Can we trust carbon 14 dating?

[io.porog]

If so, then what do archaeological finds tell us?

[Cfldjamie]

Carbon has unique properties that are essential for life on Earth. Familiar to us as the black substance in charred wood, as diamonds, and the graphite in “lead” pencils, carbon comes in several forms, or isotopes. One rare form has atoms that are 14 times as heavy as hydrogen atoms: carbon-14, or ¹⁴C, or radiocarbon.

Carbon-14 is made when cosmic rays knock neutrons out of atomic nuclei in the upper atmosphere. These displaced neutrons, now moving fast, hit ordinary nitrogen (¹⁴N) at lower altitudes, converting it into ¹⁴C. Unlike common carbon (¹²C), ¹⁴C is unstable and slowly decays, changing it back to nitrogen and releasing energy. This instability makes it radioactive.

Ordinary carbon (¹²C)is found in the carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the air, which is taken up by plants, which in turn are eaten by animals. So a bone, or a leaf or a tree, or even a piece of wooden furniture, contains carbon. When the ¹⁴C has been formed, like ordinary carbon (¹²C), it combines with oxygen to give carbon dioxide (¹⁴CO₂), and so it also gets cycled through the cells of plants and animals.

We can take a sample of air, count how many ¹²C atoms there are for every ¹⁴C atom, and calculate the ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio. Because ¹⁴C is so well mixed up with ¹²C, we expect to find that this ratio is the same if we sample a leaf from a tree, or a part of your body.

In living things, although ¹⁴C atoms are constantly changing back to ¹⁴N, they are still exchanging carbon with their surroundings, so the mixture remains about the same as in the atmosphere. However, as soon as a plant or animal dies, the ¹⁴C atoms which decay are no longer replaced, so the amount of ¹⁴C in that once-living thing decreases as time goes on. In other words, the ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio gets smaller. So, we have a “clock” which starts ticking the moment something dies.

Obviously, this works only for things which were once living. It cannot be used to date volcanic rocks, for example.

The rate of decay of ¹⁴C is such that half of an amount will convert back to ¹⁴N in 5,730 years (plus or minus 40 years). This is the “half-life.” So, in two half-lives, or 11,460 years, only one-quarter of that in living organisms at present, then it has a theoretical age of 11,460 years. Anything over about 50,000 years old, should theoretically have no detectable ¹⁴C left. That is why radiocarbon dating cannot give millions of years. In fact, if a sample contains ¹⁴C, it is good evidence that it isnot millions of years old.

However, things are not quite so simple. First, plants discriminate against carbon dioxide containing ¹⁴C. That is, they take up less than would be expected and so they test older than they really are. Furthermore, different types of plants discriminate differently. This also has to be corrected for.

Second, the ratio of ¹⁴C/¹²C in the atmosphere has not been constant—for example, it was higher before the industrial era when the massive burning of fossil fuels released a lot of carbon dioxide that was depleted in ¹⁴C. This would make things which died at that time appear older in terms of carbon dating. Then there was a rise in ¹⁴CO₂ with the advent of atmospheric testing of atomic bombs in the 1950s. This would make things carbon-dated from that time appear younger than their true age.

Measurement of ¹⁴C in historically dated objects (e.g., seeds in the graves of historically dated tombs) enables the level of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere at that time to be estimated, and so partial calibration of the “clock” is possible. Accordingly, carbon dating carefully applied to items from historical times can be useful. However, even with such historical calibration, archaeologists do not regard ¹⁴C dates as absolute because of frequent anomalies. They rely more on dating methods that link into historical records.

Outside the range of recorded history, calibration of the ¹⁴C "clock is not possible.

 

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c007.html

[Giannis Diamantis]

No!
I will give a very simple explanation. The method takes for granted the amount of C in the air the time we want to find. But simply we do not know the conditions of the atmosphere before cataclysm. So the method is closer to reality for after cataclysm dates.

[Arauna]

The flood and the water canopy before the flood also changed the atmosphere.  Scientists do not compensate  their calculations for this because they do not even recognize there was a canopy or a flood.

Scientists  compensate their calculations to fit in with recorded history...... especially in archeology and paleontology. Scientists usually send the sample for testing with a description of the "layer" of the earth the sample came from.    When this is not done -  then the same sample will have a date which can vary with millions of years.

These days one can find anything on Youtube....  type in  carbon dating debunked or carbon dating i is false and pick and choose to watch (some will be credible and some will not be).

A few years back I watched one where they sent out the exact same sample to about eight different labs - the dating came back with thousands of years between them.    Carbon dating is extremely accurate up to 400 years.

 

 

[JW Insider]

1 hour ago, Arauna said:

These days one can find anything on Youtube....  type in  carbon dating debunked or carbon dating i is false and pick and choose to watch (some will be credible and some will not be).

Not that libraries or science-related databases will always be perfect, but "research" is so different now from when I was in school or getting research assignments at Bethel. Today, interest in a topic starts with a link that is usually purposely worded to attract attention by being provocative. Even major newspapers now use "click-bait" to get someone to read an article about a scientific report or discovery. A serious report about the effects of various carbohydrates on various types of cancer would get a title like: "New Report Shows Sugar Causes Brain Cancer." Maybe it does, but things like this happen even if that idea was never in the report at all. And then it will get repeated in other newspaper and television reports and YouTube channels and long advertisements on websites that purport to be from a respected doctor. Almost no one will actually read the report, sometimes not even other scientists who will also need to make "educated guesses" and assumptions, because they would get nowhere these days if they had to read every word on every subject that came before them.

Getting to the truth of the matter in research is sometimes harder now than it was back in the days when research required a lot more legwork.

[Arauna]

Truth is scarce and far between. Scientists are now hired to produce certain results.  Look at the climate change debate still going on despite the fact that numerous coastlines are already under water. 

Yes - research has changed so much.  So has journalism.  Journalists cannot find work if they write against the "agenda" of the company. 

The good side of YouTube is that the creationists have a little voice time - where they were shut up before by the universities.  One can now learn interesting things one did not think of before.  The nasty side of Youtube is that the propaganda of satan is really everywhere. 

I search for interesting titbits and then research in other places.

[FelixCA]

Radiocarbon dating. Has science been able to carbon date the sun? Is carbon dating an exact science? Fossil imprints were thought to have no bacterial evidence. New science has made that a thing of the past.

But, science is dealing with an alternative to the power of Jah’s active force (Spirit of God). A power that no human can test or fathom. How could 14C be relative if extreme heat and extreme pressure have not been fully confirmed to the level of God? When the Garden was created, dinosaurs being part of creation became destructive enough to have Jah rethink the purpose of size to redirect the spirit of God to use the same means of creation to readjust a partial creation. Then after, setting a new standard in size of the animal kingdom and creating humans to subdue them. To Jah, this could have been accomplished in a short amount of time or could have been as science dictates, billions of years. 14C is unable to understand the logistics between the two. Crunching numbers is a computer would not be adequate to understand what power Jah’s active force played in creation other than what is written, and what it played before the Garden of Eden manifested. Through scripture, we know Jah created the heavens and earth. Can science replicate any of it? Can science Terraform floating space debris to create a planet? Can science replicate a human cell from nothing? I’m not referring to getting something that exists, and clone it.

There are many old theories and some new ones. Known of which can explain the power of God. Then we should understand the fundamental of 14C as described by Libby, Arnold, and Anderson.

If a man, can generate one, one hundredth the power of God, Leon M. Lederman called it the God Particle, aka the Higgs Boson Theory, then we ask has this been achieved? Not just in theory but actuality. This is just another indicator that 14C isn’t relative to creation and dinosaur fossils.