Carbon Dating

This is a middleschool level video that explains how carbon dating is achieved and why it is important.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• carbon
• dating
• half-life
• earth
• science
• old
• absolute
• age
• radioactive

[kryptemonic]

dude, there are eight other dating methods, yet all you guys do is pick on carbon dating because thirty years ago it wasn't very reliable, at least it's better than following a book written between four and one and a half thousand years ago by people who thought the world was flat and earthquakes and floods were because god was angry.

Carbon dating has been fixed, and dendrochronology has backed it up to the very year it was trying to date. Get over it, science ALWAYS wins.

[theneonfire]

Carbon dating doesn't work for fossils, because they don't contain carbon.

It also doesn't work for molluscs (like the snail you pictured) because the c-14 they receive is diluted by water. It works best on plants, because they get their carbon directly from the atmosphere :)

Apart from that, good video :D

[mboundtogether]

it is a fetish of mine to date fossils, im just a freak like that

[XVIagent]

@kryptemonic Just because you try and argue God away doesn’t mean He will go away. One day you will have to front up to that fact and face Him! Remember that you’ve been forewarned...

[gregrutz]

@Eye2EyeIIIV ''Samples of Known Ages are tested → It Doesn't Work''

Yes, it works fine.

That is how they know it does not work of snails, so they don't use it on snails.

[heyawhaw]

But WTF! The scientists that need methods to work obviously test the methods and are well aware of how they behave, wheyn they are usable and when they are to be avoided or at least used with caution. They were the ones that discovered that carbon dating isn't always useful. It wasn't revealed to Kent Hovind through prayer. Scientists crosscheck everything they do until they are sure that the results reflect what they are actually measuring, since it could ruing their carrers.

[Eye2EyeIIIV]

Things to consider about Carbon Dating:

Samples of Known Ages are tested → It Doesn't Work

Unknown Ages are tested → It's Assumed to Work

...That's...not...Science.

[CarpeOmne]

3:15

A fossil by definition is bone that has been replaced by minerals and has no more carbon left. This happens after about 50,000 years give or take. Carbon dating doesn't work at all for measuring things older than that.

[ceanderson79]

The example of dinosaur fossils is a bad one. Carbon dating doesn't work if there's no carbon left to measure. Dino bones have no more carbon in them.

Also, I'm surprised they used a snail as an example. Carbon dating isn't accurate with marine life or animals that depend on marine life as their rate of carbon and source of carbon for absorption is different from land organisms. The snail might be land based, but I still think they could have picked a better example.

[jzuidema]

"I heard it is not accurate. is that true?"

no it is not, carbon dating is highly accurate, but you have to be aware of factors that can offthrow the dates you get i.e. contamination of the sample. Two great examples are the 'reservoir effect'in marine animals because they absorb old carbon, and dating things that are covered in for example preserving fluids, that have a different dat than the actual fossil. When you take into account these factors, IT IS higly accurate.

[smartestmanalive101]

I heard it is not accurate. is that true