Something else for Young Earthers to run with and abuse
From The Deeps of Time:link-icon::
Uncommon Descent calls our attention to this paper which indicates that radioactive decay rates are not constant, but seem to vary with distance from the sun. The assumption that radioactive decay rates are constant is key to the use of radioactive decay as a dating technique. The variations don’t affect the million-to-billion year age estimates obtained by decay rates by very much, but it does indicate a need to research the unknown cause of this variation and evaluate its implications for dating techniques.
This will no doubt be touted as proof, in some quarters, of the complete unreliability of radioactive dating, and as proof that the whole science of geology is invalid. That’s unfortunately the approximate level of dishonesty one has come to expect from Young Earth Creationism these days, in which even slight variances in the data or data-collection methods get amplified into comprehensive rejections of the science itself, and the basis for yet more “proofs” that the Earth is a mere 6,000 years old.
Because as we all know: if geologists can’t quite be certain whether the Earth is 4.5 billion or only 4.49 billion years old, this clearly demonstrates that geologists are just plain wrong about the age of the Earth in general, and that the world must clearly be 4.499994 billion years younger than the most commonly accepted estimates suggest.
Sometimes the book's cover contains valuable information. » Reader Mail: YEC (Time Immortal) (November 7, 2008, 1:02 pm).
[...] Tysoe writes, in response to this article: That’s unfortunately the approximate level of dishonesty one has come to expect from young [...]