Does staunch Creationist criticism assist scienific study?

In one sense, you are correct. If a philosphical belief led you to be skeptical of radiometric dating, and you said to yourself, "I'm going to collect and analyze all the available evidence so that I can see for myself," and did exactly that, who could complain?But what actually happens is hinted at by your phrasing: "If I argue that radiometric data is seriously flawed due to specific evidence I have collected..."Creationists begin every specific critique wearing the lenses of their conclusions, selecting a framework of half-truths and out-of-context "facts" to get them where they want to go. They cannot bring to the table of rigorous science even the pretense that they have been open to going where the evidence leads because they have already denounced that path, and, indeed, the path of science itself. They are not prepared ever to declare that the observable world conflicts with their understanding of God--and then admit that their understanding must be flawed.Look at it this way. I have been offered an arbitrator in a dispute who is pledged to rely on sworn testimony and physical evidence. As we head into the meeting, I hear him observe to a colleague that he cannot believe my representations, no matter what the sworn witnesses or evidence may say--Zeus and the corpus of Greek myth will tell him what is true. How much confidence should I have in the arbitrator?

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Who owns the whole rainy, stony earth? Death.
Who owns all of space? Death.Who is stronger than hope? Death.
Who is stronger than the will? Death.
Stronger than love? Death.
Stronger than life? Death.But who is stronger than Death?
Me, evidently.Pass, Crow.Ted Hughes, from "Examination at the Womb-Door" Save lives! Click here!
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