How Reliable is Radiometric Dating?

Radiometric dating is pretty straightforward - it works, so we use it.

There are errors built in to any radiometric dating scheme.

They are well known, corrected for (where possible), always cross checked using other methods (if possible) and always mentioned when the estimated dates are quoted.

It's not a sign of a problem but a sign of trustworthiness.

I personally think it's a reliablle dating method whose limitations are well understood and corrected for. To play devil's advocate, though, here is the argument I've heard from people who think the universe is only as old as can be accounted for from the book of Genisis:

Since we don't have a control sample that was observed to be millions of years old, since no one was there to observe and collect it millions of years ago, how can we be so sure radiometric dating is accurate?

Ironic that the same group that bases so much else on faith won't have faith in science that can be observed.

This post is timely, as I just got done reading some articles concerning the "polonium halo" issue between young earth creationists and radio dating. The young earth creationists believe that the earth (and the universe) is less than 6,000 years old. The more liberal creationists believe that the earth may be as old as 20,000 years. Radio dating by various isotopes ratios, methods and procedures puts the earth at about 4.9 billion years old. That's a big discrepancy! Therefore, radio dating must be completely wrong.

So they latch on to every radio dating anomaly, even ones that are well understood. But the biggest explanation? Rates of decay must have changed over time. There are many, many reasons why this is absurd, but no matter.

I agree. I think it takes as much faith to be a scientist as it does to be a very religious person.

Let's face it. As we went through our studies we are presented with many things that are hard to understand, and some things that just seem out of the realm of our accepted human experiences. Much of what we learn we can not validate with our own two hands and our own two eyes. Some of it seems contradictory. But we have our books and our teachers that show us the way, offer simplistic explanations to help us understand the Truth. They give us simple models to understand the concepts, which we may not be able to fully comprehend. We go to conferences where people bear witness to experiments which prove that the theoretical equations that we were taught are indeed correct.

Substitute teachers and books for preachers and Bibles. Substitute models for parables and experimenting with bearing witness. Substitute PhD for enlightened one.

The belief systems in religion and science seem pretty close to me. It's just that the science books give the more consistent, believable story. The science books also present the possibility that the statements can be proven. No one person has the capability to prove everything for himself, but can rely on other that have the equipment and knowledge. Still, there is some face that the guy actually did what he said!

I think it all comes down to "what's accepted". The guy who licks the stickers at the cal lab puts them on the gadgets we all use everyday. It's accepted that his standards are accurate..........You get the idea.