The Fallacy of Scientific Dating – Part II

Continued from the last post regarding the seven points necessary for the Carbon-14 (or any other) time clock to work. These seven points are:

1. Each system has to be a closed system. The radioactive decay product of a specimen is called its daughter isotope and the original element is called the parent element. In measuring specimens, nothing can contaminate any of the parents or the daughter products while they are going through their decay process (over time)—or the dating will be thrown off. 

It is almost impossible to find a closed system in nature that would allow for a true measurement of Carbon-14 isotope loss

 

Ideally, in order to do this, each specimen tested needs to have been sealed in a jar with thick lead walls for all its previous existence for a period, according to scientist, of millions of years! However, in actual field conditions, there is no such thing as a closed system. One piece of rock cannot for millions of years be sealed off from other rocks, as well as from water, chemicals, and changing radiations from space or seepage of water, etc., from the ground. While scientists claim they compensate for such factors, their method of doing so is simply an opinion on their part—not scientifically factual!

2. Each system must initially have contained none of its daughter products. A piece of uranium 238 must originally have had no lead or other daughter products in it. If it did, this would give a false date reading. However, it is impossible to confirm this—it is impossible to know what was initially in a given specimen (piece of radioactive mineral). Was all of this particular radioactive substance being measured, or were some other indeterminate or final daughter products mixed in?

Of course, this cannot be known for anything that was not observed since its creation through to the time of measurement. Scientist do not know this, and in case of items earlier than human observation, can only guess—this has not, on the other hand, kept them from guessing and treating their guesses as fact! Scientists can apply their assumptions, come up with some dates, announce the consistent ones, and hide the rest—which is exactly what time dating science does!

3. The process rate must always have been the same. The decay rate must never have changed, that is from the time of creation to the time of dating, the outside environment cannot have been different. However, we have no way of going back into past ages and ascertaining whether that assumption is correct. Every process in nature operates at a rate that is determined by a number of factors.

These factors can change or vary with a change in certain conditions. Rates are really statistical averages, not deterministic constants. The most fundamental of the initial assumptions is that all radioactive clocks, including carbon 14, have always had a constant decay rate that is unaffected by external influences—-now and forever in the past. But it is a known fact among Scientists that such changes in decay rates can and do occur. Laboratory testing has established that such resetting of specimen clocks does happen. Field evidence reveals that decay rates have indeed varied in the past. The decay rate of any radioactive mineral can be altered if 1) the mineral is bombarded by high energy particles from space (such as neutrinos, cosmic rays, etc.); 2) there is, for a time, a nearby radioactive mineral emitting radiation; 3) physical pressure is brought to bear upon the radioactive mineral; or 4) if certain chemicals are brought in contact with it.

4. The decaying half-life of a specimen has never changed. However, at least one researcher, John Joly of Trinity College, Dublin, spent years studying pleochroic halos emitted by radioactive substances—a pleochroic halo, or radiohalo, is a microscopic, spherical shell of discoloration (pleochroism) within minerals such as biotite that occurs in granite and other igneous rocks. The halo is a zone of radiation damage caused by the inclusion of minute radioactive crystals within the host crystal structure.

However, evidence has been found that the long half-life minerals have varied in their decay rate in the past! According to Alois Francis Kovarik of the National Research Council, “this would set aside all possibilities of age calculation by radioactive methods: (Alois Francis Kovarik, “Report of Committee on X-rays and Radioactivity,” National Research Council Publishing, National Academy of Sciences, Washington D.C., 1925).

Ground water, seepage, rivers, ponds and streams are some of the external matter that invade and change the claimed constant closed system of a rock or other specimen

 

5. There can be no changes that occurred in past ages in the environment. If any changes occurred in the blanket of atmosphere surrounding the planet, it would greatly affect the clocks in radioactive minerals. Cosmic rays, high-energy mesons, neutrons, electrons, protons, and photons enter the atmosphere continually at near the speed of light, some rays traveling 4600 feet into the ocean depths.

The blanket of air covering the world is equivalent to 34 feet of water, or 4 feet thickness of lead. If at some earlier time this blanket of air was more heavily water saturated, it would produce a major change in the atomic clocks within radioactive minerals. As can be imagined, and pointed out by some scientists, prior to the time of the Flood, there was a much greater amount of water in the air.

6. The Van Allen radiation belt encircles the globe. Space scientist James A. Van Allen and his team at the University of Iowa, discovered in1956, a radiation belt, which is a zone of energetic charged particles around the Earth. Most of this belt, named after Van Allen, originates from the solar wind, and is captured by and held around a planet by that planet's magnetic field. Earth has two such belts, and sometimes temporarily others about 450 miles above Earth, which are intensely radioactive. 

The Van Allen Radiation Belt is a zone of energetic charged particles showing changes in the shape and intensity of a cross section of the belts

 According to Van Allen, high-altitude tests revealed that it emits 3000-4000 times as much radiation as the cosmic rays that continually bombard the earth. Any change in the Van Allen belt would powerfully affect the transformation time of radioactive minerals. Unfortunately, we know next to nothing about this belt—-what it is, why it is there, or whether it has changed in the past. In fact, the belt was only discovered in 1959. Even small amounts of variation or change in the Van Allen belt would significantly affect radioactive substances, effecting the dating process (“Doughnuts of Radiation Ring Earth in Space,” Victoria Advocate, Texas, Associated press, December 28, 1958, p1A; Holly Zell “Van Allen Probes Spot an Impenetrable Barrier in Space,” Karen C. Fox, NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md).

7. A basic assumption of all radioactive dating methods. All radioactive dating methods are based on the belief that the clock had to start at the beginning; that is, there were no daughter products present, only those elements at the top of the radioactive chain were in existence. For example, all the uranium 238 in the world originally had no lead 206 in it, and no lead 206 existed anywhere else. But if either Creation—or a major worldwide catastrophe (such as the Flood) occurred, everything would begin thereafter with, what scientists call, an "appearance of age." By this it is meant "appearance of maturity." The world would be seen as mature the moment after Creation. We would not see a barren landscape of seeds littering the ground—instead, spread before us would be a scene of fully grown plants and flowers. Most trees would have their full height. We would see full-grown chickens, not unhatched eggs. Radioactive minerals would be partially through their cycle of half-lives on the very first day. This factor of initial apparent age would strongly affect our present reading of the radioactive clocks in uranium, thorium, etc.

Thus it cannot be said that radiocarbon dating (carbon-14) is conclusive (or anywhere near accurate) in dating events of the past as is so commonly done by archeaologists, geologists and other scientists.