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| Vol. 15 No. 9 September 2013 | Page 2 |
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Home | Archive | Guest Book | Links | churches of
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| Vol. 15 No. 9 September 2013 | Page 2 |
Louis Rushmore, Editor
Can you picture in your mind a huge, heavy elephant limping around with the aid of a wooden crutch comparable to what you or I might use if we had injured a foot or a leg? No, I don’t mean a cartoon elephant, but I am referring to a real elephant. Completely unworkable, isn’t it? Well, radiocarbon dating is to evolutionary theory what a wooden crutch would be to our wounded elephant – completely unworkable or useless.
Yet, radiocarbon dating has been a popular method with which evolutionists have attempted to affix dates to formerly living things. This dating method is troubled with numerous assumptions, voluntary or involuntary subjectivity and application to inappropriate subject matter. Hence, the results of radiocarbon dating provide contradictory results even on the same material tested, and overall, it is unreliable. For instance, two parts of the same musk ox found in Fairbanks, AK were subjected to radiocarbon dating, which rendered conflicting dates of 7,200 and 24,000 years old.
Assumptions include theorizing that the half-life of carbon 14 is about 5,730 years, supposing that the rate of decay of carbon 14 has always remained the same (even through the projected millions of years evolutionists tout), that samples being analyzed have not been contaminated by additional carbon 14 from water or soil, that forest fires and volcanic activity have not altered the carbon 14 in a specimen, and that nitrogen in the atmosphere that is radiated by cosmic rays to produce carbon 14 initially has not varied over time. The very nature of this dating methodology does not lend itself for use beyond 50,000 years (or plus/minus 10,000 years per various guess-estimates) because any remaining carbon 14 is too little to analyze with this method. In addition, radiocarbon dating relies for its calibration on other types of dating – unannounced methodologies that also ought to be independently validated before they could verify carbon 14 dating.
Do you see a problem relying on a dating system that depends on such an unsure foundation of assumptions and subjectivity? Is it any wonder that radiocarbon dating interpretation can yield widely contradictory results? Radiocarbon dating has netted ridiculous ages for still living creatures like a shell of a mollusk (23,000 years old) and a shell of a snail (27,000 years old)! Further, recently killed seals through carbon 14 dating appeared to be 1,300 years old! On the other hand, unaware that bone samples were from dinosaurs, carbon 14 analysis in 1990 by the Department of Geosciences at the University in Tucson, AZ came up with 10,000 to 16,000 years old rather than 60 million years old. In addition, diamonds and coal samples submitted elsewhere on other occasions for radiocarbon dating evidenced the presence of carbon 14, which theoretically should not have been discoverable given the hypothesis that coal and diamonds require millions of years to form (carbon 14 should not be discernible somewhere after 70,000 to 100,000 years).
One must know the amount of carbon 14 in a living thing before being able to analyze the amount of carbon 14 in a formerly living thing to ascertain its age. However, no exemplars of living dinosaurs are available to plug into the carbon 14 dating process. Incredibly, though, evolutionists have purported to be able to use carbon 14 dating relative to dinosaurs, which they also claim lived millions of years ago. Do you see a problem here respecting the application of radiocarbon dating to dinosaurs without having a reference sample for them from which to extrapolate?
At best, radiocarbon dating may prove useful regarding wood, bone, shells, etc. that are already known to be not more than thousands of years old. Radiocarbon dating is incapable of determining the age of something that evolutionists may claim is older than the historical record, and it is incapable of determining the age of anything claimed to be millions of years old. Carbon 14 dating is not a threat to the Scriptures – including and especially the biblical account of the creation of all things.
Louis Rushmore
Evolutionary theory as a proposed explanation for the existence of modern organic life, including human beings, is not merely in need of a missing link to substantiate it. The undeniable truth is that the theory of evolution needs thousands upon thousands of missing links! To this date, not even one so-called missing link has been discovered to illustrate the hypothesis of one species transforming into another species. Unequivocally, the fossil record does not validate evolution, but instead, it contradicts it. “…[T]he fossil evidence is so contrary to human evolution as to effectively falsify the idea that humans evolved” (Lubenow 7).
In instances where mutation by a specimen within a species has been observed, it has always proven to be regressive rather than advanced, and with decidedly destructive outcomes. “In other words, in the few cases where genetic mutation has naturally occurred, it has resulted in disease, death or infertility. Genetic mutation has proven to cause negative results, not progressive results, which evolutionists require to make their theory plausible” (Rutherford 13-14).
The crutch of the theory of evolution is the notion of uniformitarianism. This is the idea that all processes observed on earth today have always occurred, and that therefore, vast amounts of time must have been involved in the formation of the universe, including this planet, as well as the sudden appearance of organic life, followed by a series of mutations from specie to specie. The premise is that with time the scientifically impossible somehow becomes believable. However, the very way in which fossils themselves occur requires a degree of catastrophism rather than something akin to uniformitarianism. A layer of fine sediment must immediately encapsulate a plant or an animal that has just died – or which may have been killed by the catastrophe (e.g., flood bearing mud or sand, volcanic ash, etc.). Otherwise, bugs or animals would have consumed the specimen or it would have begun to decay, and in either case there would have been no fossilization. The universal flood of Noah’s day (Genesis 6-8) would explain a worldwide catastrophe capable of providing for the extinction of particularly some land creatures (especially dinosaurs) and depositing their fossilized remains around the globe.
The description of that one-of-a-kind global flood (Genesis 7:11) provides an explanation for the pimpled earth awash in jumbled geological formations. Geological layers are so mixed up throughout the world that the evolutionist’s theory of a geological column exists nowhere on the planet. Older and newer rock layers are in no consistent order across the globe so that examination of geological layers cannot accurately be used in an attempt to substantiate evolutionary theory (i.e., the layer cannot date the fossil). The apparent upheaval that shaped the topography of earth turned things upside down to the extent that it is not uncommon to find fossils of sea creatures on mountain peaks! Natural canyons and carved mountainsides through which highways have been constructed evidence the extensive movement of this sphere’s surface at some time in the past. The questions, though, are, “Did this happen slowly over billions of years (i.e., uniformitarianism and evolution)?” or “Did this occur rapidly and violently over a much shorter period of time, perhaps as little as a year or so (i.e., catastrophism and orchestrated by a Creator)?”
Desperate to find missing links – or even one missing link – in the supposed evolutionary ancestry of modern man has led evolutionists to overextend the evidence in their contentions. Consequently, fossils put forth earlier as human ancestors have been withdrawn because (1) anatomically the fossils instead belonged to apes, (2) molecular biology has overruled some specimens as having any relationship to humans, (3) fragments were too few or too crushed to construct conclusively the skeletal remains of humans, (4) various sophisticated dating methods with their built in assumptions and other limitations were incapable of distinguishing fossils from modern humans, (5) the birth canal of fossilized pelvises were too small to accommodate the supposed transition to bigger brained, more modern supposed links to modern man, or (6) sometimes evolutionists have been caught manufacturing evidence or purposely manipulating bones and fossils in an attempt to corroborate much needed missing links.
Apes are apes, and humans are humans. “…[H]umans have been humans as far back as one can go in the fossil record with no evidence of evolutionary ancestors…” (Lubenow 199). There exists no evidence at all that similar bodily function proves that either evolved from the other. Apes and humans have a parallel existence and fossil record without any links between the two. Today, apes differ among apes, and humans differ among humans. Simple observation of people even within the same race as well as from race to race spots every variance among living humans that evolutionists attempt to ascribe to the remains of humans unearthed throughout the world. “[V]ariation in bone structure…” is comparable to “…variation you likely can see all around you even today. Some heads are big, others are small. Some noses are pointed, and some are flat. Some jawbones look angled, while some look square” (Harrub, Thompson and Lyons). Furthermore, other remains not consistent with human anatomy can be identified with some variety of apes also living today. Bones or fossils of non-living counterparts today simply represent extinct variations of either humans or apes, but provide no bridge or link between apes and men.
The evolutionist must employ subjectivity in concert with his personal opinion to theorize that various fossils represent some chain-link in the claimed evolutionary development of mankind. Concrete evidence to validate evolutionary thought does not exist! The supposed mutation from species to species has never been observed in all of recorded history, and evolutionary hypothesis cannot be duplicated in any way whatsoever even under controlled circumstances in the laboratory. In addition, the missing links by the thousands are still missing!
The theory of evolution exists for one reason and for one reason alone – as an attempt to explain away God. If God can be discounted, then, one does not have to concern himself or herself with morality, etc. and obeying that Creator God. Evolution satisfactorily explains nothing! It cannot account for the origins of the universe, matter, organic life, conscience, good, evil, etc. Evolution persists as an unfounded belief because it is unscientific (actually standing in opposition to known scientific laws) and lacks any evidence to support it. On the other hand, the opening verses of the Bible logically explain the origin of all that exists (complemented with like references throughout both testaments) and corroborate what everyone can observe for himself or herself. “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20 NKJV). “For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God” (Hebrews 3:4-5).
Works Cited
Harrub, Brad; Berth Thompson, Eric Lyons. Evolutionary Fossil Errors. Montgomery: Apologetics P., 2002.
Lubenow, Marvin L. Bones of Contention. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000.
Rutherford, Brett A. Facts and Fallacies of the Fossil Record. Winona: J.C. Choate P., 2000.