How old is the Earth?

[Statler Waldorf]

I don't think you got all of your assumptions down. If you ascribe to Radiometric dating you must first assume that the radiometric decay has been constant. You must then also assume that there were no daughter elements present at the formation of the Earth correct?

How big do you want his post to be?

If you want to discuss radiometric dating in detail then there can be a separate thread created for it same goes for anything else you want to discuss in detail. In this thread you asked for the reasons. Otherwise this could end up a very long and messy thread if you want to start digging into everything.

Things like radiometric dating have been discussed many times before so if this is a sticking point for you then perhaps you can start with some research.

Talk origins has a lot of information which debunks a lot of the YEC bullshit. Of course you are free to evaluate the information provided and choose to reject or accept it, but I suggest you read it first before discussing.

Anyway, you can find the site here: http://www.talkorigins.org/ and the specific stuff about creationists and radiometric dating here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dalrympl...ng.html#h8

There are more pages going into it as well.

When done, why not start a separate thread for this topic?

EDIT:

Forgot to give my answer.

1) Believe around 4.5 billion years (i think you will find this rough figure a pretty common answer here because its the scientifically agreed one... at least for the moment).

2) Scientific evidence coming from many many different disciplines. However, i love to talk about Dinosaurs with YECs because that always makes me smile when they start talking about dinosaurs living around the time of the supposed flood. Also how ancient civilizations would actually have already existed when God was supposed to have created the universe wonderfully parodied by The Onion here: http://www.theonion.com/articles/sumeria...worl,2879/

3) Well, i guessed it was older than my Grandparents who were the oldest people i knew, and they talked about their parents etc. Then i started to learn about things like history, and got interested in Dinosaurs and Space at a young age (what young boy isn't interested in these things?) then became quite interested in lots of scientific subjects. Slowly over time the picture filled out.... i think they call it education. ;-)

Well I am quite familiar and educated in the radiometric dating method, so I didn't really start this thread to learn about the actual method. I am trying to get at the assumptions that go into these methods. You even brought up Dinosaurs and Ancient Civilizations- but I am sure you are aware that the only reason people think these pre-date 6000 years is becuse of the dating methods used to date them right? So if I can ponit out the problems with these methods or the assumptions that go into them, the rest will all fall into place.

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I don't think you got all of your assumptions down. If you ascribe to Radiometric dating you must first assume that the radiometricsumption decay has been constant. You must then also assume that there were no daughter elements present at the formation of the Earth correct?

What other assumptions are you looking for me to provide?
I do assume radiometric dating is relatively constant.
I do assume that there were no daughter elements present at the formation of the Earth.

Both of these assumptions are sound.

1. Radioactive decay is fundamentally governed by the strong nuclear force, which also govern nuclear fusion. If there is difference in radioactive decay rate over time, that would reflect a change In strong nuclear interaction over time. This would be also reflected in the behavior of nuclear fusion in stars over time. We can directly observe that behavior of nuclear fusion in stars over time by observing stars and galaxies at different number of light years from earth, thus viewing them directly at different points in the past. We can see nuclear fusion has not changed over time, so neither has the behavior of strong nuclear interaction, and neither has radioactive decay.

2. The presence of daughter elements at the beginning is impossible because the mineral useful for such dating mostly can be demonstrated to have been melted in the past. The daughter elements of reactions most useful to radiometric dating are those which would have floated to the top, sunk to the bottom, or bubbled out of the melt, thus the melting process would have purged the material of any primordial inventory of daughter element. So the radiometric dating accurately measures how long it has been since the material last melted.

Ehh the second assumption is not nearly as sound as you make it out to be. There is lots of research that suggests one of these two assumptions is not valid. I lean towards the second one not being valid.