Radiometric Dating

Secular scientists accept a dating method for rocks and fossils called radiometric dating. Many believe that radiometric dating has proved the earth to be billions of years old. So what is radiometric dating?

A quick review of Chemistry. Atoms are made up of three smaller particles; protons, neutrons and electrons. Protons and neutrons form the nucleus (center) of the atom while electrons orbit the nucleus. The number of protons in an atom is the number listed on the periodic table. Carbon always has 6 protons in the nucleus and 6 neutrons in its stable form and is called Carbon-12. When an atom has more neutrons compared to protons, it is called an isotope. High energy particles from the sun provide the energy to add neutrons to an atom. 

 Carbon-14 contains 6 protons and 8 neutrons. The Carbon-14 isotope is naturally occurring, radioactive and will become nitrogen-14 when one of the extra neutrons becomes a proton by radioactive decay. All living things incorporate Carbon (both 12 and 14) into tissues or cells. The ratio of Carbon-14 and Carbon-12 in the atmosphere is locked up in tissue, bones, wood, plants, etc.

How do we use this for dating? Once the organism dies, the Carbon-14 isotope begins decaying into Nitrogen-14 which is called the half-life time. We can measure how long this takes. We can measure how much Carbon-14 is in a “dead thing.” We can measure how much Carbon-14 is in the atmosphere. These measurements are done very accurately. So if we know the staring amount, the amount in the dead thing and we know how long it takes to decay, we know the age. Seems like we do indeed have a “clock” for dating dead things. Wrong.

Just like all dating methods, Carbon-14 dating must make assumptions. First, the amount of Carbon-14 ratio to Carbon-12 in the atmosphere must never has changed. If Carbon-14 was higher in the past, things would appear to be older then measured. Second, the decay rate of Carbon-14 to Nitrogen-14 must also be constant otherwise the clock changes speed and the age is once again incorrect. Scientists have no way to prove if either of these assumptions are true.

Carbon-14 has a short half life and at present decay rates will completely change to Nitrogen-14 in about 80,000 years. Secular scientists tell us dinosaur fossils are ~40 million years old, rock layers are hundreds of millions of years old and diamonds have an age similar to the earth of billions. If we test these items, there should be no Carbon-14 even accepting the above assumptions. But guess what, there is indeed Carbon-14 in all of them. Therefore, Carbon-14 dating sets the maximum age of the earth at 80,000 years. So while 80,000 years max age is older than 6,000 years which we know to be true, Carbon-14 provides a huge contradiction to other radioactive dating methods and predicts an earth age similar to the Biblical date. 80,000 is not even close to 4,300,000,000 years.

This general approach can be taken with other atoms as well. Since Carbon-14 does not fit the secular scientist world view, elements with much longer half lives (slower clock) are now being used to date fossils, rock, etc.

All radiometric dating methods require assumptions about past events. Secular scientists are highly biased toward assumptions that lead to millions or billions of years. These long ages are then reported and included in text books as if they are fact. Christians should not be afraid of dating methods utilizing radiometric techniques. In particular, Carbon-14 dating should be viewed as a friend of young earth Christians! 

An excellent book on this topic is Rethinking Radiometric Dating by Vernon R Cupps.