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This argument was popularized by Henry Morris (1974, p.164), who used some calculations done in 1968 by Melvin Cook to get the 10,000-year figure. In 1968 another creationist, Robert L. Whitelaw, using a greater ratio of carbon-14 production to decay, concluded that only 5000 years passed since carbon-14 started forming in the atmosphere!

The argument may be compared to filling a barrel which has numerous small holes in its sides. We stick the garden hose in and turn it on full blast. The water coming out of the hose is analogous to the continuous production of carbon-14 atoms in the upper atmosphere. The barrel represents the earth's atmosphere in which the carbon-14 accumulates. The water leaking out the sides of the barrel represents the loss (mainly by radioactive decay) of the atmosphere's supply of carbon-14. Now, the fuller that barrel gets the more water is going to leak out the thoroughly perforated sides, just as more carbon-14 will decay if you have more of it around. Finally, when the water reaches a certain level in the barrel, the amount of water going into the barrel is equal to the amount leaking out the perforated sides. We say that the input and output of water is in equilibrium. The water level just sits there even though the hose is going full blast. (The barrel is made deep enough so that we don't have to worry about water overflowing the rim.)

Henry Morris argued that if we started filling up our empty barrel it would take 30,000 years to reach the equilibrium point. Thus, he concluded, if our Earth were older than 30,000 years the incoming water should just equal the water leaking out. That is, the equilibrium point should have long since been reached given the present rate of carbon-14 production and the old age of the earth. The next step in Henry Morris' argument was to show that the water level in our barrel analogy was not in equilibrium, that considerably more water was coming in than leaking out. To that end, he quoted some authorities, including Richard Lingenfelter. Having accomplished that, Morris concluded that the barrel was still in the process of being filled up and that, given the present rate of water coming in and leaking out, the filling process began only 10,000 years ago.





(Strahler, 1987, p.158)

Lingenfelter actually attributed the discrepancy between the production and decay rates to possible variations in the earth's magnetic field, a conclusion which would have ruined Morris's argument. Henry Morris chose not to mention that portion of the paper! Creationists don't want their readers to be distracted with problems like that unless the cat is already out of the bag and something has to be said.

Tree-ring dating (see Topic 27) gives us a wonderful check on the radiocarbon dating method for the last 8000 years. That is, we can use carbon-14 dating on a given tree-ring (the 8000-year sequence having been assembled from the overlapping tree-ring patterns of living and dead trees) and compare the resulting age with the tree-ring date. A study of the deviations from the accurate tree-ring dating sequence shows that the earth's magnetic field has an important effect on carbon-14 production. When the dipole moment is strong, carbon-14 production is suppressed below normal; when it is weak, carbon-14 production is boosted above normal. What the magnetic field does is to partially shield the earth from cosmic rays which produce carbon-14 high in the atmosphere.

Contrary to creationist Barnes' totally discredited claims, which I've covered in Topic 11, the earth's magnetic field (dipole moment) has, indeed, increased and decreased over time. Strahler presents a graph of the earth's dipole moment going back 9000 years.



(Strahler, 1987, p.156)




(Weber, 1982, p.27)

Thus, at least within the last 9000 years, the earth's magnetic field has fluctuated and those fluctuations have induced fluctuations in the production of carbon-14 to a noticeable extent. Therefore, as already noted, Dr. Hovind's claim that carbon-14 has been slowly building up towards a 30,000 year equilibrium is worthless. You now have the technical reason for the failure of Morris' model.

It may interest the reader to know that within this 9000-year period, where the radiocarbon method can be checked by tree-ring data, objects older than 400 BC receive a carbon-14 date which makes them appear younger than they really are! An uncorrected carbon-14 date of 6000 years for an object would actually mean that the object was 6700 years old. Seven hundred years or so is about as far as the carbon-14 method strays from tree-ring dating on the average. Individual dates given on a 1973 correlation chart (Bailey, 1989, p.100) show that objects with true ages between 4200 BC and 5400 BC would receive a carbon-14 date making them appear 500-900 years too young. As it turns out, we have a check on the carbon-14 production which goes back even further than 8000 years:



(Strahler, 1987, p.157)


Tree-ring data gives us a precise correction table for carbon-14 dates as far back as 8,000-9,000 years. The above study by Stuiver shows that the C-14 fluctuations in the atmosphere were quite reasonable as far back as 22,000 years ago. The earth's magnetic field seems to have the greatest effect on C-14 production, and there is no reason to believe that its strength was greatly different even 40,000 years ago. (For a refutation of Barnes' argument see Topic 11 .)

Therefore, we may conclude that atmospheric variation in C-14 production is not a serious problem for the carbon-14 method. The evidence clearly refutes Dr. Hovind's claim that the C-14 content of our atmosphere is in the middle of a 30,000-year buildup. Thus, we can dismiss this young-earth argument.