Piltdown Superman

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen  On another weblog, I wrote about riding to a town with Roland Meadows, the fiancé of my prospector friend Stormie Waters. We made friends with Aaron, an employee of a big box store. I went to his town and we met up at an eatery there and we made chin music about our jobs. The place where he works is quite large and the customer base is not exactly classy folks. Some are, but the majority show disrespect to employees, merchandise, and more. When he discussed retail reshops , I thought of radiometric dating, of all things. Grocery shopping, Pexels /  Hobi industri , modified at  FotoSketcher People assume that radiometric dating proves that the earth is old, but it is based on presuppositions of deep time and molecules-to-manager evolution. Simply put, a radioactive element (let's pick uranium for now) decays into lead. Uranium is the parent and lead is the daughter . The amount of each is compared and the decay rate is factored in, calculations are made, an

When someone claims to be a former creationist, there are many telling signs that invariably appear. One is lack of knowledge of biblical creation science. Second, poor knowledge of theology. Third, they attack creationism, defend evolution and especially an old Earth. In their passionate efforts, the fourth trait is to show misunderstanding of dating methods. There are other things apostates show, but their claims that dating methods prove an old Earth are of interest at this time. Also, they are welcomed by atheists and other anti-creationists. Zircon octahedral crystal, Flickr / candiru (PD) Radiometric dating is often treated as a creation killer since biblical creationists hold to the earth being thousands of years old while these dating methods seem to show millions or billions of years. Contrary evidence, or evidence supporting recent creation, is downplayed. (I remember an atheist bringing up the age of the earth and using a preemptive strike with the genetic fallacy , saying

Down New Mexico way, a traveler can find White Sands National Park . Lots of big dunes comprised of gypsum. Have you ever gone sand sledding? That and other National Park activities like camping, hiking trails, stargazing and such are there. Also, fossilized footprints. They had mammoths, giant sloths, and many creatures in what was once a much nicer climate. Yes, there are human footprints as well. Assigning dates to them are a vexation to secular scientists because the results conflict with the narrative of when humans were supposed to live there. Fossil footprints, White Sands National Park / NPS photo (usage does not imply endorsement), modified at PhotoFunia Scientists are disagreeing about the carbon dating results, which showed that humans were in North America sooner than secular views expect and conflicts with the evolutionary story. Radiometric dating is dependent on assumptions , so the carbon dating used on relevant plants can be adjusted to more convenient levels. The sam

Dating methods are fraught with problems. Secular scientists admit it on occasion. Also, the conflicting results and poor reasoning are brought to the fore by biblical creation scientists. Historical records are suspect because victors often write history, and in ancient times, often embellished the stories. Archaeometric dating is a reasonable idea at first glance. Ancient artifacts often contain bits of iron, and when it is heated (such as when cities were burned), the conditions of Earth's magnetic field are shown. Sounds like a plausible way to calibrate a dating method. Clay brick inscribed with the name of Nebuchadnezzar II, WikiComm / Dr. Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin ( CC BY-SA 4.0 ) It doesn't work. Secular scientists make a number of assumptions, primarily uniformitarianism ("the present is the key to the past") and deep time. The magnetic field of the earth was stronger in the past, but there were times of great changes in it. Observations and models of bibli

Antibodies are an important part of the immune system. They are proteins that circulate in the bloodstream looking for harmful antigens. Those are enemy bacteria, viruses, and such. Each antibody is unique, defending against specific antigens. So how do they last in mammoths for assumed millions of years? A study showed that antibodies in mammoths were still able to do their jobs — but antibodies break down over time like other biological things. To support deep time, researchers assumed deep time, which was circular reasoning. They also ignored essential biology. Mammoths, Wikimedia Commons / Honymand / ( CC BY-SA 4.0 ) We recently saw that dating methods on human fossils are unreliable , and similar problems occur in radiocarbon dating here. Consider that Carbon-14 dating of Viking burials in England were at odds with historical records . It is known that radiocarbon dating is increasingly less trustworthy with greater age. To claim that antibodies in these mammoths are of great ant

First, a bit of something that grinds my gears. Many articles and videos (including the one featured below) are titled in the form of a question, and some folks seem compelled to reply without dealing with the material. News flash: Writers are not asking for opinions, they are answering the question in the title. You savvy? There are people who want to know if the dating methods used on human fossils can be trusted, and what kinds of problems such vast numbers of years present for the Bible. Those used on human fossils have problems. Homo naledi skeletal specimens, Wiki Comm / Lee Roger Berger research team ( CC BY 4.0 ) I reckon it's easy to get the idea that the dates assigned to fossils of humans, apes, and alleged humans are correct. After all, these are knowledgeable people who speak with authority and tell us the dating methods used. They can even go into the details of the processes if we ask nicely. But not only are there problems with the processes, all dating methods re

Rivers produce sediment through erosion, and they also pick up other particles, eventually dropping the silt when the currents decrease. At the mouth of a river, dropped silt changes the landscape. Harbors get clogged over time. The city of Ephesus was important in New Testament times, and was located on an estuary of the River Kaystros. This became silted up and useless as a harbor, and the silting was observed in recorded history. Geologists are studying the area but have troubles with the dating methods. Views of the harbor road in Ephesus, Flickr / michael.berlin ( CC BY-SA 2.0 ) Core samples were taken, but the radiometric dating involved has a great deal of difficulty from contamination and that cold ocean water inflates the results. There are also problems correlating dates with historical records. It is indeed unfortunate that secularists reject biblical history and creation science Genesis Flood and Ice Age models out of hand, since those would help them get better radiocarbo

Down New Mexico way, there is a place called White Sands National Park because it has, well, white sands in the Tularosa Basin. The story goes that during the Ice Age, Lake Otero was in the Tularosa Basin. It was a nice place with a wet climate. This area is famous for fossilized footprints, and the radiocarbon dating came up with an age of 22,000 years for one particular set from the Lake Otero Basin. Since rock cannot be Carbon-14 dated, seeds that were found in the area were subject to the analysis. It did not go well. Lake Otero image cropped from NPS (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) Those seeds were not dated properly, and the radiocarbon atoms did not come from the ancient atmosphere but from old water. After recalculating, the age originally assigned had to be discarded. They were way  off. Unfortunately for secular scientists, their desires for deep time and the methodology used raise several serious questions. Maybe if they get that correlation with the ma

Before we get to the main subject, there is some interesting news about the magnetic field of Earth. This shield surrounds our blue marble and protects us from harmful solar radiation, plasma, and such. It was recently discovered that when plasma strikes the magnetosphere, it vibrates and ripples like a drum membrane . The impact is spread out and dissipated to a large extent. The way buildings are designed to move in high winds or in earthquakes (resilience movement) comes to mind. To this child, is is an aspect of the magnetic field which is yet another example of the Master Engineer's design capabilities. Analysis by biblical creationists should be interesting. Earth's magnetic field, NASA / Walt Feimer (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) Radiocarbon dating is useful for determining an approximate age of certain things, but its reliability is lessened when the object under scrutiny is very old. The magnetic field can help. It has signatures  where the age an

Once again, a uniformitarian (slow and gradual processes over millions of years) assumption was challenged by researchers who wanted to give something a closer look. Volcanoes have a habit of blasting out lava, erupting for centuries all the way down to a year or so. Some eruptions are more like geological indigestion and do not send sonic waves around the world. Where do they get all that magma, anyway? (Magma is molten rock, and when it is sent through the earth's crust, it is called lava.) Geology is a historical science, and there are magma chambers  below the earth's crust. Magma builds up there until eruptions occur. Lava Toe Forming at Kilauea, US Geological Survey / Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) The Yellowstone supervolcano has a pair of sizeable magma chambers that are detected through seismic tomography , which brings to mind the procedures used in medical CT scans. Radiometric dating has failed scientists, who trus

Radiocarbon (Carbon-14) dating is not the thing that believers in deep time use to affirm that Earth is old. This is a common mistake. Instead, C-14 is used to get a handle on the age of something organic. C-14 atoms are unstable, and their therapy is to break down into nitrogen-14, which is a random process (for more on how it works, see " Carbon-14 Dating — Understanding the Basics "). Since C-14 does not last a huge amount of time, it has been somewhat useful to approximate the ages of some things. It is helpful to corroborate it with historical artifacts. Charcoal is almost entirely carbon, Pixabay / Rudy and Peter Skitterians Carbon-14 itself is affected by conditions on Earth. Nuclear bomb experiments decades ago made big changes, but also gave scientists some calibration. However, that is dissipating. In addition, carbon dioxide from fossil fuel emissions is hindering the effectiveness of carbon-14. This will be problematic for old-Earth advocates, who are still deali

Secular scientists have found possible evidence of a severe drought thousands of years ago. The dating is obviously contentious with the biblical timeline, and even those scientists are not in agreement with their dating methods. With additional information, it seems to support the famine in Egypt when Joseph was the administrator for the pharaoh. The dating methods used by secular scientists are saturated with evolutionary assumptions, all of which are unprovable. We need to get up on a sizeable hill to get the big picture. Nile River by satellite / MODIS, NASA GSFC (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) The Bible provides accurate history, and naysayers have been refuted many times. With that in mind, part of the big picture is the narrative in the late chapters of Genesis. Joseph was a mite arrogant it seems, so his brothers sold him, and he eventually wound up in Egypt. Read it for yourself for the details, but remember that Joe was given the meaning of Pharaoh's

Ancient people in the British Isles set up mounds as burial sites, and they are known as barrows , cairns , and other names. Sometimes they are at the centers of stone circles, and are not uncommon. They vary in size. Cam Long Down is impressive, and has a barrow. The Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles  mentions them, which is unsurprising because some have legends of hauntings. One barrow was the subject of of space aliens in a Doctor Who  story . Although stories are intriguing at times, reality can be much more interesting. Some extremely old bones were studied. It was mighty complicated, since they were jumbled in some parts of the burial chamber. When watching crime scene investigation shows where not much remains of a body, examiners can tell whether the deceased was male or female as well as the age. How can they tell the sex? Because males and females are built differently, and personal preferences doesn't change biological and biblical facts. You savvy tha

People have attempted to discredit the historical records of the Bible for centuries. Many times, they have used the fallacious argument from silence that there is not archaeological evidence for certain people or events, so they never happened. The Bible has been repeatedly vindicated. Radiocarbon dating has also been used to deny Scripture. We have seen many times that radiometric dating has serious flaws (including calibration), but when the results fit the needs of the secular science industry, they are accepted. Paleomagnetism provides a calibration tool. Holes in dolerite made by cores being drilled. As the rock cooled and solidified iron became fixed in an orientation with the Earth's magnetic field. This can be read to find out where this part of Scotland lay relative to the poles at the time the rock solidified. Image and text: Paleomagnetism studies, cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Richard Webb - geograph.org.uk/p/1688057 (The blogging platform will not let me close up the extra spaces

It is well known that the Vikings, including Leif "Lucky" Erikson, included North America in their travels around 1000 A.D. My Scandinavian ancestors were a rowdy, restless bunch. Vikings took a notion to explore and set up camps in Iceland and Greenland. They went on to North America and named the place they homesteaded Vinland . Records from Labrador were retrieved, but there was plenty of disagreement among scholars about the timing of Viking journeys. Surprisingly, tree rings helped nail down the date. Viking ship Lofotr , Flickr / Runar Storeide , posted by Geir Are Johansen  ( CC BY-SA 2.0 ) Although they never found Spam, the salmon fishing and grape growing were better on the east coast of North America. A couple of ancient Icelandic texts are referred to as the Vinland Sagas, but they were not firsthand accounts of the explorations and commutes. Strangely, dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating were used in conjunction with other forensic (historical) and empirical

Many people, including Christians, erroneously believe that the age of the earth has been conclusively proven to be about 4-1/2 billion years old. Although serious mathematics is involved, the essence of the method is rather simple. Chip away a rocky outcropping and take a sample to the lab and ask them nicely (as well as paying a fee) for them to tell you its age. From there, you know the age of the earth. Just kidding, such a thing does not happen. Assembled and modified with components from Clker clipart The unstable radioactive element and the stable isotope in a rock are measured. The unstable decays and leaves the stable. Rate of decay and other factors are calculated to give the number of years. But that rock that you chipped away? Not happening, at least regarding Earth's age. Secularists and their churchian allies believe that rocks on the earth are not reliable indicators, so they assume meteorites are more pure, and calculate from those . There are other assumptions to

Some people believe that the pyramids of Egypt are devastating to the biblical timeline, but that belief is based on fatally-flawed dating methods. The Great Pyramid (ordered by Cheops, also called Khufu — I think they named a hat after him ) and others have yielded unreliable age tests. Credit: RGBStock / Michal Zacharzewski There are some Christians who think that they were built before the Genesis Flood, but that idea does not hold water. A proper understanding of creation science Flood models reveals that the event was so cataclysmic, nothing would have remained. Also, the pyramids and Sphinx were built on sedimentary rock. In addition to problematic assumptions used in carbon-14 dating, one problem is glaringly obvious. The half-life of carbon-14 is supposedly about 5,730 years. Rocks that are claimed to be millions of Darwin years old have organic materials that are tested to have carbon-14. Just study on that a spell and you can see the difficulty. So let's dig a bit deeper

Once in a while, the unwashed masses get a glimpse into the workings of the secular science industry. Radiocarbon dating is not a closely guarded secret, but people tend to assume that scientists do not make assumptions. That is false. A new calibration for carbon-14 was proposed. To quote Nuke, " It did not go well ". Modified from an image at Pexels by  Francesco De tommaso Radiocarbon dating has many variables, and there have been discrepancies between historical records and the presupposition-based dating methods. It's not just creationists who have pointed this out for a mighty long time, secular scientists know it as well. (Biblical creationists have postulated that there were many changes to affect dating results during the Genesis Flood, which have been supported by evidence.) The new method is going to cause consternation and have a kind of ripple effect for established and new results. The latest calibration curve for radiocarbon dating is raising eyeb

It has been shown many times that radiometric dating has a passel of difficulties. These include circular reasoning, presupposing deep time, unwarranted assumptions, and more. Samples tested by various methods provide wildly differing results, including lava rocks of known ages. Does the eruption make a difference? Tungurahua eruption image credit: FreeDigitalPhotos / xura This does seem like a reasonable question on the surface. I saw a comment at The Question Evolution Project about radiometric dating and lava of known ages. He figured that everything would be reset to zero, so old rock that became molten would appear young but is actually very old; a kind of reset. Arbitrary assumptions based on lack of knowledge raise more questions than they solve. Biblical creationists point out these flaws in uniformitarianism because the evidence indicates a young earth. Once again, our feedback is about radioactive dating, which seems a major roadblock against Christians believing

Except for fundamentalist evolutionists, many people know that radiometric dating is tenuous at best. It involves a number of assumptions, which is bad enough, but there is a passel of circular reasoning and cherry-picking of data to fit deep time presuppositions. The same is true in radiocarbon dating. Credit: Freeimages / Pedro Simao Some hominid remains were discovered in Portugal, and secularists commenced to assigning dates to the rocks. However, the standard used was predetermined to give researchers the deep time that they wanted to have. They also had results that were the opposite of what they wanted, and inconvenient dates were simply rejected. Very unscientific and dishonest. A recent Neanderthal study in the journal Science mixed detailed archaeological finds with stories about human origins. As is typical, the report’s age assignments for fossils fit evolutionary time instead of the Bible’s much shorter timeline of thousands of years. Its age-dating exercises revea