How reliable are radiometric dating methods for deciding the age of the Earth?
I don’t know anything about that line about sample contamination rendering all analyses invalid. Doesn’t work for me. Scientists did not set out to “prove” the earth is 4.5 billion years old. That is just the answer that keeps coming up from hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of analyses on innumerable samples. Basically, the evidence is what it is. You can choose to disbelieve. The biblical literalists act as though science is flawed or is purposefully faulty when it comes to evaluating the history of the earth, which says more about their failure to accept reality than it does about the validity of the results (apparently the literalists are perfectly happy accepting all other aspects of science). No true (honest and ethical) scientist purposefully uses invalid thinking or sets out to prove something that the evidence hasn’t already suggested to them as being the likely answer. They are human, and do makes errors, this is true. Remember cold fusion? When things seem out of whack, the
