re: #31 spacejesus

Does anybody here know a thing or two about chemistry and physics?

I’m having a discussion with a friend of mine who is a young earth creationist you who says we can’t verify the age of the earth as being in the billions of years.

Here is his argument:

“Regarding radio-metric dating, there are 2 big assumptions. First, that we can know the beginning amount of c-14. The second is that the rate of decay is constant “

I know he is wrong about the rate of decay being an assumption, I remember that much from chemistry class, but as to the beginning amount of the elementisotope in question, I don’t know how to answer that.

Any scientists in the house?

C-14 is not used for dating the age of the earth. Its useful range is much shorter, thousands or tens of thousands of years.

Here is a summary of the various lines of evidence used for dating the earth:
talkorigins.org