Carbon dating creationism

A Creationist Puzzle

In my experience, one of the most persuasive scientific claims for a young Earth is the detection of carbon in geological samples such as coal and fossilized dinosaur remains. In Dinosaur Blood and the Age of the Earth , I respond to this young-earth argument, suggesting three mechanisms that can account for carbon in fossil remains and by extension, in geological materials from an old-earth perspective. When YECs detect carbon, they find it at low levels, corresponding to age dates older than 30, years not 3, to 6, years old, as their model predicts, by the way. These low levels make it reasonable to think that some of the carbon signal comes from contamination of the sample by, say, microorganisms picked up from the environment. These low levels also make it conceivable that some of the detected carbon is due to a ubiquitous carbon background. Cosmic rays are continuously producing radiocarbon from nitrogen It is also possible that some of the carbon in the fossil and coal samples arises from the in situ conversion of nitrogen to carbon driven by the decay of radioactive elements in the environment. Because fossils and coal derive from once-living organisms, there will be plenty of nitrogen contained in these specimens. For example, environmental uranium and thorium would readily infuse into the interiors of fossils, and as these elements decay, the high energy they release will convert nitrogen to carbon

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Carbon exists in three forms, or isotopes, carbon 12 C , carbon 13 C , and carbon 14 C. Carbon is formed in the upper atmosphere when a neutron in cosmic radiation strikes an atom of nitrogen 14 N and converts it to carbon The rate of decay is such that half the atoms of carbon in a sample decay to nitrogen in approximately years. The modern level is about 1 atom of 14 C in every trillion carbon atoms. Living organisms take in carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide, through their food and water, thus maintaining the same level of 14 C in their bodies as is in their environment. When organisms die, the 14 C in their bodies is no longer replaced, so the level of 14 C declines as it decays to 14 N. The longer the time since death, the more of the 14 C will have decayed, so the less 14 C remains in the body.

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Perhaps no concept in science is as misunderstood as "carbon dating. But, carbon dating can't be used to date either rocks or fossils.

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Doesn’t Carbon-14 Dating Disprove the Bible?

Brown , Loma Linda University. Although scientific creationism is widely perceived as an instrument for establishing the correctness of testimony in the Bible concerning history and natural science, the author contends that its proper function is the application of rigid scientific analysis to the interpretation of data concerning the natural world from the perspective of the testimony given by writers of the Bible. Success in developing such interpretations will contribute to the confidence which is necessary for enjoyment of the benefits for which the testimony in the Bible has been provided, and may also contribute to the understanding of some natural phenomena. DigitalCommons Cedarville provides a publication platform for fully open access journals, which means that all articles are available on the Internet to all users immediately upon publication. However, the opinions and sentiments expressed by the authors of articles published in our journals do not necessarily indicate the endorsement or reflect the views of DigitalCommons Cedarville, the Centennial Library, or Cedarville University and its employees.

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