reliability of carbon dating? (would like evolutionists answer)

hi,
i was just wondering what is the reliability of carbon dating? for example does it always predict the right age of what is it testing and if not then how can this be explained.thanks

Carbon 14 dating is only useful for organic material up to around 10,000 years. It's pretty reliable up to then. Certain factors can mess up a reading, including:1. Isotope Migration - where the ratio of the isotopes is distorted by leeching or contamination2. Mechanical deformation - this can distort the ratio for isotopes with a large atomic radius (I'm not sure if it applies to C14)I know more about isotope dating for different rock types. The principle is still the same though - the reliability of the data depends on the quality of the sample it's taken from. If you get a bad sample, you get an inaccurate date.The Rock Hound------------------
"Science constantly poses questions, where religion can only shout about answers."

Only 10,000 years? I was under the impression that it is fairly reliable up to 40 or 50 k.

when mt st helens erupted, the lava cooled forming new rock in the area, this rock was carbon dated and instead of being found as being new rock was "found" to be thousnads of years old - please explain how this can happen?

tomwillrup, explain which rocks formed from Mt St Helens lava were radiocarbon dated.

I'm sure you've probably seen the following thread, but on the off chance that you haven't. EvC Forum: Buz's refutation of all radiometric dating methods------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

First, this is the wrong forum to be asking this question because you cannot radiocarbon date rock. You can only radiocarbon date organic material. Rock is not organic. So you can radiocarbon date old wood, old fire ash, old bones, old organic material such as seeds, but you can't radiocarbon date rock.Mount St. Helens was dated by Stephen Austin of ICR (Institute for Creation Research) using the Potassium/Argon method. It is well known that this technique is inadvisable for dating rock less than about a million years old. This is for two reasons, and since I've just explained them already in Message 10 of the Buz's refutation of all radiometric dating methods thread in this forum I won't repeat them here.--Percy

More like 40,000 years, and it can be pushed to 50,000 years in some circumstances.--Percy

Ok now I really feel like an idiot... that's the third time Percy has had to correct me. Yes, I was wrong, C14 is good up to 40 or 50 thousand years.Sorry, guys.The Rock Hound

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i was just wondering what is the reliability of carbon dating? for example does it always predict the right age of what is it testing and if not then how can this be explained.

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In addition to the time and general sample type limitations mentioned previously, there is also the limitation that the correct answer is obtained only if the organism (while alive) obtained its carbon from the atmosphere or a source in equilibrium with the atmosphere. That's why many marine animals (e.g. clams) yield falsely old ages; they obtained a lot of their carbon from limestone, which contains "fossil carbon" and is not in equilibrium with the atmosphere. http://www.biblequery.org/radiocarbon.htm is a fairly good but slightly oversimplified explanation. http://dlindsay.best.vwh.net/creation/carbon.html is also fiarly easy to follow.

Carbon dating would only be accurate if the carbon content of the atmosphere and the amount of the carbon 14 in the organism were constant. If the flood of Genesis happened as stated in the Biblical record and the conditions described before the flood are accurate in the record then, many literal Biblicists question that the carbon factor assumed by scientists today for preflood existence is correct.

I was under the impression that we had a good idea of the historic atmospheric contents as preserved in the polar ice caps and glacial cores.

Dammit, Buz! I think this is the third time that I've asked you to do this - maybe only the second. But I'll be nice.
Please, for yourself and all of us here:
1) Go to Science | AAAS
2) Register. It's free. They won't spam you.
3) Find the Archive
4) Use the "search" function to find volume 279, page 1187.
5) Print out the article - Acrobat has nicer graphics, but the plain text is intelligible
6) Please, please, READ THE ARTICLE! Kitigawa & van der Plicht, "Atmospheric Radiocarbon Calibration to 45,000 yr B.P.: Late Glacial Fluctuations and Cosmogenic Isotope Production."
7) Reread, and ask questions here or elsewhere if there is something you don't know how to interpret.
8) Once you have an appreciation for what K. & vdP did, reread your post above.
9) Then let's discuss......
things like, "why would 45,000 individually counted layers in a lake in Japan - layers that are even now forming once per year - correlate in such a pretty fashion with 250 14C dates, and with tree ring dates from Germany?"

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Varve dating. Certain sedimentary deposits are composed of extremely thin layers. Evolutionists theorize that each band must be exactly one year. But any limnologist will tell you that a brief flooding into a lake will cause a varve, which is a settling out of finer particles. In addition, only a rapid laying down of sediments could produce the plant and animal fossils we find in varves.”p. 37.

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Tree ring dating. Bristlecone pine rings indicate an apparent age somewhat older than that of the giant sequoias. But evidence reveals that more than one bristlecone ring can be laid down in a single year. Sequoias are the oldest living thing, and their age closely correlates with the end of the Flood. See Age of the Earth for more on this.”p. 37.

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: 2021

If the varves were wrong, why would they agree with the tree rings? And if the tree rings were wrong, why would they agree with the varves?And why would both of them agree with the radiometric data?As we've explained, the question isn't what causes varves to be wrong. Or tree rings, or radiometrics. The question is, what causes all of them to be wrong in the same way? What one single process would alter radioisotopes, change the rate of tree growth, and accelerate varve formation, all is such a way as to preserve the agreements between all three?