... updating Hovind on C14

... updating Hovind on C14 · ... updating Kent Hovind on C14, part 2

Carbon Dating Flaws
Truth In Genesis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVuVYnHRuig

After seing first half of video.

1:07 did they say in 1830 the Earth was billions of years old?

I thought they were staying in the range of 20 million up to c. 1900?

2:04 Carbon dating is actually used for things "so young" that geological column is irrelevant.

If a thing is dated by geologic column, like a ceratopsian fossil, routinely it is not carbon dated. When exceptioonally it is, you get surprising results, like a Triceratops horridus c. 40 000 - not 40 000 000 just 40 000 - years old.

2:53 Derek Ager is obviously speaking of radiocarbon dated things as being "really archaeology".

The radiometric datings related to "geologic column" is the wordthless K-Ar method, mainly, which was proven worthless at Mt St Helens.

4:21 If now 21 pounds of C 14 each year is produced, in order to account for the rise back when history started, it must have been 420 pounds in the year of the Flood (that is 20 times more than now in a year)* with the speed declining, and probably stabilising around the time of Cyrus or of taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.

I am now speaking of a Flood in 2957 BC. If it was 2400 BC, you would need to have somewhat more carbon 14 than 420 pounds produced in the year of the Flood, to account for present level being stable last 2000 - 2500 years, unless you have a steeper rise for longer, which means some history is radically shorter.

I see an Exodus in 1510 BC carbon datable to 1700 BC - you might need to have it carbon datable to 2000 BC or 2400 BC (Pepi I or II).

420 pounds instead of 21 pounds means 20 times as much radiation, which gives a level of cosmic radiation close to total background radiation at Princeton.

12:31 "it would take 30 000 years to reach equilibrium"

Well, that means they were talking of only 21 pounds a year.

Somehow, since we have been in equilibrium last two millennia, unless history is falsified in chronology, we already have equilibrium, and if 30 000 years would be the time required with 21 pounds a year, and if 21 pounds a year is what we have now, well, since Earth is NOT 30 000 years old, it started rising (after Flood) at a level of roughly 420 pounds C14 added to atmosphere each year. Add some, if you assume KJV rather than LXX chronology!

Radiocarbon is still forming 28%-37% faster than it is decaying?

The source you give** is not a study of how it forms and decays now, but an attempt of explaining a discrepancy in North American Human Skeletons.

One which does not take into account perhaps that last tw thousand years we have a well dated history where carbon 14 datings match history rather well.

13:18 "you'd have to know when it lived so you could calculate when it lived"

We know when Tiberius lived (most of us assume), and some of the coins with his image has datable blood, sweat, tears from when it was used - matching carbon dates with history. And therefore also validating a carbon dating of 78.511% of modern carbon as implying 2000 years (unlike exceptional circumstances, like shellfish from polar regions or generally shell fish).

13:43. Half the carbon of today's atmosphere left ... half original would mean 5730 years ago. If original was 84.421% modern carbon, it would only mean 3/4 of that time (84.421% to the power of 4 is 50%, roughly). If it was instead 70.711% modern carbon***, it was alive half a halflife ago.

For a thing having half modern carbon, I think history (including Biblical) make 3/4 of a hlf life from originally 84.421% modern carbon a more reasonable guess. By 2865 years ago, carbon would be more evenly rising if not yet quite stable.

14:57 "how much was in it when it lived"

Well, it seems that carbon level in the year of the Flood and just previous was around 3% of present level - since consistently carbon datings from Flood fossils give 20 000 to 50 000 years ago.

That means it rose from c. 3% in say 2957 BC to c. 100% in c. 500 BC (when carbon dates can be well verified by history).°

This is why starting with 420 pounds a year and levelling out to 21 pounds as per present rate is the good option.

If Flood was only 2400 BC, you need either a higher initial addition rate than 420 pounds per year, or a faster and steeper rise - which might make for conflict with historically well dated archaeology.

15:36 No, the initial level as per pre-Flood C14 is lower than 25% of present level. Much lower.

Otherwise, a Triceratops horridus from Flood would date to 11 450 BP or 9450 BC.

It dates to 40 000 BP. So Carbon level was lots lower than 25% modern carbon.

Update

five years later, this dialogue and part of the footnotes.

Bunny Poop

Prove it

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Bunny Poop Flood in 2957 BC + 2022 AD = real age of 4979 actual years.

I cannot access the carbon 14 calculator, (error 403) so let's use the basics in maths instead.

50 % = 0.5, which is what is left after a halflife, aka 5730 years.
0.5^(4979/5730) = 0.5475507422311837

What was buried in the Flood, you will now have 54 - 55 % of the then ratio.

0.5475507422311837 * 0.25 = 0.136887685557795925

You would have 13.69 % left.

0.5^(x/5730) = 0.136887685557795925

I actually don't know maths well enough to extract the x from here. So, lets go another way.

Let's say x is 11 450 as I presumed five years ago, when I did access the carbon calculator, and we get this:

0.5^(11450/5730) = 0.2503026032256235 ooops ...

I got about twice as much, meaning I made a calculation mistake a few years ago.

11450 + 5730 = 17180 BP or 15 000 BC ...

0.5^(17180/5730) = 0.1251513016128118

Yup, a lot better ...

* Since then I have made tables requiring only ten times the present production, and as for pounds produced a year, I am taking Kent Hovind's word for it. It is also not necessarily true that x times as fast production equals x times as much radioactivity from the cosmos on earth. Both C14 and radioactivity added to background radiation on earth depend on radiation from cosmos in somewhat quirky ways that get computer models. I have failed to obtain a modelling till it reaches "ten times as fast C14 production" from Ilya Usoskin (University of Åbo or Turkku) who has specialised in this.
** R. E. Taylor et al., "Major Revisions in the Pleistocene Age Assignments for North American Skeletons by C-14 Accelerator Mass Spectrometry," American Antiquity, Vol. 50, No. 1 1985 pp. 136-140.
*** All relations % modern carbon 14 to age, HT: https://www.math.upenn.edu/~deturck/m170/c14/carbdate.html
° Since updated to arguably it was 1.4 pmC at the Flood, in my view.