Carbon 14 (C14) is a dating method used to measure how long ago a sample of previously living tissue died. As long as any organism is alive, it maintains a fairly constant concentration of C14 with its environment. Once it dies, the radioactive C14 starts to decay; and half of the C14 disappears every 5,730 years. If an artifact is found that has one-half of the modern level of C14, it is assumed to be 5,730 years old.
Scientists have recently found that the amount of radioactive carbon in the earth's atmosphere is not constant. The C14 concentration can be affected by things such as the total mass of plant life on earth, the earth's changing magnetic field, volcanic activity, solar flare activity on the sun, nuclear tests made in the past several decades, collision of asteroids or meteorites with the earth, etc. For example, tree rings from all over the world had an increased variability in C14 level following the 1908 asteroid explosion in Tunguska, Siberia.
Even more important, the concentration of C14 in living things would have changed dramatically right after the worldwide Flood as the total amount of vegetation on the planet readjusted to new conditions. C14 dating is totally unreliable for any date beyond 4,000 years, because the assumptions of the technique deny any major change in conditions. It ignores the effect of the worldwide Flood throughout the calculation. As with all scientific endeavors, if your assuptions are wrong, your conclusions will also be wrong.
From A Closer Look at the Evidence by Kleiss, December 29.
