Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article

To: Ichneumon
Re: the max age of radiocarbon dating.

Depends on the lab, sample, and methods.

There are experiments for the AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) method going back toward 80,000 years, but that is experimental, not yet a standard, commercially-available practice.

For some materials, contamination is a problem, and I would be careful. Charcoal can absorb humic acids, which, while the labs try to remove them, can be a problem with extremely old samples.

The smaller the quantity of remaining 14C (i.e., the older the sample) the more care needs to be taken with sample selection. That's why creationists are able to find dinosaur bones which date 35,000 or so years old--they get samples bone contaminated by groundwater. They love such contamination! Real scientists do their best to get clean samples. (How many samples did the creationists obtain with results like >50,000 years before they got one contaminated enough that they liked the result?

Lesson: Never rely on only one sample! If you have an old and important specimen, do several or many different samples and use a couple of different labs. Make sure the sample is not contaminated. (If its just a piece of shell from a 3,000 year old site, no big deal. The dates will come out just fine.)

And never, never, ever listen to the young earth types or creation websites when it comes to this kind of science. Their belief blinds them to actual data, and they will stretch things any old which way to try and match their beliefs. Scientists are not like that; if the data heads in an unexpected direction, we can accept it.

As Heinlein noted,

Belief gets in the way of learning.

Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love, 1973


431 posted on 05/01/2006 8:38:16 PM PDT by Coyoteman (Creationists know Jack Chick about evolution.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 421 | View Replies ]


To: Coyoteman
Continuing to hawk this link: Radiometric Dating A Christian Perspective
438 posted on 05/01/2006 8:51:00 PM PDT by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch ist der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 431 | View Replies ]

To: Coyoteman
One other source of contamination by modern 14C is the mass spectrometer itself. High-vacuum equipment is made of stainless steel, and stainless is full of carbon. In addition, there is plastic tubing where the sample is introduced, CO2 leaks from the atmosphere, etc.

One very persuasive experiment they did was to look at the 'age' as a function of the amount of carbon used. If using more sample results in the sample looking 'older', you have a problem!

(My wife is a high vacuum scientist. When I told her about the sort of thing Humphreys and coworkers were trying to do, she laughed, and said 'don't these guys understand systematic errors?')

458 posted on 05/01/2006 11:31:42 PM PDT by Right Wing Professor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 431 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson