Radioactive decay and the sun

[theophilus]

The fact that the rate of decay is variable isn't the only reason we can't rely on radioactive decay to show the age of the earth. This method is accurate only if three things are true:

These three basic assumptions are:

1.All the daughter atoms had to be derived by radioactive decay from the parent atoms since the rock unit formed.
2.There were no additions or subtractions of parent or daughter atoms since the rock unit formed.
3.The rate of decay had to remain constant since the rock unit formed.
None of these three assumptions can be proven because there were no scientists there when the rock units formed, nor in the vast majority of time since, to make sure that the daughter atoms we measure today have only come from radioactive decay of parent atoms, have not been contaminated, and the parent atoms had a constant decay rate through all the millions of years.

Even worse is that these three assumptions are fatally flawed, and we have impeccable evidence to show that. There are numerous examples, documented in the secular geological literature, of inherited daughter atoms when a rock unit formed and of contamination. And now because of the RATE (Radioisotopes and Age of the Earth) project, results from numerous lines of investigations have shown that the radioactive decay rates have not been constant.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles...efutations

The evidence for evolution is far more than just "the Earth has been around for billions of years". The fossil record isn't going to vanish overnight because the Sun affects radioactive decay.

Proving that the earth is too young for evolution to occure wouldn't remove the fossil record but it would force scientists to find a new explanation for it. Perhaps they would come to the conclusion that the fossils were formed as a result of some worldwide catastrophe, such as a flood.