what exactly does the Old Earth have to do with finding oil?
The problem YECs face is their model does not work when applied to real world data. This has been pointed out in relation to oil by previous posters.
But the evidence has not convinced those, such as yourself, who believe something other than what evidence shows. This leads to all sorts of errors, many borne out of simple wishful thinking and many out of ignorance of the sciences involved. I suspect that the attitude is "Why study that science; I already know it is wrong."
It seems that because radiocarbon dating produces answers unacceptable to YECs, efforts are being made to discredit it whenever possible. Many of those efforts make fundamental mistakes. This is something that, unfortunately, you are prone to do as well. Here are two very typical examples I have found in the creationist literature pertaining to radiocarbon dating that seem to apply to this overall topic.
--Coal from Russia from the "Pennsylvanian," supposedly 300 million years old, was dated at 1,680 years. (Radiocarbon, vol. 8, 1966).
The original article in the journal
Radiocarbon includes the following paragraph describing this sample:
Mo-334. River Naryn, Kirgizia 1680 170. A.D. 270
Coal from the cultural layer on the left side of the r. Naryn (Kirgizian SSR), 3 km E of the mourh of the r. Alabuga (41 25′ N Lat, 74 40′ E Long). The sample was found at a depth of 7.6 m in the form of scattered coals in a loamy rock in deposits of a 26-m terrace. According to the archaeological estimations the sample dates from the 5 to 7th centuries A.D. The sample was found by K. V. Kurdyumov (Moscow State Univ.) in 1962. Comment: the find serves as a verification of archaeological data on the peopling of the Tien Shan.
What we have here is no more than shorthand or sloppy translation from the Russian! The coal is nothing more than charcoal from an archaeological deposit. This sample is even included in the section of the report dealing with archaeological samples, and the paragraph discusses archaeological data.
The odd use of terms is shown clearly in another radiocarbon date, Mo-353, reported on page 315 of the same article. It reads Charcoal from cultural deposits of a fisher site. The coal was coll. from subturfic humified loam
But the term coal in place of charcoal was enough to fool Ken Ham, as well as dozens of subsequent creationists who apparently were salivating to find 300 million year old coal radiocarbon dated to recent times, and who repeated Ham’s false claim without bothering to check its accuracy.
The interesting question is where Ken Ham managed to find Pennsylvanian in that short paragraph, and where he dug up the date of 300 million years.
In any event, this false information is very common on creationist websites, and people such as yourself will find it and believe that this is correct. (It should be noted that a couple of creationist websites have pointed out the errors in this claim.)
--Natural gas from Alabama and Mississippi (Cretaceous and Eocene, respectively) should have been 50 million to 135 million years old, yet C14 gave dates of 30,000 to 34,000 years, respectively. (Radiocarbon, vol. 8, 1966.
This claim appears to have been originally made by Ken Ham, Andrew Snelling, and Carl Weiland in
The Answers Book, published by Master Books, El Cajon, CA, 1992 (page 73).
The original article in the journal
Radiocarbon includes the following paragraphs describing these two samples:
I-1149. Sealy Springs well, Alabama >34,000
From Sealy Springs Well, Cottonwood, Houston County, Alabama. Well yielding salt water and natural gas, probably from Upper Cretaceous Eutaw sandstone. Comment (D.R.B.): sample submitted as control. Infinite age as expected.
I-1150. Maxie Gas Field, Mississippi >30,000
From Lower and Upper Cretaceous, and Eocene formations in Maxie Gas Field, Forrest County, Mississippi. Comment (D.R.B.): control sample yielding infitite age as expected.
Note the little > symbols in front of the dates? This means greater than and denotes that the measured ages reflect the limits of the instrumentation rather than an actual age. Note the "Infinite age as expected" comment? In other words, the creationists either goofed and missed the > symbols, or hoped that nobody would check up on their research.
Rather than serving as an example of the inaccuracy of radiocarbon dating, this refuted creationist claim serves as another example of the inaccuracy of creationist research.
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This is the kind of information you are getting from YEC websites. It is a mix of lies, distortions, cherry picking, and just plain mistakes.
That is why those of us who know something about various branches of science check out any claims made by creationists and YECs. They are typically found to be full of errors. And science hates errors!
Have you ever asked yourself why so much evidence refutes what you and other creationists are claiming?
Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
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