User talk:SouthWriter/sandbox/An atheist's objections/@comment-1777104-20100811015545

The use of "principles" to mean "system of laws" is a bit misleading, Des. The only "principles" that are in play in both living processes and "dying" ones are those that govern how information is gathered by those observing both. This falls not on science but on the "scientific method" - hypothesis, testing, observing, theory and practice.

It is actually impossible to "know" an approximate amount of Carbon-14 (formed in the upper atmosphere by solar radiation upon Nitrogen-14). We can guess, but we can't know. What is assumed is that plants and animals "trap" the carbon-14 in the atmosphere where they live when they die. This is reasonable, since active chemical reactions that interact with the atmosphere stop at death. It is further assumed that the amount trapped by the organism is in proportion to what the atmosphere had of C-14 and C-12. The half-life, accurate to about 40 years, can register ages up to 60,000 years. But living shellfish have registered ages of 10's of thousands of years, demonstrating that something else is in play. The science of radioactive decay is not in question, but the interpretation of the data is debatable. Hardly "child's play."

One of the things that can skew a radiometric reading to determine the age of dead material is a drastic change in the amount of C-14 in a short period of time. A global flood, with its worldwide lightning would do unpredictable things to the lower atmosphere. The atmosphere before that flood, which killed the plant life that has apparently become our "fossil fuels," apparently did not have much C-14, for fossil fuels have very little of the isotope[|1]. That means that the "beginning" amounts of C-14, supposedly made in the upper atmosphere and settling to the surface, had to come after the flood. I'd say that would indicate some other factor in increasing those isotopes. If that is so, and the mystery factor cannot be determined, then the amount of C-14 formed from N-12 is moot.

The relationships between molecules and certain free atoms within a living cell are far more predictable, for they are can both be observed happening and be measured accurately. None of the reactions, though, are caused by nuclear decay. Any nuclear decay inside a cell, in fact, may very well cause a disruption that kills the cell. Fortunately in the case of C-14, that decay is so slow that the isotope can be used to do radiographic (X-ray) studies of chemical reactions within a living organism.

However, if there was a massive increase of C-14 immediately after the flood, I can see why the isotope might actually prove detrimental to living systems like those of the surviving humans. This could be a contributing factor to the diminishing life spans of succeeding generations. This is, mind you, just conjecture, but something to think about.