answers in genesis - ken ham - creation vs evolution - how old is the earth (christian library)

CREATION • How Old is the Earth?

‘Evolution’ Rebuttals • Why does it Matter? • How Old is the Earth?Supposed Evidence • Design & Purpose • Voices for Creation • ‘Refuting Evolution’

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How Old is the Earth?

CREATION VS. EVOLUTION

A shattering critique of the PBS/NOVA television series ‘Evolution’ By Answers in Genesis

http://www.answersingenesis.org



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Table of Contents

The Earth: how old does it look? ....................................................................... 3 by Carl Wieland

Geology and the young Earth: Answering those ‘Bible-believing’ bibliosceptics ................................................................ 9 By Tas Walker

Evidence for a Young World.............................................................................. 15 By Russell Humphreys

How can we see distant stars in a young Universe? ..................................... 20 Extracted from The Revised & Expanded Answers Book, chapter 5

How accurate is Carbon-14 dating? ................................................................ 25 by Don Batten, Ken Ham, Jonathan Sarfati, and Carl Wieland

Geological conflict: Young radiocarbon date for ancient fossil wood challenges fossil dating.................................................. 36 by Andrew Snelling

Radio-dating in rubble: The lava dome at Mount St Helens debunks dating myths ..................................................... 43 by Keith Swenson




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The Earth: how old does it look?Even many of those who believe that the Earth is ‘young’ think that it looks ‘old’. But does it?

by Carl Wieland

First published in:Creation 23(1):8–13

December 2000–February 2001

The young man, a carpenter in his early twenties who had recently taken up downstairs lodging in my home, looked at me warily. ‘All right then,’ he said, ‘how old do you guys think the Earth is?’

I knew he had had no Christian upbringing, knew nothing of the Bible, and would have been thoroughly ‘evolutionized’ at school. I had just been telling him about my work for a creation ministry, and he was most curious. But when he asked his question about the Earth’s age, my inner response was, ‘Uh oh, here it comes.’

Knowing how people in our culture are indoctrinated with belief in an Earth millions of years old, I braced myself for the usual incredulous rejection when I said what I truly believed, ‘It’s only a few thousand years old—less than 10,000, probably around 6,000 years or so.’

To my surprise, he said, ‘That’s good.’

‘Why?’ I blurted out.

‘Because,’ he replied, ‘I’ve always thought it looked young.’

Pondering this incident at a later date, I realized that my own reaction (it blew my mind somewhat) showed that, however strong my conviction in the Biblical record, and however strong some recent-creation evidences might be, I had become unconsciously influenced by the notion that the Earth, though young, looks old.

In fact, there are many firmly Bible-believing Christians who think that way. Even in the ‘kosher’ creationist literature there are sometimes attempts to explain why the Earth has an ‘appearance of age’—i.e., looks old.

But in fact it’s easy to demonstrate that this cannot be true. Even if the Earth really were millions or billions of years old, one could not say that it ‘looked old’—that one glance at rock layers and canyons just ‘shouted’, ‘Old Earth!’. To justify that statement, I don’t even have to get into sophisticated references to modern philosophers of science, who agree that no facts ‘speak for themselves’ anyway. All we need do is remember that some of the greatest minds that ever lived, the fathers of modern science—Newton, for example—looked at the same Earth that we look at today, and did not ‘see’ millions of years. Just as the young carpenter, a truly independent thinker who had resisted the indoctrination of our age, did not ‘see’ the millions of years either.

The Earth is only seen as ‘looking old’ because we all take unconscious belief systems to the




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evidence. In other words, it could be said that the Earth looks neither old nor young—it all depends on the ‘belief glasses’ through which one is viewing (interpreting) the evidence. Or to put it another way, it is just as valid for me to say, looking at the world through the ‘lens’ of the Bible (rather than the humanistic, evolutionized lens of our culture), that it ‘looks young’ (i.e. thousands, not billions of years old).

Summarizing just some of the evidence that is consistent with a young age for the world:

1) THE CONTINENTS ARE ERODING TOO QUICKLY.

If the continents were billions of years old, they would have eroded by wind and water many times over. Mountain uplift and other ‘recycling’ processes are nowhere near capable of compensating for this.1

2) THERE IS NOT ENOUGH HELIUM IN THE ATMOSPHERE.

Helium, a light gas, is formed during radioactive alpha-decay in rock minerals. It rapidly escapes and enters the atmosphere much faster than it can escape Earth’s gravity.2 Even if God had created the world with no helium to begin with, the small amount in the atmosphere would have taken at most around two million years to accumulate. This is far less than the assumed 3,000-million-year age of the atmosphere.

3) MANY FOSSILS INDICATE THAT THEY MUST HAVE FORMED QUICKLY, AND COULD NOT HAVE TAKEN LONG TIME-SPANS.

a) Common fossils.

There are billions of fossil fish in rock layers around the world which are incredibly well-preserved. They frequently show intact fins and often scales, indicating that they were buried rapidly and the rock hardened quickly. In the real world, dead fish are scavenged within 24 hours. Even in some idealized cold, sterile, predator-free and oxygen-free water, they will become soggy and fall apart within weeks.3 A fish buried quickly in sediment that does not harden within a few weeks at the most will still be subject to decay by oxygen and bacteria, such that the delicate features like fins, scales, etc. would not preserve their form. Rapid burial in the many underwater landslides (turbidity currents) and other sedimentary processes accompanying Noah’s Flood would explain not only their excellent preservation, but their existence in huge deposits, often covering thousands of square kilometres.

b) Special examples.




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We’ve often featured in this magazine instances which are particularly spectacular, like the mother ichthyosaur apparently ‘freeze-framed’ in the process of giving birth. Then there are the fossil fish which are found either in the process of swallowing other fish or with undigested fish intact in their stomachs (see Creation magazine for photos—we had only one-off permission for some of them).

4) MANY PROCESSES, WHICH WE HAVE BEEN TOLD TAKE MILLIONS OF YEARS, DO NOT NEED SUCH TIME-SPANS AT ALL.

a) Coal formation.

Argonne National Laboratories have shown that heating wood (lignin, its major component), water and acidic clay at 150°C (rather cool geologically) for 4 to 36 weeks, in a sealed quartz tube with no added pressure, forms high-grade black coal.4

b) Stalactites and stalagmites.

Many examples in Creation magazine have shown that cave decorations form quickly, given the right conditions. The photo (in Creation magazine) is of a mining tunnel in Mt Isa, Queensland, Australia. The tunnel was only 50 years old when the photo was taken.

c) Opals.

Despite the common teaching that it takes millions of years to form opal, Australian researcher Len Cram has long been growing opal in his backyard laboratory. His opal (photo right, by Dr Cram) is indistinguishable, under the electron microscope, from that mined in the field. He was awarded an honorary doctorate (by a secular university) for this research. All he does is mix together the right common chemicals — no heat, no pressure, and definitely no millions of years.

d) Rock and fossil formation.

Scientists have long known that petrifaction can happen quickly. The ‘petrified’ bowler hat (above right, by Renton Maclachlan) is on display in a mining museum in New Zealand. The photo (above left) shows a roll of no. 8 fencing wire which, in only 20 years, became encased in solid sandstone, containing hundreds of fossil shells. Petrified wood can also form quickly under the right conditions—one process has even been patented.5

The famous multiple levels of ‘fossil forests’ in America’s Yellowstone National Park have now been shown to have formed in one volcanic event.6 Successive mudflows transported upright trees (minus most of their roots and branches) whose tree-ring signatures confirm that they grew at the one time.

5) THE OCEANS ARE NOWHERE NEAR SALTY ENOUGH.

Each year, the world’s rivers and underground streams add millions of tonnes of salt to the sea, and




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only a fraction of this goes back onto the land. Using the most favourable possible assumptions for long-agers, the absolute maximum age of the oceans is only a tiny fraction of their assumed billions-of-years age.7

DESPITE SOME inevitable unsolved problems in such a complex issue (see below for why radiomet-ric dating is not infallible), it is thus not hard to establish:

i) The reasonableness of believing what the Creator of the world says in His Word, the Bible, about the world being thousands, not millions or billions, of years old.

ii) The fact that the Earth neither ‘looks old’ nor ‘looks young’ as such—it all depends on the ‘glasses’ through which the evidence is interpreted. We all need to be aware of how much we have been conditioned by our culture to ‘see’ geological things as ‘looking old’.

THE EARTH IS OLD!

But let us stretch our minds still further. It concerns the way we use words such as ‘old’ or ‘young’ for the Earth’s age. I actually believe that the Earth is old—very old. It is thousands of years old—as many as six thousand, in fact. Does that angle surprise you? My point is to make us aware of how we have allowed our culture to condition us into thinking that a thousand years is a very short time, and that ‘old’ always means millions or billions of years.

That is why tourists, coming across the ‘petrified waterwheel’ in Western Australia gawk in amaze-ment. ‘It only took sixty years to cover this thing in solid rock?’ Sixty years, with water carrying dissolved limestone dripping night and day onto an object, is actually an incredibly long time. It is our culture, soaked in the myth of ‘deep time’, that has indoctrinated us into the belief that a million years (an unimaginable time period, in reality) is only like ‘yesterday’.

We need to recapture our thoughts from this enslavement to secular philosophy (see Colossians 2:8, 2 Corinthians 10:4–5). The Bible concurs with this way of looking at things. In 1 Chronicles 4:22, it refers to human records as ‘ancient’. But it is clear from the Bible’s genealogies that at the time of its writing, ‘ancient’ meant no more than some 4,000 years—certainly not billions. This realization puts things in perspective when Scripture also talks of ‘ancient mountains’ (Deuteronomy 33:15), an ‘ancient’ river (Judges 5:21) and ‘ancient times’ (Isaiah 46:10). Compared to a person’s lifetime, these things are indeed ancient—thousands of years old. The ‘millions of years’ idea is nowhere found in the Bible.

What’s more, accepting a billions-of-years time-span for creation (very common among evangelical leaders) undermines the testimony of Jesus Christ, the Creator of the world—see below. Not only that, but it turns the whole logic of the Gospel upside down, by putting the effects of the Curse before the Fall. Death, thorns, cancer, suffering and bloodshed millions of years before sin must be accepted if the fossils were laid down before people were created. Such thinking twists the Bible into foolish self-contradiction, because it would put death, the ‘last enemy’ (1 Corinthians 15:26) into a creation which God calls ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31).

So next time you hear someone say that the Earth ‘looks old’, you can respectfully disagree—it can look almost ‘any age you want’, depending on how you interpret the factual evidence through the belief system in your mind.

And if someone says the Earth is old—you can agree with them, so long as you define what you mean by old—it’s really, really old, in fact it’s ancient. Some six entire millennia have elapsed since God made the world (once perfect, now corrupted due to sin and the Curse) in six real days.




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JESUS AND THE AGE OF THE WORLD

The ‘secular timeline’, from an alleged ‘big bang’ to now, is accepted by most people in the evangelical Christian world, even though they would deny evolution. However, this puts people at the ‘end’ of creation (see diagram above). But in several places in the Bible, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator made flesh, makes it plain that this is wrong—people were there from the beginning of creation. This means that the world cannot be billions of years old.

For example, dealing with the doctrine of marriage, Jesus says in Mark 10:6, ‘But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female.’

In Luke 11:50–51, Jesus says:

‘That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias …’.

Romans 1:20 makes it plain that people can clearly see God’s power by looking at the ‘things that are made’, and that people have been able to see this ‘from the creation of the world’. Not billions of years after creation.

WHAT ABOUT THE RADIOACTIVE DATING METHODS?

Facts:

1. ALL dating methods (including ones that point to thousands, not billions of years, are based on assumptions—beliefs, no matter how reasonable-sounding, that you can’t prove, but must accept by faith. For example:

• Assuming how much of a particular chemical was originally present;

• Assuming that there has been no leaching by water of the chemicals in or out of the rock;

• Assuming that radioactive decay rates have stayed the same for billions of years, and more.

2. Radiometric ‘dating’ labs do not measure age—they measure amounts of chemicals, then from this they infer age, based on the underlying assumptions.




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3. When the assumptions are tested by measuring rocks of known age—e.g. recent lava flows—they often fail miserably.8

4. Objects of the same age, tested by different methods, have been shown to give ‘dates’ varying by a factor of a thousand.9

5. The fact that there is some consistency to radiometric dates is explained in part by the tendency to publish only data consistent with the ‘evolutionary age’ already ‘established’ by fossils. Most radioactive dating laboratories prefer you to tell them what age you expect. It is hard to see why this would be necessary if these were ‘absolute’ methods. The entire geological ‘millions of years’ system was largely in place, based on the philosophical assumptions of men like Charles Lyell and James Hutton, before radioactivity was even discovered. Where a radioactive date contradicts the ‘system’, it is invariably discarded.

6. If a ‘radiometric’ date and a ‘fossil’ (evolutionary) date conflict, the radiometric date is always discarded.

There are many other solid reasons for not accepting fallible man-made methods, such as radioactive ‘dating’, as an authority in opposition to the clear testimony of God’s infallible Word.

REFERENCES

1. Walker, T., Eroding ages, Creation 22(2):18–21, 2000.

2. Sarfati, J., Blowing old-Earth belief away, Creation 20(3):19–21, 1998.

3. Zangerl, R. and Richardson, E.S., The paleoecological history of two Pennsylvanian black shales, Fieldiana: Geology Memoirs 4, 1963 cited in Garner, P., Green River blues, Creation 19(3):18–19, 1997.

4. Organic Geochemistry 6:463–471, 1984.

5. Snelling, A., Instant petrified wood, Creation 17(4):38–40, 1995.

6. Sarfati, J., The Yellowstone petrified forests, Creation 21(2):18–21, 1999.

7. Sarfati, J., Salty seas: evidence the Earth is young, Creation 21(1):16–17, 1998.

8. Snelling, A., Radioactive ‘dating’ failure, Creation 22(1):18–21, 2000; Dalrymple, G. and Moore, J., Argon 40: Excess in submarine pillow basalts from Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii, Science 161:1132–1135, September 13, 1968.

9. Snelling, A., Radioactive dating in conflict, Creation 20(1):24–27, 1997; Snelling, A., Conflicting ‘ages’ of Tertiary basalt and contained fossilised wood, Crinum, Central Queensland, Australia, CEN Tech. J. 14(2):99–122, 2000.




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Geology and the young EarthAnswering those ‘Bible-believing’ bibliosceptics

By Tas Walker

First published in:Creation 21(4):16-20

September-November 1999

The hand-written note pinned to some photocopied pages was typical. ‘I wonder if you could help with a geological problem?’ The writer, a Bible-believing Christian, was confused. He had just encountered some tired old geological arguments attacking the straightforward Biblical account of Earth history—i.e., denying a recent creation and a global Flood on the basis of ‘geological evidences’.

A number of books in the last 25 years have stirred up these so-called ‘geological problems’ and undermined faith in the Bible for many people. Sadly, the ones which cause most confusion and distress are those written by professing ‘Bible-believers’.1,2,3,4

A curriculum writer with a Christian home school association wrote to us that he was ‘pretty well wiped out’ after reading these books.5 He wondered if we ‘might have answers to what these gentlemen say.’ We certainly have! Another person who had read some of them said, ‘I may have been overlooking information that cast doubts upon the recent creation model.’

Because the ‘recent creation model’ he refers to is simply what the Bible plainly says, he has really been caused to doubt the Bible.

The unsuspecting readers of such books, thinking they are getting something from ‘Bible-believing Christians’, expect encouragement and faith-building material. They are generally unprepared for the explosive mixture of heretical theology, poor science and vehement attacks on Bible-believers.

For example, the author Alan Hayward claims to be a ‘Bible-believing Christian’. However, he is a unitarian, which means he denies the tri-unity of God. The deity of Christ is clearly taught in the New Testament (e.g. John 1:1-14, 5:18; Titus 2:13)—yet Hayward denies this.6 Clearly, ‘Bible-believing’ Hayward chooses to reinterpret those parts of the New Testament with which he disagrees.

He works the same way with the Old Testament. Instead of accepting the clear teaching of Genesis, he reinterprets the passages to fit his billion-year preference for the age of the Earth.7

In so doing, of course, he introduces confusion and problems that destabilise readers. We are warned to beware of teachers who vandalise the clear teaching of Scripture to fit with their philosophy (Colossians 2:8).

Superficially, Hayward amasses an impressive battery of arguments as to why the Bible can’t mean what it says. Perhaps the single most important lesson from his book is his strategy itself. Each of his attacks on the Word of God elevates some other ‘authority’, whether derived from geology, astronomy, secular history or theology, above the Bible. This approach is as old as the Garden of Eden.

True knowledge begins with the Bible (Proverbs 1:7, Psalms 119:160; 138:2), and that is where we




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need to start. God was there when He created the world. He knows everything, does not tell lies, and does not make mistakes. It is from the Bible that we learn that the world is ‘young’.

If the Bible taught that the world was millions of years old,8 we would believe that. However, the concept of millions of years of death and suffering contradicts the Word of God, and destroys the foundation of the Gospel of Christ.

Many people find it difficult to accept that scientific investigation should start with the Bible. They think we can answer the question about the age of the Earth by coming to the evidence with an ‘open mind’. In fact, no one has an open mind. Evidence does not interpret itself; rather, everyone views the world through a belief framework. Unfortunately, as humans we never have all the information. So, when we start from the evidence, we can never be sure our conclusions are right—like in a classic ‘whodunnit’, just one piece of information can change the whole picture. By contrast, when we start from the Word of God, we can be sure that what it says is true.

Even if we can’t answer some of the apparent problems now, we can be confident that there is an answer. We may not find out about the answer on this side of eternity, but that would simply be because we did not have all the information necessary to come to the right conclusion. On the other hand, ongoing research may reveal the answer—and it often has, as we will see.

On first appearance, the evidence that Hayward assembles seems so overwhelming. But the problems he describes are easily answered—indeed many answers were known before he wrote his book. Either he was unaware of the answers, or he deliberately ignored them. Let’s look at some of the ‘science’ he presents so persuasively.

VARVES

A common argument against the Bible involves varves—rock formations with alternating layers of fine dark, and coarse light sediment. Annual changes are assumed to deposit bands with light layers in summer and dark layers in winter. It is reported that some rock formations contain hundreds of thousands of varves, thereby ‘proving’ the Earth is much older than the Bible says.9 But the assumption that each couplet always takes a year to form is wrong. Recent catastrophes show that violent events like the Flood described in Genesis can deposit banded rock formations very quickly. The Mount St Helens eruption in Washington State produced eight metres (25 feet) of finely layered sediment in a single afternoon!10 And a rapidly pumped sand slurry was observed to deposit about a metre (3-4 feet) of fine layers on a beach over an area the size of a football field (cross-section shown on the right: normal silica sand grains are separated by darker layers of denser mineral grains like rutile).11

When sedimentation was studied in the laboratory, it was discovered that fine bands form automatically as the moving water transports the different sized particles sideways into position (right).12 Surprisingly, the thickness of each band was found to depend on the relative particle sizes rather than on the flow conditions.13 A layered rock (diatomite) was separated into its particles, and when redeposited in flowing fluid, identical layers formed.14

Much is often made of the Green River varves,9 in Wyoming, USA. But these bands cannot possibly be annual deposits because well-preserved fish and birds are found all through the sediments.




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It is unthinkable that these dead animals could have rested on the bottom of the lake for decades, being slowly covered by sediment. Their presence indicates catastrophic burial. It is often claimed that the fish and birds remained in prime condition at the bottom of the lake because the water was highly alkaline and this preserved their carcasses.15 Yet highly alkaline water causes organic material to disintegrate, and that is why alkaline powder is used in dishwashers! Another problem for the varve explanation is that the number of bands is not consistent across the formation as it should be if they were annual deposits.16

EVAPORITES

Similar bands in some huge deposits containing calcium carbonate and calcium sulphate in Texas are also used to argue the case for long ages.17 One explanation says the deposits were formed when the sun evaporated seawater—hence the term ‘evaporite deposits’. Naturally, to make such large deposits in this way would take a long time. However, the high chemical purity of the deposits shows they were not exposed to a dry, dusty climate for thousands of years. Rather, it is more likely that they formed rapidly from the interaction between hot and cold seawater during undersea volcanic activity—a hydrothermal deposit.18

TOO MANY FOSSILS?

Another claim of bibliosceptics is that there are ‘too many fossils’.19 If all those animals could be resurrected, it is said, they would cover the entire planet to a depth of at least 0.5 metres (1.5 feet). So they could not have come from a single generation of living creatures buried by the Flood.20

Not surprisingly, the substance disappears when the detail is examined. The number of fossils is calculated from an abnormal situation—the Karroo formation in South Africa. In this formation the fossils comprise a ‘fossil graveyard’—the accumulation of animal remains in a local ‘sedimentary basin’.21 It is certainly improper to apply this abnormally high population density to the whole Earth. The calculation also uses incorrect information on today’s animal population densities and takes no account of the different conditions that likely applied before the Flood.22

TOO MUCH COAL?

Another argument used against the Bible time-line is that the pre-Flood world could not have produced enough vegetation to make all the coal.23 But again, this argument is based on wrong assumptions. The pre-Flood land area was almost certainly greater before all the Floodwaters were released onto the surface of the Earth. Also, the climate was probably much more productive before the Flood.24 Furthermore, it has been discovered that much coal was derived from forests which floated on water.25 So, calculations based only on the area of land would be wrong. And finally, the estimates of how much vegetation is needed are based on the wrong idea that coal forms slowly in swamps and that most of the vegetation rots. The Flood would have buried the vegetation quickly, producing a hundred times more coal than from a swamp.22

FOSSIL FORESTS

The petrified forests of Yellowstone National Park have often been used to argue against Bible chronol-ogy.26 These were once interpreted as buried and petrified in place—as many as 50 successive times, with a brand new forest growing upon the debris of the previous one. Naturally, such an interpretation would require hundreds of thousands of years to deposit the whole sequence and is inconsistent with the Bible time-scale. But this interpretation is also inconsistent with the fact that the tree trunks and stumps have been broken off at their base and do not have proper root systems. Furthermore, trees from different layers have the same ‘signature’ ring pattern, demonstrating that they all grew at the same time.27

Rather than 50 successive forests, the geological evidence is more consistent with the trees having been uprooted from another place, and carried into position by catastrophic volcanic mudflows—similar to




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what happened during the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980, where waterlogged trees were also seen to float and sink with the root end pointing downwards.28

PITCH

The origin of pitch is also used to ridicule the account of Noah in the Bible.29 Pitch is a petroleum residue, we are told, and creationists say that petroleum was formed by the Flood. So, where did Noah get the pitch to seal the Ark (Genesis 6:14)? This old argument stems from ignorance of how pitch can be made. The widespread use of petroleum is a 20th century phenomenon. How did they seal wooden ships hundreds of years ago before petroleum was available? In those days, pitch was made from pine tree resin.30 A huge pitch-making industry flourished to service the demand.

NOAH’S MUD-BATH?

Some attempts to discredit the Bible are wildly absurd—like the idea that there is too much sedimentary rock in the world to have been deposited by the one-year Flood. It is claimed that the Ark would have floated on an ocean of ‘Earthy soup’ and no fish could have survived.31 This argument takes no account of how water actually carries sediment. The claim naively assumes that all the sediment was evenly mixed in all the water throughout the Flood year, as if thoroughly stirred in a ‘garden fishpond’. Sedimentation does not occur like this. Instead, moving water transports sediment into a ‘basin’ and, once deposited, it is isolated from the system.12 The same volume of water can pick up more sediment as it is driven across the continents, for example, by earth movements during the Flood.

MORE (FORMER) PROBLEMS, MORE ANSWERS

Some similar geological problems which were once claimed to be ‘unanswerable’ for Bible-believers but for which there are now clear answers include:

Coral reefs need millions of years to grow.32 [Actually, what was thought to be ‘coral reef ’ turns out to be thick carbonate platforms, most probably deposited during the Flood.33 The reef is only a very thin layer on top. In other cases, the ‘reef ’ did not grow in place from coral but was transported there by water.34]

Chalk deposits need millions of years to accumulate.35 [Chalk accumulation is not steady state but highly episodic. Under cataclysmic Flood conditions, explosive blooms of tiny organisms like coccolithophores could produce the chalk beds in a short space of time.36]

Granites need millions of years to cool.37 [Not when the cooling effects of circulating water are allowed for.38]

At right: Cooling of a granite pluton by (a) conduction and (b) convection. The sizes of the arrows are proportional to the rate of heat flow to the surface. Convection dissipates the heat along fractures very quickly.

• Metamorphic rocks need millions of years to form.39 [Metamorphic reactions happen quickly when there is plenty of water, just as the Flood would provide.40]

• Sediment kilometres thick covering metamor-phic rocks took millions of years to erode.41 [Only at the erosion rates observed today. There is no problem eroding kilometres of sediment quickly with large volumes of fast-moving water during the Flood.]




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CONCLUSION

The section above shows some of the other arguments along this line that were once claimed to be ‘unanswerable’. If this article had been written some years earlier, we would not have had all those answers. We still don’t have all the answers to some others, but this does not mean that the answers don’t exist, just that no-one has come up with them yet. There may be new arguments in the future alleging to ‘prove’ that the Bible, or one of the previous answers, is wrong. And when these are answered, there might be new ones again. That is the nature of science. All its conclusions are tentative, and new discoveries mean that old ideas must be changed—that is why creationist research is important. But science ultimately can’t prove or disprove the Bible. Faith— but not a blind faith—is needed. It is not the facts that contradict the Bible, but the interpretations applied to them. Since we never will know everything, we must start with the sure Word of God in order to make sense of the world around us.

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. Hayward, Alan, Creation and Evolution: The Facts and Fallacies, Triangle, London, 1985.

2. Wonderly, D.E., God’s Time-Records in Ancient Sediments, Crystal Press, Michigan, 1977.

3. Morton, G.R., Foundation, Fall and Flood, DMD Publishing, Dallas, 1995.

4. Ross, H.N., The Genesis Question, NavPress, Colorado Springs, 1998.

5. John Holzmann, Sonlight Curriculum, letter and catalogue on file.

6. This was admitted in a letter to creationist David C.C. Watson—see his review of Hayward’s book in Creation Research Society Quarterly 22(4):198-199, 1986.

7. Hayward, Ref. 1, pp. 167 ff., ‘reinterprets’ the Bible to mean that God did not create in six days but only gave the orders to create (fiats). It then took billions of years for His orders to be executed. This idea not only contradicts the Bible but is inconsistent with evolutionary geology as well. It achieves nothing but added confusion.

8. The Hebrew writers could easily have described long ages if necessary, see Grigg R., How long were the days of Genesis 1? Creation 19(1):23-25, 1996; online at <http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/2452.asp>.

9. Hayward, Ref. 1, pp. 87-88.

10. Ham, K., I got excited at Mount St Helens! Creation 15(3):14-19, 1993.

11. Batten, D., Sandy stripes: Do many layers mean many years? Creation 19(1):39-40, 1997; online at <http://www.answersingenesis.org/Docs/458.asp>.

12. Julien, P., Lan, Y., and Berthault, G., Experiments on stratification of heterogeneous sand mixtures, CEN Technical Journal 8(1):37-50, 1994.

13. Snelling, A.A., Nature finally catches up, CEN Technical Journal 11(2):125-6, 1997.

14. Berthault, G., Experiments on lamination of sediments, CEN Technical Journal 3:25-29, 1988.

15. Hayward, Ref. 1, p. 215.

16. Garner, P., Green River Blues, Creation 19(3):18-19, 1997; online at <http://www.answersingenesis.org/Docs/213.asp>.

17. Hayward, Ref. 1, pp. 89-91.

18. Williams, E., Origin of bedded salt deposits, Creation Research Society Quarterly 26(1):15-16, 1989.

19. Hayward, Ref. 1, pp. 125-126.




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20. Creationists accept that some fossils formed post-Flood, but these are relatively few and do not alter the argument.

21. Froede, C., The Karroo and other fossil graveyards, Creation Research Society Quarterly 32(4), pp. 199-201, 1996.

22. Woodmorappe, J., The antediluvian biosphere and its capability of supplying the entire fossil record, in The First International Conference on Creationism, Robert Walsh (ed.), Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, p. 205-218, 1986.

23. Hayward, Ref. 1, pp. 126-128.

24. Higher atmospheric CO2 has been repeatedly shown to cause more luxuriant plant growth.

25. Wieland, C., Forests that grew on water, Creation 18(1):20-24, 1996; online at <http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1312.asp>. Also Scheven J., The Carboniferous floating forest - An extinct pre-Flood ecosystem, CEN Technical Journal 10(1):70-81, 1996, and Schönknecht, G., and Scherer, S., Too much coal for a young Earth? CEN Technical Journal 11(3):278-282, 1997; online at <http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1233.asp>. One of the ‘old-Earth’ authors dealt with here actually cited this paper without the question mark, implying that the paper presents a problem for young-Earthers, whereas it actually shows a solution. See Ross, Ref. 4, p. 152-153, 220 (notes 17 and 21).

26. Hayward, Ref. 1, pp. 128-130.

27. Morris, J., The Young Earth. Master Books, Colorado Springs, pp. 112-117, 1994,

28. Sarfati, J., The Yellowstone petrified forests, Creation 21(2):18-21, 1999; online at <http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4109.asp>.

29. Hayward, Ref. 1, p. 185; Ross, Ref. 4, pp. 153-4.

30. Walker, T., The pitch for Noah’s Ark. Creation 7(1):20, 1984; online at <http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1115.asp>. See also: ‘Naval stores’, The New Encyclopaedia Britan-nica 8:564-565, 15th Ed., Chicago, 1992.

31. Hayward, Ref. 1, p. 122.

32. Hayward, Ref. 1, p. 84-87.

33. Oard, M.J. The paradox of Pacific guyots and a possible solution for the thick ‘reefal’ limestone on Eniwetok Island, CEN Technical Journal 13(1):1-2, 1999.

34. Roth, A.A., Fossil reefs and time, Origins 22(2):86-104, 1995.

35. Hayward, Ref. 1, p. 91-92.

36. Snelling, A.A., Can Flood geology explain thick chalk beds? CEN Technical Journal 8(1):11-15, 1994.

37. Hayward, Ref. 1, p. 93.

38. Snelling, A.A. and Woodmorappe, J., Granites—they didn’t need millions of years of cooling, Creation 21(1):42-44, 1998; online at <http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3970.asp>.

39. Hayward, Ref. 1, p. 91-92.

40. Snelling, A.A., Towards a creationist explanation of regional metamorphism, CEN Technical Journal 8(1):51-57, 1994. Also: Wise, K., How fast do rocks form? In The First International Conference on Creationism, Robert Walsh (ed.), Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, pp. 197-204, 1986.

41. Hayward, Ref. 1, pp. 91-92.




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Evidence for a Young WorldBy Russell Humphreys

Here are a dozen natural phenomena which conflict with the evolutionary idea that the universe is billions of years old. The numbers I list below in bold print (often millions of years) are maximum possible ages set by each process, not the actual ages. The numbers in italics are the ages required by evolutionary theory for each item. The point is that the maximum possible ages are always much less than the required evolutionary ages, while the Biblical age (6,000 to 10,000 years) always fits comfortably within the maximum possible ages. Thus the following items are evidence against the evolutionary time scale and for the Biblical time scale.

Much more young-world evidence exists, but I have chosen these items for brevity and simplicity. Some of the items on this list can be reconciled with an old universe only by making a series of improbable and unproven assumptions; others can fit in only with a young universe. The list starts with distant astronomic phenomena and works its way down to Earth, ending with everyday facts.

1. GALAXIES WIND THEMSELVES UP TOO FAST

The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic center with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer ones. The observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were more than a few hundred million years old, it would be a featureless disc of stars instead of its present spiral shape.1

Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion years old. Evolutionists call this ‘the winding-up dilemma’, which they have known about for fifty years. They have devised many theories to try to explain it, each one failing after a brief period of popularity. The same ‘winding-up’ dilemma also applies to other galaxies.

For the last few decades the favored attempt to resolve the dilemma has been a complex theory called ‘density waves’.1 The theory has conceptual problems, has to be arbitrarily and very finely tuned, and lately has been called into serious question by the Hubble Space Telescope’s discovery of very detailed spiral structure in the central hub of the ’Whirlpool’ galaxy, M51.2

2. COMETS DISINTEGRATE TOO QUICKLY

According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system, about 5 billion years. Yet each time a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical ages of 10,000 years.3

Evolutionists explain this discrepancy by assuming that (a) comets come from an unobserved spherical ‘Oort cloud’ well beyond the orbit of Pluto, (b) improbable gravitational interactions with infrequently passing stars often knock comets into the solar system, and (c) other improbable interactions with planets slow down the incoming comets often enough to account for the hundreds of comets observed.4 So far, none of these assumptions has been substantiated either by observations or realistic calculations.

Lately, there has been much talk of the ‘Kuiper Belt’, a disc of supposed comet sources lying in the




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plane of the solar system just outside the orbit of Pluto. Even if some bodies of ice exist in that location, they would not really solve the evolutionists’ problem, since according to evolutionary theory the Kuiper Belt would quickly become exhausted if there were no Oort cloud to supply it.

3. NOT ENOUGH MUD ON THE SEA FLOOR

Each year, water and winds erode about 25 billion tons of dirt and rock from the continents and deposit it in the ocean.5 This material accumulates as loose sediment (i.e., mud) on the hard basaltic (lava-formed) rock of the ocean floor. The average depth of all the mud in the whole ocean, including the continental shelves, is less than 400 meters.6

The main way known to remove the mud from the ocean floor is by plate tectonic subduction. That is, sea floor slides slowly (a few cm/year) beneath the continents, taking some sediment with it. According to secular scientific literature, that process presently removes only 1 billion tons per year.6 As far as anyone knows, the other 24 billion tons per year simply accumulate. At that rate, erosion would deposit the present amount of sediment in less than 12 million years.

Yet according to evolutionary theory, erosion and plate subduction have been going on as long as the oceans have existed, an alleged 3 billion years. If that were so, the rates above imply that the oceans would be massively choked with mud dozens of kilometers deep. An alternative (creationist) explanation is that erosion from the waters of the Genesis Flood running off the continents deposited the present amount of mud within a short time about 5000 years ago.

4. NOT ENOUGH SODIUM IN THE SEA

Every year, river7and other sources9 dump over 450 million tons of sodium into the ocean. Only 27% of this sodium manages to get back out of the sea each year.8,9 As far as anyone knows, the remainder simply accumulates in the ocean. If the sea had no sodium to start with, it would have accumulated its present amount in less than 42 million years at today’s input and output rates.9 This is much less than the evolutionary age of the ocean, 3 billion years. The usual reply to this discrepancy is that past sodium inputs must have been less and outputs greater. However, calculations which are as generous as possible to evolutionary scenarios still give a maximum age of only 62 million years.9 Calculations10 for many other sea water elements give much younger ages for the ocean.

5. THE EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD IS DECAYING TOO FAST

The total energy stored in the Earth’s magnetic field has steadily decreased by a factor of 2.7 over the past 1000 years.11Evolutionary theories explaining this rapid decrease, as well as how the Earth could have maintained its magnetic field for billions of years, are very complex and inadequate.

A much better creationist theory exists. It is straightforward, based on sound physics, and explains many features of the field: its creation, rapid reversals during the Genesis Flood, surface intensity decreases and increases until the time of Christ, and a steady decay since then.12 This theory matches paleomagnetic, historic, and present data.13 The main result is that the field’s total energy (not surface intensity) has always decayed at least as fast as now. At that rate the field could not be more than 10,000 years old.14

6. MANY STRATA ARE TOO TIGHTLY BENT

In many mountainous areas, strata thousands of feet thick are bent and folded into hairpin shapes. The conventional geologic time scale says these formations were deeply buried and solidified for hundreds of millions of years before they were bent. Yet the folding occurred without cracking, with radii so small that the entire formation had to be still wet and unsolidified when the bending occurred. This implies that the folding occurred less than thousands of years after deposition.15




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7. INJECTED SANDSTONE SHORTENS GEOLOGIC ‘AGES’

Strong geologic evidence16 exists that the Cambrian Sawatch sandstone—formed an alleged 500 million years ago—of the Ute Pass fault west of Colorado Springs was still unsolidified when it was extruded up to the surface during the uplift of the Rocky Mountains, allegedly 70 million years ago. It is very unlikely that the sandstone would not solidify during the supposed 430 million years it was underground. Instead, it is likely that the two geologic events were less than hundreds of years apart, thus greatly shortening the geologic time scale.

8. FOSSIL RADIOACTIVITY SHORTENS GEOLOGIC ‘AGES’ TO A FEW YEARS

Radiohalos are rings of color formed around microscopic bits of radioactive minerals in rock crystals. They are fossil evidence of radioactive decay.17 ‘Squashed’ Polonium-210 radiohalos indicate that Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene formations in the Colorado plateau were deposited within months of one another, not hundreds of millions of years apart as required by the conventional time scale18 ‘Orphan’ Polonium-218 radiohalos, having no evidence of their mother elements, imply either instant creation or drastic changes in radioactivity decay rates.19,20

9. HELIUM IN THE WRONG PLACES

All naturally-occurring families of radioactive elements generate helium as they decay. If such decay took place for billions of years, as alleged by evolutionists, much helium should have found its way into the Earth’s atmosphere. The rate of loss of helium from the atmosphere into space is calculable and small. Taking that loss into account, the atmosphere today has only 0.05% of the amount of helium it would have accumulated in 5 billion years.21 This means the atmosphere is much younger than the alleged evolutionary age. A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows that helium produced by radioactive decay in deep, hot rocks has not had time to escape. Though the rocks are supposed to be over one billion years old, their large helium retention suggests an age of only thousands of years.22

10. NOT ENOUGH STONE AGE SKELETONS

Evolutionary anthropologists say that the stone age lasted for at least 100,000 years, during which time the world population of Neanderthal and Cro-magnon men was roughly constant, between 1 and 10 million. All that time they were burying their dead with artefacts.23 By this scenario, they would have buried at least 4 billion bodies.24 If the evolutionary time scale is correct, buried bones should be able to last for much longer than 100,000 years, so many of the supposed 4 billion stone age skeletons should still be around (and certainly the buried artefacts). Yet only a few thousand have been found. This implies that the stone age was much shorter than evolutionists think, a few hundred years in many areas.

11. AGRICULTURE IS TOO RECENT

The usual evolutionary picture has men existing as hunters and gatherers for 100,000 years during the stone age before discovering agriculture less than 10,000 years ago.23 Yet the archaeological evidence shows that stone age men were as intelligent as we are. It is very improbable that none of the 4 billion people mentioned in item 10 should discover that plants grow from seeds. It is more likely that men were without agriculture less than a few hundred years after the Flood, if at all.24

12. HISTORY IS TOO SHORT

According to evolutionists, stone age man existed for 100,000 years before beginning to make written records about 4000 to 5000 years ago. Prehistoric man built megalithic monuments, made beautiful cave paintings, and kept records of lunar phases.25 Why would he wait a thousand centuries before using the same skills to record history? The Biblical time scale is much more likely.24




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REFERENCES

1. Scheffler, H. and H. Elsasser, Physics of the Galaxy and Interstellar Matter, Springer-Verlag (1987) Berlin, pp. 352–353, 401–413.

2. D. Zaritsky et al., Nature, July 22, 1993. Sky & Telescope, December 1993, p. 10.

3. Steidl, P.F., Planets, comets, and asteroids, Design and Origins in Astronomy, pp. 73–106, G. Mulfinger, ed., Creation Research Society Books (1983) 5093 Williamsport Dr., Norcross, GA 30092.

4. Whipple, F.L., Background of modern comet theory, Nature 263 (2 Sept 1976) 15.

5. Gordeyev, V.V. et al., The average chemical composition of suspensions in the world’s rivers and the supply of sediments to the ocean by streams, Dockl. Akad. Nauk. SSSR 238 (1980) 150.

6. Hay, W.W., et al., Mass/age distribution and composition of sediments on the ocean floor and the global rate of subduction, Journal of Geophysical Research, 93, No B12 (10 December 1988) 14,933–14,940.

7. Maybeck, M., Concentrations des eaux fluviales en elements majeurs et apports en solution aux oceans, Rev. de Geol. Dyn. Geogr. Phys. 21 (1979) 215.

8. Sayles, F.L. and P.C. Mangelsdorf, Cation-exchange characteristics of Amazon River suspended sediment and its reaction with seawater, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 41 (1979) 767.

9. Austin, S.A. and D.R. Humphreys, The sea’s missing salt: a dilemma for evolutionists, Proc. 2nd Internat. Conf. on Creationism, Vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1991) in press. Address, ref. 12.

10. Austin, S.A., Evolution: the oceans say no! ICR Impact No. 8 (Oct. 1973) Institute for Creation Research, address in ref. 21.

11. Merrill, R.T. and M. W. McElhinney, The Earth’s Magnetic Field, Academic Press (1983) London, pp. 101–106.

12. Humphreys, D.R., Reversals of the Earth’s magnetic field during the Genesis flood, Proc. 1st Internat. Conf. on Creationism (Aug. 1986, Pittsburgh) Creation Science Fellowship (1987) 362 Ashland Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15228, Vol. II, pp. 113–126.

13. Coe, R.S., M. Prévot, and P. Camps, New evidence for extraordinarily rapid change of the geomagnetic field during a reversal, Nature 374 (20 April 1995) pp. 687–92.

14. Humphreys, D.R., Physical mechanism for reversals of the Earth’s magnetic field during the flood, Proc. 2nd Intern. Conf. on Creationism, Vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1991) (ref. 12).

15. Austin, S.A. and J.D. Morris, Tight folds and clastic dikes as evidence for rapid deposition and deformation of two very thick stratigraphic sequences, Proc. 1st Internat. Conf. on Creationism Vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1986) pp.3–15. Address in ref. 12.

16. ibid., pp. 11–12.

17. Gentry, R.V., Radioactive halos, Annual Review of Nuclear Science 23 (1973) 347–362.

18. Gentry, R.V. et al., Radiohalos in coalified wood: new evidence relating to time of uranium introduction and coalification, Science 194 (15 Oct. 1976) 315–318.

19. Gentry, R. V., Radiohalos in a Radiochronological and cosmological perspective, Science 184 (5 Apr. 1974) 62–66.

20. Gentry, R. V., Creation’s Tiny Mystery, Earth Science Associates (1986) P.O. Box 12067, Knoxville, TN 37912-0067, pp. 23–37, 51–59, 61–62.




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21. Vardiman, L.The Age of the Earth’s Atmosphere: A Study of the Helium Flux through the Atmosphere, Institute for Creation Research (1990) P.O.Box 2667, El Cajon, CA 92021.

22. Gentry, R. V. et al., Differential helium retention in zircons: implications for nuclear waste management, Geophys. Res. Lett. 9 (Oct. 1982) 1129–1130. See also ref. 20, pp. 169–170.

23. Deevey, E.S., The human population, Scientific American 203 (Sept. 1960) 194–204.

24. Marshak, A., Exploring the mind of Ice Age man, Nat. Geog. 147 (Jan. 1975) 64–89.

25. Dritt, J. O., Man’s earliest beginnings: discrepancies in the evolutionary timetable, Proc. 2nd Internat. Conf. on Creat., Vol. I., Creation Science Fellowship (1990) pp. 73–78. Address, ref. 12. Creation Science Fellowship of New Mexico, Inc. P.O. Box 10550, Albuquerque, NM 87184 DRH September, 1999




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How can we see distant stars in a young Universe?How can light get to us from stars which are millions of light-years away in a universe which the Bible claims is only thousands of years old?

Extracted from The Revised & Expanded Answers Book, chapter 5

Some stars are millions of light-years away. Since a light-year is the distance traveled by light in one year, does this mean that the universe is very old?

Despite all the Biblical and scientific evidence for a young Earth/universe, this has long been a problem. However, any scientific understanding of origins will always have opportunities for research—problems that need to be solved. We can never have complete knowledge and so there will always be things to learn.

One explanation used in the past was rather complex, involving light traveling along Riemannian surfaces (an abstract mathematical form of space). Apart from being hard to understand, it appears that such an explanation is not valid, since it would mean that we should see duplicates of everything.

CREATED LIGHT?

Perhaps the most commonly used explanation is that God created light ‘on its way’, so that Adam could see the stars immediately without having to wait years for the light from even the closest ones to reach the Earth. While we should not limit the power of God, this has some rather immense difficulties.

It would mean that whenever we look at the behavior of a very distant object, what we see happening never happened at all. For instance, say we see an object a million light-years away which appears to be rotating; that is, the light we receive in our telescopes carries this information ‘recording’ this behavior. However, according to this explanation, the light we are now receiving did not come from the star, but was created ‘en route’, so to speak.

This would mean that for a 10,000-year-old universe, that anything we see happening beyond about 10,000 light-years away is actually part of a gigantic picture show of things that have not actually happened, showing us objects which may not even exist.

To explain this problem further, consider an exploding star (supernova) at, say, an accurately measured 100,000 light-years away. Remember we are using this explanation in a 10,000-year-old universe. As the astronomer on Earth watches this exploding star, he is not just receiving a beam of light. If that were all, then it would be no problem at all to say that God could have created a whole chain of photons (light particles/waves) already on their way.

However, what the astronomer receives is also a particular, very specific pattern of variation within the light, showing him/her the changes that one would expect to accompany such an explosion—a predictable sequence of events involving neutrinos, visible light, X-rays and gamma-rays. The light carries information recording an apparently real event. The astronomer is perfectly justified in interpreting this ‘message’ as representing an actual reality—that there really was such an object, which exploded according to the laws of physics, brightened, emitted X-rays, dimmed, and so on, all in accord with those same physical laws.




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Everything he sees is consistent with this, including the spectral patterns in the light from the star giving us a ‘chemical signature’ of the elements contained in it. Yet the ‘light created en route’ explana-tion means that this recorded message of events, transmitted through space, had to be contained within the light beam from the moment of its creation, or planted into the light beam at a later date, without ever having originated from that distant point. (If it had started from the star—assuming that there really was such a star—it would still be 90,000 light years away from Earth.)

To create such a detailed series of signals in light beams reaching Earth, signals which seem to have come from a series of real events but in fact did not, has no conceivable purpose. Worse, it is like saying that God created fossils in rocks to fool us, or even test our faith, and that they don’t represent anything real (a real animal or plant that lived and died in the past). This would be a strange deception.

DID LIGHT ALWAYS TRAVEL AT THE SAME SPEED?

An obvious solution would be a higher speed of light in the past, allowing the light to cover the same distance more quickly. This seemed at first glance a too-convenient ad hoc explanation. Then some years ago, Australian Barry Setterfield raised the possibility to a high profile by showing that there seemed to be a decreasing trend in the historical observations of the speed of light (c) over the past 300 years or so. Setterfield (and his later co-author Trevor Norman) produced much evidence in favor of this theory.1 They believed that it would have affected radiometric dating results, and even have caused the red-shifting of light from distant galaxies, although this idea was later overturned, and other modifications were also made.

Much debate has raged to and fro among equally capable people within creationist circles about whether the statistical evidence really supports c decay (‘cdk’) or not.

The biggest difficulty, however, is with certain physical consequences of the theory. If c has declined the way Setterfield proposed, these consequences should still be discernible in the light from distant galaxies but they are apparently not. In short, none of the theory’s defenders have been able to answer all the questions raised.

A NEW CREATIONIST COSMOLOGY

Nevertheless, the c-decay theory stimulated much thinking about the issues. Creationist physicist Dr Russell Humphreys says that he spent a year on and off trying to get the declining c theory to work, but without success. However, in the process, he was inspired to develop a new creationist cosmology which appears to solve the problem of the apparent conflict with the Bible’s clear, authoritative teaching of a recent creation.

This new cosmology is proposed as a creationist alternative to the ‘big bang’ theory. It passed peer review, by qualifying reviewers, for the 1994 Pittsburgh International Conference on Creationism.2 Young-Earth creationists have been cautious about the model,3 which is not surprising with such an apparently radical departure from orthodoxy, but Humphreys has addressed the problems raised.4 Believers in an old universe and the ‘big bang’ have vigorously opposed the new cosmology and claim to have found flaws in it.5 However, Humphreys has been able to defend his model, as well as develop it further.6 The debate will no doubt continue.

This sort of development, in which one creationist theory, c-decay, is overtaken by another, is a healthy aspect of science. The basic Biblical framework is non-negotiable, as opposed to the changing views and models of fallible people seeking to understand the data within that framework (evolutionists also often change their ideas on exactly how things have made themselves, but never whether they did).




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A CLUE

Let us briefly give a hint as to how the new cosmology seems to solve the starlight problem before explaining some preliminary items in a little more detail. Consider that the time taken for something to travel a given distance is the distance divided by the speed it is traveling. That is:

Time = Distance (divided by) Speed

When this is applied to light from distant stars, the time calculates out to be millions of years. Some have sought to challenge the distances, but this is a very unlikely answer.7

Astronomers use many different methods to measure the distances, and no informed creationist astronomer would claim that any errors would be so vast that billions of light-years could be reduced to thousands, for example. There is good evidence that our own Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light years across!

If the speed of light (c) has not changed, the only thing left untouched in the equation is time itself. In fact, Einstein’s relativity theories have been telling the world for decades that time is not a constant.

Two things are believed (with experimental support) to distort time in relativity theory — one is speed and the other is gravity. Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the best theory of gravity we have at present, indicates that gravity distorts time.

This effect has been measured experimentally, many times. Clocks at the top of tall buildings, where gravity is slightly less, run faster than those at the bottom, just as predicted by the equations of general relativity (GR).8

When the concentration of matter is very large or dense enough, the gravitational distortion can be so immense that even light cannot escape.9 The equations of GR show that at the invisible boundary surrounding such a concentration of matter (called the event horizon, the point at which light rays trying to escape the enormous pull of gravity and bend back on themselves), time literally stands still.

USING DIFFERENT ASSUMPTIONS …

Dr Humphreys’ new creationist cosmology literally ‘falls out’ of the equations of GR, so long as one assumes that the universe has a boundary. In other words, that it has a center and an edge—that if you were to travel off into space, you would eventually come to a place beyond which there was no more matter. In this cosmology, the Earth is near the center, as it appears to be as we look out into space.

This might sound like common sense, as indeed it is, but all modern secular (‘big bang’) cosmologies deny this. That is, they make arbitrary assumption (without any scientific necessity) that the universe has no boundaries—no edge and no center. In this assumed universe, every galaxy would be sur-rounded by galaxies spread evenly in all directions (on a large enough scale), and so, therefore, all the net gravitational forces cancel out.

However, if the universe has boundaries, then there is a net gravitational effect toward the center. Clocks at the edge would be running at different rates to clocks on the Earth. In other words, it is no longer enough to say God made the universe in six days. He certainly did, but six days by which clock? (If we say ‘God’s time’ we miss the point that He is outside of time, seeing the end from the beginning.)10

There appears to be observational evidence that the universe has expanded in the past, supported by the many phrases God uses in the Bible to tell us that at creation He ‘stretched out’11 (other verses




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say ‘spread out’) the heavens.

If the universe is not much bigger than we can observe, and if it was only 50 times smaller in the past than it is now, then scientific deduction based on GR means it has to have expanded out of a previous state in which it was surrounded by an event horizon (a condition known technically as a ‘white hole’—a black hole running in reverse, something permitted by the equations of GR).

As matter passed out of this event horizon, the horizon itself had to shrink—eventually to nothing. Therefore, at one point this Earth (relative to a point far away from it) would have been virtually frozen. An observer on Earth would not in any way ‘feel different’. ‘Billions of years’ would be available (in the frame of reference within which it is traveling in deep space) for light to reach the Earth, for stars to age, etc. — while less than one ordinary day is passing on Earth. This massive gravitational time dilation would seem to be a scientific inevitability if a bounded universe expanded significantly.

In one sense, if observers on Earth at that particular time could have looked out and ‘seen’ the speed with which light was moving toward them out in space, it would have appeared as if it were traveling many times faster than c. (Galaxies would also appear to be rotating faster.) However, if an observer in deep space was out there measuring the speed of light, to him it would still only be traveling at c.

There is more detail of this new cosmology, at layman’s level, in the book by Dr Humphreys, Starlight and Time, which also includes reprints of his technical papers showing the equations.12

It is fortunate that creationists did not invent such concepts such as gravitational time dilation, black and white holes, event horizons and so on, or we would likely be accused of manipulating the data to solve the problem. The interesting thing about this cosmology is that it is based upon mathematics and physics totally accepted by all cosmologists (general relativity), and it accepts (along with virtually all physicists) that there has been expansion in the past (though not from some imaginary tiny point). It requires no ‘massaging’—the results ‘fall out’ so long as one abandons the arbitrary starting point which the big bangers use (the unbounded cosmos idea, which could be called ‘what the experts don’t tell you about the “big bang”’).

CAUTION

While this is exciting news, all theories of fallible men, no matter how well they seem to fit the data, are subject to revision or abandonment in the light of future discoveries. What we can say is that at this point a plausible mechanism has been demonstrated, with considerable observational and theoretical support.

What if no one had ever thought of the possibility of gravitational time dilation? Many might have felt forced to agree with those scientists (including some Christians) that there was no possible solution—the vast ages are fact, and the Bible must be ‘reinterpreted’ (massaged) or increasingly rejected. Many have in fact been urging Christians to abandon the Bible’s clear teaching of a recent creation because of these ‘undeniable facts’. This reinterpretation also means having to accept that there were billions of years of death, disease, and bloodshed before Adam, thus eroding the Creation/Fall/Restoration framework within which the gospel is presented in the Bible.

However, even without this new idea, such an approach would still have been wrong-headed. The authority of the Bible should never be compromised as mankind’s ‘scientific’ proposals. One little previously unknown fact, or one change in a starting assumption, can drastically alter the whole picture so that what was ‘fact’ is no longer so.

This is worth remembering when dealing with those other areas of difficulty which, despite the substantial evidence for Genesis creation, still remain. Only God possesses infinite knowledge. By




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basing our scientific research on the assumption that His Word is true (instead of the assumption that it is wrong or irrelevant) our scientific theories are much more likely, in the long run, to come to accurately represent reality.

FOOTNOTES

1. T.G. Norman and B. Setterfield, The Atomic Constants, Light and Time (privately published, 1990).

2. D. Russell Humphreys, Progress Toward a Young-Earth Relativistic Cosmology, Proceedings 3rd ICC, Pittsburgh, 1994, pp. 267–286.

3. J. Byl, On Time Dilation in Cosmology, Creation Research Society Quarterly, 1997, 34(1):26–32.

4. D.R. Humphreys, It’s Just a Matter of Time, Creation Research Society Quarterly, 1997, 34(1):32–34.

5. S.R. Conner and D.N. Page, Starlight and Time is the Big Bang, CEN Technical Journal, 1998, 12(2):174–194.

6. D.R. Humphreys, New Vistas of Space-time Rebut the Critics, CEN Technical Journal, 1998, 12(2):195–212.

7. Many billions of stars exist, many just like our own sun, according to the analysis of the light coming from them. Such numbers of stars have to be distributed through a huge volume of space, otherwise we would all be fried.

8. The demonstrable usefulness of GR in physics can be separated from certain ‘philosophical baggage’ that some have illegitimately attached to it, and to which some Christians have objected.

9. Such an object is called a ‘black hole’.

10. Genesis 1:1; Ecclesiastes 3:11; Isaiah 26:4; Romans 1:20; 1 Timothy 1:17; and Hebrews 11:3. Interestingly, according to GR, time does not exist without matter.

11. For example, Isaiah 42:5; Jeremiah 10:12; Zechariah 12:1.

12. D. Russell Humphreys, Starlight and Time (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1994).




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How accurate is Carbon-14 dating? by Don Batten, Ken Ham, Jonathan Sarfati, and Carl Wieland

adapted from: The Revised & Expanded Answers Book

People who ask about carbon-14 (14C) dating usually want to know about the radiometric1 dating methods that are claimed to give millions and billions of years—carbon dating can only give thousands of years. People wonder how millions of years could be squeezed into the Biblical account of history.

Clearly, such huge time periods cannot be fitted into the Bible without compromising what the Bible says about the goodness of God and the origin of sin, death and suffering—the reason Jesus came into the world.

Christians, by definition, take the statements of Jesus Christ seriously. He said, ‘But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female’ (Mark 10:6). This only makes sense with a time-line beginning with the creation week thousands of years ago. It makes no sense at all if man appeared at the end of billions of years.

We will deal with carbon dating first and then with the other dating methods.

HOW THE CARBON CLOCK WORKS

Carbon has unique properties that are essential for life on Earth. Familiar to us as the black substance in charred wood, as diamonds, and the graphite in ‘lead’ pencils, carbon comes in several forms, or isotopes. One rare form has atoms that are 14 times as heavy as hydrogen atoms: carbon-14, or 14C, or radiocarbon.

Carbon-14 is made when cosmic rays knock neutrons out of atomic nuclei in the upper atmosphere. These displaced neutrons, now moving fast, hit ordinary nitrogen (14N) at lower altitudes, converting it into 14C. Unlike common carbon (12C), 14C is unstable and slowly decays, changing it back to nitrogen and releasing energy. This instability makes it radioactive.

Ordinary carbon (12C)is found in the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air, which is taken up by plants,

which in turn are eaten by animals. So a bone, or a leaf or a tree, or even a piece of wooden furniture, contains carbon. When the 14C has been formed, like ordinary carbon (12C), it combines with oxygen to give carbon dioxide (14CO

2), and so it also gets cycled through the cells of plants and animals.

We can take a sample of air, count how many 12C atoms there are for every 14C atom, and calculate the 14C/12C ratio. Because 14C is so well mixed up with 12C, we expect to find that this ratio is the same if we sample a leaf from a tree, or a part of your body.

In living things, although 14C atoms are constantly changing back to 14N, they are still exchanging carbon with their surroundings, so the mixture remains about the same as in the atmosphere. However, as soon as a plant or animal dies, the 14C atoms which decay are no longer replaced, so the amount of 14C in that once-living thing decreases as time goes on. In other words, the 14C/12C ratio




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gets smaller. So, we have a ‘clock’ which starts ticking the moment something dies.

Obviously, this works only for things which were once living. It cannot be used to date volcanic rocks, for example.

The rate of decay of 14C is such that half of an amount will convert back to 14N in 5,730 years (plus or minus 40 years). This is the ‘half-life.’ So, in two half-lives, or 11,460 years, only one-quarter of that in living organisms at present, then it has a theoretical age of 11,460 years. Anything over about 50,000 years old, should theoretically have no detectable 14C left. That is why radiocarbon dating cannot give millions of years. In fact, if a sample contains 14C, it is good evidence that it is not millions of years old.

However, things are not quite so simple. First, plants discriminate against carbon dioxide containing 14C. That is, they take up less than would be expected and so they test older than they really are. Furthermore, different types of plants discriminate differently. This also has to be corrected for.2

Second, the ratio of 14C/12C in the atmosphere has not been constant—for example, it was higher before the industrial era when the massive burning of fossil fuels released a lot of carbon dioxide that was depleted in 14C. This would make things which died at that time appear older in terms of carbon dating. Then there was a rise in 14CO

2 with the advent of atmospheric testing of atomic

bombs in the 1950s.3 This would make things carbon-dated from that time appear younger than their true age.

Measurement of 14C in historically dated objects (e.g., seeds in the graves of historically dated tombs) enables the level of 14C in the atmosphere at that time to be estimated, and so partial calibration of the ‘clock’ is possible. Accordingly, carbon dating carefully applied to items from historical times can be useful. However, even with such historical calibration, archaeologists do not regard 14C dates as absolute because of frequent anomalies. They rely more on dating methods that link into historical records.

Outside the range of recorded history, calibration of the 14C ‘clock’ is not possible.4

OTHER FACTORS AFFECTING CARBON DATING

The amount of cosmic rays penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere affects the amount of 14C produced and therefore dating the system. The amount of cosmic rays reaching the Earth varies with the sun’s activity, and with the Earth’s passage through magnetic clouds as the solar system travels around the Milky Way galaxy.

The strength of the Earth’s magnetic field affects the amount of cosmic rays entering the atmosphere. A stronger magnetic field deflects more cosmic rays away from the Earth. Overall, the energy of the Earth’s magnetic field has been decreasing,5 so more 14C is being produced now than in the past. This will make old things look older than they really are.

Also, the Genesis Flood would have greatly upset the carbon balance. The Flood buried a huge amount of carbon, which became coal, oil, etc., lowering the total 12C in the biosphere (including the atmosphere—plants regrowing after the Flood absorb CO

2, which is not replaced by the decay of the

buried vegetation). Total 14C is also proportionately lowered at this time, but whereas no terrestrial process generates any more 12C, 14C is continually being produced, and at a rate which does not depend on carbon levels (it comes from nitrogen). Therefore, the 14C/12C ratio in plants/animals/the atmosphere before the Flood had to be lower than what it is now.

Unless this effect (which is additional to the magnetic field issue just discussed) were corrected for, carbon dating of fossils formed in the Flood would give ages much older than the true ages.




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Creationist researchers have suggested that dates of 35,000–45,000 years should be re-calibrated to the Biblical date of the Flood.6 Such a re-calibration makes sense of anomalous data from carbon dating—for example, very discordant ‘dates’ for different parts of a frozen musk ox carcass from Alaska and an inordinately slow rate of accumulation of ground sloth dung pellets in the older layers of a cave where the layers were carbon dated.7

Also, volcanoes emit much CO2 depleted in 14C. Since the Flood was accompanied by much

volcanism, fossils formed in the early post-Flood period would give radiocarbon ages older than they really are.

In summary, the carbon-14 method, when corrected for the effects of the Flood, can give useful results, but needs to be applied carefully. It does not give dates of millions of years and when corrected properly fits well with the Biblical Flood.

OTHER RADIOMETRIC DATING METHODS

There are various other radiometric dating methods used today to give ages of millions or billions of years for rocks. These techniques, unlike carbon dating, mostly use the relative concentrations of parent and daughter products in radioactive decay chains. For example, potassium-40 decays to argon-40; uranium-238 decays to lead-206 via other elements like radium; uranium-235 decays to lead-207; rubidium-87 decays to strontium-87; etc. These techniques are applied to igneous rocks, and are normally seen as giving the time since solidification.

The isotope concentrations can be measured very accurately, but isotope concentrations are not dates. To derive ages from such measurements, unprovable assumptions have to be made such as:

1. The starting conditions are known (for example, that there was no daughter isotope present at the start, or that we know how much was there).

2. Decay rates have always been constant.

3. Systems were closed or isolated so that no parent or daughter isotopes were lost or added.

THERE ARE PATTERNS IN THE ISOTOPE DATA

There is plenty of evidence that the radioisotope dating systems are not the infallible techniques many think, and that they are not measuring millions of years. However, there are still patterns to be explained. For example, deeper rocks often tend to give older ‘ages.’ Creationists agree that the deeper rocks are generally older, but not by millions of years. Geologist John Woodmorappe, in his devastating critique of radioactive dating,8 points out that there are other large-scale trends in the rocks that have nothing to do with radioactive decay.

‘BAD’ DATES

When a ‘date’ differs from that expected, researchers readily invent excuses for rejecting the result. The common application of such posterior reasoning shows that radiometric dating has serious problems. Woodmorappe cites hundreds of examples of excuses used to explain ‘bad’ dates.9

For example, researchers applied posterior reasoning to the dating of Australopithecus ramidus fossils.10 Most samples of basalt closest to the fossil-bearing strata give dates of about 23 Ma (Mega annum, million years) by the argon-argon method. The authors decided that was ‘too old,’ according to their beliefs about the place of the fossils in the evolutionary grand scheme of things. So they looked at some basalt further removed from the fossils and selected 17 of 26 samples to get an acceptable maximum age of 4.4 Ma. The other nine samples again gave much older dates but the authors decided they must be contaminated and discarded them. That is how radiometric dating works. It is very




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much driven by the existing long-age world view that pervades academia today.

A similar story surrounds the dating of the primate skull known as KNM-ER 1470.11 This started with an initial 212 to 230 Ma, which, according to the fossils, was considered way off the mark (humans ‘weren’t around then’). Various other attempts were made to date the volcanic rocks in the area. Over the years an age of 2.9 Ma was settled upon because of the agreement between several different published studies (although the studies involved selection of ‘good’ from ‘bad’ results, just like Australopithecus ramidus, above).

However, preconceived notions about human evolution could not cope with a skull like 1470 being ‘that old.’ A study of pig fossils in Africa readily convinced most anthropologists that the 1470 skull was much younger. After this was widely accepted, further studies of the rocks brought the radiometric age down to about 1.9 Ma—again several studies ‘confirmed’ this date. Such is the dating game.

Are we suggesting that evolutionists are conspiring to massage the data to get what they want? No, not generally. It is simply that all observations must fit the prevailing paradigm. The paradigm, or belief system, of molecules-to-man evolution over eons of time, is so strongly entrenched it is not questioned—it is a ‘fact.’ So every observation must fit this paradigm. Unconsciously, the researchers, who are supposedly ‘objective scientists’ in the eyes of the public, select the observations to fit the basic belief system.

We must remember that the past is not open to the normal processes of experimental science, that is, repeatable experiments in the present. A scientist cannot do experiments on events that happened in the past. Scientists do not measure the age of rocks, they measure isotope concentrations, and these can be measured extremely accurately. However, the ‘age’ is calculated using assumptions about the past that cannot be proven.

We should remember God’s admonition to Job, ‘Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?’ (Job 38:4).

Those involved with unrecorded history gather information in the present and construct stories about the past. The level of proof demanded for such stories seems to be much less than for studies in the empirical sciences, such as physics, chemistry, molecular biology, physiology, etc.

Williams, an expert in the environmental fate of radioactive elements, identified seventeen flaws in the isotope dating reported in just three widely respected seminal papers that supposedly established the age of the Earth at 4.6 billion years.12 John Woodmorappe has produced an incisive critique of these dating methods.13 He exposes hundreds of myths that have grown up around the techniques. He shows that the few ‘good’ dates left after the ‘bad’ dates are filtered out could easily be explained as fortunate coincidences.

WHAT DATE WOULD YOU LIKE?

The forms issued by radioisotope laboratories for submission with samples to be dated commonly ask how old the sample is expected to be. Why? If the techniques were absolutely objective and reliable, such information would not be necessary. Presumably, the laboratories know that anomalous dates are common, so they need some check on whether they have obtained a ‘good’ date.

TESTING RADIOMETRIC DATING METHODS

If the long-age dating techniques were really objective means of finding the ages of rocks, they should work in situations where we know the age. Furthermore, different techniques should consistently agree with one another.




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METHODS SHOULD WORK RELIABLY ON THINGS OF KNOWN AGE

There are many examples where the dating methods give ‘dates’ that are wrong for rocks of known age. One example is K-Ar ‘dating’ of five historical andesite lava flows from Mount Nguaruhoe in New Zealand. Although one lava flow occurred in 1949, three in 1954, and one in 1975, the ‘dates’ range from less than 0.27 to 3.5 Ma.14

Again, using hindsight, it is argued that ‘excess’ argon from the magma (molten rock) was retained in the rock when it solidified. The secular scientific literature lists many examples of excess argon causing dates of millions of years in rocks of known historical age.15 This excess appears to have come from the upper mantle, below the Earth’s crust. This is consistent with a young world—the argon has had too little time to escape.16 If excess argon can cause exaggerated dates for rocks of known age, then why should we trust the method for rocks of unknown age?

Other techniques, such as the use of isochrons,17 make different assumptions about starting condi-tions, but there is a growing recognition that such ‘foolproof ’ techniques can also give ‘bad’ dates. So data are again selected according to what the researcher already believes about the age of the rock.

Geologist Dr Steve Austin sampled basalt from the base of the Grand Canyon strata and from the lava that spilled over the edge of the canyon. By evolutionary reckoning, the latter should be a billion years younger than the basalt from the bottom. Standard laboratories analyzed the isotopes. The rubidium-strontium isochron technique suggested that the recent lava flow was 270 Ma older than the basalts beneath the Grand Canyon—an impossibility.

DIFFERENT DATING TECHNIQUES SHOULD CONSISTENTLY AGREE

If the dating methods are an objective and reliable means of determining ages, they should agree. If a chemist were measuring the sugar content of blood, all valid methods for the determination would give the same answer (within the limits of experimental error). However, with radiometric dating, the different techniques often give quite different results.

In the study of the Grand Canyon rocks by Austin, different techniques gave different results.18 Again, all sorts of reasons can be suggested for the ‘bad’ dates, but this is again posterior reasoning. Techniques that give results that can be dismissed just because they don’t agree with what we already believe cannot be considered objective.

In Australia, some wood found in the Tertiary basalt was clearly buried in the lava flow that formed the basalt, as can be seen from the charring. The wood was ‘dated’ by radiocarbon (14C) analysis at about 45,000 years old, but the basalt was ‘dated’ by potassium-argon method at 45 million years old!19

Isotope ratios or uraninite crystals from the Koongarra uranium body in the Northern Territory of Australia gave lead-lead isochron ages of 841 Ma, plus or minus 140 Ma.20 This contrasts with an age of 1550-1650 Ma based on other isotope ratios,21 and ages of 275, 61, 0,0,and 0 Ma for thorium/lead (232Th/208Pb) ratios in five uraninite grains. The latter figures are significant because thorium-derived dates should be the more reliable, since thorium is less mobile than the uranium minerals that are the parents of the lead isotopes in lead-lead system.22 The ‘zero’ ages in this case are consistent with the Bible.

MORE EVIDENCE SOMETHING IS WRONG—14C IN FOSSILS SUPPOSEDLY MILLIONS OF YEARS OLD

Carbon dating in many cases seriously embarrasses evolutionists by giving ages that are much younger than those expected from their model of early history. A specimen older than 50,000 years should have too little 14C to measure.




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Laboratories that measure 14C would like a source of organic material with zero 14C to use as a blank to check that their lab procedures do not add 14C. Coal is an obvious candidate because the youngest coal is supposed to be millions of years old, and most of it is supposed to be tens or hundreds of millions of years old. Such old coal should be devoid of 14C. It isn’t. No source of coal has been found that completely lacks 14C.

Fossil wood found in ‘Upper Permian’ rock that is supposedly 250 Ma old still contained 14C.23

Recently, a sample of wood found in rock classified as ‘middle Triassic,’ supposedly some 230 million years old, gave a 14C date of 33,720 years, plus or minus 430 years.24 The accompanying checks showed that the 14C date was not due to contamination and that the ‘date’ was valid, within the standard (long ages) understanding of this dating system.

It is an unsolved mystery to evolutionists as to why coal has 14C in it,25, or wood supposedly millions of years old still has 14C present, but it makes perfect sense in a creationist world view.

MANY PHYSICAL EVIDENCES CONTRADICT THE ‘BILLIONS OF YEARS’

Of the methods that have been used to estimate the age of the Earth, 90 percent point to an age far less than the billions of years asserted by evolutionists. A few of them follow.

• Evidence for a rapid formation of geological strata, as in the Biblical Flood. Some of the evidences are: lack of erosion between rock layers supposedly separated in age by many millions of years; lack of disturbance of rock strata by biological activity (worms, roots, etc.); lack of soil layers; polystrate fossils (which traverse several rock layers vertically—these could not have stood verti-cally for eons of time while they slowly got buried); thick layers of ‘rock’ bent without fracturing, indicating that the rock was all soft when bent; and more. For more, see books by geologists Morris26 and Austin.27

• Red blood cells and hemoglobin have been found in some (unfossilized!) dinosaur bone. But these could not last more than a few thousand years—certainly not the 65 Ma since the last dinosaurs lived, according to evolutionists.28

• The Earth’s magnetic field has been decaying so fast that it looks like it is less than 10,000 years old. Rapid reversals during the Flood year and fluctuations shortly after would have caused the field energy to drop even faster.29

• Radioactive decay releases helium into the atmosphere, but not much is escaping. The total amount in the atmosphere is 1/2000th of that expected if the universe is really billions of years old. This helium originally escaped from rocks. This happens quite fast, yet so much helium is still in some rocks that it has not had time to escape—certainly not billions of years.30

• A supernova is an explosion of a massive star—the explosion is so bright that it briefly outshines the rest of the galaxy. The supernova remnants (SNRs) should keep expanding for hundreds of thousands of years, according to physical equations. Yet there are no very old, widely expanded (Stage 3) SNRs, and few moderately old (Stage 1) ones in our galaxy, the Milky Way, or in its satellite galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds. This is just what we would expect for ‘young’ galaxies that have not existed long enough for wide expansion.31

• The moon is slowly receding from the Earth at about 4 centimeters (1.5 inches) per year, and this rate would have been greater in the past. But even if the moon had started receding from being in contact with the Earth, it would have taken only 1.37 billion years to reach its present distance from the Earth. This gives a maximum age of the moon, not the actual age. This is far too young for evolutionists who claim the moon is 4.6 billion years old. It is also much younger than the radiometric ‘dates’ assigned to moon rocks.32




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• Salt is entering the sea much faster than it is escaping. The sea is not nearly salty enough for this to have been happening for billions of years. Even granting generous assumptions to evolutionists, the sea could not be more than 62 Ma years old—far younger than the billions of years believed by the evolutionists. Again, this indicates a maximum age, not the actual age.33

Dr Russell Humphreys gives other processes inconsistent with billions of years in the pamphlet Evidence for a Young World (see p15).34

Creationists cannot prove the age of the Earth using a particular scientific method, any more than evolutionists can. They realize that all science is tentative because we do not have all the data, especially when dealing with the past. This is true of both creationist and evolutionist scientific arguments—evolutionists have had to abandon many ‘proofs’ for evolution just as creationists have also had to modify their arguments. The atheistic evolutionist W.B. Provine admitted: ‘Most of what I learned of the field [evolutionary biology] in graduate (1964-68) school is either wrong or significantly changed.’35

Creationists understand the limitations of dating methods better than evolutionists who claim that they can use processes observed in the present to ‘prove’ that the Earth is billions of years old. In reality, all dating methods, including those that point to a young Earth, rely on unprovable assumptions.

Creationists ultimately date the Earth historically using the chronology of the Bible. This is because they believe that this is an accurate eyewitness account of world history, which bears the evidence within it that it is the Word of God, and therefore totally reliable and error-free.

THEN WHAT DO THE RADIOMETRIC ‘DATES’ MEAN?

What the do the radiometric dates of millions of years mean, if they are not true ages? To answer this question, it is necessary to scrutinize further the experimental results from the various dating techniques, the interpretations made on the basis of the results and the assumptions underlying those interpretations.

The isochron dating technique was thought to be infallible because it supposedly covered the assump-tions about starting conditions and closed systems.

Geologist Dr Andrew Snelling worked on ‘dating’ the Koongarra uranium deposits in the Northern Territory of Australia, primarily using the uranium-thorium-lead (U-Th-Pb) method. He found that even highly weathered soil samples from the area, which are definitely not closed systems, gave apparently valid ‘isochron’ lines with ‘ages’ of up to 1,445 Ma.

Such ‘false isochrons’ are so common that a whole terminology has grown up to describe them, such as apparent isochron, mantle isochron, pseudoisochron, secondary isochron, inherited isochron, erupted isochron, mixing line and mixing isochron. Zheng wrote:

Some of the basic assumptions of the conventional Rb-Sr [rubidium-strontium] isochron method have to be modified and an observed isochron does not certainly define valid age information for a geological system, even if a goodness of fit of the experimental results is obtained in plotting 87Sr/86Sr. This problem cannot be overlooked, especially in evaluating the numerical time scale. Similar questions can also arise in applying Sm-Nd [samarium-neodymium] and U-Pb [uranium-lead] isochron methods.37

Clearly, there are factors other than age responsible for the straight lines obtained from graphing isotope ratios. Again, the only way to know if an isochron is ‘good’ is by comparing the result with what is already believed.




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Another currently popular dating method is the uranium-lead concordia technique. This effectively combines the two uranium-lead decay series into one diagram. Results that lie on the concordia curve have the same age according to the two lead series and are called ‘concordant.’ However, the results from zircons (a type of gemstone), for example, generally lie off the concordia curve—they are discordant. Numerous models, or stories, have been developed to explain such data.38 However, such exercises in story-telling can hardly be considered as objective science that proves an old Earth. Again, the stories are evaluated according to their own success in agreeing with the existing long ages belief system.

Andrew Snelling has suggested that fractionation (sorting) of elements in the molten state in the Earth’s mantle could be a significant factor in explaining the ratios of isotope concentrations which are interpreted as ages.

As long ago as 1966, Nobel Prize nominee Melvin Cook, professor of metallurgy at the University of Utah, pointed out evidence that lead isotope ratios, for example, may involve alteration by important factors other than radioactive decay.39 Cook noted that, in ores from the Katanga mine, for example, there was an abundance of lead-208, a stable isotope, but no Thorium-232 as a source for lead-208. Thorium has a long half-life (decays very slowly) and is not easily moved out of the rock, so if the lead-208 came from thorium decay, some thorium should still be there. The concentrations of lead-206, lead-207, and lead-208 suggest that the lead-208 came about by neutron capture conversion of lead-206 to lead-207 to lead-208. When the isotope concentrations are adjusted for such conversions, the ages calculated are reduced from some 600 Ma to recent. Other ore bodies seemed to show similar evidence. Cook recognized that the current understanding of nuclear physics did not seem to allow for such a conversion under normal conditions, but he presents evidence that such did happen, and even suggests how it could happen.

ANOMALIES IN DEEP ROCK CRYSTALS

Physicist Dr Robert Gentry has pointed out that the amount of helium and lead in zircons from deep bores is not consistent with an evolutionary age of 1,500 Ma for the granite rocks in which they are found.40 The amount of lead may be consistent with current rates of decay over millions of years, but it would have diffused out of the crystals in that time.

Furthermore, the amount of helium in zircons from hot rock is also much more consistent with a young Earth (helium derives from the decay of radioactive elements).

The lead and helium results suggest that rates of radioactive decay may have been much higher in the recent past. Humphreys has suggested that this may have occurred during creation week and the Flood. This would make things look much older than they really are when current rates of decay are applied to dating. Whatever caused such elevated rates of decay may also have been responsible for the lead isotope conversions claimed by Cook (above).

ORPHAN RADIOHALOS

Decaying radioactive particles in solid rock cause spherical zones of damage to the surrounding crystal structure. A speck of radioactive element such as Uranium-238, for example, will leave a sphere of discoloration of characteristically different radius for each element it produces in its decay chain to lead-206.41 Viewed in cross-section with a microscope, these spheres appear as rings called radiohalos. Dr Gentry has researched radiohalos for many years, and published his results in leading scientific journals.42

Some of the intermediate decay products—such as the polonium isotopes—have very short half-lives (they decay quickly). For example, 218Po has a half-life of just 3 minutes. Curiously, rings formed by polonium decay are often found embedded in crystals without the parent uranium halos. Now the polonium has to get into the rock before the rock solidifies, but it cannot derive from a uranium




33

speck in the solid rock, otherwise there would be a uranium halo. Either the polonium was created (primordial, not derived from uranium), or there have been radical changes in decay rates in the past.

Gentry has addressed all attempts to criticize his work.43 There have been many attempts, because the orphan halos speak of conditions in the past, either at creation or after, perhaps even during the Flood, which do not fit with the uniformitarian view of the past, which is the basis of the radiometric dating systems. Whatever process was responsible for the halos could be a key also to understanding radiometric dating.44

CONCLUSION

There are many lines of evidence that the radiometric dates are not the objective evidence for an old Earth that many claim, and that the world is really only thousands of years old. We don’t have all the answers, but we do have the sure testimony of the Word of God to the true history of the world.

FOOTNOTES

1. Also known as isotope or radioisotope dating.

2. Today, a stable carbon isotope, 13C , is measured as an indication of the level of discrimination against 14C.

3. Radiation from atomic testing, like cosmic rays, causes the conversion of 14N to 14C.

4. Tree ring dating (dendrochronology) has been used in an attempt to extend the calibration of the calibration of carbon-14 dating earlier than historical records allow, but this depends on temporal placement of fragments of wood (from long dead trees) using carbon-14 dating, assuming straight-line extrapolation backwards. Then cross-matching of ring patterns is used to calibrate the carbon ‘clock’—a somewhat circular process which does not give an independent calibration of the carbon dating system.

5. K.L. McDonald and R.H. Gunst, An Analysis of the Earth’s Magnetic Field from 1835 to 1965, ESSA Technical Report IER 46-IES, 1965, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C., p. 14.

6. B.J. Taylor, Carbon Dioxide in the Antediluvian Atmosphere, Creation Research Society Quarterly, 1994, 30(4):193-197.

7. R.H. Brown, Correlation of C-14 Age with Real Time, Creation Research Society Quarterly, 1992, 29:45-47. Musk ox muscle was dated at 24,000 years, but hair was dated at 17,000 years. Corrected dates bring the difference in age approximately within the life span of an ox. With sloth cave dung, standard carbon dates of the lower layers suggested less than 2 pellets per year were produced by the sloths. Correcting the dates increased the number to a more realistic 1.4 per day.

8. J. Woodmorappe, The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods San Diego, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1999.

9. Ibid.

10. G. WoldeGabriel et al., Ecological and Temporal Placement of Early Pliocene Hominids at Aramis, Ethiopia, Nature, 1994, 371:330-333.

11. M. Lubenow, The Pigs Took It All, Creation, 1995, 17(3):36-38.

M. Lubenow, Bones of Contention (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993), pp. 247-266.

12. A.R. Williams, Long-age Isotope Dating Short on Credibility, CEN Technical Journal, 1992, 6(1):2-5.




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13. Woodmorappe, The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods.

14. A.A. Snelling, The Cause of Anomalous Potassium-argon ‘Ages’ for Recent Andesite Flows at Mt. Nguaruhoe, New Zealand, and the Implications for Potassium-argon ‘Dating,’ Proc. 4th ICC, 1998, pp.503-525.

15. Footnote 14 lists many instances. For example, six cases were reported by D. Krummenacher, Isotopic Composition of Argon in Modern Surface Rocks, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 1969, 6:47-55. A large excess was reported in D.E. Fisher, ‘Excess Rare Gases in a Subaerial Basalt in Nigeria,’ Nature, 1970, 232:60-61.

16. Snelling, The Cause of Anomalous Potassium-argon ‘Ages’..., p. 520.

17. The isochron technique involves collecting a number of rock samples from different parts of the rock unit being dated. The concentration of a parent radioactive isotope, such as rubidium-87, is graphed against the concentration of a daughter isotope, such as strontium-87, for all the samples. A straight line is drawn through these points, representing the ratio of the parent:daughter, from which a date is calculated. If the line is of good fit and the ‘age’ is acceptable, it is a ‘good’ date. The method involves dividing both the parent and daughter concentrations by the concentration of a similar stable isotope—in this case, strontium-86.

18. S.A. Austin, editor, Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe (Santee, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1994), pp. 120-131.

19. A.A. Snelling, Radiometric Dating in Conflict, Creation, 1998, 20(1):24-27.

20. A.A. Snelling, The Failure of U-Th-Pb ‘Dating at Koongarra, Australia, CEN Technical Journal, 1995, 9(1):71-92.

21. R. Maas, Nd-Sr Isotope Constraints on the Age and Origin of Unconformity-type Uranium Deposits in the Alligator Rivers Uranium Field, Northern Territory, Australia, Economic Geology, 1989, 84:64-90.

22. Snelling, The Failure of U-Th-Pb ‘Dating....’

23. A.A. Snelling, Stumping Old-age Dogma. Creation, 1998, 20(4):48-50.

24. A.A. Snelling, Dating Dilemma, Creation, 1999, 21(3):39-41.

25. D.C. Lowe, Problems Associated with the Use of Coal as a Source of 14C Free Background Material, Radiocarbon, 1989, 31:117-120.

26. J. Morris, The Young Earth (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1994).

27. Austin, Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe.

28. C. Wieland, Sensational Dinosaur Blood Report! Creation, 1997, 19(4):42-43, based on M. Schweitzer and T. Staedter, The Real Jurassic Park, Earth, June 1997, pp. 55-57.

29. D.R. Humphreys, Reversals of the Earth’s Magnetic Field During the Genesis Flood, Proc. First ICC, Pittsburgh, PA, 1986, 2:113-126. J.D. Sarfati, The Earth’s Magnetic Field: Evidence That the Earth Is Young, Creation, 1998, 20(2):15-19.

30. L. Vardiman, The Age of the Earth’s Atmosphere: A Study of the Helium Flux through the Atmosphere (San Diego, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1990). J.D. Sarfati, Blowing Old-Earth Belief Away: Helium Gives Evidence That the Earth is Young, Creation, 1998, 20(3):19-21.

31. K. Davies, Distribution of Supernova Remnants in the Galaxy, Proc. Third ICC, R.E. Walsh, editor, 1994, pp. 175-184.




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32. D. DeYoung, The Earth-Moon System, Proc. Second ICC, 1990, 2:79-84, R.E. Walsh and C.L. Brooks, editors. J.D. Sarfati, The Moon: The Light That Rules the Night, Creation, 1998, 20(4):36-39.

33. S.A. Austin and D.R. Humphreys, The Sea’s Missing Salt: A Dilemma for Evolutionists, Proc. Second ICC, 1990, 2:17-33. J.D. Sarfati, Salty Seas: Evidence for a Young Earth, Creation, 1999, 21(1):16-17.

34. Russell Humphreys, Evidence for a Young World, Answers in Genesis, 1999.

35. A review of Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science (National Academy of Science USA, 1998) by Dr Will B. Provine, online at http://fp.bio.utk.edu/darwin/NAS_guidebook/provine_1.html, February 18, 1999.

36. See Woodmorappe, The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods, for one such thorough evaluation.

37. Y.F. Zheng, Influence of the Nature of Initial Rb-Sr System on Isochron Validity, Chemical Geology, 1989, 80:1-16 (p. 14).

38. E. Jager and J.C. Hunziker, editors, Lectures in Isotope Geology, U-Th-Pb Dating of Minerals, by D. Gebauer and M. Grunenfelder, New York: Springer Verlag, 1979, pp. 105-131.

39. M.A. Cook, Prehistory and Earth Models, London: Max Parrish, 1966.

40. R.V. Gentry, Creation’s Tiny Mystery, Knoxville, TN: Earth Science Associates, 1986.

41. Only those that undergo alpha decay (releasing a helium nucleus).

42. Gentry, Creation’s Tiny Mystery.

43. Ibid. K.P. Wise, letter to the editor, and replies by M. Armitage and R. Gentry, CEN Technical Journal, 1998, 12(3):285-90.

44. An international team of creationist scientists is actively pursuing a creationist understanding of radioisotope dating. Known as the RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) group, it combines the skills of various physicists and geologists to enable a multi-disciplinary approach to the subject. Interesting insights are likely to come from such a group.




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Geological conflict:Young radiocarbon date for ancient fossil wood challenges fossil dating

by Andrew Snelling


March–May 2000

For most people, the discovery of fossilised wood in a quarry would not be newsworthy. However, some pieces recently found embedded in limestone alongside some well-known ‘index’ fossils (see box) for the ‘Jurassic period’ (supposedly 142–205.7 million years ago) have proved highly significant.

It is not generally realised that index fossils are still crucial to the millions-of-years geological dating, in spite of the advent of radioactive ‘dating’ techniques. Not all locations have rocks suitable for radioactive ‘dating’, but in any case, if a radioactive ‘date’ disagrees with a fossil ‘date’ then it is the latter which usually has precedence.

Finding this fossil wood in Jurassic limestone suggested the possibility of testing for the presence of radiocarbon (14C). Most geologists, however, would not bother with such tests because they wouldn’t expect any 14C to still exist. With a half-life of only 5,570 years, no 14C should be detectable after about 50,000 years, let alone millions of years, even with the most sensitive equipment. So this fossilised wood from the Marlstone Rock Bed of Jurassic ‘age’ had potential for testing the validity of the fossil dating technique underpinning modern geology.

THE MARLSTONE ROCK BED

The Marlstone Rock Bed is a distinctive limestone unit that outcrops from Lyme Regis on the Dorset coast of southern England, north-eastwards to just west of Hull near the North Sea coast (Figure 1).1 In many places, the top 5–30 cm (2–12 inches) or more of this bed has been weathered and altered, the original green iron minerals2 being oxidized to limonite (hydrous iron oxides), and also in a few areas the sand content is higher. In the past, the outcrop has been quarried frequently for iron ore or building stone.

Evolutionary geologists consider that the top three metres (10 feet) of the Marlstone Rock Bed represent the whole of the Tenuicostatum Zone, the basal zone of the Toarcian Stage,1 the last stage of the Early Jurassic. This ‘dating’ is based on the presence of the ammonite index fossil Dactylioceras tenuicostatum.1

Thus the bed is said to be about 189 million years old according to the geological time-scale.3

Amongst the remaining quarries still ‘working’ the top of the Marlstone Rock Bed are the Hornton Quarries at Edge Hill near the village of Ratley, on the north-western edge of the Edge Hill plateau, some 101⁄2 km (61⁄2 miles) north-west of the town of Banbury (Figure 2). Building stone, known as ‘Hornton Stone’, has been quarried there since medieval times.4,5




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A ‘DATING’ TEST AT HORNTON QUARRIES

During two visits to the Hornton Quarries, it was established that fossil wood occurs alongside ammonite and belemnite index fossils (see box) in the ‘Hornton Stone’, the oxidized silty top of the Marlstone Rock Bed. The ammonite recovered in the quarries is Dactylioceras semicelatum, abundant in a subzone of the Tenuicostatum Zone.1 Fossil wood was actually found sitting on top of a fossilised belemnite (Figure 5), probably belonging to the genus Acrocoelites, a Toarcian Stage index fossil in northwest Europe.6 Many such belemnite fossils had been found during quarrying operations (Figure 6). Together these index fossils have, in evolutionary reckoning, established the rock containing them as being Early Jurassic and about 189 million years old.1,3 Logically, the fossil wood must be the same ‘age’.

Figure 1: Locality map showing the outcrop pattern of the Marlstone Rock Bed across southern England (reference 1, main article).

Figure 2: Locality map showing the distribution of the Marlstone Rock Bed west of Banbury, and the Horton Quarries at Edge Hill near the village of Ratley.




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Three samples of fossil wood were collected from the south wall of Hornton Quarries, one from immediately adjacent to the belemnite fossil (Figure 5 below) during the first visit, and two from locations nearby during the second visit. All the fossil wood samples were from short broken lengths of what were probably branches of trees fossilised in situ. The woody internal structure was clearly evident, thus the samples were not the remains of roots that had grown into this weathered rock from trees on the present land surface. When sampled, the fossil wood readily splintered, diagnostic of it still being ‘woody’ in spite of its impregnation with iron minerals during fossilisation.

Figure 5: Fossil wood in the top section of the Marlstone Rock Bed exposed in the south wall of the Hornton Quarries at Edge Hill. The pen is not only for scale, but points to an end-on circular profile of a belemnite fossil sitting directly underneath the fossil wood (sampled as UK-HB-1).

Pieces of all three samples were sent for radiocarbon (14C) analyses to Geochron Laboratories in Cambridge, Boston (USA), while as a cross-check, a piece of the first sample was also sent to the Antares Mass Spectrometry Laboratory at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), Lucas Heights near Sydney (Australia). Both laboratories are reputable and internationally recognised, the former a commercial laboratory and the latter a major research laboratory.

The staff at these laboratories were not told exactly where the samples came from, or their supposed evolutionary age, to ensure that there would be no resultant bias.

Both laboratories used the more sensitive accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) technique for radiocar-bon analyses, recognised as producing reliable results even on samples with minute quantities of carbon.

THE RESULTS

The radiocarbon (14C) results are listed in Table 1. Obviously, there was detectable radiocarbon in all the fossil wood samples, the calculated 14C ‘ages’ ranging from 20,700 ± 1,200 to 28,820 ± 350 years BP (Before Present).

For sample UK-HB-1, collected from on top of the belemnite index fossil (Figure 5), the results from the two laboratories are reasonably close to one another within the error margins, and when averaged yield a 14C ‘age’ almost identical (within the error margins) to the 22,730 ± 170 years BP of sample UK-HB-2.

Alternatively, if all four results on the three samples are averaged, the 14C ‘age’ is almost identical (within the error margins) to the Geochron result for UK-HB-1 of 24,005 ± 600 years BP. This suggests that a reasonable estimate for the 14C ‘age’ of this fossil wood would be 23,000–23,500 years BP.

Quite obviously this radiocarbon ‘age’ is drastically short of the ‘age’ of 189 million years for the index fossils found with the fossil wood, and thus for the host rock.




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Of course, uniformitarian geologists would not even test this fossil wood for radiocarbon. They don’t expect any to be in it, since they would regard it as about 189 million years old due to the ‘age’ of the index fossils. No detectable 14C would remain in wood older than about 50,000 years. Undoubtedly, they would thus suggest that the radiocarbon, which has been unequivocally demonstrated to be in this fossil wood, is due somehow to contamination. Such a criticism is totally unjustified (see box).

Table 1: Radiocarbon (14C) analytical results for fossil wood samples, Marlstone Rock Bed, Hornton Quarries, England. Return to section ‘results’.

CONCLUSIONS

The fossil wood in the top three metres of the Marlstone Rock Bed near Banbury, England, has been 14C ‘dated’ at 23,000–23,500 years BP. However, based on evolutionary and uniformitarian assumptions, the ammonite and belemnite index fossils in this rock ‘date’ it at about 189 million years. Obviously, both ‘dates’ can’t be right!

Furthermore, it is somewhat enigmatic that broken pieces of wood from land plants were buried and fossilised in a limestone alongside marine ammonite and belemnite fossils. Uniformitarians consider limestone to have been slowly deposited over countless thousands of years on a shallow ocean floor where wood from trees is not usually found.

However, the radiocarbon ‘dating’ of the fossil wood has emphatically demonstrated the complete failure of the evolutionary and uniformitarian assumptions underpinning geological ‘dating’.

A far superior explanation for this limestone and the mixture of terrestrial wood and marine shellfish fossils it contains is extremely rapid burial in a turbulent watery catastrophe that affected both the land and ocean floor, such as the recent global Biblical Flood.

The 23,000–23,500 year BP 14C ‘date’ for this fossil wood is not inconsistent with it being buried about 4,500 years ago during the Flood, the original plants having grown before the Flood.

A stronger magnetic field before, and during, the Flood would have shielded the Earth more effectively from incoming cosmic rays,7 so there would have been much less radiocarbon in the atmosphere then, and thus much less in the vegetation. Since the laboratories calculated the 14C ‘ages’ assuming that the level of atmospheric radiocarbon in the past has been roughly the same as the level in 1950, the resultant radiocarbon ‘ages’ are much greater than the true age.8,9




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Thus, correctly understood, this fossil wood and its 14C analyses cast grave doubts upon the index fossil ‘dating’ method and its uniformitarian and evolutionary presuppositions.

On the other hand, these results are totally consistent with the details of the recent global Genesis Flood, as recorded in the Creator’s Word—the Bible.


1. Howarth, M.K., The Toarcian age of the upper part of the Marlstone Rock Bed of England, Palaeontology 23(3):637–656, 1980.

2. Some iron minerals are green, such as glauconite, chamosite and vermiculite (a clay mineral) which can sometimes be found in limestones. Siderite (iron carbonate) can sometimes be green also.

3. Gradstein, F. and Ogg, J., A Phanerozoic time scale, Episodes 19(1&2):3–5 and chart, 1996.

4. Whitehead, T.H., Anderson, W., Wilson, V. and Wray, D.A., The Mesozoic ironstones of England: the Liassic ironstones, Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, London, 1952.

5. Edmonds, E.A., Poole, E.G. and Wilson, V., Geology of the country around Banbury and Edge Hill, Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, London, 1965.

6. Doyle, P. and Bennett, M.R., Belemnites in biostratigraphy, Palaeontology 38(4):815–829, 1995.

7. Humphreys, D.R., Reversals of the Earth’s magnetic field, in: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism, Walsh R.E., Brooks, C.L. and Crowell, R.S., (editors), Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, Vol. II, pp. 113–126, 1986.

8. Also, the Flood buried much carbon. The stable 12C would thus have not been totally replaced in the biosphere after the Flood, whereas 14C would have been regenerated in the atmosphere (from nitrogen). So comparing today’s 14C /12C ratio with the 14C /12C ratio in the pre-Flood material would yield too high a calibration, resulting in ‘ages’ far too large.

9. The radiocarbon (14C) dating method, although demonstrating that the fossil wood samples cannot be millions of years old, has not provided their true age. Nevertheless, the results confirm that radiocarbon is found in fossil wood deep in the geological record, as expected, based on the premise that the wood was buried and fossilised during the global Genesis Flood. See also:

• Snelling, A., Stumping old-age dogma: radiocarbon in an ‘ancient’ fossil tree stump casts doubt on traditional rock/fossil dating, Creation 20(4):48–51, 1998.

• Snelling, A., Dating dilemma: fossil wood in ‘ancient’ sandstone, Creation 21(3):39–41, 1999.

INDEX FOSSILS AND GEOLOGIC DATING

To evolutionary geologists, fossils are still crucial for dating strata, but not all fossils are equally useful. Those fossils that seem to work well for identifying and ‘dating’ rock strata are called ‘index’ fossils.

To qualify as an index fossil, a particular fossil species must be found buried in rock layers over a very wide geographical area, preferably on several continents. On the other hand, the same fossil species must have a narrow vertical distribution, that is, only be buried in a few rock layers. The evolutionist interprets this as meaning that the species lived and died over a relatively short time (perhaps a few million years). Therefore, the rock layers containing these fossils supposedly only represent that relatively short period of time, and thus a ‘date’ can be assigned accordingly on every continent to the rock layers where these fossils are found. The ‘date’ relative to other index fossils and rock layers is, of course, determined by the species’ position in the evolutionary ‘tree of life’.1




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Among well-known index fossils are ammonites (extinct, coiled-shell cephalopods, marine molluscs similar to today’s Nautilus), and the belemnites (extinct, straight-shell cephalopods).2,3 Both are fossils of squid-like creatures, common to abundant in so-called Mesozoic rocks. They are very important index fossils for ‘dating’ and correlation of rock layers, for example, across Europe, particularly for the so-called Cretaceous and Jurassic periods of the geological time-scale,2,3,4 which are claimed to span 65–142 and 142–205.7 million years ago respectively.5 However, these index fossils have not been ‘dated’ directly by radioactive techniques.

REFERENCES AND NOTES FOR

1. The millions of years interpretation needs to be separated from the reality of the sequence of rock layers (containing the fossils) which are stacked on top of one another. Creationist geologists do not deny that there is a genuine geological record. They recognise that the rocks and fossils are usually found in a particular order but reject the millions of years imposed on that order. Instead, catastrophic geological processes during the global Genesis Flood can adequately account for this geological record.

2. Moore, R.C., Lalicker, C.G. and Fischer, A.G., Invertebrate Fossils, McGraw-Hill, New York, ch. 9, pp. 335–397, 1952.

3. Clarkson, E.N.K., Invertebrate Palaeontology and Evolution, George Allen & Unwin, London, pp. 165–186, 1979.

4. Doyle, P. and Bennett, M.R., Belemnites in biostratigraphy, Palaeontology 38(4):815–829, 1995.

5. Gradstein, F. and Ogg, J., A Phanerozoic time scale, Episodes 19(1&2):3–5 and chart, 1996.

COULD THE RADIOCARBON BE DUE TO CONTAMINATION? FOUR REASONS WHY NOT

1. Pieces of the same sample were sent to the two laboratories and they both independently obtained similar results. Furthermore, three separate samples were sent to the same laboratory in two batches and again similar results were obtained. This rules out contamination.

2. The radiocarbon ‘dates’ depend on the amounts of radiocarbon, originally in the living plants, now left in the fossil wood samples. In these samples, the 14C left was between about 2.5% and 7.5% of the amount in living plants today. Any unavoidable contamination (e.g., dust, fungal spores) would be minuscule and would amount to at most 0.2%, which would have a negligible effect on these radiocarbon ‘dates’.1

3. The last column in Table 1 lists the δ13CPDB

results,2 which are consistent with the analysed carbon in the fossil wood representing organic carbon from the wood of land plants.3

4. Such a claim would, by implication, cast a slur on the Ph.D. scientific staff of two radiocarbon laboratories, who, as qualified routine practitioners, understand the potential for contamination and how to avoid it in sample processing.


1. According to Professor R. Hedges, Director of the Radiocarbon Unit, Oxford University, Eng-land, in a letter to Mr Jack Lewis of Isleham, Ely, England, dated January 22, 1998, for ‘dates’ more recent than 37,000 years BP, which corresponds to only 1% radiocarbon left in the sample, the effect of 0.2% contamination from modern dust or algal spores is negligible.

2. δ13CPDB

denotes the measured difference of the ratio of 13C/12C (both stable isotopes) in the




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sample compared to the PDB (Pee Dee Belemnite) standard—a fossil belemnite from the Cretaceous Pee Dee Formation in South Carolina, USA. The units used are parts per thousand, written as ‰ or per mil (compared with parts per hundred, written as % or per cent). Organic carbon from the different varieties of life gives different characteristic d13CPDB values.

3. Hoefs, J., Stable Isotope Geochemistry, 4th edition, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 133–134, 1997.




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Radio-dating in rubble The lava dome at Mount St Helens debunks dating myths

by Keith Swenson


June–August 2001

Radioisotope dating conveys an aura of reliability both to the general public and professional scientists. In most people’s minds it is the best ‘proof ’ for millions of years of Earth history. But is the method all it’s cracked up to be? Can we really trust it? The lava dome at Mount St Helens provides a rare opportunity for putting radioisotope dating to the test.

NEW LAVA DOME

In August of 1993, with geologist Dr Steven Austin and others from the Institute for Creation Research, I climbed into the crater of Mount St Helens to view the lava dome. It was one of those experiences that was well worth every exhausting moment! The dome looks like a small mountain, roughly 1.1 km (3⁄4 mile) long and 350 m (1,100 ft) high. It sits directly over the volcanic vent at the south end of the huge horseshoe-shaped crater that was blasted out of the mountain by the spectacular eruption on 18 May 1980.1 From the crater, the dome appears as a huge steaming mound of dark, block-like rubble. It is made of dacite, a fine-grained volcanic rock that contains a sprinkling of larger, visible crystals, like chopped fruit in a cake.

Actually, the present lava dome at Mount St Helens is the third dome to form since the 1980 eruption, the previous two having been blasted away by the subsequent eruptions.

The current dome started growing after the volcano’s last explosive eruption on 17 October 1980. During 17 so-called dome-building eruptions, from 18 October 1980 to 26 October 1986, thick pasty lava oozed out of the volcanic vent like toothpaste from a tube.1

Dacite lava is too thick to flow very far, so it simply piled up around the vent, forming the mountain-like dome, which now plugs the volcanic orifice.

HOW RADIOACTIVE ‘DATING’ REALLY WORKS

Why does the lava dome provide an opportunity to test the accuracy of radioisotope dating? There are two reasons. First, radioisotope-dating methods are used on igneous rocks—those formed from molten rock material. Dacite fits this bill. Fossil-bearing sedimentary rock cannot be directly dated radioisotopically. Second, and most importantly, we know exactly when the lava dome formed. This is one of the rare instances in which, to the question, ‘Were you there?’ we can answer, ‘Yes, we were!’

The dating method Dr Austin used at Mount St Helens was the potassium-argon method, which is widely used in geological circles. It is based on the fact that potassium-40 (an isotope or ‘variety’ of the element potassium) spontaneously ‘decays’ into argon-40 (an isotope of the element argon).2 This process proceeds very slowly at a known rate, having a half-life for potassium-40 of 1.3 billion years.1 In other words, 1.0 g of potassium-40 would, in 1.3 billion years, theoretically decay to the




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point that only 0.5 g was left.

Contrary to what is generally believed, it is not just a matter of measuring the amount of potas-sium-40 and argon-40 in a volcanic rock sample of unknown age, and calculating a date. Unfortu-nately, before that can be done, we need to know the history of the rock. For example, we need to know how much ‘daughter’ was present in the rock when it formed. In most situations we don’t know since we didn’t measure it, so we need to make an assumption—a guess. It is routinely assumed that there was no argon initially. We also need to know whether potassium-40 or argon-40 have leaked into, or out of, the rock since it formed. Again, we do not know, so we need to make an assumption. It is routinely assumed that no leakage occurred. It is only after we have made these assumptions that we can calculate an ‘age’ for the rock. And when this is done, the ‘age’ of most rocks calculated in this way is usually very great, often millions of years. The Mount St Helens lava dome gives us the opportunity to check these assumptions, because we know it formed just a handful of years ago, between 1980 and 1986.

THE DATING TEST

In June of 1992, Dr Austin collected a 7-kg (15-lb) block of dacite from high on the lava dome. A portion of this sample was crushed and milled into a fine powder. Another piece was crushed and the various mineral crystals were carefully separated out.3 The ‘whole rock’ rock powder and four mineral concentrates were submitted for potassium-argon analysis to Geochron Laboratories of Cambridge, MA—a high-quality, professional radioisotope-dating laboratory. The only information provided to the laboratory was that the samples came from dacite and that ‘low argon’ should be expected. The laboratory was not told that the specimen came from the lava dome at Mount St Helens and was only 10 years old.

The results of this analysis are shown in Table 1. What do we see? First and foremost that they are wrong. A correct answer would have been ‘zero argon’ indicating that the sample was too young to date by this method. Instead, the results ranged from 340,000 to 2.8 million years! Why? Obviously, the assumptions were wrong, and this invalidates the ‘dating’ method. Probably some argon-40 was incorporated into the rock initially, giving the appearance of great age. Note also that the results from the different samples of the same rock disagree with each other.

It is clear that radioisotope dating is not the ‘gold standard’ of dating methods, or ‘proof ’ for millions of years of Earth history. When the method is tested on rocks of known age, it fails miserably. The lava dome at Mount St Helens is not a million years old! At the time of the test, it was only about 10 years old. In this case we were there—we know! How then can we accept radiometric-dating results on rocks of unknown age? This challenges those who promote the faith of radioisotope dating, especially when it contradicts the clear eyewitness chronology of the Word of God.

Table 1. Potassium-argon ‘ages’ for whole rock and mineral concentrate samples from the lava dome at Mount St Helens (from Austin1).




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REFERENCES AND NOTES ‘RADIO-DATING IN RUBBLE ...‘

1. Austin, S.A., Excess argon within mineral concentrates from the new dacite lava dome at Mount St Helens volcano, CEN Tech. J. 10(3):335–343, 1996.

2. Potassium-40 also decays into calcium-40 as well as argon-40. This can be allowed for because the ratio of argon to calcium production is known.

3. Ref. 1, p. 338.

COUNTERING THE CRITICS

Understandably, Dr Austin’s devastating research into radioisotopic dating has been criticized by those who believe in millions of years. One common tactic is to claim that Dr Austin is ‘not an expert in the field’. This is quite wrong. Dr Austin carefully designed the research to counter all possible objections.

One critic said that Dr Austin should not have sent young samples to the dating laboratory because it potentially puts ‘large error-bars on the data’. By this reasoning, the method could not be used on any rocks, since, if we did not see the rocks form, how would we know whether they are young? Anyway, the analytical error is reported by the laboratory (see ± values on Table 1), and in every case the error is much less than the supposed age of the sample.

Some have argued that the magma (underground lava) must have picked up chunks of old rock as it moved through the Earth. They claim that these pieces of old rock (xenoliths) contaminated the sample and gave the very old age. This criticism is unfounded because Dr Austin was particularly careful to identify xenoliths and ensure none were included in the sample.1

Of course, it would always be possible to claim that the sample contained xenoliths that Dr Austin did not see. This would not be the first time this rationalization has been used. Dalrymple, for example, described a case where the date was wrong, but xenoliths couldn’t be seen under the microscope. He suggested that excess argon from microscopic xenoliths which were somehow distributed uniformly through the sample such that they were invisible.2

Others have claimed Dr Austin’s dacite sample gave an old age because it contained old feldspar crystals. They said that Dr Austin should have known they were old because the crystals were large and zoned. However, Dr Austin’s results (Table 1) show that the wrong ages were not confined to one particular mineral. The idea that the age of a mineral can be anticipated by its size or colour is incorrect. Dalrymple, for example, found that the wrong ages in his samples were unrelated to crystal size, or any other observable characteristic of the crystal.2

Another critic said that Dr Austin should only have dated the volcanic glass from his sample, because the glass would have solidified when the lava dome formed. However, Dalrymple found that even volcanic glass can give wrong ages and rationalized that it can be contaminated by argon from older rock material.

All these objections amount to reasoning after the event and do nothing to diminish the devastating consequences for radioisotope dating of Dr Austin’s work. The method is fraught with problems and does not give reliable dates. John Woodmorappe has shown that reasoning after the event is commonly used to ‘interpret’ radioactive dating results.3

REFERENCES AND NOTES FOR ‘COUNTERING THE CRITICS’

1. Austin, S.A., Excess argon within mineral concentrates from the new dacite lava dome at Mount St Helens volcano, CEN Tech. J. 10(3):335–343, 1996.




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2. Dalrymple, G.B., 40Ar/36Ar analysis of historic lava flows, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 6:47–55, 1969.

3. Woodmorappe, J., The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods, ICR, El Cajon, California, 1999.

MORE AND MORE WRONG DATES

Geology of the Grand Canyon showing calculated radioisotope ‘dates’ (after Austin3).

Is this dating failure from Mount St Helens an isolated case of radioisotope dating giving wrong results for rocks of known age? Certainly not! Dalrymple,1 one of the big names in radioactive dating [and a self-confessed intermediate between an atheist and agnostic], lists a number of cases of wrong potassium-argon ages for historic lava flows (Table A). There are many other examples of obviously wrong dates. Only recently, Creation magazine reported that ages up to 3.5 million years were obtained for lava flows that erupted in New Zealand from 1949 to 1975.2

One sobering example comes from the Grand Canyon in Arizona (see diagram, left). The Cardenas Basalt in the bottom of the canyon is an igneous rock layer suitable for radioisotope technology. When dated by the rubidium-strontium isochron method, the Cardenas Basalt yielded an age of 1.07 billion years. Most geologists consider this a ‘good’ date because it agrees with their evolutionary chronology.3 However, we know the date can’t be right, because it conflicts with Biblical chronology.

It is a different story when the same rubidium-strontium method is used to date lava from volcanoes on the north rim of the Grand Canyon. We know these volcanoes are some of the youngest rocks in the canyon, because they spilled lava into the canyon after it had been eroded. Geologists generally think that these volcanoes erupted ‘only’ a million years or so ago. The measured age? 1.34 billion years.3 If we were to believe the dating method, the top of the canyon would be older than the bottom! Of course, geologists don’t believe the result in this case, because it does not agree with what they believe to be the right age. We don’t agree with the result either. Such an obviously conflicting age speaks eloquently of the great problems inherent in radioisotope dating. It also speaks volumes about the way ‘dates’ are accepted or rejected by the geological community.




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Table A. Potassium-argon ‘ages’ for historic lava flows (from Dalrymple1).

REFERENCES FOR ‘MORE AND MORE WRONG DATES’

1. Dalrymple, G.B., 40Ar/36Ar analysis of historic lava flows, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 6:47–55, 1969.

2. Snelling, A., Radioactive ‘dating’ failure: Recent New Zealand lava flows yield ‘ages’ of millions of years , Creation 22(1):18–21, 2000.

3. Austin, S.A. (ed.), Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe, Institute for Creation Research, Santee, California, pp. 111–131, 1994.

KEITH SWENSON, M.D.,

Dr Swenson is a practising physician in Portland, Oregon. He serves as President of Design Science Association, a Portland-based creation science organization, for which he leads study tours to Mount St Helens.


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