nightsurge said:
Also, although the theory of radiocarbon dating is interesting, there are several inherent problems with the process. The first of these problems is the fact that the original ratio of carbon and radioactive carbon is unknown. The second problem is that the possibility of contamination of the sample over time is quite high. The older the sample the higher the probability of contamination, in fact! What this means is that using carbon dating to date very old samples is really quite impractical given our current level of knowledge and technological capabilities. |
The estimates we get from radiocarbon dating tend to line up with other evidence from the same sample quite well. We haven't found any fossils spectacularly out of line of the accepted record for decades, suggesting it is reliable.
Although impurities do affect it, radiocarbon dating (which is not the only method of radioisotope dating by the way) isn't going to be off by an order of magnitude like the OP is suggesting. It could be off by a few thousand years at a period of a million years ago, which doesn't affect the conclusions. The time period where it becomes unreliable is well before the dinosaur era.
