Scientists Distrust Dating Methods

Exodus 20:11
“For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

Just how good are those radiocarbon dates? When reporting an exciting archaeological discovery, popular science magazines tell the reader, for example, that some man-made artifact is 40,000 years old. A few years ago it was common to find tolerance figures such as plus or minus 1,500 years attached to these ages. These tolerance figures effectively leave an impression of objective precision in the mind of the reader. Those tolerance figures are seldom used today.

The radiocarbon method was developed in 1948 and at that time was believed to be the ultimate answer to the archaeologists’ dating problems. The method has not lived up to its promise, and today it is distrusted by the scientific community unless backed up by a second dating method. To give one example, when scientists carbon-dated a mammoth bone hide-scraper discovered in the Yukon, it was evident that man and mammoth lived at the same time, but it carbon-dated at 25,000 to 32,000 years old. However, this put man on the North American continent about 20,000 years before humans were supposed to have arrived here! Eventually, a second test method using a nuclear accelerator was used, and this dated the same piece of bone at only 2,000 years!

This example is common, and Bible-believing Christians should not be concerned that carbon-dated ages will in any way disprove the Bible.

Prayer:
Dear Lord Jesus Christ, You are the Word through Whom we were created. You are the beating heart of Scriptural truth. Help us to see that all of Scripture is trustworthy.

Notes:
“Old Crow Bones and Radiocarbon Dating,” Creation Ex Nihilo, Vol.9, No.4, p. 13. Photo: Skeleton of Columbian mammoth. Courtesy of WolfmanSF. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.