David Gould

A friend of mine (yes, for those who have seen it in the BC&A forum, the same friend) has lent me 'Shattering the Myths of Darwinism' by Richard Milton.

Now, it is obviously full of crap right from the word go.

(I have only read the dating stuff and with no technical knowledge whatsoever have picked up on Milton's intellectual dishonesty. He claims that 'Darwinists' find the Earth to be old because they are seeking an old Earth. He then cites a creationist who finds the Earth to be young but does nto say that this person is a creationist until quite a few pages later; nor does he say that the young Earth answer - 10,000 years - is, surprise, surprise, the pressupposed answer that creationists have set for themselves.)

However, I do not have the knowledge to answer the bewildering array of claims that Milton throws into the mix regarding the age of the earth.

I have looked on the web for rebuttals but cannot find one that is easy to understand.

I am wondering if anyone wants to help me go through the dating stuff or point me to somewhere that can assist.

I am not too concerned with the rest of the book - all I need to do is demonstrate his dishonesty in this regard and I am pretty sure that my friend will get a good idea of why I reject the whole thing.

Thanks.

Dr.GH

A very good book, and fairly cheap too, is "The Age of the Earth" by Brent Dalrymple 1991:Standford University Press. It will take care of your questions.

Dickin, Alan P.
1997 Radiogenic Isotope Geology Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

is available for advanced reading.

"Chronometric Dating in Archaeology" Taylor and Aitken ed.s 1997 : Plennum Press is good for dating from the recent to about 60,000 years ago.

there are also web pages:

<a href="http://asa.calvin.edu/ASA/resources/Wiens.html" target="_blank">http://asa.calvin.edu/ASA/resources/Wiens.html</a>

is one example.

[ April 17, 2002: Message edited by: Dr.GH ]</p>

David Gould

Thanks for that. The internet source was great. I am going to have to do some more reading on it. I am stunned by the sheer volume of lies in that book. I have written about 6 pages about them for my friend and I hope that he will read them carefully.

Joe Nobody

Some things I have gleaned through my readings concerning Carbon Dating that may be informative. I think they are pretty basic but it doesn't appear so when reading YEC literature:

1. Only organic material that contains high amounts of carbon (e.g. wood and bone) can be dated in this manner.

So if someone Carbon dates their dog to 500,000 years old and uses this to poke fun at scientific dating methods ignore them

2. Carbon dating is only accurate to around 40,000 years.

3. The process depends upon the fact that living things contain a known amount of C14.

4. The C14 dating method assumes the concentration of C14 in the atmosphere is constant. This hasn't been fully justified but its been possible to demonstrate differences in C14 levels in the atmosphere at different times and rectify the data. I think tree rings are used to detemine levels up to a little less than 10,000 years ago.

Cosmic rays smashing into nitrogen atoms in the atmosphere is what produces the C14 in the atmosphere. So an increase in cosmic rays or a decrease will effect the levels of C14 in the atmosphere. The C14 dating method assumes constancy and I think evidence leans towards non-conformity in this regard. But we have only a very slight problem here as the level is relatively constant because of atmospheric mixing. Also, the uranium-thorium method helps to better establish the C14 dating method. The U-T method is independent of cosmic radiation and gives almost the same results as C14 dating. There may be a 10 to 20% difference here and there but for YECs its irrelevant anyways when they use this to insist that C14 dating isn't perfect. We can compare with the U-T method and a bone, whether 24,000 years old or 30,000 years old, defeats their purpose.

Just so you know I'm not making this up, from my 'College Physics' text book by Wilson and Buffa, 4th Edition, pp 906-907:

Carbon Dating can seem complex to those with no background in physics and chemistry but I think its actually the easist of the dating methods to understand. Even it can be complex. If I continued with the text book explanation I would have went on to an exercise (and we know physics and math seem to be interchangeable terms sometimes ) that might have made some people do this <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

The methods can get very complex (over my head). To better understand them I'd suggest starting with half-life and radioactivity. I think a basic knowledge of Chemistry is in order as well.

Joe Nobody

[ April 22, 2002: Message edited by: Joe Nobody ]</p>

Coragyps

Hi, Joe, and welcome!
The 14C "clock" has actually been calibrated to account for changing atmospheric 14C content, using tree rings, ice cores, and varves (annual sediment layers) in lakes. I'm no expert on all the ins and outs of how they do this, but papers yhat use 14C often report both a "14C date" and a calendar date, and always tell whose correlation they are using.
One canard that you see frequently in the creationist literature is "A living snail was dated to 6000 years old!" This statement is sort of true - I looked up the source of one such date once and found it in a paper (from the 1960's) warning other carbon-daters that they would get similarly inaccurate dates if the organism the were dating drew part of its carbon from "old" groundwater. Whoever cited the "bad date" obviously intended to mislead his readers, as the title of the paper referred to "fictional" dates.

Joe Nobody

Hi Coragyps. Thanks for the welcome.

I am familiar with the tree ring stuff and mentioned it up above. I think Bristelecone pine trunks in places like California and Arizona deserts that have been preserved in tact for thousands of years prove helpful. Scientists use deondrochronology whatever that is Actually, I think its based upon climate determining the appearance of the growth ring.

I'll have to check into the ice cores and varves one of these days. I have enough confidence in the C14 dating method already so it will be for informational purposes only.

I think its commonly known that things we date can sometimes be contaminated and yield inaccurate results. This seems to be where yecs focus most of their attention. Also, the "living snail" thing makes me skeptical. I have been taught that we can not Carbon date living things. I quoted this in bold up above: "Carbon 14 dating is used on materials that were once part of living things, or the remnants of objects made from or containing such materials (such as wood, bone, leather, or parchment)."

Maybe I am wrong but I don't think a living snail fits the bill.

Joe Nobody

Skydancer

Dendrochronology. Means 'tree time study' in the original Greek, and is defined as the science of dating objects by the identifying patterns of tree rings in local climatic zones. By matching overlapping tree-trunk patterns (tree A lived 1800-2000, tree B from 1700-1900, tree C from 1550-1750, etc...), it has been extended back over 10,000 years in some locales.

Living objects can technically be carbon-dated, and of course should give a result of 0 years dead... but mollusk shells use ground-water carbonates, where the carbon is ancient. This gives spuriously old dates for them. Plants growing along highways also pick up a high concentration of fossil carbon from combustion fumes and give similarly old dates. Both of these mechanisms are known, and scientists don't try to carbon-date such organisms. Creationists, of course, will do so and then point to the resulting numbers as 'proof' that it doesn't work.

Ice cores and lake varves deposit annual layers which can be counted precisely. Carbon-dating organic matter which can be accurately dated using such methods allows calibration of the C-14 levels over time. As expected, it does vary a bit, which can throw off the dates if you assume modern equilibrium as constant - but the variation is within 5% over the last 50,000 years, and the mapped changes now allow calibration of the radioactive dates for better accuracy.

Joe Nobody

"Living objects can technically be carbon-dated, and of course should give a result of 0 years dead... "

I must be missing something in my understanding of Carbon Dating then. In living things isn't the carbon continually being replenished? Wouldn't the amount remain constant?

However, once an organism dies, the C14 is not replenished, and the concentration decreases with radioactive decay (with t1/2 = 5730 y). The concentration of C14 in dead matter relative to that in living things can then be used to establish when the organism died.

I thought the method is based upon the object not being replenished with Carbon14? What am I missing? Is the physics text I quoted wrong?

Joe Nobody

Dr.GH

Welcome to the arena.

<a href="http://www.c14dating.com/index.html" target="_blank">C14dating.com </a>

<a href="http://units.ox.ac.uk/departments/rlaha/orau/01_04.htm" target="_blank">C14 Calibrations</a>

<a href="http://asa.calvin.edu/ASA/resources/Wiens.html" target="_blank"> Richard Wiens' web page</a>

The first two URLs should give you the information you are looking for as to the technical side of radiocarbon dating. You have the basic idea but there are a few errors in your understanding. The third URL is interesting as it is writen from a Christian point of view and gives a starting basis to explain dating methods to Christians who may not have much scientific background.

<a href="http://web.utk.edu/~grissino/" target="_blank">A good dendro web page</a>

<a href="http://www.cio.phys.rug.nl/HTML-docs/Verslag/97/PE-04.htm" target="_blank">A varve calibration</a>

The last two pages are more technical in nature but might be good background for you.

Joe Nobody

Hi Dr. :

I've skimmed through some of them articles. I still don't see how I am wrong here. Can you give me a more specific reference? I didn't see anything that challenge the way I see radiocarbon dating.

Form a site you linked: Carbon-14 in particular is used to date organic material such as bones, wood, cloth, paper, and other dead tissue from either plants or animals.

<a href="http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html#cosmogenic" target="_blank">http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html#cosmogenic</a>

It does say "in particular". Is it leaving open the dating of still living organisms? As I understand the process you can't date living things where the carbon is continually replenished. If anyone can answer it directly and go through the actual radiocarbon method that differs from the one the quote from the physics text delineated above, I would sincerely like to see it and know what is wrong with my understanding. Thanks

Joe Nobody