Radiometric dating- creationism.org

[matthyaouw]

http://www.creationism.org/articles/swenson1.htm

This article suggests that radioactive dating is horribly innacurate, and says that dating the recent rocks of the 80's Mount Saint Helens lava dome gives dates ranging from 0.05-2.8 million years of age.

I'm no expert on radiometric dating techniques, so the only explanation I can think of would be they accidentally sampled older rocks surrounding the recent dome.

Has this issue been seriously adressed and debunked before?

 

[K.J.Healey]

Im actually surprised that site presents counter arguments to their own claim. They state:
"A good possibility is that solidification of magma does not reset the radioisotope clock to zero. Probably some argon-40 is incorporated from the start into newly formed minerals giving the "appearance" of great age. "

Which is the first thing that popped into my head. Where's the literature describing the effects of state transformation of the atomic composition of lava? You cannot assume the rock is "new" just because it turned solid.

 

[PIT2]

As far as i know, radiometric dating can be somewhat inacurate, but nowhere near the 1.000.000% that is needed to change the date of the Earth from 4.500.000.000 years to 6000 years. (or 3.5 billion yr old rocks to 6000yrs)

 

[Dorje]

Has this issue been seriously adressed and debunked before?

Exhaustively: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-youngearth.html

 

[Phobos]

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD013_1.html

...sent his samples to a laboratory that clearly states that their equipment cannot accurately measure samples less than two million years old. All of the measured ages but one fall well under the stated limit of accuracy, so the method applied to them is obviously inapplicable. Since Austin misused the measurement technique, he should expect inaccurate results, but the fault is his, not the technique's. Experimental error is a possible explanation for the older date.

...samples were not homogeneous, as he himself admitted. Any xenocrysts in the samples would make the samples appear older (because the xenocrysts themselves would be old). A K-Ar analysis of impure fractions of the sample, as Austin's were, is meaningless.

Of course, creationists neglect this bit of info in their rhetoric.

 

[Phobos]

Different radiodating methods are used for different age-ranges and sample types. Using the wrong method is no proof against radiodating in general.

 

[Chronos]

Pffft. The creationist radiodating arguments help me understand why ancient pottery artifacts are so rare.