these methods), the resulting dates from tests would give extremely varied results based on the amount of the elements (according to the type of test), which would vary greatly from the predicted base amount if the environment had experienced some catastrophic event, i.e. the great flood recorded in Genesis.
Dating embarassments that give clues.
There have been numerous tests done on present day animals and Geographic features such as lava that have yielded embarssing dates to scientists that support these methods as being reliable. These dates are great examples of how unreliable these "conventional" methods of date assigning are on top of the other evidence such as the long list of assumptions. The examples listed here are not only startling in respect to the belief in the dating theories they upset but they are also hilarious.
Living Mollusks (clams in this case) were dated with C-14 and were said to have been dead for 23,000 years.
Living Penguins were dated with C-14 and the results said the birds died 8,000 years prior to dating. Bet that made their feet less happy..
A dead seal carcass 30 years old was carbon dated and said to have been dead for 4,600 years.
A freshly killed seal was said to have been dead for 1,300 years when carbon dated.
The shells of living snails were Carbon 14 dated and were said to have have died 27,000 years beforehand.
200 year old lava flows that where only a year different in age were said to be 164 million years old and 3 billion years old.
Mt. St. Helens gave a plethora of data which lent credence to Creationist claims regarding "Flood Geology" and the unreliability of popular dating methods.
These will be discussed elsewhere.
Different parts of a single Mammoth carcass gave dates of 29,500 and 44,000 years old.