Early on, he makes a statement that indicates he has not studied carbon-14 dating very seriously:
…bone mineral is usually useless for radiocarbon dating, even though the carbonate that bone mineral incorporates during life contains 14C. The uselessness of bone mineral for radiocarbon dating is due to the fact that bone mineral accumulates new 14C after death, yielding a falsely young radiocarbon “age.”
This statement is utterly false, and anyone who knows carbon-14 dating would know that. Hundreds of radiocarbon dates have been published in the scientific literature using bioapatite, a bone mineral. This study examined using bioapatite in carbon-14 dating extensively, comparing it to two other commonly-used substances in carbon-14 dating. It concluded:
Most Holocene samples exhibit reliable 14C ages on the bioapatite fraction. Late Pleistocene samples have shown reliable results even for extremely poorly preserved bone in the case of samples derived from a non-carbonate environment.
The Holocene supposedly dates back to about 11,700 years, while the Pleistocene supposedly goes back to 2.6 million years. “Late Pleistocene” samples, then, would be samples that go back to the limits of carbon-14 dating (about 50,000 years old). Indeed, in that study, one of the samples had a carbon-14 date of 37,000 years old, which is older than most of the dinosaur bones that have been dated with carbon-14. So the idea that minerals from bone are “useless” for carbon-14 dating is demonstrably false.
Dr. Senter tries to back up his statement with a reference, but the reference doesn’t invalidate the use of bioapatite in carbon-14 dating at all. It does indicate that when you compare the date derived from collagen (a non-mineral that is often used in carbon-14 dating) to the date derived from bioapatite, the bioapatite date is often younger. However, the results depend heavily on where the fossil was found. More importantly, we know this has nothing to do with the carbon-14 dates of dinosaur bones, since many dinosaur fossils have been dated using both mineral and non-mineral samples (including collagen), and the ages are similar. In a hadrosaur fossil, for example, bioapatite dated as 25,670 years old, while the collagen dated as 23,170 years old. Note that contrary to the study Senter cites, in this case, the bioapatite age is older than the collagen age.
Senter then tries to explain why dinosaur bones read so young with carbon-14 dating. Most of his argument boil down to the idea that modern carbon has gotten into the fossils, and since the modern carbon is very young, it makes the fossil read young. The problem with that, of course, is that if modern carbon is getting into the fossil from the environment, there must be more contamination near the surface of the fossil and less near the center of the fossil. Thus, the carbon-14 age of the bone should vary depending on where in the bone the sample was taken. However, that’s not what is seen. In this study, Figure 7 has circles around the dates for samples taken from different parts of the same bone. They show very good agreement, indicating that what is being detected is not from contamination.
There is one argument Dr. Senter makes which isn’t about contamination. He says that radioactive materials can be absorbed by a bone, and those radioactive materials can cause nuclear reactions which will add carbon-14 to the bone, making it look young. Once again, he cites studies to support his claim, such as this one, but once again, the studies don’t support his claim. For example, the study I just linked shows how uranium decay can lead to the production of carbon-14, but as anyone who understands nuclear reactions would tell you, the effect is ridiculously small. Indeed, the study shows that nuclear reactions can account for no more than one hundreth (1/100) of the lowest amount of carbon-14 detected in dinosaur bones! Thus, there is no way that nuclear reactions are a viable means of explaining around the carbon-14 found in dinosaur bones.
In the end, then, we see that Dr. Senter must use false information to assure his readers that carbon-14 in dinosaur bones doesn’t invalidate the dogma that they are millions of years old. Unfortunately, since many teachers read the magazine in which his article was published, I am sure that this false information will be spread around, fooling unsuspecting students. Nevertheless, the more this is investigated, the more we will see that it poses a huge problem for those who are committed to believing that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago.
Are there any old Earth scientists you know that are honest about recognizing this problem?
Yes. They think that there must be some answer to why it is there, they just don’t have one as of yet. However, they at least agree that the problem cannot be ignored.
But what about the other radioactive dating methods? Senter says in the article, that “Radiometric
dating of Mesozoic strata using radioisotopes other than radiocarbon (e.g., 238U/206Pb, 235U/207Pb, 87Rb/86Sr, 40K/40Ar, 40Ar/39Ar) shows that the sediments that entomb Mesozoic fossils are 65–251 million years old, which means that the fossils that they entomb are that old.”
As a nuclear chemist, I know how radioactive dating works, and it is not at all reliable. There are many reasons for this, but the data speak for themselves. When two different methods can be used on a specimen, they give different answers the vast majority of the time. Even when the same method is used, different samples give different results. For example, the potassium-argon dating method says that the island of Hawaii is about 300,000 years old. However, that’s only because a large number of potassium-argon dates have been discarded. Here are a few that have been ignored:
Hualalai basalt: 1.6±0.16 million years; 1.41±0.08 million years; 22.8±16.5 million years
Akka Water Fall flow: 32.3±7.2 million years
Kilauea Iki basalt: 8.5±6.8 million years
Kilauea basalt: 21±8 million years, 42.9±4.2 million years; 30.3±3.3 million years
When such discordant data are regularly discarded, you know there is something wrong with the method.
Are you aware of any serious attempts to deliberately create a fossil in a controlled setting? Perhaps with the aim of seeing if one could be made that was indistinguishable from a natural fossil? I am aware of a number of human objects that have been found fossilized, so I would think such an endeavor would be worthwhile, if for no other reason than to try to discover how they are made in the first place. (And of course, definitively prove that an old age for fossils is not required.)
There have been such experiments. The first one of which I am aware was back in 1993. Here is more recent one. I don’t think any scientist familiar with fossilization would say that an old age is required to make a fossil. However, that does seem to be the impression the general public has.