RATE project

The RATE project (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) was a research project conducted by a group of young-earth creationist researchers between 1997 and 2005 to assess the validity of radiometric dating and other dating techniques in the light of the doctrine of a recent creation. The project was funded by Creation Ministries International, the Institute for Creation Research, and Answers in Genesis.

The project's findings were published in 2005, and while they acknowledged evidence for over 500 million years of radiometric decay at today's rates, they also claimed to have discovered other evidences that pointed to a young earth. They therefore hypothesised that nuclear decay rates were accelerated by a factor of approximately one billion on the first two days of the Creation week and during the Flood.

Non-affiliated experts who have scrutinised the claims have unanimously rejected them as flawed.^[1][2][3][4]

Findings

The RATE team acknowledged evidence for over 500 million years' worth of radioactive decay in the earth's history at today's rates. However, they claimed that other evidence indicated that the earth is much younger. The evidences cited were:

• Helium diffusion in zircons: The authors claimed that the high concentration of helium in zircon crystals (ZrSiO₄) could only be explained by young-earth timescales. This claim was refuted by Gary Loechelt^[2][3] and Kevin Henke,^[4] who noted that the data collected were taken in laboratory vacuum conditions which do not reflect actual field conditions, and also that diffusion rates of noble gases in minerals are theoretically and practically so complex that geologists do not consider them to be a reliable chronometer.
• Radiohalos in granites: The authors asserted that due to the short half-life of polonium, radiohalo damage should have annealed if the rocks had cooled at the much slower rates expected from geologic timescales.
• Isochron discordances: The authors presented several examples of cases where isochron dates from the same minerals using different techniques yielded discordant ages, differing by up to 10-15% after allowing for maximum errors, to argue that isochron dating is fundamentally flawed. However, they did not explain why errors of 15% would justify the claim that radioisotope dating is in error by six orders of magnitude.
• Radiocarbon in ancient coals and diamonds: The authors argued that trace quantities of carbon-14 in diamonds, coals and other ancient rocks indicated that they were much younger than thought, as there should be no carbon-14 left after 100,000 years. However, the levels reported were consistent with levels expected from contamination and other extraneous sources, which are impossible to eliminate even when extraordinary care is taken in handling the samples, and chronologists disregard levels of carbon-14 below 0.5% of modern levels.

Based on these findings, the authors postulated that nuclear decay rates were accelerated by a factor of approximately 500 million during the Creation week and at the time of the Flood, and explored theoretically how this might have happened. They acknowledged that there were two unresolved problems with this theory: excessive heat generation, which would have been sufficient to evaporate the earth unless some extraordinary cooling mechanism were applied; and excessive radiation generation, which would have killed Noah and his passengers on the Ark. However, they stated that although no known solution to these problems exists, they were confident that the problems would be resolved.

Response

Randy Isaac of the American Scientific Affiliation noted that the leap from the findings to the conclusion was never made clear and asserted that it was dishonest to claim that the study provided evidence of a young earth given that it had noted insurmountable scientific problems:^[1]

In this book, the authors admit that a young-earth position cannot be reconciled with the scientific data without assuming that exotic solutions will be discovered in the future. No known thermodynamic process could account for the required rate of heat removal nor is there any known way to protect organisms from radiation damage. The young-earth advocate is therefore left with two positions. Either God created the earth with the appearance of age (thought by many to be inconsistent with the character of God) or else there are radical scientific laws yet to be discovered that would revolutionize science in the future. The authors acknowledge that no current scientific understanding is consistent with a young earth. Yet they are so confident that these problems will be resolved that they encourage a message that the reliability of the Bible has been confirmed.

[C]laims that scientific data affirm a young earth do not meet the criterion of integrity in science. Any portrayal of the RATE project as confirming scientific support for a young earth, contradicts the RATE project’s own admission of unresolved problems. The ASA can and does oppose such deception.

References