Radiometric dating falsely assumes initial conditions are known

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Contents 1 Claim 2 Source 3 Responses 4 Fallacies contained in this claim 5 External Links 6 See Also 7 Acknowledgments

Claim

Radiometric dating falsely assumes that initial conditions are known, that none of the daughter components are in the mineral initially.

Source

• Morris, Henry M., 1974. Scientific Creationism, Master Books, Arkansas, p. 139.

Responses

1. Initial concentrations of daughter isotopes are only needed for so-called "generic radiometric dating", in which one makes one measurement of isotopic content and calculates from there. Scientists have devised other techniques for radiometric dating, such as the isochron method and concordia/discordia, in which the initial conditions needn't be known to begin with.
2. The initial assumptions often have good evidence and explanations to back them up. For example, for precise radiocarbon dating, the initial concentration of carbon-14 in the sample (i.e. the carbon-14 in the environment when the sample died) must be known. This can be determined by dendrochronology and correlated with studies of ice-cores, coral layers and speleothems. While this is not completely precise and foolproof, comparisons with other methods show its reliability.
3. add more responses

Fallacies contained in this claim

• add fallacies

External Links

• Mark Isaak's page for this claim [1]
• CreationWiki's comments [2]
• Stassen, Chris, 1994. Isochron Dating. [[3]]

See Also

• Why is Creationism not a Scientific Theory?

Acknowledgments