SCIENTISTS SPEAK ABOUT RADIODATING

Both radiodating and radiocarbon dating of ancient objects yield dates which are totally unreliable. Reputable scientists have presented the contrary evidence, but it is not accepted. Evolutionists accept only those dates which agree with their evolutionary theories. This is science vs. evolution—a Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia, brought to you by Creation Science Facts.
Part 2 of this study will be found on the next page in this series (Scientists Speak about Radiocarbon Dating). This is science vs. evolution—a Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia, brought to you by Creation Science Facts.

CONTENT: Scientists Speak about Radiodating

Time Worship: Men believe time can work any kind of wonder
Problems with Lunar Rocks: The standard methods produced all kinds of ages
Problems with Radiodating: Basic problems with all the methods
Thorium-Lead Dating: Results do not agree with other methods
Potassium-Argon Dating: Involves substances which are uncontrollable
Potassium-Calcium Dating: Yields contradictory evidence
Easy for Crucial Decay Rates to Change: Without unchanging decay rates, no radiodating can occur
Rock Strata Dating: Produces no coherent results

This material is excerpted from the book, DATING OF TIME IN EVOLUTION.
An asterisk ( * ) by a name indicates that person is not known to be a creationist. Of over 4,000 quotations in the books this Encyclopedia is based on, only 164 statements are by creationists.
You will have a better understanding of the following statements by scientists if you will also read the web page, Dating of Time in Evolution.

TIME WORSHIP

"It is no secret that evolutionists worship at the shrine of time. There is little difference between the evolutionist saying `time did it' and the creationist saying `God did it.' Time and chance is a two-headed deity. Much scientific effort has been expended in an attempt to show that eons of time are available for evolution."—Randy Wysong, the Creation-Evolution Controversy (1976), p. 137.

"Life can be thought of as water kept at the right temperature in the right atmosphere in the right light for a period of time."—*J.D. Bernal, quoted in N.J. Berrill, You and the Universe (1958), p. 117.

"Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favorable properties of physics, on which life depends, are in every respect deliberate [i.e., produced by an intelligent mind] . . It is, therefore, almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect higher intelligences . . even to the limit of God."—*Fred Hoyle and *Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (1981), pp. 141, 144.

"The dating of ancient events [millions of years ago] is an inexact science."—*Roberta Conlan, Frontiers of Time (1991), p. 29.

PROBLEMS WITH LUNAR ROCKS

This was a classic illustration of the flaws in the standard dating methods. Every method was applied to the rocks brought back from the moon—and look at all the contradictory results!

"Some lunar rocks and soil from the Apollo 16 mission yielded `highly discordant' ages exceeding six billion years by lead methods. This is unacceptably high for current theories of lunar origins and disagrees with measurements made on other moon materials . .

"A rock from Apollo 16 contains 85 percent excess lead which gives uncorrected ages ranging from seven to 18 billion years by three lead methods. Removal of lead by acid treatment [!] makes possible a date of 3.8 billion years which is considered acceptable . .

"Some moon rocks are considered to have lost up to 48 percent of their argon, and their K / Ar [potassium-argon] ages are judged to be too low. On the other hand, many lunar rocks contain such large quantities of what is considered to be excess argon that dating by K / Ar is not even reported [for their ages would be too recent] . .

"Certain rocks from Apollo 12, dated by Sr / Rb [rubidium-strontium] and several lead methods [uranium, thorium], yielded ages ranging from 2.3 to 4.9 billion years. The effort to explain the results involves hypothetical second and third events which reset some of the radiometric clocks at different times in the past . .

"Lunar soil collected by Apollo 11 gave discordant ages by different methods: Pb²⁰⁷ / Pb²⁰⁶, 4.67 billion ; Pb²⁰⁶ / U²³⁸, 5.41 billion; Pb²⁰⁷ / U²³⁸, 5.41 billion; Pb²⁰⁷ / U²³⁵, 4.89 billion; and Pb²⁰⁸ / Th²³², 8.2 billion years. Rocks from the same location yielded K / Ar ages of around 2.3 billion years."—R.E. Kofahl and K.L. Segraves, Creation Explanation (1975), pp. 200, 201.

PROBLEMS WITH RADIODATING

"Most igneous rocks also contain uranium in a form that is readily soluble in weak acids. Hurley (1950) found that as much as 90 percent of the total radioactive elements of some granites could be removed by leaching the granulated rock in weak acid."—*M.R. Klepper and *D.G. Wyant, "Notes on the Geology of Uranium," in U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1046-F, 1957, p. 93.

"Countless [radioactive dating] determinations have been made by this method, but it was found that the premises on which the method rests are not valid for most uranium minerals. There is definite evidence of selective uranium leaching by acid waters, and it is now known that most radioactive minerals contained some lead when they were formed."—*Henry Faul, Nuclear Geology (1954), p. 282.

"Actually, the method [of comparing lead isotopes to make specimen dating more accurate] is subject to several errors. [1] Loss of radon 222 raises the lead:lead ratio and the calculated age. [2] A rather large error may be introduced by the uncertainty in the composition of the original lead. This error may exceed the measured value when dealing with younger uranium minerals containing even small amounts of original lead, as clearly recognized by Holmes when the method was first proposed. [3] Presence of old radiogenic lead (formed in a prior site of the parent uranium) may cause great error. [4] Instrumental errors in mass spectrometry may yield consistently high apparent proportions of lead 204 and lead 207. [5] Re-distribution of elements by renewed hydrothermal activity may be a serious source of error in all lead methods."—*Henry Faul, Nuclear Geology (1954), p. 295.

"And what essentially is this actual time scale? On what criteria does it rest? When all is winnowed out and the grain reclaimed from the chaff, it is certain that the grain in the product is mainly the paleontologic record [strata dating based on index fossil theories] and highly likely that the physical record [radioactive dating] is the chaff."—*E.M. Spieker, "Mountain-Building Chronology and the Nature of the Geologic Time-Scale," in Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, August 1956, p. 1806.

"Why do the radioactive ages of lava beds laid down within a few weeks of each other differ by millions of years?"—Glenn R. Morton, "Electromagnetism and the Appearance of Age," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1982, p. 229.

THORIUM-LEAD DATING

"The two uranium-lead ages often differ from each other markedly, and the thorium-lead age on the same mineral is almost always drastically lower than either of the others."—*L.T. Aldrich, "Measurement of Radioactive Ages of Rocks," in Science, May 18, 1956, p. 872.

"Most of the ages obtained by the lead:thorium method disagree with the ages of the same minerals computed by other lead methods. The reasons for this disagreement are largely unknown."—*Henry Faul, Nuclear Geology (1954), p. 295.

POTASSIUM-ARGON DATING

"The two principle problems have been the uncertainties in the radioactive decay constants of potassium and in the ability of minerals to retain the argon produced by this decay."—*G.W. Wetherill, "Radioactivity of Potassium and Geologic Time," in Science, September 20, 1957, p. 545.

"Processes of rock alteration may render a volcanic rock useless for potassium-argon dating . . We have analyzed several devitrified glasses of known age, and all have yielded ages that are too young. Some gave virtually zero ages, although the geologic evidence suggested that devitrification took place shortly after the formation of a deposit."—*J.F. Evernden, et. al., "K / A Dates and Cenozoic Mannalian Chronology of North America," in American Journal of Science, February 1964, p. 154.

"As much as 80 percent of the potassium in a small sample of an iron meteorite can be removed by distilled water in 4.5 hours."—*L.A. Rancitelli and D.E. Fisher, "Potassium-Argon Ages of Iron Meteorites," in Planetary Science Abstracts, 48th Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (1967), p. 167.

"The most reasonable age [from among the many conflicting "dates" offered] can be selected only after careful consideration of independent geochronologic data as well as field, stratigraphic and paleontologic evidence, and the petrographic and paragenetic relations."—*L.R. Stieff, *T.W. Stern and *R.N. Eichler, "Algebraic and Graphic Methods for Evaluating Discordant Lead-Isotope Ages," in U.S. Geological Survey Professional Papers, No. 414-E (1963).

POTASSIUM-CALCIUM DATING

"Other methods, e.g., uranium-lead and thorium-lead ages, have resulted in contradictory evidence. A classic example is that the dust samples on the moon seem to be older than the rocks underneath."—Erech von Fange, "Time Upside Down," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1974, p. 17.

EASY FOR CRUCIAL DECAY RATES TO CHANGE

"The age of our globe is presently thought to be some 4.5 billion years, based on radio-decay rates of uranium and thorium. Such `confirmation' may be short-lived, as nature is not to be discovered quite so easily. There has been in recent years the horrible realization that radio-decay rates are not as constant as previously thought, nor are they immune to environmental influences. And this could mean that the atomic clocks are reset during some global disaster, and events which brought the Mesozoic [the dinosaur age] to a close may not be 65 million years ago, but rather, within the age and memory of man."—*Fredrick B. Jeaneman, "Secular Catastrophism," in Industrial Research and Development, June 1982, p. 21.

"The latest report of changing nuclear decay rate involves cobalt-60. The fascinating part is that the experiment was done in an undergraduate science lab! The environment of the Co-60 nuclei was altered by placing the source within the poles of a permanent magnet (10³ gauss). The author repeatedly found that the magnet increased the count rate by 2 percent. This is certainly a macroscopic [large] change in view of the 5.24 year half-life of Co-60 . . It is increasingly clear that nuclear half-lives, and thus radiometric dates, are variables which depend on the nuclear surroundings."—Donald B. DeYoung, News note in Creation Research Society Quarterly, September 1979, p. 142.

ROCK STRATA DATING

"In attempting to build up a time scale, it is clear that we have to steer a difficult course through a maze of data of very variable quality, guided in some places by atomic weight evidence, in others by series of probabilities. Nevertheless, . . only a few points can be fixed with precision into the [fossil-bearing] geological column, and the total assemblage of data is too confused."—*Arthur Holmes, in The Age of the Earth (1931), p. 431.

"The literature contains few age determinations (perhaps no more than one) on syngeneic radionuclides from paleontologically defined stratigraphic units, and almost all radioactive age determinations are made on igneous, hydrothermally introduced or secondarily transported minerals that cannot as a rule be referred to a precisely defined place in the stratigraphic succession. At present, no coherent picture of the history of the earth could be built on the basis or radioactive datings."—*Curt Teichert, "Some Biostratigraphical Concepts," in Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, January 1958, p. 102.

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Forward to the next topic in this series: SCIENTISTS SPEAK ABOUT RADIOCARBON DATING which discuss its remarkable inaccuracies.