Blind Leading the Blind: Austin, Snelling and Swenson Misinterpret Dalrymple's K-Ar Dating of Historical Volcanics

The following material may be freely copied and distributed as long as the author is properly acknowledged and the material is not altered, edited or sold. Because radiometric dating utterly refutes their biblical interpretations, young-Earth creationists (YECs) are desperate to undermine the reliability of these dating methods. As part of their efforts, YECs clearly believe that they can discredit K-Ar dating if they can show that excess argon routinely enters rocks and minerals as they form. That is, they believe that excess argon will cause rocks and minerals that are supposedly less than 10,000 years old to have 'deceptively ' old K-Ar dates of millions or billions of years. In particular, YECs attempt to demonstrate that excess argon is a 'problem ' for K-Ar dating by locating examples of historically erupted volcanics, which yield K-Ar dates that are hundreds of thousands or millions of years older than their eruption dates. By listing enough examples of modern volcanics that apparentl