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"...they fail to address the one crucial element that is rooted in the scientific method. Observation. Starting with Carbon 14, who has observed Carbon 14 decaying to 1/2 of its original component 5,730 years ago? How about Thorium 232 and 14 billion years?..."

With all due respect, you're displaying a complete lack of understanding about radioactive decay processes, and how to measure their rates. Any chunk of matter you can see contains TRILLIONS of atoms. If these atoms are of the radioactive variety, some of them are ALWAYS POPPING OFF. You can measure and even "count" the decay events.

If you are dealing with a really unstable variety of atom, these "decay events" will be happening quite rapidly. If you are dealing with a more stable variety, the events will occur less frequently. You can measure the rate of the events, and calculate the amount of time it would take for 1/2 the sample to decay.

Now, while it is true that if you ISOLATED a SINGLE Thorium 232 atom and WATCHED JUST THAT ONE, it might take 14 billion years to see it fizzle. However, if you have a good sized chunk of Thorium 232, out of the zillions of atoms in the sample, some are ALWAYS popping.

Would you make the same foolish argument that NO ONE has sat and watched a 4000 year old redwood tree grow? How can you be SURE that it takes that long to grow such a tree? We do it because we OBSERVE zillions of other specimans at different stages in their lifecycle. (well, in the case of trees, it is not zillions, but a whole forest full, anyway).

There is more than one way to measure the time it takes something to occur than to sit and watch just one speciman.

It is not a foolish argument but one that needs explaining to those who do not understand the scientific method and simply take a scientists word for it since they hold a PhD.

I have worked with myriad PhDs from a variety of disciplines and all have their opinion on radiometric dating.

Indeed there are lots of ways to measure aging, but not one single method is without serious flaws that need mitigating, or at the very least require a great deal of explaination.

Trees are a poor example because they can be observed, rings are also considered a mere guideline to age, not actual age since environmental factors can modify the ring. Radiometric dating allows for no such variable and is flawed in this respect. A prime example is the dating of igneous rock being dated from recent volcanic activity. One could hardly debate the age of such a rock if it is taken from a lava flow. However, radiometric dating puts its age at hundreds of thousands to millions of years old.

Using the example of watching the forest for the trees, you fall into the same logical fallicy as the scientific community that says a fossil is 650 MYO because the rock around it is 650 MYO, and they date the rock at 650 MYO because the fossil is 650 MYO.