>>11594083>>11594146Whitelaw subjected 15,000 published carbon 14 dates to statistical analysis by ranking, and then applied the correction factors using the acknowledged 30 % difference in rates, and the entire data reduce to a remarkably sharp beginning point, about 5,000 years ago. This is a good reason to question openly all the long ages given by the other radiometric methods, reckonings we have been assured are based on sound scientific principles. Taylor comments on carbon 14 dating:
“We may reasonably conclude that within the dating range of calibration standards, perhaps the past five thousand years, the carbon 14 method is probably a good indicator of true age, especially when carried out by the new high - energy technique. For material believed to be older than this, however, the results obtained are all subject to interpretation, according to the presuppositions of the investigator, and the exercise then passes from the area of true science into that of pseudoscience.”
Nobel Prize medalist Melvin Cook determined that carbon 14 was still building up, which could only happen if the process had begun recently. He calculates that the discrepancy between formation and decay indicates an age for our atmosphere of no more than 10,000 years. The likelihood that carbon 14 was produced at a rate up to three times greater in the past, would reduce this figure to a mere 60 00 to 7000 years.
There are problems with potassium argon dating. For example, potassium can be easily leached out of rock by rainwater percolating through it. Argon, produced by the decay of potassium, can easily diffuse through rock. Pressure will also affect the rate of d iffusion. Melvin Cook has found that lead may change its isotopic va l ue by the capture of free neutrons from the environment and that the age of such uranium - bearing rocks containing lead may be essentially zero.
