There are well over forty different radiometric dat
ing methods, and ________ of
other methods such as tree rings and ice cores.
•
All of the different dating methods agree
--they agree a great majority of the time
over millions of years of time. Some Christians mak
e it sound like there is a lot of
disagreement, but _________________________.
•
The differences actually found in the scientific li
terature are usually close to the
margin of error, usually __________________, not
____________________________.
•
Over a __________ papers on radiometric dating were
published in scientifically
recognized journals
in the last year
, and _______________________ of dates
have been published in the last 50 years. Essential
ly all of these strongly favor
an old Earth.
•
...it has been close to a hundred years since the ___
________-238 decay rate
was first determined.
•
Both long-range and short-range dating methods have
been successfully verified
by dating ________of historically known ages over a
range of several thousand
years.
•
The mathematics for determining the ages from the o
bservations is relatively
____________.
page 20
[page 10 of sum. doc.]
Beyond this, scientists have now used a "_____ ____
___" to prove that the half-lives of
radioactive species were the same millions of years
ago. This _____ ________ does
not allow people to actually go back in time, but i
t does allow scientists to observe
ancient events from a long way away. The _____ ____
___ is called the ____________.
Much of the light following a supernova blast is po
wered by newly created
_____________ ___________. So we observe radiometri
c decay in the supernova
light. The half-lives of decays occurring hundreds
of thousands of years ago are thus
carefully recorded! These half-lives completely agr
ee with the half-lives measured from
decays __________ ________. We must conclude that a
ll evidence points towards
unchanging radioactive half-lives.
Doubters Still Try
Speaking from an extreme technical viewpoint this m
ight be true--perhaps 1 atom out of
____________________ of a certain isotope has leake
d out of nearly all rocks...
These books detail experiments showing, for a given
dating system, which minerals
_____________________, which minerals work under so
me certain conditions, and
which minerals are likely to lose atoms and give __
______ results. Understanding these
conditions is part of the science of geology. Geolo
gists are careful to use the most
reliable methods whenever possible, and as discusse
d above, to test ____
_____________ between different methods.
While certain particles can cause nuclear changes,
____________________________.
