Once corrective calibrations and other corrective procedures are implemented, radiocarbon measurements yield correct dates, as has been demonstrated with radiocarbon dating of samples of known ages (e.g., Jull et al., 2018).
However, corrective calibration techniques and other procedures can correct for all these confounding factors ( Pasquier-Cardin et al., 1999 Goslar et al., 2000 Nadeau et al., 2001 McGee et al., 2004 Mihara et al., 2004 Quarta et al., 2007 Nakanishi et al., 2015 Tankersley et al., 2017 Wang et al., 2017 Yang et al., 2017). There are several factors that can add 14C to samples so that they yield falsely young ages (e.g., nuclear fallout, bacterial contamination, and contamination with coal), and there are other factors that add 14C-depleted carbon to samples so that they yield falsely old ages (e.g., volcanic gases, industrial emissions, and the reservoir effect) ( Table 1). However, the reality of radiocarbon dating is more complicated. Most science textbooks explain radiocarbon dating in no further detail than that (e.g., Campbell et al., 2009 Bergstrom & Dugatkin, 2016 Urry et al., 2017), because their goal is to provide only a general overview of it. Here, I present an overview of the relevant details, to arm science educators and their students with the information they need to recognize such YEC misinterpretations as incorrect.
Appropriate responses to such YEC arguments are therefore not always at hand. That is because students and science educators often lack knowledge of the finer details of radiocarbon dating and the fossilization process that show how radiocarbon in dinosaur bones is consistent with an age of millions of years. Many of the other dinosaur-based anti-evolution arguments from YEC authors are less worrisome, because they are plainly absurd (e.g., Senter, 2012, 2013a, 2013b, 2017a, 2018, 2019 Siebert, 2013 Senter & Wilkins, 2013 Senter & Klein, 2014), but the absurdity in the YEC arguments based on radiocarbon is less plain. Taking advantage of the popularity of dinosaurs, young-Earth creationist (YEC) authors now proclaim in an ever-increasing number of books and DVDs that radiocarbon in dinosaur fossils demonstrates that the dinosaur fossils must be only thousands, not millions, of years old ( Helfinstine & Roth, 2007 Wilson et al., 2007 Lyons & Butt, 2008 Isaacs, 2010a, b Woetzel, 2012 Thomas, 2013, 2014 Clarey, 2015 Institute for Creation Research, 2015). The recent discovery of radiocarbon in dinosaur fossils has the potential to generate much puzzlement, because radiocarbon has a half-life too short for measurable amounts of original radiocarbon to remain in fossils that are millions of years old.
0 kommentar(er)
