Archive for December, 2010

Science and the Bible pt 6


Racemization
Two researchers at the University of California at San Diego report that men were living in the North American continent at least 50,000 years ago. Dr. Jeffrey L. Bada, an assistant professor of oceanography at the university’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Roy A. Schroeder, a graduate student, analyzed skeletal remains found between 1920 and 1935 around La Jolla, Del Mar, and ranging to Laguna Beach and the Baldwin Hills section of Los Angeles.
Using a technique called “racemization,” which determines how much one form of an amino acid has changed into a slightly different form, they dated one skull found near Del Mar at 48,000 years old. Previously the oldest dated Amenzar skull was called Los Angeles Man, and was dated by UCLA scientists using carbon-14 at 23,600 years. A small sample of the same skull was analyzed by Bada and he arrived at an age of 26,000 years.
The Scripps team dated a fragment of another old skull found near La Jolla Shores at 44,000 years.
This discovery would indicate that early man came to the New World long before 20,000 years ago, the date most anthropologists have generally believed to be most accurate.
The findings have added a “new chapter in the history of man,” the scientists claim.
Dr. Jeffrey Bada’s new technique for dating bones can be used for dating purposes for fossils millions of years old. Bada measures the amount of the “D-form” of certain amino acids found in all fossils.
Bada’s technique is based on the fact that the amino acid components of proteins can have two optical forms, or isomersthe D-form and the L-form. After an organism dies, the L-form gradually converts to the D-form. Modern amino acids consist almost totally of the L-form, but ancient bones and fossils have a progressively higher ratio of the D-form. Using his technique, Bada has dated a shark’s vertebra at 8.7 million years and an ancient goat bone from the island of Majorca at 26,000 years.
Pre-Adamic Man?
If we accept the combined evidence of the various dating systems, then we must conclude that various HOMINID CREATURES lived 500,000 years ago, were familiar with fire, used stone tools such as had been made for hundreds of thousands of years-hand axes, notched and saw-toothed implements, scrapers, engravers — the basic Acheulian-type tools. These beings must have been PRE-ADAMIC creatures, primitive hunters and cave dwellers. Everything about them speaks of a primitiveness and antiquity, a life style and mental ability that was distinctly NOT human.
Is such a thing possible?
The answer is simple enough. First, not only do the geologic evidence and the dating techniques of modern science demonstrate the ANTIQUITY of these beings, but the biblical record clearly shows that Adam was NOT a brute or subhuman specimen. He was human in every respect. Adam was highly intelligent, articulate, sophisticated, knowledgeable. He was not only able to provide names for every creature YEHOVAH God brought before him, but he was capable of language, and he was familiar with the art of cultivation and agriculture. To pinpoint WHEN Adam was created, then, we must search the geologic and archaeological record for the BEGINNING of animal husbandry and agriculture, as well as the beginning of civilization as such.
The scrapers, knives, hand axes, cleavers, and flint tools of the early and middle Pleistocene times were PRIMITIVE, PRE-HUMAN, PRE-ADAMIC. The really astonishing thing, witnessed by geological evidence, archaeological discoveries, and radiometric dating, is the SUDDEN FLOWERING of civilization and truly human enterprise roughly 6,000 YEARS AGO!
Neanderthal Man
The strange breeds that arose during middle Pleistocene times and during the next to last glaciation had large brains, overlapping modern man, but their PRIMITIVE features included lower cranial vaults, heavy bone ridges over the eyes and at the back of the neck, and sharply receding chins. Their bodies were stocky, short, and heavy limbed.
“These were the classic Neanderthal people, the people who come to mind whenever CAVEMEN are mentioned and who almost invariably serve as models for artists depicting early man,” says Pfeiffer (The Emergence of Man, p.159).
Neanderthal man — a PREDECESSOR of modern man, but NOT necessarily directly related by lineage — was ALMOST human in many respects. He was crude, dwelled in caves, hunted wild game to survive, and crudely buried his dead. His DIFFERENCES were more remarkable than his similarities to modern man. It has been said that if a Neanderthal man got on a subway in New York, dressed up in modern clothes, he could not be distinguished from certain others on the train. However, such a statement is merely discussing the PHYSICAL appearance of Neanderthal. True, he didn’t look too unlike certain of the more robust, physical specimens of mankind, today. However, the paleontological evidence shows that his society and living conditions were EXTREMELY PRIMITIVE, created no lasting forms of art such as evidenced by Cro-Magnon man, and was NOT able to speak or articulate true language.
How does Neanderthal fit into the biblical record then? One historian and geologist, Kenneth C. Hermann, a scientist associated with Ambassador University in Texas, has come up with a remarkable theory. He suggests that Neanderthal man was truly PRE-ADAMIC, but also CO-EXISTED with Adamic man. Adam, he suggests, was truly MODERN MAN in every respect — HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS — and was of the CRO-MAGNON stock in antiquity.
Neanderthal man, if this theory is correct, may have been representative of the beings called in the biblical record NEPHILIM. These beings are barely alluded to in the Scriptures. But we read in Genesis 6:4 that during the pre-Flood world, when the descendants of Adam were multiplying on the face of the earth: “The NEPHILIM were on the earth in those days, and also AFTERWARD…” (RSV).
The Hebrew nephil means bully or tyrant. The Nephilim were the sons of Anak, a strong, powerful race. The King James Version refers to the Nephilim as “giants,” though that may be a mistranslation. At any rate, they were a FEARSOME race of beings.
Were the Nephilim remnants of a pre-Adamic stock of men, whom anthropologists refer to as NEANDERTHAL MAN? Is it possible?
Is it also possible that there was a certain amount of limited intermarriage between the two stocks, as appears to be evidenced at Carmel, in the Middle East, before Neanderthal man died out and became extinct?
The physiognomy of Neanderthal man would be enough to throw fear into more modern, gracile man. He was an excellent hunter. Short, stocky, with massive jaw, and evidently cannibalistic, there was good reason for modern man to view this competitor with alarm.
Neaderthal’s remains have been found at Shanidar Cave in the Zagros Mountains of Iraq, excavated by Ralph Solecki of Columbia University. The deposits in the cave were up to 100,000 years and seven Neanderthal skeletons were found. Three had been crushed by falling rocks; one was recovering from a spear or knife wound in the ribs; one was a man buried deep in the cave with a special ceremony, attested to by the presence of fossil pollen collected from the burial site. The pollen was from the ancestors of present day grape hyacinths, bachelor’s buttons, hollyhocks, and yellow-flowering groundsels.
Violence was COMMON in Neanderthal times. says John E. Pfeiffer:
Some sort of mayhem took place in a sandstone-rock shelter overlooking a river in northern Yugoslavia, where at the turn of the century investigators recovered more than five hundred bones and bone fragments representing at least a dozen individuals. A number of the bones are charred, suggesting that cannibalism may have been practiced, while others show definite signs of having been cut (p. 172).
Extinction of Neanderthal Man
In most deposits in Europe, there is a DEFINITE INTERVAL between the last deposits of Neanderthal man and the earliest fossils of modern man, or what is called Cro-Magnon man.
The stone tools of Cro-Magnon were markedly MORE SOPHISTICATED than Neanderthal implements. When archaeologists dug through successive layers in European caves, they sometimes found tool-less — STERILE — layers between earlier Neanderthal deposits and later Cro-Magnon deposits.
But during the early 1930′s an Anglo-American expedition searching for fossils in what was then called Palestine, struck it rich in two caves on the slopes of Mount Carmel, near Haifa. At Mugharet es-Skhul remains of ten individuals were uncovered, some resembling Neanderthals, and others approaching the appearance of modern man. Some anthropologists concluded the fossil men were HYBRIDS — products of intermarriage between Neanderthals and true modern-type men. Louie Leakey even surmised that any marriage between the two races might well have produced STERILE offspring. At any rate, the fossils uncovered at Mount Carmel possess a BLEND of Neanderthal and modern traits. But mysteries remain. For example, why did modern man SUDDENLY seem to replace Neanderthal man? What led to the extinction of this formidable and widespread species of Homo? Why the SUDDEN revolution in tool-making with the arrival of modern man? Why the STERILE LAYERS that often separate Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon periods of cave occupancy?
We don’t know. But we can speculate. Was much of Neanderthal man wiped out in a pre-Adamic destruction associated with upheavals in climate and terrestrial cataclysms — such as we read about in Genesis 1:2? Were the REMAINING remnants of Neanderthal wiped out by Cro-Magnon man?
Neanderthal man, however, must have largely been pre-Adamic. This contention is supported by an investigation of the linguistic capabilities of Neanderthals by Philip Lieberman of the University of Connecticut and Edmund Crelin of Yale in 1971. Measuring the neck vertebrae and skull base of the fossil found at La Chapelle-aux-Saints, they concluded that Neanderthal man lacked a modern kind of pharynx. He was unable to utter the vowel sounds ah, oo, ee, ou, and could not form the consonants g and k. Thus European Neanderthal fossils give indication of only 10 percent the speaking ability of modern man.
The findings are hotly disputed, but if true, Neanderthal may have been very limited in verbal communication. Somehow, these creatures SUDDENLY DIED OUT, replaced by modern man, the Cro-Magnons, who were accomplished artists who made marvelous cave paintings, engravings and statuary. The passing of Neanderthal man was THE PASSING OF AN ERA.
A few Russian anthropologists, however, believe that the strange Asian beast-men variously called the Yetis or Abominable Snowmen, encountered in central Asian deserts and mountains, are the last surviving Neanderthals who managed somehow to survive in the harsh climate of the Asian heartland which suits their adaptability.
Says author George Constable:
The disappearance of the Neanderthal seems to have the makings of a soul-stirring PLAN, with the world as a stage, and the happiest ending imaginable — the ASCENDANCY of ourselves. The only trouble is that no one really knows what happened….The twists and turns of the drama that brought about the REPLACEMENT of the Neanderthals constitute the greatest of all prehistoric mysteries (The Neanderthals, p. 124).
Says this same author, discussing the various theories to account for what happened, “And still others — a minority nowadays — insist that ALL NEANDERTHALS BECAME EXTINCT AND WERE REPLACED BY MODERN MEN WHO HAD EVOLVED FROM AN UNKNOWN GENETIC STOCK IN AN UNLOCATED EDEN.”
Precisely!
2010
12/16
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Science and the Bible pt 5


We continue this article with the intent of discovering what is said on the issue of Science, the Bible, and Pre-Adamite civilization:

Tree Rings from the Past
Scientists have tried to solve their dating problems by submitting C-14 to the TREE RING dating method for verification. This, in itself, was a tacit admission that all the attempts to verify their BASIC assumptions of the C-14 method were inconclusive at best!
Many geophysicists, like Richard Lingenfelter, were now falling back on tree ring dating methods to TEST the viability of radiocarbon dating. In Lingenfelter’s own words, “Because of the UNCERTAINTIES in the calculation of both the production rate and decay rate of C-14 we find that the BEST DETERMINATION of the ratio of these two rates is obtained from the C-14 variations determined from dendrochronology [tree ring dating]” (Richard E. Lingenfelter and R. Ramaty, Astrophysical and Geophysical Variations in C-14 Production, Maryland: Goddard Space Flight Center Publication, July 1969, p. 29).
With the development of tree-ring dating sequences, one way, it was thought, in which the validity of radiocarbon dates could be tested was against the separately developed tree-ring chronologies of oaks from Germany and Ireland — and the bristlecone pines from California. The outcome was that these comparisons revealed that before about 500 B.C. C-14 dates are TOO YOUNG. Peter James notes that “the ‘calibration’ required to convert Carbon-14 results into calendar years rises to OVER A MILLENNIUM for the Neolithic of Europe” (Centuries of Darkness, p. 325).
The trouble is, calibration is not a simple matter — the amount of C-14 in the atmosphere FLUCTUATED tremendously in the past, falling at times and then rising again significantly within a SINGLE CENTURY. According to Peter James “the calibration curve produced by comparing radiocarbon dates to the tree-ring chronology, rather than being a smooth progression, is full of SHORT-TERM WIGGLES. At certain points a radiocarbon result can be calibrated to several alternative calendar dates, without any way of being sure which is the correct choice.”
There is a complex period of time known to the chronologists as the “1st-millennium B.C. radiocarbon DISASTER”! It appears that between 400 and 800 B.C. the calibration curve is essentially FLAT, with ALL the calendar dates within that range equating to a C-14 date of around 500 B.C.! Michael Baille, who developed the Irish oak dendrochronology, came to the conclusion “that it is IMPOSSIBLE to sensibly resolve the radiocarbon dates of ANY samples whose true ages lie between 400 and 800 B.C. This is a CATASTROPHE for Late Bronze Age/Iron Age archaeology although one which has been predicted for some time” (“Some Observations on the High-Precision Calibration of Routine Dates,” Archaeology, Dendrochronology and the Radiocarbon Calibration Curve. University of Edinburgh Dept. of Arch. Occas. Paper 9, 51-63).
But, my friends, how ACCURATE is tree ring dating?
Tree ring analysis was proposed in 1837 by Charles Babbage, although the beginnings go all the way back to Leonardo da Vinci. Evidently da Vinci was the first to note that the yearly growth of trees in spring-time produces an apparent sequence of annual tree-rings in the wood.
The real investigator of tree-ring dating, however, is Dr. Andrew Ellicott Douglass, physicist and astronomer, formerly director of the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory. In 1929 he wrote that by reading the story told by tree rings, the horizons of history in the United States had been pushed back nearly eight centuries before Columbus, establishing an accurate chronology for the south-western United States.
Dr. Douglass died some time ago. Through his intensive investigations of tree rings he claimed that trees add a new ring EACH YEAR, and counting the rings can tell you the age of the tree. But he discovered that all rings are not of equal thickness — some are narrow, some wide, and often a series of narrow rings or broad rings would occur. Douglass reflected that the fat rings represented “fat years” and the lean rings “lean years” — or moist and dry years, respectively.
Most people believe that trees produce ONE ring each year. Is this true? Does one tree ring ALWAYS represent one year? Not necessarily so! It is common knowledge in botanical circles that some trees produce “false rings.”
In the book Botany, the authors make the following assertion: “The occurrence of FALSE growth rings may cause the age of the tree to be OVERESTIMATED. Such rings are produced by a temporary slowing of growth during the growing season” (Carl L. Wilson, et al. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1966, p. 130).
In another book entitled Botany, author Wilfred W. Robbins states that other phenomena causing false rings could be defoliation by insects, drought, and variation in rainfall (New York: John Wiley, 2nd edition, 1959, pp. 110-111).
Amazingly, Libby challenged the ring-per-year theory himself. “Recently, it has been reported that some trees add MORE THAN ONE ring per year, and thus a question has been raised about the accuracy of tree ring dates.
“This finding indicates that rings sometimes have been INCORRECTLY correlated with years, TOO GREAT AN AGE having been assigned from tree rings” (Willard F. Libby, “Accuracy of Radiocarbon Dates,” Science, Vol. 140, No. 3564, April 19, 1963, p. 270).
Libby’s statement was not based on thin air! He was familiar with the work done in the state of Texas by W.S. Glock — which revealed that SPECIAL conditions are required for trees to put on only one ring per year consistently.
W.S. Glock and S.R. Agerter put their findings in writing in the journal Endeavor:
“It has long been supported that tree rings are formed annually and so can be used to date trees. The studies of tree ring formation…have shown that this is NOT always so, as MORE than one ring may be formed in one year.
“Two growth layers, one THICK, the other THIN and lenticular, proved to be more common than one growth layer in this particular increment [that was studied]. THREE growth layers, in fact, were NOT unusual. A maximum of FIVE growth layers was discovered in the trunks and branches of two trees.
“It must be pointed out that these intraannuals were as distinctly and as sharply defined on the outer margin as any SINGLE annual increment” (“Anomalous Patterns in Tree Rings.” Jan. 1963, Vol. 22, pp. 9, 13).
The researchers concluded that it would have been IMPOSSIBLE to know which rings were put on in what year — except for effects of frosts in various years visible in the trees.
Douglass tried to push his research back further and further into the past, collecting cores and samples of wood from ancient trees used in old pueblos and Indian villages. He believed that he could “cross-date” or “overlap” the tree rings of different trees of different ages, and gradually push the new chronometer back to before the birth of the Messiah.
Since that time, new advances have been made, using the redwoods and giant sequoias of California, and the bristlecone pines, which are up to 4,500 years old — the oldest living organisms in the world.
By cross checking bristlecone pine dates with radiocarbon dates, the reliability of the method was thought to be verified. Using dead wood, C.W. Ferguson of the University of Arizona has obtained an “unquestionably accurate back-dating to the year 5,200 B.C.” (C.W. Ceram, The First American, New York: Harcourt Bace, Inc., 1971, p. 134).
Tree ring experts (Dendrochronologists) claim that the BRISTLECONE PINE puts on only ONE ring per year. In their researches, so they say, they found no false or additional rings per year.
They said: “These results are in contrast to the findings…where branches from a wide variety of Texas-grown trees reveal multiple growth layers attributed to varying temperatures and soil moisture” (Harold C. Fritts, Bristlecone Pine in the White Mountains of California, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1969, p. 32).
According to the author, the above results were on young branches of LOW-ELEVATION trees. These, the dendrochronologists admitted, might grow rings SEVERAL times a year during a long frost-free season.
But, according to Harold C. Fritts, this multiplicity of tree rings in young, low-elevation trees “led Libby [in 1963] to improperly infer that discrepancies between tree-ring and radiocarbon dates in HIGH-ELEVATION bristlecone pine may be attributed to frequent double rings. All studies that have been conducted in the White Mountains indicate that distinct double rings rarely occur” (Ibid., p. 32).
So what caused the discrepancies?
Once again, the present had to be used as a key to the past. Let us suppose the White Mountain region was a LOW-LEVEL area for a long period of time in the past and, then, was dramatically RAISED UP during a period of mountain building? Is it also possible the climate of the White Mountain area was similar to the climate of Texas at this time? How can one know? How do we know it WAS THE SAME as it is today?
But that’s not all.
Very few people know that NO LIVING TREES older than about 4,900 years have ever been found. The more lengthy chronologies of 8,200 tree ring years (touted by dendrochronologists) are built up from DEAD tree stumps that are pieced together in a very delicate manner. When did these stumps die? How long have they been sitting there dead?
According to the “experts” trees growing in the same area at the same time will produce similar successions of ring widths. “Thus if a newly felled tree some 200-300 years in age is examined, the rings from its EARLY LIFE can be matched with their counterparts in the LATER RINGS of a tree long since dead. The rings in this older tree can then be matched with those from even older ones, and so on, extending the sequence back in time as far as possible” (Peter Jones, Centuries of Darkness. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1991. Appendix I, p. 321).
There are a number of problems with this. When this method of dating is used, allowance has to be made for the growing time represented by the sapwood (the soft outer part of the tree that has not yet developed into proper rings) on the timber.
Another difficulty lies in the fact that trees of different species VARY GREATLY in their sensitivity to the weather, so that “effective sequences have to be built up using a SINGLE SPECIES” (Ibid.). Even trees of the same species from the same locality will react DIFFERENTLY to growing conditions — the absolute widths of the rings they form in a given year will not be the same. We have already seen that some species (especially in lower elevations) can form MORE THAN ONE ring per year!
There are further difficulties when dendrochronology is applied to certain areas of the world. In some countries, such as Egypt, trees are so scarce that local tree-ring dating could NEVER be built up. Further more, in large parts of the world LONG SEQUENCES are still being developed. Douglass’ attempts to push dendrochronology back to before the birth of Christ are highly suspect and, in the Eastern Mediterranean, juniper succession so far stretches back ONLY to 1073 A.D. Even when a sequence does exist, “its application to archaeological dating can still be difficult, since there is a real LACK of archaeologically significant timbers. Most excavations produce NO wooden objects, because they have simply rotted away. Only at those sites in very dry or very wet conditions will wood survive” (Ibid., p. 322). When one or two pieces of wood from a site are proven to be datable, they may have been REUSED from older buildings, but this may not always be apparent to the archaeologists present.
Dendrochronology, therefore, was forced to extrapolate — just as radiocarbon was. Tree rings may also need correcting if conditions were different in prehistoric times.
Puzzling Age Limit?
There are no LIVING 50,000-year-old trees. None at 25,000. None at 10,000. None at 8,200.
Not only that, but the oldest known trees — the bristlecone pines — present an enigma to uniformitarian, noncatastrophic thinking evolutionists.
Speaking of these remarkable trees, dendrochronologist Edmund Schulman noted: “Microscopic study of growth rings reveals that a bristlecone pine tree found last summer at nearly 10,000 feet began growing more than 4,600 years ago…Many of its neighbors are nearly as old; we have now dated 17 bristlecone pines 4,000 years old or more” (Edmund Schulman, “Bristlecone Pine, Oldest Living Things,” National Geographic Magazine, Vol. 113, No. 3, March 1958).
Years before Dr. Schulman had been puzzled by the SAME APPROXIMATE AGE LIMIT to the giant sequoia trees that he had been studying. It was even more puzzling when he considered that these magnificent trees enjoy near-perpetual life in the absence of catastrophic destruction. They also appear to be immune to insect attack.
With this in mind, Dr. Schulman asked the obvious question as early as 1934:
“Pertinent also is the well-known fact that standing snags of this species, other than those resulting from factors of gross destruction, are unknown. Does this mean that shortly preceding 3,275 years ago [or 4,000 years ago if John Muir's count was correct] ALL the then-living giant sequoias were WIPED OUT BY SOME CATASTROPHE?” (Edmund Schulman, “Longevity Under Adversity in Conifers,” Science, Vol. 119, March 26, 1934, p. 399).
Did you catch that?
Why is it that these still-living trees seem to be the ORIGINAL trees that grew in the present stands?
It CANNOT be disputed that some series of cataclysmic occurrences eradicated numerous forms of mammal life on the earth. Did a great cataclysmic event occur just beyond the historical era — around 4,300 years ago? Were the trees killed during this cataclysm? And, did the effects from a catastrophe or series of catastrophes gravely DISTORT dates from the prehistoric period? Were conditions so DIFFERENT in the pre-historic period that radiocarbon and tree ring dating are gravely affected? The evolutionists cannot adequately answer these questions.
Potassium-Argon Dating
A simple method of dating that appears to be essentially reliable is that of potassium-argon — discovered in 1948. Potassium is the lightest element possessing a naturally occurring radioactive isotope, K-40, with a half life of 1,280 million years. K-40 transmutes to either calcium 40 or argon 40, a gas, about one atom of K-40 in seven becoming argon.
By measuring the amount of potassium and argon in a lava or rock specimen, the specimen can be accurately dated with very refined techniques. The method is based on two assumptions: that no argon was trapped within the specimen at the time of its formation; and that no potassium or argon was added or subtracted by external processes during the lifetime of the mineral (Stokes, Essence of Earth History, page 23).
Potassium, a common mineral found in sedimentary and igneous rocks, offers great promise of dating many formations, and should therefore be a useful tool for the scientists.
The potassium-argon dating method helps fill the gap between uranium dating and the more accurate time frames of carbon 14 dating. It is useful for geological strata older than 40,000 years. Theoretically, it helps us establish the age of those NEAR-HUMAN CREATURES which existed and roamed various parts of the earth during the Pleistocene age and before. This dating method has been crucial in establishing the dates of the Australopithecines, HOMO ERECTUS, HOMO HABILIS and similar creatures dating from several hundred thousand years to a few million years in antiquity.
Use of this clock dated the Fort Ternan fossils found by Louis Leaky at about 14 million years, give or take a few hundred thousand years. Similarly the technique was useful in dating volcanic minerals at Olduvai, and the deposits containing the 1959 skull of Zinjanthropus turned out to be 1,750,000 years old, twice as old as had been estimated on the basis of geological studies.
The basis for these dates, by and large, appears to be irrefutable. Certainly, we must not reject out of hand, without due reason, these and many other established dates. The scientific evidence is substantial. In order to reconcile these findings with the biblical record of creation, we conclude that these creatures — Homo erectus, Homo habilis, Swanscombe man — WERE ALL PRE-ADAMIC CREATURES.
Meanwhile, another useful dating technique has come into vogue.
2010
12/16
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Science and the Bible pt 4


We continue the journey…

Radiocarbon Dating
In 1963 two British scientists, Don Brothwell of the British Museum and Eric Higgs of Cambridge, took stock of the many methods developed up to that time to answer archaeological questions, including dating methods. Only twenty years before that time, nobody would have dreamed of such scientific discoveries relating to the dating of artifacts.
Of all the dating methods, C-14 or radiocarbon dating has created the greatest interest to date. Developed by Willard F. Libby of the University of Chicago — between 1941 and 1945 Libby participated in the development of the atomic bomb — this method of dating has become the touchstone of all fossil dating up to 40,000 years.
Libby postulated that cosmic ray-produced radiocarbon might be a key to age determination. Supposing that C-14 atoms produced by cosmic rays would be readily oxidized to carbon dioxide and would mix freely with the atmospheric carbon dioxide, and because of the rapid turnover of the earth’s atmosphere, Libby assumed the radiocarbon portion of carbon dioxide would achieve uniform global distribution, and would logically be taken up in the same proportion by all plant life during photosynthesis. All animal life, which indirectly or directly lives off of plants and vegetation could also be expected to contain the same UNIVERSAL proportion of C-14. Similarly, even sea life would be thus affected, because carbon dioxide of the atmosphere is in exchange equilibrium with the oceans.
Adds E.H. Willis, “Upon the death of an organism, further uptake or exchange of radiocarbon would cease, leaving the trapped radiocarbon to decay exponentially with time” (Brothwell, Don, and Higgs, Eric, Science in Archaeology: A Comprehensive Survey of Progress and Research).
Simply explained, cosmic rays continually bombard our planet earth. Upon striking our atmosphere, neutrons are produced that react with atoms of nitrogen in our atmosphere, creating tiny quantities of C-14. This newly formed C-14 forms a chemical bond with oxygen as the polymer carbon dioxide. Plants cannot distinguish between carbon dioxide containing radiocarbon and the normal kind and absorb both into their tissues and convert them into food by photosynthesis. Animals and men eat the plants. Thus C-14 passes into the body of every living thing.
Since C-14 is radioactive, and radioactive substances decay at FIXED rates, it is possible to determine that after a specified amount of time the amount of radioactivity in a substance will be reduced exactly one half, or one fourth, and so on. This is called the “half life” of the radioisotope.
The half life of C-14 was at first thought to be 5,567 years. Thus a tree cut down 5,568 years ago theoretically ought to produce only half as many Geiger counter ticks as one chopped down today, because it would have exactly half as much radiocarbon remaining in its tissues.
In January 9, 1948, the first conference took place to study the usefulness of Libby’s method for archaeology. After that time, a flood of materials from the world over poured into Dr. Libby’s lab to be analyzed. Bits of Egyptian mummies, charcoal from an ancient caveman’s fire, the tooth of a mammoth, a piece of a beam of a Hittite temple, and hundreds of other objects, were tested.
Libby’s theory was quickly thought to be confirmed. Comparisons of radiocarbon dates of material with dates derived archaeologically often turned out to be strikingly similar. Although Libby always estimated an uncertainty factor of about ten percent in his datings — thus a piece of wood 4,000 years old would be said to be 4,000 plus or minus about 400 years — Libby’s method helped archaeologists pin down dates which could not otherwise be determined.
It is not possible, however, to give PRECISE radiocarbon dates in practice because of UNCERTAINTIES involved in the measurement of samples. As a result, C-14 dates are always quoted with what is called a “Standard Deviation” which represents their degree of accuracy. “For example, a date of 1,000 BP (Before Present) with a Standard Deviation of fifty years has a 68.3 per cent chance (one Standard Deviation) of lying between 950 and 1,050 BP, a 95.3 per cent chance (two Standard Deviations) of lying between 900 and 1,100 BP, and a 99.8 per cent (three Standard Deviations) of lying between 850 and 1150 BP” (Peter James, Centuries of Darkness. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1991. Appendix I, p. 322).
Unfortunately, a large number of problems have been encountered in applying C-14 dating to ARCHAEOLOGY. First, the vast majority of results have a Standard Deviation greater than 50 years in practice, so that single dates for excavations are of LITTLE VALUE where a century or two is often the scale of the debate. Therefore, the accepted practice today, where C-14 samples are actually taken, is to produce a SERIES of dates for each site.
Second, in certain circumstances OLD CARBON can be absorbed by living organisms and produce radiocarbon dates that are TOO OLD. Notes author Peter James: “For example, VOLCANOES often release OLD CARBON before their eruption, something which may well be a contributory source of CONFUSION in the debate over dating the explosion of Thera [in the Aegean ]” (Ibid., p. 323). The dating of both shellfish and reeds create further problems because they are affected by the presence of OLD CARBON in seawater and freshwater respectively. Ironically, archaeologists tried to apply C-14 dating methods to reeds in Egypt because of their use as a bonding material in the brick walls of temples and tombs.
Several difficulties are encountered when assessing the CLOSENESS of the association between dated samples and the event for which a date is required. Because of its presence in large quantities on most archaeological excavations, CHARCOAL is commonly used to produce the vast majority of radiocarbon dates. This is primarily due to the fact that in acid soils charcoal is usually about the only organic material to survive.
As Peter James explains, “there are TWO distinct problems related to the use of CHARCOAL. One is that large WOODEN BEAMS used for construction may well be fashioned from trees which had grown for several hundred years. If the building is then burnt down, the OUTER PART of the timbers will be destroyed, leaving behind pieces from the CENTRE of the beams. If these remaining sections of the original timbers are then sampled for radiocarbon dating they will give a FALSELY OLD READING…Of course, if the timbers were REUSED from older buildings the discrepancy would be even greater” (Ibid.). Dendrochronologist Peter Kuniholm produced a good example of this when he dated a house in the Phrygian capital on the city mound at Gordion. While one group of timbers had been felled in the 7th century B.C., “three other pieces were cut about FOUR CENTURIES EARLIER. If only the latter had been collected the result would have been an entirely ERRONEOUS notion about the date of [the building]” (Dendrochronology and Radiocarbon Dates for Gordion and Other Phrygian Sites, 1988).
R. B. Warner, writing in the Ulster Journal of Archaeology, explained that the other problem with CHARCOAL SAMPLES is that many C-14 dates have been produced by collecting together large amounts of FRAGMENTARY charcoal. The problem with this is that fragmentary charcoal can easily be moved around sites by continuing activity and differs from bones in that the CONDITION of the sample cannot indicate how QUICKLY it was buried. “The consequence of these two drawbacks is that it has been argued that the estimate of the potential AGE-LAPSE between a sample and the stratum in which it was found should be around 200 years in the case of charcoal from long-lived species of trees” (Peter James, Century of Darkness, p. 324).
In the more recent historic period — the last 2,000 years or so — radiocarbon dates generally agree with historical dates. So with the seeming success of radiocarbon dating in this period, Libby cautiously stated that “in terms of physical principles of course, a method which works for three thousand years might extend all the way to fifty thousand….”
He went on to admit, “However, this is MERE CONJECTURE” (Willard F. Libby, History of Radiocarbon Dating, Symposium on Radioactive Dating and Methods of Low Level Counting, March 1967, p. 24).
He was in for a shock!
Writing in the January 1956 issue of the American Scientist, Dr. Libby briefly related the history of C-14 dating: “The first SHOCK Dr. Arnold and I had was that our advisors informed us that history extended back only 5,000 years.
“We had thought initially that we would be able to get samples all along the curve back to 30,000 years, put the points in, and then our work would be finished.
“You read in the books and find statements that such and such a society or archaeological site is 20,000 years old.
“We learned rather abruptly that these numbers, these ancient ages, are not known; in fact, it is at about the time of the first dynasty of Egypt that the earliest historical date of any real certainty has been established. So we had, in the initial stages, the opportunity to check against knowns, principally EGYPTIAN ARTIFACTS, and in the second stage we had to go into the great wilderness of prehistory to see whether there were elements of internal consistency which would lead one to believe that the method was sound” (Willard F. Libby, “Radiocarbon Dating,” American Scientist, Vol. 44, No. 1, Jan. 1956, p. 107).
But what about the “historical” dates? According to the most liberal estimates Egyptian history begins approximately 5,000 years ago. Some historians, with good reason, believe that Egyptian history does not extend that far into the past. The idea that the various Egyptian dynasties (as recorded by the Egyptian priest Manetho) existed consecutively in time has been seriously questioned by many scholars and is, in fact, totally in ERROR.
This very fact alone has a tremendous bearing on the radiocarbon method of dating. If the dates propagated by the history books are in error, what is there for Libby to hang the accuracy of his dating method on? Without KNOWN historical dates to check an object to be dated against, how can we know for certain that the indicated radiocarbon years are the same as actual calendar years?
And what about dating artifacts OLDER than 5,000 years?
“There was only one way to check the reliability of radiocarbon dating over a longer span,” noted archaeologist Edward S. Deevey, Jr., “and that was to test it on the materials of GEOLOGY and PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY. The age of such materials is not ‘known’ in the same sense as that of mummy cases or trees [and these are suspect]” (Edward S. Deevey, Jr., “Radiocarbon Dating,” Scientific American, Vol. 186, No. 2, Feb. 1959, p. 25).
The bottom line is that there are no ACCURATE historical dates over 3,000 years with which to check Libby’s dating method. Radiocarbon was entirely alone.
Dr. Libby was forced to make this point clear by heavily QUALIFYING his statements. But most books on evolution — and also history and archaeology — simply gloss over such points as if they didn’t matter. Laymen are led to believe that the radiocarbon dating method is infallible — just like the Pope!
If this was not enough, there is a HUGE ROADBLOCK to the accurate determination of dates using this dating method — C-14 EQUILIBRIUM!
When cosmic-ray particles collide with the earth’s atmosphere, free neutrons are produced that react with nitrogen atoms. A neutron, when it enters the nitrogen nucleus, knocks out a proton — which changes the nitrogen atom to a C-14 atom.
Dr. Libby calculated the PRESENT PRODUCTION RATE of these C-14 atoms, and postulated that if this rate has been going on for thousands upon thousands of years at its PRESENT rate, then the following evidence MUST be found:
“If this production has proceeded at a constant rate for many thousands of years, then the amount of C-14 present on the surface of the earth should reach a CONSTANT value” (“Radiocarbon Dating,” McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, 1966 edition, Vol. 11, p. 291).
Libby himself commented on this “constant” value or amount: “…We can see that IF the cosmic rays have been bombarding the earth in essentially THEIR PRESENT INTENSITY for 10 or 20 thousand years, we can expect that a STEADY-STATE CONDITION had been established, in which the rate of formation of carbon-14 is EQUAL to the rate at which it disappears” (Willard F. Libby, “Radiocarbon Dating,” American Scientist, Vol. 44, No. 1, Jan. 1956, p. 99).
If this ASSUMPTION is correct, the C-14 ratio of any ancient specimen or artifact could be related to the PRESENT ratio of C-14 in modern specimens. Dating then becomes very simple. IF NO OTHER UNKNOWN FACTORS had disrupted the method, a radiocarbon year would equal a calendar year.
This EQUILIBRIUM is vital to the theory! The production of C-14 MUST equal the amount leaving the system in disintegration if this method of dating is to be valid. However, it takes a LONG TIME to bring the C-14 level into equilibrium.
If the system is not yet in equilibrium, it simply means that not enough carbon-14 has been produced to match the decay of this atom. It also means that old dates determined by this method would therefore be MUCH MORE RECENT!
Is C-14 equilibrium a fact? Is this dating method viable?
Dr. Libby, and those working with him, estimated that there were 18.8 atoms of radiocarbon being produced every MINUTE, per gram of carbon.
Now, logically, if there were an equilibrium between the rate of production and disintegration, LIVING samples should show a disintegration rate of 18.8 C-14 atoms per minute per gram of carbon.
Can this be verified?
When 18 samples taken from various latitudes were analyzed, they did NOT show an equilibrium! The disintegration rate of the sample only averaged 15.3 disintegrations per minute per gram; therefore the production rate was almost 19 % greater than the rate of disintegration!
Libby himself preferred a value of 16.1 (the value for sea shells) for the disintegration rate — even though the average for organic specimens was 15.3. This still represents a sizable discrepancy — almost 15% between the production rate and the disintegration rate.
Why is it so IMPORTANT to have this equilibrium? Again, Dr. Libby puts his finger on the crucial point:
“If one were to imagine that the cosmic radiation had been turned off until a short while ago, the enormous amount of radiocarbon necessary to the equilibrium state WOULD NOT have been manufactured and the specific radioactivity of living matter would be MUCH LESS than the rate of production calculated from the neutron intensity” (Willard F. Libby, Radiocarbon Dating, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955, p. 8).
Yet, the 18 samples from the various latitudes indicated that equilibrium has NOT YET BEEN REACHED. If this is so, the cosmic system may have been turned on just A SHORT TIME AGO! This, of course, has other implications
The fact is, there simply may not have been enough elapsed time to produce the amount of radiocarbon necessary to bring the system into steady-state equilibrium.
If this is true, how would it affect the radiocarbon dating method?
Now how did Libby overcome this problem in his mind? He answers this very question in his book Radiocarbon Dating: “The agreement seems to be sufficiently within the EXPERIMENTAL ERRORS involved, so that we have reason for confidence in the theoretical picture set forth above” (p. 7).
Is this true — was it just an “experimental error”?
In 1963, a significant report in the journal Reviews of Geophysics was published by geophysicist Richard E. Lingenfelter. With his calculations and conclusions he seemed to put to rest the possibility that the lack of equilibrium was only “experimental error.”
Lingenfelter came to the conclusion that “there is strong indication, despite the large errors, that the present natural production rate EXCEEDS the natural decay rate by as much as 25 percent…it appears that equilibrium in the production and decay of carbon-14 MAY NOT BE MAINTAINED in detail” (Richard E. Lingenfelter, “Production of Carbon-14 by Cosmic Ray Neutrons,” Reviews of Geophysics, Vol. 1, No. 1, Feb. 1963, p. 51).
Some years later, Hans E. Suess commented on Lingenfelter’s experiments by saying: “it seems probable that the present-day inventory of natural C-14 DOES NOT CORRESPOND to the equilibrium value, but is INCREASING” (Journal of Geophysical Research, “Secular Varieties of the Cosmic-ray Produced Carbon-14 in the Atmosphere and Their Interpretations,” Vol. 70, No. 23, Dec. 1, 1965, p. 5947).
Naturally, the evolutionists felt that any discrepancy could be explained without jeopardizing the method. But nonetheless all explanations are still UNPROVED hypotheses.
The production rate seemed to be 20 to 30 percent GREATER than the disintegration rate — depending on what base figures were used.
Many different “explanations” were concocted to rectify this discrepancy but, once again, there was simply NO WAY to be sure! A lack of equilibrium could be a FACT! This could mean there was some DRASTIC CHANGE in the radiocarbon inventory in prehistoric times — such as the period of time mentioned in Genesis 1:2. Was the C-14 system nonfunctional in terms of its effect on the earth until just a short time ago? Have other factors disturbed or changed the crucial C-14-to-ordinary-carbon ratio? Should all the great stretches of time scientists claim for tested fossils be TELESCOPED into a few thousand years? Could it just be possible?
Laboratories around the world continued pouring out thousands of dates. Meanwhile, the layman was convinced that science had proved that relatively recent animal and human fossils were anywhere from 8,000 to 53,000 B.P. (Before the Present). One date of 65,000 B.P. was measured!
However, if the discrepancies are indeed a fact, these dates may have only been 6,000 years old — or younger.
In the meantime, Dr. Lingenfelter pressed forward in his studies of cosmic radiation and its relationship to C-14 production. Despite his positive findings published in 1963, he felt it necessary to RECONSIDER them and, in 1969, made the following admission: “The uncertainties in…the production rate and the inventory are LARGE ENOUGH to accommodate a wide range of Ro [ratio between production and decay of carbon-14] including PERFECT EQUILIBRIUM” (personal communication).
So what it boils down to is that after 50 years scientists still cannot be sure that a BASIC ASSUMPTION of the C-14 dating method is true! They are not even sure of the production rate of radiocarbon!
So why, pray tell me, have thousands of C-14 dates been published as if they are fact? How can newspapers, magazines and school text books be written as though C-14 dating is certain?
Another source of error is inherent in the material. Some aquatic animals have flesh that shows fewer traces of C-14 than their shell. Some plants do not take in as much C-14 as other plants in different environments. Only as enough evidence of these anomalies is accumulated can the errors be corrected.
Another problem is exhaust gases from automobiles. As vast quantities of carbon compounds are belched into the air, diluting the carbon compounds naturally found in the atmosphere, diminishing the percentage of C-14 found there, this makes certain plants and animals in such areas appear to have decayed MUCH MORE than they have.
There are many more sources of MINOR ERROR. Even the “half life” of C-14 has had to undergo revision, and it is now assumed to be 5,730 years. All the measurements taken before 1961, therefore, have had to be recalibrated. Nevertheless, radiocarbon dating has become a KEY tool in the hands of archaeologists. But another highly touted tool, providing a cross check of C-14 dates, is the use of DENDROCHRONOLOGY, or TREE RINGS.
2010
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Science and the Bible Pt 3


Here is the third part of this series. Again, I am not endorsing this information or position, just presenting it as a well written article for your enjoyment and study.

Vast Periods of Time?
Vast periods of time, and many successive ecological niches, had to exist in the earth, for algal reefs of hundreds of feet to grow in place. Much time was required for vast quantities of vegetation to live, grow, and die, and to become entombed, to create vast deposits of coal in Kansas, Oklahoma, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
This vast period of time YEHOVAH put to good use.
As Robert Macdonald shows, in a paper entitled Geology:
“The fossil record contains hundreds of zones, each with its own particular faunal assemblage. What is the chance that such an invariant worldwide sequence of life forms could be built up if they all lived CONTEMPORANEOUSLY, and the sequence in which they are found were only a burial order? How could a burial order based not on water sorting, but on environments do the job?…

“Suppose that in a worldwide catastrophe, one group of organisms were brought in from one area and deposited, then another assemblage from another area were deposited on top of that, and so on. A local sequence of life forms would be built up. But the chances would be against the deposition of fossils in the same order in a local sequence in another area. Consider the chance that the same order would occur in all sequences worldwide. It would be NIL!

“There is NO WAY to account for the sequence in faunal succession by ONE catastrophe. Nor is there any way to account for this sequence by a SERIES of catastrophes, or by a LONG DRAWN-OUT catastrophe. If all these Paleozoic and Mesozoic organisms were contemporaneous, there would inevitably have been some mixing of early and late forms.

“The ONLY explanation is that each geologic horizon does indeed represent a DIFFERENT time in the past during which a unique assemblage of life forms was living and being deposited in many parts of the world. Slow or incremental deposition is therefore essential to give time for worldwide changes in populations of fauna whose remains preserved as fossils vary from one stratum to another.”
During the geologic ages of the earth’s past, life went on in a normal fashion for millions of years. Fossil reefs obviously grew in the place in which they are found. Standing trees, with their roots in place, tracks and trails both on land and on the sea bottoms, layer upon layer containing burrows and borings made by animals just as they do in the sea-bottoms today, all show that most of the geologic column was created OVER MILLIONS OF YEARS, not in the Flood of Noah’s time, or some other isolated catastrophe.
Although the record in the earth’s strata clearly shows that great catastrophes did take place, in the earth’s past, the record also shows that there were periods of millions of years in which no violent cataclysms occurred. During these calm, relatively nonviolent periods, great CREATIVE PROCESSES were going on. Cyclothems of coal were formed. As Macdonald points out, coal is commonly found in a sequence of beds called a cyclothem — a cycle of beds repeated over and over again, perhaps dozens of times. Much time would be needed for such deposits to be made, one on top of another.
The Pre-Adamic World
How, then, are we to understand the “Pre-Adamic world”? What was it like?
Robert Macdonald gives a good answer:
“The fossil record shows that new organisms appeared in the record from time to time, and at other times groups of organisms have become extinct. This shows that at times God created new organisms, and at other times, species were destroyed or allowed to die out. There is a continuity to this pre-Adamic world. It would appear that there is no record of the COMPLETE destruction of all life during that period before Adam.”
Macdonald continues: “I therefore do not consider the pre-Adamic world as a series of creations, but one creation, even though the acts of new life forms were not all simultaneous.
“Why the sequence of life we find in faunal succession? What possible reason could there be for God creating the organisms of the pre-Adamic world ‘by stages’ instead of all at one time? Perhaps a better question would be ‘Why a pre-Adamic world at all?’ Human answers to these questions are bound to be somewhat speculative since God has not revealed this knowledge, but a few ideas have been proposed.
“It has been suggested that there was pre-Adamic life so that the angels could have something to rule over and work with. This seems a likely possibility, but there must be more to it.”
Robert Macdonald goes on:
“The first life forms created apparently were bacteria, algae and possibly worms, ‘simple’ organisms that could survive in a barren and sterile environment. The points in the sequence which mark the first appearance of new life forms indicate where God created new species, and added them to an already viable ecological system. These new organisms were added from time to time as the environment became prepared for them by the former ecological system.
“The succession of life forms added by creation was one of generally increasing complexity and size. Thus the sequence observed in faunal succession was not a result of evolution, but one necessitated by practicality. It took a few ‘simple’ small varieties of organisms in the beginning to prepare the way for more numerous varieties of larger and more complex organisms, and so on.”
Macdonald asserts:
“Understanding the reasons for this sequence imparts an understanding of at least one possible purpose of the pre-Adamic creation — to prepare the earth for man. This preparation was not only of the environment, but also of the fossil fuels and our mineral resources which made possible the industrial revolution.”
The world before Adam can only be understood by studying the evidence of that world contained within the earth’s strata. The Scriptures allude to such a world in the very briefest of terms. But there is not a word in the Bible that would lead one to understand that physical life on earth existed before Adam. The Bible is largely silent about that ancient world. It remains, therefore, for the study of geology and paleontology to guide us and to provide information about that by-gone world.
The fact that geology shows us that various forms of animal and plant life became extinct, at different periods of the earth’s geologic past, would indicate that YEHOVAH God allowed these extinctions for a purpose. At times, to accomplish His purpose, the extinctions were widespread and general, and involved catastrophe.
At the end of the Cretaceous period, the dinosaurs were exterminated. However, frogs, turtles, lizards, snakes and crocodiles CONTINUED ON THROUGH the boundary, into a new world. The destruction, although vast and global in nature, was NOT universal.
Fundamentalists, who attempt to account for all life remains and fossils within the past 6,000 years, simply dismiss the 100 miles of evidence in the geologic column!
As Bertrand Russell, the famous philosopher, once wrote: “The world was created in 4004 B.C., complete with fossils, which were inserted to try our faith. The world was created suddenly, but was made such as it would have been if it had evolved. There is no logical impossibility about this view. And similarly, there is no logical impossibility in the view that the world was created five minutes ago, complete with memories and records” (An Outline of Philosophy, p. 27).
Theodosius Dobzhansky, professor of genetics at the University of California, at Davis, and professor emeritus at the Rockefeller University, points out it is foolish to try to make the Bible into a primer on natural science. If all the radiometric evidence is wrong, if the duration of the geological and paleontological record is grossly distorted, he adds, then the Creator must have seen fit to play deceitful tricks on geologists and biologists. If fossils were placed by the Creator where we find them now, so as to deliberately give the appearance of great age and antiquity, then YEHOVAH God must be absurdly deceitful. Dobzhansky added: “This is as revolting as it is uncalled for.”
Sir Albert Einstein once said, “I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world.” The God revealed in the pages of the Bible is a loving Creator. He is not malicious, spiteful, capricious, or a “Practical Joker.” Nor is He a cosmic Magician pulling rabbits out of a hat.
The God of the Bible is a Creator — a Builder — a Designer and Architect, Engineer, Supreme Draftsman, and Originator. Everything He does it with plan and purpose. NOTHING is haphazard. His original creation was PERFECT. And every addition He has made was PERFECT, for the purpose for which He designed it.
Creation is an ongoing process. It is still continuing, today. Each new life which is born is, in effect, a “new creation.”
Embarrassed Creationists?
In the book of Genesis we read the account of the creation of man. The chronicler relates: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man IN OUR IMAGE, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’
“So God created man IN HIS OWN IMAGE, IN THE IMAGE OF GOD he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26-27, RSV).
More information is given in chapter 2, verse 7: “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”
Is this creation account mere legend? ancient mythology? Or is it factual — literal — historical?
How does the evidence of paleontology relate to this question?
A person searching for TRUTH must recognize that he must not prejudge an issue before he gets all the facts — before all the available evidence is in. And he must be willing to change his views if at any future time new evidence comes along which controverts his previous conclusions.
So it is with the field of anthropology and early man and dating techniques as they have been applied to fossil man. In past years, most if not all creationists have argued that radiometric dating methods, particularly RADIOCARBON dating, must be in absolute error because they would indicate that the earth is much older than 6,000 years. Also, POTASSIUM-ARGON dating, and radiocarbon dating, using this reasoning, must a priori be in error because they show that early man lived on the earth for anywhere FROM 40,000 YEARS TO THREE OR FOUR MILLION YEARS.
Potassium-argon dating methods have been used to date geologic material associated with remains of HOMO ERECTUS and NEANDERTHAL MAN. If these creatures are true men, and if the dates are essentially accurate, then man has indeed been on the earth for many scores of thousands of years, as anthropologists insist on telling us. And they don’t have any ax to grind; they are merely reporting what they find in the fossil fields of the earth. They are not striving to prove evolution. They DID NOT invent these dating methods merely to embarrass creationists.
Even more embarrassing to creationists of the old school, however, is the realization that more than one dating method APPEAR to reveal the same essential TRUTH of the antiquity of fossil man.
Creationists continually assert that radiocarbon dating is a fraud; is unreliable because of the Noachian deluge; is based on false assumptions related to the influx of cosmic rays into the earth’s atmosphere; and is therefore untrustworthy and must be categorically rejected.
As if that were not enough to disturb the quiescent theories dates for the last 8,000 years have been carefully examined and tested by comparison with tree-ring dating methods, or DENDROCHRONOLOGY. And to the consternation of most creationists, the two methods APPEAR to be IN GENERAL AGREEMENT as far back as they have been compared!
As if that were not enough to disturb the quiescent theories of creationists, and give them nightmares in their sleep, now a new dating method has entered the field — RACEMIZATION, or the comparison of the proportion of D amino acids in fossil remains with L amino acids. This new, totally INDEPENDENT dating method, unfortunately, APPEARS to agree with dendrochronology and radiocarbon 14 dating and potassium-argon dating, and APPEARS to provides an independent check on the other systems.
What does all this mean?
Pity the poor creationist who believes that the earth was just created by divine fiat 6,000 years ago because that is what he thinks, sincerely, the Bible says.
Such discoveries have rocked the faith of many erstwhile believers in the Bible and the inspiration of Scripture. But do such discoveries really CONFLICT with revelation? Is there really a CONTRADICTION in the Biblical revelation and the apparently well attested, authenticated discoveries of paleontology?
It is time we re-examine some of the basic theological premises we have taken for granted and assumed to be true without adequately testing them by the Bible record itself. It is also time to re-examine some of the pet theories of the evolutionists and the dating methods they use to determine the age of the fossils they uncover!
2010
12/16
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