Radiometric Dating is Accurate

Again, I would like to think Pro for the opportunity to debate this and for his alacritous response. First, I would like to point out some errors my opponent made in his last response. He stated, "Con is correct that rock samples selected for argon dating cannot have been exposed to air." I never mentioned atmospheric argon as the source of contamination (even though that is one problem). I said there was "excess argon." My ref 1 in R1 were of samples in which the Ar was measured using a mass spectrometer to correct for any presence of atmospheric Ar. http://www.icr.org.... However, the samples still came back with unacceptable ages. Therefore, the excess argon must have come from some other source. The mantle has been suggested. So there is risk of contamination not just from air, but from some other source. Which makes the reliability of K-Ar and 40Ar/39Ar questionable. Pro also posited that "The error due to air exposure always makes the sample appear younger than it really is." Excess Ar actually makes a sample seem older than it is. A less than 10 year old sample should have no measurable Ar. Pro also resorted to special pleading when he said I sourced a "religious" journal. In fact, it was a scientific journal, but because it supports creationism he immediately rejects it as "religious" instead of trying to actually refute it based on scientific data. I can as easily say talkorigins.org (which he cites) is religious from my viewpoint, but instead I will stay on focus and avoid ad hominem attacks. Pro also questions A. A. Snelling's integrity. All Snelling is doing is using language in which that particular audience would understand. The conventional geological community has named the different rock units in the rock record. So if Snelling is going to discuss the chalk beds in the cretaceous rock unit he will say "cretaceous" so his peers know what he is talking about. It doesn't mean he accepts the ages that geologists have imposed on it. If I am going to go on a business trip to Japan I might do well to speak Japanese. Furthermore, Pro cites my sources incorrectly. Whitelaw was not the one who said the 15000 samples dated within 50,000 years. Whitelaw was quoting the journal "Radiocarbon." Also, Pro asserts (based off a talkorigins.org article)that radioactive Th creates C-14. There are no reliable sources that back up that claim. Even the article he sourced, which was merely a email sent to talkorigins, says "it looks like in-situ production of new 14C is the best-supported hypothesis; but research is ongoing..." It is just a hypothesis with no strong evidence to support it. However, the answer to the detection of C-14 in diamonds fits a young earth hypothesis just as good, if not better, than Th creating C-14 (which is lacking in evidence). Furthermore, U and Th decay does create Helium. He is the second lightest element and diffuses out of minerals and rocks quickly. They have measured He diffusion rates from Zircons that are supposedly 1.5 billion years old (Tectnophysics, 349 (1-4):297-308) and have found an average helium diffusion age of only 6000 (+/- 2000) years. It seems not all dating methods cross-check each other as my opponent asserts. So why do some independent dating methods appear to match? The simple answer is they don't. The conventional geological community has the presupposition that the earth is billions of years old. So when they date a rock layer with any radiometric dating method that doesn't match the "expected" age they already had for the rock layer they throw it out and keep dating until they get the results they wanted. It has been admitted as such: "If a C-14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote, and if it is completely out of date we just drop it" (T. Save-Soderbergh and I. U. Olsson, 1970, C 14 dating and Egyptian chronology, in Radiocarbon Variations and Absolute Chronology, Proceedings of the Twelfth Nobel Symposium). True, this quote is from 1970, but why should we believe scientists are any different today? The only way scientists know radiometric dating results are incorrect is because they already had preconceived ideas of the what the age of a rock was. It is the relentless application of uniformitarianism that creates these perceived matches with independent dating methods. It is assumed that tree rings form one a year, but it is actually well known that tree rings can form several in one year depending on the climate the tree is growing in (http://creation.com...). If we eliminate the uniformitarian philosophy we can see that it makes the assumption of tree rings difficult to prove. Furthermore, the oldest tree, appropriately nicknamed Methuselah, is only 4765 years old according to conventional dating (http://www.wired.com...). If the earth is billions of years old why are there not any older trees than a few thousand years old? Varves are conventionally believed to be laid down one a year. However, a 1960 Florida Hurricane deposited a six-inch-thick mud layer with numerous thin laminae (Journal of Geology, 75:583-597) and a 12hr flood in Colorado deposited more than 100 laminae (Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, 37: 829-851). What would a yearlong global flood do? Coral reef growth is claimed to take long ages to have grown. The Enewetok Atoll in the Pacific Ocean is usually pointed to as an example. However, measurements have been taken of growth rates and growth rates of 280-414 mm/year have been observed (Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 9:461-539). Also, growth rates of the corals that build the frames of reefs have been measured at 120-432 mm/year (Oceanography and Marine Biology:An Annual Review, 14:183-225). Based on these measurements the Enewetok Atoll would have only taken 3400 years to grow. Instead, we impose long ages on coral reefs. Most Speleotherms in modern caves are not growing. However, observations of those still growing have reported growth of stalactites at 7.6 cm/year and growth of stalagmites of .6 cm/year in height and .9 cm/year in diameter (American Mineralogist, 19:429-431). If these measurements are applied to the Great Dome stalagmite in Carlsbad Cavern, it would have grown in less than 4000 years. Furthermore, radiocarbon ages of speleothems are deceptive, because the carbon incorporated in the speleothem minerals is out of equilibrium with the atmospheric carbon. Absolute dating has proved disappointing (http://en.wikipedia.org...). Ice cores: "The deep-sea core time scale is likewise built upon the assumption of the astronomical or Milankovitch theory of the Ice Age or ages that is far from proved. Antarctic ice cores are dated by this method, since the accumulation on this ice sheet is so low that annual layer dating cannot be applied, except in shallow coastal cores with higher snowfall. So, the 420,000 years obtained near the bottom of the Vostok ice core is based on preconceived ideas on the ages of ocean sediment, which is based on the astronomical theory of the Ice Age. In other words, the uniformitarian scientists date the ice sheets to hundreds of thousands of years because they believe the ice sheets are old to begin with. They have "proved" only what they have assumed!" (http://www.icr.org...). Fission tracks and electron spin resonance is dependent on the rate of decay of isotopes. So of course they match the radiometric dating. If decay had been accelerated in the past so would have fission tracks and electron spin resonance. If someone believes it is 3:15, but observation of other watches show varying times, that person will forcefully set the other watches to 3:15 to give the perception they are internally consistent.