The following is a collection of thoughts in response to an article I was linked to, run by Answers in Genesis. The article is titled Doesn’t Carbon-14 Dating Disprove The Bible? and it’s… not very good. Or honest.

The text that follows is from an email I sent someone on the matter. It is slightly edited, but only for formatting and aesthetic reasons; I’ve not removed any of the content proper.

For those fortunate enough to be unfamiliar with AiG, it’s an organisation run by the literal (and literalist) lunatic fringe of Christian fundamentalism. It spends an incredible amount of time and energy performing mental gymnastics trying to debunk well-established science. Originally this was solely evolution, but as their views are so profoundly wrong, it has now necessarily extended to pretty much the entirety of the scientific method and all modern scientific knowledge.

Although noted below, I am not a geologist, physicist or professional in any other related area of study. The thoughts are my own, based on reading up on the subject here and there over the years. Initially this was simply out of interest, but as the virulence of fundamentalist apologetics increased, I’ve looked into it further. I am under no illusions as to how far from an expert this still leaves me and do not wish for anyone reading this to mistake me for one.

However, the information is all out there & readily available. Sites like AiG rely on their readers’ confirmation bias preventing them from going out to check these things. I have not, with one exception, provided sources. This is part laziness, but also partly due to the information being so readily available online.

1. Misrepresentation of the scientific view

It does this extensively and is arguably all the article is: one big straw man. For example:

“Is the explanation of the data derived from empirical, observational science, or an interpretation of past events (historical science)?”

AiG and other creationist organisations like to paint ‘historical science’ as ‘science of origins’. It’s effectively a dressed-up version of the profoundly stupid question they used to bounce about, which was “were you there?” Firstly, ‘historical science’ isn’t solely or even primarily concerned with ‘origins’ at all. It’s simply science for anything that wasn’t under active observation at the time of occurrence. Not only are there many areas in which this is taken for granted as highly reliable – forensic science, for example – but to criticise ‘historical science’ as relying on interpretation of evidence is to completely misunderstand all science.

The methodology is that you go for the interpretation which relies on the least assumptions and best (most completely & accurately) explains the evidence. If that’s a problem for historical science, it’s a problem for all science. As it quite clearly isn’t – and the predictive element of the method can be applied equally to both to test this – we can only assume that AiG don’t understand what they’re talking about or do understand what they’re talking about and are being knowingly dishonest about it. I shall leave you to conclude which of these is in fact the case.

Another quote, this time an outright falsehood – again, up to you to decide whether it’s intentional or ignorant in nature – about what ‘science’ assumes regarding C-14 dating:

“A critical assumption used in carbon-14 dating has to do with this ratio. It is assumed that the ratio of ¹⁴C to ¹²C in the atmosphere has always been the same as it is today (1 to 1 trillion).”

This is not a critical assumption. In fact, it’s not even an assumption made by the scientific community at all. The assumption that is made is that the rate of decay remains constant. We know that the levels of C-14 in the environment have fluctuated significantly throughout history, being at various points higher and lower than they are now. We also know that the ratio of C-14 to C-12 has varied over time & adjustments are factored into calculations to take this into account. We’ve used independent methods to verify these variations, so they’re not just guesswork.

The above quote leads into another falsehood:

“If this is not true, the ratio of ¹⁴C to ¹²C is not a constant, which would make knowing the starting amount of ¹⁴C in a specimen difficult or impossible to accurately determine.”

If and only if there were no other way of measuring levels & ratios. Since there are, it actually becomes very easy to determine exactly that. Even better, it means we now have two methods of measurement that corroborate one another!

Here’s an example of something I find curiously common in and endemic to creationist arguments:

“Dr. Willard Libby, the founder of the carbon-14 dating method, assumed this ratio to be constant.” 

Groups like AiG seem to give undue weight of opinion to ‘founders’ of things. Whether this is an expression of the structure of their worldview or an attempt to avoid acknowledging subsequent, more recent & better informed opinions on areas, I don’t know. Either way it is little more than an argument from authority and carries no weight. The fact they feel the need to attack the oldest & least complete version of a position is telling in itself and, if there has been any development in the field at all, it is also a straw man argument. You could say that Newton ‘founded’ gravitational theory, but he didn’t know as much as we do now and his account was incomplete. It is not the current scientific position on gravity and therefore attacking it as such is a straw man.

The article continues:

“His reasoning was based on a belief in evolution, which assumes the earth must be billions of years old. Assumptions in the scientific community are extremely important.”

This is bare assertion and an attempt to poison the well in the mind of the reader. There is no evidence (at least that I can find – I would expect a reference if it were not readily available information) to suggest the basis for his assumption was his support for evolutionary theory. It is far more likely that he took the view out of adherence to the principle of uniformitarianism – that, lacking evidence to the contrary, the environment was constrained by the same factors then as it is now. This can be a flawed assumption, such as in this case. That it had anything to do with evolution, however, is completely speculative and therefore dishonest.

“Dr. Libby’s calculations showed that if the earth started with no ¹⁴C in the atmosphere, it would take up to 30,000 years to build up to a steady state (equilibrium).”

Why would we assume there to have been no C-14 in the atmosphere of early Earth? Based on everything else we know, it would seem likely that there was plenty of C-14 in the atmosphere at that time.

“What does this mean? If it takes about 30,000 years to reach equilibrium and ¹⁴C is still out of equilibrium, then maybe the earth is not very old.”

What it means is: if you make faulty assumptions and then extrapolate from them, you’ll likely get faulty conclusions. We know that the ratios and levels fluctuate, so we know that this ‘if’ is not the case. The 30,000 year figure is irrelevant (because it relies on things being other than as they are known to be) and we don’t expect Earth to be able to reach or maintain equilibrium in an environment where the decay rate is constant but the production rate is not.

This is followed by a similar argument based around geomagnetism:

“Other factors can affect the production rate of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere. The earth has a magnetic field around it which helps protect us from harmful radiation from outer space. This magnetic field is decaying (getting weaker). The stronger the field is around the earth, the fewer the number of cosmic rays that are able to reach the atmosphere. This would result in a smaller production of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere in earth’s past.”

We know that the magnetic field has varied even more widely than C-ratio and production has. It has been twice as strong and half as strong, not simply declining in a linear manner as implied here. At times there will have been ‘smaller’ [sic] production of C-14. At other times there will have been greater levels of production. This is, by the way, all lifted from the much-discredited work of Kent Hovind. There are many comprehensive rebuttals of his radiometric dating criticism, such as this one here.

“If the production rate of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere was less in the past, dates given using the carbon-14 method would incorrectly assume that more ¹⁴C had decayed out of a specimen than what has actually occurred. This would result in giving older dates than the true age.”

And if it were greater at others, we’d perhaps be getting ages that are in fact younger than the true age. Which is what we see, as it is known that many radiocarbon dates are in fact too young, not too old.

I could go through things in greater detail, but to be honest it is neither my field of expertise nor my inclination. If you can’t see from the above that the case being made in the article is a straw man of the scientific position and the evidence used to reach it, attacking assumptions that are not made and questioning conclusions that are not reached, no greater degree of thoroughness is likely to change your mind on the matter.

As one final note on this point, however, I would like to mention that dendrochronological data not only supports all of what I’ve said above, but shows the world to be older than AiG’s figure on its own. We have tree ring data going back around 9,000 years. All of it supports the C-14 data as I’ve argued, as well as showing that there were trees before the date AiG claims the universe even existed.

2. Fallacy of equivocation

All of the above seems a lot of hoops to jump through – especially ones that are easily demonstrated to be dishonest, should the reader be inclined to check – just to debunk a single radiometric dating method. One that, actually, only works over shorter time periods. As opposed to something like U-Pb dating, which is accurate out to billions of years. Not a single criticism is raised towards U-Pb dating or any of the other established and rigorously tested methods, all of which are at least as problematic for YEC as C-14 is. One would therefore assume that the article would keep its conclusion focused as tightly on C-14 dating as its criticisms were. Only it doesn’t do this:

“All radiometric dating methods are based on assumptions about events that happened in the past. If the assumptions are accepted as true (as is typically done in the evolutionary dating processes), results can be biased toward a desired age. In the reported ages given in textbooks and other journals, these evolutionary assumptions have not been questioned, while results inconsistent with long ages have been censored. When the assumptions were evaluated and shown faulty, the results supported the biblical account of a global Flood and young earth.”

This is extremely dishonest in several ways. Firstly, it tries to equivocate between “C-14 dating” and “all radiometric dating”, sneaking the latter into the conclusion when it is quite clearly not what the article has been discussing. “Radiometric dating (via C-14)” being referred to as radiometric dating is fine. Then equivocating this with “radiometric dating (in general)” is fallacious in the extreme.

Even if the criticisms had been valid – which, as shown above, they are not – then they would be of C-14 and only C-14. Shifting to then talk about “all radiometric dating methods” is a bait & switch argument, where “here’s a critique of C-14 dating” is then equivocated with “a critique of all radiometric dating methods” by swapping the latter in at the point of conclusion.

Additionally, it tries to bring evolution into the matter when it has nothing to do with it. The evidence provided by radiometric dating would suggest the same as it does now even if we knew evolution didn’t take place. It’s completely irrelevant and another indicator of the true purpose and mindset behind the article.

Finally, radiometric dating methods are not based on assumptions about events that happened in the past. They are based on evidence that has been gathered and observed, cross-checked and then applied to the historic record for comparison. What the conclusion of this process would be was unknown at the point the evidence was gathered. It was unknown at the point the evidence was being analysed. It was unknown what the cross-checking would turn up.

So this situation is that:

– We have an extensive body of evidence in one area

– We have cross-checked it against other independent but equally extensive bodies of evidence in other areas

– We find they all point towards the same conclusion

The best explanation for all of these taken independently and when considered together is that events happened that way in the past. This is entirely the opposite of an assumption! It is starting out not knowing & then, after careful testing and analysis, coming to a ‘most likely’ explanation. If evidence to the contrary were to turn up, the position would be revised accordingly

By misrepresenting & isolating the scientific position regarding a single tool, AiG then try to conclude that all tools are subject to the same conclusion. However, if looked at in the context of all those tools when cross-checked against one another, we see that single tool (in this case, C-14 dating) fits perfectly and it is the article’s criticism of it which is flawed.

There are of course many other issues with the article, which would take even more time to cover than I’ve already spent. Not least the sentence early on which states:

“When a scientist’s interpretation of data does not match the clear meaning of the text in the Bible, we should never reinterpret the Bible.”

This is open admission that the scientific process is not being followed or respected. That being the case, none of what is thus argued carries any scientific weight, no matter how many pictures of atomic nuclei or out-of-context, anachronistic quotes are given alongside.

Unbiased, open-minded scientific enquiry is based on the statement “I will conclude most likely whatever the evidence suggests most likely”. The above quote from the article is saying “I will conclude my starting assumption, regardless of what the evidence suggests to the contrary”. I would hope that it would be obvious why this would be a problem, with regards to methodology and also for the credibility of a source.