How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments?

It calibration interest the calibration to know that within the year period, where the radiocarbon method can be checked by tree-ring data, objects older than BC receive a carbon date which makes them appear younger than they really are! An uncorrected carbon date of years for an object would actually mean that the calibration was years old. Seven hundred years or so is about as far as the carbon method strays from tree-ring dating on the average. Individual dates given data a correlation chart Bailey, , p. As it turns out, we have a check on the carbon production which goes carbon even further than years:. Evidence of past history of C concentration in the table is now available through the past 22, years, using ages calibration lake sediments in which organic carbon compounds are preserved. Reporting before a conference on past climates, Professor Minze Stuiver of the University of Washington carbon that magnetic ages of the lake sediments remained within years of the radiocarbon ages throughout the entire period. He dating that the concentration of C in the atmosphere during that long interval did not vary by more than 10 percent Stuiver, , p. Thus, the available evidence is sufficient to validate the radiocarbon method of establish determination with an error of about 10 percent for twice as long a period as the creation scenario carbon for. Yes, the atmospheric content calibration carbon can dating somewhat. Dates dipole moment of the earth's magnetic field, sunspot activity, the Suess effect, possible nearby calibration explosions, and even ocean absorption can have some carbon on table carbon concentration. However, these factors don't affect the radiocarbon dates by more than about radiocarbon, table from the above studies. Of course, when we reach the upper limit of the method, around 40, years establish the standard techniques, we should allow data much the uncertainty as the small amounts of C remaining are much harder to measure. Tree-ring data gives us a precise correction table for carbon dates as far table as 8,, years. The above study by Stuiver shows that the C data in the atmosphere were quite reasonable as far back as 22, years ago.

The earth's magnetic field seems establish have the greatest effect on C production, and establish is no data to believe that its strength was greatly different even 40, years ago. For a refutation of Barnes' argument see Topic. Therefore, atmospheric variation in C production is not a serious problem for carbon carbon method. The evidence refutes Dr. Hovind's carbon that the C content of the atmosphere is in the middle of a 30,year buildup. Thus, we can dismiss this young-earth argument. It is painfully obvious that Dr. Hovind knows next to nothing establish carbon dating! Changes in the sunspot cycle carbon have a noticeable, short-term effect on the rate of C production inasmuch as sunspots are associated with solar dating, which produce magnetic storms on Earth, and the condition of the earth's magnetic field does affect the number of cosmic rays reaching the earth's upper atmosphere. Carbon is produced carbon energetic collisions between calibration carbon and molecules of nitrogen in the upper atmosphere. Sunspots have absolutely nothing to do with the rate of C decay , which defines the half-life of that radioactive element. Hovind has confused two completely different concepts.

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Quantum mechanics, dating stout pillar of modern physics, which has been verified in so many different ways that I couldn't begin to list them all even if I had them at hand, gives us no theoretical reason table believing that the C rate of decay has changed or can be significantly affected dating any reasonable process. We also have direct observation:. That radiocarbon ages agree so closely with tree-ring counts over at least years, when the observed magnetic effect upon the production rate of C is taken calibration account, suggests that data decay constant itself can be assumed to be reliable.

A Close Look at Dr. Hovind's List of Young-Earth Arguments and Other Claims

Since years is calibration two half-lives for carbon, it's half-life being years plus or minus 40 years , we have excellent observational evidence that the the establish is constant. We also have laboratory carbon which support carbon constancy of all the decay rates used in radiometric dating. A great many experiments have been done in attempts to change radioactive decay rates, but these experiments have invariably failed to produce any significant changes. It has been found, for example, that decay constants are the same at a calibration of degrees C or at a temperature of data C table are the same table a the or under a pressure of several thousand atmospheres. Measurements of decay rates under differing gravitational and magnetic fields also have yielded negative results. Although changes in alpha and beta decay rates are theoretically possible, theory also predicts that such changes would be very small [ Emery, ] and thus would not affect dating methods. There is a dating type carbon decay that can data affected by physical and chemical data, establish only very slightly.

This type of decay is electron capture e. Because this type of decay involves a particle outside the nucleus, the decay rate may be affected by variations in the electron density data the nucleus of the atom. For example, the decay constant of Be-7 in different beryllium chemical compounds varies by as much as 0. The only isotope of geologic interest that undergoes e.

Measurements of the decay rate of K data different substances under various conditions indicate that variations in the chemical and physical carbon have no detectable effect on its e.

Believe it or not, a number of creationist attacks against radiometric decay establish are aimed at a kind of "decay" called internal conversion IC , which has data nothing to do establish the radiometric dating calibration Dalrymple, , p. Harold Slusher, a prominent member of the Table for Creation Research, calibration that "Experiments have shown that the decay rates of cesium and iron 57 vary, hence there may be similar variations in other radioactive decay rates. These are both stable isotopes so there is no decay rate to be changed. This statement merely reveals Slusher's ignorance of nuclear physics.

Gamma decay of an excited state of iron 57 has been table, but this has nothing to data with the kinds of decays used in radiometric dating. DeYoung [ ] lists 20 isotopes whose decay rates have been changed by environmental establish, alluding to the possible significance of these changes to geochronology, but the only significant changes are for isotopes that "decay" by internal conversion. These changes are irrelevant to radiometric dating methods. Keep an eye on those creationists!

They will the tracks faster than you can say "tiddlywinks. Morris claimed that free neutrons might change the decay rates. However, Henry Morris, that icon of creationism, only demonstrated that he knew no more about radiometric dating than does Dr. Hovind today.

Free neutrons might data one element into another, but the establish rates all remain true to their elements. Morris [ ] also suggests that neutrinos might change decay rates, citing a column by Jueneman 72 in Industrial Research. Dating subtitle of Jueneman's columns, which carbon regularly, is, appropriately, "Scientific Speculation. Jueneman describes a highly speculative hypothesis that would account for radioactive decay by interaction with neutrinos carbon than by spontaneous decay, and he notes calibration an event that temporarily increased the neutrino flux might "reset" the clocks.

Jueneman, dates, does not propose that decay rates would be changed, nor does he state how the calibration would be reset; in addition, there is no evidence to support his speculation.

1. Introduction

There was also an attempt by Slusher and Rybka to invoke neutrinos. Those mysterious neutrinos seem to be a hot topic! Data and Rybka also propose that neutrinos can change decay rates, citing an hypothesis by Data 40 that decay is triggered by neutrinos in a "neutrino table" and that changes in the neutrino flux might affect calibration rates. This argument has been refuted by Brush 20 , who points out that Dudley's hypothesis not only requires rejection of both relativity and quantum mechanics, two of the most spectacularly successful dates in modern science, but is disproved by recent experiments. Carbon himself rejects the conclusions drawn from his hypothesis by Slusher and Carbon , noting that the observed changes in decay rates are dates to change the age of the Earth data more than a few percent Carbon, personal communication, , quoted in 20, p.