Much of the religious community and maybe near 100% of the fundmentalists date the earth as being around 6,000 years old. Their reasoning? Well, let’s not go there right now. But what we can say is that know for sure that carbon dating is wrong. And why is that? It’s wrong because carbon dating comes up with a different answer as to how old the earth is. Oh yes, and it’s scientific as well. Who can trust science?
Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to determine the age of carbonaceous materials up to about 60,000 years. In laymen’s terms what that means is that carbon 14 is a radio isotrope that has six protons and eight neutrons. Hold on now, don’t lose me.
The carbon element has two less neutrons that carbon 14. I know you wanted that piece of data.
This isotope begins to decay at the death of an animal or plant. The time it takes for half of the given amount of carbon 14 to become NON radioactive is 5,730 years. But don’t just rely on carbon 14 because BERYLLIUM is a good keeper of time as well. We also have tree rings and several other methods that work in harmony with each other. But, hey, don’t take my opinions.
Dr. Wiens has a PhD in Physics, with a minor in Geology. His PhD thesis was on isotope ratios in meteorites, including surface exposure dating. He was employed at Caltech’s Division of Geological & Planetary Sciences at the time of writing the first edition. He is presently employed in the Space & Atmospheric Sciences Group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. And now get this, he’s an avowed Christian, but this is what he has written.
“Radiometric dating–the process of determining the age of rocks from the decay of their radioactive elements–has been in widespread use for over half a century. There are over forty such techniques, each using a different radioactive element or a different way of measuring them. It has become increasingly clear that these radiometric dating techniques agree with each other and as a whole, present a coherent picture in which the Earth was created a very long time ago. Further evidence comes from the complete agreement between radiometric dates and other dating methods such as counting tree rings or glacier ice core layers. Many Christians have been led to distrust radiometric dating and are completely unaware of the great number of laboratory measurements that have shown these methods to be consistent. Many are also unaware that Bible-believing Christians are among those actively involved in radiometric dating.”
Let me give you one example of what such dating tells us.
There is an inverse relationship between sunspots and the number of cosmic rays that make it to earth- the more sunspots, the denser the interplanetary magnetic field emanating from the sun. From 1100-1250CE the earth was unusually warm. Where’s Al Gore when you need him?
Because of the unusual warmth, the Vikings were able to establish colonies in Greenland and northeastern Canada, which were also known as VINLAND- for the wine grapes that grew there then. Thousands of other important pieces of our historic puzzle can be put into place due to carbon 14 clues- and other pieces of the puzzle.
May we not hide our head in the proverbial sand!
