The subject of radiometric dating and determining the age of the earth is a very complicated subject. I tried not to go into too much detail in this appendix but even a summary can't be as brief as I'd hoped.
We have already seen on this site that evolution is simply an untenable “scientific” theory through many lines of scientific evidence. Yet even if we suspend disbelief and accept that life could have formed on its own, it would still take more than the billions of years secular scientists estimate to be the age of the earth for all of the mutations needed for “molecules-to-man” evolution to have occurred. That truth aside, we will investigate the merits and flaws of currently used dating methods.
There are 3 primary methods of dating that are used to demonstrate age:
I will cover each below.
Isotopic (radiometric) dating is the cornerstone of the uniformitarian belief that the earth is very old. Adherents dogmatically claim with no small amount of intellectual arrogance that the dates derived from these methods are absolutely factual, while ignoring or belittling the fatal flaws inherent in them.
The principal factor that has driven scientists to estimate that the earth is very old is the necessity for long periods of time to account for evolution. Even before radioactivity was discovered in the 1890’s, estimates of the age of the earth were growing longer and longer as the complex nature of life became more evident, challenging their evolutionary theories.
Although scientists can accurately measure isotope levels in rocks, there are factors that cannot be controlled and assumptions that must be made, which make radiometric techniques unreliable as an indicator of age. Yet the fact that they often result in excessively old ages of the rocks tested has led to their acceptance as being credible.
Radiometric dating is based on precise measurements of the ratios of radioactive isotopes in rocks. Some elements, such as uranium, undergo radioactive decay to produce other elements. By measuring the quantities of radioactive elements (“parent” elements) and the elements into which they decay (“daughter” elements) in rocks, geologists try to determine how much time has elapsed since the rock has cooled from an initially molten state. In attempting to date a rock, the geophysicist will ground the rock to powder then isolate certain minerals to attain these ratios. Once known, these ratios can be plugged into a computer which will give the supposed age of the rock.
Early studies of radiation revealed a basic property of radioactive decay called nuclear half-life. This is the length of time required for 50 percent of a quantity of radioactive material to disintegrate or decay away. If the rate of decay can be determined, and if it can be known that at some point this rock contained only parent material when it formed, then measuring the current amounts of parent and daughter material should in theory yield how long it had been since the rock formed.
Radiometric dating can only be used on igneous rocks, which form when hot, molten material cools. Melted rock is called magma while underground and becomes lava if it reaches the earth’s surface. The radiometric “clock” starts ticking when radioactive isotopes are sealed within newly crystallized igneous rock, since the elements can no longer move around freely. (the other two basic types of rocks, sedimentary and metamorphic, are not useful for radiometric dating since they are comprised of preexisting, reworked rocks. Therefore,the initial condition of the rocks cannot be known. Geophysicists must rely on fossils to date them as we will see in the next section.)
Radiometric dating is based on some fragile assumptions. If the assumptions are false, the dating procedure cannot be trusted. There are three main assumptions that affect the validity of radiometric dating:
1. The first assumption regards the constancy of decay rates. In order for radiometric methods to be valid, the currently measured rates of decay must have always been the same. It is reasonable to assume that radioactive decay is constant, and is not affected by heat or pressure. However, decay rates have been examined for only about 100 years.
Geologist Andrew A. Snelling conducted extensive research on radiohalos suggesting that decay rates used to be faster. (1) Frederic B. Jueneman stated in an article from the reputable journal Industrial Research and Development::
There has been, in recent years the horrible realization that radio decay rates are not as constant as previously thought, nor are they immune to environmental influences. (2)
H.C. Dudley revealed that external influences can definitely affect decay rates. He changed the decay rates of 14 different radioisotopes by means of pressure, temperature, electric and magnetic fields, and stress on monomolecular layers.[i] Time magazine reported back in 1964 an intriguing item which was generally overlooked by the scientific community. Although scientists generally consider that no known force can change the rate of atomic decay, researchers at Westinghouse laboratories had actually done it. They did it by simply placing inactive “dead” iron next to radioactive iron. The result was an altered decay rate. (3)
More recently, scientists have been able to change the half-lives of some forms of radioactive decay in a laboratory by drastic amounts. (4) For example, Rhenium-187 normally decays to Osmium-187 with a half-life of 41.6 billion years. However, by ionizing the Rhenium (removing all its electrons), scientists were able to reduce the half-life to only 33 years! In other words, the Rhenium decays over 1 billion times faster under such conditions.
So as we can see, there is plenty of evidence to question the validity of this first assumption, that radioactive decay rates have always been constant.
2. The second assumption is that neither the parent nor the daughter concentrations, nor any intermediate products, have been altered throughout the entire history of the rock (except by radioactive decay). This assumption is much less reasonable. It is true that when scientists gather specimens for analysis, great care is taken to ensure they show no evidence of contamination, that is to say no external source of parent or daughter products entered or left the rock during its history. It is hoped that this careful screening would produce reasonable and consistent results.
However, this is not the case, as there is really no way to be sure. Often the results don’t agree with each other or with any other estimate gained from the fossils or from stratigraphic analyses. When this happens, or if the dates attained do not match the assumed age based on evolutionary preconceptions, the results from the tests are thrown out, and a charge of “contamination” is levied.
Richard L. Mauger, Ph.D., associate professor of geology at East Carolina University, stated regarding which dates are considered acceptable to be published:
In general, dates in the “correct ball park” are assumed to be correct and are published, but those in disagreement with other data are seldom published nor are discrepancies fully explained. (5)
The problem is, if leaching and contamination can occur which cannot be detected when the scientists pre-screen the samples to be tested, then how do we know the other “clean” samples whose dating results happen to agree with the examiner’s usually preconceived expectations were not contaminated? In examining this problem, Dr. Andrew Snelling stated:
...Even though geochronologists take every conceivable precaution when selecting pitchblende grains for dating, in the light of the above evidence, no one could be sure that the U and Pb they are measuring is “original” and unaffected by the gross element movements observed and measured…A logical extension of these data and conclusions is to suggest, as others already have, that U/Pb ratios may have nothing to do with the age of a mineral. So that in spite of the “popular” dating results looking sensible, the evidence clearly indicates that these dates are meaningless. (6)
There are many factors which can cause elements and gases to enter and leave rocks, which would invalidate these dating methods. Argon, one of the most measured radioactive elements, is a gas and can easily diffuse out of rock. Potassium and uranium (two other commonly measured elements) are easily dissolved in water. Water seeping through rock could easily dissolve away these elements, leading to inaccurate measurements.
3. The third assumption is that the original amount of radioactive elements present in the rock, particularly daughter isotopes, can be known.
This is the most damaging to the credibility of radiometric dating. If some of the daughter product is present at the start, the rock would already appear to be old, when in fact it was just formed. This assumption can be tested. We can simply gather samples from recent eruptions of known dates and test them. If the dating process is accurate, then the date derived should be almost equivalent to zero, or too young to be measured.
In the scientific literature, research results have been reported where rocks of known age have been dated radiometrically. In almost every case the “age” of these recent lavas has come back from the lab in terms of excessively high ages, not essentially zero as should be the case if the testing methods are accurate.
Consider the tests run on historic lava flows in Hawaii. (7) Rocks from lava flows known to have occurred in 1800-1801 were dated with a variety of methods on several different minerals. Although these rocks are too young to produce much daughter product, the tests revealed extremely old dates. Of the 12 dates reported, the range was found to be between 140 million and 2.96 billion years, the average being 1.41 billion years! These are from rocks known to be 200 years old.
Rocks from Mount St. Helens volcano were obviously formed after the eruption in 1980. But examination of these rocks, known to be about 10 years old at the time result in extreme ages. Porphyritic dacite from the top of the lava dome tested using the potassium-Argon (K-Ar) radiometric method determined them to be 350,000 years old, give or take 50,000 years. Mineral concentrates give dates ranging from 350,000 years to 2.8 million years !! (8) This proved there must have been excess argon present when the rocks formed, shattering this assumption that the original amount of daughter product can be known.
Newly formed rocks from the Mount Ngauruhoe volcano in New Zealand were also examined. The radiometric age of the rocks, using the potassium-argon method, ranged between 270,000 and 3,500,000,000 years. However, these rocks were formed during five different eruptions which occurred between 1949 and 1975. (9) So rocks known to have formed within a 26 year period gave dates which varied by over 3 billion years!
In reality, both parent and daughter elements migrate into and out of rocks from tectonic, metamorphic, and hydrologic forces. It is impossible to know the quantity of radioactive elements in a rock when it was first formed, whether thousands, millions, or billions of years ago. We can only speculate, as these results show. And as Mauger’s statement above states, the dates accepted are the ones that fit into the researcher’s preconceived notion of what the dates should be. The ones that do not fit those preconceived notions are discarded, usually with no explanation.
If the various radiometric dating techniques yield dates that are so unreliable for subjects of known ages, then how can we trust them when testing rocks of unknown origin dates?
Conflict Between Different Methods
Another problem with radiometric dating is the conflicting dates between different methods. If two methods disagree, then at least one of them must be wrong. For example, in Australia, some wood was buried by a basalt lava flow. The wood was ‘dated’ by radiocarbon (C14) analysis at about 45,000 years old, but the basalt was ‘dated’ by the K-Ar method at 45 million years old ! (10)
Other fossil wood from Upper Permian rock layers has been found with C14 still present. Detectable C14 would have all disintegrated if the wood were really older than 50,000 years, let alone the 250 million years that evolutionists assign to these Upper Permian rock layers. (11)
It is not surprising that so many scientists question the reliability of radiometric dating.
William D. Stansfield, Ph.D., instructor of biology at California Polytechnic State University, wrote :
It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological “clock.” The uncertainties inherent in radiometric dating are disturbing to geologists and evolutionists. (12)
Most people either never hear, or pay little attention to admissions like this. But this is the reality of radiometric dating.
Scientists are aware of the limitations of radiometric dating methods. They are acutely aware that samples from the same rock units can give wildly varying radiometric dates. This is because the different samples have different quantities of the parent radioisotopes in them, therefore skewing the results. So the isochron method was developed to use multiple samples from each rock unit to obtain a single age for it. It is argued that using multiple samples gives a more reliable result.
Isochrons are utilized today in almost every radioisotope dating experiment. The theory goes that at the time a rock unit is formed, though the samples may have different numbers of parent material in them, they all have the same amount of daughter material, since no decay should have occurred yet.
The amounts of parent and daughter materials in four or more rocks are plotted as a graph. If the data points on the graph fall along a straight line, then the result is said to be a reliable estimate of age. Aided with the use of a mass spectrometer, the isochron technic has become the best-practice standard procedure in radiometric dating. It is thought to be infallible because it supposedly eliminates the assumptions about starting conditions.
However,there is a key flaw in this the isochron method which results in over-estimation of isochron ages. (13) North Carolina State University has recently conducted research revealing an “oversight in a radioisotope dating technique used to date everything from meteorites to geologic samples,” which means that “scientists have likely overestimated the ages of many samples.” This research was done in the university’s Nuclear Engineering Department by Associate Professor Robert Hayes and a report was published in the journal Nuclear Technology. (14)
The whole theory of isochron dating is based and dependent on a seemingly reasonable assumption. However, that assumption does not take into account differential mass diffusion of different isotopes to and from rocks. This“diffusion coefficient” is expected to be different for each isotope for a given matrix in accordance with each’s differences in mass, chemical bonding, defect types, and concentrations. This obviously will affect the dating results especially if the parent element diffuses faster than the daughter.
Professor Hayes stated that differential diffusion of different elements, based on their physical size among other factors, must be factored into any isochron radiometric dating methodology. He concluded that the simplest approach to remove solid-state mass diffusion effects that would have occurred would be not to use isotopic ratios in dating samples. In other words, the isochron dating technique is faulty and misleading. Without isochron dating being as reliable as previously believed, all efforts to use radioisotopes to date rocks become highly misleading and questionable.
An objective test of the reliability of isochron dating methods was performed several years ago by a group of creation scientists (see RATE below) to put the method to the test. They obtained radioisotope dates from ten different locations. To omit any potential bias, the rock samples were analyzed by several different commercial laboratories. In each case, the isochron dates differed substantially from the single-sample radioisotope dates. If single-sample and isochron dating methods are objective and reliable they should agree. In some cases the range was more than 500 million years. (15)
In one specific case, Dr. Steve Austin took samples from the Cardenas basalt, which is among the oldest strata in the eastern Grand Canyon. Samples from the western Canyon basalt lava flows, which are known to be among the youngest formation in the canyon based on the fact they spilled lava into the canyon after it had been eroded, were also analyzed. Using isochron dating methods, an age of 1.07 billion years was assigned to the oldest rocks and a date of 1.34 billion years to the youngest lava flows. The rocks known to be youngest gave an age 270 million years older than the rocks known to be older !! (16)
Of course, geologists don’t believe the result in this case, because it does not agree with what they believe to be the right age. Such an obviously conflicting age speaks eloquently of the great problems inherent in radioisotope dating. It also speaks volumes about the way ‘dates’ are accepted or rejected by the geological community.
It becomes clear that though radiometric dating can accurately determine the amounts of parent and daughter materials present in rock samples, interpreting what these amounts mean is anything but accurate. They certainly are not accurately measuring the ages of these rocks.
We know that radiometric dating methods result in greatly varied and excessively inflated ages based on test performed on rocks of known ages. So how could they be considered reliable in giving ages of rocks of unknown ages? Which of the three main assumptions (initial conditions are known, rate of decay is known, the system is closed) is/are false?
To answer this question, several creation geologists and physicists came together to form the RATE research initiative (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth). This multi-year research project engaged in several different avenues of study, and found some fascinating results.
One of the 3 previously mentioned assumptions used in radiometric dating is that the rates of radioactive decay have always been the same. However, if that assumption is false, then all radiometric age estimates will be unreliable. Most physicists in the past assumed the decay rates have always been the same based on past experiments which tried unsuccessfully to alter the decay rates. However, as mentioned above, more recently scientists have been able to change the half-lives of some forms of radioactive decay in a laboratory by drastic amounts. (17)
The RATE research initiative found compelling evidence that other radioactive elements also had much shorter half-lives in the past. One involves the decay of uranium-238 into lead-206. The uranium-lead decay is a 14-step process resulting in lead-206, which is stable.
Eight of the fourteen decays steps release an alpha-particle: the nucleus of a helium atom which consists of two protons and two neutrons. The helium nucleus quickly attracts a couple of electrons from the environment to become a neutral helium atom. So, for every one atom of uranium-238 that converts into lead-206, eight helium atoms are produced. Helium gas is therefore a byproduct of uranium decay.
Since helium is a gas, it can leak through the rocks and will eventually escape into the atmosphere. The RATE scientists measured the rate at which helium escapes, and it is fairly high. Therefore, if the rocks were billions of years old, the helium would have had plenty of time to escape, and there would be a negligible amount of helium in the rocks.
Yet the RATE team found that the rocks they tested have a great deal of helium within them. In fact, the amount of helium in the rocks is perfectly consistent with their biblical age of a few thousand years, and wildly inconsistent with billions of years.
The fact that such helium is present also indicates that a great deal of radioactive decay has happened; a lot of uranium atoms have decayed into lead, producing the helium. At the current half-life of uranium-238, this would take billions of years. But if it actually took billions of years, then the helium would have escaped the rocks. The only reasonable explanation that fits all the data is that the half-life of uranium-238 was much smaller in the past. That is, in the past, uranium-238 transformed into lead-206 much faster than it does today.
The RATE team found similar evidence for other forms of radioactive decay. Apparently, during the creation week and possibly during the year of the global flood, radioactive decay rates were much faster than they are today.
The RATE team also found that the acceleration of radioactive decay was greater for elements with longer half-lives, and less for elements with shorter half-lives. So, slow-decay chains like uranium-lead, potassium-argon, and rubidium-strontium were drastically accelerated, while faster decaying elements like carbon-14 were only minimally affected.
All radiometric dating methods used on rocks assume that the half-life of the decay has always been what it is today. But we now have compelling evidence that this assumption is false. And since the decay rate was much faster in the past, those who do not compensate for this will end up with age-estimates that are vastly inflated from the true age of the rock. This of course is exactly what we observe. We already knew that radiometric dating tends to give ages that are much older than the true age. Now we know why. (18)
As stated above, radiometric dating techniques are only applicable to igneous rocks, such as lava rocks and granite, since it is assumed they know the original levels of parent and daughter isotopes. However, sedimentary rock, which contains fossils and makes up the geological column, cannot be accurately dated by radioisotope methods.
Sedimentary rocks, by definition, are laid down as sediments by moving fluids. They are made up of pieces of rock or other material which existed somewhere else, and were eroded or dissolved and redeposited in their present location. In other words, the rock material itself would have been from a previously existing older source. No dating would be accurate because of this redeposition as there is no way of telling how much parent and daughter material was added or taken away from the rocks during this movement and mixing with fluids.
Instead, it is the shape and characteristics of the fossils found within these rocks that are used to date them. If you can date the fossil, the rock can then be dated. Hence, historical geology relies chiefly on paleontology. Paleontologists have dated what are known as “index fossils” based on the assumption of evolutionary progression over time.
It must be noted that most fossils are not index fossils. Many organisms did not change at all over long periods of time, and are found in many different layers. Since they didn’t live at any one particular time, we can’t use them to date the rocks. Only index fossils are useful, since they are only found in one zone of rock, presumably indicating they lived during a relatively brief period of geologic history. Whenever we find these index fossils we date the rock at that age (based on evolutionary presuppositions).
This index fossil method of dating is considered by most modern geologists to be absolutely authoritative and decisive. In reality, the index fossil method serves as a classic example of circular reasoning, for it accepts the assumption of evolutionary theory. The fossil dates the rock, and the assumption of evolution dates the fossil.
Such arguments overlook the fact that physiologically primitive organisms such as amoeba still exist today as contemporaries of highly developed organisms, such as man or apes. If only physiologically primitive organisms, such as trilobites, appear within a geological formation, this does not signify that only primitive organisms (like trilobite) existed when they were deposited in the formation involved. Sessile animals (those with fixed locations) and plants are reached by the water and fossilized on the spot, whereas more complex organisms (such as those with legs or wings) can escape the oncoming water.
Thus a formation deposited by water contains mainly those organisms which could not escape from the water at their time of death. The first organisms reached by the water were, therefore, often the physiologically most primitive types—and not necessarily those that were geologically older or more primitive.
Remember, the rock itself is not examined in any other way. It is dated based on the fossil. If a rock is found which does not contain fossils, then the geologist must look to other fossil-bearing layers above and below to date the rock. Such layers may not even be in the same location as the rock. They will often trace the layers laterally, sometimes for great distances, to help date the rock.
The geographical layers are therefore dated by the fossils found within them. Again, the fossils date the rock, and the assumption of evolution dates the fossil. The fossils should contain the main evidence for evolution, but as we saw in that previous page, fossils do nothing to prove evolution. So again, unproven assumptions are used as accepted proof based on the assumption of evolution. This sure does not sound like the unbiased science it claims to be.
The carbon-14 (C14) dating method can be applied whenever carbon containing biological remains are involved. Most carbon is C12, which is stable. Carbon-14 is produced in the upper atmosphere when cosmic rays produce neutrons that interact with nitrogen atoms, converting them to C14. The C14 naturally decays back into nitrogen-14 with a half-life of 5730 years. For this reason, at any given time, a small fraction of the carbon in earth’s atmosphere is C14.
Plants extract carbon from the carbon dioxide in earth’s atmosphere, and since a small fraction of that carbon is C14, plants do contain some C14. Animals then eat the plants, by which C14is integrated into their bodies. So all plants and animals have a small, yet measurable quantity of C14 in their bodies. The C14is slowly but continually decaying into nitrogen. But, while alive, plants and animals replenish the C14 by taking in additional carbon from their environment. Therefore, the ratio of C14 to C12in a living animal or plant is roughly the same as it is in the atmosphere.
At death, the C14 continues on with its radioactive decay, but obviously is no longer replenished. So the C14to C12 ratio will begin to be less than that of the atmosphere. The older the organism, the lower the ratio. This ratio can be used to estimate how long ago the organism died.
Scientists use a device called an Accelerator Mass Spectrometer (AMS) to determine the ratio of C 14 to C 12. Since the half-life of C14 is known (how fast it decays), the only part left to determine is the starting amount of C14 in a fossil. Scientist use the known ratio of C12 to C14 in the atmosphere to determine how long the creature has been dead. A critical assumption used in carbon-14 dating is that this ratio has always been the same. If this assumption is not true, then the method will give incorrect dates.
What could cause this ratio to change? If the production rate of C14in the atmosphere is not equal to the removal rate (mostly through decay), this ratio will change. In other words, the amount of C14 being produced in the atmosphere must equal the amount being removed to be in a steady state (also called “equilibrium”). If this is not true, the ratio of C14 to C12 is not a constant over time, which would make knowing the starting amount of C14 in a specimen difficult or impossible to accurately determine.
Dr. Willard Libby, the founder of the carbon-14 dating method, assumed this ratio to be constant. His reasoning was based on a belief in evolution, which assumes the earth must be billions of years old. Assumptions in the scientific community are extremely important. If the starting assumption is false, all the results of calculations based on that assumption will be wrong.
In Dr. Libby’s original work, he noted that the atmosphere did not appear to be in equilibrium. Dr. Libby chose to ignore this discrepancy (non-equilibrium state), and attributed it to experimental error. However, the discrepancy has turned out to be very real. The ratio of C14 to C12 is not constant. What this means is that if it takes about 30,000 years to reach equilibrium and C14 is still out of equilibrium, then maybe the earth is not very old, certainly less than 30,000 years.
Other factors can affect the production rate of C14 in the atmosphere. The earth has a magnetic field around it which helps protect us from harmful radiation from outer space. It is generally known that this magnetic field is decaying (getting weaker).
German mathematician Carl Gauss began to measure the earth’s magnetic field in 1835. Subsequent measurements over the years have shown that the magnetic field has been steadily and rapidly falling since then, and is about 10% weaker now than then. The half-life of the earth’s magnetic field, as determined today, lies at approximately 1400 years, assuming the rate of decay has remained constant.
So if the earth’s magnetic field was significantly greater in the past, then less cosmic radiation would have reached the upper atmosphere and consequently the synthesis of C14 would be less. Thus the progressive decline of the magnetic field serves to progressively increase C14 synthesis.
Hence, approximately 10,000 years ago very little C14 may have been in the air, making the C14 to C12 ratio much different then compared to the ratio today. If this is correct, then biological remains deposited 10,000 years ago will have contained little C14 at their death, so that today they automatically must appear to be far older than they really are when dated by the C14 method.
We expect then, that when carbon-dating is applied to organisms that perished at the time of the global flood, their estimated ages will be roughly ten times larger than their true age (~5-6,000 years). This is exactly what we find as dates of ~50,000 years old have been found for those organisms. However, if remains of creatures that are assumed to be millions of years old are tested, there should be no C14 left in them, which is not what the data shows.
If we know the exact time of death of the organism being tested, and that time is relatively recent, then carbon-14 dating is generally correct. However, for older specimens with unknown times of death, the ages calculated can be exaggerated by a factor of 10, but never in the millions of years range. When we test specimens that evolutionists believe to be millions of years old, such as coal beds, carbon-dating consistently reveals age estimates of a few thousand years. There are measurable levels of C14 in coal, which would be utterly impossible if coal were millions of years old.
We have even carbon dated dinosaur fossils, and the age estimates always are in the range of thousands of years – never millions. The RATE team even found C14 in diamonds that secularists believe to be billions of years old. But after 1 million years, no C14 would remain. Without fail, carbon-dating confirms the biblical timescale and not millions of years (though results can show ages at a factor of 10 greater than their likely actual age, as explained above).
The following quotes are from non-creationist scientists who understand the reality of carbon-14 dating:
"It may come as a shock to some, but fewer than 50 percent of the radiocarbon dates from geological and archaeological samples in northeastern North America have been adopted as ‘acceptable’ by investigators." (19)
"C-14 dating was being discussed at a symposium on the prehistory of the Nile Valley. A famous American colleague, Professor Brew, briefly summarized a common attitude among archaeologists toward it, as follows: ‘If a C-14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely ‘out-of-date,’ we just drop it." (20)
"Although it was hailed as the answer to the prehistorian's prayer when it was first announced, there has been increasing disillusion with the [radiocarbon] method because of the chronological uncertainties—in some cases absurdities—that would follow a strict adherence to published C-14 dates. (21)
"The troubles of the radiocarbon dating method are undeniably deep and serious. It should be no surprise, then, that fully half of the dates are rejected. The wonder is, surely, that the remaining half come to be accepted." (22)
Although carbon-14 dating can give us some usable information, especially if the time of death is already known, it cannot be trusted as being totally accurate. In fact, there are many other methods that are much more accurate and trustworthy than any of the dating methods we discussed above. Let’s take a look at other methods that are good indicators of the age of the earth and see how they stack up.
OTHER DATING METHODS THAT CONTRADICT THE OLD EARTH THEORY
As stated, one of the principal factors which has driven estimates of an old age for the earth is the necessity for long periods of time which would be required if evolution were true. This preconceived notion of evolution and long epoch of time has led to the overall attractiveness of radiometric methods of dating, since they always seem to imply immense ages when they are applied.
However, there are many other methods that can be used to estimate the age of the earth, and the vast majority of them point to a much younger earth than the 4.5 billion years claimed by secularists. Here I will list 16 of the most compelling scientific evidences that contradict billions of years and confirm a relatively young earth and universe. (23)
1. Very Little Sediment on the Seafloor
If sediments have been accumulating on the seafloor for three billion years, the seafloor should be choked with sediments many miles deep. Every year water and wind erode about 20 billion tons of dirt and rock debris from the continents and deposit them on the seafloor. (24) Most of this material accumulates as loose sediments near the continents. Yet the average thickness of all these sediments globally over the whole seafloor is not even 1,300 feet. (25)
At this rate, 1,300 feet of sediment would accumulate in less than 12 million years, not billions of years. This evidence makes sense within the context of the Genesis Flood cataclysm, not the idea of slow and gradual geologic evolution. I n the latter stages of the year-long global Flood, water swiftly drained off the emerging land, dumping its sediment-chocked loads offshore. Thus most seafloor sediments would have accumulated rapidly about 4,300 years ago.
2. Bent Rock Layers
In many mountainous areas, rock layers thousands of feet thick have been bent and folded without fracturing. How can that happen if they were laid down separately over hundreds of millions of years and already hardened? Hardened rock layers are brittle. Try bending a slab of concrete sometime to see what happens! But if concrete is still wet, it can easily be shaped and molded before the cement sets. The same principle applies to sedimentary rock layers. They can be bent and folded soon after the sediment is deposited, before the natural cements have a chance to bind the particles together into hard, brittle rocks. (26)
The region around Grand Canyon is a great example showing how most of the earth’s fossil-bearing layers were laid down quickly and many, such as the Tapeats Sandstone, were folded while still wet. Exposed in the canyon’s walls are about 4,500 feet of fossil-bearing layers, conventionally labelled Cambrian to Permian. (27) They were supposedly deposited over a period lasting from 520 to 250 million years ago.
Amazingly, according to theory, this whole sequence of layers rose over a mile, around 60 million years ago. The plateau through which Grand Canyon runs is now 7,000–8,000 feet above sea level. Supposedly by secular thinking, this bending therefore occurred over a 400 million year period !
This simply does not make sense and cannot be explained by long age reasoning. What old-earth advocates suggest is that perhaps heat and pressure can make hard rock layers pliable. So they claim this must be what happened in the eastern Grand Canyon, as the sequence of many layers above pressed down and heated up these rocks. The problem with that theory is that heat and pressure would have transformed these layers into quartzite, marble, and other metamorphic rocks. Yet Tapeats Sandstone is still sandstone, a sedimentary rock !
The only viable scientific explanation is that the whole sequence was deposited very quickly—the creation model indicates that it took less than a year, during the global Flood cataclysm.
3. Soft Tissue in Fossils
Ask the average layperson how he or she knows that the earth is millions or billions of years old, and that person will probably mention the dinosaurs, which nearly everybody “knows” died off 65 million years ago. A recent discovery by Dr. Mary Schweitzer, however, has given reason for all but committed evolutionists to question this assumption.
Bone slices from the fossilized thigh bone (femur) of a Tyrannosaurus rex found in the Hell Creek formation of Montana were studied under the microscope by Schweitzer. To her amazement, the bone showed what appeared to be blood vessels of the type seen in bone and marrow, and these contained what appeared to be red blood cells with nuclei, typical of reptiles and birds (but not mammals). The vessels even appeared to be lined with specialized endothelial cells found in all blood vessels.
Initially, some skeptical scientists suggested that bacterial biofilms (dead bacteria aggregated in a slime) formed what only appear to be blood vessels and bone cells. Recently Schweitzer and coworkers found biochemical evidence for intact fragments of the protein collagen, which is the building block of connective tissue. This is important because collagen is a highly distinctive protein not made by bacteria, thus dispelling that theory.
Some evolutionists have strongly criticized Schweitzer’s conclusions because they know that blood vessels, cells with nuclei, tissue elasticity, and intact protein fragments could never have lasted these multi millions of years. But could these tissue have been preserved if creationists are correct and that dinosaurs actually died off 3-4000 years ago?
Many studies of Egyptian mummies and other humans of this old age (confirmed by historical evidence) show the same sorts of detail Schweitzer reported in her T. rex. In addition to Egyptian mummies, the Tyrolean iceman, found in the Alps in 1991 and believed to be about 5,000 years old, shows such incredible preservation of DNA and other microscopic detail. The obvious conclusion is that the preservation of vessels, cells, and complex molecules in dinosaurs is entirely consistent with a young-earth but is highly implausible with the evolutionist’s perspective that dinosaurs died off millions of years ago.
4. Faint Sun Paradox
Evidence now supports astronomers’ belief that the sun’s power comes from the fusion of hydrogen into helium deep in the sun’s core, but there is a huge problem. As the hydrogen fuses, it should change the composition of the sun’s core, gradually increasing the sun’s temperature. If true, this means that the earth was colder in the past. In fact, the earth would have been below freezing 3.5 billion years ago, when life supposedly evolved.
The rate of nuclear fusion depends upon the temperature. As the sun’s core temperatures increase, the sun’s energy output should also increase, causing the sun to brighten over time. Calculations show that the sun would brighten by 25% after 3.5 billion years. This means that an early sun would have been fainter, warming the earth 31°F less than it does today. That’s below freezing.
But evolutionists acknowledge that there is no evidence of this in the geologic record. That's why they call this problem the faint young sun paradox. While this isn’t a problem if the world is thousands of years old, it is a huge problem if the world is billions of years old.
5. Rapidly Decaying Magnetic Field
The earth is surrounded by a magnetic field that protects living things from solar radiation. Without it, life could not exist. That’s why scientists were surprised to discover that the field is quickly wearing down. At the current rate, the field and thus the earth could be no older than 20,000 years old.
Recent records of the International Geomagnetic Reference Field, the most accurate ever taken, show a net energy loss of 1.4% in just three decades (1970–2000), based on measurements gathered by the International Geomagnetic Reference Field. This means that the field’s energy has halved every 1,465 years or so. All research and evidence points to an earth and magnetic field that is only about 6,000 years old. (28)
Old-earth advocates maintain the earth is over 4.5 billion years old, so they believe the magnetic field must be self-sustaining. They propose a complex, theoretical process known as the dynamo model, but such a model contradicts some basic laws of physics. Furthermore, their model fails to explain the modern, measured electric current in the seafloor. (29) Nor can it explain the past field reversals. (30)
6. Helium in Radioactive Rocks and in the Atmosphere
During the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium contained in rocks, lots of helium is produced. Because helium is the second lightest element and a noble gas—meaning it does not combine with other atoms—it readily diffuses (leaks) out and eventually escapes into the atmosphere. Helium diffuses so rapidly that all the helium should have leaked out in less than 100,000 years. So why are rocks still full of helium atoms?
While drilling deep Precambrian (pre-Flood) granitic rocks in New Mexico, geologists extracted samples of zircon (zirconium silicate) crystals from different depths. The crystals contained not only uranium but also large amounts of helium. (31) The hotter the rocks, the faster the helium should escape, so researchers were surprised to find that the deepest, and therefore hottest, zircons (387°F) contained far more helium than expected.
Up to 58% of the helium that the uranium could have ever generated was still present in the crystals. The helium leakage rate has been determined in several experiments. All measurements are in agreement. Helium diffuses so rapidly that all the helium in these zircon crystals should have leaked out in less than 100,000 years. The fact that so much helium is still there means they cannot be 1.5 billion years old, as uranium-lead dating suggests. Indeed, using the measured rate of helium diffusion, these pre-Flood rocks have an average “diffusion age” of only 6,000 (± 2,000) years. (32)
Another evidence of a young earth is the low amount of helium in the atmosphere. The leakage rate of helium gas into the atmosphere has been accurately measured. Even though some helium escapes into outer space, the amount still present is not nearly enough if the earth is over 4.5 billion years old. (33) In fact, if we assume no helium was in the original atmosphere, all the helium would have accumulated in only 1.8 million years even from an evolutionary
standpoint. (34) But when the catastrophic Flood upheaval is factored in, which rapidly released huge amounts of helium into the atmosphere, it certainly could have accumulated in only 6,000 years. (35)
So glaring and devastating is the surprisingly large amount of helium that old-earth advocates have attempted to discredit this evidence. Yet every attempt has been answered and
discredited. (36,37) Thus all available evidence confirms that the true age of these zircons and their host granitic rock is only 6,000 (± 2,000) years.
7. Carbon-14 in Fossils, Coal, and Diamonds
Carbon-14 is a radioactive form of carbon that scientists use to date fossils. But it decays relatively quickly—with a half-life of only 5,730 years—that none is expected to remain in fossils after only a few hundred thousand years. Yet carbon-14 has been detected in fossils supposedly hundreds of millions of years old.
Between 1984 and 1998 alone, the scientific literature reported carbon-14 in 70 samples that came from fossils, coal, oil, natural gas, and marble representing the fossil-bearing portion of the geologic record, supposedly spanning more than 500 million years. (38) Obviously there should be zero carbon-14 in these samples if they were that old.
Analyses of fossilized wood and coal samples, supposedly spanning 32–350 million years in age, yielded ages between 20,000 and 50,000 years using carbon-14 dating. (39) Diamonds supposedly 1–3 billion years old similarly yielded carbon-14 ages of only 55,000 years. (40) As mentioned above in the Radiocarbon section, these measurements were made assuming the earth’s magnetic field has always been constant. But as we’ve shown, the magnetic field was likely much stronger in the past, reducing solar radiation and therefore also reducing the amount of C14 in the atmosphere. As stated above, this would have increased the estimates by a factor of 10, thus bringing these ages to the range of 5000 years, matching the timing of their burial to the Genesis Flood !
8. Short-Lived Comets
A comet spends most of its time far from the sun in the deep freeze of space. But once each orbit a comet comes very close to the sun, allowing the sun’s heat to evaporate much of the comet’s ice and dislodge dust to form a beautiful tail. Comets have little mass, so each close pass to the sun greatly reduces a comet’s size, and eventually comets fade away. They can’t survive billions of years.
Given the loss rates, it’s easy to compute a maximum age of comets. That maximum age is only a few million years. Obviously, their prevalence makes sense if the entire solar system was created just a few thousand years ago, but not if it arose billions of years ago.
Evolutionary astronomers have answered this problem by claiming that comets must come from two sources. They propose that a Kuiper belt beyond the orbit of Neptune hosts short-period comets (comets with orbits under 200 years), and a much larger, distant Oort cloud hosts long-period comets (comets with orbits over 200 years).
Yet there is no evidence for the supposed Oort cloud, and there likely never will be. In the past twenty years astronomers have found thousands of asteroids orbiting beyond Neptune, and they are assumed to be the Kuiper belt. However, the large size of these asteroids (Pluto is one of the larger ones) and the difference in composition between these asteroids and comets argue against this conclusion.
9. Very Little Salt in the Sea
If the world’s oceans have been around for three billion years as evolutionists believe, they should be filled with vastly more salt than the oceans contain today. Every year rivers, glaciers, underground seepage, and atmospheric and volcanic dust dump large amounts of salts into the oceans. Some 458 million tons of sodium mixes into ocean water each year, (41) but only 122 million tons (27%) is removed by other natural processes. (42)
If seawater originally contained no sodium and the sodium accumulated at today’s rates, then today’s ocean saltiness would be reached in only 42 million years—only about 1/70 the three billion years evolutionists propose. (43) The Genesis Flood would better explain the amount of salt in the oceans. During this year-long event, an unprecedented amount of salt must have been dumped into the ocean through erosion, sedimentation, and volcanism. So today’s ocean saltiness makes much better sense within the biblical timescale of about six thousand years.
Those who believe in a three-billion-year-old ocean say that past sodium inputs had to be less and outputs greater. However, even the most generous estimates can only stretch the accumulation timeframe to 62 million years. Long-agers also argue that huge amounts of sodium are removed during the formation of basalts at mid-ocean ridges, but this ignores the fact that the sodium returns to the ocean as seafloor basalts move away from the ridges. So these long-agers really have no plausible explanation for this phenomenon.
10. DNA in “Ancient” Bacteria
In 2000, scientists claimed to have “resurrected” bacteria, named Lazarus bacteria, discovered in a salt crystal conventionally dated at 250 million years old. They were shocked that the bacteria’s DNA was very similar to modern bacterial DNA. If the modern bacteria were the result of 250 million years of evolution, its DNA should be very different from the Lazarus bacteria (based on known mutation rates).
However, the discovery of Lazarus bacteria is not shocking or surprising when we base our expectations on the Bible accounts of a young earth. For instance, Noah’s Flood likely deposited the salt beds that were home to the bacteria. If the Lazarus bacteria are only about 4,500 years old (the approximate number of years that have passed since the worldwide flood), their DNA is more likely to be intact and similar to modern bacteria.
Some scientists have dismissed the finding and believe the Lazarus bacteria are contamination from modern bacteria. But the scientists who discovered the bacteria defend the rigorous procedures used to avoid contamination. They claim the old age is valid if the bacteria had longer generation times, different mutation rates, and/or similar selection pressures compared to modern bacteria. Of course these “rescuing devices” are only conjectures to make the data fit their worldview.
11. Not enough Stone Age skeletons.
Evolutionary anthropologists now say that Homo sapiens existed for at least 185,000 years before agriculture began, (44) during which time the world population of humans was roughly constant, between one and ten million. All that time they were burying their dead, often with artifacts. By that scenario, they would have buried at least eight billion bodies. (45) Buried bones should be able to last for much longer than 200,000 years. If the evolutionary time scale is correct, we should have found a huge number of bones, and certainly the buried artifacts. Yet only a few thousand have been found. This implies that the Stone Age was much shorter than evolutionists think, perhaps only a few hundred years in many areas.
12. Agriculture is too recent.
The usual evolutionary picture has men existing as hunters and gatherers for 185,000 years during the Stone Age before discovering agriculture less than 10,000 years ago. (46) Yet the archaeological evidence shows that Stone Age men were as intelligent as we are. It is very improbable that none of the eight billion people mentioned in the item above should discover that plants grow from seeds. It is more likely that men were without agriculture for a very short time after the Genesis Flood, if at all. (47)
13. Recorded History is too short.
According to evolutionists, Stone Age Homo sapiens existed for 180,000 years before beginning to make written records about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. Yet prehistoric man built megalithic monuments, made beautiful cave paintings, and kept records of lunar phases. (48) Why would he wait over seventeen hundred centuries before using the same skills to record history? The Biblical time scale is much more likely.
14. Galaxies wind themselves up too fast.
The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic center with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer ones. The observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were more than a few hundred million years old, it would be a featureless disc of stars instead of its present spiral shape. (49) Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion years old. Evolutionists call this “the winding-up dilemma,” which they have known about for fifty years. They have devised many theories to try to explain it, each one failing after a brief period of popularity. The same “winding-up” dilemma also applies to other galaxies.
15. Too few supernova remnants
According to astronomical observations, galaxies like our own experience about one supernova (a violently-exploding star) every 25 years. The gas and dust remnants from such explosions expand outward rapidly and should remain visible for over a million years. Yet the nearby parts of our galaxy in which we could observe such gas and dust shells contain only about 200 supernova remnants. That number is consistent with only about 7,000 years worth of supernovas. (50)
16. Earth-moon distance
Measurements show that the moon is slowly withdrawing from the earth. Each year, the distance increases by about 1 & 1/2 inches, though the rate was likely greater in the past. Calculations show that even if the moon had been in contact with the earth, it would have taken only 1.37 billion years to reach its present distance. Since the precise distance of the moon from the earth is critical for regulating ocean tides which are essential to our ecosystem, the age obviously must have been a fraction of that amount of time. (51)
In conclusion, we have seen that radiometric dating methods are anything but the absolute indicators of age that they are purported to be. Not that it matters, since, as we have seen, evolution requires much more than a few billion years for inorganic chemicals to evolve into the diversity of life that we see in the world.
Creationists admit that they can’t prove the age of the earth using a particular scientific method such as the ones mentioned above. What we have shown above is the maximum age the earth could be, which is much shorter than the 4.6 billion years evolutionists purport it to be.
All science is tentative because we do not have all the data, especially when dealing with the distant past. Creationists understand the limitations of these dating methods better than evolutionists who claim that they can use certain present processes to ‘prove’ that the earth is billions of years old. In reality, and as we have seen, all age-dating methods rely on non-provable assumptions.
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