Slate: Why Doesn't Florida Senator Marco Rubio Know How Old the Earth Is?

[KittyWampus]

41. No you haven't seen the evidence. You've learned the measurement systems used

and accept them and their conclusions as gospel.

I am not arguing for or against anything here. Just pointing out the underlying philosophical point.

Using radiometric dating to measure we find meteors that have fallen to earth dating to 4.5 billion years old.

Measuring the decay of the oldest Earth rocks gets us not quite that far back.

It is entirely conceivable (philosophically POSSIBLE) that our radiometric measuring system might in the future be proven as inaccurate.

There might arise even more sophisticated means to measure meteors etc and find the Earth is even older, for instance.

In other words, philosophically, I don't know that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old but I can say that according to our best scientific measurements available it is probably 4.4 billion years old in a solar system that is 4.5 billion in a universe that is 17 billion years old when measuring rate of its expansion. But that might change in the face of more advanced measuring techniques of the future.

All of what I wrote may seem really silly to argue such a point. But IMO, it helps to occasionally try and broaden ones view of what we know & what we think we know.

As for the idiot Republican in question... no matter what means of measure... he's still an idiot. It's just a matter of where he falls on the idiot spectrum