Carbon Dating

[shortylbc]

Do Scientist that do carbon dating take into account possible irregular unrecorder radiation levels that could lead to an innacurate result of the dating test? If they do, how?

[swansont]

Do Scientist that do carbon dating take into account possible irregular unrecorder radiation levels that could lead to an innacurate result of the dating test? If they do, how?

 

What do you mean by "irregular unrecorder radiation levels?"

 

Carbon dating is calibrated by comparison with other dating techniques, e.g. dendrochronology and varves

 

(Also note that carbon dating refers to a specific process, and there are lots of other radioactive dating techniques, with various ranges of applicability)

[Gilded]

You tell 'em swansie (OK I'll never call you that again ) ). Yeah, as the age of the sample increases, it's harder and harder to tell the exact date of creation (in the case of mineral samples, death in the case of organisms). And carbon dating is no good when samples are really old. This is where isotopes of elements like potassium and rubidium (in rock dating mostly) step in.

 

And needless to say, I didn't get the irregular whatsimagicker-part either. :S Do you mean cases where the sample might have been lying right next to a uranium deposit or something that might have screwed up a couple of atoms of the sample?

[atinymonkey]

I thought is was mostly Archeologists rather than Scientists who used carbon dating. I suspect mention of 'irregular unrecorder radiation levels' would lead to a blank look, then possibly an attempt to push you into a pit.

[Sayonara]

It's rather handy* for thinks like paleo-botany, for obvious reasons.

 

 

* well, within reason. Given the half life and all.

[JC1]

Whenever the worldview of evolution is questioned, this topic always comes up. Let me first explain how carbon dating works and then show you the assumptions it is based on. Radiation from the sun strikes the atmosphere of the earth all day long. This energy converts about 21 pounds of nitrogen into radioactive carbon 14. This radioactive carbon 14 slowly decays back into normal, stable nitrogen. Extensive laboratory testing has shown that about half of the C-14 molecules will decay in 5730 years. This is called the half-life. After another 5730 years half of the remaining C-14 will decay leaving only ¼ of the original C-14. It goes from ½ to ¼ to 1/8, etc. In theory it would never totally disappear, but after about 5 half lives the difference is not measurable with any degree of accuracy. This is why most people say carbon dating is only good for objects less than 40,000 years old. Nothing on earth carbon dates in the millions of years, because the scope of carbon dating only extends a few thousand years. Willard Libby invented the carbon dating technique in the early 1950's. The amount of carbon 14 in the atmosphere today (about .0000765%), is assumed there would be the same amount found in living plants or animals since the plants breath CO2 and animals eat plants. Carbon 14 is the radio-active version of carbon.

 

Since sunlight causes the formation of C-14 in the atmosphere, and normal radioactive decay takes it out, there must be a point where the formation rate and the decay rate equalizes. This is called the point of equilibrium. Let me illustrate: If you were trying to fill a barrel with water but there were holes drilled up the side of the barrel, as you filled the barrel it would begin leaking out the holes. At some point you would be putting it in and it would be leaking out at the same rate. You will not be able to fill the barrel past this point of equilibrium. In the same way the C-14 is being formed and decaying simultaneously. A freshly created earth would require about 30,000 years for the amount of C-14 in the atmosphere to reach this point of equilibrium because it would leak out as it is being filled. Tests indicate that the earth has still not reached equilibrium. There is more C-14 in the atmosphere now than there was 40 years ago. This would prove the earth is not yet 30,000 years old! This also means that plants and animals that lived in the past had less C-14 in them than do plants and animals today. Just this one fact totally upsets data obtained by C-14 dating.

 

The carbon in the atmosphere normally combines with oxygen to make carbon dioxide (CO2). Plants breathe CO2 and make it part of their tissue. Animals eat the plants and make it part of their tissues. A very small percentage of the carbon plants take in is radioactive C-14. When a plant or animal dies it stops taking in air and food so it should not be able to get any new C-14. The C-14 in the plant or animal will begin to decay back to normal nitrogen. The older an object is, the less carbon-14 it contains. One gram of carbon from living plant material causes a Geiger counter to click 16 times per minute as the C-14 decays. A sample that causes 8 clicks per minute would be 5,730 years old (the sample has gone through one half life), and so on. (See chart on page 46 about C-14). Although this technique looks good at first, carbon-14 dating rests on two simple assumptions. They are, obviously, assuming the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere has always been constant, and its rate of decay has always been constant. Neither of these assumptions is provable or reasonable.

 

An illustration may help: Imagine you found a candle burning in a room, and you wanted to determine how long it was burning before you found it. You could measure the present height of the candle (say, seven inches) and the rate of burn (say, an inch per hour). In order to find the length of time since the candle was lit we would be forced to make some assumptions. We would, obviously, have to assume that the candle has always burned at the same rate, and assumes an initial height of the candle.

The answer changes based on the assumptions. Similarly, scientists do not know that the carbon-14 decay rate has been constant. They do not know that the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere is constant. Present testing shows the amount of C-14 in the atmosphere has been increasing since it was first measured in the 1950's. This may be tied in to the declining strength of the magnetic field.

 

http://kecirohomeschool.com/carbondating.htm

 

This is how it works... let's say you want a bone to be, let's say 100,000 years old, you go through your list of dating methods and pick the one that will give you what you believe to be 100,000 years. It's still all based on assumptions yet you live and die by it as if it is fact.

[swansont]

Tests indicate that the earth has still not reached equilibrium. There is more C-14 in the atmosphere now than there was 40 years ago. This would prove the earth is not yet 30' date='000 years old! This also means that plants and animals that lived in the past had less C-14 in them than do plants and animals today. Just this one fact totally upsets data obtained by C-14 dating.

 

...

 

They are, obviously, assuming the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere has always been constant, and its rate of decay has always been constant. Neither of these assumptions is provable or reasonable.

[/quote']

 

Atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons changed the mix in the last 50 years, and we have been dumping a lot of carbon into the atmosphere from fossil fuels (old enough for there to be basically no C-14 in them) for the last ~ 150 so no, we are not currently in equilibrium. But as I noted earlier, you can calibrate the measurements with tree rings and sediments layers.

 

This is how it works... let's say you want a bone to be, let's say 100,000 years old, you go through your list of dating methods and pick the one that will give you what you believe to be 100,000 years. It's still all based on assumptions yet you live and die by it as if it is fact.

 

And we test the assumptions. A change in the decay rate would manifest itself in other ways, and require that physics constants change. So tests are done, and we find that e.g. the fine structure constant has not changed, within experimental error over the billions of years period that the tests covered.

[jdurg]

Let's not forget that we don't use carbon dating to get the exact, to the minute, age of something. It's there for an estimate to within a few hundred years. If you believe strongly in creationism you will NEVER believe ANY of the scientific evidence no matter how conclusive it is.

 

Now back on topic here. I believe the original poster was asking about how do we know that the radiation we're measuring is from Carbon-14? That's pretty simple. Each isotope has its own distinct energy when it is given off. It's a fingerprint, so to speak. When a carbon-14 atom decays it gives off rays of energy of a very specific magnitude. By calibrating the instruments to only pick up that magnitude of energy wave, you can isolate the decays being measured to that of C-14.

 

Also, the decay rate of an isotope IS steady. I have yet to find any research being done that shows a fluctuating decay rate of an isotope to an extent that it would severely alter the half-life of said isotope. Yes you can get isotopes to decay quicker than normal, but that's only through forced fission of the isotopes. With light atoms such as C-14, you're not going to get that to happen. So the decay rate is constant and if it's an assumption, then it's just as much of an assumption as saying that if you drop a brick it will fall to the ground.

[swansont]

Now back on topic here. I believe the original poster was asking about how do we know that the radiation we're measuring is from Carbon-14? That's pretty simple. Each isotope has its own distinct energy when it is given off. It's a fingerprint' date=' so to speak. When a carbon-14 atom decays it gives off rays of energy of a very specific magnitude. By calibrating the instruments to only pick up that magnitude of energy wave, you can isolate the decays being measured to that of C-14.

[/quote']

 

That's true of gammas, but not of betas. Betas have a maximum energy, given by the Q of the reaction, but are emitted in a continuous spectrum as an antineutrino is aso given off. You get rid of contamination by making sure only carbon is in the sample; this site says that Rn-222 is a common comtaminant but since the half-life is short (<4 days), you get rid of it by letting the sample sit for a few weeks.

 

There's also accelerator mass spectrometry, in which AFAIK you ionize the carbon and accelerate it through a known potential, then deflect in a magnetic field and count. The mass 12, 13 and 14 deflect by different amounts.

[JC1]

As the matter of fact, my original post shows that scientists do pick numbers as their starting point and work from their. The starting point=millions of years. Based on that as part of the calculation, the tests come up with millions of years. The way this method follows is subject to the assumption of millions of years.

 

In sum, it is like this. Those who will not open their hearts to God, have twisted science to lie to the world and have us believe the same. So-called scientists will say "God does not exist and I'm gonna prove it" instead of saying "Does God exist,

can I prove it?"

 

 

 

 

Atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons changed the mix in the last 50 years' date=' and we have been dumping a lot of carbon into the atmosphere from fossil fuels (old enough for there to be basically no C-14 in them) for the last ~ 150 so no, we are not currently in equilibrium. But as I noted earlier, you can calibrate the measurements with tree rings and sediments layers.

 

 

 

And we test the assumptions. A change in the decay rate would manifest itself in other ways, and require that physics constants change. So tests are done, and we find that e.g. the fine structure constant has not changed, within experimental error over the billions of years period that the tests covered.[/quote']

[swansont]

In sum' date=' it is like this. Those who will not open their hearts to God, have twisted science to lie to the world and have us believe the same. So-called scientists will say "God does not exist and I'm gonna prove it" instead of saying "Does God exist,

can I prove it?"[/quote']

 

Good thing I'm an actual scientist, and not a so-called scientist. Science is, in fact, agnostic, and doesn't care about proving anything about God's existence, one way or the other.

[JC1]

Also, How do you know decay rates have been the same prior to

the time that you said that it has been changing. At least over the last 150 years we have data, but what about before then? You still have to base your calculation off of the bias that the Earth has to be billions of years old and any other conclusion is religion and should be disregarded.

 

Has there been found trees with billions of rings?

 

 

Atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons changed the mix in the last 50 years' date=' and we have been dumping a lot of carbon into the atmosphere from fossil fuels (old enough for there to be basically no C-14 in them) for the last ~ 150 so no, we are not currently in equilibrium. But as I noted earlier, you can calibrate the measurements with tree rings and sediments layers.

 

 

 

And we test the assumptions. A change in the decay rate would manifest itself in other ways, and require that physics constants change. So tests are done, and we find that e.g. the fine structure constant has not changed, within experimental error over the billions of years period that the tests covered.[/quote']

[swansont]

As the matter of fact' date=' my original post shows that scientists do pick numbers as their starting point and work from their. The starting point=millions of years. Based on that as part of the calculation, the tests come up with millions of years. The way this method follows is subject to the assumption of millions of years.

[/quote']

 

 

In the sense that you don't use a micrometer to measure a distance that's a kilometer long, that's true. You have to use the right tool. If an item were organic in nature but expected to be a million years old, one would not bother with carbon-dating since it's known not to be valid in that range. A different method would have to be used. And that is a problem, since there have been a few creationsists who have deliberately supplied wrong ages for samples to be tested. And to the surprise of noone, the ages are wrong. Honest inquiry, on the other hand, uses other methods to get corroboration. There's lots of evidence, for example, that human civilization lies within the range of carbon dating, so human organic artifacts can be carbon-dated.

 

As I said, it is unreasonable to expect a dating method to work outside its range of validity. In the link you provided, several examples are given of failures carbon dating - shells from marine animals and a seal. Now, in your post, you explained how C-14 is in the atmosphere, so if an animal has an intake of non-atmospheric carbon, like a marine animal would, it won't yield a valid date. Kent Hovind apparently either doesn't know this, making him unqualified to criticize the method, which is intellectually dishonest, or he does know that and used the examples anyway, which is plain dishonest. Which do you think it is?

[Rasori]

So-called scientists will say "God does not exist and I'm gonna prove it" instead of saying "Does God exist' date='

can I prove it?"[/quote']

 

Reiterating what was already said to this, scientists don't try to disprove God's existence. They do, however, try to explain the unexplained in different ways then "Oh, it was God."

 

Even so, it makes no sense to say "Does God exist, can I prove it?" because to prove something true, you must then prove EVERYTHING about it is true. To disprove something, however, just requires you to disprove one thing. (This doesn't entirely work in this case because, while we can surely disprove certain interpretations of the Bible, or maybe even the Bible in general, that does not mean we've disproved God, only that we've disproved words that man has written about Him. Even so, if we were to get one universally agreed-upon trait of God (as in, within all religions), it may be possible to disprove God. We just don't really care to.)

[swansont]

Also' date=' How do you know decay rates have been the same prior to

the time that you said that it has been changing. At least over the last 150 years we have data, but what about before then? You still have to base your calculation off of the bias that the Earth has to be billions of years old and any other conclusion is religion and should be disregarded.

 

Has there been found trees with billions of rings?[/quote']

 

Why would you need a tree with a billion rings? C-14 dating doesn't go back that far. There is dendochronology evidence dating back more than 10,000 years. And varves. And ice cores. And coral rings. And speleotherms. C-A-L-I-B-R-A-T-I-O-N. C-O-R-R-O-B-O-R-A-T-I-O-N. Any of this sinking in? If the decay rate changed, then you wouldn't get all of the methods to agree at all.

 

The age of the earth is not a bias, it's a conclusion based on the evidence. It was not assumed and in fact the conclusion was drawn despite the religious bias that the earth had to be young. There's a very good book called The Age of the Earth by G. Brent Dalrymple that I'll suggest you read, even though your tone indicates you have no desire to actually learn anything.

[JC1]

Why would you need a tree with a billion rings? C-14 dating doesn't go back that far. There is dendochronology evidence dating back more than 10' date='000 years. And varves. And ice cores. And coral rings. And speleotherms. C-A-L-I-B-R-A-T-I-O-N. C-O-R-R-O-B-O-R-A-T-I-O-N. Any of this sinking in? If the decay rate changed, then you wouldn't get all of the methods to agree at all.

 

The age of the earth is not a bias, it's a conclusion based on the evidence. It was not assumed and in fact the conclusion was drawn despite the religious bias that the earth had to be young. There's a very good book called The Age of the Earth by G. Brent Dalrymple that I'll suggest you read, even though your tone indicates you have no desire to actually learn anything.

 

Consider the following:

 

1. Interplanetary dust falls at a very slow

rate, but to believe that earth is 5 billion

years old, mathematically it had enough time

for it to wash up millions upon millions of

tons of it in the oceans, but by calculating

the small amount we have by the rate it descends,

brings us to approximately 7-10 thousand years.

 

2. Not enough? How about the moon. The moon has

information of earth's age, as well as it's own.

The dust on the moon, according to NASA which

accepted the 4.5-5 billion year old story, expected

to find 54 feet of interplanetary dust on the moon.

However, upon landing for the first time, they

found only an eighth of an inch to three inches

of dust. Enough to match approximately 8,000 years.

 

3. Did you also know that the earth's rotation is

slowing down? Not enough to make a difference on

earth even over a few billion years, but it has other

effects. For instance. The moon's distance is constantly

reducing, even as you read this, the moon has just

made a 182.5 of an inch away from earth. So when the

year is over, the moon will be 2 inches farther than

it was at the beginning. What does that say? Well, 2

billion years ago, the moon and earth would be touching,

did you realize that? Because the distance they are

at now, multiply the rate by 2 billion years, and they

will be touching only 2 billion years ago. Or you could

look at it another way, at a decent distance, 5 billion

years later, the moon would be out of sight right now.

But only 7-10 thousand years ago, it would not make a

very big difference. (1,333.3 feet)

[Mokele]

1. Interplanetary dust falls at a very slow

rate, but to believe that earth is 5 billion

years old, mathematically it had enough time

for it to wash up millions upon millions of

tons of it in the oceans, but by calculating

the small amount we have by the rate it descends,

brings us to approximately 7-10 thousand years.

 

Please show your math. Without that (and sources for the numbers used), it's just gibberish.

 

Furthermore, the earth is very geologically active, in addition to having living things on it. Both of these processes can move the dust around, consume it (subduction into the mantle), etc. Seen the seafloor lately? Lots of silt. And let's not forget that this re-worked dust could simply be mixed into the soil you walk on.

 

2. Not enough? How about the moon. The moon has

information of earth's age, as well as it's own.

The dust on the moon, according to NASA which

accepted the 4.5-5 billion year old story, expected

to find 54 feet of interplanetary dust on the moon.

However, upon landing for the first time, they

found only an eighth of an inch to three inches

of dust. Enough to match approximately 8,000 years.

 

Wrong, can I can say that conclusively. How can you claim that, if the rate is constant, .125" to 3" give more or less the same number? The larger number is 24 times bigger than the smaller!

 

On top of that, have you noticed the craters on the moon lately? The moon is small enough that, when craters throw up dust, it'll just drift off into space.

 

3. Did you also know that the earth's rotation is

slowing down? Not enough to make a difference on

earth even over a few billion years, but it has other

effects. For instance. The moon's distance is constantly

reducing, even as you read this, the moon has just

made a 182.5 of an inch away from earth. So when the

year is over, the moon will be 2 inches farther than

it was at the beginning. What does that say? Well, 2

billion years ago, the moon and earth would be touching,

did you realize that? Because the distance they are

at now, multiply the rate by 2 billion years, and they

will be touching only 2 billion years ago. Or you could

look at it another way, at a decent distance, 5 billion

years later, the moon would be out of sight right now.

But only 7-10 thousand years ago, it would not make a

very big difference. (1,333.3 feet)

 

I'm actually glad you ended on that note, because refuting it sums up what is wrong with every one of your points.

 

What single problem is this? The assumption of constant rate, which in all 3 cases is unfounded.

 

Let's take the orbit of the moon. Now, I'm no physics guru, but I did take enough mechanics and dynamics classes getting my engineering degree to know that there is no way in *hell* that the rate of the moon's movement is constant. It may *look* constant now, but we're observing on a very short timescale, and slowly exponential functions can look "flat" if you only sample a small time interval.

 

Ditto for the space dust. Sure, it's been deposited at a rate of X cm/yr for the past 50 years we've been keeping track, but can we *really* extrapolate that back billions of years? NO. That's like me saying "Today was cooler than yesterday, and yesterday was cooler than the day before, therefore in 2 years, all earth will be at -200 Celcius."

 

These sorts of arguements are why nobody respects creationism; if I turned in such crappy results, I'd be out on the curb, and justifiably so.

 

Mokele

[swansont]

Consider the following:

 

1. Interplanetary dust falls at a very slow

rate' date=' but to believe that earth is 5 billion

years old, mathematically it had enough time

for it to wash up millions upon millions of

tons of it in the oceans, but by calculating

the small amount we have by the rate it descends,

brings us to approximately 7-10 thousand years.

 

2. Not enough? How about the moon. The moon has

information of earth's age, as well as it's own.

The dust on the moon, according to NASA which

accepted the 4.5-5 billion year old story, expected

to find 54 feet of interplanetary dust on the moon.

However, upon landing for the first time, they

found only an eighth of an inch to three inches

of dust. Enough to match approximately 8,000 years.

 

3. Did you also know that the earth's rotation is

slowing down? Not enough to make a difference on

earth even over a few billion years, but it has other

effects. For instance. The moon's distance is constantly

reducing, even as you read this, the moon has just

made a 182.5 of an inch away from earth. So when the

year is over, the moon will be 2 inches farther than

it was at the beginning. What does that say? Well, 2

billion years ago, the moon and earth would be touching,

did you realize that? Because the distance they are

at now, multiply the rate by 2 billion years, and they

will be touching only 2 billion years ago. Or you could

look at it another way, at a decent distance, 5 billion

years later, the moon would be out of sight right now.

But only 7-10 thousand years ago, it would not make a

very big difference. (1,333.3 feet)[/quote']

 

 

A big problem here is you're cribbing from the wrong source. When you copy the quiz answers from the stupid kid, you're also going to fail.

 

The moon dust argument is based on faulty data, using a measurement that overestimated the amount of dust by about a factor of 300 due to terrestrial contamination. Here is more detail

 

I did know that the moon is receding from the earth; we had a recent thread on it - it's the reason we add leap seconds every so often. Your argument, as Mokele already said, suffers from the improper assumption that you can do a linear extrapolation. Right now, the tidal coupling between the earth and the moon is very strong, but it wasn't always that way. When the continents were in different positions you would have different tidal energies, and the momentum transfer would be different. You also ignore the fact that the moon used to rotate faster - not in tidal lock with the earth - and this would change the recession rate as well.

 

What makes the linear extrapolation even more egregious is that the rate has been measurably changing even in historical times. The relaxation of the earth's crust from deformation caused during the ice ages has slightly changed the moment of inertia in the last ~12,000 years, and we are still seeing the effects in the last few thousand years. The average slowing rate over the last couple of millenia or so is about 25% smaller than it is today.

[Douglas]

Willard Libby invented the carbon dating technique in the early 1950's. The amount of carbon 14 in the atmosphere today........ .

Talking about carbon dating, the shroud of Turin was carbon dated a few years ago, it came in at about 1500 years old instead of the expected 2000 years. There was a dispute about the accuracy of the carbon dating for some obscure reason. I don't remember if the dispute was ever resolved. Do you?

 

Interesting stuff about the moon dust and the proximity of the earth and moon. I see Mokele and Swansont throwing rocks at you in the form of "yeah, but".........but, I haven't seen anything that disproves your theory.

[imasmartgirl]

JC1, why don't you go rent Penn and Teller: Bullshit? they explain in episode 8 about creationism. I'm watching it right now i love this show.

[JohnB]

One question the original poster asked has not yet been answered, and I must admit it is one I have wondered about.

 

The rate of decay for C-14 must remain constant unless you want to want to rewrite physics, but how do we know that the rate of creation of C-14 is constant?

 

Since the isotope is created by solar radiation, how do we know this has been constant? If Solar radiation (for some reason) increased by 20% for a 100 year period around 10,000 years ago, (I'm not saying it did, just using figures for examples) then there would (for that period) have been more C-14 created. Hence living things in that period would have absorbed more C-14.

 

This would mean that a C-14 test done now on an item would show it to be younger than it actually is.

 

I can only assume that the C-14 is used in conjunction with tests of both higher and lower strata, so if you get a strata that tests as 9,000 years old under a strata testing at 11,000 years old, you would know that there was something screwy somewhere. I would also assume that we consider the rate of creation of C-14 to be constant until there is evidence to the contrary. Would this be relatively correct?

 

Second thought. Could we use any "out of sync" strata as evidence for variance in Solar radiation?

[swansont]

Interesting stuff about the moon dust and the proximity of the earth and moon. I see Mokele and Swansont throwing rocks at you in the form of "yeah, but".........but, I haven't seen anything that disproves your theory.

 

Then you didn't read very carefully. The terrestrial dust accumulation measurements on which the extrapolations were based were shown to be wrong by a couple orders of magnitude, and the moon recession rate is shown to be not constant, so a linear extrapolation is wrong.

[swansont]

One question the original poster asked has not yet been answered' date=' and I must admit it is one I have wondered about.

 

The rate of decay for C-14 must remain constant unless you want to want to rewrite physics, but how do we know that the rate of creation of C-14 is constant?

 

Since the isotope is created by solar radiation, how do we know this has been constant? If Solar radiation (for some reason) increased by 20% for a 100 year period around 10,000 years ago, (I'm not saying it did, just using figures for examples) then there would (for that period) have been more C-14 created. Hence living things in that period would have absorbed more C-14.

 

This would mean that a C-14 test done now on an item would show it to be younger than it actually is.

 

I can only assume that the C-14 is used in conjunction with tests of both higher and lower strata, so if you get a strata that tests as 9,000 years old under a strata testing at 11,000 years old, you would know that there was something screwy somewhere. I would also assume that we consider the rate of creation of C-14 to be constant until there is evidence to the contrary. Would this be relatively correct?

 

Second thought. Could we use any "out of sync" strata as evidence for variance in Solar radiation?[/quote']

 

 

Perhaps you missed the three different posts where I said tha C-14 measurements have been calibrated with other dating methods to account for this scenario.

[Newtonian]

If a sticky is required for C-14 i would gladly compile one.

 

However concerning only the points you raised Jhn B.C-14 is a reliable( not foolproof) dating technique on its own.When used in conjunction with other dating techniques we can be extremely confident(as a geologist i feel qualified in making that statement).

 

You are quite correct in your questioning the rate of 14C creation.This is a problem(gasps from audience)we are fully aware of, which is why we dont solely rely on C-14 dating.For instance the atmospheric fraction of 14C/Ctotal cannot have always been constant,as far as im aware no real scientist has stated it has always been constant.Though the rate of decay has , hence the techniques relevance and reliability up to a max of around 60,000yr.Without going over equilibrium and other technical issues brought up by creationist argument..id like to leave it there

 

 

 

Unfortunately in many cases its faulty procedure not the technique thats at fault.As in cases such as the Turin Shroud.,its my understanding that the shroud is indeed of the age 2000 years(an endorsing testament to the dating method)...and thats as far as one can go....it cannot tell us that it wrapped jesus!!

[JohnB]

Perhaps you missed the three different posts where I said tha C-14 measurements have been calibrated with other dating methods to account for this scenario.

Perhaps you didn't include that last clause in your answers? Reading back, I can see how it is sort of unspoken, but some of us do need it spelt out.

 

While I'm of average intelligence and very eclectic in my reading habits, sometimes explanations take for granted a basic knowledge that the layman doesn't have. Hence my not understanding what you were getting at.

 

Sorry for the confusion.

 

Newtonian, thanks for the info. I've read many things referring to C-14 dating and of course noone (except creationists and other general loonies) would question that the rate of decay is constant. The question of rate of creation is rarely if ever mentioned. (A quick Google showed the matter raised only once out of the first 20 odd entries. Most assumed the C-12/C-14 ratio to be almost constant.) I've always found this to be an unsupported assumption.