A very common claim of young earth creationists in trying to reject the evidence for an old earth is to loudly proclaim that radiometric dating methods “makes assumptions” and that these “assumptions” are somehow fatally flawed or not supported by evidence.These claims generally land in three different categories: (1) radiometric dating assumes that initial conditions (concentrations of mother and daughter nuclei) are known, (2) radiometric dating assumes that rocks are closed systems and (3) radiometric dating assumes that decay rates are constant.There are about two dozen decay pairs used for dating.Uranium 235 decay to lead has a half-life of 713 million years, so it is well suited to dating the universe.Most young earth creationists reject all of these points.As a scientific skeptics, we ask ourselves: is this really the case?Of course, there are many problems with such dating methods, such as parent or daughter substances entering or leaving the rock, as well as daughter product being present at the beginning.Here I want to concentrate on another source of error, namely, processes that take place within magma chambers.

Most people are not aware of the many processes that take place in lava before it erupts and as it solidifies, processes that can have a tremendous influence on daughter to parent ratios.

To me it has been a real eye opener to see all the processes that are taking place and their potential influence on radiometric dating.

Radiometric dating is largely done on rock that has formed from solidified lava.

Relative-dating techniques are nearly always applicable but are not precise and require calibration.

Correlation techniques are locally useful and depend on recognition of an event whose age is known, such as a volcanic eruption or a paleomagnetic reversal.