Some isotopes have stable half-lives. They use this to estimate the age of the organic material the isotopes used to belong to. What about it is a sham?

Like all tenets of evolutionary theory, radiometric dating is founded on wishful thinking and unverifiable assumptions:
assumption #1: radioactive decay is constant over millions of years
assumption #2: the quantities of radioactive material and daughter substances are constant in a given soil sample, not subject to affects of leaching in or out.
assumption #3: The components of a given lava flow consist of 100% of the radioactive substance and 0% of the daughter substance.

In truth, the only way to verify the accuracy of radiometric testing is to measure blindly a substance of known age and compare the results. Example: An Egyptian mummy known to be 5,000 years old could be tested using C14 dating. It's important to realize that even if the test were dead accurate at 5,000 years, that in no way verifies the the test is accurate for a sample 10,000 years old. Those types of extrapolations constitute bogus science.

In the case of radiometric dating, mutliple blind trials have been conducted on known lava flows ranging in age from ~25 years (Mt. St. Helens), to Kilauea (circa 200 years, to ancient volcanoes of known dates. All of these have revealed extremely spurious results, with estimated ages of 100,000 years to over 2 million years.

The evos counter this with the argument that these dates are only estimates and are not reliable for dates of less than 2 million years. The fact is, the labs report these values. If these values were not thought to be accurate, they would not report them. Instead, the result would read "0 to 2,000,000 years", not "500,000 to 2,000,000 years".

The hypocrisy of evolutionary thinking is further revealed by their insistence that "pre-human" ancestors such as Australopithecus are accurately dated at 2 million years, when in the same breath they brush off arguments against radiometric dating with the excuse that is is not accurate for dates of less than 2 million years.

Radiometric has error, no doubt. You're talking about instances where radiometric dating fails to date the material accordingly. It's no secret that errors occur due to contamination. In respect to fossils, what do you have to say about constant dating on say... ancient fish fossils/dinosaurs getting older results than mammals? In your creationist view, why would those dates work for evolution?

If lava flow from a 200 year old lava flow is dated at 2 million years, what does that say as to the overall reliability of the test? You say contamination is a problem. How do you determine if a specimen is contaminated? The answer… If it does not fit with evolutionary theory.
Before you decide if one sediment is hundreds of millions of years older than another, you first have to determine if the method used is accurate. I have no reason to believe that the sediment is, in fact, any older than a few thousand years, let alone millions of years.
As far as consistency seen in radiometric dating of different strata… this claim is often made, but I have not seen a study where samples from various strata are submitted blindly to multiple independent laboratories and results are consistent. If you contend that it’s that reproducible, let’s see the proof.
You have not responded to the gross dishonesty I’ve pointed out in the use of radiometric dating… Evolutionists use it to say pre-historic man was 2 million years old, while at the same time justifying erroneous results of known lava flows with the excuse that the method cannot measure anything younger than 2 million years.

If it is known to have contacted the air with in 5000 years.


Fossils are being dated here... When their organic components stopped recycling carbon and other radiometric substances.


I meant of different fossils, not strata. I will work to find this data for you.


Lava flows are not organic, therefore, they do not work by the same "rules", if you will, as fossils of ancient man.

First, that’s not the only possible source of contamination. Second, how do you know if a particular strata has not been in contact with air during the past 5,000 years.


Wrong. The sediment is being dated, not the fossils. By the way, how do you explain the existence of incompletely mineralized T Rex fossils that are supposedly 65 million years old?


Australopithecine fossils are dated in the same way that all other fossils are dated… by the sediment in which they are found. They are not dated by C14. So, please answer my question: If radiometric dating can’t be relied upon for young dates, how are the dates of Australopithecine fossils determined?

Because it's buried under layers of earth. This is why scientists date the inside of fossils, not the outsides, which are more likely to be contaminated during transportation of said fossil.


Fossils mineralize, and they use the radioactive isotopes in the fossils to date them. I'm not sure what you mean by dating the sediment.

Complete mineralization must have been prevented by some rare factor. Can I have more info for a more complete response?
http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologeti...uishosaur.shtml
I found this on the subject and I have yet to read it all. I will probably use it to refute your argument...


Radiometric dating uses isotopes with long half-lives. Those half-lives can not be percieved correctly unless they have been isolated for an extremely long time.

The "reasons's to believe" guys have the same circular logic problem that evos have. We've found other stuff that is 100s of millions years old, therefore this can be to. Problem 1 is that none of that is known to be 100s of millions of years old, and 2, amino acids racemize over time.

If there are still intact protiens in those bones, there would seem to be practically zero chance that they are more than 200k years old. Reacemization will break the proteins down over time, and I would think that in 65 million years, there should be no detectable protiens, or amino acids that are no racemic.

Anyway, there was a later discovery that supported the YEC view of the 1997 bone that is being discussed in the article you posted, that mostly rendered that guys critique, as well as the evo I've seen critiques, as sheer babble.

You can read a little more of his babbling here:

Reasons to beleive dino blood shuffle

If you read that article, or any evo article, you should notice that they really have no idea to explain what they have found in those bones, and they are realy shuffling to explain it. The best explanation is that they are not 65 million years old, and that comes from something that is actually measurable in real time, i.e. amino acid racemization rates.

Terry

It certainly is spin by Reason to Believe.

What I found remarkable was the following candid admission by the secular magazine Discover:

Schweitzer's Dangerous Discovery
When this shy paleontologist found soft, fresh-looking tissue inside a T.rex femur, she erased a line between past and present. Then all hell broke loose. (link)

Something else is remarkable about this article. It turns out the bones smell like cadavers! I didn't know the fossil record could also preserve smell! LOL!

Fred

The problem is far worse than you think for evos. Carbon-14 is especially difficult for evos to explain. We discussed this just this Friday on the radio program I am an occasional guest on. As Enyart noted, these anomalies can no logner be called as such because we expect to find C-14. It's virtually impossible to find a supposed millions of years old item (such as coal, gas, diamonds, amber) without C-14 in it! You can listen to the program here.

(We'll be on again next Friday at 3pm AM670, and will discuss both Haldane's Dilemma, and the recent discovery of the quality control system in the cell; if you are not in the Denver area, the show is also available live online at kgov.com, and will also later be archives as an MP3).

Fred

Isn't carbon dating supposed to be for organic substances? It measures the ratio of C12 to C14 in fossilized bones.

Most of man-made chemicals are made of fossil fuels, such as petroleum or coal, in which the carbon-14 has long since decayed. Presence of carbon-14 in the isotopic signature of a sample of carbonaceous material therefore indicates its possible biogenic origin and relatively recent geologic age.

Right, so that's why we find it in fossils that are supposedly millions of years old? (don't worry, I'm a noob, if I make any mistakes someone will point it out)