Hello @dece870717 (Dan!) and welcome to Peaceful Science. Perhaps you can tell us a bit about yourself?
You bring up a number of interesting points, but none of these consider the question at hand, which is the consilience of evidence supporting C-14 dating and radiometric dating in general. Many of these points have been considered in previous discussions, and you may wish to search for and review relevant topics.
If there are specific points you feel are relevant, I suggest you include citations to aid in understanding of exactly what is being discussion. This often helps to avoid unnecessary confusion and argument.
If this line of reasoning had a shred of merit, then you wouldnāt be able to measure anything at all.
Every form of measurement has sources of error. Your carās speedometer has an error of about 5%. Speed cameras have an error of about 2%. Does that mean that you can contest speeding tickets in court on the ground that the police equipment to measure how fast you are going is āunreliableā? Good luck with that one!
No, one of the most fundamental principles of measurement is that unreliability must be quantified. That is why scientists talk about error bars, random errors and systematic errors. You canāt just say that any measurement technique is āunreliableā; you have to specify how unreliable it is. And you cannot claim that the measurements must all be out by factors of up to a million just because you get error bars of a few percent. Unreliability does not work like that.
Once again, thereās nothing āevolutionistā about this whatsoever. Itās simply the fundamental basics of how measurement works. And by the fundamental basics, I mean the first thing you learn in the first half hour of the first practical class of an A level (high school) physics course. This is beginner stuff. Measurement 101.
The only āworldviewā that contamination is protecting here is this:
Ā¹Ā³Do not have two differing weights in your bag ā one heavy, one light. Ā¹ā“Do not have two differing measures in your house ā one large, one small. Ā¹āµYou must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lį“Źį“ your God is giving you. Ā¹ā¶For the Lį“Źį“ your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly. ā Deuteronomy 25:13-16
Neither āsecularismā nor ānaturalismā nor āmaterialismā nor āevolutionismā nor any other weasel word ending in āismā has anything to do with it. Nor have āpresuppositionsā for that matter.
So you are saying we should throw out every medical diagnostic device or procedure because ācontaminationā and/or āinstrument sensitivityā are actual problems to all of them. Even a simple inelastic tape which is used to check for abdominal obesity can mislead you if subcutaneous obesity predominates in the waist region. Thatās one weird argument.
Actually, you need to address the problems with your own statements. If you are going to claim that there should be no detectable 14C nor any positive measurements of 14C in the output of the instrument then you need to show us the evidence that backs this claim.
False. We have a measurement with error bars. This is true for all measurements in science.
The only laughable garbage I am seeing is the claim that there should be no noise in scientific measurements.
The rate of 14C production is recorded in lake varves, tree rings, and the other measurements we have been discussing. The historical production of 14C in the atmosphere is measured, not assumed.
Yes, we know what those are in principle. Itās what flat-Earth conspiracy theorists do when they respond to satellite pictures of the planet by asserting theyāre just photoshopped. Of course, the idea that ācontamination is a rescuing deviceā could itself be a rescuing device concocted to avoid admitting that thereās a perfectly good explanation for why some objects give abnormal apparent ages.
What weāre missing is something beyond the mere assertion that contamination is a rescuing device, when contamination is a real problem in the field and there are reasonable doubts both as to whether proper quality control methodology has been employed, and the nature of the types of material being dated.
But rather than speak about all this stuff in this hypothetical and general sort of way, shouldnāt we look at some concrete examples where you think these supposed ārescuing devicesā are used inappropriately?
No, it just means you need methods and procedures for detecting, avoiding, and accounting for them where possible. And something being a problem doesnāt tell you about the degree of problem or how often it is a problem.
Something not being perfectly accurate and precise doesnāt mean it is uselessly inaccurate and imprecise.
The typo āDāRourkeā appears on the Answers in Genesis site (dated 1980) and is duplicated on many sources copying from AiG.
Radiometric dating is well founded in the laws of physics. We have enormous evidence to support the uniformity of physics for the observable history of the universe, and no evidence to contradict. This topic has been addressed here numerous times, as can be found in a search: https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/search?q=radiometric%20dating
I tried to look up this paper. The top google responses were links to Creation Ministries International - Geological Timescale Quotable Quotes and Answers in Genesis - A collection of quotable quotes., the citation of which matches your punctuation exactly. May I ask, have you ever set eyes upon the actual paper? Do you have any idea what the authorās full position is? Do you understand the context of these words? Systematic Theology may be based on verses, but science is evidentiary. Science progresses on verifiable data, not quotes however cleverly mined.
So, given @Dan_Eastwood having tracked this down, what has stuck with you when it comes to things like the fossil record and the geologic time scale is an out of date quote by some obscure geologist, taken out of context from a poorly written, politically motivated paper which has been sparsely cited, does not support an old earth, and I expect you have never read. I strongly suggest that you should revaluate what sticks with you.
I notice that you have made no attempt to lay out how you would go about carbon dating dinosaur fossils. Let me assure you, this is presently quite impossible.
The femur is permineralized. Picking up a fossil for the first time is surprising, because visually you expect it to weigh like bone, and instead feel the weight of dense rock. All of that mineral has to be removed in a weak acid bath, so the processing and handling involved means there is no way you are getting an uncontaminated sample.
Then there is the amount of sample available. If you cut yourself, do you see individual red blood cells? Try a magnifying glass - any success? The pictures showing red blood cells released by Schweitzer were taken with a high power microscope. The miniscule microscopic material involved is not even close to the amount required for AMS dating, no matter what the age of the sample. Scientists are not hiding anything, and the YEC cry of ādate the dinoā is just rhetorical nonsense.
YEC attempts to divert attention to carbon dating inappropriate material which is millions of years old, and away from the results of dating tree rings, ice trapped air, corals, human artifacts, lake varves, and speleothems, because the consilience of this evidence is incontrovertible and devastating to the YEC timeline.
The ridiculous thing about it is that itās not a fact. Stratigraphy does not work like that.
If you want to challenge a scientific method, you must challenge what real scientists do in reality, and not an inaccurate cartoon caricature of it.
What the āfossils are used to date rocks and rocks are used to date fossilsā claim doesnāt tell you is that rocks that are dated by fossils are not the same as the rocks that are used to date the fossils. Fossils are used to date sedimentary rocks. Igneous rocks are used to date fossils. And igneous rocks themselves are dated by measuring things.
Thereās nothing circular or ridiculous about that whatsoever, and to present it as if it were is dishonest.
I found what may be the first reference to this quote mine, partially available here (click thru necessary):
ETA: We are dealing with claims made by Henry Morris over 45 years ago, with no effort made to follow up or authenticate those claims. I see no value in rehashing 40-year-old arguments yet again. I suggest we leave this line of argument in its grave and stick to the original question of consilience of evidence.
First, of course, the claim about āpresuppositionsā ignores the biggest presupposition in the room: the presupposition that when creationist sources characterize the methods of stratigraphy, they are being honest. Of course they are not, and when one presupposes that liars are good sources, one winds up repeating nonsense.
Second, though, a point I so often wish I could get through to people: when you embrace a CRITIQUE of a scientific discipline before you understand the SUBSTANCE of that discipline, this is always a mistake. The best method is to understand the discipline itself and THEN take critiques on board for consideration. So if one wishes to figure out whether there is something wrong with the methods of stratigraphy, the first, indispensable stage of this inquiry is to understand what those methods are. When one does understand that, one will of course realize that a critique like this is garbage. If, instead, one takes in the garbage first and figures that he already knows everything he needs to know about stratigraphy, hilarious consequences ensue.
You will be pleased to learn that this exact question has been the focus of extensive international collaborations involving scores of scientists over the past three decades. The progressive outcome of this effort are the intcal calibrations.
As more data becomes available, the range and precision of the calibration curve is constantly improved. What scientists are keenly interested in is the very concern you expressed - what was the 14C composition of the atmosphere? They are very aware that atmospheric 14C is not uniform. Variation in solar activity and the earthās magnetic shield is indeed registered in deviations from a smooth curve. That is indeed the whole focus of this research. The fluctuations in radiocarbon production is readily picked up in tree rings, annual ice layers from Greenland and Antarctica, and lake varves, and from this a detailed record of atmospheric 14C has been constructed reaching back to 55 thousand years.
Of great interest are specific solar events which have imprinted on this record. We now know that dramatically powerful solar flares hit the planet in AD 774 and AD 993, and close to BC 660, BC 5410, and recent discoveries in BC 5259 and BC 7176. These events can be traced in individual trees as carbon dating is performed on annual rings from pith to bark.
So to answer your question, your concerns have been met. The rate of 14C production in the atmosphere over the past 55 thousands years is well investigated and understood, and broadly and in detail the reality of that record renders the YEC model to be farcical.
They werenāt. The geological periods were established before radioactive dating existed, but the geological time scale was not. The dates were unknown until Rutherford and Boltwoodās work on uranium-lead dating in the 1900s. Although there are other methods for dating ancient rocks - coral rings, for example - few of them predate radiometric dating or go back far enough to reach the Cretaceous.
You wouldnāt believe some of the things Iāve seen from people promoting it.
Why should no C-14 be detected in diamonds and coal seams?
C-14 is generated in the atmosphere by cosmic radiation, with C-14 generation and decay tending to equilibrium.
C-14 is also generated in rock strata by nuclear radiation resulting from the decay of unstable isotopes. This too tends to equilibrium. Although the equilibrium level of C-14 in rocks and coal seams is far lower than that of the atmosphere, it is not zero.
Perhaps, but I donāt see that as an interesting discussion. The premise that 40+ YO writings of Henry Morris have any bearing on geology and radiometric dating never had much validity, and are resolved with a more complete understanding of the methods used. We know the science works, the methods are extremely well validated, and there is no alternative hypothesis even remotely on the horizon. Whatās to argue? I have previously referred to this sort of thing as āthe wrong argument.ā
FAR MORE INTERESTING are the theological implications if Morris were correct; that the laws of physics and evidence supporting them have somehow been warped to falsely show the Earth and the universe are far older than they really are, and that God is deceptive. It never occurred to Whitcomb and Morris that their claims were at odds with their own beliefs, and so doomed to fail both scientifically and theologically. If we must argue, this is the point we should be driving home.
Iām not sure thereās any such thing as failing theologically. Not only are there no ways to falsify a theological position, but the methods of theology mean that one is always just one little ad-hoc away from reconciling any two irreconcilable things. And whatās one more ad hoc, on an immeasurably great pile of 'em?
Absolutely correct. An omnipotent God might do anything at all, for any reason, and we would never be able to falsify any of it (The Omphalos Argument).
Because the one thing that must not be on that pile is a deceptive God. A deceptive God could be lying about anything and everything, including the Resurrection, the very basis of Christianity. God has the ability to be deceptive, but must choose not to do this, or everything falls apart.
