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Showing posts with the label Radiometric Dating

Mammoth Antibodies and Radiocarbon Dating

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Antibodies are an important part of the immune system. They are proteins that circulate in the bloodstream looking for harmful antigens. Those are enemy bacteria, viruses, and such. Each antibody is unique, defending against specific antigens. So how do they last in mammoths for assumed millions of years? A study showed that antibodies in mammoths were still able to do their jobs — but antibodies break down over time like other biological things. To support deep time, researchers assumed deep time, which was circular reasoning. They also ignored essential biology. Mammoths, Wikimedia Commons / Honymand / ( CC BY-SA 4.0 ) We recently saw that dating methods on human fossils are unreliable , and similar problems occur in radiocarbon dating here. Consider that Carbon-14 dating of Viking burials in England were at odds with historical records . It is known that radiocarbon dating is increasingly less trustworthy with greater age. To claim that antibodies in these mammoths are of great ant

Unreliable Dating of Human Fossils

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First, a bit of something that grinds my gears. Many articles and videos (including the one featured below) are titled in the form of a question, and some folks seem compelled to reply without dealing with the material. News flash: Writers are not asking for opinions, they are answering the question in the title. You savvy? There are people who want to know if the dating methods used on human fossils can be trusted, and what kinds of problems such vast numbers of years present for the Bible. Those used on human fossils have problems. Homo naledi skeletal specimens, Wiki Comm / Lee Roger Berger research team ( CC BY 4.0 ) I reckon it's easy to get the idea that the dates assigned to fossils of humans, apes, and alleged humans are correct. After all, these are knowledgeable people who speak with authority and tell us the dating methods used. They can even go into the details of the processes if we ask nicely. But not only are there problems with the processes, all dating methods re

Genesis, Ephesus Harbor, and Radiocarbon Dating

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Rivers produce sediment through erosion, and they also pick up other particles, eventually dropping the silt when the currents decrease. At the mouth of a river, dropped silt changes the landscape. Harbors get clogged over time. The city of Ephesus was important in New Testament times, and was located on an estuary of the River Kaystros. This became silted up and useless as a harbor, and the silting was observed in recorded history. Geologists are studying the area but have troubles with the dating methods. Views of the harbor road in Ephesus, Flickr / michael.berlin ( CC BY-SA 2.0 ) Core samples were taken, but the radiometric dating involved has a great deal of difficulty from contamination and that cold ocean water inflates the results. There are also problems correlating dates with historical records. It is indeed unfortunate that secularists reject biblical history and creation science Genesis Flood and Ice Age models out of hand, since those would help them get better radiocarbo

Radiocarbon Dating Failure on Ice Age Footprints

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Down New Mexico way, there is a place called White Sands National Park because it has, well, white sands in the Tularosa Basin. The story goes that during the Ice Age, Lake Otero was in the Tularosa Basin. It was a nice place with a wet climate. This area is famous for fossilized footprints, and the radiocarbon dating came up with an age of 22,000 years for one particular set from the Lake Otero Basin. Since rock cannot be Carbon-14 dated, seeds that were found in the area were subject to the analysis. It did not go well. Lake Otero image cropped from NPS (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) Those seeds were not dated properly, and the radiocarbon atoms did not come from the ancient atmosphere but from old water. After recalculating, the age originally assigned had to be discarded. They were way  off. Unfortunately for secular scientists, their desires for deep time and the methodology used raise several serious questions. Maybe if they get that correlation with the ma

The Magnetic Field and Biblical Archaeology

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Before we get to the main subject, there is some interesting news about the magnetic field of Earth. This shield surrounds our blue marble and protects us from harmful solar radiation, plasma, and such. It was recently discovered that when plasma strikes the magnetosphere, it vibrates and ripples like a drum membrane . The impact is spread out and dissipated to a large extent. The way buildings are designed to move in high winds or in earthquakes (resilience movement) comes to mind. To this child, is is an aspect of the magnetic field which is yet another example of the Master Engineer's design capabilities. Analysis by biblical creationists should be interesting. Earth's magnetic field, NASA / Walt Feimer (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) Radiocarbon dating is useful for determining an approximate age of certain things, but its reliability is lessened when the object under scrutiny is very old. The magnetic field can help. It has signatures  where the age an

Magma Chambers and the Age of the Earth

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Once again, a uniformitarian (slow and gradual processes over millions of years) assumption was challenged by researchers who wanted to give something a closer look. Volcanoes have a habit of blasting out lava, erupting for centuries all the way down to a year or so. Some eruptions are more like geological indigestion and do not send sonic waves around the world. Where do they get all that magma, anyway? (Magma is molten rock, and when it is sent through the earth's crust, it is called lava.) Geology is a historical science, and there are magma chambers  below the earth's crust. Magma builds up there until eruptions occur. Lava Toe Forming at Kilauea, US Geological Survey / Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) The Yellowstone supervolcano has a pair of sizeable magma chambers that are detected through seismic tomography , which brings to mind the procedures used in medical CT scans. Radiometric dating has failed scientists, who trus

Carbon-14: Not Much Good Anymore

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Radiocarbon (Carbon-14) dating is not the thing that believers in deep time use to affirm that Earth is old. This is a common mistake. Instead, C-14 is used to get a handle on the age of something organic. C-14 atoms are unstable, and their therapy is to break down into nitrogen-14, which is a random process (for more on how it works, see " Carbon-14 Dating — Understanding the Basics "). Since C-14 does not last a huge amount of time, it has been somewhat useful to approximate the ages of some things. It is helpful to corroborate it with historical artifacts. Charcoal is almost entirely carbon, Pixabay / Rudy and Peter Skitterians Carbon-14 itself is affected by conditions on Earth. Nuclear bomb experiments decades ago made big changes, but also gave scientists some calibration. However, that is dissipating. In addition, carbon dioxide from fossil fuel emissions is hindering the effectiveness of carbon-14. This will be problematic for old-Earth advocates, who are still deali

Considering Evidence for the 7-Year Famine in Genesis

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Secular scientists have found possible evidence of a severe drought thousands of years ago. The dating is obviously contentious with the biblical timeline, and even those scientists are not in agreement with their dating methods. With additional information, it seems to support the famine in Egypt when Joseph was the administrator for the pharaoh. The dating methods used by secular scientists are saturated with evolutionary assumptions, all of which are unprovable. We need to get up on a sizeable hill to get the big picture. Nile River by satellite / MODIS, NASA GSFC (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) The Bible provides accurate history, and naysayers have been refuted many times. With that in mind, part of the big picture is the narrative in the late chapters of Genesis. Joseph was a mite arrogant it seems, so his brothers sold him, and he eventually wound up in Egypt. Read it for yourself for the details, but remember that Joe was given the meaning of Pharaoh's

Amazing Forensic Science DNA Sequencing

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Ancient people in the British Isles set up mounds as burial sites, and they are known as barrows , cairns , and other names. Sometimes they are at the centers of stone circles, and are not uncommon. They vary in size. Cam Long Down is impressive, and has a barrow. The Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles  mentions them, which is unsurprising because some have legends of hauntings. One barrow was the subject of of space aliens in a Doctor Who  story . Although stories are intriguing at times, reality can be much more interesting. Some extremely old bones were studied. It was mighty complicated, since they were jumbled in some parts of the burial chamber. When watching crime scene investigation shows where not much remains of a body, examiners can tell whether the deceased was male or female as well as the age. How can they tell the sex? Because males and females are built differently, and personal preferences doesn't change biological and biblical facts. You savvy tha

Paleomagnetism and Biblical Archaeology

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People have attempted to discredit the historical records of the Bible for centuries. Many times, they have used the fallacious argument from silence that there is not archaeological evidence for certain people or events, so they never happened. The Bible has been repeatedly vindicated. Radiocarbon dating has also been used to deny Scripture. We have seen many times that radiometric dating has serious flaws (including calibration), but when the results fit the needs of the secular science industry, they are accepted. Paleomagnetism provides a calibration tool. Holes in dolerite made by cores being drilled. As the rock cooled and solidified iron became fixed in an orientation with the Earth's magnetic field. This can be read to find out where this part of Scotland lay relative to the poles at the time the rock solidified. Image and text: Paleomagnetism studies, cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Richard Webb - geograph.org.uk/p/1688057 (The blogging platform will not let me close up the extra spaces

Vinland Vikings and — Tree Rings?

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It is well known that the Vikings, including Leif "Lucky" Erikson, included North America in their travels around 1000 A.D. My Scandinavian ancestors were a rowdy, restless bunch. Vikings took a notion to explore and set up camps in Iceland and Greenland. They went on to North America and named the place they homesteaded Vinland . Records from Labrador were retrieved, but there was plenty of disagreement among scholars about the timing of Viking journeys. Surprisingly, tree rings helped nail down the date. Viking ship Lofotr , Flickr / Runar Storeide , posted by Geir Are Johansen  ( CC BY-SA 2.0 ) Although they never found Spam, the salmon fishing and grape growing were better on the east coast of North America. A couple of ancient Icelandic texts are referred to as the Vinland Sagas, but they were not firsthand accounts of the explorations and commutes. Strangely, dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating were used in conjunction with other forensic (historical) and empirical

A Basic Overview of Radioisotope Dating

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Many people, including Christians, erroneously believe that the age of the earth has been conclusively proven to be about 4-1/2 billion years old. Although serious mathematics is involved, the essence of the method is rather simple. Chip away a rocky outcropping and take a sample to the lab and ask them nicely (as well as paying a fee) for them to tell you its age. From there, you know the age of the earth. Just kidding, such a thing does not happen. Assembled and modified with components from Clker clipart The unstable radioactive element and the stable isotope in a rock are measured. The unstable decays and leaves the stable. Rate of decay and other factors are calculated to give the number of years. But that rock that you chipped away? Not happening, at least regarding Earth's age. Secularists and their churchian allies believe that rocks on the earth are not reliable indicators, so they assume meteorites are more pure, and calculate from those . There are other assumptions to

Egyptian Pyramids and Biblical History

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Some people believe that the pyramids of Egypt are devastating to the biblical timeline, but that belief is based on fatally-flawed dating methods. The Great Pyramid (ordered by Cheops, also called Khufu — I think they named a hat after him ) and others have yielded unreliable age tests. Credit: RGBStock / Michal Zacharzewski There are some Christians who think that they were built before the Genesis Flood, but that idea does not hold water. A proper understanding of creation science Flood models reveals that the event was so cataclysmic, nothing would have remained. Also, the pyramids and Sphinx were built on sedimentary rock. In addition to problematic assumptions used in carbon-14 dating, one problem is glaringly obvious. The half-life of carbon-14 is supposedly about 5,730 years. Rocks that are claimed to be millions of Darwin years old have organic materials that are tested to have carbon-14. Just study on that a spell and you can see the difficulty. So let's dig a bit deeper

Recalibrating Radiocarbon Dating

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Once in a while, the unwashed masses get a glimpse into the workings of the secular science industry. Radiocarbon dating is not a closely guarded secret, but people tend to assume that scientists do not make assumptions. That is false. A new calibration for carbon-14 was proposed. To quote Nuke, " It did not go well ". Modified from an image at Pexels by  Francesco De tommaso Radiocarbon dating has many variables, and there have been discrepancies between historical records and the presupposition-based dating methods. It's not just creationists who have pointed this out for a mighty long time, secular scientists know it as well. (Biblical creationists have postulated that there were many changes to affect dating results during the Genesis Flood, which have been supported by evidence.) The new method is going to cause consternation and have a kind of ripple effect for established and new results. The latest calibration curve for radiocarbon dating is raising eyeb

Lava Flows of Known Age, and Radiometric Dating

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It has been shown many times that radiometric dating has a passel of difficulties. These include circular reasoning, presupposing deep time, unwarranted assumptions, and more. Samples tested by various methods provide wildly differing results, including lava rocks of known ages. Does the eruption make a difference? Tungurahua eruption image credit: FreeDigitalPhotos / xura This does seem like a reasonable question on the surface. I saw a comment at The Question Evolution Project about radiometric dating and lava of known ages. He figured that everything would be reset to zero, so old rock that became molten would appear young but is actually very old; a kind of reset. Arbitrary assumptions based on lack of knowledge raise more questions than they solve. Biblical creationists point out these flaws in uniformitarianism because the evidence indicates a young earth. Once again, our feedback is about radioactive dating, which seems a major roadblock against Christians believing

Date Selection and Radiometric Dating

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Except for fundamentalist evolutionists, many people know that radiometric dating is tenuous at best. It involves a number of assumptions, which is bad enough, but there is a passel of circular reasoning and cherry-picking of data to fit deep time presuppositions. The same is true in radiocarbon dating. Credit: Freeimages / Pedro Simao Some hominid remains were discovered in Portugal, and secularists commenced to assigning dates to the rocks. However, the standard used was predetermined to give researchers the deep time that they wanted to have. They also had results that were the opposite of what they wanted, and inconvenient dates were simply rejected. Very unscientific and dishonest. A recent Neanderthal study in the journal Science mixed detailed archaeological finds with stories about human origins. As is typical, the report’s age assignments for fossils fit evolutionary time instead of the Bible’s much shorter timeline of thousands of years. Its age-dating exercises revea

Fooling with Radiocarbon Contamination Claims

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Secular scientists have been stunned — stunned , I tell you — when C-14 has been found in diverse items (including diamonds) that they claim are millions of years old. For a mighty long time, their presuppositions prevented them from bothering to test these things for radiocarbon. Credit: GoodFreePhotos / Thorn Yang I'll allow that there are some things we simply know and do not feel a need to check; I know that when Basement Cat goes down the steps, she will not float to the ceiling because she's not equipped to defy gravity. When it comes to the age of the earth and things in it, believers in deep time do not actually know the facts (and some question those assumptions ). It is inferred, then they presuppose that previous assumptions are correct and that oil, diamonds, and so forth cannot have radiocarbon in them. But they do. That is because the earth is not billions of years old, and the best explanation can be backtracked to the Genesis Flood. Circle the wagons!

Seafloor Nodules and Faulty Deep Time Reasoning

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Way down where it is mighty damp, the seafloor, are some things called nodules or pellets. Secular scientists insist through radiometric dating that the things take millions of years to form. Like so many other attempts to make the earth seem old, bad logic is necessary. Credit: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research (Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) These nuggets — millions of them — are formed when exposed to seawater, but stop when covered by a certain amount of sediment. This raises questions about some of the larger nodules, because according to secularist reckoning, they shouldn't be there. Since they are there and a potential source of materials that humans need, forms of deep-sea mining are being developed. Once again, the narrative supersedes observed evidence and interferes with actual scientific research. Pellets (or nodules ) composed of various metals, such as manganese and iron, often litter the ocean floor. These nodules form when c

Age of the Earth and Nuclear Fission Dating

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We have examined radiometric dating on this site many times, and the article linked below provides some information that is inconvenient for those who believe in deep time. The age of the earth is calculated this way by testing meteorites , not rocks on Earth. However, the dating methods are unreliable. Assembled with graphics from Openclipart It should raise the suspicions of almost anyone that there are numerous dating methods used on rocks. This is because they are not consistent and have results that vary wildly with one another, and there are numerous assumptions that must be made . Creation scientists have done their own calculations and shown how secular systems are flawed. Further, a Genesis Flood model is a far better fit for the facts. Have you ever pulled apart a large mass of taffy and watched it break into two approximately equal masses? This is an illustration of what happens in the subatomic world when a 238 U or 235 U atom undergoes splitting, or fission. Nuclea

Carbon Dating and the Biblical Timeline

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Mockers reject the biblical timeline for several reasons, most of them superficial. Some will say that there were civilizations in existence thousands of years before the Old Testament was written, but scoffers accept questionable sources while rejecting biblical material out of hand. Sumerian kings were listed as living thousands of years, and the Egyptian chronologies are in doubt . Add to questionable history the inaccurate results of carbon dating, and mockers have their biases confirmed. Triceratops image source: Good Free Photos Elsewhere, we considered dealing with discrepancies between secular geology and the global Genesis Flood . This post brings up related material. Although most readers probably know this, carbon dating does not work for deep time or the age of the earth. It only works on things that are or were organic. That means dinosaur bones and pottery discovered in rock layers that are assumed to be millions of years old can be tested, but they yield far youn