Radiometric dating and long ages

We are not talking about belief or opinion, that is what you are offering. We are responding with evidence that you choose to ignore.

Your water glass analogy is simplistic and innacurate. It ignores the fact that all dating methods agree with an estimate of 4.55 billion years.

en.wikipedia.org...

This was determined by the makeup and age of our sun, as well as the age of zircon found on earth. Zircon contains uranium and thorium which can be used together to find out ages accurately.

en.wikipedia.org...

You are assuming that for some reason we are wrong about half-lifes. But half-lifes are observable by astronomers, as stated by Rren above.

en.wikipedia.org...

There are no arguments about this sort of thing in scientific communities as the conclusions have been independently reproduced, and the data always fits.

The only people arguing against this are creationists. Even if all the dating techniques are faulty we can still look into the sky and figure out that the universe is trillions of years old.

The observable universe is 13.7 trillion light years wide.

en.wikipedia.org...

So unless you want to start arguing that the speed of light is wrong, case closed.

Cant you just go somewhere else? Im trying to keep this thread from turning into an argument based on belief.

Your water glass analogy is simplistic and innacurate. It ignores the fact that all dating methods agree with an estimate of 4.55 billion years

The glasses had nothing to do with other methods or billions of years

They were a perfect (if simplistic) analogy to show that not all of the data is taken into consideration.
Now if you can show me that the starting amounts of parent and daughter product are measured, then this is over.
If you cant.
Then this is over.
The difference is, when I realize the facts, ...these methods of dating rock do not comply with the Scientific Method.

SO...we have no come full circle.

Put up or shut up.
Facts, not hot air

What are you talking about?

YOU are not trying to turn this into an argument based on belief?

You are the only one not providing any facts whatsoever. I made my argument and provided links and evidence, which you seem to think are "hot-air".

I'm sorry my friend, but all you are providing is some "hot-air".

I'm sorry that the vast amount of data accepted by the scientific community isn't good enough for you.

Do you have some proof for your theory? Please post some good links.

You have yet to post any links. Feel free to look at mine, they cover:

Half-life

Age of Earth

Radiometric dating

Please, how is that hot-air?

We know what the parent nucleus contained because we can look back in time, way out in space and observe what things looked like billions of years back.

There is no evidence towards what you are saying.

If you think you have some, please post links instead of argumentative hogwash.

Put up or shut up.
Links not hot air.

BTW

By comparing the percentage of an original element (parent atom) to the percentage of the decay element (daughter atom), the age of a rock can be calculated. The ratio of the two atom types is a direct function of its age because when the rock was formed, it had all parent atoms and no daughters.

from www.geology.wisc.edu...

and look at this it might help. www.gpc.edu...

oh wait one more.

Decay rates have been directly measured over the last 40-100 years. In some cases a batch of the pure parent material is weighed and then set aside for a long time and then the resulting daughter material is weighed. In many cases it is easier to detect radioactive decays by the energy burst that each decay gives off. For this a batch of the pure parent material is carefully weighed and then put in front of a Geiger counter or gamma-ray detector. These instruments count the number of decays over a long time.

from www.evolutionhappens.net...

[edit on 30-4-2005 by LeftBehind]

[edit on 30-4-2005 by LeftBehind]

[edit on 30-4-2005 by LeftBehind]

Your almost there.
Its too bad it took so long for you to get around to it. Below I have a quote from you. It is a statement. It states something, but does not prove it.
This is what I want answered.
I want proof of that.
These elements could have floated around in the universe for billions of years before forming earth. So there would be both parent and daughter.

or

The daughter could also have been created at the same time as the parent.
Just saying it, does not make it so.

Until you can prove with science, the below quote, then the dating method is not valid.
I've been asking for this since the beginning of the thread. You sure are slow to catch on

By comparing the percentage of an original element (parent atom) to the percentage of the decay element (daughter atom), the age of a rock can be calculated. The ratio of the two atom types is a direct function of its age because when the rock was formed, it had all parent atoms and no daughters.

For everyone out there that has been watchcing this thread.

This is a clear view of the difference in science and believers in god. The believers require some sort of undeniable proof along with indisputable evidence to convince them that something is right. But, when it comes to them having to prove that their god exists, they require no shred of proof whatsoever and the answer is always related to faith, belief and god is, was and always, all powerful, works in mysterious ways etc etc etc. Talk about hypocritical.

Now, back to point. Jake, what do you want us to say man? Do you want us to all admit that you figured it out, we'll all wrong and you solved the big mystery.

You asked a question. We responded. You tore us apart with beratement.

When are you gonna figure it out. You are making the assumptions that when atoms are measured for decay, that for some reason they began as an already decayed atom right? Well, since we know how many nuetrons a stable atom has, and now we know how many a decayed atom has, dont we now have a difference in nuetrons, and a decay rate? Even if you assumed, YOU ASSUMED, that the atom was already decayed, then you would get an even longer half life, wouldnt you? Atoms cannot be formed as unstable isotopes, it just doesnt work. If a whole atom is missing an nuetron, it is another element bro, not the same. Im not sure how much farther I can take this. Atoms start to decay once they are stable, then over time, they have alpha and beta decay. Google it for more info or bother and read some of the links we have provided.

Train

why wont you just answer the question?

I know. So do you. This boring accusation that you give every time you get stumped is getting old.

Just answer the question.
How did they measure the starting amount? How do they know there was zero daughter product to start with?
They dont.

FACT: The Dating method does not comply with the scientific method. Science is a cold hard fact driven machine. You dont have the facts.
SO
We can now reason that the dating method is not science.

WHICH MEANS

Evolution does not have a leg to stand on. You have no long ages.

DENY IGNORANCE. FACE THE TRUTH.
Science will do it every time.

Now is when you go back into your little tirade and scream and shout that you supplied the information.

For anyone who does not wish to read the whole thread...it took us all these posts of dancing around ...trying to interject everything but the subject....to get to this



My question:

What was the original amount of parent and daughter product when the sample was created? How do you know?


Their answer

quote:
By comparing the percentage of an original element (parent atom) to the percentage of the decay element (daughter atom), the age of a rock can be calculated. The ratio of the two atom types is a direct function of its age because when the rock was formed, it had all parent atoms and no daughters.

Good science there ehh? They dont know. This means that they dont know how much of the sample rock actually decayed vs how much was created that way.
They dont have a clue how old it is.

Your question has been answered numerous times in this thread.

You choose to ignore them, YOU are the one complaining about the science, and yet your evidence is that YOU think so.

I know this is hopeless because you'd rather resort to rude comments than actually read any of the links we provide for you, so once again . . .

From Common Misconceptions Regarding Radiometric Dating Methods

10. To date a rock one must know the original amount of the parent element. But there is no way to measure how much parent element was originally there.

It is very easy to calculate the original parent abundance, but that information is not needed to date the rock. All of the dating schemes work from knowing the present abundances of the parent and daughter isotopes. The original abundance N0, of the parent is simply N0 = N ekt, where N is the present abundance, t is time, and k is a constant related to the half life.

11. There is little or no way to tell how much of the decay product, that is, the daughter isotope, was originally in the rock, leading to anomalously old ages.

A good part of this article is devoted to explaining how one can tell how much of a given element or isotope was originally present. Usually it involves using more than one sample from a given rock. It is done by comparing the ratios of parent and daughter isotopes relative to a stable isotope for samples with different relative amounts of the parent isotope. For example, in the rubidium-strontium method one compares rubidium-87/strontium-86 to strontium-87/strontium-86 for different minerals. From this one can determine how much of the daughter isotope would be present if there had been no parent isotope. This is the same as the initial amount (it would not change if there were no parent isotope to decay). Figures 4 and 5, and the accompanying explanation, tell how this is done most of the time. While this is not absolutely 100% foolproof, comparison of several dating methods will always show whether the given date is reliable.

www.evolutionhappens.net...

There you go.

I know your not interested in debating, you just want to say "haha I'm right" but I figured I might as well post this for anyone who is seriously interested in the answer.

To make the kind of difference suggested by young-Earth proponents, the half-lives must be shortened from several billion years down to several thousand years-a factor of at least a million. But to shorten half-lives by factors of a million would cause large physical changes. As one small example, recall that the Earth is heated substantially by radioactive decay. If that decay is speeded up by a factor of a million or so, the tremendous heat pulse would easily melt the whole Earth, including the rocks in question! No radiometric ages would appear old if this happened

from the link leftbehind provided you above.

There is much info out there on this, and remember that these ages were relatively the same before radiometric dating was used....the geologic record supports the age....plate techtonics support the age....biology supports the age, astronomy supports the age, etc........Are you prepared to throw out all this science.

what is your proof that radiometric dating is inaccurate? please read leftbehind's last link It answers all your questions, many points allready having been pointed out to you here. good luck and GOD bless

What is it about the scientific method that you are having problems with?

What provocked you to write this article, did you hear something in church? I am dying to know who told you or how you found out why you all of a sudden needed to ask this question.

Big

Originally posted by jake1997
A.) The dating methods show the earth to be billions of years old
B.) The dating methods comply with the scientific method.

Those claims have been made in many places (not all), but have never been upheld. If they are shown to be correct, then this is resolved for me.

Not for nothing, and I know everyone would like to discuss this topic and its certainyl appropriate for ATS, but why are you going to ATS to get these answers? Why not a science site, or one of the many books out there on radiometric dating techniques and geochemistry and the like??

The scientific method requires that you have two of three factors of a puzzle, and then use the two that you have, to find the one that you dont. (simplified for this usage)

The method merely requires that one look at the world around ones self and, when one comes up with explanations for how things occur, that they test it and reject one's own explanations when there are in conflict with the expermimental and observational evidence.

When the ratio of metals in rocks is taken, scientists assume that the start of the rock...its "creation" had zero daughter element.

Incorrect.

They take the current ratio, and the current rate of decay, and announce that the rock is X amount of years old.
This is not scientific at all. This is 7th grade lab work.

7th grade lab work is scientific, and the steps you outlined are simply not how scientists simplistically determine radio-isoptic ages.

This is why I said in the beginning that this might need to be moved to another forum if it turns out the dating methods are not science after all.

The methods in fact are thouroughly scientific.

Science is not about proving things. Science is not about getting at "The Truth" (notice the capitalization). Science is not metaphysics (many infact would argue that science doesn't even require outside supportive metaphyisical statements). As such, all science can do is create, test, compare, and 'support' different hypotheses. The scenario you described is simply not how radio-isotopic dating is done, as you note, that above method is obviously simplistic silly and doomed to failure.

If Evolution falls apart, then by default it will catapult creationism to the front.

Thats not true. If darwinian evolution was rejected, there are still other types of naturalistic evolution that can occur, and other non-evolutionary, but not creationist, explanations. Creationism doesn't get 'advanced', its already fallen apart, long ago it was refuted. Creationism is just a faith based system, it doesn't get to 'become' science by default. Also, which creationism gets put to the front? YECism? OECism? How can one scientifically distinguish between jewish, christian, and islamic creationism? Or any of them and hindu creationism? Or any other creation religion??

You guys really have to keep your personal opinions and beliefs out of this so you dont get all huffed up

If you don't want personal opinions to be part of it, then don't respond to them. You can't control what other people post, so if opinions are irrelevant, than don't talk about them. I think starwars was simply trying to address some of what you posted and also include his own ideas on the subject, as have others. But, agian, if you want to "deny ignorance", then why are you not researching the techniques and methodology? THe questions you are asking are extremely preliminary. Worse, they aren't even questions, they are tried and true rhetoric from staunch creationist organizations, ones that have been answered and refuted and rejected thousands of times over. I am not saying that you are merely propagandizing, you're apparently simply mis/un informed on the subject, which is a state we've all been in at one point. Realistically, we're all mis/un informed about lots of things at anytime, so there's 'no worries' about that.

Starwars51
Radio-isotope dating can only be used to date items that are realitvely new - generally within the accepted age of the earth for creationists. Carbon-14 dating, the most common method, is only really good for a couple thousand years.

There are lots of other materials that can be used in radio-isotpic dating.
hypertextbook.com...
C14 is very limited tho, yes.

jehosephat
Out of pride i think most scientists don't metion the problems with how contamination and lack of double-blinds tests can affect the radio-dating process.

But scientists are aware of the various things that can affect their tests and experiments, they detail what those things are, control for them, and include error estimates in their papers and researches that explain these things and make cautionary statements about them.

Rren
regardless I like to think GOD is pleased to see us so invovled and curious about creation

This is an intersting subject that sometimes get the short shrift. Science operates via a methodology of obective logic, rational thinking. The evidence of nature is at conflicts with, say, yecism and a literal interpretation of the bible. In the bible, god made man and gave him reason. Why? If the universe is inherently reasonable and rational, then the evidence would'nt conflict with yecism and biblical literalism. Yet science is rational. Therefore, if YECism is true, then god doesn't want man to think rationally, which, ironically enough, is the opposite of what 'creation science' stresses. Or worse, god created man as a being with rational and logical capabilities. Then history unfolded just like in the bible. But god made the world look like it hadn't happened that way, at least thru a logical-rational filter. Thats a deceptive and rather mean spritited god. I don't think that that is the god of the bible tho. So I suspect that there's an internal contradiction in things like yecism also, or rather, that they are 'false faiths' in a sense.

terapin
Radiometric Dating

A Christian Perspective

I stopped at the title. Does it get any better? What from it is worth reading? Explain how there is a 'christian perspective' to science? There can not be, science has nothing to do with religion. THe above title states that we are going to look at a scientific thing but see how and try to make it conform to christianity, which is silly and pointless, and, also, unscientific. I mean, right off the bat, the article is about christianity and faith, not a scientific paper. What from it do you find the most convincing and why?

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" Ben Franklin

Now thats what I'm talkin' 'bout!

Jesus obviously loves us!

What was the original amount of parent and daughter product when the sample was created? How do you know?

Ok, it looks like this is the meat of the problem. Lets look at why its not the problem its alleged to be, how scientists are aware of the ways that any of these things can cause problems, and how they resolve it.

Here's a page that deals with C14 specifically.

The notable exception involves certain mollusks, which get much of their carbon from dissolved limestone. Since limestone is very old it contains very little carbon-14. Thus, in getting some of their carbon from limestone, these mollusks "inherit" some of the limestone's old age! That is, the limestone carbon skews the normal ratio between C-12 and C-14 found in living things. No problem! If one dates such mollusks, one must be extra careful in interpreting the data. Not every mollusk shell presents such problems, and the dating of other material might yield a cross-check. Further study might even allow correction tables.

Yes, this is a specific rather than a general example. But look at whats going on. The people doing the research are aware of the potential problems and do what they can to reasonably correct for it, and as the page reveals, lots of other independent methods confirm/corroborate the radiometric methods used. That is what people mean when they say 'science doesn't get at 'The Truth'. We can't know, for certain, what is going on, and science does not claim that it does that.

Here's a page about the general method of working with 'isochrons'. Read it and explain why its incorrect and why the original statements, that the method is unscientific, still stands.

Here is a short page on the subject. Breifly

1. Absolutely closed systems do not exist even under ideal laboratory conditions. Nevertheless, many rocks approximate closed systems so closely that multiple radiometric dating methods produce consistent results, within 1 percent of each other.
2. Some rocks may be open to outside contamination, but not all of them are. Most ages are determined from multiple mineral and rock samples, which give a consistent date within 1 and 3 percent. It is extremely unlikely that contamination would affect all samples by the same amount.
3. Isochron methods can detect contamination and, to some extent, correct for it. Isochrons are determined from multiple samples, and contamination would have to affect all of the samples the same way in order to create an isochron that appeared okay but was wrong (see CD002).
With uranium-lead dating, closure of the system may be tested with a concordia diagram. This takes advantage of the fact that there are two isotopes of uranium (238U and 235U) that decay to different isotopes of lead (206Pb and 207Pb, respectively). If the system has remained closed, then a plot of 206Pb / 238U versus 207Pb / 235U will fall on a known line called the concordia. Even if samples are discordant, reliable dates can often be derived (Faure 1998, 287-290).
4. Geochronologists are well aware of the dangers of contamination, and they take pains to minimize it. For example, they do not use weathered samples.

[url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.htmlHere[/url] is another article on the generalities of the age of the earth, tho I understand that you are questioning the method specifically, it may prove informative and illustrative.

There you go.

Left Behind.

You have finally caught up to the question. Your answer comes close to fitting the bill, but not quite.
Allow me to show you why.
We will have to get specific for the example.
U-238
lead - 206
lead - 204

U-238 decays into lead-206.
lead 204 is a stable subject which is used to measure the original amount of lead-206.
Ok, you already know the deal with half lifes and decay. By measuring the ration of U-238 to lead-206 we determine the age of the rock.

My quesiton was , "How do you know that some of that daughter wasnt there already.
The answer is to get a ratio of lead-206 to lead-204.
Since we know that lead-204 did not come form the U-238, then a low ration of 206 to 204 means there was little 206 to begin with since it only comes from uranium.

DO you see what that is doing? That is still ASSUMING all the 206 came from uranium. It is ASSuming that none was created when the rock was created, yet all the same ingredients would have been there.

This is the same problem for every test.

So yes, they tried, but even in their answer, they make the same assumptions.

NOw read your quote to me. Look near the end.
It says its not foolproof. Now you know why.

Science fact is not based on assumptions.

from the link leftbehind provided you above.

Ren
Im not new at this. Ive seen it before. Look how long it took just to get someone to answer the question I was asking, instead of saying "it agrees with the other methods that have the same problem so it must be right".

Now that we are addressing the question, I hope you will see the flaw. Its very plain.

Nygdan,

I took on the rock dating because c-14 is more easily affected by events, and would not affect the age of the earth if shown to be faulty.
I would go about it the same way tho.


In my response to Left Behind, I believe I have answered the talk origins page. Keep in mind that talk origins is no more an authority then ABS.

Does the test for the other stable element (lead 204) also assume that no daughter was created with the sample?
I believe it does. It seems like this was designed more to answer a contamination question rather then the one Im asking, and its debatable how well it does that.

I am not going out of my way to ask this question. Its a basic thing that a christian would come up with.
What came first, the chicken or the egg? Infants or people
In both of those the first turns into the second...but as christians we know that God created full grown things.
So saying that there was none of the 'end product' at the time of creation is not logical to me.
Its a perfectly natural question that I investigated and have found no answer to yet.

This latest thing seems good at first, but in the end makes the same assumption in comparing the 206 to the 204.

Finally, nice beer!!

Originally posted by jake1997

So saying that there was none of the 'end product' at the time of creation is not logical to me.
Its a perfectly natural question that I investigated and have found no answer to yet.

Why isn't it logical? You have yet to respond with any alternatives to what we are saying.

Your answer is that it's not 100%, well that's how science works. Nygdan went out of his way to answer all your questions, and all you can say is it's not logical to you.

How is it illogical if all other dating methods confirm it?

Is it logical to believe in a young earth?

I know this is a waste of time, but hey it's sunday, it's not like I'm going to church or anything.

All dating methods require assumptions about variables that must be assumed. This is simply the nature of trying to measure something that we were not there to measure. In an earlier post Left Behind stated that it was a fact that "all dating methods agree with an estimate of 4.55 billion years". This is simply not true. There are many methods that can be used to give an estimate of age. Most of them do not imply an age of billions of years. For example: population statistics, measuring ocean salinity, measuring the amount of helium in the atmosphere, measuring continental erosion, studying the reversals of Earth’s magnetic field, and paleohydraulic analysis to name a few.

Steve

Sntx welcome to the discussion.

Sorry about that earlier, what I meant was "Most" dating methods not all.

That is interesting, would you care to elaborate on what you said.

I am curious to know how population statistics or ocean salinity point to a younger age.

Links would be very welcome.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

I'll try to elaborate later when I am not at work. For now here a couple of links.

On ocean salinity: tccsa.tc...

On popluation statistics: www.creationdefense.org...

www.icr.org...

Yes, I know those sources are going to get blasted, but just try reading the information before rejecting it out of hand


Steve

Originally posted by LeftBehind

Originally posted by jake1997

So saying that there was none of the 'end product' at the time of creation is not logical to me.
Its a perfectly natural question that I investigated and have found no answer to yet.

Why isn't it logical? You have yet to respond with any alternatives to what we are saying.

Your answer is that it's not 100%, well that's how science works. Nygdan went out of his way to answer all your questions, and all you can say is it's not logical to you.

How is it illogical if all other dating methods confirm it?

Is it logical to believe in a young earth?

I know this is a waste of time, but hey it's sunday, it's not like I'm going to church or anything.

I hope Nygdan looks at what I said better then you did.


The logical thing has nothing to do with Nygdans answer.
This is what you have done the whole time. I had hoped that ABS had a higher standard then the atheist boards and didnt drop down to this level.
This should be a 10 post thread at this point, but because I have had to respond to your ignorance, it is now two, going on three pages.

Your hate of Christ keeps you off balance

Originally posted by jake1997
That is still ASSUMING all the 206 came from uranium. It is ASSuming that none was created when the rock was created, yet all the same ingredients would have been there.

Its not based merely on rocks found on the earth.

www.talkorigins.org...
The most direct means for calculating the Earth's age is a Pb/Pb isochron age, derived from samples of the Earth and meteorites. This involves measurement of three isotopes of lead (Pb-206, Pb-207, and either Pb-208 or Pb-204). A plot is constructed of Pb-206/Pb-204 versus Pb-207/Pb-204.

If the solar system formed from a common pool of matter, which was uniformly distributed in terms of Pb isotope ratios, then the initial plots for all objects from that pool of matter would fall on a single point.

Over time, the amounts of Pb-206 and Pb-207 will change in some samples, as these isotopes are decay end-products of uranium decay (U-238 decays to Pb-206, and U-235 decays to Pb-207). This causes the data points to separate from each other. The higher the uranium-to-lead ratio of a rock, the more the Pb-206/Pb-204 and Pb-207/Pb-204 values will change with time.

If the source of the solar system was also uniformly distributed with respect to uranium isotope ratios, then the data points will always fall on a single line. And from the slope of the line we can compute the amount of time which has passed since the pool of matter became separated into individual objects. See the Isochron Dating FAQ or Faure (1986, chapter 18 ) for technical detail.

A young-Earther would object to all of the "assumptions" listed above. However, the test for these assumptions is the plot of the data itself. The actual underlying assumption is that, if those requirements have not been met, there is no reason for the data points to fall on a line.

The resulting plot has data points for each of five meteorites that contain varying levels of uranium, a single data point for all meteorites that do not, and one (solid circle) data point for modern terrestrial sediments. It looks like this:

[...]
As shown in the table, there is excellent agreement on about 4.5 billion years, between several meteorites and by several different dating methods. Note that young-Earthers cannot accuse us of selective use of data -- the above table includes a significant fraction of all meteorites on which isotope dating has been attempted. According to Dalrymple (1991, p. 286) , less than 100 meteorites have been subjected to isotope dating, and of those about 70 yield ages with low analytical error.

Further, the oldest age determinations of individual meteorites generally give concordant ages by multiple radiometric means, or multiple tests across different samples.

Keep in mind that talk origins is no more an authority then ABS.

Authority? No, however they are more correct.

So saying that there was none of the 'end product' at the time of creation is not logical to me.
Its a perfectly natural question that I investigated and have found no answer to yet.

So you are saying that, because the earth is created, that there must be a certain amount of these isotopes already existing.

But how does that result in an age determination of 4.x billion years, for all the different methods? At least it would require that god designed the universe so as to appear, deceptively, as being of old age.

Finally, nice beer!!

sntx
For example: population statistics, measuring ocean salinity, measuring the amount of helium in the atmosphere, measuring continental erosion, studying the reversals of Earth’s magnetic field, and paleohydraulic analysis to name a few.

None of those methods end up strongly supporting a young age tho, and some, like the population question, are just flat out meaningless. The age of the earth page I note in this post also addresses the helium issue too, if you'd like to look at it.

Originally posted by jake1997 I had hoped that ABS had a higher standard then the atheist boards and didnt drop down to this level.
This should be a 10 post thread at this point, but because I have had to respond to your ignorance, it is now two, going on three pages.

Your hate of Christ keeps you off balance

Jake, why don't you answer my questions instead of insulting me.

You keep saying that you want to keep this debate civil and then you respond by laughing and berating us.

You still haven't answered on why it is "unscientific" to validate radiometric dating with other dating systems.
What is your answer to that?

And to once again answer your question.

my.erinet.com...

What about nuclide ratios? Are they indeed constant? Well, let’s think about it: Minerals form by recognized chemical processes that depend on the chemical activity of the elements involved. The chemical behavior of an element depends on its size and the number of electrons in its outer shell. This is the foundation of the periodic table of the elements, a basic part of chemistry that has stood without challenge for a hundred and fifty years.

The shell structure depends only on the number of electrons the nuclide has, which is the same as the number of protons in its nucleus. So the shell structure doesn’t change between different nuclides of the same element. K39 is chemically identical to K40; the only way we can distinguish between them is to use a nonchemical technique like mass spectrometry. (Note: It’s true that some natural processes favor some isotopes over others. Water molecules containing oxygen-16 are lighter and therefore evaporate faster than water molecules with oxygen-18. However, as far as is known such fractionation occurs only with light nuclides: oxygen, hydrogen, carbon. The atoms used in radiometric dating techniques are mainly heavy atoms, so we can still use the axiom that mineral-forming processes can’t distinguish between different nuclides.)

So the processes that are involved in mineral formation can’t distinguish between nuclides. Sr86 atoms and Sr87 atoms behave identically when they bond with other atoms to form a mineral molecule. If there are ten Sr86 atoms for every Sr87 atom in the original magma melt, there will be ten Sr86 atoms for every Sr87 atom in the minerals that crystallize from that melt.

Here is a good essay describing how science advances only with corraborating evidence.
www.csicop.org...

This story should be more widely told in textbooks and other science literature because it is a great example of good science in action. Here we have a revolutionary new idea clashing with older knowledge at several levels and requiring another dramatic discovery in a seemingly unrelated field in order to survive. When the new idea does survive, as happened with evolution, we gain additional confidence that science truly relates to an objective reality that is really out there.

And in conclusion someone said it much better than I could here.
www.gate.net...

The simple fact is, Creationists have NO evidence that points to a 6 - 10 thousand year age for the earth! This belief is an article of faith for creationists and they have never found any significant scientific data to back it up. The best they can do is to try to find flaws in decades of mainstream research (by thousands of researchers) that indicate the effectiveness of radiometric dating and to try to come up with doubtful scenarios that put an "upper limit" on the age of the earth. As was shown above by multiple sources, these schemes do not work. To see just how bad the ceationist model is , see Creationist Geologic Time Scale: an attack strategy for the sciences by Don Wise.

Finally, I would like to raise the issue of motive in these questions of the age of the earth. Scientists have no reason to claim an age of the earth of 4.5 billion years except for the results of decades of research and thousands of tests by independent researchers indicating the effectiveness of radiometric dating and that 4.5 billion years is the correct age of the earth. They have no stake in this date - other than that the facts support it. As the geochronologist Dalrymple said, "I have no reason whatsoever to want the age of the earth to be any more or less than it happens to be. I would take great delight in proving that the earth is only 10,000 years old if it were possible to do so."

Creationists, on the other hand , have an extreme interest in proving the age of the earth to be 6 - 10 thousand years - it is required by their fundamentalist (literal) Biblical theology. To them, the earth must have been created in six literal days six thousand years ago. Any other possibility is a violation of their deeply held religious beliefs. In fact, all of the creation "science" organizations require members to adhere to clearly religious "creeds" that require them to accept the authority of the Bible in all matters. While this may be good religion, it is very, very bad science! Can we really trust such people to make a fair and unbiased attempt to determine the true age of the earth? We certainly haven't seen any evidence of it so far.

Sntx, I liked the first link, it made a very good argument. However, the link provided by Nygdan covers those very well.

www.talkorigins.org...

Even though some might think Talk Origins a bad source, they do provide arguments for and against, as well as providing extensive source material.