Creation v. Evolution: How Carbon Dating Works

Recently Bill Nye and Ken Ham had a debate regarding the validity of evolution and creationism. This debate mixed with the recent discovery of the earliest known human footprints outside Africa is leading a big question to arise: How does carbon dating work? Well, Trace did some digging and is here to tell you all about carbon dating and other ways we can know the age of an object or fossil.

Read More:
Earliest Human Footprints Outside Africa Found in Britain
"Footprints left by ancient humans 800,000 years ago have been found in Britain, the earliest evidence of such markings outside Africa, scientists said Friday."

Hominin Footprints From Early Pleistocene Deposits At Happisburgh, UK
"Investigations at Happisburgh, UK, have revealed the oldest known hominin footprint surface outside Africa at between ca. 1 million and 0.78 million years ago."

How Carbon-14 Works
"You probably have seen or read news stories about fascinating ancient artifacts. At an ar­chaeological dig, a piece of wooden tool is unearthed and the archaeologist finds it to be 5,000 years old."

How Do Scientists Determine The Age Of Dinosaur Bones?
"The most widely known form of radiometric dating is carbon-14 dating."

Radiocarbon Dating
"Radiocarbon dating had its origin in a study of the possible effects that cosmic rays might have on the earth and the earth's atmosphere."

Core Sample Sends Carbon Clock Farther Back In Time
"Sediment from Japanese lake provides more accurate timeline for dating objects as far back as 50,000 years."

Deep Sea Corals May Be Oldest Living Marine Organism
"Deep-sea corals from about 400 meters off the coast of the Hawaiian Islands are much older than once believed and some may be the oldest living marine organisms known to man."

Climate Close-up: Coral Reefs
"The warm, shallow ocean waters of the tropics have talkative "forests" of their own"

Paleoclimatology: The Ice Core Record
"Richard Alley might have envied paleoceanographer Jerry McManus' warm, ship-board lab."

Watch More:
Why There Won't Be Jurassic Park
TestTube Wild Card
Evolution Before Your Eyes

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[jazun]

OH I thought you said 51 million year old footprints when what you meant was fifty individual one million year old footprints

[sainchawlonen]

this is an awful explanation of carbon dating.

[INeverWanted]

This could have easily been just a "how carbon dating works" video. Didn't have to title it "creationism vs evolution" solely for the purpose of starting a shitstorm.

[Grahamaan]

I was genuinely curious about the question at the beginning:

"How do we know someone didn't just make the footprints yesterday [in 800, 000 year old mud]"

Too bad they didn't answer that.

[charlessullivan]

"We can discover the age of a rock layer by the fossils found in it, and we can determine the age of a fossil by the rock layer it is found in"
Sounds like you have no idea what you're doing.

[jacobmyers]

How could footprints be on earth for 50, 000 years old? Rain, or some other natural phenomenon would surely mess them up and leave no trace, especially if we are talking for 1, 000s of years. What do you guys think?

[FadeAwayIntoDarkness]

You guys should do an episode on how N15 in human remains is an indicator that the carbon dates will be off. An episode on how eating any marine life will add old carbon into our bones and throw off dating. Or on how c3 and c4 isotopes can be an indicator of agricultural farming or animal domestication!

Or am I getting way to nerdy for the general population...

[Bahrta_sai]

There have been occasions where a single rock was dated at ~30million years from a sample taken in one spot & a few thousand years from a sample taken in another spot on the same rock. The reason for this is because radiometric dating is very inaccurate. Look up carbon-14 dating & potassium-argon dating.

[danielotis]

One carbon says to the other, "Hey, wanna go see a movie?"
The other carbon says, "Sure, it's a date!"

[emmalusk]

I am a Christian and devoted. I came here to learn. In all respect, how do you carbon date rock if it’s not an organic material? I read that they carbon-date fossils that are in the same sediment group to determine the age of the rock surrounding it. However, these prints were on the surface. So how did they carbon date that? Also, it doesn’t take millions of years for clay to turn into rock. Or even mud to turn into rock. So I was just wondering how they carbon dated this. If anyone can help please do! Thanks so much!

[drphilril]

Wait! How do you know how much carbon was in the fossil to start with?
You know the decay rate. You know what you measure now. So how much you start with is assumed?

And is it also assumed that the rate of production and decay of c14 has reached an equilibrium?

According to science it hasn’t which means that you must assume the amount that was present in the atmosphere at an assumed time that has decade at an assumed steady rate. Ignoring events such as the ice age.
Sorry, to many assumptions to put my faith in n

[ladaylyn]

The problem with this is that after 50k to 60k years one has to relay on the geological dating. Which opens up for lots of questions. Who came up with the numbers and how accurate they are? Just because a hypothesis being established as a fact, cannot be used as a fact to back up another hypothesis! Maybe you should do a video about geological dating, how it came up to be? and what are the facts that back it up and its accuracy?

[Random-bgcw]

Q- How carbon dating works?
A- Flying Spaghetti Monster.

[meee]

well knowing how radiometric dating works is not an argument but it is vital for an argument both against or for. ken ham did a awesome job at pointing our the three assumptions radiometric dating is based on and, also he did mention that there are numerous cases where radiometric dating is clearly shown to be wrong, such as the tree which was dated to bu tens of thousands of years old embedded in millions years old rock layer. thats just one example and there are countless others. 

[DomTarason]

I tried dating Carbon once. It seemed coal at first, but we just ended up graphiting all the time, and the pressure over diamonds was just too much.

[yaboyclear]

Carbon dating in a few easy steps.

1. Confidence. Carbon loves confidence. Go up to it and talk to it, make it know you're interested. Yeah it might turn you down at first, but it admires dedication.
2. Listen. You're never going to land carbon without listening. Listen to its hopes, dreams aspirations, listen to it talk about its day.
3. Be sensual. Remember, carbon may be a foundation of life, but that doesn't mean it doesn't like sexy time.  Learn how it likes to be touched. get in tune with carbon.

So all in all Carbon dating isn't really too difficult. It requires some persistence, but carbon is definitely worth the effort. Good luck to you all, and I hope you get that element of your dreams.

[ChickenWilickers]

Ken Ham- "How do you know, were you there?
Me- "Well actually I was there, and that's how I know the dinosaurs rode off into space."
Ken Ham- "You weren't there!"
Me- "Well how do you know, you weren't there, were you?"
Arguing with creationists XD

[Heeknot]

"You can't know because you weren't there!" You see thats where you have it wrong. I am God. How do i know this? Every time i go to pray i end up just talking to myself. Whats that? You want to prove to me I'm not God? well you can't because you weren't there when i created the universe. Whats the score? God: 2 your logic: 0

[JonathanReyOrantes]

My question is how do we know how much radiation the sun was given out 10, 000 years ago? Or how thick the O-Zone layer was, or any information about that actual time Like climate and weather and things like that.

I am not a scientist but I would assume that, Earth was a lot different back then and I ASSUME that that would effect the “ carbon 14 dating”.

Can anyone tell me please!:)

[SamuelSKBA]

The presenter  looks really ignorant and silly:


1st Error is the notion that carbon-14 all decay at a constant rate from plants to animals to humans. It simple does not. Neither is there the same carbon in the same layers of the rock. Comparing c-14 and normalising the data across different studies leads to error because the fundamental opinion about c14 dating is wrong in the first place.

Secondly, Carbon-14 has a short half life compared to uranium..therefore fossils that are even 100, 000 years old should have virtually no radioactivity in them.  why is there carbon-14 still found in dinosaur bones predicted to be 65-75 millions of years ago?

Thirdly, evolutionary scientist misinterpret 1 ice ring = 1 year. This is not so. Because changes in temperatures in the climate allows ice to melt and solidify. This could produce dozens of ice rings within a year. The earth is only thousands of years old and not millions.

Millions = fantasy. And evolutionists need to add time to try and validate their false fantasy.