Radiometric Dating: Back to Basics (does it really prove the Earth is millions of years old?)

Answers Magazine ^ | June 17, 2009 | Andrew A. Snelling, Ph.D.

[GodGunsGuts]

Radiometric dating is often used to “prove” rocks are millions of years old. Once you understand the basic science, however, you can see how wrong assumptions lead to incorrect dates.

Most people think that radioactive dating has proven the earth is billions of years old. After all, textbooks, media, and museums glibly present ages of millions of years as fact.

Yet few people know how radiometric dating works or bother to ask what assumptions drive the conclusions. So let’s take a closer look and see how reliable this dating method really is...

[CharlesWayneCT]

No. In fact, as to the scientific discussion of origins, I don’t see how one’s religion can really make any difference.

And just so it is clear, when I use the term “self-professed” as to your religion, I am in NO WAY suggesting I don’t believe your profession. I just try very studiously NOT to make a direct claim about someone else’s true religion, as I have no idea what the case is for other people. So “self-professed” is simply my way of saying that it is not MY opinion, but the opinion of the person I am referencing.

And I apologize that the use of the phrase in this context could well have been read to be doubting your profession.

[tpanther]

algore and your other liberal friends are “creation rationalizers”?

WHO KNEW!

[tacticalogic]

Yes, and on that matter, if you don’t believe those things it would make sense to ignore them when discussing radiological dating.

If you make your case based on them, you're pretty well resticted to making that case to people who already share those beliefs.

[Buck W.]

I took it no such way, and I appreciate your concern about it.

Regarding the original point, I’m glad that you did not respond in the affirmative. In fact, I might conjecture that professed Christianity actually further detracts from the YEC position.

[Buck W.]

Thank you—have a nice day.

[ElectricStrawberry]

Are you saying that most people don’t believe that Man walked with T. rex until the Flood killed all the dinosaurs a few thousand years ago?

[GourmetDan]

"It’s a legitimate question, and I’m curious as to your position. Posters here have asserted that decay rates have changed over time. If decay rates can change, can the principles of QM also change?"

Which ones?

[Westbrook]

> Heart surgery and strawberry farming......amazing.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, I believe he was trying to say that they are like apples and oranges.

To Buck, Evolution is “Science”, and that’s a completely different and separate thing from “Religion”.

In 6th grade, they started teaching us about Evolutionism in the “Public School”. I asked the teacher why they were teaching us that “God created” in Sunday school.

Her response was, “That’s Religion, and this is Science.”

Like Buck, I bought that argument for a long time. However, once I gave my life to Christ, I had to find the real answers to origins.

I was a Christian grappling with incongruities of Theistic Evolution and Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross and the defeat of Death and Sin, when a friend called me and said he had something to show me. It was a presentation on Creation science. As I watched it, I got angrier and angrier. Not at the presentation, but at the outright LIES and OMISSIONS my teachers and professors and the prevailing culture impressed upon me over the years.

It wasn’t long before I was able to jettison the silly superstition of Evolutionism and rely COMPLETELY upon God and His Word.

[GourmetDan]

"What says that the energy output of radiometric decay varies while the observed decay rate remains constant?"

What says that the energy output of radiometric decay is constant?

[count-your-change]

Shall I pull up your statements and repost them?

You made the assertion that Evoution and Christianity were compatible but yet when asked repeatedly about how that is so you gave me the example of heart surgery and strawberry farming being a perfect fit. Is there something I’ve left out?

Here is what was said:

“Wednesday, June 17, 2009 6:51:59 PM · 109 of 143
Buck W. to count-your-change
They don’t contradict! Why do you insist on maintaining this juvenile line of inquiry (or should I say inquisition)? Heart surgery and strawberry farming fit together perfectly as well simply because they don’t contradict!”

[Buck W.]

Not really, you just posted enough to support my point. Thanks!
Yes, there’s no risk of brilliance here...

[tpanther]

Then my work here is done.

More like piece of work, and over-done.

[Buck W.]

“Oh, and while I tried to engage you without deprecating your faith or disparaging your intelligence, your responses have been condescending and smarmy. Really “Christian” of you.”

Your original post pushed all of my buttons at the same time. Upon official review (and I am allowed two this half by league rules), I concur that my reaction was excessive. My apologies.

[count-your-change]

When someone says that Darwinism and Scripture are not contradictory it always means the Scriptures must be “allegory, and metaphor” in a sense that agrees with or allows for Darwinism to stand untouched and pristine.

How Romans 5:19 could be, “For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”, allergorized to be a ‘perfect fit or compatible’ with Darwinism, I have yet to hear.

And asking doesn't garner explanation but name calling for asking.

[tpanther]

The evolutionists show up and discuss religion. I’m beginning to think the point isn’t so much to refute the claims as it is to ensure that no discussion of the problems of evolution takes place without dragging religion into it, to keep up the fiction that they only reason anybody doesn’t believe in evolution is their religious convictions, and that there are only religious arguments to be made.

Exactly, but I will submit they don't discuss at all, but rather project and offer endless strawmen and repeat debunked lies over and over. It's cultlike frankly.

But yeah, they automatically attack any and every examination of so-called peer reviewed evolution as being religious attacks on science and then project. Rinse and repeat.

That's in essence the evo/liberal position.

[Westbrook]

No need to apologize, but you reveal yourself as a gentleman and a Christian for having done so.

I was probably being oversensitive, anyway. As you can imagine, I catch a lot of flack for my position, most of it riducule and condescension. “You must believe the earth is flat, too! Haw! Haw! Haw!”

It does get a bit tiresome.

But, you are obviously not one of those.

[count-your-change]

I don't need brilliance just an answer to the simple question of how your assertion that evolution and Christianity are, in your words, a “perfect fit” and “compatible”.

You've termed me “disingenuous” and my inquiry “juvenile”, yet I've only asked, with politeness, ‘how so?’

So please, How is evolution and Christianity “compatible”?

[Buck W.]

You posted my answer. I’m sorry that you don’t understand, even though an impartial third party has explained it to you.

Your persistence across unrelated threads can be construed as stalking. That’s not your intent, is it?

[tpanther]

Thank God real science is taught in public school.

Where' it's "settled" and "the debate is over" huh? Like algore and chrissy-fit matthews tell you?

[tpanther]

Good point...you’d think for all the hollering liberals do on here about earth age, if they spent 1/100th of their energies on algore and what’s really hurting science,
everyone would be better off.

But it’s not about the science for liberals. It never was.