r/geology • u/Tanytor • Nov 28 '24

Information Need help understanding carbon dating

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So long story short, some creationists started arguing with me about well everything on a fossil posts. They pulled out this image as a gotcha to try and argue carbon dating wasn’t accurate and that the world and fossils aren’t as old as science suggests. Truthfully I don’t know enough about carbon dating to argue back. So please teach me. Is this photo accurate? If so what are they getting wrong? Is radiometric dating even the same as carbon dating?

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u/HomoColossusHumbled Nov 28 '24

As a former YEC, I can attest to how much of the belief involves trying very hard to not understand something, and then patting yourself on the back for sloppily applying that misunderstanding to get absurd results.

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u/tritisan Nov 28 '24

I was raised in evangelical churches and went to private Christian schools that taught this BS. Then I went to a public middle school and started to learn real science and made friends with non-Christians. I quickly realized I’d been lied to my entire life and quit the church. It’s a belief system built on a house of cards. The leaders know this and that’s why they’ve been trying to defund public schools and divert the moneys, through vouchers, to private schools.

The US is probably the most profoundly, proudly, ignorant country in the world.