Participants:
Series Code: EI
Program Code: EI190010S
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00:36 Hello everyone, I'm Dr. Sven string.
00:38 It has been great going on this Evolution Impossible journey 00:41 together, where we're leaving no stone unturned 00:45 to find out whether Darwin's theory of evolution 00:47 could actually work. 00:48 I'm delighted to be able to welcome back, Justin Torossian. 00:51 Good to have you here. 00:52 And we're very privileged to have Melvin Sandelin, 00:56 who has a Swedish-Dutch background. 00:58 Now, Melvin, I reckon if we go back far enough, 01:00 we could find a Swedish common ancestor. 01:03 And also we have Jeandré Roux who is a pilot. 01:06 Glad you could drop by. 01:08 And always here to give us good answers for our 01:11 questions is Dr. John Ashton. 01:12 Thanks for being here. 01:15 You know, figuring out the age of something in nature 01:17 is not always an easy task. 01:19 However, there is one dating method that scientists tell us 01:23 is really simple and very reliable. 01:26 And that is radiometric dating. 01:29 It's like reading the time off clocks in the rocks. 01:32 But does radiometric dating really tell us 01:35 the true age of the rocks? 01:37 That's what we are exploring today. 01:38 Now, guys, I just want to ask you, how do you 01:42 understand radiometric dating to actually work? 01:46 I'll let you guys handle that. 01:48 You go ahead. 01:49 Well, I'm a bit, like, scared to say anything, 01:51 since in your introduction you said scientists 01:53 say it's really simple. 01:55 But when I read about it, I'm a bit confused. 01:58 It has something to do with the decay, 02:00 measuring certain decay in rocks, and then dating the age. 02:04 And I would need some more explanation on that actually. 02:07 ~ Excellent. John, good to have you here. 02:09 Can you fill in some of the details about how 02:11 radiometric dating actually works? 02:14 Yes, well, there are materials that we call, radioactive. 02:20 And that is, they slowly emit atomic particles of some type. 02:25 And they actually, some of them, change from one element 02:28 into another element. 02:29 So we call that, the mother element changes 02:31 into the daughter element. 02:34 ~ Gamma rays and particles? - Yes, that's right. 02:38 Neutrons; these sort of particles, 02:40 or maybe a beta particle or electron is emitted. 02:43 So what we can do is, the method involves very accurate 02:48 chemical analysis of these isotopes. 02:51 Now what an isotope is, an element is defined by 02:55 the number of protons, or positive charges in the nucleus. 03:00 But it can have different masses which are dependent 03:04 on the amount of neutrons in the nucleus. 03:06 And so, an element is defined, as I said, by the number of 03:09 protons, but when it has different number of neutrons 03:12 we call that, different isotopes. 03:14 Now when it has different numbers of neutrons 03:17 it may alter the stability. 03:19 And when it's less stable, it emits these particles 03:22 that we call radioactive. 03:24 And so, uranium is one of the classic radioactive 03:27 materials, one of the first discovered 03:29 that had these properties. 03:31 And so, what scientists do is, by very accurately using 03:36 mass spectrometers these days, they measure the amount of 03:41 one particular isotope in the rock, 03:45 the parent isotope, and then they measure the amount of 03:48 the daughter isotope. 03:50 And in the meantime, they measure the rate at which 03:53 these elements have changed. 03:54 So they've studied the radioactive material 03:57 over a period of time, and they have measured 03:59 what they call, the half-life, of the material. 04:03 Now this is a very important factor. 04:05 This is the mathematical factor that is used to 04:08 calculate the age. 04:10 And so, what it essentially is, is the time measured in years, 04:15 usually, that it takes for half of the mother element 04:21 to decay to the daughter element. 04:23 And so, if the half-life, say, was 5000 years, 04:27 then after 5000 years half of the radioactive material 04:31 would decay away. 04:33 After another 5000 years another half of what remains 04:38 has decayed away. 04:39 So we now only have a quarter of that material. 04:41 So again, from chemical analysis and mathematical 04:44 equations we can calculate on that basis. 04:47 Assuming that radiometric decay rates haven't changed, 04:52 assuming that there is no leaching out of 04:55 or removal of the mother parent element 04:59 or the daughter element by some other means, 05:01 it's only radiometric decay, then we can calculate 05:06 the age of that particular rock that it's found in. 05:10 So you're counting the parent, the mother isotope, 05:15 you're counting the daughter, 05:16 then you're putting it on the curve, 05:18 and out comes the date for the rock. 05:19 Yes, that's right. 05:21 There's a mathematical formula in there, yes. 05:23 Fantastic. 05:24 Any questions on that process? 05:25 Yeah, I was just wondering, like you mentioned, 05:27 a time of, for example, like 5000 years. 05:30 In your book, you describe certain other numbers that 05:32 can span billions of years for half-life reactions. 05:36 How do they come up with the times? 05:39 Like, how can you measure that it's 05:41 5000 years, yeah, of the half-life? 05:43 How can you know that? 05:45 ~ Well, I'm not an expert on atomic clocks, 05:48 but I understand that with these atomic clocks 05:51 that they can measure those particular half-lifes. 05:54 But that's an area I have to actually explore the rate 05:57 at which they, or the actual laboratory method of 06:01 measuring those half-lifes. 06:03 But I have read the papers where they have noted that 06:07 half-lifes can change, for example. 06:09 So under very high temperatures 06:12 they measure different half-lifes. 06:13 And also they measure different half-lifes 06:16 that appears in association with different sunspot cycles, 06:20 and this sort of thing, which is very interesting. 06:23 And there's also the theory that you can produce 06:27 accelerated nuclear decay. 06:30 But anyway, that's a good point. 06:32 I need to read up on the actual methodology that they use. 06:37 But we do have very accurate atomic clocks. 06:39 In the olden day they use to measure radiometric decay 06:42 rates using Geiger counters, 06:44 which actually counted the number of particles. 06:48 And so, I guess by integrating, if we count the number of 06:52 particles over now very accurately, 06:55 and there are lots of particles involved, 06:57 then we could actually calculate billions of years ages. 07:01 I'm sure it's just a physical calculation problem. 07:04 But I haven't actually entered into that. 07:06 ~ So it's fairly accurate, but it's really dependent on 07:10 what kind of external circumstances could have 07:12 influenced this half-life reaction over time. 07:15 ~ Yes, I imagine that the measurements of the 07:18 rate of decay are actually quite accurate 07:20 because they're done in a controlled laboratory 07:21 situation and we've got quite accurate machines now. 07:24 What we can't control, of course, is the environment 07:27 that those rocks are in. 07:28 They're out in nature. 07:30 And also we can't control and we don't necessarily know 07:33 what the conditions were in the past. 07:35 And that's one of the big downfalls of radiometric dating, 07:40 in that we have to assume that none of the daughter 07:44 element has leached away, or that more of the daughter 07:47 element has leached in, for example, also, you know. 07:50 And the same with the mother. 07:52 So these are physical processes. 07:53 You have elements in rocks, you know; 07:55 there's water and other fluids can be leaking through. 08:00 So yes, there's a lot of issues. 08:02 ~ The same thing with what we talked about 08:03 last time with the sedimentary rates and the erosion rates. 08:07 We don't know what happened in the past. 08:09 ~ Yes, yes. 08:11 But they're still using the same erosion rates 08:13 that they're calculating or measuring for billions of years. 08:17 ~ Yes. - Yeah. 08:18 One of the ways they try to improve the accuracy of 08:21 radiometric dating is a technique that has been used 08:25 since the last 1980's. 08:27 And that's called the isochron dating method. 08:29 So the methods for that particular form of radiometric 08:34 dating, we can only date volcanic rocks. 08:36 And the crystals in the volcanic rock often have 08:39 or sometimes have radioactive elements in them. 08:45 And there will be different minerals, crystals in the rock. 08:48 And so, those different crystals have different chemical 08:52 compositions, and so they'll be made up, 08:54 they'll have different radioactive elements in them. 08:57 So one of the things we can do in the rock is 08:59 analyze, separate out the different crystals, 09:02 and then individually analyze or date those different crystals 09:06 in the one rock, and then plot those together. 09:09 And if we get a pretty good straight line... 09:11 In other words, the data from all the different crystals 09:15 in the rock are matching up, 09:16 then that gives us fairly high confidence. 09:18 So that's the most accurate method. 09:20 That's called the isochron dating method. 09:22 Are there any assumptions underlying the isochron method 09:26 that we still need to be aware of? 09:28 Oh, well, they're the same assumptions as before. 09:32 And you can get other problems too, in that for example 09:36 how do we know there aren't mixing of much older rocks 09:39 with younger rocks during the molten time, 09:43 and this sort of thing? 09:44 I mean, it is fraught with a whole lot of assumptions. 09:47 And this is what people I think just generally don't realize. 09:51 You know, okay, we've got this result and we've got this 09:55 measurement; and people automatically assume 09:58 that it's correct. 10:00 One of the classic things that I like to point out is that 10:03 radiometric dating methods have never been validated 10:09 for pre-historical dates. 10:12 We haven't actually been able to validate the method, 10:15 that the method is actually working. 10:17 And this blows people's minds away. 10:20 I've actually written and pointed this out to 10:22 sort of fellow scientists. 10:24 Because a lot of people think, "Okay, we get this result 10:27 from a laboratory; it must be true." 10:31 Well in reality, chemical analysis 10:33 is very different from that. 10:35 You know, I can remember seeing the results from 10:38 government laboratory trials, 10:41 sorry, government trials of laboratories 10:44 where we were testing the accuracy of laboratories 10:47 and where samples had to be analyzed by 10:51 the leading analytical laboratories. 10:53 And the results were widely spread. 10:56 And the sample was actually a known sample. 10:59 And I think, I can't remember how many labs were involved, 11:02 but there were dozens of laboratories involved. 11:05 And I think there were only two or three out of those 11:07 laboratories that got the actual accurate answer. 11:10 So this is something we need to measure. 11:12 There's two things: there's the performance of the laboratory, 11:15 but there is also the method itself. 11:19 And one of the things is that the radiometric dating 11:21 method hasn't been validated. 11:24 ~ When you say, "pre-historic ages," 11:26 so that's going back for millions and billions of years. 11:29 But what about, I mean, science has been very active 11:32 over the last 200 years, so what about validating 11:36 radiometric dating over that period? 11:39 How has that worked? 11:40 Oh yes, okay, so this really highlights the problems 11:44 with radiometric dating. 11:46 Or one of the issues. 11:48 And perhaps what I should highlight before 11:53 I answer that is that typically when we date rocks, 11:58 there are a number of different radiometric dating 12:01 methods we use. 12:02 We might use samarium-neodymium, 12:05 or potassium-argon, or rubidium-strontium. 12:10 - We'll have a quiz on those names later. 12:14 And what often happens is, depending on the method 12:19 that we use, which are all valid radiometric dating methods, 12:22 we'll get widely different answers for the same rock. 12:26 ~ That's very unusual. - That is. 12:27 So what generally happens is, you have an age for a rock 12:31 that is based on the fossil record ages 12:34 that were based on estimates of sedimentation rates 12:40 and the thicknesses of those layers 12:43 in which the fossils were at. 12:44 The physical thicknesses. 12:46 And so, they estimated the ages. 12:48 And so, this gives us what was known as 12:50 the standard fossil age. 12:53 And that's the age that you'll find in the textbook. 12:55 Now if you find a rock that is associated with layers 12:59 above or below the fossils that we're finding, 13:03 that are listed there in the textbooks, 13:05 and it might be, say, 200 million years. 13:09 And then when you start dating it, one method 13:11 might give you 130 million years, 13:13 another method might give you 250 million years, 13:16 another method might give you 700 million years, 13:18 another method might give you a billion years. 13:21 ~ It's sort of pick your age. 13:23 Well, what happens is, when you're writing up your thesis, 13:26 you say, "Well, I've got all these values there. 13:29 250 million years is closest to the fossil age of 13:33 200 or 220 million years. 13:35 I'm going to put that in." 13:37 So you record that result. 13:38 And what is happening... 13:40 But why aren't the other results considered? 13:42 Why aren't the results that gave you a billion years, you know? 13:45 Usually uranium-lead values will give you billions of years 13:50 for most rocks. 13:52 And this is one of the problems. 13:54 Now the other thing is, and this has been done 13:58 a number of times, when we radiometrically date rocks 14:03 that we know the actual age from: 14:05 so it's a volcanic eruption that occurred maybe 200 years ago, 14:08 people have observed it, they go and chip out the lava, 14:11 and take the sample to the lab, 14:14 these always come back as being dated 14:17 hundreds of thousands to millions of years old. 14:21 Even though we know the rock was 200 years old. 14:24 And that's the question that I had. 14:25 When different methods are being used, 14:29 with all those names that you pronounced that I won't try, 14:33 but they give these different answers. 14:36 Like really different answers. 14:38 But they use the same principle it is dating 14:40 that half-life time reaction. 14:42 ~ That's right. - And if that is fairly accurate 14:45 in itself, but the answers are so, they can differ 14:49 billions of years, where does that difference come from? 14:54 ~ Well I'm not sure, but I think one of the things is that 14:57 when you look at the half-lifes of a lot of those systems 14:59 that are used, those half-lifes are billions of years. 15:03 And so, it seems to me very reasonable that you're going to 15:07 get hundreds of millions of years as your answers. 15:10 And I think the classic example of this was work 15:12 that was done here in Australia where samples were taken 15:18 from the eruptions from Mt. Ngauruhoe in New Zealand, 15:22 and it erupted in the late 1940's early 1950's. 15:25 And when those samples were analyzed 15:28 at one of the geoscience laboratories at 15:33 the Australian National University 15:35 here in Australia, the samples gave ages, from memory, 15:40 ranging from about 130 million years, 15:43 300 million years, and I think 350,000 million years 15:50 for rocks that we knew were 50 years old. 15:52 Well the analysis were done in the late 1990's to early 2000's. 15:56 So at that stage the rocks were only 50 years old. 16:00 And yet, they all gave more than 100 million years 16:04 via different methods by one of the best 16:08 radiometric dating laboratories in Australia. 16:11 ~ What about the idea that the rocks might be 50 years old, 16:16 but the chemical composition, 16:18 the material might have been very old? 16:24 Would that play into this calculation at all? 16:28 Well it could, but what it means is that it's useless 16:32 in dating any rock, isn't it. 16:34 If rocks that are only 50 years old date as 16:36 millions of years old, and you pick up another rock 16:39 sample and you get some millions, how old is it? 16:41 Is it millions of years old or is it 50 years old? 16:44 And the thing is, that isn't just an isolated example. 16:47 If you go to the standard, you know, some of the standard 16:52 radiometric dating textbooks, they site these examples 16:55 where Hawaiian lava flows were being dated, and so forth. 16:59 And again, the sad explanation is, "Well, somehow there was 17:03 some sampling errors, or somehow there was sort of some mixing." 17:07 You know, the magma or something like that. 17:11 But what the ratios were that God originally created, 17:16 you know, we don't know. 17:18 Really, it doesn't matter. 17:20 When we compare that with erosion rates 17:22 and all these other factors we can see, it virtually 17:25 wipes out radiometric dating. 17:27 Now one of the things that often happens in, you know, 17:30 the general popular thinking, if I can put it that way, 17:33 is that as soon as you hear, radiometric dating, 17:35 you think, carbon-14 dating. 17:38 But they're actually, they are the same class of dating 17:42 method, but they're quite different. 17:44 And there are some misunderstandings 17:45 about carbon-14 dating. 17:47 Can you just enlighten us on that topic? 17:49 Yes, okay, so carbon-14 dating is another dating method 17:53 that actually doesn't, it works on a different principle. 17:58 In other words, in radiometric dating we calculate the age. 18:02 But carbon-14 dating depends on so many variables 18:07 that it itself has to be calibrated 18:09 by some secondary method. 18:11 So how carbon-14 dating works is this: 18:14 That in the atmosphere, the upper atmosphere is hit by 18:18 cosmic rays coming from outer space which are charged 18:21 high-energy particles. 18:22 They collide with atoms up in the outer space area 18:27 and generate high-energy neutrons. 18:28 Some of those high-energy neutrons 18:31 then hit a nitrogen nucleus. 18:33 So nitrogen is one of the gases in the atmosphere there. 18:36 And it has seven protons and seven neutrons. 18:40 And what happens is, sometimes those high-energy neutrons 18:44 knock a proton out of the nucleus, leaving only 18:48 six protons, which changes that nitrogen to carbon. 18:53 It very quickly reacts with oxygen before it 18:55 becomes carbon dioxide. 18:57 But that is now carbon-14. 19:00 Normally carbon is 12. Six protons and six neutrons. 19:04 But now it's carbon-14, and it's unstable. 19:07 And it has a half-life of 5730 years. 19:11 And so, after 5000 years we only have half the level. 19:15 Or five and a half thousand years. 19:18 After 11,000 and a bit years, 19:20 we'll have only a quarter of the level. 19:21 After 15,000 years, we'll only have an eighth of the level. 19:25 So by measuring the amount of carbon-14 19:28 that we have, we can back calculate the age of things. 19:31 Now carbon-14 is very good for dating the actual fossils 19:35 because they have carbon in them. 19:37 So we can date the actual fossils that way. 19:40 But the thing is we measure... 19:45 Back in 1950 they standardized the level of carbon-14 19:48 in the atmosphere. 19:50 Well since then it's been changing. 19:51 We've had a lot more carbon dioxide come up; 19:53 by the way, which is diluting it. 19:55 The other thing is that the earth's magnetic field 19:59 repels a lot of the cosmic rays. 20:02 And so, the amount of carbon-14 that is present 20:06 in the atmosphere depends on that carbon-14 flux anyway. 20:11 In the past, we know the earth's magnetic field has 20:13 been decaying; it's decayed about 10% in the last 150 years. 20:18 6.5% since 1900, for example. 20:21 So in the past, a stronger magnetic field would have 20:26 repelled more cosmic rays, which means lower levels of 20:29 carbon-14, which gives us artificially longer ages 20:34 if we base it on the current level, which is what we do. 20:38 Now how it works is that when a plant is alive 20:41 it's taking in the carbon dioxide, 20:43 and there's an equilibrium. 20:44 The same level of carbon-14 that's in the 20:46 plants is in the atmosphere. 20:48 But when it dies or when it's buried, 20:50 and the same with an animal, there's no more interchange 20:53 with carbon-14, so what is there begins to decay. 20:56 And so it will have a lower level over time. 20:59 So that's how they calculate the age. 21:02 But it's very interesting, because after about 21:05 100,000 years there would be no detectable carbon-14 left. 21:10 So if we find carbon-14 in something, 21:13 it means it's got to be quite young. 21:15 ~ Less than 100,000 years old. Interesting, interesting. 21:17 ~ And I think you mention in your book that 21:20 there were some diamonds taken from the De Beers mine 21:23 in the southern part of Africa, and that these were 21:26 carbon-14 dated, I think it was. 21:29 They're estimated to be between 1 and 3 million years old. 21:32 But like you mentioned, if they have carbon in them, 21:35 they have to be, what, less than how old was it? 21:37 - 100,000? ~ 100,000. 21:38 ~ Yes, well that's right. 21:40 And that's a very interesting example, because 21:42 diamonds were meant to have formed when the continents 21:44 formed under intense heat and pressure. 21:47 And they're meant to be 1.5 to 3 billion years old. 21:51 So they should have absolutely none. 21:54 And of course, they began finding carbon-14 in diamonds. 21:57 And this was seriously challenged. 21:59 And so, some every accurate studies were done at the 22:04 University of California, Los Angeles campus, from memory, 22:07 using one of the most accurate mass spectrometers in the world. 22:11 And sure enough, carbon-14 was there in diamonds. 22:13 And so, that is powerful evidence that the 22:18 continents can't be that old. 22:19 And now, of course, they have carbon-14 dated 22:22 dinosaur remains, and the same thing. 22:24 And sometimes they come out at around, you know, 22:28 20 or 30 thousand years. 22:29 And people say, "Well, that's still a lot older 22:32 than the Bible dates." 22:33 But that is just the straight age date. 22:36 We haven't corrected for the lower values 22:40 caused by the lower cosmic rays flux in the past. 22:47 One of the things, there are Christians in the world today 22:51 who say, "We want to believe in the Bible 22:54 because it has changed our lives. 22:56 It made such a big difference. 22:57 But also, science has been so transformative 23:01 in our society as well. 23:02 And we want to integrate those two." 23:04 And we head towards something like theistic evolution, 23:08 where God supervised or guided the process of evolution. 23:13 What's your thoughts on this concept or proposal 23:16 of theistic evolution? 23:19 Well, I guess there's two aspects. 23:20 You can have the theological aspect, that it certainly 23:23 doesn't fit with the concept of sin and death 23:25 that the Bible talks about. 23:27 But the other problem is, why are they doing that? 23:30 Why do they believe that the earth is so old? 23:33 And I think it's because they've been inculcated with 23:35 this idea from radiometric dating of the long ages. 23:39 But you're just bowing the knee to a false science then. 23:44 You know, we have so much evidence now that the earth 23:47 can't be those hundreds of millions of years ages 23:52 that the radiometric dating results give us. 23:55 We know classically from erosion rates. 23:58 We know from the soft tissue in dinosaurs. 24:00 There's so many things that are pointing to this young age. 24:03 It's the fact that we can find carbon-14 in coal, and so forth. 24:08 So to me, this whole concept of theistic evolution, 24:12 that God had to bow the knee to evolution 24:14 and produce it slowly over time, just doesn't 24:18 fit the scientific data. 24:20 Plus, why does God need to do that? 24:22 He said He spoke it into existence. 24:24 And the other problem too that we often forget 24:27 is that evolution has major problems in terms of ecology, 24:32 as we've talked about, in that you need the insects, 24:35 and the flowering plants need one another. 24:38 There's a whole lot of ecological balance. 24:40 The ecosystems, yeah. 24:41 And it doesn't follow the lines of the evolutionary, you know, 24:45 phylogenetic trees. 24:47 So they're caught out. 24:50 They're caught out with science, and they're caught out, 24:52 in my view, with theology as well. 24:53 What the Bible actually says. 24:55 Do you have any further questions on this topic 24:57 of radiometric dating and theistic evolution? 25:00 ~ What you're saying, it's just a mindset of people thinking 25:04 that it's millions of years. 25:06 Does that sort of correlate with the biblical account of creation 25:13 where they say, or the Bible says, "evening and morning 25:17 was the first day," but they claim that it was 25:20 millions of thousands of years time period that passed? 25:25 ~ Well, time is a fascinating thing, 25:28 as we have talked about just briefly. 25:31 But no, they are 24 hour earth days. 25:33 And the whole universe was created in that time. 25:36 Because if we look at Genesis 2:1, 25:37 it says, "And God was finished." 25:39 And you know, the whole host of them had been created then. 25:43 And we talk about, God spoke things into existence. 25:47 And to me, that's very reasonable. 25:51 You know, I think a classic example of this is... 25:55 Let's do an experiment live on television. 26:00 Move your little finger. 26:01 Can you move your little finger? Right, okay. 26:03 Does your brain have mass? 26:06 You can weight your brain, can't you? 26:08 ~ Yes. - Yeah. 26:10 Can you weigh your thoughts? 26:11 ~ No. 26:12 How did you move your little finger? 26:15 Your thoughts, your thoughts are non-material, 26:18 but they affected this material world. 26:21 God is Spirit, He's non-material, 26:24 why can't He just create matter and affect the universe? 26:28 If our non-material thoughts, our consciousness, 26:31 can affect electrical impulses in our brain, 26:34 and affect nerves and muscles, and through our thoughts 26:37 we can create things... 26:39 We can create a poem, we can create a mobile phone. 26:43 Surely God can create, just like that. 26:47 Speak it into existence. 26:48 It makes more scientific sense than all this evolution rubbish. 26:52 It is amazing, really amazing to think about radiometric dating 26:55 can be so wildly wrong. 26:58 And if our planet earth is not billions of years old, 27:01 but only a few thousand years, 27:03 that would mean that evolution simply does not 27:06 have enough time to occur. 27:08 So that means that evolution is impossible. 27:11 Now I realize that can be quite a confronting idea to you, 27:15 and so I encourage you to get a copy of Dr. John Ashton's book. 27:20 And work through all the lines of evidence 27:23 that he describes in the book. 27:25 If evolution really didn't happen, 27:28 could this mean that there's a God out there 27:30 who originally created this world and loves you? 27:34 Hang onto that thought as we journey back in time 27:36 in our next episode to the Big Bang itself. 27:40 And if you missed any previous programs, 27:42 you can watch them on our website. 27:46 We look forward to seeing you again back at the Big Bang. |
Revised 2020-03-31