The earth is probably more than 10,000 years old.

Radiometric Dating Potassium-Argon According to the University of North Carolina, “K-Ar dating is not very reliable, [yet] most of the geological time scale is based on K-Ar dating”(16) Referring to my Mt. Ngauruhoe & wood examples, Pro says I cited only two instances of erroneous dating. Thus, he concedes he does not consider the 6-billion-year date of the diamonds a mistake. This example's reported in Nature, “the world's most highly cited interdisciplinary science journal,”(15) so Pro's objections regarding peer-review don't apply. This means Pro dropped his claim of a 4.54 billion year age for an earth at least 6 billion years old. That's a 30% difference from his initial claim! Pro's lost all credibility when arguing using radiometric dating. Analogies Pro's ruler and tape measure analogies are deceptive. When's the last time you measured something with a ruler and got a measurement several billion feet off? Common Timeline The University of North Carolina put it best: “Now, there are some cases where radiometric dating does appear to be measuring a true age, where many methods agree( … ) If these dates are correct, then this material would have to originate from before the creation week. However, radiometric dating is based on the assumption that decay rates are constant. If decay rates have varied, then all methods can be in error, even when they agree.”(16)(emphasis mine) Pro spewed a long list of independent dating methods, but he didn't base an argument on them! I've nothing to rebut. In fact, I agree with Pro on this point: “Any significant difference among diverse methods applied to the same sample is cause to question the data.” Were you to apply all these methods to the same sample, you would get wildly different results. Wikipedia Arguments Pro says I can't dismiss his arguments from his 10th source because I haven't established myself as an expert, but neither has the author of his source: “I am not an expert in the technical aspects of dating”(17) Sandstone and the Grand Canyon Pro posits 2 objections to the Receding Flood Scenario, 1 of which is that the walls are too steep to have stood as a sand-heap. This is not a valid objection for a couple reasons. First, Pro seems to be saying you can't build a sandcastle with vertical walls, which simply isn't true. Second, the Grand Canyon may not have always been so steep, but rain (which falls vertically) wore it down since it was formed. The second objection was “there is no known physical mechanism for solidification in a short time.” However, jellyfish have been fossilized in sandstone.(19) Fossilizing a gelatinous animal must happen very quickly, proving sandstone can solidify in a short amount of time. Lastly, the Grand Canyon has many Nautilus fossils which generally point the same way.(27) This is indicative of rapid burial by fast-flowing sediment, and unexplainable by Pro's model. Noah's Flood Pro objects I didn't provide a scientific basis for my idea that ocean floors sank quickly. However, ocean floors wouldn't have had to sink quickly to enable receding waters to cut through wet sand! Let me paraphrase a scientific, peer-reviewed article which explains the Receding Flood Scenario best: “Geophysically, we begin with a pre-Flood earth( … ) The Flood was initiated as slabs of oceanic floor broke loose and subducted along( … ) pre-Flood continental margins. Deformation of the mantle( … ) raised the temperature and lowered the viscosity of the mantle in the vicinity of the slabs. A resulting thermal runaway of the slabs through the mantle led to meters-per-second mantle convection.( … ) Large plumes originating near the core/mantle boundary expressed themselves at the surface( … ) Upwelling magma jettisoned steam into the atmosphere causing intense global rain. Rapid emplacement of isostatically lighter mantle material raised the level of the ocean floor, displacing ocean water onto the continents. When virtually all the pre-Flood oceanic floor had been replaced with new, less-dense, less-subductable, oceanic crust, catastrophic plate motion stopped. Subsequent cooling increased the density of the new ocean floor, producing deeper ocean basins and a reservoir for post-Flood oceans.”(21) Universal Flood Stories A global flood is well established by worldwide, intra-cultural flood myths: “A world cataclysm during which the earth was inundated or submerged by water [is] a concept found in almost every mythology in the world.”(22) Sediment Layers (Varves) Alternating Densities Pro argues a flood wouldn't allow alternating densities of sediment to form, but it's actually been observed: “[W]hen we pour a granular mixture between two vertical plates: the mixture spontaneously stratifies into alternating layers of small and large grains”(23) Rapid Burial Polystrate Fossils Fossils of trees, which span multiple strata, support a cataclysm: The tops of these trees would've decayed before millions of years of sedimentation could have occurred. It's likely these trees were uprooted by volcanic blasts, flooded, then floated into an upright position where volcanic material fossilized them. That's what happened when Mt. Saint Helens erupted.(24) Fossil Trends The notion of a fossil 'record' is misleading: 1,026 families of fossils were found outside their assigned strata in the past 50 years.(25) Fossils only generally appear in succession from simple to complex, which is accounted for best by Noah's Flood. As the fountains of the deep burst forth,(26) small marine life was rapidly buried by underwater avalanches, like those seen today. Intelligent mammals climbed as high as they could to avoid rising waters. Dinosaurs are under mammals possibly because they sunk after death, like modern reptiles. Dendrochronology Pro says “Dendrochonology [is] confirmed by radiocarbon data”, but his record of over 10,000 years was constructed using radiocarbon data, so that's circular logic. So, Pro's dendrochronological argument relies on C14 dating, which isn't reliable: “[A] sample of wood found in rock classified as ( … ) 230 million years old, gave a [C14] date of 33,720 years”(29) The Bible Via the Bible, an age for earth of less than 10,000 years has been independently determined by many scholars, largely from analyzing lineage records.(28) This date is more reliable than Pro's because: 1. The biblical flood story is corroborated by cultures across the globe 2. It explains the fossil evidence without inconsistencies, making the Bible a reliable history record. 3. Pro's measurements are wildly inaccurate and self-conflicting. 4. Pro has effectively conceded to altering his stance on the age of the earth by 30%, forfeiting much of his credibility. (15) http://www.nature.com... (16) http://www.cs.unc.edu... (17) Walker, Mike. Quaternary Dating Methods. Wiley, 2005. Print. Page xvi. (18) http://sciencealert.com.au... (19) http://geology.lnu.edu.ua... (20) http://visualsunlimited.photoshelter.com... (21) Austin, S.A., Baumgardner, J.R., Humphreys, D.R., Snelling, A.A., Vardiman, L. and Wise, K.P., Catastrophic plate tectonics: a global Flood model of Earth history; in: Walsh, R.E. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism, Technical Symposium Sessions, Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, pp. 609—621, 1994. (22) Funk and Wagnall’s 1950 Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend (23) http://www.nature.com... (24) http://geology.gsapubs.org... (25) http://creation.com... (26) Genesis 7:11 (27) http://creation.com... (28) http://www.answersingenesis.org... (29) A.A. Snelling, “Dating Dilemma,” Creation, 1999, 21(3):39-41.