Fine. Radiometric dating based on radioactive decay are established methods. These methods put the oldest datable earth rocks at 3+ billion years, and the oldest datable meteorites at 4+ billion years. Contamination can be detected with isochron approaches, which also do not assume particular initial conditions. At least for alpha and beta decay, decay rates have been found to vary little with environmental conditions.

I'm expecting you don't accept radiometric or isochron dating. Why? (Please don't tell me about a method giving spurious dates for things that shouldn't be dated with that method.)

Actually, SSPX Science Poster Boy Fr. Robinson (and who knows how many other scientific "sages"), puts the oldest datable earth rocks at 4 plus billion years.  He asserts that, "certain Earth rocks as well as meteorites landing on earth from space [where else do they land from?!] have been dated to 4.55 billion years old."

Anyway, I hope you are aware that modern radiometry is far from so called "settled science."  In fact it is a hotly contested and uncertain field of science.  It would not be an overestimate to conclude that it is about 50% assumptions; about 40% wishful thinking, and only 10% scientific evidence.  I'll let you chew on that for a while before proceeding to isochron dating.

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Go to any natural history museum and hear what the docents have to say about dating rocks.
They'll assure you that they rely on the ages established for the fossils contained in the rocks nearby.
Then go around the corner to the fossils department and hear a different story.
The docents leading tours among fossils say they establish the age of fossils by the age of the rocks in which they're found.
IOW circular reasoning.
Bottom line is, neither one is certain, and there is no way of dating rocks reliably.
Radiometric dating has been shown to claim vastly different ages for the same specimens.
So it's all conjecture, and far too often found to be entirely based on a desire to make rocks far older, in order to support evolution.

Correct Neil.

There are two studies on rock dating all should be aware of, The French geologist Guy Berthault
http://www.sciencevsevolution.org/Berthault.htm

and Robert Gentry (Google Robert Gentry Halos) or watch one of his three videos.

I'm still waiting for someone to answer the question that I asked in reply #108:  

I have been looking at the PBC docuмent in question: Concerning the Historical Character of the First Three Chapters of Genesis June 30, 1909, using the translation at http://www.catholicapologetics.info/scripture/oldtestament/commission.htm

I cannot see where it is saying what the Kolbe Center article claims it is saying.  I cannot find where the PBC insisted that the only acceptable interpretation of “day” in Genesis 1 was one in which “the Church and the Fathers” “lead the way” or that we have to choose between 24 hour days or instantaneous creation.

This was your position as well.  Perhaps you could explain it.

Not to mention that this would contradict that other statement of the PBC that the term "day" can be interpreted improperly as some period of time, not necessarily coinciding with a natural day as presently understood.

Not to mention that this would contradict that other statement of the PBC that the term "day" can be interpreted improperly as some period of time, not necessarily coinciding with a natural day as presently understood.

I said this back on the 3rd page of this thread: 'According to the Kolbe Center interpretation, the PBC decision to permit "day" to be considered a certain space of time, actually meant that it couldn't be considered a certain space of time'.

Everyone should read Fernand Crombette's "If the World Only Knew."

That will set you straight and it has the timeline from Adam to present.

Actually, SSPX Science Poster Boy Fr. Robinson (and who knows how many other scientific "sages"), puts the oldest datable earth rocks at 4 plus billion years.  He asserts that, "certain Earth rocks as well as meteorites landing on earth from space [where else do they land from?!] have been dated to 4.55 billion years old."

Anyway, I hope you are aware that modern radiometry is far from so called "settled science."  In fact it is a hotly contested and uncertain field of science.  It would not be an overestimate to conclude that it is about 50% assumptions; about 40% wishful thinking, and only 10% scientific evidence.  I'll let you chew on that for a while before proceeding to isochron dating.

Not even a nibble from you Stan so I thought I'd better put some meat on the bones.

I don't want to be accused of plagiarizing so I will happily let Robert Sungenis take over here.  From pp. 434-5 of his latest book Scientific Heresies and Their Effect on the Church -- A Critical Analysis of: "The Realist Guide to Religion and Science" we read the following:
 
   * The scientific evidence, of course, is the fact that radioactive isotopes decay.

   * The wishful thinking comes from the secularists doing the analysis on the isotopes who are motivated to find evidence that agrees with their godless view of the world and ignore (or actually throw away) any contrary scientific evidence or any commentary on the evidence afforded by the Bible.

   * The assumptions concerning radiometry come from the fact that since no one was there when the evolutionist or long-ager purports the universe or Earth came into being, we cannot know certain vital things needed in determining the age of a rock, and thus if one is going to come to an age of 4.5 billions years for the Earth, he must make assumptions concerning isotope decay that agree with the presupposed dating method, but of which he has no way to provide evidence, much less proof.

There are at least five basic assumptions the secular scientist uses when dating a rock:
   
    1)  He must assume a ratio between the isotope's parent element and its decayed daughte element.  Essentially, this is just a guess, but rather than call it a guess (which sounds unscientific) they call it a "model age."
    2)  They must assume the rock, over billions of years, has not been appreciably disturbed by heat or cold or any other physical disturbance.
    3)  They must assume they can interpret the general date of the rock.  Scientists do not send rock samples off to be dated without including what the discoverer of the rock "interprets" the age to be depending on where he found the rock.  But where he found the rock has already been dated by someone previous to him who used the same assumptions (e.g., long-ages, evolution).  When the lab sends back the various estimates of the age, the scientist can then decide what he prefers for the rock depending on whether he wants the date to coincide with when the rock crystallized or when it cooled; or perhaps when the rock was heated, deformed or altered; or perhaps when the mama melted before the rock formed.
    4)  He must assume the decay rate has never changed, but he has no absolute certainty, only approximate certainty in the face of evidence that certain decay rates have changed slightly or can be slightly changed artificially.
    5)  He must assume there was no cataclysmic event during the formation or life of the rock or its surroundings, which is usually understood as the concept of "uniformitarianism."

As we can surmise, if any one of these five assumptions is incorrect, then radiometry can tell us nothing about the age of the Earth, much less the universe.

Here we find Fr. Robinson's answer as to why he published his book with a non-SSPX publishling house.  It is a stark reminder of how the SSPX has sunk to an everer lower grade in the "modern science" department.
https://www.quora.com/Why-was-your-book-published-by-a-non-SSPX-publishing-house/answer/Paul-Robinson-410?__nsrc__=4&__snid3__=3392257316
Why was your book published by a non-SSPX publishing house?

Paul Robinson, Author of The Realist Guide to Religion and Science
Answered 8h ago

For two reasons. The first reason is audience. It is the desire of every author that as many people as possible read his book. This is especially true if you feel, as I did, that you were making a new contribution to an old topic.

Now, the likelihood of people reading my book, or at least purchasing it, would go up in proportion to the distribution of the publisher. At first, I was thinking (dreaming?) of having a press like Regnery, with its global market, publish the book. After some investigation, I realized that I would need much better connections than I do to make that happen.

The next best thing would be to have a publisher that could market to the mainstream Catholic world. I thought this would be at least a possibility, despite my membership in the SSPX, because of the fact that my book is not about the crisis in the Church, but rather is about the intersection of religion and science.

Thus, with the approval of my superiors, I submitted the manuscript to Gracewing. The rest, as they say, is history.

It turned out that Gracewing was a particularly apt choice, at least from one point of view, and this is the second reason. The priest who runs Gracewing, Fr Paul Haffner, is, in a sense, the intellectual heir of Fr Stanley Jaki (1924-2009), the late, great physicist theologian. Fr Haffner did his dissertation on the work of Fr Jaki, “the only book on Father Jaki approved by him during his lifetime”. He is also the founder of the Stanley Jaki Foundation.

My own book seeks to deepen one of the important insights of Fr Jaki, namely, that both science and natural theology have the same basic epistemological structure. He gave the greatest elaboration to this insight in his Gifford Lectures of 1974-75 and 1975-76, published as The Road of Science and the Ways to God. Because of Gracewing’s connection to Fr Jaki through Fr Haffner, it was particularly appropriate that, of all the mainstream Catholic publishers, it be the one that publish my book.

The result has been that my book has a much easier entry into parish book shops that it would have otherwise. The diocese of Armidale here in Australia, for instance, kindly put a notice in all of their bulletins about my book, and placed flyers in the churches. Besides this, certain Catholic publications have offered to print reviews. Other Catholic media outlets have offered to do interviews.
Some people have been critical of the fact that I have attempted to popularize an idea of Fr Jaki, because they accuse him of being a Modernist. This accusation is certainly false, as anyone who has read his writings would realize. He was attached to his Catholic faith, and even belligerently attached to it, in his feisty Hungarian way.

The main beef against Fr Jaki is that he was a theistic evolutionist. This is true. However, I explicitly differ from Fr Jaki on that question in my book, and besides, theistic evolution is a position allowed to orthodox Catholics. If Catholics want to argue against theistic evolution, the Church has them do so on scientific grounds, not theological ones. Catholics are free to be strict creationists, progressive creationists or theistic evolutionists.

I could go on about why Fr Jaki favored theistic evolution, but that is really for another question. It was mainly because of his desire to reduce all science to physics, and his favoring of theistic evolution did not at all prevent him from leveling some very sharp criticisms against Darwinism.
In the end, the main thing is the salvation of souls. If a person is able to assist the salvation of souls better by one means than another, without committing sin or compromising his faith, then it is prudent to do so. This was my ultimate consideration in seeking to find a publisher with a wider distribution.