myth_rd

The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods:
by John Woodmorappe; Institute for Creation Research; 1999

p-v    Foreword by Dr. Henry M. Morris, President Emeritus; Institute for Creation Research
    ... The evolutionist paradigm (or world view) is steadily disintegrating. Not only is it Biblically indefensible for Christians, but also its scientific foundations have been almost fatally eroded.
    No real organic evolution has ever been observed during the period of human history and no true evolutionary transitional forms have ever been found among the billions of fossils from the past.
    The evidence of design is overwhelming in even the simplest living organism: the laws of probability and thermodynamics seem to make macro evolution not only non-existent but also not possible. The evidence of creative design seems to be overwhelming.
    The only remaining argument that seems to make evolution appear feasible is the alleged immense age of the earth and the cosmos. That immense age, as far as the earth is concerned, is based almost entirely on the evidence from the radioactive decay of certain minerals in its crust. These are widely claimed by evolutionary geologists and others to yield "absolute" ages for various rocks and even for the earth itself - now said to be about 4.6 billion years old.
    Now, if the earth really is that old, we Christians are really in a bind. There is not even a hint of such long ages in the teachings of Christ or anywhere else in the Bible, which has always been the basis of our Christian faith. The Bible very clearly teaches that all things (including man) were created and made in six days several thousand years ago, (days, not ages! - see Genesis 1; Exodus 20:8-11; Mark 10:6: etc.). It also teaches, clearly and unequivocally, that a worldwide cataclysmic deluge devastated the entire planet as a result of divine judgment on the demonic wickedness and violence of those first generations (Genesis 6:13:7:17-23; Matthew 24:37-39; II Peter 3:3-6; etc.). There is no room at all for 4.6 billion years of geologic ages in the Biblical world view, assuming that the Bible (God's written Word) means what it says.
    Nevertheless, anti-creationists (both ancient pantheists and modern naturalists) have always maintained that the earth is almost infinitely old. The evolutionary world view in its modern form is built around a series of long geological eras and periods, which supposedly are identified by the remains of multi-billions of dead animals now preserved as fossils in the sedimentary rocks formed in those periods. In this scenario, the fossils speak of animals that lived and died long ages before man ever evolved from his animal ancestry.
    But this concept also negates the Biblical revelation of earth history. The Bible teaches that suffering and death entered the world only when human sin brought God's curse on man and his dominion (Genesis 3:17-19; Romans 5:12-21; 8:20-22; I Corinthians 15:21-22; etc.). The fossil record, therefore, instead of recording the evolutionary development of life over many ages, must be reminding us primarily of the cataclysmic destruction of life in one age, the age of the great deluge and its after-effects.
    Even apart from the Biblical record of true history, the very idea of a "god" who would "create" by a billion-year process of struggle and death, natural selection and survival of the fittest, extermination of the weak and unfortunate, is untenable to the Christian - or to anyone else who believes in an omnipotent, omniscient, purposeful, loving God who created and controls the world. Thus, the idea of long geological ages not only supports belief in evolution but also atheism and/or pantheism.
    But geologists and their evolutionary colleagues insist that radiometric dating of the minerals in the rocks has proved irrefutably that these rocks are millions and billions of years old and, therefore, that we must (they say) believe in the geologic ages and their record of evolution.
    There are, of course, many weaknesses in this argument, scientifically as well as Biblically and theologically, and these have been developed in many books and papers by creationist scientists in recent decades. But there is no question that the argument from the decay of radioactive isotopes still remains the main "proof" of the great ages of geology. Creationists, therefore, need to show, finally and unequivocally, that this argument proves no such thing.
    That is what Woodmorappe has done in this monograph. He has demonstrated that the various assumptions on which radioactive dating techniques are based are all wrong, and he has done this masterfully and overwhelmingly - by citations (almost 500 separate articles) from evolutionists who specialize in this field, not from other creationists who already agree with his world view.
    ... The monograph is quite technical and is not easy to read, although its interesting "myth/reality check? structure makes it about as easy to follow as possible with such a subject. He assumes the reader will come to it with at least some knowledge of the terminology and techniques of radiometric dating in order to be able to follow the devastating critiques of these techniques and the assumptions on which they are based.
    Any evolutionist or progressive creationist who has been assuming that isotopic dating has proved the long-age scenario owes it to himself (and those whom he influences) to read carefully Woodmorappe's monograph (and refute it if he can), before continuing with his belief and advocacy of the old-earth scenario.
    John Woodmorappe is very positive (and sometimes rather abrasive - though never as abrasive as evolutionists are when they attack creationists) in his strong rejection of all these isotopic dating methods. Yet the more one absorbs the significance of his copiously documented arguments, the more he will agree with his strong denunciations of evolutionary uniformitarians and compromising evangelicals. His language is not intemperate at all in view of the importance of the subject and the overwhelming evidence he amasses against the validity of radiometric dating.

p vii    INTRODUCTION:
        Isotopic (radiometric) dating is the cornerstone of the uniformitarian belief that the earth is very old. There seems to be no end to the dogmatic claims which are incessantly repeated in favor of these dating methods.
    Both the humanists and their compromising, evangelical devotees have, with no small amount of intellectual arrogance, attempted to hammer home the absolute factuality of the dates derived from these methods - all the while ignoring and belittling the fatal flaws inherent in them.
    The present author did an extensive critique of isotopic dating, and this study was published in the September 1979 issue of the Creation Research Society Quarterly, and then reprinted in my 1993 (and 1999, 2nd edition) book Studies in Flood Geology.
    While scientific creationists have done individual studies on the isotopic dating methods in recent years, no one has performed an overall review of isotopic dating. This particular book accomplishes just that, while offering a broad-based, yet incisive, rebuttal to the status of these presumed geochronometers.
    Much has changed in isotopic dating in the last 20 years, but, as shown throughout this book, these "advances" actually serve to highlight the invalidity of these dating methods. In addition, a wealth of silly arguments have been advanced by apologists for isotopic dating. I address the various bogus claims based on the alleged rarity of discrepant dates, the imagined selfchecking properties of these dating methods, the supposed discrediting of the Gospel by questioning the old earth, ostensible "conspiracies" to fabricate agreement on "good" dates, alleged "younging up" trends in isotopic dates, alleged mutual corroboration of biostratigraphic/magnetostratigraphic/isotopic-dating information, concordances between different dating methods, and much more.
    I also delve into the question of the measurements of decay constants, the alleged convergence of dating results at 4.5 billion years for the age of the earth, and the questionable significance of extinct radioactivity.
    There are now several isochron-based methods of isotopic dating in widespread use. Because of the fact that the principles (and fallacies) of the isochron-based methods are essentially the same, I discuss all of these methods in a single chapter. This includes an expose of some little-known fatal flaws pertinent to all of these methods.
    The Ar-Ar method has been widely touted for its presumed ability to distinguish valid vs. invalid dates by analytic criteria alone. I devote an entire chapter demonstrating how widespread acceptance of this method has actually forced its users to abandon such rosy claims. Likewise, the U-Pb method has been revolutionized by the dating of individual zircon grains, inadvertently betraying the composite "ages" of most zircons.
    Finally, I tackle the question of how often results of different dating methods can agree by chance. A variety of simple analyses using random numbers clearly shows that fortuitous concordances are not at all unlikely.
    A comprehensive index provides the reader with extensive cross references to miscellaneous geologic topics.

p95    Chapter 11 - Conclusions
           Isotopic dating remains overloaded with numerous layers of assumptions, special pleadings, and selective manipulation of data. Also, contrary to the claims of apologists for isotopic dating, there are no hard and fast reliability criteria for knowing if one has obtained "true" dates for rocks - and that is within uniformitarianism'ss own terms.
    Finally, recent advances in analytic methods have not rescued isotopic dating from its fatal flaws. To the contrary: they have forced the invention and proliferation of new layers of rationalizations to account for new sets of unwanted results. Clearly, and by any rational standard, dogmatic claims about the factuality of isotopic dating, and the millions and billions of years obtained, though endlessly repeated by the propaganda organs of the evolutionary-uniformitarian establishment, remain completely unjustified.
    The decay constants used in isotopic-dating systems are tainted by past and present practices which raise questions about their objectivity. Nor are measurements on dates themselves necessarily free of compromising biases. And this is the very least that can be said against the validity of isotopic dating.
    We have seen over and over again that dates are rejected primarily on an after-the-fact basis. They are all essentially trial balloons. And this is not only true of individual dates, but also groups of them. Thus, virtually any pattern of dates can be explained a posteriori. And contrary to the claims about discrepant dates being rare, they are, in fact, more than common. It has been shown that they are the rule, not the exception!
    If uniformitarians are free to reject dates that don't fit their ideas, then so are creationists scientists. And, if it is correct that only a relatively small number of dates are (supposedly) "highly reliable," this means that creationists end up rejecting only a relatively few more dates than uniformitarians already do. With the aforementioned fact that so-called reliability criteria are themselves subjective, this takes on further significance.
    Just because some dates seem "good" or "reasonable" does not in the slightest prove that they are valid. After all, using comparable reasoning, one could argue that dreaming must be valid at least some of the time as a means of predicting the future, because some dreams correspond with events that do in fact take place sometime in the future.
    The concordance of dating results is not proof for the validity of the dating methods. Ironically, we now have many instances where suites of concordant results have been found from the same rock. All of the results can easily be wrong, but they cannot possibly all, concordant or not, correctly give the date of the rock. Furthermore, as shown by a simple statistical analysis, concordant results should occur by chance fairly often.
    Some commentators have claimned that the "younging up" of isotopic-dating results relative to biostratigraphy proves the validity of the methods. It does no such thing. First of all, the "younging-up" trend is not proved. The selective publication of dating results guarantees that those very results which would tend to be more effective in randomizing the sat set are precisely the ones that are the least likely to be published. Second, even if a "younging up" trend existed, it would not require radioactive decay of parent elements over a long (or, for that matter, short) time to produce it. After all, some clay minerals show a "younging up" in terms of concentration relative to biostratigraphy and no one, of course, suggests for a moment that these clay minerals are dating methods!

p96    The claim that dates converge on an age for the earth of 4.5 Ga, though often repeated by apologists for isotopic dating, is not supported by the facts. Instead, we encounter a large range of dates which are assumed to date different times of crustal formation, and tectono-magmatic activity, in the earth's past. This of course begs the question about the validity of the dating methods and the great age of the earth! Besides this, we also see a steadily-increasing list of dates from different dating methods, all of which are well in excess of 4.5 Ga.
    We must also come to grips with the fact that there exists an elaborate Orwellian language surrounding the use of isotopic dates and their selective acceptance. We hear about such entities as delayed-uplift ages, cooling ages, thermochronologic information, rejuvenated dates, inherited isochrons, and many other forms of doublespeak. If we were to take seriously all of this elaborate cover language (as uniformitarians do), we would never know that isotopic dating methods are invalid if in fact they are invalid!
    It is laughable to keep hearing that isotopic-dating results are in "tight consensus" with biostratigraphy. The fact is, disagreements with biostratigraphy are routinely used as a presumed reliability criterion in order to reject non conforming isotopic dates. Much the same can be said about isotopicdating relative to magnetostratigraphy. All three systems are subject to manipulation in order to creatge a contrived agreement between them. And one must grin a little when told that isotopic dates agree with the law of superposition when in fact it is local violations of this law that are used to "ascertain" that the dates are not reliable!
    The use of geologic context to excuse unwanted dates is itself an exercise in special pleading because it is used in a self-contradictory manner. Thus, for instance, we may see an unwanted date excused, after-the-fact, because it is too close to a neighboring intrusion. But elsewhere, we see the uniformitarian geologist having no problem accepting a date equally close to a neighboring intrusion as long as the date agrees with his ideas. Much the same can be said about such things as sample alterations, potassium content, identification of xenocrysts, and much more.
    So-called testable hypotheses are such only within the narrow confines of uniformitarian thought. And, rather than being predicted in advance, the accumulating flaws in all the dating methods had become evident only after each dating method had already enjoyed widespread use in the hands of geologists. The flaws had to be "patched up" after they had become far too common to be wished away as "a few malfunctioning watches" or "a few rotten apples." As a result, it is not at all surprising to learn that geologists have long since scaled back their expectations for all of the dating methods.
    One of the advances in isotopic dating over the last few decades has been the ability to date individual mineral grains. However, this has generated suites of mutually contradictory dates. What had been previously accepted as reliable dates on mineral aggregates has often turned out to be a composite "average" of widely contradictory dates. Of course, the fact that dates on individual mineral grains are now available only makes it easier for the uniformitarian geochronologist to "shop around" for a favored date.
    The closure temperatures inferred for isotopic-dating systems are widely contradictory. Moreover, they are rendered largely irrelevant by the fact that all of the isotopic-dating systems are highly vulnerable to low-temperature fluid-dominated processes.
    Isochron-based methods are all severely flawed. Multiple "good" isochrons can form from the same suite of rocks. Uniforitarians have had to retreat from their once-firm conviction that highly-collinear points on an isochron necessarily denote a reliable age. And, arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, there is no objective way of distinguishing an isochron that has resulted from long-term (or, for that matter, short-term) radioactive decay, of parent elements, from an isochron that is solely an artifact of geochemical processes.
    The Ar-Ar method has, until recently, been thought of being self-checking as to reliability of the dates obtained. Now, and on uniformitarians' own terms, a flat plateau is recognized as being far from ipso facto proof of a "good" date. Special pleading is used to ascertain the presumed meaning of "staircase-shaped" spectra. No longer is it believed that "excess argon" must necessarily produce a "saddle-shaped" spectrum. Geologic information admittedly must be used to evaluate Ar-Ar spectra, and this itself self-refutes the claim that the Ar-Ar method is self-diagnostic.
    With advances in U-Pb dating, we now can date parts of individual zircon grains. In doing so, we have also learned that it is usual for granitic bodies to contain widely divergent dates, and these must be blamed on xenocrystic contamination - whether supported by petrographic evidence or not. It is now known that collinear points on a concordia plot need not have any meaning. The abrasion of zircon grains sometimes allows for the emergence of concordant dates, but often does not. It is thus yet another form of special pleading.
    The conundrum of discrepant results and special pleading deprives isotopic dating of all credibility. It remains doubtful if there exists any other field of science where data could be so selectively manipulated at will. Therefore, pending a full understanding of isotopic systems in the light of the creationist-diluvialist paradigm, none of the results of these presumed dating system should be taken as serious proof for the multimillion to multibillion year dates they indicate.
    ... Creationist scientists must keep puncturing the self-serving myths of isotopic dating, and shine the light of truth on the fatal flaws of these dating methods even as we continue work to understand isotopic systems in the light of the creationist-diluvialist paradigm (as done, for example, by the RATE Project: Vardiman 1997, 1998 - see publications on web www.icr.org )

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