Evolution Encyclopedia Vol. 1
CHAPTER 7 - DATING METHODS PART 1
Introduction
"In a billion years [from now], it seems, intelligent life might be as different from humans as humans are from insects . . To change from a human being to a cloud may seem a big order, but it's the kind of change you'd expect over billions of years." Freeman Dyson, Statement made in 1986, quoted in Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations, p. 93. [American mathematician.]
"Slowness has really nothing to do with the question. An event is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in a miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one."*G. K. Chesterton (1925).
"The theory of evolution gives no answer to the important problem of the origin of life and presents only fallacious solutions to the problem of the nature of evolutive transformations . . We are condemned to believe in evolution, but we will always search for a suggestion concerning the methods of transformations . . Perhaps we are now in a worse position than in 1859 because we have searched for one century and we have the impression that the various hypotheses [of how evolution could have occurred] are now exhausted. Presently, nature appears to be more steady, more firm and more refractory [resistant] to changes than we thoughtbefore we had made a clear distinction between hereditary variability [within species] and acquired characteristics [DNA characteristics fixing each species]. "*Jean Rostand, quoted in *G. Salet, Hasard et Certitude: Le Transformisme devant la Biologie Actuelle (1973), p. 419.
Several methods for dating ancient materials have been developed. This is an important topic, for evolutionists want the history of earth to span long ages in the hopes that this will make the origin and evolution of life more likely.
Therefore we shall devote an entire chapter to a discussion of every significant method used by scientists today to date ancient substances.
Yes, an understanding of dating methods is important, but we should keep in mind that whether or not these dating methods are accurate, really has no direct relation to whether evolution has ever occurred or could occur. Long ages is not evolution!
Evolution can only occur by a sequence of, first, production of matter from nothing, or origin of matter. This was dealt with in the chapter by that name (chapter 1). Second, generation of living organisms from non-living matter, or origin of life. This will be covered in the chapters, Primitive Environment (chapter 9), and DNA (chapter 10). Third, evolution of living organisms into more advanced life forms by natural selection or mutations. This is species evolution, and will be discussed in the chapters on Fossils (chapter 17), Ancient Man (chapter 18), Natural Selection (chapter 13), Mutations (chapter 14), and Species Evolution (chapter 15).
1 - THE FACTOR OF TIME
MAGICAL TIME Yet it is thought that time can somehow produce evolution, if there is enough time in which to do it! The evolutionist tells us that, given enough time, all the insurmountable obstacles to spontaneous generation will somehow vanish and life can suddenly appear, grow, and flourish.
"The origin of life can be viewed properly only in the perspective of an almost inconceivable extent of time."*Harold Blum, Time's Arrow and Evolution, p. 151.
In the next three chapters, we will learn that even split-second, continuous, multiple chemical activity going on for ages, and using all time and all space in the universe to carry on that activity, could not accomplish what is needed. It could not produce life out of nothing.
"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.
Just what is time? It is not some magical substance. It is merely a lot of past moments just like the present moment. Imagine yourself staring at a dirt pile or at some seawater, at a time when there was nothing alive in the world but yourself. Continue carefully watching the pile or puddle for a thousand years and more. Would life appear in that dirt or seawater? It would not happen. Millions of years beyond that would be the same. Nothing would be particularly different. Just piled sand or sloshing seawater, and that is all there would be to it.
You and I know it would not happen in a full year of watching; then why think it might happen in an million years? Since a living creature would have to come into existence all at once suddenly, in all its parts--in order to survive, it matters not how many ages we pile onto the watching; nothing is going to happen!
To say that life originated in that seawater in some yesteryear "because the sand and seawater was there long enough" is just wishful thinking and nothing more. It surely is not scientific to imagine that perhaps it came true when no one was looking. There is no evidence that self-originating life or evolving life is happening now, has ever happened, or could ever happen.
For additional information see quotation supplement, "1 - The Magic Qualities of Time," at the end of this a chapter.
THE MORE TIME, THE LESS LIKELIHOOD*G. Wald in "The Origin of Life," in the book, Physics and Chemistry of Life, says "Does time perform miracles?" He then explains something that you and I will want to remember: If the probability of a certain event occurring is only 1 /1000 (one chance in a thousand), and we have sufficient time to repeat the attempts many times, the probability that it could happen would continue to remain only one in a thousand. This is because probabilities have no memory!
But *Wald goes farther. He explains that if the event is attempted often enough, the total probability of obtaining it would keep reducing! If it is tried a thousand times and does not even occur once, and then is tried thousands of more times and never occurs, then the chances of it occurring keeps reducing. If it is tried a million times and still has not occurred, then the possibility of it occurring has reduced to less than one chance in a million! The point here is that time never works in favor of an event that cannot happen!
Can time change rocks into raccoons, seawater into turkeys, or sand into fish? Can time invent human hormones, the telescopic eye of an eagle, or cause the moon to orbit the earth? Can it increase complexity, and invent organisms? The truth is that the longer the time, the greater the decay, and the less possibility that evolution could occur.
*Bernal, of McGill University, explains the evolutionists' view of how the origin and evolution of life took place:
"Life can be thought of as water kept at the right temperature in the right atmosphere in the right light for a long period of time."*J.D. Bernal, quoted in N.J. Berrill, You and the Universe (1958), p. 117.
In contrast, two of England's leading evolutionary scientists, *Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, working independently of each other, came to a different conclusion than Bernal's: The chance of life appearing spontaneously from non-life in the universe is effectively zero! (*Fred Hoyle and *C. Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space.) One of these researchers is an agnostic and the other a Buddhist, yet both decided from their analyses that the origin of life demands the existence of God to have created it. They wrote:
"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 London Dally Express (August 14, 1981), put the conclusion of these two scientists into headlines: "Two skeptical scientists put their heads together and reach an amazing conclusion: There must be a God."
*Hoyle and *Wickramasinghe concluded in their book that the probability of producing life anywhere in the universe from evolutionary processes, was as reasonable as getting a fully operational Boeing 747 jumbo jet from a tornado going through a junkyard.
REAL TIME VS. THEORY TIME Evolutionary scientists tell us that the past stretches into over a billion years of life on the earth. Man, we are informed, has been here over a million years. That is the theory, yet the facts speak far differently. When we look at those facts, as available from ancient studies of all types, we find that recorded history goes back only several thousand years. Before that time, we have absolutely no verification for any supposed dating method of science. (More evidence on this will be found in chapters 6 and 18, Age of the Earth, and Ancient Man.)
The earliest paintings of people only date back a few thousand years, and show them to be just like ourselves: intelligent, capable people. If human beings have been on this planet for over a million years, as theorized by evolutionists, then we should have a large amount of structures and written records extending back at least 500,000 years.
FLAWED DATING METHODS Evolutionists try to prove long ages of time by certain theoretical dating methods. Yet as we analyze those dating methods, we find each of them to be highly flawed and extremely unreliable.
"The dating of ancient events [millions of years ago] is an inexact science. " *Roberta Conlan, Frontiers of Time (1991), p. 29.
Aside from the known inherent weaknesses in assumption and methodology (which we shall begin discussing shortly),we cannot even verify those dates objectively. Not even uranium dating can be confirmed, for no one has sat around watching uranium decay for thousands or millions of years, and testing its decay loss rate from time to time.
Apart from recorded history, which goes back no farther than about 2200-3000 B.C., we have no way of verifying the supposed accuracy of theoretical dating methods. In fact, not even the dating methods confirm the dating methods! They ALL give different dates! With but very rare exception, they always disagree with one another!
There are a number of very definite problems in those dating methods. We are going to learn below that there are so many sources of possible error or misinterpretation in radiometric dating that most of the dates are discarded and never used at all. Only those are used which bear some similarity to one another.
Some people think that the various dating methods (uranium, carbon 14, etc.) can be verified by rock strata and fossils, or vice versa. But this is not true either. The geologic column and approximate ages of all the fossil-bearing strata were worked out long before anyone ever heard or thought about radioactive dating. There is no relation between the two theories, or between the dates they produce. More information on this will be given later in this same chapter under Rock Strata Dating.
LONG AGES NEEDED For nearly two centuries, evolutionists have known that, since there was no proof that evolution had occurred in the past and there was no evidence of it occurring today, they would need to postulate long ages as the means by which it somehow happened! *Weisz, in his book, The Science of Biology (p. 636), tells us that by the beginning of the eighteenth century, evolutionists "recognized that any concept of evolution demanded an earth of sufficiently great age, and they set out to estimate this age." The long ages were the result of wishful thinking.
* Darwin himself recognized the problem. "The belief that species are immutable [unchangeable] productions was almost unavoidable as long as the history of the world was thought to be of short duration.''*Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species [conclusion to second edition].
That is a meaningful statement. *Darwin said it because there is no evidence of evolution occurring at any time in recorded history. Evolution could not occur in the past unless the earth had been here for long ages. But there is clear-cut evidence that our planet is not over 6-10,000 years old (see chapter 6, Age of the Earth). And when all the facts are studied, the age of the earth leans more toward the 6,000 mark than the 10,000 mark.
Scientific dating evidence is needed to prove long ages. But no such evidence exists. All the non-historical dating methods are unreliable. That is what we will learn in this present chapter, and chapter 17, Fossils and Strata.
Darwinists claim that our planet is 5 billion years old. Long ages of time are desperately needed by evolutionary theorists, for, whenever confronted with the facts disproving the possibility of evolutionary processes, they can reply, "Well, given enough time, maybe it could occur." Ironically, even if the earth were trillions upon trillions of years old, evolution still could not have taken place. The chapters, DNA and Probabilities, Mutations, and Laws of Nature will clearly show that life origins and species evolution could not occur in a billion trillion, trillion years!
First, long ages of time cannot PROVE evolution, and, second, long ages of time cannot PRODUCE evolution. Evolutionary processes across basic types of life forms is impossible both in the short run and in the long run.
2 - RADIODATING
MAJOR DATING METHODSSeveral types of dating methods are used today. Chief among them are:
- Uranium-thorium-lead dating, based on the disintegration of uranium and thorium into radium, helium, etc., and finally into lead.
(2) Rubidium-strontium dating, based on the decay of rubidium into strontium.
(3) Potassium-argon dating, based on potassium into argon and calcium.
In this chapter, we shall discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each of these dating methods.
There is a basic pattern that occurs in the decay of radioactive substances. In each of these disintegration systems, the "parent" or original radioactive substance, gradually decays into "daughter substances." This may involve long decay chains, with each daughter product decaying into other daughter substances, until finally only an inert element remains that has no radioactivity. In some instances, the parent substance may decay directly into the end product. Sometimes, the radioactive chain may begin with an element part-way down the decay chain. (That fact has been established by the Gentry research: see chapter 5, Origin of the Earth.)
A somewhat different type of radioactive dating method is called "carbon 14 dating" or "radiocarbon dating." It is based on the formation of radioactive elements of carbon in the atmosphere by cosmic radiation and their subsequent decay to the stable carbon isotope. We will also discuss radiocarbon dating in this chapter.
SEVEN INITIAL ASSUMPTIONS At the very beginning of this analysis, we need to clearly understand that each of these special dating methods can only have accuracy IF (if!) certain assumptions ALWAYS (always!) apply to each specimen that is tested. Here are seven of these fragile assumptions:
(1) Each system has to be a closed system, that is, nothing can contaminate any of the parents or the daughter products while they are going through their decay processor the dating will be thrown off. Ideally, in order to do this, each specimen tested needs to have been sealed in a jar with thick lead walls for all its previous existence, supposedly millions of years!
But in actual field conditions, there is no such thing as a closed system. One piece of rock cannot for millions of years be sealed off from other rocks, as well as from water, chemicals, and changing radiations from outer space.
(2) Each system must initially have contained none of its daughter products. A piece of uranium 238 must originally have had no lead or other daughter products in it. If it did, this would give a false date reading.
But this assumption can in no way be confirmed. It is impossible to know what was initially in a given piece of radioactive mineral. Was it all of this particular radioactive substance, or were some other indeterminate or final daughter products mixed in? We do not know; we cannot know. Men can guess, they can apply their assumptions, come up with some dates, announce the consistent ones, and hide the rest, which is exactly what evolutionary scientists do!
The rock may have been placed there at Creation. If so, it may well have had a variety of radioactive substances--both parent and daughter products--originally in it. But there are also other ways that the daughter products--at various points in time--could have been present in the rock and contaminated the original specimen, throwing off the clock.
(3) The process rate must always have been the same. The decay rate must never have changed.
Yet we have no way of going back into past ages and ascertaining whether that assumption is correct. A number of variable factors could have changed the decay rate from what it is now. Every process in nature operates at a rate that is determined by a number of factors. These factors can change or vary with a change in certain conditions. Rates are really statistical averages, not deterministic constants.
The most fundamental of the initial assumptions is that all radioactive clocks, including carbon 14, have always had a constant decay rate that is unaffected by external influences--now and forever in the past. But it is a known fact among scientists that such changes in decay rates can and do occur. Laboratory testing has established that such resetting of specimen clocks does happen. Field evidence reveals that decay rates have indeed varied in the past.
The decay rate of any radioactive mineral can be altered [1 ] if the mineral is bombarded by high energy particles from space (such as neutrinos, cosmic rays, etc.); [2] if there is, for a time, a nearby radioactive mineral emitting radiation; [3] if physical pressure is brought to bear upon the radioactive mineral; or [4] if certain chemicals are brought in contact with it.
"The deviations [in decay rate] are a function of the environment. . we are each convinced that the thesis of 'decay independence' and the thesis of 'decay constancy' needs considerable revision and reexamination . . at a minimum, an unreliability factor must be incorporated into the age dating calculations. "*J. Anderson and *G. Spangler, "Radiometric Dating: Is the 'Decay Constant' Constant?" in Pensee, Fall, 1974, p. 34.
(4) One researcher, *John Joly of Trinity College, Dublin, spent years studying pleochroic halos emitted by radioactive substances. In his research he found evidence that the long half-life minerals have varied in their decay rate in the past!
"His [Joly's] suggestion of varying rate of disintegration of uranium at various geological periods would, if correct, set aside all possibilities of age calculation by radioactive methods ." *A.F. Kovarik, "Calculating the Age of Minerals from Radioactivity Data and Principles," in Bulletin 80 of the National Research Council, June 1931, p. 107.
This problem of variation in decay rates is important. Any one of the four decay-rate factors mentioned above (particle bombardment, nearby radioactivity, pressure from rocks, chemical contamination) would be sufficient to accomplish the changes that Joly found in radioactive halos. But there is more:
(5) If any change occurred in past ages in the blanket of atmosphere surrounding our planet, this would greatly affect the clocks in radioactive minerals.
Cosmic rays, high-energy mesons, neutrons, electrons, protons, and photons enter our atmosphere continually. These are atomic particles traveling at speeds close to that of the speed of light. Some of these rays go several hundred feet underground and 1400 meters [1,530 yards] into the ocean depths. The blanket of air covering our world is equivalent to 34 feet [104 dm] of water, or 1 meter [1.093 yd] thickness of lead. If at some earlier time this blanket was more heavily water-saturated, it would produce a major change--from what the condition is now,--in the atomic clocks within radioactive minerals. Prior to the time of the Flood, there was a much greater amount of water in the air.
"So far there is no proof independent of the method, that the cosmic ray intensity has remained constant, and however reasonable it may be, we must rank this as a pure assumption. "*J.R. Arnold, Nuclear Geology (1954), p. 350.
(6) The Van Allen radiation belt encircles the globe. It is about 450 miles (724 km) above us and is intensely radioactive. According to *Van Allen, high-altitude tests revealed that it emits 3-4,000 times as much radiation as the cosmic rays that continually bombard the earth.
Any change in the Van Allen belt would powerfully affect the transformation time of radioactive minerals. But we know next to nothing about this belt; what it is, why it is there, or whether it has changed in the past. In fact, the belt was only discovered in 1959. Even small amounts of variation or change in the Van Allen belt would significantly affect radioactive substances.
(7) A basic assumption of all radioactive dating methods is that the clock had to start at the beginning. It is assumed that no daughter products were present; only those elements at the top of the radioactive chain. For example, all the uranium 238 in the world originally had no lead 206 in it, and no lead 206 existed anywhere else. But if either Creation--or a major world-wide catastrophe (such as the Flood) occurred, everything would begin thereafter with an "appearance of age."
By this we mean "appearance of maturity." The world would be seen as mature the moment after Creation. Spread before us would be a scene of fully grown plants and flowers. Most trees would have their full height. We would not, instead, see a barren landscape of seeds littering the ground. We would see full-grown chickens, not unhatched eggs. Radioactive minerals would be partially through their cycle of half lives on the very first day. This factor of initial "apparent age" would strongly affect our present reading of the radioactive clocks in uranium, thorium, etc.
Evolutionary theorists tell us that originally there was only uranium, and all of its daughter products (radioactive isotopes farther down its decay chain) developed later. But "appearance of maturity" at the Creation would mean that, much of the elements now classified by evolutionists as "daughter products," were actually original--not daughter-products, and were already in the ground along with uranium, instead of being produced by it. We already know from Robert Gentry's studies that original (primordial) polonium was in the granite when that granite initially came into existence suddenly and in solid form, and polonium is thought by evolutionists to only occur as an eventual daughter product of uranium disintegration. (See chapter 5, Origin of the Earth, for much more on this.)
For additional information see quotation supplement, "2 - Problems with Dating Methods," at the end of this chapter.
TWELVE DATING METHODS--We have looked at the basic assumptions relied on by the radiodating experts; now let us examine the primary dating methods. Here are nineteen of them:
(1) Uranium-Lead dating.
(2) Thorium-lead dating.
(3) Lead 210 dating.
(4) Helium dating.
(5) Rubidium-strontium dating.
(6) Potassium-argon dating.
(7) Potassium-calcium dating.
(8) Rock strata dating, as it relates to radiodating, will be briefly considered, although we will discuss rock strata dating in much more detail in chapters 17 and 19 (Fossils and Strata and Effects of the Flood).
In addition, there are four dating methods used to date ancient plant and animal remains:
(9) Radiocarbon (carbon 14) dating.
(10) Amino acid decomposition dating.
(11) Racemization dating.
Lastly, we will briefly overview several other supposed "dating methods," which, although not expected to provide much accuracy in dating, are still used in an attempt to postulate long ages for earth's history:
(12) Astronomical dating.
(13) Paleomagnetic dating has gained prominence in the past few decades. Because this present chapter is already quite long, we will deal with paleomagnetic dating in chapter 26.
(14) Varve dating.
(15) Tree ring dating.
(16) Buried forest strata dating.
(17) Peat dating.
(18) Thermoluminescence dating.
(19) Stalactite dating.
1-URANIUM DATING Because of similarities !n method and problems with uranium and thorium dating, we will frequently refer to both under the category of uranium dating.
Three main types of dating are included here:
(1) Uranium 238 decays to lead 206, with a half life of 4.5 billion years.
(2) Uranium 235 decays to lead 207, with a half life of 0.7 billion years.
(3) Thorium 232 decays to lead 208, with a half life of 14.1 billion years.
These three are generally found together in mixtures, and each one decays into several daughter products (such as radium), before becoming lead.
RADIOISOTOPE CHARTS In theory, the charts below look impressive. But it is all theory. The real world would have greatly altered these theoretical decay time spans. Here are 12 factors which will be discussed in greater detail later in this chapter:
(1) No contamination could have been present, although out in nature it is very much present most of the time.
(2) No daughter products could initially be present, although there is no valid reason why they could not initially have been present in great abundance.
(3) The decay rate could never change, although there are a number of significant outside factors which could easily have effected those changes.
(4) The Van Allen radiation belt must never have changed, although our first data on it only goes back to 1959.
(5) The decay clock within each radioactive substance had to start at the beginning, but Creation would have begun with flowers, trees and other items in full maturity, so why not radioactive cycles as well?
(6) No end products could originally be mixed in with the parent substances, but this is merely another assumption.
(7) No leaching of radioactive substances could have taken place, but those substances were out in nature where rainfall and underground water is constantly flowing, not in a sterile laboratory.
(8) No neutron capture could have occurred, but research reveals that it can easily occur in nature.
(9) According to the theory, the earth was originally molten. If that were true, then radical resetting of radioactive clocks would have occurred.
(10) The daughter products must be measured as a ratio of the parent substance in order to obtain a date, but, aside from leaching and other factors, some of the daughter products go off in the form of gases.
(11) Laboratory analysis of each specimen must be done with extreme accuracy, yet verification has revealed that this is often not done.
(12) All specimen test results should agree with one another, but this occurs with only the most extreme rarity. The dates obtained greatly conflict with one another.
THEORETICAL HALF LIVES OF RADIOISOTOPE GEOCHRONOMETERS
Here are the half lives of the primary radioactive parent substances used to date rocks:
ISOTOPE HALF-LIFE
Potassium 40 (decay to calcium 40) 1.397 billion years (1,397,000,000)
Potassium 40 (decay to argon 40) 11.93 billion years (11,930,000,000)
Potassium 40 (combined decay) 1.250 billion years (1,250,000,000)
Rubidium 87 48.9 billion years (48,900,000,000)
Rhenium 187 45.8 billion years (45,800,000,000)
Samarium 147 1.060 billion years (1,060,000,000)
Thorium 232 14.01 billion years (14,010,000,000)
Uranium 235 0.70381 billion years (703,810,000)
Uranium 238 4.4683 billion years (4,468,300,000)
THEORETICAL HALF LIVES OF TRANSITION ISOTOPES
Here are the half lives of the principal daughter products which are produced during radioactive decay. Evolutionary theory teaches that none of these isotopes can begin a chain, but, of course, that is a theory and nothing more. Each of these substances could begin their own chain, if they existed at the time the earth was first formed. This list only includes radioisotopes with the longest half lives (half lives between 700,000 and 1 billion years).
ISOTOPE HALF-LIFE
Uranium 235 703.81 million years (703,810,000)
Samarium 146 100 million years (100,000,000)
Plutonium 244 83 million years (83,000,000)
Niobium 92 33 million years (33,000,000)
Uranium 236 23.42 million years (23,420,000)
Iodine 129 15.9 million years (15,900,000)
Curium 247 15.4 million years (15,400,000)
Lead 205 14 million years (14,000,000)
Hafnium 182 9 million years (9,000,000)
Palladium 107 6.5 million years (6,500,000)
Manganese 53 3.7 million years (3,700,000)
Technetium 97 2.6 million years (2,600,000)
Cesium 135 2.3 million years (2,300,000)
Neptunium 237 2.14 million years (2,140,000)
Gadolinium 150 1.8 million years (1,800,000)
Beryllium 10 1.6 million years (1,600,000)
Technetium 98 1.5 million years (1,500,000)
Neptunium 236 1.3 million years (1,300,000)
Zirconium 93 0.95 million years (950,000)
Dysprosium 15A 1 million years (1,000,000)
Aluminum 26 0.716 million years (716,000)
FIVE RADIOMETRIC DATING INACCURACIES Here are some of the reasons why we cannot rely on radioactive dating of uranium and thorium:
(1) Lead could originally have been mixed in with the uranium or thorium. This is very possible, and even likely. It is only an assumption that integral or adjacent lead could only be an end-product.
In addition, there is "common lead, "which has no radioactive parent (lead 204). This could easily be mixed into the sample and would seriously affect the dating of that sample. *Adolph Knopf referred to this important problem (Scientific Monthly, November 1957). Faul, an authority in the field, recognized it also:
"It is very likely that 'primordial lead,' or the lead that was made with all the other elements at the time of nucleogenesis, was well mixed. When the earth's crust was formed, the primordial lead was frozen into rocks that also contained uranium and thorium in various ratios to lead." *Henry Faul, Nuclear Geology, (1954), p. 297.
When a uranium sample is tested for dating purposes, it is assumed that the entire quantity of lead in it is "daughter-product lead" (that is, the end-product of the decayed uranium). The specimen is not carefully and thoroughly checked for possible "common lead" content, because it is such a time-consuming task. Yet it is that very uranium-lead ratio which is used to date the sample! The same problem applies to thorium samples.
(2) Leaching is another problem. Part of the uranium and its daughter products could previously have leached out. This would drastically affect the dating of the sample. Lead, in particular, can be leached out by weak acid solutions.
"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 with 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.
Faul's last sentence alone is enough to destroy the usefulness of uranium and thorium in providing us with accurate clocks for dating.
(3)Then there is the problem of inaccurate lead ratio comparisons. Correlations of various kinds of lead (lead 206, 207, etc.) in the specimen is done to improve dating accuracy. But errors can and do occur here also. The following statement briefly summarizes the five types of dating errors that can result when lead ratios are compared:
"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) Redistribution of elements by renewed hydrothermal activity may be a serious source of error in all lead methods."*Henry Faul, Nuclear Energy (1954), p. 295.
This point of maturity or "apparent age" at the beginning answers many questions about radioactive elements and radiodating. THE CHART ABOVE shows the lengthy half-lives of the longest long-period radioactive isotopes. Yet, in each case, a variety of assumptions must be made in order to vindicate such long ages. One of these is the assumption that, originally, there were only radioisotopes at the top of each chain, and no daughter products existed.
Yet, at the Creation, each of those substances could have been made--already partly changed into its daughter products (already partly down its radioactive chain. "Daughter products" of those chains could have been made in the beginning, in addition to their "parents," the radioactive isotopes at the top of each chain.
The words "complete" and "variety" would have marked the world at the Creation, when everything was first made. There were not a few of the radioisotopes (uranium and thorium), but all of them (radium, polonium, and the other "daughter products"). It was a complete work and all nature was filled with variety of every sort.
We find obvious evidence of this today in the radioactive substances. Instead of all of the long half-life substances being the same age, they indicate a variety of ages. Yet, if the earth came into existence from a molten mass at some time in the past, that would not be true. Or, if all originated by a Creation in which everything, animate and inanimate, began in total youth, that would not be true.
When the world was Created, God did not simply scatter pine seeds, acorns, and plant spores on the ground, amid eggs and placentas; He made everything apparently already somewhat aged. The same would have occurred with the radioisotopes.
The third reason, cited above, deserves special mention: That contaminating lead in a specimen which skews dating results, is lead that did not originate with inherent radioactive decay of uranium or thorium in the specimen. It may have always been present or it may have been introduced.
"Uranium and lead both migrate (in shales) in geologic time, and detailed analyses have shown that useful ages cannot be obtained with them. Similar difficulties prevail with pitchblende veins. Here again widely diverging ages can be measured on samples from the same spot. "*Henry Faul, Ages of the Rocks, Planets, and Stars (1966), p. 61.
When such contaminating lead is thought to be in a specimen, the presence of a "non-radiogenic lead" (lead 204, or "common lead" lead which is not a daughter product of any radioactive decay chain) is assumed. But many or most such minerals might equally well contain some "radiogenic lead" (lead still emitting radiation) from some other source. This radiation would itself contaminate the test results and would result in a much higher date reading for the mineral specimen. Radiogenic lead can contaminate any uranium mineral to an unknown amount, making accurate dating impossible.
"In view of the evidence for extensive mixing, it would seem contrary to the facts to postulate differing frozen [never-changing] lead-uranium ratios that have existed for billions of years. The requirements of the assumptions in the ore-lead method are so extreme it is unlikely that it should give a correct age."*C. Patterson, *G. Tilton, and *M. Inghram, "Age of the Earth," in Science, January 21, 1955, p. 74.
*Sidney P. Clementson, a British engineer, carefully studied a wide variety of known modern volcanic rocks. All were spewed out of volcanoes within the past 200-300 years. Upon cooling, any uranium in them would have their clocks reset to zero, because of dramatic leaching factors during eruption and lava flow. He compared his rocks, which were only 200-300 years old, with Soviet uranium dating tests of the same volcanic rocks, and found that in every instance, the uranium-lead dated ages were vastly older than the TRUE ages of the rocks! Depending on which methods, samples, and corrections were used on those Russian volcanic rocks, the radiodating methods gave ages from 50 million to 14.6 billion years! A majority of the age differences were in the billions of years. (See "Critical Examination of Radioactive Dating of Rocks," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1970.)
Thus, we have here astounding evidence of the marvelous unreliability of radiodating techniques. Rock known to be less than 300 years old is variously dated between 50 million and 14.5 billion years of age! That is a 14-billion year error in dating! Yet such radiodating techniques continue to be used in order to prove long ages of earth's existence. A chimpanzee typing numbers at random could do as well.
"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.
In the above quotation, Spieker suggests that radiodating is worthless and only fossil strata dating theories are correct. In the chapter on Fossils, we shall find that stratigraphic dating (dating by sedimentary strata) is equally useless!
Sample datings from a single uranium deposit in the Colorado Caribou Mine yielded an error spread of 700 million years. Swedish kolm from one location in Scandinavia was dated by uranium dating from between 380 million years to 800 million years. Both of these items are discussed in Implications of Evolution, by *G.A. Kerkut (pp. 139-140).
An excellent collection of scientific statements dealing with the dating problems caused by lead variations in rocks of various types, is to be found in *William Corliss, Anomalies in Geology, pp. 118-124.
(4) Yet a fourth problem concerns that of neutron capture. *Melvin Cooke suggests that the radiogenic lead isotope 207 (normally thought to have been formed only by the decay of uranium 235) could actually have been formed from lead 206, simply by having captured free neutrons from neighboring rock. In the same manner, lead 208 (normally theorized as formed only by thorium 232 decay) could have been formed by the capture of free neutrons from lead 207. Cooke checked out this possibility by extensive investigation and came up with a sizable quantity of data indicating that practically all radiogenic lead in the earth's crust could have been produced in this way, instead of by uranium or thorium decay! This point alone totally invalidates uranium and thorium dating methods!
(5) A fifth problem deals with the origin of the rocks containing these radioactive minerals. According to evolutionary theory, the earth was originally molten. But, if true, that would produce a wild variation in clock settings in radioactive materials.
"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, "Electromagnetics and the Appearance of Age, " in Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1982, p. 229.
According to evolutionary theory, all the rocks were originally molten!
"The uranium and other radioactive minerals whose decay products are measured are usually found in igneous [volcanic) rocks. Therefore they arrived at their present locations under conditions of immense heat."Eric A. Knappett, Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1981, p. 235.
It is a well-known fact by nuclear researchers that intense heat damages radiodating clock settings, yet the public is solemnly presented with dates of rocks indicating long ages of time, when in fact, the evolutionary theory of the origin of rocks would render those dates totally useless.
For additional information see the appendix topic, "3 Uranium Dating, " at the end of this chapter.
2-THORIUM-LEAD DATING A majority of the flaws discussed under uranium-lead dating, above, apply equally to thorium-lead dating.
The half-lives of uranium 238, 235, and thorium 232 are supposedly known, having been theorized. But when dates are computed using thorium, they always widely disagree with uranium dates! No one can point to a single reason for this. We probably have here a cluster of several major contamination factors. And remember that all of these contamination factors are beyond our ability to identify, much less calculate. To make matters worse, Contaminating factors common to both may cause different reactions in the thorium than in the uranium!
"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.
The above quotations speak of ratios of "uranium-lead ages," "thorium-lead ages," and "lead-thorium. " To again clarify what is meant by these ratios, we will use uranium as an example. However, the same principles would apply to thorium:
Uranium dating is done by determining the amount of uranium and lead in a given sample, and then calculating how long it should take for a pure specimen
of uranium, with no original lead in it, to decay to pure daughter lead--or to the amount of mixture (ratio) of uranium and lead that is in the sample. It is assumed that there has been no contaminating fluids, pressure, radioactive substances, extraneous lead, or other factors affecting the sample at some previous time. A "uranium-lead age" is simply the time required to complete this cycle down to the point of the mixture of the two in the present sample.
3-4-LEAD 210 AND HELIUM DATING Two other methods of dating uranium and thorium specimens should be mentioned.
First, there is uranium-lead 210 dating. Lead 210 is frequently used to date uranium.
Second is the uranium-helium method. Helium produced by uranium decay is also used for the same dating purpose.
But the lead 210 method is subject to the very same entry or leaching problems mentioned above, and helium leakage is so notorious as to render it unfit for dating purposes.
Uranium and thorium are only rarely found in fossil-bearing rocks, so recent attention has been given to rubidium dating and two types of potassium dating, all of which are radioactive isotopes of alkali metals, and are found in fossil rocks.
For additional information see the appendix topic, "4 - Thorium Dating," at the end of this chapter.
5-RUBIDIUM-STRONTIUM DATINGRubidium 87 gradually decays into strontium 87. All aside from leaching and other contamination, the experts have so far been unable to agree on length of rubidium half life. *Abrams compiled a list of rubidium half lives suggested by various experts. The rubidium half life estimates varied between 48 and 120 billion years! That is a variation spread of 72 billion years: a number so inconceivably large as to render Rb-Sr dating worthless.
In addition, only a very small amount of strontium results from the decay, and much of it may be non-radiogenic, that is, not caused by the decay process. One geologist, *J.C. Engels, after careful researching into this problem, estimated that "radiogenic Sr-87 [decayed from Rb-87] would be only about 5 percent of all Sr-87 present" in the Rb-87 to Sr-87 specimens analyzed! The problem is that strontium 87 is easily leached from one mineral to another, thus producing highly contaminated dating test results.
Granite from the Black Hills gave strontium/rubidium and various lead system dates varying from 1.16 to 2.55 billion years.
For additional information see quotation supplement, "5 - Rubidium-Strontium Dating," at the end of this chapter.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
6-POTASSIUM-ARGON DATINGRadioactive potassium decays into calcium and argon gas. Great hopes were initially pinned on this, for potassium occurs widely in fossil-bearing strata. But equally great disappointment resulted when, first, because of such wide dating variations the scientists could not agree on potassium half life, and then, second, when they discovered that the rare gas, argon, quickly left the mineral and escaped into other rocks and into the atmosphere.
"The two principle problems have been the uncertainties in the radioactive decay constants of potassium and in the inability 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.
Since it is a gas, argon 40 can easily migrate in and out of potassium rocks.
"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."VF. Evemden, et. al., " KJAA Dates and the Cenozoic Mammalian Chronology of North America, "in American Journal of Science, February 1964, p 154.
Not only is argon an unstable gas, but potassium itself can easily be leached out of the rock.
"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.
Rainwater is distilled water. In heavy downpours, rainwater that is still fairly pure can occasionally trickle down into deeper rock areas, transferring potassium from one location to another.
Another problem is that potassium-argon dating must be calculated by uranium-lead dating methods! This greatly adds to the problem, for we have already seen that uranium dating is itself unreliable! This is something like the blind leading the blind.
In view of such information, it is a seemingly unbelievablebut truefact that K/A (potassium-argon) dating is at the present time a key dating method used in developing and verifying advanced evolutionary theories. (See the chapter, Paleomagnetic Dating.) The long ages applied to the major new theory of "sea floor spreading" is based entirely on potassium-argon dates in basalts (lava) taken from the ocean bottom.
Submerged volcanic rocks, produced by lava flows off the coast of Hawaii near Hualalei in the years 1800-1801, were dated using potassium-argon. The lava forming those rocks is clearly known to be less than 200 years old, yet the potassium-argon dating of the rocks yielded great ages, ranging from 160 million to 2.96 billion years! (See *Science, October 11, 1968; *Journal of Geophysical Research, July 15, 1968).
A group of volcanic rocks from Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean produced K/Ar (potassium-argon) ages ranging from 100,000 to 2 million years. These same rocks were then tested by the uranium 238/lead 206 method, and the age indications varied from 3.2 to 4.4. billion years. The factor of discordance between "ages" ranged as high as 1 to 14,000 in some samples.
Potassium is found in most igneous (lava) and some sedimentary (fossil-bearing) rocks. In spite of its notorious inaccuracy, to this day potassium-argon dating continues to be the most common method of radioactive dating of fossil-bearing rock strata. This is because it yields long ages for the rocks, and occasionally a potassium-argon test result will agree with the hundred-year-old theory of dating strata by index fossils. When doing rock strata testing with K/Ar, only those rare test results that agree with the 100-year-old strata dating theory are widely mentioned; conflicting test results are set aside or discarded.
Here are "professional" instructions given to geologists, telling them to do just that, when running radioactive mineral tests:
"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. " *LR. 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).
The above quotation tells us this: Only those radioactive dates are to be retained, which agree with the 19th century geologic column dating theories. Here is the meaning of the big words used in that quotation: Geochronology refers to rock dating; stratigraphy is the study of rock strata; paleontology, the study of fossils; petrography, the study of ancient pictures and markings; and parageny, the study of fossils as they might relate to one another.
It is highly significant that when potassium argon dating methods have been applied to Cambrian rocks, they produced test result age dates with a variation spread of 200 million years!
For additional information see quotation supplement, "6 -Potassium-Argon Dating," at the end of this chapter.
7-POTASSIUM-CALCIUM DATING If possible, the situation is even worse for dating with this method. Radioactive potassium decays to both argon and calcium (calcium 40). But the problem here is that researchers cannot distinguish between calcium 40 and other calciums because the two are so commonly and thoroughly intermixed. The argon is of little help, since it so rapidly leaches out.
PROBLEMS WITH ALL RADIODATING METHODS The rocks brought back from the moon provided an outstanding test for the various dating methods--because all those techniques were used on them. The results were a disaster.
Doctor Read, in a presentation before a special meeting of the California State Board of Education, discussed his research into lunar rock analysis using the various types of radioactive dating methods. Sample materials brought back by the Apollo rockets were carefully dated by uranium dating, thorium dating, agglutinate dating, and potassium-argon dating. The age spread of certain moon rocks varied from 2 million to 28 billion years! Now scientists are arguing over the results. Some say the moon is 2 million years old, while others say it is 28 billion years old. We have here a weighty scientific problem. (For more on this, see "Proceedings of the Second, Third and Fourth Lunar Conferences; Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volumes 14 and 17.)
Yet there is clear-cut non-radiogenic evidence that the moon is less than 10,000 years old. (See chapter 6, Age of the Earth).
In the following paragraph: Pb = lead; U = uranium; Th = thorium; K = potassium; Ar = argon.
"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 [1) 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: Pbz7/Pb206, 4.67 billion; Pb2Oe/Uz=, 5.41 billion; Pb2O7/U2=, 5.41 billion; Pb27/U23s, 4.89 billion; and Pb2w/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), p. 200, 201.
"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 Yon Fange, "Time Upside Down, " in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1974, p. 17.
"If all of the age-dating methods (rubidium-strontium, uranium-lead and potassium-argon) had yielded the same ages, the picture would be neat. But they haven't. The lead ages, for example, have been consistently older. "*Evelyn Driscoll, "Dating of Moon Samples: Pitfalls and Paradoxes," Science News, Vol. 101, January 1, 1972, p. 12.
In contrast with these inaccurate dating methods, scientific facts, such as the almost total lack of moon dust, lunar soil mixing, presence of short half-life U-236 and Th-230 in moon rocks, low level of inert gases, and lunar recession, provide strong evidence that the moon is less than 10,000 years old. (See chapter 6, Age of the Earth.)
Thus we find that there are problems with ALL radioactive dating methods!
"Now there are four different ways we can compute the age of the mineral; namely, from (1) the ratio of lead 206 to uranium 238, (2) the ratio of lead 207 to uranium 235, (3) the ratio of lead 206 to lead 207, and (4) the ratio of helium to uranium.
"Ideally, all four of these ages should agree, and no estimate can be considered trustworthy unless at least two independent methods agree. But, unfortunately, complicating factors often produce discrepancies in evaluating a given sample."
*Harrison Brown, "The Age of the Solar System," in Scientific American, April 1957, p. 82.
(Another factor which by itself would account for the apparently long ages indicated by radiodating, is the decay of the speed of light. This point is dealt with near the end of this chapter.)
EMERY'S RESEARCH In order for a radioactive clock to be usable, it has to run without variation. But *G.T. Emery has done careful research on radiohalos (pleochroic halos) and found that they do not show constant decay rates. When the long half-life radiohalos (made by uranium, thorium, etc.) are examined, the time spans involved show inaccuracies in the decay rates.
This research by Emery indicates that radiodating based on uranium and thorium is simply not reliable for dating purposes (see *G.T. Emery, "Perturbations of Nuclear Decay Rates," in American Review of Nuclear Science, vol. 22, 1977).
(Such inconsistencies would prove no problem for the extremely short half-life radiohalos produced by polonium 210, 214, and 218. As described in chapter 5, Origin of the Earth, these rock halos, researched by R.V. Gentry, show that the major foundation rock of the world--granite was produced in less then three minutes time. Since the polonium half-lives are so extremely short already, variations would not matter. Uranium and thorium half lives are in the billions of years, compared with a split second, a half-hour, or less than half-a-year for polonium. Because of those very short half lives, polonium dating of rocks remains highly accurate for our purposes in knowing that only a brief span of time could elapse before the granite was solid.)
JUST ONE CATASTROPHE As Jeaneman explains so well, just one major catastrophe such as a worldwide Flood--would have ruined the usefulness of our radiodating clocks:
"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." *Fredreck B. Jeaneman, "Secular Catastrophism," in Industrial Research and Development, June 1982, p. 21.
Why would a single world-wide catastrophe reset all the atomic clocks? First, there would be massive contamination problems, as fluids, chemicals, and radioactive substances flowed or were carried from one place to another. Second, there would be major radioactive rate-changing activities (atmospheric, radiative, and magnetic changes) would tend to reset the clocks directly. Third, there would be a major shifting and redistribution of rock pressure occurring above radiogenic rocks would reset their clocks. Fourth, there would be reversals of earth's magnetic core, which were caused by the shockwave vibrations through that fluid core from what was happening closer to the surface (volcanoes, earthquakes, gigantic geysers, sea-floor sinking, and massive mountain building--see chapter 19, Effects of the Flood).
Now read this:
FIVE WAYS TO CHANGE THE RATES Careful laboratory tests by * H.C. Dudley revealed that external influences can very definitely affect decay rates. He CHANGED (1) the decay rates of 14 different radioisotopes by means of pressure, temperature, electric and magnetic fields, stress in monomolecular layers, etc. The implications of this are momentous, even astounding! (see *H.C. Dudley, "Radioactivity Re-Examined," In Chemical and Engineering News, April 7, 1975, p. 2.) We know that the sedimentary rock strata were laid down under massive pressure. This involved great stress. (See chapter 17, Fossils and Strata, for more on both of these points.) Dramatic temperature changes occurred shortly after the strata were laid down (chapter 19, Effects of the Flood), and Earth's iron core was disturbed to such an extent, that magnetic reversals occurred at the poles (chapter 26, paleomagnetism). Yet Dudley showed that each of these forces would have dramatically affected the clocks within radioactive rocks.
Immense forces were at work, during and just after the Flood, that could and did affect the constancy of radioactive half-lives which, in turn, are the only basis for radiodating methods!
The result is inaccurate dating results which are not reliable, and which cannot be reset--since their earlier settings are not now known.
*Time magazine (June 19, 1964) reported an intriguing item which was overlooked by much of the scientific community. Although scientists generally consider that no known force can change the rate of atomic disintegration of radioactive elements, researchers at Westinghouse laboratories have actually done it. How did they do it? simply by placing inactive "dead" iron next to radioactive iron. The result was that the disintegration rate was altered!
Radioactive iron will give off particles for a time and then lapse into an inactive state. When the researchers placed radioactive iron next to inactive iron, the inactive iron gradually became active. In this way the apparent age of the radioactive iron was changed by about 3 percent, while the clock of the previously inactive iron was returned to its original radioactive mass. Its clock was set back to zero!
If so much variation can be accomplished in small lab samples, think what has been taking place out in the field. All that is required is for radioactive lead solutions to flow by and coat inactive lead.
Magnetic rocks--or changes in earth's magnetic core--can work great changes also:
"The latest report of a 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.
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