YE Dating Methods

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Lee Maurer on May 30, 2010 at 6:14pm

Hello George,
Do you know of any specific examples of dinosaur bones that have been c-14 dated? I have not seen any actually dino bones among those objects tested to date. I know that other fossils such as ammonites have been dated, as well as bone, coal, diamonds, etc., but I have not heard of dinosaurs. I was also interested in your statement that these typically date to "around 12,000 years." Most geologically old samples have dated between 35 to 65 thousand years ago, based on the RATE project and other studies done.

Thanks for the comments,

George Simonds said:

well, one of my favourite evidences to use is the fact that all dinosur bones have carbon 14 in them. even though after 60,000 years all carbon 14 should have left the dinosaur bones and these dinosaur bones that are supposed to be more than 65 million years old still have carbon 14 in them. they usually give dates of around 12,000 years when carbon dated and then when they say "well thats still older then 6,000 years" you can explain that the difference of age can be explained by the fact that there is more c-14 in our atmosphere today then there would have been when the animal was alive giving it an older date then 4,400 years. This evidence doesn't point directly to 6,000 years but it does go against the millions of years thing.

Permalink Reply by Terrance Egolf on June 3, 2010 at 12:24pm

Jeremy,

First, most dinosaur bones are mineralized to the point that they have no organic material in them. A recent notable exception is the T. Rex bones Dr. Mary Schweitzer reported on, that contained what visually and chemically appeared to be soft, elastic, organic connective tissues.

Second, scientists do not perform expensive AMS carbon-14 dating on samples that are assumed to be greater than about 50,000 years. 65 million years falls into this category.

Third, at least one scientist who called for C-14 dating on Schweitzer's bones did so with the intent of showing that her samples had been contaminated by modern bacterial biofilms, thus proving that the elastic tissues were artifacts, and not fossils. So even if C-14 is found in these dino bones, it only proves that they were contaminated. The paradigm overrides the empirical evidence.

Terry

Permalink Reply by Lee Maurer on June 4, 2010 at 2:59pm

Terrance,

Thanks for your comments. I asked the question becuase it is important for young-earth creationists to be completely accurate when they make statements that support our position. You are correct that the assumptions of secular scientists keep them from even thinking about checking dinosaur bones for radiocarbon, except for looking for contamination. I am curious to see future research on carbon 14 by creationists. I believe that it will continue to be favorable to the young-earth position.

Terrance Egolf said:

Jeremy,

First, most dinosaur bones are mineralized to the point that they have no organic material in them. A recent notable exception is the T. Rex bones Dr. Mary Schweitzer reported on, that contained what visually and chemically appeared to be soft, elastic, organic connective tissues.

Second, scientists do not perform expensive AMS carbon-14 dating on samples that are assumed to be greater than about 50,000 years. 65 million years falls into this category.

Third, at least one scientist who called for C-14 dating on Schweitzer's bones did so with the intent of showing that her samples had been contaminated by modern bacterial biofilms, thus proving that the elastic tissues were artifacts, and not fossils. So even if C-14 is found in these dino bones, it only proves that they were contaminated. The paradigm overrides the empirical evidence.

Terry

Permalink Reply by Lance Ponder on November 6, 2010 at 12:29am

I was going to mention Humphreys' work with RATE and helium defusion, but Gavin beat me to it. Another very age limiting factor is earth's magnetic field. The half-life of the earth's magnetic moment limits upper age to several thousand years. Working backward, the earth would have had to have had a field comparable to a magnetic star just 10,000 years ago. Other limits include things like ocean chemical content, atmospheric C14 content, C14 content in below-ground crystals like deep-earth diamonds, sun shrinkage, moon motion away from earth, retrograde orbits of Venus and Triton and the high angle axis of Uranus, the shape and distribution of earth continents, mountain heights and erosion quotients, and so on. There's a LOT of evidence. I've posted extensively on some of these at worldwidebiblestudies.org and bible.org (impact blog).

Permalink Reply by Robert Dale Buckman on May 26, 2011 at 6:32pm

 

Dear Ryan

 

You might try the web site: www.creation.com/age-of-the-earth.  It gives 101 scientific evidences for a young earth and solar system.  Check it out.

 

Best Regards   Robert Buckman

Permalink Reply by Lance Ponder on May 27, 2011 at 11:01am

That's a great link. Thanks for sharing!

Permalink Reply by Lance Ponder on May 27, 2011 at 11:09am

You might already be aware of this: http://creation.com/age-of-the-earth

 

Personally, the C14 found in deep earth diamonds and the helium diffision from zircons at various depths are powerful, but I think the decay of Earth's magnetic field and other solar system magnetic fields provide the most powerful argument of all for me personally.

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