HOW RELIABLE IS CARBON-14 DATING?

Many scientists rely heavily on Carbon-14 dating as one of their primary tools to determine the age of things which contain carbon (i.e. any plant or animal material). By age we do not mean the amount of time an organism lived, but rather we mean the amount of time which has elapsed since the organism died. All living organisms have a significant and continual intake of carbon while they are alive. Plants absorb carbon from the air in the form of carbon dioxide. This carbon is then passed on to herbivorous animals which eat the plants. And then in turn is passed on up the food chain of the carnivores.

To illustrate just how prevalent carbon is in the diet of man, there are only two substances which we normally ingest which do not contain carbon in their chemical structure, water and salt. But even water will usually contain some dissolved carbon dioxide. All life, as we know it, is carbon based. In other words, every living thing contains carbon.

Now that we see how prevalent carbon is, we need to discover how it can be used as a reliable dating tool. To do this we must turn inside the atom and investigate its structure. There are three elementary particles which make up all atoms in the universe. These are the proton, neutron, and electron. The proton and neutron are basically the same size and make up the vast majority of the mass of the atom. We find these two particles joined together in the center or nucleus of the atom. The much smaller electrons orbit the nucleus. The proton possesses a positive electrical charge, the neutron is electrically neutral, and the electron possesses a negative electrical charge equal in magnitude to that of the proton. All stable atoms will have the same number of electrons and protons to achieve electrical neutrality.

It is the number of protons which gives an element its chemical identity. For example oxygen has 8 protons. It is the fact that it has 8 protons which makes it oxygen. If it had only 7 protons it would not be oxygen, it would be nitrogen. Or if it had 9 protons it would be fluorine. And any atom, regardless of the circumstance, which has 8 protons IS oxygen. The number of protons is known as the atomic number. So nitrogen has an atomic number of 7, oxygen has an atomic number of 8, fluorine has an atomic number of 9, etc.

As a general rule the number of neutrons in an atom is about the same as the number of protons. However, as the nucleus gets larger the percentage of neutrons tends to increase. The interesting and useful part of all this is that an element can exist in various forms. For example a typical hydrogen atom consists of one proton orbited by one electron. But it also exists in another form called deuterium, which consists of one proton and one neutron orbited by an electron. There is also a third form called tritium, which consists of one proton and two neutrons orbited by an electron. All three forms have just one proton which makes them hydrogen, but the number of neutrons can vary. These forms of the same element which vary only in the number of neutrons are known as isotopes. Most elements can occur in a number of isotopes, but usually one or sometimes two will be more prevalent.

The number of protons and neutrons together is known as the atomic weight. Most people have probably heard reference made to uranium-238. This is the atomic weight of one isotope of uranium. Uranium has 92 protons, and this isotope would have 146 neutrons (238 - 92 = 146).

Carbon exists naturally in two main forms, carbon-12 and carbon-14. Carbon has 6 protons so these two isotopes have 6 and 8 neutrons respectively. By testing any living organism or the carbon dioxide in the air we find that about 1 out of every 100,000,000,000 (10¹²) carbon atoms is carbon-14 today.

We are now prepared to discuss how carbon can be used as a dating tool. It all relies on the fact that carbon-14 is radioactive. It is unstable and over a period of time will break down to nitrogen-14. Carbon-14, or radiocarbon, has a half-life of about 5,700 years. This means that in 5,700 years half of the carbon-14 atoms in a sample will have decayed to nitrogen-14. In 11,400 years only one fourth of the original amount will be left. In 34,200 years only one sixty-fourth will be left.

All organisms will ingest radiocarbon while they are living and should have a concentration which is approximately the same as that found in the atmosphere when they die. But when the organism dies it ceases to take in any additional carbon-14. Therefore the "clock" has been started. If you know the initial concentration of radiocarbon in an organism, then by measuring the amount of radiocarbon it contains at a later date, you should be able to determine with good accuracy the amount of time which has passed since the organism died. Of course all of this relies on the ability to determine the initial concentration of radiocarbon. Obviously, it cannot be measured directly, so we must assume a value. By assuming that the basic natural processes operating on the earth today have been the same over the period of time for which radiocarbon dating is said to be valid (which is about 50,000 years) we can infer that the concentration of carbon-14 has remained relatively constant. All this implies is that no great upheavals have occurred which could have altered the concentration of radiocarbon in the atmosphere, which still allows for significant climatic and geological changes.

So if the conditions on the earth have been relatively uniform over the past 50,000 years then radiocarbon dating is sound and should be relied upon and trusted as scientifically valid. But the problem is how do we know that the conditions on the earth have been uniform for the past 50,000 years? Or to take it even one step further, how do we know that the earth even existed beyond 6,000 years ago, the age suggested by the Bible? I must reject the use of other forms of dating, such as the use of uranium or thorium, in this argument.

To me the evidence is clear that the universe was created with maturity. Just as Adam was created with maturity (let us say 30 years for the sake of discussion) so was the universe. Adam had never lived a single day before he was created. Yet he had the physical and mental maturity of a grown man on the very day he was created. Anyone who examined Adam on the day of his creation would find overwhelming evidence that he was about 30 years old. Every test which could be performed on Adam would show he was much more than a day old.

Similarly, the universe had never existed before the day God created it. Yet, because God created it with maturity, anyone who examines it finds overwhelming evidence that it has existed for millions or billions of years. The earth also, being part of the universe, (although it was created on a different day from the rest of the heavenly bodies) shows strong evidence of maturity. But it is not the maturity of the rocks and structures of the earth we are concerned with. It is the life forms which have inhabited this planet. If the Bible is right, then there should be no reliable evidence to show that life existed more than 6,000 years ago.

The validity of radiocarbon dating rests on the uniformity of the earth for the past 50,000 years. How do scientists "prove" that the earth has been relatively uniform for the past 50,000 years? By using radiocarbon dating. This is circular logic! So until scientists can prove the idea of uniformitarianism radiocarbon dating has absolutely no validity as a scientific tool.

If one accepts the Bible's account of the Creation and the Flood then everything falls perfectly into place. We find that the world God created was vastly different form what we know today. "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day." (Genesis 1:6-8)

This passage shows us that a portion of the earth's water was suspended high in the atmosphere as a "vapor canopy." This is the portion which was above the firmament or atmosphere. And it remained where it was placed until the time of the flood.

What does this have to do with radiocarbon dating? It becomes crucial when we investigate how carbon-14 is formed. Since carbon-14 decays to nitrogen its concentration should decline and eventually disappear as all of it is converted. But this does not happen. Therefore, there must be a source for new carbon-14. And this is found in the upper atmosphere of the earth.

The earth is constantly being bombarded by something known as cosmic rays. There are two types of cosmic rays, primaries and secondaries. Primary cosmic rays are particles (primarily a and b particles) which are produced throughout our galaxy. When one of these particles reaches the earth, if it is not deflected by the earth's magnetic field, it will soon strike a molecule in the atmosphere. This collision can result in the production of other particles which are called secondary cosmic rays. A few neutrons will enter the atmosphere as primaries, but the majority of the neutrons found will be the result of the collision of other primaries with molecules. These neutrons have the potential, under the right conditions, to strike a nitrogen molecule in such a way that a proton will be ejected from the nucleus and the neutron takes its place. This causes the nitrogen-14 to become carbon-14.

The earth's atmosphere is about 79% nitrogen, so as the cosmic rays enter the atmosphere there is a reasonable chance that the necessary conditions will be met in a few cases for the formation of radiocarbon. But when you consider the way things were before the flood you can quickly see that the formation of radiocarbon would have been greatly hindered. Instead of the cosmic rays easily finding their way into the thin upper atmosphere where they would take part in a collision which might lead to the formation of radiocarbon, they collided instead with water molecules in the vapor canopy. As a consequence, most of the cosmic rays which reached the nitrogen would be secondaries, and many of them after having undergone numerous collisions with water molecules in the vapor canopy, simply would not possess sufficient energy to eject a proton from the nucleus of a nitrogen molecule.

The bottom line is that the concentration of carbon-14 in the atmosphere prior to the flood was much less than it is today. After the flood the concentration would have began to increase and may still be increasing today. This explains why something which is only 5,000 years old may appear to be 40,000 years old when radiocarbon dating is used. The uniformity which this method requires simply didn't exist.