This is a very interesting question for a variety of reasons. This type of data is considered by many to provide the greatest challenge to the concept of a recent creation of life, and a global flood.

There is at present no simple answer to the challenge this issue poses to those who choose to believe in the Biblical account of origins. Thus, it is one of the areas where properly trained individuals might be able to make the greatest contribution to science. I encourage anyone who can approach this issue with a mind open to possibilities outside the dogma of current science to obtain the extensive training necessary to restudy this issue from a different perspective.

The data from potassium-argon studies often are correlated with successive events in a chronological sense. But some explanation other than calendar time is required by many observations. For example, crystals such as beryl which do not contain potassium, and thus should have no ⁴⁰K breakdown products (ie ⁴⁰Ar), have been shown to contain ⁴⁰Ar in concentrations similar to those of other crystals in the rock which do contain ⁴⁰K. This anomaly has never been satisfactorily explained, and in fact has had little attention paid to it. Yet if this observation holds up to further study, it will challenge the whole fabric of the dating method.

______________________________________________________ Ó 2010 Arthur V. Chadwick, Ph.D.