Blind Dating

Bias: Openly Admitted or Carefully Hidden

Let me start with this again: I absolutely believe in God’s Word. I believe that the Bible is 100% accurate on any subject that it touches on. When I look at the world, this book is my starting point. My views and beliefs are shaped by the words on its pages - as it should be with every believer. After all, believers should believe!

Although it’s not commonly admitted, secular scientist have the same type of faith. Their belief that there is no supernatural (or at least no supernatural impact on the natural process) shapes the way they see the world.

This is the secret to understanding the creation/evolution debate: Everyone has a bias based on what they believe - no one is as open-minded as they claim to be. If you ever need proof of that statement, just walk onto a college campus and say that you believe in creation - you’ll find out how open-minded some of these “enlightened” people are!

This bias can be clearly seen in the field of radiometric dating. Radiometric dating is often used to demonstrate how scientific the General Theory of Evolution (GTE) is. “We can scientifically prove that the earth is 4.5 billion years old! Doesn’t that prove that you Christians are all nuts to disagree with us?”

Trust me, I wish most debates would go deeper than that. I would love to have an honest discussion, bringing up all the strongest arguments on each side. But usually, I can’t get past the level of, “Science has proven evolution - you’re crazy.” End of argument.

Radiometric Dating - Simply Illustrated

In simple terms, radiometric dating measures how quickly a unstable radioisotope (like carbon-14, potassium-40 and uranium 238) decays into its daughter element (nitrogen-14, argon 40, and lead 206 respectively). The theory is this; since this radioactive decay occurs at a consistent pace, we can look at how much of the daughter element is left in a rock and calculate backwards to find out when it first formed.

Let me illustrate how radiometric dating works using a simple example: a burning candle.
Let’s say that we walk into a room and see a lit candle. I turn to you and ask you when it was lit. Using the best scientific methods at your disposal, you begin your investigation.
First you measure the candle and find that it is five inches tall.
Then you measure it again an hour later and find that it is four inches tall.
Using that information, you discover that the candle is currently burning at one inch per hour.

Is that enough information to determine when it was lit? Of course not...there are still two factors that you need to know:
1 - How tall was the candle at the beginning? (Without this information, you have no basis, no starting point to calculate from.)
2 - Has it always been burning at one inch per hour? (Maybe there was a difference in the wick that caused it to burn faster; or maybe the presence of people in the room has cause it to burn slower over the last hour.)

And those are the same two problems scientists still have with radiometric dating. Scientists only know two parts to a four-part equation:

1 - How much of the daughter element (lead-206 for example) is present in the rock? [Or how tall is the candle right now?]
This is one of the factors that scientists know, as it can be easily observed in the laboratory.

2 - What is the present speed that the radioisotope (uranium-238) decays into the daughter element (lead-206)? [Or how fast is the candle currently burning down?]
Again, this is easily observable and testable; it’s the second part of the equation that scientists know for sure.

3 - Has the speed of radiometric decay been constant in the past? [Or has this candle always burned at one inch-per-hour?]
Scientist can’t know this for sure. Has there been an environmental shift that caused the decay speed to slow down or speed up? Could more of the radioisotope or the daughter element have been added to the rock at some point in the past? Both of these factors could give a completely wrong date!

4 - How much of the daughter element was present to begin with? [How tall was that candle before it was lit?]
This is a very important factor in this equation. Two different assumptions about how much uranium-238, for example, was originally in a rock could bring two dramatically different dates for formation!

No Such Thing As A “Blind Date”

Because of these unknown factors, no scientist only sends a rock into a laboratory to be dated. They also have to send additional information to help “aim” the dating process. Information like what layer of rock it was taken from, what fossils were around it, and even an “estimated age” are all sent into the laboratory to help guide the dating process.

The most commonly used “guide” to the dating process is the fossils found in the rocks. If a T-rex fossil was found in the layer of rock that is being tested, then the laboratory knows that the rock “must be” 67-65 million years old. If a certain ammonite fossil is found in the rock layer, then it’s assumed to be from the Jurassic period. Fossils that help with the dating process are called “index fossils.” Because their age is supposedly known, index fossils help to date the different rock layers.

Do you see it? Radiometric dating (supposedly the scientific “proof” an incredibly old earth) is really based on secular assumptions on the age of a particular fossil. It collapses with a single question - “How do you know how old the index fossil is?” Radiometric dating isn’t scientific at all - at least not the way it’s being used. No, the “scientific” process of radiometric dating is actually the carefully concealed bias of evolutionists!

If the evolutionist’s “silver bullet” of radiometric dating doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, what’s left for the theory? They’re left with exactly what they started with: an interesting story, a fairy tale, an imaginative world where millions of years pass in the blink of an eye.

Why is this important? Because the Word of God gives the earth a maximum age of 6,000 years. According to the Bible, the first humans were made when the world was only six days old. So this teaching of “millions of years before man” cannot line up with a Biblical worldview.

It’s important for us as believers to realize that God’s Word can be trusted from beginning to end. It the only truthful foundation to build our worldview on. Unlike evolutionists, I freely admit that I have a bias! My bias is contained in the Word of God!