Layer Counting Yields Faulty Dating Methods
One popular "refutation" of biblical dating is a thing called dendrochronology. You may not have known the term as a kid, but remember being shown the stump of a tree that had been cut down and being told that if you count the rings, that's how old the tree was? That is the essence of dendrochronology. The word comes from Greek words for tree and time, so that works out nicely. This isn't just from cutting them down and counting, they drill core samples so they don't have to bring the whole thing down.
But tree growth rings are not consistent. Sometimes a tree will skip a year or more, other times, conditions will influence it to make additional rings in a year. Radiocarbon dating is used to calibrate tree-ring dating, which is used to calibrate radiocarbon dating. Nice circle you got yourself, Hoss. In addition, radiocarbon dating is loaded with assumptions and inaccuracies, and is not consistent around the globe. Also, altitude of trees seems to be a factor in the ages of trees.
Another bit of counting to do involves varves. These are sedimentary deposits in lakes and such. Like tree-ring circuses — I mean, dating — and radiocarbon, varve dating relies on unprovable assumptions. Rhythmites are a maverick in that corral, as they look a great deal like the deposits made by varves, but are the result of unpredictable catastrophic events. They can pile up in a hurry.
"Aha! But we have ice cores, Cowboy Bob! We've got you!"
That'll be the day. Ice cores are similar to the other two dating methods, what with drilling and getting samples, and so on. Researchers have to be prepared for the cold weather, too, since it's not exactly Myrtle Beach sand cores they're pulling up. Ice core dating has the same kinds of flaws in dendrochronology. In addition, deep core dating has the problem with circular reasoning.
If you study on it a spell, you'll notice that secular scientists use quite a bit of fundamentally flawed logic. Circular reasoning is common: assume long ages to prove long ages, assume evolution to prove evolution, use radiocarbon to calibrate tree-ring dating while radiocarbon is calibrated by tree-ring dating, the age of the rock is known by the fossil it contains and the age of the fossil is known by the rock layer in which it was found. I could go on, but these circles make me a mite dizzy.
All of this science is a prairie schooner-full of effort, wasted time, misspent money, and squandered intelligence for the sake of denying the evidence of the Genesis Flood and recent creation. No, scientists have not disproved anything about biblical chronology, but Darwin's Flying Monkeys© proclaim their evidence-free faith with loud voices.
To read the rest or download the audio version, click on "Layers of Assumption — Are Tree Rings and Other 'Annual' Dating Methods Reliable?" Also, there is a nine-minute video at the end of the article. Plus, a short video at the end of this post as well.Tree rings, ice cores, and other natural records of seasonal changes, they say, prove the earth is old and the Bible’s account of history can’t be true.. . .While most of us rely on calendars to track seasons and years, God gave us other markers of the passage of time. For instance, every year trees really do grow a fresh layer of cells on their outer trunks—tree rings. If we count up the rings, we can calculate how old the tree is, right?Each season, rains wash silt onto the bottoms of lakes. The content of the layers looks different in the spring and fall. So we can just count up the layers and know how long the lake has been there, right?Polar ice sheets add new layers each winter, too. The snow never completely melts in the summer and is covered by a new blanket of snow the following winter. Just count up the layers, and you know how long snow has been falling near the poles, right? . . .These dating methods seem well founded and logical because we can observe these seasonal processes happening today.