In Creation Research Society Quarterly 2015. 51:152-164
The fact that different, seemingly independent dating methods appear to “tell” a consistent “story” about Earth history over millions of years is a seemingly formidable argument for an old earth. Hence, in the minds of many, this apparent agreement is a major obstacle to serious consideration of the biblical creation position. Hence, it is important for creation scientists to understand and be able to clearly explain why the different dating methods are not really independent of one another. The interconnectedness of the different dating methods can be illustrated by tracing the dating “pedigree” of a particular deep-sea sediment core, the MD97-2120 sediment core from the Chatham Rise east of New Zealand. Dating of the deep sediment cores, including this one, is tied to the astronomical (or Milankovitch) hypothesis of Pleistocene ice ages via a process known as “orbital tuning.” Moreover, dating of a deep-sea sediment core frequently involves “tying” that core’s timescale to that of other sediment cores, as well as to those of the deep ice cores of Antarctica and Greenland. This critique includes suggestions for future creation research in this area.
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