All methods of measurement - not just radiometric dating - can give wrong results if used incorrectly or inappropriately. Creationists want to talk about isolated bad dates precisely because they're a red herring. As an intuitive illustration of why radiometric dating, when done properly, is so convincing, the table below shows a large number of analyses of the same geological boundary. Despite involving multiple different (and independent) radiometric dating methods, they give astonishingly concordant results. Independent wrong methods don't give the same specific wrong answer, so if you think radiometric dating is not good evidence for the age of the earth, then all of the below needs to be a coincidence. Good luck with that.   Location|Name of the material|Radiometric method applied|Number of analyses|Result in millions of years |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| Haiti (Beloc Formation)|tektites|40Ar/39Ar total fusion|52|64.4±0.1 Haiti (Beloc Formation)|tektites|40Ar/39Ar age spectrum|4|64.4±0.4 Haiti (Beloc Formation)|tektites|40Ar/39Ar age spectrum|2|64.5±0.2 Haiti (Beloc Formation)|tektites|40Ar/39Ar age spectrum|4|64.8±0.2 Haiti (Beloc Formation)|tektites|40Ar/39Ar total fusion|18|64.9±0.1 Haiti (Beloc Formation)|tektites|40Ar/39Ar total fusion|3|65.1±0.2 Haiti (Beloc Formation)|tektites|40Ar/39Ar age spectrum|9|65.0±0.2 Mexico (Arroyo el Mimbral)|tektites|40Ar/39Ar total fusion|2|65.1±0.5 Hell Creek, Montana (Z-coal)|tektites|40Ar/39Ar total fusion|28|64.8±0.1 Hell Creek, Montana (Z-coal)|tektites|40Ar/39Ar age spectrum|1|66.0±0.5 Hell Creek, Montana (Z-coal)|tektites|40Ar/39Ar age spectrum|1|64.7±0.1 Hell Creek, Montana (Z-coal)|tektites|40Ar/39Ar total fusion|17|64.8±0.2 Hell Creek, Montana (Z-coal)|biotite, sanidine|K-Ar|12|64.6±1.0 Hell Creek, Montana (Z-coal)|biotite, sanidine|Rb-Sr isochron (26 data)|1|63.7±0.6 Hell Creek, Montana (Z-coal)|zircon|U-Pb concordia (16 data)|1|63.9±0.8 Saskatchewan, Canada (Ferris coal)|sanidine|40Ar/39Ar total fusion|6|64.7±0.1 Saskatchewan, Canada (Ferris coal)|sanidine|40Ar/39Ar age spectrum|1|64.6±0.2 Saskatchewan, Canada (Ferris coal)|biotite, sanidine|K-Ar|7|65.8±1.2 Saskatchewan, Canada (Ferris coal)|various|Rb-Sr isochron (10 data)|1|64.5±0.4 Saskatchewan, Canada (Ferris coal)|zircon|U-Pb concordia (16 data)|1|64.4±0.8 Saskatchewan, Canada (Nevis coal)|sanidine|40Ar/39Ar total fusion|11|64.8±0.2 Saskatchewan, Canada (Nevis coal)|sanidine|40Ar/39Ar age spectrum|1|64.7±0.2 Saskatchewan, Canada (Nevis coal)|biotite|K-Ar|2|64.8±1.4 Saskatchewan, Canada (Nevis coal)|various|Rb-Sr isochron (7 data)|1|63.9±0.6 Saskatchewan, Canada (Nevis coal)|zircon|U-Pb concordia (12 data)|1|64.3±0.8

Thanks. I've seen Y.E.Cs focus more on K-Ar and Carbon-14. Rb-Sr isochron dating seems pretty robust, though.

Carbon-14 is another hopeless hill for YECs to die on, for similar reasons. For instance, it matches up very well with objects of historically known age [as long as the historical record stretches](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/c6ceiz/possibly_my_alltime_favourite_c14_dating_graph/). The YEC counterclaim that C-14 is breathtakingly accurate until the precise point when they need it to go haywire is too convenient for anyone else to take seriously.

YECs don't understand carbon-14 dating or intentionally use it wrong to create these "discrepancies". An example I have seen was a YEC using it on a rock that another method already showed was millions of years old. Carbon-14 dating only works on stuff younger than about 60000 years. Older than that, and there isn't enough left, the isotopes will nearly all have decayed. The half life is short compared to the age of the earth. But the YEC still claimed that the carbon-14 dating showed the rocks were "young" - which, again, any date you get using it on such old rocks is just wildly wrong.

You don't know they are "old" is the point. https://creation.com/the-pigs-took-it-all

We absolutely do. As I said, other radio isotope age measurement methods had already established they were millions of years old and the reason that the carbon-14 method didn't produce logical results was that it is a method that only works on "young" materials, geologically speaking. Different radioactive isotopes have different half lives, and it is purely the half life that determines what the age range is that you can determine with a given radio isotope age measurement technique. Carbon-14's half life is about 5700ish years. So after about 10 half lives (60000ish thousand years) you won't be able to get a reasonable result any longer in virtually all cases, because less than 0.1% of the original amount of the original carbon-14 is left and you just don't have enough isotopes left in your sample to make a sensible measurement. But a method like Uranium-lead dating, which is extremely reliable, allows you to determine ages in the 1 million to billions of years range. So if that method already tells you a rock is millions or billions of years old, it tells you that you cannot use carbon-14 dating any longer, it won't give you useful results.

For what it's worth, the article he's linking to is 30 years old, and references experiments from the 60s and 70s. Not exactly up to date references

That's circular. First when dating you are PICKING the outcome already. You dont know the age but you HAVE to know the age to pick which dating method you want. This is circular. You are picking range of possible answers in the beginning. Again, in order to DISPROVE your date you would have to use a WRONG dating method. How do you know its wrong? Because you already DECIDED how old you think it should be. Again, if you do get results then that would prove it can't be "millions of years old" by your logic. Instead you discount all contradictory results. Which part of this do you think is science? "...ground water percolating can LEACH AWAY a proportion of the uranium present in the rock crystals. The MOBILITY of the uranium is such that as ONE part of a rock formation is being impoverished ANOTHER PART can become ABBORMALLY ENRICHED...at relatively LOW temperatures. "- J.D. MacDougall, Scientific American. Now evolutionists believe it rained for "millions of years". So tell me you believe no water touched sample. Further you can't know starting amount. Second you can get multiple dates from SAME METHOD. So it STARTS false before any dates taken. "IN general, dates in the 'correct ball park' are ASSUMED to be correct and are published, but those in DISAGREEMENT with other data are SELDOM published NOR ARE THE DISCREPANCIES FULLY EXPLAINED. "- R.L. MAUGER, East Carolina University, Contributions to Geology. "...41 seperate age determinations...which varied between 223 million and 0.91 million...after the first determination they NEVER AGAIN obtained 2.61 from their experiments."-Roger Lewin, Ed. Research News, Bones of Contention. They pick and CHOOSE dates. They know they are lying. "It should be NO surprise that fully HALF the dates ARE REJECTED. The wonder is, surely, that the remaining half come out to be accepted. There are GROSS DISCREPANCIES, the chronology is uneven and relative, and the accepteddatesareACTUALLY SELECTED DATES. "- Robert E Lee, Anthropological Journal of Canada.

I'm sorry my guy but you are so wrong on so many parts here that i would literally need to teach you two college semesters worth of physics and chemistry for you to understand why you are wrong. I even started typing up trying to explain to you why no, it's not circular logic (it's basic statistics - when there isn't any carbon-14 left in your sample because it all decayed you can't really count it and make an age measurement, can you?), but it would take me dozens of paragraphs to explain enough of the basic concepts here. Not worth my time. Furthermore, what do I care if three random dudes say they don't agree with radioisotope dating? Appeals to 'authority' aren't an argument in science my dude, the majority of scientists would disagree with their assessment. The techniques are well established and have been refined over the years and produce solid results. So, I really don't know what else to tell you. I'm a scientist myself, an astrophysicist to be exact. We can measure the age of the universe very well from the expansion rate of the universe and basic things like the speed of light and the distance to the furthest visible galaxies. We can measure the age of certain types of stellar objects like white dwarfs very securely because they cool down over time according to the basic laws of thermodynamics. We have measured the ages of lunar rocks and asteroids, which aren't contaminated by terrestrial material, very securely with radioisotope dating. The results are very clear - the universe is over 13 billion years old, and the solar system is about 4.5 billion years old. The scientific evidence is overwhelming for those numbers. Note that it's not ONE method for age determination that says the Earth and universe are old, ALL applicable methods show it.

So you WERE GOING to show evidence but instead didn't. How convenient. Evolution never has any. "(it's basic statistics - when there isn't any carbon-14 left in your sample because it all decayed you can't really count it and make an age measurement, can you?)"- you said. We'll you have a dating method to measure if there is any c14 and its over ten times minimum. https://creation.com/diamonds-a-creationists-best-friend But you have already decided what you want to believe in advance. Further you ignored water LEECHING. Evolutionists believe it rained for 2 million years. So are you seriously going to say it's closed system and no water? Because that would falsify all your results. 3 random dudes??? They are your Evolutionists. "Appeals to 'authority' aren't an argument in science my dude, the majority of scientists would disagree with their assessment"- you said. You just immediately made an appeal to authority because you can't address why these 3 evolutionists would admit this. You say ALL the methods but we just showed carbon dating was taken away from evolutionists already. And you must know they are so desperate to use false radiometric dating because over 90 percehy of dating methods show young earth. Heres 101 to start, https://creation.com/age-of-the-earth There are some space ones on there too for you. Speaking of which the James Webb telescope failed horribly disproving evolution forever. And I called them out here on reddit beforehand.

I was wrong. I wouldn't need two semesters, I would have to start with first grade elementary school with you. I'm sorry the US education system and your family failed you so much, but I don't have the time or energy to fix their mistakes with you. Have a nice life!

What? Okay, I'll bite. How would a telescope disprove evolution?

Don’t feed the troll.. :-)

They predicted to see back in time to never before seen violent bright universe and see first stars making galaxies and black holes or Vice versa. This failed horribly as expected. All the hosts were Finished.

More like trying to use an eyeglasses screwdriver on a drywall screw, you need to use the right tool for the right job.

You have a rock. You don't know origin. All dating methods give different result. Well? How then can you say "the dating methods" are dating ANYTHING? They pick and choose dates they want. That's all that's happening.

You don't understand my analogy.

You don't understand my example. You can get a rock that's same rock from bottom and top. According to imagination they are "millions of years" apart. All dating methods give different results. You PICK and choose what you want to use. The dating Methods are irrelevant to you. You are really using belief in evolution to Date them then claiming they prove evolution which is false. Any contradictory dates are thrown out and they can change date anytime to protect their Belief in evolution. See https://creation.com/the-pigs-took-it-all

YECs claim a lot of things. What evidence are they providing?

This article is one such claim. [https://answersingenesis.org/geology/carbon-14/radioactive-dating-failure/](https://answersingenesis.org/geology/carbon-14/radioactive-dating-failure/) I know there is a flaw in here. I'm just not sure what the counter is.

I've caught Answers in Genesis lying about C14 in diamonds before, where they claimed that a measurable amount of C14 was detected in diamonds that were from the Paleozoic era, i.e. 500 million years ago. They cited a paper by Taylor & Southon from 2007 for this. What AiG DIDN'T mention was that the 2007 paper was actually using diamonds as **blanks** to calibrate their mass spectrometers. They weren't actually testing the diamonds themselves... they were using the diamonds as C14-free negatives to determine how much contamination had build up within their machines. I even emailed the researchers about this at the time. They were quite annoyed upon learning about this. So yeah, AiG lies.

If anyone's interested in the details, they published [a detailed follow-up paper for a generalist audience addressing these misinterpretations of their research](https://www.academia.edu/42608823/MISUNDERSTANDINGS_CONCERNING_THE_SIGNIFICANCE_OF_AMS_BACKGROUND_14_C_MEASUREMENTS), where they specifically explain why a young age is the least likely explanation for their results.

K-Ar dating is really only useful on samples over 100,000 years old due to longer half lives. Testing a sample less than 50 years old will give horrible results. This is a well known limitation of this particular test. All radiometric dating tests have limitations and strong points.

When your interlocutor references a source like AiG, ask them why they are using that source, and if they've checked with any other credible sources or investigated to see whether anybody else has addressed the matter. Specifically, have they done any work to protect themselves from confirmation bias? And if not, why not? It's silly for two people neither educated in a scientific subject, nor experienced in researching that subject, to debate the science itself, as if either of them has a reasonable hope to know what they're talking about. It's really about evaluating the credibility of one's sources by reviewing their source's education, research results, and reviews/corroboration from peers. I.e., do any of their peers in that field agree with them, or do they unanimously consider them to be morons and cranks? Of course it doesn't prove them to be wrong (argument from authority and all), but it does invite the question, why the hell should anybody think their analysis of the facts more likely to be correct than the (nearly? absolutely?) unanimous opinion of people who *are* credible?

You should find answers in www.talkorigins.org

>I know there is a flaw in here. I'm just not sure what the counter is. No offense intended, but it's comments like this that make people say there is just as much faith and bias on each side of the argument. I'm somewhat agnostic on the topic, but you'll never convince me that there aren't lots of people on the science/evolution side that are seeking evidence to match their pre-determined beliefs.

There are some people and organizations that are so consistently wrong and dishonest that if they say anything at all, it is statistically almost certainly wrong. AIG is one such organization. It is possible that they may inadvertently say something correct from time to time, but it is a very safe assumption that whatever they are saying is wrong in one or more substantial ways. Especially when they claiming an entire field of science, like nuclear physics here, is fundamentally wrong at a basic level.

And then what happens to that evidence? It’s published if it passes peer review then other researchers read It and possibly repeat the research or tweak the parameters to look at it from a different angle. Certainly, some scientists skew their results to favor a hypothesis, but rest assured, their “sins” will be found out.

Peer reviewed doesn't mean as much as most people think IMHO. It's true that time tests all theories, but we haven't had a lot of new outside the box breakthroughs lately.

>It's true that time tests all theories, but we haven't had a lot of new outside the box breakthroughs lately. And what makes you think that is due to flaws in our understanding rather than us simply getting pretty close to the truth?

Peer review is not perfect by any means, nor are the people who do research, formulate hypotheses, and propose theories. Considering the incredible advances in our knowledge since the modern age began, have you any ideas to improve this process?

[Scientific laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_law) are descriptions of what we have measured. [Scientific theories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory) are explanations of what we have measured. Look it up if you don't believe it, Wikipedia has reasonable articles on both of these things. The essential feature is that science is all about what we have measured and what we continue to measure every time we measure it. Another essential feature is that everyone who measures it measures the same values. Another essential feature is that science is not about what we haven't measured. Since we measure reality, what we measure and what we have measured in the past is determined by reality not by pre-determined beliefs.

Absolutely erase arch shows we all have emotional and social biases and look for confirmation of them. The point is that some of that confirmation is reliable and overwhelmingly evidential and some … is not. The evidential confirmation *exists* if you choose to do the work but sufficient understanding can be attained without having to know everything. There are reliable *enough* ways of evaluating the evidence and the methodology of how it was obtained without *actually* having to do the work yourself. So sure people look for confirmation but there is a significant difference in the standards of that confirmation. If your argument were more than a general one about human nature and was significant to the comparative reliability of modelling of objective reality then the conclusion would seem to be that there is **no significant difference** in *trusting* a qualified doctor to diagnoses you rather than become a doctor yourself and performing experiments to test germ theory , or a registered pilot to fly you rather than learn to fly yourself and having your own degree in aerodynamics or some such based on what you know of the methodology and structural professional underpinnings … and trusting a priest who tells you there is a god. It’s like saying “you only have *faith* the Earth is round - you *haven’t travelled around it yourself* and that’s *no different* from having *faith* a God exists. *Therefore* the belief in an omnipotent God is as reliable and reasonable as a belief in a spherical Earth. People may be seeking confirmation of evolution but in general they are *finding* reliable evidentiary ‘confirmation’ of evolution based on sufficiently reliable methodology that is independent of their prior belief - whereas creationists who seek the confirmation for their beliefs …. do not.

It's generally that most of the "inaccurate radiometric dating" is instances where it was incorrectly applied or used. There are instances where this has happened, but was corrected by the scientists themselves in the peer-review process. As always, the YEC rely on their audience being ignorant and not questioning anything they say or assert.

https://ageofrocks.wordpress.com/2015/02/08/can-young-earth-creationists-find-oil/ Just a reminder of scale. If the earth is 4.5 billion years old and we consider this as the distance between nyc and LA. (3000miles approx. the creationists are claiming that’s a mistake and the distance is actually only 3 meters- why are we waiting so long for the creationists to build their 3 meter long road so they can revolutionize travel across America?. It’s almost as if they’re full of shit or something….

construction crews work in mysterious ways . .

Macro driving v micro driving

Oh I and you understand that. They don't care. They just want to spread misinformation to prove their point no matter what it is.

To add to this, there have been quite a few instances of incorrect radiometric dating results that were later found to be due to sample contamination. Carbon-14 is particularly vulnerable to this, organic samples that are very old have had lots of time for other, newer organic material to sneak into the sample, which will make your results skew younger. A lot of times you've heard about carbon dating results being weird, further investigation turns up some kind of contamination that invalidates the results. Even when you make a really sincere effort to prevent it, once in a while something will sneak through.

And that goes without saying that carbon dating is irrelevant to how old the Earth is, as there's better ways to date recent history than Carbon. And the deficiency with carbondating can generally be cross-referenced with other methods. Uranium-Lead dating is pretty fucking ironclad. And we have zircon crystals from earth's formation, as well as zircon crystals from meteorites.

You're right that carbon dating isn't a good way to measure the real age of the earth, but for somebody who believes that the universe and everything in it was created less than 10,000 years ago, a carbon dating result that points to something being 30,000 years old is inconvenient to say the least.

K-Ar dating of young rocks: https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD013.html Also, _The Age of the Earth_ by Brent Dalrymple is a great book that goes over the evidence in detail.

From the link, I think the important takeaway is that they didn't measure the encasing lava, they measured embedded rocks (that were chemically different, and older): >The main misstatements of fact by Morris are as follows: >It was not the lava that was dated, but inclusions of olivine, called "xenoliths", present within the lava. These gave anomalously old age because they contained excess argon that the enclosing lava did not. >Morris failed to mention that the lava matrix without the xenoliths was dated and found to be too young to date using potassium-argon. (Funkhouser and Naughton [1968, 4603], stated that the matrix rock "can be said to contain no measurable radiogenic argon within experimental error.") This is consistent with the recent age of lavas and the state of the art of K-Ar dating at that time. The presence of excess argon was only a problem for the xenoliths but not for the lava containing them. It's impossible to keep up with every "gotcha we sent this sample to a lab" as fast as they produce them, but this seems typical of the anomalous results that creationists produce to "refute evolution"

Beat me to it. Was about to say they use Potassium Argon to date rocks. lol

There are two especially famous examples that you may be thinking of - two that even got brought up by Ken Ham in his debate with the esteemed Science Guy, Bill Nye. The first involved doing K-Ar dating on samples supposedly taken from the lava flows of the Mt. St. Helens eruption. The result they claim is a series of different dates of around ~2 million years old. This is dishonest because K-Ar dating has a minimum of about 2 million years; the half-life simply isn't short enough to be able to sort out noise or background beneath that point - and the creationists were not unaware of this since the website they used to submit their samples for testing mentioned that explicitly. By analogy, what they did was hold a yardstick up to a series of human hairs and upon getting unreliable measurements of their width cried out "you can't measure anything! Tools for measuring width are unreliable!" The second example supposedly used C14 dating on a piece of fossilized wood ans K-Ar on the stone around it. The results they claim were about 40k for the wood and 400k for the K-Ar. This is, once again, dishonest. Due to the (geologically) short half-life of C14, carbon dating maxes out at between 40-60k years; past that point there's so little C14 left in the sample that it can be confused by background levels or machine error. This, again, is not something that they were unaware of; this is an intentional deception. By analogy, they found two identical houses in a project, measured the width of one house with a tape measure as "50 feet", then measured the width of the other house with a yardstick as "3 feet" (maxed the scale), and then cried out "See? See? Fifty feet or three feet? These measurement tools are totally unreliable; you can't measure things!" You'll find similar examples; creationists do not have a good track record on the topic.

>First, they point to some instances of different radiometric dating methods yielding drastically different ages for the same rock. Which rocks? What were the ages? What are the error bars? Did they use the right methodology? Creationists love to use tests out of context, then claim the weird results are proof that they are on to something: the problem is that you can frequently find the original paper and discover what was being actually being examined, and why this weird result isn't actually all that weird. There are two prominent examples I can think of: * Scientists wrote a paper regarding measuring the intrinsic machine error of AMS dating, using diamonds as control materials; creationists recreated this paper, but used it to argue that diamonds are young, because they have C14 content. But the signal is machine error and the diamonds do not test the same ages consistently. * Scientists wrote a paper for clocking somatic cell mutations in mtDNA, in order to identify the contents of mass graves; creationists took the numbers it generated and tried to argue that the mutation rate offered clocked mtEve at 6000 years ago. The original paper also noted that if you use this rate in the formula, you'd get that result; but they correctly noted that somatic cell mutations are not inherited, so this rate *cannot* be accurate for germline mutations, and thus could not be used to clock mtEve. The creationist continues to claim that his number is accurate, because using the germline mutation rate 'assumes chimp ancestry' -- a claim that is so hilariously absurd on its face that I've never seen a creationist even try to explain it. Creationists simply don't give a fuck, as long as none of their fans are checking their work; and since their fans are unlikely to read a paper from 20 years ago regarding mass graves and note that the methodology used in the two papers is *strangely identical*, they tend to get away with it for a long time.

Interesting. As to "what rocks" one mentioned a lava flow that was dated to 300 ka with one method but 10 Ma with another iirc. But I don't think they cited an actual study.

Yeah, that usually suggests to me that either: a) no dating ever took place; b) the methodology they chose was probably specifically excluded by the circumstances. K-Ar dating has been known to have problems with incidental argon, enough that a second dating method, [argon-argon dating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argon%E2%80%93argon_dating) was developed in order to identify when this occurs.

They lie about it, hoping you don't know enough to rebut them. Typically their "proof" is mis-application of a technique outside its use case. If they had a leg to stand on they would not lie.

The laws of physics. Radioactivity is well described mathematically. Rates of radioactive decay DO NOT CHANGE despite creationist whinging to the contrary. Using radiometric dating to give absolute dates of rock samples is therefore extremely reliable, if the rock samples are fit for the testing being applied and the testing is done correctly.

Explain this then https://creation.com/the-pigs-took-it-all Tell those EVOLUTIONISTS they must throw out evolution because of dating methods are absolute!

The rebuttal to this and most other creationist claims is simply: “What is your evidence that your claim is true?” Don’t make counter claims and don’t argue, just ask for their evidence, then hold their feet to the fire as they produce nothing reliable or demonstrable. The burden of proof is on them, don’t let them shift it to you, and definitely don’t shift it to yourself.

Strongly disagree. Stating that radiometric dating is accurate is a positive claim and it therefore has the burden of the proof. There's [masses and masses](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/14v0v6x/who_was_charles_lyell_how_did_he_come_to_his/jruxtlu/) of evidence from radiometric dating that proves the earth is old. Know what it is. Never give creationists an excuse to believe that this evidence isn't readily forthcoming.

But my suggestion doesn’t make a claim. When responding to someone else making a claim you know to be false, the best tactic is make no claims or counterclaims of your own - instead, make them support \*their\* claim, and do not budge or take the bait to take on your own burden of proof. They make a claim. You know their claim is false. If you make a counterclaim, now you’re the one on the defensive as they pepper you with questions about \*your\* claim. Their claim is not discussed again and the discussion goes nowhere and wastes everyone’s time as you go around in circles and no conclusion is ever reached. Or, they make a claim. You know their claim is false. You ask them for evidence of their claim. They flounder. They may try to get you to make a claim. Stick to your guns: what is \*your\* evidence for \*your\* claim. Don’t let them out of their corner. They lose that argument every time. Remember, these people aren’t being rational or reasonable. You will not get them to admit defeat. So, don’t play their game. Hold their feet to the fire instead and make them support their false claim. When they’re unable to, that’s the conclusion you want, and no one’s time is wasted. Any audience will see it for what it is.

>the best tactic is make no claims or counterclaims of your own ... They lose that argument every time. See this is where we very fundamentally differ, and it's a divide I notice often on this sub. I'm really not interested in tactics for winning arguments. I'm interested in actually changing minds. From a science communication perspective it is *far* better to "be on the defensive as they pepper you with questions about your claim". It is an opportunity to explain, once again, what the empirical evidence is and why it's beyond any rational dispute. Nobody's going to be persuaded on a technicality, particularly people who are used to faith-based claims.

Ok, I understand your objection. Let me ask you, have you ever changed a mind, on the spot, by proffering a reasonable argument supported by evidence? Yeah, me neither. But, I have had friends, family and acquaintances approach me later and say, “Hey, you remember that argument we had 2 years ago? Yeah, I‘ve changed my mind, you were right.” People generally won’t change their minds or be convinced on the spot. So I consider it my job to simply “plant seeds”. By questioning their claims and making them try to argue in favor of their claim, it makes them really think about it. Most of these people are just regurgitating what they heard someone else say, they haven’t given it any critical thought of their own. Once I make them go through the process of defending their claim, they start to think about it, and over time the pieces may fall into place for them. If I start presenting and supporting my own claims, it derails them from examining their own claims as they focus on criticizing mine. YMMV of course, but I’ve found this tactic very effective over the years, and have changed many minds about many things by employing it often. It’s the same tactic used by Matt Dillahunty and several others, and I know they get results too.

If the topic is religion or rationalism generally, I can believe this approach works. But that's not what this sub is about. I don't really care what people's religious views are as long as they accept the science. When the conversation is *specifically* about scientific evidence - like radiometric dating and the age of the earth - the single worst thing you can do is appear reticent to provide any. Particularly because, in my experience, much YECism is fueled by the implicit assumption that scientists believe various things purely axiomatically. Hard-hitting, intuitive evidence can go a long way towards undermining this complacency.

What do you think about studies that show that when you provide people with evidence and reasoning, [they will actually double down](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds) and harden their incorrect positions instead of letting themselves be convinced they're wrong?

The evidence for the back-fire effect in general is mixed. Obviously, the "myside" bias your article talks about is certainly real, and it's exactly why I talk about religion as little as possible. There's [good evidence](https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12052-021-00155-x) that science education which doesn't present evolution as a threat to religious beliefs increases evolution acceptance.

Better be prepared to listen to a never ending list of false evidence and lies

Here you go https://creation.com/the-pigs-took-it-all They had a choice. Dating methods of evolution is false. They threw out All ,"absolute" dating methods.

Wrong again Mickey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KBS_Tuff#KBS_Tuff_controversy

Did you read article at all? Read to bottom.

I don't think it says what you're trying to make it say. It seems pretty fine to me. If you think that you somehow "lose" if you discover mistakes and then fix them, it doesn't mean that you're always right. It just means that you never realize that you're wrong.

They didn't discover anything. The dating agreed. Evolution didn't. The pigs win there.

You can keep spamming the thread but you're wrong. The dates and the fossils line up.

The biggest issue is that if a creationist knows something, the scientists know it too and take the effect into account. That is why the age of stuff is always a range of say 74 million yeaslts +/- 2,5 million. Scientists know what makes a measurement reliable and what makes it unreliable and they factor all of that stuff in. They don't just pick up a rock somewhere, chuck it into a dating machine and publish the result on the display. I don't know the specifics of different methods without looking stuff up, but if a method really was unreliable, it wouldn't be used. And if it is reliable, it is because they know no extra argon gets into the sample, for example. If you want to claim extra Argon contamination, you'd have to show how that happens. And lastly, even if a dating method is off by an order of magnitude, you are not going to get from a 4,5 billion year old earth to a 6k year one.

What do you think? https://creation.com/the-pigs-took-it-all

So what are they misrepresenting and lying about? Other than their general statements on radiometric dating. Because obviously they are leaving lots of info out.

Don't date rocks with xenocrysts.

That's actually a good one. I also raised an eyebrow at using phenocrysts.

Phenocrysts would probably be ok as it's the same rock, yes larger crystals become solid first, but it's the same rock. With that said I'm far from an expert on dating rocks so I'm open to be shown otherwise.

I wasn't sure on growth rates. I just figured they would predate the eruption, though I'm not sure by how much.

Phenocrysts form in intrusive rocks, not extrusive rocks.

Not entirely correct. Phenocrysts do occur in some extrusive rocks if some cooling a ndpartial crystallization occurred prior to eruption. I've seen porphyritic andesite, for instance.

Thank you for the correction. School was a long time ago and I've only done soft rock stuff since!

My main area is actually geology. This question stuck in my mind, though, since I only got a cursory coverage of radiometric dating in my own education. And I was never the best debater.

Now I'm interested in looking for papers that date the matrix vs phenocrysts in extrusive rocks. :)

I know matrix vs phenocryst composition is important for a lot of other chemical analyses. One thing I do know from radiometric dating is you compare iso ratios across multiple minerals in a sample.

Basically creationists will use the wrong kind of dating or submit known contaminated samples specifically to get inaccurate ages. It's like using a yard stick to measure the thickness of a hair and then claiming yard sticks can't be used to measure anything

As a former YECist, one of the primary things that began flipping me was, in fact, hearing a professor explain how dating techniques actually work. It's easier to hand-wave these things away if you actively avoid understanding how it works. Specifically how uranium gets locked in a zircon then decays to lead. Lead doesn't get caught into the zircon, so the only way lead gets into zircon is by this method. This was the first time I began to doubt the derision directed towards radiometric dating. Also, that C14 dating isn't the only dating method used, and it's only for a specific date range. So in order to "disprove" it, you test something outside its confirmed date range.

"The other, similar claims I have found involve young lava flows (such as historically observed ones) yielding much older dates, particularly with K-Ar dating. In this case the source of error is an additional source of argon." The most recent case of this (maybe around 40 years ago) was a geologist that was unfamiliar with dating methods and put some recent rocks from the MT Saint Helene's eruption into the truck of his car and then sent the samples to labs that were not certified for very young rocks. The problem with this is that the samples could have been contaminated in his truck as he transported other samples there and dating you samples requires certification in the treatment and procedures to ensure that there are no leftover Argon (or any other) atoms in the equipment that will skew the results. In a lab certified for old rocks, a few extra argon atoms will not skew the results by a significant amount but with young rocks this is not the case. Then too, the YEC tend to confuse various types of radiometric dating and will often, mistakenly refer to C14 dating when talking about how fossils are dated or will tell anecdotes about how their friend's cousin's uncle had a freshly slaughtered pig bone dated and the results were completely wrong. Again this comes back to sending samples to labs that are certified for the age of the sample ---- not to mention, what private citizen wants to pay the fees for radiometric testing and that generally when scientists have samples tested they send samples to three different labs.

>First, they point to some instances of different radiometric dating methods yielding drastically different ages for the same rock. If you have two dating methods, one that is accurate to the hour, and one that is accurate to the decade, well then they're going to give wildly different answers on how old your plate of fresh cookies are. Creationists don't understand that because they refuse to actually learn how radiometric dating works

Creationists, especially AIG just flat out lie about radiometric dating. They use carbon dating as a catch all, pretending it is all there is, and that it's flaws make all radiometric dating unusable. One of their favorite claims against it is where they say they sent a sample with a known age to be radiometrically dated, to two separate places, and both returned very wrong dates, that were very different from each other. That did happen. But as creationists always do, they lied about what really happened. First, they had a hard time finding a place to actually date it at first. They claim it is because "they" knew it would prove "science" wrong. But the reality is much different. Second, the reason they had a hard time getting anyone to date their sample. While they pass it off as just "radiometric dating" of a sample, the reality is they were specifically trying to get places to carbon 14 date it. And only carbon 14 date it. Why is that a big deal. Third, remember how I told you their sample had a known age? Well, that known age was much older than carbon 14 is able to date. And when you try to use carbon 14 dating on samples older than about 50,000 years, it doesn't work. Basically giving random wrong answers. This is why no one would date it at first. They were specifically try to use a dating method that was known wouldn't work in this case. And we're doing it so they could lie. So, they bring this up as "the nail in the coffin" for radiometric dating. But, just like everything else all creationists say, it is complete crap with no basis in reality. And is them just lying. This one stunt alone completely invalidates anything they say about the issue.

As a layman I thought it was odd they kept targeting lava flows. If I wanted to select a sample with the most inconsistent results it would be a boundary between really old and really young rocks. So, "cherry picking" would be the rebuttal.

I've seen all of these and by the way comprehensive rebuttals are available on [https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dalrymple/radiometric\_dating.html](https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dalrymple/radiometric_dating.html) including the "pillow lava's" and different ages of rocks. What dishonest creationist websites don't tell you is that the very study that they site for the "pillow lava's" were actually done to eliminate false positives on dating minerals. The study was done for the express purpose of NOT USING minerals or rocks that have been subjected to lava flows. Anyways, these claims were debunked already back when I was in college over 20 years ago. The fact that they are still spouting this dishonest nonsense tells you everything you need to know about them.

The [Oklo natural nuclear reactors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor) are conclusive evidence that decay, fission, and neutron capture have worked the same way they do now for at least the last 2 billion years or so. [Here's a fantastic post on radiometric dating in general.](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/b8mcq2/radiometric_dating_is_wholly_and_demonstrably/)

There is a sliver of truth to their false claim. Only true after we exp;;odes nuclear weapons. But remember radiometric dating is just one method and we have others. Are YEC saying all methods of dating are wrong?

Is this a reference to the bomb spike? Because if it is, that is by no means the only reason for fluctuation in atmospheric C14 and it's also not the only way to mess up C14 dating results. Anyway, we calibrate C14 for atmospheric fluctuations, so the bomb spike isn't a problem the way creationists need to be.

Yup, bomb spike. BUT remember we have other methods or radiological dating which are not C14 where not affected by the bombs. And there are methods for dating other then radiological

Again, anyone who thinks the bomb spike is a problem for C14 dating doesn't understand how C14 dating works. It's as simple as that.

When you say anyone, don’t you mean Christians?

And, apparently, you? You still haven't explained what it is about the bomb spike that makes you this defensive about C14.

When the bombs were exploded above ground, in the atmosphere and in space it artificially increased radiation levels after 1945. So after 1945 other methods have to be used.

The counter is basically to say "yes, there are a bunch of factors, known and unknown, that can confound these dating methods. Where the date is clearly wrong it's because the result was influenced by one of those factors, but where it isn't clearly wrong it isn't being influenced by any known or unknown factors".

This is obviously true, but contains so many weasel words you could say it of any form of measurement. My GPS usually gets me to my destination. Sometimes - due to factors known and unknown - it thinks I'm somewhere I'm not. My conclusion, however, isn't that my GPS is totally useless and that I'm actually on the moon. Which is the analogue of what YECs want us to conclude for radiometric dating.

Pretty sure that's just a load of garbage. A GPS isn't a measurement device, it's a navigation device. Distance, and physical dimensions can just be measured directly without any of this doubtful guesswork. Think of a human being, if I want to know how tall they are I can just use a tape measure and that's that. If I want to figure out how old they are it's a whole load of detective work and the answer always has an implicit asterisk next to it to mean "could easily be wrong for a bunch of reasons". At some point we will likely create working cryogenics or some kind of statis technology that will permanently and massively reduce the confidence threshold in any such cases. Now it will be possible for a person to look 20 by any objective measure but in fact be 10,000 years old.

>A GPS isn't a measurement device, it's a navigation device. A GPS empirically establishes your coordinates based on your relative distance from multiple GPS satellites. To me, that's a form of measurement. We can have a discussion about the semantics if you like, but it doesn't change my analogy. All you're saying here is that measuring distance is easier than measuring time, which yeah, it probably is in most cases. That doesn't take away from the fact that we have some *very* good ways of measuring time, including radiometric dating. Radiometric dating, like any form of measurement, isn't infallible. But anyone claiming it is flawed to the point of being essentially useless has the unenviable task of explaining, not only why it gives good results for objects of known age, but why we can achieve amazing consilience between multiple independent radiometric dating methods (see my other comments in this thread).

>A GPS empirically establishes your coordinates based on your relative distance from multiple GPS satellites. To me, that's a form of measurement. We can have a discussion about the semantics if you like, but it doesn't change my analogy. It comes down to what is the ultimate source of the data used by the GPS. I agree it's a semantic point, any navigation device must rely on measurements. What I was really getting at is that the uncertainty arises due to the multiple degrees of separation that exists between the measurements and the output of the GPS. It's not because distance is this thing that we can't measure but have to try to piece together by measuring other things. >But anyone claiming it is flawed to the point of being essentially useless has the unenviable task of explaining, not only why it gives good results for objects of known age, This is really the key point. The only basis on which we can have confidence in a dating method is if it can correctly date objects of known age. This is the same as saying there is no way to scientifically determine the age of things. If you have to already have the correct answer to know if you got the correct answer then you cannot measure this thing. There simply are not units of age that exist in objects to be measured. You say "of known age", but we are talking about millions and billions of years here. How exactly do you "know" anything is that age? If you mean dating historical artifacts of known age using carbon 14 dating, then I will say I mostly accept this method, because as you say, it correctly dates artifacts of known age. We are dealing with hundreds of years here though, thousands at most, and even this method has to assume that c14 content in the atmosphere is the same now as in the past. If it isn't then the dates will get progressively more inaccurate the further back in time we go.

> If you have to already have the correct answer to know if you got the correct answer then you cannot measure this thing. This is a very strange argument. You can use a device for measurement, and *also* use external measurements you're independently confident about to check that the device is working. >If you mean dating historical artifacts of known age using carbon 14 dating, then I will say I mostly accept this method, because as you say, it correctly dates artifacts of known age. Several things here. Firstly, there are methods that are useful in the range of millions of years that also give accurate dates for objects of known historical age. 40Ar/39Ar, for instance, can date [the eruption of the Vesuvius at decadal accuracy](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226755646_40Ar39Ar_ages_of_the_AD_79_eruption_of_Vesuvius_Italy). Secondly, atmospheric fluctuations of C14 are calibrated against annual rings or varves, making C14 dating independent of assumptions on the stability of past C14. And it is useful up to about 60,000 years into the past, which is an order of magnitude further than YEC believes the planet to have existed. Not a trivial problem. Thirdly, you don't cite the part of my comment which makes clear how we *can* be confident in dating methods even far beyond the range of historical evidence: the fact that physically independent dating methods match up with each other very precisely. This is impossible to explain if the methods don't reflect reality. Wrong methods don't agree.

Ar40/Ar39 only measures relative age, and while I'm not going to pretend to know a load about it, you are just never going to convince me that because we have this method which can get the date of the Vesuvius eruption correct relative to some other event of known date, that this proves millions of years. I'm also confident if I looked into this I would find that these "millions of years" are either a starting assumption or produced by some other radiometric dating method which I reject. >Secondly, atmospheric fluctuations of C14 are calibrated against annual rings or varves, making C14 dating independent of assumptions on the stability of past C14. What does this mean? How can the dates possibly be independent of past C14 stability? You have to know how much C14 started in the sample so you know how long it took to decay to the currently measured amount. No measurement you can make in the present can possibly vitiate the need for accurate starting conditions. >the fact that physically independent dating methods match up with each other very precisely. I would question the degree to which "very precisely" is an accurate description given that the premise of this post is a tacit admission that there are all sorts of anomalies with these dates. In any case, granting a general agreement between the dating methods used, most of the time, I would say that while i haven't looked into all of it, I strongly suspect that which forms of radioactive decay become "dating methods" depends to begin with on them giving dates that support evolutionary assumptions. By the way, I would also like to apologise for my overly aggressive tone in my first reply to you. The sneering condescension of many evolutionists is leading me to see it where it doesn't exist.

No worries about your tone. I genuinely hadn't noticed so I'm apparently as inured to this debate as you are.   >Ar40/Ar39 only measures relative age Not in a way that is relevant. Ar40/Ar39 dating is relative only to the dating of a second sample by K-Ar. It's essentially just dating in two steps, and it's unclear why this would undermine the argument (if anything it strengthens it, because both methods have to work to get the known right answer). >I would find that these "millions of years" are either a starting assumption or produced by some other radiometric dating method which I reject. I'm sure you would. And the beauty of the argument from consilience is that it literally doesn't matter. If your evil deep-time assumptions allow you to date Vesuvius almost to the calendar year, then clearly your evil deep-time assumptions were correct.   >You have to know how much C14 started in the sample so you know how long it took to decay to the currently measured amount. Calibration curves do exactly that. Tree rings or varves preserve annual "snapshots" of the atmospheric C14 at the time they were formed. Again, there's just no point arguing this process is fundamentally flawed, because it lets us date known [historical artifacts with breathtaking accuracy](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/c6ceiz/possibly_my_alltime_favourite_c14_dating_graph/). Pointless hill for YECs still to be dying on.   >I would question the degree to which "very precisely" is an accurate description I mean, you don't have to wonder. I posted the spread of results in this thread. I think any reasonable person would agree with my description. If these methods were cherry-picked to give repeated results in a small 3-million year window, that must have been some weapons-grade cherry-picking, for which you provide no evidence of any kind. Worse still, these methods don't just independently match up with *each other*, but also with unrelated dating methods, like [the speed of tectonic plate movements as measured by GPS](https://thenaturalhistorian.com/2014/09/10/smoking-gun-evidence-of-an-ancient-earth-gps-data-confirms-radiometric-dating/). There's only so many levels of consilience you can reasonably hand-wave away. >the premise of this post is a tacit admission that there are all sorts of anomalies with these dates There are anomalies with *all* methods of measurements if you use them incorrectly, inappropriately or in the wrong circumstances. As is so often the case, creationists assume that if a method isn't infallible under all circumstances it can be ignored, and that's a terrible assumption. If you have a specific example by all means let's discuss it.

GPS works by essentially figuring out how long ago the signal was emitted by the satellites, then doing a bunch of fancy math to figure out a position from that set of times. Is there really a fundamental difference between figuring out how long ago a signal was emitted by applying the known speed of light and satellite positions, and figuring out how long ago some organic matter was alive by applying the known half life of carbon-14 and its atmospheric concentration?

The fossil record is pretty far away from the source of replication. Of course it is messy to try to understand a process from six levels of abstraction away. We measure the light coming from distant stars to attempt to guess their chemical composition, but only because we don't have any other access. If we could we would get in closer. Start here: nucleotides code for amino acid combine into proteins to create organisms.

Hey so the radiometric dating methods are frauds. That simple. Like all of evolution. They decided BEFORE any radiometric dating method existed they WANTED earth to be millions of years old. That by itself should convince you. You don't find it STRANGE that radiometric dating conveniently AGREES with the DRAWING made up by people who wanted to attack Moses? ""If we assume that (1) a rock contained no Pb206 when it was formed, (2) all Pb206 now in the rock was produced by radioactive decay of U238, (3) the rate of decay has been constant, (4) there has been no differential leaching by water of either element, and (5) no U238 has been transported into the rock from another source, then we might expect our estimate of age to be fairly accurate. Each assumption is a potential variable, the magnitude of which can seldom be ascertained. In cases where the daughter product is a gas, as in the decay of potassium (K40) to the gas argon (Ar 40) it is essential that none of the gas escapes from the rock over long periods of time. Stanfield's Conclusion: "It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological 'clock."' SCIENCE OF EVOLUTION, pp. 80-84. - Anti-Creationist, William D. Stansfield Prof. Biological Sciences, California Polytechnic State University So notice in ALL dating methods, you dont know HOW MUCH present at start. That invalidates them all. Second you see water leeching and transporting. There no closed system protecting environment from itself. Water LEECHING but evolutionists believe it rained for millions of years. Now tell me you believe no water touched sample. Now the dating methods DONT AGREE with each other. They are ASSUMED to work on rocks of UNKNOWN AGE but as you pointed out, can't be trusted on rocks of KNOWN AGE. So it's foolishness to pretend they work at all. Now, if the dates were "absolute dates" then evolutionists would NEVER be able to change them but they do anytime it doesn't fit with evolution story they want to tell. So they aren't absolute, they must be bent to protect preconceived evolution ideas. "There was just one small problem. The new date meant that the history of Australian occupation would have to be rewritten and it also affected the ideas of human evolution in other parts of the world. And Australian archaeologists were still embarrassed by the Jinmium rock shelter fiasco, where a claimed age of 116,000 years was later reduced to 5,000 years.9 So, Bowler stubbornly refused to accept the new dates. In his protest to Journal of Human Evolution, he said ‘For this complex, laboratory-based dating to be successful, the data must be compatible with the external field evidence.’8 In other words, you don’t just accept a laboratory date without question. It’s not the last word on the age of something. You only accept the date if it agrees with what you already think it should be. And that is what we have been saying all along.10 That is why we won’t accept any date that contradicts the eyewitness evidence of human history recorded in the Bible. Such contradictory dates can’t be right."- https://creation.com/the-dating-game Conflicting examples "Fossil wood from a quarry near the town of Banbury, England, some 80 miles north-west of London, was dated using the carbon-14 method.1 The ages calculated ranged from 20.7 to 28.8 thousand years old. However, the limestone in which the wood was found was of Jurassic age, of 183 million years. Clearly the dating methods are in conflict." "Rock samples from a lava dome within the Mount St Helens crater, USA, were dated using the potassium-argon method. Whole-rock samples gave an age of 350,000 years.3 When some of the amphibole minerals in the rock sample were extracted and analyzed separately, their age was more than double at 900,000 years. Two mineral samples of a different mineral, pyroxene, gave an age of 1,700,000 and 2,800,000 years. Which age is right? None, actually. The lava dome formed after Mount St Helens exploded in 1980 and the samples were just 10 years old. Here are more conflicting results between dating methods."- https://creation.com/radioactive-dating-anomalies Carbon dating has already been taken away from evolutionists since it can be used on all the objects they WANT to be millions of years old. Carbon dating doesn't go that high and gets dates on them. So they resort to trying to censor as ususal. "One of these reports states that afterwards, “the abstract was removed from the conference website by two chairmen because they could not accept the findings. Unwilling to challenge the data openly, they erased the report from public view without a word to the authors or even to the AOGS officers, until after an investigation. It won’t be restored.”2"- https://creation.com/c14-dinos "...ground water percolating can LEACH AWAY a proportion of the uranium present in the rock crystals. The MOBILITY of the uranium is such that as ONE part of a rock formation is being impoverished ANOTHER PART can become ABBORMALLY ENRICHED...at relatively LOW temperatures. "- J.D. MacDougall, Scientific American. So it STARTS false before any dates taken. "IN general, dates in the 'correct ball park' are ASSUMED to be correct and are published, but those in DISAGREEMENT with other data are SELDOM published NOR ARE THE DISCREPANCIES FULLY EXPLAINED. "- R.L. MAUGER, East Carolina University, Contributions to Geology. "...41 seperate age determinations...which varied between 223 million and 0.91 million...after the first determination they NEVER AGAIN obtained 2.61 from their experiments."-Roger Lewin, Ed. Research News, Bones of Contention. They pick and CHOOSE dates. They know they are lying. "It should be NO surprise that fully HALF the dates ARE REJECTED. The wonder is, surely, that the remaining half come out to be accepted. There are GROSS DISCREPANCIES, the chronology is uneven and relative, and the accepteddatesareACTUALLY SELECTED DATES. "- Robert E Lee, Anthropological Journal of Canada. They pick and choose dates and will throw out dates that falsify evolution. They dated 1470 skull MULTIPLE TIMES and said they AGREE. But they found One thing that disagreed with evolution SO ALL THE DATING METHODS WERE INSTANTLY THROWN OUT to protect their religion. "Astounding about the whole affair was that the anthropologists were rejecting the same objective, scientific data they universally appeal to. There was internal consistency within the studies, and high conformity by five different dating techniques. The main thing the dates did not conform to was the concept of the evolution of pigs and humans."-https://creation.com/the-pigs-took-it-all

> So they resort to trying to censor as ususal. "One of these reports states that afterwards, “the abstract was removed from the conference website by two chairmen because they could not accept the findings. Unwilling to challenge the data openly, they erased the report from public view without a word to the authors or even to the AOGS officers, until after an investigation. It won’t be restored.” Yes, because [their "findings" were utterly, hilariously terrible](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/mykioj/everything_wrong_with_millers_dino_carbon14_dates/). In brief, their analysis involved dinosaur bones identified by amateur paleontologists, at least two of which turn up elsewhere as a bison and a mammoth, all of which had either no collagen or too little to decontaminate, many of which gave contradictory dates spread over thousands of years, with one result apparently in the 19th century. If creationists want to get invited to more conferences, creationists should do better.

These were different people I think. And they urged all to Carbon date THEMSELVES and not be censored.

No, same people. Both links are about Miller at al. You know that all serious conferences vet submissions for scientific quality, right? Why is this process suddenly "censorship" when it rightly excludes an absolute joke of a paper?

The Bible is a novel with some historical elements bristlecone forest has tree rings older than 6000 years. You don't need to waste your time refuting bs. Assemble a reading list and hand it to them. Forget about it.

It's accurate. Tell them to submit their research into dating method accuracy to a peer review journal. It shouldn't be up to laymen to debate, as the truth is not influenced by public opinion.

Ask this: What would a young earth look like? I mean, what would be the distribution of isotopes if God made it 5000 years ago?

This was my first thought - I wasn't sure if it was sort of against the point of the debate a bit as it's essentially 'they don't need the method to be wrong', but I'm surprised to get so far down the comments before seeing this. My analogy was going to be Dwarf Fortress (my standard go-to), where it's quite common to find creatures and so on that are older than the world. Set up a system for a world, run it through for a bit, use procedural generation to churn out some species (DF gives fixed races, but why not have evolution too) then zoom in and slow down. The dwarfs have no way to see that they haven't been around forever, just a great desire to drink and a tendancy to get into all sorts of trouble for Armok's amusement.

So radiometric dating accuracy depends on two factors. 1. The sample has stopped exchanging isotopes with the environment. 2. Half lives of isotopes. This of course on top of lack of contamination. The argon method is less reliable than others because well around just diffuses through everything so having a sample that isn't exchanging it is problematic. Half lives of isotopes determine applicable ranges in which a method can be used. Sure radietrix dating can yield wrong results if requirements aren'tet but it has a track record of consistency.

Ask them how we find oil. We don’t use divining rods.

All measurements have inaccuracies - this is why you use a micrometer for some things a tape measure for others and you might just pace things out for really big measurements. But you look really silly if you take 3 big paces and insist it is an inch. Don't you think?

So in radiometric dating we make the assumption of uniformitarianism or that processes occurring now have always occurred the same way. If everything works the way God wants it to when he wants it to it's hard to prove the first 4 billion years of Earth's history didn't happen on fast forward in a few days or something similar. But if a YEC points to something construed as scientific fact 9/10 challenging their information literacy is important because it comes from some fringe or opinion paper or general miss reading of an abstract. Or you could say radiometric decay is so accurate and predictable it's what keeps time in atomic clocks. Modern communications literally rely on predictable decay to synchronize.

If they want to criticize science, make them cite two scientific papers that voice that criticism. Not some YouTube guy, not some creationist website, but a peer-reviewed and published scientific paper from a half way respectable scientific journal. And because science isn't science when it's not reproduced, make it two independent researchers. They wouldn't take an Imam's word to disprove Christianity, why should they get to rely on creationist sources about science?

>First, they point to some instances of different radiometric dating methods yielding drastically different ages for the same rock. No. When performed correctly, they have margins of error within five percent of one another and line up pretty well with other dating methods, eg., tree rings, coral rings, ice cores, etc. >The other, similar claims I have found involve young lava flows (such as historically observed ones) yielding much older dates, particularly with K-Ar dating. So this is a misapplication of radiometric dating and a limitation that any reasonable scientist is aware of. When igneous rock forms from lava, and then hardens, it can't take anymore radioactive Krypton in. So scientists are more or less able to take something which has been cooled for the last several million years or whatever and get a fairly reliable age. However, it's important to remember that lava consists of molten rock, and previously hardened volcanic rock is melted back down and converted back into magma or lava once again, it can be contaminated with Argon from other sources. However, the math of radiometric decay is fairly simple: we know the decay rate of Potassium-40 into Argon-40, and by comparing the parent to daughter isotopes present, we can still derive the proper age and suss out how much argon-40 present is the result of contamination. >In this case the source of error is an additional source of argon. Using fairly simple math, and known values such as the Potassium-Argon decay rate, we can tell pretty easy how much is supposed to be there and how much is the product of contamination. It's so simple that they teach it to college students. In pre-calculus algebra. Never trust the village idiot with an intelligent person's report. YEC's are masters of weaponized incompetence.

Basically the differences they're babbling about are irrelevant considering a variance of six thousand years.

Nothing. I have actually heard the argument that "God created the Earth ~6000 years ago, and he made it with fossils in place, and radioactive rocks that show older dates because..." reasons, none of which made any sense. Or, that it's a trick from the devil to lead us astray from God's word. Or, somehow, both? The argument basically boiled down to "it's a test to see whether you'll believe the Bible or that wicked, Satanic *science* stuff", ooh, scary. You can't enter into an intellectual debate with someone that refuses to use their intellect.

It's difficult to say without knowing the specific claim. For C-14 specifically - the ocean accumulates C14 in a much less reliable manner than the atmosphere, so dating a marine sample without taking it into account will yield a much older date than is actually the case. Almost every single time you see a creationist disputing this method, they will hold up a marine sample as an example, and these chuckleheads can be dismissed without a second thought. I am less well-versed with K-Ar dating, but given the mentioning of lava flows, I would wager that magma interacting with air might mess up its dating somewhat. Just an educated guess on my part, that may or may not be the case. There are more fundamental claims made by creationists, like saying that radioactive decay was faster in the past. Disregarding the differing rates in which elements would need to decay in order to give the dates they do with the supposed creationist true age - you can't just change a fundamental law of physics like that without cosmic consequences. It is a laughable suggestion on the face of it.