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The Smithsonian "Proves Evolution" Using Evidence Proven As Unreliable

We went to the Smithsonian's Human Origins web site to get evidence proving evolution is true. What did we find?

Smithsonian Web Page

DATING HUMAN FOSSILS

The Smithsonian claims the dating of human fossils proves evolution actually happened. They claim that fossil dating methods are "well-tested." That's simply not true. Dating methods such as carbon 14 work well for looking at the past 2000 - 3000 years, a time range for which we have other means of asertaining dates that allow us to calibrate the dating methods the Smithsonian lists. Beyond that, dating starts to get squirrely.

In the above video we look at the dating of the Mungo Woman fossil in Australia. Our presentation is based on a Creation Ministries International article. You can read that article, and get the details here: The Dating Game (Details About Mungo Woman) (CIM Article)

The methods mentioned in the video as being used to date the Mungo Woman fossil include carbon 14 and thermolumionescence. Carbon 14 was not even consistent with itself, as three tests produced three different C14 results: 19,000 years; 24,700 years and 26,500 years. The thermoluminescence test produce yet a fourth age for the fossil, 42,000 years.

Carbon 14 Dating: Living things take in carbon, incuding carbon 14 from the atmosphere. Over time carbon 14 (C14) radioactively decays to nitrogen. When the organism dies it stops taking in C14, and the amount of carbon 14 in the organism starts to decrease. The age of the organism is determined by measuring the amount of C14 left in the organism. However, there are many assumptions that result in errors in determining the age. These include assuming initial conditions, and assuming the environmental conditions have not changed. For example the global flood would have caused major changes to earth's magnetic field, with a significant impact on C14 formation. The flood also buried huge amounts of vegetation taking large amounts of carbon out of the environment, increasing the atmospheric C14 ratio.

For a Science Pastor video about carbon 14 dating click here.

Thermoluminescence Dating: Some minerals such as quartz crystals absort energy from the sun. When heated they emit light allowing the amount of energy they have stored to be measured. It is assumed they started at zero and slowly absorbed energy. But, that is an assumption. Also, it is assumed the absortion rate is constant, and that there have been no changes in the environment or crystal that would impact the energy stored in the crystal. This means, for example, it is assumed that neither the fossil, nor the material surrounding the fossil, was transported (by water for example) from another location. In the case of the Mungo Woman, the quartz crystals in the sand layer she was buried in may have already absorbed a significant amount of energy before she was buried. The result would be an inaccurate age.

Electron-Spin Resonance (ESR) and Optically-Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) Dating: Both of these are similar to Thermoluminescent dating, and subject to the same assumptions. The difference is that they use different methods for measuring hte energy stored in the crystals. OSL exposes the crystals to light in order to make them emit their stored light. ESR used gamma radiation to get the crystals to emit their stored light.

Thorium-Uranium (Th/U) and Protactinium-Uranium (Pa/U) Dating: (The fourth dating method used on Mungo Woman, the method that determined the fossil's age to be 62,000 years, utilized thorium-uranium (Th/U) and protactinium-uranium (Pa/U) dating. This seems a little odd in that these methods apply to volcanic materials. They usually are not appropriate for dating fossils, nor sand (the material the fossil wsa buried in). If there were basalt grains or zircon cruystals in the sand, they had to have been transported there, and the dating would measure their origin not the burial date of the fossil. For these matrials to be present in the fossil would require them to have been absobed into the bone, which would be very unusual. In addition, these dating methods have an uncertainty that can be in the range of a million years. That means geting a date of 62,000 years +/- a million years is a meaningless date. Yet the Austrial National University accepted these dating methods as valid, and published the study that used these dates. The age they produced was only rejected because 62,000 was too old to fit in the accepted evolution story about hominids in Australia.

Evolution has the last word on dating, not the results of dating tests.

Additional, More Detailed Information

Radiometric dating breakthroughs (CMI Article)

Examining Thermoluminescence Dating (ICR Acts & Facts)

Radiometric Dating—Not Infallible (AIG Article)