Evidently It's True Ministries
Declaring the evidence that the Christian Worldview is the most reasonable way to approach life until the whole world joyfully proclaims...Evidently It's True!!!
 

We believe that many Christians can tell you a few things about WHAT they believe, but they are not able to tell you WHY they believe it.  Therefore, we fill the gap by providing the answers to almost any conceivable question.

Evidently It's True will give you every reason to believe that the Bible and its central teachings are reliable!!

Follow-Up Letters From You...The Public

Does Carbon Dating Prove That Things Are Millions Of Years Old?


Letter #1     (Go to other letters: Letter #2)

Hey Mr. Shunk,

Just watched the video on carbon dating [Does Carbon Dating Prove That Things Are Millions Of Years Old?] and loved it!  I've been trying to come up with a way to word this same question, so I was glad to see it here.  There is a question I do have on your comment about the rate of decay.  First, how long have we (the scientists) been able to measure carbon dating, or when did they start?  Second, you spoke about the rate of decay saying that 1/2 goes away every 5,730 years!  If we don't have data for that far back then how do we know that this is the rate of decay?  Not being picky just didn't get that part.

Thanks, Rick [from Lincolnville]

 

 

Hey Rick,

Scientists 1st started measuring Carbon decay rates in the 1940’s.  Now to answer your 2nd question:  We don’t have to watch carbon decay for 5730 yrs to know that half of it goes away in that period of time.  We extrapolate that data from smaller samples of time.  Even a short period of time such as 5 years of measuring the carbon is sufficient to calculate it’s half-life.  Picture it this way:

If an item (let’s say a paper scroll) has 100 Milligrams of “Shunkonite” until it dies, then it starts to decay, but after 5 years it has 75 Milligrams of “Shunkonite”, you would say that the rate of decay is 5 Milligram every year.  (Of course you would repeat this experiment several times on the paper scroll and several you’ld measure the decay of “Shunkonite” in other items before concluding that you know for sure what the CURRENT rate of decay is for “Shunkonite”)  So in this experiment with “Shunkonite” we’ve determined that the half-life of “Shunkonite” is 10 years.  Graphically it would look like this:

 

Milligrams of Shunkonite

100

75

50

25

Time in years

0

5

10

15

 

 

 

Half-life

 

 

 

5 yrs worth of data can be extrapolated to get as far as the half-life and even a bit farther.  However the point to this whole thing is that there is a limit to how far you can go.

 

Remember another key here:  Using extrapolation in science is useful and good science BUT THIS SCIENTIFIC WORK ONLY TELLS US THE CURRENT RATE OF DECAY.  It is an assumption (not science) that this rate of decay has always been the same.  Believing a Christian worldview makes it easy to accept that rates of decay (and original amounts of C14) would have been TOTALLY DIFFERENT before the Flood.  I hope this is useful! 

Grace and Peace,

Daniel Shunk

 

(Go to other letters: Letter #2)