Does radio-carbon dating disprove evolution?

The only "Russian" study I have seen creationists cite is the coal study: The problem with this is that it is just sloppy creationist research that has been passed down from book to book to website after website. And it is false.What we had there was no more than shorthand or sloppy translation from the Russian! But that was enough to fool Ken Ham. The coal was nothing more than charcoal from an archaeological deposit. That radiocarbon sample was even included in the section of the report dealing with archaeological samples, and the following paragraph discussed archaeological data. But it was too good for a creationist to pass up. (Most of their examples of faulty radiocarbon dating are similarly untrue.)Here is a link to a blog giving all of the particulars:http://blog.darwincentral.org/...nce”-”-part-ivSo I am not waiting for your half-remembered references showing that radiocarbon dating proves a young earth.Based on past experience, I have absolutely no reason to trust anything a creationist says about science.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This is nonsense. Radiocarbon dating (the theme of this thread) does not rely on "elements" that are 4.5 billion years old.C14, an isotope of the element carbon, is continually created in the atmosphere.(Perhaps you should study up on these things before you lecture us on them?)

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

I agree its nonsense to date fossils by the sediment layer they are found instead of dating them by Radiocarbon dating. If the half life is @ 5,000 years and the labs buffer 50,000 years before testing the fossil no wonder when you send a sample it comes back older than 50,000 years. Thats where its created but Katheleen Hunt and her minions would have you believe C14 is being generated within the earth. If this were true then all your other dating methodologies would they too not be compromised?Several issues here. I will take them one at a time:Fossils can't be dated by radiocarbon dating. The upper limit of that method is about 50,000 years. And it can be used only on materials that were once part of living organisms (charcoal, bone, shell, etc.). Rock is not datable by that method.Sediment layers are dated by index fossils, that is, specific fossils that occur only for short spans of time. Generally sedimentary layers can't be dated by other radiometric methods, but volcanic layers can be. So, you find sedimentary layers sandwiched between volcanic layers and you date those volcanic layers and you have a pretty good idea of the age of those particular index fossils. They can then be used to identify the age of that layer wherever it occurs. This is the equivalent of finding a layer with a bunch of the aluminum pop tabs that originally were on soda and beer cans. Those were widely distributed, but used only for a short time. They are an "index fossil" or a "time stratigraphic marker."I can't imagine what you mean by "the labs buffer 50,000 years before testing the fossil." That has nothing to do with radiocarbon dating. You have at least two, perhaps three, mistakes here.Small amounts of C14 are created in the earth. That is why you can date a lump of coal or a diamond, or perhaps a fossil, and get a date of 30, 40, or 50,000+ years. What you are reading is a background which has nothing to do with the age of the material. But, abusing science as they are forced to do, creationists make a big deal of these tiny residual background readings in an effort to promote a young earth. Its dishonest.Whatever happens to C14 is independent from other radiometric dating methods. Believe me, there is just nothing being done with fossils in the various radiocarbon laboratories unless folks are experimenting.You really should read up on this subject before you opine again. I have a lot of good links on another site, so please check them out: Radiocarbon links

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

The tree ring calibration curve for radiocarbon dating goes back some 12,600 years. It is based on lining up the rings from standing dead Bristlecone Pines from the White Mountains of Southern California.Other methods take the calibration curve back some 25,000 years.Counting the annual rings in glaciers and lake or pond sediments takes you back a lot farther.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Kent Hovind has no training in science. From Wiki: Hovind is currently in prison on tax fraud and a number of related charges. He is due to be released in August, 2015.I would not trust anything Hovind said pertaining to science, and if we ever shook hands I would count my fingers as soon as I could get them loose. The RATE Project set out, with over a million dollars in creationists' money, to disprove the radioactive decay constant. They failed; their evidence showed that scientists were right all along. Of course, they didn't accept even their own data. An analysis of their report concludes:

Source

Snelling's claim is incorrect. Here is an analysis of the claim and what actually occurred. Another creationist fabrication. The trees used in tree ring dating are not your quick growing plantation trees. Also, tree rings have been cross-calibrated against historical volcanic activities, and the rings show the effects of these worldwide volcanic eruptions. This goes back many hundreds of years. The multiple rings are not a problem during that time span. See Bristlecone pine tree rings and volcanic eruptions over the last 5000 yr.As usual, when it comes to radiocarbon dating creationists have reached their conclusions first, and are scrambling to twist and manipulate the data to fit their needs. Those who know anything about C14 dating can see these fraudulent attempts a mile off. They're not even well done!

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Sorry to have to tell you this, but you don't know enough to discuss radiocarbon with.Your learning seems to have come from creationist websites, which are full of fabrications. You seem to have swallowed their nonsense hook, line, and sinker.Have a pleasant evening.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Oh, I have been there, and to most of the other creationist sites. I have seen what they say about radiocarbon dating. Its a mixture of lies, half truths, and obfuscation.Like these "questions" from Kent Hovind:

Wrong on both counts! The first is too silly to even bother with. The second--he's behind the times. De Vries way back in 1958 published a paper showing that the amount of C14 in the atmosphere varies! Scientists have worked out a calibration curve to account for that variation, which is not very large anyway.Another bit of absolute nonsense from Kent:

This might have been true in the early 1960s, as the atomic bomb tests increased the levels of C14 considerably. But Kent wrote this in the past few years and atmospheric levels of C14 have been dropping since the atmospheric bomb test were halted in 1963. So he's wrong yet again! And his "proof" of a young earth is similarly wrong! (Here's a good reference for atmospheric levels of C14.)Bring him on! I'll have to wait until he gets out of jail. But maybe he could use his jail time to actually study the field, as he has not done to date. Maybe he could get some actual degrees, not those diploma mill fakes.Some of us here have actually studied the field. I have submitted nearly 600 samples in my work, and have studied the subject pretty intensely for over 30 years.When it comes to radiocarbon dating you are at a severe disadvantage because you take the fraudulent statements from those creationist websites as true. You don't know the difference, so you have to rely on them. That's a big mistake.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This is known as the reservoir effect. It can be identified and controlled for by C13 and N15 stable isotope analyses and calibration. Often 30,000 years was the upper limit of the equipment that was being used. That is why natural gas and coal and other materials in the past were dated something like >33,000 BP. Creationists missed the ">" symbol, or didn't know what it meant, and naturally arrived at the wrong conclusion. This shows a total lack of understanding of the radiocarbon method. It is not even worth correcting you on it as I have work to do.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

First, radiocarbon dating is not used on fossils. You have been told this before, by people who know something about the technique and how it is appropriately used.Why do you refuse to accept accurate information from people who know the field, yet accept the uneducated rantings of Kent Hovind, who knows nothing about radiocarbon dating? You think wrong.A primary source of background noise is cosmic radiation. Leaching has nothing whatsoever to do with this. The sensitivity of the equipment and the shielding can all help extend the useful range of the radiocarbon technique, but eventually the background noise overwhelms the signal you are trying to discern.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

If I understand your attempt, you are saying that C14 is removed from an organism as it decomposes and is fossilized.All isotopes of C are removed at that time. But C14 would be decaying (half-life 5,730 years) at the same time.By the time an organism is completely fossilized there is no C of any kind left. You have mineralization. The C14 will have left earlier most likely due to beta decay.But there will often be tiny amounts of C14 reintroduced from natural radiation. Only creationists make a big deal of these trace amounts, which are generally about the limit of detection of the equipment being used.An analogy about the limits of detection: How much beyond 36" inches would you expect accurate measurements if you are using a single yardstick? You would quickly be forced to conclude >36" wouldn't you? Same with the radiocarbon method, where samples are often reported as >36,000 years (or whatever, depending on the equipment and the shielding).

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Fossils are mineralized. Except for rare occasions they have no carbon.And the RATE Project proponents and I disagree because I believe their data and they do not.They set out to show that the decay constant is a variable; they failed. Their own data, costing over a million dollars to produce, showed that the decay constant is a constant. They refused to believe their own data.From an analysis of the RATE Project:

Source.

In other words, they are doing creation "science" and not real science. I wouldn't rely on them much for help in these discussions of radiocarbon dating.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This has been dealt with in a number of posts including several of mine.Summary: creationist wishful thinking.Let me try to put it in simple terms.The radiocarbon method determines the amounts of C14 present in a sample. Even in contemporaneous samples this amount is exceedingly small. That amount is always decaying, but in living samples is replenished from the atmosphere. In dead organisms it is no longer replaced, and the levels begin to drop via beta decay. The half-life of C14 is 5,730 years, so every 5,730 years the level drops by half. Most commercial labs lose the beta decay signal in the background in samples beyond about 50,000 years. Some labs with less sophisticated equipment or poorer shielding have upper limits closer to 35,000 years, while a couple of labs are experimenting with AMS dating in the range of 80,000 years.Samples with true ages over about 30,000 years have vanishingly small amounts of C14 left.There are other ways for tiny amounts of C14 to be created other than in the upper atmosphere. C14 can be created in small amounts by local radioactivity. In addition there are always contamination problems; breathing on a sample can introduce the same vanishingly small amounts of C14. Either of these factors can produce the same vanishingly small traces of C14 in odd materials such as coal, diamonds and dinosaur fossils. Creationists grasp this as a dying man grasps a life preserver, and twist it into evidence for a young earth. It is not.Sorry.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Let me ask a serious question. How many radiocarbon dates have you done? This can be either the actually laboratory processing, or submission or samples.I am close to 600 samples, so I feel I know something about the process.And you?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

I am aware of the references you have in mind. I have read the sections on radiocarbon dating on many, if not most, of the creationist websites, and have looked up many of the scientific articles they cite. (I have a high threshold for nonsense.) Unfortunately, the task is often made more difficult because many of these creationist websites just pass on what is said on other websites, without giving the original references. But I have tracked down quite a few of them and I have yet to find one that actually says what creationists claim.The only place these references are used as evidence of a young earth is on creationist websites.Real scientists are aware of where the tiny amounts of C14 are coming from. Creationists, being unfamiliar with the process, are not. They think they have found a magic bullet to do away with "evilutionism" but only expose their own unfamiliarity with the process.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Just providing some background.But I notice you ducked the question.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.