Science and the Bible by Bolton Davidheiser, Ph.D.
T h e c a r b o n -1 4 method of dating the past is the one that has come most dramatically to the atten tion of the public. It s usefulness is generally considered to extend about 40,000 years into the past, though some scientists th ink it may be used somewhat further. The public has been led to believe that th is and other radioactive methods of dating are quite precise in their accuracy. Con cerning th is a popular magazine of h igh reputation said that “no ordi nary mechanical clock — not even the finest Sw iss watch — can match our laboratory instruments fo r pre cision.” The accuracy of the carbon-14 method depends upon a number of assumptions. Some of them are rath er technical, and they need not be considered here. Professor Frederick Zenner of the U n ive rsity of London has pointed out the possib ility of a sufficiently uneven distribution of carbon-14 in liv in g matter to re quire that age comparisons be made only between sim ilar things, such as between land shells and sim ilar land shells, oak wood and other oak wood, and the like. W hen W illard F. L ibb y discovered th is method of dating, he was su r prised to find that there is no way to check or standardize it further than a few thousand years. Appar ently it is rather reliable fo r this span in d ry regions, such as parts of Palestine and Egypt. Elsasser, Ney, and W inkler have reported that by u sing the equations given by Libby, objects 2,000 years old would be dat ed too old by about 240 years. T h is is hardly noticeable, because it is in the range of anticipated error. B u t ob jects 4,000 years old would be dated too old by 1,000 years. Anyone can see where th is leads in dating objects sM ll older. In a popular book on the carbon-14 method an account is given of two groups of archaeologists that differed as to the meaning of an inscription on a M ayan doorway. One group said the inscription dated the door at 741 A D and the other group said the in scription meant 481 A D . D r. Libb y tested a piece of wood from the door and reported the carbon-14 date as 451 A D , plus or m inus a few years. A s this was lower than the low date suggested by the archaeologists, this
m ight have been taken to settle the dispute. B u t the other group was not satisfied, and it sent a piece of wood to the U n ive rsity of Pennsylvania. Thirty-three tests produced the date 759 A D , plus or m inus a few years. T h is is higher than the h igh date of the archaeologists! Professor W illiam Lee Stokes of the U n ive rsity of U tah says, “The origina l enthusiasm over carbon-14 dating was followed by a period of more cautious evaluation when many obviously incorrect dates came to light.” Charles B. Hunt, President of the American Geological Institute, says, “N o one seriously proposes that all the determined dates are w ithout error, but we do not know how many of them are in error — 2 5 % ?, 5 0 % ?, 7 5 % ? And we do not know which dates are in error, by what amounts, or why.” E rne st Antevis, w ritin g in the Journal of Geology, says of the car bon-14 method, “It s apologists try a little too hard to make the geology fit the dates.” He adds, “A n informed geological estimate is better than a carbon-14 date lacking geological support, even though the latter may appear attractive by g ivin g an im pression of definiteness.” Professor H. T. Waterbolk, report in g on the 1959 carbon-14 symposium at Gronigen, Netherlands, said, “On one hand, th is [the inaccuracy of carbon-14 dating] is definitely a d is appointing result, especially fo r those who had very h igh hopes fo r preci sion dating by carbon-14. But, on the other hand, it is good to be told ex actly where we stand on these mat ters.” Carbon-14 dates are frequently w ritten w ith the letters “B. P.,” meaning so many years “before the present.” Some authors facetiously w rite the dates as so m any years “B. C.,” by which they mean “before carbon-14.” CORRECTION. Near the end of the article on ouija boards in the Science and the Bible column last month the word unfortunate was substituted for fortunate. The gist of the meaning in tended was: Worst of all is the spirit ual harm which results from contacts with demons. Thus those who seek help from practitioners of the occult and who are merely deceived by charlitans are the fortunate ones.
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JANUARY, 1968
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