Carbon dating, Part 1!

Hello, I'm back!
I am here to make my first "official" post. The one 30 minutes ago doesn't count as it contained next to nothing information! Please note, when working with figures I try to round them, its just easier to read.

Well, if you read my previous post you would know that here I am going to talk about why carbon dating does not work. I will explain step by step. Here goes.

Allot of people would say carbon dating proves that the earth is millions of years old. They dated the fossils! Firstly I want to say that is not true. They determine what the age of the fossils are based on their position in the Geologic column, which doesn't exist anywhere, but in text books. (Later I might write about this.) They get a fossil in a layer and say, this is in this layer so it must be approximately this old. That is number one, not scientific proof, its a guess. And number two, stupid. As we will see when I am discussing the Geologic column.

Before I can explain why carbon dating doesn't work, everyone needs to know the science about it. I will summarize it here, it beats reading wikipedia! Even if you know how carbon dating works, read this, you might learn something new.

Firstly, you have to know, the earth's atmosphere is about 160 KM thick (about 100 miles)
The air is mostly nitrogen. About 78% A little bit of oxygen, about 21%, a little less than 1% argon and about 0.038% carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide is what plants use. If you would increase the amount of carbon dioxide, the plants would grow faster. There is an incredibly small amount of radioactive carbon 14. Now how is that possible? Well, the radiotion from the sun collides against the atmosphere and this produces radioactive carbon 14 (I will now refer to radioactive carbon 14 as C14), this then combines this the oxygen and creates carbon dioxide (I will now refer to carbon dioxide as CO2). So C14 is very very rare and it does not stay stable. It is always breaking apart. After it breaks apart it turns back into nitrogen. It disappears with the gas and then disappears with the air.

So C14 is being produced by the atmosphere by the sun and about half of it breaks down about every 5500 years. So in theory C14 will never be 0, it will be 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 etc.

Plants always breath in C14, during photosynthesis (A part of the CO2 is C14). Animals eat plants, and it is then part of their body. So continuously we are absorbing C14. We eat plants or eat animals that have eaten plants. Now, if we die, we are obviously not going to absorb any more C14.

Now here comes the big problem. Assumption, they are assuming something is true, but have no actual proof for it.
They assume, the amount of C14 found in the air is the same amount that are found in the animals. For example, the atmosphere has about 0.038% C14. It is assumed that all of us have the same. I don't know about anyone who has ever been tested for C14. It might be true, I don't know, but it is an assumption, that is where all the dangers come from.

When a plant or animal dies, the C14 begins to decay. And NOT being added again, unlike when the animals are alive. So carbon dating is basically measuring the amount of C14 in an object with the amount of carbon in the athmosphere. If the object has only half the amount in the athmosphere, they would assume its been dead for 1 half life. If it only has 1/4 as much its been dead for 2 half lifes. 2 times 5500. It continues like that. So they are comparing the amount in the object with the amount in the atmosphere. That is how carbon dating works. Lets look at a practical example.

I tell you fill a barrel full of water. And I make holes in the barrel. While you throw water in it will start to flow out. So its getting more and less at the same time. At some point you are going to reach the stage called the equilibrium. In other words, you will never fill the barrel past that point. Unless you increase the input or decrease the output.

So the atmosphere is constantly taking in C14 from the sun, and its constantly losing it. Now the question is, how long would it take the atmosphere to reach the equilibrium stage? After some test and stuff a while ago, they claimed it would take about 30 000 years. The whole problem is, we have not reached equilibrium yet. There is more C14 now than there was 50 years ago. Scientists say C14 is forming 29% faster than it decays. So, with some logic, it means the earth is less than 30 000 years old. And this is what (most) creationists have been saying all these years.

Lets look at another example.
If you walk into a room and you see a candle burning and I ask a very simple question, how long has the candle been burning? You would say you don't know, you just got here. I would say, ok, lets do some science, lets prove it by using tests. So the both of us are now working as a team to figure out how long has the candle been burning.

We decide we start by measuring its height. Lets say its about 18 CM tall (about 7 inches). So now, when was it lit? We don't know, we don't have enough information. So, lets measure how fast it burns. Lets say after careful measure we find out it burns 2.5 CM a hour (about 1 inch). Now when was it lit? You can't tell me unless you make an assumption!
#1. How tall was it?
#2. Has it always burnt at the same rate?
Doesn't matter what you choose it can't be proven.

So if you find a fossil in the dirt, all you know is that it died. The amount of C14 can be measured very precisely and a rate of decay can be determined. Now when did it live? No one has any idea, unless assumptions are made (the candle story above). To work out how old it was you would have to know how many C14 was in it when it was alive and if the earth atmosphere has reached equilibrium. Which it hasn't.

Now the bible says there was a water/ice canopy above the earth's atmosphere (a topic for another day). Now that canopy would keep out quite a bit of C14. So if you find an animal that died in the time of the big flood (when the canopy was also destroyed). So when carbon dating an animal that died in the flood, they would assume that when this animal lived the atmosphere was the same as it is today, which it wasn't according to the bible.

So thats why I believe carbon dating doesn't work. I wrote this entry very very fast so it might contain errors, please email me about those errors at mrtnstolk@gmail.com or pm me. Or even email me if you have any questions. I would be happy to answer them.

Feel free to leave your comments, but I ask everyone to try and be polite.

Thank you for reading this entry.
-Martin