The actual has been tested by carbon-14 dating at a laboratory in Miami, Florida, USA.
Previously, pine trees in North America have been cited as the oldest at 4,000 to 5,000 years old.
The carbon 14 dating basic assumption is that the earth today is the same as it has always been. Not only does the bible claim that the earth was much different in its past, it accurately predicts the accepted basis of the Carbon 14 dating method and further characterizes the thinking of evolutionists as denying a biblical flood.
2 Pet. 3 - there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4 And saying, ..... all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: - AV
A Critical Assumption
A critical assumption used in carbon-14 dating has to do with this ratio. It is assumed that the ratio of 14 C to 12 C in the atmosphere has always been the same as it is today (1 to 1 trillion). If this assumption is true, then the AMS 14 C dating method is valid up to about 80,000 years. Beyond this number, the instruments scientists use would not be able to detect enough remaining 14 C to be useful in age estimates. This is a critical assumption in the dating process. If this assumption is not true, then the method will give incorrect dates. What could cause this ratio to change? If the production rate of 14 C in the atmosphere is not equal to the removal rate (mostly through decay), this ratio will change. In other words, the amount of 14 C being produced in the atmosphere must equal the amount being removed to be in a steady state (also called “equilibrium”). If this is not true, the ratio of 14 C to 12 C is not a constant, which would make knowing the starting amount of 14 C in a specimen difficult or impossible to accurately determine.
Dr. Willard Libby, the founder of the carbon-14 dating method, assumed this ratio to be constant. His reasoning was based on a belief in evolution, which assumes the earth must be billions of years old. Assumptions in the scientific community are extremely important. If the starting assumption is false, all the calculations based on that assumption might be correct but still give a wrong conclusion.
In Dr. Libby’s original work, he noted that the atmosphere did not appear to be in equilibrium. This was a troubling idea for Dr. Libby since he believed the world was billions of years old and enough time had passed to achieve equilibrium. Dr. Libby’s calculations showed that if the earth started with no 14 C in the atmosphere, it would take up to 30,000 years to build up to a steady state (equilibrium).
If the cosmic radiation has remained at its present intensity for 20,000 or 30,000 years, and if the carbon reservoir has not changed appreciably in this time, then there exists at the present time a complete balance between the rate of disintegration of radiocarbon atoms and the rate of assimilation of new radiocarbon atoms for all material in the life-cycle. 2
Dr. Libby chose to ignore this discrepancy (nonequilibrium state), and he attributed it to experimental error. However, the discrepancy has turned out to be very real. The ratio of 14 C / 12 C is not constant.
The Specific Production Rate (SPR) of C-14 is known to be 18.8 atoms per gram of total carbon per minute. The Specific Decay Rate (SDR) is known to be only 16.1 disintegrations per gram per minute. 3
What does this mean? If it takes about 30,000 years to reach equilibrium and 14 C is still out of equilibrium, then maybe the earth is not very old.