Radiometric dating is reliable

It is greatly appreciated. I will take it backwards. Epistemological limitations: We cannot know anythingCon seems to contradict himself in his argument. First he seems to argue that we cannot know it because we got nothing to correlate it with, and uses the example of how we thought the earth was flat and then tells how we today know it objectively. Later he writes:"I am going to argue for the fact that we cannot definitively know at this point if it is or is not reliable. " implying that we will be able to know it later, just like in the flat earth example. However, later he contradicts himself when he writes: "Quite simply put, we cannot know that radiometric dating is accurate, because we cannot know anything for sure. "While I agree with him that we will never be able to confirm whether or not something is "capital T-Truth" this doesn't counter radiometric dating. However this last statement stands in odd with his former statement that we objectively know the shape of the earth, or that we would be able to obtain the knowledge of the reliability of radiometric dating. I also want to add, that something does not have to be true, to be reliable. As an example, we know newtons law of universal gravitation is wrong, however in high-schools his calculations are still used to calculate basic drop rates for something you can throw. This is because his law and calculations are reliable enough on small scales like this, which leads me to my next point. Reliability is accepted relative to the situation, as example was the newtonian law, it's reliable when it comes to these relatively small calculations in small scales in highschool, but not as reliable when it becomes stellar, ie. his calculations had some problems with mercury's orbit, this is where einsteins theory of relativity was more reliable and that is used instead. Radiometric dating: Should we trust it? Con seemed to imply we had nothing to compare it to, or correlate the dates with, however this is false. First of all, radiometric dating has been done with such isotopes as carbon-14 on material with known ages, meaning, we alraedy had some dates which had been calculated by other methods, which was then correlated to see how well it fitted with carbon-14 and how reliable it was[1]. Besides that, we have tested radioactive isotopes in extreme "enviroments" and experiments where they have been exposed to very rough chemical reactions, high pressures, extreme temperatures and so on, and none of the radioactive isotopes used for dating, showed any sign of change in half-lives, suggesting that half-lives are reliable in the various enviroments they might encounter. [2]Besides that, there is no reason why different isotopes with different half-lives and atomic structure should show the same age, if they were unreliable. However, as we can see when we cross correlate the different dating methods with each other, they seem to support each others, for no reason, and give a consistent date. [3]Another way there has been different techniques used to test each others was when the rotation of the earth was tested. According to measurements, the earths rotation was slowing down slowly. This meant that as we go back in time, the earth should rotate faster, however this is only 0.005 seconds per year it is slowing, so we need to go quite a long time back in time before we can start to see any noticeable difference. But how could we know? Well, the thing is that it can be read on corals and their ridges, and then calculated how long a day is, to confirm whether or not this was correct. But the ages of the corals was measured with radiometric datings and predictions had been made as to how long the day should be back then. If either radiometric dating, the measurements of the slowing of the earth, or our knowledge upon corals was wrong, then there would be no reason as to why the prediction should be confirmed. However, it did, and I think this testifies to our fundemental knowledge being good enough to say that radiometric dating is a reliable tool for dating, when used under the right circumstances. [4][5]admittedly, you can get bad results from it, but the same goes for using a microscope to study the moon. . http://www.youtube.com...I thank my opponent for accepting this debate, even though he has his doubts in the beginning. His thoughts has been interesting and I look forward to his last response :]References:[1]. http://static.nobelprize.org...[2]http://www.asa3.org...[3]http://www.talkorigins.org...[4]Scrutton, C. T. , 1964. Periodicity in Devonian coral growth. Palaeontology 7(4): 552-558. [5]Wells, J. W. , 1963. Coral growth and geochronometry. Nature 197: 948-950.