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Radiometric dating gives unreliable results.

Independent measurements, using different and independent radiometric techniques, give consistent results (Dalrymple 2000; Lindsay 1999; Meert 2000). Such results cannot be explained either by chance or by a systematic error in decay rate assumptions. Radiometric dates are cons...

Dalrymple, G. Brent, 2000. Radiometric dating does work! Some examples and a critique of a failed creationist strategy. Reports of the National Center for Science Education 20(3): 14-17. http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol20/6061_ra...

Cosmic rays and free neutrinos, such as might be produced by nearby supernovas or the reversal of the earth's magnetic field, might affect the decay rates of radioactive elements, invalidating such radiometric dating methods as carbon-14, uranium-lead, and potassium-argon.

...ould be different from expectations. To get unweathered rocks, rocks for radiometric dating are usually taken from some depth into an outcrop, where cosmic rays have insignificant effect. Radiation high enough to affect nuclear decay rates by several orders of magnitude (a change great enough...

Young, Davis A., 1988. Christianity and the Age of the Earth . Thousand Oaks, CA: Artisan Sales. Previous Claim: CD002 | List of Claims | Next Claim: CD010 created 2003-8-13, modified 2004-9-8

The use of radiometric dating in geology involves a very selective acceptance of data. Most discrepant dates are not published. This selective reporting may account for consistencies in the data; internal consistencies, mineral-pair concordances, and agreement between differing dating methods may be illusory.

...e chance results (Henke n.d.). As creationists are fond of pointing out, radiometric dating is complicated by geological processes such as metamorphism and weathering, which can interfere with the assumptions that the dating methods use. As creationists do not point out, though, geologists kn...

Henke, Kevin R., n.d. How can Woodmorappe sell us a bill of goods if he doesn't know the costs? http://noanswersingenesis.org.au/woodmorappe_bill_of_goods_henke.htm Previous Claim: CD016 | List of Claims | Next Claim: CD...

The KBS Tuff is an ash layer in the Koobi Fora Formation east of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya. It is significant because hominid fossils and artifacts were found in and under it, so its age gives a minimum age of the fossils. Various attempts to date it have yielded a wide range of different results, from 0.52 to 220 million years. The dating of the KBS Tuff exposes the fallacies of radiometric dating. "Good" dates are chosen to accord with accepted dates of fossils, while anomalous dates may not be reported at all. And in practice, it is impossible to be sure one has selected uncontaminated samples.

The KBS Tuff controversy illustrates many of the problems with radiometric dating, but it equally illustrates that the problems are not insurmountable. The KBS Tuff (for "Kay Behrensmeyer Site," after the geologist who first described it) is a layer of redeposited volcanic ash, so i...

...G. H. Curtis, T. E. Cerling, B. W. Cerling and J. Hampel, 1980. KBS Tuff dating and geochronology of tuffaceous sediments in the Koobi Fora and Shungura Formations, East Africa. Nature 283: 368-372. Fitch, F. J. and J. A. Miller. 1970. Radioisotopic age determinations of Lake Rudolf artefact...

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Fossils are used to determine the order and dates of the strata in which they are found. But the fossil order itself is based on the order of strata and the assumption of evolution. Therefore, using fossil progression as evidence for evolution is circular reasoning.

...y by which strata are above others. Some strata are dated absolutely via radiometric dating. These methods are sufficient to determine a great deal of stratigraphy. Some fossils are seen to occur only in certain strata. Such fossils can be used as index fossils. When these fossils exist, they...

Radiometric dating falsely assumes that the rocks being dated are closed systems. It inappropriately assumes that no parent or daughter isotopes were added or removed via other processes through the history of the sample.

...rtheless, many rocks approximate closed systems so closely that multiple radiometric dating methods produce consistent results, within 1 percent of each other. Some rocks may be open to outside contamination, but not all of them are. Most ages are determined from multiple mineral and rock sam...

Faure, Gunter, 1998. Principles and Applications of Geochemistry , 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Radiometric dating falsely assumes that initial conditions are known, that none of the daughter components are in the mineral initially.

...e that the initial parent or daughter concentrations are known. In basic radiometric dating, a parent isotope (call it P) decays to a daughter isotope (D) at a predictable rate. The age can be calculated from the ratio daughter isotope to parent isotope in a sample. However, this assumes that...

Dalrymple, G. Brent, 1991. The Age of the Earth . Stanford: Stanford University Press. Previous Claim: CD001 | List of Claims | Next Claim: CD004 created 2003-4-19, modified 2004-9-3

Previous Introduction Next RADIOMETRIC DATING The question of the ages of the Earth and its rock formations and features has fascinated philosophers, theologians, and scientists for centuries, primarily because the answers put our lives in temporal perspective. Until the 18th century, t...

...adioactive isotopes were reasonably well known. By the early 1960s, most of the major radiometric dating techniques now in use had been tested and their general limitations were known. No technique, of course, is ever completely perfected and refinement continues to this day, but for more than two decades radiometric dating methods have been us...

...pletely perfected and refinement continues to this day, but for more than two decades radiometric dating methods have been used to measure reliably the ages of rocks, the Earth, meteorites, and, since 1969, the Moon. Radiometric dating is based on the decay of long-lived radioactive isotopes that occur naturally in rocks and minerals. These par...

Other Links: A Radiometric Dating Resource List Tim Thompson has collected a large set of links to web pages that discuss radiometric dating techniques and the age of the earth controversy. Overview Introduction Background Stratigraphic principles & relative time Biostratigr...

...source List Tim Thompson has collected a large set of links to web pages that discuss radiometric dating techniques and the age of the earth controversy. Overview Introduction Background Stratigraphic principles & relative time Biostratigraphy Radiometric dating: Calibrating the time scale A theoretical example Circularity? Specific examples: W...

...view Introduction Background Stratigraphic principles & relative time Biostratigraphy Radiometric dating: Calibrating the time scale A theoretical example Circularity? Specific examples: When radiometric dating "just works" (or not) Conclusions References Other sources Acknowledgements Introduction This document discusses the way radiometric da...

...ears. One particular Precambrian layer known as the Cardenas Basalt has been dated by radiometric methods to about 1.1 billion years in age. The Cenozoic flows sampled by ICR thus are claimed to yield an age which is about 200 million years older than the Cardenas Basalt. But the Cardenas Basalt cannot be younger than the plateau flows, due to...

...he Rb-Sr isochron dating method, which is considered to be among the more reliable of radiometric dating methods, must be considered suspect. Background on ICR's claims and isochrons The damaging paper trail In order to understand what is going on, it is useful to examine the paper trail. Prior to ICR starting the Grand Canyon Dating Project, A...

...i) undertaken by the ICR to " test the ages assigned by the best radioactive isotope dating methods " (1992, p. i) . Dr. Austin suggests that the slope of his isochron line (indicating great age) is " unexpected " (1992, p. iii) and that his result " challenges the basic assumptions upon which the isochron dating method is based " (1992, p. iv...

...erial has been taken from a sheet entitled Several Faulty Assumptions Are Used in all Radiometric Dating Methods. Carbon 14 is used for this example:, which was put out by Dr. Hovind. Dr. Hovind (R1): The atmospheric C-14 is presently only 1/3 of the way to an equilibrium value which will be reached in 30,000 years. This nullifies the carbon-14...

...so have laboratory studies which support the constancy of all the decay rates used in radiometric dating. A great many experiments have been done in attempts to change radioactive decay rates, but these experiments have invariably failed to produce any significant changes. It has been found, for example, that decay constants are the same at a t...

...( Dalrymple, 1984 , p.88) Believe it or not, a number of creationist attacks against radiometric decay rates are aimed at a kind of "decay" called internal conversion (IC), which has absolutely nothing to do with the radiometric dating methods ( Dalrymple, 1984 , p.88). Harold Slusher, a prominent member of the Institute for Creation Research,...

...hris Stassen Copyright © 1994-1998 [Last update, September 17, 1998] Overview Generic radiometric dating Potential problems for generic dating Isochron methodology Why isochron data are colinear Miscellaneous notes Avoidance of generic dating's problems Initial daughter product Contamination - parent isotope Contamination - daughter isotope Exc...

...homogeneity? What is done with non-colinear plots? Further reading References Generic Radiometric Dating The simplest form of isotopic age computation involves substituting three measurements into an equation of four variables, and solving for the fourth. The equation is the one which describes radioactive decay: The variables in the equation a...

...ures used to fit isochron lines to data. General comments on "dating assumptions" All radiometric dating methods require, in order to produce accurate ages, certain initial conditions and lack of contamination over time. The wonderful property of isochron methods is: if one of these requirements is violated, it is nearly certain that the data w...

...depth where it is found. DO NOT use the type of rock in which it is found. DO NOT use radiometric date (these are practical only in non- fossil-bearing igneous rocks, and often disagree with each other). DO NOT use the `stage of evolution' of the fossil (that would be circular reasoning). DO use the Word of God (The Bible indicates that most of...

...sils must have been buried in one year--the year of the Flood)!" The Unreliability of Radiometric Dating "If God created a `very good,' functionally mature earth, it would already have possessed an array of isotopes and elements, including their `daughter' products. During the Biblical Flood especially, but even under normal circumstances, rock...

...gh to have produced the daughter amount through radio active decay. "Thus we see that radiometric schemes assume the concept of uniformity and deny the Biblical doctrines of Creation, Fall, Flood, and Young Earth. Little wonder the results of these methods commonly disagree with each other and with other geological and historical evidence." Exh...

...as "an age-dating agnostic", he was eager to share with us the fact that he alone had radiometrically dated the Mt. St. Helens lava dome. Using potassium/argon dating, he determined a lava dome age of 350,000 years. His unstated conclusion was that radiometric methods are unreliable and give all sorts of bogus dates. There are, however, several...

...ing, he determined a lava dome age of 350,000 years. His unstated conclusion was that radiometric methods are unreliable and give all sorts of bogus dates. There are, however, several other explanations of his results. First, Austin sent young, low-potassium (and therefore very low in radiogenic argon) rocks to Geochron Laboratories, which spec...

...old or older remains a possibility. Third, some of Austin's previous forays into the radiometric dating of rocks demonstrate that he is not an expert in this field. Austin is the head of the ICR's "Grand Canyon Dating Project". As such, he is committed to casting doubt on the radiometric ages of the lavas in the Grand Canyon. In a 1992 publica...

...bad science are concentrated in the ICR museum's explanations of the geologic column, radiometric dating, and the Flood. Is this the type of science that their graduate students learn? Here are examples of the misinformation and half-truths, along with my comments. The standard geologic column is found only in textbooks. Real local geologic col...

...en assembled from a variety of data, including index fossils, magnetic reversals, and radiometric dating of rocks. Why doesn't the ICR at least tell their patrons how the geologic column is really assembled? The sequences in the column were originally arranged in accordance with the order suggested by the so-called 'great chain of being', befor...

...d 10 myr-old limestones. They will tend to not contain the same fossils. Do not use a radiometric date (these are practical only in non-fossil-bearing igneous rocks, and often disagree with each other). The ICR neglects to inform its patrons that age of a sedimentary stratum can be bracketed by dating igneous rocks that lie above and below it,...