User talk:74.134.197.116

Please do not post things as fact that are not universally accepted as fact. There is no way to know how old the Earth is for sure.
 * Actually there are several ways, see Age of the Earth and the references in there. Gap9551 (talk) 15:05, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

I reviewed the link you asked me to,(Age of the Earth), and noticed the word "assumed" or a variation thereof to be contained in the article at least a dozen times. Naturally assumptions are built into the testing methods since there was no observational process intact for that period of time. That would hardly constitute a fact but more a sincerely held belief, no doubt by ardent followers of the belief in an old age theory. I would recommend reading articles by Andrew A. Snelling, B.Sc.(Hons), Ph.D. (Geology) regarding assumptions with dating in regards to radioisotopes. He also published a book that may be of some use, Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: A Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative. Facts can't be refuted and we all own the same facts and yet, the age of the earth is not a settled fact. That's because of the plausibility that some scientist somewhere may have a breakthrough that yet again determines the age of the earth based upon his/her belief and applied assumptions. I hope I am making sense to you. I apologize for my layman approach, but that is what I am after all. Best regards. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:74.134.197.116&action=edit# aka Phil


 * Hi Phil, thanks for your reply. I also count a dozen instances of assume/assumption etc, but 11 of those refer to early attempts and methods not used in current best estimates. Only one (Some have behaved as closed systems (for some isotopic systems) soon after the solar disk and the planets formed.) refers to the method actually used today, the dating of meteorites. But that does not mean that the results are a belief. It introduces some uncertainty in the numerical result. That uncertainly is about 1% or 50 million years. Even if you disregard meteorites and just use terrestrial rock, you find a number close to that. There are other (less direct) methods too. Studying sediment layers or fossils shows that the Earth must be older than hundreds of millions of years. Studying the Sun and other stars shows that they are billions of years old. Same for the rate of expansion of the Universe. All these methods and many more agree that the Universe, as well as the Sun and Earth, is billions of years old. I looked up an article "Radioactive ‘dating’ in conflict!" online by Snelling. He questions the 'constancy of radioactive decay rates, and on the geochemical behaviour of these elements (and their isotopes)'. In the Universe we see no evidence at all of changing laws of nature (looking far out is looking back in time due to the finite speed of light) and if they change at all, if is very slowly, and not affecting the general result that the Earth is over 4 billion years old. Gap9551 (talk) 18:27, 3 January 2016 (UTC)