Fossil Dating

An article on the “Accuracy of Fossils and Dating Methods” by Michael Benton, Ph.D. (on the actionbioscience.org website) states:

“Fossil dating is accurate since the method follows strict scientific guidelines:

the state of decay, carbon-14, and isotopes figure in calculations,

tree of life relationships often help sort the date.”

This sounds reasonable, but the dating of fossils is based on assumptions.

a) The amount of a certain original substance is assumed.

b) That certain processes are assumed to have remained constant throughout it's history.

The actual scientific measurements can be totally accurate, but the end result will be unsound, because of the assumptions it is based on.

We will be looking at this in more detail further down this page.

Let’s look at “the state of decay, carbon-14, and isotopes figure in calculations,”

These are methods that estimate the age of rocks by using the decay rates of radioactive elements.

For example; Potassium 40 decays to argon 40.

Uranium 238 decays to lead 206 (via other elements like radium).

Rubidium 87 decays to strontium 87.

The original element (the ‘parent’) decays more and more to the second element (the ‘daughter’), so the older the rock the greater amount of ‘daughter’ material is produced.

Each parent has an assumed half-life figure (in years), a 50% decay figure.

For Potassium 40, this is reckoned to be about 1.3 billion years.

it needs stable, constant conditions for the decay rate to remain constant, with no contamination from outside - no parent and daughter elements being leaked in.

The starting conditions need to be known, for example, that there was no daughter element present at the start, or if any was present, then that amount has to be known.

Also the relationship between the data obtained and the specific event which caused the crystallization must be known.

So is this statement true: “Fossil dating is accurate since the method follows strict scientific guidelines..”

The actual measuring of the elements is accurate, but the calculations are based on assumptions.

It is true that the deeper rocks often tend to give older ages‘, but the questionable science is to give the rocks an age in millions of years.

When a ‘date’ differs from the expected plan of things the result is rejected, and it is known as ‘posterior reasoning’.

This really shows that radiometric dating has many serious problems.

J. Woodmorappe gives hundreds of examples of excuses used to explain “bad” dates. [1]

For example, researchers applied ‘posterior reasoning’ to the dating of Australopithecus ramidus fossils (a species of primate).

Most samples of the basalt rock closest to the fossil gave dates of about 23 Ma (Mega annum, million years) by the argon method.

But this was decided that this was “too old,” according to their beliefs on where these fossils fitted in to the evolutionary scheme.

So they took 26 basalt rock samples which were further away from the fossils.

Nine samples again gave very old dates, so it was decided that they must be contaminated and discarded them.

The remaining 17 samples gave an ‘acceptable’ maximum age of 4.4 Ma (Mega annum, million years). [2]

Another example was the dating of the primate skull known as KNM-ER 1470.

This started with an initial date of 212 to 230 Ma (Mega annum, million years).

But according to the evolutionary scheme, this was considered way off the mark because humans “weren’t around then”!

Various other attempts were made to date the volcanic rocks in the area.

Over the years an age of 2.9 Ma (Mega annum, million years) was settled upon, because that date fitted in with certain other ‘selected’ dates.

But this still gave problems, because the preconceived notions about human evolution could not cope with a skull like this being “that old.”

A study of pig fossils in Africa readily convinced most anthropologists that this skull was much younger.

So further studies of the rocks brought the radiometric age down to about 1.9 Ma (Mega annum, million years)! [3]

Does that mean that evolutionists are manipulating the data to get what they want?

But the problem is that all the dates must fall within the evolutionary scheme.

It is so strongly entrenched that it is not questioned.

The alternative is the “fundamentalist Christian” viewpoint which has personal implications, and for some has a childish stigma attached to it.

So every fossil must fit the evolutionary scheme.

Subconsciously, the researchers select the observations to fit the scheme.

Scientists do not measure the age of rocks, they measure the amounts of certain elements which is extremely accurate.

But the “age” is calculated using various assumptions which makes the end result speculative and not scientific and not fact.

When a fossil is offered to a radioisotope laboratory for submission, a form may be issued for those submitting the fossil, to indicate the expected age.

If the technique was reliable, such information would not be necessary.

This article is in two parts, do you want to read part 2 now?

[1] J. Woodmorappe, The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods San Diego, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1999.

[2] G. WoldeGabriel et al., “Ecological and Temporal Placement of Early Pliocene Hominids at Aramis, Ethiopia,” Nature, 1994, 371:330-333.

[3] M. Lubenow, “The Pigs Took It All,” Creation, 1995, 17(3):36-38. & M. Lubenow, Bones of Contention Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993, pp. 247-266.