Does Radioisotope Dating Give Evidence for a Young or an Old Earth?

What is Radioisotope Dating?

Science has dated the age of the Earth, various rocks, and fossils through what is called Radioisotope Dating. It is also known as Radiometric Dating.  Most scientists have a naturalistic world view which supports the evolutionary paradigm of origins. Biblical Christian creationists oppose evolution. A rock or fossil using radioisotope dating can be dated by measuring the amount of decay. This decay is from radioactivity. Radioisotope dating is more speculative than absolute.

“Radioactive dating is a key concept in determining the age of the earth. Many secular scientists use it to dismantle the faith of Christians and cause them to accept uniformitarian assumptions that, in addition to being scientifically erroneous, demand a figurative and distorted interpretation of Genesis.”¹

—Dr. Vernon Cupps, Nuclear Physicist

The Structure of the Atom

Before I can explain to you what isotopes are and what radioactivity is I need to explain the structure of the atom. Radioisotope dating starts with atoms. The smallest part of matter would be an Atom. The atom was first discovered by the English chemist John Dalton in 1803–1808. He is known as the father of atomic theory. Later subatomic particles that orbited outside the atom like planets do around our sun were discovered and named electrons which carried a negative charge. The Electron was discovered by a British physicist Sir Joseph John Thomson in 1897. There is a central core that was discovered in all atoms. This central core in the atom was discovered by Ernest Rutherford in 1911. He was a physicist and chemist from New Zealand and is known as the father of nuclear physics. This center of the atom we call the Nucleus. This center of the atom called the nucleus is what Nuclear Physics is all about.

Rutherford also discovered a positive charged particle in the nucleus. This is known as a Proton. The number of protons in an atom is known as the Atomic Number. The number of protons and electrons are usually equal. I do not know how many of you had chemistry in high school, but the Periodic Table lists all chemical elements. A chemical Element can be defined as a substance that can no longer be broken down to a simpler form. If you broke the substance down any further, you would have atoms. Each element has its own number of protons. For example, the element hydrogen (H) has one proton; Sodium (Na) has eleven protons; Potassium (K) has nineteen protons. Notice that the symbol of some elements such as Potassium as listed in the periodic table uses different letters than English. That is because all the symbols are abbreviated Latin names. In Latin (H) in hydrogen is Hydrogenium. The (Na) in sodium is Natrium. The (K) in potassium is Kalium. At present there are 118 chemical elements in the periodic table.

Another particularly important atomic particle was discovered in the nucleus. James Chadwick a British physicist in 1932 discovered a neutral particle with a mass like the proton in the nucleus. This neutral particle was named a Neutron. Chadwick earned a Nobel Prize in physics in 1935 for that discovery. The total number of protons plus neutrons in an atom is known as the Mass Number. Once again, the total number of protons in an atom is known as the Atomic Number. This is all listed in the periodic table. Collectively protons and neutrons are known as Nucleons.

Isotopes to Ions

 Atoms in the same element, for example hydrogen may have a different number of neutrons. These atoms are referred to as Isotopes. For example, let us look at the element hydrogen. Hydrogen 99.98% of the time has only one proton and no neutrons in its nucleus. If hydrogen has an added neutron so now it has one proton and one neutron in its nucleus it is still hydrogen, but it is of a different isotope. This hydrogen isotope is referred to as hydrogen–2 or deuterium. The percentage of this other isotope of hydrogen happening is about 0.02%. Still most rare is hydrogen–3. Hydrogen–3 has two neutrons added to the one proton of hydrogen causing a third isotope of hydrogen. This third isotope of hydrogen is referred to as tritium. Atoms that contain the same number of protons and electrons are a Neutral Atom. If a neutral atom gains or loses an electron, then that atom is known as an Ion.

Radioactivity

Natural Radioactivity was discovered by French physicist, Henri Becquerel in 1896. Radioactivity is about decay of an unstable nucleus to a more stable one. This unstable nucleus becomes unstable due to an imbalance of neutrons and protons. An unstable nucleus could break apart releasing some particles. This action is referred to as a Nuclear Reaction because there is a change in the nucleus. For example, a neutron crashes into a bigger nucleus this result is a splitting apart of smaller fragments while releasing energy. This splitting in the nucleus is called Fission. This discovery of fission was quite a breakthrough in nuclear physics. Nuclear fission was first discovered in 1938 by two chemists, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann. The process was further explained in 1939 by two physicists, Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frish. Frish was the scientist who named this process fission. Although nuclear fission could happen in nature it would be exceedingly rare. Most fission is artificially manufactured as a nuclear reaction. There are other types of radioactivity. In the periodic table all elements with over eighty-four protons in the nucleus are going to be unstable. They will eventually decay or what we would call undergo radioactivity. Also, if the nucleus lacks protons being out of balance these isotopes are known as Neutron Rich. They will eventually become radioactive.

Let us look at the element Uranium. It is naturally unstable because it has ninety-two protons and the atomic mass is 238.03. Since Uranium is unstable it is sometimes referred to its atomic mass as an isotope. For example, we may refer to Uranium as U-238 or ²³⁸U. In nature if given enough time this isotope will change to another element. The element Thorium would be the next change. The periodic table mentions Thorium with an atomic mass of 232. But this new isotope of Thorium would be ²³⁴Th. If given enough time the element would change to Protactinium. The atomic mass for Protactinium is 231. But the isotope would be ²³⁴Pa. This goes on and on until eventually you will have a stable isotope of the element Lead. This isotope has a different atomic mass as the element Lead indicated on the periodic table, but this isotope is finally stable because it has eighty-two protons in its nucleus.

Another type of radioactivity is known as Alpha Particle Emission. An Alpha Particle is two protons and two neutrons that break away from the nucleus of a radioactive atom. Several things are happening here. Two protons and two neutrons would be an isotope of helium, or ⁴He. Remember this Alpha Particle has no electrons so it is called an ion. Electrons have negative charges, so this particle picked two positive charges. This positively charged ion is called a Cation. Very rapidly this particle can easily pick up two electrons, it becomes a natural Helium atom and is no longer an ion. Another type of radioactivity would be a Beta Particle Emission. As I wrote before, electrons orbit outside the nucleus of an atom. In a Beta Particle Emission, a neutron decays into a proton and an electron. That means we have an electron in the nucleus, but not for long. A Beta Particle Emission would be defined as an electron emitting from the nucleus. Both particles were discovered by that physicist and chemist, Ernest Rutherford, while experimenting with radiation properties of Uranium. He discovered that the Beta particle was a stronger particle. Another important emission was Gamma Radiation Emission. There is no change of mass like with the Alpha or Beta particle. This was energy that was emitted from radioactive material. This radiation was like X-rays. Although Rutherford named this new type of radiation Gamma Radiation, it was first discovered by Paul Villard in 1900.

I wrote that electrons normally have a negative charge. In manufactured isotopes you can have a phenomenon known as Positron Emission. When a proton decays into a neutron along with a positive charged electron, this electron is now called a Positron. It is immediately emitted from the nucleus. Carl D. Anderson, an American physicist in 1932 identified the new positive charged electron. He said it was the first evidence of antimatter. Another type of nuclear decay was discovered by Luis Alvarez, an American physicist in 1937. It is known as Electron Capture and is exceedingly rare, Electrons have orbits around the nucleus in an atom. If an electron in the innermost orbit is captured by the nucleus the electron combines with a proton forming a neutron. The atomic number is changed by a decrease of one, but the mass number remains the same.

Calculating Radioactive Decay

Mathematicians have calculated how much time it takes for atoms in a rock sample to decay. It takes a certain amount of time for half the atoms to decay in the rock sample, and it takes the same amount of time for the remaining atoms to decay. The time it takes for one half of the rock sample to decay is called Half-life. Mathematically this process of decay is not a linear process. The decay is exponential so must be calculated in logarithm numbers; however, these numbers are not even in the base ten. Mathematicians and scientists use what is called the Natural Logarithm. If you have a scientific calculator there is a button on your calculator next to the log button labeled “In” for natural logarithm. If you know when or why to press this button, you are many steps ahead of me, because I do not know advanced math. To me advanced math is algebra. I will stick with arithmetic and the base ten. So, let us leave these calculations up to the scientists. I will give you some examples of half-lives of certain radioactive isotopes. Many elements have multiple half-lives depending on the isotope of that element. Here are a few examples: Krypton-94 = 1.4 seconds; Radon-222 = 3.8 days; Hydrogen-3 = 12.3 years; Carbon-14 = 5,730 years; Potassium-40 = 1.3 billion years; Uranium-235 = 4.5 billion years. Some of these samples have long years or what we would call Deep Time. Evolutionists love radioactive dating because it supplies the deep time they need for their evolutionary models.

As a creationist, I can tell you that these long years that evolutionists produce are faulty. The main error that evolutionists make is their belief in uniformitarianism. Radioisotope dating has a protocol of four assumptions before the laboratory process is undertaken. 1) Decay constants are constant throughout time 2) The rock being dated is in a closed system 3) Radioisotopes being used for dating the rock are known or can be found 4) Enough decay has occurred in the parent radioisotope to have a measurable daughter isotope. What I first want to make clear here is that all these four assumptions are based on speculative assumptions on how everything functioned on a prehistoric Earth. What was the climate like? What was the atmosphere like? We do not know today, because we were not there. However, evolutionists believe in uniformitarianism. They believe that the past is like the present. Evolutionists believe that all natural laws of chemistry and physics remain the same from the past to the present. That assumption cannot be proven because we cannot go back to the past to check it out. In the next paragraph I will show you modern day evidence showing how faulty this radioisotope dating really is.

Rocks from a recent eruption from Mt. Ngauruhoe in New Zealand were dated using various isotopes. The Potassium-Argon date was 270,000 years to 3.5 million years. A Rubidium-Strontium date was over 133 million years. A Samarium-Neodymium date just under two hundred million years. A Lead-Lead date came to 3.9 billion years. So, which is it? Does anyone know? Should I row the dice? You call this science? What is hilarious is that the true age of the rocks from the eruption were known to be 60 years old. Someone was there to verify it. Do not believe these evolutionary scientists who expect you to believe that they are an authority on deep-time dating. In 1980 Mt. St. Helens erupted, the new volcanic rock was dated by geologist Dr. Steven Austin. He used the Potassium-Argon method of dating new rock that was only 10 years old. The dates he got were 340,000 years to 2.8 million years. See how faulty radioisotope dating is.

The Isochron Method of Radioisotope Dating

Now that we know about atoms and what radioactivity is I can share with you the process of radioisotope dating. Scientists gather multiple samples of the rock that they want to date. First scientists check rocks for contamination. It is assumed that all the daughter isotopes are from radioactive decay. Scientists assume that decay rates are constant. Can you really know the decay is constant? On a graph they plot the ratio of parent and daughter isotopes. This graph is called an Isochron. By intersecting the slope on the graph scientists can estimate the ratios between the stable daughter isotope and parent.

The Dating Clocks

A Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometer (TIMS) is a highly precise instrument used to measure isotopic ratios by ionizing samples through heat and analyzing the resulting ions based on their mass-to-charge ratio. Here are some isotopic dating clocks that are very popular among scientists. Scientists who are known for dating rocks and fossils are called geochronologists.

Radiocarbon Dating: I thought I would deal with this method first because in a nonscientific audience most people have heard of this method for dating. From nonscientific people you might have heard the comment that goes something like this: “Scientists through Carbon-14 dating have proved the Earth to be 4.5 billion years old.” Scientists would not use carbon-14 to date rocks or fossils, because they assume rocks and fossils would be from a distant past of several millions or billions of years old. Carbon-14 dating cannot produce the deep time of millions of years or longer. As I stated above the half-life of Carbon-14= 5,730 years. This method would be used by such scientists as archaeologists and anthropologists for dating ancient civilizations

Potassium–Argon Dating: Ever since the early 1950s, scientists used this method to date certain types of rock. Potassium-40 decays to Argon-40. One reason why scientists like using potassium-40 is that its radioisotopes exhibit three forms of beta decay. As I stated above, a beta particle emission is an emission of an electron from the nucleus. Argon gas that does not react chemically would not be included in the solidification of a rock. If any argon is found inside a rock it is the result of radioactive decay of potassium.  Argon will escape if the rock is melted, the dates obtained are to the last molten time for the rock. Potassium-40 has a long half-life of 1.3 billion years.

Rubidium–Strontium Dating: Rubidium decay used as a clock to date mineral specimens was first proposed by Otto Hahn and Ernst Walling back in 1938. It behaves just like potassium. One disadvantage to this method is that the supply of rubidium exists in microscopic quantities, so the problem is separating the rubidium from the rock. Another problem is that age estimates with this method can give various ages. For example, higher rock strata may date older than the lower strata. Rubidium containment in rock is very rare in nature. These small amounts usually can only be seen with a microscope. Rubidium has a very long half-life of 49 billion years.

Uranium–Lead and Thorium–Lead Dating: These methods of radioisotope dating are sometimes used together. These two dating clocks are known in science as the gold standard for “deep time” dating. The Uranium–Lead clock is the one known to date the Earth. Evolutionary geochronologists date the Earth to 4.54 billion years. Uranium–238 has a long half-life of 4.5 billion years old. Thorium–232 has a long half-life of 14 billion years old. The daughter Lead element is stable at any isotope. There are problems with this dating method. Uranium constants cannot be known due to the wide decay differences in the isotope ratio in various rocks. Unique to this radioisotope clock is it involves multiple daughters in the decay chain. The other clocks above focused on only one. In this decay chain we look at ²³⁸U decaying to ²⁰⁶Pb; ²³⁵U decaying to ²⁰⁷Pb; and ²³²Th decaying to ²⁰⁸Pb. The mineral zircon can help in this dating process. Zircon crystals do not incorporate lead atoms in their structure. Once again, the main problem with the uranium and thorium dating process is assumptions are made from the past that cannot be validated, because no one was there. Evolutionary geochronologists accept a uniformitarian model which caters to their belief in “deep time.”

Last Word

Evolution is the religion of a humanist. Deep time chronology is just one of their tools for proselytizing their faith in evolution or should I say evil–ution. Below is a quote from Dr. Vernon R. Cupps which I want to share with you in closing. Dr. Cupps is a nuclear physicist and a biblical believing creationist who works at the Institute for Creation Research which I support every month financially. This article was about 500 or more words more than I wanted to write, but radioisotope dating has a lot to cover.

“The most important thing we must remember about radioisotope dating is that the present-day measurements and observations are valid scientific facts. What is not valid scientific fact is the extrapolation of those measurements and observations into the past

—Dr. Vernon R. Cupps²

Written by Lonnie Paulson

Does Radioisotope Dating Give Evidence for a Young or an Old Earth? End Notes

1)      Vernon R. Cupps. Rethinking Radiometric Dating, Institute for Creation Research, Dallas, TX 75229 (2019) p 46.

2) Ibid. p 77

3)     John T. Moore, Ed D. Chemistry for Dummies, Wiley Publishing, Inc., Hoboken, NJ 07030 (2011)

4)     Dr. Matthew Bluteau, Super Smart Science, Nuclear Physics Made Easy, Wayland, London, UK (2020)

5) Google