How is carbon dating accurate?

carbon dating is semi accurate until the time of the flood, for anything prior to the flood it is quite inaccurate.

Those factors are taken into account when doing the dating. In some areas, C14 dating cannot even be used, so other methods need to be done to date the sample.

Scientists are not idiots. They know about these things, and correct for them. If they cannot correct for them, then they cannot use the method for that sample.

For example, the carbon that is dated in organic remains comes from the atmosphere, but the amount of C14 in the atmosphere changes over time.

Scientists can use ice cores from Antarctica which have trapped C14 in the ice after snow falls over 100,000s of years to determine how much to correct for a sample's dates if the stratigraphy provides a rough estimate.

Take into account also the multitude of other dating isotopic dating practices that are used to check and double check the date and you end up getting a really good idea of the time period, within a few years.

Simple.

The answer is, there are flaws in every type of age dating method. Two reason why we see such fluctuations and obvious errors in the data is because the assumptions of the age dater are false. For example, some "age daters" think that the Earth has been in a "steady state" since its "creation"...

The link provided may be of some help if you haven't already read it.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/carbon_da...

Edit: A full disclosure... I'm an engineer by trade and a recovering atheist. It's amazing how the mind is freed up when we allow it look outside the box of evolutionism...

I commend you for your interest in searching for the truth.. Keep it up...

Edit: Rob A, I thought you were sincere in your question.. I'm usually more discerning... Well, I've got to admit it.. You fooled me.. But then, that's what evolutionism is all about... Fooling yourself first, then trying to fool others..

See, the thing is that human beings always have been trying to seek consistency in our universe. Anything that is even a little disheveled in our eyes disturbs us. So Carbon dating isn't always infallible, so what? Does that mean a sacred text is infallible? No, it's just a way man has come up with to create some sort of sense in the universe. At least Carbon dating has some sort of backing both conceptually, empirically, and logically. Faith lacks more than one of those. I'd rather stick to one with a firmer foundation. Faith has many more factors affecting it than carbon dating does and besides, attacking carbon dating to create an argument for God's existence is a straw man argument. It's only a small part of the equation. You can't always equate a part to the whole.

A less-common form of the carbon atom, carbon-14, is used today by scientists as a method to date once-living organisms. Many people believe that carbon dating disproves the Biblical time scale of history. However, because of the difficulties with current C14 dating techniques, the dates produced have been shown to be faulty.

Carbon-14 is produced in the upper atmosphere by action of cosmic rays. Once the C 14 has been formed, by converting nitrogen-14 into carbon-14, it behaves like ordinary carbon-12, combining with oxygen to give carbon dioxide, and freely cycling through the cells of all plants and animals. Carbon-14 is used for a dating material because once it has been formed, C14 begins to decay radioactively back to nitrogen-14, at a rate of change that can be measured. As soon as an organism dies, the C14 atoms which decay are no longer replaced by new ones through respiration. Consequently, the ratio of C14 to C12 in that once-living organism decreases as time goes on. The problem with the carbon dating method is—scientists can not be sure of what the C14/C12 ratio was when the organism died. Carbon dating assumes that the ratio has remained constant; however, events, such as the industrial revolution, are known to have raised C12 levels. Other possible factors, such as the presence of a water canopy, would have lowered the amount of C14 in the pre-Flood world. Because pre-Flood specimens had so little carbon-14 in them, some might appear to have been decaying for tens of thousands of years. Also, the decay of the earth’s magnetic field would have direct effects on C14 level, again, giving artificially old ages the farther you go back in time. Finally, carbon dating has been shown untrustworthy with some present day aquatic specimens that were concluded to be thousands of years old. For example, the shells of living snails’ were carbon dated and showed that the snails had died 27,000 years ago. Other specimens have been carbon dated more than once, each time producing a different date varying by thousands of years. In overview, we see that the radiocarbon dating method is certainly no embarrassment to the Biblical creationist who believes in a young earth. In fact, when all data, such as the decay of the magnetic field and the canopy, is taken into accord, carbon dating seems to support a young earth.

Carbon dating can be unreliable.

Fortunately there are many other tests that can be performed that will either coorborate or invalidate the C14 dating.

Do you really think that all of evolution / palentology/ geology / archaeology, etc. come down to a single C14 test?

"YES, YOU GUESSED IT, I'M ASKING BECAUSE OF IT'S ROLE IN DATING FOSSILS"

Carbon dating is not used for fossils because C14 exists in biologic non-fossilized material only.

Carbon is used because it has the longest halflife of any isotope found NATURALLY in biological material (ie bones, fossils etc. ) there are more accurate isotopes that are found in geologic formations that were used to date the Moon, but those isotopes do not occur naturally in biological material. Carbon is the most accurate for biological objects of earth origin. Potassium 40 is another natural biological isotope but has a much shorter halflife and would be almost undetectable in older artifacts.

It's not accurate.

I have documentation of an Allosaurus bone that was sent to The University of Arizona to be carbon dated. The results were 9,890 +/- 60 years and 16,120 +/- 220 years.

"We didn't tell them that the bones they were dating were dinosaur bones. The result was sample B at 16,120 years. The Allosaurus dinosaur was supposed to be around 140,000,000 years. The samples of bone were blind samples."

This test was done on August 10, 1990

Can you explain this????

You're totally correct in your analysis. So-called "Science" NEVER integrates these "irradiation-enriching variables" into the dating equations, resulting in skewed results. That's why independent labs, carbon dating the same specimen, always reach different calculative conclusions, and often thousands and even millions of years apart. It's all totally bogus and full of gapping holes. It's flat out deceptive pseudo-science to artificially uphold the fabricated Evolutionary/Uniformitarian Model, a tittering house of cards built on a crumbling foundation.

Unfortunately carbon dating, like many scientific measures, isn't accurate. It's a generic form of dating something that more often than not changes with each test they do.