How radiometric dating works?
Radioactive isotopes are naturally occurring minerals. Over time they emit particles and change into different forms. The average time it takes for half of the initial material to be gone is called a half life. Half lives vary greatly from nanoseconds to quintillions of years.
By examining these isotopes and comparing the amount of the original (parent) to the new (daughter) isotope, it's age can be judged. The objects being dated can range from pottery to fossils to geological strata. Because of the differences in rates of decay, some things can only be dated with some isotopes. A stopwatch and a calendar both measure time but you wouldn't use a calendar to time running races or a watch to plan your year.
Carbon dating works well up to objects about 50,000 years old. As such it's good for dating traces of human civilisation and artefacts of our ancestors. When compared to tree rings, (another dating method, up to about 11,000 years.) it's been proven accurate. But it's no good for dating fossils, which are much older. Doing so will give incorrect results, occasionally fallaciously used as evidence that carbon dating is flawed.
Each method, each isotope, has ranges it can measure but by using several, they can give us a fairly solid result.
Imagine you're trying to figure out the distance between two towns. Someone tells you they drive the distance every day and it's 4 and a half kilometres. Someone else checks a map and tells you it's 4.6 kilometres. A third person has a GPS navigator and says it's 4541 metres. While they're not all in agreement, they certainly give a consistent rough idea. If someone then tried to tell you that the local town was 6 metres away, you'd be sceptical.
Radiometric dating places the age of our earth at around 4.45 billion years. Young Earth Creationism places it at about 6000 years. 4.45 kilometres vs 6 millimetres.
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