Scientists attempt to check the accuracy of carbon dating by comparing carbon dating data to data from other dating methods.Other methods scientists use include counting rock layers and tree rings.

This explains why the Wikipedia article on Carbon $14$ lists the half-life of Carbon 14 as $5730 \pm 40$ years.

Other resources report this half-life as the absolute amounts of $5730$ years, or sometimes simply $5700$ years.

The mathematical premise undergirding the use of these elements in radiometric dating contains the similar confounding factors that we find in carbon-14 dating method.

Most scientists today believe that life has existed on the earth for billions of years.

As stated previously, carbon dating cannot be used on artifacts over about 50,000 years old.

These artifacts have gone through many carbon-14 half-lives, and the amount of carbon-14 remaining in them is miniscule and very difficult to detect.

The age of the carbon in the rock is different from that of the carbon in the air and makes carbon dating data for those organisms inaccurate under the assumptions normally used for carbon dating.

This restriction extends to animals that consume seafood in their diet.

The half-life of Carbon $, that is, the time required for half of the Carbon$ in a sample to decay, is variable: not every Carbon \$ specimen has exactly the same half life.

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