busterdog
Senior Veteran
There's always the possibility of contamination. From what I remember of the C-14 results, C-14 in diamonds was found pretty much at threshold concentrations, something like 40,000 years. That's about 7 half-lives, or about 0.8% of current concentrations.
In any case, creationists aren't allowed to pick and choose. If they think that radiocarbon dates prove that diamonds are young, what does that tell us about the radiodating of other rocks?
Well, I'm not shy: apparently we can have it both ways.
While it can be shown that Carbon-14 dating should not be used to determine minimum ages for items, it may still be used to determine maximum ages, because Carbon-14 must decay at some point, and objects which contain C-14 in them cannot be older than their C-14 content would allow.
Radiocarbon dating is reliant upon the assumption that C-14 production in the atmosphere has been constant during the history of life on earth. If the earth is billions of years old, then the rate of production and decay should have reached steady-state a long time ago. It is assumed that these rates should be at equilibrium, but today we know that the rate of C-14 production exceeds the rate of decay by as much as 25%. This increase is attributed to the recent industrial revolution, and believed to be primarily due to atmospheric nuclear testing. However, it is assumed that before the industrial revolution, the rates should have been at steady-state. Therefore to correct for the increased rate of C-14 production, a sample is used from early in the 19th century as a standardizing reference.
If the rate of C-14 production in the atmosphere was less in the past than it is today, then samples would seem excessively old. From Biblical references and modern data there is good evidence that our atmosphere has changed dramatically. It can be inferred from the Bible text that there was no rainbow before the flood, which must mean the atmosphere was altered significantly by the flood. We also know the atmosphere continues to change. Today we have evidence of global warming, and holes in the ozone layer; indicating a change in both composition and partial pressure of the atmosphere that could cause higher rates of C-14 production. Variations of the earth's magnetic field may also be a factor affecting the flux of cosmic rays by altering the degree of shielding. Belief in an old earth has led to assumptions that C-14 production and decay should be at steady-state. Radiocarbon is therefore being used for dating when we simply have no way to determine what the rates of C-14 production were in the past. One thing we do know for sure, is that C-14 is being produced at higher rate today, and it is assumed that this increase began only recently.
http://creationwiki.org/Carbon-14_dating
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