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(July 2008) What are the methods used by scientists to date
archeological finds? And do those methods tell the true age of buried
organisms?
The method used by scientists to determine the age of archaeological
finds is called radiometric dating. It involves measuring decayed
radioactive elements and, by extrapolating backward in time,
determining the age of an organism.
One element commonly used, in what's referred to as "radiocarbon
dating" or "radiocarbon reading," is C-14, a radioactive isotope of
carbon, which is formed in the atmosphere by cosmic rays. All living
organisms absorb an equilibrium concentration of this radioactive
carbon. When organisms die, C-14 decays and is not replaced. Since we
know the concentration of radioactive carbon in the atmosphere, and we
also know that it takes 5,730 years for half of C-14 to decay (called a
"half-life cycle"), and another 5,730 years for half of what's left to
decay, and so on, by measuring the remaining concentration of
radiocarbon we can tell how long ago an organism died.
Since C-14 can only give dates in the thousands of years, elements with
longer half-life cycles (such as Samarium-147, Rubidium-87,
Rhenium-187, Lutetium-176, to name a few, with half-life cycles in the
billions of years) are used to date what are believed to be older
archaeological finds. The procedure is roughly the same; the amount of
decay is measured against the initial amount of radioactive material,
giving the object's supposed age.
One obvious flaw in this technique is that we don't really know the
level of radioactive concentration acquired by an organism which lived
before such recorded history. Scientists make a bold assumption that
the atmospheric concentration of the radioactive material -- carbon or
any other element -- being measured has not changed since the
organism's death.
Another bold assumption made by scientists is that the rate of radioactive decay has remained constant throughout history.
Are these valid assumptions?
Hardly.
In 1994 Otto Reifenschweiler, a scientists at the Philips Research
Laboratories in The Netherlands, showed that the radioactivity of
tritium could be reduced by 40 per cent at temperatures between 115 and
275 Celsius. That is, under certain conditions, the environment can
effect radioactive decay.
In 2006 Professor Claus Rolfs, leader of a group of scientists at Ruhr
University in Bochum, Germany, in an effort to reduce nuclear waste
radioactivity, has come up a with a technique to greatly speed up
radioactive decay. Rolfs: "We are currently investigating radium-226, a
hazardous component of spent nuclear fuel with a half-life of 1600
years. I calculate that using this technique could reduce the half-life
to 100 years. At best, I have calculated that it could be reduced to as
little as two years ... We are working on testing the hypothesis with a
number of radioactive nuclei at the moment and early results are
promising ... I don't think there will be any insurmountable technical
barriers."
Reducing 1600 years to two years is a phenomenal 98 percent reduction.
This means that an archeological find that has gone through
environmental conditions similar to those in the lab could appear to be
300,000 years old when in fact it's only six thousand years old.
What's more, if scientists, with relatively limited resources, can
speed up radioactive decay 800 times, the violent upheavals of earth's
history could certainly have sped up radioactive decay by far greater
numbers. Thus, if radioactive decay increased, say, 1 million fold, an
organism thought to be 4 billion years old, based on today's rate of
radioactive decay, would be no more than 4,000 years old.
What's interesting is that earth's history of cataclysmic events is not
questioned by anyone -- scientist or Biblical scholar. They may differ
in their accounts of what occurred, but not necessarily in the severity
of the events.
The Bible's account of The Flood, of course, would have been the mother
of all catastrophes. It entailed heat, pressure, and an unimaginable
mixture of elements. This would certainly have far exceeded any extreme
conditions created by scientists in a lab.
The scientific account of earth's formation and development is no less catastrophic:
Earth formed of the debris flung off the sun's violent formation about
4.5 billions years ago. Being a molten planet in it's initial stages,
earth's dense materials of molten nickel and iron flowed to the center,
and its lighter materials, such as molten silicon, flowed to the top.
Eventually, earth cooled and solidified into a core, mantle and crust.
Earth's original atmosphere consisted of Hydrogen and Helium. This
atmosphere subsequently heated to escape-velocity by solar radiation
and escaped into space. It took about 2 billion years for oxygen to
appear in earth's atmosphere, eventually resulting in an atmosphere
consisting of 78% Nitrogen and 20% Oxygen.
Our planet has been pounded by meteorites throughout history. One such
impact, in Mexico, around 65 million years ago, was so intense that it
resulted in mass extinctions, including the extinction of the dinosaur.
Earth has gone through several ice ages. The last one ended around
10,000 years ago, after lasting roughly 60,000 years. At one point 97%
of Canada was covered in ice.
Given scientists' belief of earth's chaotic and turbulent past -- the
formation of the planet itself, the development of its atmosphere, the
transformation in its atmosphere, the ensuing geological upheavals --
it is grossly dishonest of them to then claim to be able to determine
the age of an organism or fossil based on the remnants of radioactive
elements in the atmosphere. The assumption that their saturation levels
remained constant for billions or even millions of years is simply
preposterous.
Not only must radioactive dating be wrong, but it can't even be
consistent, since earth's violent past oscillated so dramatically.
The problem goes even deeper. With the recent discovery (as described
earlier) that the rate of radioactive decay can be altered so
drastically in a mere lab, we cannot trust, for dating purposes, the
radioactive reading of any material in the universe. The entire
universe, not just earth, has been undergoing constant cataclysmic
events since the beginning of time.
So after years of telling the public that the rate of radioactive decay
is constant, you'd think scientists would now go back to the drawing
board and at least entertain the thought that radioactive dating might
not be an accurate dating method. But that hasn't happened. At least
not in a public way.
It seems, the way evolutionists work is they make public declarations
about things that give the slightest hint of supporting evolution and
then completely suppress everything that totally undermines that same
theory. In legal circles, I believe this is called "suppression if
evidence." With such a flagrant disregard for truth and honesty, you
could "prove" that parking tickets grow on windshields.
Who knows how many other findings have been deliberately suppressed
because they contradicted what evolutionists have been trying to prove
for years. And who knows how many otherwise honest scientists are being
lead to false conclusions as a result of the unethical and dishonest
ones.
The fact is we don't debate the existence of Mars because it's
provable. We don't debate the existence of bacteria because it's
provable. After 150 years, we continue to debate evolution, not because
it "controversial," but because it's not provable and not science.
Evolution has all the markings of a religious cult. The vast majority
of people who believe in evolution give lip service to the catch
phrases "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest" without
having a clue as to what they entail. This is, they have faith in their
"gurus" (scientists) about a concept they don't comprehend, a concept
for which there is not a shred of evidence.
For evolution to be considered science it should be as provable as Mars
or the Moon or bed bugs. Evolution is a pseudo science that's being
kept alive by zealots. Indoctrinating school children with this utter
nonsense is not that far removed from totalitarian governments that
force fanatical views on their young ones.
We must give scientists a deadline -- let's say a year or two -- to
prove evolution beyond a shadow of a doubt, the way many other
scientific concepts are provable beyond debate. If they can not,
evolution needs to be completely eliminated from all public educational
curriculums and all institutions supported by the government.
Hi Josh, I was wondering if you could help me out with a die-hard evolutionist who has been relentless in his arguments in a SearchWarp article I submitted called, Is Evolution a Religion? Your comments would really help that discussion.
Although I occasionally have to deal with this issue, I try to stay
away from trying to persuade diehard evolutionists. There is no logic
or science that will convince them evolution is wrong, since it wasn't
science or logic that convinced them evolution was "right" in the first
place.
The approach, in my opinion, is to know up front you will never win him
over, and then proceed to just unravel for him as much as you can. When
you feel you've had enough, just move on.
My writings on evolution, as stated in my book's preface over two
decades ago, is not for diehard evolutionists. It's for those who are
honestly looking for answers. Evolutionists are not looking for
answers, they thing they have them.
Thank you, Josh. I'm afraid that I have to admit that you are right. I have considered throwing in the towel on this several times, but it is almost like admitting defeat. But, I suppose that some people just can't see the forest for the trees. I appreciate your help. Shilom
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