[net.origins] radio carbon dating

ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) (10/24/85)

More evidence of mis-interpretations, unfortunately.  I would like to 
point out that what I am saying about radio-carbon dating is very different
from what Walter Brown and Ron Kukuk and other creationists seem to be 
saying.  Unless I have misunderstood, they are claiming the rate of radio-
active decay was different in past ages.  I would have major problems with
this one myself.  I am claiming that beyond the most recent catastrophies,
which occurred around 700 B.C., and certainly beyond the flood, which took
place between 6000 B.C. and 3000 B.C., one could only guess at the RATIOS
OR ORDINARY TO RADIO CARBON IN THE ATMOSPHERE IN GENERAL, and that, hence,
radio-carbon dating is useless beyond that point.  You don't have to go
back to the flood to see this kind of effect.  Things which grew in England
at the height of the industrial revolution (with all its smokestacks) radio
date as if they came from the middle ages.