Page 129 - Advanced Genesis - Creationism - Student Textbook

things at any given time is nearly constant. Maybe one in a trillion carbon atoms are carbon-14. The
carbon-14 atoms are always decaying, but they are being replaced by new carbon-14 atoms at a
constant rate. At this moment, your body has a certain percentage of carbon-14 atoms in it, and all living
plants and animals have the same percentage. 147 But when plants or animals die, they no longer absorb
additional carbon and the clock begins.

The ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-14 at the moment of death is the same as every other living thing, but
the carbon-14 decays and is not replaced. The carbon-14 decays with its half-life of 5,700 years, while
the amount of carbon-12 remains constant in the sample. By looking at the ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-
14 in the sample and comparing it to the ratio in a living organism, it is possible to determine the age of
a formerly living thing fairly precisely.

Of course, scientists must assume that the decay rates of carbon-14 to carbon-12 have remained
constant over the history of the earth. If the rates were different in the past, obviously the dates would
be skewed. Evolutionists believe it to be constant, because they by faith believe that the processes
occurring in the present have occurred over the past millions of years. If the starting assumption is
false, all the calculations based on that assumption might be correct but still give a wrong conclusion.

The problem is that half the original quantity of carbon-14 will decay back to the stable element
nitrogen-14 after only 5,730 years. At this decay rate, hardly any carbon-14 atoms will remain after only
57,300 years (or ten half-lives). But evolutionists believe the fossils are many millions of years old, so no
carbon-14 atoms would be left in them, which is true, if they were that old.

But imagine the surprise when every piece of “ancient” carbon tested has contained measurable
quantities of carbon-14! 148 Fossils, coal, oil, natural gas, limestone, marble, and graphite from every
Flood-related rock layer—and even some pre-Flood deposits—have all contained measurable quantities
of radiocarbon. All these results have been reported in the conventional scientific literature. 149

This finding is consistent with the belief that rocks are only thousands of years old, but the specialists
who obtained these results have definitely not accepted this conclusion. It does not fit their
presuppositions. To keep from concluding that the rocks are only thousands of years old, they claim that
the radiocarbon must be due to contamination, either from the field or from the laboratory or from
both. However, when the technician meticulously cleans the rocks with hot strong acids and other pre-
treatments to remove any possible contamination, these “ancient” organic (once-living) materials still
contain measurable radiocarbon. 150 If carbon-14 is present, then we know the once living fossil is only a
few thousand years old, not millions of years old.

According to evolutionary scientists, diamonds are formed from coal under great pressure (more than
100 miles beneath the surface of the earth) and diamonds do not consist of organic carbon from living
things which may have carbon-14 present. They believe that explosive volcanoes brought them to the
earth’s surface. Diamonds are the hardest natural substance known and are extremely resistant to
chemical corrosion and contamination. Obviously, their tight bonding would not allow any carbon-14
from the atmosphere to enter into or replace carbon atoms within the diamond.

147 https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geology/carbon-14.htm
148 P. Giem, “Carbon-14 Content of Fossil Carbon,” Origins 51 (2001): 6–30.
149 https://answersingenesis.org/geology/carbon-14/carbon-14-in-fossils-and-diamonds/
150 Ibid.
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