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Prophets or
Evolution - An LDS Perspective Chapter 20 Radiometric
Dating " Icons of Evolution - Science or
Myth?
Jonathan Wells, page 223 Introduction Dating of
bones, fossils, rocks and other items is a very controversial issue. To understand just how controversial it is,
the same fossil might be dated by the evolutionists to be hundreds of millions of years old; yet the same fossil might
be dated by creation scientists as being no
more than 6 thousand years old. Radiometric
dating is the process by which bones or fossils are "dated," meaning
an estimated date is chosen as to when the animal lived and died on the earth. In the case
of fossils; which are essentially bones that have fossilized, meaning turned to
stone; fossils are generally dated on the basis of factors other than
radiometric dating; such as a particular date may be chosen for a fossil
because the date is consistent with
aspects of the theory of evolution. In other
words, in dating fossils it is quite common that an assumption that the theory of evolution is true is used as a
factor in dating fossils. This
is a self-serving way of dating fossils, but it is a common tactic because scientists
are so confident that the theory of evolution is true. For
example, by using morphology and an assumption of the theory of evolution, it
may be assumed that "Fossil A" evolved before "Species B"
"evolved." Thus, if
"Fossil A" is believed to be 4,000,000 years old, "Fossil
B" may be dated to be 3,700,000 years old solely on the basis of the date
of "Fossil A" and a belief in evolution (i.e. it is dated based on
where "Fossil B" fits on the phylogenetic tree relative to
"Fossil A"). While the
reader may assume that it takes millions of years to turn a biological specimen
to stone, actually it has been demonstrated to have happened in less than 100 years (not 100
million years, just 100 years). This is
not theory; it is based on actual samples. Because of
fossilization, and other reasons (e.g. when an unstable parent atom becomes a
stable daughter atom, the dating of the specimen can no longer be done
accurately), dating of old fossils is generally impossible to do directly. Thus, many assumptions must be made to date
fossils. These assumptions are generally
made to be harmonious with the theory of evolution. These
assumptions leave the door wide open for huge debates as to when a particular
species lived on this earth. Radiometric Dating Radiometric
dating is generally done on bones or tissue which has not fossilized, and is
supposedly the most scientific and most accurate dating technique. However,
even radiometric dating is a subject of controversy. The truth is that flaws in radiometric dating
are intentionally ignored in order for the specimen to yield dates which are
very old. It is not that
the technique itself is inaccurate or that the theory behind the technique is
flawed; it is the intentional way that key factors are ignored that is the key
complaint. In other words, factors which
can have a huge affect on the dating of a sample are totally ignored in order
to get the results scientists want; so the date is harmonious with the theory
of evolution!! Why would
science want to intentionally misrepresent when an animal lived on this
earth? The reason is that the theory of
evolution needs many, many, many millions of years to justify the time
necessary to "prove" the theory of evolution could have happened. But even
more important than that, it is critical for the scientific establishment to
date human skeletons to be older than Adam and Eve, the first humans mentioned
in the Bible. Thus,
evolutionists tend to favor techniques which lead to huge numbers of years
since the specimen died. The important
issue, however, is that scientists use techniques which are scientifically known to be
massively flawed. The Radiometric Dating of
Bones and Tissue All living tissue
has radioactive isotopes in it. For
example, carbon-14 is a carbon molecule with 14 electrons. It is well
known how much carbon-14 is in the tissue of an animal (including a human
being) while they are alive, meaning at the time of death. After an
animal dies (including humans) the amount of carbon-14 naturally "decays"
over time, meaning the radioactive atoms decay into non-radioactive atoms over
time. In other words, the amount of
decay is a function of time. Thus, if
scientists can determine the level of radioactive carbon-14 in the bone of a
dead animal (including humans); they can determine when that animal died by
looking at their decay charts. There are
actually many different types of radioactive atoms which can be used to perform
radiometric dating and many different techniques and theories. But there
are severe problems with radiometric dating.
I will not discuss all of the potential problems with radiometric
dating; I will simply provide a few examples. Leeching of Radiometric
Material To
understand the problem, suppose there are two animals that died on the same
day. The first animal, at the time of
death, was immediately moved to an air conditioned building located in the
desert and it was placed in a dark room.
The humidity in this desert was very, very low. Furthermore, because the specimen was indoors,
no moisture from the rare rainfall ever touched the specimen. Furthermore, the specimen was kept cool and
in a dark room. On the
other hand, the second specimen was buried next to a river in a shallow
grave. The bones were exposed to the
moisture in the soil due to the river.
The bones were exposed to the high humidity of the general area. The bones were exposed to the extreme
moisture of the flooding of the river; during which time the specimen was
literally soaking underwater. And the
specimen was exposed to the water from rainfall since it was in a shallow
grave. Water flowing down from nearby
hills would have increased the amount of water the bones were exposed to due to
the rain. Will
radioactive dating, after two hundred years, give the same date for both
specimens? Absolutely not!! The second specimen may date to be ten times older, or more, than
the first animal. Why is this
so? The reason
is that moisture, from any source, will "leech" or draw out
radioactive material from the bones of the sample. If one specimen is exposed to very high
levels of moisture, a great deal of radioactive material will leech out of the
specimen and the radiometric dating will date the species far, far too old. This radioactive material which has leeched
over time will be interpreted by scientists as radioactive decay. But it is not radioactive decay,
it is leeching of radioactive atoms by moisture. The problem
is that radiometric labs don't make any type of adjustment in their dating of
bones for known or potential moisture or heat which might have affected the
sample. For
example, if the first specimen dated to be 200 years old, the second specimen might
have dated to 2,000 years or more. Yet
the two animals died on the same day!! It is not
that the radioactive isotopes were miscounted; it is because the lab totally
failed to take into account the environment the sample was decaying in. Caves All of the
common types of caves are formed by water.
The water may have come from above (e.g. rainfall or a creek) or it may
have come from below (i.e. a hot springs), but all of the common types of caves
were cut-out by water. Caves are
very, very humid because there is almost always an existing source of water in
the cave, such as a creek or dripping water, to name but two sources. Thus,
skeletons found in caves are, by definition, highly exposed to moisture. Do
scientists take the massive amount of moisture found in caves into account when
they date a skeleton found in a cave? The
answer is 'no'. Even though
the moisture in a cave can be more accurately estimated than the moisture a
skeleton found buried next to a river is exposed to; scientists still do not
take this into account. Is this
because scientists are simply incompetent or is it because scientists
intentionally want us to believe that all skeletons are very, very old? Since caves
are places where "cave men" have dwelled, it is critical to calculate
very high dates for "cave men," meaning it is important to make their
bones seem very, very old. The goal is
to get the date prior to 6,000 B.C., when most Christians believe Adam and Eve
lived. When they can do that, by
intentionally ignoring key factors, it appears the Bible is not accurate. In
addition, most cave drawing were drawn using organic material, such as
blood. Would the humidity in caves
affect the dating of cave drawings?
Absolutely!! Yet the dating of
cave drawings never takes into account the high
humidity in caves. Kennewick Man "Kennewick
Man" (or Richland Man) is a skeleton which was found in central-southern
Washington state in 1996. The skull
of Kennewick Man was found in a pond or lake which had been formed by the McNary Dam in Kennewick on the Columbia River. The dam had been completed in 1954. The dam was
built for irrigation purposes, meaning the annual rainfall in that area is
lower than normal (about 6 to 8 inches of annual rainfall). While his
skull had been found in a pond, the rest of his bones had been scattered and
were found near the Columbia River. Because the
dam was finished in 1954, the vast majority of the time Kennewick Man was in
the ground there was no dam in that area of the Columbia River. No matter when
Kennewick Man died, his bones were exposed to the flooding of the Columbia
River, plus the bones were exposed to rain, humidity, moisture in the soil (i.e.
water which came from the river through the soil), and so on. The dirt
near a river is always very moist because the water seeps through the dirt near
the river. Thus, his bones would have
been subject to constant moist dirt. Furthermore,
if there had been any hills around where the bones were found, the run-off from
the rain which landed on the hills would have passed right over Kennewick Man's
bones. Furthermore,
because his skull was found separated from his body, his body had probably not
been buried deep beneath the soil, meaning his body was probably originally put
in a shallow grave, near the river. Had
it not been put in a grave, animals would probably have eaten the flesh and bones
many years earlier. Thus, the
bones of Kennewick Man were constantly subject to moisture and constantly the
radioactive isotopes of his bones were being leeched or pushed out of the bones
by the moisture. Under ideal
conditions, the lowering of the percentage of radioactive material in a sample
is only caused by decay over time. But
in the case of this man, the lowering of radioactive material was exacerbated
(i.e. intensified) by the additional actions of water leeching radioactive materials
from the bones. Thus, when
scientists determined the percentage of radioactive material in his bones, if
they did not take into account an estimate of how much extra radioactive material was leeched out of the bones by a
river flooding, by rainwater, by moist soil next to a river, etc., their dates
would be very, very wrong. In reality,
the scientists did not take any of
these things into account. All
they did was measure the percentage of radioactive isotopes!! When the
Kennewick Man skeleton was radiometric dated, his skeleton was dated to be
9,000 years old. This is scientific nonsense
because zero moisture the bones would have been exposed to was taken into
account in the date. Rather than
providing a single date; scientists should have chosen a range of dates for
this skeleton, where both endpoints of the range took into account an estimate
of moisture and heat. However,
scientists totally ignored these items and simply gave a single date as if the
skeleton, on the day he died, had been wrapped in plastic, frozen and protected
from all kinds of moisture, heat and light. To ignore
the moisture, heat and other items; is incompetence at best. But there was no incompetence; there was
intentionally sloppy science which reflected an inexcusable lack of integrity. The dates they provided for this skeleton
were wrong by a wide margin. This
skeleton was probably of a man who died less then 500 years ago. It is highly unlikely this man died more than
a thousand years ago, considering he died and was buried next to a large river. So here is
the key question, why would scientists intentionally ignore a large number of
factors related to the dating of his bones? By giving
his bones a date of 9,000 years old, they are claiming to prove that Adam and
Eve were not placed on this earth about 6,000 years ago, which would be the
date a Bible scholar would pick for the creation of Adam and Eve. In other
words, their pretended incompetence was really a highly calculated attack on the divinity of the Bible!! Scientists
wanted Kennewick man to be dated 3,000 years prior to Adam and Eve, even if it
took blatant negligence to come up with that date!! Not only is
the theory of evolution based on a long series of bogus science and absurd
assumptions, the theory of evolution is supported by a total lack of integrity. Any scientist should know that moisture
leeches radiometric isotopes from bones, thus to intentionally ignore highly
significant leeching can only be called a calculated lack of integrity. By the way,
one anthropologist said the bone structure of Kennewick Man were most like the
bone structure of the Polynesians. Book of
Mormon scholars believe that the Polynesians were people who left the America's
by ship and were actually descended from the prophet Lehi
and/or those who went with him to America. Thus,
saying that the bones of Kennewick Man were most like the Polynesians is
consistent with what Book of Mormon scholars believe. Other Pre-Historic Humans The bones
of any true human being (homo sapiens
sapiens), which truly date back before the flood of Noah, may have been
submerged in massive amounts of water for more than a year due to the flood in
the time of Noah. The bones of these
individuals (if any have been found) are also not adjusted for massive leeching
of radioactive materials in the bones. Most of the
bones which scientists have found of "near humans" are not true homo sapiens sapiens. The origin of these near-humans is unknown. These are mysteries which have not been
revealed to the prophets. But you can
rest assured that the truth about when true homo
sapiens sapiens have died is consistent with the
Biblical account, if the flood of Noah and other known factors which affect
radiometric dating are taken into account. But these
factors are not taken into account, thus the dating of true homo sapiens sapiens is not in any way
accurate!! Here is my
point. The theory of evolution is not about truth and the theory of
evolution is definitely not about
science. Science today is all about
justifying the theory of evolution, even if it takes outright deception. Deception, in this case, is intentionally
ignoring known scientific facts. If the date
of bones is calculated to be before Adam and Eve, science accepts the date
because it is "what they want to hear" to justify philosophical
naturalism. Additional Situations In nature,
animals need water. In certain
locations, such as water holes (i.e. small ponds or other sources of water); animals
tend to congregate. When you
have a wide variety of animals at a specific water hole, there is likely to be
fighting, either because these species always fight when they are in the same
location or they may fight to get water, such as during a drought. In either
case, water holes are common locations to look for, and find, animal
skeletons. These skeletons have exactly
the same potential problems for dating errors that the Kennewick man had. In
addition, some climates have a lot more rain than other climates. This is never taken into account when dating
skeletons. In addition
to these things, little is known about how much of the earth was covered with
water during the flood of Noah. We do
know that parts of the earth were covered with water for more than a year. However,
some parts of the earth may have been covered by water for less than a year or
for no time at all (Noah didn't travel all over the world to know how much of
the world was covered with water). Other
parts of the earth could have been covered by water for much, much more than a
year. For example,
suppose Africa was covered with water for 50 years after the flood of
Noah. This would mean that all skeletons
of all animals (including near-human skeletons), which died prior to the flood,
would be submerged for 50 years, yielding dates far too high (i.e. far too long ago) when dated by
radiometric means. Many of these near-humans
could also have been directly exposed to the rain and heat for many years. What is
interesting about the flood is that the writers of the Bible did not know that
radiometric dating techniques would be intentionally flawed in the twenty-first
century. Thus, the writers of the Bible cannot be accused of fabricating the flood
of Noah in order to justify God placing Adam and Eve on this earth about 6,000
years ago. There was no
scientific reason to fabricate the flood of Noah when the Bible was originally
written because they didn't know about radiometric dating (though certainly God
knew). A great
deal is made by scientists that the ark of Noah could not have held animals
unique to Australia, for example. The
Biblical account of Noah was written by Noah or from records written by Noah. Noah did not know how much of the earth was
covered with water and he probably never visited Australia. Furthermore,
even if many animals had become extinct in Australia (for example), there is no
reason to think that God could not have put them back in Australia after the
flood, assuming they were there before the flood. This, of
course, is just one example. It must be
remembered that the Bible was not written as a science textbook, it was written
to teach about God and his prophets.
Many, many details about the flood and other events in the Bible are
left out because science was not the purpose of the Bible. Another Problem - Radiation
(including Heat) Suppose a
skeleton is found in the middle of a large desert. Is this skeleton exempt from errors in
radiometric dating? The answer
is that it is not exempt from
gross errors. Scientists
may not know when the climate changed and an area of earth which was highly
exposed to water (e.g. the area was covered by an ocean) suddenly or slowly
became exposed to dry heat and became a desert. But that is
not all, radiation, including heat, can speed up the appearance of decay of
radioactive material. This can be caused
by evaporation (technically: volatilization), the migrating of atoms, exciting
the atoms by heat, etc. For
example, consider the Kaupelehu Flow, Hualalai Volcano; which occurred in 1800-1801. Twelve different samples were taken of the
lava. The dates for these samples ranged
from 140 million years ago to
2.96 billion years ago. While the ocean water may have affected the
dating of these samples; many things could affect the dating of any sample! For example, volcanic rock is known to be hot
both during and after the explosion. Thus, a
volcano which is known to have occurred a little over 200 years ago, dated to as
much as 3 billion years ago
using state-of-the-art dating techniques. Five
different samples were taken from What does
this tell us about fossils of near-humans who were killed by a volcano, or
whose skeleton had volcano lava run over it after the death of the
individual? It tells us the dating of
fossils is a very inexact science. That
is exactly the way the scientific establishment likes it because their current
methods give them the dates they want. What Should Be Done First, scientists
should do many experiments to try to understand just how significant a skeleton
soaked in water (due to flooding of a river, flooding of a pond by rain, etc.) and
other scenarios, affects the dating of organic matter. For
example, they should take two bones, either from the same animal or from two
animals which died on the same day, and expose the two bones to vastly
different conditions over several years time.
Then they should date the bones. Using
information from their research, they should then give realistic ranges of possible dates as to when a person or
animal died, since current weather conditions are not necessarily the same
weather conditions which existed a thousand years ago. For
example, in the case of Kennewick man, instead of saying that this man died
9,000 years ago, which is totally
ludicrous, scientists should have taken into account highly probable
flooding rates, the known moisture of soil next to the river, estimated
rainfall levels, nearby hills, etc. etc.
Then they should have given a range
of dates as to when he died. The true
ranges of dates, if integrity had been used to date Kennewick man, would not have been from 500 years to
9,000 years, for example, because it is known that this river would have
flooded and that the soil was moist (because the body was next to a river) and
that a 9,000 year date would be ludicrous. The true
range would have been something like: from 500 to 2,000 years old. Actually, the bones could have been of a man
who died 200 years ago. That is how much
water this skeleton may have been exposed to. The example
of Kennewick man is a good example of the passion of scientists to justify
evolution. There is simply no excuse to
simply take a bone they know nothing about and measure the level of radioactive
material in the sample. It is
inexcusable!!! However,
even though it is inexcusable, there is a reason for their incompetence. The reason is that the "scientific
establishment" (the people who control the media, schools, etc.) wants to
get the dates of fossils as old as possible to justify the theory of evolution
and belittle those who believe in the Bible. When Did Adam and Eve or
George and Mary Live? The Biblical
dates of Adam and Eve are about 6,000 years ago. The theory of evolution dates George and Mary
to be 100,000 years ago, at least. According
to the Bible, the length of time from Adam and Eve to the B-2 bomber was 6,000
years. According
to the theory of evolution, the length of time from George and Mary was 100,000
years? So which is
more logical when thinking about technology? First of
all, scientists can only trace significant technology (e.g. the use of the
wheel for transportation and the building of roads) back perhaps 4,000 years
(ignoring bogus dating techniques). This means
that in the time span of 4,000 years, humans went from knowing very little
about technology to building a B-2 bomber and putting men in space. With this
in mind, if George and Mary had existed 100,000 years ago, it is safe to say
that humans should have built the B-2 bomber 90,000 years ago (being generous,
as always, to the theory of evolution). Why in the
world did it take 100,000 years to build the B-2 bomber? Why, for the first 96,000 years, did humans
not progress at all in science and then suddenly, in 4,000 years time, they
perfected the wheel for transportation and built the B-2 bomber? As always,
the theory of evolution ignores reality.
If George and Mary had our DNA, the B-2 bomber would have been build
90,000 years ago. Summary In summary,
the dating of bones and fossils is a very imperfect science, riddled with
intentional errors. It is one of the
most subjective aspects of the evolution debate. A person can read into the evidence any way
they wish. From an
unbiased, scientific viewpoint; the creation scientists have a far stronger
case for their dating techniques than do the evolutionists because they take
environmental factors into affect. As far as
the evolution debate is concerned, this aspect of the debate is so complex and
so affected by pre-conceived notions (such as the fact that many dinosaur
fossils are dated according to their location on the phylogenetic tree), that
for all practical purposes, dating techniques cannot be used as a proof for
evolution or as a proof for creation science. Considering
that modern dating methods are corrupted by known flaws in radiometric dating;
by techniques which are known to be based on an assumption that the theory of
evolution is a fact; and by other flawed techniques, it is clear that the
dating of bones, fossils, etc. is a non-differentiating issue (i.e. the issue
cannot differentiate between the theory of evolution and creation science). While the reader
may think that more information is needed to determine who "wins"
this issue; the fact is that all the information in the world isn't going to
end this aspect of the evolution debate.
Some people are blind to the truth because they don't love truth. The good
news is that there are other issues of the evolution debate in which the data
is very convincing because real scientific data is available from living
species. One of these sources of
excellent information is that of "genetic entropy," meaning the
deterioration of the DNA of all animals.
Much will be said about verifiable data throughout this book. |