"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." 2 Timothy 4:3-4

In "The Carbon Dating Game," we covered flaws, assumptions, and cherry-picking in dating methods that are said to be used for up to 50,000 years, which many evolutionists still use to say the dates of the Bible incorrect. In this article, we will be going over potassium-argon dating (K-Ar) to explain the flaws, assumptions, and cherry-picking in dating methods that are said to be used in dating billions of years, and according to most evolutionists, "proof" of an old-earth. Potassium decays into argon gas with a half-life of 1.251 billion years (we will round it up to 1.3 to keep things simple). That means, in 1.3 billion years, half of a potassium sample with decay to argon gas. Then, in ANOTHER 1.3 billion years (2.6 total), the remaining half will decay. Then, in ANOTHER 1.3 billion years (3.9 total), the remaining 1/4 will decay, and so on. This process is used by evolutionists to claim dates to the earth going back 4.6 billion years.
(See Harold L. Levin, The Earth Through Time: 9th Edition, Joh Wiley & Sons, 2009, p. 41, ISBN: 9780470387740)

"Geologists have used this method to date rocks as much as 4 billion years old. It is based on the fact that some of the radioactive isotope of Potassium, Potassium-40 (K-40) ,decays to the gas Argon as Argon-40 (Ar-40). By comparing the proportion of K-40 to Ar-40 in a sample of volcanic rock, and knowing the decay rate of K-40, the date that the rock formed can be determined."
-University of California, Santa Barbara, "Chronological Methods 9 - Potassium-Argon Dating," retrieved Dec 19, 2012, [archserve.id.ucsb.edu]

Keep in mind, the decay rate can be argued. Bring decay rates into a court of law to be put under real scrutiny, and a good case could be made against them, but I don't think that's necessary to show the major problems evolutionists already have with what they are claiming, so in this instance, I won't be arguing what they claim as a current decay rate for K-Ar.

Problem #1 - Contamination:
"As much as 80% of the potassium in a small sample of iron meteorite can be removed by distilled water in 4.5 hours."
-L.A. Rancitelli & D.E. Fischer, "Potassium-Argon Agen of Iron Meteorites," Planetary Sciences Abstracts, 48th Annual Meeting, p. 167; See also "Transactions - American Geophysical Union," Vol. 48, Issue 11, 1967, p. 167

If 80% of your sample can be washed away by water in a few hours, on what basis do evolutionists claim that their potassium samples have not been contaminated? It's called an ASSUMPTION. This is something a sober evolutionist would almost never admit. Evolutionists are stretching the imagination to its limits to ASSUME that the samples they are testing have not been contaminated for millions, if not billions, of years; therefore it is not knowledge, but rather religious belief.

Problem #2 - Inconsistant Rates of Decay:
Evolutionists today see a half-life decay rate of potassium to argon at 1.3 billion years. How do they know the decay rate has been the same for millions or billions of years? To put it bluntly, the evolutionists have no clue, but ASSUME decay rates to be constant because if they don't, radiometric dating is impossible.

Problem #3 - Known Ages Don't Work:
"In June of 1992, Dr. Austin collected a 15 lb. block of dacite from high on the lava dome. A portion of this sample was crushed, sieved, and processed into a whole rock powder as well as four mineral concentrates. These were submitted for potassium-argon analysis to Geochron Laboratories of Cambridge, MA... The only information provided to the laboratory was that the samples came from dacite and that "low argon" should be expected. The laboratory was not told that the specimen came from the lava dome at Mount St. Helens and was only 10 years old."
-Keith Swenson, author who went on the expedition to gather igneous rock with Dr. Steven Austin, "Is the Lava Dome at Mount St. Helens Really a Million Years Old?" Design Science Association, retrieved Dec 19, 2012, [www.creationism.org]; See also Hans-Joachim Zillmer, The Human History Mistake: The Neanderthals and Other Inventions of the Evolution and Earth Sciences, Trafford Publishing, 2010, ISBN: 9781426923524

Volcanic (igneous) rock, according to evolutionists, is the best way to date ages with K-Ar dating because, theoretically, when a volcano erupts, all the argon gas is released from the rock, and resets the clock back to zero. This all sounds good in theory, but in practice, like with the rock in Mount St. Helens, which erupted in 1980, strange numbers come back.

The following are the lab results from samples taken at Mount St. Helens, which erupted 30 years ago:

Mt. St. Helens Sample	Cambridge Lab Result
Whole Rock	0.35 Million Years ± 0.05
Feldspar	0.34 Million Years ± 0.06
Amphibole	0.9 Million Years ± 0.2
Pyroxene	1.7 Million Years ± 0.3
Amphibole	2.8 Million Years ± 0.6

-Steven A. Austin, "Excess Argon Within Mineral Concentrates from the New Dacite Lava Dome at Mount St. Helens Volcano," CEN Tech Journal, Vol. 10(3), 1996, p. 335-343

Why are dated samples like these not published in journals, like Science and Nature, to demonstrate that K-Ar has serious problems?
"In conventional interpretation of K-Ar [potassium-argon] age data, it is common to discard ages which are substantially too high or too low compared with the rest of the group or with other available data such as the geological time scale."
-A. Hayatsu, "K-Ar Isochron Age of the North Mountain Basalt, Nova Scotia," Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, Vol. 16, April, 1979, p. 973-975

In "Lies of Evolution: Geologic Column," we covered how the geologic column is made up from pure imagination, so what did the quote just tell us? They throw out an age they get if it doesn't line up with their geologic column, or more simply put, they throw out a date they get if it doesn't line up with how old they already think it is! Let's say an evolutionist gets radiometric dates of an object, and the lab will pull back all sorts of wild numbers, lets say ranging from .5 million, all the way up to 200 million, but they realize there is a fossil of a trilobyte (dated at 500 million; way up from .5 or 200) in the sample of what they are dating, so they will date it again and again, until they get a number that goes above 500 million to match with the fossil they found. This is exactly how it's done, and all of it comes down to the circular reasoning dating methods used for fossils dating rocks and rocks dating fossils.

Problem #4 - Unknown Ages are ASSUMED to Work:
In 1970, Nature (April 18th, p. 226), along with many other major science journals, published the dates of volcanic rock from the KBS tuff (tuff = volcanic rock and ash; named after Kay Behrensmeyer) in Kenya. It had been dated many times with K-Ar, and almost every evolutionary scientist in the world agreed that the KBS tuff was 212-230 million years old. This was an important publication because this dated volcanic rock was going to be used as an 'event horizon', which means all other dates for all other findings in this area would then be cross-referenced to the KBS tuff.

In 1972, evolutionist Richard Leakey was digging in the KBS tuff and found a human skull (#KNM-ER 1470). The average person reading this might not think anything significant about this find, but for the evolutionist, it is DEVISTATING! Remember earlier how I pointed out that they don't really date things by radiometric dating, and how they actually use the geologic column? Humans were not supposed to be in existance until 3 million years ago, according to the geologic column, and this human skull created a major conflict.

We average laymans would expect scientists (since they claim to be truly unbiased) to reconsider how long mankind has been on the earth, and to question if their geologic column needs to be adjusted based on the evidence, but that is not what they did. They RE-DATED the KBS tuff!
Before continuing to talk about what they did, we know two things for certain:

1. Many evolutionary scientists know radiometric dating does not work properly. 2. Evolutionists are dating objects based on the imaginary geologic column, not by any scientific method.

After finding this skull that upset their geologic column, the evolutionists took ten more samples, despite the fact that it was already dated MANY times.
"Late in 1974, Fitch, Miller, and associates published the results of their revised study... a broad scatter of apparent ages from ten different samplings ranging from 0.52 to 2.64 million years."
-M.L. Lubenow, Bones of Contention, p. 252, quotation in reference to Frank J. Fitch, Ian C. Findlater, Ronald T. Watkins, & J.A. Miller, "Dating of a rock succession containing fossil hominids at East Rudolf, Kenya," Nature, Vol. 247, February, 1974, p. 344-348

We now have a 500% margin of error between 0.5 to 2.5 million years from volcanic rock that was originally "known" by the evolutionists to be over 200 millio years old. They call this science? I'm amazed at the extraordinary faith so many evolutionists have to trust in the assumptions of a few men running around claiming they know the age of the earth based on the scientific method -- this is a joke, and a slap in the face, to those who do real scientific research. These same problems appear in all dating methods across the board. We cannot tell if samples have been contaminated, we cannot tell if the decay rates have always been the same, and when testing samples of known age, the process doesn't work. So why is radiometric dating still being used?

When talking about radiometric dating, it can best be compared to a magician using his cape to conceal his illusion. The average person can see a serious problem with the circular reasoning and the non-existance the geologic column is built on, so to hide the obvious, evolutionists throw a cloth over it called radiometric dating, claiming it is using the scientific method to get ages of billions of years, but it is nothing more than slight-of-hand falsely called science.

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith.
-1 Timothy 6:20-21

In these verses, the Bible tells us that people would err from the faith by falsely claiming things to be scientific knowledge. That's exactly the case we have with radiometric dating.

I don't believe this article will ever convert anyone from religious faith in evolution, but I do expect it to help Christians stay sound in their faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ who cannot lie to us, and is the source of all knowledge and truth. "Science" journals are not the source of authority and knowledge, and I urge Christians to remember your foundation and not lean to believe everything you hear just because it was said by a scribe. (aka PhD)

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