Carbon Dating: In Need of Calibration

The first thing you should know about radiocarbon dating is that everyone gets it wrong.

Okay, I concede that this sentiment is hyperbolic and perhaps a little dramatic. I do not mean to say that everyone is wrong. And I am certainly not implying that I am the only one who is right while everyone around me has been misled. Nevertheless, I stand by my statement, dramatic as it is. For what is hyperbole if not a reflection of reality?  

Indeed, there are some cases in which the various views concerning a certain topic are simply inaccurate, or else only partly true. Perhaps a controversial issue is deeper than either opposing viewpoint believes. Maybe hidden or undisclosed information prevents different sides from honest evaluation. Thus, erroneous conclusions derive from both parties. In this case, my cheap ploy to get you invested in this article is only partially true. No, not everyone is wrong, but the most common opinions on radiocarbon dating are inaccurate. The study of origins is full of topics like this; topics in which the popular talking points of creationists and the leading postulations of evolutionists are not adequate explanations of the data. It takes some extra effort and deeper research to get to the bottom of certain issues. This is one of those issues. 

What is Radiocarbon Dating?

Radiocarbon dating, hereafter shortened to “carbon dating,” is a method of radiometric dating. Scientists use it to date historical artifacts, trees, and sometimes animal fossils. It remains a controversial technique among creationists because, according to conventional scientists, it can accurately date both artifacts and organic material up to 50,000 years old.¹ Since young-earth creationists believe God created the universe less than 10,000 years ago, this dating method poses a challenge to the creation model.

Radiometric dating is a Nobel prize-winning concept that uses the decay rates of radioactive elements to measure the age of an object. When discovered in the early 1900s, radiometric dating caused quite the splash among scientists. Upon awarding Willard Libby the Nobel Prize in 1960, the Nobel Committee had this to say about his work on radiometric dating: “Seldom has a single discovery in chemistry had such an impact on the thinking in so many fields of human endeavor. Seldom has a single discovery generated such wide public interest.”² We can see its impact in biology, archaeology, anthropology, history, and other fields of study.

Methods of radiometric dating (carbon dating chief among them) are clearly important to conventional scientific models. But are they irrefutable proof of an old earth?     

Why Everyone is Wrong

Historically, radiometric dating is a conflict for creationists. Mainstream scientists use these techniques to date their fossils or artifacts, and they accept these dates as true. Many creationists, however, dismiss these dates as faulty because they are usually much older than 6,000 years. Arguments against radiometric dating often challenge the assumptions these dating methods rely on. Central to radiometric dating is the belief that certain processes that occur today have always occurred at the same rate. But what if, cries the creationist, those processes changed in the past? After all, no one was around thousands or millions of years ago. Rejecting the assumptions of evolutionists is one way creationists dismiss radioactive decay methods as based on faulty logic or unfounded assumptions.

In reality, these dating methods are neither proof of an old earth or faulty reasoning of evolutionists. Radiometric dating is not a cause for alarm, nor an enemy we must teardown. A deeper look at carbon dating demonstrates that these dating techniques do not always contradict a young earth. They can even be recalibrated to fit a Biblical framework.

What is Carbon and How Does it Work?

While you read this, your body is receiving and releasing carbon. All of life, in fact, both intakes and expels the element. Most of the carbon is called carbon-12, because it has 6 neutrons and 6 protons (6+6=12). Carbon-12 is everywhere in our atmosphere. Occasionally, cosmic rays collide with Nitrogen-14 atoms in the atmosphere, creating radioactive carbon-14 (8 neutrons, 6 protons). Like carbon-12, carbon-14 combines with oxygen atoms, forming carbon dioxide.³ While there is far more carbon-12 in the world, there is also plenty of carbon-14 in the atmosphere and in our bodies.

Not only is there both carbon-12 and carbon-14 in your body, but the ratio between the two is fairly consistent throughout your life. Your body expels and receives both types of carbon with equal consistency. One day (hopefully in the very distant future) you will die, and your body will cease its carbon intake. Now, carbon-14 is a radioactive element, which means it “wants” to turn back into carbon-12, its natural form. So, once your body stops taking in carbon, your carbon-14 will begin a process called “radioactive decay.” The carbon-14 will begin to expel its electrons in a process called beta decay and becomes Nitrogen-14. This is the same with all life forms. Creationists agree with evolutionists that the rate of carbon-14 decay is 5,730 years.⁴

Measuring the Carbon-14 Decay

There are many elements that can become radioactive and decay. Each one has a different (though constant) decay rate. We measure decay rates by the element’s “half-life”. This is the time it takes for exactly half of the “parent isotope” (i.e. carbon-14) to decay into the “daughter isotope” (i.e. Nitrogen-14). Carbon’s half-life is about 5,700 years, which means that it takes ~5,700 years for a carbon-14 sample to decay by 50%. Because of this “quick” decay rate, scientists realized carbon dating could only provide reliable dates of up to 50,000 years old. In that time, artifacts should run out of radioactive carbon-14.

So, let’s take a look at what we know. When scientists choose an artifact to date, they can determine:

1. The amount of carbon-14 and carbon-12 the artifact had when it was buried (assuming that the carbon in the atmosphere is constant).
2. The amount of carbon-14 and Nitrogen-14 the artifact has now.
3. The rate at which the carbon-14 decays into Nitrogen-14.

Hopefully you can see how scientists get the ages they do. They can calculate how much time has gone by between when the artifact was fossilized and now. They have all the data they need.

Getting the “Correct” Dates

While the above method is how scientists measure radiometric dates, there is one more step before they can officially assign a date to an artifact or fossil. We can measure the carbon in the atmosphere, but the amount fluctuates as earth’s conditions change. Scientists must take this into account. How can they measure atmospheric carbon rates in the past? Well, atmospheric 14C/12C ratios are recorded in, of all places, trees.

When a tree absorbs carbon-12 and carbon-14, only the outermost layer of the tree stores the carbon. The inner rings of the tree do not change. As the tree grows, that outermost layer becomes an inner ring, storing its valuable carbon data for scientists to uncover later. This biological process conveniently records carbon ratios across time. Scientists can observe the carbon ratios of the past, and even the changes in ratios over time. This method of calibrating carbon dates was first used to correct carbon dated Egyptian artifacts that kept yielding dates that did not match their known archaeological ages.⁵ This calibration process shows that scientists cannot get perfect dates from carbon decay alone; they already must adjust their calculations based on changes in the past.

Carbon Dating and Creationism

Now, if you read the methods of carbon dating carefully, you may have noticed something. If the rate of decay for carbon means that all carbon-14 should become carbon-12 after 50,000 years, then ancient fossils from millions of years ago should have no traceable amounts of carbon-14. By contrast, if the earth is only 6-10 thousand years old, then all artifacts or fossils should have traceable amounts of carbon-14 that hasn’t yet decayed. 

So, what do scientists find when they check for carbon-14 in fossils, rocks, and artifacts? Well, in 2001, a creationist named Paul Giem published an article reporting that he had found carbon-14 in every fossil he tested! Not only that, but his results suggested that the fossils he studied could not have been buried more than 25,000 years ago.⁶ This obviously does not fit conventional time scales, but instead opens the door for a compelling argument in favor of young-earth creationism.

Carbon Dating: Where Things Stand Today

As you may have noticed, this discovery did not immediately refute an old earth or Darwinian evolution. Evolutionists have an answer to their carbon-14 problem. They suggest that more recent carbon has contaminated the fossils, making them appear younger than they are. Scientists have even developed methods to remove the carbon-14 “contaminants” in order to get the dates that fit their model.⁷ Paul Giem already anticipated this answer, but this has not stopped evolutionists from dismissing this carbon-14 as contamination.⁸ 

In more recent years, creationists have done deeper research into carbon dating, with some have attempted to demonstrate that the leftover carbon-14 is not contamination. Andrew Snelling, for instance, found carbon-14 in diamonds which —due to their resistance to erosion, water, or abrasion— cannot be contaminated.⁹ In this case, evolutionists suggest the equipment used was experiencing “background radiation”. Snelling argued that the diamonds contained varying amounts of carbon-14, even when detected by the same machine. This rules out flaws in the equipment as an explanation.                

Calibrating the Clock for Creationism

Creationists are not done with radiocarbon dating. Andrew Snelling and others are attempting to calibrate carbon dating to fit a young-earth model. When carbon dating is used, it yields dates that can reach 40,000 years of age. Why? Because an underlying assumption of carbon dating is that the amount of carbon in the atmosphere has not changed drastically in the past. This is linked to uniformitarianism, the conventional theory that things today are the same as they have always been. From a creationist perspective, however, this is not the case. The worldwide flood of Noah would have dramatically reduced carbon in the atmosphere. Assuming a dramatic carbon “reset” about 4,400 years ago, followed by a gradual restoration of carbon leading up to today, creationists can (hopefully) recalibrate carbon dating to yield dates that are accurate from a young-earth perspective.

For now, however, we need not fear the older dates yielded by carbon dating. We can even trust that conventional carbon dates, while not accurate in themselves, do reflect correct chronology. In other words, an artifact dated 20,000 years old is older than an artifact dated 10,000 years old, even if those dates are not quite accurate. Thus, creationists can infer data from carbon dating even without “fixing” the dates to fit the young earth model.

Calibrating Our Views on Carbon Dating 

Conventional archaeologists, evolutionists, and geologists cite carbon dating as an accurate dating technique. While the technique itself is valid, there is reason to believe the dates are miscalculated. Many creationists reject carbon dating as a whole, because it seemingly yields ages older than 10,000 years. Just like carbon dating itself, both views of carbon dating are in need of recalibration. Carbon dating is a sound method that will yield different dates depending on what assumptions are fed into it. Creation researchers have yet to perfect these calibrations, but the presence of carbon-14 in artifacts is encouraging evidence that the earth is not millions of years old.

The discussion of carbon dating’s role in the age of the earth is not over. Creationists will work to fit carbon dating into their model, while conventional scientists will continue to accept carbon dating results. Is everyone still wrong? Well, yes. But perhaps “wrong” is too harsh a word. A more accurate–and gentle–description could be “in need of some recalibration.”

But hey, who isn’t?

Footnotes

1.  Parui, Kaushick. (2019). Age Determination by Radiometric Dating. ↩︎
2. Bhattacharya, Shreetama. (2021). Carbon Dating. ↩︎
3. Parui, Kaushick. (2019). Age Determination by Radiometric Dating. ↩︎
4.  Baumgardner, J. (2005). 14C Evidence for a Recent Global Flood and a Young Earth. ↩︎
5. Bhattacharya, Shreetama. (2021). Carbon Dating. ↩︎
6. Giem, P., & M., D. (2005). CARBON-14 CONTENT OF FOSSIL CARBON. ↩︎
7. Bird, M. I., Ayliffe, L. K., Fifield, L. K., Turney, C. S. M., Cresswell, R. G., Barrows, T. T., & David, B. (1999). Radiocarbon Dating of “Old” Charcoal Using a Wet Oxidation, Stepped-Combustion Procedure. Radiocarbon, 41(2), 127–140. ↩︎
8. Bhattacharya, Shreetama. (2021). Carbon Dating. ↩︎
9.  Snelling, Andrew. (2007). Radiocarbon in Diamonds Confirmed. Answers in Depth, Vol. 2(2007), pp. 158–159. ↩︎