Naturalistic “Clock”
Since the fall of 1989 (the founding of CTF), the parameters of the Creation/Evolution debate has changed somewhat or at least the emphasis has transitioned. Rather than emphasizing the entire disparity between the disputants in this conflict, (and please understand the entire scope of the debate is still hotly contested, nothing even remotely associated with Biblical history can be allowed in a secular discussion about origins—and thus its alleviation from state education), so that today the focus is on the age of the universe (especially the earth), and whether there was a global flood approximately 4,358 years ago as recorded in Genesis 7 and 8.
The reason for this change in emphasis is simply due to the fact that evolutionists believe that these particular issues are easier for them to prove, and thus gives them a leg up in their attempt to reduce Biblical history to ancient Jewish myth.
However in the last 50 to 75 years or so there has entered into this dispute a naturalistic “tour de force” with the ultimate motive to completely slam the door on any further creationist resistance. This so-called evolutionary “goliath” was advanced in an attempt at the development of an exclusionary reality that would quickly alleviate all Biblical rejection of “evolutionary deep time,” which is the bottom line purpose for radiometric dating in the first place. So I want to spend a few minutes on this topic and ask one salient question concerning the ultimate radiometric mechanism that is popularly known as Carbon 14 dating: Is there a dependable naturalistic “clock” that can tell real time?
In the first place, Jesus tells us in Mark 10:4 and Matthew 19:4 that “ from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female ” signifying that man was created as a man, not an ape, from the beginning. Ken Ham says that this passage only makes sense with the creation week being just thousands of years ago. (Ham, The Answers Book , p. 75) I agree!
Drs. Henry Morris and Gary Parker wrote in their book, What is Creation Science? , 17 th printing 1999, p. 14, that “…the radiocarbon method is now known to be so unreliable that many archaeologists have abandoned it altogether.” In fact Professor Robert E. Lee wrote in the Anthropological Journal of Canada , 1981, p. 9, “The troubles of the radiocarbon dating method are undeniably deep and serious…It should be no surprise, then, that fully half of the dates are rejected. The wonder is, surely, that the remaining half come to be accepted.” Furthermore, evolutionist, William Stanfield said, “It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years.) There is no long-term radiological clock” (William Stanfield, The Science of Evolution , NY: Macmillian, 1977, p. 84). The only eye-witness to the creation of the universe was the Creator Himself and He told us of its historical time, if we will believe Him!
