Radiometric dating

Radiometric dating is using a radioactive process to determine the age of an item. Radiometric dating is mostly used to determine the age of rocks. However, the Institute for Creation Research has suggests that radioactive decay might have been faster during the first 2.5 days of Creation. If so, scientists using radiometric dating techniques would calculate erroneously old dates, possibly explaining why radiometric techniques often give ages for rocks that do not fit within the Creation model.

Radiometric dating relies on three improvable assumptions, 1) It assumes to know the amounts of the decaying material present when the rocks were formed, 2) It assumes the decay rate has been constant and 3) It assumes there have been no outside influences affecting the amounts of parent and daughter particles in that rock, or in other words the rock has been completely isolated from any outside influences.

Since radiometric dating has been shown to give inaccurate dates for rocks of known ages^{[Citation Needed]} it should not be used to give dates for rocks of unknown ages. In addition if an obtained 'age' does not agree with secular scientists presuppositions then the date is ignored and tests are conducted on a different part of the rock or the rock is simply said to be of 'unknown' age.^{[Citation Needed]}

Some major methods of radiometric dating

1. Radiocarbon dating, also called carbon dating

1. Potassium-argon dating

1. Uranium-lead dating

1. Uranium-thorium

1. Rubidium-strontium dating

References

Quarternary Dating Methods, by M. Walker (Wiley & Sons, 2005).

Isotopes: Principles and Applications, by G. Faure and T. Mensing (Wiley & Sons, 2005).