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Why won’t atheist evolutionary scientists test dinosaur bones for carbon 14?

Update:

Is it because the results routinely show man and dinosaurs lived at the same time, thus totally destroying the religion of evolutionism, or is there another reason?

Update 2:

Update for Buddy. That's circular reasoning. Why are the bones assumed to be millions of years old? And if they are, why do they have C14 in them according to those that have tested them? Anything even over 100,000 years old should have no detectable C14 in them.

Update 3:

Jack Horner, the famed paleontologists was offered $20,000 to C14 test a dinosaur bone, but he refused. Even if the bone was 100 million years old and thus the testing can't or won't work, why not just test it to get the $20,000? If you had a $25 dino bone and someone said they'd give you $20,000 to do a $250 C14 test on it, wouldn't you?

Update 4:

Update for Tomp. Scientists routinely use C14 dating on the bones of mammoths, giant sloths, saber tooth tigers, and other similar ancient animals. Why when they show C14 in them, that indicates they are tens of thousands of years old according to the test; however, if the exact same tests are done on the bones of dinosaurs (which incidentally also contain soft tissue like the mammoths), and those results also show similar amounts of C14, their derived ages can't be right, but the mammoths can?

Update 5:

That makes sense to you?

Your analogy is vastly imperfect. It is impossible to measure the stratosphere with a 6-inch ruler. It is not impossible to do a C14 test on dino bones. If somehow it were possible to measure the stratosphere with a 6-inch ruler, and the measurement only cost about $300, I'd sure take the measurement for $20,000. Wouldn't you? I wouldn't care one way or another what the actual height was; I'd have $20,000 in my pocket.

Update 6:

Update for Vincent. Seems to me you are saying that cosmic rays selectively hit dino bones making them look younger, but don't do the same with mammoth bones. How come ALL dino bones that have been C14 tested show them to be 40,000 years old or less, no exceptions? Are only dino bones contaminated? How come testers somehow are able to properly prepare mammoth bones for testing, but never can get it right with dino bones; there's always some problem with cosmic rays or contamination?

Update 7:

And I'm the one demonstrating poor knowledge and understanding?

19 Answers

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  • Duke
    Lv 4
    5 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Researchers have found a reason for the puzzling survival of soft tissue and collagen in dinosaur bones - the bones are younger than anyone ever guessed. Carbon-14 (C-14) dating of multiple samples of bone from 8 dinosaurs found in Texas, Alaska, Colorado, and Montana revealed that they are only 22,000 to 39,000 years old.

    Members of the Paleochronology group presented their findings at the 2012 Western Pacific Geophysics Meeting in Singapore, August 13-17, a conference of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS).

    Since dinosaurs are thought to be over 65 million years old, the news is stunning - and more than some can tolerate. After the AOGS-AGU conference in Singapore, the abstract was removed from the conference website by two chairmen because they could not accept the findings. Unwilling to challenge the data openly, they erased the report from public view without a word to the authors. When the authors inquired, they received this letter:

  • Why won’t atheist evolutionary scientists test dinosaur bones for carbon 14?

    Carbon 14 dating can be done only on ORGANIC material derived from living things.

    Dinosaur bones tend to be heavily mineralized after the tens of, and hundreds of millions of years they have been in the earth and are therefor not suitable for Carbon 14 dating. Furthermore, during that long period, some of the minerals entering the dinosaur bones can be of radioactive elements that would throw off the reading.

    The mammals you mentioned lived relatively recently, only a few thousands of years ago, and their bones tend not to be heavily mineralized, so their bones contain enough organic material to be carbon 14 dated.

    And your argument about measuring the stratosphere is stupid and has no bearing on anything.

  • 4 years ago

    Carbon 14 Test

  • 6 years ago

    Carbon 14 cannot measure things that are over 60000 years old, that is that after about 60000 years, there is virtually no C14 left. Dinosaurs bones are dated using different isotopes because they are over 65 million years, which is a bit more complicated because they are based on isotopes that are not as abundant as Carbon 14 inside living organism (although they decay slower).

    However, in some cases, C14 from the environment (since C14 is constantly being produced by cosmic rays releasing neutrons that alter nitrogen in the atmosphere) can leach in the ground if it is made of some specific rocks, and contaminate fossils making them look a lot younger than they are.

    Seems to me you are trying very hard to discredit well proven radio-dating methods by quoting very specific cases that were subject to such contamination, and for that you are using poor knowledge and even worse understanding. All you have managed to do is demonstrate that you are not a valid interlocutor as you show both bias and a lack of knowledge.

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  • 6 years ago

    If the truth be known there is no way of an accurate way of texting the age of anything after 5000 years, this is because no one knows the barometric pressure of this earth pre flood. Some scientist say it could be 5 times or more than it is today. Many use barometric pressure chambers to slow the rate of cancer and it's being researched as a way to cure many different diseases.

    So any carbon dating is inaccurate after 5000 years, as far as how old this earth is is anybody's guess, it could be millions of years or it could be many thousands of years.

    Evolution had a death blow when dna was discovered, dna proved that evolution is false no matter how it's presented or argued.And when it's shown that carbon dating is guess work after 5000 years all but the die hard will dismiss evolution for what it is, a Satan induced belief to distort God's word.

    We are not to underestimate the devil, I'm sure he has more fictitious beliefs in store for us, the scriptures says he would have mankind believe he's the creator of man!

  • 6 years ago

    C14 dating only works back to about 50-60,000 years ago, and, on organic material. Dinosaur fossils are at least 65 million years ago, and, have long since turned to rock. So, Carbon dating won't work. Period.

    They do use it for more recent bones, e.g., mammoths in the Yukon, and bison, and all sorts of other things. Ice Age bones are fine for carbon testing.

  • gillie
    Lv 7
    6 years ago

    Carbon 14 is only useful for dating things a few thousand years in the past. I'm sure some scientist tried that initially and soon realized that it wasn't going to work.

  • Tomp
    Lv 7
    6 years ago

    Buddy is completely correct, and his is not circular reasoning, since dinosaur bones were NOT assumed to be millions of years old. A variety of independent radiometric tests carried out on surrounding rock layers using isotopes of elements with long half-lives are used. That these tests correlate, determines the age.

    It was also because 17th century-18th century Christian geologists found the Earth to be much older than it was that some of them proposed a bibical Gap Theory to reconcile the contradictions between what they found and what they believed in their Bible.

    That there are still people who cling to a Biblical story rehashed out of much older Mesopotamian myths, is a testament to nothing more than their own refusal to accept what's staring them in the face.

    Oh, and of course Jack Horner would have refused, because as has already been explained to you, Carbon-14 dating would not have bloody worked on those timescales. It's like me asking you to measure the height of the stratosphere using a six-inch ruler.

  • 6 years ago

    Scientists can measure the present-day rate of radioactive carbon formation but have no way of measuring carbon concentrations in the distant past.

    So whether they use the radiocarbon method for dating fossils or other methods, such as employing radioactive potassium, uranium, or thorium, for dating rocks, scientists are unable to establish the original levels of those elements through ages of time. Thus, professor of metallurgy Melvin A. Cook observes: “One may only guess these concentrations [of radioactive materials], and the age results thus obtained can be no better than this guess.” That would especially be so when we consider that the Flood of Noah’s day over 4,300 years ago brought enormous changes in the atmosphere and on earth.

    Dartmouth College geologists Charles Officer and Charles Drake further add doubt to the accuracy of radioactive dating. They state: “We conclude that iridium and other associated elements were not deposited instantaneously . . . but rather that there was an intense and variable influx of these constituents during a relatively short geologic time interval on the order of 10,000 to 100,000 years.” They argue that the breakup and movement of the continents disrupted the entire globe, causing volcanic eruptions, blocking sunlight and fouling the atmosphere. Certainly, such disruptive events could change radioactivity levels, thus distorting results from modern-day radioactive clocks.

  • G C
    Lv 7
    6 years ago

    First, carbon 14 dating is not accurate.

    Second, some dinosaurs died just a few hundred years ago.

    In England during the late 1700s they had a Dragon Chronicle that told of the plague upon farmers that Dragons caused. It is part of history, yet we don't teach it at all. In Arizona they found a Roman sword with a dinosaur etched on it. Look that the Viking ships. Too many rock drawings, figurines, etc.

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