The Outdated Dating Methods Of Evolution
Posted: Friday, July 25, 2008
by Josh Greenberger
(July 2008) What are the methods used by scientists to date archeological finds? And do those meth
The method used by scientists to determine the age of archaeological finds is called radiometric dating. It involves measuring decayed radioactive elements and, by extrapolating backward in time, determining the age of an organism.
One element commonly used, in what's referred to as "radiocarbon dating" or "radiocarbon reading," is C-14, a radioactive isotope of carbon, which is formed in the atmosphere by cosmic rays. All living organisms absorb an equilibrium concentration of this radioactive carbon. When organisms die, C-14 decays and is not replaced. Since we know the concentration of radioactive carbon in the atmosphere, and we also know that it takes 5,730 years for half of C-14 to decay (called a "half-life cycle"), and another 5,730 years for half of what's left to decay, and so on, by measuring the remaining concentration of radiocarbon we can tell how long ago an organism died.
Since C-14 can only give dates in the thousands of years, elements with longer half-life cycles (such as Samarium-147, Rubidium-87, Rhenium-187, Lutetium-176, to name a few, with half-life cycles in the billions of years) are used to date what are believed to be older archaeological finds. The procedure is roughly the same; the amount of decay is measured against the initial amount of radioactive material, giving the object's supposed age.
One obvious flaw in this technique is that we don't really know the level of radioactive concentration acquired by an organism which lived before such recorded history. Scientists make a bold assumption that the atmospheric concentration of the radioactive material -- carbon or any other element -- being measured has not changed since the organism's death.
Another bold assumption made by scientists is that the rate of radioactive decay has remained constant throughout history.
Are these valid assumptions?
Hardly.
In 1994 Otto Reifenschweiler, a scientists at the Philips Research Laboratories in The Netherlands, showed that the radioactivity of tritium could be reduced by 40 per cent at temperatures between 115 and 275 Celsius. That is, under certain conditions, the environment can effect radioactive decay.
In 2006 Professor Claus Rolfs, leader of a group of scientists at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, in an effort to reduce nuclear waste radioactivity, has come up a with a technique to greatly speed up radioactive decay. Rolfs: "We are currently investigating radium-226, a hazardous component of spent nuclear fuel with a half-life of 1600 years. I calculate that using this technique could reduce the half-life to 100 years. At best, I have calculated that it could be reduced to as little as two years ... We are working on testing the hypothesis with a number of radioactive nuclei at the moment and early results are promising ... I don't think there will be any insurmountable technical barriers."
Reducing 1600 years to two years is a phenomenal 98 percent reduction. This means that an archeological find that has gone through environmental conditions similar to those in the lab could appear to be 300,000 years old when in fact it's only six thousand years old.
What's more, if scientists, with relatively limited resources, can speed up radioactive decay 800 times, the violent upheavals of earth's history could certainly have sped up radioactive decay by far greater numbers. Thus, if radioactive decay increased, say, 1 million fold, an organism thought to be 4 billion years old, based on today's rate of radioactive decay, would be no more than 4,000 years old.
What's interesting is that earth's history of cataclysmic events is not questioned by anyone -- scientist or Biblical scholar. They may differ in their accounts of what occurred, but not necessarily in the severity of the events.
The Bible's account of The Flood, of course, would have been the mother of all catastrophes. It entailed heat, pressure, and an unimaginable mixture of elements. This would certainly have far exceeded any extreme conditions created by scientists in a lab.
The scientific account of earth's formation and development is no less catastrophic:
Earth formed of the debris flung off the sun's violent formation about 4.5 billions years ago. Being a molten planet in it's initial stages, earth's dense materials of molten nickel and iron flowed to the center, and its lighter materials, such as molten silicon, flowed to the top. Eventually, earth cooled and solidified into a core, mantle and crust.
Earth's original atmosphere consisted of Hydrogen and Helium. This atmosphere subsequently heated to escape-velocity by solar radiation and escaped into space. It took about 2 billion years for oxygen to appear in earth's atmosphere, eventually resulting in an atmosphere consisting of 78% Nitrogen and 20% Oxygen.
Our planet has been pounded by meteorites throughout history. One such impact, in Mexico, around 65 million years ago, was so intense that it resulted in mass extinctions, including the extinction of the dinosaur.
Earth has gone through several ice ages. The last one ended around 10,000 years ago, after lasting roughly 60,000 years. At one point 97% of Canada was covered in ice.
Given scientists' belief of earth's chaotic and turbulent past -- the formation of the planet itself, the development of its atmosphere, the transformation in its atmosphere, the ensuing geological upheavals -- it is grossly dishonest of them to then claim to be able to determine the age of an organism or fossil based on the remnants of radioactive elements in the atmosphere. The assumption that their saturation levels remained constant for billions or even millions of years is simply preposterous.
Not only must radioactive dating be wrong, but it can't even be consistent, since earth's violent past oscillated so dramatically.
The problem goes even deeper. With the recent discovery (as described earlier) that the rate of radioactive decay can be altered so drastically in a mere lab, we cannot trust, for dating purposes, the radioactive reading of any material in the universe. The entire universe, not just earth, has been undergoing constant cataclysmic events since the beginning of time.
So after years of telling the public that the rate of radioactive decay is constant, you'd think scientists would now go back to the drawing board and at least entertain the thought that radioactive dating might not be an accurate dating method. But that hasn't happened. At least not in a public way.
It seems, the way evolutionists work is they make public declarations about things that give the slightest hint of supporting evolution and then completely suppress everything that totally undermines that same theory. In legal circles, I believe this is called "suppression if evidence." With such a flagrant disregard for truth and honesty, you could "prove" that parking tickets grow on windshields.
Who knows how many other findings have been deliberately suppressed because they contradicted what evolutionists have been trying to prove for years. And who knows how many otherwise honest scientists are being lead to false conclusions as a result of the unethical and dishonest ones.
The fact is we don't debate the existence of Mars because it's provable. We don't debate the existence of bacteria because it's provable. After 150 years, we continue to debate evolution, not because it "controversial," but because it's not provable and not science.
Evolution has all the markings of a religious cult. The vast majority of people who believe in evolution give lip service to the catch phrases "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest" without having a clue as to what they entail. This is, they have faith in their "gurus" (scientists) about a concept they don't comprehend, a concept for which there is not a shred of evidence.
For evolution to be considered science it should be as provable as Mars or the Moon or bed bugs. Evolution is a pseudo science that's being kept alive by zealots. Indoctrinating school children with this utter nonsense is not that far removed from totalitarian governments that force fanatical views on their young ones.
We must give scientists a deadline -- let's say a year or two -- to prove evolution beyond a shadow of a doubt, the way many other scientific concepts are provable beyond debate. If they can not, evolution needs to be completely eliminated from all public educational curriculums and all institutions supported by the government.
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Top-level comments on this article: (5 total)Bravo!!! Well done, Josh. I think I am your biggest fan. Keep on exposing the falacies of evolution.
Thanks a lot for the encouragement, Mark.
Josh
Hi Josh, I was wondering if you could help me out with a die-hard evolutionist who has been relentless in his arguments in a SearchWarp article I submitted called, Is Evolution a Religion? Your comments would really help that discussion.Mark,
Although I occasionally have to deal with this issue, I try to stay away from trying to persuade diehard evolutionists. There is no logic or science that will convince them evolution is wrong, since it wasn't science or logic that convinced them evolution was "right" in the first place.
The approach, in my opinion, is to know up front you will never win him over, and then proceed to just unravel for him as much as you can. When you feel you've had enough, just move on.
My writings on evolution, as stated in my book's preface over two decades ago, is not for diehard evolutionists. It's for those who are honestly looking for answers. Evolutionists are not looking for answers, they thing they have them.
I hope this helps.
Thank you, Josh. I'm afraid that I have to admit that you are right. I have considered throwing in the towel on this several times, but it is almost like admitting defeat. But, I suppose that some people just can't see the forest for the trees. I appreciate your help. Shilom
Still disagreeing: "C" like every other element is radioactive. C is simply the most constant in decay & is therefore used for dating materials including your precious dead-sea scrolls etc. If they had not been carbon dated no-one would have believed the authenticity. Hence your argument against carbon dating deminishes the authenticity of any historical documents relating to.... let's say the BIBLE.The Bible's authenticity does not come from radioactive dating. There are many independent documents, from even non-Jewish cultures, corroborating historical events of the Bible. The Bible has been deemed to be historically accurate.
Radioactive dating may or may not be accurate, depending on what upheavals the artifact being dated has gone through. If a radiocarbon dating incident confirms a Biblical event, they corroborate each other.
I haven't looked into this, but my guess is that radioactive dating going back to sometime after the Flood would be accurate. Anything from before the Flood is very likely to appear as being millions of years old.
A great flood can not be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, to take one specific piece of "truth" you overuse. If the "Bible has been deemed to be historically accurate," then how is it remotely possible to repopulate the earth with only two of every animal. That would lead to a huge line of inbreeding. Plus, why would the creator be a destroyer in your story (Bible)? If it took me a week to make something, I really wouldn't wreck it just because people didn't believe in me, let alone KILL them for what they believe.
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