I'll leave this after reading Denny's post, but the equilibrium stuff I was talking about was this:
In all decay equations, you have to have some knowns. Decay constants are measurable and, well, constant (after some small fudge factor either way, but that's not really an issue). New technology allows for a much more accurate count of the radioisotopes you're looking for (C-14, in the cases we were talking about) than Liddy had in the 50's. We can measure the ratio of C-12 to C-14 in currently living organisms, but to project that back 5000 years (or billions, in the case of things like potassium-argon or thorium dating) you need to assume a few things:
Assumption 1: The original number of unstable atoms can be known. Scientists assume how many unstable (parent) atoms existed at the beginning based on how many parent and daughter atoms are left today.
Assumption 2: The rate of change was constant. Scientists assume that radioactive atoms have changed at the same rate throughout time
Assumption 3: The daughter atoms were all produced by radioactive decay. Scientists assume that no outside forces, such as flowing groundwater, contaminated the sample.
The one that I have the most trouble with is #2: that the earth is at equilibrium in its rates of formation and decay, and that it's been that way the entire time.
"If the cosmic radiation has remained at its present intensity for 20,000 or 30,000 years, and if the carbon reservoir has not changed appreciably in this time, then there exists at the present time a complete balance between the rate of disintegration of radiocarbon atoms and the rate of assimilation of new radiocarbon atoms for all material in the life-cycle." -Liddy
Those are some pretty large
ifs, right? I mean, it's great that he had an assumption until proven invalid, but I think it has been. C-14 is NOT at equilibrium right now...in the 50's and 60's the amounts fluctuated significantly due to nuclear testing and such. If calibrated (and I'm not positive how that occurs, but I'll go with it), it seems to work for things at about 5000 years old (wasn't one of the original tests a log predicted accurately from a pharaoh's tomb or something?). But what isn't talked about much is that much of the stuff dated from King Tut's tomb were so far off that the Egyptologists dismissed Liddy's calculations.
We're told that you can make the case that it can detect atoms counts so accurately that you can go back 65k years or so (so approximately 1/(2^12) or 1/5000 of the original). But all that's assuming that the rates of C14 increase and decrease (and the ratios of C-12 to C-14) have been constant the entire time, when we know that they haven't even been constant over the last 50 years! Even without the curves, though, we're told by the scientists that the errors are only on the magnitude of 200-800 years, so that if something reads, say, 25000BC, then there's a 100% certainty that it's from 24000-26000BC. However, more recently others have tried to duplicate Libby's measurements with more modern equipment and much greater accuracy. They concluded that the out-of-balance condition is real and even worse than Libby believed (I believe his rates were 18 for formation and 15 for decay). Radiocarbon is actually forming 28% - 37% faster than it is decaying.
One of the things that's happened recently on this front is the attempt at upper-end measurement of the C-14 dating method. Diamonds were taken from rocks aged at around 100 million years old. Carbon-dating the diamonds showed an age of 65000 years. How could that be? I'm not an expert in anthropology...have any of the skeletons/dinosaur bones/etc. ever been tested for C-14? On one hand, you could say "they're so old (in the millions of years) that there's no C-14 left". You could also say "they died in the Flood, before there was appreciable C-14". Or you might see C-14 in there (like the diamonds) which shows that they're orders of magnitude younger than originally thought.
Going back to the equilibrium thing: one of the factors that contributes heavily to the rates of formation is the effect of high-energy cosmic rays interacting with CO2 and other molecules in the atmosphere (especially in the 5-35k altitude range, for some reason). The hypothesis is that as magnetic field strength of the earth goes up, cosmic ray penetration goes down and less C-14 will be formed. Many people agree, however, that the rock record indicates that the magnetic field has varied in both strength and direction over time. This has serious implications on C14-C12 chemistry in the upper atmosphere.
Say, for instance, that right now we have a 1 trillion to 1 ratio of C-14 to C-12 in our bodies. Assuming (as they do now) that it's been constant for millenia, if we found a skeleton tomorrow that had a ratio of, say 4Trillion to 1 (or 1/8 normal), they could say that the skeleton was pretty certainly 11000+/-500 years old---blowing the whole young earth theory out of the water. However, if 5000 years ago the earth's magnetic field was different, and allowed only 1/2 of the C-14 atoms to be formed, there would be a 2T-to-1 ratio at the beginning, and you'd be off by a half-life of 5500 years. Or perhaps there was an extremely weak field that allowed more to be formed, and you started off with a 1T-to-4 ratio. You'd be off (too young) by 2 half-lives, or 11000 years. What was the magnetic field like in 4000 BC? Or, if you believe the bible, what was the effect of a shield of water vapor surrounding the earth pre-Flood? If there
had been this shield of water vapor, wouldn't C-14 formation been non-existent up until after the flood, and therefore the clock would've started at around 3000BC or so? That would sure mess with rates of C-14 decay and formation, and not allow anything close to an equilibrium situation.
This is one of the reasons I'm a big fan of science. I'd love to have someone build a model that shows what the magnetic field has done over the last 10k years and hear the explanation why. It would be great if someone would say "you're right...the effects of that axiom being changed would cause a large error to be input into the equation". Instead, it's "you blindly follow Ken Ham, and therefore cannot possibly have any relevance in a big-boy science discussion".
I'm fine with the thought that I'm a flat-earth guy, and unworthy to discuss these things. The thread was "religious debate", and I think everyone got their money's worth. I probably missed something in my novel of a post. Thanks for the discussion.
).
