Problems with Radiometric and Genetic Dating Methods

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Problems with Radiometric and Genetic Dating

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The Religion of Science

Lost in Translation

Problems with Radiometric and Genetic Dating Methods:

Assumption, Preconception, Collusion, and Circular Logic

David Stewart, Jr.

Assumptions of Radiometric Dating

Radiometric and genetic dating methods are often claimed to be accurate, unbiased, and rigorously scientific tools for determining the age of fossils, rocks, and human remains. However, like all methodological tools, results of such dating methods are valid only when their assumptions are met. In “Radiocarbon Dating: Tool or Magic Wand, Robert F. Helfinstine describes the assumptions of radiocarbon dating:^{^[1]}

The assumptions in which the [radiocarbon] dating is made are: 1. It is independent of time for 70,000 years. 2. The value is independent of the geologic location. 3. The percentage of ¹⁴C is not species dependent. 4. The generation activity of ¹⁴C is a known constant. 5. There is no ¹⁴C contamination with modern ¹⁴C. 6. There is no loss of ¹⁴C except by radioactive decay.

Radiocarbon is generated in the upper atmosphere primarily by cosmic ray bombardment of nitrogen (¹⁴N), converting it to ¹⁴C. The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology states that the concentration of ¹⁴C in the earth’s atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere is “relatively” uniform. It then goes on to explain how the relatively uniform condition is really a variable. A key factor in the ¹⁴C generation rate is the strength of the earth’s magnetic field. According to the technical monograph, Origin and Destiny of the Earth’s Magnetic Field, the magnetic field is decaying as a first order exponential with a half life of 1,400 years, a number much less than the 5,700 year half life of ¹⁴C.

The consequence of this decay is that there is a corresponding exponential increase of the generation rate of ¹⁴C. Using present conditions as a reference will result in an increase in the apparent age of older samples. The cosmetic ray flux is an unknown for past ages. The eleven-year sun-spot cycle also has a cyclic effect on the generation rate. Dilution of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere is caused by burning of hydrocarbon fuel or by release of ¹⁴C from CO₂ sinks as the result of atmosphere and hydrosphere warming. Geographic location is probably one of the biggest variables in ¹⁴C formation, yet it seems to be systematically ignored.

Other types of radiometric dating (potassium argon, uranium, etc.) are based on similar assumptions of a known amount of element and isotope at the time of origin of the material being studied, a constant rate of decay throughout time, and the absence of any change in isotope abundance in the atmosphere or biosphere, and geographic independence. These assumptions are dubious, unprovable, and in many cases refuted by existing evidence.

There is no way to prove the assumption of radiometric dating methods that background radiation has remained content for thousands, even millions of years. Geological evidence refutes this assumption. The site Problems with Radiometric and Carbon 14 Dating notes: “It appears that cosmic ray penetration into our atmosphere depends upon the strength of the earth's magnetic field. The rock record indicates that the magnetic field has varied in both strength and direction over time. This has serious implications on C14-C12 chemistry in the upper atmosphere.” And, for that matter, of all other radiometric dating methods. Another site, “The Problem with Carbon 14 and other dating methods” observes:

Carbon dating is based on the assumption that the amount of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere has always been the same. But there is more carbon in the atmosphere now than there was four thousand years ago. Since carbon dating measures the amount of carbon still in a fossil, then the date given is not accurate. Carbon dating makes an animal living four thousand years ago (when there was less atmospheric carbon) appear to have lived thousands of years before it actually did.

Actual data further support the conclusion that ¹⁴C and other radiometric dating techniques have erroneously dated many specimens far before their time.

Radiometric Dating Inconsistencies

Engineer Robert F. Helfinstine documents the problematic dates generated by radiometric dating:^{^[2]}

A few examples include a living tree growing next to an airport dated as being 10,000 years old, and living aquatic plants from Montezuma Well in Arizona, which shows apparent ages from 17,300 to 24,750 years. Why the erroneous numbers? It is assumed that the tree by the airport has obtained carbon from the exhaust fumes of aircraft which diluted the natural ¹⁴C in the atmosphere. The plants at Montezuma Well are evidently getting much of their carbon from the well water, carbon that has lost most of its ¹⁴C content by being aged in the ground for many years. This apparent aging is known as the Seuss effect. Plants, and the animals that feed on them, are influenced by the amount of “old carbon” in their immediate environment. Studies of soil and water conditions show that CO₂ concentration in water under grasslands is approximately 1,000 times greater than CO₂ concentrations in water in equilibrium with air. Forest areas showed an increase of CO₂ concentrations in both soil and water 100 times that of rainwater. Therefore, both plants and animals from zones with high concentrations of old carbon will provide specimens that appear older by conventional ¹⁴C standards than they actually are.

The site “Carbon Dating: why you can’t trust it” cites numerous examples of demonstrably nonsensical results of radiometric dating:

Living penguins have been carbon dated and the results said that they had died 8,000 years ago!

The shells of living mollusks have been dated using the carbon 14 method, only to find that the method gave it a date as having been dead for 23,000 years! (Science vol. 141 1963 pg. 634-637)

The body of a seal that had been dead for 30 years was carbon dated, and the results stated that the seal had died 4,600 years ago! ("The Illustrated Origins Answer Book" by Paul Taylor)

What about a freshly killed seal? Well, they dated one of those too, the results stated that the seal had died 1,300 years ago. (Antarctic Journal vol. 6 Sept-Oct 1971 pg. 211) Antarctic seawater has a low level of C14. Consequently organisms living there dated by C14 give ages much older than their true age.

A lake Bonney seal known to have died only a few weeks before was carbon dated. The results stated that the seal had died between 515 and 715 years ago. (Antarctic Journal, Washington)

Shells from living snails were dated using the Carbon 14 method. The results stated that the snails had died 27,000 years ago. (Science vol. 224 1984 pg. 58-61)

[Using potassium argon dating] "scientists got dates of 164 million and 3 billion years for two Hawaiian lava flows. But these lava flows happened only about 200 years ago in 1800 and 1801. ("Dry bones and other fossils" by Dr. Gary Parker)

Lava flows at Mt Ngauruhoe, New Zealand gave erroneous dates (from K-Ar analyses) ranging from <0.27 to 3.5 (± 0.2) million years old. These rocks were "observed to have cooled from lavas 25-50 years ago." Similar results were obtained on re-testing. ("Radioactive ‘dating’ failure: Recent New Zealand lava flows yield ‘ages’ of millions of years" by Andrew Snelling published in: Creation Ex Nihilo 22(1):18-21 December 1999 - February 2000) .

Helfinstine observed: “When the material being dated has an unknown past history, how can the measured date be considered valid?”^{^[3]}

Preconception, Collusion, and Circular Logic

Richard Milton noted the circular logic of using one dating technique to determine what dates achieved by other methods are allowed to be:

In an interview about his penetrating critique, Facts of Life: Shattering the Myth of Darwinism, the science journalist Richard Milton describes what made him write the book: “It was the absence of transitional fossils that first made me question Darwin’s idea of gradual change. I realized, too, that the procedures used to date rocks were circular. Rocks are used to date fossils; fossils are used to date rocks.”^{^[4]}

Dates obtained by one method are often applied to co-located matter. If a technique is used to calculate a very ancient age estimate for a rock, that date is then applied to local organic matter, even if tests on the organic matter itself do not support the first date!

The site Problems with Radiometric Dating and Carbon 14 Measurement observes: “Can we prove that Carbon dates are accurate? There are usually two ways cited to do this. 1. We can date things for which historians know ‘the right answer.’ 2. We can date things that have been dated by some other method.”

Correlating with known history can take us back, at best, only 4500 years. Beyond that, accepting dates from radiometric or other equally inferential methods brings up the problem of collusion and circular logic. How do we know that the fossil is twenty million years old? Because the rock is twenty million years old. How do we know that the rock is twenty million years old? Because the fossil is twenty million years old. Or, because the charts say that this kind of fossil is found in strata that are twenty million years old. How do we know that a fossil with a radiometrically estimated age of fifty thousand years is really fifty thousand years old, and has experienced fifty thousand years in which all six of the carbon radiodating assumptions have been rigorously observed without any of the discrepancies that we find even in living creatures today? Because we are unwilling to allow into our uniformitarian theory any of the non-uniformitarian possibilities that we see all around us in the world today, and because it makes us feel better to claim that we know something rather than more honestly acknowledging our ignorance. At no point does the process escape the problems of preconception and circular logic and achieve the level of valid scientific documentation.

Educational materials meant for public consumption claim that dating methodologies consistently converge on the predicted results. Yet scientists know that this is far from the truth. Helfinstine observes:^{^[5]}

There are also assumptions of ages of certain rock formations. Yet, radiocarbon dating old wood samples extracted from the rock show dates radically different from the assumed age. Wood found around the carcass of a baby mammoth, Dima, was dated between 9,000 and 10,000 years B.P. Samples of the carcass tissue were dated at 26,000 and 40,000 years B.P. Fat and blood samples from the Berezovka mammoth were dated at 39,000 years B.P., but the plant and pollen remains found in its stomach were dated between 6,000 and 7,000 years B.P. These examples tend to indicate that older samples can give a variety of dates, many of which may have little direct correlation to dates obtained by other methods. This brings to question the validity of many ¹⁴C dates found in the literature.

If dating methods were reliable, why is corroboration from other sources needed? Without specific corroborating historical evidence, which of the discrepant dates is should be accepted as accurate, if indeed any of them are correct at all?

To minimize the public embarrassment of such discrepancies, scholars have engaged in a process of correlation that from a legal perspective would be better termed collusion or conspiracy. The results of one dating method are used to determine what the allowed dates from another method may be. Scientists, of course, are not blinded as to the presumed origin of the materials they are testing. Thus, they know what scientific consensus dictates the dates “should” be before the tests are even run. Nor are they unaware of the dire professional consequences, should they challenge consensus dating with “unfiltered” results. At best, only minor challenges to existing chronologies can be tolerated: there is certainly no room for results that demonstrate more than slight discrepancies from the party line. Thus a process of preconception, collusion, and circular logic is used to ensure that fundamental dogmas held with religious fervor by professionals remain unchallenged.

These colluded dates are in turn packaged to provide additional evidence against Biblicists. Evolutionists claim that converging dates from multiple “independent” radiometric dating methods provide concrete proof that the dating is solid, and that Biblicists are delusionary ignoramuses. Yet they ignore the fact that the results arrived at by different dating methods are not independent. All radiometric dating methods depend on a shared set of assumptions, and a change in atmospheric radiation, solar activity, or the magnetic field of the earth – such as we know occurred with the polar shift at the time of the global flood – would result in radiometric dates of rocks and fossils from before that time producing dates significantly older than they actually are. Such claims of converging evidence also ignore the fact that data filtration and collusion have frequently occurred, with the results from one dating method (or from geologic charts) being used to determine what results can be allowed from other dating methods. One set of dates is consulted in determining the other, and then they are presented to the public as independent documentation converging on the same point! Without blinded study, there can be no honest claims of independent convergence.

When laboratories are blinded so that they do not know the presumed origin of the material being tested, the radiometric dates produced are quite amusing and discrediting. For instance, the site “The Problem with Carbon 14 and other dating methods” notes:

Many people are under the false impression that carbon dating proves that dinosaurs and other extinct animals lived millions of years ago. What many do not realize is that carbon dating is not used to date dinosaurs. The reason? Carbon dating is only accurate back a few thousand years. So if scientists believe that a creature lived millions of years ago, then they would need to date it another way. But there is the problem. They assume dinosaurs lived millions of years ago (instead of thousands of years ago like the bible says). They ignore evidence that does not fit their preconceived notion. What would happen if a dinosaur bone were carbon dated? - At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Scientists dated dinosaur bones using the Carbon dating method. The age they came back with was only a few thousand years old.

This date did not fit the preconceived notion that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. So what did they do? They threw the results out. And kept their theory that dinosaurs lived "millions of years ago" instead. This is common practice. They then use potassium argon, or other methods, and date the fossils again. They do this many times, using a different dating method each time. The results can be as much as 150 million years different from each other! - how’s that for an "exact" science? They then pick the date they like best, based upon their preconceived notion of how old their theory says the fossil should be (based upon the Geologic column).

The above author cites an Allosaurus bone sent to the University of Arizona and tested on August 10, 1990, without disclosing its origins and reports: “The result was a carbon 14 date of 16,120 +/- 220 years.” This ¹⁴C reading is subject to the assumptions previously noted, but divergence from the assumptions has almost always resulted in overestimation – not underestimation – of the real date. If the dinosaur bones were in fact millions of years old, there would be virtually no ¹⁴C left in them. Yet such studies have consistently shown that dinosaur bones do in fact have far higher than predicted levels of ¹⁴C, indicating far more recent dates that claimed, and cooexistence of dinosaurs with early humans. The only way evolutionists have been able to get around such inconvenient facts has been to ignore dinosaur ¹⁴C dates and employ an entirely different dating method that cannot be validated based on historical data, and then to refuse to allow the dating of human bones by the same method.

Alleged radiometric dates do not pass the rudimentary scientific test of randomized double-blinded study. Carbon dating of ancient human and dinosaur bones show similar time frames with considerable overlap. This produces problems for evolutionists, and so carbon-14 dates of dinosaurs are ignored all together in favor of potassium argon or other dating methods that allegedly allow a longer timeframe. Of course, potassium argon and uranium dating methods are subject to the same troubled and unproven assumptions as ¹⁴C dating, with these concerns being heightened further by the lack of any known historical dates to serve as a control. There is no way to prove that any fossil or rock is even one million years old. Evolutionists who beat Biblical literalists over the head with claims of the profoundly “scientific” and definitively nature of radiometric dating conveniently change their tune when carbon dating shows that dinosaurs lived far more recently than their theories can tolerate. Thus preconception is pawned off on the masses as unassailable fact.

Data Tampering and Knowledge Filtration

In Forbidden Archaeology, Cremo and Thompson document the dishonest stratigraphic reclassification of bones and artifacts according to preconceived notions, resulting in knowledge filtration:^{^[6]}

We can hardly be certain that there is not another Piltdown-like forgery in one of the world’s greatest museums, just waiting to be uncovered. The impact of Piltdown remains, therefore, damaging. There is, however, another more insidious and pervasive kind of cheating – the route editing and reclassifying of data according to rigid theoretical preconceptions.

Vayson de Pradenne, of the Ecole d’Anthropologie in Paris, wrote in his book Fraudes Archeologiques (1925): “one often finds men of science possessed by a pre-conceived idea who, without committing real frauds, do not hesitate to give observed facts a twist in the direction which agrees with their theories. A man may examine, for example, that the law of progress in pre-historic industries must show itself everywhere and always in the smallest details. Seeing the simultaneous presence in a deposit of carefully finished artifacts and others of a coarser type, he decides that there must be two levels: the lower one yielding the coarser specimens. He will class his finds according to their type, not according to the stratum in which he found them. If at the base he finds a finely worked implement he will declare there has been accidental penetration and that the specimen must be re-integrated with the site of its origin by placing it with the items from the higher levels. He will end with real trickery in the stratigraphic presentation of his specimens; trickery in aid of a pre-conceived idea, but more or less unconsciously done by a man of good faith whom no one would call fraudulent. The case is often seen, and if I mention no names it is not because I do not know any (Vere 1959, pp. 1-2).

This sort of thing goes on not just in the British Museum, but in all museums, universities, and other centers of paleoanthropological research the world over. Although each separate incident of knowledge filtration seems minor, the cumulative effect is overwhelming, serving to radically distort and obscure our picture of human origins and antiquity.

Ignoring Inconvenient Dates

Establishment scholars, who are happy to use estimated radiometric dates to bludgeon Bible believers with claims of ignorantly harboring beliefs “disproved” by scientific data, ironically have no qualms about dismissing inconvenient radiometric dates when they fail to jive with consensus theory. The process of collusion described above is in fact mandatory for anyone to be successful in archaeology and related fields. Those who are not willing to tweak their calculated dates to the “allowable” range are drummed out of the scientific community.

For instance, archaeologist Dr. Victoria Steen-McIntire studied ancient human remains in Mexico. Carefully applying accepted techniques with four different dating methods, her studies pointed to an estimated age of 250,000 years! As consensus viewpoint claimed at the time that the Americas had only been populated for some 20,000 years, Dr. Steen-McIntire’s data was clearly not acceptable. Yet the scientific community did not revise existing theories to accommodate the new data. Nor did they scrutinize the assumptions and limitations of radiometric dating methods, as foundational dogmas depended too heavily on the supposed precision and accuracy of radiometric dating. J. Douglas Kenyon records the outcome:

Nevertheless, the massive reexamination of orthodox theory and the wholesale rewriting of textbooks that one might logically have expected did not ensue. What did follow was public ridicule of Steen-McIntyre’s work and the vilification of her character. She has not been able to find work in her field since.^{^[7]}

Dr. Steen-McIntyre failed to “play the game” of collusion in arriving at a predetermined result, and thus was expelled from the club.

There are numerous other examples where establishment scholars have disregarded dates when they clash with their theories. For instance, the Kensington Runestone has been demonstrated by geologic techniques to be very old, yet conventionalist scholars still claim it as a modern hoax. The lack of acceptance relates not to any lack of antiquity of the stone, but rather to the dogmatic but unsupported preconception that Viking explorers could not have journeyed so far inland.

Scholars do not arrive at dates because of compelling evidence from nuclear dating. Charles Ginenthal stated, “radiocarbon dating is not employed to test theories, but to support them…radiocarbon always gives a scattered set of dates. The theorists then pick the ones that they believe to be to be correct.”^{^[8]} Nuclear dating is a tool used to bolster or affirm preconceived beliefs, but is quietly ignored when results contradict theory.

Age of the Earth, Age of Man

Douglas Kenyon observed:

The theoretical four-billion-year age of the planet was determined not by scientific or geologic evidence, according to the science writer Richard Milton...but by estimating how long it should have taken for accidental life to have occurred, given the extreme improbability of life having occurred at all through random, material causes.^{^[9]}

Yet carbon 14 data suggests that the earth may be far younger in fact suggests that the earth may be far younger. “The Problem with Carbon 14 and other dating methods” observes:

Because of the earth’s declining magnetic field, more radiation (which forms ¹⁴C) is allowed into the earth’s atmosphere. The man who invented carbon dating knew that atmospheric carbon would reach equilibrium in 30,000 years. He assumed that the earth was millions of years old, and that it was already at equilibrium. However each time they test it, they find more ¹⁴C in the atmosphere, and have realized that we are only 1/3 the way to equilibrium. What does this mean? It means that based on ¹⁴C formation, the earth has to be less than 1/3 of 30,000 years old. This would make the earth less than 10,000 years old!

Similarly, Wendell Stewart reported that when he asked the great anthropologist Louis Leakey where the hundred million year figure for the presence of humans on earth came from, he notes that Leakey acknowledged that this was merely an “educated guess.” There is no data that would support such dates as amounting to anything more than speculation. Yet these data points are widely presented to the public as fact.

Anti-Biblical Darwinist Agenda

Establishment scholars have been careful to craft theoretical time frames extending back hundreds of millions, even billions of years, so that when errors have been brought to light and individuals have begun to question the assumptions of theory, dates can be contracted substantially, yet still without allowing a shred of credibility to biblical literalists. Thus, even when massive errors are discovered prompting drastic contractions of dating -- such as from 58 million years to 2 million years for the Antarctic ice cap with the discovery of an ancient forest near the South Pole, a contraction of more than 96% -- evolutionists are quick to point out that even the revised dates are far earlier than that of a traditional Biblical time frame. Even these contracted dates are highly problematic from a scientific standpoint – indeed, the carbon deficiency of Antarctic flora and fauna leading to vastly exaggerated ages is well-documented (remember the “eight thousand year old” living penguins?). Yet the dates are not allowed to be shortened into a range that would allow Biblical dates to be taken seriously! This is, at least, when such discrepancies are acknowledged at all: numerous theories, such as the “ice age” and its alleged chronology, have continued to be promulgated almost without change in the face of abundant incompatible evidence. Evolutionists even have invented terms such as “erratics” to excuse themselves from the need to explain vast inconsistencies that their theory is incapable of explaining.

Genetic Dating

I dealt only briefly with genetic dating issues in my 2006 article, DNA and the Book of Mormon. A more complete discussion of the problems and limitations of genetic dating issues can be found in my debate with a Ph.D. cancer researcher and ex-Mormon critic, on the FAIR boards here. The site requires free registration to view the discussion. An archived version of the discussion (no registration required) can be found here: page 1, page 2. In this discussion, I demonstrate that existing genetic data is fully consistent with the entry of modern “Native American” populations into the Americas as recently as 2500 years ago. Readers can consider the arguments and data and make their own decisions about how solid genetic dates are. Most readers I have heard from have expressed that I have demonstrated that the dates have far more uncertainty and margin of error than critics would like them to believe.

Updated scientific references cited in my subsequent DNA Rebuttal to Signature Book provide evidence that actual Y-chromosome mutation rates in these populations are much higher than researchers have modeled into their calculations, leading to estimated genetic dates that are erroneously far too old.

Word Games with Nomenclature

Modern scientific dating literature has attempted to circumvent the traditional B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domino) dating designations by the introduction of the designations “B.C.E.” (“Before Common Era”) and “B.P.” (“Before Present”). These nonsensical designations demonstrate how the scientific establishment has made the dating system less scientific by going out of their way to ignore dates based on the birth of Christ – a documented historical event attested to in both secular and religious sources – and has replaced it with a completely unscientific and arbitrary designation of the “Common Era” which is not based on any documented historical event or achievement. If the “Common Era” is not based on Christ, then what, pray tell, is it based on?

“Before Present” is equally troubled. The fact that the “present” when the dates are measured is itself relative introduces the need for correction between the current “present” and the “present” of the time of measurement, which by the time it is reported is no longer present, but past. A date recorded as A.D. or B.C. specifically identifies the year or range of years in question, while a date recorded as “Before Present” must first be brought up to the real present (as time has an inconvenient habit of passing!) before it can be identified with a specific year. For instance, a relic designated as having originated “600 years before present” in 1950 A.D. would actually be “657 years before present” in 2007 A.D. Such are the gymnastics of contradictory nomenclature and illogic employed by establishment scholars, all to avoid any acknowledgment of Christ.

One solution would be for evolutionists to introduce objective dates based on known historical facts. For instance, they “know” that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. They know this because their theory is more important than the data itself. The year that this was determined would be 4,500,000,000; the next year would be 4,500,000,001, and so forth. Even with new scientific discovery, there would never be any need to revise the dates. This is because the age of the earth is axiomatic fact, and is not subject to question or challenge. As this number was accepted without any basis in scientific observation, it is equally obvious that that no real-world data can possibly disprove it.

Faulty Assumptions, Erroneous Conclusions

Robert F. Helfinstine observed:^{^[10]}

The assumptions on which the [¹⁴C dating] process was originally established need to be reconsidered. It is not independent of time; it is dependent on geographical location; it is species dependent; the generation activity is changing, and it is subject to contamination. There have been a number of “correction factors” proposed in attempts to normalize ¹⁴C dating. Tree ring dating has been used, but that process has its own limitations. The influence of the Earth’s magnetic field can be compensated to some extent, but the large differences due to geographical location can only be guessed at. Carbon 14 is not the useful tool it was thought to be, but it is often used as a kind of magic wand in attempts to provide validation for establishing dates of ancient fossils. And because of the general commitment to using ¹⁴C dates, Charles Ginenthal commented, “I believe that because radiocarbon dating is the one great backbone and support of the superstructure of the uniformitarian history of the past…all of this evidence for a distorted ration of ¹⁴C/¹²C will be denied.”

Similar problems have been noted with other radiometric and genetic dating methods. Various dating methods can provide useful tools. However, a failure to recognize these limitations, the unproven belief that problematic assumptions underpinning these methods have remained at predicted levels for millions of years, the lack of blinding of laboratories and investigators in dating samples, data filtration, preconception, collusion, and circular reasoning all undermine the integrity of the dates calculated by such methods. Very ancient radiometric dates demonstrate the greatest margin for error. Radiometric and genetic dates which cannot be correlated with known historical finds should be viewed skeptically.

For foundational evolutionist theories that were contrived in the face of contrary evidence and then declared as “fact,” there is not, nor can be, any evidence of “proof” sufficient to overturn them. New evidence can only prompt revision of theories that are actually based on evidence. But when theory is used to filter data, to preconceive results, and to determine what evidence can or cannot be accepted, science is turned on its head. This is the case with radiometric dating methods.

Scholars are still very much in denial about the problems of dating methods. They continue the unqualified promulgation of tenuous calculations based on unsupportable assumptions as definitive fact and fail to divulge the problems and contradictions of their methodology to a trusting public. Many proponents either poorly understand the limitations of dating methods, or are not honest. Neither the professionals, nor the public that accepts their pronouncements as fact, have come to grips with the uncertainty about dating methods. Nor can they, as honest disclosure would lead to a collapse of the whole range of archaeological and geological dates that “experts” have fashioned out of whole cloth.

[2] Robert F. Helfinstine, “Radiocarbon Dating: Tool or Magic Wand?” Ancient American 23:8-9.

[3] Robert F. Helfinstine, “Radiocarbon Dating: Tool or Magic Wand?” Ancient American 23:9.

[4] Kenyon, J. Douglas ed. Forbidden History. Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Company, 2005, p. 10.

[5] Robert F. Helfinstine, “Radiocarbon Dating: Tool or Magic Wand?” Ancient American 23:8-9.

[6] Cremo and Thompson, Forbidden Archaeology, p. 524.

[7] Kenyon, J. Douglas ed. Forbidden History. Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Company, 2005, p. 22-23.

[8] As cited in Robert F. Helfinstine, “Radiocarbon Dating: Tool or Magic Wand?” Ancient American 23:8-9.

[9] Kenyon, J. Douglas ed. Forbidden History. Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Company, 2005, p. 80

[10] Robert F. Helfinstine, “Radiocarbon Dating: Tool or Magic Wand?” Ancient American 23:8-9.