Why radioactive decay dates beyond around 4300 years are invalid

[dad2]

Radioactive dating techniques depend on the forces and laws we see today having also existed in the past.  Unless these forces did exist as we see them today, all dates have no meaning. There is no way to know this. There is another problem with deep space distances and time. But this thread is to discuss radioactive dating on earth. Unless you can prove that the laws were the same, then we can use young earth dates and still match all the patterns of isotopes we see in the rocks.

 

We simply lose assumptions such  as that all daughter isotopes (isotopes known to NOW form by decay) came to exist because of radioactive decay. (as we see them now coming to exist by this process)

In short, ONLY as long as this present nature/forces and laws existed is radioactive decay based dating valid. If our nature, say, started to exist somewhere around the time of Noah, then no date derived from radioactive decay methods is good before that point.

 

[RV_Wizard]

When we look at Genesis, we see that everything was created in a mature state.  There were trees bearing fruit, swarms of birds in the air, the sea teamed with fish, and of course, Adam and Eve walked and talked as adults.  They were old enough to take responsibility for their actions.  It would make sense logically that the planet itself was created in a mature state; capable of supporting life.  This makes perfect sense if we trust in God's word.  God can create daughter isotopes as easily as he created the parent isotope; except that they were created at the same time.  We know how things in the world act now.  God alone is the only logical answer for their origination.  Science has no viable theories for the origination of anything.

[Who me]

Plenty of articles discussing this at both Creation.com and at Answers in Genesis.

I keep stressing 5hat one does not immediately  turn into a horned Y.E.C. christian, but that as both these sites stand by an adherence to the Authority  and total accuracy of scripture they are well worth being familiar  with there many many articles.

 

[ayin jade]

I doubt anyone here has ever dealt with radioactive dating ...

I have. I used to take carbon 14 samples from archaeological sites and deal with the resulting data. 

At least 1/4 of all results were tossed out because they did not match the expected data, the results that researchers wanted. I know of sites in alaska that the primary researcher/archaeologist told me routinely dated 50,000 years in the future so they could not do any radioactive dating up there. 

Radioactive dating is flawed and often just based on assumptions.

[teddyv]

6 hours ago, ayin jade said:

I doubt anyone here has ever dealt with radioactive dating ...

I have. I used to take carbon 14 samples from archaeological sites and deal with the resulting data. 

At least 1/4 of all results were tossed out because they did not match the expected data, the results that researchers wanted. I know of sites in alaska that the primary researcher/archaeologist told me routinely dated 50,000 years in the future so they could not do any radioactive dating up there. 

 

C14 is just one of many methods. The comment about dating 50,000 years into the future seems a bit suspect. I'm not sure how that is even possible. The limit to C14 dating technique is about 50,000 years though. Certainly sample collection is pretty important. I don't know the checks involved in determining whether contamination is present, but that would certainly be a reason to dismiss a sample data point.

I have had limited exposure to radiometric dating working a geologist. Us "commercial" geologists don't really use radiometric dating as a common tool, but the research and government geologists will, as they tend to do most of the regional scale mapping. Radiometric dating is used extensively in basin modelling for the oil and gas industry. They don't seem to have an issues with their techniques. We used it once on a copper project for timing of the mineralization event (Re-Os, I think it was). It dated to an appropriate period based on the known dates of the surround host rocks.

Quote

Radioactive dating is flawed and often just based on assumptions.

Yes, there are assumptions - good ones that have been consistently repeated over millions of times. 

[teddyv]

16 hours ago, dad2 said:

Radioactive dating techniques depend on the forces and laws we see today having also existed in the past.  Unless these forces did exist as we see them today, all dates have no meaning. There is no way to know this. There is another problem with deep space distances and time. But this thread is to discuss radioactive dating on earth. Unless you can prove that the laws were the same, then we can use young earth dates and still match all the patterns of isotopes we see in the rocks.

 

We simply lose assumptions such  as that all daughter isotopes (isotopes known to NOW form by decay) came to exist because of radioactive decay. (as we see them now coming to exist by this process)

In short, ONLY as long as this present nature/forces and laws existed is radioactive decay based dating valid. If our nature, say, started to exist somewhere around the time of Noah, then no date derived from radioactive decay methods is good before that point.

 

Talk to the oil and gas industry. They use radiometric dating extensively.

Also, why 4300 years? The earth, as posited by YEC's is over 6000 years old.

We know physics is working in the past as it does today because we can see observe stars and other distant objects as they were many thousands, to millions, to billions of years ago.

[dad2]

32 minutes ago, teddyv said:

Talk to the oil and gas industry. They use radiometric dating extensively.

Also, why 4300 years? The earth, as posited by YEC's is over 6000 years old.

We know physics is working in the past as it does today because we can see observe stars and other distant objects as they were many thousands, to millions, to billions of years ago.

Because the world in the bible record was different after it was created. Men lived 1000 years almost. Trees grew in weeks. From all the changes in created kinds we see in the fossil record we can deduce that adapting happened very fast. When do we know lifespans changed rapidly? The best point to pinpoint it is (not at the flood year) at the time of Babel, when another great change happened...the minds of people on earth were no longer able to process speech the same. One other change at the time of Babel that I deduce is that spirit beings no longer had the same access to the physical world as they used to. Two examples of this is that we no longer see angels marrying women on earth, and also, that it seems likely that a spirit being level at the time of Babel used to exist somewhere up in the sky. That would explain why they thought they could build up to it, and why that now seems ridiculous.

 The OP stated that this thread was separate from cosmological issues. I can easily deal with those, but this thread is to focus on earth.

As to why the oil industry is successful, it discovered the patterns of layers and which ones tended to have the deposits they want! The reasons they think the layers came to exist and the time when they did is another matter altogether. They cannot defend that.

[dad2]

7 hours ago, ayin jade said:

I doubt anyone here has ever dealt with radioactive dating ...

I have. I used to take carbon 14 samples from archaeological sites and deal with the resulting data. 

At least 1/4 of all results were tossed out because they did not match the expected data, the results that researchers wanted. I know of sites in alaska that the primary researcher/archaeologist told me routinely dated 50,000 years in the future so they could not do any radioactive dating up there. 

Radioactive dating is flawed and often just based on assumptions.

I agree. Yet those flaws alone do not make a good argument for the broad range of samples that are dated.Some dates even correspond with tree rings. So I accept that the patterns of isotope ratios do act as a clock back to a certain point in time. That time, as I mentioned was the time of the tower of Babel, after the flood.

[dad2]

13 hours ago, Who me said:

Plenty of articles discussing this at both Creation.com and at Answers in Genesis.

I keep stressing 5hat one does not immediately  turn into a horned Y.E.C. christian, but that as both these sites stand by an adherence to the Authority  and total accuracy of scripture they are well worth being familiar  with there many many articles.

 

Been there done that got the tee shirt. Their arguments have the very same flaw radioactive dating does. That fatal flaw is that they too assume that the current laws of physics have to explain it all.

[dad2]

13 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

When we look at Genesis, we see that everything was created in a mature state.  There were trees bearing fruit, swarms of birds in the air, the sea teamed with fish, and of course, Adam and Eve walked and talked as adults.  They were old enough to take responsibility for their actions.  It would make sense logically that the planet itself was created in a mature state; capable of supporting life.  This makes perfect sense if we trust in God's word.  God can create daughter isotopes as easily as he created the parent isotope; except that they were created at the same time.  We know how things in the world act now.  God alone is the only logical answer for their origination.  Science has no viable theories for the origination of anything.

I agree. But the old agers might say that even if Adam was created 6000 years ago that is like yesterday and there were animals and etc already here. So their deep time foundational arguments must be decimated and destroyed.