Biased Interpretation?

The old "different interpreatation" dodge is just hand-waving. If and when YECs come up with some real indiation that they can explain some significant portion of the evidence better than maninstream science and that explanation doesn't boil down to "Goddidit", they might get some atention from real scientiists. If and when YECs come up with a dfifferent interpretation that explains all the evidence as well or better than mainstream science, then they'll have something. Don't hold your breath. YEC conclusion: Either the rate of decay varied in the past, or some other effect we have not taken into account makes radiometric dating invalid. Never mind the amount of heat produced by accelerated radioactive decay and the other side efects of such, or the evidence that radioactive decay did not vary in the past, or the agreement between different methods that would require a large number of unknown and perfectly synchronized mechanisms that left no trace of their actions other than the changes required to make the rocks, which we know are really young, look old. YEC conclusion: An as-yet-undetected barrier, for which there is no evidence other than the YEC's wish that it be so, exists that prevents such change from going too far. Never mind that we have no evidence of such a barrier, never mind that the fossil record contains powerful evidence that no such barrier exists, never mind the observed speciations and morphological changes; by definition they are insufficient to demonstrate a change between kinds. Especially ignore results observed in "lower" animals and organisms.Note that the common themes in YEC "interpretations" are:

• Postulate unknown mechanisms for which we have no evidence and assume such mechanisms are fact.
• Never address the totality of the evidence. Especially, ignore the most powerful evidence for the mainstream position.

Actaully, they are pretty good examples of creationist explanations that I've really seen. It's worthwhile looking at them a little as examples of the kind of thinking that YECs use.The vast majority of creationist criticisms of radioisotope dating are of the K-Ar method, in which error due to "excess argon" at solidification is possible. They almost always ignore the facts that:

• The Ar-Ar method and all of the various isochron methods (except for the lead-lead isochron method) produce the amount of daughter isotope at solidification as a side-effect of applying the method.
• The U-Pb concordia-discordia methods (the most widely used methods, accounting for more than 50% of analyses) are applied only to minerals in which it is physically impossible for there to be significant daughter product (lead) at solidification.
• It is common to date rocks by multiple mehtods and the methods almost always agree. Among other things, this demonstrates that the possible "excess argon" problem of the K-Ar method is rare.
• Isochron methods, the Ar-Ar method, and concordia-discordia methods are essentialy certain to indicate whether the system has been an "open system" (that is, loss or gain if parent or daughter since solidification by means other than radioactive decay of the parent isotope that was persent at solidification).
• In many cases, the Ar-Ar method and the concordia-discordia methods can produce a valid age even if parent and/or daughter isotope has been lost, and the methods clearly indicate when such an age cannot be produced.
• The K-Ar method was used in only something like 15% of the dating studies done in the last decade or so.

So, creationist criticisms of radioisotope dating almost all ignore the vast majority of the evidence in favor of zeroing in on one small corner in which error is possible, then claiming that the possibility of some error in some circumstances means that there is always major error in all circumnstances.