Radiometric Dating is Accurate

However, I want to be clear that my goal here is not to "prove" young earth creationism, but to simple show that radiometric dating of the age of the earth is unreliable. The measurement of time by radioactive decay of a parent isotope is often compared to the measurement of time as sand grains fall in an hour glass: "The sand in the upper chamber of an hourglass represents a radioactive parent isotope, while the sand in the lower chamber is analogous to the respective daughter isotope. The sand grains fall from the upper chamber at a constant rate, said to be analogous to radioactive decay. If all the sand grains started in the upper chamber and then the number of sand grains were measured in the two chambers after some time elapsed, provided the rate at which the sand grains fall has been measured, simple mathematics can be used to calculate how long the hourglass has been in operation, and thus, the time when the process started. When applied to the radioactive decay "clock," this starting time is when the rock formed and is, therefore, its calculated age. " From this description it is evident that the calculation of radioactive decay is based on three crucial assumptions: 1. The number of atoms of the daughter isotope originally in the rock or mineral when it crystallized can be known. In other words, it is assumed that we can know the initial conditions when the rock or mineral formed. 2. The number of atoms of the parent and daughter isotopes have not been altered since the rock or mineral crystallized, except for radioactive decay. In other words, it is assumed that the rock or mineral remained closed to loss or gain of the parent and/or daughter isotopes since crystallization. 3. The rate of decay of the parent isotope is known accurately, and has not changed during the existence of the rock or mineral since it crystallized. When most rocks or minerals crystallized there were no human observers to determine the original numbers of atoms of the daughter isotopes, to determine that the rocks or minerals have remained closed to loss or gain of parent and/or daughter isotopes, and to determine if the rate of decay of the parent isotope has remained constant. Thus, it logically follows that these assumptions are, strictly speaking, not provable. THE PITFALLS IN THE RADIOACTIVE DATING METHOD: 1. Potassium-Argon and Argon-Argon Methods Both these methods suffer from the same problems, because they are both based on the radioactive decay of potassium (K) to argon (Ar), a gas which does not bond with other elements. As my opponent pointed out it is assumed the initial quantity of the daughter isotope Ar is not needed because it does not bond easily with other elements and, therefore, when the rock forms all the initial Ar would have escaped. In other words, it is assumed there was no initial Ar at the time of formation. However, many cases have been documented of recent historic lava flows which yielded grossly incorrect K-Ar ages because of "excess argon. " After the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens a new lava dome began forming. In 1986, less than ten years after it flowed and cooled, dacite lava from this dome was sampled and analyzed [1]. The lava flow yielded a K-40/Ar-40 "age" of 350,000 years for the whole rock, and the constituent minerals yielded K-40/Ar-40 "ages" up to 2.8 Ma (million years). Similarly, andesite from the 1954 lava flow from Mt. Ngauruhoe yielded K-40/Ar-40 "ages" up to 3.5 Ma [2]. Also, ten Zaire diamonds yielded K-40/Ar-40 "ages" of 6 Ga (billion years) and Ar-39/Ar-40 "age" spectra yielding an isochron "age" of 5.7 Ga [3]. The diamonds could not be older than the earth itself! The obvious conclusion most investigators have reached is that excess argon had to be present and they did not completely degas when these rocks and diamonds formed. Even laboratory experiments have shown that argon can be retained in rocks and mineral at the time of formation [4]. There is also much evidence for argon loss for the very fact Ar does not form chemical bonds with other atoms in a crystal lattice, but lack of space does not permit me to go into detail [5, 6]. 2. Radiocarbon Dating Method There are two basic assumptions in C-14 dating. First, the cosmic ray influx has to have been essentially constant (my opponent already mentioned this) and the C-14 concentration in the carbon dioxide cycle must remain constant. To these two assumptions we can add the assumption of the constancy of the rate of decay of C-14, the assumption that dead organic matter is not later altered with respect to its carbon content by any biologic or other activity, the assumption that the carbon dioxide contents of the ocean and atmosphere has been constant with time, the assumption that the huge reservoir of oceanic carbon has not changed in size during the period of applicability of the method, and the assumption that the rate of formation and the rate of decay of radiocarbon atoms have been in equilibrium throughout the period of applicability. Nevertheless, it has been maintained that the method has been verified beyond any question by numerous correlations with known dates. However, closer investigation reveals that where historical dates are well established, back beyond about 400 BC, the radiocarbon "dates" increasingly diverge, as they also do from tree-rings (even though my opponent said they correlate with tree-rings) [7]. So the major assumptions in the method would, therefore, appear to be valid for only the period after 400 BC. Furthermore, my opponent asserted, regarding C-14 dating, "After a long enough time the minority isotope is in an amount too small to be measured. " He stated we should only be able to date organic matter back to 45,000 years. My opponent, therefore, must explain the substantial amount of C-14 found in coalfields that are millions of years old and diamonds that are billions of years old. Recently, ten coal samples representative of the economic important coalfields of the United States, and five diamonds from African kimberlite pipes were analyzed [8]. Three of the coal samples were from Eocene seams, three from Cretaceous seams, and four from Pennsylvania seams (Uniformitarian ages ranging from 40 Ma to 350 Ma). Yet they all yielded dates around 50,000 years. The diamonds came from underground mines where contamination would be minimal. However, diamonds are the hardest natural mineral and extremely resistant to contamination. These diamonds are considered to be 1-3 billion years old according to uniformitarian geologists, so they should have been radiocarbon-dead. Nevertheless, they still contained significant levels of C-14. Given the supposed antiquity of these diamonds, and their source deep inside the earth, one possible explanation for these detectable C-14 levels is that the C-14 is primordial. However, if this were the case, the apparent "age" of the earth itself would only be about 45,000 years old according to my opponent! The presence of detectable C-14 in fossils, which according to the uniformitarian timescale should be entirely C-14-dead, has been reported from the earliest days of radiocarbon dating. For example, a published survey on all the dates reported in the journal "Radiocarbon" up to 1970 commented that for more than 15,000 samples reported: "All such matter is found datable within 50,000 years as published" [9]. This data shows that radiometric dating is unreliable and questionable at best. I have many more examples to share, but space does not permit. I will elaborate in further rounds and I hope to address Pros assertion that independent dating methods correlate with the radiometric dates. Although, by showing that radiometric dating is unreliable on its own terms, any perceived correlation with independent dating methods means absolutely nothing. My sources are in the comment section.