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For some reason, which I have not yet figured out, at least one person per week has been asking me about the Carbon-14 Radiometric Dating Technique. They want to know if it is accurate or if it works at all. Worse still, sometimes they want to know how evolutionists use Carbon-14 to date dinosaur fossils!

The word radiometric as used in this article refers to the supposed use of the decay of radioactive chemical isotopes to supposedly measure the amount of time that has elapsed since an event occurred or a creature lived. Radiometric Dating Technologies are presented to the public by evolutionists as utterly reliable clocks for dating earth rocks or biological materials. There are more than 80 such technologies that are claimed to work. Carbon-14 is the best known of all these methods.

Prior to looking at the many flaws in the Carbon-14 Dating Technique, it should be noted that no radiometric technique is reliable. They all start with similar flaws, but Carbon-14 has more than the rest.

Many different processes of change may be used as clocks to measure time, but for such a clock or timer to be reliable it must meet the following six criteria.

1. The time units must be meaningful and readable.

2. The timer must be sensitive enough to measure the interval in question.

3. We must know when the timer was started.

4. We must not only know when the timer was started, but what the reading on the timer was when it started.

5. The timer must run at a uniform rate.

6. The timer must not have been disturbed or reset. It must be one continuous event.

None of the known Radiometric Dating Technologies met these six criteria.

The Carbon-14 “dating” method was introduced by Dr. Willard F. Libby (1908-1980) at the University of Chicago in 1949. He claimed that it was capable of dating animal, plant and human remains of fairly “recent’ origin. Recent, that is, for an evolutionist. Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of Carbon. Carbon-12 is the normal stable isotope of Carbon (99% of all Carbon), which is the basic building block of organic life forms. As they say on Star Trek, we are all carbon based units.

Laboratory research has shown that the radioactive decay of Carbon-14 occurs in a half-life of 5,730±40 years through beta decay that causes the Carbon-14 to revert back to Nitrogen-14. That means that starting with one pound of 100% Carbon-14, half of it would decay in 5,730 years, leaving 50%, or half a pound. Then, in another 5,730 years, a second decay period would occur, leaving one quarter of a pound. The process would continue, halving the amount left every 5,730 years until, theoretically, nothing remained of the original pound. 

Carbon-14 is produced in the upper atmosphere through the bombardment of Nitrogen-14 (approximately 78% of atmospheric gases) by thermal neutrons which come from the powerful cosmic radiation, primarily generated by the sun. This bombardment causes a nuclear reaction to take place. The Carbon-14 produced by this process is then converted into carbon dioxide, just as normal Carbon-12 becomes carbon dioxide. The Carbon-14 Dioxide is then utilized by plants during their normal metabolism. Animals and humans who eat these plants take the Carbon-14 into their systems just as they would Carbon-12 Dioxide. There is then a ratio of Carbon-14 to Carbon-12 in the bodies of plants, animals and humans which could be considered as “fixed” at the time of death. After death, the Carbon-14 would decay and the ratio of the two isotopes would change. Evolutionists then claim to determine the amount of time since the death of the organism by measuring the current ratio. The lower the amount of Carbon-14, the longer it has been since death occurred.

The theoretical limit of the usefulness of Carbon-14 dating would only be 50,000 years. This would be the amount of time it would take for nine half-lives, and after that there would not be enough left to measure accurately. There is no instrument on earth that can detect Carbon-14 in a specimen that is supposedly older than 18 half-lives. This amounts to a calculated age of 103,140 years. There are, however, many false assumptions that must be made in order to derive Carbon-14 dates and the knowledge of these false assumptions demonstrates the uselessness in this other-wise supposedly useful method.

First, one must assume that the decay rate of Carbon-14 has remained constant and not varied over the years. This is an unwarranted assumption. There is ample evidence to prove that quite the opposite is true. Experiments done with the radioactive isotopes of Uranium-238 and Iron-57 have shown that rates not only do vary, but can, in fact, be altered by changing the environment surrounding the samples.

Second, there is the assumption that the formation of Carbon-14 has been constant throughout the years. This, too, is a totally unwarranted view for two reasons. The Industrial Revolution caused a significant increase in the amount of Carbon-12 in the atmosphere through the burning of coal. In addition, the initiation of atomic bomb testing on July 16, 1945, and the subsequent above ground testing between 1955 and 1980, caused a rise in neutrons which in turn increased Carbon-14 concentrations around the world. In a similar way, solar cosmic radiation fluctuates and would cause a fluctuation in the amount Carbon-14 being produced at any one time.

Volcanoes produce large amounts of Carbon-12 Dioxide which do not contain initial amounts of Carbon-14. This material from volcanic origin further disrupts the ratios of Carbon-12/Carbon-14 in the atmosphere.

Finally, the decay of the earth’s magnetic field is an ongoing process. As the magnetic field decreases, more cosmic radiation penetrates the earth’s atmosphere and this causes a slow long-term increase in Carbon-14 production. These factors combine to cause fluctuations in the Carbon-12/Carbon-14 ratios found in plant, animal and human materials.

Third, the assumption is made that the concentrations of Carbon-14 and Carbon-12 have remained constant in the atmosphere. Besides the aforementioned items, the amount of cosmic radiation in the past, and in particular the amount reaching the atmosphere, may have been dramatically different. If one were to believe the Bible, the earth was surrounded by a layer of water vapor between Creation and the Flood. If this water vapor did exist in the past, then it would have effectively shielded the atmosphere from much of the cosmic radiation. This shielding would have drastically reduced the amount of Carbon-14 produced.

Fourth, all radiometric dating techniques assume that the initial conditions started in and remained in a “Closed System” condition. Yet, the concept of a “Closed System” is merely a laboratory ideal which is never truly achieved even under the most stringent laboratory conditions.

In high school biology courses they often teach about the inevitable failures of closed systems by taking an aquarium and placing snails, plants and a bowl of water inside; then sealing the aquarium so that no air may get in or out. The idea is that snails produce carbon dioxide which is utilized by the plants, the plants produce oxygen which utilized by the snails. In theory the cycle will continue indefinitely. Of course, it doesn’t take long before the experiment fails in death for all those in the aquarium.

In like manner, there is really no such thing as a closed system in nature. In nature, all systems are open regardless of what evolutionists say in protest. Even a sealed aquarium has sunlight, X-rays, Gamma Rays, ultra-violet light, etc. passing through the glass all the time. Thus, this assumption is false.

Fifth, Carbon-14 dates must be corrected for fluctuations in the sun’s cosmic ray flux and sunspot activity which can shield the earth and lower C-14 production. As the production of Carbon-14 is dependent upon interactions of the sun’s cosmic rays hitting the upper atmosphere, any variation would cause changes in Carbon-14 production.

Sixth, there are differences in the Phenotype and Genotype of plants and animals which can cause significant variation in the amount of C-14 found in the body of a specific organism. As no two people have exactly the same DNA, individual plants and animals vary in their physical and genetic makeup. These variations cause individual organisms to absorb or reject Carbon-14 at different rates.

Seventh, the amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere is increasing significantly at this time. A substantial body of scientific research exists to show that Carbon-14 is not in a state of equilibrium; rather the production rate is significantly higher that the decay rate.

This fact drives us to two highly significant points. First, the earth must be young, less than 250,000 years old and perfectly in accord with it being only 6,000 years old. Second, any previously published radiocarbon dates must be “corrected” or “mathematically weighted” to correct the dates from the “published dates” to the “actual dates.”

Thus, while the Carbon-14 Dating Technique is thought to have a useful upper limit reaching out to 50,000 years it may be seen that the method is based on many false assumptions. Carbon-14 decays to a zero amount in 250,000 supposed years after its production. It is incapable of yielding dates in the millions of years. Therefore, it is labeled a short term radiometric dating technique.

This is not the end, but merely the start of a long list of things that demonstrate the total uselessness of the Carbon-14 method.

What are the other considerations that must be factored into the Carbon-14 method and which demonstrate that it is useless?

Wood and stone from one structure may have been moved and reused in a later structure in a higher stratum. This was a common practice in the ancient world. As one nation conquered another nation; the stone, wood and precious metals of one culture would be acquired and used by the next. For example, when the Muslims gained control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in AD 673 and built the Mosque of Omar (The Dome of the Rock) in AD 691, they did not make the columns used to support the dome. The architecture of the dome was stolen from the Christian Church of the Holy Sepulchre and marble columns were removed from previously built Byzantine churches to construct the building.

“Outliers”: these are dates which are outside the range for the majority of samples are thrown out. Those who promote the use of the Carbon-14 method fail to tell those outside their inner circle that any dates which are measured by the equipment but fall outside the “desired” range of dates that the researcher wants to get are summarily thrown out. Thus the published dates often fail to show the true range of dates obtained and this obscures the failings of the Carbon-14 method.

“Calibration”: Carbon-14 years differ from calendar years because they are dependent on varying amounts of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere. Tree-ring dendrochronology is used to supposedly convert Carbon-14 to calendar years. The curves are, however, constantly being revised and different calibration curves are used which yields widely different results depending upon the choices made by the researcher.

“Standard Deviation”: Carbon-14 dates have an “uncertainty” range that varies from plus or minus 20 to 150 years. Regardless of whether the method works or not, there is going to be a range of dates and not a specific date. Thus, the older a sample is the wider the uncertainty of the date. For dates that supposedly go back to ancient Egypt, these ranges might reach plus or minus 300 years for a period supposedly only 3,000 years ago. We have written records that are better than that.

Statistics: Different statistical models are used by different researchers. Using different statistical models for interpretation of the same data will produce different results. Just as different researchers use different calibration choices, they also use different statistical models. These choices serve to further complicate the various dating methods.

Most archaeologists “improve” the dates in accordance with their preconceived archaeological and historical beliefs. This is common practice. No scientist is 100% unbiased. All people start from their preconceived biases and prejustices. Therefore, it is easy to rationalize the “adjustment” necessary to make a date fit your theory, especially if you are an evolutionist without a moral compass. The fact is that for evolutionists science is no longer a search for truth; it is a search for the next grant.

“Old” carbon may have been “reused” over time. As stone and wood are being re-used from previous buildings to construct new buildings, the carbon in the wood will be elevated in the strata. This will cause a false Carbon-14 date to be assigned to the higher strata. This process might occur more than once for a specific piece of wood. If wood from an old barn is used as an architectural decoration in another building; it might then be moved again to a third structure.

Animals and plants that died in The Flood of Noah would have lower initial Carbon-14 content than would be found in animals and plants today. The water vapor canopy that existed from Creation to The Flood would have inhibited Carbon-14 production in the atmosphere. This would have reduced the amount of Carbon-14 incorporated into the bodies of plants and animals prior to The Flood and the effect would be that the remains from prior to The Flood would appear to be much older than they really were.

There would be a lower Carbon-14 content in the atmosphere before The Flood because of a larger biomass exchanging gases with the atmosphere. From Creation, 6,000 years ago, to The Flood of Noah, 40% of the earth’s surface was arable and the subtropical seas covering 60% of the earth were inhabited by huge floating mats of aquatic vegetation; so large that they would accommodate massive Lycopod Tree forests. This biomass was larger than all the vegetation on earth today.

There may have been less Carbon-14 before The Flood of Noah because of the existence of the stronger magnetic field. We may extrapolate with good reasons that the earth’s magnetic field was 20 times stronger at the time of creation (6,000 years ago). This would have prevented some or much of the cosmic ray bombardment of the upper atmosphere, the cause of Carbon-14 generation. No one knows the exact amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere at the time of creation. It is reasonable to consider that there have been none. Regardless of the original amount, a lower amount of Carbon-14 prior to The Flood would throw off all published Carbon-14 dates for “older” materials.

We have to take into consideration the effect of the bias of the person who interprets the data upon those dates which get published. The bias of the evolutionist interpreter of the Carbon-14 data is that they see a normalized curve pattern as more important than the actual apparent age.

The Carbon-14 method suffers from additional problems when evolutionists attempt to “calibrate” the dates by using Dendrochronology!

The Carbon-14 dating method is known to have flaws which cause an uneven chronology. In order to attempt to “calibrate” for the deviation of dates derived from the Carbon-14 method, evolutionary believing scientists attempt to “calibrate” the results by using Dendrochronology (the study of tree ring growth patterns).

This attempt to calibrate Carbon-14 utterly fails for two reasons. First, differences in tree age; local growth conditions (micro-environment); the side of the tree - up slope or down slope - that cores were taken; tree species; shading from/or release from the shade of other trees at different times during an individual tree’s life; general weather/climate fluctuations; attack by insects or disease may all cause the tree rings of one tree to differ from those of nearby trees.

Second, there are the problems generated by the personal bias of the researcher or simple sloppiness in comparing one specimen to another; some tree species will occasionally produce more than one ring in one year; and the use of incorrect Carbon-14 dates to “align” the chronologies of specimens renders calibration by Dendrochronology useless.

The amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere has not reached a constant level!

This is a critical piece of information in demonstrating the useless nature of the Carbon-14 dating technique.

“Radiocarbon is forming 28-37% faster than it is decaying.”

R.E. Taylor et al., “Major Revisions in the Pleistocene Age Assignments for North American Human Skeletons by C-14 Accelerator Mass Spectrometry,” American Antiquity, Vol. 50, No. 1 1985 pp. 136-140

“It now appears that the C-14 decay rate in living organisms is about 30 per cent less than its production rate in the upper atmosphere.”

William D. Stansfield, Science of Evolution (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1977), p. 83.

“We now know that the assumption that the biospheric inventory of Carbon-14 has remained constant over the past 50,000 years or so is not true.”

Elizabeth K. Ralph and Henry M. Michael, “Twenty-five Years of Radiocarbon Dating,” American Scientist 62 (September/October 1974)

This would mean that there was far less Carbon-14 in the atmosphere in the past than anyone would have imagined.

The ramifications of this information are stunning. Please consider the following list of examples of Carbon-14 dates which demonstrate just how far off Carbon-14 dates can be:

Shells from living snails were carbon dated as being 2,300 years old.

Science vol. 141, 1963 p. 634-637

Shells from living snails were carbon dated as being 27,000 years old.

Science Vol. 224, 1984 p. 58-61

A freshly killed seal was carbon dated as having died 1,300 years ago.

Antarctic Journal vol. 6 Sept-Oct. 1971 p. 211

The following five examples come from the scientific journal Radiocarbon.

1. Mortar from an English castle less than 800 years old, was Carbon-14 dated as 7,370 years old.

2. Natural gas from Alabama and Mississippi (Cretaceous and Eocene, respectively) - should have been 50 to 135 million years old according to evolutionary time scales; however, they were Carbon-14 dated at 30,000 and 34,000, respectively.

3. A block of wood from the Cretaceous Period (supposedly more than 70 million years old) was found encased in a block of Cambrian rock (hundreds of millions of years earlier), but was Carbon-14 dated as 4,000 years old.

4. Bones of a saber-toothed tiger from the LaBrea tar pits, supposedly 100,000 years old, gave a Carbon-14 date of 28,000 years old.

5. Coal from Russia, dated as Pennsylvanian Period and supposedly 330 million years old, was Carbon-14 dated as only being 1,680 years old!

Mammoth bones from St. Paul Island, Alaska, were Carbon-14 “dated” as dying 3,688 BC!

Enk, J.M., Yesner, D.R., Crossen, K.J., Veltre, D.W., and O’Rourke, D.H., Phylogeographic analysis of the mid-Holocene mammoth from Qagnax Cave, St. Paul Island, Alaska, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 273:184-190, 2009

Mammoth bones on Wrangel Island off the NE Siberian coast were dated using Carbon-14. The remains were “dated” between 7,000 and 4,000 old. The dates were challenged by evolutionists, but then re-confirmed.

Vertanyan, A.V., Garutt, V.E. and Sher, S.L., Holocene dwarf mammoths from Wrangel Island in the Siberian Arctic, Nature 362(6418):337-340, 1993.

Lister, A.M., Mammoths in miniature, Nature 362(6418):288-289, 1993.

In 2005, Triceratops and Hadrosaur femurs were found in Montana. Bone collagen was radiocarbon dated. The results:

Triceratops 30,890 +/- 380 years

Hadrosaur 23,170 +/- 170 years

Miller, Hugh. Mt. Blanco News, Sept-Oct, 2010

Supposedly 18 million year old Magnolia leaves from Idaho shale were carbon dated in 2011 as 45,130 ± 270 Years old.

“Ancient human skeletons, when dated by the new Accelerator Mass Spectrometer technique, give surprisingly recent dates. In one study of eleven sets of ancient human bones, all were dated at about 5,000 radiocarbon years or less.”

R.E. Taylor “Major Revisions In the Pleistocene Age Assignments for North American Human Skeletons by C-14 Accelerator Mass Spectrometry”, American Antiquity, Vo. 50 No. 1, 1985, pp 136-140

“The lower leg of the Fairbanks Creek mammoth had a radiocarbon age of 15,380 years while its skin and flesh were dated at 21,300 years old.”

Harold E. Anthony, “Natures Deep Freeze,” Natural History, Sept. 1949, p. 300.

“One part of the Vollosovitch mammoth was carbon dated at 29,500 years old and another part at 44,000 years old.”

Troy L. Pewe, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Unglaciated Central Alaska,  Geological Survey Professional Paper 862 (U.S. Gov. printing office, 1975)  p. 30

“One part of Dima [a baby frozen mammoth] was dated at 40,000, another part was 26,000 and the wood immediately around the carcass was 9 to 10,000.”

Troy L. Pewe, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Unglaciated Central Alaska,  Geological Survey Professional Paper 862 (U.S. Gov. Printing Office, 1975) p. 30

The Hawkesbury Sandstone, assigned a Middle Triassic evolutionary “age” of around 225-230 million years old, contains fossil wood Carbon-14 dated at 34,000 years old. This Carbon-14 should be non-existent if the wood were more than about 250,000 years old.

Snelling, A. A., Dating dilemma: fossil wood in ‘ancient’ sandstone, Creation 21(3):39-41, 1999

Using Carbon-14, fossil wood from a quarry near Banbury, England, was dated from 20,700 to 28,800 years old. However, the limestone surrounding the wood was dated as Jurassic, supposedly 183 million years old.

Snelling, A. A., Geological conflict: Young radiocarbon date for ancient fossil wood challenges fossil dating, Creation 22(2):44-47, 2000

A petrified and coalified tree was uncovered in Western Colorado in May, 2001. The 30 foot long tree presents a major problem for the arbitrary dating of the Geologic Column. The evolutionary age assigned to the strata is 64-140 Million Years Old. There should be no measurable Radioactive Carbon-14 in this tree! The Carbon-14 from the tree dated as 12,709 years old!!

Burnt wood was found within Cretaceous Limestone, supposedly 65 to 140 million years old. The C-14 content was dated by Dr. Rainer Berger, Geophysics Department, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and reported on November 6, 1978. “We have dated this sample as UCLA-2088 and found it to be 12,800+/- 200 years old.” Dinosaur, bear, large cat and human footprints have been found in the same layer. This means that none of these footprints could be older than about 13,000 years according to the Carbon-14 dating technique. Carbon-14 has been found in very unexpected places, too. Places that it should not exist at all.

Carbon-14 has been found inside twelve diamonds. The diamonds were from mines in Botswana, South Africa and Guinea, West Africa. They have been found to contain very high amounts of Carbon-14. The average radiocarbon “age” was calculated to be 55,700 years old. According to evolutionary assumptions, the diamonds were supposedly 1 to 3 billion years old.

Baumgardner, J. R. 2005, Carbon 14 evidence for a recent global flood and a young Earth. In Vardiman, L, A.A Snelling and E.F. Chaffin (editors), Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, pp. 586-630. ICR and CRS Publishers, El Cajon, CA.

Carbon-14 has been found In Mid-Atlantic Ridge Vents. Hydrothermal vent fluids ejected from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge contain methane (CH4) with Carbon-14 contents ranging from 1.07 to 1.84 mmol/kg. The authors believe that the hydrocarbons were produced by abiogenic Fischer-Tropsch type reactions. The range of values is equivalent to a “conventional” [evolutionary] age range of 51,200 to 40,800 years.

Proskurowski, G., M.D. Lilley, J.S. Seewald, G.L. Fruh-Green, E.J. Olson, J.E. Lupton, S.P. Sylva, and D.S. Kelley, 2008. Abiogenic hydrocarbon production at Lost City Hydrothermal Field. Science 319:604-607.

Carbon-14 has been found in a gold mine. Carbonized fossil wood was found in 1947 in volcanic “sand” at 1,700 feet underground within the Cripple Creek Breccia, Cresson Gold Mine, Cripple Creek, Colorado. The Ar-Ar [Argon-Argon] radiometric dating method yielded a date of 32 million years old. The Carbon-14 dating method yielded a date of 41,260 years old.

Kelly, K.D. 1996. Origin and Timing of Magnetism and Associated Gold-Telluride Mineralization of Cripple Creek, Colorado. Ph.D. dissertation. Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO.

Beukens, R.P. Radiocarbon Analysis Report, IsoTrace Radiocarbon Laboratory, University of Toronto, February 9, 2007.

Carbon-14 has been found in coal. Carbon-14 should not exist in any carbon compound supposedly older than 250,000 years. Yet it has been impossible to find any natural carbon compound that does not contain significant Carbon-14, even those supposed to be millions and billions of years old.

Baumgardner, J. R., et al., Measurable C-14 in fossilized organic materials: confirming the young earth creation-flood model, Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Creationism, vol. II Creation Science Fellowship (2003), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 127-142.

In fact, we may say that almost all coal is the same age. There is no known correlation between the amount of Carbon-14 contained in specific coal deposits and the supposed evolutionary geological age of that coal!

Vardiman, L.V., Snelling, A.A. and Chaffin, E.F. (Eds), Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, Vol. II: Results of a Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative, Institute for Creation Research, and Creation Research Society, El Cajon, CA, and Chino Valley, AZ, 2005.

Carbon-14 has been found in natural gas deposits. Carbon-14 has been found in natural gas supposedly 280 to 300 million years old. The carbon dioxide found in the Valverde Basin gas fields of southwest Texas has significant amounts of Carbon-14. The Carbon-14 dates supposedly range from 37,660 to 49,920 years old.

Doughty, John R., Deep Wells – Deep Time?, CRS Quarterly, Vol. 44, pp. 88-93, Fall 2007.

Carbon-14 has been found in every portion of the Phanerozoic Age (supposedly 570 million years ago to the present)! Organic samples from every portion of the Phanerozoic display detectable amounts of C-14, even in the standard radiocarbon literature.

Snelling, A. Earth’s Catastrophic Past, Vol. 2, ICR. p. 859.

The “Inventor” of the Carbon-14 Dating Technique knew it didn’t work!

“He [Dr. Libby] found a considerable discrepancy in his measurements indicating that, apparently, radiocarbon was being created in the atmosphere somewhere around 25 percent faster than it was becoming extinct. Since this result was inexplicable by any conventional scientific means, Libby put the discrepancy down to experimental error.”

Richard Milton, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, 1997, p. 32. (Referring to Dr. Willard Libby - The Founder of the Carbon-14 Radiocarbon Dating Technique, Radiocarbon dating, 2d ed., University of Chicago Press 1955)

“During the 1960s, Libby’s experiments were repeated by chemists. ... The new experiments, though, revealed that the discrepancy was not merely an experimental error – it did exist.” [Emphasis added]

Richard Milton, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, 1997, p. 32. (Referring to Dr. Willard Libby - Founder of the Carbon 14 - Radiocarbon Dating, 1955)

This statement should be very revealing!

“If a C-14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text.  If it does not entirely contradict them [our theories], we put it in a footnote.  And if it is completely ‘out of date,’ [totally contradicts our theories] we just drop it.” [Emphasis added]

T. Save-Soderbergh and I.U. Olsson (Institute of Egyptology and Institute of Physics respectively, Univ. of Uppsala, Sweden), “C-14 Dating and Egyptian Chronology in Radiocarbon Variations and Absolute Chronology”, Proceedings of the Twelfth Nobel Symposium, New York 1970, p. 35

The supposedly “Great” Dr. Richard Dawkins commented on Carbon-14!

“It is useful for dating organic material on an archaeological/ historical time scale where we are dealing in hundreds or a few thousands of years, but it is no good for the evolutionary time scale where we are dealing in millions of years.” [Emphasis added]

Dr. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 1986, p. 226.

The flaws in the Carbon-14 dating technique are undeniably deep and serious!

“The troubles of the radiocarbon dating method are undeniably deep and serious. Despite 35 years of technological refinement and better understanding, the underlying assumptions have been strongly challenged, and warnings are out that radiocarbon may soon find itself in a crisis situation. Continuing use of the method depends on a ‘fix-it-as-we-go’ approach, allowing for contamination here, fractionation there, and calibration whenever possible. It should be no surprise, then, that fully half of the dates are rejected. The wonder is, surely, that the remaining half have come to be accepted.”

“No matter how ‘useful’ it is, though, the radiocarbon method is still not capable of yielding accurate and reliable results. There are gross discrepancies, the chronology is uneven and relative, and the accepted dates are actually selected dates.  This whole blessed thing is nothing but 13th-century alchemy, and it all depends upon which funny paper you read.” [Emphasis added]

Dr. Robert E. Lee, “Radiocarbon: Ages in Error” Anthropological Journal of Canada, Vol. 19(3), 1981, pp. 9,29 (Assistant Editor).

Radioactive decay rates were different in the past. Recent experiments suggest that radioactive decay rates (assumed to be constant) can change due to causes that are not yet fully understood. In August  2010, scientists from Purdue and Stanford announced that the decay of radioactive isotopes fluctuates in sync with the rotation of the Sun’s core. Although the measured change in decay rate is small (~0.1%), the fact that change occurs at all is extremely significant. Team member Jere Jenkins noted: “[W]hat we’re suggesting is that something that can’t interact with anything is changing something that can’t be changed.” [Emphasis added]

Gardner, Elizabeth (2010), “Purdue-Stanford Team Finds Radioactive Decay Rates Vary With the Sun’s Rotation,” Purdue University News Service.

Changes in radioactive decay rates can be induced!

“It is a common belief that radioactive decay rates are unchanged by external conditions, despite many examples of small shifts (particularly involving external pressure and K-capture decays) being well documented and understood. However, Fabio Cardone of the Institute per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati in Rome and colleagues have shown a dramatic increase - by a factor of 10,000 - in the decay rate of thorium-228 in water as a result of ultrasonic cavitation. Exactly what the physics is and whether or not this sort of effect can be scaled up into a technology for nuclear waste treatment remain open issues.”

Reucroft, Steve and J. Swain (2009), “Ultrasonic Cavitation of Water Speeds Up Thorium Decay,” CERN Courier, June 8.

Carbon isotope ratios are central to many reconstructions of past climate. For example the UN IPCC Working Group 1 cited C12/C13 ratios as the basis for determining some of their findings about climate in the last 1,000 years. However, longer term reconstructions are less certain, and now with this new discovery, some of the long term work may have to be reconsidered.

A new study by NASA examines changes in carbon isotope ratios over the past 10 million [supposed] years at sites off the Bahamas (Atlantic Ocean), the Maldives (Indian Ocean), and Great Barrier Reef (Pacific Ocean). New research funded by the National Science Foundation at the University of Miami is showing that carbon isotope correlation (the 13C/12C ratio used to infer age) in the ocean can only be trusted up to 150 million [supposed] years ago.

From the primary researcher, “This study is a major step in terms of rethinking how geologists interpret variations in the 13C/12C ratio throughout Earth’s history. If the approach does not work over the past 10 million years, then why would it work during older time periods? As a consequence of our findings, changes in 13C/12C records need to be reevaluated, conclusions regarding changes in the reservoirs of carbon will have to be reassessed, and some of the widely-held ideas regarding the elevation of CO2 during specific periods of the Earth’s geological history will have to be adjusted.”

While this research doesn’t necessarily throw carbon dating out the window, it should cause people to rethink so many theories about early life that revolved around ages of sediment in the oceans.

Scientist Uncovers Miscalculation In Geological Undersea Record

“The precise timing of the origin of life on Earth and the changes in life during the past 4.5 billion years has been a subject of great controversy for the past century.”

“The principal indicator of the amount of organic carbon produced by biological activity traditionally used is the ratio of the less abundant isotope of carbon, 13C, to the more abundant isotope, 12C. As plants preferentially incorporate 12C, during periods of high production of organic material the 13C/12C ratio of carbonate material becomes elevated. Using this principle, the history of organic material has been interpreted by geologists using the 13C/12C ratio of carbonates and organics, wherever these materials can be sampled and dated.

While this idea appears to be sound over the last 150 million years or so, prior to this time there are no open oceanic sediment records which record the 13C/12C ratio, and therefore, geologists are forced to use materials associated with carbonate platforms or epicontinental seas.”

“In order to test whether platform-associated sediments are related to the global carbon cycle, a paper by University of Miami Professor Dr. Peter K. Swart appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This paper examines changes over the past 10 million years at sites off the Bahamas (Atlantic Ocean), the Maldives (Indian Ocean), and Great Barrier Reef (Pacific Ocean). The variations in the 13C/12C ratio are synchronous at all of the sites studied, but are unrelated to the global change in the 13C/12C ratio.”

[Emphasis added]

Peter K. Swart. Global synchronous changes in the carbon isotopic composition of carbonate sediments unrelated to changes in the global carbon cycle. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2008; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0802841105

No matter how hard they squeeze the data, no matter how hard they try to believe it works – C-14 doesn’t work!