Pat Robertson Called Dinos 65 Million Years Old Because of Carbon Dating?

Here is one still from a video clip with automatic subtitles:



Here is the video, listen if the subs were wrong:

Pat Robertson: Dumb to Believe in Young Earth Creationism
David Pakman Show | Ajoutée le/ added 15 mai 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F8vPFRCoT8

Shall we take another still, from Young Turks?



Pat Robertson v Ken Ham: EPIC THROWDOWN over Earth's Age
The Young Turks | Ajoutée le / added 19 mai 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OWIdrSow78

Well, it seems - I think two subtitles both showing he connects radio carbon to 65 million years are a bit odd, if he said something else - he does connect a figure like 65 million years to a dating method like carbon dating.

Too bad.

No carbon dating actual scientific user would do that. Guess why? 60 000 years is less than 1000 times shorter time:



Let's take ten times what we said, less than a 100dth of 65 million years:



Carbon 14 Dating Calculator
[same site, both images]
https://www.math.upenn.edu/~deturck/m170/c14/carbdate.html

In other words, how do you distinguish zero percent carbon 14 of the modern atmospheric level as in 600 000 years from equally zero percent as in 65 000 000 years? You can't.

So, Pat Robertson, while having a business bargain involved in petrol, involved in "rotting dinosaurs", may be well founded on the stock market of petrol, but has no clue as to the carbon dating of either petrol, dinosaur bones or other things, as far as we can gather from this clip. Perhaps he has improved since then, perhaps he hasn't.

But supposing he has improved, he at least used to share an attitude which very many still share today : a very huge confidence (or inversely suspicion) about carbon dates, without no real clue as to its conditions.

Now, suppose a thing, bone, tooth, piece of wood, sample, piece of charcoal, is carbon dated to 60 000 years ago. That means the carbon 14 in relation to carbon 12 is 0.07 % of what the carbon 14 in relation to carbon 12 is in today's atmosphere or a recent sample. It is the carbon 14 which machines can detect directly. The years are a conventional and programmed translation of it.

That leaves open the question how many of these years are real years of decaying carbon 14 content in sample, and how many of them are due to lower original carbon 14 content in atmosphere, before it rose to present level. Conventional dating says "zero" to the latter and therefore "all 60 000 years" to the former. And decaying level in sample for 60 000 years is a decay which normally takes 60 000 years to go through.

However, if the Flood is carbon dated to 40 000 years ago (0.792 % of the present carbon level left in samples from Flood), and the Flood was 2957 BC, 4974 years ago (we have 54.788 % of original content), this means the level at Flood would have been ...

0.00792 / 0.54788 = 0.014456

... 1.4456 % of present level. And if carbon 14 content rose from zero to 1.4456 % of present level before the Flood, well, for one it was rising slower, even forming of new carbon was slower than now, at least in relation to carbon 12 content of atmosphere, and for another, we can find a level from which the decay counted in actual years (somewhere between 4974 and 7216 - from which we would have 41.774 % left of any sample, if the isotope existed then) would leave us with the above mentioned 0.07 % of the present level. Let's try it.

0.0007 / 0.41774 = 0.0016757
0.0007 / 0.54788 = 0.0012777

So, between zero and 1.4456 %, the level is somewhere corresponding to between 0.12777 and 0.16757 %. That is, one tenth up. I don't think it means sth dated 60 000 BP is from year of Creation 224, but I'd rather think of a curve creeping near bottom for some time before it starts to rise.

If we instead assume the Flood was 5383 and the Creation 7526 years ago, you need to make minor adjustments to previous, but not to outright ditch the whole setup. And, in reverse direction, for the minor adjustments, if you take Flood 4365 years ago and Creation 6021 years ago.

So, the dinosaurs then have zero carbon 14, which means they were fossilised at creation, right? No. They do get carbon dates within the carbon range.

Some time ago, not sure up to exactly when, the carbon range was back to "40 000 BP", but we have dinos dated to younger than that, right Mr Armitage, 28 000 BP or sth?

And others outside the older but inside the younger limit like a Triceratops dated to 41 010 BP:

More recently, Brian Thomas and Vance Nelson carbon dated a number of dinosaur fossils including two specimens from Triceratops horridus.3 The two specimens gave a date in years of 33,570±20 and 41,010±220.4

And notes:

3)Thomas, B. and Nelson, V., Radiocarbon in Dinosaur and Other Fossils, CRSQ 51:299–311, ‎‎2015‎. Return to text.
4)A sample purporting to be from the Flood era would not be expected to give a ‘radiocarbon age’ of about 5,000 years, but rather 20,000–50,000 years. Indeed, that is consistently what one obtains from specimens of oil, gas and fossil wood from layers allegedly ‘millions of years’ old. The reason is: radiocarbon dating assumes that the current 14C/12C ratio of about 1 in a trillion (after adjusting for the Industrial Revolution) was the starting ratio for the objects dated. But this ratio would have been much smaller before the Flood due to the fact that the earth had a much stronger magnetic field. Because pre-and para-Flood objects would have started with a much lower initial 14C/12C ratio, the measured amount today would also be smaller, and be (mis-)interpreted as much older. See What about carbon dating? Chapter 4, The Creation Answers Book. Return to text.

And source:

Triceratops soft tissue
Feedback archive → Feedback 2016
Published: 19 November 2016 (GMT+10)
https://creation.com/triceratops-soft-tissue

You noted from pictures from Carbon 14 Dating Calculator that the present level of reliable detection is between 55 000 and 60 000 years? Good, this means you should realise even the higher value of Triceratops date is within detactable, and not just because zero carbon 14 used to be read "at least 40 000 years old" as back in those days.

I just hope Pat Robertson is not involved in some Transatlantic scheme to teach me a lesson or two while I am in France. He might have rather some lessons to learn from me, unless he's too old for that or already got it from someone else.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Joseph of Cupertino
18.IX.2017

PS, isn't he also claiming Ussher was both "Middle Ages" and "1800's"?

James Ussher (or Usher; 4 January 1581 – 21 March 1656)

Quoted from wikipedia. As following:

In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century.

Do I need a reference for 1581-1656 not being in 1800's?/HGL