Why is it so Difficult to Obtain Accurate Dates? – Part V

Continuing from the previous post on the manner in which Carbon-14 dates are sometimes manipulated by the scientists in order to provide the dates needed to support personal views and paradigms, and the problems associated with it as discussed in the previous posts. This involves how scientists manipulate the findings of the carbon testing so that the dates they use from the testing agrees with the accepted view of the evolutionary geologic column.
    The Carbon atom, of course, is the building block of all known physical life, which is constantly decaying, but also constantly being produced. As understood,

Carbon-14 is produced in the upper layers of the troposphere and the stratosphere by thermal neutron atoms. When cosmic rays enter the atmosphere, they undergo various transformations, including the production of neutrons. Carbon-14 occurs when an electron and an electron antineutrino, one of the neutrons in the carbon-14 atom decays to a proton and the carbon-14 into the stable (non-radioactive) isotope nitrogen-14, which can be measured.
    For radiocarbon dates derived from the measurement of Carbon-14 to be accurate, a long list of assumptions and conditions must be met. One of the primary conditions is that the level of carbon 14 entering the atmosphere from cosmic rays that strike nitrogen atoms and split them to produce C-14, which then combines with oxygen to form a particular kind of CO2 gas, which becomes part of the photosynthesis process, and must remain relative constant; however, scholars have long known that this is not the case, which is why the calibration curve was developed in an attempt to correct for these fluctuations of C-14.
    Again, however, this does not eliminate the problems found in radiocarbon dating. Take, as an example, the 1990 report of scientists at the Lamont-Doherty Geological Laboratory of Columbia University at Palisades, N.Y., who reported in the British Journal Nature, that some estimates of age based on carbon analyses were wrong by as much as 3,500 years.
    They arrived at this conclusion by comparing age estimates obtained using two different methods—analysis of radioactive carbon in a sample and also determination of the ratio of uranium to thorium in the sample. As numerous scientists know, that in some cases, the latter ratio appears to be a much more accurate gauge of age than the customary method of carbon dating. According to the article, scientists have long recognized that carbon dating is subject to error because of a variety of factors, including contamination by outside sources of carbon. Therefore, they have sought ways to calibrate and correct the carbon dating method (Malcolm W. Browne, “Errors Are Feared in Carbon Dating, The New York Times, May 31,1990, Section A, p21).
    The problem is that since 1949, the process of carbon dating has become widely (if not universally) accepted to the point where it has supposedly settled many of those dating disputes.
    However, a new study out of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, calls into question the standards associated with the carbon dating method used to date archaeological remains in the region of Israel. These findings lead to bigger questions about the radiocarbon dating process as a whole, which may have huge ramifications for how biblical events align with the timelines of the ancient world. The bottom line is that the history of Egypt and Israel may need to be rewritten.

Clearly defined tree rings can be measured for time sequence

Sturt Manning, Professor of Classical Archaeology at Cornell, and colleagues, recorded a series of Carbon-14 dates in tree rings from southern Jordan near Petra that have sent tremors through the field of archaeology. Manning tested juniper trees (Juniperus phoenicea) that were of a type used for building construction at Taybet Zaman, Jordan, and could give unbroken sequences of rings back several hundred years.
    According to Manning, a Goldwin Smith Professor of Classical Archaeology in the Department of Classics, and director of the Cornell Tree-Ring Laboratory, these tree rings were of known dates between 1610 AD and 1940. They showed that the average discrepancy over a 330-year period between the known ages and those supplied by radiocarbon dating was 19 years
    Thus, the carbon dates made the samples appear older than they really were.
    Manning added that “going further back in time might magnify the problem.” This means, when extrapolating specimens over several thousand years, with a possible increase in discrepancy, archaeology dates determined by Carbon-14 dating is off a considerable amount—even centuries.
    It should be remembered that the amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere is the key to the equilibrium principle that makes Willard Libby’s time clock work. However, the group at Columbia University theorizes that large errors in carbon dating result from fluctuations in the amount of carbon-14 in the air. Such variable circumstances would change the amount of carbon as:

Earth's magnetosphere, with the rounded, bullet-like shape represents the bow shock as the magnetosphere confronts solar winds. The gray area between the magnetosphere and the bow shock, is called the magnetosheath, while the magnetopause is the boundary between the magnetosphere and the magnetosheath. The Earth's magnetosphere extends about 10 Earth radii toward the Sun and perhaps similar distances outward on the flanks. The magnetotail is thought to extend as far as 1,000 Earth radii away from the Sun. 1 : Bow shock 2 : Magnetosheath 3 : Magnetopause 4 : Magnetosphere 5 : Northern tail lobe 6 : Southern tail lobe 7 : Plasmasphere

1. Changes or fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic field;
2. Intensity of cosmic ray bombardment of the atmosphere;
3. Contamination by outside sources of carbon;
4. The amount of reliable constant of the specimen (it has not come in contact with water or other discordant);
5. Inconsistency between specimen (parent) and daughter (nitrogen-14) products;
6. Variance of the amount of uranium in the soils (which makes the measurement of marine organisms more reliable than land animal).
7. Stratification of the oceans.
8. Fossil Fuel
9. Nuclear testing in the atmosphere

Nuclear Tests on the Earth and in space since 1945, effecting the atmosphere and the amount of Carbon-14

As stated earlier, it is also imperative that we fully understand the concept of equilibrium in the atmosphere in order for C-14 to accurately measure dates. Erroneously, the scientific community has long accepted that fact that the atmospheric carbon is in equilibrium—in fact, such an attitude is absolutely required by the evolutionists since evolutionary principles and the geologic column are not workable if the carbon is not in equilibrium. In short, if the carbon is in equilibrium, the earth must be over 50,000 years old. However, if it is not in equilibrium, then the Earth is less than 50,000 years old. To the evolutionist, it is that simple, therefore, the evolutionist demands that the atmosphere be in equilibrium.
    As mentioned previously, when Willard Libby, the inventor of the time clock, discovered by his own experiments that the measurements showed the atmosphere was not in equilibrium, he simply ignored his own findings stating that “everyone knows the Earth is millions of years old,” and reset his clock to an atmosphere in equilibrium.
    Scientists have sought other indicators of age against which carbon dates can be compared. One such indicator is the Uranium-Thorium dating method, which has been conducted on samples of coral drilled from a reef off the island of Barbados that samples represented animals that lived at various times during the last 30,000 years. This led to an understanding that the dates obtained between Carbon-14 and the Uranium-Thorium method are off as much as 3,500 years as the comparison between the two methods of measurement.
    Dr. Alan Zindler, a professor of geology at Columbia University who is a member of the Lamont-Doherty research group, said age estimates using the carbon dating and uranium-thorium dating differed only slightly initially, ''But at earlier times, the carbon dates were substantially younger than the dates we estimated by uranium-thorium analysis,'' he said. ''The largest deviation, 3,500 years, was obtained for samples that are about 20,000 years old.''
    One reason the group believes the uranium-thorium estimates to be more accurate than carbon dating is that they produce better matches between known changes in the Earth's orbit and changes in global glaciation.
    According to carbon dating of fossil animals and plants, the spreading and receding of great ice sheets lagged behind orbital changes by several thousand years, a delay that scientists found hard to explain.
(See the next post, “Why is it so Difficult to Obtain Accurate Dates? – Part VI,” for more on the manner in which C-14 dates are manipulated by scientists)