CHAPTER 3 –
Why
radioactive measurements are
unreliable?
When it comes to determine the age of something, radioactive measurements
are regarded as one of the most important methods. With these measurements,
attempts to calculate both the age of the Earth and the age of animals and
humans on the Earth have been made, and these methods have usually given the age
as millions of years, especially when it is a question of rock types and
elements. The measuring principle is based on radioactive materials generally
having a certain time in which they change and decompose into other elements.
For example, the basic idea of uranium/lead dating is that uranium should change
entirely into lead always with the same speed and over a certain time.
The fact is, however, that these methods are unreliable. By them can indeed be
measured contents of stones and samples, but it is another thing that they have
something to do with the age. It arises from that in measurements, there are
suppositions, which are impossible to prove scientifically afterwards.
However, it is important to note that the radioactive measurements are based
mainly on the geological time chart, in which the age of the Earth is supposed
to be billions of years. (This chart was drawn up in the 1900th century, before
the radioactive measurements). According to it people have brought into use
methods that automatically and without exception give long ages for stone
samples. Measurements are usually not done straight from fossils that would be a
better and more reliable way (and would give notably less ages), but it usually
is done from volcanic rocks. The geological time chart drawn in the 1900th
century usually sets, how samples are interpreted:
If it
were stopped to use interpolation based on maximal thickness of a stratum, it
would cause a chaos. Then it would any more be sure that for example, the coal
strata would be younger than Devon- or Silurian strata. The order can be
maintained only so that the stratum sequence is given an absolute priority over
radioactive measurements. An expert geo chronologist said to me about dating
results that do not fitted with the geological time chart:
It that does not fit, stays in a desk drawer - you must not, of course, lay
yourself open to ridicule… It is unnecessary to do only a simple dating. You
must remember the great entirety and always bear in mind the geological time
chart otherwise everything goes wrong.
…The radioactive measurements
give only an apparent age. To be enough ”right age” or ”accepted age”, it must
fitted with the geological time chart. The real absolute is not a measuring- or
estimation result but the geological time chart. As long as
the geological time chart determines competency of a measurement, the
measurements cannot solve competency of the geological time chart.
As you ask a real reason
why it is stuck to the geological time chart with hundreds of millions of years,
it appears, that it does not arise from the geologists. This arises only from
evolution theorists… It can be proven that erroneous dating given by young rocks
indicate that the interpretation of isotope contents did not give only unsure
but fully useless results. I think that methods measuring young age are on
considerably better foundation. For the sake of the truth, we must demand that
considerably less ages are taken along for examination, and that it is done
large measurements straight from fossils. We would do science a great service if
we gave up compulsive engagement to the geological time chart. (11)
starting point AND OTHER
PRECONDITIONS
The radioactive measurements
are based on an idea that in rock types, there are mother elements and daughter
elements, and the age of a rock type can be determined on grounds of their
relations. The less mother elements there are left in a rock type, the older the
rock type is deemed, while the more there are these elements, the younger it
must be.
In addition to this, there are three important axioms of radioactive
measurements. They are:
1. There have not been any daughter elements in
a stone in its initial state, there have only been mother elements. The
disintegration must have begun from a point zero.
2. Nothing may have been taken away or added to
the stone.
3. The disintegration rate
has always remained the same.
However, these hypotheses
cannot be proven true.
The first problem is the starting point. How could we know what the rock was
like in the first place? It would be very strange if all the elements were
perfectly virgin and without their daughter elements in the initial state, even
though the latter ones are found widely in the crust of the Earth. The idea of
their original relation is based on a mere supposition that cannot be proven
true.
What we are looking; here is similar to, there being seven pieces of cake and
five biscuits on a table, and somebody asking us to tell how many there were
originally. This would certainly be impossible, unless we had been there in the
first place to check the number. We must know the original situation on the
table – as in radioactive measurements we must know the amounts of materials
present – otherwise, we do not have any reliable ground for measurements:
The dating history of KBS-tuff reveals that
regardless of how carefully a researcher chose his rock sample or how
accurately he performed his laboratory work, he can always be blamed for using
blended material or erroneous methodology if the result of dating is “wrong”.
Charges are not needed to prove. A wrong age is enough for a proof. Literature
indicates that although the radioactive measurements were qualified in
principle (what they are not), it is a fact that choosing a pure and unblended
rock sample requires omniscience that is impossible for mortal men. Radioactive
dating methods are a classic example of self-deception and vicious circle. They
are a part of man’s evolution myth. Naeser with his work pals 12 has
declared the problem well:
The accuracy of all dating
results can only be guessed, because we do not know the real age of any
geological sample. We can only try to obtain the best consistence between P-Ar-
and other dating methods. (13)
The outside factors are another possible factor that can confuse the
calculations. Problematic issues may include heating and formations of stone
(this can easily occur with volcanic rocks from which the measurements are
taken) and flowing of water through stone. All of these events may cause the
mother and daughter elements to be driven and accumulated elsewhere, and this
may change the contents of materials and the measuring results. If only a minor
change in the proportions occurs, it may distort the whole dating. Thus, the
dating will not lie on reliable grounds:
However, this is not the only problem with the method. If sand is added into
hourglass or sand leaks from the upper or lower part of the hourglass, the
accuracy of the method is worthless. It is impossible for us to know whether
uranium or lead has dissolved from the stone over the supposed period of
thousands or millions of years or whether more of one of the elements has been
accumulated in the stone. The method is useless if we do not know this for
certain. It has been estimated that 10,000–50,000 tons of this kind of uranium
that has dissolved and disintegrated from stone is washed into the seas
annually. (14)
contradictORY
results
An indication of the
ambiguity of radioactive methods is the fact that the results have been
contradictory and varied a great deal, which is what one might assume when
dealing with stones and samples found in the ground. Their contents, i.e.,
assumed ages have varied from one extreme to the other and the following
observations have been made. They indicate that the contents in stones
can very well be measured, but dating based on the results is very dubious. If
we observe similar problems with our watch – the margin of error more than 99%
– we would quickly throw away the watch:
The first example tells about
volcanic stones (Ngauruhoe-mount in New Zealand) that were surely known to have
been crystallized from lava only 25-50 years ago as a consequence of a volcanic
eruption. There were so the observations of eye-witnesses behind it.
Samples from these stones were
sent to a laboratory for dating. It is one of the most appreciated commercial
dating laboratories (Geochron Laboratories, Cambridge, Massachusetts). The
results that are in conflict with the observations of practice can be seen from
the next story:
Geochron
is an appreciated commercial dating laboratory. The leader of its
P-Ar-laboratory has defended his doctor’s thesis on P-Ar-dating. The laboratory
was not told the accurate collection place and their supposed age. However,
they were told to be probably young and containing argon very little. In that
way it was secured that they would be especially careful in analytic work.
The ”ages” got from P-Ar-analyses have been
listed in Table 1. The “ages” of stones vary between <270 000 years and 3,5
(+-0,2) million years, although they have been observed to have cooled from lava
25 – 50 years ago. One sample of every flow gave the “age” of <270 000 years or
<290 000 years, whereas in all other samples the “age” was millions of years.
The laboratory handled the samples of low “age” in the same batch, which
referred to a systematic fault of the laboratory. So the leader of the
laboratory checked his instruments again. The results were similar. This
excluded a systematic fault of the laboratory and confirmed the low results to
be right. Furthermore, the renewed measurements already from analysed samples
(A#2 and B#2 in Table 1) did not give similar results, but this was not
surprising because of analytical uncertainties. Clearly, the argon-concentration
varies in these stones. Some geo chronologists may say that <270 000 years are
really the right “age” for these samples. But how could they know that 3,5
million years would not be the right “age” unless they had originally known that
the lava flows had been born recently?!
…We know the real ages of the stones, because according to the
observations they had been formed less than 50 years before dating. However,
their “age” was estimated to be even 3,5 million years. The ages are so
erroneous. How can we trust in this “dating method”, as it is used to such
stones, of which age, we do not know? If the method does not succeed to
determine age from stones, of which birth, we have a description of a neutral
eye-witness, why should we trust to it as it a question of stones, of which age,
we cannot check impartially from the history? (15)
Other examples describe problems of radioactive dating. They indicate again how
contents from stones are measured, but they do not need to be connected with the
real age. It has happened, such as in the next example from Grand Canyon is
indicated, that the uppermost stratum is “hundreds or tens of millions years”
older than the lowest stratum. Such cannot be true, of course, and therefore
dating like this belongs only to the group of science-stories:
Lava rock that was born in a
volcanic eruption on Island Hualalai approximately 170 years ago were studied,
and its age was determined using the new methods. By these “reliable”
radiometers, the age of the 170-year-old rock was measured at millions of years,
starting at 160 million up to three billion years. The same has happened also
with other similar measurements. An attempt to measure the age of the layers of
the Grand Canyon with these already mentioned new methods was also made. The
researchers were yet again surprised with the results. The age of the “young”
basalt rock in the uppermost layers was measured at 270 million years more than
“the thousands of millions of years old stone layer” at the bottom of the
canyon. After these measurements were taken, some of the ages given to the
canyon’s rocks and layers by evolutionists before have been transferred into the
group of “old beliefs”. (16)
In theory, the potassium-argon
method can be used to date younger stones, but not even this method can be used
for dating fossils themselves. The ancient “1470 Man” discovered by Richard
Leakey was determined to be 2.6 million years old by this method. Professor E.
T. Hall, who determined the age, told that the first analysis of the stone
sample gave the impossible result of 220 million years. This result was
rejected, because it did not fitted in with the evolution theory, and therefore,
another sample was analysed. The result of the second analysis was "suitable"
2.6 million years. The ages dated for samples of the same finding later on have
varied between 290,000 and 19,500,000 years. Therefore, the potassium-argon
method does not seem to be especially reliable, and neither does the way
researchers of evolution interpret the results. (17)
Carbon-14
dating
One radioactive method of
dating is carbon-14 dating. It differs from the other radioactive methods in
that its half-life is considered at approximately 5,600 years, and that it is
only used to measure the age of organic samples. The margin of error for this
method is much smaller than for the other radioactive methods, but there are
problems with it as well. These are discussed below:
Weakening of the Earth's
magnetic field is one factor that has an essential impact on radiocarbon measurements.
As we stated before, the Earth's magnetic field has not remained the same:
instead, it has continuously weakened so that the half life is now approximately
1,400 years. The weakening has also affected the amount of radiocarbon being
formed:
The Earth's magnetic field is
decreasing. The motions are very slight, but the decrease has been observed for
a long time (...) as the situation is this, a little more cosmic ray comes
through. The impact of these cosmic rays can be seen in the fact that more of
carbon-14 is formed, for example(…) (Magazine Uusi Suomi, article 26 February
1990, Maan magneettikenttä pienenee jatkuvasti, “Magnetic Field of Earth
Continuously Decreasing)
So, as the magnetic field was
much more powerful some centuries ago – even tens of times more powerful than
now – it has also had an effect on the formation of radiocarbon: formerly there
was much less of it or perhaps none at all.
In other words,
this means that as we examine samples from earlier times, they may seem
considerably older than they really are. They may seem centuries or even
thousands of years older than they really are, because radiocarbon could not be
formed in the early times due to the powerful magnetic field. If we do not take
this essential issue into account when taking the measurements, the results may
be up to millennia from the reality:
If there has been less of
carbon-14 in the past because of the more powerful magnetic protection against
cosmic rays, we have estimated the time passed after the life of these
organisms as too long. (Science Digest, December 1960, p. 19)
Vague results. Even though the
possibilities for errors when using carbon-14 dating are much smaller than with
the other methods, this method is not always accurate. Generally, errors in
this method give as the results ages older than the actual age due to the
weakening of the magnetic field mentioned above. The following kinds of
mistakes have been noted, for instance:
- The measured age for
living slugs has been 2,300 years (Keith and Anderson, Radiocarbon dating:
Fictitious results with mollusk shells, Science, Vol. 141, 1963, p. 111).
- Living trees have been
measured to be 10,000 years old (Huber, B., Recording Gaseous Exchange Under
Field Conditions, The physiology of Forest Trees, Ronald Publishers, New
York, 1958.). Thus, the margin of error was 10,000 years.
- In Durrington Walls
of England, an old structure was dated at 2620–2630 B.C. using carbon-14
dating. However; completely infallible archaeological evidence indicates the
structure to be approximately a thousand years younger (The Genesis Flood,
Henry M. Morris and John C. Witcomb, p. 43).
- A living mollusk was
dated as 3,000 years old (Creation Research Society Journal, June 1970).
- C. A. Reed points out a
good example of the uncertainty with carbon-14 dating in the Science
magazine (11 December 1959). The error made in the example was thousands of
years and contradicted undisputed archaeological evidence:
A classic example of the uncertainty with
carbon-14 dating is eleven samples that were taken from a prehistoric village
in North Iraq. C-14 indicated that the samples were 6,000 years old, even
though the archaeological evidence indicated that the village had been
inhabited for only 500 years.
- There have also been
many fossil samples that have been supposed to be millions of years old but
that have contained significant amounts of the C-14 isotope. It is possible
that the other methods give results quite the opposite of that given by
carbon-14 dating. The other methods may indicate that some layers are millions
of years old, but carbon-14 dating only a couple of thousand years. These kinds
of contradictions would not appear if the methods were reliable.
quickly decomposing radioactive elements
In dating it has usually been used methods, in which the half-lives of
radioactive substances are enormous.
However, there are elements in soil, of which half-lives are only fractional
parts of the previous methods. Especially, polonium is an interesting substance.
Experiments made with it have indicated how ideas of red-hot beginning of the
Earth and billions of years are questionable:
The radio halos of polonium. When talking
about the birth of the Earth, it has so usually been explained that the surface
was blazing hot and molten at first, and the crust then gradually solidified.
Over 4000 million years ago the Earth is believed to have been like a boiling
boiler, in which there were no possibilities for life. From that began a slow
solidification that took even millions of years.
However, some methods based on radioactivity do
not refer to slow solidification, but they refer to quick forming of the Earth.
Some of these are the radio halos of polonium detected in the bedrock and which have been
found all over the world from granite. These halos should not even be there if
the stone formations had actually slowly solidified over thousands of years.
This is because of a simple reason: in order to remain detectable, these halos
cannot have been formed in stone that is under 300 degree Celsius (!),
and secondly because the half-life of polonium 218 is only 3 minutes (!),
way too short for slow solidification. (Gentry, R.V., Radio halos in a radio
chronological and cosmological perspective. Science, 5 April 1974, vol.
184, pp. 62-66). Both of these facts indicate that the common idea of slow
solidification of the Earth during millions of years cannot be true. The only
possibility is that the bedrock has crystallized in a moment at the same time
with forming of polonium, because the existence of radio halos cannot be
explained any other way:
It is interesting that halos (sort of "bubbles")
formed by extremely quickly decomposing polonium isotopes can be found in some
stones in the bedrock. These show that the bedrock has been formed suddenly. It
is like you tried to capture the fizz created by an effervescent tablet by deep
freezing the bubbling water glass in a split second. (18)
Pleochroic halos are disturbances, discolorations in crystals of some rock
types, caused by radioactive radiation. These ring-like halos have been caused
especially by the radioactive particles of uranium, thorium and polonium (Po,
atomic number 84), included in micaceous crystals, from which alpha radiation
has been created. (…) These halos that can be found in Precambrian solidified
rock types, can have been born only if the Earth has been created
instantaneously. If they had been formed (cooled, solidified) slowly, these
halos could not have been created because of the high dissipation speed of
polonium minerals. Gentry concludes that the pleochroic halos of polonium refer
to creation in a moment, and that they clearly challenge the radioactive dating
methods as a whole (except for radiocarbon dating). (19)
