Evolution Impossible (24 page)

Subsequently, an emergency medicine physician with an interest in carbon 14 dating, Dr. Paul Giem, published a review of the carbon-14 dating results for about 70 AMS measurements of fossils reported between 1984 and 2001. From their position in the rock strata, the fossil carbon specimens dated as being much older than 100,000 years and in many cases millions of years old.
²³
None of these samples should have had any measurable carbon-14, yet they typically gave ages around 40,000–50,000 years. Dr. Giem observed that many samples, even though taken from very different geological time periods, gave a similar carbon-14 age. This fits well with the creation-flood model that propounds that most of the different fossil layers were formed at essentially the same time. Secondly, the persistence of carbon-14 in such a large number of widely differing fossil specimens from different locations strongly suggests that the fossils could be nowhere near as old as the geologic time scale claims. For example, Dr. Giem points out that by 300,000 years there would be not a single atom of carbon-14 left in a one-gram sample of fossil carbon. Therefore, in samples such as coal, which are tens of millions to hundreds of millions of years old, there should be no detectable levels of carbon-14. The fact that carbon-14 is detected in these samples clearly proves that these coal samples must be less than 300,000 years old, and in practical analysis terms have to be less than 100,000 years old. In other words, the coal-bearing strata cannot be anywhere near as old as the standard geologic column ages assigned to them.

Dr. Giem’s work was followed in the early 2000s by a very careful study of the carbon-14 content of a range of coal samples from different parts of the United States. Ten samples were obtained from the U.S. Department of Energy Coals Sample Bank at Pennsylvania State University. The samples had been collected as 180-kilogram fresh samples from active coal mines and stored under argon gas. The samples were from deposits assigned to the Eocene, Cretaceous, and Pennsylvanian periods in the geologic column. That is, they were assigned ages ranging from around 40 million years to around 300 million years. These coal samples were carefully analyzed by precise AMS techniques and corrected for standard background effects. The samples all gave measurable levels of carbon-14 and gave calculated ages ranging between just 44,000 years and 57,000 years.
²⁴
These results leave no time for evolution to occur and seriously challenge the ages assigned to the geologic column. The author of the report, Dr. John Baumgardner, a geophysicist and retired technical staff member from the Theoretical Division of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, points out that if a much higher carbon content in the biosphere existed in the past, as evidenced by the extensive deposits of coal and limestone, cosmic ray–generated carbon-14 would have been much lower than today’s levels.

If an estimated lower and more realistic value for the carbon-14 level in the past is used in the calculation, an even lower average age of around 5,000 years is obtained for these coal samples, which would support the historical evidence for a global Flood.
²⁵

A follow-up study was then carried out on diamonds believed to be between 1 billion and 3 billion years old on the basis of uniformitarian time-lines. If the diamonds actually were this old, they should have absolutely no detectable carbon-14. It has been suggested that thermal neutrons generated by other radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium, etc., could generate carbon-14 in the earth’s crust. This possibility has been considered, but the level produced would be so small as to be well below the level of carbon-14 detectable by AMS, and therefore it cannot be an explanation of any observed result.
²⁶

Five kimberlite pipe diamonds, four from De Beers mines in Botswana and one from Kimberley in South Africa, together with an alluvial deposit diamond from Guinea, were carefully analyzed by the AMS method and found to contain measurable carbon-14 levels. The results gave an average carbon-14 dating age of only 55,700 years.
²⁷
A further six alluvial diamonds from Namibia were then dated by the same researchers. All contained measurable carbon-14 levels, some at slightly higher levels.

Subsequent studies reported in 2007 by University of California researchers obtained similar results. They dated several diamonds using the high-precision Keck Carbon Cycle AMS spectrometer and obtained carbon-14 ages ranging from of 64.9 ± 0.4 thousand years to 80.0 ± 1.1 thousand years. Six fragments from a single diamond gave 69.3 ± 0.5 to 70.6 ± 0.5 thousand years.
²⁸

All the above results were statistically significant and provide very strong evidence that these diamonds, conventionally assumed to be a billion years old or more, contain measurable carbon-14 and therefore have to be less than 100,000 years old. This result does not allow anywhere near enough time for evolution to occur, as proposed by the standard evolutionary model.

When we look at the overall evidence we have available to us at the present time, there is a huge disparity between erosion and sedimentation rate age calculations and radiometric dating calculations for the age of the continents and the geologic column. Diamonds are supposed to be about the same age as the continents and yet, because we find measurable carbon-14 in them, they must be less than 100,000 years old and possibly as young as around 5,000 years old. When DNA mutation rates, the finding of soft tissues in dinosaur remains, and the historical accounts of a global Flood are considered, together with the different dating estimates, there is consistent evidence that there was a catastrophic global Flood event only thousands of years ago. It follows that much of the so-called geologic column is simply a record of the extinctions that took place during the Flood and volcanism catastrophe. Subsequently, it is very plausible to conclude that evolution has, in fact, not occurred.

1
. J.L. Kulp, “Geological Time Scale,”
McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology,
Vol. 6 (1960), p. 135–137.

2
. G. Faure,
Principles of Isotope Geology,
second edition (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1986), p. 145–147.

3
. L. Vardiman, A.A. Snelling, and E.F. Chaffin, editors,
Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth,
“Isochron Discordances and the Role of Inheritance and Mixing of Radioisotopes in the Mantle and Crust,” by Andrew A. Snelling (El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research and Chino Valley, AZ: Creation Research Society, 2005), p. 393–524.

4
. Ibid., p. 405–414.

5
. Ibid.

6
. Ibid., p. 416–418.

7
. D.R. Humphreys, S.A. Austin, J.R. Baumgardner, and A.A. Snelling, “Recently Measured Helium Diffusion Rate for Zircon Suggests Inconsistency with U-Pb Age for Fenton Hill Granodiorite, EOS,”
Transactions of the American Geophysical Union,
vol. 84, no. 46 (2003): Fall Meeting Supplement, Abstract V32C-1047.

8
. J.F. Evernden, D.E. Savage, G.H. Curtis, and G.T. James, “Potassium-argon Dates and the Cenozoic Mammalian Chronology of North America,”
American Journal of Science,
vol. 262 (1964): p. 145–198. Also see many examples discussed in A.P. Dicken,
Radiogenic Isotope Geology
(Cambridge, UK and NY: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

9
. S.P. Clementson, “A Critical Examination of Radioactive Dating of Rocks,”
Creation Research Society Quarterly,
vol. 7 (1970): p. 137–141.

10
. R.L. Ivey Jr., editor,
Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Creationism,
“The Relevance of Rb-Sr, Sm-Nd, and Pb-Pb Isotope Systematics to Elucidation of the Genesis and History of Recent Andesite Flows at Mt. Ngauruhoe, New Zealand, and the Implications for Radioisotopic Dating,” by A.A. Snelling (Pittsburgh, PA: Creation Science Fellowship Publishers, 2003), p. 285–303. See http:/www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v5/n1/mt-ngauruhoe-isotope.

11
. W.K. Hensley, W.A. Bassett, and J.R. Huizenga, “Pressure Dependence of the Radioactive Decay Constant of Beryllium-7,”
Science,
vol. 181, no. 4104 (1973): p. 1164–1165.

12
. L. Vardiman, A.A. Snelling, and E.F. Chaffin, editors, Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, “Young Helium Diffusion Age of Zircons Supports Accelerated Nuclear Decay,” by D.R. Humphreys (El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research and Chino Valley, AZ: Creation Research Society, 2005), p. 25–100.

13
. Ibid., “Radiohalos in Granites: Evidence for Accelerated Nuclear Decay,” by A.A. Snelling, p. 101–208.

14
. Ibid., “Summary of evidence for a Young Earth from the RATE Project,” by L. Vardiman, S.A. Austin, J.R. Baumgardner, et al., p. 735–772.

15
. D.L. Thurber, W.S. Broecker, R.L. Blanchard, and H.A. Potratz, “Uranium-series Ages of Pacific Atoll Coral,”
Science,
vol. 149 (1965): p. 55–58.

16
. F.J. Fitch and J.A. Miller, “Radioisotopic Age Determinations of Lake Rudolf Artefact Site,”
Nature,
vol. 226, issue 5242 (April 18, 1970): p 226–228.

17
. F.J. Fitch, I.C. Findlater, R.T. Watkins, and J.A. Miller, “Dating of the Rock Succession Containing Fossil Hominids at East Rudolf, Kenya,”
Nature,
vol. 251 (September 20, 1974): p. 213–215.

18
. G.H. Curtis, R.E. Drake, T.E. Cerling, and J.H. Hampel, “Age of KBS Tuff in Koobi Fora Formation, East Rudolf, Keyna,”
Nature,
vol. 258 (December 4, 1975): p. 395–398.

19
. I. McDougall, R. Maier, P. Sutherland-Hawkes, and A.J.W. Gleadow, “K-Ar Age Estimate for the KBS Tuff, East Turkana, Kenya,”
Nature,
vol. 284 (March 20, 1980): p. 230. See also: A.J.W. Gleadow, “Fission Track Age of the KBS Tuff and Associated Hominid Remains in Northern Kenya,”
Nature,
vol. 284 (March 20, 1980): p. 225–230.

20
. J.L. Kulp, “Rock (Age Determination),”
McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology,
Vol. 11 (1960), p. 591–594.

21
. K. Kudela and P. Bobik, “Long-term Variations of Geomanetic Rigidity Cutoffs,”
Solar Physics,
vol. 224 (2005): p. 423–431.

22
. Vardiman, Snelling, and Chaffin, editors,
Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth,
“
¹⁴
C Evidence for a Recent Global Flood and a Young Earth,” by J.R. Baumgardner, p. 589.

23
. Paul Giem, “Carbon-14 Content of Fossil Carbon,”
Origins
(GRI), vol. 51 (2001): p. 6–30.

24
. Vardiman, Snelling, and Chaffin, editors,
Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth,
“
¹⁴
C Evidence for a Recent Global Flood and a Young Earth,” by J.R. Baumgardner, p. 587–609.

25
. Ibid., p. 588.

26
. Ibid., p. 614–616.

27
. Ibid., p. 609–630.

28
. R.E. Taylor and J. Southon, “Use of Natural Diamonds to Monitor
¹⁴
C AMS Instrument Backgrounds,”
Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms,
vol. 259, issue 1 (June 2007): p. 282–287.

Chapter 11

The Big-Bang Theory Is Not Supported by Observed Data

Our planet is a truly remarkable environment, different from any other planet in our solar system or from anything so far observed in nearby space. The size of the sun and our distance from it means that the earth’s temperature is in the range that allows for life. The abundance of water, oxygen, and carbon, as well as many other factors, has made our planet seemingly perfect for life. In fact, some astronomers have referred to it as the “Goldilocks” planet.
¹

Life as we know it is based on the element
carbon
, which has particular properties, including the ability to bond with up to four other atoms or chains of atoms. This enables carbon atoms to form the backbone of the multitude of polymer biomolecules that make the structures of our cells, their enzymes, and other essential molecules, including the genetic code itself.

There is a relatively large amount of carbon in our universe. Scientists have proposed that carbon and other elements formed as a result of nuclear synthesis from lighter atomic particles in stars. The famous Cambridge University astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle studied the reactions necessary to produce carbon, and calculated the energy levels in the carbon atom. He concluded that in order for carbon to have its unique chemical properties, its energy levels had to be so finely tuned that the probability that they could have been generated by blind forces of nature was utterly minuscule. He wrote that a common sense interpretation of the scientific data suggests that some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom.
²