With a half-life of only 5730 years, carbon-14 dating has nothing to do with dating the geological ages! Hovind is confusing the carbon-14 "clock" with other radiometric "clocks." The only thing in the geologic record which has anything to do with calibrating carbon-14 dating is the coal from the Carboniferous Period.Being ancient, the C-14 content has long since decayed away and that makes it useful in "zeroing" laboratory instruments. Hovind would take the trouble to do a little reading from something other than creationist publications he would not make such an outrageous statement.his document discusses the way radiometric dating and stratigraphic principles are used to establish the conventional geological time scale.It is not about the theory behind radiometric dating methods, it is about their , and it therefore assumes the reader has some familiarity with the technique already (refer to "Other Sources" for more information).

One creationist editor, who is more mellow than his unfortunate statement suggests, phrased the argument thus: Unfortunately the geologists date the rocks as the paleontologists tell them to. That passage might have come out of one of Henry Morris' books, except that Morris usually avoids crude slander. Hovind is not aware of the fact that by 1815 the broad outlines of the geologic column from Paleozoic times onward had been worked out by people who were mostly geologists.

s noted in the Introduction, our intent was to continue to add to our collection of quote mines.

This is the fourth such addition and it primarily concerns an area of intense concern by young-Earth creationists: the geologic column.

William Smith (1769-1839), a civil engineer involved in the construction of canals in England, showed the utility of geology to a particularly important economic activity of his day by preparing the first detailed geological map in 1815.

The economic importance of geology continues into our own day in fields such as oil exploration and mining.