Bible Question:
I just typed in "evolution" what great discussions there are ,I read a few ,and book marked the page . I have a question ,years ago I read that carbon 14 dating is accurate only back to something like 5 or 10 thousand years (I forget the exact amount of years ) then something changes in the dating which would be logical if the earth was only a few thousand years old. I beleive scientist sweep this under the rug .I just forget what the article said and am wondering if anyone is familliar with the argument. Neilw |
Bible Answer: Hello Neil, I would assume that the paper you read was by a Christian scientist and he was referring to the Flood when he said something changed. I don't know that for sure, but it is what many of them say. Their reasoning is fairly accurate too. Carbon14 dating is accurate to some degree. It does work only on organic material (including bones, sorry Doc). It measures the amount of Carbon 14 (which is an unstable form of Carbon) to determine how much is there. Carbon 14 decays at a specific rate, so if you know how much is there now and how much was there initially (when the animal first died) you can date when the animal died. In today's world we know without a doubt how much carbon 14 is present when an animal dies. It is a specific formula that works. However, the problem with the Carbon 14 dating process is that the formula may/may not be accurate at all times in the history of the world. The most likely event that would have changed the initial amount of carbon 14 would have been the flood, due to the changes it would have caused in the environment. A lot of things are assumed and there is little actual fact to any of them, but the point is that if you do not know how much carbon 14 was present when the animal first died, then you CANNOT date it with carbon 14. This amount of carbon 14 present is considered (by myself and other scientific Christians) to have likely changed at the flood, and dating animals that died in or before the flood would be way off. Anyway, that is probably the idea of the article and if not, then there is another possibility for you. jamison |