Doesn't hold water!
Radiocarbon Dating De-Bunked Easily. 7 July 2025, 11 Tammuz, 5785.
Atoms are composed of a nucleus containing protons and neutrons, surrounded by orbiting electrons. Protons carry a positive charge, neutrons are neutral, and electrons carry a negative charge. The number of protons defines the element, while the number of neutrons can vary, creating isotopes.
Carbon (from Latin carbo 'coal') is a chemical element; it has symbol C and atomic number 6 i.e. it has 6 protons.
Nitrogen is a chemical element; it has symbol N and atomic number 7 i.e. it has 7 protons.
Carbon-14 can transform into nitrogen-14 through a process called beta decay. This is a type of radioactive decay where a neutron within the carbon-14 nucleus transforms into a proton, an electron, and an antineutrino. Instead of 6 protons it now has 7 the same as nitrogen.
This change in the nucleus has resulted in the formation of a nitrogen-14 atom, as the number of protons has increased by one.
We have 3 types of Carbon
Carbon-12 is composed of 6 protons, 6 neutrons, and 6 electrons. 99% of all carbon is Carbon-12,
Carbon-13 is composed of 6 protons, 7 neutrons, and 6 electrons. It makes up about 1.1% of all natural carbon on Earth and is stable.
Carbon-14 is composed of 6 protons, 8 neutrons, and 6 electrons. It occurs in trace amounts, making up about 1-1.5 atoms per 10*12 atoms of carbon in the atmosphere. It is unstable and dacys over time losing protons and changing into nitrogen.
By emitting an electron and an electron antineutrino, one of the neutrons in carbon-14 decays to a proton and the carbon-14 (half-life of ca. 5700 years) decays into the stable (non-radioactive) isotope nitrogen-14. if we knew how much carbon-14 was originally there and comparted how much left we could deduct the mission percentage from 5,700 years. If half was left it would be 2850 years old. If a quarter was left it would be twice that (or three quarters of the original, i.e.3956.
Radiocarbon dating is a method used to determine the age of organic materials by measuring the amount of carbon-14 remaining in a sample. It relies on the radioactive decay of carbon-14, an unstable isotope, which begins to decay into nitrogen-14 after an organism dies. By measuring the remaining carbon-14 and knowing its half-life (5,730 years), scientists can estimate the time elapsed since the organism's death.
In the same way as Carbon-14 can become Nitrogen-14 when one of the neutrons becomes a proton so can Nitrogen-14 become Carbon-14 when it loses a proton.
Carbon-14 Formation:
Carbon-14 is created in the atmosphere when cosmic rays interact with nitrogen-14. This carbon-14 is then incorporated into carbon dioxide and taken up by living organisms through photosynthesis.
Radioactive Decay:
When an organism dies, it stops taking in carbon-14, and the existing carbon-14 begins to decay into nitrogen-14 at a known rate.
Measuring Carbon-14:
Scientists can measure the ratio of carbon-14 to stable carbon-12 in a sample to determine how much carbon-14 has decayed.
Dating:
By comparing the measured carbon-14 ratio to the known half-life of carbon-14, scientists can estimate the age of the sample.
Limitations:
Radiocarbon dating is most effective for materials up to about 50,000 to 60,000 years old.
The method relies on the assumption that the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere has remained relatively constant over time, which is not accurate.
Calibration curves, based on other dating methods like tree-ring dating, are used to correct for variations in atmospheric carbon-14 levels.
The "bomb pulse" effect from atmospheric nuclear testing in the mid-20th century makes it difficult to accurately date samples from after 1950.
In the same way as Carbon-14 can become Nitrogen-14 when one of the neutrons becomes a proton so can Nitrogen-14 become Carbon-14 when it loses a proton.
Cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere are constantly converting the isotope nitrogen-14 (N-14) into carbon-14 (C-14 or radiocarbon).
Living organisms are constantly incorporating this C-14 into their bodies along with other carbon isotopes. When the organisms die, they stop incorporating new C-14, and the old C-14 starts to decay back into N-14 by emitting beta particles.
The older an organism's remains are, the less beta radiation it emits because its C-14 is steadily dwindling at a predictable rate. So, if we measure the rate of beta decay in an organic sample, we can calculate how old the sample is.
C-14 decays with a half-life of 5,730 years, i.e. every 5,730 years its quantity is cut in half. If we knew how much it had at the beginning and how much is left we would known old it was.
There are numerous claims against Radiocarbon dating.
The article below brings charges refuting radiocarbon dating and answers to them.
Answers to Creationist Attacks on Carbon-14 Dating.https://ncse.ngo/answers-creationist-attacks-carbon-14-dating
The answers given to our mind are not convincing.
As we said above, this is how Radiocarbon dating works:
Question: How does carbon-14 dating work?
Answer:
Cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere are constantly converting the isotope nitrogen-14 (N-14) into carbon-14 (C-14 or radiocarbon). Living organisms are constantly incorporating this C-14 into their bodies along with other carbon isotopes. When the organisms die, they stop incorporating new C-14, and the old C-14 starts to decay back into N-14 by emitting beta particles. The older an organism's remains are, the less beta radiation it emits because its C-14 is steadily dwindling at a predictable rate. So, if we measure the rate of beta decay in an organic sample, we can calculate how old the sample is. C-14 decays with a half-life of 5,730 years.
It was claimed that living freshwater mussels have radiocarbon dating showing them to be 2,000 years old.
The answers was that the mussells were living in limestone water and absorbed old carbon from it.
Coal, oil, and natural gas are supposed to be millions of years old; yet creationists say that some of them contain measurable amounts of C-14, enough to give them C-14 ages in the tens of thousands of years.
The answer was that Radiocarbon dating doesn't work well on objects much older than twenty thousand years since the objects tested are more open to radiation from outside.
Question: Creationists such as Cook (1966) claim that cosmic radiation is now forming C-14 in the atmosphere about one and one-third times faster than it is decaying. If we extrapolate backwards in time with the proper equations, we find that the earlier the historical period, the less C-14 the atmosphere had. If we extrapolate as far back as ten thousand years ago, we find the atmosphere would not have had any C-14 in it at all.
The answer was that radiocarbon "has fluctuated up and down over the past ten thousand years. How do we know this? From radiocarbon dates taken from bristlecone pines."
If it fluctuates in the past why do we use it?
And so on.
The answer of the scientists are not convincing.
cf. the following:
Answer: Yes. When we know the age of a sample through archaeology or historical sources, the C-14 method (as corrected by bristlecone pines) agrees with the age within the known margin of error. For instance, Egyptian artifacts can be dated both historically and by radiocarbon, and the results agree. At first, archaeologists used to complain that the C-14 method must be wrong, because it conflicted with well-established archaeological dates; but, as Renfrew has detailed, the archaeological dates were often based on false assumptions. One such assumption was that the megalith builders of western Europe learned the idea of megaliths from the Near-Eastern civilizations. As a result, archaeologists believed that the Western megalith-building cultures had to be younger than the Near Eastern civilizations. Many archaeologists were skeptical when Ferguson's calibration with bristlecone pines was first published, because, according to his method, radiocarbon dates of the Western megaliths showed them to be much older than their Near-Eastern counterparts. However, as Renfrew demonstrated, the similarities between these Eastern and Western cultures are so superficial that the megalith builders of western Europe invented the idea of megaliths independently of the Near East. So, in the end, external evidence reconciles with and often confirms even controversial C-14 dates.
One of the most striking examples of different dating methods confirming each other is Stonehenge. C-14 dates show that Stonehenge was gradually built over the period from 1900 BC to 1500 BC, long before the Druids, who claimed Stonehenge as their creation, came to England. Astronomer Gerald S. Hawkins calculated with a computer what the heavens were like back in the second millennium BC, accounting for the precession of the equinoxes, and found that Stonehenge had many significant alignments with various extreme positions of the sun and moon (for example, the hellstone marked the point where the sun rose on the first day of summer). Stonehenge fits the heavens as they were almost four thousand years ago, not as they are today, thereby cross-verifying the C-14 dates.
Brit-Am Reply:
Western Megalithics are usually almost exact copies of the varied types of those in the Near East (Israel and its surroundings) so one must have copied the other.
So too, the results of Hawkins are not reliable UNLESS they can be repeated.
See also the following claim in favor of radioncarbon dating and all similar methods.
https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/1vsv3k/why_do_creationists_keep_saying_carbon_dating_is/
There are many elements/isotopes that can be used to date things depending on what time scale you want to deal with. I believe the general term for the field is "radioisotope dating", and it basically works by measuring the rate at which radioactive elements turn into other elements. Let's say you have some element A with a half life of 250 years. You'd expect to find 100 grams of element A in a sample if it was brand new. If you find 50 grams, the sample must be about 250 years old. If you find 25 grams, it's probably about 500 years old. And so on; after every so many years, the "half life", the amount of the element that is left is approximately half its previous amount.
Brit-Am Reply:
All this only works on the assumption that there were no changes in the atmosphere. Dating for objects in our time is not accepted do the effects of nuclear testing etc.
Indications are that throughout history there were volcanic eruptions, comets, etc., and changes in the climate that would have had their own influences.
The atmosphere was different. people were different. Most Dinosaurs probably could not exist in our world bacause they would lack oxygen!
The Scientists are EVEN MORE PREJUDICED in favor of their claims than the Creationists are.