The Unreliability of Radiometric Dating Part 1
By Jon Covey, B.A., MT(ASCP)
Edited by Anita Millen, M.D., M.P.H., M.A.

Beta version: this article is being revised and updated.

Lord Kelvin (William Thompson, 1824-1907) opposed Darwinism. Probably the greatest physicist of his day, Kelvin argued that the earth could not possibly be as old as Darwinists insisted because the earth’s interior is far too warm for a planet that was molten over 4 billion years ago. Kelvin showed that the earth’s temperature indicated the planet could not be older than 100 million years while some contemporaries argued that it was no more than 10 million years old. [Burchfield]

The Encyclopedia Britannica (1997 CD-ROM) gave this account:

"The publication in 1859 of the conclusions of Darwin and Alfred Wallace on the origin of species extended the principle of uniformity to the plant and animal kingdoms. Although the catastrophists continued to fight a rearguard action against the Huttonian-Lyellian-Darwinian view until the end of the century, a new criticism was raised by William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin), one of the leading researchers on thermodynamics. Thomson pointed out that the Earth is losing heat by conduction and that the nature of geologic processes may have changed as a consequence; he also concluded that this cooling placed an upper limit on the age of the Earth. With the discovery of radioactivity and the recognition that radioactive isotopes within the Earth provide a continuing internal source of heat, it became clear that Thomson’s conclusion that the Earth was less than 100 million years old was incorrect, but his argument that the Earth suffers an irreversible loss of energy remains valid."

When radioactivity was discovered by Becquerel in 1896, Kelvin’s opponents argued that the decay of radioactive isotopes produced the heat that kept the earth warmer than what it would have been if a molten earth began cooling over 4 billion years ago. Kelvin recalculated the cooling time for the earth based on this new information. Instead of showing that the earth had been cooling for 4 billion years, the new figure showed that the earth could not have been cooling for much more than about 100 million years. The scientific community, already won over to the evolutionary camp ignored his new calculations and placed its confidence in the radioactive dating methods. In Age of the Earth, Harold Slusher and Thomas Gamwell reexamined the time required for the earth cooling to its present temperature. They made five calculations for the cooling time based on a range of estimates, starting with presently known stores of radioactive materials in the earth. They concluded that even with unrealistically high estimates the earth could not have been cooling for more than one billion years. [Slusher]

Origin of Radioactive isotopes—divine or natural?

Where did the radioactive elements come from? According to evolutionists, about 8-16 billion years ago the Big Bang exploded, creating the universe. Initially, the universe was composed of about 90% hydrogen, 10% helium, and a trace of lighter elements such as boron and lithium. The Big Bang created little or no heavier elements such as iron and nickel. The heavier elements were created later in the fiery cauldrons of stars by the process of nucleosynthesis. Astrophysicists say that stars synthesize no element heavier than iron. They say it takes cataclysmic supernova explosions to create the radioactive elements geologists use to date rocks. Very hot, first generation stars formed about one billion years after the Big Bang and perished in brilliant explosions called a supernova about 100 million years later [Cowen]. 

If all this is true, no one knows how long ago supernova created the universe’s main uranium supply or how long that supply has been decaying before it became part of the material that formed the earth. Most estimates for the age of the universe range from 10 to 20 billion years. A generally accepted age among evolutionary theorists is around 13 billion years. Some creationists dispute the origin of most long-lived radioactive isotopes, and affirm they were created along with the rest of the universe. Evolutionists suppose the case is closed on radiometric dating and the overwhelming evidence is in their favor—and nearly everyone knows that creationists are misinformed, mislead, or deluded.  

Let’s assume the universe is about 16 – 20 billion years old. If a supernova created one ton of Uranium-238 (U-238) 16 billion years ago, how much of that uranium still exists? The half-life of U-238 is 4.5 billion years. This means after 4.5 billion years, one-half of the uranium atoms will decay into daughter products, ultimately Lead-206 (Pb-206). If we looked at that ton of U-238 today, we would find that almost 88% of it has since turned to Lead-206. Before the earth ever formed, 75% of the original uranium would have decayed. Most of that original uranium would have decayed to Lead-206 by the time the earth formed. If isotope geologists compensated for calculation of the earth’s age based on these figures, the earth would be dated much younger than it is.

How did scientists decide when supernovae created the majority of uranium? Part of the answer comes from the study of meteorites, sedimentation rates, mutation rates, cooling rate of the earth from a molten condition, and light’s travel time from distant galaxies. Evolutionists believe that the results from the various methods used are independently derived, making the age determinations that much more reliable. The blind spot in evolutionary thinking is the basic assumptions evolutionists make employing each method. Their strong bias for a very old universe causes them to make assumptions that will favor their bias.

Because evolution is believed to be true, the assumptions in each independent method must result in answers that provide a time interval amenable to the slow, stately pace of evolution which requires several hundred million years minimally.

Other solutions for the problem of measuring time passage since earth’s appearance are rejected if they do not confirm a long time interval that will allow the extremely slow process of evolution to occur.

Professor Richard Arculus assumes that 6.5 billion years ago supernovae created most of the uranium for our planet. He bases this on the belief that the earth is 4.5 billion years old and that the production ratio of U-235 and U-238 in a supernova is about 1.65. [Arculus] He says this is an oversimplification and concludes that about 10 supernovae from over 6 billion years ago to about 200 million years ago contributed to the uranium stores on earth to produce the unique ratio of U-235/U-238.

Evolutionists believe the earth formed by the gradual accumulation of leftover dust from the disk of gas and dust surrounding the protostar that became our sun. The origin of the material was from supernovae.

After the explosive supernovae some 6 to 15 billion years ago, the remnant gas and dust rapidly expanded outward. This material collided with similar material coming from other supernova and interstellar gas and dust left over from the Big Bang. Eventually, say astronomers, this material formed new stars like our own sun after several billion years. The uranium created in the supernovae began decaying immediately. Therefore, the amount of lead originally contained in the earth when it formed would have been 2-10 times the amount of uranium, depending on when supernovae created the main uranium stores incorporated into the earth. This is important to know because it will help us to decide whether geologists make fair assumptions for the initial amounts of lead and uranium in rocks they’ve dated. It seems it is impossible to ever know what were the initial amounts of U-238 and Pb-206. The same is true for dating methods using other isotopes.

The measured thorium and neodymium ratios of stars in our stellar neighborhood, if accepted at face value, strongly indicate that no significant amount of time has passed since the creation of these isotopes. Virtually all the initial thorium is still there, meaning not enough time has passed for significant decay of thorium. [Butcher] The spectroscopic evidence from 20 nearby stars presented by H. R. Butcher confirmed what Nobel physicist William Fowler advocated for many years: the universe was much younger than most astronomers accepted (see our article The Age of the Universe for more details).

John Woodmorappe lists over 350 radiometric dates known to be in error. [Woodmorappe, 1979] He compared the expected age of the material dated with the age obtained by the reporting scientists. The expected age is based on the rock layer from which the sample came, which is based on the specific fossils found in them. He explained that although very common, most discrepant dates are simply excluded from the published reports or explained away.

One must recognize that even if the number of discrepant dates greatly exceeded the number of accepted dates, many evolutionists, especially leading authorities, would tend to disregard the former results because they are firmly convinced of the earth’s antiquity despite contrary evidence. Gunter Faure, a leading isotope geologist, explained that geologists rejected the body of uranium/lead/thorium dates they obtained prior to the late 1950’s. [Faure, p. 282] How many discrepant dates must there be before it is admitted radiometric dating is invalid? Wrong question. Even if there were 100 discrepant dates for every "correct" date, geologists would still accept radiometric dating. What would cause them to lose confidence in the methods? A new, superior method that would provide them with ages that the geological establishment has already accepted. One geologist [Pilkey] says that criticism of the present methods is not well received by peer reviewers during the process of submission to science journal.

Fractional crystallization must be explained before defining the radiometric methods. As magma begins its long journey upward from deep in the earth, it comes in contact with cooler rock. This contact causes the magma to slowly cool. When this happens, those elements with higher melting points begin to crystallize. The density of these crystallized elements is greater than that of the surrounding liquid magma and they fall out of the upwardly mobile magma and separate from it, or fractionate. This is what is meant by fractional crystallization. This doesn't happen all at once. The upper portion of the magma is coolest, and that is where more crystallization of high melting point elements takes place.

When the magma finally breaks through the earth's crust during the eruption of a volcano, the cooler material freezes first. This material also is the most depleted of high melting point elements. Lava coming out later has greater concentrations of those same elements. This lava flows over the hardening magma and downward. The situation is a bit different for magma that never escapes the earth's crust, but it too undergoes this process of fractionation. In both cases, when a very large volume of magma lakes (remains in place) and cools to a solid, the outermost parts of the mass cool first and the high melting point substances crystallize first. In such situations, a gradient of all substances is created: the low melting point substances tend to increase in concentration toward the middle of the rock and the higher melting point substances increase in concentration toward the surface of the rock.

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